USSR: Military Policy and Direction Part I: 1917-1939

In the wake of a wounded country, the new Soviet state of the Russian SFSR (Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) sought to consolidate its power, and control the potential damage that ‘enemies of the people’ aimed to do in order to stop the radical new workers’ government from having total control.

The Civil War Era: 1917-1920

On 28 January 1918 a decree to establish a Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (RKKA, Red Army for short) was hastily put together. [1] The ranks of this Red Army were quickly filled by Lenin’s Red Guards volunteers, the Petrograd garrison, and any other officers and soldiers returning from the fight against Germany. By 22 February the RKKA had twelve thousand men and were organised into four regiments. Lenin knew that peace talks with Germany were to be essential if he was to consolidate his power, else his revolution be at risk. However, Germany broke negotiations and launched a fresh offensive in which the weak defences of the Red Army and Red Guard were smashed as the Germans thrust deep into Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia. On 21 February, Lenin declared “The Socialist Fatherland is in danger,” and two days later he urged people to join in the defence of the country. Some sixty thousand men joined the Red Army, of which twenty thousand were sent to the front. [2]

The Soviets had observed the poor leadership within the Red Army ranks, and new officers were trained immediately. In addition to this, over twenty thousand Imperial Army officers joined – though not all volunteered. This saw the birth of the infamous commissar system. Military Commissars as they were then known, later to be named Political Officers, were there to ensure former czarist officers would not ‘encourage’ counterrevolutionary thoughts or actions. The military commissars were trusted Communist Party members and oversaw the work of military officers and specialists. Another one of their key roles was political education classes.[3]

Lenin's Red Guard in Moscow

By mid-1918, White Russians (czarist loyalist) roamed the countryside, and allied armies from France, Britain, and the US stationed themselves in Murmansk, Baku, Batumi, the Caucasus, Odessa, Sevastopol, and Archangel to protect the military supplies they had sent to Russia, fearing they may be captured by the Germans. Japan also landed in the Far East, with more sinister colonial gains in Manchuria. On 12 March 1918, the Bolsheviks relocated to the Kremlin in Moscow, which became the centre of operations for the civil war. Leon Trotskiy was named chairman of the Higher Military Council and immediately began to build up the Red Army.[4]

By May, the Red Army had grown in size to 300,000 volunteers, yet it needed to be much larger to maintain Soviet authority. Compulsory military service was established for all males aged eighteen to forty. Local military authorities named Revolutionary Military Councils (RVSs) were established to provide direction and leadership for Red Army forces across the country. Each RVS was led by three members: the commander and two military-political commissars. These RVSs became more centralised with the establishment of the Revvoyensoviet of the Republic (RVSR), which combined administrative and operational functions for all RVSs. However, communication between each RVS was severely limited, and thus many had to act independently. With the surrender of Germany in November 1918 and Allies’ war weariness and decreased interest in Russia, the Red Army found some relief, and began seeing experience and success against White Russia. [5]

Leon Troskiy

Under Trotskiy’s genius military leadership, the Red Army was able to defeat White Russians led by very capable, experienced professional military leaders such as Kolchak, Denikin, and Yudenin. Despite this, coordination in combat plans was still lacking, and even as late as 1919, parts of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia still lacked unified military organisations. On 28 April 1919, the Revvoyensoviet met to develop plans for a single military establishment, and was approved on 1 June. 

Vast changes quickly took place within the Red Army. The Revvoyensoviet was reduced from fifteen to six members, the Red Army had increased to a huge three million men organized into 61 infantry, 12 cavalry divisions, and one mounted corps. Universal military training of workers called vsevobuch for reserves was established, of which there numbered 800,000[6]. By the end 1919, 105 military schools were in operation to produce the much needed trained officers. The new Red Army’s Teachers Institute helped individuals to teach reading and writing to military personnel to combat illiteracy and help politically indoctrinate.

