USSR REPORT MILITARY AFFAIRS

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• Document Creation Date: January 4, 2017
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• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 7, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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JPRS-UMA-85-027-L
7 November 1985
USSR Report
MILITARY AFFAIRS
FBIS
M.V. FRUNZE-MILITARY THEORIST
FOREIGN BROADCAST INFORMATION SERVICE
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7 November 1985
USSR REPORT
MILITARY AFFAIRS
M.V. FRUNZE-MILITARY THEORIST
Moscow M.V. FRUNZE--VOYENNYY TEORETIK in Russian 1985 (signed to
press 17 Oct 84) pp 1-444, 448
[Book by Col Gen Makhmut Akhmetovich Gareyev, doctor of military
sciences, "M. V. Frunze--Military Theorist" Voyenizdat, 50,000
copies, 448 pages. Reviewers: Doctor of Philosophical Sciences,
Prof, Lt Gen D.A. Volkogonov; Honored Scientist of the RSFSR,
Doctor of Military Sciences, Prof, Lt Gen V.G. Reznichenko; Honored
Scientist of the RSFSR, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Prof
N.N. Azovtsev]
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...........................................................
1
CHAPTER 1:
A PROMINENT PARTY AND SOVIET STATE LEADER, A NEW TYPE OF
PROLETARIAN MILITARY LEADER ................................
7
Basic Stages in Revolutionary and Military Activities ......
7
The Activities of M. V. Frunze During the Years of Peacetime
Construction .............................................
36
CHAPTER 2:
THE ELABORATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SOVIET MILITARY DOCTRINE
AND MILITARY SCIENCE .......................................
68
The Struggle for the Confirmation of Marxist-Leninist
Ideology in Military Affairs .............................
68
On a Unified Military Doctrine .............................
81
On Military Science and Military Art .......................
100
CHAPTER 3:
CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY OF MILITARY ART
124
Strategic Views ..........................................
124
Operational-Tactical Views .................................
154
The Further Development of the Theory of Military Art ......
172
- a - [III-USSR-4 FOUO]
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STAT
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CHAPTER 4: ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARMED FORCES ....... 193
Leadership of the CPSU--The Fundamental Principle of Soviet
Military Organizational Development ...................... 193
On the System of Military Organizational Development ........ 197
The Organizational Structure and Technical Equipping of the
Armed Forces ....... ................................... 207
Centralism and One-Man Command ............................. 214
Organizing the Training of Military Cadres ................. 225
The Organizational Development of the Armed Forces in the
Subsequent Stages ........................................ 232
CHAPTER 5: MILITARY INSTRUCTION AND INDOCTRINATION .................... 242
Military Pedagogical Views ............................ 242
Training of the Command and Political Personnel ............ 248
Improving Combat Training .................................. 257
On Military Indoctrination ................................. 266
Present-Day Questions of Military Training and Indoctrination 276
CHAPTER 6: THE DEVELOPMENT OF LENINIST IDEAS AND THE THOUGHTS OF
M. V. FRUNZE ON A MODERN SYSTEM OF KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING!
WAR AND THE ARMY ........................................... 292
Methodological Bases for a Classification of Sciences ...... 294
Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army ....................... 306
Military Science ........................................... 311
The Military Aspect of Social, Natural and Technical Sciences 321
Branches of Sciences Investigating Non-Military Forms of
Combating the Enemy ...................................... 324
On Military Doctrine ....................................... 325
Certain Conclusions on Further Improving Military Scientific
Work at the Present Stage ................................ 329
CONCLUSION ............................................................. 347
MAPS ................................................................... 350
Annotation: The military theoretical work analyzes the scientific activities
of the prominent Soviet military leader and theorist M. V. Frunze and
discloses his role in the elaboration of Soviet military doctrine and the most
important provisions of Soviet military sciences as well as the importance of
his military theoretical heritage under present-day conditions.
The work is designed for a broad range of military readers.
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In science there is no broad highway,
and only a person can reach its shining
heights who, disregarding fatigue,
clambers over its rocky paths.
1985 marked the centennial birthday of Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, a prominent
figure of the Communist Party and Soviet state, the student and associate of
V. I. Lenin, a prominent military theorist and famous military leader of the
Red Army. From 60 years ago, the Central Committee of the RKP(b) [Russian
Communist Party (Bolshevik)], in notifying the workers of our nation of the
death of M. V. Frunze, pointed out that his personal history is a reflection
of our party's history. And this is truly the case. The life and activities
of M. V. Frunze have merged together with the party's heroic struggle for the
cause of communism.
Over his eventful, significant life he was part of the glorious cohort of
Leninist Bolsheviks who, under the conditions of the underground, the
repression of the Tsarist regime and in harsh revolutionary clashes, prepared
the suppressed masses to storm the Russian autocracy, led their struggle for
the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and then in a protracted
and fierce armed struggle against foreign interventionists and the internal
counterrevolution, defended the world's first worker and peasant state. M. I.
Kalinin said that "the biography of M. V. Frunze should be a reference book
for indoctrination, for training and for tempering the Bolshevism of our
communist youth."(1)
In the ranks of the Communist Party there were numerous revolutionary heroes,
party and state leaders, legendary military leaders and chiefs. More than one
generation will be enthralled by their feats, self-sacrifice, by the greatness
of the deeds perpetrated by them. But many investigators of the life and
activities of M. V. Frunze as well as simply readers both in our nation and
abroad will be most struck by the fact that a person who emerged from the
lower classes and did not receive a special military education became not only
an outstanding military leader, an expert in military affairs but also a
prominent military theorist. Frequently the bourgeois press has written about
him as an unexplainable miracle but the outstanding military successes and
scientific accomplishments of M. V. Frunze are completely natural and
historically determined.
Of course, the personal gifts of M. V. Frunze played their role in this. But
of crucial significance was the circumstance that V. I. Lenin and the
Bolshevik Party, in preparing the proletariat for the revolution, gave a great
deal of attention to the recruitment and indoctrination of military cadres
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dedicated to the revolution, winning over to the side of the revolution those
persons who could demonstrate their abilities and talents with maximum benefit
and devote themselves to serving the people. The life and activities of M. V.
Frunze are a remarkable example of this.
In the words of V. I. Lenin, "any revolution is only worth something if it is
able to defend itself" is not only a generalizing of the enormous historic
experience of the international proletariat's revolutionary struggle, but also
acutely poses the task of training cadres capable of defending the
revolution.
The revolutionary masses have repeatedly fostered talented leaders from their
midst. At the same time, one of the reasons for the defeat of many
revolutions and armed revolts was that there were few of these leaders and
they were poorly trained in military terms. A lack of military experience and
knowledge in a majority of the leaders was one of the reasons for the defeat
of the Paris Commune and was also felt in the fate of the Bavarian and
Hungarian Soviet republics as well as many other revolutionary actions. "No
class in history has achieved rule," wrote V. I. Lenin, "if it did not put
forward its own political leaders, its own progressive representatives capable
of organizing the movement and directing it."(2)
M. V. Frunze belonged precisely among such leading figures of our party and
state. He was marked by indefatigable, ebullient revolutionary activity, and
wholehearted practical work to carry out party assignments and a desire to
profoundly understand and analyze the new historical processes and their
impact on the development of military affairs. He left a great military
theoretical heritage. The value of his military works is primarily in the
fact that they were created on a basis of Marxism-Leninism and are permeated
with a spirit of party loyalty. They generalize the experience of the
organizational development of the Armed Forces of the world's first socialist
state and in the first, most difficult years of their development.
M. V. Frunze wrote over 200 theoretical works, not counting orders and other
official documents. The most complete, three-volume collection of his works
was published in 1926-1929. This included 110 works. Not included in this
collection but published in other editions were 74 works. In recent years,
another 20 works have been found. In various forms 31 editions were published
of M. V. Frunze's works in Russian, 21 in the languages of the Soviet peoples
and 17 in foreign languages.
Over 220 books and pamphlets (9 of them in foreign languages) and 550 articles
have been written about Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze; 5 bibliographic indices
have been prepared. These works thoroughly examine his activities as a
revolutionary, a political leader and a military figure and his practical work
of strengthening the defense capability of the Soviet state and the
development of the Armed Forces. Basic evidence about him can be found in the
party documents including the materials of congresses, conferences and
plenums, the works and judgments of V. I. Lenin and the memoirs of V. K.
Blyukher, A. S. Bubnov, S. M. Budennyy, K. Ye. Voroshilov, S. I. Gusev, V. V.
Kuybyshev, G. K. Ordzhonikidze and other prominent leaders of the Communist
Party and Soviet state. The correspondence between M. V. Frunze and V. I.
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Lenin is of exceptional value. A large portion, some 50 documents, from this
correspondence has been provided in the collection "M. V. Frunze na frontakh
grazhdanskoy voyny" [M. V. Frunze on the Fronts of the Civil War] (Moscow,
1941); six documents were published in the journal ISTORICHESKIY ARKHIV
[Historical Archives] (No 3, 1958). The correspondence and meetings between
M. V. Frunze and V. I. Lenin have been given a systematized treatment in the
Lenin Biographical Chronicle.(3)
The revolutionary and generalship activities of Frunze have been examined, in
our view, most completely and reliably in the book by a group of authors who
had a good personal knowledge of the military leader "M. V. Frunze. Zhizn i
deyatelnost" [M. V. Frunze. Life and Activities](4); in the biographical
sketch of S. A. Sirotinskiy, the former adjutant of M. V. Frunze "Put
Arseniya" [The Path of Arsenius]; in the books by V. L. Arkhangelskiy
"Frunze," V. Lebedev and K. Ananyev "Frunze" (from the series "The Life of
Famous People"), the memoirs of F. Novitskiy (the journal ZNAMYA [Banner], No
10, 1940); in the novel of M. Kolesnikov "Vse uragany v litso" [Facing the
Storms] and a number of other works.
These sources were also basically employed in writing the first chapter of the
book "M. V. Frunze--voyennyy teoretik." The description of the generalship
and military-theoretical activities of M. V. Frunze is based upon an analysis
of the history of the Civil War and the organizational development of the Red
Army during the first half of the 1920's and the numerous archival documents,
including documents from the M. V. Frunze Museum at the Military Academy
bearing his name. The numerical material has been given considering chiefly
the data from the "Istoriya KPSS" [History of the CPSU],(5) "Sovetskaya
Voyennaya Entsiklopediya" [Soviet Military Encyclopedia] (6) and official
documents.
However, with the comparatively extensive number of books and articles dealing
with M. V. Frunze in our military literature, there is not a single work which
examines in detail the activities of M. V. Frunze as an outstanding military
theorist. Several candidate dissertations have been prepared on this subject;
an analysis of the military theoretical views of M. V. Frunze on individual
questions and a certain systematizing of the available material can be found
in a number of articles published in newspapers and military journals. But
they, as we would point out again, do not provide an integrated examination of
the military theoretical heritage of M. V. Frunze and an analysis of this from
modern positions. For this reason, special research is required for
disclosing the rich content of his works and for employing their basic
provisions under present-day conditions. Moreover, in a number of instances
the military theory views of M. V. Frunze have been artificially and unsoundly
employed for justifying individual incorrect ideas on the questions of
military science and which appeared at certain stages in the development of
military theoretical thought. Among the publications dealing with individual
aspects of the military theoretical activities of M. V. Frunze, the greatest
attention should be given to the works of N. N. Azovtsev, I. G. Viktorov,
A. V. Golubev, I. M. Zhernosek, I. A. Korotkov, A. A. Kosyukov, V. P.
Pavlovskiy, Ye. N. Tsvetayev, S. N. Shishkin(7) and certain other works.
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Among the works dealing with M. V. Frunze published abroad, we should note the
book by W. Jacobs "Frunze: The Soviet Clausewitz. 1885-1925."(8) The author
of this book, although recognizing M. V. Frunze as a major military theorist
and military leader, in a number of places endeavors to play down his role as
a military thinker. Like other bourgeois military theorists (Garthoff,
Ericson, White and Berkhin), Jacobs views the theoretical ideas of Frunze from
the viewpoint of bourgeois ideology and largely presents them to the reader in
a tendentious, distorted form.
The author of the book "M. V. Frunze--voyennyy teoretik" sees his goal in, to
a certain degree, supplementing the existing research on the military
theoretical activities of M. V. Frunze and above all examining the influence
of the sociopolitical and military events which shaped him as a military
theorist, his role in elaborating Soviet military doctrine and the most
important provisions of Soviet military science, as well as the importance of
Frunze's military theoretic heritage for modern times.
The author has endeavored to analyze the military theoretical views of Frunze
primarily from the viewpoint of to what degree they have withstood the test of
time and in what areas they have undergone further development in the
subsequent stages of the development of military science, in being guided here
by the Leninist thesis "do not forget the main historical link, examine each
question from the viewpoint of how a certain phenomenon arose in history, what
were the main stages in the development of this phenomenon and from the
viewpoint of this development of it examine what the given thing has become at
present."(9)
Proceeding from this it can be said that the entire history of the
organizational development of the Soviet Armed Forces as well as the military
theory and practice of socialism has convincingly shown the viability of the
Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army and the military theoretical
views of M. V. Frunze based on this. These were apparent with particular
strength and persuasiveness in the outstanding victory of the Soviet people
and their Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War.
In addition to a general recognition of this historical fact for contemporary
research, it is also very important to examine the sources of the viability of
our military theory and analyze in greater detail why even at the stage of its
genesis it was able to predict in a correct and scientifically sound manner as
well as what subsequently was not confirmed in practice and why. For science
this is the most important and fundamental question, since the correctly
understood sources and patterns of military scientific analysis and foresight
can provide inestimable aid in a sound resolution of the present-day problems
of military theory and practice.
The book makes no claim to be an exhaustive analysis of the entire wealth of
the military theoretical heritage of M. V. Frunze. The author has endeavored
to examine only the most important, underlying, military theoretical views of
the outstanding Soviet military thinker which are of greatest importance under
present-day conditions. This work, like any work dealing with M. V. Frunze,
cannot provide a substitute for a careful study of his own works where the
reader will find a multiplicity of ideas and statements on general
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methodological questions of military science, military doctrine, the
theoretical and practical questions of military art, the organizational
development and training of the army and navy which have maintained their
pertinence in our times, too.
The author wishes to express gratitude to all comrades who participated in
reviewing the manuscript and in preparing it for publication. Special
gratitude is extended to Prof Tatyana Mikhaylovna Frunze and Col Gen Anatoliy
Georgiyevich Pavlov for valuable comments and recommendations made on the
book's contents.
1. PRAVDA, 3 Nov 1925.
2. V. I. Lenin, PSS, [Complete Collected Works], Vol 4, p 375.
3. "Vladimir Ilich Lenin: Biograficheskaya khronika" [Vladimir Ilich Lenin:
Biographical Chronicle], Moscow, 1970-1982.
4. "M. V. Frunze. Zhizn i deyatelnost" [M. V. Frunze. Life and Work], I. K.
Gamburg, P. Ye. Khoroshilov, G. A. Sanovich, G. A. Bragilevskiy; edited
by F. N. Petrov, Moscow, 1962.
5. "Istoriya KPSS" [History of the CPSU], Moscow, 1980.
6. "Sovetskaya Voyennaya Entsiklopediya," Moscow, 1976-1980, Vols 1-8.
7. N. N. Azovtsev, "V. I. Lenin i sovetskaya voyennaya nauka" [V. I. Lenin
and Soviet Military Science], Moscow, 1981; I. G. Viktorov, "M. V. Frunze
i voprosy sovetskoy voyennoy ideologii" [M. V. Frunze and the Questions
of Soviet Military Ideology], a dissertation, Moscow, 1951; A. V.
Golubev, "M. V. Frunze o kharaktere budushchey voyny" [M. V. Frunze on
the Nature of a Future War], Moscow, 1931; I. M. Zhernosek, "Mikhail
Vasilyevich Frunze o roll i zadachakh tyla i snabzheniya v voyne"
[Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze on the Role and Tasks of the Rear and Supply
in War], a dissertation, Moscow, 1952; I. A. Korotkov, "Istoriya
sovetskoy voyennoy mysli" [The History of Soviet Military Thought],
Moscow, 1980; A. A. Kosyukov, "Voyenno-teoreticheskyye vzglyady M. V.
Frunze" [The Military Pedagogical Views of M. V. Frunze], Moscow, 1960;
V. I. Pavlovskiy, "Filosofskiye voprosy voyny, armii i voyennogo dela v
trudakh M. V. Frunze" [Philosophical Questions of War, the Army and
Military Affairs in the Works of M. V. Frunze], a dissertation, Moscow,
1973; Ye. N. Tsvetayev, "Voyenno-teoreticheskaya deyatelstnost M. V.
Frunze posle grazhdanskoy voyny (1921-1925)" [The Military Theoretical
Activities of M. V. Frunze After the Civil War (1921-1925)], a
dissertation, Moscow, 1954; S. N. Shishkin, "M. V. Frunze--One of the
Creators of the Soviet Army," in the book: "M. V. Frunze.
Polkovodcheskaya deyatelnost" [M. V. Frunze. Generalship Activities],
Moscow, 1951.
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8.
Walter Darnell Jacobs, "Frunze: The Soviet Clausewitz.
Hague, Martinus, Nijhoff, 1969.
1885-1925," The
9.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 39, p 67.
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CHAPTER 1: A PROMINENT PARTY AND SOVIET STATE LEADER, A NEW TYPE OF
PROLETARIAN MILITARY LEADER
Development of the revolutionary fighter. In order to better understand the
content and the entire profundity of the ideas set down in the theoretical
works of M. V. Frunze, it is essential at least cursorily to take a look
at those events during which his revolutionary activities were carried out as
well as those conditions and circumstances which shaped him as a prominent
figure in our party and the Soviet state as well as a military leader and
theorist.
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was born on 2 February (21 January according to the
old style) 1885 in the town of Pishpek, now the city of Frunze, and capital of
Kirkhiz. The development of M. V. Frunze's personality was largely influenced
by his family, primarily his mother and father, by the specific conditions of
life in the Turkestan Kray, but most importantly, of course, by the
revolutionary events which developed in Russia, by the struggle of the working
class and the suppressed masses of people for their social liberation, by the
Leninist revolutionaries and other progressive persons of those times, by
constant self-education, by a serious attitude toward the reading of artistic
and political literature and a special infatuation with military literature.
All of this determined the activist position in the life of Mikhail
Vasilyevich.
His father, Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Frunze, came from a peasant background from
the Tiraspol District of Kherson Province, but by nationality was a
Moldavian. After completing a feldsher [middle-level medical personnel]
school in Moscow, he was inducted into the army and sent to serve in
Turkestan. Having done his military service, V. M. Frunze in 1879 remained to
live in Pishpek, where he worked as a feldsher. The mother of M. V. Frunze,
Mavra Yefimovna, was born in a family of Russian immigrants from Voronezh
Province.
In the Frunze family, like in all worker families, where they all worked to
earn their way, the main influence on the children was not the formal
teachings of the parents but rather the example of their unstinting labor,
honesty and order and the ability to share the last of their food with
relatives and friends. Vasiliy Mikhaylovich was a zealous worker. In an area
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where diseases flourished and there were virtually no doctors, a feldsher's
work required special dedication. He hurried to help at any time of the day
and night, in any weather, to the most distant village, to persons who often
could not even pay him. For his responsiveness and kindness, Vasiliy
Mikhaylovich won great respect among the local inhabitants.
Uner the conditions of the Tsarist autocracy, where certain peoples dominated
others and in every possible way a prejudiced attitude was instilled towards
the national minorities, this was not to the liking of the authorities. In
1895, V. M. Frunze was dismissed and forced to live and work far away from his
family in the neighboring Syrdarya Oblast. Two years later he died at the age
of 45. The family was left poverty stricken.
Even when V. M. Frunze was alive, due to his meager salary, the mother, in
order to maintain the family with five children, had to work long and hard,
and show resourcefulness and keenness of wit. After the death of her husband,
the entire burden of supporting and rearing the children rested on her
shoulders. Strong willed, tenacious and endowed with wisdom, she
independently learned to read and write and instilled curiosity and a love of
reading in her children.
According to information of biographers, Mikhail Frunze, regardless of all the
hardships of life, grew up optimistic and sociable. By the age of five, he
could read and at the age of seven went to school. Later he studied at the
gymnasium [secondary school] in Vernyy (now Alma Ata). The mother was unable
to pay for his schooling and only after great trouble and harrassment and due
to the great abilities and tenacity of Mikhail himself did she succeed in
gaining a scholarship for him. He completed the gymnasium with a gold medal.
One is struck by his amazing diverse curiosity and his constant directed
gravitation, or even more accurately, first for reading and reflecting on what
he had read and a constant search for answers to the vital questions which
life posed. This habit of reading at any opportunity and a profoundly rooted
inner need for constantly improving his knowledge were to run through the
entire life of M. V. Frunze.
Here it is essential to bear in mind that at the end of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th centuries in Russia there existed the most diverse
political currents and artistic and political literature corresponding to
their views. It was not easy to understand immediately on whose side truth
lay. Progressive literature was banned and the reading of this involved a
definite risk. It was published in limited runs. For this reason, there was
little guidance, one had to make one's own way to the roots of each
theoretical notion taking nothing on faith, and arrive at certain conclusions
as a result of working through in one's mind an enormous amount of diverse and
often contradictory judgments and defend one's convictions in a fierce
struggle against hostile views.
This has both negative and positive aspects. Profound convictions were
developed but these were acquired over too long and often torturous ways. Not
everyone succeeded in immediately holding correct positions and this led
certain young persons to ideological confusion and hesitation.
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The Marxist revolutionaries in all corners of Russia, including in Turkestan
Kray, did a great deal to propagandize truly scientific political knowledge,
but for understanding the entire profundity of revolutionary ideas it took
serious study, and these had to be not merely learned but also gained by hard
experience.
This path of gaining knowledge in labor and struggle was also followed by the
young Frunze and this caused his (like the other leaders of the Bolshevik
Party) profound ideological conviction, broad erudition, high intellectual
culture, a careful, anxious attitude toward truly scientific knowledge and the
ability to understand and assess each new word in science.
In the memoirs about M. V. Frunze it was pointed out that Pushkin, Lermontov,
Koltsov, Chekhov and Gorkiy were his favorite writers. He read a great deal
of Belinskiy, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevskiy, Nekrasov and Pisarev. He was fond
of reading the works of explorers and travelers, particularly the courageous
pioneers of Asia such as Semenov-Tyan-Shanskiy, Przhevalskiy, Potanin,
Severtsev-Mushketov and Grum-Grzhimaylo.
He received his first exposure to revolutionary ideas while studying in the
gymnasium where he attended self-education circles. His brother Konstantin
commented: "From my brother's letters, one could see that the 'self-education
circles' which we had bequeathed to the younger gymnasium generation and in
which we supplemented gymnasium science with a familiarization with literature
on the questions of history, philosophy and natural science, had significantly
altered their physiology. Social sciences and chiefly political economy now
held the central place in them. These circles had begun to assume a
revolutionary cast and militant nature."(1)
The circles also studied the works of G. V. Plekhanov and V. I. Lenin and
these reflected the upsurge in the revolutionary movement of Russia. Social-
democratic ideas became evermore popular among the student youth. Young
Frunze came into contact with students who had come to the center of the
nation for their vacations and with political exiles and he took an active
part in the organized protests in the gymnasium and in the city. All of this
had a great impact upon his ideology.
Very early on, M. V. Frunze showed an interest in military affairs and this
was expressed not only in the reading of books about military campaigns but
also in developing the qualities which subsequently were to be very essential
in the revolutionary struggle and in military service. He was always
particularly moved by the stories of veterans about the campaigns of the
Russian Army. Judging from the letters and memoirs, he learned to ride early
and together with his father or brother loved to go hunting during which they
made long hikes which helped to instill endurance, boldness and
resourcefulness. During vacations, M. Frunze used any opportunity to travel
and study new areas. For example, in the summer of 1903, he with a group of
comrades made a hike to Lake Issyk-Kul and the Tyan-Shan Mountains. In 68
days they covered around 3,000 versts.
During such trips and in his daily life, Mikhail Vasilyevich saw backwardness,
the disenfranchisement and poverty of the indigenous population which was
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exposed to a double suppression--the Tsarist autocracy and the local feudal
lords. He made a thorough study of the morals and customs of the Kirkhiz, the
Kazakhs and other nationalities and he knew Kirkhiz which subsequently helped
him in dealing with representatives of the Turkic peoples, particularly on the
Eastern and Turkestan fronts. His knowledge of these peoples was gained not
from heresay or references but rather by immersing himself in their life. A
vital interest and respect for the life, customs and language of the other
peoples were inherent to Frunze over his entire life.
Russian was his mother tongue and for this reason he studied it most. During
his studies in the gymnasium and institute and while in exile and prison, he
also showed a deep interest in foreign languages. Mikhail Vasilyevich had
mastered English, French and German as well as a little Italian and Polish,
but in November 1923, he was humble about this writing on his personal party
card: "I only read French and English." For this reason, one can understand
his extreme amazement and even indignation when during a visit to Turkey in
1921, he encountered certain Soviet comrades who, having worked several years
in this country, could not even say a few sentences in Turkish. Incidentally,
a considerate attitude to the life and language of other peoples has always
been and remains an indication of a person's high culture and breadth of his
views.
Frunze's internationalism arose not only out of a theoretical understanding of
its importance and formal recognition, but was organically inherent to him,
deriving from his nature and the interest in uniting all peoples in the
revolutionary struggle.
By the time he completed the gymnasium, M. V. Frunze was already well
acquainted with the ideas of Marxism and was inwardly ready to dedicate his
entire life to the struggle for the cause of the people. He decided to enter
the economics department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute. To
his elder brother he wrote: "You ask why the economics department? Dear
Kostya, economics is the basis of everything! You and I can cure a patient
but in a year or a month he will die from hunger, from filth and from the cold
in his wretched life! The treatment must be deeper, we must change all of
life so that there is no poverty or hardships for anyone at any time.... I am
not searching for an easy life. But I do not want to say to myself when I am
older: I have lived my life but to what good? What has become better in the
world as a result of my life? Nothing? Or almost nothing?... No, to
profoundly understand the laws which govern the course of history, to immerse
myself in reality, to become part of the most progressive class of modern
society, the working class, to live for its thoughts and hopes, its struggle,
and to fundamentally redo everything--this is the goal of my life now."(2)
The entire subsequent life of M. V. Frunze was dedicated to this great cause.
Revolutionary activities. Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze arrived in
St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1904, on the eve of the first Russian
revolution. Having entered the university, he immediately took an active part
in the stormy sociopolitical life. The intensified exploitation of the
workers and the humiliating defeat of Russia in the war against Japan caused
the cup of human patience to overflow. After the events of 9 January 1905,
mass antigovernment demonstrations by the proletariat broke out throughout the
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nation. During the first year of his student life, in 1904, Frunze joined the
Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, having immediately sided with its
Bolshevik wing. Taking an active part in the activities of the various
Bolshevik organizations, he became more closely familiar with the life of the
capital proletariat, he spoke in worker circles and carried out responsible
party assignments.
Frunze was an earnest and dedicated student in the polytechnical institute.
In truth, in being engaged in revolutionary activities, he often missed
lectures but he read a great deal, particularly Marxist literature, amazing
professors and students alike with his unusually broad erudition. For such
subjects as political economy, state law, the history of Russian law,
psychology and the history of philosophy, Mikhail Frunze in a short period of
time had passed the exams for the fourth year, while a majority of his fellow
students had difficulty in mastering these sciences even in the first year.
"Having a good mastery of French and English," M. Kolesnikov relates in his
novel, "he could quote European economists from primary sources. He could
disagree with the textbooks and instructors and his comments on any teachings
were full of calm keenness of mind and were striking in their
paradoxicalness."(3)
The well known Russian scientist, Prof M. M. Kovalevskiy, who felt that a true
personality is apparent primarily in independence of judgments, valued most in
M. V. Frunze his involvement with science and his desire to reach independent
conclusions and generalizations on a basis of a profound understanding of
scientific knowledge and its active, creative perception.
M. V. Frunze was also present at literary evenings. At M. V. Annenskiy's he
met A. M. Gorkiy, V. G. Korolenko and other well known literary figures.
Mikhail Frunze also took an active part in propagandizing Marxism among the
workers and the revolutionarily-inclined students. The police learned of his
revolutionary activities. On 28 November 1904, during a student political
demonstration M. V. Frunze was apprehended by the police.
From that moment, Mikhail Vasilyevich became a professional revolutionary and
worked in the underground. Having illegally returned to St. Petersburg, on
9 January 1905, he took part in the demonstration by the people on Palace
Square. His feelings during these days can be judged by the letter to his
mother: "Dear Mama, you have your son Kostya and you have daughters. I hope
that they do not leave you and will be concerned for you at this difficult
time but as for me you must be ready to bid farewell.... The flows of blood
shed on 9 January require retribution. The die is cast, the Rubicon is
crossed and the path determined. I am dedicating all of myself to the
revolution.... 11(4)
Hence began underground revolutionary work that was full of dangers, concerns
and hardships. In May 1905, the Moscow Committee of the RSDRP [Russian Social
Democratic Workers Party] sent Frunze to Ivanovo-Voznesensk. Here, at the
center of the textile industry with a large number of a revolutionarily-
inclined proletariat, he headed and revolutionary workers movement and gained
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serious political and combat tempering. He had to work under unbelievably
difficult conditions. Regardless of the persecution from the police including
continuous round-ups, searches, raids and arrests, the underground
revolutionary work of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk workers under the leadership of
M. V. Frunze (party nickname Trifonich) became evermore active and broader.
In May 1905, a universal strike of the textile workers started involving
around 70,000 workers. The meetings were held initially outside of the city
on the Talka River and then in the city center. Frunze, as a rule, spoke at
these meetings. He was able to speak simply and understandably for the
workers and at the same time, clearly and persuasively.
One of the first soviets of worker representatives in Russia was established
for leading the strike and this was highly regarded by V. I. Lenin. M. V.
Frunze did a great deal of work with the members of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk
Soviet and presented to them an analysis of the course of the revolutionary
struggle in the nation and raised specific questions of the leadership of
worker actions during a political strike. As was pointed out by the party
leaders and workers, he became the soul of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk
organization. He repeatedly traveled to Shuya, Kokhma, Teykovo and Vichuga in
order to secure the support of the workers from these cities for the Ivanovo-
Voznesensk textile workers.
M. V. Frunze endeavored to make the worker actions highly organized and united
and was decisively against any manifestation of anarchy and disorder. Even
during the first days of the strike he established a worker combat militia for
protecting order and the worker meetings. He made a great effort to secure
weapons for the militia members and instill strict discipline in them; he used
any opportunity to conduct military exercises with them.
Regardless of the repeated bloody reprisal against the workers by the Tsarist
authorities, the political strike of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk secretariat
lasted 72 days. As was pointed out by V. I. Lenin, "The Ivanovo-Voznesensk
strike showed unexpectedly high political maturity on the part of the workers.
Fermentation throughout the entire central industrial area continuously grew
stronger and wider after this strike. Now this fermentation began to break
out and began to turn into a revolt."(5)
After the end of this strike, upon the decision of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk
RSDRP Committee, M. V. Frunze was sent to organize party work in the town of
Shuya, where the sway of the SRs and Mensheviks was strong among the
leadership of the party organization. The passivity and indecisiveness of the
leaders had led to a situation where, although the Shuya workers had supported
the strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, their action had not been sufficiently
organized.
During the work in Shuya, Frunze (the new party alias of Arseniy [Arsenius))
did a great deal to increase the militance of the local party organization and
skillfully passed on the experience of the struggle of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk
workers. Self-education circles were organized for conducting exercises with
the workers.
12
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Upon the proposal of M. V. Frunze, armed worker militias were organized in
Shuya. The most aware and boldest workers were selected for the people's
militia. Frunze worked out fighting manuals for the worker militias and these
demanded unswerving fulfillment of orders, the observance of discipline and
the study of military affairs. He organized the manufacturing of weapons and
ammunition in special shops drawing on the forces and means of the workers
themselves. Frunze himself constantly exercised at a firing range, he shot
well and systematically taught this art to the militia members. The city
police, learning of the strength of the organization of the Shuya militia
members, were afraid of them and often did not even dare intervene in
conducting the meetings.
In recalling his work among the workers, M. V. Frunze wrote: "One must be
amazed by the colossal energy and the thirst for knowledge which the
progressive workers showed. Employed for a large part of the day in heavy
labor, in living and feeding themselves in the most impossible manner, they
found sufficient force to attend illegal meetings, lectures, propaganda
circles and organizational sessions. All of this occurred in a situation of
constant danger of being apprehended, beaten or even killed. They met in the
rain, in the snow, in the forests, in barns, storehouses and so forth."(6)
Speaking at the worker meetings were not only Bolsheviks but also SRs,
Mensheviks and anarchists. In such debates it was impossible to make one's
presence felt by reading a prepared text, in counting on quotations or one's
position as a leader. In order to defend Bolshevik ideas and lead the working
masses, vivid, convincing speeches were of course required.
In relying upon Leninist theses, M. V. Frunze was able in a clear and logical
manner to set out the most complicated questions of the revolutionary struggle
and the transformation of social life, in giving apt comparisons and cleverly
repudiating the arguments of his enemies. Regardless of the fact that he had
to speak several times a day, he prepared carefully for each speech.
M. V. Frunze also gave great attention to working with the student youth and
peasantry in speaking long with young workers and former peasants who on
Sundays went home to the countryside from the city.
The strikes which swept through the entire nation in the summer and autumn of
1905 and the mutiny on the battleship "Potemkin" marked a new upsurge in the
revolutionary struggle. During the October All-Russian Political Strike,
Frunze was again back in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. This time bands of the Black
Hundred [a conservative political organization] had organized mass pogroms,
round-ups and searches and cruelly beat persons suspected of belonging to
revolutionary organizations. In order to decisively rebuff these
provocations, Frunze acted in a very effective and openly military manner.
Under the very difficult conditions, he was able not only to strengthen the
actions of the militant worker militias of Ivanovo-Voznesensk but also shift
here a portion of the worker militias from Shuya and Kokhma.
The police were constantly on the trail of Frunze and repeatedly endeavored to
arrest him. He had to change his residence virtually every day. In October
1905, M. V. Frunze in returning from an underground party meeting at night was
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apprehended by a Cossack patrol and cruelly beaten. Having put a rope around
his neck and then attached it to a saddle, the Cossacks forced the horse to
gallop and dragged him for several versts unconscious.
The October All-Russian Political Strike brought the working class to the
superior form of struggle, armed insurrection. On 7 December 1905, upon a
decision of the Moscow Soviet, an armed insurrection was started by Moscow
workers and this was picked up in many other cities. When this became learned
of in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, upon the proposal of M. V. Frunze at a session of
the Bolshevik Committee, it was decided to send a detachment of the people's
militia to help the rebel Moscow workers. In a short period of time the
militia members trained by him had been assembled from Ivanovo-Voznesensk,
Shuya, Kokhma and other cities in Vladimir Province. The first detachment of
the Ivanovo-Voznesensk militia headed by Frunze arrived in Moscow, it broke
into Krasnaya Presnya and together with the Moscow workers for 9 days
heroically fought against the Tsarist troops. However, the forces were
unequal. Tsarist troops shifted from St. Petersburg and Warsaw sealed off all
approaches to the city and the revolt was put down. In this most complex and
seemingly hopeless situation, M. V. Frunze showed great courage, cool
headedness, the ability to correctly assess the combat situation and high
command qualities. With his detachment he succeeded in breaking through the
solid ring of encirclement and return in an organized manner to Ivanovo-
Voznesensk.
In April 1906, Frunze was elected a Bolshevik delegate to the Fourth RSDRP
Congress in Stockholm. There he met with V. I. Lenin and had a long
conversation with him. Vladimir Ilich approved the experience of establishing
a "worker university" on the Talka River as well as the militia groups and the
training of cadres for a future armed insurrection of the proletariat. The
speeches of V. I. Lenin at the congress and contact with Bolshevik delegates
from other regions of the city had an enormous impact on Frunze and they
broadened and deepened his understanding of the tasks confronting the party as
well as the tactics for actions in the further revolutionary struggle.
Participation in the congress work gave him a new charge of enthusiasm and
confidence in the correctness of the path he had chosen in working with the
workers as well as methods for combating the Mensheviks and SRs.
In a report on the results of the congress at the Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Frunze
explained Lenin's ideas on the careful, thorough preparation of the
proletariat's armed action considering the experience of the 1905 revolution
as well as on the need to skillfully combine legal and illegal forms and
methods of the struggle of the working class in the new situation. He threw
himself headlong into revolutionary work to organize the practical fulfillment
of the congress decisions.
While after the 1905 revolution the Mensheviks had begun saying: "There is no
need to resort to arms," the Leninist Bolsheviks drew the completely opposite
conclusion: "We must resort to arms more decisively, energetically and
offensively .... 11(7)
M. V. Frunze thoroughly and soundly analyzed the course of the Moscow armed
insurrection and the actions of the people's militia during the strikes. He
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saw that the workers and the militia members had acted boldly and intrepidly
but they clearly lacked military ability and organization. Experience again
showed that the well organized military force of the Tsarist autocracy had to
be opposed not only by revolutionary enthusiasm but by equally well organized
and trained armed workers. For this reason, Frunze carefully generalized the
experience of the barricade battles and strikes, the organization, training
and actions of the worker militia.
In this context Frunze began to study military literature more tenaciously.
He was particularly captivated by the profundity and at the same time inspired
simplicity of the conclusions and discoveries of the book by F. Engels "Anti-
Duhring" and in his other works on military questions. All military history
and military campaigns and engagements took on a completely new light in the
context of Marxist ideas. Much of what up to then had been confused and had
engendered only hazy guesses now assumed a more profound sense. Random and
seemingly contradictory events and phenomena gained an ordered and clear
configuration subordinate to iron logic and objective laws. For example, it
became clearer why the same armies and generals under some conditions won
victories and under other suffered defeat. Hannibal who had won a famous
victory at Cannae suffered a crushing defeat at Zama; Napoleon after a series
of brilliant victories at the very height of military art was overtaken by
major defeats. Wherein lay the source of invincibility for Suvorov, why did
some generals win victories with smaller forces while other, regardless of a
superiority in forces, were crushed? What were the reasons for the initial
successes and the subsequent defeats of many armed revolts of the masses of
people such as Spartacus, Pugachev, the Paris Commune and the Russian
proletariat in 1905? From an analysis of the events of military history, an
entire system of reasons for victories and defeats became apparent and these
were related not only to the military conditions for waging war but also to
the political and economic ones.
M. V. Frunze during the years of revolutionary struggle and in his subsequent
periods of state and military activity reflected a great deal over all of this
and more and more was convinced of the erroneousness of bourgeois theories
which considered violence to be the prime factor determining all events and
phenomena in social life. Historical experience, including the lessons of the
just ended Russo-Japanese War, convincingly showed the correctness of the law
discovered by Engels: material production is the determining factor in the
development of society and in ensuring its military might. The influence of
inspired military leaders at best is limited to the fact that they adapt to
the method of waging battle to the new weapons and new fighters which have
arisen in line with the new economic and sociopolitical conditions for waging
war.
As often as any thinking person rereads these ideas of F. Engels he
rediscovers them for himself, for life has constantly confirmed their
truthfulness by ever-new facts.
A more profound study of Marxist literature on war and the army and the
experience of the first Russian revolution evoked in M. V. Frunze an even more
passionate thirst for military knowledge. He realized that a knowledge of the
general patterns in the development of society and the revolutionary struggle
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and the phenomena of war and the army, in providing dependable ideological and
methodological guidelines, at the same time must be combined and complemented
with specific knowledge in various areas including politics, economics,
military science and by the gaining of revolutionary and military experience.
He was evermore convinced that only by a profound study of Marxism-Leninism,
military history and an analysis of events of contemporary reality would it be
possible to elaborate a developed political and military thinking and learn to
find correct solutions under the most complicated conditions of the
revolutionary struggle and military engagements.
Frunze carefully analyzed the experience of the Russo-Japanese War, again and
again he turned to study the life and activity of outstanding generals and
military thinkers and he read articles from the "Encyclopedia of Military and
Naval Sciences," the works of Clausewitz, Leer, Maslovskiy, Astafyev,
Vaskakov, Milyutin, Mikhnevich, Delbruck and other military theorists and
figures of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
In December 1906, Frunze arrived in St. Petersburg for passing examinations in
the polytechnical institute. In completely dedicating himself to intense
revolutionary work full of hardship and anxiety, he still continued to
zealously follow the institute curriculum and carefully prepared for the exam
sessions. Of course he had to work basically at night. Up to 1907 (up to his
arrest), Frunze had successfully passed the exams for the fourth year. This
again shows how serious he was about his education and the mastery of
scientific knowledge, showing constant will and tenacity. At the same time,
this also shows his great abilities.
In January 1907, Frunze returned to Shuya and continued his revolutionary and
party work. After a series of successfuly conducted strikes, his authority as
the party organization leader had increased even more. In the same year he
was elected a delegate to the Fifth (London) Party Congress. However, soon
thereafter he was arrested and was unable to participate in the congress. In
a search of him they found party literature and a weapon.
Frunze's influence on the workers can be judged from the fact that he was
arrested at 0600 hours and by 0900 hours all the plants and factories in Shuya
had begun to strike with the demand to liberate Arsenius. The authorities
were forced to request additional detachments of police and troops from other
garrisons.
Frunze served his sentence at the Vladimir Central, where he was immediately
elected a prisoner elder. In spite of the strictest bans, he organized
protests against the arbitrariness of the prison authorities, he conducted
political work among the arrested and taught the illiterate. He also was very
concerned with self-education. For a long time he planned his escape but the
attempt did not succeed.
For revolutionary activities, for attemtping to escape and accused of
attacking the policeman Perlov, Frunze in January 1909 was sentenced to death,
put in irons and moved to death row. This was a severe testing of his will
and endurance, particularly if it is considered that each night someone was
led off to execution. But even then Frunze did not loose his self-possession.
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He demanded his books which had been taken away from him in sentencing; he
continued studying English, following his rule of life that as long as a
person remained alive he should study.
After a supplementary investigation in February 1910, Frunze was sentenced to
4 years of hard labor, but in September of the same year, as a result of a
second court trial, he was again sentenced to death by hanging. However,
under public pressure under the conditions of the growing worker movement, in
October 1910, the death sentence was replaced by 6 years hard labor.
Frunze again prepared to escape from prison, but one of the prisoners betrayed
him. Frunze was put in irons. His health was greatly undermined and he
developed pulmonary tuberculosis. Regardless of this, he was moved to the
Nikolayev Convict Prison known for its particularly harsh conditions. Heavy,
fatiguing work lasted 12-14 hours a day and beatings were administered for
failure to fulfill the norms.
Still here, too, he succeeded in obtaining books of interest to him on
military questions as well as reading them. He worked out for himself a
definite program and, in following it, endeavored as much as was possible to
consistently study the history of the major wars and military art. When they
refused to hand over the books, he announced a hunger strike. According to
the memoirs of S. A. Sirotinskiy, among the books which Frunze demanded were
English and French textbooks, books on the campaigns of Suvorov, Kutuzov,
Napoleon, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. There were also "Politicheskaya
ekonomiya v svyazi s finansami" [Political Economy in Relation to Finances] by
Khodskiy and "Vvedeniya v izucheniye prava i nravstvennosti [Introduction to
the Study of Law and Jurisprudence] by Pitrazhitskiy. When the books had been
read, and there were never enough of them, he began to relate what he had read
to his neighbors in the cell or to himself, quoting by memory excerpts from
the works of K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin. He knew entire excerpts from
"Nauka pobezhdat" [The Science of Winning] by A. Suvorov and other manuals by
him. He took a close interest in the course of the Balkan War which had
broken out in 1912.
With complete justification N. Kolesnikov commented: "Any external
manifestation of fear was repugnant and unnatural for Frunze. He did not
believe that one could degrade oneself to such a degree. However precious
life may be, what except for self-deprication could come from a convulsive,
senseless clinging to it? Moral superiority over the enemy was already a
victory.... 11(8)
After 7 very difficult years spent in a convict prison, in 1914, Frunze was
sent into exile by stages to Siberia. Along the way he was held at the Butyr
Prison in Moscow as well as the Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and Aleksandrov
deportation prisons. The last moves were made on foot and this was unbearably
hard for persons exhausted by long years of forced labor. The situation was
exacerbated by the fact that as a sign of protest against the arbitrariness
and bestial handling of the arrested persons by the prison authorities and
guards, hunger strikes were repeatedly organized.
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M. V. Frunze served his exile in the village of Manzurka, Verkholenskiy
District of Irkutsk Province. In order to secure the means of existence,
Frunze, like other exiles, was forced to work extensively in heavy physical
labor.
Due to his activity, sociability and personal charm and, most importantly, to
his experience in the revolutionary struggle, soon thereafter Frunze became an
organizer of social life among the exiles. He did a great deal to help the
sick and exhausted and the newly arrived comrades. In the village they
organized lectures, they read abstracts and held meetings both with the exiles
as well as local residents. Frunze ardently supported and explained Lenin's
ideas on the imperialist war which had commenced and which was alien to the
interests of the people and actively spoke out against defensive [that is, to
defend Russia] attitudes.
The world war disclosed much that was new in the methods of conducting
military operations. Mikhail Vasilyevich carefully followed the course of the
first operations which were described in detail in the newspapers. With the
receipt of each new paper, a stormy debate of military events commenced.
Frunze kept a map of the theater of military operations, he analyzed the
course of the operations and frequently correctly predicted their possible
results. Many of his exile friends were amazed by his extensive military
knowledge. But Mikhail Vasilyevich himself, as any person who thoroughly
studies one or another question, the more he studied military questions the
more he was convinced how much still had to be learned.
He scrimped in everything to subscribe to military books and journals from
Irkutsk. What Frunze read on the history of wars and military arts, including
in foreign languages, went beyond the range of a professor in a military
academy. He always endeavored to describe what he had read to comrades and
helped them acquire military knowledge. This, of course, contributed to a
sounder assimilation of the knowledge. The military affairs circle organized
by him for the exiles was called the "Military Academy." In a word, as a
revolutionary of the Leninist school, he considered it essential to constantly
master military knowledge. Frunze's successes in the study of military art
were also aided by a profound analytical mind and great military talent which
were inherent to him.
Regardless of the relatively tolerable conditions of existence, life in exile
could not satisfy Frunze and being forced to remain on the sidelines depressed
him. He longed for room for active revolutionary activities. He particularly
wanted to reach the front area where, in his opinion, major political events
were about to occur. He was constantly trying to escape. However, as a
result of a raid by the police and a search of the apartments where the exiles
lived, 14 persons, Frunze included, were arrested and sent to the Irkutsk
Prison.
In August 1915, at one of the deportation points, Frunze succeeded in escaping.
At Irkutsk, with the help of party comrades, he obtained documents in the name
of Vasilenko and traveled to Chita, where he found work as an agent under the
statistical department of the settlement administration. Traveling often,
Mikhail Vasilyevich was able to contact and conduct political work among the
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workers and he participated in the work of the Chita RSDRP Committee. For a
certain time he even gave public lectures on political and economic subjects
and reviewed the situation in the theater of military operations; he was one
of the editors of the sociopolitical journal VOSTOCHNOYE OBOZRENIYE [Eastern
Review].
Such activity could not help but attract the attention of the police
administration. Having learned of his pending arrest, M. V. Frunze decided to
leave Siberia for European Russia. This step involved a great risk. But,
having surmounted all difficulties, in April 1916 he made his way to Moscow
and then to St. Petersburg. The party committee sent him to the Western Front
where up to 1.5 million soldiers were concentrated. Moreover, at the military
enterprises and bases in the West of the nation there were tens of thousands
of workers mobilized from the industrial regions of the nation. Intensifying
the work of the Bolshevik organizations in the front area had assumed great
importance. V. I. Lenin, as is known, pointed to the necessity of providing
serious propaganda and agitation among the soldiers and officers in preparing
for armed insurrection and establishing military organizations in the RSDRP(b)
[Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Bolshevik)].
