The Armed Forces Of The Ussr

Harriet Fast Scott, William F. Scott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000314748
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This up-to-date analysis of the development and organization of the Soviet Armed Forces provides a profound insight into the military thinking that has determined the course of Soviet military history from the birth of the first Communist armed forces organization to the present. The eminent authors of this book have drawn on thousands of Soviet Ministry of Defense publications—only a very few of which have been translated into English—and four years of research in the USSR to portray the fundamentals of Soviet military doctrine and strategy. They cover fully the postwar development of the Soviet military, looking at the High Command, each of the five services, combat formations, and supporting agencies, and give a comprehensive account of the Soviet military-industrial complex, military training of Soviet youth, military manpower, mobilization, and the Soviet officer corps. Their discussion of the relationship between the Party and the Armed Forces, based on Soviet data, includes an examination of popular Western myths about internal Soviet military-Party splits. The wealth of detailed information contained in this book includes numerous notes, tables, and figures and a broad range of other data—all based exclusively on primary sources—as well as an extensive bibliography.

Chapter One
Prologue: The Red Army

In September 1971, illness forced Marshal of the Soviet Union M. V. Zakharov to relinquish his position as chief of the Soviet General Staff. His retirement marked the end of an era; he had been one of that small group of Bolsheviks who, on 7 November 1917, stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd at the climax of the Russian Revolution. Zakharov's replacement, General of the Army V. G. Kulikov, was born in 1921, after the formation of the Red Army.

Kulikov and other senior officers of the Soviet Armed Forces in the 1970s were trained, indoctrinated, and promoted under the tutelage of officers who were products of the Russian Revolution and who lived under the brief rule of V. I. Lenin and the long regime of Joseph V. Stalin. These Soviet leaders inherited a military organization that by the 1960s was considered one of the world's two superpower military forces. The Soviet Armed Forces reached this position of power in approximately fifty years, a period so short that it scarcely spanned the military career of Marshal Zakharov.

The Red Army, as the predecessor of today's Soviet Armed Forces was called, had a turbulent history.

Prelude to Revolution: 1905-1917

The first Communist armed forces organization began with the 1905-1917 revolution, when the Bolsheviks began to attract a following. In December 1905, eight thousand armed workers, called Druzhiniks, led an uprising in Moscow. Dozens of other detachments fought police elsewhere throughout the country. Although this revolution failed, its organizers gained valuable military experience. ¹ While the revolution was in progress, the Bolsheviks succeeded in creating illegal organizations in army units and on naval ships, which continued to function in secret after the uprising was put down.

After the February 1917 "bourgeois" revolution, the Bolsheviks began a takeover process by creating volunteer armed detachments at factories and in Party committees throughout the country. By fall of that year, almost every city had detachments of Red Guards, as the armed workers were called. Central staffs of Red Guards, which formulated rules and regulations, were set up in Petrograd, the capital city, and in Moscow.²

Red Guards were formed on a territorial factory principle. Primary organizational units—tens—were combined into platoons, platoons into companies or Druzhins, and companies into battalions, which numbered up to six hundred men. As these detachments spread, the Red Guards began military training. In Petrograd, a school was opened to give elementary instruction in military tactics.

At the same time, Bolsheviks in the armed forces worked at winning over soldiers and sailors to their cause. In June 1917, a conference was held to organize dissatisfied soldiers and sailors under Bolshevik military control. By October, there were 20,000 Red Guards, 60,000 Baltic sailors, and 150,000 soldiers of the Petrograd garrison on the Bolshevik side. On 6 November 1917 (26 October 1917, by the Julian calendar, then standard in Russia), the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee gave the order for an armed uprising in Petrograd. Victory came the next day, culminating in the storming of the Winter Palace. The members of the provisional government were arrested, and the revolution was over.³ Now civil war was to begin.

Consolidation of Military Power: October 1917-May 1918

The immediate task of the Bolsheviks was to hold on to the power they had grabbed. On 8 November, a Committee on Military and Naval Affairs was formed, made up of members of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. This committee was given the task of defending Petrograd and directing the Red Guard detachments, which were the cores of the Communist armed forces.⁴

Military units of the former provisional government resisted the Bolshevik takeover in many areas. On 22 November 1917, the commander in chief of the Russian forces, Ν. N. Dukhonin, was removed from his post after refusing to enter into negotiations with the Germans about a peace agreement. Lenin then ordered all soldiers and sailors to disobey the orders of the Russian Army's General Headquarters, known as Stavka.

During the last months of 1917, thousands of officers were removed from the Russian Army and Navy as the Red Guards and revolutionary soldiers and sailors took control. Subsequently, Lenin ordered his Red Guards, which at the beginning of January 1918 numbered about 150,000 men, to seize Stavka and arrest Dukhonin. By the end of January 1918, Stavka had ceased to exist. Those army units that had not been taken over by the Red Guards were immobilized by the abolition of leaders and the absence of discipline, with soldiers "voting" on selection of officers and on what orders to follow.⁵

Meetings were held to give direction for the demobilization of the old armies. At the same time, the former War Ministry was undergoing a complete reorganization under Bolshevik guidance. The new leaders realized that certain elements of the old structure had to be preserved, at least temporarily, to provide the beginnings of the new socialist army. While there was great enthusiasm in this Bolshevik military force, few of its members had actual military experience, and there were practically no officers with military training.⁶

Lenin and his followers recognized the danger of this situation and agreed that a disciplined, controlled military force under Bolshevik direction must be formed as quickly as possible. On 23 January 1918, the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets voted unanimously to create their own military organisations. This resulted in a decree of 28 January 1918, which established a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, commonly referred to as the Red Army or the RKKA.⁷

Ranks of the Red Army were filled rapidly by Red Guards and former soldiers of the Petrograd Garrison, who were among the first volunteers. The First Corps was formed on 11 February 1918 in Petrograd. Twelve thousand men had volunteered before 22 February and were organized as the First, Second, Third, and Fourth regiments. Almost half of these were sent to the western front, to help hold against a renewed German offensive.

