Theoretic elements and the military history of the U.S.S.R.

7/29/2019 Theoretic elements and the military history of the U.S.S.R.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/theoretic-elements-and-the-military-history-of-the-ussr 1/22

Theoretic elements and the military history of the U.S.S.R.

1.1. Arms race. Arms dynamic. Security dilemma. Balance of power;

1.2. The arming theories;

1.3. The Military History of the U.S.S.R.;

1.4. The Great Purge.

1.1 Arms race. Arms dynamic. Security dilemma. Balance of power

The end of the ancien regime was to bring with it, in the words of its recent

historian, a transformation of warfare as a result of a quantum jump in scale and scope.

The immediate source of this was political change and a new ideology of the state and the

citizen’s relation to it, making available unprecedented reserves of man-power. This

solved what had hitherto been one of the most potent constrains on the practice of

warfare, namely the problem of paying for the armies to go into the field, and resolved

one particular puzzle: the central mystery of politicized conflict is not why wars took

place but how enough men could be found to fight in them.

The pre-1914 attitude towards war as a perfectly normal and acceptable

regulator of the international system and adjunct of the balance of power has been

progressively eroded. War have become more costly and potentially destructive to the

point where the link between the military means and calculable political objectives has

been called into question, especially in the nuclear age. This doesn’t mean that war has

become obsolete. Instead, we have witnessed a shift of emphasis away from the use of

war as a means of political settlement to the threatened use of military instruments in a

deterrence relationship. It is unquestionably the case that military deterrence has operated

throughout the period since 1815 but since 1945 the organization of military forces andthe development of strategic doctrines for their use have much more deliberately and self-

consciously been shaped by deterrence requirements.

In grossly simplified terms, we might describe the historical period so far

considered, of the inter-war years, in the following way. From 1815 to 1854 there was a

stable distribution of power upon which the powers were able to base a successful

5



concert; whereas from 1856 to 1914, while there may well have been periods of

equilibrium, the powers were unable to operate a system in which concert principles

played any significant part. From this perspective, the period 1918 – 1938 represents a

third distinctive form of “international order” in the sense that its dominant features was

an attempt to operate a highly formalized and institutionalized concert system, namely theLeague of Nations, but, as there was a fundamental disequilibrium within the system, the

conditions for concert were not present and the actual practice of states bore little

resemblance to the concert principles formally enshrined in the League1. In other words,

the 1918-39 period may be viewed as having characteristics of both former ages: like

1815-54 there was a collectivist aspiration and an attempt to introduce new diplomatic

norms; like 1856-1914 the powers were thrown back upon their own individual resources

and reverted, almost without exception, to traditional balance devices. [“We might say

that as far as the heart was concerned, the inter-war years shared the sentiments of concert

diplomacy whilst the head dictated a continuance of late-nineteenth-century balance

strategies”.2] The First World War and the settlement that ended it were to have a

profound influence on subsequent international relations. It was in the context of the new

territorial distribution that international relations were to be conducted during the next

two decades.

There is a persuasive consensus that the post-1945 distribution of power

differed in fundamental ways from that which had preceded it. The war severely

weakened the traditional powers of Europe and the defeat of Germany was to be

succeeded by a temporary, and then enduring, partition of the country. Soviet power had

been injected in the heartland of Eastern Europe, at the same time as the United States

emerged as the world’s foremost economic and technological power.

This postwar order was immediately to be shaped by the twin consequences of

the war and the developing Soviet-American antagonism. Whether the order was the

product of aggressive Soviet expansionism or of the dynamic American capitalism, or,

indeed, whether the Cold War was simply the inevitable structural by-product of the

vacuum in postwar Europe, it is certainly the case that more so than in most periods, it

was to be the relationship between two dominant states that was to lead the era its

1 Ian Clark, The hierarchy of states: reform and resistance in the international order, Cambridge University

Press, 1989, p. 1452 Ibidem

6



characteristic features. It is only in this context, and only after 1945 that we can discuss

the concept of “arms racing” between the two superpowers, concept which determined the

future development of the international system.

1.1.1 Arms race

Perhaps the most obvious impact of military evolution on international

relations is the problem widely, but often inaccurately, referred to as “arms racing”. The

term arms’ racing suggests a self-stimulating military rivalry between states in which their

efforts to defend themselves military cause them to enhance the threats they pose to each

other. In other words, given the political condition of anarchy, states are vulnerable to a

type of competition which each other.

There have been several attempts to define arms racing. Steiner, for example,

defines it as “repeated, competitive, and reciprocal adjustments of their war-making

capacities” between “two nations or two sets of nations”3. Huntington defines it as “a

progressive, competitive peacetime increase in armaments by two states or coalitions of

states resulting from conflicting purpose or mutual fear” 4. Bull defines it as “intense

competition between opposed powers or groups of powers, each trying to achieve an

advantage in military power by increasing the quantity or improving the quality of its

armaments or armed forces”5

. In what is the most subtle and well-thought-through

attempt, Gray defines it as “two or more parties perceiving themselves to be in an

adversary relationship, who are increasing or improving their armaments at a rapid rate

and structuring their respective military postures with a general attention to the past,

current, and anticipated military and political behaviour of the other parties ” 6. All these

definitions suggest that arms racing is an abnormally intense condition in relations

between states reflecting either or both of active political rivalry, and mutual fear of the

other’s military potential. The problem with the concept is how to distinguish this

abnormal condition from the normal of self-defence behaviour under conditions of

anarchy.