Under the name of Mikhaylov, M. V. Frunze arrived in Minsk at the end of April
and began serving in one of the sections of the Committee of the Western Front
of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union. A revolutionary situation had developed in
the nation and the stronger revolutionary mood in Minsk and other frontline
cities was particularly apparent. No end could be seen to the war where
hundreds of thousands of people senselessly lost their lives. The intolerable
conditions of trench life, sickness and poor supply caused great bitterness
and dissatisfaction among the soldiers. As a result of the continuous
mobilizations, many persons opposed to the war ended up on the front and they
brought with them the sad news of the hardships of the war which fell on the
shoulders of the population, of hungry times, strikes at the plants and the
devastation of the countryside. All of this contributed to the development of
revolutionary work but it had to be well organized and directed into the
necessary channel.
On the Western Front there was no organizationally formalized party center.
For this reason, M. V. Frunze with his inherent energy, purposefulness and
tenacity set to this work. Along with I. Ye. Lyubimov, A. F. Myasnikov and
other comrades, he succeeded in establishing such a center and developing
active political work among the soldiers and workers. The Bolsheviks showed
that only by a revolution could the war be ended. The work in the zemstvo
union provided Mikhail Vasilyevich with an opportunity to travel to the front.
He succeeded in establishing underground party cells in the 3d and 10th Armies
and in certain rear units.
However, it is essential to bear in mind that wartime laws were in effect in
the front area and particularly strong police supervision had been
established. For this reason, revolutionary activities were the most
dangerous here and required great caution and strictest conspiracy. In order
to be able to work among the soldiers directly on the front line, M. V. Frunze
using the documents of some other person as a volunteer signed up for the 57th
Artillery Brigade. But the extremely suspicious attitude shown toward him by
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the brigade's command and the police caused him to return to the zemstvo
union.
Work on the Western Front became an unique military academy for M. V. Frunze.
Here with particular clarity he saw how the nature of the war was changing,
subordinating all the life of the state and society to its own interests, how
the boundary between the front and the rear was being obliterated and how the
new technical means were altering the methods of conducting military
operations, encompassing enormous territories and involving millions of people
in bloody battle. He could not help but notice how the material requirements
of the war were growing without restraint and what an enormous impact on the
war was had by the attitude of the masses of people to the war and the moral-
political state of the army caused by this.
In visiting the forward and rear units and coming into contact with many most
diverse individuals, Frunze had an opportunity to gain a rather complete and
dependable notion of the situation at the front and see with his own eyes the
severe and fierce face of war.
In studying the course of military operations from the newspapers and other
announcements, with his own sharp and attentive view he noticed that under
approximately the same conditions of a solid, stationary front the Russian
troops on the Western Front and the Germans at Verdun, regardless of the
significant concentration of troops and enormous losses, had not been able to
break through the defenses while A. A. Brusilov on the Southwestern Front had
successfully carried out this mission but he had not been able to turn the
operational-tactical success into a strategic one. Even then the question
arose for Frunze: how to escape from this blind alley in the future? All
these thoughts and observations came in useful for him during the period of
the Civil War.
M. V. Frunze after a brief interruption because of illness returned to Minsk
and continued working in the combat units of the Western Front where Bolshevik
influence had grown stronger. When Minsk learned about the February
Revolution in Petrograd and the overthrow of the Tsarist government, he
summoned an emergency meeting of the leaders of the Bolshevik Initiative
Center and representatives of the 3d and 10th Armies. The meeting adopted a
decision to form soviets of worker and soldier deputies and these were bodies
which should provide leadership over the revolutionary struggle.
On 4 March, the first legal meeting of the Minsk Bolsheviks and
representatives from the party organizations of the Western Front units was
held. M. V. Frunze gave a speech at the meeting on the present moment and the
tasks of the proletarit. On 5 March at a meeting of the soviet of worker
deputies, upon his proposal, a decision was adopted of establishing a people's
militia from the workers to maintain revolutionary order. M. V. Frunze was
elected its chief. In carrying out in practice Lenin's thesis concerning
activity and decisiveness in the revolutionary struggle, he did everything to
take the initiative and paralyze the actions of the counterrevolutionary
forces. During the night of 5 March, a worker detachment under his leadership
released the political prisoners from prison and disarmed the Minsk police.
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Here everything was carried out in such an organized, efficient and unexpected
manner that the police were unable to put up any resistance.
On 8 March, the unified soviet of worker and soldier deputies was established
in Minsk. This provided an impetus for the forming of soviets in many cities
and population points of the province. Here M. V. Frunze made skillful use of
the experience of establishing the soviets and combat militias in Ivanovo-
Voznesensk and Shuya. The militia established by him comprised the basic
nucleus of the Minsk revolutionary forces and was supported by detachments of
armed workers.
V. I. Lenin on 20 April 1917, in an article "On the Proletarian Militia"
published in the newspaper PRAVDA wrote that the establishing of a worker
militia was of gigantic, crucial significance. "The revolution cannot be
guaranteed and the success of its victories cannot be ensured and further
development of it is impossible, if this measure does not become universal, is
not carried to the end and realized throughout the country."(9)
Of enormous historical significance for the further development of the
revolution and the activities of the Bolshevik party was the arrival of V. I.
Lenin on 3 April 1917 in Petrograd and his April Theses which outlined the
specific ways for moving from a bourgeois democratic revolution to a socialist
revolution.
Proceeding from Lenin's ideas, M. V. Frunze devoted particular attention to
strengthening Bolshevik influence on all the worker organizations and winning
over the masses of soldiers to the side of the revolution. Of great
importance in this context was the establishing of soldier committees which
were to assume leadership over all army formations and units. Frunze with a
group of comrades traveled to the forward positions of the Western Front and
there organized the fraternizing of Russian and German soldiers. He
approached the German positions and spoke before the Russian and German
soldiers. When the Provisional Government took the decision to continue the
war and to go over to the offensive, the Minsk Bolsheviks did a great deal to
thwart this offensive.
After the July events in Petrograd and the collapse of the offensive on the
front, dual rule came to an end. The counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, having
seized power, dealt fiercely with the Bolsheviks and the revolutionary
soldiers. A military dictatorship was established on the front. Mass arrests
started of the members of the soldier committees. The Bolshevik party now set
out to prepare for armed revolt.
In this very complex situation Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze worked days without
end: he visited many population points and troop units, he spoke several
times a day to the workers, soldiers and peasants, urging the overthrow of the
bourgeois government and the transfer of all power to the revolutionary
proletariat. The indefatigable activities among the peasants made Frunze
their generally recognized ideological leader. The Bolsheviks began to
receive ever-greater support from the peasants. In July 1917, the Second
Congress of Peasant Deputies from Minsk and Vilna Provinces elected Frunze its
chairman, regardless of the opposition of the SRs and Mensheviks.
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At the end of August, a counterrevolutionary move was commenced by Kornilov.
He moved the troops of the Western Front most loyal to the bourgeois
government against revolutionary Petrograd. The Bolshevik Party headed by
V. I. Lenin raised the masses of people to fight against the
counterrevolution. On 28 August 1917, the Provisional Military-Revolutionary
Committee of the Western Front to Combat Kornilov and the Staff of the
Revolutionary Troops of the Minsk Area were established. Direct leadership
over the struggle against the counterrevolutionary revolt on the Western Front
was entrusted to M. V. Frunze.
Mikhail Vasilyevich, in knowing the disposition of the troops of the Western
Front, organized the actions of the revolutionary forces skillfully and with a
good understanding of the situation. During these critical days, the
detachments of the Minsk police and the worker militia trained by him acted
outstandingly.
First of all they surrounded the major railroad junctions and stations (Minsk,
Vitebsk, Orsha, Bobruysk and Gomel) and instituted control over the movement
of troops by rail. Frunze's headquarters constantly received reports and
information on the movement of the Kornilov troops. Frunze also maintained
constant contact with the soldier committees of the troop units. All of this
made it possible to take prompt measures to parry the actions of the Kornilov
troop. Having received information on the movement of the Wild Division
against Orsha by rail, M. V. Frunze called on S. M. Budennyy who was the
chairman of the regimental committee and deputy chairman of the divisional
committee of the Caucasian Cavalry Division and through him saw to it that the
Wild Division was unloaded from the cars. In approximately the same manner,
the movement of many other Kornilov units against Petrograd was checked.
As a result of the energetic activities by the Bolshevik organizations in
Belorussia and on the Western Front and the decisive actions of the worker
militias and police established by Frunze, the Tsarist ploy was paralyzed and
the dispatch of troops from the Western Front to Petrograd was thwarted. This
contributed to the rapid defeat of the Kornilov counterrevolutionary coup.
For more than a year, M. V. Frunze worked on the Western Front and in Minsk
and there gained great and merited authority, proving himself to be a major
political leader. His fame as an unbending and courageous revolutionary, a
gold and valorous fighter, an able political leader and organizer of the
masses became widespread.
After the defeat of the Kornilov coup in 1917, the party again sent M. V.
Frunze to Shuya, where by this time around 20,000 troops were deployed. An
enormous mass of workers assembled to meet him at the station. A meeting was
held. The city streets were full of people. In speaking to the workers,
Frunze urged them to rally around the Bolshevik Party and to fight for the
true liberation of the workers.
In September at a city meeting of the Shuya Bolsheviks, Frunze was elected the
secretary of the party committee. He initiated extensive organizational work
to prepare for armed revolt and constantly carried out the line of seizing
power on the spot, not waiting until this would happen at the center. He gave
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particular attention to the formation and training of the Red Guard
detachments. Regardless of his enormous busyness, he found time to conduct
systematic miltiary exercises personally with them.
Political work among the peasantry was itensified. As a result, the soviet of
peasant deputies which prior to this had been under the influence of the SRs,
in September went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks also won
a victory in the elections to the zemstvo and city administrations. Thus, as
M. V. Frunze recalled, even 1.5-2 months prior to the October Revolt the
dictatorship of the proletariat had actually been established throughout the
Ivanovo-Voznesensk area.
The news of the victory of the armed insurrection in Petrograd was greeted
with great joy in Shuya and Ivanovo-Voznesensk. "I do not recall," wrote
M. V. Frunze, "a single instance of protest or dissatisfaction from any groups
whatsoever. All the opponents of the coup among the intelligentsia and the
urban petty bourgeoisie could not say a word contrary with the mood which
existed among the people. Certainly the coup in Shuya occurred without the
shedding of a drop of blood, without a single shot being fired."(10)
When news was received from Moscow on street battles in the city against
government troops, Frunze, as the chairman of the Revolutionary Committee,
issued orders to the chief of the Shuya Garrison for dispatching three
draft companies with weapons to aid the Moscow workers. The Shuya detachment
numbering around 900 persons arrived in Moscow and it included not only
soldiers but also worker militia. Even before this Frunze himself had left
for Moscow in order to clarify the situation and direct the detachment's
actions.
After the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the party and
people were confronted with a completely new task of strengthening the
dictatorship of the proletariat, defending the revolution's victories and
building a new, socialist society. Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze threw himself
into this work as the leader of the party organization and the chairman of the
soviet of worker, soldier and peasant deputies of Shuya.
-In line with the opening of actions against the young Soviet Republic by
German imperialism and the intensification of counterrevolutionary forces, the
question arose of establishing the Worker-Peasant Red Army [RKKA]. The
establishing of one of the first detachments of the new army from workers and
soldiers of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk area, was entrusted to M. V. Frunze.
Later, on the basis of this detachment, the 57th Shuya Regiment of the Red
Army was organized.
At the end of March 1918, the party sent M. V. Frunze to Ivanovo-Voznesensk
where he was elected the chairman of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Provincial
Executive Committee. Soon thereafter he became also the secretary of the
district party committee. This was a difficult time in the establishing of
Soviet power on the spot. Hunger raged through the nation and it was
particularly sharply felt in Ivanovo-Voznesensk Province which was supplied
chiefly by imported grain. M. V. Frunze devoted a great deal of attention to
establishing food detachments and to seeking out other sources for acquiring
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grain for the workers. In accord with the Decree of the Council of People's
Commissars [SNK] of 28 June 1918, enormous work was carried out to nationalize
and organize industrial operations. In the aim of training personnel for the
textile industry from the workers, Mikhail Vasilyevich in 1918 worked to open
a polytechnical institute in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
As throughout the party, in February-March 1918, fierce debates were conducted
in the Ivanovo-Voznesensk party organization on the question of concluding the
Brest Peace. The severe conditions of this treaty caused universal
indignation. M. V. Frunze underestimated the danger of the position of the
"leftist communists" who were against the signing of the peace and did not
immediately understand all the complexity of the existing military-political
situation and the fatal consequences of continuing the war against Germany for
the cause of the revolution. He assumed that the situation was still not
hopeless and it was essential to go and fight whatever the cost. Regardless
of his enormous political experience, in the given instance the military
aspect of the thinking of M. V. Frunze took an upper hand over higher
political considerations. At one of the sessions of the Fourth Extraordinary
Congress of Soviets in March 1918, he abstained from voting in the
ratification of this treaty, having not immediately grasped all the wisdom and
farsightedness of Lenin's political line. Subsequently, Mikhail Vasilyevich
profoundly realized the erroneousness of his views and sincerely recognized
the correctness of Lenin's position on the question of concluding the Brest
Peace.
In July 1918, M. V. Frunze participated in the work of the Fifth Congress of
Soviets during which the leftist SRs revolted. All the Bolshevik delegates
were thrown into suppressing the revolt in various areas of Moscow. Frunze
led the actions of the first Moscow military courses [cadets] in the area of
Kursk Station and the Pokrovskiy Barracks. Here one could see his ability to
rapidly master the situation and by intelligent actions and efficiency take
command over the various groups of workers and soldiers involved in
suppressing the revolt.
On the following day, 7 July, the White Guard revolt in Yarolsav became known.
Upon the recommendation of Ya. M. Sverdlov, all the Yaroslavl delegates
returned home and Frunze went back to Ivanovo-Voznesensk to mobilize the
forces with the aim of providing help in suppressing the revolt. Within 24
hours he had succeeded in organizing, arming and dispatching to Yaroslavl a
combat detachment numbering 400 men and later additional detachments of
communists and workers from Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Shuya, Kineshma and Teykovo
were dispatched there. But Frunze did not limit himself to this. He sent
persons to Yaroslavl to study the situation and having learned about the
insufficiently organized and indecisive actions to suppress the revolt, he
wrote a letter to the commander of the Moscow Military District N. I. Muralov
with specific proposals to accelerate the elimination of the revolt.
PRAVDA on 16 July 1918 wrote: "At a critical, terrible moment for the
revolution the Ivanovo-Voznesensk communist organization was up to the
situation and showed iron discipline, organization and the ability with a firm
proletarian hand to completely defend the cause of proletarian revolution and
socialism."
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On 11 August 1918, at the Ivanovo-Voznesensk District Party Conference which
discussed the question of mobilizing the communists in relation to the
Czechoslovak counterrevolutionary coup, a decision was taken to recommend
M. V. Frunze to the post of military commissar of the Yaroslavl Military
District. To the request from the All-Russian Bureau of Military Commissars
on this question, Ya. M. Sverdlov highly praised the political and
professional qualities of M. V. Frunze and the party sent him into military
work for which he had prepared himself, in essence, all his life. On
22 November 1918, at a session of the RKP(b) [Russian Communist Party
(Bolshevik)] Provincial Committee, M. V. Frunze was simultaneously elected the
chairman of the provincial committee.
The Yaroslavl Military District (after the suppression of the coup in
Yaroslav, the district headquarters was shifted to Ivanovo-Voznesensk)
included eight provinces: Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Vladimir, Severo-Dvina,
Kostroma, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Tver and Yaroslavl. In terms of the scale and
nature of activities and the missions carried out, the position of military
commissar was essentially the position of the military district commander.
F. F. Novitskiy, who worked at the headquarters of this district, correctly
noted that M. V. Frunze in this position was not only the leader of all
military administrative work but was simultaneously the main chief, that is,
the district commander. His personal volitional and command qualities and his
profound Marxist training as a widely informed political leader represented an
ideal combination of qualities required of a major commander, while his
revolutionary task was the soundest guarantee of his support among the masses.
In order to organize work over the extensive territory of the Yaroslavl
Military District, he first of all began by recruiting and training personnel
for directing the most important areas both within the district staff as well
as on the spot. It must be said that Frunze always had a special feeling for
professional and capable persons. He could not only find them, but also
select a suitable job for each. He showed greatest concern in training
commanders who were communists from the workers and peasants and without whom
it would have been impossible to fill the basic positions with skilled cadres
and establish a battleworthy army.
In the aim of accelerating the training of command and political cadres for
the formations and units being organized, Frunze established special courses.
At these courses he himself frequently conducted exercises, continuing to work
tenaciously at improving his own military knowledge. He was also obliged to
do this by the preparations for the exercises, particularly with the command
and supervisory personnel of the courses and units being organized. Until
late at night he sat over his books and maps.
As was already pointed out, M. V. Frunze was involved in military affairs,
taking a direct part in the armed struggle against the Tsarist autocracy and
heading the armed actions of the proletariat. But, having become a major
military leader, he set to studying military art with particular zeal and
primarily the experience of World War I. The demand of V. I. Lenin for the
proletariat to seriously study military affairs became a law for Frunze. He
studied the works not only of Russian military theorists but also foreign
ones. From memory he could schematically reproduce on paper or a classroom
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blackboard the campaigns and engagements of the past as well as the Russo-
Turkish, Russo-Japanese and First World wars. Here he was not afraid to seek
advice and had long conversations on the most complicated operational-
strategic and military-tactical questions with specialists from the old
Russian Army. On these questions he was greatly aided by the former general
of the Tsarist Army F. F. Novitskiy.
M. F. Frunze belonged among those leaders who are not threatened by
intelligent and capable subordinates and associates and who value and are able
to spot any manifestation of initiative and creativity by them. He never
endeavored to show that only he had thought up all the good ideas, he did not
hide or leave on the sidelines those with whom he worked out one or another
question. For this reason in any collective which was led by Mikhail
Vasilyevich, a situation of good will, a spiritual upswing and creative
cooperation was always established and when people successfully complement one
another in what they are able to do best of all. For example, Frunze and
Novitskiy complemented one another very well and with great benefit for the
cause during their work in the Yaroslavl Military District and later on the
Eastern and Turkestan Fronts.
The precise operation of the Yaroslavl Military District assumed particularly
great importance due to the fact that the district was the immediate rear of
the Northern and Eastern Fronts and supplied these with human and material
resources. In carrying out the decisions of the party and the Fifth Congress
of Soviets concerning the organization of a regular RKKA, Frunze initiated
enormous political and military organizational work on the district territory.
From september 1918 through February 1919, just in Ivanovo-Voznesensk Province
over 70,000 persons were mobilized. The district fielded 2 divisions,
separate units and dispatched to the front some 65 draft companies for the
operatinoal army. The organizing of these formations and units involved great
difficulties, for not only were there not enough trained cadres but also
weapons, supplies and other materiel. Extraordinary measures were required
even to the point of requisitioning lacking supplies from the local
bourgeoisie as well as great organizational abilities to seek out all of this
and ensure the carrying out of the set missions.
Frunze visited many military commissariats which were carrying out the most
important missions and he sent out his closest associates for supervising and
providing help on the spot. Being extremely attentive to others, he at the
same time showed great exactingness for himself and for subordinates. Even at
that difficult time when the new army was just being established, he worked
decisively against sloppiness in dress and violations of patrol duty. He
demanded systematic holding of exercises and training with the units being
organized, including drill exercises. Even then he had an amazingly profound
and precise understanding of the specific features of military service and
primarily such a particular feature of it where the entire process of military
instruction and indoctrination should be constantly tested against what would
be needed against actual combat.
In accord with the instructions of V. I. Lenin and the party Central
Committee, Frunze devoted great attention to universal military instruction
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for the populace and constantly saw to it that each citizen of the Soviet
Republic was ready to defend the socialist fatherland with weapons in hand.
All this diverse work was carried out unconditionally under the leadership of
the party committees and the bodies of Soviet power and with the active
participation of all the party organizations and communists. The achievement
of M. V. Frunze was primarily in the fact that he was one of the most
convinced, able, disciplined and creative executors of the decisions and will
of the party and the Soviet state and at the same time, as an active party
fighter, he was able to work with the party and soviet bodies, to rely on them
and direct their efforts in carrying out major tasks.
On the fronts of the Civil War. By the start of 1919, the Soviet Republic,
surrounded on all sides by enemies, continued to remain in a fiery ring of
fronts the total length of which reached 8,000 km. After their victory over
Germany, the Entente nations increased their intervention against the Soviet
nation. In considering the failure of their first campaign, they decided to
organize a new campaign against Soviet Russia but now on a broader scale.
They planned to launch concentric attacks aimed at the republic's capital,
Moscow, and the main thrust from the east. In this context, in the spring of
1919, a particularly difficult situation had arisen on the Eastern Front,
where the grouping of Kolchak troops numbering over 300,000 men with 211 guns
and 1,300 machine guns was opposed by our troops numbering a little more than
100,000 soldiers, 370 guns and 1,182 machine guns (Diagram 1).
In going over to the offensive, Kolchak endeavored to throw the Soviet troops
back behind the Volga, to capture this important line and cut off the center
of Russia from the lines of communications providing supply from the south,
and capture the grain reserves of the Volga and Urals. The Eastern Front
again, as in the summer of 1918, became the main front of the Soviet Republic.
In the "Theses of the RKP(b) Central Committee in Relation to the Situation on
the Eastern Front" written by V. I. Lenin it was demanded that all the forces
and revolutionary energy of the working masses be focused on the defeat of
Kolchak and on liberating the Volga, the Urals and Siberia. As a result of
the party, Komsomol and trade union mobilizations, the troops of the Eastern
Front received 15,000 communists, 3,000 Komsomol members and 25,000 trade
union members.(11)
Many prominent leaders of our party and the Soviet state were assigned to the
front. M. V. Frunze was also among these. Considering his high military and
organizational qualities, the party Central Committee decreed to appoint M. V.
Frunze to the post of commander of the 4th Army of the Eastern Front. The
Ivanovo-Voznesensk workers bid fond farewell to their recognized leader and
sent with him to the front a military detachment organized from communists and
progressive workers.
At the end of January 1919, M. V. Frunze assumed command of the 4th Army.
Everyone knew him as an intrepid and dedicated revolutionary and a man of
outstanding organizational and military administrative abilities. Of course,
this meant a great deal. But in order to successfully command an army on the
front, it was also essential to have developed operational-strategic thinking,
the ability to quickly analyze a complex situation and a knowledge of the
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principles of operational and tactical leadership of the troops, the forms and
methods of preparing and conducting operations and troop command under the
conditions of the rapidly and unexpectedly changing situation in the course of
the Civil War. And in all justice it must be admitted that, regardless of the
most difficult conditions under which Frunze had to operate, for all these
qualities he surpassed the most optimistic expectations of his friends.
The generalship activities of M. V. Frunze on the fronts of the Civil War have
been widely and thoroughly examined in our literature, and these are
convincingly reflected in his orders and instructions to the troops. For this
reason the author would like to take up only certain aspects of his practical
work during this period and which are of substantial significance for the
shaping of his military theoretical views.
From the very outset of his generalship activities, Frunze above all draws
attention by the profound and organic combining of the political and purely
military or operational aspects of the question in his decisions and actions.
This was exceptionally important under the Civil War conditions. After the
issuing of a combat order, each time when the situation allowed, he endeavored
in a comprehensible manner to explain the importance and significance of the
mission to be carried out, turning not only to the commanders and commissars
but also directly to the Red Army masses. He combined military operations to
decisively defeat the enemy with delicate and skillful work to break down the
enemy and win away confused elements of the workers from the White Guards.
This was most clearly apparent in measures related to the Urals Cossacks and
the population of Turkestan Kray. He devoted special attention to the
strengthening of military discipline, order and organization.
On the questions of establishing a regular, disciplined army, he consistently
carried out Lenin's theses voiced at the Eighth RKP(b) Congress and was
against the military opposition which defended partisan methods.
By the time M. V. Frunze arrived at the Eastern Front, the military-political
and strategic situation there was difficult. The imperialist states had begun
a new anti-Soviet campaign by the united forces of the domestic
counterrevolution and the foreign intervention concentrating their main
efforts against the Eastern Front. The Kolchak troops, going over to the
offensive, were advancing toward the Volga.
The 4th Army of the Eastern Front numbering a total of 17,000 men was assigned
for operations on the Turkestan sector and occupied a front around 350 km
long. The army formations consisted basically of Red Guard and partisan
detachments, they were poorly armed, under strength and poorly trained in
combat terms. Many commanders still had not overcome their partisan attitudes
and they underestimated the military specialists and generally military
training and discipline. There were frequent instances when the soldiers
removed commanders and appointed others; questions of going over to an
offensive or holding one or another point were discussed at meetings; a
designated attack was arbitrarily put off. In the climate of unbridled
anarchy in certain units there were counterrevolutionary actions by kulak
[rich peasant] and SR elements who, in maintaining contact with the Whites,
refused to carry out the command's orders for an offensive. Individual units
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went over to the enemy side. In the Orel-Kurilov Regiment, the commander and
commissar were murdered. Somewhat later, the new commissar of this regiment,
N. Chistyakov, and the RVS [revolutionary military council] member of the 4th
Army, G. D. Lindov, were cruelly killed. Such units with poor discipline and
their ranks full of vacillating and sometimes even hostile elements opposed
the crack Kolchak troops and the counterrevolutionary Cossacks under the
command of experienced generals and officers.
Under such conditions it was impossible to immediately commence effective
actions. The new commander had first of all to make these troops
controllable, to strengthen their discipline and bring them into a
battleworthy state. At the same time it was essential to be concerned with
preparations for the operation. For this reason, upon taking over the army,
its new commander devoted particular attention to political work in the troops
and to the strengthening of military discipline.
M. V. Frunze demonstrated an exceptionally profound understanding of the
importance of not only political but also military indoctrination for the Red
Armymen and commanders. He skillfully combined methods of persuasion with
high commander exactingness. The army commander was unswerving in carrying
out his own decisions. He took decisive measures to check the anarchy and
disorder. In the worst units a majority of the commanders and political
workers was replaced and some of them reduced in grade. Taking their places
were young, energetic and disciplined Red commanders from the workers and
peasants. At the same time, the experience and knowledge of the old military
specialists were skillfully used.
Due to exceptional tenacity, unbending will and great organizational
abilities, Frunze was able in a short period of time to alter the situation in
the army and significantly increase its battleworthiness.
This provided an opportunity not only to stop the enemy but also to launch a
powerful counterstrike. The carrying out of this counterstrike involved a
major risk, but due to the establishing of a strong assault grouping and
decisive actions, it was brilliantly executed. Under the most difficult
conditions, M. V. Frunze was able to exploit the success, to prepare and
successfully carry out an offensive operation to defeat the large grouping of
White Guard troops and liberate Urals Oblast.
In the generalship traits of M. V. Frunze in conducting this operation, one
important circumstance merits attention. The command of the front ahead of
the 4th Army was given the mission of preventing the enemy from reaching the
routes leading to the Middle Volga in-the sector of Samara, Syzran. From the
standpoint of the formal concepts of military art, in this situation defensive
operations would have been most effective and this actually was demanded from
the army from above. But, considering the specific features of the military-
political and operational-strategic situation, Frunze was convinced that the
stubborn defense of the most important areas had to be combined with active
offensive operations. This idea was correct, for such actions increased the
fighting spirit of our troops and had a demoralizing effect on the enemy.
Regardless of the extent of the front, the threat of an enemy breakthrough and
the shortage of his own forces, Frunze was able to concentrate significant
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run U r r .L%-LAL U.)1. VLIL L
forces on the crucial sectors. He succeeded in undertaking a number of active
operations coming out in the enemy's flank and rear, using gaps in the enemy
battle formations. On the question of the operations of the 4th Army, the
commander of the Eastern Front S. S. Kamenev commented: "The work of your
army surpassed all expectations, the only bright page from the present days of
the front."(12)
F. F. Novitskiy thus described the activities of Frunze in the position of
army commander: "From the very first days of his combat service, having
immediately taken up the major post of army commander, that is, a post which
in the old times would have been attained at the end of one's military career,
Mikhail Vasilyevich immediately began to carry out his combat work in the full
sense of the word brilliantly and according to all the laws and rules of
military science."(13)
However, as a whole the situation on the Eastern Front remained difficult. In
line with the growing threat, the party Central Committee as before considered
the Eastern Front to be the main one and focused its basic efforts on the
defeat of the Kolchak Army. M. V. Frunze was appointed the commander of the
Southern Group of Forces of the Eastern Front and this group consisted of four
armies. Regardless of the bad situation, he constantly sought to intensify
operations using the entire group of forces. As a result of carefully
conducted reconnaissance and a profound assessment of the situation, Frunze
took a bold decision to launch a strike from the Buzuluk area against the
flank and rear of the main grouping of Kolchak's western army.
Preparations for the operation were carried out in a maximum short time. The
troop regrouping and the organizing of the assault grouping in the Buzuluk
area were carried out in a situation where the enemy was continuing the
offensive and our troops were retreating. Yet even under these conditions,
all the preparatory measures were carried out in a profoundly planned and most
careful manner.
Frunze skillfully combined the work involved in planning the operation with
practical work for training the troops. He was fully aware that the adopting
of the plan and the issuing of combat orders were just the start of preparing
for the operation and he carried out enormous organizational work to implement
the measures in accord with the set plans. He gave particular importance to
reconnaissance and to a constant knowledge of the enemy's position. He
visited the units which were to carry out the most responsible tasks and he
carefully watched the execution of the issued orders, the transporting of
ammunition and the preparing of the lines of communications, showing in this
unshakable firmness, consistency and strong exactingness in carrying out his
plans. In preparing the operation he did a great deal to bring the troops up
to strength and improve their supply. He sent to the most undependable units
worker detachments which had been sent to help him from Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
In considering that the troops of his armies would be basically opposed by the
Orenburg and Urals White Cossacks and under the conditions of the absence of a
solid front, he took measures to increase troop mobility and for this purpose
organized new cavalry units, confiscating horses in a number of instances from
the rifle and rear units. Along with V. V. Kuybyshev and other party workers,
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he conducted great political work in the troops as well as among the
population of the front area.
In carrying out all the measures to prepare for the operation, the commander
made certain that the plan for the operation was kept secret and he promptly
purged the rear of the operational army of counterrevolutionary elements.
From the viewpoint of the operational situation, the moment for going over to
the offensive on the southern sector of the front was rather successfully
chosen as the Kolchak troops were drawn out and had still not regrouped to
launch new attacks. Initially S. S. Kamenev even assumed that the commander
of the Southern Group was in too great a hurry but then supported Frunze's
idea of a rapid preparation for launching the counterstrike against the flank
of the Kolchak troops as this idea seemed not only bold but also completely
sound. When A. A. Samoylo who was appointed instead of S. S. Kamenev to the
position of front commander endeavored to halt the offensive by the troops of
the Southern Group, M. V. Frunze showed exceptional principledness and
successfully defended his conviction of the need to continue the offensive.
In difficult and most crucial moments he had repeatedly turned directly to
V. I. Lenin and received support from him. And this time as well, V. I. Lenin
supported Frunze, demanding the further development of the offensive and the
rapid capturing of the entire Urals.
In recalling the situation at that time after the Civil War, M. V. Frunze
said: "The Kolchak troops had already advanced right up to the Volga; we were
scarcely holding Orenburg which was surrounded on three sides; the army
defending it constantly was trying to retreat; to the south of Samara the
Urals Cossacks had broken through the front and were advancing to the north,
threatening Samara and the Samara--Orenburg railroad. We were retreating
almost everywhere.... It required not only colossal will but also a strong
conviction that only the going over to the offensive would alter the
situation.... Regardless of everything, we went over to the offensive and
commenced a brilliant operation which led to the complete defeat of
Kolchak."(14)
Thus, the well conceived, boldly and decisively carried out counteroffensive
was crowned with success. In the course of three successively conducted
operations--the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa--the troops of the Southern Group
under the command of M. V. Frunze dealt a major defeat to the enemy
(Diagram 2).
In the course of the operation, M. V. Frunze employed methods of troop command
which were progressive for those times. During the period of World War I the
commanders and staffs of the fronts and the armies usually were a great
distance away from the troops, they were late in receiving situational data
and for this reason were unable to promptly respond to changes in the
situation. Some of the staff workers who were old specialists endeavored to
employ these methods also during the period of the Civil War. M. F. Frunze
decisively rejected such practices of troop command and control. During the
period of developing the offensive and in other active combat operations, he
endeavored to be closer to the troops. For this purpose he assigned from the
staff personnel an operations group (field staff) which ensured effective
troop command for the commander. He could often be seen in the attacking
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extended lines, at the most dangerous places. By his own example he inspired
the commanders and Red Armymen, demonstrating personal braveness and
intrepidness. On 9 June 1919, at the Battle of Ufa, the commander's horse was
killed underneath him and he himself received a concussion, but regardless of
this, continued to remain on the battlefield.
The Soviet government, in high recognition of M. V. Frunze's actions to defeat
the enemy, appointed him commander of the Eastern Front. Under Frunze's
leadership, the success of the Southern Group developed into a general
counteroffensive by the troops of the entire front. As a result, the Kolchak
armies were defeated and their remnants thrown back beyond the Urals.
During his activities on the Eastern Front, M. V. Frunze showed himself to be
an outstanding military leader of the Leninist school. He worked in close
collaboration with such remarkable figures and military leaders as V. V.
Kuybyshev, M. N. Tukhachevskiy, F. F. Novitskiy and D. M. Karbyshev as well as
many other commanders and commissars. Of the combat commanders, he
particularly valued V. I. Chepayev. D. A. Furmanov has written vividly and
aptly about this: "And along with them (Frunze and Kuybyshev.--M. G.) were
the inseparable, the loyal and the best whom only Frunze could find, know and
esteem such as Fedor Fedorovich Novitskiy.... These were the raw material for
Frunze and Kuybyshev and from this precious raw material they extracted the
most essential, from this extract they created their plans and from the plans
they stitched together the mighty net into which Kolchak was to fall.
"...Frunze knew how to choose his assistants. You could not doze with Frunze
as he could get inside you, mobilize every bit of your mind, will and energy,
galvanize you to action and force your heart to beat and your thoughts to move
in time with his. Anyone who has worked with Frunze will recall and know with
what unabated joy he completely and totally devoted his thoughts, feelings and
energy during those extraordinary days."(15)
With the splitting of the Eastern Front into the Eastern and Turkestan, M. V.
Frunze assumed command of the Turkestan Front. The spring and summer of 1919
were one of the most critical periods in the course of the Civil War. After
the defeat of the basic Kolchak forces, the imperialists of the Entente placed
their main hopes on Denikin in the aim of launching the main thrust against
the Soviet Republic from the south. The RKP(b) Central Committee, upon the
initiative of V. I. Lenin, on 9 July turned to the party and all the workers
with the letter "Everyone Into the Struggle Against Denikin!"
The Turkestan Front was given the mission of primarily completing the defeat
of the Southern Kolchak Army and providing aid to the Southern Front of the
Red Army and to prepare and conduct an operation to liberate Turkestan. The
appointment of M. V. Frunze to the Turkestan Front was not accidental as he
had a good knowledge of the local conditions and the life of the peoples.
Napoleon at one time said to his suite: Wherever you are, study the terrain
as possibly you may have to fight on it. From this viewpoint a knowledge of
Turkestan came in very handy to Frunze.
The troops of the Turkestan Front during this period were spread out from the
Caspian Sea to the eastern regions of the Southern Urals. The new commander
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sought to concentrate the main forces of the front on the crucial sectors and
carried out a series of rapid offensive operations against the White Guard
troops. As a result, economically very important regions were liberated from
the enemy.
V. I. Lenin closely followed the support for coordinated actions of the
Southern and Turkestan Fronts. He paid basic attention to preventing the
link-up of the Denikin troops beyond the Volga with the Urals White Cossacks.
For this reason he demanded that Frunze maintain constant supervision over
this dangerous sector. In carrying out Lenin's instructions, Frunze
personally traveled to the staff of the Special Group of the Southern Front
and to the formations of the 11th Army fighting on the adjacent flank of this
front, he saw to their close cooperation and organized the launching of a
strike against Wrangel's Cossack Army.
In actions against the Urals White Cossacks, Frunze skillfully considered
their attachment to population points. In defeating the White Cossack Army of
Gen Tolstov, he demanded that his troops "remember that the aim of the actions
is to deprive the enemy of its base and thereby force it to abandon further
struggle."(16) And then he gave instructions on how to do this: "In order to
deprive the enemy of the opportunity to organize and continue resistance, it
is now essential to throw him back into the steppe, having occupied all the
inhabited area along both banks of the Ural River."(17)
As a result of conducting the Aktyubinsk Operation, the troops of the
Turkestan Front surrounded and completely routed Kolchak's southern army.
Around 55,000 men alone were taken prisoner. Very indicative also was the
Bukhara Operation carried out under the direct leadership of M. V. Frunze.
Well organized reconnaissance, bold maneuvering, the successful choice of the
moment for the assault, decisive and active operations combined with skillful
political work in the units as well as active propaganda in the enemy troops
made it possible to defeat the forces of the Bukhara emir. In a short period
of time also defeated were the counterrevolutionary troops and the Basmack
detachments in the Semirechye area, in the regions of Fergana, Khiva and
Karsnovodsk as well as other regions of Turkestan (Diagram 3).
During the period of his command over the Turkestan Front, not only the
generalship talent of M. V. Frunze was brilliantly apparent but also his
talent as a political organizer and a keen diplomat who could thoroughly
analyze the intricacies of the complex military-political situation which then
existed in Turkestan.
Considering the complex political and military situation in Turkestan, upon
the proposal of V. I. Lenin, the party Central Committee in September 1919
approved a decision to send a governmental commission to Turkestan and M. V.
Frunze was to be a member of this. This commission carried out great work to
provide help to the local party and soviet bodies in the struggle against the
bourgeois nationalists and other anti-Soviet elements, to strengthen the unity
of the party ranks, to carry out Lenin's nationality policy, to involve the
local population in active sociopolitical life and economic construction and
to organize national formations and units which were loyal to Soviet power.
With the active involvement of M. V. Frunze, a new constitution was worked out
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for the Turkestan republic and this was adopted in September 1920 by the Ninth
Congress of Turkestan Soviets.
M. V. Frunze devoted particular attention to rebuilding the fuel supply.
While engaged intensely in directing combat operations of the Turkestan Front,
he found the time to visit mines, plants, and factories, seeking to return
them to operation. All enterprises involved in the extraction and production
of fuel as well as railroads were put under marshal law. In accord with the
SNK decree signed by V. I. Lenin, Frunze was also largely concerned with the
questions of expanding the irrigation system and cotton raising. He gave
great importance to training national military cadres. For their instruction,
at the Tashkent Infantry School, a special department was opened for 200
persons and at the Turkestan State University a military faculty was founded.
Some 500 communists from the indigenous nationalities were sent into the units
being organized.
All these measures initiated under the leadership of M. V. Frunze led to a
fundamental improvement in the military-political situation in Turkestan and
created favorable conditions for the subsequent socialist transformations.
In the autumn of 1920, the strategic situation was sharply aggrevated in the
south of the Soviet Republic. The Wrangel Army armed by English and French
imperialists had gone over to the offensive. Upon the decision of the party
Central Committee, the Southern Front was organized. V. I. Lenin forwarded a
note to the republic RVS, proposing that Frunze be appointed commander of the
Southern Front: "Frunze should be appointed commander of the front opposite
Wrangel and this should be done now. I asked Frunze to talk with you sooner.
Frunze said that he has studied Wrangel's front, he has prepared himself for
this front and knows (from Urals Oblast) the means for fighting against the
Cossacks."(18)
Having assumed the position of the commander of the front, Mikhail Vasilyevich
first of all abandoned the passive defensive for repelling the attacks by the
Wrangel troops and himself organized a series of active operations in the aim
of improving the held positions. Within a short period of time, he had
regrouped the troops and prepared an offensive operation. The troops of the
front, in going over to the offensive, routed the enemy in Northern Tauria.
But Wrangel pulled back his remaining troops into the Crimea and there created
strongly fortified positions. Frunze headed the elaboration and organization
of the offensive operation by the Southern Front to cross Sivash Bay and break
through the deeply echeloned and heavily fortified enemy defenses (Diagram 4).
This offensive operation was prepared for thoroughly, covertly and carefully.
It should be pointed out that Frunze even on the way from Tashkent to Moscow
and in preparing for the operation studied closely all the existing military
historical documents relating to military operations on the Crimean Peninsula
as well as the military geographic references. He was particularly attentive
to the experience of the Russian troops in 1737-1738, when they outflanked the
Perekop positions from the east, crossing to the peninsula at the mouth of the
Salgir River.
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As in organizing other operations, the commander of the front skillfully
combined boldness and breadth of operational-strategic thinking with the
detailed elaboration of specific tactical questions related to the crossing of
the Sivash, the breaking through of the defenses, map work for planning the
operation with organizational and political work in the troops. One must note
the fortuitous choice of the sector of the main thrust, the time for going
over to the offensive and the commitment to battle of the cavalry formations
considering the terrain conditions and the nature of the enemy defenses.
For the first time in the history of the Civil War, a deeply echeloned
operational configuration of the troops was established with the 6th and 4th
Armies in the first echelon and the 1st and 2d Horse Armies in the second.
The 13th Army comprised the front's reserve. The sequence of troop operations
and the procedure for cooperation of the infantry, artillery, cavalry and
combat engineer units were thought out in all detail. Airplanes were
skillfully used for conducting air reconnaissance and preventing the enemy's
retreat. In a situation where the enemy was already expecting the resumption
of an offensive, original methods were found to achieve surprise. Frunze
devoted particularly much attention to the combat training of the troops
considering the forthcoming specific combat missions. Engineer-fortified
positions were established in a number of formations. The troops trained in
attacking them and in crossing approximately those obstacles which they would
encounter in the storming of the Turetskiy Rampart. Units of the 30th Rifle
Division and other formations trained hard in crossing the straits.
As a result of all of this well thought out operational and organizational
work, our troops successfully broke through the enemy defenses, they committed
large horse forces to the engagement and completed the rout of the Wrangel
troops in the Crimea. Characteristically in a short period of time they
prepared and conducted two successive offensive operations (in Northern Tauria
and the Perekop-Chongar) with an operational pause of just 4 days.
V. I. Lenin had high regard for the actions of the Southern Front in the
Crimea. He pointed out: "...The Red Army showed unusual heroism, having
surmounted such obstacles and fortifications which even the military
specialists and authorities considered impassable. One of the most brilliant
pages in the history of the Red Army is that complete, decisive and remarkably
quick victory which it won over Wrangel."(19).
Thus, all the operations conducted under the leadership of M. V. Frunze were
marked by boldness of conception, by a decisiveness of actions, by the
skillful concentration of men and equipment on the main sectors and opposite
that portion of the enemy grouping the defeat of which determined the success
of the entire operation. Frunze gave great importance to organizing
reconnaissance and to ensuring concealment and surprise of actions. He was
marked by the ability to provide firm control of the troops and steadily carry
out the adopted plans. He dealt strictly with the failure to carry out
orders, and decisively condemned and thwarted any false democracy in the army
or any manifestation of disorganization, laxness and lack of discipline.
Frunze possessed exceptionally great capacity for work, courage and bravery.
As on the Eastern Front, in crucial moments, when this was essential, he was
often among the attacking fighters. Under the conditions of the Civil War,
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this was completely justified. He not only understood but took to heart
Lenin's words: "The personal example... means terribly much."(20).
M. V. Frunze, an ideologically convinced revolutionary, was also a remarkable
political leader. He was able, relying on the party-political apparatus and
the party aktiv, to unite the Red Army masses and inspire them to carry out
the most difficult missions. High party principledness and strict
exactingness were combined in him with great concern for his subordinates. He
loved the working people and masses of soldiers and was constantly tied to
them and they responded to him in the same manner.
In the Order of the Republic RVS of 30 December 1920, it was stated: "The
Commander of the Southern Front, Comrade M. V. Frunze Mikhaylov, in
successively holding the positions of the commander of the 4th Army, the
Southern Group of the Eastern Front and the Eastern, Turkestan and Southern
Fronts, brilliantly demonstrated in actuality his major natural military
gifts.
"In constantly acquiring theoretical knowledge, he successfully applied it in
practice, giving the Soviet Republic victories over its enemies in the East
and in Turkestan and particularly in the South, where he routed the Wrangel
Army and thus inscribed many glorious pages in the history of the defense of
Soviet Russia."(21)
For outstanding contributions to the revolution and for operations
successfully carried out in the years of the Civil War, M. V. Frunze was
awarded the Order of the Red Banner and an honorific Golden Weapon. By the
order of the republic RVS No 2881-1920, M. V. Frunze was assigned to the
General Staff on equal footing with the "professional General Staff members"
who had received their higher military education in the old Russian Army.
This was a recognition of his great military knowledge and high level of
generalship art. Thus, M. V. Frunze, one of the most talented products of our
party, by the end of the Civil War had developed as an outstanding proletarian
military leader and a new type of military chief.
The Activities of M. V. Frunze During the Years of Peacetime Construction
Commander of the troops of the Ukraine and Crimea. After the end of the Civil
War, during years of peacetime construction, in following the instructions of
V. I. Lenin, our party firmly carried out a line of the greatest possible
strengthening of the nation's defense capability and the combat readiness of
the Armed Forces. V. I. Lenin demanded that we remember "the danger
constantly hanging over us which will not cease as long as world imperialism
exists...."(22) "...In setting out on our peacetime construction," he said,
"we will make every effort to continue this without interruption. At the same
time, comrades, be on guard and protect the defense capability of our nation
and our Red Army like the apple of your eye...."(23)
The Tenth Party Congress in 1921 worked out a precise program for the postwar
organizational development of the Soviet Armed Forces basically by their
qualitative improvement. These questions were given great attention at all
the subsequent party congresses and Central Committee plenums.
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In carrying out the ideas of the party and V. I. Lenin, M. V. Frunze was well
aware that the end of the Civil War would not lift the military threat against
the Soviet Republic. It was clear that the imperialists were assembling new
forces to attack the Soviet nation. Under these difficult conditions the
tasks of building a new socialist society and strengthening the defenses of
the Soviet state were merged into one.
In December 1920, the party Central Committee and the Soviet government
appointed M. V. Frunze the commander of the armed forces of the Ukraine and
Crimea and a representative of the Republic RVS. Along with other prominent
leaders of the party and the Soviet state, Frunze had to resolve such
difficult problems as shifting the army to a peacetime standing, determining
the ways for organizing national defense and developing the Armed Forces of
the world's first socialist state. The carrying out of these tasks was
complicated by the fact that in the party ranks there were persons who felt
that in peacetime the Soviet state did not need a professional army. Nor was
there a unity of views on the most important questions of military
organizational development.
The tasks of converting the army to a peacetime footing had to be carried out
in an extremely difficult situation. It was essential to demobilize and send
home hundreds of thousands of Red Armymen under conditions where transport was
paralyzed and fuel was lacking; planned combat training had to be organized
while the troop units were in disarray and the men were half hungry and half
clothed; kulak bands roamed over the entire territory of the Ukraine.
A great deal of time and effort was spent on organizing the fight against
banditry, and the bands wrecked the already war-devastated economy and
disrupted the work of normalizing postwar life and establishing regular combat
and political training in the troops. The fight against banditry assumed an
acute political nature. This question was repeatedly discussed at the party
conferences and congresses of the Ukrainian soviets.
At the end of December 1920, M. V. Frunze participated in the work of the
Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets and was elected a member of the All-
Russian Central Executive Committee [VTsIK]. During the work of the congress,
he met with V. I. Lenin who expressed concern over the fact that the
elimination of the bands in the Ukraine was being drawn out.
