Institutional Study of the Development of Soviet Armored Forces, 1917 to 1941

7/27/2019 Institutional Study of the Development of Soviet Armored Forces, 1917 to 1941

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Blood, Fire and Steel 1

Blood, Fire, and Steel

An Institutional Study of the Development of Soviet Armored Forces, 1917 to 1941.

By

Kevin M. Brisson

Norwich University Masters of Arts in Military History Program, Group 3

Dr. Russ Ramsey

May 26, 2006


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Blood, Fire, and Steel: An Institutional Study of the Development of Soviet Armored

Forces, 1917 to 1941.

Introduction

The fate of the world was fought upon the scar-strewn steppes of Russia from 1941 to

1945, but it was decided decades prior to the German invasion. Adolph Hitlers plan for

the conquest of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, with the initiation of a military

operation infamously titled by the German General Staff as Operation Barbarossa. It

proved a hazardous enterprise, one that he and the German nation were to forever regret.

The onerous task of annihilating the Nazi menace was forced upon the beleaguered

armored legions of the Red Army. The scale and ferocity with which these tank battles

were fought remains unrivalled and historically unprecedented. Though there is

considerable literature on the battles of the Eastern Front, few are devoted to some of the

peripheral but critical events preceding this conflict. Moreover, we discover that

compared to what has been written by historians about the Western Front, the amount of

attention focused on how the Soviet prepared its military industrial complex for the

coming of the Russo-German War is conspicuously smaller. In fact, more work has been

devoted to logistical efforts that went into the Normandy Invasion and the Battle of the

Bulge than of Kursk or Stalingrad, the latter events inarguably bearing much greater

apocalyptic implications for the outcome of World War Two altogether. However, there

are legitimate reasons for this, for Walter S. Dunn, Jr. notes, inHitlers Nemesis: The Red

Army, 1930-1945, that Little has been written of the war on the Eastern Front because of

a lack of access to Soviet archives. (p.3) Yet, this shortcoming among the historical


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narratives of Western scholarship must be reviewed and accounted for, if we are to

understand World War Two in its totality, for this represents a serious breach in its

historiography.

This essay does not propose to offer an exhaustive analysis of the Soviet contribution

to World War Two; rather, it will endeavor to provide a cursory examination of the

institutionalization of the Soviet Armor Program during the interwar years. Exploring the

organizations and institutional bodies that labored for the inception and continued success

for military mechanization within the Red Army will enable us to put flesh on the bones

of statistical analysis and excessive technical detail so reminiscent of works commonly

found among discussions of this particular topic. In adhering to the war and history

perspective, detailed discussions regarding the more prominent personalities involved

will be relinquished in favor of this institutional focus. Lastly, a discussion on the

relative value of sources noted in this paper will be brought forth as a way of monitoring

what progress has been made thus far in efforts to rectify this gap in historical

scholarship.

Early Beginnings of the Soviet Tank Program

The Soviet armored program was originally created to consolidate the power of the

Bolshevik State. After successfully concluding their war with the reactionary forces of

the White Army, the Workers and Peasants Red Army (RKKA) had captured small

numbers of tanks, all of whom were of foreign design and manufacture, primarily British

and French. Shunned by the nations of the West for having withdrawn from the First

World War, the embryonic Soviet government could not import new tanks for the


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fledgling Red Army as the Czar once could for his own forces. It would have to make its

own. What industrial base there was left standing after Russias exit from the Great War

was not even capable of providing spare parts and tools for the existing fleet of captured

tanks. It became obvious that if the Soviet tank was to forge a future for itself by making

a decisive contribution to the offensive capabilities of the RKKA, some semblance of

institutional organization would be required.