3 Barry H. Steiner, Arms Races ,Diplomacy, and Recurring. Behaviour: Lessons from Two Cases, Sage

Professional Papers in International Studies, no. 02-013, Beverly Hills, 1973, p.54 Samuel P. Huntington, Arms Races: Prerequisites and Results, Public Policy, VIII, 1958, p.415 Hedley Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1961, p.406 Colin A. Gray, The Arms Race Phenomenon, World Politics, XXIV, 1971a, p. 40

7



Although arms’ racing is a central concept in strategic thinking, ambiguity about

the boundary between normal and abnormal conditions makes it one of the least well

understood, and most widely misused, ideas in the field. The inclination to reject the term

stems partly from the lack of any agreed understanding about what it means, and partly

from the effective politicization of its negative image by those campaigning againstmilitarism. The ambiguity of the term makes it applicable, at a stretch, to the whole

process by which states maintain military capability. Its negative connotations therefore

make it politically useful as a broad brush with which to denigrate the entire process of

national defence. Political usage of the term encourages broad interpretation, and so

makes it difficult to use with any precision even when a concise definition is offered.

Arms races have preceded the last two World Wars, and there are widespread

fears that contemporary race seen to be going on between superpowers is the build-up to a

Third World War. Arms racing is seen as a dangerous phenomenon in which the effects of

individual state policies for military security are cumulatively self-defending for the

security interests of all states. From this perspective, arms racing is not only a

phenomenon in need of study, and a problem in need of remedy, but also s basis for

taking a critical view of the whole strategic approach to international relations.

Regardless of whether one embraces the concept or rejects it, arms racing lies at

the heart of what Strategic Studies is about; the way the instruments of force affect

relations among the states that posses them.

1.1.2 Arms dynamic. Balance of Power.

The idea of a race suggests two or more states strenuously engaged in a

competition to accumulate military strength against each other. It also suggests that

winning is the object of the exercise in terms of one party achieving a decisive change in

the balance of military power 7 . Much of the literature, however, is about the general

process by which states create armed forces and keep their equipment up to date. “The

7 Balance of power , in international relations, the posture and policy of a nation or group of nations

protecting itself against another nation or group of nations by matching its power against the power of the

other side. States can pursue a policy of balance of power in two ways: by increasing their own power, as

when engaging in an armaments race or in the competitive acquisition of territory; or by adding to their own power that of other states, as when embarking upon a policy of alliances. Balance of Power , article from

the Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed February 2011, at the address

[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/473296/blance-of-power]

8



competition involved in this process may not be strenuous, and the objective may not be

decisive victory”8. While these two subjects are clearly related, they are not the same.

Arms racing implies a notably intense process of military competition that contrasts with

whatever passes from normality in military relations between states not at war with each

other. If the term of arms racing is broadened to include all peacetime military relations,then it loses its ability to label abnormally intense military competition. If it is confined to

the narrower meaning, then we need both another term to identify normal military

relations among states, and definitional criteria to clarify the boundary between normal

relations and arms racing.

The temptation to use the broadest meaning also avoids the difficult analytical

problem of distinguishing between normal relations and abnormal ones. The one sound

reason for adopting the broader meaning is that it draws attention to armaments as an

independent global phenomenon. In other words, of we assume as normal an international

system in which independent states possess armed forces with which to pursue political

goals, then we can also say that armaments will have their own pattern of development

within that system. That pattern has a distinctive effect on relations between states: it

interacts with, but is separate from, the other elements that shape international relations.

In what fallows, the term arms dynamic, is used to refer to a whole set of

pressures that make states both acquire armed forces and change the quantity and quality

of the armed forces they already possess. The term is used not only to refer to a general

global process, but also to enquire into the circumstances of particular states or sets of

states. The terms arms racing is reserved for the most extreme manifestations of arms

dynamic, when the pressures are such as to lead states into major competitive expansions

of military capability. The term maintenance of the military status quo is used to express

the normal operations of the arms dynamic. Maintenance of military status quo and arms

racing can be used to describe either the activity of a single state, or the character of a

relationship between two or more states.9

Arms racing and maintenance of the military status quo relate to each other as

extremes of a spectrum. Maintenance of the military status quo can escalate into arms

8Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: the National Security Problem in International Relations,

Harvester, Brighton, 1983, pp. 194-19699

Marek Thee, Military Technology ,Military Strategy and the Arms Race, Croom Helm, London, 1986, Ch.

5

9



racing, and arms racing can subside into maintenance of the military status quo. Between

the two lies a gray area in which the direction of change may be a more appropriate guide

to events than any attempt to locate a given case on one side or the other of some strict

but arbitrary dividing line.

Because arms racing and maintenance of military status quo are manifestationsof the same over-all arms dynamic, they share many characteristics, and differ more in

degree than any kind. On the basis of these definitions, what is needed in order to clarify

the subject is not just a model of arms racing, but a model of the arms dynamic as a

whole. Such a model would have the advantage of retaining the important distinctive

meaning of arms racing, while at the same time opening up the vital issue of armaments

as an independent global phenomenon. It would avoid the vagueness and the political

entanglements of too broad a usage of arms racing.10

Most of the attempts to understand arms racing have been made in terms of

models of the processes that induce states to increase their military strength, but these

models can be applied to the arms dynamic as a whole. Two models dominate the

literature. The first is the classical action-reaction model , which looks for the driving

force of the arms dynamics in the competitive relation between states. The second can be

called the domestic structure model . This seeks to locate the driving force of the arms

dynamic in the internal economic, organizational and politic workings of states. A third

model, the technological imperative, will be added to these. It interprets the arms dynamic

in terms of the general process of qualitative advance in technology. “These three models

are additive rather than mutually exclusive, though the process of establishing the

domestic structure model in the face of action-reaction orthodoxy produced some attacks

and defences that come close to casting the two in a mutually exclusive light”11.