To carry out this mission Mikhail Vasilyevich first of all mobilized the
efforts of the party organizations, the soviet bodies and population and
carried out a series of specific measures to split the basic mass of bandits
away from their leaders. At the same time, he worked out and implemented a
plan of military operations to defeat first of all the largest Makhno and
Petlyura bands. In this instance Frunze showed a creative approach to
organizing combat operations in considering the specific situational
conditions. Here he skillfully employed the combat experience against the
Basmacks in Turkestan.
Having carefully studied the nature of the actions of the Makhno bands which
moved quickly from one place to another without engaging in major battles,
Frunze reorganized the tactics of his troops. He decided to operate against
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the bands in small, highly mobile detachments, using predominantly cavalry
units and machine gun carts. A special "flying corps" was organized which was
to constantly pursue, surround and destroy the bandit detachments. All the
garrisons, troop units and facilities were given specific missions to combat
the bandits. The establishing of the communist special purpose units (ChON)
was a new form of military training and involvement of the workers in the
active struggle against the bands. Frunze took direct part in military
operations and in one clash was wounded. As a result of the active,
coordinated and decisive operations, the basic forces of the
counterrevolutionary bands were defeated at the beginning of 1922.
In being concerned with military affairs, M. V. Frunze also took an active
part in the work of the party and economic organizations in the Ukraine,
particularly in organizing work to rebuild the mines of the Donbass [Donets
Basin]. He was also appointed the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian SNK and
deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Economic Conference and was elected a member
of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party [CPU]. In speaking
at worker meetings and to the Red Armymen, he decisively defended a Leninist
position on all the questions of party and soviet construction.
As a member of the Ukrainian delegation in March 1921, M. V. Frunze
participated in the work of the Tenth Party Congress at which he was elected a
member of the RKP(b) Central Committee. For this party congress, together
with I. S. Gusev, he had prepared theses on the reorganization of the Red
Army. The basic ideas of these theses came down to the following: involving
the broad working masses in the defense of the republic by systematic
training; maintaining and strengthening the Red Army and arming it with modern
weapons and military equipment. These proposals as a whole were adopted and
Frunze participated in preparing the draft congress decision on military
questions. The theses prepared by S. I. Gusev and M. V. Frunze and the
subsequent activities of Frunze to elaborate a unified military doctrine were
aimed at carrying out the resolution of the Tenth Congress "On Party Unity"
and at combating fractionalism and opposition, including on military
questions. As is known, the Tenth Party Congress interrupted its work because
of the counterrevolutionary revolt in Kronshtadt; M. V. Frunze, along with
other congress delegates participated in the storming of the fortress and the
eliminating of this revolt.
At the 11th Party Congress (March-April 1922), Frunze came out decisively
against the Trotskyite distortions of party line on military questions. Along
with other delegates, he introduced a proposal for convoking a special
conference of congress military delegates which would discuss in more detail
the questions concerning the Red Army and a unified military doctrine.
Trotskiy and his supporters opposed this in every possible way. However, on
30 March and 1 April 1922, in accord with the Decree of the Plenum of the
RKP(b) Central Committee of 25 March, the conference was held. It was
attended by 72 delegates. The draft decree "On Strengthening the Red Army"
read by M. V. Frunze was supported by a majority of the conference
participants and later approved by the congress.
After returning from the congress, Frunze set to work to carry out its
decisions. Without waiting for any instructions from above, he found the most
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effective ways to rationally combine the regular and territorial-militia
units. He devoted particular attention to the training and indoctrination of
the commanders and political workers. Regardless of the diversion of a
significant number of troops to combat banditry and rebuild the economy, he
constantly saw to it that the personnel and all the troops systematically
engaged in military and political training. On 28 July 1921, he issued the
Order "On the State Propaganda of Communism in the Red Army and Navy Units in
the Ukraine and Crimea."
In line with the general cutback in the Red Army, the commander along with his
staff thought out in detail the procedure and sequence of discharging the
older Red Armymen so that all the basic formations and units maintained their
battleworthiness and the possibility of a rapid remobilization in the event of
war. He devoted great attention to organizing, equipping and establishing the
training process in the military institutions of learning. Frunze's proposal
to establish military faculties under the civilian higher institutions of
learning was carried out. Without waiting for the completion of the
elaboration and receipt of important documents from the center, he worked out
military regulations, instructions and teaching aids.
At that time one of the most important tasks was to eliminate illiteracy among
the Red Armymen in order to make each soldier a conscious citizen of the
Republic and capable of mastering the evermore complex military affairs.
Frunze also found time to be deeply concerned with such questions as the
preinduction military training for the youth, military instruction for
students in civilian institutions of learning and other matters related to the
training of reserves for the Red Army.
M. V. Frunze considered one of the primary tasks to be organizing secure
defense of the state boundaries. He did a great deal to increase the
battleworthiness of the border troops, for erecting fortifications on the
approaches to the state frontier and for building shore batteries on the Black
Sea coast. As a whole, he was rather deeply involved with the concerns and
needs of the Black Sea Fleet. He repeatedly visited the ships, he provided
great help in the technical equipping and increasing the combat readiness of
the fleet and sought the founding of the Bureau of Naval Propaganda in the
Ukraine. He provided active support for the movement getting underway
throughout the nation to develop the air force and to the "All-Ukrainian
Society for Aviation and Navigation" which was established under his proposal.
Upon the initiative of M. V. Frunze, in March 1922, by a decision of the RSFSR
SNK, a special commission was established to provide help to the Red Army.
Upon the instructions of the RKP(b) Central Committee, sponsorship by the
worker collectives was established over certain troop units.
The difficulty of carrying out all these tasks was aggrevated by the fact that
the organizational development of a new army had just commenced and it was
necessary to follow an untrod path in solving many questions. There was no
unity of views on the nature of a future war and the methods of waging it or
on the organizational development and training of the Armed Forces. There were
no new regulations and other basic documents. While for many military
theoretical questions to some degree one could rely on the military
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specialists from the old Russian Army, a completely new approach was essential
for the military-political ones, from positions of the Marxist-Leninist
teachings concerning war and the army.
Under these conditions particular significance was assumed by the broad
development of military scientific work in the Armed Forces and by the
greatest possible development of creativity on the part of the leading cadres
and all the command-supervisory personnel. For this reason not formal command
training was needed but rather creative political and military studies
accompanied by profound reflection and related to the theoretical elaboration
of the most important questions of the organizational development and training
of the Armed Forces which had been raised by life and which had to be
practically solved. One of the measures aimed at this was the establishing of
a Permanent Conference on Questions of Broadening the Viewpoint and Military
Knowledge of Commanders and Political Workers (chairman, M. V. Frunze) with
the job of coordinating military-scientific work in the troops in the area of
generalizing the experience of wars, working out new questions of military
organizational development and propagandizing military knowledge.
During his command of the Ukrainian and Crimean armed forces, Frunze began
intense work on studying and generalizing the experience of World War I and
the Civil War, involving a broad range of command-supervisory personnel in
this. R. P. Eydeman recalled how "even during the difficult years of 1920-
1921, when seemingly there was no time to study, Comrade Frunze, while
extremely burdened down with practical work in the Ukraine, while at leisure,
barricaded himself behind books, including foreign ones, and armed with the
Marxist method, worked on the development of his own military theoretical
viewpoint and on studying not only the experience of World War I and the Civil
War but also the classics of military affairs."(24) In giving great
importance to the experience of these wars, M. V. Frunze at the same time
cautioned against making a fetish of this, emphasizing that military affairs
had continued to improve and for this reason it was essential to critically
approach past experience and more profoundly consider the trends of further
development. His military theoretical activities from the very outset were
subordinate primarily to the interests of solving practical tasks and were
marked by an analysis of the entire aggregate of facts, by the depth of
arguing the proposed ideas and by the ability to clearly and aptly formulate
his thoughts.
Even in his first articles such as "The Reorganization of the Red Army,"
"Protect the Revolution (the Red Army and the Revolution)," "The Military-
Political Indoctrination of the Red Army," "The Main Military Tasks of the
Moment" and others, M. V. Frunze raised the question of elaborating uniform
views on the nature of the military tasks of the Soviet state, on the training
and indoctrination of the Red Army and on elaborating a unified military
doctrine. In July 1921, in the first issue of the journal ARMIYA REVOLYUTSIYA
[Army and Revolution] published in Kharkov an article was published by M. V.
Frunze entitled "A Unified Military Doctrine and the Red Army" and this was
his first major theoretical work. Subsequently, the ideas in this article
were developed in a number of other works and speeches. In these, he defended
the party line on preserving and strengthening the might of the Red Army. He
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convincingly showed the incorrectness and danger of the viewpoint of those who
were insisting on an immediate transition to a militia system.
In November 1921, M. V. Frunze was appointed the head of an Extraordinary
Diplomatic Mission to Turkey for concluding a treaty between the Ukraine and
Turkey (treaties between Turkey and the RSFSR and Turkey and the
Transcaucasian Republics had already been concluded). The mission's work was
carried out in a period when the Turkish people, under the leadership of
Mustafa Kemal, were waging a difficult struggle for independence against the
Anglo-Greek interventionists. Frunze prepared carefully for the trip and
studied the history and economy of Turkey as well as the course of military
operations. Frunze's knowledge of foreign languages and the Kirkhiz language
which is close to Turkish contributed to a direct and close contact with the
state leaders and various strata of the Turkish population. The aim of the
mission was successfully and quickly reached. During his stay in Turkey,
Mikhail Vasilyevich gained a detailed knowledge of the situation in the
country and the state of the Turkish army; he had long talks with residents of
the cities and villages, with soldiers and military chiefs. He gave valuable
advice to the leadership of the Turkish Army, proceeding from the experience
of fighting against the interventionists during the period of the Civil War in
the USSR. At the same time, he was also attentive to the combat experience of
the Turkish Army.
After the termination of the talks, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) sent to Moscow and
Kharkov telegrams which pointed out: "The mere fact that the Government of
the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, for concluding a treaty of friendship in order
to further strengthen the political and economic ties existing between both
peoples has chosen Frunze, one of the outstanding political leaders and at the
same time one of the valorous generals and heroic leaders of the victorious
Red Army has caused particular gratitude on the part of the National
Assembly."(25) This was proof that the accomplishments of M. V. Frunze in the
revolutionary struggle and Civil War had gained international recognition.
Wherever M. V. Frunze worked--in Belorussia, on the Eastern and Turkestan
Fronts and in the Ukraine--everywhere he profoundly considered and
unswervingly carried out the basic tenets of Lenin's nationality policy, he
sought their practical realization in resolving any political, economic and
military questions and struggled for the greatest possible strengthening of
the friendship of peoples.
In May 1922, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist
Party (Bolshevik) introduced a decision to establish a commission of
representatives from the RSFSR and the Ukraine to resolve state relations
between the republics. M. V. Frunze was selected as the commission chairman.
From the very outset of the talks, he raised the question that the problem of
relationships between the liberated peoples of former Tsarist Russia must be
viewed more widely, not restricting oneself to talks between individual
republics. He defended the ideas of V. I. Lenin on the pooling of efforts by
the Union Republics on foreign and financial policy and on major economic
questions; on the full unity in the area of national defense and military
organizational development; on ensuring full equality of rights among the
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republics and on the development of a national culture and relative
independence for the republics in economic activities.
From the report of M. V. Frunze, the Seventh All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets
on 14 December 1922 approved a resolution supporting the Leninist idea of the
voluntary unification of the Soviet Republics into a single united state, the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. At the First Congress of USSR Soviets,
precisely Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was instructed on behalf of delegations
from the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, the Transcaucasian Federation and
Belorussia to introduce the proposal on approving the Declaration and Union
Treaty on Forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In being guided by the ideas of the party and the Soviet government, M. V.
Frunze in all his subsequent work proceeded from the necessity of resolving
all questions of military organizational development considering the common
interests of the united Soviet state.
Due to the fact that on the questions of the organizational development and
training of the Red Army, there were distortions and deviations from the party
line which had not always been considered and corrected by the Republic RVS,
in January 1924, the RKP(b) Central Committee set up a special commission for
investigating the state of the Red Army with a membership of S. I. Gusev,
G. K. Ordzhonikidze, I. V. Stalin, N. M. Shvernik, M. V. Frunze, I. S.
Unshlikht and others.
The commission established that, along with positive aspects caused by the
leadership of the Red Army by the RKP(b) and by the active work of the party
organizations as well as many military and political leaders on the spot, on
the practical questions of the organizational development and training of the
Red Army there were dangerous distortions of party military policy and serious
shortcomings. The report from the commission to the Central Committee Plenum
in April 1924 stated: "At present, we do not have a Red Army as an organized,
trained, politically indoctrinated and mobilization-ready force. In its
present form the Red Army is not battleworthy."(26)
In actuality, the converting of the Armed Forces to a peacetime standing
considering the new situation had been slowly carried out and there were no
unified prescribed documents or unified combat training system; there was a
gap between the central apparatus and the troops. The former People's
Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Trotskiy and his supporters, under
various pretexts, had impeded the carrying out of party decisions on the
questions of strengthening the Red Army.
The commission worked out a series of proposals aimed at improving the state
of affairs in the Armed Forces. These proposals of the commission as approved
by the party Central Committee became the program for the reorganization of
the Red Army and its further organizational development. On 1 April 1924, the
Plenum of the RKP(b) Central Committee approved the report of M. V. Frunze on
the measures implemented and planned. The plenum emphasized the importance of
reorganizing the administrative apparatus of the military department and the
promoting of party personnel to responsible command and staff positions in all
elements of the Red Army and Navy.
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At the head of the republic's Armed Forces. The Plenum of the Central
Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RKP(b) in January 1925
handed down the decree: "Whereas the leadership of the army is inconceivable
without the full support for this leadership by the authority of the entire
party; whereas without such support the danger is created of undermining iron
discipline in the army; whereas the conference of political workers, on the
one hand, and a fraction of the USSR RVS, on the other, have already come out
in favor of the removal of Trotskiy from military work...to recognize as
impossible the further work of Trotskiy on the USSR RVS."(27) The struggle
against the Trotskyites and the other hostile elements on military questions
was reflected in the general struggle in the area of policy, economics and
ideology, since the forces of the Old World did not want to accept the
revolutionary changes in society and were desparately resisting the
construction of socialism.
Under these conditions, at the head of the Armed Forces of the Soviet
Republic, there had to be a man with great revolutionary tempering and
experience in political and military work, a figure having just authority in
the nation and in the Red Army and capable of successively and skillfully
carrying out the party decisions on the questions of military organizational
development. Undoubtedly M. V. Frunze possessed all these qualities. In
March 1924, he was appointed deputy people's commissar for military and naval
affairs and deputy chairman of the RVS and in January 1925, the people's
commissar and chairman of the USSR RVS.
At the 13th Party Congress, M. V. Frunze was elected a candidate member of the
Politburo of the RKP(b) Central Committee and a candidate member of the
Orgburo [Organizational Bureau] of the RKP(b) Central Committee. In April
1924, he was also confirmed as the chief of staff of the Red Army and later
the chief of the Military Academy. Such centralization of leadership was
caused by the need to eliminate the influence of hostile elements on the
activities of the major elements in the central apparatus and to rapidly
resolve the urgent problems of increasing the battleworthiness of the Red
Army.
Having received great powers from the party Central Committee and in relying
on the support of the Army and Navy party organizations, M. V. Frunze began to
decisively surmount the resistance of the Trotskyites and carry out a
fundamental reform in the area of the organizational development and training
of the Armed Forces. Prominent political and military leaders were placed in
the major work areas in the central apparatus, including: A. S. Bubnov in the
position of chief of the RKKA Political Directorate and M. N. Tukhachevskiy as
the deputy chief of staff of the RKKA.
M. V. Frunze felt that it was essential "to give the army a more permanent and
stable nature, to eliminate the turnover of its personnel, to establish
conditions for its life and activities which were strictly regulated by the
law and carry out a more energetic freshening and rejuvination of the leading
command personnel by promoting young forces."(28)
The severe economic situation in the country necessitated a further cutback in
the size of the armed forces and the giving to them of a more compact and
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rational organizational structure considering the actual capabilities of the
nation to technically equip and materially support the Army and Navy. M. V.
Frunze with his inherent energy and organizational grasp set to solving all
these problems. In a short period of time major measures were carried out to
reorganize the central apparatus of the military department: its size was out
back by 40 percent, the organization was systematized and functions clarified.
As a result of the reorganization carried out, the central organs of military
administration consisted of three parts: the RKKA Staff which should be
concerned with elaborating measures relating to national defense (together
with the other state bodies), the questions of the organization of the army,
its mobilization and strategic deployment, the elaboration of operational
plans and the study of the experience of wars; the RKKA Inspectorate was in
charge of training command cadres and the combat training of the troops and it
exercised supervision over the carrying out of the decisions of the USSR RVS;
the RKKA Directorate was to be concerned with the questions of routine army
life, the service of command personnel, the registration and induction of
persons liable for military service, logistical support for the camp
assemblies and other measures related to combat training.
In the reorganization of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, special
attention was paid to increasing its role as the leading party body operating
with the rights of a section of the party Central Committee. The chief of the
RKKA Political Directorate, A. S. Bubnov, was elected secretary of the RKP(b)
Central Committee. In September 1924, the Regulation Governing the RKKA
Political Directorate was approved and its apparatus, the political bodies of
the military districts and fleets were reinforced with experienced party
cadres. The system of supply and logistical support for the troops was
systematized, while the control and command system was brought closer to the
troops and naval forces.
The resolution of the 13th Party Congress held at the end of May 1924 pointed
out: "The congress welcomes the steps initiated by the Central Committee for
carrying out a completely necessary reform in the military department and the
strengthening of it with political workers. In line with the role of the
territorial formations on the question of national defense, the congress draws
the party's attention to the necessity of the most energetic work to
strengthen communist influence in them. The congress orders the Central
Committee to take a series of measures to increase the number of communists
among the Red Armymen and sailors."(29)
Thus, M. V. Frunze was one of the main organizers in carrying out the party
and government decisions on military questions. Under his immediate
leadership, a large range of measures was carried out to increase the combat
and mobilizational readiness of the Red Army and to strengthen national
defense; this has come to be known as the military reform of 1924-1925.
As a result of this reform, a mixed system for the organizational development
of the Armed Forces, that is, regular and territorial, was reinforced, a new
organizational structure was introduced for the units and formations, the
system for the training of command personnel was reorganized, a new supply
system was adopted for the Armed Forces and regulations and manuals were
worked out and introduced in accord with the new demands upon the combat
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training of the Army and Navy. The bodies of military administration
underwent a fundamental reorganization including the central, district and
local military apparatus. The essence of this reorganization was, while
maintaining centralized demand and control, to carry out a certain
decentralization of this and increase the responsibility and initiative of the
subordinate bodies and officials on the spot.
The party had always given great importance to the strengthening of one-man
command in the army. V. I. Lenin in 1920 said that the experience in the
organizational development of the Red Army "has moved, developing naturally,
from random, diffuse collegiality, through collegiality raised to a system of
organization permeating all army facilities and now, as a general trend, has
reached one-man command, as the solely correct organization of work."(30) But
during the period of the Civil War the conditions did not exist for fully
realizing one-man command. In July 1924, the RKP(b) Central Committee adopted
a decree on converting to one-man command in the Army and Navy and this was to
be done stage by stage, in two forms: if the commander was a communist then
he would combine the functions of line, administrative-economic and party-
political leadership; in the remaining instances the commander performed only
the first two functions while leadership over political and party work was
entrusted to the commissar.
All of this helped to bring the personnel and structure of the Armed Forces
into accord with the real economic and military capabilities of the nation, to
improve their battleworthiness and better the leadership over the
organizational development of the Army and Navy as well as the training and
indoctrination of the personnel.
The range of activities of Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was very broad. Along
with military questions, he was largely and actively concerned with
establishing the defense industry, particularly aviation and chemical, as well
as organizing scientific research on the most modern types of equipment. He
endeavored to utilize all the possible party, state and social levers to
activate mass defense work, to involve the party, trade union and youth
organizations in this and to make the strengthening of national defense a
concern that was truly nationwide. For this reason he frequently spoke on
these questions at party congresses and conferences and at the congresses of
soviets, the peasantry, teachers, writers, volunteer societies and other
organizations. He not only spoke but also took an active part in their work.
In the organizational development of the Armed Forces Frunze was particularly
concerned with the new branches of troops. P. I. Baranov who at that time was
at the head of the Air Forces thus described the activities of M. V. Frunze to
establish the Air Fleet: "The development of Soviet aviation, its modern form
of organization and the positing of navigation questions--all of this is
linked with the name of Mikhail Vasilyevich. During Mikhail Vasilyevich's
work in Moscow, the nature of army and strategic aviation, the nature and role
of naval aviation in the general organizational development of the Air Fleet
as well as the role and significance of the aviation industry were clearly
defined, the Aviation Trust was established and the role and importance of
research in the area of the Air Fleet were determined.... Mikhail Vasilyevich
carefully followed each step in the develoment of the Air Fleet. According to
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his instructions, the fly-over of units in the May Day Parade, aviation
maneuvers and so forth were organized."(31)
M. V. Frunze was responsible for beginning the organization of planned combat
training for the Red Army units. In 1924 and 1925, he was present at many
exercises and maneuvers, he worked for their instructive holding and was
exacting in summing up their results. He gave primary importance to
introducing the regulations into the life of the troops and to strengthening
conscious military discipline.
Mikhail Vasilyevich realized well that it was possible to carry out the
military reform in practice and implement its basic measures from the top to
the bottom only by relying on the commanders and political workers who
profoundly understood the essence of the military reform, who fully shared its
basic ideas and out of inner conviction carried them out. For this reason he
boldly promoted to leading positions at the center and in the troops the
commanders and political workers from the new formations and he showed
constant concern for their retraining in various courses and in military
academies. For this purpose the training process was substantially revised in
the RKKA Military Academy. During the 1924-1925 academic year, the compulsory
study of Marxism-Leninism was introduced and the study of the experience of
the Civil War was more widely carried out. All of this was reflected not only
in the military history programs but also in the courses on strategy, tactics,
political work and other subjects.
I. Dubinskiy, who at that time was studying in the academy, recalled: "Frunze
knew the value of military knowledge. Immediately after the Civil War, having
entered into a fierce theoretical dispute with Trotsky over the basic
questions of the organizational development of the Red Army, he upturned
everything in the academy. Having overcome the resistance of the
conservatives, he forced the basic chair to long take leave of Julius Caesar,
having directed the attention of the professors to the study of the military
works of V. I. Lenin and to the mastery of Brusilov, Makenzen, Blyukher,
Budennyy, Primakov and Vostretsov."(32)
Military theoretical activities. The focus of all the activities of M. V.
Frunze, including military-theoretical, was determined by the general
conditions of the life and activities of the Communist Party and the Soviet
states during the years of rebuilding the national economy and by the
interests of defending the nation against imperialist invasion and increasing
the combat capability of the Red Army.
After the victory in the Civil War over the foreign interventionists and
domestic counterrevolution, the party and government focused their main
efforts on eliminating the postwar chaos and turning economically backward
Russia into a powerful socialist state. These tasks had to be carried out
under extremely difficult conditions. The chaos, having paralyzed the entire
national economy, was exacerbated by terrible hunger in the Volga Region and a
number of other oblasts. In benefiting from this, the imperialist world began
to intensify the economic and diplomatic blockade of the Soviet Republic. At
the same time with the involvement of the English, American and French staffs,
plans were hatched for a new attack on our country by an invasion of the
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Ukraine by Polish and Romanian troops together with the remnants of the
Petlyura and other bands. Terrorists of the Savinkov type were sent into the
nation. Ludendorff worked out a plan for the participation in the new
interventyion of a German "volunteer" army. Military operations were still
continuing against the Japanese interventionists in the Far East and fighting
was underway to eliminate the numerous kulak bands and detachments of Basmacks
in various regions of the nation.
The Red Army was still poorly supplied and was quartered in semi-destroyed
barracks or in other facilities poorly adapted for this. Among a majority of
the commanders and Red Armymen for several years there had been
predemobilization moods. The difficulties of shifting the army to a peacetime
footing which M. V. Frunze encountered in the Ukraine now confronted him in an
evermore complex form and on a nationwide scale. Moreover, the Trotskyites
and the other enemies of our party did not miss a single chance to use all
these difficulties to cause dissatisfaction and to sabotage the organized
converting of the Army and Navy to a peacetime status. The enemies, as K. Ye.
Voroshilov recalled, sabotaged any vital work even relating to the positing of
new problems in the area of military affairs.(33)
The Trotskyites were particularly zealous against the most important tenets of
the Marxist-Leninist teachings concerning war and the army and their
implementation in practice. In stating that Marxism-Leninism could not be
applied to military affairs, they endeavored to ideologically disarm the
military cadres and instill apolitical attitudes and reactionary
antiscientific military-theoretical views in the command personnel. In spite
of Lenin's instructions on the enormous importance of military science in the
organizational development and training of the Armed Forces, they denied even
the very possibility of scientific knowledge in the area of military affairs.
The hostile elements which had penetrated the party spread uncertainty among
the command personnel, linking the possibility of the Red Army's success in a
future war only to "permanent revolution." The danger of such a line was also
in that it was hidden behind ultraleftist pseudo-Marxist phraseology and in a
number of instances was carried out by persons holding high positions in the
Red Army.
Antiparty views on military questions were fostered in every possible way by a
certain portion of the military specialists. In holding leading positions on
the editorial staffs of the military journals and on the chairs of military
schools, they propagandized idealistic views about war. Thus, the former
generals of the Tsarist Army, Gershelman and Shtyurmer and the professor of
the Naval Academy Danilov, viewed coercion in isolation from political
motives, depicting it as a natural manifestation of human nature. Danilov, in
particular, asserted that a political goal was merely a flag to cover the true
reason for a war.(34) The leaders of the Second International endeavored to
equate the predatory wars of imperialism and the revolutionary wars of the
Russian proletariat. They also had their supporters in our nation who
proposed abandoning any philosophy. They endeavored to replace Marxist-
Leninist methodology by Bukharinite "organizational science," considering it a
universal scientific methodology.
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The danger of all this "work" was that it was carried out among the command
personnel which was not still sufficiently trained in political and military
terms. This led to the dissemination of incorrect views on military science
and military organizational development. The Troskyites initiated a
particularly broad and malicious campaign after the appearance on the pages of
the journal VOYENNAYA NAUKA I REVOLYUTSIYA of the theses of M. V. Frunze and
S. I. Gusev, "The Reorganization of the Red Army."(35) When the results of
the discussion at a meeting of military delegates to the 11th RKP(b) Congress
on the basic military task of the moment were published in VOYENNYY VESTNIK
[Military Herald], Trotsky threatened to bring suit against the editors.
In this situation the acute task arose of quickly working out the scientific
bases for the organizational development of a socialist state's armed forces
and for achieving a unified understanding of them by the leadership personnel
of the army and navy. Moreover, the experience of World War I and the Civil
War, having fundamentally altered the views on the nature of war, also placed
new demands on the training of the troops and naval forces, while there were
extremely few cadres who could examine and interpret these new phenomena from
Marxist-Leninist positions. All of this required an intensification of
military scientific work and a decisive eradication of antiparty views on
military questions.
The increase in the ideological-theoretical level of military-scientific work
and the outcome of the struggle to overcome the antiscientific and antiparty
views were enormously influenced by the first edition in 1920-1926 of the
collected works of V. I. Lenin and the Lenin Collections which began to come
out in 1924 and the publishing in 1923 of the book by F. Engels "Anti-Duhring"
and his collected. works in the collection "Stati i pisma po voyennym voprosam"
[Articles and Letters on Military Questions].
Of great importance for the organizational development of the Red Army in the
development of miltiary science along a Leninist path was the conference of
military delegates to the 11th Party Congress where the struggle for the
confirmation of Marxist-Leninist ideas in military affairs assumed maximum
acuteness. The Trotskyites completely ignored the experience of the Civil War
and the influence of the new social system on military theory and practice and
denied the necessity of elaborating a unified military doctrine. M. V.
Frunze, K. Ye. Voroshilov, S. M. Budennyy and M. N. Tukhachevskiy who spoke
after Trotsky's report convincingly showed the harmfulness of such ideas and
their theoretical and practical groundlessness.
Taking part with V. I. Lenin in the creative works on elaborating the
theoretical bases for Soviet military organizational development were the
prominent leaders of the party and the Soviet state V. A. Antonov-Ovseyevnko,
A. S. Bubnov, K. Ye. Voroshilov, S. I. Gusev, S. M. Kirov, N. I. Podvoyskiy,
I. V. Stalin and others. M. V. Frunze was one of the outstanding and talented
organizers of military science who made a major personal contribution to the
investigation of its most important fundamental notions. Of the other
prominent communists who during the Civil War period had held important
positions in the Red Army, most actively involved in military-scientific work
were S. I. Aralov, I. P. Belov, R. I. Berzin, V. K. Blyukher, P. Ye. Dybenko,
A. I. Yegorov, N. D. Kashirin, I. K. Kozhanov, M. N. Tukhachevskiy, I. P.
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Uborevich, R. P. Eydeman and I. E. Yakir. The first graduates of the RKKA
Military Academy, A. V. Golubev, G. S. Isserson, K. B. Kalinovskiy, V. K.
Triandafillov and others, were talented and profound military researchers.
In elaborating the bases of Soviet military science, particularly on the
specific questions of the theory of military art, specific use was also made
of the old military specialists such as M. D. Bonch-Bruyevich, I. I. Vatsetis,
K. I. Velichko, A. I. Verkhovskiy, A. M. Zayonchkovskiy, S. S. Kamenev, D. M.
Karybshev, V. N. Klembovskiy, A. I. Kork, P. P. Lebedev, A. A. Neznamov, V. F.
Novitskiy, A. A. Svechin, B. M. Shaposhnikov and others. While many of them
had committed substantial errors on political and methodological questions,
these researchers excelled in great knowledge in the area of military history,
they systematized and analyzed enormous factual material and had mastered the
art of a vivid, convincing exposition of the designated questions. Their
works provided rich material for critical analysis and reflection. This
applies particularly to the works of A. M. Zayonehkovskiy on the history of
World War I, A. A. Svechin on strategy, B. M. Shaposhnikov on the organization
of the higher military command bodies and K. I. Velichko and D. M. Karbyshev
on military engineering.
Under the controlling influence of the party, in the troops and fleets
congresses and conferences were held for the command and political personnel
to discuss the experience of previous wars and the urgent problems of military
theory and practice. This led to the organizing of volunteer military
scientific societies of Red commanders in the aim of assisting the development
of Soviet military science. This was an expression of the activeness and deep
interest of the command and political personnel of our army in a correct
solution to military questions and marked the genesis of authentically
democratic collective forms for elaborating the urgent problems of military
theory and practice. M. V. Frunze in this context wrote: "In establishing
the first military-scientific societies... we aimed at satisfying two basic
vital needs of the Red Army: in the first place, the necessity of analyzing
the experience of the recent Civil War and the imperialist war which preceded
it and, secondly, to facilitate work in the area of retraining and raising the
military educational level of our command personnel to a high level.... Our
military-scientific thought also began to work in these areas."(36)
One of the first military-scientific societies was established at the RKKA
Military Academy in October 1920. In 1921, upon the initiative of M. V.
Frunze, such societies and circles had become widespread in the troops of the
Ukraine and Crimea.
On 22 May 1925, the first All-Union Conference of Military Scientific
Organizations of the Soviet Union was held. This conference adopted a
Regulation on the Military Scientific Society of the USSR and elected the
society's Central Council of which M. V. Frunze was the chairman. The
society, along with the elaboration of the problems of military science, was
also given a broader task of providing voluntary assistance to the
strengthening of national defense and involving the broad masses of workers in
defense work.
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The military scientific societies for the command and political personnel,
particularly in the leading military-scientific society of the RKKA Academy,
posed and discussed fundamental questions of the Marxist-Leninist teachings
concerning war and the army, the nature of a future war, the content of a
unified military doctrine, the role of the masses of people in a war, the
relationship of man and equipment and other major provisions of Soviet
military science and military art. Giving reports were M. V. Frunze, K. Ye.
Voroshilov, S. S. Kamenev, V. K. Triandafillow, M. N. Tukhachevskiy, R. P.
Eydeman and other prominent military leaders and military scientists.
In the work of the military-scientific societies and military-scientific
conferences during those years there reigned a creative spirit, there was a
lively and free discussion of the posed questions and acute debates developed.
All of this helped to awaken military-scientific thought and made possible the
appearance subsequently of prominent military authorities and creative
accomplishments in the development of Soviet military science. This was no
accident. As experience showed, the lack of such debates in the scientific
collectives, at meetings, conferences and in the press always led to a
withering of creative thought.
The concern of M. V. Frunze for establishing and developing a military
periodic press was also caused precisely by the desire for the greatest
possible encouragement of creativity with the involvement of a broad range of
the command and political personnel in this. Even during the course of the
fierce engagements of the Civil War, the RVS of the Eastern and Turkestan
Fronts published the journals VOYENNAYA MYSL [Military Thought]. The Ukraine
and Crimea as well as other military districts published their own military
journal. It should be pointed out that the most correct reflection of
Marxist-Leninist ideas on military questions were to be found in the
peripheral journals which were closer to the practices of military affairs and
this was frequently countered by the central organs of military press where
there was the influence of the old military specialists and the Trotskyites.
M. V. Frunze on this question wrote: "We were let down by the thick journals
which claimed a role of the central organs of the Red Army. It was a
completely indisputable fact that none of them succeeded in the task of
becoming a unified center for military-scientific thought...."(37)
M. V. Frunze was constantly concerned for broadening the publishing of
periodical literature in the Armed Forces and for increasing the role of the
military journals. In addition to the central military-theoretical organ, the
journal VOYENNAYA NAUKA I REVOLYUTSIYA (38), the RKKA Military Academy also
published the journal KRASNAYA ZORI [Red Dawn] and the collection "Krasnaya
Armiya" [Red Army]. The military districts also had their own journals. As
of January 1924, the newspaper KRASNAYA ZVEZDA [Red Star] began to be
published as the organ of the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval
Affairs.
A special role was assigned to the leading journal VOYENNAYA MYSL I
REVOLYUTSIYA. It was given the task of "rallying around itself all the
scientific research forces for resolving the questions of the defense of the
Soviet Union and the combat training of the army. It should become an organ
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of theoretical leadership for military-scientific activities both within the
army and outside it."(39)
M. V. Frunze was one of the most active authors of our military press and a
participant in military-scientific work as a whole. He gave great importance
to the clear and efficient work of the military press, extensively employing
it to propagandize Marxist-Leninist ideas on military questions and helping in
every possible way to raise the ideological and theoretical level of the
published articles. He also required his deputies, the workers of the central
apparatus as well as the commanders and political workers from the troops and
the fleets to appear in print. The editorial personnel of the journals
included the leading personnel of the people's commissariat. Suffice it to
say that I. E. Yakir was appointed editor-in-chief of the journal VOYENNYY
VESTNIK, while M. V. Frunze personally headed the editorial staff of the
journal VOYNA I REVOLYUTSIYA [War and Revolution].
M. V. Frunze was outstanding both as a practitioner and theorist of military
affairs. Precisely an organic combination of theory and practice and a
profound understanding of the essence of military practice made his
theoretical research particularly vital and sound. There are leaders who view
scientific work as an additional burden distracting them from their main
practical work. M. V. Frunze never turned his military scientific activities
into an end in itself; these stemmed organically from the creative nature of
his practical work. He viewed theoretical examinations of various questions
not as something divorced from practical service but as an inseparable
component part of it and an indispensable condition for its great
effectiveness.
As was already pointed out, M. V. Frunze turned constantly to the works of
K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin, for a knowledge and skillful mastery of
the Marxist-Leninist methodology contributed to a profound analysis of the
investigated questions. He worked constantly to creatively employ the Marxist
dialectical method in military science.
The value of the military theoretical activities of M. V. Frunze can be
explained both by his talent as a researcher, by his constant effort to study
the principles of military art and military history, and by his enormous
experience gained both during the years of the Civil War as well as in the
postwar years in those positions which the party entrusted to him. All of
this served as a good base for his scientific creativity. As was rightly
pointed out by A. S. Bubnov, "Lenin's theory and the enormous experience of
leading large troop formations during the years of the Civil War on the
various fronts and under various sociopolitical conditions provided the basic
prerequisites for Frunze's work as a military theorist."(40)
While as the people's commissar for military and naval affairs, regardless of
his great work load, M. V. Frunze continued to read a great deal and reflect
on major theoretical problems. His desire to analyze military affairs in all
details and to have his own opinion on a number of major questions of military
theory and practice were an inner need for him, an expression of his high
spiritual level and proof of his creative approach to resolving practical
tasks.
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Mikhail Vasilyevich also kept his interests in artistic literature and art and
this no amount of work could weaken. At present, it will be surprising to
many that V. I. Lenin in 1919 found the time to view a new Vakhtangov piece,
that M. V. Frunze went to the theater during the very difficult 1920's and
G. K. Zhukov and A. M. Vasilevskiy also did the same during the Great
Patriotic War. B. M. Shaposhnikov over all his life was an ardent admirer of
the theater. During the most intense periods of work, including the most
difficult wartime, he contrived to find time to attend the theater. Persons
with broad interests view the necessity of such spiritual enrichment not only
as recreation or celebrating but also as a stimulus for subsequent, even more
intense and creative work. Constant contact with art and literature helps to
develop vivid thinking and a vital perception of reality and makes it possible
to better feel the pulse of life and the mood of society. Without a broad
view of life, proceeding solely from narrow special interests, it is
impossible to orient oneself in sociopolitical life and, consequently, to work
well.
M. V. Frunze, even during the last days of his life, before an operation,
while gravely ill, continued to intensely read military literature. "Comrade
Frunze," wrote A. S. Bubnov, "always loved military books...he always seized
any opportunity to sit a bit and reflect on military questions. I knew
Frunze's interest in military history even in the early years and saw him
recently, lying in the Kremlin Hospital, with a pencil in hand re-reading and
studying Foch's book "Introduction to War"(41) (he means the book by F. Foch
"On the Conduct of War."--M. G.).
As is known, the founders of Marxism-Leninism showed exceptional scientific
scrupulousness and conscientiousness for the facts quoted by them and on which
their conclusions and generalizations were based. They were decisively
against those who out of competitive considerations divided facts and
arguments into advantageous and disadvantageous and used only those which
confirmed their prejudiced viewpoint. K. Marx on this question commented:
"...A person who endeavors to adapt science to such a viewpoint which does not
derive from science itself...but from outside, to a viewpoint which is
dictated by interests that are alien to science and external to it--such a
person I would call 'base'."(42)
M. V. Frunze, in following this Marxist-Leninist tradition, in preparing his
theoretical works showed exceptionally high conscientiousness. He approached
facts and proof with particular care and attention; he could not tolerate
subjectivity in judgments, stretching the point to favor one or another
opinion. He not only could not support but showed unconcealed repugnance for
persons who, without going into the essence of the matter, began to
artificially pick the "facts" and "arguments" confirming their viewpoint.
M. V. Frunze always endeavored to compare and objectively analyze the entire
aggregate of facts as they were in all their contradictoriness. Thus, in the
course of work over a report or an article on unified military doctrine, he
sought the advice of scores of persons who knew different aspects of this
question and adhered to different viewpoints. These talks or meetings were
conducted by him not formally and not for creating the appearance of a
collective discussion. He sincerely endeavored to understand each participant
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of the discussion so as to consider as fully as possible all aspects and
circumstances of the question. In the course of scientific debates, he always
held a principled, party position and on ideological questions never
compromised but at the same time saw to it that a scientific argument was not
replaced by attaching political "labels" which at times came to be abused
later, particularly in the 1930's. Frunze on this question followed the
methods of V. I. Lenin who advised "in the most careful manner to see that the
inevitable disputes and the inevitable clash of opinions did not degenerate
into familiarity,"(43) so that this struggle did not lead to a confusing of
views and for the mixing of enemies and comrades.
It is said that Indian philosophers have the habit of prior to the start of
any dispute, both participants should relate the opponent's views in such a
manner that the opponent confirms the correctness of the description. For it
is felt that it is useless to debate without making certain that the disputed
views are correctly understood and not distorted. M. V. Frunze understood
this old truth well. Many of his appearances in print pursued primarily the
goal of more profoundly discussing the most important questions of military
organizational development, to find the truth and persuade the Red Army
command personnel of the correctness of the various ideas proposed by him.
All the comrades and work associates who knew him closely unanimously pointed
out that he showed great attention and patience for opposing viewpoints,
particularly on operational-stratetgic, organizational and military-technical
questions. He always sought publicity of discussion for the most important
questions among the admitted circle of persons and was always categorically
against any sort of intrigues and discussions behind the scenes over the given
questions. Completely alien to him was the desire to impose his opinion on
other comrades or to continue to resist when persuasive arguments had been
advanced.
At one time he arrived at the RKKA Military Academy to seek advice from
instructors on the questions of the organizational structure of rifle and
cavalry divisions. A draft decision had already been prepared on these
questions by the RKKA Staff. Initially Mikhail Vasilyevich did not agree with
certain provisions of this draft. But when he heard the well reasoned
arguments by the academy leadership, he abandoned his former opinion. And he
was sincerely pleased that it had been possible to find a more correct
solution, emphasizing here that a recognition of his errors required as much
courage as self-sacrifice in battle. I. S. Unshlikht on this question
commented: "...I had not seen or met a person who responded so to others and
who not only was able to give orders and instructions but also who could
listen and consider others. I had not seen a person who could admit his
errors as easily as he. He calmly, with his inherent gentle smile, agreed if
the arguments were persuasive."(44)
Most of all M. V. Frunze could not tolerate and considered most dangerous
those persons who falsely supported his opinion. He profoundly respected
persons who were principled, convinced and able to defend their opinion with
dignity.
In giving exceptionally great importance to the thorough working out and
discussion of one or another question, considering various viewpoints, Mikhail
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Vasilyevich at the same time was against infinite agreements and the extended
discussion of urgent questions, knowing well from history and from his own
experience that bold, far-reaching decisions must sometimes be taken contrary
to opinion and to the fierce resistance of conservatively thinking persons,
while decisions based on too great compromises and satisfying everyone, as a
rule, are the weakest or are completely useless. For this reason he was firm
in taking decisions and in unswervingly carrying them out after the essence of
the question had been brought out and the discussion completed. Suffice it to
say that all the most important measures related to the reorganization of the
central apparatus of the military department were thoroughly examined,
discussed, worked out and actually implemented over several weeks, although
there was no unanimous opinion on these questions.
After the decision had been taken and the order issued, M. V. Frunze demanded
its strict and unswerving fulfillment. At the same time he spared no effort
or time to explain the importance and essence of the decisions taken and
convince others of their necessity. Here he proceeded from the
recommendations of V. I. Lenin that the more profound the transformation which
we wish to carry out, the more one must raise interest in it and a
conscientious attitude and persuade ever-new millions and tens of millions of
its necessity.('5)
Among individual comrades who were little acquainted with the works of M. V.
Frunze and did not allow the idea that a great leader could be personally
concerned with scientific work, sometimes there is the opinion that many of
his speeches and theoretical works were prepared not by him personally but
with the aid of subordinates and assistants. In such instances, involuntarily
one might ask the question: And what happens to these people subsequently,
why did they not write anything more for someone else? Frunze was a special
and unique person who thought profoundly and broadly and was able to set out
his ideas aptly, clearly and logically. For this reason no one except him
could write in this manner. Of course, certain reference materials were
obviously prepared but this raw material had to be thoroughly reworked. The
main ideas of his works were not only written, but also lived through and
forged in the process of gaining practical experience and years' long intense
mental work.
Frunze, as is known, spoke a great deal in front of the most diverse
audiences, sometimes several times a day. He, as a rule, prepared most
carefully for each of these but at times circumstances developed in such a
manner that he had to prepare literally on the way, during the move from one
point to another. Regardless of this, his speeches were always informative,
not routine and addressed to specific listeners and were closely linked with
the urgent questions of daily life. This was achieved not only by his great
abilities. Experience shows that one must prepare all one's life for such
undertakings, constantly enriching one's memory by systematic daily work for
oneself. Then they will not become a burdensome problem.
The speeches and theoretical works of M. V. Frunze are characterized primarily
by the ability to spot the main thing in any examined question, and to set it
out consistently and persuasively, drawing on weighty evidence. He was not a
supporter of standard "jubilee" speeches and articles. Each time he found new
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aspects and facts in one or another historical event and closely linked this
to the urgent problems of strengthening national defense and the
organizational development and training of the Armed Forces.
It is not possible to strictly classify the military theoretical works of
Frunze since, as a rule, virtually each of the works arising out of practical
needs dealt to one degree or another with various aspects of Soviet military
doctrine, military art, the organizational development and training of the
Armed Forces. But he devoted greatest attention to a review of the
fundamental concepts of military affairs in accord with Marxist-Leninist
teachings, to the nature and problems of a future war and to elaborating the
most important provisions of military doctrine, the organizational development
of the Red Army, the training and indoctrination of the personnel.
All these and other questions were reflected in the works of M. V. Frunze,
such as "Krasnaya Armiya i yeye zadachi" [The Red Army and Its Missions]
(1919), "Reorganizatsiya RKKA" [The Reorganization of the RKKA] (1921, jointly
with S. I. Gusev), "Yedinaya voyennaya doktrina i Krasnaya Armiya" [Unified
Military Doctrine and the Red Army] (1921), "Wrangel" (1921), "Regulyarnaya
armiya i militsiya" [The Regular Army and Militia] (1922), "Osnovnyye
voyennyye zadachi momenta" [Main Military Tasks of the Moment] (1922),
"Pamyati Perekopa i Chongara" [Memories of Perekop and Chongar] (1922),
"Voyenno-politicheskoye vospitaniye Krasnoy Armii" [Military-Political
Indoctrination of the Red Army] (a speech in 1922, published in 1929),
"Krasnaya Armiya prezhde i teper" [The Red Army Previously and Now] (1923),
"Itogi i perspektivy voyennogo stroitelstva" [Results and Prospects of
Military Organizational Development] (1924), "Voprosy vysshego voyennogo
obrazovaniya" [Questions of Higher Military Education] (1924), "Front i tyl v
voyne budushchego" [Front and Rear in a Future War] (1924, published in 1925),
"Lenin i Krasnaya Armiya" [Lenin and the Red Army] (1925), "Nashe voyennoye
stroitelstvo i zadachi voyenno-nauchnogo obshchestva" [Our Military
Organizational Development and the Tasks of the Military-Scientific Society]
(1925), "Krasnaya Armiya i oborona Sovetskogo gosudarstva" [The Red Army and
the Defense of the Soviet State] (1925), "Voyennaya promyshlennost--osnova
nashey oboronosposobnosti" [The Defense Industry--The Basis of Our Defense
Capability] (1925), "Ocherednyye voprosy voyennogo dela" [The Next Questions
of Military Affairs] (1925), "Kadrovaya Armiya i militsiya" [A Professional
Army and Militia] (1925), "Krasnaya Armiya i edinonachaliye" [The Red Army and
One-Man Command] (1925) and others. These works subsequently had the greatest
impact on the development of military theory and practice, the organizational
development and training of the Soviet Armed Forces. Their importance was
primarily that they, along with the speeches and articles of other party and
military leaders, to a significant degree contributed to the final victory of
Marxist-Leninist methodology in Soviet military theory and provided a powerful
impetus for the further development of Soviet military science and the shaping
of its most important provisions on the possible nature of a future war and
the methods of conducting operations and combat actions.
While being concerned with a profound analysis of the experience of World
War I and the Civil War, M. V. Frunze also devoted great attention to
investigating and generalizing the experience of local wars. Even now, one
must be amazed how he, with all his enormous involvement in political,
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military and economic work, could find the time for a detailed study and
investigation of the experience of the local wars occurring in the first half
of the 1920's. For example, with great care he personally studied and
generalized an enormous amount of documents (basically in French) related to
the liberation struggle of the Rifs in Morocco against the Spanish and French
colonialists. In 1925, this work was published under the title "Yevropeyskiye
tsivilizatory i Marokko" [The European Civilizers and Morocco].
