Abstract: The object of the study is the policy of the Russian authorities aimed at leveling protest activity in the Armed Forces in the context of the protracted crisis of the 1990s. After the fall of the one-party dictatorship that subordinated the security forces, Russian legislation provided for a rigid model of de-partization and depoliticization of the Armed Forces. However, in the post-Soviet years, this strategy lost its relevance both due to the weakness of the parties themselves and the apolitical nature of the officer corps, tired of years of pressure from political organizations (CPSU). The problem was something else: the huge "Soviet-Russian" army, being a vestige of the previous system, did not fit into the paradigm of the new statehood, and therefore was subject to radical and painful reform, which threatened to put the Armed Forces on the brink of disaster. For thousands of military personnel and their family members, the most acute problem has become the elementary problem of survival. Historical, sociological, formal legal, institutional and systemic approaches are used as the main research methods. In the second half of the 1990s, against the background of chronic underfunding in the army, cases of spontaneous protest became more frequent. These actions were nonviolent, spontaneous and scattered in nature, and therefore did not pose a serious threat to the authorities. Among the main factors that restrained open rebellion, one can name the lack of an all-Army protest coordination center, the lack of independent political thinking among senior officers, and the lack of a constructive program. This also includes army discipline, as well as the availability of sufficient means for the regime to pre-empt and suppress individual pockets of protest. At the same time, the authorities, realizing that by condemning their military to a miserable existence, they themselves act outside the legal framework, tried to resolve the conflicts that arose cautiously, trying not to resort to harsh measures. The question of how long this delicate balance could have been maintained remains open. At the end of the 1990s, there were faint signs of a revival of the army. The military was one of the first to catch these trends: exhausted by the "five-year plans" of liberal reforms, after all the temptations offered to them by opposition parties, they regained faith in the state. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the application of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of a complex problem related to the restructuring of the Russian army during the years of unstable internal political instability.