Russian Cossacks of the 'White Army'

Much of the years in this period were spent consolidating the power of the Bolsheviks in Russia. Additionally, it saw the birth of the Red Army, political commissars, and military service. All in all, it laid the stage for the Russian military to develop, not just as a fighting force, but as a political and authoritative tool as well. Most of this can be accredited to Leon Trotskiy. With his leadership, the Red Army was converted from a poorly fed, poorly equipped rabble of a few thousand men, to a multi-million-man, disciplined force. At the peak of the Red Army in the civil war era in November 1920, it consisted of 5,000,000 men, plus another 1,000,000 volunteers, all despite following the extreme losses of World War I.[7]

The First Postwar Era: 1921-1929

The Tenth Party Congress in 1921 saw a hefty demobilisation, from 5,500,000 men down to roughly a tenth of that in 1924. [8] During much of this time, the Red Army was still used as a tool to control the populace, and any attempt at uprising was ruthlessly put down. The new key defence objective was protection of the long borders of the RSFSR. The task was given to the Cheka, the secret police (who would evolve into the OGPU, and eventually the KGB). Many of the Red Army’s best units were transferred to the Cheka border guard units.

Felix Dzerzhinskiy, director of Cheka, 1919

Now at relative peace, Russia could focus on obtaining the things the Red Army sorely needed most: modern equipment, technically trained troops, and professional officer training. However, none of these things were available in Soviet Russia at the time. The Soviets looked to Germany, well known for her military technology and officer training. The Treaty of Versailles forbid Germany from rebuilding her military industry and to provide certain types of training. Thus, Russia secretly offered itself as a ground for Germany to train and produce technology forbidden by the treaty. The 1922 Treaty of Rapallo saw Junkers constructing an aircraft plant in Moscow, as well as a flying school for German pilots near Lipetsk. In return, Russia received German officer training. Future Marshal of the Soviet Union M. Tukhachevskiy himself went through such training. German officers took part in other training in the Soviet Union, including field exercises, which were also forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. [9]

21 January 1924 saw the death of Lenin, and the struggle for succession. Lenin favoured Trotskiy, but he was heavily disliked by his peers. Stalin persuaded Kamenev and Zinoviev to join him to prevent Trotskiy from being selected. [10]

German and Russian officials meet to
discuss the treaty of Rapello

By the mid-1920s, the Red Army was organised in a territorial principle, whereby local divisions were recruited and trained. This meant that divisions could be maintained for rapid call-up for a very low cost. It also allowed non-Russian speaking divisions to be led, trained, and educated in their own languages. [11] Many of the positive military reforms during the 1920s are the brainchild of Frunze, and his two deputies M. Tukhachevskiy and B. Shaposhnikov. Together they worked on questions of defence and Soviet military science. By 1926 the military-commissar counter signing policy was removed, as by this time there were enough trained Communist officers for the army to be trusted. [12]

1929 saw the first test of the fully reformed Red Army, at which point could be considered on near parity with much of its neighbours. In the far east, Chinese forces seized the Manchurian branch of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The special soviet Far Eastern Army took military action against the Chinese forces, which withdrew in December after some conflict. This first postwar era saw major reforms within the Red Army, allowing itself to gain closer to parity or supremacy to other major European powers.[13]

The Second Postwar Era: 1930-1937

By way of the Leninist-Marxist way of thinking, capitalist-imperialist nations would seek to use their military strength to invade Russia and put an end to communism. Hence, Russia believed that the Red Army size of 550,000 by 1924 should not stay as small for any more time than is necessary. As Russia's economy saw recovery and growth, so did the army, with increases in size to 617,000 in 1928, 885,000 in 1933, and 1,513,000 in 1938. Industrial capacity and rearmament also saw huge increases in this time; from 1924 to 1935 the number of aircraft, high calibre guns, and tanks had increased from 1,394 to 6,672, 6,645 to 10,684, and 1,401 to 10,180 respectively. [14]

Technology and military thinking were at least on par, and often ahead of western counterparts in this period, too. Russia was the first in the world to produce a mechanized corps, which included an impressive 500 tanks. By 1936 the Soviet Union boasted four mechanized corps, six mechanized brigades and six tank regiments. [15] Much of these revolutionary organisational changes came from the mind of Trotskiy, influenced by the famous British officers Capt. Liddell Hart and Maj. Gen. Fuller, whom also influenced Guderian's version of Blitzkrieg and Panzer formations. [16]

BT-7 carrying infantry into battle

However, Soviet successes in using tanks as infantry support meant Stalin put a halt to the idea of mechanized and specialised tank units. Experience in Spain propounded the idea of small units of tanks operating alongside infantry, more similar to the usage of the first generation of tanks in WW1, and was further advanced in Finland when tank supported infantry was successful in destroying finnish emplacements. These changes would be reversed after the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941 when concentrated units of Panzers would smash though the Russian lines.