1.2. The arming theories

1.2.1. The Action-Reaction Model. Security dilemma.

10 Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Military Technology & International Relations, the

Macmillan Press, London, 1987, p.7411 Graham Allison and Frederic Morris, Armaments and Arms Control: Exploring the Determinants of

Military Weapons, Daedalus, CIV, 1975

Miroslav Nincic, The Arms Race: The Political Economy of Military Growth , Praeger, New York, 1982,

chs. 2-3

10



The action-reaction model is the classical view of arms racing, and provides the

basis for the metaphor of a race. Most attempts to define arms racing are rooted in it.

The basic position of the action-reaction model is that states strengthen their armaments

because of the threats they perceive from other states. The theory implicit in the model

explains the arms dynamic as driven primarily by factors external to the state. “An action by any state to increase its military strength will raise the level of threat seen by other

states and cause them to react by increasing their own strength”12. In theory this process

also works in reverse. If states are driven to arms by external threats, then domestic

economic pressures to apply resources to other items on political agenda should lead them

to disarm in proportion to reductions in military capability by others.

The realist theory posits something like an international market in military

strength. States will arm themselves either to seek security against the threats posed by

others, or to increase their power to achieve political objectives against the interests of

others. Balances will struck at higher or lower levels of armaments depending on how

willing states are to drive up the price of achieving military security.

The action-reaction model does not depend on the process by which

technological innovation causes continuous improvement in military technology. But if

such innovation exists, it certainly becomes part of the action-reaction dynamic. Even if

the quality of military technology was static, and eventually distributed in the

international system, the action-reaction process could still be the mechanism by which

states competed militarily in purely quantitative terms. Increases in the number of soldiers

or battleships in one state would still create pressure for responsive increases in other

states. For this reason, action-reaction model can more easily applied than the other two to

cases that occurred before the onset of industrial revolution.13

The model stems primarily from the anarchic political structure of the

international system: each state is a potential threat to others, and so each has to take

measures to ensure its own survival, independence and welfare against encroachments by

others. Anarchy at the level of international system is therefore a form of political relation

that tends to produce military competition among states along action-reaction lines. When

the competition reflects a power struggle between states, as before both recent world

wars, it can be intense and highly focused. Power struggles usually reflect an attempt by

12 George W. Rathjens, The Dynamics of Arms Race, in Herbert York (ed.), Freeman, San Francisco, 197313 C.B. Joynt, Arms Races and the Problem of Equilibrium, Yearbook of World Affairs, 1964, pp. 24-25

11



one or more states to increase their influence and control in the international system at the

expense of others already well entrenched. They are thus likely to produce arms races in

which the revisionist states hope to change their status either by winning the race without

fighting, or by building up their military strength for a war with the status quo powers.

For maintenance of the military status quo as for arms racing, action-reaction expressesitself not only in the size of armed forces, but also in the type of forces acquired, and the

level of concern about modernization and readiness for combat.14

The realist model therefore applies to the arms dynamic as a whole. One can see

it working in specific cases like the Anglo-German naval race; and one can see it working

more generally in the international system, where the insecurity of life in the anarchy

requires states to maintain armed forces at a level heavily influenced by the strength of

other states. In reality, there is considerable blending of power and security motives in the

behaviour of states. Most military instruments can be used for offensive as well as

defensive purposes. It is therefore difficult for any state to distinguish between measures

other states take to defend themselves and measures they may be taking to increase their

capability for aggression. Because the consequences of being wrong may be very severe,

the dictates of prudence pressure each state to adjust its own military measures in

response to a worst-case view of the measures taken by others. Since each adjustment is

seen by other states as a possible threat, even a system in which all states seek only their

own defence will tend to produce competitive accumulations of military strength.

The set of circumstances that produces this tendency is known as the security

dilemma15. It is a dilemma because states cannot easily take measures to strengthen their

own security without making others feel less secure. If others feel less secure they will

take countermeasures that will negate the measures taken by the first state. That state in

turn will feel pressured to restore its preferred ratio of strength by further increases in its

own armaments. The logic of the security dilemma is thus closely related to that of the

action-reaction model.

The idea of the realist theory is simple, but its operation in practice is complex.

The model illustrates the conceptual simplicity. It contains two states A and B. A starts

the process by increasing its strength by adding X men to its army. B perceives this as a

14 Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Military Technology & International Relations,the

Macmillan Press, London, 1987, p.7815 Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: the National Security Problem in International Relations,