Also of great value are the major orders, directives, instructions and
telegrams written by M. V. Frunze for under his leadership in the periods when
he was working as the military commissar of the Yaroslavl Military District
and the commander of the Eastern, Turkestan and Southern Fronts. At that
time, M. V. Frunze turned directly to V. I. Lenin on the most important
questions and constantly informed him on the course of military operations.
In these report, replies and instructions of V. I. Lenin, it is possible to
find many exceptionally valuable military-political and operational-strategic
conclusions and recommendations making it possible to more profoundly
understand the events of the Civil War.
In many of the listed documents, particularly in the orders and briefings on
summing up the results of the conducted operations and combat actions,
generalizing conclusions are drawn on the methods of carrying out operational-
tactical tasks, on troop command and control, on party political work, manning
and logistic support of the troops and all these are of great practical and
theoretical significance. They were subsequently used by M. V. Frunze in his
military theoretical works.
In such works as "Yedinaya voyennaya doktrina i Krasnaya Armiya,"
"Reorganizatsiya Krasnoy Armii," "Osnovnyye voyennyye zadachi momenta" and
others, M. V. Frunze raised the question of elaborating uniform views of the
nature of a future war and the methods of waging it, of the organizational
development of the Armed Forces and of the training and indoctrination of the
personnel. Here he emphasized that "one of the basic conditions for ensuring
the maximum might of the Red Army is to turn it into a unified organism united
from top to bottom not only by a common political ideology but also by a unity
of views on the nature of the military tasks confronting the republic, the
methods of resolving them and the methods for the combat training of the
troops."(46) He for the first time provided the fullest definition of the
concept of a state's military doctrine and this has basically remained even
now. He felt that the defense of the Soviet Union should be organized "in the
first place, on a clear and precise notion of the nature of a future war;
secondly, on a correct and accurate considering of those forces and means
which our probable enemies will possess; thirdly, on the same such
consideration of our own resources."(47)
In the work "Reorganizatsiya Krasnoy Armii" and others, Frunze established the
necessity of switching to the organizational development of the army on the
basis of combining regular and territorial formations. The Red Army at that
time in its technical equipping lagged behind the armies of the developed
capitalist states. But Mikhail Vasilyevich profoundly believed that the
nation's industrialization would provide an opportunity to eliminate this lag
in the shortest time. In the article "Results and Prospects of Military
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Organizational Development" and other works, he disclosed the ever-increasing
importance of the development of aviation, artillery, armored troops, and the
means of air and antichemical defense, pointing out that the growth of
equipment had caused an enormous increase in the number of troops and placed
increased demands on the moral qualities of the soldier and on his
psychological training. Here Frunze emphasized that our army had enormous
moral and political superiority over the enemy. In order to fully realize
this advantage in a war, it was essential to have well organized work in the
area of the military-political indoctrination of the men. In such works as
"Voyenno-politicheskoye vospitaniye Krasnoy armii," "Privet PURu" [Greetings
to the Political Directorate of the RVS] and others, he disclosed the sources
and ways for ensuring the high morale of the Soviet Armed Forces.
In a number of works ("Lenin i Krasnaya Armiya," "Veprosy vysshego voyennogo
obrazovaniya" [Questions of Higher Military Education] and others), M. V.
Frunze profoundly analyzed the activities of V. I. Lenin as the founder of
Soviet military science and the leader of national defense, showing V. I.
Lenin "as a leader of the proletarian revolution, as a leader not only in the
area of pure politics, but also politics moving into armed struggle, into
insurrection and then into civil war. In this area Comrade Lenin showed
himself to be a most inspired strategist and tactician."(48) In speaking
about Lenin's demand to use the major old specialists without fail, M. V.
Frunze emphasized that by this Lenin wanted again and again to point up the
importance of scientific preparation and the importance of science in all
areas of Soviet work, including in military affairs. Loyal to this legacy,
M. V. Frunze carefully followed all military theoretical innovations both in
our nation and abroad. He also made a major contribution to the development
of all sectors of military science.
Mikhail Vasilyevich acted decisively against the Trotskyites who denied
military science and had a neglectful attitude to the general methodological
questions of military theory. The Trotskyites and other opponents of Frunze
accused him of supposedly "distracting" the command personnel and all the army
from practical questions and a study of the regulations by his military
theoretical problems. Similar arguments sometimes occurred in following
periods of the development of military science. They were characteristic, as
a rule, for individuals who had a poor understanding not only of theoretical
questions but primarily were poorly prepared in practical terms. The
references to practice were needed by them to conceal their theoretical
ignorance.
Even in those times when our military science had just arisen, Frunze quite
rationally replied to all this demagoguery that without a solution to general
theoretical questions it was impossible on a scientifically sound basis to
solve specific practical questions and establish viable regulations. We
cannot, he said, advance military-theoretical thought further if this thought
does not take root among our command personnel; this would threaten us with
stagnation and military-theoretical backwardness and would be reflected in all
our practical work.
Proceeding from these considerations, M. V. Frunze commenced his military-
theoretical activities with the elaboration of precisely fundamental, general
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theoretical questions related primarily to the elaboration of a uniform
military doctrine. At present, life convinces us how profoundly right V. I.
Lenin was when he warned: "...The person who takes to partial questions
without first solving the general ones will inevitably at each step
unconsciously for himself 'trip' on these general questions."(49)
M. V. Frunze viewed Marxist-Leninist theory as a powerful ideological weapon
and an important source of strength for the socialist army. He constantly saw
to it that the study of Marxism-Leninism in the military schools was properly
organized so that all military disciplines were permeated with a spirit of
Marxism-Leninism. At the same time, Frunze was against those who assumed that
it was possible to become a good military specialist just by knowing Marxist
theory. He emphasized that Marxist theory itself demanded from us a careful
study of military affairs. He demanded that our military cadres in the area
of operational-tactical training not live by the experience of just the Civil
War but also consider the development prospects of military affairs, "for
otherwise, with just the experience of the Civil War we, in the event of
clashing with a well-armed enemy, could end up in a tragic situation."(50)
He constantly recommended that the military cadres not close themselves up
within military affairs but be vitally interested in the achievements of other
social and natural sciences. Even in 1922, he urged the military workers to
establish contact with the nation's scientific centers and with scientists and
fully utilize their scientific achievements in the interests of increasing the
combat might of the Army and Navy. Frunze himself was a highly educated
person and had profound political and military knowledge. He did a great deal
to develop the curiosity of commanders and political workers and instill in
them a respect for scientific knowledge.
In commemoration of the contribution of M. V. Frunze in the area of science,
in the aim of encouraging military-scientific work, the Prize imeni M. V.
Frunze was founded in July 1926. The first person to receive this prize was
A. N. Lapchinskiy for the book "Taktika aviatsii i voprosy protivovozdushnoy
oborony" [Aviation Tactics and Air Defense Questions] published in 1926.
M. V. Frunze closely followed all international events and took an active part
in the work of the Comintern and in the ideological struggle to unmask the
bourgeois fabrications and falsifications in the area of military theory and
practice. He was particularly critical of foreign figures who endeavored to
ascribe "red militarism" to the Soviet Republic. As is known, immediately
after the Civil War, the Soviet Union reduced the size of its Armed Forces by
10-fold, curtailing them to the most essential minimum. Regardless of this,
bourgeois propaganda even at that time raised its voice about "Soviet
militarism."
In this context, M. V. Frunze, in a report at the Third Congress of USSR
Soviets in May 1925, clearly and convincingly unmasked all the erroneousness
of this propaganda. Using specific facts he showed that the capitalist
nations which surrounded the Soviet Republic had many times less the
population and territory than the Soviet Union but kept larger armed forces in
comparison with the USSR. "It merely takes one of our comrades," he
emphasized, "to comment on the need for attention to the defense of the Union
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and immediately in the foreign press a series of articles appears pointing to
the preparation for war by the USSR. If no militaristic aspirations are
found, then the comment is made that this peaceful tone has been specially set
to conceal militant intentions and so forth to infinity. With such a
situation, of course, it is impossible for us to persuade foreign states of
our peaceful aspirations."(51)
But since, regardless of all the facts and peaceful aspirations of the Soviet
Union, the military preparations were continued by the capitalist states,
M. V. Frunze said with full justification that "one of the most dependable
guarantees for peace is not only our peace-loving policy but also a strong,
powerful Red Army. The stronger our Red Army fist is, the more grounds the
workers and peasants of our Union will have for confidence that their peaceful
labor will not be disturbed and the fewer the persons who wish to intervene in
our internal affairs."(52) The false assertions by bourgeois propaganda of
the "excessive armaments of the Soviet Union" and the "Soviet threat" both
then and now are needed by the imperialists to justify the arms race being
carried out by them and conceal their aggressive attentions against the USSR
and the other socialist countries.
In all his activities, M. V. Frunze proceeded from Lenin's thesis that the
basis for the organizational development of the Red Army was the leadership by
the Communist Party. In speaking on the occasion of the Sixth Anniversary of
the RKKA Military Academy, he said: "No one can build anything or carry out
his policy both in the nation and in the army outside the party and without
it. As long as the party is strong and united, the Union of Soviet Republics
is invincible."(53) He called the Communist Party the leader and guide of the
Red Army and emphasized that "the Red Army has known and knows just this
leader."(54) The Leninist principle of the party's leading role has remained
the underlying basis of Soviet military organizational development in our
times, too.
Certain traits of the military leader and theorist. From military history we
know many great generals and outstanding military administrators. Peter I,
Rumyantsev, Suvorov, Kutuzov and Napoleon proved themselves most vividly in
both areas simultaneously. However, the qualities inherent to a general in a
war and a military administrator are not always successfully combined in one
person. Potemkin or Milyutin, for example, were good military administrators
but they did not prove themselves in generalship in the field. Not all
generals were sufficiently interested in military administrative work in
peacetime. Thus, G. K. Zhukov, while an outstanding general of the Soviet
school, himself in a conversation pointed out that he always felt more
confident in any wartime position than in the postwar years.
As for M. V. Frunze, it can be said without exaggeration that his qualities of
a general and military administrator and military reformer complemented each
other very well and he demonstrated outstanding abilities in both fields. In
truth, after the Civil War he spent too little time at the head of the
Republic RVS, but what he did in this position in a short period of time shows
a great deal.
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Even more rarely in history we encounter examples of the combining in one man
the qualities of outstanding general and theorist capable of major scientific
generalizations of military experience with a profound penetration into the
essence of the designated questions. A. V. Suvurov can serve as a great
example in this regard. Napoleon left thoughts which are rich in content.
But still Napoleon who performed brilliantly in a number of engagements as a
general and who had 6 years of free time on Elba did not rise to those heights
of generalizing the phenomena of war as did Clausewitz.
And it is completely natural that precisely the proletarian revolution
produced such military figures as M. V. Frunze in whom the talent of a general
is so well combined with the talent of a scientific researcher and theorist.
Of particular significance were the profound knowledge and creative
application of the Marxist-Leninist method and the Leninist school of
organically combining and achieving a unity of theory and practice. Leaving
an indelible trace in the mind of M. V. Frunze were the personal encounters
which he had with V. I. Lenin.
The well known Soviet psychologist B. M. Teplov in his brilliant work "Um
polkovodtsa" [The Mind of the Military Leader], on a basis of military history
materials, has described the experience of a psychological investigation of a
general's thinking.(55) Here he has set as his goal to study the "practical
thinking," rightly asserting that for psychology this is of no less importance
and no less interest than research on "theoretical thinking." Both types of
thinking were important for such military figures as M. V. Frunze who combined
the qualities of a general and a military theorist.
In analyzing the particular features of a "practical mind," B. M. Teplov has
pointed out that a general must have two qualities--an outstanding mind and
strong will power. He mentions Napoleon who compared the talent of a general
with a square with the base being will power and the top the mind. Only a
person in whom will power and mind are equal can be a major military figure.
If will power significantly exceeds the mind, the general will act decisively
and courageously but unreasonably; in the opposite instance he will have good
ideas and plans but will not have enough courage and determination to carry
them out. But since such a complete equilibrium is rarely encountered in a
person, Napoleon felt that it was better to have more character than mind and
in his marshals he valued primarily volitional qualities. Proceeding from
these same considerations, M. I. Dragomirov has proposed that one might accept
that the talent of a general is not a square but rather a rectangle, giving
preference to will power. In his opinion, "of all human undertakings, war is
a question that is to a significant degree more volitional than mental."(56)
However, as is shown by the psychological analysis of the activities of
generals, it is incorrect to view the mind and will of a general as two equal
capabilities and it is more correct to proceed from a unity of mind and will
as was pointed out also by M. V. Frunze. "When they say," writes B. M.
Teplov, "that a certain military chief has an outstanding mind but is devoid
of such volitional qualities as decisiveness of 'moral courage,' this means
that he does not have the mind which is essential for a general. The true
'general's mind' cannot exist in a person who is weak-willed, timid and weak-
charactered."(57) He then went on to emphasize that persons who possess a
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limited mind cannot be truly decisive. An essential condition for
decisiveness is a great mind, perceptiveness and courage.
In viewing the gifts of M. V. Frunze from this viewpoint, we see an amazingly
complete combination of an outstanding mind, character and will. In
actuality, in the head of a weak-willed military leader such a bold idea could
not arise as making a counterstrike against the flank of the Kolchak troops
under conditions where the entire front was retreating in heavy defensive
battles. Moreover, it would have been impossible to carry this out without an
enormous will power, tenacity and energy. On the other hand, the development
of operational-strategic thinking and the ability to find successful and bold
solutions strengthen the will, they add force and energy to carry them out and
make it possible to more boldly take a risk and be daring. The proportional
development of the mental abilities, the volitional and organizational
qualities was viewed by M. V. Frunze as a most important condition in the
training and indoctrination of command personnel generally.
The uniqueness of the mental abilities of M. V. Frunze was apparent primarily
in the ability to foresee the development of events, to think not only for
himself but also for the enemy, and to immediately see the whole and all the
details, in bringing together, using the words of B. M. Teplov, "a synthetic
force of mind and concreteness of thinking, and in the special gift of turning
the complex into the simple, maintaining correctness of judgments, simplicity
and clarity of thought under the most complicated conditions of the combat
situation as well as in resolving the most confused and difficult theoretical
problems.
M. V. Frunze himself devoted particular importance to intuition. In speaking
on the anniversary of the death of V. I. Lenin, he said: "In order to be a
good strategist, equally in the area of pure politics as well as in military
affairs, particular, specific qualities are required. The most important of
them is so-called intuition, the ability to quickly assess the entire
complexity of surrounding phenomena, to find the most basic thing and on the
basis of considering this chief thing to find a certain plan of struggle and
work."(58) He viewed intuition not as a random, fortuitous guess but as the
ability for profound, scientific prediction, and the capacity to quickly take
bold decisions requiring the preliminary accumulation of great knowledge,
practical experience and extended mental work.
M. V. Frunze excelled in a flexible mind and firm will. Characteristic of his
generalship art was careful planning of the forthcoming operations and the
firm execution of the adopted decisions and elaborated plans. At the same
time, this steadfastness was never turned into stupid stubbornness or
obstinacy which, in the words of B. M. Teplov, destroys that very will which
at first glance was its source. Mikhail Vasilyevich showed the necessary
flexibility when the situation had changed and promptly adjusted his decisions
and actions, showing here the Suvurov "good eye," speed of orientation as well
as consideration and response to the change in the situation. Also inherent
to him were many other qualities which characterize him as an outstanding
military figure. At the same time, Frunze understood and directly mentioned
certain weak points in his training: the lack of a systematic military
education and experience in troop work on the inferior and middle levels. But
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he endeavored to make up for these gaps by constant self-education, by
proximity to the troops, by frequent visits to the formations and units and by
a desire to understand down to the last detail each new question of theory and
practice.
The role and importance of any individual in history, particularly a highly-
placed person, are determined ultimately not only by his abilities and
potential but also by the deeds performed by him, by the results, by the
effectiveness of his practical activities in one or another area of work
assigned to him. Or, as is sometimes said by the scientists, this is the "dry
residue" of a lived life, that is, what was done out of that which was not
accomplished in this endeavor by precedessors.
Any other approach does not make it possible to judge objectively.
Unfortunately, in certain memoirs and theoretical works, one can sometimes see
a one-sided approach to assessing individual military figures. Often in
describing them everything comes down to the fact that he was a charming and
urbane person who spoke attentively and politely with everyone and so forth.
But here nothing is said about the "dry residue" which he left after himself,
why in the area where he worked, for instance, before the war and for which he
was responsible so many completely inacceptable omissions were discovered and
about which a good deal was said very persuasively at other points in these
same memoirs.
Undoubtedly a good ability to deal with others is an embellishment for any
leader. But in military service this makes sense only in the instance that it
is combined with great, and if need be, strict and merciless exactingness for
oneself and subordinates, when, regardless of any difficulties and obstacles
and contrary to any resistance and miscomprehension, decisions and measures
which correspond to the interests of the matter at hand are carried out. Such
a position can also have severe consequences for one or another person, but
ultimately from the viewpoint of the interests of the matter at hand, a party,
principled line is the solely correct one. The showing of civil courage in
peacetime is sometimes significantly more difficult than the showing of
courage on the battlefield. V. I. Lenin copied out and emphasized the
following significant words from the book by Clausewitz "On War and the
Conduct of Wars": "The further we rise up the steps of the service heirarchy,
the more thought, reason and comprehension prevails in activity; the more
boldness which is a property of temperament retreats to the background; for
this reason we find it [boldness] less and less in high positions, but on the
other hand it is then all the more worthy of praise."(59)
At times mention is made that in and of himself the given leader was a very
professional and able man but was not given the opportunity to develop as he
should have. If we view the activities of M. V. Frunze from this aspect, he
also had to work under far from ideal conditions. He frequently encountered
not only disaffection but also covert and even outright opposition and at
times sabotage. This was the case when he was appointed to the position of
commander of the 4th Army since Trotsky did not hold the military abilities of
Frunze in high regard. After appointment to this position, Mikhail
Vasilyevich constantly encountered discrimination in the manning and supply of
the army troops. While commander of the Southern Group of Forces, he received
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of ensuring national defense? Is it not possible, without harm to peaceful
needs, to see to it that certain military goals are also achieved here."(63)
M. V. Frunze devoted great attention to the mobilization preparations and to
converting to a wartime status industry, transport and the entire national
economy. This consisted in the prompt and organized shift from the production
of consumer goods to the output of products for military needs. He demanded
that this be more flexibly considered both by the production workers and the
military department.
Excessive military demands were not always advantageous even for the military
themselves. Frunze pointed to the necessity of revising the supply articles
adopted for the peacetime and particularly the wartime army, he sought the
maximum use of those models which were consumer articles in peacetime and for
which mass production had already been organized. Mikhail Vasilyevich
proposed that here one could and should forego the interests which were not of
crucial significance for the question, for the possibility of the mass receipt
of supply articles by the army in wartime, without any additional effort and
expenditure, completely compensated for their secondary shortcomings. On the
other hand, he felt that the production of peacetime consumer goods if
possible should be adopted to satisfy military needs. He showed the
feasibility of this demand using specific examples of the production of motor
vehicles, tractors, means of communications and so forth.
These important provisions on readying the nation for defense were set out by
M. V. Frunze at the Third All-Union Congress of Soviets in 1925 and they were
approved and put into legislation. These provisions were also considered
subsequently in all the five-year plans. The Congress of Soviets pointed out
that the preparation of the nation for defense requires industrial development
which, without disrupting the normal growth of the productive forces, at the
same time would establish a solid base for defense needs. The congress set
for the Soviet government the following task: "...To carry out all of the
necessary measures to raise the nation's defense capability by: a) the
appropriate expansion of the military industry and the organizing of all the
remaining state industry of the Union which even in peacetime would take into
account wartime needs ...... (64)
In organizing the fulfillment of the party and government decisions, Frunze
called constantly for the search for the most effective methods for closer
collaboration between the military departments, economic bodies, scientific
centers and design bureaus and for the merging of military-scientific and
scientific-technical work. He felt that scientists and inventors should work
considering military needs. The military-scientific workers and the
representatives of the military department were urged above all to set a
correct direction for the activities of the economic and scientific-technical
workers. "In practical terms," said M. V. Frunze, "this must be achieved by
having our military-scientific societies organize circles at the corresponding
enterprises and groups of enterprises and be concerned and interested in the
questions of peacetime economic activity, viewing them from the defense
standpoint. This work is of the most enormous importance. I draw your
attention to it because I know from practical experience how the interests of
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defense suffer if proper attention is not paid to this aspect of the
issue."(65)
Mikhail Vasilyevich demanded that the supply directorates work in close
contact with all the industrial enterprises and scientific-technical
organizations of the nation. This contact should not be restricted to the
central bodies but should also be carried out on the spot. The wisdom and
importance of these demands were fully appreciated by us during the period of
the Great Patriotic War and during the postwar years.
It should be pointed out that Frunze assigned an exceptionally important and
major place to science and scientific workers in the question of increasing
the nation's defense capability and the combat might of the Armed Forces. He
carefully followed the major scientific discoveries and technical inventions
and became firmly convinced that in a future war the role of scientific
workers would be enormous. Even in 1921, he wrote (and later repeated and
developed this idea many times): "...The outcome of future clashes to a much
greater degree depends now upon the persons of pure science than upon the
command. Any major invention or discovery in the area of military equipment
can immediately create colossal advantages for the warring sides."(66) These
words have a particularly timely ring in the age of scientific-technical
progress, nuclear missile weapons and radioelectronic equipment.
In subsequent years, the Communist Party and the Soviet government carried out
major measures to improve leadership over defense questions. In the spring of
1927, upon a decision of the Party Central Committee, the former functions of
the Labor and Defense Council [STO] were restored. Prior to this, with the
transition to peacetime construction, as was pointed out at the 15th Party
Congress, the STO had gradually "lost its third letter" [the defense
function]. After the party congress, the STO began to regularly assemble to
resolve defense problems. Mobilization bodies were established under all the
people's commissariats and these initiated work to prepare the national
economy for the event of war; an industrial mobilization body was organized
under the VSNKh [All-Union Council of the National Economy] as well as a
special system under the Gosplan which should consider defense needs in
elaborating all the national economic plans. As defense tasks became more
complicated, the organization and functions of these state bodies continued to
be improved. They played a major role in increasing the defense capability of
the Soviet state on the eve of World War II.
In accord with what has been stated above, it can be concluded that M. V.
Frunze considered the "technical aspect" to be the most important factor which
decisively influenced the nature of war. Into this concept he invested the
entire aggregate of human resources and technical means which could be
employed in a war and a scientifically sound program for the technical
equipping of the army and navy.
Even in 1920, immediately after the defeat of Wrangel, the technically best
equipped enemy which the Red Army encountered for the first time, Frunze with
great concern spoke about the technical equipping of our army. In 1921, his
article "On the Reorganization of the French Army" appeared and here these
questions were raised even more broadly and later his ideas about this were
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developed in the article "Protect the Revolution" and other works. During the
same year he wrote: "Our technical backwardness with each day is becoming
evermore threatening. One need not particularly delude oneself and be content
with references to the experience of the Civil War. It must not be forgotten
that to a significant degree this was one-sided.... As for future conflicts,
this question of technical superiority can be crucial and not in our favor,
regardless of all the courage and valor of the Red Army. In order to avoid
this and make the Red Army a truly powerful weapon for ensuring both our
peacetime construction and the world revolution, it must be increased in
technical terms at whatever the cost."(67)
The question of the technical equipping of the USSR Armed Forces was one of
the major questions of Soviet military doctrine. The problem was that many
incorrect views on the nature of a future war and the methods of waging it
derived from a lack of trust in the prospects for the socialist transformation
of the nation and primarily its industrialization.
Precisely this explains why certain old military specialists and other
skeptics subsequently mistrusted the theory of a deep operation and other
major achievements of Soviet military art. A. A. Svechin, for example, wrote:
"...To operate roads and cumbersome means of long distance combat is possible
only with the superiority of heavy industry, with extensive financial means
and with the rich development of the railroad and highway networks. These
prerequisites exist in the capitalist states of the West. To operate with
chief means of close combat is possible only with the great enthusiasm of the
masses and their readiness for self-sacrifice.... For the West, the mass is
above all the mass or weight of the artillery, then the mass of tanks and the
mass of airplanes.... The infantry mass is in the background, for secondary
tasks. For the USSR, the mass is primarily the mass of infantry and the means
of close combat. The means of close combat are of decisive significance."(68)
M. V. Frunze, regardless of the postwar economic chaos, held the opposite
position on this question. He steadfastly defended Lenin's idea that the
material base of socialism can only be highly developed, industrial production
based upon the most recent scientific and technical achievements. Mikhail
Vasilyevich was confident that if the technical equipping of the Armed Forces
is considered to be a shock task, then, no matter how greatly we lagged
behind, we would be able to overtake our future enemies.
The technical reconstruction carried out in the 1930's ensured the military-
technical superiority of our Armed Forces over the enemy during the years of
the Great Patriotic War. Time showed how farsightedly our party and
government carried out these tasks and how prophetic was M. V. Frunze in this
regard.
Man and technology in war. The social nature of the new type army. In
reviewing the social and technical nature of a future war, Frunze clearly and
from Marxist-Leninist positions defined the relationship of man and equipment
in armed combat. He was against the two extremes which occurred at that time.
In the first place, against those who underestimated technology and assumed
that war could be won without it, by the mere number of troops and their high
revolutionary spirit. Even the 1925 RKKA Field Manual approved by M. V.
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Frunze demanded the abandonment of the opposition of the Red soldier's
enthusiasm and enemy equipment and have the enemy's equipment be beaten by our
equipment. Secondly, Frunze condemned those who made a fettish out of
equipment, who imagined future engagements as a war of just machines and who
instilled mistrust in the force of the Red Army confronted by well armed
bourgeois armies.
M. V. Frunze recommended that we proceed from the immediate and more remote
future. In the mid-1920's, the Red Army undoubtedly was inferior in technical
terms to the armies of the main capitalist states and in the event of imposing
war on our nation, during this period, we would basically rely on our
sociopolitical superiority and other related factors which had ensured our
victory in the Civil War. At the same time, Mikhail Vasilyevich was
decisively against the rapid outfitting of the army and navy with modern
equipment and any manifestations of the underestimating of equipment and he
checked a nihilistic attitude toward this in the most ruthless manner. He
also drew attention to the moral effect of equipment on man, he did not
separate one from the other, he considered their opposition to be inadmissible
and viewed them in a dialectical unity. He proceeded from the fact that the
development of production and equipment comprises the objective material basis
for the development of human society and man himself and the latter, in turn,
accelerates scientific and technical progress.
Frunze openly belittled instances of blind worshiping of equipment and the
attempts to give it primary significance and represent man as a simple
attribute of technology. Of course, he said, it is extremely dangerous to
underestimate the role of technology but one must not also become hypnotized
by it. In giving enormous significance to technology, M. V. Frunze gave man
the crucial role in a future war. "We must say," he emphasized, "that still
the decisive role is played not by equipment as behind the equipment there
always is a live man, without whom the equipment is dead."(69)
In following the Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army, M. V.
Frunze gave enormous significance to the moral factor and viewed the influence
on military doctrine of not only the material conditions but also the
spiritual ones linked to the attitude of the masses of people toward war and
national defense. In profoundly realizing that wars are waged now by peoples
and that "in any war the victory is ultimately determined by the state of
morale of those masses who shed their blood on the battlefield,"(70) he viewed
the economic and moral aspect of the rear in a close unity.
The moral factor in a war has been taken into account in all times, but
Frunze, being guided by the Marxist-Leninist teachings, approached it not
abstractly, he saw its main sources in the socioeconomic relations of people
and considered the dependence of the moral factor upon the social and state
system and the political goals of the war. He emphasized that the
prerequisites for the moral superiority of the Red Army over the bourgeois
armies had been established by the Great October Socialist Revolution. M. V.
Frunze called the Red Army the army of the future and the carrier of new
ideals. The mass heroism of its fighters and commanders and their ardent
enthusiasm ensured victory in the Civil War.
98
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In giving great importance to international indoctrination of the men, Frunze
emphasized that the Red Army indoctrinated in a spirit of fraternity of
peoples in future military conflicts with capitalist armies would be the
dependable defender of all suppressed nationalities. During the years of
World War II, the Soviet Army honorably carried out its international duty and
helped many peoples of Europe and Asia become liberated from German Naziism
and Japanese militarism. Socialist internationalism under present-day
conditions continues to remain one of the most important principles in the
indoctrination of the Soviet Armed Forces and one of the fundamental
provisions of Soviet military doctrine.
In accord with the given understanding of the essence and nature of a war,
M. V. Frunze also approached the questions of the social nature of the armed
forces of the dictatorship of the proletariat and their organizational
development. He viewed the army and navy as a weapon for continuing politics
by the means of armed violence and the chief means for waging war. He soundly
worked out the historical purpose and principles for the organizational
development and training of the armed forces. Running as a constant theme
through the works of Frunze is the notion that the social nature, the
historical purpose and organizational principles of the Armed Forces are a
direct reflection of the state's social and economic system, its political
structure and ideology as expressed in domestic and foreign policy.
Proceeding from the Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army, M. V.
Frunze thoroughly analyzed the fundamental differences of the socialist
state's army from the bourgeois armies. He pointed out that an army of a
capitalist state is a tool for maintaining the exploiting system and the
dominance of capital and an implement of imperialist policy, a policy of
suppressing the workers and enslaving other peoples. The army of a socialist
state is engendered by a new social and state system and is designed to defend
the revolution's victories. The Red Army in political and moral terms is a
direct copy or replica of our worker-peasant country. The waging of war
requires the creation of multimillion armed forces. All the armed Soviet
people will comprise a wartime army which will be a real Red Army.
Frunze unmasked the attempts by bourgeois military theorists to show the army
as an organization standing apart from the class struggle and politics. He
convincingly showed that in a class society the army and navy always were and
remain an implement for the policy of the ruling class. The Red Army and Navy
should be organized strictly on a class basis, being an expression of the
union of the working class and the peasantry.
Frunze gave great importance to the socioelass unity of our Armed Forces. In
comparing them with the bourgeois armies, he pointed out that the latter have
advantages in technical terms and in skilled personnel. "But there," he
wrote, "there does not exist the main condition which ensures military might:
there is no union of the social upper classes with the social lower orders.
The presence of a deep abyss dividing the class in command from the class of
exploited, in essence, nullifies the efforts to establish a battleworthy
military force."(71)
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M. V. Frunze emphasized that the domestic and extermal functions of armies are
determined by the class nature of the state. Bourgeois armies are an
implement of national suppression while the Red Army is an army of friendship
and fraternity of the peoples in the Soviet state. The armies of the
capitalist states always have internal (suppressing the workers of their own
nations) and external (enslaving the peoples of other countries) functions and
the internal function is the main, determining one.
An army of the dictatorship of the proletariat serves the cause of defending
the socialist state against the encroachments of internal and external
counterrevolution. He correctly foresaw that after the defeat of the domestic
counterrevolution and the strengthening of Soviet power, the socialist state
from the viewpoint of internal conditions would not need a permanet army but
as long as the military threat existed from the capitalist countries, the
external function of our Armed Forces related to the defense of the fatherland
against an outside attack would remain.
The political goals of a war and the political aspect of military doctrine
also have a crucial impact upon the methods of waging a war and on the
strategic and operational-tactical principles. Proceeding from this, M. V.
Frunze considered that one of the important provisions of Soviet military
doctrine was the necessity of indoctrinating the Soviet Armed Forces in a
spirit of active and decisive operations. Our ideological opponents, in
distorting this idea, have repeatedly endeavored to accuse the Soviet Armed
Forces of aggressiveness. But Frunze repeatedly emphasized that our state
does not intend any predatory actions and all its aspirations are aimed at
ensuring peace. But if a war is forced on us, our army will act aggressively
and decisively.
These are the basic views of M. V. Frunze on the political aspect of Soviet
military doctrine. He also thoroughly elaborated the most important ideas of
the military-technical aspect of military doctrine and these will be examined
in more detail in the subsequent chapters of the book.
On Military Science and Military Art
One of the fundamental questions of military theory and practice. In being
concerned with methodological problems of military theory and practice, M. V.
Frunze showed great interest also in the question of the essence and
relationship of military science and military art. This question was
reflected in many of his works. While on an official mission to Moscow in May
1922, he took part in a discussion of this question. It must immediately be
pointed out that he approached the given scientific problem from the solely
correct, Marxist-Leninist positions. In order to better understand his views
on the relationship of military science and military art and their importance,
it is necessary to briefly recall the history of this question.
Disputes over whether the conduct of a war is a science or an art go back a
long ways. Of all the great generals, A. V. Suvurov held the clearest
position on these questions. He said that "a general must form himself by
sciences," but "theory without practice is dead." He demanded that all
officers constantly master "the science of war" and "the science of winning,"
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rust Ur-r.UJAL UJt UNLI
and considered "blind bravery provides victory over the enemy" to be a
deception. "Victory comes only from military art," and "one fights with skill
and not numbers." Napoleon, although considering that the waging of war was
more an art than a science, never doubted the necessity of theoretical bases
for military affairs, that is, a military science.
However, both in the past and at present, bourgeois military theoreticians and
military leaders have voiced the most different opinions on this question.
Some of them, in viewing the conduct of a war as an art, have denied the
presence of any patterns and, consequently, the possibility of military
science. M. Dragomirov has written on this: "At present, no one would take
it into his head to assert that there could be a military science; it is
inconceivable just as the science of poetry, painting and music are
inconceivable...."(72) Others (Jomini, Leer, Fuller), although recognizing
the possibility and necessity of military science, reduced it merely to
mathematical calculations and "standard norms" or viewed it as a system of
eternal and unvarying principles and denied the objective nature of the laws
of war.
Certain bourgeois military theorists (Lloyd, Willisen, Leval, Foch and
Serrigny) endeavored to find elements of science and art in the conduct of a
war. Serrigny assumed that the preparation for a war was the area of science
while
its waging was a art. Lloyd showed that a war has two aspects:
the
first
or technical which involves the preparation of an army for the war
and
which
can be normed by rules and reduced to mathematical principles;
the
second
which relates to the conduct of a war and engagements cannot have any
rules.
Leval felt that strategy, like military affairs as a whole, is
comprised of thought and its application, spiritual and material givens, logic
and calculation, the speculative and positive, that is, it is related both to
science and art.
The denying of the possibility of military science at times occurred over the
identifying of natural and social sciences and the miscomprehension of the
particular features of the manifestation of the natural laws of nature
operating as a spontaneous force and the sociohistorical laws which operate
not automatically but as the regular, cognitive activities of people
themselves in the process of social practice.
In this context one cannot recognize as fully valid the accusation widespread
in military literature directed at Clausewitz, one of the founders of
bourgeois military science, that he
completely denied the
possibility of
military science. One of the modern
military
philosophers
S.
I. Krupnov has
correctly pointed out that Clausewitz
"denied
not military
science generally
but rather the attempts by von Bulow, Archduke Karl and others to establish a
military science that was as precise, logically ordered as mathematics and
capable of providing uniform answers to all questions arising in troop
leadership and equally applicable to all wars. Such a military science, said
Clausewitz, is impossible and he was correct.... Clausewitz was one of the
first to understand the role of scientific theory for the leadership of a war
and endeavored to work it out."(73) At the same time, it must be stipulated
that Clausewitz considered war an area of chance and denied the existence of
its objective laws which are the basis of any science.
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A majority of the Russian military theorists on the eve of World War I saw
elements of both science and art in military affairs. The Russian "Voyennaya
entsiklopediya" [Military Encyclopedia] stated: "Each area of human
creativity (including military affairs) goes through a phase of unconscious
art and ultimately arrives at rational art which has a sufficiently sound
science (principles, rules, forms, standards and so forth)."(75) The
interpretation of military science and military art remained idealistic and
metaphysical and military science was linked, as a rule, not with an
understanding of objective patterns but rather reduced to a simple
systematization of accumulated knowledge and to the elaboration of principles
and rules for the conduct of military operations. The bourgeois military
theorists were unable to ultimately resolve the question of the role and the
relationship of science and art in military affairs.
A careful study of this question's history provides an opportunity to conclude
that the disputes over whether the conduct of a war is a science or an art and
these very concepts arose not accidentally but rather appeared as a reflection
of that objective process which in one way or another made itself felt in the
preparation for and conduct of a war. The mere fact that these questions were
of concern not only to military theorists but also to such outstanding
practitioners of military affairs as Suvurov and Napoleon shows that these
questions were not idle ones. The history of military scientific thought
knows repeated attempts to brush aside such complex questions and declare
them, in particular the disputes on the essence of military science and art,
to be scholastic and not of serious theoretical or practical significance.
But life inexorably has forced us to return again and again to them,
particularly at turning points in the development of military affairs.
It is no accident that the questions of the essence and relationship of
military science and military art rearose during the first years of the
organizational development of the Soviet Armed Forces. In line with the
elaboration of the principles of Soviet military science, the questions of the
attitude of Marxism toward military science and the nature of military affairs
began to be actively discussed on the pages of the military journals and at
theoretical conferences.
S. I. Gusev, in describing the situation on the military-theoretical front
after the Civil War, has written: "Among the Red commanders who had lived
through the tremendous experience of the 3-year Civil War, there was a strong
need to theoretically analyze this experience which did not fit within the
framework of that military science which had been inherited from Tsarism.
With the greatest energy they rushed to study Marxism and dialectics. In this
undoubtedly healthy move there were also certain hitches: novices in Marxism,
they still had not gotten firmly on their 'Marxist feet' and made mistakes in
applying the Marxist method to military questions. The involvement with
Marxism also caused the reverse reaction in the military circles against
Marxism, and a struggle started over the question of the applicability of
Marxism to military science and to military affairs."(75)
In May 1922, at a session of the Military Science Council of the RKKA Military
Academy, a discussion was held on the question "Military Science Among Other
Sciences" in which M. V. Frunze participated.(76) Invited to the meeting were
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representatives from the staffs of the military districts, the higher military
editorial council, students and instructors from the Military Academy and
leading personnel from the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval
Affairs. Raised for discussion were the following questions: are military
affairs a science or an art, their relationship to social and natural
sciences; are the principles of military affairs eternal; military principles
and the laws of science; the methods of Marxism and military affairs. The
discussion was carried out under the leadership of Trotsky who initially
argued strongly against holding it, but under the pressure of the army
community was forced to agree.
Basically the old military specialists gave reports and they set out, in
essence, views which had prevailed in Russia prior to the revolution. Prof
S. G. Lukriskiy who gave the main report provided an analysis of the existing
views and pointed out that military affairs are considered by some to be a
science and by others the "elementary theory of a certain trade." The
speaker, in viewing the theory and practice of military affairs as separate
from one another, emphasized that the practice of miltiary affairs in
theoretical terms is based on many sciences. Experience, as the source of
military theory, was described by him as rudimentary, primitive and limited in
its achievements and very imperfect. "The road to understanding 'point
blank'," he stated, "is the work of pure reason." He considered the
underlying principles of military art to be permanent.
Prof A. Svechin advanced the notion that the theory of military art, in
representing a cycle of practical military knowledge, cannot claim the title
of a science due to the impossibility of its fully disclosing all aspects of
military affairs; the latter also do not have their own specific principles,
for they are common to any struggle, from a debate and boxing to the struggle
between labor and capital, inclusively. Natural sciences exist in parallel
and only in an external relation to the theory of military art.
A co-worker from the staff of the Kiev Military District S. Kvanin showed the
existence of military science which studies war in common with sociology, but
each of these has its own specific goal. War as a social phenomenon is the
subject of sociology while war as military affairs is an area exclusively of
military science. He voiced the opinion that Marxism is applicable only for
solving particular problems in military science.
Prof A. Snesarev felt that military affairs in the preparatory process were
almost a science and in the process of execution almost an art. He proposed
the term "quasilearned art."
Prof A. Toporkov proposed that the nature of military affairs cannot be
considered as an art, since by nature it is antiaesthetic and cannot be
discovered by aesthetics. Prof F. Ogordnikov considered military policy the
superior sector of military science and this policy, in his opinion, only
could claim the title of a true science. Military science is the theory of
military art and military politics.
V. Akhov spoke about the possibility and utility of applying Marxism to
military affairs. He saw the particular value of the Marxist method in
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uniting theory and practice which, in his words, under other conditions clash.
In the opinion of G. Isserson, the practical value of the question "military
science or military art?" is that its resolution provides an opportunity to
work out sound criteria for the training of the fighter and chiefly the
commander.
Trotsky in a disrespectful tone said that it was possible to be a superior
fighter and even a general without giving any answer to the question of
whether military affairs are a science or an art, as it was possible to be a
good communist fighter without ever being concerned with the questions of
materialistic philosophy. Can Marxism teach you to make bast sandals? asked
Trotsky and, extending his irony to military affairs, categorically denied the
possibility of employing Marxism in this area. In his words, a danger
threatens those comrades who wish to build a military system by the methods of
Marxism. Further (in his subsequent speeches) he asserted that there is and
was no military science. There is a whole series of sciences on which
military affairs are based. War is not a science. War is a practical art or
skill. War is a trade for those who correctly study military affairs. By its
nature, it is impossible to turn war into a science just as architecture,
commerce, veterinary science and so forth cannot become a science. What is
called the theory of war or military science, in his opinion, is the aggregate
of practical procedures, methods of adaptation and skills corresponding to a
certain task, that is, to defeat the enemy. To form the procedures of the
military trade using the Marxist method, he stated, is the same thing as
constructing a theory of architecture or a veterinary textbook using Marxism.
With the aid of Marxism, it is impossible to construct a field manual, and
this was his main conclusion.(77)
M. V. Frunze also spoke at this session. Unfortunately, his speech here up to
now has not been published in any collection of his works. It has been
written down in different versions. An analysis of the minutes shows that
M. V. Frunze in his speech first of all drew attention to the fact that a
correct understanding of the discussed questions was of fundamentally
important significance for elaborating the military theoretical problems and
the practices of military organizational develoment. He criticized the
idealistic approach of A. A. Svechin and certain other participants in the
discussion of the debated questions and emphasized the inadmissibility of
denying a relationship between the phenomena of social life and military
affairs.
M. V. Frunze pointed out that only from the positions of Marxism-Leninism was
it possible to fully analyze and provide a correct reply to the question of
the place of military science among the other sciences and the essence of
military science and military art. If a war is the continuation of politics,
a part of social life, then consequently military affairs is a continuation of
political affairs. These are carried out by people in a class society and
under these conditions not only the military-social but also the purely
technical questions require a theoretical and political assessment from the
viewpoint of the interests of the proletarian state. For this reason,
military affairs is completely "within the sway" of Marxism which provides a
key to a correct understanding of all sociopolitical and military-technical
questions.
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At the same time, M. V. Frunze pointed to the inadmissibility of a simplified,
schematic approach to the use of Marxism. "If we correctly understand," he
said, "the essence of the Marxist method, then we are confronted with a
certain problem of the need to study military affairs with complete
carefulness and seriousness. For solving the main military questions we must
not employ fantastic research methods but approach them from the purely
practical aspect."(78) By "fantastic methods" he meant the methods described
in the course of the debate of the knowledge of "pure reason" and "eternal,
unchanged principles."
M. V. Frunze convincingly showed all the falaciousness of the very positing of
the question: either military science, or military art. He was the only one
among the speakers who directly and definitely stated that "military affairs
contain elements of both military science and military art."(79)
The above-described position of M. V. Frunze fully corresponded to the
Marxist-Leninist scientific understanding of war, military science and
military art. The founders of Marxism-Leninism, in giving enormous
significance to elucidating the methodological questions of theory and
practice, left a series of very important and valuable instructions which
offer a key to a correct understanding of the questions concerning the
relationship of military science and military art and the subject and content
of military science. These instructions, undoubtedly, were taken into account
by M. V. Frunze in giving the above-quoted definition of the designated
concepts.
V. I. Lenin, in noting the complexity and difficulty of political leadership,
wrote that "politics is a science and an art which does not drop fromthe skies
or is given gratis...."(80) Since politics is a science it can be determined
and carried out solely on a strictly scientific basis. If politics at the
same time is an art, then it should be carried out in practice not only
scientifically but also artfully and skillfully, considering the entire
complexity of the specific historical situation. Consequently, if politics as
a whole is a science and an art, then the continuation of politics by violent
means, that is, the waging of war, as a part of politics can and should be a
science and an art. If their essence is the same then the manifestation
should also be the same.
The founders of Marxism-Leninism not only recognized the necessity and
possibility of establishing a scientific theory about war, but in every
possible way emphasized that only on a strictly scientific basis was it
possible to correctly explain all the phenomena of a war and organize one's
practical activities. At the First Congress of Labor Cossacks in 1920, Lenin
directly stated that "without science it is impossible to organize a modern
army...,"(81) having in mind military science first of all.
K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin, in profoundly and thoroughly analyzing the
phenomena of war and highly regarding the importance of military science, at
the same time pointed out that the preparations for and conduct of a war are
an art. K. Marx and F. Engels wrote that "a revolt is an art, just as a war
is as well as the other types of arts."(82) V. I. Lenin in his works "Marxism
and Revolt," "Advice of an Outsider," and other articles in 1917, repeatedly
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and with his inherent certainty, emphasized that "revolt, like a war, is an
art."(83)
M. V. Frunze understood these questions in the same light. He referred to the
above-quoted statement of V. I. Lenin in his work "Lenin and the Red Army" and
analyzed it in detail. In his works Mikhail Vasilyevich more than 20 times
uses the concept "military science" and "military art" in the sense of the two
aspects of military affairs. Just in the work "Military Doctrine and the Red
Army" he does this several times: on bringing doctrine "into accord with the
basic provisions of military science and the requirements of military art"; on
coordinating the particular features of the organizational development of the
Red Army with "the demands of military science and art" and according "to the
basic demand of military art and science."(84)
M. V. Frunze understood military science as the area of theoretical research
on the basis of generalizing the experience of the preparation for and conduct
of wars. The main task of military theory was to disclose the general and the
essentially uniform in the phenomena of war and on this basis work out the
methods for preparing and conducting armed combat. He viewed military art as
an area of applying military knowledge in practice in carrying out certain
tasks under specific situational conditions.
These questions were understood in this manner in all the official documents
and military literature during the prewar years, during the period of the
Great Patriotic War and after it until 1947. On 11 April 1947, reporting to
I. V. Stalin were N. A. Bulganin, A. M. Vasilevskiy, A. I. Antonov and S. M.
Shtemenko. In the course of the conversation, I. V. Stain gave the following
instructions: certain military theorists feel that military science and
military art are equivalent concepts. Such theorists are profoundly wrong.
Military science must not be identified with military art. Military science
is a broader and more all-encompassing concept and it, military science,
includes also military art with the latter being one of the component parts of
military science. Military art includes tactics, operational art and
strategy, that is, it is concerned with studying questions relating to the
methods of conducting military operations and a war as a whole. Military
science, in addition to the questions comprising military art, investigates
the questions of the national economy, its material and human resources. This
definition was also incorporated in a report at a ceremony in honor of the
30th anniversary of the Soviet Armed Forces in February 1948 and has become
widespread in our military literature.
In explaining this, K. Ye. Voroshilov wrote: "In being an ordered system of
authentically scientific knowledge concerning the entire complex of questions
related to modern war, Stalin's military science, along with the purely
military elements such as strategy, operational art, tactics, the organization
and training of troops, encompasses the total of sociopolitical, economic and
moral factors in their aggregate, the interaction and determining influence on
military affairs as a whole (emphasis mine.--M. G.)."(85)
Such a definition also had a rational aspect, contributing to a more profound
investigation of economic and moral-political problems. But it still ran
contrary to the generally accepted understanding of the essence of science and
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art and contained a number of unsound and vulnerable points. In the first
place, it did not correspond to the methods of classifying sciences, since
military science alone cannot investigate such a complex phenomenon as war and
the questions of strengthening national defense, including the economic and
moral factors. Secondly, from the philosophical viewpoint, military science,
like any other science, is a spiritual phenomenon and cannot include military
art as a whole, but namely its practical aspect. From the above-given
definition, the very essence of military science has been lost related to an
understanding of the objective laws of armed combat. Thirdly, with such an
approach military science and military art begin to differ mechanically from
one another only in terms of the quantity and scope of questions encompassed
by them, assuming that some questions relating to the preparation for a war
and its conduct are resolved only by science (for example, an understanding of
the moral and economic capabilities) while others, in addition, are an art
(tactics, operational art and strategy).
