Alexander Lebed, the retired general with the face of a bulldog, the voice of a foghorn and, by all accounts, a firm eye on the presidency, has launched a new social movement to provide help for the nation's beleaguered military structures.


The organization, called Honor and Motherland, has been created under the aegis of Lebed's electoral bloc, the Congress of Russian Communities, and will work for the material and spiritual renewal of the armed forces, Lebed told a news conference Wednesday.


"The army always triumphed when the Russian spirit dominated," he said.


The Congress of Russian Communities has gone from obscurity to prominence since the general lent it his considerable mystique. Lebed himself is looked upon as one of the most serious contenders for the presidential seat next June, and is now hard on the parliamentary campaign trail.


His new movement is geared at his most natural electoral constituency, the military, and he is not shy about exploiting the discontent in the armed forces to bolster his own political ends.


Lebed deemed the present state of affairs "criminal," when soldiers live in "second-rate chicken coops" and are fed only once a day. He pledged to remedy the situation.


"We have the money," he said. "We do not need prestigious offices and imported airplanes that cost $27 million each and are no better than our own, which cost one-fifth as much." He paused threateningly before continuing, "It all looks like a purposeful campaign to destroy the army."


Lebed, the media's darling, fielded questions from reporters on the movement, but he brushed aside queries about his political ambitions, whether parliamentary or presidential.


"I will repeat for the third time," he said impatiently, "this press conference is about Honor and Motherland."


Although the movement is closely associated with the Congress of Russian Communities, it is not a political movement, insisted Lebed, and has nothing to do with the elections.


This, in the opinion, of many observers, is more than a bit disingenuous.


"It is a self-evident fact that the military will play a significant role in the December elections," said Alexander Golz, political observer for the armed forces newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. "Retired military are one of the most disciplined voting blocs in the country."


According to Golz, estimates of the military's strength in the electorate run as high as 20 million voters, if one counts active duty and retired servicemen, their spouses, and workers in the military industrial complex. This is the public that Lebed is aiming to attract with his Honor and Motherland movement, said Golz.


Lebed's CRC is not the only group that has tried to bring the powerful military bloc under its wing. It is difficult to find a major party that does not boast a general in its top lineup. Boris Gromov, popular hero of the war in Afghanistan, heads his own party, My Fatherland; Lev Rokhlin, who rose to prominence during the Chechnya conflict, is No. 3 on the Our Home Is Russia list.


Lebed's ploy with Honor and Motherland, said Golz, is to steal support away from the other uniformed stars.


"It is possible that he will begin to reproach his rivals for not joining his movement," said Golz. "He will say. 'Gromov and Rokhlin do not care about the army, since they did not join Honor and the Motherland.'"


But in Golz's estimation, it is difficult to say how successful Lebed will be. In the 1993 elections the military voted heavily for ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Such an outcome, say observers, is not out of the question in December.


"It is difficult to say how someone who has not been paid in six months is thinking," said Golz. "It is possible that all of these games will go right past them, and they will vote for Zhirinovsky out of spite."