Centrobron and the RKKA

In early recognition of the value and importance in possessing a tank force, the Bolshevik

government, via the Peoples Commissariat (Sovnarkom), created the Provisional

Armored Board (Centrobron) in November 1917, to take over the avtobronie or

armored car department of the RKKA. This ad-hoc committee was involved with

sponsoring conferences devoted to exploring new possibilities of tank design and even

offered cash prizes to inspire creative ideas on how to develop an indigenous tank arm. It

was not long, however, before the Board was replaced by a new agency called the

Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) in 1918, a politically controlled organ of the

RKKA.

Revolutionary Military Council (RVS)

The Revvoensovet or Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) went one step further

than its predecessor in that it established and coordinated a logistical network which

provided support to the Soviet Unions existing repertoire of tanks. It also began

recognizing that tanks with certain characteristics were capable of performing specific


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roles on the battlefield, organizing them into weight categories of large, medium and

light. (Bean, p.10). Though it initially failed to develop policies regarding training

principles, field maneuvering exercises, technical support, and other elements comprising

tactical doctrine, the RVS did, nonetheless, lay the groundwork for how to properly

organize armored units for future battles, a system that continued to be seen well into the

first half of the twentieth century. However, in terms of jurisdiction and power of

authority, it is noted that Questions that were entirely military in nature, involving

training, maneuvers, and approval of weapons systems, and any matters not impinging on

the rest of the Soviet state and society were generally left to the Revvoensovet to decide.

Any questions involving finance, industry, or educationhad to be decided in another

forum. For the defense industry in particular, the Revvoensovet could formulate

proposals, lobby, and petition but could not make decisions alone. In effect, the

Revvoensovet had a relatively free hand on strictly military questions but had restricted

authority outside that sphere. (Stone, p.19) Tactical innovation and experimentation

with mechanized vehicles were not under serious study until cooperation with German

military officials under the Rapallo Treaty of 1922. (Zaloga, p.43)

A Fickle but Fruitful Friendship: The Treaty of Rapallo

A variety of examined sources confirm that several years prior to the signing of the

Treaty of Rapallo, a secret relationship had already formed between the outcast states of

Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia within the spheres of industrial-military cooperation.

Forbidden to produce arms on any significant scale by the terms dictated in the Versailles

Treaty, the German military staff was quite willing to reach a military concordat with


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Soviet Russia where, outside the limits of Allied control, the organization of war

industries, the development of mechanized warfare, the effects of new firepower, the

tactical co-operation of different arms and servicescould be studied and developed.

(Milsom, p. 25) In exchange, Russia was to receive engineering and technical assistance

from Germany in order to re-build a military industrial complex that could meet whatever

unpredictable challenges arose from the battlefield, producing the necessary panoply of

arms (e.g. tanks) in the numbers needed to confront those unforeseen requirements. It is

strangely ironic that Soviet Russia, through Rapallo, became a proving ground for the

future Wermacht forces who would later revisit the Soviet Union in 1941 under

Barbarossa, marking a grave betrayal that was to find a savage and merciless expression

in the character of the Russo-German War.

Vesenkha or The Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh)

Among those organizations devoted to the task of fostering greater progress towards

Soviet armored power was the Vesenkha or The Supreme Council of the National

Economy (VSNKh), led by five Stalinist cohorts in the following succession: Valerian

Osinski (1917-1918), Alexei Rykov (1918-1920), Felix Dzerzhinsky (1924-1926),

Valerian Kuibyshev (1928-1930), and Sergo Ordzhonikidze (1930-1932). (Stone, p.6)

Created by decree on December 15, 1917, Vesenkha was an immensely powerful

institution assigned to supervise the advancement of the entire Soviet defense industry. It

was authorized to seize and commandeer, by whatever means necessary, the needed

manpower and materials required to continue the Bolshevik program of radical

rearmament. Such power was vested in VSNKh by the Council of Peoples Commissars,


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(Sovnarkom) thus making it an adjoining arm of the latter. Alec Nove tells us that

VSNKhs mission was The organization of the national economy and state finance.