In actuality, as V. I. Lenin taught and M. V. Frunze wrote, the preparation
for a war and the waging of war as a whole are not only a science but also an
art. This applies also to modern conditions.
The preparation for and conduct of armed combat are related to military
science and military art. Here military art has its practical and theoretical
aspects and the latter is a component of military science. The main thing in
military affairs is the unity of military science and the practice of military
art, and for this reason it is a question not of putting these concepts into
opposition but rather a more profound elucidation of their specific features
and those essential, unbroken ties which ensure their actual unity.
Military science and the practice of military art--two aspects of military
affairs. For better understanding this problem, it is obviously necessary to
examine from present-day positions what in actuality distinguishes these two
concepts from one another. Why did the founders of Marxism-Leninism, in
giving enormous significance to knowledge and to military science, at the same
time consider it essential to emphasize that war is an art?
Science, as is known, is the result or aggregate of knowledge concerning
nature, society and thought and concerning the objective patterns of their
development acquired in the course of social historical life. Science arises
on the basis of human production and practical activities and develops along
with the development of social phenomena, in more and more accurately and
profoundly reflecting reality, disclosing the essential relationships of
phenomena and arming humans with a knowledge of the objective laws of the real
world in the aim of their practical utilization.
By art one understands usually any matter or practical activity of humans
which in addition to knowledge requires skill and mastery (military art, the
art of leadership, the art of teaching and indoctrination and so forth). In
the dictionary of V. Dahl, the word "art" is defined as "a science, knowledge
applied to a matter; mastery requiring great ability." The meaning of this
word is explained approximately in the same manner under present-day
conditions.
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If military affairs are approached from such positions and their essence is
carefully analyzed, it can be concluded that military art is an ability or
mastery based upon profound theoretical knowledge and the ability to
creatively apply them in practice. Just as literature and art (understood in
the given instance as a depiction of reality in artistic images) have their
own theory or science (art and literary criticism), military science, being
the theory of military affairs, has arisen on the basis of investigating and
generalizing the practical experience of armed forces in wartime and
peacetime.
Historical experience shows that with all the diversity and complexity in the
phenomena of war, inherent to them are internal, profound and essential
relationships and they have something common, permanent and repeating with the
force of necessity, and for this reason the forms and methods of armed
struggle arise not out of the "free" will of the generals but are subordinate,
like human activity itself, to objective laws which are independent of their
will and awareness. This also explains the possibility and necessity of
military science which is basically a system of knowledge dealing with the
objective laws of a war and the methods of preparing for and conducting armed
combat in a certain historical period. Arising as a reflection of the
experience of military creativity, military science, like any other science,
possesses a relative independence and has, in turn, an enormous impact on the
practical activities of man, showing their way, opening up new prospects and
suggesting methods for resolving the set tasks.
Another particular feature of the phenomena of war is that the patterns
inherent to them, in being independent of the will and awareness of people,
operate not with that irreversible inevitability of the laws of nature, but
are manifested, as in all other social phenomena, through human activity. A
knowledge of the laws of armed combat facilitates practical activity and
provides an opportunity to foresee the development of events, to act
consciously and more fully utilize the objective laws in one's own interests.
But an understanding of the objective laws and the principles, methods and
forms elaborated on their basis for armed combat cannot provide an answer to
the question of how one should act in one or another situation let alone be
capable of by themselves ensuring the achieving of victory in a war. For this
reason the provisions of military science cannot be applied in all instances,
regardless of the situational conditions, with the same constancy and uniform
outcome as the laws of natural sciences.
The difficulty of the given question also is that in the course of a war,
different objective laws are operating simultaneously and these often
intertwine and contradict one another, creating the most contradictory
situation which, in turn, are not permanent and change constantly in the
course of armed combat. It is essentially important to consider that war is a
bilateral phenomenon and that each of the belligerents consciously or
accidentally endeavor to understand and utilize in their own interests the
action of one or another objective law and impose their will on the enemy,
discover its intentions, deceive the opponent and stun it with surprise and
unexpected actions.
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In the course of armed combat all of this creates an exceptionally
complicated, intense and constantly changing situation. For this reason, in
order to be victorious it is not enough to have merely a knowledge of the
patterns of war and military science. Military art is also required. If
victory and defeat in a war were determined by the automatic action of
objective laws, if the concepts of military science could be employed in
practice with the same constancy as the laws of mathematics or physics, then
military art would lose any sense and cease to exist as a concept. In
actuality, it plays an enormous role and the outcome of armed combat depends
largely upon how correctly the military leaders and commanders of all levels
have assessed the objectively developing conditions, take effective decisions
and how skillfully they carry them out.
This is why M. V. Frunze viewed military art as the ability to correctly
assess the situation and take the most effective decision considering the
specific situational conditions, the ability to employ all conditions and
opportunities to defeat the enemy, as the ability to employ the troops with
maximum effectiveness and the least losses. He saw one of the main tasks of
the military cadres in selecting the most suitable methods and means in each
given situation out of the multiplicity of diverse ones. Military theory
cannot provide any pat solution but can serve only as a guiding principle.
One of the participants in the 1922 discussion, Ye. Smyslovskiy, wrote:
"...The study of any science in no way guarantees the mastery of the art
guided by this science and life offers us repeated examples of so-called
'educated fools' who, in mastering perfectly broad scientific knowledge, are
completely incapable in the area of the corresponding art. It is one thing to
know and another to be able."(86)
In a combat situation, military leaders and commanders must frequently
encounter phenomena which are not provided for by any theoretical concepts or
contradict them, and for this reason the necessity arises of seeking out
completely new methods of action. This undoubtedly is the entire "secret,"
the entire complexity of military affairs. As a rule, in a war commanders who
have high theoretical training fight more successfully. But instances are
known when military leaders, in possessing great theoretical knowledge, are
little suitable for practical activity, as they have not mastered the art of
troop command and control under difficult conditions.
M. V. Frunze had precisely this in mind when in his speech of 8 May 1922, in
emphasizing in every possible way the importance of scientific knowledge, at
the same time said that "of course, there cannot be any science capable of
teaching one 'to command' as this is the area of art."(87) This was confirmed
with particular clarity in the course of the Great Patriotic War. In the
beginning of the war, certainly there was not a military chief or commander
who theoretically did not understand or from previous experience did not know
the need to concentrate the main forces on the crucial sector, to establish
assault groupings or provide dependable fire damage to the enemy. Still it
took significant time and a great deal of effort and sacrifice before it was
possible to master the art of carrying out these and many other tasks. In
mastering military art, our command cadres and troops subsequently showed
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remarkable examples of the successful conduct of offensive and defensive
operations and won outstanding victories over the enemy.
As is shown by military experience, including the generalship activities of
M. V. Frunze, for manifesting a high level of military art, in addition to
profound knowledge and high political awareness, it is essential to have
developed operational-tactical thinking, a creative approach to the matter,
the ability to quickly assess the situation and analyze it profoundly, as well
as high organizational and combat-morale qualities such as courage, boldness
and decisiveness, initiative and independence, firmness and tenacity in
achieving the goal.
From the specific qualities needed by a leader both in the political area and
in military strategy, M. V. Frunze particularly pointed to intuition, the
ability for profoundly scientific prediction, the ability in the complex
intertwining of contradictory events and phenomena to grasp the inner logic,
the patterns of their development and in the common chain of political,
organizational and other decisions and measures to find at each specific
moment that specific link in the chain which one must seize with all one's
strength in order to hold the entire chain.(88) V. I. Lenin was gifted to the
highest degree with this genial capacity. M. V. Frunze urged our military
cadres to learn this greatest art from him.
Mikhail Vasilyevich gave great importance to experience and practical skills
in troop command and in performing other duties related to leadership of
subordinates.
All these qualities are not innate or inherent only to "genial" persons, as
certain bourgeois military theorists have asserted; they do not appear as a
result of merely studying theoretical concepts; they must be systematically
and constantly developed in the process of all military service. A close
study of the history of operational and combat training indicates that,
unfortunately, this circumstance is not always fully considered. There have
been frequent instances when at exercises and drills, in essence, the
possibility was excluded of manifesting any art, for the situation far from
fully reproduced combat conditions and in playing through combat operations
the decisions of the trainees and their actual actions were not always taken
into account. Instruction in such exercises and drills came down to a formal
applying of various theoretical concepts in practice. Such an approach to
military training contradicts the nature of combat and an operation, it limits
the creativity of the trainees and deprives them of an opportunity to show
military art.
In the aim of eliminating this shortcoming, there have been repeated attempts
to increase the time in practical exercises with officers in the troops and
schools. Certain schools and academies introduced testing in state exams not
only for theoretical knowledge but also practical skills. But all of these
basically correct ideas and measures, as a result of their formal realization,
did not make it possible to take a substantial step ahead in the mastery of
military art. For instead of testing the ability to quickly size up a new
situation and take an original decision stemming from its specific conditions,
the student using a map or sandbox had to list the general theoretical tasks
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and questions which did not derive from the specific conditions of the enemy's
position and actions, those of his own troops and the terrain, thus skimming
over the surface of this objective reality.
M. V. Frunze considered the most dangerous in military affairs and in the
training of military personnel when the very involved process of decision
taking was replaced by the superficial, abstract application of theory to
practice, when decisions did not stem from an analysis of the specific
conditions but were drawn from theory. B. M. Shaposhnikov, in speaking at an
analysis of the RKKA maneuvers in 1929, emphasized: "That degree of general
tactical training which we now have can be described as the mastery of the
general, purely external scheme for a decision, a general scheme for giving
orders and controlling the troops. But true creativity and real art begin
where this general scheme (undoubtedly an essential one) does not overshadow
or obscure the particular features of each special case but helps to
understand these particular features more quickly and certainly, and for each
particular instance to provide a new decision which is original and determined
solely by the particular features of the given situation. This is that
superior school which borders on real art and which we still lack."(89)
Thus, it is the issue that military art is primarily the ability to apply a
general concept in a specific situation. "It is absurd," wrote V. I. Lenin,
"to make up a formula or general rule... which would be suitable for all cases.
One must have one's head on one's shoulders in order to be able to make one's
way in each individual case."(90)
From this it follows that military art begins where, on the one hand, profound
theoretical knowledge and its creative application help the commander to
better see the common link of occurring phenomena and more confidently orient
himself in the situation and, on the other, the commander, without tying
himself down to a general theoretical scheme, endeavors to go more deeply into
the essence of the actually existing situation, establish its advantageous and
negative features and, proceeding from an analysis of these, find original
decisions and methods of action which conform best to the specific given
conditions and the set combat mission. The maximum degree of conformity of
the decisions and actions of the commanders and the troops to the specific
situational conditions is a major law of military art, as precisely this
expresses its main essence and defines the most essential and permanent links,
the relationship of objective and subjective factors, the internal driving
forces and the main reasons for victories and defeats in war.
Even in the postwar years there were periods when the importance of
theoretical knowledge was emphasized correctly but sometimes one-sidedly and
the necessity was underestimated of indoctrinating a whole series of qualities
in the command personnel and without which military art was inconceivable.
Here one could feel negatively an incorrect understanding of the essence of
military art which is based upon creativity linked with the carrying out of
specific combat tasks. For this reason a correct understanding of the nature
and relationship of military science and military art is not only of
methodological but also great practical significance, particularly from the
viewpoint of the focus, forms and methods of troop instruction and the
indoctrination of military cadres.
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According to Lenin, the conduct of a war as a whole, on any scale and in all
its political and military aspects is a science and an art simultaneously and
all historical experience in the development of military affairs, the
experience of the organizational development and training of the Armed Forces
in our times and the nature of carrying out missions in modern combat and
operations clearly show that military science and the practice of military art
are two interrelated and interdependent aspects of military affairs but which
at the same time also have substantial differences.
One of the supporters of M. V. Frunze on military-political and military
theoretical questions, S. I. Gusev, in speaking out against incorrect notions
of the relationship of military science and military art wrote "that between
science and art there is no metaphysical boundary which Trotsky has endeavored
to establish. Science develops at the expense of art, art is based upon the
victories of science and this process is infinite.
"...Science is the 'continuation' of art; in turn art becomes the
'continuation' of science. Any art is more or less 'scientific,' and any
science is not so 'scientific' to be able to dispense with art. What in the
'examination' is a law in actuality becomes a rule. What is a law in science
is a rule in art.
"The gap between science and art is the gap between past and present, between
theory and practice. Such a gap is contradictory to the spirit of
Marxism."(91)
Such an understanding of the relationship of military science and the practice
of military art does not contradict the demand of studying the economic and
moral capabilities both of one's own nation as well as that of the enemy. In
this context let us examine how the content and relationship of military
science and military art are influenced by the necessity of considering the
economic and moral capabilities and whether the given circumstance can alter
the stated understanding of these questions.
V. I. Lenin, as is known, thoroughly disclosed the significance of the
economic and moral factors for waging war, having pointed out that wars are
now waged by peoples and that "the link between a nation's military
organization and all its economic and cultural system has never been as close
as at present."(92) "In a modern war, as everyone knows, the economic
organization is of crucial significance."(93) As was already pointed out
above, M. V. Frunze also gave great importance to the economic and moral-
political factors.
The importance of the economic and moral factors has immeasurably risen under
present-day conditions. The economy of the belligerents now not only supports
the waging of war but itself has become an object of military operations. The
boundary line between the rear and the front more and more has been
obliterated. Regardless of this, we do not have grounds to presently feel
that the economic and moral-political questions exist solely in the scientific
area and do not involve military art.
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In actuality, can one exclude from strategy and military art as a whole the
questions of considering the economic and moral-political capabilities of both
one's own country and that of the enemy? If one excludes such major and
decisive questions under today's conditions, then this would lead to the
emasculation of strategy, for without considering these questions there cannot
be good strategic and operational plans. In keeping with the increased scope
of armed combat and its encompassing of ever-new phenomena, strategy, like
military art as a whole, cannot remain on the former level and it should
undergo further development and encompass a broader range of questions
corresponding to the nature of modern wars. As for the moral-political
factor, it has always been considered and should be considered not only on the
strategic but also the operational and tactical scales.
Characteristically, the authors of the book "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" [On
Soviet Military Science], on the one hand, assert that military science is
broader than military art, since in addition to the methods of conducting
armed combat, it should also include the areas of knowledge "related to
considering the influence of the economic and moral capabilities of the
belligerents on armed combat."(94) On the other hand, in defining the
specific content of military science, these sectors of knowledge are not
included by them in the structure of military science. On page 243, where the
structure of military science is described, these are not even mentioned. For
this reason, it remains incomprehensible why military science is broader than
military art. The authors assert: "...Military science is not restricted to
just a study of the laws of armed combat, its essence and the elaboration of
the forms and methods of waging it, that is, to military art. It also studies
the forces and means of armed combat...."(95) However, there is and cannot be
any abstract forms and methods of military operations in isolation from the
means of armed combat and these very forms and methods are related primarily
to the employment of certain means of armed combat.
The authors of the generally informative book on military science might not
have noticed all these contradictions in their reasoning merely because for
some reason they had to artificially narrow the essence of miltiary art and
correspondingly broaden the limits of military science. One is struck by the
fact that at many points in the book the authors employ the concepts "military
science" and "military art" as equivalent, as two aspects of military affairs.
On page 225 it states that "war is a great art" and in another (page 187):
"Tukhachevskiy introduced much that was valuable in elaborating Soviet
military science and miltiary art." One might ask why they would write this
if, in their opinion, military science already included military art? There
can only be one answer: the very initial position in positing the question is
wrong, and with any artificial stretching of the point in science it is very
difficult to tie the ends together and this stretching of the point makes
itself felt.
This book quotes many well known military theorists and generals of the past
on the questions of military science and military art, but this is done in a
very unique manner, in a number of instances only that portion is given which
confirms the thesis of the authors that military science is broader than
military art. In particular, in setting out the military theoretical views of
M. V. Frunze and S. I. Gusev, mention is not even made of their ideas quoted
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by us above on the nature of military science and military art. Or, for
example, reference is made to the pamphlet published in 1962 by MSU R. Ya.
Malinovskiy "Bditelno stoyat na strazhe mira" [Vigilantly Guard the Peace],
where it is directly stated: "...Military science is the theory of military
affairs.... But military art is the application of the knowledge of military
science in armed combat, the practice of military affairs which in our age is
inconceivable without a scientific basis."(96) However, the authors of the
book "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" suddenly conclude that the pamphlet of
R. Ya. Malinovskiy examines the fundamental questions of Soviet military
science and its most important part, military art, although the pamphlet not
only does not state that military science is broader than military art or that
military art (including its practical part) is incorporated in military
science, but conversely, this thesis is rejected.
Undoubtedly, military science cannot be identified with the theory of military
art, since the former, in addition to the theory of tactics, operational art
and strategy, includes the theory of troop training and indoctrination, the
theory of the organizational development of the Armed Forces and a whole
series of other sectors. Also unjustified is the fear that such an
understanding of military science and military art will mean the negation of
all these disciplines and the discarding of them from military science, that
it would reduce military affairs to the level of a trade and be an attempt to
retreat to some "pure military art."
Undoubtedly, there is and cannot be any "pure military art." For example,
take the questions of military training and indoctrination. In the practical
activities of the military personnel in wartime, it is impossible to isolate
these from tactics and operational art, since combat and operational training
of the commanders, staffs and troops is one of the most important measures
related to preparing combat and an operation. Moreover, combat operations
themselves are an irreplaceable school for improving combat skill; in
peacetime the art of conducting combat and an operation can be developed only
in the process of combat and operational training.
The same can be said about military geography, topography and other special
technical and administrative subjects. Military art cannot be reduced to the
forms and methods of conducting armed combat. In resolving the practical
questions of strategy or operational art, one must be concerned not only with
the patterns and principles of military art, but also employ certain
statistical data, resolve a whole series of organizational and military-
technical problems, specifically consider the conditions of the theater of
military operations, while the ability to orient oneself in the field and to
employ its advantageous conditions for troop operations is also inseparable
from the art of conducting combat and an operation. Precisely the strategic
and operational considerations determined the establishing of horse, tank or
air armies, although in military science the theoretical questions of troop
organizational structure are examined by the theory of the organizational
development of the Armed Forces.
Not only military affairs but also any other area of human activity have their
history but because of this the corresponding scientific sectors do not become
broader than the phenomena investigated by them. Military art both as a whole
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and in carrying out individual military tasks is inconceivable without the use
of the experience of previous wars, operations and battles. Precisely the
history of military art with good reason is one of the most important areas of
military history. Its main task is to investigate the practically tested
forms and methods of armed combat in the course of which the science itself is
improved and a basis is established for elaborating its new provisions and
conclusions.
Thus, the different aspects of military art are manifested in practical
activities not independently and not separately from one another but in an
organic unity and a close relationship, finding their specific reflection at
one or another stage of preparing for and conducting the battle, the operation
and the war.
The examination by military science of each sector of military affairs
individually as well as their classification, as in other sciences, is caused
by the need to systematize and to reduce to a definite system the knowledge
gained on the patterns, forms and methods of armed combat in the aim of their
more profound understanding. For example, no one would deny that training and
indoctrination are a single and unbroken process. However, pedagogics
examines and investigates each sector individually (didactics and the theory
of communist indoctrination). Because of this pedagogics as a science does
not become wider than pedagogical art.
The system of combat training also includes as independent subjects tactical
and technical training, marksmanship and other special disciplines. But when
tactics, as the art of conducting combat, is carried out in practice (in a
combat situation or in an exercise), the tactical forms and methods of
actions, maneuver, fire and attack, the control of weapons and combat
equipment gain a specific manifestation in an organic unity and it is
impossible to separate one from the other.
From all that has been said it can be concluded that military science and
military art, as an area of practical activity, are not any mechanically
addable elements which differ from one another in the quantity and scope of
the studied questions. These are concepts which encompass the conduct of
armed combat as a whole and are in an organic unity, expressing various
aspects of military affairs. These concepts are not something born out of
abstract thought. They arose out of the practice of military affairs. All
military history shows that for the successful conduct of a war, in addition
to well developed military theory and the arming of the military cadres with
this theory, it is also essential to show creativity and the art of organizing
and conducting combat, an operation and a war as a whole, starting from the
supreme commander-in-chief and ending with each soldier.
Military art, as an area of practical activity, encompasses all aspects of
military activities on strategic, operational and tactical scales in the
preparation for and conduct of operations and combat actions. In this context
the question arises of the relationship of the practice of military art and
military practice generally.
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From the viewpoint of Marxist-Leninist methodology, the practical structure
includes such aspects as the need, goal, motive and purposeful activity in the
aim of its individual acts, the subject at which this activity is aimed, the
means by which the goal is achieved and, finally, the result of the
activity.(97) By military practice one understands the aggregate activities
of the Armed Forces in their historical development. Military art, in
peacetime and wartime, to a significant degree encompasses the practical
activities of the Armed Forces but military art certainly does not include all
the listed elements and does not completely coincide with the practice of
military affairs.
In the process of practical activity, the personnel of the Armed Forces must
carry out all sorts of tasks, including purely military as well as other such
as: construction, routine, administrative, medical and financial. All of
these are aimed at ensuring the main task of achieving a high level of
military art, but in terms of their nature their fulfillment does not always
require the manifestation of the elements of military art.
Since the word "art" has come to be applied to any form of practical activity,
when this activity is performed ably, skillfully and artfully, the opinion is
sometimes voiced that military art also must be understood precisely only "as
the able conduct of military operations based upon the creative application of
military knowledge"(98) or as the ability to employ troops and naval forces
with the greatest effectiveness. Of course, the desire to achieve this should
always permeate military art; such an understanding is also correct from the
formal terminological viewpoint.
But in life and objective reality, this question is significantly more complex
to resolve. If one formally adheres to such a definition of military art, it
may turn out, for example, that the Soviet Army at the outset of the Great
Patriotic War or the Nazi troops over virtually the entire war did not have
their own military art. However, this was not the case. We can say with full
justification that in the last war Soviet military art won a convincing
victory over the military art of Nazi Germany.
War is a bilateral phenomenon and military art is manifested in the clash of
the sides, where, as a rule, one side wins a victory and the other suffers a
defeat. And both sides without fail have their own military art, only the
level of these differs. The history of military art is formed from the
aggregate of the positive as well as the negative experience of conducting
armed combat.
In history there have been numerous wars where opponents with a high level of
military art engaged in combat and at times up to the last moment it was
difficult to say which side would gain the upper hand and consequently (with a
formal approach), it was impossible to determine which of these armies had
actually mastered military art. But failures in a war often are determined
not only by the level of military art but also by many other factors.
Sometimes armies which have suffered a defeat (or a portion of them) have
shown a rather high level of military art. One has merely to recall Waterloo,
the heroic defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War or the defense of Port
Arthur during the period of the Russo-Japanese War.
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M. V. Frunze, in saying that military art has always been the special preserve
of the ruling classes and access to it was forbidden to the people, commented
well that "military art out of necessity has always been a progressive art and
has always been based upon recent achievements of science and technology and
placed rather high demands on its specialists."(99)
Considering what has been said, true military art at which one should aim
should be unconditionally planned for victory over a strong and skillful
enemy. It actually requires great ability and strategic and operational-
tactical mastery. But the enemy will also endeavor to achieve this in the aim
of surpassing the military art opposing it. For this reason in practical
terms--in a general form and in terms of armed combat as a whole--military art
is usually viewed as the application of military knowledge and experience in
preparing and conducting military operations considering the specific
situational conditions as well as in the process of the organizational
development and training of the Armed Forces. Military science is the theory
of military affairs with the mission of investigating and generalizing
primarily the achievements of military art and all aspects of the practical
activities of the Armed Forces in peacetime and wartime.
Since military science and the practice of military art are viewed as two
interrelated aspects of military affairs, certain researchers have assumed
that the concepts of "military science" and "the theory of military art"
should coincide. They consider as illogical the assumption that the theory of
military art is merely a part of military science. This judgment is founded
on the fact that for the manifestation of military art, particularly on the
strategic scale, it is not sufficient to have a knowledge of the theory of
strategy, operational art and tactics, but rather it is essential to have a
knowledge of all areas of military science and, in addition, employ a large
amount of knowledge from the area of political, economic, technical and other
sciences. Proceeding from this it has been proposed to introduce the term
"theory of armed combat" or "theory of preparing and conducting military
operations" in place of the term "theory of military art" as a component of
military science. In place of the term "theory of operational art" it has
been proposed that the term be used "theory of preparing and conducting
operations" (in the 1930's the term "operatics" was proposed).
From the purely theoretical viewpoint, this would not be more accurate.
Moreover, the term "theory of military art," as a component of military
science, although being somewhat arbitrary, has permeated our military
vocabulary and our military literature so profoundly and military personnel
are completely used to it that it has been recognized as ill-advised to alter
the existing terminology on these questions and we have continued to employ
it. Here the point is that the theory of military art, as a component part of
military science, must investigate the laws and methods of conducting armed
combat on the strategic, operational and tactical scales, in close correlation
with the other sectors of military science. The main point is not which of
the designated concepts is broader or narrower but rather a correct
understanding of the essence of military science and military art.
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Such an approach to military science and military art cannot be viewed as the
setting of these into opposition with one another or the isolating of them.
It also cannot to any degree reduce the importance of military science of
"debase military art to the level of a trade," since true military art, as was
already pointed out, is possible only on a basis of profound military-
scientific knowledge.
In returning to what has been said, we must re-emphasize that this has always
been the viewpoint of the founders of Marxism-Leninism and the prominent
Soviet generals and military theorists. In our times in many of the party and
other official documents and in the various speeches and articles of the USSR
minister of defense, his deputies and other military chiefs concerning the
present-day conditions of military science and the practice of military art,
military science and the practice of military art are viewed as two aspects of
military affairs. For example, the Decree of the CPSU Central Committee "On
the 40th Anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great
Patriotic War of 1941-1945" states that "the victory in the Great Patriotic
War showed the superiority of Soviet military science and military art and the
high level of strategic leadership and combat skill of our military
cadres."(100)
Of course, it is not merely a question of these highly authoritative
definitions and statements but primarily tested historical experience and the
understanding confirmed by modern practice of the nature of military science
and military art. Their essence consists in the fact that, as in politics and
in political leadership there is an immediate unity of the scientific theory
concerning the development of society and the practical activities of our
party and people (it would never enter anyone's head to say that political
science is broader than politics itself), so in the practical activities of
the Armed Forces and primarily our military cadres, there is an organic
combination of military science and military art.
1. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 6, pp 362-363.
2. "Syezdy Sovetov SSSR v postanovleniyakh i rezolyutsiyakh" [Congresses of
the USSR Soviets in Decrees and Resolutions], Moscow, 1939, p 38.
3. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 37, pp 122-123.
4. D. Ryazanov, "Marxism in Military Affairs," VOYENNYY VESTNIK, No 3, 1926,
p 15.
5. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," 1927, Vol 3, p 28.
6. Ibid., Vol 2, pp 162-163.
7. K. Marx, F. Engels, "Sock.," 2d Edition, Vol 20, p 175.
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8. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 38,
9. Ibid., p 55.
10. Ibid., Vol 36, p 382.
pp 369-370.
11. Quoted in: M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol
12. Ibid., Vol 1, p 466.
13. W. D. Jacobs, op. cit., pp 91-92.
14. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 3, p 151.
15. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 39, p 57.
3, p
16. K. Marx, F. Engels, "Sock.," 2d Edition, Vol 7, p 509.
17. Ibid., p 513.
18. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 44, p 205.
19. Ibid., Vol 26, p 224.
20. Ibid., Vol 31, p 159.
21. Ibid., Vol 32, p 82.
22. M. N. Tukhachevskiy, "Izbr. proizv.," Moscow, 1964, Vol 1,
23. See: "Materialy soveshchaniya komandnogo i komissarskogo sostava voysk
Ukrainy i Kryma i flotov Chernogo i Azovskogo Morey" [Materials of a
Conference for Command and Commissar Personnel of the Ukrainian and
Crimean Troops and the Fleets of the Black and Azov Seas], Kharkov, 1922,
pp 80-81.
24. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol
25. Ibid., Vol 2, p 253.
26. Ibid., pp 37-38.
27. Ibid., Vol 3, p 16.
3, p 15.
28. P. N. Fedoseyev, "Dialektika sovremennoy epokhi" [Dialectics of the
Modern Age], Moscow, 1978, p 171.
29. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 216.
30. Ibid., p 208.
31. VOYENNOYE DELO, No 2(65), 1920, pp 38-40.
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run ur r luliL u.. uri i.
32. Ibid., No 6(70), [1920], pp 162-166.
33. Ibid., No 8(72), 1920, p 231.
34. I. Vatsetis, "0 voyennoy doktrine budushchego" [On the Military Doctrine
of the Future], Moscow, 1923, p 8.
35. VOYENNOYE DELO, No 23, 24, 1918, p 3.
36. See: VOYENNOYE DELO, No 4(65), 1920, pp 98-99.
37. Ibid., No 12(76), 1920, p 354.
38. See: S. S. Kamenev, "Zapiski o grazhdanskoy voyne i voyennom
stroitelstve" [Notes on the Civil War and Military Organizational
Development], Moscow, 1963, p 62.
39. VOYENNOYE DELO, No 11(75), 1920, p 322.
40. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, p 207.
41. Ibid.
42. D. V. Ryazanov, "Marksizm i voyennoye delo" [Marxism and Military
Affairs], Moscow, 1926, p 15.
43. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 210.
44. Ibid., p 211.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., p 214.
47. Ibid., pp 411-412.
48. Ibid., p 211.
49. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," 1957, Vol 2, p 22.
50. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 219.
51. Ibid., Vol 3, p 74.
52. Ibid., p 218.
53. Ibid., Vol 1, p 209.
54. See: Ibid., Vol 3, pp 250-251.
55. VOYENNOYE ZNANIYE, No 14, 15, 1921, p 12.
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56. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 35, p 408.
57. Ibid., p 395.
58. Ibid., Vol 41, p 117.
59. Ibid., Vol 39, p 236.
60. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3,
61. See: Ibid., Vol 2, p 102.
62. Ibid., p 104.
63. Ibid., p 103.
64. "Syezdy Sovetov vserossiyskiye i Soyuza SSR v postanovleniyakh i
rezolyutsiyakh" [Congresses of All-Russian and USSR Soviets in Decrees
and Resolutions], Moscow, 1935, p 351.
65. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 254.
66. Ibid., Vol 1, p 254.
67. Ibid., pp 264-265.
68. KRASNAYA ZVEZDA, No 59, 1929.
69. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. loch.," Vol 3, p 255.
70. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 41, p 121.
71. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, pp 361-362.
72. "Sbornik originalnykh i perevodnykh statey M. Dragomirova. 1858-1880"
[Collection of Original and Translated Articles of M. Dragomirov.
1858-1880], St. Petersburg, 1881, Vol 1, p 444.
73. S. I. Krupnov, "Logiko-metodologicheskiy analiz voyenno-nauchnykh znaniy"
[Logical-Methodological Analysis of Military-Scientific Knowledge],
Dissertation, Moscow, 1971, p 58.
74. "Voyennaya entsiklopediya" [Military Encyclopedia], Moscow, 1910, Vol 6,
p 478.
75. S. Gusev, "Nashi raznoglasiya v voyennom dele" [Differences in Military
Affairs], Moscow, 1925, p 5.
76. See: VOYENNAYA MYSL I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 3, 1922, pp 3-10; TsGASA [Central
State Archives of the Soviet Army], folio 33987, inv. 1, file 521, sheets
525, 538.
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77. See: S. Gusev, "Nashi raznoglasiya v voyennom dele," p 6.
78. KRASNAYA ARMIYA (Vestnik VNO Voyennoy akademii) [The Red Army (Herald of
the Military Academy Military Scientific Society)], No 14 and 15 (May-
June 1922), p 157.
79. VOYENNAYA MYSL I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 3, 1922, p 8.
80. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 41, p 65.
81. Ibid., Vol 40, p 183.
82. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Revolyutsiya i kontrrevolyutsiya v Germanii"
[Revolution and Counterrevolution in Germany], Moscow, 1940, p 99.
83. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 34, p 383.
84. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 1, pp 209, 217, 218.
85. K. Ye. Voroshilov, "Stalin i Vooruzhennyye Sily SSSR" [Stalin and the
USSR Armed Forces], Moscow, 1950, p 68.
86. VOYENNAYA MYSL I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 3, 1922, p 19.
87. Ibid., p 8.
88. See: V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 36, p 205.
89. TsGASA, folio 9, inv. 28, file 597, sheets 89-90.
90. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 41, p 52.
91. S. I. Gusev, "Grazhdanskaya voyna i Krasnaya Armiya" [The Civil War and
the Red Army], Moscow, 1958, p 196.
92. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 9, p 156.
93. Ibid., Vol 34, p 194.
94. "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" [On Soviet Military Science], Moscow, 1964,
p 62.
95. Ibid., p 212.
96. R. Ya. Malinovskiy, "Bditelno stoyat na strazhe mira" [Vigilantly Guard
the Peace], Moscow, 1962, p 50.
97. See: "Filosofskiy entsiklopedicheskiy slovar" [Philosophical
Encyclopedic Dictionary], Moscow, 1983, p 522.
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98. S. I. Krupnov, op. cit., p 63.
99. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 2, p 160.
100. PRAVDA, 17 June 1984.
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CHAPTER 3: CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY OF MILITARY ART
Strategic Views
Preceding Ideas
The strategic views of M. V. Frunze were shaped considering the previous
experience during the transitional period in the development of strategy
during the age of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. Military strategy
from its very genesis was viewed as a higher area of military art and the
theory of strategy incorporated the most general ideas concerning war and the
methods of waging it. As a sphere of practical activity for the superior
military leadership, this arose deep in antiquity simultaneously with the rise
of armed forces and wars. According to the Leninist theory of cognition, man
in all areas of activity has moved from experience to theory. In accord with
this, the theoretical principles of strategy have been systematized and
elaborated gradually, on the basis of generalizing the experience of wars.
For this reason only arbitrarily, from the standpoint of a more or less
ordered theoretical formulation can one speak about the genesis of scientific
knowledge concerning war in the middle of the 18th Century. In actuality,
military theory, including also the theory of military strategy, had appeared
and existed in a rudimentary form with the rise of wars and developed in the
process of the evolution of military affairs as a whole.
In the 19th Century, an effort was made to incorporate in the theory of
strategy all knowledge related to war, identifying it [strategy] with military
science as a whole. Leer viewed strategy as "the synthesis, integration of
all military affairs, their generalization, their philosophy." ( 1 ) But
independently of this, even at that time there existed as relatively
independent areas of knowledge such subjects as tactics and fortification and
later other sectors of military science also appeared.
Due to the major sociopolitical and economic changes related to the
development of capitalism, military strategy also underwent further
development. With the growth of capitalism into imperialism, the uneven
economic and political development of the capitalist states increased and
political reaction and a desire for military aggression grew stronger. The
introduction of universal military obligations in a majority of the nations
led to an enormous increase in the size of armies. Million-strong armies
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appeared in the theaters of military operations. As a result of increased
production and the development of science and technology, just in three
decades (the 1850's-1880's) the armies received more new types of weapons 1
ammunition than over the three preceding centuries. Strategic practice.. a,:d
theory were particularly strongly influenced by the construction of railroads
and their use for transporting troops, the introduction of the telegraph and
telephone in the practices of troop command and control, the replacing of the
sail fleet by steam, the appearance of rifled weapons and in the course of
World War I also tanks, aviation, chemical and other types of weapons.
With the introduction of machine combat equipment, motors and automatic
weapons, troop mobility was increased, the times for the strategic deployment
of the armed forces were shortened, the scope of military operations, their
intensity and duration and the depth of fire effect were increased and,
consequently, the depth of the strategic configuration of the troops rose.
Armies, corps and divisions began to be deployed along a wider front and at a
greater distance from the enemy. Solid fronts of great length appeared. The
operation arose as an aggregate of military operations and engagements that
were separated in time and space but united by a common overall plan. A war
could no longer be won even by several engagements. A whole series of
operations and campaigns had to be carried out for achieving the strategic
aims of the war.
Many of these new phenomena made themselves felt even during the period of the
Russo-Japanese War. But they were most fully apparent in World War I of 1914-
1918 which required a substantial revision of the strategic views on the
conduct of a war. First of all, the plan of the belligerents to achieve
victory in a short maneuvering war did not come about. The losses and
material requirements of the operational armies increased sharply and because
of this the role of the economy, the moral-political factor in the war, the
importance of reserves and the coordinated employment of all the armed forces
also grew. Even during this period, there was an objective need for a unified
military strategy, including for the ground forces and the fleet. But all
these new factors were underestimated in the strategic plans and strategic
leadership while theoretically they remained completely unelaborated.
Proceeding from the fact that an offensive is more advantageous than the
defensive, but not realizing that both sides could not advance for a
protracted time, at the outset of World War I all armies set decisive goals
for themselves and endeavored to carry out strategic missions solely by the
offensive while the possibility of a strategic defensive was completely ruled
out. However, this war, like previous wars, refuted the subjective one-sided
plans and by the end of the first year of the war both sides were forced to go
over to the strategic defensive along a solid front and conduct a positional
war. The problem of breaking through the defenses was solved in practical
terms only on a tactical scale by the massed employment of manpower,
artillery, tanks and partially aviation on narrow sectors of the front. The
strategic aims were achieved in the course of the war by carrying out
successive attritional operations and combat operations with extended
operational pauses between them.
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In a number of instances strategy began and ended with tactics. Ludendorff
and certain other military leaders were even to say that tactics must be put
higher than strategy. For this reason there were frequent instances when
breakthrough sectors were chosen where it was tactically advantageous but not
proceeding from operational-strategic considerations.
During World War I, new elements of strategic leadership (fronts, army groups)
appeared. However, as a whole, command and control of the armed forces were
far from conforming to the new conditions of waging war. The preparation and
conduct of strategic operations demanded that the superior military leadership
take into account a significantly greater number of the most diverse
conditions and factors, but they endeavored in a majority of instances to
approach the new phenomena of war using the old concepts of strategy. In
commenting on this aspect of strategic leadership during the years of World
War I, A. Ye. Snesarev has written: "Under such conditions could a modern
strategist be satisfied with the old strategic formula for achieving a
decisive battle? There could be no question of this. For him, there now must
be such condensed brains, such vast knowledge and such exceptional scope and
foresight. He must be a military man, a politician, an economist, a financial
expert, an all-round technician and a true agitator."(2) And he concluded
that the military leaders of those times were unprepared to carry out such
strategic tasks.
However, certain essential changes which had appeared in the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th Centuries in the nature and methods of carrying out
strategic tasks had been reflected in the works of Clausewitz, Jomini, Moltke
the Elder, Schliffen, Leer, Mikhnevich, Foch and other military theorists and
M. V. Frunze was well acquainted with their works.
On the principles of Soviet military strategy. The theoretical principles of
proletarian military strategy, as was already pointed out in the previous
chapters, were worked out by the founders of Marxism-Leninism. The practical
aspect of Soviet military theory arose and developed along with the rise of
the Soviet state and its Armed Forces in the course of a fierce struggle
against foreign interventionists and domestic counterrevolution. Its major
provisions (scientific principles and the art of strategic leadership) were
elaborated by the party Central Committee headed by V. I. Lenin, considering
the new historical conditions, the nature of the world's first state of the
dictatorship of the proletarian and its Armed Forces and the interests of
defending the socialist fatherland. At the Seventh RKP(b) Congress, V. I.
Lenin said that "at each Central Committee session on each major question of
strategy--there was not a single time when the sessions of the Central
Committee or the Central Committee Bureau did not resolve the basic questions
of strategy."(3)
During the years of the Civil War and the foreign intervention in Russia, the
irreconcilability of political goals and the acuteness of the military-
political situation predetermined the decisive strategic aims and the active
offensive nature of Soviet military strategy. In contrast to World War I,
military operations during this period had a maneuvering nature. The
strategic offensive was the main type of strategic actions and this, as a
rule, was carried out by making successive offensive operations using the
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of ensuring national defense? Is it not possible, without harm to peaceful
needs, to see to it that certain military goals are also achieved here."(63)
M. V. Frunze devoted great attention to the mobilization preparations and to
converting to a wartime status industry, transport and the entire national
economy. This consisted in the prompt and organized shift from the production
of consumer goods to the output of products for military needs. He demanded
that this be more flexibly considered both by the production workers and the
military department.
Excessive military demands were not always advantageous even for the military
themselves. Frunze pointed to the necessity of revising the supply articles
adopted for the peacetime and particularly the wartime army, he sought the
maximum use of those models which were consumer articles in peacetime and for
which mass production had already been organized. Mikhail Vasilyevich
proposed that here one could and should forego the interests which were not of
crucial significance for the question, for the possibility of the mass receipt
of supply articles by the army in wartime, without any additional effort and
expenditure, completely compensated for their secondary shortcomings. On the
other hand, he felt that the production of peacetime consumer goods if
possible should be adopted to satisfy military needs. He showed the
feasibility of this demand using specific examples of the production of motor
vehicles, tractors, means of communications and so forth.
These important provisions on readying the nation for defense were set out by
M. V. Frunze at the Third All-Union Congress of Soviets in 1925 and they were
approved and put into legislation. These provisions were also considered
subsequently in all the five-year plans. The Congress of Soviets pointed out
that the preparation of the nation for defense requires industrial development
which, without disrupting the normal growth of the productive forces, at the
same time would establish a solid base for defense needs. The congress set
for the Soviet government the following task: "...To carry out all of the
necessary measures to raise the nation's defense capability by: a) the
appropriate expansion of the military industry and the organizing of all the
remaining state industry of the Union which even in peacetime would take into
account wartime needs .... "(64)
In organizing the fulfillment of the party and government decisions, Frunze
called constantly for the search for the most effective methods for closer
collaboration between the military departments, economic bodies, scientific
centers and design bureaus and for the merging of military-scientific and
scientific-technical work. He felt that scientists and inventors should work
considering military needs. The military-scientific workers and the
representatives of the military department were urged above all to set a
correct direction for the activities of the economic and scientific-technical
workers. "In practical terms," said M. V. Frunze, "this must be achieved by
having our military-scientific societies organize circles at the corresponding
enterprises and groups of enterprises and be concerned and interested in the
questions of peacetime economic activity, viewing them from the defense
standpoint. This work is of the most enormous importance. I draw your
attention to it because I know from practical experience how the interests of
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defense suffer if proper attention is not paid to this aspect of the
issue."(65)
Mikhail Vasilyevich demanded that the supply directorates work in close
contact with all the industrial enterprises and scientific-technical
organizations of the nation. This contact should not be restricted to the
central bodies but should also be carried out on the spot. The wisdom and
importance of these demands were fully appreciated by us during the period of
the Great Patriotic War and during the postwar years.
It should be pointed out that Frunze assigned an exceptionally important and
major place to science and scientific workers in the question of increasing
the nation's defense capability and the combat might of the Armed Forces. He
carefully followed the major scientific discoveries and technical inventions
and became firmly convinced that in a future war the role of scientific
workers would be enormous. Even in 1921, he wrote (and later repeated and
developed this idea many times): "...The outcome of future clashes to a much
greater degree depends now upon the persons of pure science than upon the
command. Any major invention or discovery in the area of military equipment
can immediately create colossal advantages for the warring sides."(66) These
words have a particularly timely ring in the age of scientific-technical
progress, nuclear missile weapons and radioelectronic equipment.
In subsequent years, the Communist Party and the Soviet government carried out
major measures to improve leadership over defense questions. In the spring of
1927, upon a decision of the Party Central Committee, the former functions of
the Labor and Defense Council [STO] were restored. Prior to this, with the
transition to peacetime construction, as was pointed out at the 15th Party
Congress, the STO had gradually "lost its third letter" [the defense
function]. After the party congress, the STO began to regularly assemble to
resolve defense problems. Mobilization bodies were established under all the
people's commissariats and these initiated work to prepare the national
economy for the event of war; an industrial mobilization body was organized
under the VSNKh [All-Union Council of the National Economy] as well as a
special system under the Gosplan which should consider defense needs in
elaborating all the national economic plans. As defense tasks became more
complicated, the organization and functions of these state bodies continued to
be improved. They played a major role in increasing the defense capability of
the Soviet state on the eve of World War II.
In accord with what has been stated above, it can be concluded that M. V.
Frunze considered the "technical aspect" to be the most important factor which
decisively influenced the nature of war. Into this concept he invested the
entire aggregate of human resources and technical means which could be
employed in a war and a scientifically sound program for the technical
equipping of the army and navy.
Even in 1920, immediately after the defeat of Wrangel, the technically best
equipped enemy which the Red Army encountered for the first time, Frunze with
great concern spoke about the technical equipping of our army. In 1921, his
article "On the Reorganization of the French Army" appeared and here these
questions were raised even more broadly and later his ideas about this were
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developed in the article "Protect the Revolution" and other works. During the
same year he wrote: "Our technical backwardness with each day is becoming
evermore threatening. One need not particularly delude oneself and be content
with references to the experience of the Civil War. It must not be forgotten
that to a significant degree this was one-sided.... As for future conflicts,
this question of technical superiority can be crucial and not in our favor,
regardless of all the courage and valor of the Red Army. In order to avoid
this and make the Red Army a truly powerful weapon for ensuring both our
peacetime construction and the world revolution, it must be increased in
technical terms at whatever the cost."(67)
The question of the technical equipping of the USSR Armed Forces was one of
the major questions of Soviet military doctrine. The problem was that many
incorrect views on the nature of a future war and the methods of waging it
derived from a lack of trust in the prospects for the socialist transformation
of the nation and primarily its industrialization.
Precisely this explains why certain old military specialists and other
skeptics subsequently mistrusted the theory of a deep operation and other
major achievements of Soviet military art. A. A. Svechin, for example, wrote:
"...To operate roads and cumbersome means of long distance combat is possible
only with the superiority of heavy industry, with extensive financial means
and with the rich development of the railroad and highway networks. These
prerequisites exist in the capitalist states of the West. To operate with
chief means of close combat is possible only with the great enthusiasm of the
masses and their readiness for self-sacrifice.... For the West, the mass is
above all the mass or weight of the artillery, then the mass of tanks and the
mass of airplanes.... The infantry mass is in the background, for secondary
tasks. For the USSR, the mass is primarily the mass of infantry and the means
of close combat. The means of close combat are of decisive significance."(68)
M. V. Frunze, regardless of the postwar economic chaos, held the opposite
position on this question. He steadfastly defended Lenin's idea that the
material base of socialism can only be highly developed, industrial production
based upon the most recent scientific and technical achievements. Mikhail
Vasilyevich was confident that if the technical equipping of the Armed Forces
is considered to be a shock task, then, no matter how greatly we lagged
behind, we would be able to overtake our future enemies.
The technical reconstruction carried out in the 1930's ensured the military-
technical superiority of our Armed Forces over the enemy during the years of
the Great Patriotic War. Time showed how farsightedly our party and
government carried out these tasks and how prophetic was M. V. Frunze in this
regard.
Man and technology in war. The social nature of the new type army. In
reviewing the social and technical nature of a future war, Frunze clearly and
from Marxist-Leninist positions defined the relationship of man and equipment
in armed combat. He was against the two extremes which occurred at that time.
In the first place, against those who underestimated technology and assumed
that war could be won without it, by the mere number of troops and their high
revolutionary spirit. Even the 1925 RKKA Field Manual approved by M. V.
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Frunze demanded the abandonment of the opposition of the Red soldier's
enthusiasm and enemy equipment and have the enemy's equipment be beaten by our
equipment. Secondly, Frunze condemned those who made a fettish out of
equipment, who imagined future engagements as a war of just machines and who
instilled mistrust in the force of the Red Army confronted by well armed
bourgeois armies.
