Interesting Russian site discussing the development of Soviet / Russian hand-to-hand.

Martial Arts Training Forums The Armory: Weapons, Military, LEO, and Self Defen
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http://www.rbtaganrog.ru/Рукопашный-бой-в-специальных-подразд/

This is an interesting page – Google translate will be useful. The page is an effort to put chronology, faces, and context to Soviet close quarters / hand-to-hand training. It was filled with names, locations, source schools, etc. Lots of good subject headings / key words for personal searching if you’re interested in doing your own homework on these things.

It is written by someone who mentions he was in Chechnya during the First Chechen War (1995-1996). In it, he talks about a conversation he had with one of the founders of Vympel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vympel) The conversation references the method of personal combat used at the time, and the name that was mentioned was А. А. Харлампиева (AA Kharlampiev in western transliteration).

http://www.twirpx.com/file/1898862/ This is to a scan of the 1953 military combat training manual written by Kharlampiev. The diagrams are clear and unambiguous. The book was published by a Soviet military printing house and had no copyright at the time of publication. The material has since been commercially republished and is under copyright protection in new formats. The cover of the book has a classic piece of period artwork, in which unarmed Soviet parachutists are taking out Allied troops with their bare hands.

Through the magic of Google translate, I’ve been reading Russian and former Soviet state forums.
http://spec-naz.org/

It’s a form of study. What are other people saying about their own past, or their present, how they see the world. One of them mentioned how most of the Russian special police units don’t emphasize hand-to-hand, but that beyond the physical training requirements of the organization, the hand-to-hand focus group is about two percent of the overall unit population and that group was described as hand-to-hand “fan boys.”

I think this description tracks with a conversation I had with a trainer at a state police academy 15 or so years ago. He mentioned how, except for a few of the troopers who were interested in hand-to-hand, most of the troopers only trained on their required training regimen. It reflects the human condition. People gravitate to their preferences.

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Reading in the spec-naz.org forum mentioned above, I found a thread in which Bruce Tegner and John Steyers are mentioned. They were both mentioned positively for being influences in their time and having influence in the Eastern bloc (WARSAW Pact / Soviet-dominated area) countries. I suspect they were not that influential in the Communist bloc, in truth, but that the writer mentions them for cause none-the-less. Something that parallels that interest in foreign reference works: I found numerous different reprints of Deal the First Deadly Blow in Chinese (reprints of the 1954 U.S. Army hand-to-hand manual), and that book seems to be a popular reference work in China. It struck me today that often people, or source documents and methods, are more influential outside of their own country of development, than they are inside their own country.

Even if the influence is not ground breaking or earth shattering, the principle remains true. It seems to come down to valuing something foreign more highly than valuing something that is native (of the people/land). I bought some European camouflage because I liked the pattern and the cut of the jacket better than our own. When I go to foreign reality-based defense websites, their instructors often are wearing what looks like U.S. Army Woodlands camouflage patterns… It’s foreign, so it holds some attraction.

It may answer for why niche foreign instructors seem to be so popular here, but remain niche instructors in their own land.

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One last link to represent a more complete body of Kharlampiev’s work in the development of Soviet military combatives. http://www.twirpx.com/file/1896331/This is to a general work on hand-to-hand combat and it was published in 1953.

The two Kharlampiev-related links reflect a complete military, security, or special unit training program. The first book being general unarmed combat, with the second book being unarmed combat for special troops.

For ease of retrieval:
http://www.twirpx.com/file/1896331/
http://www.twirpx.com/file/1898862/