ENGLISH

DOSAAF of the Republic of Belarus warmly welcomes you!

Welcome to us,   on our page from which you,   as we will hope,

can learn a lot of the interesting.

     DOSAAF – What does it mean?

Dear visitors, you, possibly, are confused by not clear abridgement - DOSAAF and consequently guess about its sense. We are glad, that we can explain all it to you.  

What disappears to itself behind these letters?

DOSAAF is reduced name of the respectable organization. In English it is called:

Volunteer Society of Assistance of Army, Aircraft and Fleet.

This organization is the noncommercial state-public association. It is based on volunteer membership of  persons and organizations. It means that it is managed, financed and supervised not only by the state. The public part of the organization is very strong and the members define many parts of its activity, financing and management. The object of DOSAAF activity is to assist to enhancing of defense of Belarus.

            Symbols of DOSAAF of Republic of Belarus

         Emblem of DOSAAF                    Flag of DOSAAF

DOSAAF – membership

Member DOSAAF can be:

 -    Each citizen of the Republic of Belarus who is already 16 years old.

      For people till 16 years his parents should give the written permission to membership;   

        -   Foreigners and people without citizenship, which constantly live in Belarus;

        -   The state and other organizations which recognize charter of DOSAAF, bring the member

            Payment (except people till 16 years) and if it actively participate in realization of purposes of

           DOSAAF.

Each member DOSAAF receives the membership card.

          Chapter of DOSAAF                      Membership card

     DOSAAF - the occurrence reasons

      In order to understand the reasons of its appearance, we should remember the beginning of the 20^thcentury and especially years of Civil war in Russia.

      Belarus was in that time the inseparable part of Russian empire governed through the Tsar. In the first years of 20^th century empire went through 3 big wars. Russia was involved by enemies in these wars. There were the Russian-Japanese War (1904-1905), the First World War (1914-1918) and after the abdication of the Tsar and October Revolution in the end of 1917 – the Civil War (1918-1922).

      These wars leaved in all sites of life of people deep and sickly signs. Even today they are to feel in our life. These wars showed up clearly many deficiency and lacks in Russia. The lack of effective system of primary military training was among them.

      The other countries have to fight with this problem too. It was depending from the fact that all big countries began at the end of 19^th, and the beginning of 20^th century to raise the mass armies. This problem was become acute at once. It was necessary to organise for such armies the big primary trained reserve of man called up for military service.  It would be necessary for that purposes let many thousands of untrained man go through primary pre-military training.

      Inspecting officer of cavalry Baden-Pauel organised in Britain military-sporting groups of youth, called boy-scouts, in order to solve this problem. At the beginning of the 20^th century appeared such groups in the towns of Belarus. But they have got very little popularity and were staying very small. They cannot help to solve this problem of pre-military training big mass of Youth. 

     After the revolution of 1917 Emperor´s army and their structures of pre-military training of man called up for military service were till summer of 1918 purposeful destroyed. But in that time began the Civil war and intervention of many foreign states into Russia. The young Soviet state had been attacked from different directions. There was a sharp need to form new armed forces able to beat off external aggression and internal counter-revolution.

    The young Soviet state was in the years 1918-1922 and later very weakened economically because of loses and damages of First World War (1^st WW) and the subsequent civil war. The country suffered because of the big losses of people and especially specialists. It strongly conceded technically to aggressors: France, USA, England, Japan and even Poland, which got a very big help with weapons and equipment from France. All these countries were incited extremely hostile against Russia at that time.

     The soldiers of old empire army fought 4 Years in 1^st WW and had became tired of war. Leadership of Russia was searching for ways of training of soldiers for battles with invaders in short time. They understood that only arming of all people, only army’s organization on militia principle will bring a victory in Civil war. Only that kind of army’s organization will help in that time to repulse and oust foreign armies, which had occupied big parts of Russia during the war.

     Therefore Soviet government was forced to call up for military service the new man, untrained in soldiering, in order to raise the army. Therefore there was a necessity to train quickly these human masses, and first of all the youth in order to prepare them for fights.

     The whole land was covered for that purpose with a network of courses for primary military training and the problem had been solved partly. These courses allowed to teach people mass. The system of training courses was established in April 1918 and called Vsevobutch – Universal Military Education, fulfiled their purpose.

     This training had been limited by studying only a rifle and shooting from them, to the reference with manual of hand-grenades and the use of gas-masks, and also to first-aid treatment by the wounded men.    

      After the victorious end of Civil war the Government began to reduce the Red Army. The Vsevobutch  was reformed and shortened In this connection since 1923  too. Its main task became in new circumstances not only the prime military training of the youth, but still the involving of the people in sport. This network of Vsevobutch had fulfilled their task and it may be considered as a basis and precursor of future DOSAAF. The primary training began still to do public organisations too.