M. V. Frunze recommended that we proceed from the immediate and more remote
future. In the mid-1920's, the Red Army undoubtedly was inferior in technical
terms to the armies of the main capitalist states and in the event of imposing
war on our nation, during this period, we would basically rely on our
sociopolitical superiority and other related factors which had ensured our
victory in the Civil War. At the same time, Mikhail Vasilyevich was
decisively against the rapid outfitting of the army and navy with modern
equipment and any manifestations of the underestimating of equipment and he
checked a nihilistic attitude toward this in the most ruthless manner. He
also drew attention to the moral effect of equipment on man, he did not
separate one from the other, he considered their opposition to be inadmissible
and viewed them in a dialectical unity. He proceeded from the fact that the
development of production and equipment comprises the objective material basis
for the development of human society and man himself and the latter, in turn,
accelerates scientific and technical progress.
Frunze openly belittled instances of blind worshiping of equipment and the
attempts to give it primary significance and represent man as a simple
attribute of technology. Of course, he said, it is extremely dangerous to
underestimate the role of technology but one must not also become hypnotized
by it. In giving enormous significance to technology, M. V. Frunze gave man
the crucial role in a future war. "We must say," he emphasized, "that still
the decisive role is played not by equipment as behind the equipment there
always is a live man, without whom the equipment is dead."(69)
In following the Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army, M. V.
Frunze gave enormous significance to the moral factor and viewed the influence
on military doctrine of not only the material conditions but also the
spiritual ones linked to the attitude of the masses of people toward war and
national defense. In profoundly realizing that wars are waged now by peoples
and that "in any war the victory is ultimately determined by the state of
morale of those masses who shed their blood on the battlefield,"(70) he viewed
the economic and moral aspect of the rear in a close unity.
The moral factor in a war has been taken into account in all times, but
Frunze, being guided by the Marxist-Leninist teachings, approached it not
abstractly, he saw its main sources in the socioeconomic relations of people
and considered the dependence of the moral factor upon the social and state
system and the political goals of the war. He emphasized that the
prerequisites for the moral superiority of the Red Army over the bourgeois
armies had been established by the Great October Socialist Revolution. M. V.
Frunze called the Red Army the army of the future and the carrier of new
ideals. The mass heroism of its fighters and commanders and their ardent
enthusiasm ensured victory in the Civil War.
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In giving great importance to international indoctrination of the men, Frunze
emphasized that the Red Army indoctrinated in a spirit of fraternity of
peoples in future military conflicts with capitalist armies would be the
dependable defender of all suppressed nationalities. During the years of
World War II, the Soviet Army honorably carried out its international duty and
helped many peoples of Europe and Asia become liberated from German Naziism
and Japanese militarism. Socialist internationalism under present-day
conditions continues to remain one of the most important principles in the
indoctrination of the Soviet Armed Forces and one of the fundamental
provisions of Soviet military doctrine.
In accord with the given understanding of the essence and nature of a war,
M. V. Frunze also approached the questions of the social nature of the armed
forces of the dictatorship of the proletariat and their organizational
development. He viewed the army and navy as a weapon for continuing politics
by the means of armed violence and the chief means for waging war. He soundly
worked out the historical purpose and principles for the organizational
development and training of the armed forces. Running as a constant theme
through the works of Frunze is the notion that the social nature, the
historical purpose and organizational principles of the Armed Forces are a
direct reflection of the state's social and economic system, its political
structure and ideology as expressed in domestic and foreign policy.
Proceeding from the Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army, M. V.
Frunze thoroughly analyzed the fundamental differences of the socialist
state's army from the bourgeois armies. He pointed out that an army of a
capitalist state is a tool for maintaining the exploiting system and the
dominance of capital and an implement of imperialist policy, a policy of
suppressing the workers and enslaving other peoples. The army of a socialist
state is engendered by a new social and state system and is designed to defend
the revolution's victories. The Red Army in political and moral terms is a
direct copy or replica of our worker-peasant country. The waging of war
requires the creation of multimillion armed forces. All the armed Soviet
people will comprise a wartime army which will be a real Red Army.
Frunze unmasked the attempts by bourgeois military theorists to show the army
as an organization standing apart from the class struggle and politics. He
convincingly showed that in a class society the army and navy always were and
remain an implement for the policy of the ruling class. The Red Army and Navy
should be organized strictly on a class basis, being an expression of the
union of the working class and the peasantry.
Frunze gave great importance, to the socioclass unity of our Armed Forces. In
comparing them with the bourgeois armies, he pointed out that the latter have
advantages in technical terms and in skilled personnel. "But there," he
wrote, "there does not exist the main condition which ensures military might:
there is no union of the social upper classes with the social lower orders.
The presence of a deep abyss dividing the class in command from the class of
exploited, in essence, nullifies the efforts to establish a battleworthy
military force."(71)
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M. V. Frunze emphasized that the domestic and extermal functions of armies are
determined by the class nature of the state. Bourgeois armies are an
implement of national suppression while the Red Army is an army of friendship
and fraternity of the peoples in the Soviet state. The armies of the
capitalist states always have internal (suppressing the workers of their own
nations) and external (enslaving the peoples of other countries) functions and
the internal function is the main, determining one.
An army of the dictatorship of the proletariat serves the cause of defending
the socialist state against the encroachments of internal and external
counterrevolution. He correctly foresaw that after the defeat of the domestic
counterrevolution and the strengthening of Soviet power, the socialist state
from the viewpoint of internal conditions would not need a permanet army but
as long as the military threat existed from the capitalist countries, the
external function of our Armed Forces related to the defense of the fatherland
against an outside attack would remain.
The political goals of a war and the political aspect of military doctrine
also have a crucial impact upon the methods of waging a war and on the
strategic and operational-tactical principles. Proceeding from this, M. V.
Frunze considered that one of the important provisions of Soviet military
doctrine was the necessity of indoctrinating the Soviet Armed Forces in a
spirit of active and decisive operations. Our ideological opponents, in
distorting this idea, have repeatedly endeavored to accuse the Soviet Armed
Forces of aggressiveness. But Frunze repeatedly emphasized that our state
does not intend any predatory actions and all its aspirations are aimed at
ensuring peace. But if a war is forced on us, our army will act aggressively
and decisively.
These are the basic views of M. V. Frunze on the political aspect of Soviet
military doctrine. He also thoroughly elaborated the most important ideas of
the military-technical aspect of military doctrine and these will be examined
in more detail in the subsequent chapters of the book.
On Military Science and Military Art
One of the fundamental questions of military theory and practice. In being
concerned with methodological problems of military theory and practice, M. V.
Frunze showed great interest also in the question of the essence and
relationship of military science and military art. This question was
reflected in many of his works. While on an official mission to Moscow in May
1922, he took part in a discussion of this question. It must immediately be
pointed out that he approached the given scientific problem from the solely
correct, Marxist-Leninist positions. In order to better understand his views
on the relationship of military science and military art and their importance,
it is necessary to briefly recall the history of this question.
Disputes over whether the conduct of a war is a science or an art go back a
long ways. Of all the great generals, A. V. Suvurov held the clearest
position on these questions. He said that "a general must form himself by
sciences," but "theory without practice is dead." He demanded that all
officers constantly master "the science of war" and "the science of winning,"
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and considered "blind bravery provides victory over the enemy" to be a
deception. "Victory comes only from military art," and "one fights with skill
and not numbers." Napoleon, although considering that the waging of war was
more an art than a science, never doubted the necessity of theoretical bases
for military affairs, that is, a military science.
However, both in the past and at present, bourgeois military theoreticians and
military leaders have voiced the most different opinions on this question.
Some of them, in viewing the conduct of a war as an art, have denied the
presence of any patterns and, consequently, the possibility of military
science. M. Dragomirov has written on this: "At present, no one would take
it into his head to assert that there could be a military science; it is
inconceivable just as the science of poetry, painting and music are
inconceivable...."(72) Others (Jomini, Leer, Fuller), although recognizing
the possibility and necessity of military science, reduced it merely to
mathematical calculations and "standard norms" or viewed it as a system of
eternal and unvarying principles and denied the objective nature of the laws
of war.
Certain bourgeois military theorists (Lloyd, Willisen, Leval, Foch and
Serrigny) endeavored to find elements of science and art in the conduct of a
war. Serrigny assumed that the preparation for a war was the area of science
while its waging was a art. Lloyd showed that a war has two aspects: the
first or technical which involves the preparation of an army for the war and
which can be normed by rules and reduced to mathematical principles; the
second which relates to the conduct of a war and engagements cannot have any
rules. Leval felt that strategy, like military affairs as a whole, is
comprised of thought and its application, spiritual and material givens, logic
and calculation, the speculative and positive, that is, it is related both to
science and art.
The denying of the possibility of military science at times occurred over the
identifying of natural and social sciences and the miscomprehension of the
particular features of the manifestation of the natural laws of nature
operating as a spontaneous force and the sociohistorical laws which operate
not automatically but as the regular, cognitive activities of people
themselves in the process of social practice.
In this context one cannot recognize as fully valid the accusation widespread
in military literature directed at Clausewitz, one of the founders of
bourgeois military science, that he completely denied the possibility of
military science. One of the modern military philosophers S. I. Krupnov has
correctly pointed out that Clausewitz "denied not military science generally
but rather the attempts by von Bulow, Archduke Karl and others to establish a
military science that was as precise, logically ordered as mathematics and
capable of providing uniform answers to all questions arising in troop
leadership and equally applicable to all wars. Such a military science, said
Clausewitz, is impossible and he was correct.... Clausewitz was one of the
first to understand the role of scientific theory for the leadership of a war
and endeavored to work it out."(73) At the same time, it must be stipulated
that Clausewitz considered war an area of chance and denied the existence of
its objective laws which are the basis of any science.
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A majority of the Russian military theorists on the eve of World War I saw
elements of both science and art in military affairs. The Russian "Voyennaya
entsiklopediya" [Military Encyclopedia] stated: "Each area of human
creativity (including military affairs) goes through a phase of unconscious
art and ultimately arrives at rational art which has a sufficiently sound
science (principles, rules, forms, standards and so forth)."(75) The
interpretation of military science and military art remained idealistic and
metaphysical and military science was linked, as a rule, not with an
understanding of objective patterns but rather reduced to a simple
systematization of accumulated knowledge and to the elaboration of principles
and rules for the conduct of military operations. The bourgeois military
theorists were unable to ultimately resolve the question of the role and the
relationship of science and art in military affairs.
A careful study of this question's history provides an opportunity to conclude
that the disputes over whether the conduct of a war is a science or an art and
these very concepts arose not accidentally but rather appeared as a reflection
of that objective process which in one way or another made itself felt in the
preparation for and conduct of a war. The mere fact that these questions were
of concern not only to military theorists but also to such outstanding
practitioners of military affairs as Suvurov and Napoleon shows that these
questions were not idle ones. The history of military scientific thought
knows repeated attempts to brush aside such complex questions and declare
them, in particular the disputes on the essence of military science and art,
to be scholastic and not of serious theoretical or practical significance.
But life inexorably has forced us to return again and again to them,
particularly at turning points in the development of military affairs.
It is no accident that the questions of the essence and relationship of
military science and military art rearose during the first years of the
organizational development of the Soviet Armed Forces. In line with the
elaboration of the principles of Soviet military science, the questions of the
attitude of Marxism toward military science and the nature of military affairs
began to be actively discussed on the pages of the military journals and at
theoretical conferences.
S. I. Gusev, in describing the situation on the military-theoretical front
after the Civil War, has written: "Among the Red commanders who had lived
through the tremendous experience of the 3-year Civil War, there was a strong
need to theoretically analyze this experience which did not fit within the
framework of that military science which had been inherited from Tsarism.
With the greatest energy they rushed to study Marxism and dialectics. In this
undoubtedly healthy move there were also certain hitches: novices in Marxism,
they still had not gotten firmly on their 'Marxist feet' and made mistakes in
applying the Marxist method to military questions. The involvement with
Marxism also caused the reverse reaction in the military circles against
Marxism, and a struggle started over the question of the applicability of
Marxism to military science and to military affairs."(75)
In May 1922, at a session of the Military Science Council of the RKKA Military
Academy, a discussion was held on the question "Military Science Among Other
Sciences" in which M. V. Frunze participated.(76) Invited to the meeting were
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representatives from the staffs of the military districts, the higher military
editorial council, students and instructors from the Military Academy and
leading personnel from the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval
Affairs. Raised for discussion were the following questions: are military
affairs a science or an art, their relationship to social and natural
sciences; are the principles of military affairs eternal; military principles
and the laws of science; the methods of Marxism and military affairs. The
discussion was carried out under the leadership of Trotsky who initially
argued strongly against holding it, but under the pressure of the army
community was forced to agree.
Basically the old military specialists gave reports and they set out, in
essence, views which had prevailed in Russia prior to the revolution. Prof
S. G. Lukriskiy who gave the main report provided an analysis of the existing
views and pointed out that military affairs are considered by some to be a
science and by others the "elementary theory of a certain trade." The
speaker, in viewing the theory and practice of military affairs as separate
from one another, emphasized that the practice of miltiary affairs in
theoretical terms is based on many sciences. Experience, as the source of
military theory, was described by him as rudimentary, primitive and limited in
its achievements and very imperfect. "The road to understanding 'point
blank'," he stated, "is the work of pure reason." He considered the
underlying principles of military art to be permanent.
Prof A. Svechin advanced the notion that the theory of military art, in
representing a cycle of practical military knowledge, cannot claim the title
of a science due to the impossibility of its fully disclosing all aspects of
military affairs; the latter also do not have their own specific principles,
for they are common to any struggle, from a debate and boxing to the struggle
between labor and capital, inclusively. Natural sciences exist in parallel
and only in an external relation to the theory of military art.
A co-worker from the staff of the Kiev Military District S. Kvanin showed the
existence of military science which studies war in common with sociology, but
each of these has its own specific goal. War as a social phenomenon is the
subject of sociology while war as military affairs is an area exclusively of
military science. He voiced the opinion that Marxism is applicable only for
solving particular problems in military science.
Prof A. Snesarev felt that military affairs in the preparatory process were
almost a science and in the process of execution almost an art. He proposed
the term "quasilearned art."
Prof A. Toporkov proposed that the nature of military affairs cannot be
considered as an art, since by nature it is antiaesthetic and cannot be
discovered by aesthetics. Prof F. Ogordnikov considered military policy the
superior sector of military science and this policy, in his opinion, only
could claim the title of a true science. Military science is the theory of
military art and military politics.
V. Akhov spoke about the possibility and utility of applying Marxism to
military affairs. He saw the particular value of the Marxist method in
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uniting theory and practice which, in his words, under other conditions clash.
In the opinion of G. Isserson, the practical value of the question "military
science or military art?" is that its resolution provides an opportunity to
work out sound criteria for the training of the fighter and chiefly the
commander.
Trotsky in a disrespectful tone said that it was possible to be a superior
fighter and even a general without giving any answer to the question of
whether military affairs are a science or an art, as it was possible to be a
good communist fighter without ever being concerned with the questions of
materialistic philosophy. Can Marxism teach you to make bast sandals? asked
Trotsky and, extending his irony to military affairs, categorically denied the
possibility of employing Marxism in this area. In his words, a danger
threatens those comrades who wish to build a military system by the methods of
Marxism. Further (in his subsequent speeches) he asserted that there is and
was no military science. There is a whole series of sciences on which
military affairs are based. War is not a science. War is a practical art or
skill. War is a trade for those who correctly study military affairs. By its
nature, it is impossible to turn war into a science just as architecture,
commerce, veterinary science and so forth cannot become a science. What is
called the theory of war or military science, in his opinion, is the aggregate
of practical procedures, methods of adaptation and skills corresponding to a
certain task, that is, to defeat the enemy. To form the procedures of the
military trade using the Marxist method, he stated, is the same thing as
constructing a theory of architecture or a veterinary textbook using Marxism.
With the aid of Marxism, it is impossible to construct a field manual, and
this was his main conclusion.(77)
M. V. Frunze also spoke at this session. Unfortunately, his speech here up to
now has not been published in any collection of his works. It has been
written down in different versions. An analysis of the minutes shows that
M. V. Frunze in his speech first of all drew attention to the fact that a
correct understanding of the discussed questions was of fundamentally
important significance for elaborating the military theoretical problems and
the practices of military organizational develoment. He criticized the
idealistic approach of A. A. Svechin and certain other participants in the
discussion of the debated questions and emphasized the inadmissibility of
denying a relationship between the phenomena of social life and military
affairs.
M. V. Frunze pointed out that only from the positions of Marxism-Leninism was
it possible to fully analyze and provide a correct reply to the question of
the place of military science among the other sciences and the essence of
military science and military art. If a war is the continuation of politics,
a part of social life, then consequently military affairs is a continuation of
political affairs. These are carried out by people in a class society and
under these conditions not only the military-social but also the purely
technical questions require a theoretical and political assessment from the
viewpoint of the interests of the proletarian state. For this reason,
military affairs is completely "within the sway" of Marxism which provides a
key to a correct understanding of all sociopolitical and military-technical
questions.
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At the same time, M. V. Frunze pointed to the inadmissibility of a simplified,
schematic approach to the use of Marxism. "If we correctly understand," he
said, "the essence of the Marxist method, then we are confronted with a
certain problem of the need to study military affairs with complete
carefulness and seriousness. For solving the main military questions we must
not employ fantastic research methods but approach them from the purely
practical aspect."(78) By "fantastic methods" he meant the methods described
in the course of the debate of the knowledge of "pure reason" and "eternal,
unchanged principles."
M. V. Frunze convincingly showed all the falaciousness of the very positing of
the question: either military science, or military art. He was the only one
among the speakers who directly and definitely stated that "military affairs
contain elements of both military science and military art."(79)
The above-described position of M. V. Frunze fully corresponded to the
Marxist-Leninist scientific understanding of war, military science and
military art. The founders of Marxism-Leninism, in giving enormous
significance to elucidating the methodological questions of theory and
practice, left a series of very important and valuable instructions which
offer a key to a correct understanding of the questions concerning the
relationship of military science and military art and the subject and content
of military science. These instructions, undoubtedly, were taken into account
by M. V. Frunze in giving the above-quoted definition of the designated
concepts.
V. I. Lenin, in noting the complexity and difficulty of political leadership,
wrote that "politics is a science and an art which does not drop fromthe skies
or is given gratis...."(80) Since politics is a science it can be determined
and carried out solely on a strictly scientific basis. If politics at the
same time is an art, then it should be carried out in practice not only
scientifically but also artfully and skillfully, considering the entire
complexity of the specific historical situation. Consequently, if politics as
a whole is a science and an art, then the continuation of politics by violent
means, that is, the waging of war, as a part of politics can and should be a
science and an art. If their essence is the same then the manifestation
should also be the same.
The founders of Marxism-Leninism not only recognized the necessity and
possibility of establishing a scientific theory about war, but in every
possible way emphasized that only on a strictly scientific basis was it
possible to correctly explain all the phenomena of a war and organize one's
practical activities. At the First Congress of Labor Cossacks in 1920, Lenin
directly stated that "without science it is impossible to organize a modern
army...,"(81) having in mind military science first of all.
K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin, in profoundly and thoroughly analyzing the
phenomena of war and highly regarding the importance of military science, at
the same time pointed out that the preparations for and conduct of a war are
an art. K. Marx and F. Engels wrote that "a revolt is an art, just as a war
is as well as the other types of arts."(82) V. I. Lenin in his works "Marxism
and Revolt," "Advice of an Outsider," and other articles in 1917, repeatedly
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and with his inherent certainty, emphasized that "revolt, like a war, is an
art."(83)
M. V. Frunze understood these questions in the same light. He referred to the
above-quoted statement of V. I. Lenin in his work "Lenin and the Red Army" and
analyzed it in detail. In his works Mikhail Vasilyevich more than 20 times
uses the concept "military science" and "military art" in the sense of the two
aspects of military affairs. Just in the work "Military Doctrine and the Red
Army" he does this several times: on bringing doctrine "into accord with the
basic provisions of military science and the requirements of military art"; on
coordinating the particular features of the organizational development of the
Red Army with "the demands of military science and art" and according "to the
basic demand of military art and science."(84)
M. V. Frunze understood military science as the area of theoretical research
on the basis of generalizing the experience of the preparation for and conduct
of wars. The main task of military theory was to disclose the general and the
essentially uniform in the phenomena of war and on this basis work out the
methods for preparing and conducting armed combat. He viewed military art as
an area of applying military knowledge in practice in carrying out certain
tasks under specific situational conditions.
These questions were understood in this manner in all the official documents
and military literature during the prewar years, during the period of the
Great Patriotic War and after it until 1947. On 11 April 1947, reporting to
I. V. Stalin were N. A. Bulganin, A. M. Vasilevskiy, A. I. Antonov and S. M.
Shtemenko. In the course of the conversation, I. V. Stain gave the following
instructions: certain military theorists feel that military science and
military art are equivalent concepts. Such theorists are profoundly wrong.
Military science must not be identified with military art. Military science
is a broader and more all-encompassing concept and it, military science,
includes also military art with the latter being one of the component parts of
military science. Military art includes tactics, operational art and
strategy, that is, it is concerned with studying questions relating to the
methods of conducting military operations and a war as a whole. Military
science, in addition to the questions comprising military art, investigates
the questions of the national economy, its material and human resources. This
definition was also incorporated in a report at a ceremony in honor of the
30th anniversary of the Soviet Armed Forces in February 1948 and has become
widespread in our military literature.
In explaining this, K. Ye. Voroshilov wrote: "In being an ordered system of
authentically scientific knowledge concerning the entire complex of questions
related to modern war, Stalin's military science, along with the purely
military elements such as strategy, operational art, tactics, the organization
and training of troops, encompasses the total of sociopolitical, economic and
moral factors in their aggregate, the interaction and determining influence on
military affairs as a whole (emphasis mine.--M. G.)."(85)
Such a definition also had a rational aspect, contributing to a more profound
investigation of economic and moral-political problems. But it still ran
contrary to the generally accepted understanding of the essence of science and
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art and contained a number of unsound and vulnerable points. In the first
place, it did not correspond to the methods of classifying sciences, since
military science alone cannot investigate such a complex phenomenon as war and
the questions of strengthening national defense, including the economic and
moral factors. Secondly, from the philosophical viewpoint, military science,
like any other science, is a spiritual phenomenon and cannot include military
art as a whole, but namely its practical aspect. From the above-given
definition, the very essence of military science has been lost related to an
understanding of the objective laws of armed combat. Thirdly, with such an
approach military science and military art begin to differ mechanically from
one another only in terms of the quantity and scope of questions encompassed
by them, assuming that some questions relating to the preparation for a war
and its conduct are resolved only by science (for example, an understanding of
the moral and economic capabilities) while others, in addition, are an art
(tactics, operational art and strategy).
In actuality, as V. I. Lenin taught and M. V. Frunze wrote, the preparation
for a war and the waging of war as a whole are not only a science but also an
art. This applies also to modern conditions.
The preparation for and conduct of armed combat are related to military
science and military art. Here military art has its practical and theoretical
aspects and the latter is a component of military science. The main thing in
military affairs is the unity of military science and the practice of military
art, and for this reason it is a question not of putting these concepts into
opposition but rather a more profound elucidation of their specific features
and those essential, unbroken ties which ensure their actual unity.
Military science and the practice of military art--two aspects of military
affairs. For better understanding this problem, it is obviously necessary to
examine from present-day positions what in actuality distinguishes these two
concepts from one another. Why did the founders of Marxism-Leninism, in
giving enormous significance to knowledge and to military science, at the same
time consider it essential to emphasize that war is an art?
Science, as is known, is the result or aggregate of knowledge concerning
nature, society and thought and concerning the objective patterns of their
development acquired in the course of social historical life. Science arises
on the basis of human production and practical activities and develops along
with the development of social phenomena, in more and more accurately and
profoundly reflecting reality, disclosing the essential relationships of
phenomena and arming humans with a knowledge of the objective laws of the real
world in the aim of their practical utilization.
By art one understands usually any matter or practical activity of humans
which in addition to knowledge requires skill and mastery (military art, the
art of leadership, the art of teaching and indoctrination and so forth). In
the dictionary of V. Dahl, the word "art" is defined as "a science, knowledge
applied to a matter; mastery requiring great ability." The meaning of this
word is explained approximately in the same manner under present-day
conditions.
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If military affairs are approached from such positions and their essence is
carefully analyzed, it can be concluded that military art is an ability or
mastery based upon profound theoretical knowledge and the ability to
creatively apply them in practice. Just as literature and art (understood in
the given instance as a depiction of reality in artistic images) have their
own theory or science (art and literary criticism), military science, being
the theory of military affairs, has arisen on the basis of investigating and
generalizing the practical experience of armed forces in wartime and
peacetime.
Historical experience shows that with all the diversity and complexity in the
phenomena of war, inherent to them are internal, profound and essential
relationships and they have something common, permanent and repeating with the
force of necessity, and for this reason the forms and methods of armed
struggle arise not out of the "free" will of the generals but are subordinate,
like human activity itself, to objective laws which are independent of their
will and awareness. This also explains the possibility and necessity of
military science which is basically a system of knowledge dealing with the
objective laws of a war and the methods of preparing for and conducting armed
combat in a certain historical period. Arising as a reflection of the
experience of military creativity, military science, like any other science,
possesses a relative independence and has, in turn, an enormous impact on the
practical activities of man, showing their way, opening up new prospects and
suggesting methods for resolving the set tasks.
Another particular feature of the phenomena of war is that the patterns
inherent to them, in being independent of the will and awareness of people,
operate not with that irreversible inevitability of the laws of nature, but
are manifested, as in all other social phenomena, through human activity. A
knowledge of the laws of armed combat facilitates practical activity and
provides an opportunity to foresee the development of events, to act
consciously and more fully utilize the objective laws in one's own interests.
But an understanding of the objective laws and the principles, methods and
forms elaborated on their basis for armed combat cannot provide an answer to
the question of how one should act in one or another situation let alone be
capable of by themselves ensuring the achieving of victory in a war. For this
reason the provisions of military science cannot be applied in all instances,
regardless of the situational conditions, with the same constancy and uniform
outcome as the laws of natural sciences.
The difficulty of the given question also is that in the course of a war,
different objective laws are operating simultaneously and these often
intertwine and contradict one another, creating the most contradictory
situation which, in turn, are not permanent and change constantly in the
course of armed combat. It is essentially important to consider that war is a
bilateral phenomenon and that each of the belligerents consciously or
accidentally endeavor to understand and utilize in their own interests the
action of one or another objective law and impose their will on the enemy,
discover its intentions, deceive the opponent and stun it with surprise and
unexpected actions.
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In the course of armed combat all of this creates an exceptionally
complicated, intense and constantly changing situation. For this reason, in
order to be victorious it is not enough to have merely a knowledge of the
patterns of war and military science. Military art is also required. If
victory and defeat in a war were determined by the automatic action of
objective laws, if the concepts of military science could be employed in
practice with the same constancy as the laws of mathematics or physics, then
military art would lose any sense and cease to exist as a concept. In
actuality, it plays an enormous role and the outcome of armed combat depends
largely upon how correctly the military leaders and commanders of all levels
have assessed the objectively developing conditions, take effective decisions
and how skillfully they carry them out.
This is why M. V. Frunze viewed military art as the ability to correctly
assess the situation and take the most effective decision considering the
specific situational conditions, the ability to employ all conditions and
opportunities to defeat the enemy, as the ability to employ the troops with
maximum effectiveness and the least losses. He saw one of the main tasks of
the military cadres in selecting the most suitable methods and means in each
given situation out of the multiplicity of diverse ones. Military theory
cannot provide any pat solution but can serve only as a guiding principle.
One of the participants in the 1922 discussion, Ye. Smyslovskiy, wrote:
"...The study of any science in no way guarantees the mastery of the art
guided by this science and life offers us repeated examples of so-called
'educated fools' who, in mastering perfectly broad scientific knowledge, are
completely incapable in the area of the corresponding art. It is one thing to
know and another to be able."(86)
In a combat situation, military leaders and commanders must frequently
encounter phenomena which are not provided for by any theoretical concepts or
contradict them, and for this reason the necessity arises of seeking out
completely new methods of action. This undoubtedly is the entire "secret,"
the entire complexity of military affairs. As a rule, in a war commanders who
have high theoretical training fight more successfully. But instances are
known when military leaders, in possessing great theoretical knowledge, are
little suitable for practical activity, as they have not mastered the art of
troop command and control under difficult conditions.
M. V. Frunze had precisely this in mind when in his speech of 8 May 1922, in
emphasizing in every possible way the importance of scientific knowledge, at
the same time said that "of course, there cannot be any science capable of
teaching one 'to command' as this is the area of art."(87) This was confirmed
with particular clarity in the course of the Great Patriotic War. In the
beginning of the war, certainly there was not a military chief or commander
who theoretically did not understand or from previous experience did not know
the need to concentrate the main forces on the crucial sector, to establish
assault groupings or provide dependable fire damage to the enemy. Still it
took significant time and a great deal of effort and sacrifice before it was
possible to master the art of carrying out these and many other tasks. In
mastering military art, our command cadres and troops subsequently showed
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remarkable examples of the successful conduct of offensive and defensive
operations and won outstanding victories over the enemy.
As is shown by military experience, including the generalship activities of
M. V. Frunze, for manifesting a high level of military art, in addition to
profound knowledge and high political awareness, it is essential to have
developed operational-tactical thinking, a creative approach to the matter,
the ability to quickly assess the situation and analyze it profoundly, as well
as high organizational and combat-morale qualities such as courage, boldness
and decisiveness, initiative and independence, firmness and tenacity in
achieving the goal.
From the specific qualities needed by a leader both in the political area and
in military strategy, M. V. Frunze particularly pointed to intuition, the
ability for profoundly scientific prediction, the ability in the complex
intertwining of contradictory events and phenomena to grasp the inner logic,
the patterns of their development and in the common chain of political,
organizational and other decisions and measures to find at each specific
moment that specific link in the chain which one must seize with all one's
strength in order to hold the entire chain.(88) V. I. Lenin was gifted to the
highest degree with this genial capacity. M. V. Frunze urged our military
cadres to learn this greatest art from him.
Mikhail Vasilyevich gave great importance to experience and practical skills
in troop command and in performing other duties related to leadership of
subordinates.
All these qualities are not innate or inherent only to "genial" persons, as
certain bourgeois military theorists have asserted; they do not appear as a
result of merely studying theoretical concepts; they must be systematically
and constantly developed in the process of all military service. A close
study of the history of operational and combat training indicates that,
unfortunately, this circumstance is not always fully considered. There have
been frequent instances when at exercises and drills, in essence, the
possibility was excluded of manifesting any art, for the situation far from
fully reproduced combat conditions and in playing through combat operations
the decisions of the trainees and their actual actions were not always taken
into account. Instruction in such exercises and drills came down to a formal
applying of various theoretical concepts in practice. Such an approach to
military training contradicts the nature of combat and an operation, it limits
the creativity of the trainees and deprives them of an opportunity to show
military art.
In the aim of eliminating this shortcoming, there have been repeated attempts
to increase the time in practical exercises with officers in the troops and
schools. Certain schools and academies introduced testing in state exams not
only for theoretical knowledge but also practical skills. But all of these
basically correct ideas and measures, as a result of their formal realization,
did not make it possible to take a substantial step ahead in the mastery of
military art. For instead of testing the ability to quickly size up a new
situation and take an original decision stemming from its specific conditions,
the student using a map or sandbox had to list the general theoretical tasks
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and questions which did not derive from the specific conditions of the enemy's
position and actions, those of his own troops and the terrain, thus skimming
over the surface of this objective reality.
M. V. Frunze considered the most dangerous in military affairs and in the
training of military personnel when the very involved process of decision
taking was replaced by the superficial, abstract application of theory to
practice, when decisions did not stem from an analysis of the specific
conditions but were drawn from theory. B. M. Shaposhnikov, in speaking at an
analysis of the RKKA maneuvers in 1929, emphasized: "That degree of general
tactical training which we now have can be described as the mastery of the
general, purely external scheme for a decision, a general scheme for giving
orders and controlling the troops. But true creativity and real art begin
where this general scheme (undoubtedly an essential one) does not overshadow
or obscure the particular features of each special case but helps to
understand these particular features more quickly and certainly, and for each
particular instance to provide a new decision which is original and determined
solely by the particular features of the given situation. This is that
superior school which borders on real art and which we still lack."(89)
Thus, it is the issue that military art is primarily the ability to apply a
general concept in a specific situation. "It is absurd," wrote V. I. Lenin,
"to make up a formula or general rule...which would be suitable for all cases.
One must have one's head on one's shoulders in order to be able to make one's
way in each individual case."(90)
From this it follows that military art begins where, on the one hand, profound
theoretical knowledge and its creative application help the commander to
better see the common link of occurring phenomena and more confidently orient
himself in the situation and, on the other, the commander, without tying
himself down to a general theoretical scheme, endeavors to go more deeply into
the essence of the actually existing situation, establish its advantageous and
negative features and, proceeding from an analysis of these, find original
decisions and methods of action which conform best to the specific given
conditions and the set combat mission. The maximum degree of conformity of
the decisions and actions of the commanders and the troops to the specific
situational conditions is a major law of military art, as precisely this
expresses its main essence and defines the most essential and permanent links,
the relationship of objective and subjective factors, the internal driving
forces and the main reasons for victories and defeats in war.
Even in the postwar years there were periods when the importance of
theoretical knowledge was emphasized correctly but sometimes one-sidedly and
the necessity was underestimated of indoctrinating a whole series of qualities
in the command personnel and without which military art was inconceivable.
Here one could feel negatively an incorrect understanding of the essence of
military art which is based upon creativity linked with the carrying out of
specific combat tasks. For this reason a correct understanding of the nature
and relationship of military science and military art is not only of
methodological but also great practical significance, particularly from the
viewpoint of the focus, forms and methods of troop instruction and the
indoctrination of military cadres.
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According to Lenin, the conduct of a war as a whole, on any scale and in all
its political and military aspects is a science and an art simultaneously and
all historical experience in the development of military affairs, the
experience of the organizational development and training of the Armed Forces
in our times and the nature of carrying out missions in modern combat and
operations clearly show that military science and the practice of military art
are two interrelated and interdependent aspects of military affairs but which
at the same time also have substantial differences.
One of the supporters of M. V. Frunze on military-political and military
theoretical questions, S. I. Gusev, in speaking out against incorrect notions
of the relationship of military science and military art wrote "that between
science and art there is no metaphysical boundary which Trotsky has endeavored
to establish. Science develops at the expense of art, art is based upon the
victories of science and this process is infinite.
"...Science is the 'continuation' of art; in turn art becomes the
'continuation' of science. Any art is more or less 'scientific,' and any
science is not so 'scientific' to be able to dispense with art. What in the
'examination' is a law in actuality becomes a rule. What is a law in science
is a rule in art.
"The gap between science and art is the gap between past and present, between
theory and practice. Such a gap is contradictory to the spirit of
Marxism."(91)
Such an understanding of the relationship of military science and the practice
of military art does not contradict the demand of studying the economic and
moral capabilities both of one's own nation as well as that of the enemy. In
this context let us examine how the content and relationship of military
science and military art are influenced by the necessity of considering the
economic and moral capabilities and whether the given circumstance can alter
the stated understanding of these questions.
V. I. Lenin, as is known, thoroughly disclosed the significance of the
economic and moral factors for waging war, having pointed out that wars are
now waged by peoples and that "the link between a nation's military
organization and all its economic and cultural system has never been as close
as at present."(92) "In a modern war, as everyone knows, the economic
organization is of crucial significance."(93) As was already pointed out
above, M. V. Frunze also gave great importance to the economic and moral-
political factors.
The importance of the economic and moral factors has immeasurably risen under
present-day conditions. The economy of the belligerents now not only supports
the waging of war but itself has become an object of military operations. The
boundary line between the rear and the front more and more has been
obliterated. Regardless of this, we do not have grounds to presently feel
that the economic and moral-political questions exist solely in the scientific
area and do not involve military art.
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In actuality, can one exclude from strategy and military art as a whole the
questions of considering the economic and moral-political capabilities of both
one's own country and that of the enemy? If one excludes such major and
decisive questions under today's conditions, then this would lead to the
emasculation of strategy, for without considering these questions there cannot
be good strategic and operational plans. In keeping with the increased scope
of armed combat and its encompassing of ever-new phenomena, strategy, like
military art as a whole, cannot remain on the former level and it should
undergo further development and encompass a broader range of questions
corresponding to the nature of modern wars. As for the moral-political
factor, it has always been considered and should be considered not only on the
strategic but also the operational and tactical scales.
Characteristically, the authors of the book "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" [On
Soviet Military Science], on the one hand, assert that military science is
broader than military art, since in addition to the methods of conducting
armed combat, it should also include the areas of knowledge "related to
considering the influence of the economic and moral capabilities of the
belligerents on armed combat."(94) On the other hand, in defining the
specific content of military science, these sectors of knowledge are not
included by them in the structure of military science. On page 243, where the
structure of military science is described, these are not even mentioned. For
this reason, it remains incomprehensible why military science is broader than
military art. The authors assert: "...Military science is not restricted to
just a study of the laws of armed combat, its essence and the elaboration of
the forms and methods of waging it, that is, to military art. It also studies
the forces and means of armed combat...."(95) However, there is and cannot be
any abstract forms and methods of military operations in isolation from the
means of armed combat and these very forms and methods are related primarily
to the employment of certain means of armed combat.
The authors of the generally informative book on military science might not
have noticed all these contradictions in their reasoning merely because for
some reason they had to artificially narrow the essence of miltiary art and
correspondingly broaden the limits of military science. One is struck by the
fact that at many points in the book the authors employ the concepts "military
science" and "military art" as equivalent, as two aspects of military affairs.
On page 225 it states that "war is a great art" and in another (page 187):
"Tukhachevskiy introduced much that was valuable in elaborating Soviet
military science and miltiary art." One might ask why they would write this
if, in their opinion, military science already included military art? There
can only be one answer: the very initial position in positing the question is
wrong, and with any artificial stretching of the point in science it is very
difficult to tie the ends together and this stretching of the point makes
itself felt.
This book quotes many well known military theorists and generals of the past
on the questions of military science and military art, but this is done in a
very unique manner, in a number of instances only that portion is given which
confirms the thesis of the authors that military science is broader than
military art. In particular, in setting out the military theoretical views of
M. V. Frunze and S. I. Gusev, mention is not even made of their ideas quoted
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by us above on the nature of military science and military art. Or, for
example, reference is made to the pamphlet published in 1962 by MSU R. Ya.
Malinovskiy "Bditelno stoyat na strazhe mira" [Vigilantly Guard the Peace),
where it is directly stated: "...Military science is the theory of military
affairs.... But military art is the application of the knowledge of military
science in armed combat, the practice of military affairs which in our age is
inconceivable without a scientific basis."(96) However, the authors of the
book "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" suddenly conclude that the pamphlet of
R. Ya. Malinovskiy examines the fundamental questions of Soviet military
science and its most important part, military art, although the pamphlet not
only does not state that military science is broader than military art or that
military art (including its practical part) is incorporated in military
science, but conversely, this thesis is rejected.
Undoubtedly, military science cannot be identified with the theory of military
art, since the former, in addition to the theory of tactics, operational art
and strategy, includes the theory of troop training and indoctrination, the
theory of the organizational development of the Armed Forces and a whole
series of other sectors. Also unjustified is the fear that such an
understanding of military science and military art will mean the negation of
all these disciplines and the discarding of them from military science, that
it would reduce military affairs to the level of a trade and be an attempt to
retreat to some "pure military art."
Undoubtedly, there is and cannot be any "pure military art." For example,
take the questions of military training and indoctrination. In the practical
activities of the military personnel in wartime, it is impossible to isolate
these from tactics and operational art, since combat and operational training
of the commanders, staffs and troops is one of the most important measures
related to preparing combat and an operation. Moreover, combat operations
themselves are an irreplaceable school for improving combat skill; in
peacetime the art of conducting combat and an operation can be developed only
in the process of combat and operational training.
The same can be said about military geography, topography and other special
technical and administrative subjects. Military art cannot be reduced to the
forms and methods of conducting armed combat. In resolving the practical
questions of strategy or operational art, one must be concerned not only with
the patterns and principles of military art, but also employ certain
statistical data, resolve a whole series of organizational and military-
technical problems, specifically consider the conditions of the theater of
military operations, while the ability to orient oneself in the field and to
employ its advantageous conditions for troop operations is also inseparable
from the art of conducting combat and an operation. Precisely the strategic
and operational considerations determined the establishing of horse, tank or
air armies, although in military science the theoretical questions of troop
organizational structure are examined by the theory of the organizational
development of the Armed Forces.
Not only military affairs but also any other area of human activity have their
history but because of this the corresponding scientific sectors do not become
broader than the phenomena investigated by them. Military art both as a whole
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and in carrying out individual military tasks is inconceivable without the use
of the experience of previous wars, operations and battles. Precisely the
history of military art with good reason is one of the most important areas of
military history. Its main task is to investigate the practically tested
forms and methods of armed combat in the course of which the science itself is
improved and a basis is established for elaborating its new provisions and
conclusions.
Thus, the different aspects of military art are manifested in practical
activities not independently and not separately from one another but in an
organic unity and a close relationship, finding their specific reflection at
one or another stage of preparing for and conducting the battle, the operation
and the war.
The examination by military science of each sector of military affairs
individually as well as their classification, as in other sciences, is caused
by the need to systematize and to reduce to a definite system the knowledge
gained on the patterns, forms and methods of armed combat in the aim of their
more profound understanding. For example, no one would deny that training and
indoctrination are a single and unbroken process. However, pedagogics
examines and investigates each sector individually (didactics and the theory
of communist indoctrination). Because of this pedagogics as a science does
not become wider than pedagogical art.
The system of combat training also includes as independent subjects tactical
and technical training, marksmanship and other special disciplines. But when
tactics, as the art of conducting combat, is carried out in practice (in a
combat situation or in an exercise), the tactical forms and methods of
actions, maneuver, fire and attack, the control of weapons and combat
equipment gain a specific manifestation in an organic unity and it is
impossible to separate one from the other.
From all that has been said it can be concluded that military science and
military art, as an area of practical activity, are not any mechanically
addable elements which differ from one another in the quantity and scope of
the studied questions. These are concepts which encompass the conduct of
armed combat as a whole and are in an organic unity, expressing various
aspects of military affairs. These concepts are not something born out of
abstract thought. They arose out of the practice of military affairs. All
military history shows that for the successful conduct of a war, in addition
to well developed military theory and the arming of the military cadres with
this theory, it is also essential to show creativity and the art of organizing
and conducting combat, an operation and a war as a whole, starting from the
supreme commander-in-chief and ending with each soldier.
Military art, as an area of practical activity, encompasses all aspects of
military activities on strategic, operational and tactical scales in the
preparation for and conduct of operations and combat actions. In this context
the question arises of the relationship of the practice of military art and
military practice generally.
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From the viewpoint of Marxist-Leninist methodology, the practical structure
includes such aspects as the need, goal, motive and purposeful activity in the
aim of its individual acts, the subject at which this activity is aimed, the
means by which the goal is achieved and, finally, the result of the
activity.(97) By military practice one understands the aggregate activities
of the Armed Forces in their historical development. Military art, in
peacetime and wartime, to a significant degree encompasses the practical
activities of the Armed Forces but military art certainly does not include all
the listed elements and does not completely coincide with the practice of
military affairs.
In the process of practical activity, the personnel of the Armed Forces must
carry out all sorts of tasks, including purely military as well as other such
as: construction, routine, administrative, medical and financial. All of
these are aimed at ensuring the main task of achieving a high level of
military art, but in terms of their nature their fulfillment does not always
require the manifestation of the elements of military art.
Since the word "art" has come to be applied to any form of practical activity,
when this activity is performed ably, skillfully and artfully, the opinion is
sometimes voiced that military art also must be understood precisely only "as
the able conduct of military operations based upon the creative application of
military knowledge"(98) or as the ability to employ troops and naval forces
with the greatest effectiveness. Of course, the desire to achieve this should
always permeate military art; such an understanding is also correct from the
formal terminological viewpoint.
But in life and objective reality, this question is significantly more complex
to resolve. If one formally adheres to such a definition of military art, it
may turn out, for example, that the Soviet Army at the outset of the Great
Patriotic War or the Nazi troops over virtually the entire war did not have
their own military art. However, this was not the case. We can say with full
justification that in the last war Soviet military art won a convincing
victory over the military art of Nazi Germany.
War is a bilateral phenomenon and military art is manifested in the clash of
the sides, where, as a rule, one side wins a victory and the other suffers a
defeat. And both sides without fail have their own military art, only the
level of these differs. The history of military art is formed from the
aggregate of the positive as well as the negative experience of conducting
armed combat.
In history there have been numerous wars where opponents with a high level of
military art engaged in combat and at times up to the last moment it was
difficult to say which side would gain the upper hand and consequently (with a
formal approach), it was impossible to determine which of these armies had
actually mastered military art. But failures in a war often are determined
not only by the level of military art but also by many other factors.
Sometimes armies which have suffered a defeat (or a portion of them) have
shown a rather high level of military art. One has merely to recall Waterloo,
the heroic defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War or the defense of Port
Arthur during the period of the Russo-Japanese War.
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M. V. Frunze, in saying that military art has always been the special preserve
of the ruling classes and access to it was forbidden to the people, commented
well that "military art out of necessity has always been a progressive art and
has always been based upon recent achievements of science and technology and
placed rather high demands on its specialists."(99)
Considering what has been said, true military art at which one should aim
should be unconditionally planned for victory over a strong and skillful
enemy. It actually requires great ability and strategic and operational-
tactical mastery. But the enemy will also endeavor to achieve this in the aim
of surpassing the military art opposing it. For this reason in practical
terms--in a general form and in terms of armed combat as a whole--military art
is usually viewed as the application of military knowledge and experience in
preparing and conducting military operations considering the specific
situational conditions as well as in the process of the organizational
development and training of the Armed Forces. Military science is the theory
of military affairs with the mission of investigating and generalizing
primarily the achievements of military art and all aspects of the practical
activities of the Armed Forces in peacetime and wartime.
Since military science and the practice of military art are viewed as two
interrelated aspects of military affairs, certain researchers have assumed
that the concepts of "military science" and "the theory of military art"
should coincide. They consider as illogical the assumption that the theory of
military art is merely a part of military science. This judgment is founded
on the fact that for the manifestation of military art, particularly on the
strategic scale, it is not sufficient to have a knowledge of the theory of
strategy, operational art and tactics, but rather it is essential to have a
knowledge of all areas of military science and, in addition, employ a large
amount of knowledge from the area of political, economic, technical and other
sciences. Proceeding from this it has been proposed to introduce the term
"theory of armed combat" or "theory of preparing and conducting military
operations" in place of the term "theory of military art" as a component of
military science. In place of the term "theory of operational art" it has
been proposed that the term be used "theory of preparing and conducting
operations" (in the 1930's the term "operatics" was proposed).
From the purely theoretical viewpoint, this would not be more accurate.
Moreover, the term "theory of military art," as a component of military
science, although being somewhat arbitrary, has permeated our military
vocabulary and our military literature so profoundly and military personnel
are completely used to it that it has been recognized as ill-advised to alter
the existing terminology on these questions and we have continued to employ
it. Here the point is that the theory of military art, as a component part of
military science, must investigate the laws and methods of conducting armed
combat on the strategic, operational and tactical scales, in close correlation
with the other sectors of military science. The main point is not which of
the designated concepts is broader or narrower but rather a correct
understanding of the essence of military science and military art.
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Such an approach to military science and military art cannot be viewed as the
setting of these into opposition with one another or the isolating of them.
It also cannot to any degree reduce the importance of military science of
"debase military art to the level of a trade," since true military art, as was
already pointed out, is possible only on a basis of profound military-
scientific knowledge.