In order to conserve his military resources and consolidate power, Lenin had begun talks intended to conclude a separate peace with Germany, a step he considered essential to save the revolution. However, at the last minute, negotiations were broken off, and early in February 1918 the German command launched a major offensive against Russian units. German forces, penetrating the weak defenses of both the Red Army and the Red Guard detachments, moved deep into the Ukraine, Estonia, and Latvia. On 21 February, Lenin issued a proclamation: "The Socialist Fatherland is in danger." On 23 February 1918—now the day officially recognized by the Soviets as the birthday of the Red Army—mass meetings were held, urging people to join in defending the country against the Germans. Inspired by this call, sixty thousand men joined the new army in Petrograd alone; of these, twenty thousand were sent straight to the front.⁸

By the beginning of March 1918, Lenin was firmly in control of the heart of Russia. His major danger was external; the German offensive was still threatening the Bolshevik successes. To gain time and to slow the German advance, the Soviet leadership signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918. However, the Soviets had not the slightest intention of honoring the treaty. Immediate attention was given to training new commanders for the Red Army, which had proven itself ineffective against professionally led troops. Approximately twenty-two thousand officers from the old Imperial Army joined the new army voluntarily or were "persuaded" to join.

To ensure that the former czarist officers would not foment or initiate counterrevolutionary actions, the military commissar system was formed. The military commissars, who in future years evolved into political officers, were trusted Communist Party members who worked with Party cells within the RKKA and controlled the work of the military specialists. Military commissars also started political education classes for the masses of soldiers and reinstated discipline, completely reversing the "democratic" practices of the previous years, which had been used to undermine and destroy the old army.⁹

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which removed Russia from World War I, gave Germany the opportunity to move divisions that had been fighting on the eastern front to oppose the Allied forces in the West.¹⁰ As a result, German forces were able to launch major offensives in France in March and April 1918.

Fearing that Allied military supplies that had been sent to Russia might fall into German hands, British, French, and American troops landed at Murmansk and Archangel early in April 1918. Japanese troops, with an eye on Manchuria, landed in the Far East; later a contingent from the United States was also sent to eastern Siberia, in part to prevent Japan from annexing the area. The Czechoslovak Legion (former Austro-Hungarian soldiers who had been prisoners of war in Russia) wanted to return home and were given permission by Soviet authorities to leave the country via Siberia. In southern Russia and east of the Ural Mountains, the legion clashed with Red Army troops, and a series of battles took place; but eventually the Czechs reached Vladivostok. British troops landed in Baku and Batumi in the Caucasus and French troops in Odessa and Sevastopol. Bands of former Imperial Army soldiers, who chose to reject Soviet rule, and were organized by former officers into a number of "white" armies in opposition to the Bolshevik Red Army, roamed the countryside.¹¹

On 12 March 1918, meanwhile, Bolsheviks moved the capital to Moscow, and the Kremlin became the nerve center of the civil war, which was beginning to rage on all sides. At this time, Leon D. Trotskiy was named chairman of the Higher Military Council, and he began to build up the Red Army.

Building Up the Red Army

By May 1918, the Red Army had grown to approximately three hundred thousand volunteers—but volunteers were not enough. A much latter military force was required to maintain the Soviet regime's authority. Compulsory military service for males ages eighteen to forty was decreed.

Problems of the new government multiplied. Hunger spread throughout the areas under Bolshevik control, causing the Soviet leaders to make forced grain collections. To ensure that the Red Army was completely responsive to the Bolshevik leadership, military commissars were given full powers over the military specialists who previously had served in the imperial Army. Efforts were made to train new "Soviet" military commanders as quickly as possible. Military commissariats, supported by Party workers, managed to meet mobilization quotas. In contrast to earlier permissiveness, Trotskiy introduced iron "revolutionary" discipline and strict centralization of authority.¹²

Much of the fighting against the White Russians was east of the Ural Mountains. On 13 June 1918, a Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) was established in the eastern areas to provide for direction and leadership of the Red Army force that was fighting thousands of kilometers from Moscow. One of its primary tasks was to engage the Czechoslovak Legion. Soon other armies were formed in the east, each with its own Revolutionary Military Council. Each RVS had at least ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction to the Second Edition
• 1. Prologue: The Red Army
• Part 1 Fundamentals of Soviet Military Doctrine and Strategy
• Part 2 A Military Force for the Nuclear Age
• Part 3 A Nation in Arms
• Appendixes
• Selected Bibliography
• Addendum to the Second Edition
• Name Index
• Subject Index