With this object VSNKh elaborates general norms and the plan for regulating the

economic life of the country, reconciles, and unites the activities of central and local

regulating agenciesVSNKh [is] to have the right of confiscation, requisition,

sequestration, compulsory syndication of the various branches of industry, trade and

other measures in the area of production, distribution and state finance. (Nove, 2002)

Reinforcing this even further is Solokov, who writes: sharp clashesbetween the state

and the entrepreneurs and many private establishments working for defense underwent

sequestration, opening the way for the subsequent Bolshevik nationalization of factories.

(p.1) This method of procurement was typical of early Soviet planning for crash

industrialization, a style of breakneck economic development that was to reach

unparalleled intensity during Stalins First (1928-1933) and Second (1933-197) Five-

Year Plans. Milsom quotes Only in 1929, when we began to carry the First Five-Year

Plan [that] our industry maturednot by days but by hoursdid we have a basic home

tank industry. (p.27)

What should be mentioned, however, is that State leadership of the VSNKh met

infrequently to deliberate over economic matters and was chaired by only 12-15 people at

any given time. Yet, in a greater effort to mobilize labor and material resources for the

infant Soviet military-industrial complex, the Supreme Council, in 1926, created

branches within each Soviet republic called glavki, agencies structured much like

VSNKh but with regional authority. The glavki were to deal with the actual problems of

establishing control and organization of local industries. Leaders from each glavki would


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arrange for members of industry to congregate periodically to contemplate matters of

economic priority and policy, especially as it related to the future needs of military

production. After War Communisms disastrous failure, Lenins New Economic Policy

(NEP) from 1921 to 1928 allowed for the temporary collaboration between State-owned

industries with private companies from Europe and America, such as the Ford Motor

Company. One of the immediate benefits of this erstwhile partnership with these

bourgeois enterprises laid the beginnings of an indigenous Soviet armored program: the

creation of an automobile industry. To host an automobile industry capable of producing,

in large scale, for the military, armored cars and tanks, it was necessary for the First Five-

Year Plan to focus on the establishment of a highly-developed complex of metallurgical,

motor-building, electric motor building, automobile, tractor, optical equipment,

armament building, ammunition, fuel industries and so on. (Milsom, p.31)

There are those who may ask whether or not the VSNKh was successful in its avowed

mission to create in Soviet Russia the industrial capacity for automotive production, at

least one that could undergo future modification for tank production. The most

appropriate answer would be to note that, with help from the United States, the VSNKh

did, in fact, establish automotive factories in numerous Soviet cities: Chelyabinsk Tractor

Factory (ChTZ), Gorki Works (GAZ), Stalingrad Tractor Factory (STZ), Bryansk

(Molotov), Moscow Spartak Factory (ZIS), Leningrads Red Putilov Factory, Kharkov

Locomotive Factory and the Yaroslavl Automobile Factory (YaZ). The speed with

which these manufacturing facilities were built was nothing less than impressive, even by

Western standards. One scholar notes: Most of the plants were built or reconstructed

from 1929 to 1933 as automobile and tractor factories, under technical assistance


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contracts with American companies. In 1928 the Soviets hired a Detroit architect, Albert

Kahn, to design a tractor plant and other buildings. Kahn had designed the Ford River

Rouge plant, the largest automotive factory complex in the world, and factories for

Chevrolet, Packard, Hudson, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac, Chrysler, and DeSoto

automobiles. His designs remain as landmarks scattered across Detroit.The Russians

obviously wanted the best. (Dunn, p.126)

However, it would take more than the agglomeration of mineral wealth and wide-scale

construction of automotive factories to initiate a viable armored program; it would also

require an organization dedicated to overcoming other challenges: training of personnel

and tank design. This assignment would be given to another subordinate agency, namely

the Main Department of War Industry, otherwise known as the GUVP.