Harvester, Brighton, 1983

12



threat, and reacts by increasing the size of its own army, perhaps by adding more that X

men if it sees A’s move as raising the probability of war. A can either accept the new

balance at the now higher level of armament, or react to B’s increase with a further

increase of its own. The pattern repeats until one side gives up, or a new balance

acceptable to both is reached, or the issue is resolved by war. In this model there is a clear initiator (A), an uncomplicated two-party relationship (A and B), a clear and similar

idiom that is the same on both sides (numbers of men), and a clearly differentiated

sequence of moves (A, then B, then A). The model says little about motives other than

that each side feels threatened by other. Neither does it indicate whether the two actors are

aware of, and seeking to control, the process in which they are engaged.16

The specific details of the action-reaction process between states may be

difficult to identify. This point needs to be considered in detail, because the validity of the

action-reaction model is widely questioned on the grounds that its specific process is

often difficult to see in relations between the superpowers. First the idiom of action and

reaction will be examined: that is to say, the types of action that states can take within the

process. Then other variables in the pattern of response can be identified, particularly

magnitude, timing, and the awareness of the actors of the process in which they are

engaged. Finally, it is necessary to look at the motives of the actors, which can have a

considerable influence on the other variables in the action-reaction process. The action-

reaction model is the best place to consider motives, because it is the one in which the

conscience behaviour of actors is given the largest scope. Both the domestic structure and

the technological imperative models are more structural in orientation. They give greater

weight to the movement of large events by a myriad of uncoordinated, incremental

actions in the layers of social and political organization below the top political leadership.

1.2.2 The domestic structure model

The domestic structure model (also called the institutional imperative model)

rests on the idea that the arms dynamics is generated by forces within the state. It is, in an

important sense, derived from, and complementary to, the action-reaction model. It

functions as an alternative to it only in the sense that the two models complete for

16 Ibidem, An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Military Technology & International Relations,the

Macmillan Press, London, 1987, p.87

13



primacy of place in ability to explain observed behaviour within the arms dynamic. In a

narrow sense, the literature on the domestic structure model in quite new, dating from the

1970s, and the failure of the action-reaction model adequately to explain what goes on

between the superpowers. In a border sense, however, “it is simply an extension of the

longstanding tradition that seeks to explain the behaviour of states primarily in terms of their domestic structure and affairs”17.

The proponents of the domestic structure model do not argue that the rivalry

between the superpowers has become irrelevant, but that the process of the arms dynamic

has become so deeply institutionalized within each state that domestic factors largely

supplant the crude forms of action and reaction as the main engine of the arms dynamic.

The external factor of rivalry still provides the necessary motivation for the arms

dynamic. But when ‘reactions’ are anticipatory, the particularities of military funding,

procurement and technology are largely determined from within the state. The interesting

question about this model is therefore not whether it is better than the action-reaction

model in some general sense, but what proportion of behaviour each model explains for

any given case. What structures and mechanisms within the state become the carries of

the arms dynamic?18

This view of the domestic structure model fits nicely into the historically unusual

character of the superpower arms race. It is hard to imagine that any state finding itself

locked into a long-term rivalry would not adjust its internal structures to account for the

rivalry as a durable issue. On this basis, there is every reason to think that

institutionalization, and therefore internalization, is a natural function of longevity in an

arms race. Unfortunately we have too few cases to put this hypothesis to the test. An

additional factor encouraging internalization is the emphasis on deterrence motives in the

superpower rivalry. Deterrence requires forces in being, which in turn generate large

organizations with military interests as permanent actors within domestic politics.

Most of the studies that support the domestic structure model focus on the case

of the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. This is partly a matter of

priority, because of the intrinsic importance of the superpower case. It is by default,

17Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, State, and War , Columbia University Press, New York, 195918 Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Military Technology & International Relations,the

Macmillan Press, London, 1987, p. 94

14



because information from other cases is harder to come by, though at least one author

looks at the European states19.

The American case of domestic structure model, illustrated by its rivalry with

the Soviet Union, offers a whole range of factors to explain the arms dynamic. The

principal ones are: the institutionalization of military research, development and production; bureaucratic politics; economic management; and domestic politics.

The institutionalization of military research and development (R&D) plays a

major role in the domestic structure model. What makes it distinctive within the domestic

structure model is the measures that states take when the rhythm of technological

development forces them to take a long view of military procurement. As Pearton argues,

the increasing involvement of the state in military R&D is a historical trend that began to

gather force in the nineteenth century and culminated in the symbiosis of state and science

in the nuclear age.20 In the modern era, military technology is so capital intensive, and

takes so long to develop, that any state wishing to remain at the leading edge has no

choice but to create, or encourage, a permanent R&D establishment.

On 17 January 1961 the retiring US President Dwight D. Eisenhower said the

following in his farewell speech21:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments

industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords

as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we

have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the

defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income

of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms

industry is new in the American experience. The total influence –– economic, political,

even spiritual –– is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal

government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail

19 Hans Rattinger, Armaments, Detente, Bureaucracy: The Case of the Arms Race in Europe, Journal of

Conflict Resolution, XIX, 197520 Maurice Perton, The Knowledgeable State: Diplomacy, War and Technology since 1830, Burnett Books,

London, 198221 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Public papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower , vol.

8, Washington, DC: US GPO, 1961.

15



to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved;

so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of

unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.From these beginnings the idea of the military–industrial complex was developed

in various directions, but the common thread was of a coalition, sometimes even a

conspiracy, among military and industrial interests and political representatives to lobby

for lucrative weapons programmes so as to extract rents from the political process.22

The term military-industrial complex can also refer to the physical location of

military production. Military spending creates spatial concentrations of prime contractors,

subcontractors, consultants, universities, skilled workers, and government installations, all

of which are devoted to research and development on, or the manufacture of, military

systems and technologies. National governments often created such complexes in

locations without a history of industrial production by underwriting massive migrations of

skilled labour, and the areas came to resemble company towns that provided not only jobs

but also housing, health care, and schools to workers and their families. The need to

preserve this infrastructure can contribute to political pressure to maintain or increase

military spending. Indeed, sometimes governments have chosen to continue funding

weapons systems that branches of the military have deemed obsolete, in order to preserve

the communities that are economically dependent on their production (e.g., the B-2

bomber and the Seawolf submarine in the United States).23

One use of the term MIC refers to any set of relationships between military policy

and industrial production. For example, scholars have examined the MIC in the former

Soviet Union and in Latin American countries. Their concern is usually with the recipro-

cal influence of the military and industry on each other's policies, rather than the hijacking

of foreign policy by a collective interest in maintaining military-related production.