With the Red Army fully established and Russia (mostly) at peace, the Stavka sought to look towards Russia's defence in the west. In the early 1930's Marshal Tukhachevskiy identified Russia's geopolitical features in the west; the border was effectively split into two by the Pripyat Marshes, with Russia's twin capitals in the Northern half (Moscow and Leningrad), and the breadbasket and manufacturing centres in the south situated in Ukraine. To maintain this defensive line as one coherent unit would be nearly impossible and too logistically difficult. Tukhachevskiy realised that the best way to defend such a large stretch of land was to have two separate entities of defence, with separate rail networks and protecting different objectives. He suggested a lighter concentration of force in the northern sector, while a much larger force should protect the important food and manufacturing bases of the south. He reasoned that the physical difficulties of operating logistics at distances that great (from the western border to either Moscow or Leningrad) would be too severe. While Tukhachevskiy himself was killed in Stalin's purges, his plans survived, and were installed. [17]

Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky

However, Tukhachevskiy's plans were originally conceived with an attack from Poland in mind, or an alliance of Poland and the tiny post-Versaille German army. The Soviets identified that by 1935 this was not the case, as German rearmament was going ahead at dangerously rapid speeds, and German direction in training and manufacturing was for rapid large scale armoured assaults. Thus, in 1936, fortification works began in the south, from the Balkans to the northern fringe of the Pripyat Marshes. Much of this fortification line - which became known as the Stalin line - was heavily based upon the French Maginot line, as the Russians enjoyed occasional positive relations with the French in the 1930s, and were willing to share their fortification sciences. However, the Stalin's line's weakness lay in the fact that it was not actually a line, but rather a series of fortifications. The line was rendered more useless when, in 1939 with the agreement to Partition Poland, the Soviet borders moved west, and with it, the Stalin line's garrison. [18]

Encouraged by the dreadful officer purges made by Stalin, military thought and progression slowed down with the execution of talented minds. The Stavka fell into a pit of ignorant contentment, believing they had made allies of Nazi Germany, and lacked the preparedness to defend an invasion from a mechanized force. The Soviets would pay dearly for this early on in the Great Patriotic War.


References
[1] S. S. Lototskiy, The Soviet Army, 1971
[2] Sovetskaia Voennaia Entsiklopediia, Soviet Military Encyclopedia, "Druzhina" [(Red) Brigade], Vol. 3
[3] Yu. P. Petrov, Stroitel'stvo Politorganov, Partiynykh i Komsomol'skikh Organizatsiy Armii i Flota, The Structuring of Political Organs, Party, and Komsomol Organisations of the Army and Navy, 1968
[4] Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled, 1953
[5] Sovetskaia Voennaia Entsiklopediia, Soviet Military Encyclopedia, Vol. 7
[6] Sovetskaia Voennaia Entsiklopediia, Soviet Military Encyclopedia, Vol. 2
[7] M. V. Zakharov, Let Vooruzhennykh Sil USSR, 50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR (awarded the Frunce Prize 1970)
[8] I. B. Berkhin, Voyennaya Reforma v SSSR - 1924-1925, Military Reforms in the USSR, 1924-1925, 1958
[9] H. Scott & W Scott, The Armed Forces of the USSR, 1984
[10] Fainsod
[11] Zakharov, Let
[12] A. Y. Khmel, Education of the Soviet Soldier: Party-Political Work in the Soviet Armed Forces, 1972
[13] Zakharov, Let
[14] The Soviet War Machine, Hamlyn Publishing, 1977
[15] ibid.
[16] H & W Scott, Armed
[17] ibid.
[18] ibid.