The Main Department of War Industry (GUVP)

In the spirit of serious efforts to reform the Red Army into a modern fighting machine,

the GUVP (Glavno Upravleniy Voennoy Promishlennosti) or the Main Department of

War Industry was created in 1926 and was entrusted with the goal of creating a training

program for troops selected for service in the armored forces. By 1929, the GUVP issued

field regulation manuals regarding the deployment of tanks and spawned two new

technical bureaus that would be responsible for experimental tank design: (1) UMM

(Upravleniy Mechanizatsiyi i Motorizatsiyi RKKA) or Directorate of the Mechanization

and Motorization of the Red Army; (2) VTU (Voennoy-Tekhnicheskoye Upravleniy or

Military Technical Directorate). These two agencies were critical in guiding the

production of Soviet armor, for we are told that Further experimentation with actual


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mechanized units would be required before a clear grasp of the material needs of the Red

Army could be formulated. (Zaloga, p.44-46) There were differences between these

two researching bodies, however. Led by Dr. V. Zaslavskiy, VTU would focus on

indigenous designs while UMM, under I.A. Khalepskiy, would explore foreign concepts.

These technical directorates were limited in vision in that both the viewed the raison

detre for tanks as being primarily for the infantry support role in trench warfare. It was

believed that small fast tankettes were ideal for infantry support operations compared to

the slow moving behemoths that crawled about the mud-filled battlefields of World War

One. Though tankettes were much faster than larger tanks, they were discovered to be

unsuitable for the battlefield as they were vulnerable to artillery and small arms fire. This

insistence on small fast tanks discouraged the development of heavy tanks for some time

until it became apparent that trench warfare would fade before the introduction of the

mobile warfare concept. Nonetheless, what was to be salvaged from this reigning

mentality at the time was that mobility was crucial to battlefield success, but only when

added with the appropriate armor and firepower. Training, on the other hand, would

come from an unlikely ally: the German General Staff at the Kama or Kazan Tank

School.

The Kama School

Generally referred to by the Germans as the Heavy Vehicle Experimentation and Test

Station or by the Soviets as the Kama or Kazan Tank School, this clandestine training

facility was founded in 1927 by German General Werner Eduard Fritz von Blomberg to

enable joint participation between Soviet and German military officers in the field of tank


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combat. (Stoecker, p.112) Plans for the school dated back to 1922, but it was not until

the consolidation of heavy industry in Soviet Union that the Kama could finally be

utilized as a proving ground for German and Soviet tank programs. (Milsom, p.29) This

collaboration enabled the school to become the most prolific generator of tactical ideas,

field maneuvers, theory, and doctrinal thought, producing profound benefits for both

sides. Although the Rapallo Treaty did much to overcome the political obstacles standing

in the way of this partnership, there was a degree of reluctance and concern from military

officials on both sides. It is known that The Soviets were similarly mistrustful of their

German counterparts. Having been bred on the belief that capitalists were untrustworthy

and dangerous -- despite the aforementioned Leninist dictate condoning the need to

exploit capitalist contradictions -- the Red Army officers found themselves in a very

awkward position working and negotiating with their traditional Teutonic foes. Worries

as to whether or not the Germans were really telling them the truth and sharing with them

all they knew constantly plagued the relationship and probably affected the Soviet

assessment of German tactics and weapons. Both the official and personal documentation

retrieved from German and Soviet archives indicates that these suspicions persisted

throughout the period of collaboration. (Stoecker, p.81) Despite this bizarre

arrangement between these two former adversaries, it was calculated by political leaders

from both sides that the rewards would far outweigh the risks. Both developed identical

doctrines, which emphasized speed and firepower. For the Germans, this emerged, as

blitzkrieg whereas for the Soviets, this same combined arms doctrine would be referred

to as Deep Battle. The exchange program at Kama lasted a mere three years but with

mutually fruitful results. The closing of the Kazan school closely coincided with the


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opening of a new training institute, one commissioned to continue Soviet efforts to

radically improve its tank projects.