A second generic meaning focuses on the historical relationship between sections

of industry and the military in the United States. A central concern in this literature is

profiteering by industry, especially during wartime production. In this use of the word,

22 Steven Rosen, Testing the Theory of the Military–Industrial Complex, in Steven Rosen, ed., Testing the

Theory of the Military–Industrial Complex, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1973, p.323 Rachel N. Weber, Military-Industrial Complex, Article from the Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed April

2011, at the address [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/382349/military-industrial-complex]

16

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/499010/research-and-development


http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/258213/health-care

http://www.britannica.com/bps/user-profile/6062/Rachel-N.-Weber



http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/382349/military-industrial-complex


http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/382349/military-industrial-complex


http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/258213/health-care



specific armed services are more interested in ensuring friendly and stable relations with

suppliers than in obtaining fair prices. The term is also used anachronistically to refer to

the 'merchants of death' debates in the 1930s over the alleged conspiracy of arms manu-

facturers and bankers for U.S. intervention in the World War I. In these cases, there is no

complex of military-industry at work. Instead, industry employs bribery and propagandato increase profits and alter government policy.24

1.2.3 The technological imperative model

The technological imperative model derives in a large part from the material on

the technological revolution. It can therefore be presented here quite briefly. The reason

for posing a third model is not to offer an alternative to the other two, but to identify a

fundamentally independent element of arms dynamic that is not fully captured by either

action-reaction or domestic structure. That element is the qualitative evolution of

technology as a whole. As has been argued already, military technology is not separable

from the knowledge and technique that underlie the larger body of civil technology. At

most, it represents a distinctive and specialized sector within that larger body, albeit one

that is often located at the leading edge of qualitative advance in many areas of

engineering, materials development, and electronics.

Although the leading-edge position of military technology gives it some

influence over the shape and timing of technological advance, the military sector cannot

outrun, or detach itself from, the shape and pace of the whole. In other words, it is just as

true to say that the military sector is an offshoot of the civil one, as it is to argue the

reverse. The fact that both propositions are true underlines the intimacy of the linkage.

Indeed, expect at the highest levels of specialization, it is hard to locate major dividing

boundaries between the civil and military sectors, and it is not always clear in the early

stages of development whether a technology will have military application. In some cases,

developments in the civil sector lead those in the military. Historical examples here

include motor vehicles, metal ships, and the early phases of aircraft. In other cases,

military purposes lead, as with the development of rockets, radar, nuclear power and the

later evolution of aircraft. In yet other cases, such as computers, lasers and

24 Christopher Ball, What Is the Military-Industrial Complex?, The History News Network , 2002, accessed

April 2011, at the address [http://hnn.us/articles/869.html]

17

http://hnn.us/articles/869.html

http://hnn.us/articles/869.html



telecommunications, civil and military pressure for development are both strong, with

neither being a clear leader. Almost all of the major military technologies have close links

to those in the civil sector regardless of which leads. It does not seem credible to argue

that unless bombers, tanks, missiles and nuclear weapons had come first, the civil sector

of industrial society would not have developed automobiles, passenger aircraft, satellitelaunchers or nuclear reactors.25

This linkage is important to the arms dynamic for two reasons: first because it

means that a large element of the pressure for qualitative technological advance is not

located in the military sector; and secondly, because it means that military sector cannot

escape the implications of a relentless qualitative advance over which it has only partial

control. Deborah Shapley colorfully characterizes this relentless advance as “technology

creep”26. One way of looking at the technological imperative as a main input into the arms

dynamic is in terms of the idea that all industrial societies have a latent military potential.

If we assume a disarmed major industrial country in which no military sector exists, there

would still be a powerful industrial technology, and an institutionalized process of

qualitative advance. If that country had to arm itself for some reason, a set of military

applications would quickly come forth from the existing technological and industrial

base.

One cannot evade the fact that there is a general process of technological

advance that is only partially driven by the military, but which has profound military

implications. This process is probably strongest in capitalist societies because of their

commitment to technological innovation as an engine of economic growth. Sustained

growth not only means higher profits, but also makes easier the job of managing politics

in the presence of a markedly unequal distribution of wealth. Even in non-capitalist

industrial societies, however, there is a deeply embedded commitment to the pursuit of

technological innovation for civil purpose.

Defining technological change as an independent variable exposes a major

component of the arms dynamic that is not covered by the other two models. Neither the

action-reaction process, nor the institutionalization of military research and development

(R&D) within the domestic structure of states, explains more than a fraction of the

25 Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Military Technology & International Relations,

Macmillan Press, London, 1987, p. 105-10626 Deborah Shapley, Technology Creep and the Arms Race, Science, 1978

18



qualitative advance that is such a major feature of the arms dynamic. The stimulus of

international rivalry, and the permanent organization of military R&D, certainly

contribute to the process of technological advance. They increase the amount of resources

available to fuel the process, and they select areas of military utility for intensive

development. These are important considerations that make a major impact on the whole pattern. Their contribution is easily sufficient to justify the other two models, but they do

not set the basic rhythm that determines the march of technology. By themselves they

cannot offer more than a partial explanation for the arms dynamic that we observe. A

large percentage of that behavior that is commonly identified as arms racing stems

directly from the underlying process of technological advance. When countries compete

whit each other in armaments, they must also compete with a standard of technological

quality that is moving forward by an independent process of its own.

