Russian troops dig for potatoes
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CNN's Steve Harrigan reports
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From Correspondent Steve Harrigan

BRONITSA, Russia (CNN) -- The Dzerzhinsky division is a group of elite fighters attached to Russia's Interior Ministry. In the event of a national emergency, they would likely be ordered to take control of communications in Moscow.

But for the past month, as Russia sinks deeper into a political and economic crisis, these soldiers have been sent into the countryside near the capital to pick beets and potatoes on a state-owned farm. For lunch, they get one cup of soup, a cup of rice, tea and some bread.

"Even before this crisis, we lived very badly," says Lt. Anatoly Medvedev. "Now, I don't know how we'll live. You could say that we're bums."

The Dzerzhinsky division lacks the cash to buy food at market prices. So the troops are working in the fields, taking home half of the harvest in return for their labor. Master sergeants watch their every move, making the men resemble convicts more than soldiers.

These elite troops get paid just 18.5 rubles a month. At current exchange rates, that is less than one dollar.

In 1993, at President Boris Yeltsin's command, this division stormed the Russian parliament building to depose recalcitrant lawmakers. Five years later, would they obey the same order if called upon again?

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov doesn't think so.

"Most of the Army hasn't been paid since April, not even the generals," he says. "So there is no way they're going to defend this rotten government."

Potatoes harvested by hand

But what do the soldiers in the beet and potato fields think?

"The president is the commander-in-chief, and the idea, of course, is that we would follow his order," says Lt. Medvedev. "But I tell you again that we will not go against our own people."

"I can't give you a concrete answer to that question, because I just don't know what would happen," says Pvt. Sergei Safronov.

For now, though, the only marching orders here are to bring in the harvest, as these soldier-farmers struggle for their own survival.