The Stalin Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Workers and

Peasants Red Army (VAMM)

Situated in the outer environs of eastern Moscow, the Stalin Academy was created in

1932 to replace the Kazan School in order that all aspects of armored battle could be

studied and explored in one location. Its primary directive was to gather into one

nucleus the principal agencies of experiment, test, and exploitation of the motorized and

mechanized instruments of warfare; to arrive at correct principles of tactics and strategy

in the use of motorized vehicles and mechanized equipment in warfare; to train a

sufficient number of student officers in these principles so that new methods of warfare

might be thoroughly understood throughout the Red Army; and to train...specialists [for]

the success of procurement programmes (Milsom, p.37) Yet, VAMM was more

than its stated mission; it represented a clean break from the Soviet Unions former

dependence on foreign assistance. Moreover, it assured a positive future for the armored

forces of the Soviet Army. Only the most highly selected officers were sent to VAMM,

for it became increasingly viewed as an elite institution, churning out top quality

graduates schooled in the art of mechanized warfare in the same way Soviet factories

were turning out first rate armored vehicles. Shortly after Stalins death in 1953, it was

renamed The Malinovsky Tank Academy, in honor of Rodion Malinovsky, one of the

Soviet Russias most prominent tank generals of World War Two. It is fitting that such a

prestigious academy was named after him, for he was among the few to survive what


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became one of the greatest disasters in the history of the Soviet tank program: Stalins

Red Army Purges.

The Great Red Army Purges

Though many would view the early Stalinist era as one that discouraged free thought

by means of police terror, it was, in actuality, a time of experimentation and invention, at

least until the 1930s when the leader embarked on a campaign of repression and murder

in what later became known as the Great Purges.

In what could only be described as the most coldly calculated and diabolically deliberate

plan to commit systematic, indiscriminate murder, on an unimaginable scale, against the

most talented leadership of the Red Army, Joseph Stalins purges nearly brought the

Soviet Union to the verge of ruin and defeat, heralding a dark age for innovation and

personal initiative among the officer corps of all branches of service. The Red Armys

armored forces were not immune from suspicion by the Narodnyi Komissariat

Vnutrennikh Del(NKVD) or Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Determined to

root out politically questionable elements within all branches of the Red Army, the

NKVD liquidated enormous numbers of the best and most able military officers,

including those within Soviet Russias armored forces. Moreover, Soviet tank officers,

from the high command down to junior level, were among those who suffered the most.

(Conquest, p. 208)

Stalins purges did much to destroy years of hard-earned work in the tactical

development of armored warfare; but in a strange quirk of fate, the designers of Soviet


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tanks were left unscathed. Milsom states, In spite of the purges within the [Red] Army,

little interference took place in the existing group of Soviet tank designers (the GUVP),

and the improvements in tank design projected during 1938-9 were to lead to some

excellent machines. There were more and more indications that the Soviet tank designers

were competent to turn out some very sound, powerful, and effective military vehicles.

Hence, whereas the tactical ideas for the operational use of tanks [were] seemingly

fallacious, the correct deductions were made regarding the design of further tank models

with greater armour and more powerful armament. (p.52)

By sparing the lives of his tank designers, Stalin unwittingly gave the young

inexperienced officers who were to face the devastating onslaught of the Wermacht in

1941, a fighting chance much later on by allowing such war-winning tanks, like the T-34

and the KV series, to make their appearance on the battlefield. Though encountered in

small numbers during the initial phases of Barbarossa, these Soviet tanks shocked

German panzer troops with their outstanding performance; in fact, it would send

engineers from Hitlers tank factories scrambling back to the drawing board, to create an

armored equivalent capable of challenging what was recognized as superior tanks. It

became clear that Soviet tanks were an entire generation ahead of the best armored

vehicle the Germans could field; but even in the wake of Barbarossa, Soviet Russia

would find itself doing more than display armored vehicles of unsurpassed workmanship.

It would perform feats of industrial genius that made obvious to the Nazi invaders,

Hitlers underestimation of the potential of Russian military power.


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To the Urals! The War moves East!

