Militsiya - Name and Status

Name and Status

The name originates from a Provisional Government decree dated April 17, 1917, and from early Soviet history, when both the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks intended to associate their new law enforcement authority with the self-organization of the people and to distinguish it from the czarist police. The militsiya was reaffirmed on October 28 (November 10, according to the new style dating), 1917 under the official name of the Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya, in further contrast to what the Bolsheviks called the "bourgeois class protecting" police. Eventually, it was replaced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russian: МВД, MVD; Ukrainian: МВС, MVS; Belorussian: МУС, MUS), which is now the official full name for the militsiya forces in the respective countries. Its regional branches are officially called Departments of Internal Affairs—city department of internal affairs, raion department of internal affairs, oblast department of internal affairs, etc. The Russian term for a raion department is OVD (ОВД; Отдел/Отделение внутренних дел), for region department is UVD (УВД; Управление внутренних дел) or, sometimes, GUVD (ГУВД; Главное управление внутренних дел), same for national republics is MVD, (МВД; Министерство внутренних дел).

Functionally, Ministries of Internal Affairs are mostly police agencies. Their functions and organization differ significantly from similarly named departments in Western countries, which are usually civil executive bodies headed by politicians and responsible for many other tasks as well as the supervision of law enforcement. The Soviet and successor MVDs have usually been headed by a militsiya general and predominantly consist of service personnel, with civilian employees only filling auxiliary posts. Although such ministers are members of their respective countries' cabinet, they usually do not report to the prime minister and parliament, but only to the president. Local militsiya departments are subordinated to their regional departments, having little accountability before local authorities.

Internal affairs units within the militsiya itself are usually called "internal security" departments.

The official names of particular militsiya bodies and services in post-Soviet countries are usually very complicated, hence the use of the short term militsiya. Laws usually refer to police just as militsiya.

The short term for a police officer (regardless of gender) is militsioner (Russian: милиционер, Ukrainian: мiлiцiонер). Slang terms for militsioner include ment (plural: менты, menty) and musor (plural: мусора, musora). Although the latter word is offensive (it literally means "trash" or "garbage"), it originated from an acronym for the Moscow Criminal Investigations Department (МУС, short for Московский уголовный сыск) in Imperial Russia. Ment is a closely equivalent to the English slang term "cop" and has derived from the Lwów dialect.