In returning to what has been said, we must re-emphasize that this has always
been the viewpoint of the founders of Marxism-Leninism and the prominent
Soviet generals and military theorists. In our times in many of the party and
other official documents and in the various speeches and articles of the USSR
minister of defense, his deputies and other military chiefs concerning the
present-day conditions of military science and the practice of military art,
military science and the practice of military art are viewed as two aspects of
military affairs. For example, the Decree of the CPSU Central Committee "On
the 40th Anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great
Patriotic War of 1941-1945" states that "the victory in the Great Patriotic
War showed the superiority of Soviet military science and military art and the
high level of strategic leadership and combat skill of our military
cadres."(100)
Of course, it is not merely a question of these highly authoritative
definitions and statements but primarily tested historical experience and the
understanding confirmed by modern practice of the nature of military science
and military art. Their essence consists in the fact that, as in politics and
in political leadership there is an immediate unity of the scientific theory
concerning the development of society and the practical activities of our
party and people (it would never enter anyone's head to say that political
science is broader than politics itself), so in the practical activities of
the Armed Forces and primarily our military cadres, there is an organic
combination of military science and military art.
1. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 6, pp 362-363.
2. "Syezdy Sovetov SSSR v postanovleniyakh i rezolyutsiyakh" [Congresses of
the USSR Soviets in Decrees and Resolutions], Moscow, 1939, p 38.
3. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 37, pp 122-123.
4. D. Ryazanov, "Marxism in Military Affairs," VOYENNYY VESTNIK, No 3, 1926,
p 15.
5. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," 1927, Vol 3, p 28.
6. Ibid., Vol 2, pp 162-163.
7. K. Marx, F. Engels, "Soeh.," 2d Edition, Vol 20, p 175.
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8. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 38, pp 369-370.
9. Ibid., p 55.
10. Ibid., Vol 36, p 382.
11. Quoted in: M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 150.
12. Ibid., Vol 1, p 466.
13. W. D. Jacobs, op. cit., pp 91-92.
14. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 151.
15. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 39, p 57.
16. K. Marx, F. Engels, "Sock.," 2d Edition, Vol 7, p 509.
17. Ibid., p 513.
18. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 44, p 205.
19. Ibid., Vol 26, p 224.
20. Ibid., Vol 31, p 159.
21. Ibid., Vol 32, p 82.
22. M. N. Tukhachevskiy, "Izbr. proizv.," Moscow, 1964, Vol 1,
23. See: "Materialy soveshchaniya komandnogo i komissarskogo sostava voysk
Ukrainy i Kryma i flotov Chernogo i Azovskogo Morey" [Materials of a
Conference for Command and Commissar Personnel of the Ukrainian and
Crimean Troops and the Fleets of the Black and Azov Seas], Kharkov, 1922,
pp 80-81.
24. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol
25. Ibid., Vol 2, p 253.
26. Ibid., pp 37-38.
27. Ibid., Vol 3, p 16.
3, p 15.
28. P. N. Fedoseyev, "Dialektika sovremennoy epokhi" [Dialectics of the
Modern Age], Moscow, 1978, p 171.
29. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 216.
30. Ibid., p 208.
31. VOYENNOYE DELO, No 2(65), 1920, pp 38-40.
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1:V11 VL'L J. J.Z L VUL'J VL\L1
32. Ibid., No 6(70), [1920], pp 162-166.
33. Ibid., No 8(72), 1920, p 231.
34. I. Vatsetis, "0 voyennoy doktrine budushchego" [On the Military Doctrine
of the Future], Moscow, 1923, p 8.
35. VOYENNOYE DELO, No 23, 24, 1918, p 3.
36. See: VOYENNOYE DELO, No 4(65), 1920, pp 98-99.
37. Ibid., No 12(76), 1920, p 354.
38. See: S. S. Kamenev, "Zapiski o grazhdanskoy voyne i voyennom
stroitelstve" [Notes on the Civil War and Military Organizational
Development], Moscow, 1963, p 62.
39. VOYENNOYE DELO, No 11(75), 1920, p 322.
40. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, p 207.
41. Ibid.
42. D. V. Ryazanov, "Marksizm i voyennoye delo" [Marxism and Military
Affairs], Moscow, 1926, p 15.
43. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, p 210.
44. Ibid., p 211.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., p 214.
47. Ibid., pp 411-412.
48. Ibid., p 211.
49. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," 1957, Vol 2, p 22.
50. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, p 219.
51. Ibid., Vol 3, p 74.
52. Ibid., p 218.
53. Ibid., Vol 1, p 209.
54. See: Ibid., Vol 3, pp 250-251.
55. VOYENNOYE ZNANIYE, No 14, 15, 1921, p 12.
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56. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 35, p 408.
57. Ibid., p 395.
58. Ibid., Vol 41, p 117.
59. Ibid., Vol 39, p 236.
60. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, pp 132-133.
61. See: Ibid., Vol 2, p 102.
62. Ibid., p 104.
63. Ibid., p 103.
64. "Syezdy Sovetov vserossiyskiye i Soyuza SSR v postanovleniyakh i
rezolyutsiyakh" [Congresses of All-Russian and USSR Soviets in Decrees
and Resolutions], Moscow, 1935, p 351.
65. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, p 254.
66. Ibid., Vol 1, p 254.
67. Ibid., pp 264-265.
68. KRASNAYA ZVEZDA, No 59, 1929.
69. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, p 255.
70. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 41, p 121.
71. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 3, pp 361-362.
72. "Sbornik originalnykh i perevodnykh statey M. Dragomirova. 1858-1880"
[Collection of Original and Translated Articles of M. Dragomirov.
1858-1880], St. Petersburg, 1881, Vol 1, p 444.
73. S. I. Krupnov, "Logiko-metodologicheskiy analiz voyenno-nauchnykh znaniy"
[Logical-Methodological Analysis of Military-Scientific Knowledge],
Dissertation, Moscow, 1971, p 58.
74. "Voyennaya entsiklopediya" [Military Encyclopedia], Moscow, 1910, Vol 6,
p 478.
75. S. Gusev, "Nashi raznoglasiya v voyennom dele" [Differences in Military
Affairs], Moscow, 1925, p 5.
76. See: VOYENNAYA MYSL I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 3, 1922, pp 3-10; TsGASA [Central
State Archives of the Soviet Army], folio 33987, inv. 1, file 521, sheets
525, 538.
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77. See: S. Gusev, "Nashi raznoglasiya v voyennom dele," p 6.
78. KRASNAYA ARMIYA (Vestnik VNO Voyennoy akademii) [The Red Army (Herald of
the Military Academy Military Scientific Society)], No 14 and 15 (May-
June 1922), p 157.
79. VOYENNAYA MYSL I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 3, 1922, p 8.
80. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 41, p 65.
81. Ibid., Vol 40, p 183.
82. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Revolyutsiya i kontrrevolyutsiya v Germanii"
[Revolution and Counterrevolution in Germany], Moscow, 1940, p 99.
83. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 34, p 383.
84. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, pp 209, 217, 218.
85. K. Ye. Voroshilov, "Stalin i Vooruzhennyye Sily SSSR" [Stalin and the
USSR Armed Forces], Moscow, 1950, p 68.
86. VOYENNAYA MYSL I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 3, 1922, p 19.
87. Ibid., p 8.
88. See: V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 36, p 205.
89. TsGASA, folio 9, inv. 28, file 597, sheets 89-90.
90. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 41, p 52.
91. S. I. Gusev, "Grazhdanskaya voyna i Krasnaya Armiya" [The Civil War and
the Red Army], Moscow, 1958, p 196.
92. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 9, p 156.
93. Ibid., Vol 34, p 194.
94. "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" [On Soviet Military Science], Moscow, 1964,
p 62.
95. Ibid., p 212.
96. R. Ya. Malinovskiy, "Bditelno stoyat na strazhe mira" [Vigilantly Guard
the Peace], Moscow, 1962, p 50.
97. See: "Filosofskiy entsiklopedicheskiy slovar" [Philosophical
Encyclopedic Dictionary], Moscow, 1983, p 522.
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98. S. I. Krupnov, op. cit., p 63.
99. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. loch.," Vol 2, p 160.
100. PRAVDA, 17 June 1984.
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CHAPTER 3: CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY OF MILITARY ART
Strategic Views
Preceding Ideas
The strategic views of M. V. Frunze were shaped considering the previous
experience during the transitional period in the development of strategy
during the age of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. Military strategy
from its very genesis was viewed as a higher area of military art and the
theory of strategy incorporated the most general ideas concerning war and the
methods of waging it. As a sphere of practical activity for the superior
military leadership, this arose deep in antiquity simultaneously with the rise
of armed forces and wars. According to the Leninist theory of cognition, man
in all areas of activity has moved from experience to theory. In accord with
this, the theoretical principles of strategy have been systematized and
elaborated gradually, on the basis of generalizing the experience of wars.
For this reason only arbitrarily, from the standpoint of a more or less
ordered theoretical formulation can one speak about the genesis of scientific
knowledge concerning war in the middle of the 18th Century. In actuality,
military theory, including also the theory of military strategy, had appeared
and existed in a rudimentary form with the rise of wars and developed in the
process of the evolution of military affairs as a whole.
In the 19th Century, an effort was made to incorporate in the theory of
strategy all knowledge related to war, identifying it [strategy] with military
science as a whole. Leer viewed strategy as "the synthesis, integration of
all military affairs, their generalization, their philosophy."(1) But
independently of this, even at that time there existed as relatively
independent areas of knowledge such subjects as tactics and fortification and
later other sectors of military science also appeared.
Due to the major sociopolitical and economic changes related to the
development of capitalism, military strategy also underwent further
development. With the growth of capitalism into imperialism, the uneven
economic and political development of the capitalist states increased and
political reaction and a desire for military aggression grew stronger. The
introduction of universal military obligations in a majority of the nations
led to an enormous increase in the size of armies. Million-strong armies
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appeared in the theaters of military operations. As a result of increased
production and the development of science and technology, just in three
decades (the 1850's-1880's) the armies received more new types of weapons a 9
ammunition than over the three preceding centuries. Strategic practice,; and
theory were particularly strongly influenced by the construction of railroads
and their use for transporting troops, the introduction of the telegraph and
telephone in the practices of troop command and control, the replacing of the
sail fleet by steam, the appearance of rifled weapons and in the course of
World War I also tanks, aviation, chemical and other types of weapons.
With the introduction of machine combat equipment, motors and automatic
weapons, troop mobility was increased, the times for the strategic deployment
of the armed forces were shortened, the scope of military operations, their
intensity and duration and the depth of fire effect were increased and,
consequently, the depth of the strategic configuration of the troops rose.
Armies, corps and divisions began to be deployed along a wider front and at a
greater distance from the enemy. Solid fronts of great length appeared. The
operation arose as an aggregate of military operations and engagements that
were separated in time and space but united by a common overall plan. A war
could no longer be won even by several engagements. A whole series of
operations and campaigns had to be carried out for achieving the strategic
aims of the war.
Many of these new phenomena made themselves felt even during the period of the
Russo-Japanese War. But they were most fully apparent in World War I of 1914-
1918 which required a substantial revision of the strategic views on the
conduct of a war. First of all, the plan of the belligerents to achieve
victory in a short maneuvering war did not come about. The losses and
material requirements of the operational armies increased sharply and because
of this the role of the economy, the moral-political factor in the war, the
importance of reserves and the coordinated employment of all the armed forces
also grew. Even during this period, there was an objective need for a unified
military strategy, including for the ground forces and the fleet. But all
these new factors were underestimated in the strategic plans and strategic
leadership while theoretically they remained completely unelaborated.
Proceeding from the fact that an offensive is more advantageous than the
defensive, but not realizing that both sides could not advance for a
protracted time, at the outset of World War I all armies set decisive goals
for themselves and endeavored to carry out strategic missions solely by the
offensive while the possibility of a strategic defensive was completely ruled
out. However, this war, like previous wars, refuted the subjective one-sided
plans and by the end of the first year of the war both sides were forced to go
over to the strategic defensive along a solid front and conduct a positional
war. The problem of breaking through the defenses was solved in practical
terms only on a tactical scale by the massed employment of manpower,
artillery, tanks and partially aviation on narrow sectors of the front. The
strategic aims were achieved in the course of the war by carrying out
successive attritional operations and combat operations with extended
operational pauses between them.
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In a number of instances strategy began and ended with tactics. Ludendorff
and certain other military leaders were even to say that tactics must be put
higher than strategy. For this reason there were frequent instances when
breakthrough sectors were chosen where it was tactically advantageous but not
proceeding from operational-strategic considerations.
During World War I, new elements of strategic leadership (fronts, army groups)
appeared. However, as a whole, command and control of the armed forces were
far from conforming to the new conditions of waging war. The preparation and
conduct of strategic operations demanded that the superior military leadership
take into account a significantly greater number of the most diverse
conditions and factors, but they endeavored in a majority of instances to
approach the new phenomena of war using the old concepts of strategy. In
commenting on this aspect of strategic leadership during the years of World
War I, A. Ye. Snesarev has written: "Under such conditions could a modern
strategist be satisfied with the old strategic formula for achieving a
decisive battle? There could be no question of this. For him, there now must
be such condensed brains, such vast knowledge and such exceptional scope and
foresight. He must be a military man, a politician, an economist, a financial
expert, an all-round technician and a true agitator."(2) And he concluded
that the military leaders of those times were unprepared to carry out such
strategic tasks.
However, certain essential changes which had appeared in the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th Centuries in the nature and methods of carrying out
strategic tasks had been reflected in the works of Clausewitz, Jomini, Moltke
the Elder, Schliffen, Leer, Mikhnevich, Foch and other military theorists and
M. V. Frunze was well acquainted with their works.
On the principles of Soviet military strategy. The theoretical principles of
proletarian military strategy, as was already pointed out in the previous
chapters, were worked out by the founders of Marxism-Leninism. The practical
aspect of Soviet military theory arose and developed along with the rise of
the Soviet state and its Armed Forces in the course of a fierce struggle
against foreign interventionists and domestic counterrevolution. Its major
provisions (scientific principles and the art of strategic leadership) were
elaborated by the party Central Committee headed by V. I. Lenin, considering
the new historical conditions, the nature of the world's first state of the
dictatorship of the proletarian and its Armed Forces and the interests of
defending the socialist fatherland. At the Seventh RKP(b) Congress, V. I.
Lenin said that "at each Central Committee session on each major question of
strategy--there was not a single time when the sessions of the Central
Committee or the Central Committee Bureau did not resolve the basic questions
of strategy."(3)
During the years of the Civil War and the foreign intervention in Russia, the
irreconcilability of political goals and the acuteness of the military-
political situation predetermined the decisive strategic aims and the active
offensive nature of Soviet military strategy. In contrast to World War I,
military operations during this period had a maneuvering nature. The
strategic offensive was the main type of strategic actions and this, as a
rule, was carried out by making successive offensive operations using the
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forces of one or two fronts. At the same time, Soviet military strategy, in
proceeding from the fact that the methods of fighting the enemy had to be
changed when the circumstances changed, flexibly employed various forms of
strategic operations, including the defensive as well, and in certain
instances, also the retreat, resorting to them as enforced types of military
operations. For this reason the strategic offensive often commenced with the
going over to a counteroffensive, as was the case, for example, on the Eastern
and Southern Fronts in the defeat of the Kolchak and Denikin Armies.
Offensive operations were carried out with decisive goals and were conducted
on a broad front, to a great depth and in a number of instances without
operational pauses.
During the period of the Civil War, the Soviet Republic was surrounded by a
ring of fronts. The strategic tasks had to be carried out, as a rule, under
conditions where the enemy had superiority in men and equipment, particularly
in combat equipment, and the limited resources of the young proletarian state
did not provide an opportunity to carry out decisive operations simultaneously
on all the fronts. For this reason, of particular importance for strategy was
the determining of the crucial sectors from whence the greatest threat arose
and the concentrating of the main efforts on them. In the summer and autumn
of 1918 this was the Eastern Front; at the end of 1918, the Southern Front; in
the spring of 1919, again the Eastern Front; in the summer of 1919, again the
main efforts were directed to the Southern Front.
The axes of the main thrusts in each of these theaters of military operations
were selected in such a manner as to defeat the most important enemy
groupings, and achieve a fundamental change in the military-political
situation and liberate the politically and economically most important areas
for raw materials, grain and fuel, without which the existence of the Republic
and the continuation of the war would have been impossible.
In working out the strategic plans, enormous attention was given to moral-
political considerations. Both sides endeavored to act decisively on those
sectors where there was the strongest support from the population. The
partisan movement in the rear of the White Guard troops and interventionists
was a substantial support for the Red Army. Over the entire war, great
attention was given to the establishing of strategic reserves and their
replenishment; this was one of the most important conditions for the victories
won by the Red Army.
During the entire Civil War, M. V. Frunze was closely involved with this
enormous experience of strategic leadership. Of particularly great importance
for shaping the strategic views of Frunze, like the other Soviet military
leaders, was the direct leadership over the Red Army's strategic operations by
V. I. Lenin. In urging the military cadres to carefully and earnestly study
the military activities of V. I. Lenin during the years of the Civil War and
military intervention, M. V. Frunze said: "For us and the future generation
of revolutionaries, Comrade Lenin provides brilliant models of strategic and
tactical art. His leadership is an outstandingly brilliant example of leading
the masses into combat."(4)
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In commanding the troops of a number of fronts on major sectors, M. V. Frunze
gained great experience in the practical carrying out of strategic tasks.
After the Civil War, he took a direct part (and in 1924-1925, headed) the
practical elaboration of the major provisions of Soviet military strategy.
Subsequently, these questions were taken up in such works of his as "Lenin and
the Red Army," "A Unified Military Doctrine and the Red Army," "The Military-
Political Indoctrination of the Red Army," "The Results and Prospects of
Military Organizational Development," "Basic Military Tasks of the Moment,"
"The Front and Rear in a Future War," and others.
M. V. Frunze worked out the questions of military strategy in strict accord
with the demands and provisions of the party's political strategy, the tasks
of defending the socialist fatherland and the real capabilities of the Soviet
state and the Armed Forces.
The first decree of the Soviet government was, as is known, the Peace Decree
which expressed the fundamental interests of the socialist state. Since that
time the main aim of the policy of our party and state has always been and
remains to ensure peaceful conditions for the building of socialism and
communism. For this reason a war in the defense of the socialist fatherland
has always been viewed as the most just of all wars in the history of mankind.
This has also predetermined the focus of Soviet military strategy which is
devoid of any inner sources of aggressiveness and is totally aimed at
protecting the interests of the peaceful labor of the Soviet people.
V. I. Lenin emphasized that "politics is reason, a war is only an implement
and not vice versa. Consequently, it remains solely to subordinate the
military viewpoint to the political."(5) "...The nature of the political goal
is of crucial impact on the conduct of a war..."(6) is a Leninist tenet which
now appears perfectly obvious but at that time was not recognized by everyone.
Many military theorists from among the specialists of the old army proceeded
from objectivist, non-class positions and endeavored to view the questions of
strategy outside of any relationship to politics. A. A. Svechin directly
stated: "We view modern war with all its possibilities and do not endeavor
to narrow our theory down to a sketch of a Red Soviet strategic doctrine."(7)
M. V. Frunze acted decisively against such views, proceeding from the Leninist
thesis that scientific objectivity without fail also includes party loyalty.
The unbroken organic link of politics and strategy and the tenet that war is
politics through and through on all its levels and that military strategy is
subordinate to and derives from political strategy underlie all the military-
theoretical views of M. V. Frunze. In the article "Lenin and the Red Army" he
emphasized that our political strategy is based upon a study of the basic
aspects of the movement of the masses and on a consideration of the
conflicting class forces. It analyzes the relationship between these forces,
it studies their specific weight and nature and, finally, considering the
moments of time and space, sets out the appropriate strategic plan for the
political struggle. The Communist Party directs the politics of our state and
the political strategy of the Soviet nation is the party's strategy. "When we
look at the situation of our Soviet Union and the situation of other states,"
wrote M. V. Frunze, "we see how with each passing day the area of politics is
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more closely intertwined with the area of military activity. One changes into
the other. Strategy in the narrow military sense of this word is a part of
political strategy."(8) In the work "The Questions of Higher Military
Education" he commented: "...In the present age of proletarian
revolution-politics and strategy are so closely intertwined that they can be
separated only by complex theoretical analysis."(9)
M. V. Frunze considered the strategy and tactics of the proletarian struggle
to be a major question of Leninism and emphasized that their study is of the
most colossal interest for elaborating the questions of military strategy.
"Strategy," he wrote, "in being the higher generalization of military art,
should take into account not only the purely military elements such as the
size of the armies and so forth but should also consider aspects of a
political nature. Only the person who possesses all this knowledge can lay
claim to the role of a Red Army leader under the conditions of future military
clashes. Thus, seminars on Leninism and the study of the principles of
Leninism are brought about not merely by a desire to broaden the overall
viewpoint but are a natural obligatory supplement in studying our purely
military course of strategy and the course of general tactics."(10)
Further, M. V. Frunze went on to explain that in line with the closer
intertwining of politics and military strategy in defining the aims of a war
as well as in working out the strategic plans and assessing the theaters of
military operations, the importance of political, economic and moral factors
had risen sharply and a realistic accounting of these comprised one of the
strong points of Soviet military strategy. He emphasized that "all our
strategy and all our tactics are most closely linked with the economic state
of the nation and our aim is to so organize the study of this element of our
military operations that future army leaders would be thoroughly familiar with
the state of the nation from the viewpoint of employing all economic
opportunities for the war."(11) M. V. Frunze, in commanding fronts (Eastern,
Turkestan and Southern), showed the highest ability to consider all these
factors in working out and carrying out the operational-strategic plans.
The nature of the military-political tasks confronting the Soviet state and
its Armed Forces and the focus of military strategy were defined by him
proceeding from the constant military threat of hostile capitalist
encirclement about which V. I. Lenin had repeatedly warned.
M. V. Frunze decisively argued against underestimating the military threat
after the Civil War, when a partial stabilization of capitalism and the
recognition of the Soviet state by a number of capitalist nations caused
certain workers of the party and state bodies and even the military personnel
to underestimate the strengthening of national defense and the increased
combat readiness of the Red Army and Navy. In 1924, he said that in the
context of our diplomatic successes which have now occurred, many are
beginning to develop an incorrect notion of our general political situation.
They may feel that the very fact of recognition puts our military work in the
background. Such a way of thinking, if it assumed any broad acceptance, would
be the greatest danger for our Union. "...The working masses of the Soviet
Union," he cautioned, "should fear the contagion of pacifist illusions more
than a bullet."(12)
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As was already pointed out, M. V. Frunze, in speaking about the nature of a
future war, considered the question of its class essence to be the main and
determining one and derived this from the class nature of both the Soviet
state as well as the hostile capitalist countries surrounding it. "From the
viewpoint...of the socioclass content of a future war," he wrote, "the
question for us is determined by the nature of our state. We are a state of
workers and peasants. In our country labor is predominant. This means that
we also will not wage a war with any state where labor also rules. We will
not wage wars against peoples or national wars. We can only wage a class war
against the enemies of the working masses."(13)
Frunze emphasized that such a war would be a revolutionary, class war, for
between our economic and political system and the organization of the
bourgeois states there lies a profound, irreconcilable contradiction, and if
it is resolved by military means, this would lead to an acute and, in all
probability, extended clash. When things reach the point of a major, serious
war between the Union of Soviet Republics and the union of major bourgeois
states, then there will not be any limited goals in a war. In truth, Frunze
did not exclude such a version where class contradictions within the
capitalist states could mature to such a point and the capitalist system
itself become so rotten that it would take merely one crushing blow from
outside for this system to collapse under the effect of internal forces.
At the same time M. V. Frunze was persuaded that in preparing the nation and
the Armed Forces for war, one must proceed not from a possible favorable
confluence of circumstances but rather place the main bet on the extended,
fierce and protracted nature of future military clashes and make all one's
strategic plans precisely proceeding from this. He assumed that a future war
would be a world one and hence we would be opposed not by individual hostile
countries but rather a coalition of capitalist states. In practical terms as
long as we were opposed by the entire capitalist world which, however, was far
from united, it was also essential to skillfully play upon the contradictions
between the bourgeois countries and their internal contradictions. Mikhail
Vasilyevich taught that we should carefully follow and correctly assess the
military-political situation and be able to see primarily our specific
probable enemies. He saw in this one of the major tasks of strategy.
If the political strategy determines the general line in terms of the age as a
whole, the content of military strategy is determined by the specific balance
of military-political forces under the given historical conditions and
primarily in a forthcoming war.
In bringing out the influence of military strategy on politics, Frunze
commented that the composition of the opposing coalition will depend largely
upon our successes and how the strategic situation will develop. In the event
of our decisive successes, certain countries can pull out of this coalition
but with our strategic failures, the number of states acting against the
Soviet Union could increase.
M. V. Frunze sharply criticized Trotsky's assertions that the experience,
political aims and class nature of the Civil War did not leave their imprint
on military strategy, and convincingly showed that the revolution and ideology
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of the proletariat, as a politically active class, determined essential
features in the military art of the Red Army. He considered the main factor
to be the appearance of a new fighter and command who were defending the
victories of the revolution. In his opinion this should and did tell on the
methods of the Red Army's military operations. "This class feature is
manifested in the greatest activity, initiative, in the capacity for
organization, for unity and for actions by large organized masses both of its
individual representatives as well as the entire proletarian mass taken as a
whole."(14)
Frunze's statements concerning the class nature of a war and Soviet military
strategy were intentionally distorted by the foreign press which quoted him
out of context. They endeavored to depict M. V. Frunze as a supporter of
exporting revolution to other countries and overthrowing the capitalist system
there. Trotsky was depicted as a "peace lover" who supposedly was in favor of
a defensive political and military strategy, since he had said that until
revolution occurred in Europe, "the basic decisive slogan which conformed to
the entire situation and all our policy was a defensive."(15)
M. V. Frunze showed the erroneousness and falaciousness of the positions
assumed by Trotsky and his supporters, for they confused two completely
different concepts: the fundamentally defensive nature of the wars of the
proletarian state understood in the political sense and the defensive nature
of proletarian military strategy as the methods of conducting armed combat.
He always emphasized that our military doctrine and strategy on the political
level have a defensive nature, we do not intend to attack anyone or be engaged
in exporting revolution. But if a war is imposed on us, our military strategy
will be decisive and offensive. In speaking about a class war, he had in mind
that a war in the defense of the socialist fatherland and its just political
aims on the part of the Soviet state would encounter sympathy among the
workers of the capitalist nations, but he was never a supporter of the export
of revolution. The slogan "revolution from without" was considered by him to
be harmful and not corresponding to the policy of the proletarian state.
Our policy was a policy of maintaining peace, said Mikhail Vasilyevich. And
not because we were Trotskyites and not because we feared the uncovering of
our weapons in the defense of the interests of labor. But because the very
conditions of our struggle and work were such that a position of peace was
objectively the best for us. Frunze convincingly showed that if the
capitalist world did not take up weapons against us, then we could allow the
resolution of the dispute between us and the capitalist world to follow a
peaceful development of events and we could peacefully direct all our energy
and all our forces into economic and cultural development. We could channel
all our efforts to peaceful purposes and completely abandon expenditures on
defense needs. If such a prospect was possible, then undoubtedly victory
would be on our side.
This idea which expressed the essence of the policy of our party and the
Soviet state was repeated by Frunze repeatedly and consistently carried out in
all his practical work. However, the bourgeois falsifiers of the ideas of
Frunze intentionally play this down.
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At the same time M. V. Frunze cautioned that the possibility of peaceful
development depends not only upon our desires. Imperialism would not accept
the existence of a socialist state and with the slightest opportunity intended
to stifle it. To proceed solely from the prospects of peaceful development
"would be, of course, an expression of the greatest naivete on our part, for
such questions which pose the question of the life and death of an entire way
of life or system of state organization are not resolved peacefully. They are
resolved by iron and blood."(16) Certainly the history of the 1930's and
1940's confirmed the correctness of these words?!
Running through the works of M. V. Frunze as a constant idea is the notion
that our defensive measures are forced upon us and that due to the presence of
hostile encirclement and the constant threat of military attack, we should, in
constantly carrying out a policy of peace and resisting the provocations to
involve us in a war, constantly strengthen the nation's defense capability and
the combat might of the Armed Forces. Frunze assigned an important role to
the theory of military strategy in carrying out these tasks.
On the major problems of the theory of military strategy. In defining the
tasks and content of military strategy, M. V. Frunze proceeded from the view
that modern wars have an all-encompassing and all-round nature. They are
way-on the ~r ned, economic and..idi61 cal fronts. The crucial role is
playearmed combat, for the aim of a war can be achieved only by thel
physical extermination of the enemy. The remaining forms of combat during a
war should ensure the success of armed combat as the main means of continuing
politics. For this reason. Frunze explained, in our calculations for future
Qperat ons and in analvzina the nature of future clashes. witY n our own
organization we should Pay chief attention not to hopes of any political
disintegt9on of the enemy butrather the mobilizing of all~thP atatP!s
-__a
forces to defeat -the-enemy.-
experience of World War I showed the impossibility of achieving the aims
The
of a war by a single annihilating attack and this required, in Frunze's
opinion, a revising of the principles of military strategy. A war tests all
the economic and political foundations of the belligerents. "In being
expressed in the language of strategy, this means a transition from a strategy
of quick, decisive strikes to a strategy of attrition."(17) Into this
basically correct conclusion Frunze subsequently injected a correction
stemming from the class nature of future wars. For such wars there need not
be an absolute abandonment of a strategy of lightning strikes by our
opponents. On the contrary, the stronger the exacerbation of class
contradictions in the enemy camp the greater the probability that they would
bet precisely on such a strategy. Completely possible is the use of this
strategy by world capitalism toward us in order to achieve victory in the
shortest time by a decisive blow and by the massing of enormous resources.
We, continued M. V. Frunze, should be ready to oppose such a strategy by
carrying out first of all our own "strategy of lightning attacks." Regardless
of the fact that the Soviet Republic has many enemies, they would not be able
to crush it in this manner. For this reason, the strugg1B under a
conditions would be.p_rot ed.
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In this context one cannot help but recall that Nazi Germany, having initiated
World War II, wagered precisely on a "lightning" war and even was successful
in defeating Poland and France and capturing a number of other European
states. But in the war with the Soviet Union, as had been predicted
remarkably by M. V. Frunze, this strategy failed. The war assumed an
unprecedentedly fierce and protracted nature and ended with the complete
defeat of the Hitler coalition.
M. V. Frunze considered that, in contrast to World War I which had a
predominantly a positional nature, a future war would assume completely
different forms. In analyzing the reasons for the positional nature of World
War I, he concluded that "the positional stalemate was established on the
basis of the impotence of the conflicting sides to find a solution by a direct
mass strike.
"On the other hand, the objective conditions in the form of limited territory
and very rich equipment, made it possible for each side, having abandoned a
quick solution, to go over to the defensive on immobile positions."(18)
Armed conflict between two sociopolitical systems with the mass employment of
modern combat equipment will establish conditions to escape from the
positional blind alley. A future war will basically be of a highly fluid
nature. But this does not exclude that active, highly fluid operations will
be combined in individual periods with positional forms of armed combat, ,f, or
suck gful operational-?~trategi.c maneuvering is inconceivable without the
broad use of positional forms of fi
~__ on certain particularly important
liner: Frunze criticized the assertions of those who assumed that a
positional war is in contradiction with the main principles of proletarian
strategy. He proceeded from the fact that our strategy should skillfully and
flexibly employ various forms of conducting armed combat, depending upon the
specific situational conditions.
In the mid-1920's, the most acute disputes arose over the question of what
strategy was more suitable for the Red Army: a "strategy of destruction" or a
"strategy of starvation" or would a combination of these be possible in a
single war? Here by a "strategy of destruction" they understood a desire for
decisive victories by the destructive annihilation of enemy personnel and the
achieving of the war's aims in a single push. Even the successively conducted
operations were viewed as a single whole; a general engagement was not
considered one of the acts of a war but rather assumed independent
significance. The main features of the "strategy of destruction" were the
rectilinearity of actions, speed and massing of the attack.
The "strategy of starvation" consisted in gradually wearing down and weakening
the enemy in political, economic and military terms; here the destruction of
its personnel was viewed only as a part of the task of the armed front. It
was assumed that the "strategy of starvation" should combine the successive
carrying out of limited missions with flexible maneuvering tactics for
creating conditions and the necessary superiority to make the final attack.
As a whole the "strategy of starvation" was designed to avoid decisive clashes
with the enemy and achieve limited strategic goals.
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Such a division of strategy into two types depending upon the methods employed
in armed combat was unscientific and contradicted the dialectical approach to
the question of the multiplicity of forms of combat. A. A. Svechin, for
example, in laying out the essence of these types of strategy in his works,
defended the "strategy of starvation" and denied the possibility of employing
the "strategy of starvation" and the "strategy of destruction" in a single
war. "It would be wrong," he wrote, "to understand destruction and attrition
as aspects which can exist simultaneously in combat."(19)
Certain military writers and military workers felt that M. V. Frunze was a
supporter of the "strategy of starvation." However, A. Golubev in the book
"M. V. Frunze o kharaktere budushchey voyny"(20) correctly shows that such a
view does not correspond to the essence of the strategic views of Frunze who
never was the supporter of any one type of strategic actions. The view of
M. V. Frunze was as follows: it is essential to ready the nation and the
Armed Forces for a protracted and intense war with the mobilizing of all
forces and capabilities, considering when necessary the employment of "methods
of attrition," but the strategic tasks in the course of the war would be
carried out relying chiefly on a destructive defeat of the enemy.
Proceeding from the "strategy of starvation" or the "strategy of destruction,"
the principles of maneuverability or positional warfare, different views also
evolved on the employment of the basic types of strategic actions in a war,
that is, offensive or defensive. To what should preference be given, in
relying on either concept, in working out strategic plans and organizing the
Armed Forces and in what spirit should the personnel be trained and
indoctrinated, in an offensive or defensive one?
A. I. Verkhovskiy was one of the supporters of the defensive method of action
and he, in confusing different concepts--a defensive war in the political
sense and the defensive as a type of military operation--showed that the
defensive provides the greatest advantages, making it possible to accumulate
force. He even asserted that in the aims of winning it was politically "more
advantageous for us in the first battles to yield Minsk and Kiev than take
Belostok and Brest."(21) In his opinion, the strong would choose Cannae and
the weak Poltava.
Certain military theorists supported the other extreme viewpoint. Thus,
N. Kakurin totally denied the possibility of employing defensive forms of
armed combat, asserting that "the entire experience of a positional war can
only be of historical significance for us."(22)
A majority of the leading military personnel who had gone through the
experience of the Civil War repudiated a purely defensive strategy. They
supported the instructions of V. I. Lenin who said that we would be not only
stupid but also criminals if we gave our pledge to wage only a defensive
war.(23) At the same time, proceeding from the need for a skillful
combination of different forms of combat, V. I. Lenin pointed out that "in
world history there have not been any wars which began or ended with a
complete victorious offensive or they existed only as an exception."(24)
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M. V. Frunze posed this question in the following manner: "Should we rest on
the idea of a passive defense for the nation, without posing and without
pursuing any active missions, or should we also bear these latter in mind?
Depending upon one or another solution to this question of military policy,
the entire nature of the organizational development of our armed forces is
determined as well as the nature and system of training the individual
fighters and large troop formations...."(25) And he answered this question
quite definitely: the Soviet Union is not thinking about any predatory wars
and politically all our desires come down to ensuring the peace. But this
does not mean that in the event of aggression against us the Red Army should
fight only defensively. "I personally belong," he said, "among those who do
not agree with... attitudes and views giving preference to the defensive....
Even Marx in his pamphlet on the Civil War in France said that an offensive is
the best type of defensive."(26) He was firmly convinced that only an
offensive could provide a final defeat of the enemy. The side would be
victorious which found in itself the determination to advance; the side which
merely defended itself was inevitably doomed to defeat. With other conditions
being equal, an offensive is always better than the defensive; the defensive
is aimed at readying conditions for going over to the offensive.
At a meeting of military delegates of the 11th Party Congress, K. Ye.
Voroshilov strongly supported Frunze on this question. He condemned passive
defensive views as harmful and inadmissible attitudes for our army must not be
indoctrinated in fear of the enemy. He urged us to instill in all the
personnel confidence in their forces and the capacity to advance.
M. V. Frunze in many of his works emphasized that the Red Army operations
should be permeated with active, offensive zeal, have a decisive nature and
not be limited to repelling enemy attacks. At the same time he explained that
in the given instance it is a question of the general focus of military
doctrine and military strategy and not one of recognizing the offensive as the
only possible type of strategic operations. In asserting that the offensive
should be the main type of combat operations of the Red Army, he not only
recognized the validity of the defensive and retreat, but also emphasized that
success in a war could be achieved only by the skillful and rational
combination of various forms and methods of operations depending upon the
specific situational conditions. Here there should be no routine or
dogmatism.
Activity and offensiveness provide greater advantages but they must not be
turned into an end in themselves. In referring to the experience of the Civil
War, Frunze cautioned: "...At times this activity of ours, in exceeding its
bounds, bordered on the inability to consider the data of the specific
situation of the present and not recognize the danger of extreme risk."(27)
In the report "Military-Political Indoctrination of the Red Army" he developed
this idea: "In our midst," he said, "there are persons who feel that in
accepting the principle of maneuverability, we can completely dismiss
everything involved with so-called positional warfare.... Such a conclusion,
of course, is the greatest confusion and fraught with great danger for the Red
Army. Such a brazen and abrupt opposing of these principles is completely
incorrect. No war even the most fluid has been able to dispense with elements
of positional warfare. The very support of a maneuver in a certain situation
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and under certain conditions requires the employment of positional
procedures."(28)
"...A situation can always arise," explained M. V. Frunze further, "whereby a
retreat is inevitable or is even necessary and useful. For this reason our
Red Commanders should instill in themselves and their subordinates the view of
a retreat as one of the aspects in the general course of offensive operations.
A retreat can be essential to create a better situation for preparing a new
and decisive offensive. Here one must take into account the essence of the
matter and not external forms. One must consider the main goal of the
operation."(29)
Many supporters of defensive actions based their judgments on the fact that
the increased technical equipping of the armies, as was the case in World
War I, inevitably would lead to extended positional forms of armed combat.
The fluid nature of combat operations in the Civil War were explained by them
by the comparatively poor equipping of the troops with combat equipment.
M. V. Frunze convincingly showed that with a more profound analysis of the
essence of the question, the situation is quite the reverse. The going over
to more active and fluid methods of operations was linked by him primarily to
the increased technical equipping of modern armies. In his mind in a future
major war there would not be that fixed line of the front which had occurred
in World War I. Even by the end of the imperialist war, technology had made
colossal headway and after the end of the war this process had been noticeably
accelerated.
The rapid development of aviation, machinery, chemical and other special
weapons had led to a situation where a solid, fixed line of a front would be
impossible over any significant length and over any extended time. Conditions
would appear for breaking through into the enemy rear and attacking its bases.
Frunze was persuaded that the equipping of the troops with modern technology
would play the crucial role in the outcome of the operations. Precisely this
circumstance also determined the quality of the soldier, as only economically
developed countries could produce a soldier who was up to the level of modern
requirements, as well as the weapons and military equipment determining the
possibility of maneuvering warfare. In an economically backward country with
poorly developed means of communications the maneuvering ability of an army
would be extremely low.
For the success of strategic operations in the Civil War of important
significance were not only the correct determining of the chief danger and the
shifting of the entire Republic's efforts to another theater of military
operations and which assumed crucial significance at a certain stage in the
war, but also the decisive concentration of men and weapons on the axis of the
main thrust in accord with the plan for each specific operation. V. I. Lenin
pointed out that it was essential "at the crucial moment and at the crucial
point to have a predominant superiority of forces as this was the 'law' of
military successes...."(30)
This Leninist thesis was always considered by M. V. Frunze in his activities
as a military leader as well as in his theoretical works. While commander of
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the Southern Group of the Eastern Front, in an area of a little more than
200 km he concentrated 49,000 bayonets and sabers, 152 guns, leaving 22,500
bayonets and sabers and 70 guns on the remaining front of around 700 km in
length. He also carried out the same decisive concentration of basic efforts
on the main axis in defeating major enemy groupings in routing the Orsk White
Guard Grouping in the area of the Turkestan Front and during the operations of
the Southern Front to defeat Wrangel. In these operations the main thrusts
were made, as a rule, on sectors comprising not more than 20-25 percent of the
total length of the front. The remaining sectors were covered by
insignificant forces.
In analyzing the experience of the war, M. V. Frunze, using examples of
successful and unsuccessful operations, showed how with an overall shortage of
men and weapons it was difficult to concentrate efforts on the main sector,
what great art this required, what enormous risk one must take and how much
courage and firmness one must show to carry out the idea in determining and
making the main thrust. Precisely as a consequence of the fact that the
principle of the decisive massing of men and weapons on the main sector was
not fully carried out, we did not achieve our goals in the offensive of the
Southern Front in August 1919 and the breakthrough of the Western Front in May
1920.
Other important principles of military art which were constantly defended and
carried out by M. V. Frunze were the continuity and rapidity of the offensive,
the constant holding of initiative and the activity of combat operations,
without permitting an indiscriminate offensive here. For this reason in the
course of an offensive he demanded that new assault groups be created so as to
constantly increase the effort and continue to launch attacks against the
enemy until it was completely defeated. He gave important significance to the
continuous pursuit of the enemy in order not to allow it to dig in on
intermediary lines. Frunze considered as the most effective method of
countering enemy counterstrikes the use of preemptive active operations to
thwart the concentration of enemy counterstrike groupings and the destruction
of these piecemeal.
In studying the experience of World War I and the Civil War, M. V. Frunze
concluded that for achieving the goals of a war, several campaigns would have
to be carried out while a series of successive operations would have to be
carried out to fulfill the missions of a strategic operation and to fully
defeat the enemy grouping in the theater of military operations. As is known,
in the course of the strategic offensive from the Volga to the Urals during
the period from April through July 1919, the Buguruslan, Belebey, Ufa,
Zlatoust and Chelyabinsk Operations were carried out to a total depth of up to
1,000 km. Here the fronts advanced in zones from 500-600 to 1,000-1,500 km;
armies from 200 to 300-400 km. The offensive operations were carried out over
a period of several months. M. V. Frunze assumed that operations in a future
war would be marked by as much scope. But in a clash of armies equipped with
a large amount of technology, for successfully conducting operations it would
be necessary to significantly increase the density of men and weapons. This,
in turn, would lead to an increased number of fronts and armies for carrying
out strategic missions on the major theaters of military operations.
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M. V. Frunze viewed the defensive not only as a requisite type of strategic
actions but also as one of the methods for saving forces to concentrate them
on the crucial sectors. Without employing the defensive on other areas of a
strategic front, it was impossible to ensure success of the offensive
operations on the main sectors. A defensive could also be employed in the
course of a strategic offensive operation as was the case on the Eastern Front
in the spring of 1919, when the troops in the center of the front conducted a
counteroffensive while the troops positioned on the flanks supported it by
conducting defensive combat operations. Defensive operations should also have
an active, decisive nature and be carried out with the wide employment of the
maneuvering of men and weapons and the launching of counterstrikes.
M. V. Frunze considered the guarantee for success of both offensive and
defensive operations to be the broad employment of different forms of
operational-strategic maneuver to attack one or both enemy flanks coming out
in the rear of its main grouping. In the offensive by the Turkestan Front, he
skillfully combined a deep divisive attack on a strategic scale with flank
attacks in carrying out individual operational missions and this led to the
encirclement and destruction of superior enemy forces, for example, in the
region of Orsk and Aktyubinsk.
Frunze gave great importance to breaking through the enemy defenses and to
developing a tactical success into an operational one by the massed employment
of infantry, artillery and cavalry on the main sectors. This was most visibly
expressed in the operations to defeat the Wrangel troops in 1920.
With the coming of M. V. Frunze to the People's Commissariat for Military and
Naval Affairs, a start was made to a thorough examination of the initial
period of a possible future war and to elaborating theoretical and practical
questions concerning the planning of the war and operations as well as
mobilizational work.
In the 1920's, in defining the content of the initial period of a future war,
they proceeded from the experience of World War I, in understanding by this
the period from the moment of the declaration of war and general mobilization
to the start of the border engagements of the main forces. The main missions
of this period were considered to be mobilization and strategic deployment of
the troop groupings in the theaters of military operations in accord with the
war plan.
Prior to World War I, mobilization had been understood only as the converting
of the armed forces to a war establishment. In the documents prepared by the
RKKA Staff in 1925 under the leadership of M. V. Frunze, mobilization was
viewed more widely as the converting of not only the army and navy to a
wartime status but also the entire state apparatus and national economy. The
concept of a premobilization period was introduced when, in the event of a
threat of war, a number of preparatory measures would be carried out
increasing mobilizational readiness.
For covering the mobilization and strategic deployment, plans were made to
establish screen troops which would basically consist of cavalry formations
and units reinforced by rifle and engineer units, armored forces, artillery
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and aviation. It was assumed that the cover troops would conduct combat
operations relying on a system of fortresses and fortifications. Also
considered was the possibility of the aborting of mobilization and the
increased length of the initial period of a war as a result of massed enemy
air strikes against the lines of communications and operations by enemy
armored forces. For this reason in the cover system an important role was
assigned to the air forces and air defense units. Considering these views, a
number of new regulations and official documents were worked out and
introduced.
For the commanders and field headquarters of the armies and fronts, in 1924,
M. V. Frunze approved the official manual "Vyssheye komandovaniye" [Higher
Command]; in 1925, the Provisional Field Manual (Parts 1 and 2); in 1926,
there was published the Regulation on Techniques for Working Out the
Operational Part of a War Plan prepared with his participation and which
defined the content and methods of strategic planning. Upon the initiative of
M. V. Frunze work was also initiated to work out Part 3 of the RKKA Field
Manual which was to set out the principles of the operational activities of a
front and the fleet, but this work remained incomplete.
Certainly, these regulation documents express not only the personal views of
M. V. Frunze; they were a reflection of the collective reason of the leading
military personnel in the Red Army. In particular, M. N. Tukhachevskiy was
the chairman of the commission for working out the Provisional Field Manual
and its membership included B. M. Shaposhnikov with S. S. Kamanev, A. I.
Yegorov, R. P. Eydeman and other military figures taking an active part. But
one must also consider the circumstance that M. V. Frunze not merely approved
the official documents but took an active personal part in working them out,
he went deeply into all the wordings and himself directly dictated or worked
out certain fundamental concepts.
M. V. Frunze assumed that, in being guided by a political goal, strategic
planning should split a war into periods and campaigns, designating by these
concepts a sequence of strategic actions. Strategy should determine what
enemies must be defeated in what sequence, what strategic operations must be
carried out for this, what men and weapons should be employed, it should set
the missions for the fronts and branches of troops and determine the procedure
of their cooperation and all-round support of the operations.
The Regulation on Techniques for Working Out the Operational Part of a War
Plan stated that this part of the plan should be aimed at studying and working
out all questions related to carrying out the operational concepts of the RKKA
High Command for achieving the strategic aims of the war in the event of a
clash with our probable enemies. The operational part of the plan should
include particular plans for: strategic deployment of the Armed Forces
envisaging the establishing of fronts and individual armies on the appropriate
strategic and operational sectors; strategic movements to concentrate the
armed forces in the theater of military operations; initial operations of the
operational army; operational deployment of the troops within each front and
individual army; support for the army in terms of communications, engineer,
chemical and air defense, military lines of communications, supply for the
operational army both during the mobilization and concentration period as well
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as for the immediate operation; medical and veterinary services and supply of
military topographic maps.
The staffs of the border military districts were instructed to work out plans
for the operational deployment of the front, for covering the mobilization and
concentration and for supporting the operation.