In the first few months of Barbarossa, the German Army captured millions of Red

Army soldiers while also seizing over seventy-five percent of the Soviet Unions heavy

industrial plants, a loss of over 300 factories. (Erickson, p.233) What was initially

thought to be a crippling blow to Stalins capacity to maintain military production was

later proven incorrect. Stalins foreign minister, Vyachesalv Molotov, created the

Peoples Commissariat for Tank Production (NKTP), to be lead by V.A. Malyshev. Its

first step was to issue an emergency ukase or decree which stated that all factories and

manufacturing plants based in the Ukraine and Western Russia were to be relocated to the

Urals and Western Siberia with immediate haste. Zaloga tells us that the ukase had three

primary goals: to re-establish thetank factories in the Urals and restart production as

soon as possible; to simplify tank designs as much as possible so as to increase

production with unskilled labour [sic], and to cut out redundant tank types. (p.129)

Under the watchful eyes of the ever-suspicious NKVD troops, Russian workers, brick by

brick, disassembled with reckless speed whole industrial plants to throw upon the beds of

trucks and railcars for transfer to the Ural Mountains, from outside the range of the

Wermacht and Luftwaffe. The Soviets began calling this effort na kolesakh or

industries on wheels. (Erickson, p. 233) What could not be evacuated was either

demolished or rendered useless to the Germans as part of the typical scorched-earth

defense tactics popularly employed by the Soviets throughout the beginning of the war.

To understand the degree of importance attached to the NKTPs responsibility for

continuing the output of Soviet armor, one need only look to see that In the first half of


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1941, steel production had been 11.4 million tons, but by the second half of 1942, this

had dropped to a mere 3.9 million tons. The only way that tank production could be

expanded in the face of these shortages was to sizably cut back production of other goods

requiring heavy industrial resources. Production of warships, locomotives, railroad cars,

machine tools, and other major steel consuming items was virtually halted by 1942 in

favour [sic] of tank production. (Zaloga, pp.128-129) Though not alone in its struggle

to perform this colossal task, the NKTP must be given its credit in that it not only

managed to successfully relocate the remaining industries from the Ukraine and Western

Russia amid the harshest conditions, but that it also ensured that production of tanks

began by the end of 1941, a feat that has yet to be repeated among contemporary

economic planners since.

A rejoinder to this, of course, would be to debate whether or not this could be

regarded as a flawless execution of success, for Dunn writes: Finding buildings to house

the evacuated factories was a major problem. The central accounting office made an

inventory of available spacethe planning staff for the five-year plans, organized the

resettlement [while sending] parts of some factories to different locations and combined

others into a new enterprise. Some factories were expanded or used to rebuild an existing

factory--for example, the tank factories. The factory at Magnitogorsk received machinery

from 34 evacuated factories. Other factories relocated in theaters and cultural centers.

Despite all efforts, much material and machinery remained in warehouses by the spring

of 1942At times, inadequate planning resulted in trains having been loaded with

materials and dispatched with no destination to prevent capture by the Germans. These


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orphan trains moved around the country for long periods because there were no plans to

use the equipment and no one knew what to do with them. (p.33)

To enforce this order, evacuation committees for each industry were created to supervise

the relocation, with each receiving orders from the NKTP who, in turn, reported to the

Gosudarstvenny Komitet po Planirovaniyu or State Committee for (Economic) Planning,

otherwise called by its abbreviation, Gosplan.

Gosplan

It ought to be mentioned briefly here that Gosplan played an indirect but vital role in

the development and production of Soviet armor. Decreed into existence by Sovnarkom

during the Russian Civil War on February 22, 1921, Gosplan transformed Soviet Russia

from a market-driven agricultural economy into an industrialized command economy

controlled by the State. Its role in the implementation of the First and Second Five-Year

Plans did much to ensure that the Soviet armored program received generous allocations

of manpower, material wealth and natural resources necessary for its continuation.