The technological imperative model provides a depth of view that is all too often

lacking about arms racing. The idea of a world military order also contains elements of

the technological imperative model. It draws attention to the arms dynamic as a global

phenomenon in which all countries are caught in a worldwide pattern of military forms

and standards determined by the doctrines, styles, and technologies of the major arms

producers. By focusing narrowly on military technology as a thing in itself, however,

most purveyors of this useful view underplay the profound links that the phenomenon

they observe have to the larger pattern of technology as a whole. 27

Incorporating the technological imperative model into our understanding of the

arms dynamic produces a fully balanced view of arms racing. Adding in a massive current

of independent technological advance to the other two models creates a sense of

continuous process that is more deeply institutionalized even than that of the domestic

structure model. This depth stems from the fact that the technological imperative is based

globally rather than within single states, and because it relates to the totally of technology

rather than to the military sector alone.28

1.3 The Military History of the U.S.S.R.

27 Marek Thee, Military Technology. Military Strategy and the Arms Race, Croom Helm, London, 198628 Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Military Technology & International Relations,

Macmillan Press, London, 1987, p. 108

19



There are themes running throughout the military history of Russia and the Soviet

Union that go back to the days when Mongols in the thirteenth century threatened Mother

Russia. The first of this has been geography. From the late nineteenth century to the

advent of the Commonwealth of Independent States (the CIS), Russia has stretched from

Europe and the Baltic Sea in the west to the Bering Strait in the east. From north to southit extends from the Arctic tundra and forests to the Muslim mountain barrier ala long the

borders from the Black Sea to China29.

“Emerging in the nineteenth century, movements for revolution in Russia

produced political values, beliefs, and symbols that formed part of the political landscape

in which the foreign policy of the late tsarist period was devised. The distinctive features

of this revolutionary tradition not only helped to shape the foreign policy of the Soviet

period of Russian history, but also they live on today by virtue of their importance in the

political socialization of the current leadership of democratic Russia. This inheritance not

only the ideas of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and others who shaped the Marxist-Leninist

ideology, but also the political experiences and traditions of the Russian intelligentsia in

the nineteenth century, which formed the distinctive environment from which Lenin’s

Bolsheviks emerged. The main feature of this environment was autocracy: unrestrained

political power in the hands of the tsar, wielded through a strong centralized bureaucracy

and augmented by the secret police, and an economy and social order controlled by the

state.”30

The Russian leaders had always suffered of an old fear, with very deep roots, that

their country was vulnerable to invasions; in their vision, the best way to solve this

problem consisted of the expansion of Russia’s frontiers. Unsurprisingly, the Russian

thinking on foreign policy, even before the Bolshevik revolution, was motivated basically

by the realist thinking.

The 1917 Revolutions that truly did alter the political, economic, social and ideo-

logical milieu, were another case of continuity and change. The old wars ended, but the

new imperialist enemy arose and was fought by the armed services still officered by many

tsarists and still manned by the peoples of Russia, now united in the Union of Soviet So-

cialist Republics. Under state direction and control, resources were mobilized for the pre-

29 Article from The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, accessed

February 2011, at the address [http://www.russianarchives.com/archives/hoover/index.html]30 Robert H. Donaldson, Joseph L. Nogee, The Foreign Policy of Russia: Changing Systems, Enduring

Interests, M.E. Sharpe, 2009, p. 34

20

http://www.russianarchives.com/archives/hoover/index.html

http://www.russianarchives.com/archives/hoover/index.html



dicted showdown with the capitalists. In particular, Soviet military industries received a

great deal of emphasis in the early “Five Years Plans” that aimed, above all, to provide

the military-industrial basis for large-scale conflict.

The imperial army and navy disintegrated after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Although the Bolsheviks quickly signed a peace treaty with Germany, there was soon aneed for a military force to defend the new state against the anticommunist Whites in

what became a bloody, three-year civil war. In April 1918, the Red Army was established

when the Soviet government announced compulsory military service for peasants and

workers. The army's chief organizer was Leon Trotsky, the new nation's first commissar

of war (1918-24); Trotsky's initial officer cadre was made up of about 50,000 former

tsarist officers. Trotsky was able to mold his peasant and worker recruits into an effective

force that eventually prevailed over five separate White armies, with the benefit of access

to Russia's industrial heartland and concentrated lines of supply and communications. Un-

der Trotsky, political officers were attached to all military units to ensure the loyalty of all

individuals-a practice that persisted throughout the Soviet era.

The setting up of the Frunze Academy and other higher military educational insti-

tutes, however, did show that the Russians understood better, perhaps, than anyone but

the Germans of the interwar years, the need to shift from Victorian concepts of progress

to modern ones of management. This could clearly be seen in Stalin’s much-maligned

Five-Year Plans, a proper grand-strategic tool. Both Stalin and his predecessors obscured

their leadership talents with their ruthless violation of human rights for raison d’etat . So

in reality, while other states stumbled through the post-1918 depression, Russia began to

set her house in order and was a decade ahead of Hitler’s Germany and Roosevelt’s Unit-

ed States, and contemporary with Mussolini’s Italy. Soviet armor, air, and naval forces

were on the road, in spite of setbacks in Spain (1938) and Finland (1940), to go success-

fully on the offensive against the Third Reich in 1942.

