The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union

A History

David M. Glantz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781135190057
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia militar y marítima

Armed revolution and civil war gave birth to the Soviet Union, world War II propelled it to global pre-eminence, and the Cold War contributed to the Soviet Union's demise. Given Marxism-Leninism's idological preoccupation with war and threats of war, it is understandable that the spectre of war should play a vital role in the life and fate of the Soviet state.This study of Soviet military strategy is based upon the twin pillars of Soviet political-military actions and Soviet writings on the subject of military strategy. Thanks to the policy of glasnost, it incorporates Soviet materials hitherto unavailable in the West. It aims to be not simply a retrospective account of what was, but to form part of the context for what will be in the future.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Since the formation of the Soviet state, the concept of military strategy (voennaia strategiia) has occupied a dominant position in the intellectual framework the Soviets use to explain the nature and content of war. In their view military strategy is the highest realm of military art (voennoe iskusstvo) "encompassing the theory and practice of preparing a country and its armed forces for war and of planning for and conducting war and strategic operations". Within the context of national and military policy, military strategy investigates the laws, mechanisms, and strategic nature of war and methods used to conduct it, and works out theoretical bases for planning, preparing for, and conducting war and strategic operations.¹

In a practical sense, military strategy:

• - determines the strategic missions of the armed forces and the manpower and resources necessary to accomplish these missions;
• - formulates and implements measures to prepare the armed forces, theaters of military operations, national economy, and civilian population for war;
• - plans war and strategic operations;
• - organizes the deployment of the armed forces and their guidance during the conduct of strategic-scale operations; and
• - studies the capabilities of probable enemies to wage war and conduct strategic operations.

The Western concept of national strategy approximates what the Soviets refer to as policy (politika), which they have, until now, defined as a class-derived, party-oriented, and historically predetermined concept related to the organic evolution of class and, hence, state relations. The Soviets recognize the unique realm of military policy (voennaia politika) as "the relations and activities of classes, governments, parties, and other social-political institutions, directly connected with the creation of military organizations and the use of means of armed force for the achievement of political ends".² Military policy "by its essence and content represents a distinct limited component of the general policy of classes and governments".³ Military policy receives concrete expression in military doctrine and military strategy. The Soviets claim their military policy and the derivative fields of military doctrine and military strategy reflect the unique policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although this may change in the future.

While policy determines the goals and means of statecraft, military policy governs the use of the nation's armed forces within the context of general state policy. In its turn:

military strategy is closely interlinked with policy, emanating from it and serving it. . . . This interdependence is produced by the nature of war as a continuation of the policy of classes and states by forceful means. The chief role of policy with respect to military strategy lies in the fact that policy elaborates the objectives of war, defines the methods to be used to conduct it, assigns military strategy its tasks, and creates the conditions required for their accomplishment, mobilizing the materials and human resources necessary to meet the needs of war."⁴

Thus, military strategy reflects the political aims and policies of the state as well as its economic and socio-political character. Conversely, military strategy in peacetime and wartime "exerts an inverse influence on policy".⁵ As such, strategy also reflects military doctrine, whose tenets guide strategy in the fulfillment of practical tasks and are grounded upon the data of military science. Military strategy provides a framework for operational art and tactics, the other components of military art, and exploits the capabilities of operational art and tactics to convert operational and tactical successes into strategic success — the achievement of strategic aims.

Strategic force posture is the peacetime manifestation of military strategy and facilitates transition of the Soviet Armed Forces from peace to war. Force posture embraces active forces and forces which can be mobilized in time of crisis or war, and it provides the fundamental basis for deployment (razvertyvanie) of the armed forces prior to and during war. In essence, armed forces deployment encompasses the creation of armed forces groupings to conduct war and operations.⁶ The Soviets consider the most basic and important level of armed forces deployment to be strategic - that is deployments in accordance with strategic plans.

Strategic deployment (strategicheskie razvertyvanie) consists of a series of interrelated issues, the most important of which are the following:

• - transition of the armed forces from a peacetime to a wartime footing;
• - concentration of forces on selective strategic axes (directions -napravlenie);
• - operational deployment of forces to required wartime locations;
• - deployment of "the rear" (rear services).⁷

Strategic deployment has "traditionally" been expressed in peacetime by Soviet force generation (mobilization) systems and in wartime by the creation of strategic echelons. Force generation involves the distinct and varied processes either for manning the force during transition from peace through crisis to war (mobilization) and, conversely, for shrinking the force in transition from war or crisis to peace (demobilization). Strategic echelonment permits phased generation and application of military forces in combat on a geographical basis. Strategic echelonment embraces all Soviet armed forces designated to perform strategic missions and achieve strategic objectives. It normally consists of two echelons and a reserve, each assigned a specific function.⁸

The first strategic echelon includes formations of all types of forces charged with conducting initial operations during the initial period of war. The initial period of war (nachal'nyi period voiny), by Soviet definition, is "the time, in the course of which, warring states conduct combat operations with armed forces groupings deployed before the beginning of war, to achieve immediate strategic aims at the start of war or to create favorable conditions for the introduction into the war of main forces and to conduct subsequent operations".⁹

Throughout the initial period of war, states conduct strategic deployment of their armed forces, mobilize their economies for war, and negotiate with potential allies as well as the enemy to improve their international position. The Soviets identified and defined the term during the 1920s, and it has been a focal point of Soviet military strategy since. It has, in fact, become a major subtopic in Soviet study of future war. Throughout the subsequent years, the duration of the initial period of war has varied from several weeks to several months.