Gosplan commanded numerous subordinate agencies, which provided it with statistics,

banking data, financial information, and monetary reserves. The first economic steps of

the Soviet regime were inspired by: (a) ideological considerations promoting collectivist

solutions; (b) political considerations aimed at the utmost strengthening of the new

regime's central authority; and (c) the practical necessity of assuring the subsistence of

the population and satisfying the needs of the army and the administration.

(MacAndrew, p.13) Given that the survival of Stalins regime and the fate of the Soviet


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people rested primarily upon their ability to manufacture tanks in vast quantities, it

appeared that this priority aptly met all three criteria listed above.

Summary

After withdrawing from the Great War, Soviet political and military leaders alike

understood that tanks and armored vehicles were going to be a critical component in the

projection of future military power. It was also known that just as a viable tank program

could only be realized with sound design and technical concepts, its very actualization

would involve establishing dynamic organizations devoted to its support.

The Soviet Unions beginnings as a state was one wracked with tumultuous and

chaotic political conditions, complicated by years of inter-party friction, civil strife and

foreign military intervention. Yet, it was this background that encouraged the Soviets to

come into partnership with Germany, for though they were former enemies, both were,

nonetheless, held as pariahs among the Allied Powers. The Treaty of Rapallo appeared,

for a time, as a marriage of convenience between two countries anxious to recover from

the ravages of the war. The Germans, humiliated by Versailles, needed to rebuild an

army, but from outside the monitoring eyes of the Allies. In exchange for allowing them

to perform tactical exercises and for utilizing parcels of land as proving grounds for new

experimental weapons on Soviet territory, the Germans would provide the USSR with

valuable engineering expertise in the industrial production of armored vehicles. The

Kama school became the focal point of this odd newfound relationship and though

collaboration was short-lived, it yielded bountiful results for both, each drawing valuable


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and Western Russia proved ultimately successful, for within six months of the

evacuation, tanks were coming off the assembly lines in the Urals. The performance of

the T-34 medium tank and the elephantine KV series traumatized German troops at the

onset of the war, sending tank technicians scurrying to design and produce an equivalent

to the Russian tank unique and highly effective firepower, armor and mobility. It is not

likely that Soviet armor would have made such a profound impression on the Wermacht

had Stalin decided to destroy the tank programs designers (UMM and VTU) along with

those staff officers unfortunate enough to have met their fate through an NKVD firing

squad during the height of the Great Purges. The Eastern Front proved to be the ultimate

test of Soviet armored development. Battlefield conditions were quick to show what

worked and what didnt, not just in terms of armor, firepower and mobility but, more

importantly, in organization and institutional support.

A Note on Cited Sources

The overall value of sources used in the composition of this paper proved immense

but varied. Perhaps the most compelling in its treatment of Soviet armored development

was John MilsomsRussian Tanks, 1900-1970. Though somewhat dated, it continues to

be among the most thorough works devoted to the subject, for Milsom provides a

plethora of detail in his discussion on the institutionalization of Soviet tank production,

creating for the reader a lucid understanding of how important organizational deftness, on

the part of early Soviet planners, enabled successful designs to revolutionize mobile


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warfare. It is highly recommended for those interested in learning more about the

earliest beginnings of the Soviet armored program and the pains of its infancy.

Another source to rival Milsom is Steven Zaloga and James Grandsens Soviet Tanks

and Combat Vehicles of World War Two. As impressive as this book is with its bounty of

handsome illustrations and rare photos, it is also remarkable for its historical content and

sizable bibliography. Excessive technical jargon is an unfortunate feature of this

narrative; Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles is not undone by this, however; in fact, it is

strongly fortified by its continuous presentation of highly interesting facts with

astounding accuracy, and undeniably worthy of mention given its pervasive presence

among numerous citations within a variety of books dealing with this topic.

One of the more current sources drawn for this paper was Russian Tanks of World

War II: Stalins Armored Mightby Will Fowler and Tim Bean. Like Zaloga, there is a

bent towards the technical but always correct in its details. The work offers a modern

perspective on what institutional motivations lurked behind the many organizational

changes affecting the Soviet armored forces. Fowler and Bean identify the origins of the

Deep Battle concept, its temporary demise during the Purges and its resurrection shortly

after Barbarossa. All in all, Russian Tanks proves exceptional in its comprehensive

recounting of an historical military issue yet to receive broad attention among Western

scholarship.

David StonesHammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933,

is a invaluable authoritative contribution to those serious in their intent to uncover the

nebulous institutional meanderings during initial efforts to create a powerful military


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industrial base within Soviet Russia. It delves deeply into the political relationship

between the Soviet administrative system and the powerful economic organizations that

sought to enforce its policies, especially within the field of defense. It would have

unquestionably proven extremely arduous to have dealt with this subject without having

consulted this indispensable work.

Prior to David Glantzs de facto inheritance as literary leader, John Erickson, prior to

his death in 2002, was the reigning authority on Soviet military history during World War

Two. The works Professor Erickson left behind could only be described as among the

greatest acts of intellectual largesse to this highly neglected field of study. For this paper,

his Road to Stalingrad was chosen particularly for his insights into the nature of such

mystery and mercurial organizations as Vesenkha (VSNKh) and the NKVD. Though

Erickson is given to the more traditional analytical style of narration, it is, nonetheless,

done with considerable panache without succumbing to authorial flamboyance or

pedantic embroidery. Lack of exposure to this work would be to reveal a profound

shortcoming in ones powers of historical investigation in a realm of study that requires

utter clarity and insight.

Stumbling Colossus and Colossus Reborn can be said to be among David Glantzs

many masterpieces. These tomes offer a highly voluminous account of events leading to

the Russo-German War. Both are tightly compacted with detail, backed by unrivalled

bibliographies whileReborn is partnered with a separate companion book devoted solely

to statistically supporting arguments written in it. The field of Soviet military history is


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truly fortunate to have among its contributors an author so devoted to producing prolific

work of high-grade value.


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Bibliography

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Conquest, Robert. (1991). The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Dunn, Walter S., Jr. (1994). Hitlers Nemesis: The Red Army, 1930-1945. Westport,

Connecticut: Praeger Publishing.

_____________. (1995). The Soviet Economy and the Red Army, 1930-1945. Westport,

Connecticut: Praeger Publishing.

Erickson, John. (2003). The Road to Stalingrad: Stalins War with Germany, Volume 1.

London: Cassell Military Paperbacks.

Glantz, M. David. (1998). Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World

War. Kansas: University Press of Kansas.

______________. (2005). Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War. Kansas: University

Press of Kansas.

Harrison, Mark. (2002). Soviet Planning in Peace and War (1938-1945). New York:

Cambridge University Press.

MacAndrew, G. Marie-Christine (et al.) (1971). Planning for Economic Growth in theSoviet Union, 1918-1932. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Milsom, John. (1970). Russian Tanks, 1900-1970. New York: Galahad Books.

Nove, Alec. (1969). An Economic History of the USSR. Harmondsworth: Penguin

Books Ltd.

Shukman, Harold et al. (1993). Stalins Generals. London: Grove Press.

Sokolov, Andrei. (2005). Before Stalinism: The Defence Industry of Soviet Russia in the

1920s. In Journal of Comparative Studies. Vol. 47

Stoecker, Sally. (1998). Forging Stalins Army: Marshal Tukhachevsky and the Politics

of Innovation. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

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Stone, David R. 2000. Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933. Kansas: University Press of Kansas.

U.S. Department of the Army. (1953). Handbook on the Soviet and Satellite Armies,

Part I: The Soviet Army. Pamphlet No. 30-50-1. Declassified. Washington, D.C.: U.S.

Department of the Army.

Volkogonov, Dimitri. (1996). Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy (Trans., Harold Shukman).Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing.

Zaloga, Steve J. and Grandsen, James. (1984). Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles ofWorld War Two. London: Arms and Armour Press.

Institutional Study of the Development of Soviet Armored Forces, 1917 to 1941

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