So conscious were the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotskii of the need to be able

to defeat enemies real or imagined, that they created a fortress state that Stalin inherited

and managed as his sacred trust. The USSR needed external enemies such as Poland up to

1920 and internal ones, as in the Civil War of the 1920s, and in the purges of the armed

forces beginning in 1937. Some of this cleansings were required for the safety of the state

and some because it was necessary to retire the ineffective. But the conspirators of the

21



Russian and Soviet state once in power always knew that others could follow in their

footsteps-and were determined to use whatever methods, however brutal, to prevent that.

When the Civil War ended in 1921, General Mikhail Tukhachevskiy led an exten-

sive program of reorganization and equipment modernization; he also established several

military schools. In the first fifteen years of the Red Army, communist party membershipincreased rapidly among the enlisted ranks and, especially, among the officer corps. By

the mid-1930s, training schools and academies had turned out a generation of young offi-

cers and noncommissioned officers with strong political indoctrination, thus ensuring the

ideological loyalty of the entire armed forces. Beginning in 1931, Tukhachevsky began a

large-scale rearmament program based on the industrial development of the five-year

plans, and the armed forces and their supplies of equipment were enlarged greatly as the

shadow of war began falling over Europe in the mid-1930s.

In 1937 the purges instigated by Joseph V. Stalin (in office 1927-53) reached the

army. Tukhachevsky, now first deputy commissar of war, was executed for treason to-

gether with seven top generals. As many as 30,000 other officers were imprisoned or dis-

missed, leaving the Red Army without experienced commanders at the end of the 1930s.

The first campaign that revealed this weakness was the so-called Winter War against Fin-

land (1939-40), in which an estimated 100,000 troops of the Red Army died while defeat-

ing a small Finnish army.

Although the Nazi invasion of 1941 drove far into the Russian interior to threaten

Leningrad and Moscow, a new generation of officers gradually asserted themselves as the

Germans were driven from Russian territory in 1943 and 1944 after the climactic Battle of

Stalingrad. A crucial event in that turnaround was Stalin's removal of political officers

having parallel command authority, allowing his top officers to exercise military judg-

ment independent of ideological concerns.

The most important Russian military leader of World War II was Marshal Georgy

Zhukov, who was instrumental at four key points of Soviet resistance: the siege of

Leningrad; the defense of Moscow, the first point at which the German advance was

stopped; the Battle of Stalingrad (February 1943); and the Battle of Kursk (July 1943), in

which the last strong German counteroffensive was defeated. Zhukov also commanded

the final push against the German armies across Belorussia, Ukraine, and Poland. In April

22



1945, Zhukov led the Red Army's final assault on Berlin that ended what Russians called

the Great Patriotic War.

By the end of World War II, the Soviet armed forces had swelled to about 11.4

million officers and soldiers, and the military had suffered about 7 million deaths. At that

point, this force was recognized as the most powerful military in the world. In 1946 theRed Army was redesignated as the Soviet army, and by 1950 demobilization had reduced

the total active armed forces to about 3 million troops. From the late 1940s to the late

1960s, the Soviet armed forces focused on adapting to the changed nature of warfare in

the era of nuclear arms and on achieving parity with the United States in strategic nuclear

weapons.

1.4 The Great Purge-“terror as a system of power”

"Terror is the linchpin of modern totalitarianism. What distinguishes twentieth-

century totalitarianism from earlier patterns of more primitive dictatorship is not the use

of terror and secret police as instruments of control but rather their high development as

an organized system of power.[…] The large-scale organizational rationalization of the

totalitarian terror machine introduces a new dimension of cold-blooded efficiency and

calculated violence in comparison with which even the Jacobin terror takes on the

character of chaotic Jacquerie.”31

The use of totalitarian terror has its own theoretical justification, and the role of

terror in Communist ideology represents a significant example, where violence is

accepted as implicit in the class struggle. As Lenin said in defending the dissolution of the

Constituent Assembly: “violence when it is committed by the toiling and exploited

masses is the kind of violence of which we approve.”32

Merle Fainsod said that the rationalization of terror, in the Soviet context,

embraces two propositions. The first emphasizes the safety of the Revolution as the

supreme law; the second emphasizes the intransigence of the enemies of the Revolution,

the necessity of crushing them completely if the Revolution itself is not to be destroyed.33

31 Merle Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled , Oxford University Press, London, 1953, p. 35432 Vladimir Lenin, Dokland o Deytel’nost; Soveta Marandnykh Komissarov 24/11, Yanvarya 1918-Report

on Avtivities of the Council of People’s Commissars, January 11/24, 1918, Sachineniya, XXII, 208.33 Ibidem

23



If these were the premises based on which Lenin legitimated the use of violence,

the real meaning of Stalin’s theory of Soviet terror was revealed just after the Great

Purge; under the pretexts of counterrevolutions and foreign espionage, Stalin made sure to

exterminate every real or potential obstacles that might stood in the way of his plans.

Like other totalitarian states, the effectiveness and authority of the Soviet staterelied, to a far degree, on a large party apparatus, which was always faced with concerns

over the quality of its staff. “In the early 1930s this would combine with Stalin’s

relentless need to manage and control, as well as a growing suspiciousness on his part

toward certain section of the party bureaucracy”34, and would result in what was later to

be named as the Great Purge or the Great Terror.