The second strategic echelon consists of formations located or forming within the depth of the state as well as other newly-formed units created throughout the state over time. The strategic reserves include existing or mobilizable additional forces and materiel available to the High Command. The strategic second echelon and reserve serve the function of strengthening (narashchivanie) the state's armed force, permitting it to make the transition from initial to subsequent strategic operations.

Soviet military strategy, strategic force posture, and the related concepts of armed forces deployment, strategic deployment, force generation, and strategic echelonment all directly reflect the threat as defined by Soviet political authorities. As such, these strategic issues have evolved and will continue to evolve in accordance with existing or predicted political, economic, social, and military realities of the time.

Chapter 2
The Civil War and Military Intervention (1917–1921)

Military Policy

In the chaotic, uncertain days following the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, the Red Army was born, and with it Marxist-Leninist military policy and doctrine. Policy and doctrine matured during the Civil War years, when internal struggle and foreign intervention threatened the fledgeling Bolshevik regime's existence. The Bolshevik Party maintained close control over political power and, understanding the political realities, also seized a commanding position in the formulation of official military policy. V. I. Lenin was the chief interpreter of Marxism, and the new Marxist-Leninist theory encompassed all aspects of man's existence, especially the relationship between statecraft and military power.

Lenin's voluminous theoretical work regarding war found partial expression in the concepts he formulated in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916).¹ In it he described the economic and political essence of imperialism, the highest and final stage of capitalism. This stage, unforeseen by Karl Marx, explained why workers joyfully marched to war in 1914 in support of their capitalist masters. Bought off by the minimal social reforms of capitalist governments, workers now required longer to reach the point of full alienation. Thus, inevitable revolution would be delayed. Lenin, in describing the imperialist stage of history, broadened his definition of exploitation to include within it the exploitation of underdeveloped countries by capitalist powers. The inevitable world revolution would now include both workers and the peoples of colonial nations joined together in revolution against their capitalist oppressors. From this time forward, Soviet policy and military strategy sought to encourage revolution and ferment in lesser-developed lands.

Military Doctrine

Lenin gave shape to Soviet military doctrine and, hence, military strategy. The Soviets have since credited him with having developed the most important Marxist views on war, the army, and military science, and with "developing the entire doctrine concerning the defense of socialism".² While confirming that war was a continuation of politics by other armed means, Lenin developed further the ideas of Marx and Engels that war and politics were inexorably related by underscoring the class nature of politics and its socio-economic roots. He recognized war as "a continuation of the policies of given interested powers - and various classes within them - at the present time" as a concentrated expression of economics. Lenin classified the types of war found in the imperialist stage of historical development (national-liberation, revolutionary, civil, imperialistic, in defense of socialism) and pointed out the role of economics and the morale-political factor in war, stating that "war will now be conducted by the people" and "the connection between the military organization of the nation and its entire economic and cultural structure was never as close as at the present."³ Lenin's system for classifying types of war has endured into the 1980s. According to V. D. Sokolovsky's 1960 comprehensive study of Soviet military strategy:

Lenin defined the nature of wars in the era of imperialism, showed the historical conditions and causes of their springing up, exposed the tendencies in the development of military matters and made a profound scientific analysis of the state of military matters in Russia early in the 20th Century.

In developing and defining concretely the concepts of the Marxist theory of armed conflict, Lenin developed the doctrine of just and unjust wars and of the change of an imperialistic war into a civil war, into a war of the workers against the exploiters, thus arming the working class and its vanguard, the Communist party, with a clear program of action in the struggle for the liberation of the working people from capitalist slavery.⁴

During the Civil War, Lenin worked out and implemented the principles of military construction for a socialist state, which included:

• - rule of the armed forces by the Communist Party;
• - a class approach to construction of the armed forces;
• - the unity of the army and the people;
• - the truth of proletarian internationalism;
• - centralized command and control and single command (edinonachalie);
• - cadre organization;
• - creation of soldierly discipline;
• - constant readiness to repel aggression.⁵

Lenin's work created the basis of Soviet military science and, eventually, the military art of the armies of other socialist governments. According to Sokolovsky:

The great works of V. I. Lenin devoted to the political struggle of the working class, armed uprising, and proletarian revolution, developed the most important concepts of Soviet military science and Soviet military strategy ... Thus, to Lenin belongs the great credit in the development of the Marxist military theory. The military theoretical views of Lenin are the foundation of the military theory of the Soviet government.⁶

In these works Lenin:

formulated the views on the factors and the decisive course and outcome of struggle ... In his works he emphasized the most important principles for conducting armed combat: determining the main danger and the direction of the main attack; concentration of forces and weapons in the decisive place at the decisive moment; securing by all methods and means of struggle their use in accordance with existing conditions; the decisive role of the offe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Civil War and Military Intervention (1917-1921)
• 3. The Emergence of Soviet Military Strategy (1921-1935)
• 4. Soviet Military Strategy in the 1930s (1935-1941)
• 5. Soviet Military Strategy in the Second World War (1941-1945)
• 6. Post-Second World War Soviet Military Strategy
• 7. Future Soviet Military Strategy and Its Implications
• 8. Conclusions
• Notes
• Appendix 1. Soviet Mobilization in the Second World War
• Appendix 2. Soviet Strategic Operations in the Second World War
• Appendix 3. Recent Soviet Views on Military Reform
• Postscript
• Index