     DOSAAF – an evolution way

     Civil war had been finished, but there was remaining a danger of rise of new war and foreign invasion. The state and the Red Army were not ready and powerful enough and cannot be prepared for effective defense well, because was existed the big lack of modern weapon and equipment and there were too little good educated officers and technical specialists.

     Many state-serving persons, who prosecuted subjects of maintenance of national security, thought of how to solve these sharp problems. Among them were technical backwardness and economic decline of the country, as the result of wars compelled them. These persons were searching for new, unusual forms of the decision of these problems.

     The VNO – Military-Scientific Society was built up in Academy of Red Army still in October of 1920.

     It had to collect, to study and to analyze the experience of 1^st WW and Civil war.  It was the first Society, which worried about spreading and popularizing of military knowledge among the people. In Statute of VNO was written that all people of the USSR must be involved in training for land defense.

    On April, 5^th  1922 in garrison of Minsk had been formed the military-scientific club which was engaged also in various forms of the organization of preparation for men called up for military service.

    On May, 9^th 1923 such club had been organized for all Western Front. Activity of these clubs had helped to understand absolutely clearly and unequivocally that it is necessary to organize the mass organization, for effectively solving of a preparation problem.

      The 1^st conference of VNO of whole USSR took place in May 1925. There were made proposals for reforming of VNO from one military into the mass civil organization. Its structure was proposed too. The proposals were accepted and organisation began rapidly to grow.

      The VNO had been developed to mass society. The Government of the USSR had taken a decision in July 1926 about renaming of VNO in OSO – Society for Assistance of Defence (of USSR).   

      The Soviet Government knew from experience of 1^st WW, that future war, with which the west world continually threaded the USSR, would be the war of techniques and motors. Therefore the USSR has to do not only the prime military training of the youth, in order to get simple soldiers, but to teach and train many thousands of drivers, pilots and other technical specialists.

      There was too little money in state budget in these years. Therefore, it was taken the decision to search for non state financial sources. The land needed the programs for development of the new techniques, which would be equal the existing world level. First of all there were created the plans and programs for developing of aviation.  Just in that time was born the appeal:  “Working people, built up the Air Fleet!”  

      On April, 11th 1923 such organization, which was called ODVF (Society of Friends of Air Fleet) had been organized. The people began to donate Money for building aircrafts. Many groups for gliders building und flying and aircraftmodelling had organized itself. The aero sport began to develop.

      On June, 6th 1924 it had been organized DOBROCHIM (Volunteer Society of Friends of the Chemical Industry). It was established on proposal of the scientists which offered to arrange the volunteer people organization which will prepare the population for protection against application of chemical weapon. It was decided, that the land need such organization, because in the West were developed new, more effective battle casualty toxic-gases. And Western countries were ready to use them against USSR.

      On July, 11th 1925 ODVF and DOBROCHIM were united in the organization named AVIACHIM (a Society of Friends of the Aviation and Chemical Protection and Industry (of USSR). It was made in order to improve their activity and to eliminate parallelism in their activity.

      The results of their activity were insufficient, and the Leaders of the Government were dissatisfied with it. The reason of it was, first of all, lack of people with high school education at high supervising levels which could create thought-out plans and development concepts and carry them out well.

      As the result of patriotic rise of people there were established in 20^th the volunteer organizations for defense purposes:  OSO, ODVF, DOBROCHIM, AVIACHIM and others. The Government decided to unit all organizations in order to avoid the parallelism and to intensify its activity.

      On February, 28th 1927 therefore it had been decided to unite AVIACHIM and OSO. The new organization, called OSOAVIACHIM, had been developed to the biggest in USSR.

    Since then this date is considered to be a day of creation OSOAVIACHIM of Belarus, direct forerunner of DOSAAF.

                                            1927 ã.            1951 ã.        1991 ã.         2003 ã. 

                              OSOAVIAHIM          DOSAAF           BelOSTO          DOSAAF of    

                                of BSSR                of BSSR           of Belarus         Republik of Belarus 

      The OSOAVIACHIM of Belarus made in pre-war years very much and successful to prepare the country population and especially Youth for the future cruel fights.  Many thousands drivers for cars, tractors, tanks, pilots, parachutists, snipers, radio operators, were prepared in it. More then 700.000 member of OSOAVIACHIM were called up in some Years in the Red Army and Fleet.

      On 22nd June of 1941 the army of Nazi-Germany had invaded in the USSR. From the first days of war the extra important role of defense society in preparing of specialists for Army and Fleet had been confirmed since the first days of war. Many hundreds thousands of members of OSOAVIACHIM fought on the fronts of Great Patriotic War and took part on Resistance. Many of them had made feat of arms and  were conferred a decoration Hero of Soviet Union.