Somewhat “fortunately” for Stalin, the Bolsheviks had in the party purge a

relatively institutionalized mechanism, since 1919 there had been applied nationally at

intervals of two, three years and they were, somehow, a characteristic of Communist

Party life. But in the past they were taken out as “membership screening exercises”, but

from 1933 the purges were turned against the party apparatus itself.

If in 1919, the purge mechanism started lightly with the screening of the party

members, verification of documentation, and just after fallowed more drastically

procedures such as arrests, imprisonment in forced work labor champs or deportations,

and it was targeting mostly the peasantry (the kulaks). In the 1939s it shifted the attention

on the Party members, especially on the Left wing of the Party, the Old Bolshevik Guard,

Mensheviks, and later Red Army generals, NKVD35 former and current members, and so

on. To have them removed, all sorts of charges were dropped, they were accused of

plotting the forcible overthrown of the Soviet government with the aid of Germany and

Japan, with planning the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, carrying espionage,

wrecking, diversive, and terrorist activities on behalf of foreign states.

The accused were arrested, imprisoned, trialed (open/public trials for those who

were willing to admit their guilt), and executed. Even thought the great majority,

including all the military leaders, were tried in camera, maybe because they didn’t give in

despite the pressure to which they were exposed, and they couldn’t be persuaded to

confess publicly to the crimes with which they were charged, prior to the execution ,there

34 Michael Geyer , Sheila Fitzpatrick , Beyond Totalitarianism. Stalinism and Nazism Compared , Cambridge

University Press, 2009, p. 6735 NKVD-People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs

24

http://www.google.ro/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Michael+Geyer%22

http://www.google.ro/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Sheila+Fitzpatrick%22





were some accused who confessed their guilt in open court by admitting false accusations

and gave prearranged testimonies.36

The history and development of the Great Purge can be divided into three periods.

The first dates from the assassination of Sergey Kirov, until the removal of Yogada as

head of the NKVD in late September 1936. In this period, it seems that Stalin wasdetermined to terminate all ties and relations with the Left, and while the victims were by

no means confined to Old Bolsheviks, those who were suspected of supporting Trotsky or

Zinoviev, they represented a primary target. One of the first signals of the violent

outcome of the purge was given by three key "show trials" between 1936 and 1938, in

which leaders such as Lev Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, and Grigori Zinoviev were

accused of complicity in Kirov's murder and conspiring with Trotskyite and "rightist"

elements to undermine communism in the USSR. The evidence presented against the

accused was almost nonexistent, convictions relying on confessions extracted through

torture and threats against family members. But convictions there were, and most of the

Bolshevik "old guard" was sentenced to death or long terms of imprisonment.37

The rapid pace of increasing terror was shown in the second period, which

extended from late September 1936, when Yezhov (Soviet citizens often referred to the

Great Terror as the Yezhovshchina, "the times of Yezhov.") was appointed head of the

NKVD, until the end of July 1938. In this period, among those arrested, imprisoned and

executed were a substantial proportion of the leading figures of the Party and

governmental hierarchy. The Bolshevik Old Guard was destroyed and not only, but the

majority of the members and candidates of the Party Central Committee disappeared-they

were suspected by Stalin that they were plotting to murder the top Party leadership and

seize power themselves.38

The Purge swept through every category of Soviet citizens, from Party members,

Red Army members-in June, 1937, Mikhail Tukhachevsky and seven other top Red

Army commanders were charged with conspiracy with Germany. All eight were

convicted and executed. All told, 30.000 members of the armed forces were executed-,

trade-union apparatus, scholars, engineers and scientist; average citizens found

themselves being accused and arrested because of their “objective characteristics”-Old

36 Merle Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled , Oxford University Press, London, 1953, Chapter 13.37 Ibidem38 The Great Purge, article accessed March 2011, at the address

[http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpurge.htm]

25

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSred.htm



http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpurge.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpurge.htm





Bolsheviks, Red Partisans, foreign Communist of German, Austrian, and Polish

extractions, Soviet citizens who had been abroad or had relations with foreign countries,

were all automatically considered threats, and were arrested by the NKVD.

The final stage of the Great Purge represented the turning around of the table: the

purgers became the purged. The last stage of the terror was the purging of the NKVD.Stalin wanted to make sure that those who knew too much about the purges would also be

killed. Stalin announced to the country that "fascist elements" had taken over the security

forces which had resulted in innocent people being executed. He appointed Lavrenti Beria

as the new head of the Secret Police and he was instructed to find out who was

responsible. After his investigations, Beria arranged the executions of all the senior

figures in the organization.39

“The purge paradoxically fostered a new, more stable and centralized leadership

system. The central government, the military, the regional and republican leadership, and

the economic infrastructure had all been chastened. At every summit of the system, the

immediate prewar years may be the high water mark of Stalin’s dictatorship. Having five

members of the Politburo arrested and executed, Stalin put in their place a new generation

of young leaders, all known for their work qualities, who had played no role during the

revolution and who owed their rise entirely to him.”40

39 Ibidem.40 Michael Geyer , Sheila Fitzpatrick , Beyond Totalitarianism. Stalinism and Nazism Compared , Cambridge

University Press, 2009, p. 70.

26





Theoretic elements and the military history of the U.S.S.R.

Documents

Transcript of Theoretic elements and the military history of the U.S.S.R.