M. V. Frunze took into account different variations for the initiating of a
war by the enemy. He foresaw that "such cities as Odessa, Kiev, Minsk and
Leningrad will be the first objects of attack for an air enemy...."(31) At
the same time, the enemy ground forces and naval forces could begin an
invasion. Enemy aggression should first be met by the army on aqtive service
and the size of this was set by him at approximately 1.7 million men. Such an
army, according to his calculations, could cover the mobilizing and deployment
of all the Red Army forces. The actions of the cover army should have a
decisive and fluid nature. In line with this particularly responsible and
active missions were entrusted to the cavalry for this period. Frunze drew
attention to the circumstance that "our disposition, our vastness, the
weakness of transport and a whole series of other factors force us to conclude
that we will have to gain a rather large interval of time in order to prepare
for a war. The nature of our operations during this period can be varied. It
can be both defensive-and offensive. But this is a question of the future,
a question of the situation, and depends upon how we determine to employ the
cover army."(32) From this followed an important conclusion: the actions of
the Red Army at the outset of the war should be planned for ahead of time and
worked out both in an offensive and defensive version. However, on the eve of
World War II this was not fully taken into account in the practices of
strategic planning.
The elaboration of the questions of strategic reconnaissance, the covering and
strategic deployment of the Armed Forces, the establishing of reserves and
material supplies and the preparation of the theaters of military operations
were also considered by M. V. Frunze to be major tasks in the theory of
military strategy. He devoted a great deal of attention to the coordinated
employment of the Armed Services and to the organizing of cooperation between
them. In examining all problems of strategy, he demanded a close study of the
probable enemies, including their strategic goals, the particular features of
organizational development and the possible composition of the armed forces,
economic and moral potentials, the possible methods of conducting armed combat
and the equipping of the theaters of military operations.
Questions of control and support of strategic operations. M. V. Frunze was
closely concerned with the questions of organizing strategic leadership over
the Armed Forces and the questions of troop command and control. He rightly
felt that leadership in a modern war as a whole is the prerogative of the
military-political leadership and the government. Successful leadership of
the Armed Forces is possible considering not only the military but also the
economic and political conditions for waging war.
In investigating this problem, Frunze relied on the experience gained in the
course of World War I and the Civil War. Even World War I had clearly shown a
tendency toward centralization of state and military leadership in wartime.
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In the Soviet Republic, by the Decree of 15 (28) January 1918 on the Founding
of the RKKA, the SNK headed by V. I. Lenin was stated to be its superior
leading body. Direct leadership and control over the army was provided by the
People's Commissariat for Military Affairs (later for Military and Naval
Affairs) and the All-Russian Military Collegium for the Forming of the Red
Army which was established under the Commissariat. In March 1918, for
leadership over all military operations a Superior Military Council was
established consisting of three persons (a leader and two political
commissars); in March the council included the people's commissars for
military and naval affairs. In May 1918, in the place of the All-Russian
Military Collegium for the Formation of the Red Army the All-Russian Main
Staff was established and this was subordinate to the People's Commissariat
for Military affairs. For leadership of the troops in the theaters of
military operations, commencing in June 1918, headquarters of the fronts were
organized headed by the RVS of the fronts; RVS also existed in the armies.
The Higher Military Council as the body of higher military control, under
conditions when military operations had to be directed simultaneously on
several fronts, clearly could not carry out its tasks. The parallel existence
of the Operations Section of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs
and the Operations Headquarters of the All-Russian Main Staff had a negative
impact as these often issued contradictory orders to the troops.
Many party and military workers both in the center and on the fronts acutely
felt the lack of centralized military command and voiced various proposals to
improve leadership of combat on the fronts. In August 1918, N. I. Podvoyskiy
and A. I. Yegorov submitted proposals on this question to the Higher Military
Council and the SNK. In particular, A. I. Yegorov presented to V. I. Lenin a
report with the proposal to establish a Supreme High Command. He wrote: "The
experience of the millenia has shown the necessity and possibility of
controlling the affairs of a war, in a word, that the general should be
provided with complete aid. Only a single will can control the operations and
under the influence of different albeit useful advice, this always loses its
clarity and certainty and the bodies led by it will act uncertainly. The
consistent implementation of the same idea corresponding to a given situation
sooner leads to the aim than the constant compiling of new plans; the
contradictory orders which are inevitable in the latter instance influence the
confidence and force of the troops....
"On the Higher Military Council the 'pros' and 'contras' are backed up with
such strong irrefutable data that one opinion is destroyed by the other and as
a result the question is stymied. With such a system any independence, any
rapid decision and any bold risk would be destroyed and without these no war
can be conducted."(33)
Considering this and other opinions, changes were incorporated in the
organization of the higher military leadership bodies. In September 1918, the
Republic Revolutionary Military Council was established by a decree of the
VTsIK [All-Russian Central Executive Committee] as the higher command body of
the Red Army (the Higher Military Council was abolished). It was also given
the functions and rights of the Collegium of the People's Commissariat for
Military Affairs. At the same time, the position of commander-in-chief of all
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the Armed Forces was introduced and he was to lead the ground and naval forces
comprising the operational army. The Field Headquarters of the Republic RVS
was established for ensuring leadership of the troops and forces. At the same
time, the All-Russian High Staff was kept and it was basically to be concerned
with the questions of manning the troops, establishing new formations and
combat training.
All these bodies were to work under the leadership of the RKP(b) Central
Committee. In the Decree of the Party Central Committee "On the Policy of the
Military Department" (December 1918) it was stated that "the policy of the
military department, like all the other departments and institutions, is
carried out on the precise basis of the general directives issued by the party
in the form of its Central Committee and under its direct control."(34)
In the aims of uniting the activities of all the bodies of the Soviet state to
defend the victories of the revolution, in November 1918, under the
chairmanship of V. I. Lenin, the Council of Worker and Peasant Defense was
established as the superior body for directing national defense. Such a
system of strategic leadership, in undergoing minor changes, existed until the
end of the Civil War. With the broadening of economic functions and the
involvement of the armies liberated from military operations in rebuilding the
national economy, the Council of Worker and Peasant Defense in April 1920 was
transformed into the Labor and Defense Council (STO).
After the Civil War, in November 1923, the tasks and functions of the military
department was adjusted. The Republic RVS was merged with the Collegium of
the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs. At the same time,
the position of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces was kept as the head of
all the land and naval forces. He possessed independence in resolving
operational-strategic questions within the limits of the directives and
instructions of the higher authorities.
M. V. Frunze, in analyzing this experience of organizing and providing
strategic leadership, concluded that as a whole it had proven effective and
approximately the same structure should be kept for a future war. "In this
area," he said, "we, undoubtedly, must continue working further."(35) He gave
particular significance to the party's leading role over the entire system of
military organizational development, to the unity of political and military
leadership and to coordinating the carrying out of defense and national
economic tasks under the leadership of the STO. Only under this condition,
Frunze felt, could one ensure a close interaction of the front and rear, the
military and civilian organizations, and with maximum effectiveness utilize
all the economic, moral and military capabilities of the state. M. V. Frunze
assumed that after the Civil War, it would be advisable to turn the STO into a
body of economic leadership. Defense questions should be examined in a new
body, a new council, which, like the STO, would possess the appropriate rights
and be directly under the Union SNK.
As for the structure of the military department, Frunze felt that it required
a substantial adjustment both for peacetime and for wartime. This was
reflected in the measures of the 1924-1925 military reform carried out upon
the decision and under the leadership of the party Central Committee. The
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position of commander-in-chief for peacetime was eliminated. There was no
doubt that this position was required for wartime and its introduction was
envisaged, however it was not determined who specifically would assume this in
the event of war.
The RKKA Staff underwent a thorough reorganization and this, in the opinion of
M. V. Frunze, was to concentrate its main efforts on carrying out state
defense tasks as well as operational-strategic and mobilizational questions.
The staff was to encompass the activities of all the Armed Services and
because of this all the bodies which performed the above-listed functions in
other directorates (air force, navy) were turned over to the RKKA Staff. The
RKKA Staff was freed from the duties of directing the daily life and combat
training of the troops, their manning and supply. The carrying out of these
tasks was assigned to the RKKA Main Directorate, the supply of the Armed
Forces with all types of supplies to the RKKA Supply Directorate. The
directorates of the navy and air forces were to be concerned with the
particular question of their own Armed Services (special training for the
personnel, combat training and special supply).
In resolving organizational questions related to the military department,
differences of opinion arose primarily over the puspose and functions of the
RKKA Staff (in actual terms, the general staff). The words "general staff"
evoked mistrust and were often employed in a disrespectful sense; the
necessity of such a body was generally disputed. Even those who assumed the
possibility of the existence of a general staff represented it not in the form
of a creative and organizing body but as a technical executive body of the RVS
or as a "field office of the High Command" which would not possess directive
rights. It was said that directive functions were inherent only to a
bourgeois general staff.
The dissemination of these views was brought about by the influence of leftist
elements who denied the succession of proletarian culture and its link with
the previous experience and culture. As is known, V. I. Lenin belittled the
unsound denying of the names of old institutions in establishing new Soviet
organizations and sharply criticized those who sought "that there was not a
single bit of the old in it (the new institution.--M. G.)."(36)
A broad discussion was held on the question of whether a general staff was
needed.(37) A. A. Svechin and certain other military specialists, in
excessively exaggerating the role of the general staff in providing unity of
actions for the entire military organism, endeavored to entrust to it those
tasks which comprised the functions of the military-political leadership.
A.Sedyakin, in correctly criticizing this twist, at the same time raised a
further question by stating: "For the Red Army such an organization for
'ensuring' a unity of goal and action is clearly inapplicable and useless.
A. A. Svechin has 'looked through' our military organization of the VKP(b),
and has overlooked the ordered and dependable system of party political
leadership over the army.... For this reason, we cannot pose the question of
strategic leadership through the General Staff in the same way as Svechin
does."(38) In principle this was correct and in actuality the problem of
strategic leadership could not be approached in isolation from the tasks of
political leadership, as certain old military specialists had endeavored to
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do. But this did not mean that it was possible to dispense with a general
staff or that a general staff, in working under the leadership of the Party
Central Committee, should not take up military-political questions. The issue
was that the questions of political leadership of armed combat could not be
entrusted to the general staff.
P. P. Lebedev in the book "Gosudarstvennaya oborona" [State Defense] (certain
ideas in this have not lost their pertinence under present-day conditions) as
a whole correctly posed the questions of the need to establish under the
superior state bodies a special apparatus for preparing national defense (the
Secretariat under the ST O as a working apparatus on defense questions and the
Mobilization Committee under the Gosplan, or independently).(39) But without
sufficient grounds he proposed turning over many important functions of the
general staff to these civilian bodies, not considering that they could not
correctly be resolved in isolation from the strategic plans.
The most sound line on this question was expressed by M. V. Frunze in the
theses "The Reorganization of the Red Army" prepared for the Tenth RKP(b)
Congress. He felt it necessary to have the general staff participate in the
elaborating of military doctrine and propose: with the forthcoming
realization of the Red Army, this question should be particularly taken into
account and an actual opportunity should be established of turning the army's
'brain,' its general staff, into a military-theoretical staff of the
proletarian state. One of the ways to do this should be:, a) the immediate
incorporation of the most prominent military-political workers as members of
the general staff; b) a revival of the activities of the institution of the
general staff and c) a change in the methods for training future military
leaders by combining elements of a broad general scientific education with
purely military training ..... (40)
M. V. Frunze emphasized that the elaboration of operational-strategic and
mobilizational plans should be carried out considering the real political,
economic and military capabilities of the Soviet state. An increase in the
operational-strategic role of the R K K A Staff was also essential because it
should be, in his opinion, "not only the brain of the Red Army, it should
become the military brain of all our Soviet state and should provide that
material which lies at the basis of the work done by the Defense Council."(41)
Thus, according to the views of M. V. Frunze, the general staff was primarily
the "brain of the army," the military-theoretical staff of the state, and it
should focus its main efforts at carrying out precisely these tasks. M. V.
Frunze constantly carried out a line of the greatest possible increase in the
role of the general staff in military scientific work and in directly
elaborating the most important military-theoretical problems. For this
purpose, in 1925, within the R K K A Staff a Directorate for Studying and
Utilizing the Experience of the War was established (subsequently the Military
Scientific Directorate of the General Staff); this carried out major work in
this area, creating a good amount of material for the further development of
military-theoretical thought.
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These ideas concerning the general staff subsequently underwent further
development and profound and thorough elaboration in the remarkable and
scientifically unique work by B. M. Shaposhnikov "Mozg armii" [The Brain of
the Army]. In analyzing the work of the general staffs of a number of armies
on the eve of World War I and during the war, B. M. Shaposhnikov viewed the
general staff as the main body involved in the command of the armed forces and
providing unity to the entire military organism and linking it with the
remaining elements of the state machine.
The effective work of the general staff depended largely upon the position
held by the chief of the general staff in the overall system of military
command and control. In wartime he, as a rule, shifted to the position of the
chief of staff of headquarters and was the main figure through whom the most
important military questions were resolved. Because of this in peacetime
precisely the chief of the general staff carried out all the work related to
the preparations for a war, including for the future supreme commander-in-
chief. For successfully carrying out these tasks it was considered necessary
to observe two basic conditions: in the first place, the chief of the general
staff should have the right of resolving the appropriate operational-strategic
and organizational questions; secondly, in being subordinate in peacetime to
the defense minister, he at the same time should be able to turn directly to
the person assigned for wartime to the position of supreme commander-in-chief
on the most important questions related to the planning and preparation for
the war. In analyzing the activities of the military departments of a number
of states, B. M. Shaposhnikov convincingly showed that it was impossible to
properly prepare for a war and ensure effective command of the armed forces
with the outset of a war, if the general staff and its chief were restricted
in their actions in peacetime and not granted the appropriate rights.
With a slight exaggeration he wrote that "the change of a chief of the general
staff actually is a new age in a state's military preparation, since while
individuals do not create history, they still leave a trace in the latter by
their activities and it would be a bad thing if each of them endeavored to
find new ways to prepare for a war, forgetting the paths trod by his
predecessor."(42)
The proposals of B. M. Shaposhnikov raised the question of increasing the
role, authority and training level of not only the general staff but also the
other command bodies and primarily the staffs of all levels. He wrote: "A
staff worker is that line commander who according to our regulations remains
the deputy commander in the event of his loss.... He is not some special
breed of man who with a pen behind his ear, as he was previously shown in
pictures, smartly writes out decisions on good paper. Under present-day
conditions without a smooth-working staff, it is impossible to think of good
troop command."(43) He placed high demands on the staff officers, paying
particular attention to a profound knowledge of the job, constant contact with
the troops, efficiency, professionalism, initiative, activity in work and
humility (in his apt expression, one must "be more than one seems").
However, the scientifically sound proposals of B. M. Shaposhnikov concerning
the role of the general staff in the system of the Armed Forces and staff
service as a whole in practical work were not always fully taken into account
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and this caused definite difficulties in the activities of not only the RKKA
Staff (General Staff) itself, but also in the entire People's Commissariat of
Defense and the command bodies in the troops. M. N. Tukhachevskiy (1925-1928)
and B. M. Shaposhnikov (1928-1931) both encountered this in heading the RKKA
Staff. They worked constantly to turn the RKKA Staff into a viable command
body of the Armed Forces.
But it was impossible to achieve this for all the questions. Moreover, during
the prewar years the frequent replacement of the chiefs of the RKKA Staff
(General Staff) had a negative effect on the work of the main command body of
the Armed Forces.
As a whole, during the prewar years the RKKA Staff (General Staff) carried out
great fruitful work in the area of strategic planning and the preparation of
the theaters of military operations and took an active part in carrying out
other tasks involved in the command and control of the Armed Forces. At the
same time, the RKKA Staff (General Staff) and the staffs of the military
districts did not pay sufficient attention to the questions of the combat and
mobilizational readiness of the troops and to the operational training of the
command bodies and there were also individual instances of a biased attitude
toward the staffs.
The concern of certain military leaders about the danger of an "excessive
exaggeration" of the role and importance of the RKKA Staff in the system of
higher military command was unjustified, for in the Soviet state all the
military command bodies always worked under the leadership of the party
Central Committee, the Soviet government, under the direct leadership of the
people's commissar of defense and on the basis of their directives and
instructions.
The questions of organizing troop command were of fundamental significance not
only for the General Staff. In essence it was a question of the role and
place of the staffs in the system of command and control of the troops and
naval forces. Were the staffs to be the basic bodies of command through which
troop leadership was essentially provided or were they to be office-type
executive bodies without directive and valid control functions? These two
fundamentally different approaches long made themselves felt. But the severe
test of the war showed that the first of these was the only correct approach
and was enacted in legislation not only in our Armed Forces but in all the
basic armies of the world.
This derives objectively from the nature of modern warfare. Troop command and
control in the preparation and conduct of operations and combat actions have
become an exceptionally complicated matter. The number and scope of questions
which must be encompassed simultaneously have risen and the time for resolving
them has become less and less. The very process and conditions of activities
for troop command and control have become more difficult, particularly with
the abrupt and unexpected changes in the situation.
Under such conditions the importance of one-man command and the role of
commanders in the process of troop command and control not only are not
reduced but increased further. But precisely because of the increased
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personal responsibility of the commanders and the importance of the prompt and
effective taking of decisions and their organizational activity to carry out
the set tasks, staffs are needed which are creative, viable command bodies and
capable of ensuring precise, close control of the troops and, consequently,
the fullest and most effective manifestation of one-man command.
During the Great Patriotic War the harsh reality of combat forced a sharp
rise in the role of the staffs in the overall system of the command and
control of the Armed Forces. Military practice cruelly punished those who
ignored this objective pattern manifested in the processes of troop command.
With good reason, by the end of the Great Patriotic War the chiefs of staffs
on all levels had become the first deputy commanders; only they were given the
right to issue orders to the troops and persons directly subordinate to the
commanders in the name of the commanders. Such a position in the system of
troop command and control had not only been earned by the staffs and chiefs of
staffs but also, it can be said, during the war they had endured with their
commanders. Precisely this also explains the circumstance that our best
generals and commanders, following the example of M. V. Frunze, were always
concerned for the development and training of their staffs.
As a whole, the structure worked out in 1924-1925 for the central apparatus of
the military department was subsequently to prove effective. Particularly
farsighted were the theoretical views and practical activity of M. V. Frunze
in providing unified leadership over all the Armed Forces by the people's
commissariat, in increasing the role of the RKKA Staff as the main command
body of the Armed Forces and in concentrating its main efforts on the
questions of strategic and operational planning, mobilizational deployment and
the establishing of mobilization reserves, determining the scope of the needs
of the army and navy, equipping the theaters of military operations, in
organizing command and carrying out other measures related to preparing the
Armed Forces for war.
Such a direction in the work of the RKKA Staff was also basically considered
in transforming it into the General Staff in September 1935. However, as
subsequent practice was to show, the removing of the questions of the
organizational structure and the manning of the Armed Forces firmed the RKKA
Staff (General Staff) in a number of instances led to insufficient
coordination of measures on these questions and to a resolving of them in
isolation from the operational-strategic tasks.
M. V. Frunze did a great deal to explain, concretize and carry out the ideas
of V. I. Lenin and our party concerning the importance and role of the rear in
a modern war. V. I. Lenin, in pointing to the importance of a strong and
organized rear for the conduct of a war, by the rear in the broad sense of the
word understood the entire state, its social and economic system, the policy
of the ruling parties and governments, the relationships between classes
within the state, production capabilities, the state of transport, the
dominant ideology and the moral state of the people. "The link between our
nation's military organization and all its economic and cultural system,"
wrote Lenin in 1905, "has never been as close as at present."(44)
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V. I. Lenin not only theoretically elaborated the questions of the economic
support for a war but also directly led the replenishing of personnel and the
supply of weapons and materiel for all the major operations of the Red Army
during the period of the Civil War. These questions gained concrete
expression in many party documents written by him (for example, the "Theses of
the RKP(b) Central Committee in Line With the Situation of the Eastern Front"
and "Everyone Into the Struggle Against Denikin") which not only defined the
main threat and the main direction where the basic efforts of the party and
the Soviet state had to be concentrated but also provided specific
instructions on the economic and political-moral support for the major
strategic operations.
M. V. Frunze in the works "The Front and Rear in a War of the Future," "The
Red Army and the Communications Workers" and others consistently carried out
the notion that the state of the rear is the crucial factor in a modern war; a
strong rear is one of the most important conditions for the successful waging
of war. Considering the prospects for the development of weapons,
particularly pertinent were the ideas concerning the unity of the front and
rear and the obliteration of the distinctions between them. Frunze emphasized
that "the link of the front with the rear in our days should become much
closer, immediate and crucial. The life and work of the front at each given
moment are determined by the work and the condition of the rear. In this
sense the center of gravity for waging war shifts from the front back to the
rear."(45)
Precisely the rear provides viability to modern armies. With the presence of
an economically and morally strong rear, even with temporary setbacks it is
possible to mobilize all the existing human and material resources, to restore
the battleworthiness of the army and continue the armed struggle. The
material requirements and economic demands of a war have increased
significantly.
The experience of World War I showed that no supplies of weapons and shells
established in peacetime sufficed to conduct military operations. Under the
conditions of the rapid development of technology, the obsolescence of weapons
v was inevitable. For this reason M. V. Frunze considered it ill-advised to
excessively increase the supplies being established, since this entailed
enormous outlays. It was better to invest these funds into establishing
additional production capacity which at the necessary time could be employed
for sharply increasing the production of weapons and military equipment.
Proceeding from this, Frunze concluded that in a modern war the victorious
side would be the one which was able to surpass the enemy in organizing the
economy, in developing science and technology, the side which could produce
more metal, oil and other types of raw materials, the side which would have
the more developed transport system which was of crucial significance to meet
the needs of a war. He did not conceal that this work is unbelievably complex
but it is also essential and feasible. Its carrying out is greatly
facilitated by the state nature of the main sectors of our industry; this is
an enormous advantage of the socialist state over the bourgeois states.(46)
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nze pointed out, "to firmly realize that precisely
in peacetime lasting foundations should be put down for that organization
which will operate in wartime and the work should be done to indoctrinate the
appropriate direction. It is essential to realize that
unions of mobilizing a roops, mobilizing the workers and mobilizing
the national economy are equal in their importance. If we do not have a
previously elaborated and prepared organizational plan r mobilizing the
department and, in particular, the General Staff should
pacesetters in resolving defense questions.
nevitably be con
recognized that this was a task for the superior sta
developed industrial countries. One of the reasons was that the militar
itary
Proceeding from these concepts, Soviet military strategy gave great importance
to the questions of economic support for the war and logistic support for
operations. The experience of previous wars showed the growing importance of
the rear for the successful conduct of strategic operations. The questions of
organizing the rear had to be resolved considering the particular features of
the nature of a future war. M. V. Frunze said that interruptions in the
supply of materiel for the Russian Army arose not only as a consequence of the
backwardness of industry in Tsarist Russia, but they also occurred in the most
The questions of the rear arose with particular urgency in line with the
elaboration of a system of successive operations which had to be carried out
without extended operational pauses and halts. M. V. Frunze drew attention to
the fact that neither the academy course of instruction nor the practical
holding of exercises and military games in the troops paid proper attention to
these questions. In a majority of instances they were worked through in an
extremely superficial manner. And in theoretical terms the problems of the
organizing of the rear had been little examined and elaborated considering the
new nature of a war.
In examining the role of the rear in a modern war, M. V. Frunze commented that
"the experience of the imperialist war provided rich material in this regard.
Our Civil War, in turn, introduced a number of very valuable data stemming
from the particular features of our state's structure. It is to be regretted
that this experience of our has been very little taken up in the appropriate
postwar literature. The work of our supply bodies...in addition to great
historical experience has enormous practical interest.... The works devoted
to the elaboration of this very important question are almost completely
lacking in our country. But this should not continue further. It must be
hoped that the elaboration of these questions had come to hold a suitable
place in our military and civilian press."(48)
In the aims of improving the military-economic and rear training of the
military personnel, M. V. Frunze, in 1924, issued instructions to include the
questions of organizing the rear and supply in the course on strategy. A
supply faculty was established in the same year in the RKKA Military Academy
for a profound scientific elaboration of these questions and for a more
the
neneed tt
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detailed study of them. It was to train highly skilled personnel not only for
the Armed Forces but also for work in the state bodies on the questions of the
military preparation and mobilization of the national economy in the interests
of national defense.
In relying on party documents and Lenin's concepts, M. V. Frunze examined the
questions of the rear from the viewpoint of not only the economic but also the
moral capabilities of the state. In part his views on this question were set
out in the section concerning military doctrine. Here we would merely point
out those aspects of the moral factor which Frunze linked closely with
carrying out the tasks of combat. He first of all considered the Leninist
notion that in the age of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, the masses
of people have the determining impact on the course and outcome of a war.
Their creative activity is most fully apparent and acquires a conscious and
organized nature when they are close to and understand the aims of a war,
particularly a revolutionary, just war. "To so fully symphathize with the
war," said V. I. Lenin, "and understand it on the part of the party and non-
party workers and the non-party peasantry (and the peasantry in their mass are
non-party), no political regime has done this to even a small fraction of
Soviet power. This was the reason why we ultimately conquered a strong
enemy."(49)
M. V. Frunze, in seeing a source of high morale of the masses in the political
and economic system of a nation, pointed out that a war would be waged not for
victories, not for enslaving other peoples, but for defending the victories of
the revolution and the peaceful labor of the Soviet people. He saw our
strength in the fact that in our nation the working class is in power and that
the millions of the peasant masses marched together with the working class.
The October Revolution profoundly stirred the masses of people, raised them up
and sparked awareness and this was the guarantee that the revolution would be
invincible. In the work "The Red Army at the Start of Its Eighth Year of
Existence," he viewed the increased morale and readiness to defend the
victories of the revolution in close relation to the economic successes of the
country and the improved prosperity of the people and the army and navy
personnel.
The moral factor includes the morale of the people and the personnel of the
Armed Forces. Military strategy, in the opinion of M. V. Frunze, should take
into account the moral capabilities of both its own country as well as that of
the enemy precisely in such a complete understanding, relying upon the
conclusions and ideas of political strategy. In reflecting on the influence
of the moral factor on the success of operations, Frunze at the same time
warned that the task of strategy was not only to correctly take into account
moral capabilities but also to help in seeing that the morale of the people
and the men of the Armed Forces was constantly maintained on the proper level
and increased. For this, in addition to well organized party political work,
of exceptionally great importance was the organized preparation and conduct of
the operations and the ensuring of their success. The high organization of
the command and political personnel, the clear command of the troops, without
nervousness and hesitation, and prompt logistic support instilled confidence
and enthusiasm in the troops and helped to increase their combat capabilities.
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In accord with such an understanding of the importance of the rear for the
course and outcome of a war, military strategy should also make provision both
In economic and moral-politics terms_ for measures to disrupt the enemy rear
by launching attacks against it and capturing its most important economic and
political centers as well as ground defense from the land sea anr~ mot? f~? tr,o
main facilities of one's own rear in order to ensur anized and
un n erru a work.
M. V. Frunze considered as a major condition in shaping high army and navy
morale to be the maintaining of vigilence and a constant readiness to come to
the defense of the Soviet Republic and a profound understanding on the part of
all workers of the tasks related to strengthening the nation's defense
capability. "This task can be carried out successfully only when," he said,
"the helmsman of the ship, the communist party, and all the worker-peasant
masses led by it will be imbued with an awareness of the presence of a
constant threat to their situation and will be capable physically and morally
to commence combat at any moment and against any enemy."(50)
Thus, M. V. Frunze had a clear understanding that a war goes beyond armed
combat and encompasses all aspects of politics and all aspects of the life of
the state and the people. Along with armed combat during a war there will
also be a fierce economic, ideological and dinlamatic struaala amnl~,~r,.,s
-ruturve war requires from each Soviet citizen uns in ngness and a feat not
only on the battlefield but also on the labor front.
Under the leadership of M. V. Frunze, the principles were elaborated for
planning and carrying out a strategic service and in 1924 these were set out
in a special manual.(51) The strategic service included the main types of
support for operations: reconnaissance, security, signals, military
transport, supply, manning, medical service, veterinary service, engineering
and the organizing of the civilian rear administration in the theaters of
military operations and in the front area.
This document pointed out that in a war the methods of organizing and
controlling operations are of special significance. At the same time that the
operational aspect of plans can never be uniform and routine, support for the /
operation by the means of command, communications, transport, evacuation and
so forth should have definite standards.
The modern development of technology makes completely feasible the constant
and uninterrupted control of operations and the support of them with
everything necessary. For this reason just as the command and staffs of the
divisions and corps must have a firm knowledge of the equipment of troop
marching, the superior staffs must have a knowledge of the equipment for
moving by rail, water and motor transport, as well as communications, for all
of this is the basis of the strategic maneuver.
A major role was assigned to strategic reconnaiaQang-o
~_---_____ which should promptly
provide the superior command wi-EK Information concerning the enemy army and
navy grouping; the theater of war (natural conditions and materiel) and its_
preparation in military erms; the various military-technical achievements of
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the enemy; the political situation and the economic condition both of the
theater of war as well as the entire territory of the enemy state. The
information gained by strategic reconnaissance should be unconditionally
reliable, since a discrepancy between it and reality can involve the failure
of major operations. For this reason here it is essential to have a
particularly sharp delimitation between absolute reliability and supposition
or probability.
M. V. Frunze demanded that along with the traditional types of reconnaissance,
air reconnaissance be more widely employed as this was capable of quickly
reaching the enemy positions, quickly covering vast areas and rapidly
delivering the reconnaissance information. He felt that strategic
reconnaissance would provide the desired results only when a full coordination
of all its means was ensured. All the types of reconnaissance should
complement one another; moreover, it was recommended that the secured
information be constantly reverified.
The organization of security on an operational-strategic scale included mainly
such new types of support for an operation as air and chemical defense of a
theater of military operations. Combating enemy aviation was considered to be
a major task.
In all the official documents approved by M. V. Frunze, air combat was viewed
as a single process; unified command and control were envisaged over all the
forces and means allocated for carrying out these tasks. The commander of an
air fleet of a front or army organized the air defense for the rear area and
was responsible for this. Directly under him was the assistant for air
defense who was the immediate chief of all the air defense elements comprising
the front and army; under him there was the air defense section.
Great attention was given to the organizing of communications in an operation.
M. V. Frunze emphasized that any commander having combat experience realizes
what an important role communications plays in troop command and in achieving
the operational success. "How often it has happened," he recalled, "that one
gives some order and waits with the greatest excitement until it reaches its
destination, when it is received for execution, and how often it happened that
the communications conditions left the superior command in complete ignorance
of what was being done down there."(56)
Interruptions in communications and transport which sometimes forced the
abandoning of the fulfillment of previously planned tasks and often led to
defeats, as a rule, were a consequence of insufficient attention and poor
knowledge of the techniques for supporting the operations by the commanders
and staffs. It was emphasized that the area of a front, army or group should
be equipped with a permanent and field communications network including
telegraph and telephone trunks, pole and cable lines, a radio telegraph
network, courier routes, aircraft routes, pigeon mail combined into a single
network, well protected and camouflaged with head signals points, signals
centers, transceiving and relay stations. Thus, provision was made to
organize centralized communications with the broad making up of all types and
means of communications and their duplication. However, communications of the
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strategic leadership bodies with the fronts and armies was planned to be based
solely on stationary communications lines.
Proceeding from the experience of previous wars, M. V. Frunze concluded that
the military transport bodies are responsible not only for rail movements but
also are given the task of preparing and utilizing all types of communications
routes (rail, water and road) and the means of transport for war purposes.
The military transport bodies were viewed as the sole responsible bodies of
the war department from which derived all assignments for transport and which
provided supervision over their fulfillment. Their competence also included
the questions of the organization of the rear and security for all types of
lines of communications as well as the rebuilding of bridges. This was
explained by the fact that the rear facilities of the operational-strategic
level, as a rule, were based on routes of communications. In accord with this
understanding of the tasks of the military transport bodies, they consisted of
the following basic elements: a) the routes of communications including rail,
water, dirt, highway and air; b) transport including rail, water, cart, motor
vehicle and air; c) stationary facilities including rail military food
stations, stages, magazines and so forth.(53)
Such centralization of command over all types of transport and lines of
communications at that time was justified. The excessively great breaking up
of command over the various means of transport in subsequent years was not
always sufficiently sound and reduced the efficiency of their use. As for
entrusting certain functions of the rear bodies to the military transport
bodies, this outlived itself as the rear support tasks became more complex.
M. V. Frunze constantly reminded that without well organized supply the troops
could not be battleworthy. Along with the centralized delivery of everything
necessary for the troops, attention was also paid to employing all means
existing on the spot in order thereby to facilitate as much as possible the
task of transport of delivering materiel from the deep rear. For this
purpose, it was recommended that the supply bodies have not only a
distribution but also a strong procurement system.
In the abovementioned documents worked out under the leadership of M. V.
Frunze, the questions of the manning of the troops and the making up of human
losses were also viewed as one of the types of support for the operations. It
was demanded that any operational plan provide a procedure to replenish the
expected loss of personnel. The replenishing of personnel for the troops was
viewed in the regulation documents as a most important duty of strategic and
operational leadership. In subsequent years, the questions of manning were no
longer included in the regulation documents; recommendations on these
questions were set out in special manuals and documents. This provided an
opportunity to work them out and regulate them in more detail. But in a
number of instances this was done in isolation from the operational-strategic
tasks. Experience showed the advisability of at least briefly stating in the
regulation documents the general purpose and fundamental questions of troop
manning and replenishing losses in a combat situation.
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Approximately the same understanding of the questions of supporting combat
operations on the operational-tactical scale was reflected, in particular, in
the 1925 Provisional Field Manual
Operational-Tactical Views
The role and place of the theory of operational art in the overall system of
the theory of military art.
During the period when there were no conditions for establishing mass armies,
when the economy was unable to support the extended conduct of a war even by
comparatively small armies and when the outcome of the war was determined by
one or two engagements, it was quite natural to divide military art just into
strategy and tactics. The tasks of strategy were restricted to the
preparation and conduct of a general engagement and the fullest utilization of
the achieved success in this engagement. Since the aims of the war were
achieved chiefly on the battlefield, tactics played the crucial role.
Proceeding from this, Delbruk, for example, subordinated strategy to tactics
while Jomini wrote that "strategy leads the army to the crucial points of the
operational zone, prepares for the success of the engagement and predetermines
its results. But the victory should be achieved precisely by tactics combined
with bravery, genius and good luck."(54)
With the rise of an operation as an aggregate of battles and engagements
unified by a single overall plan but broken in space and time, operational art
also arose. Individual elements of an operation had appeared even in the wars
of the first half of the 19th Century but gained their final form during the
years of World War I and the Civil War and military intervention in Russia.
However, for a long time bourgeois military-theoretical thought did not spot
this new phenomenon.
Regardless of this, the preparation and conduct of operations objectively
existed in practice. With the increased scope of combat and the appearance of
different operational and operational-tactical field forces (front, army,
corps), a strategic operation was broken up into a number of simultaneously
and successively conducted front and army operations. Experience showed that
the methods of preparing and conducting such operations had substantial
differences both from strategic operations and from combat operations. They
did not fit within the confines of combat but also did not encompass the war
as a whole. An operation, as a part of strategic operations and an aggregate
of battles, became a relatively independent phenomenon of armed combat. This
was to gain appropriate reflection also in theory.
The term "operational art" began to be employed in our literature
approximately from 1922 onwards. It was finally adopted and established in
the Red Army official documents in 1925-1926.
Operational art which arose as a result of the development of military art
first gained its theoretical generalization and expression precisely in Soviet
military science. The dividing of military art into two parts--strategy and
tactics--which had existed for a long time was now revised and military art
now came to include three components--strategy, operational art and tactics.
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M. V. Frunze in the work "Lenin and the Red Army," in examining the questions
of the relationship between strategy and tactics, commented that for a long
time we had not any generally recognized, indisputable definition of strategy
and tactics. He considered these areas of military art to be closely
interlinked. "It seems to me personally," he wrote, "that anyone who
endeavors to delimit or divide these two areas of military art by an
impassable line is making a mistake. I feel that tactics and strategy in no
instance can be put into opposition to one another. Tactics and strategy are
phenomena of a single order and there is no qualitative distinction between
them, rather there is only a quantitative distinction"(55) (considering, of
course, a transition to a new quality.--M. G.).
Frunze proceeded from the view that in the area of strategy we are involved
with phenomena and data of a more general and more complex order. Its tasks
are to provide an overall assessment of the situation, to determine the
specific dependence of the main factors involved in the question and on this
basis to outline the basic lines of conduct (an operation). The basic
elements by which strategy operates are mass, space and time. By mass he
understood both the troops with their weapons and the material supplies and
generally people. Tactics, in Frunze's opinion, "being, in essence, involved
with the same elements or a majority of them, takes them in a more concrete
and hence a narrower and more limited form, being aimed at carrying out tasks
of a partial order. Tactics is a part of strategy, it is subordinate to it,
serves it and is determined by it."(56)
In the given instance, M. V. Frunze did not set as his aim the giving of an
exhaustive definition for strategy and tactics; he felt it necessary to draw
attention to their relationship and most essential distinguishing features in
the context of the review of our party's political strategy and tactics. In
thisarticle he did not employ the term "operational art," but as we will see
below, in many other works he quite definitely spoke about the theory of
conducting operations and approved the regulatory documents where the term
"operational art" was introduced.
The separating of the theory of operational art from the area of the theory of
strategy and its development as an independent part of the theory of military
art were a major victory for our scientific thought and contributed to the
subsequent more profound and thorough elaboration of the methods for preparing
and conducting operations. A start was made to a thorough study of
operational art in the RKKA Military Academy and in the system of operational
training for the leadership personnel. In 1924, in the academy, upon the
instructions of M. V. Frunze, along with the strategy chair, a chair was
founded for the conduct of operations. In the 1924-1925 study program, we
encountered the term "operational art" and consequently military art was
divided into strategy, operational art and tactics.
The dividing of military art into three parts considering the separation of
operational art also contributed to the more purposeful development of the
theories of strategy and tactics, encouraging a thorough elaboration of the
questions comprising the subject and specific features of these areas of the
theory of military art. Soviet military science examined all the component
parts of the theory of military art in their relationship, proceeding from the
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fact that strategy holds the predominant position in relation to operational
art and the latter in relation to tactics. Here consideration was given to
their reciprocal influence on one another.
In bourgeois military science, even at present, military art continues to be
divided only into strategy and tactics. The problems of preparing and
conducting an operation are partially examined in tactics and to a significant
degree in strategy. The separation of the same subject of research between
two different theories of military art cannot be considered scientifically
sound, as it does not reflect the objective nature of modern armed combat.
In skipping ahead, we would find out, finally, that at present this is begun
to be understood by bourgeois military theorists, too. In 1982, the journal
NATIONAL DEFENSE published an article where it was pointed out that the
doctrine of a "air-land operation" has led to the appearance of a new concept
in American military art--operational art. This terms is beginning to appear
also in certain official documents of the NATO Armed Forces. One cannot help
but notice that the bourgeois armies reached the conclusion of the existence
of operational art after refusing to recognize the division of military art
into three parts for several decades, criticizing at every opportunity Soviet
military theoretical thought for this and declaring the separation of
operational art to be artificial.
The elaboration of the most important provisions of the theory of operational
art and tactics. Soviet operational art and tactics developed during the
period of the Civil War and foreign intervention and within the limits of
their subjects incorporated all the major requirements of Marxist-Leninist
teachings concerning war and the army and Soviet military strategy. M. V.
Frunze in many of his works pointed out that the operations and battles of the
Soviet troops during the Civil War period were marked by a decisiveness of
aims, by great scope and highly maneuverable actions. An analysis of the
documents indicate that in all his directives and combat orders he focused his
subordinates not on capturing a certain territory but demanded "dealing a
decisive defeat to the enemy" and "destroying the enemy's main forces."
In the theory and practice of conducting operations, M. V. Frunze gave
decisive importance to the correct choice to the axis of the main thrust and
to concentrating the main forces on the decisive sectors. For this sake he
recommended a bold weakening of the secondary sectors and constantly cautioned
against a fatal desire to be strong on all sectors. But for the success of an
operation, he did not consider a general correct allocation of the forces over
the sectors to be sufficient. The skillful determining of the axis of the
main thrust and the concentrating of the main efforts on this sector should be
reinforced by the establishing of strong attack groupings.
M. V. Frunze felt that the strongest attack groupings could produce the
desired effect only in the instance that diverse forms and a deep operational
configuration of the troops were employed considering the specific situational
conditions. He taught that even under the most difficult conditions, with any
shortage of men and weapons, it was essential to endeavor to establish and
replenish the reserves. Without this the commander would be left without
resources to influence the course of development of the operation and combat.
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the reserve had to be positioned on the sector of the main thrust ready to
exploit the success of the first echelon troops or repel unexpected enemy
actions. At the outset of the Aktyubinsk Operation, where the 3d Caval?-y
Division had extended its forces and was actually dissolved in the infant'y
battle formations, M. V. Frunze demanded that the division be assembled into a
single fist and used for a rapid raid against the enemy rears and for taking
Orsk.
From the experience of his own generalship activities, Frunze considered the
basis of the operational and tactical maneuver to be attacks against the
weakest points, the enemy flanks and rear, the envelopment and outflanking of
the enemy groupings combined with attacks from the front. Thus, in the defeat
of Kolchak he made the main thrust with the main forces of the Southern Group
in the gap between the White III and VI Corps. By bold flank attacks he
achieved success in other operations, too. Characteristically, in the actions
of the White Guard troops, the employment of the operational and tactical
maneuver was observed significantly more rarely. They endeavored more to
launch frontal thrusts along a broad front and for this reason their actions
on the offensive were marked by linearity.
The decisive forms of the operational and tactical maneuver were reflected in
the Red Army manuals worked out after the Civil War. In them great attention
was also given to breaking through the enemy defenses. An offensive from the
position of immediate contact with the enemy was comprised of neutralizing the
enemy by all types of fire on the sector where the main thrust was to be
launched and destroying the enemy by decisive infantry and cavalry actions
with support from artillery, aviation and the other branches of troops.
Attention was drawn to the necessity of promptly reinforcing the taken
positions and lines and the non-stop pursuit of the retreating enemy.
Considering the experience of World War I and the Civil War, Frunze felt that
in future operations the width of the zone of advance of a front would reach
400-600 km, for an army 100-150 km; the depth of an offensive operation would
be 200-300 km for a front and 100-150 km for an army; the rate of advance
would be 10-15 km a day. However, it must be pointed out that the
operational-tactical norms set in the 1925 Field Manual largely reflected the
experience of World War I and did not sufficiently consider the fluid nature
of modern combat operations. Thus, the width of the zone of advance on the
main sector for a division was set at 1-4 km and 0.7-2 km for a regiment; in
breaking through fortified defenses it would be 1.5 km for a division and 4-
5 km for a corps. In breaching the defenses it was considered necessary to
establish a triple superiority in men and weapons on the breakthrough sector.
At the same time, it was emphasized that this demand did not mean the
abandoning of active operations with an equality of forces, particularly in
conducting combat operations deep in the defensive and in meeting encounters,
where a bold and rapid maneuver and attack could ensure the enemy's defeat.
Artillery should support the offensive, in successively shifting its fire
against the enemy positions and thereby blazing the trail for the infantry,
isolating the breakthrough (attack) sector from the remaining areas of the
enemy's defensive zone and rear. Active counterbattery bombardment was
envisaged and the hitting of the reserves in depth. However, there still was
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no question of a simultaneous fire effect against the enemy to the entire
depth of the tactical defensive zone and uninterrupted fire support for the
infantry.
Aviation was entrusted with the conduct of reconnaissance, the correcting of
artillery fire, bombing and straffing the enemy and all of this was to
complement the artillery fire. Tanks were used together with armored vehicles
for direct infantry support. The cavalry was perceived, as in the Civil War,
basically as a means for exploiting the success in conducting combat
operations deep in the defenses.
A major place was assigned to meeting encounters and engagements
characteristic of the fluid combat operations, and to their organizing and
conduct.
Operations to surround and destroy the enemy were one of the forms for
manifesting the decisive nature of Soviet military art. Having assumed
command of the 4th Army, M. V. Frunze in the very first operation endeavored
by an active offensive to carry out the tasks of surrounding and destroying
the main White Cossack forces in the area of Kruglozernyy, Lbishchensk. In
the Aktyubinsk Operation and in the defeat of Wrangel, M. V. Frunze carried
out these missions by establishing strong groupings in the aim of coming out
in the flank and rear of the main enemy forces and then splitting and quickly
destroying them piecemeal. In defeating the army of Gen Belov, upon
instructions of M. V. Frunze, the 1st Army encircled and destroyed a large
enemy grouping, having virtually equal men and weapons with it. However, a
larger portion of the men and weapons was assigned to the flanking groupings
which carried out the envelopment maneuver. Since the combat operations were
conducted on individual sectors and there was no solid front, in addition to
the general operational encirclement, a whole series of centers of tactical
encirclement were created. In this operation such a decisive form of action
was crowned with complete success.
The operation of the Southern Front conducted in October 1920 ended with the
rout of the enemy and the liberation of Northern Tauria. However, the absence
of a strong attack grouping on the left flank of the front, the unsuccessful
employment of the 2d Horse Army and the indecisive actions of certain army
commanders (4th and 13th) did not provide an opportunity to carry out the plan
of the complete encirclement and destruction of the enemy. Cooperation
between the flank groupings was little worked out, and particularly the
questions of setting up the inner and outer perimeters of encirclement. These
oversights made it possible for Wrangel to pull back a portion of his troops
into the Crimea and organize a strong defense. In November 1920, the troops
of the Southern Front had to prepare and carry out a new, Perekop-Chongar
Operation in the aim of completing the defeat of the enemy.
M. V. Frunze, in analyzing the experience of the Civil War and noting the
generally positive results of the operation of the Southern Front in October
1920, at the same time criticized certain aspects of this. For this reason,
in working out the theory of operational art and tactics, he drew attention to
the advantage and simultaneously to the exceptional complexity of operations
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and battle involving the encirclement and destruction of the enemy and urged
the complete elaboration of methods for conducting such operations.
In the course of World War I, the problem of breaking through the defenses and
exploiting the tactical success into an operational one remained virtually
unsolved, with the exception of the Brusilov breakthrough of 1916 which also
produced comparatively limited results. In the Civil War, as a rule, there
was not a long existing positional front. However, in a number of instances,
the fortified enemy positions had to be breached, as was the case, for
example, in the operation of defeating the Wrangel troops. Under the
conditions of the Civil War the horse armies, cavalry corps and divisions were
an effective means for exploiting the tactical success into an operational
one. They largely contributed to giving high maneuverability and great scope
to combat operations, to increasing the depth of the thrusts and to raising
the rate of advance.
M. V. Frunze pointed out that the most characteristic features of the Civil
War which distinguished it from an imperialist war were the high
maneuverability and dynamicness of all the operations; the desire to carry out
the missions by energetic, offensive operations. He felt that the employment
of new weapons would make future combat operations even more fluid and
decisive, with the predominance of the offensive not only within the strategic
limits and the war as a whole but also on the operational-tactical scale.
This notion, M. V. Frunze explained, stemmed from the objective nature of
modern armed combat. A future war requires the decisive defeat of the enemy
on the part of the Red Army and the offensive will be the sole method for
fully defeating the enemy. An offensive is also important because it provides
the advancing side with an additional factor for combat success, that is,
initiative, and imposes the will of the attacker on the defending side.
Surprise of actions can be most fully employed precisely on the offensive and
this stuns and paralyzes the enemy.
"The attack itself, the push strengthen the attacking side and give it more
chances of success. I affirm," said M. V. Frunze, "that the attack and
offensive, with other conditions being equal, are always more advantageous
than the defensive."(57) For this reason, maneuverability should become the
flesh and blood of our Red Army and maneuvering qualities should be inculcated
in every possible way by the entire system of training the army, and
particularly for its command personnel.
The inevitability and necessity of maneuvering actions in the future were
established by M. V. Frunze on the basis of the class nature of the Red Army
as well as by the enormous scope of the theaters of military operations, the
ever-increasing mobility of the troops due to their mechanization and
motorization and by the need to shift efforts in the course of the operation
from some sectors to others and regroup the resources to these sectors.
Decisive operations in the war would be impossible without a bold maneuver in
the aim of placing one's troops in an advantageous position for attacking the
destroying the enemy. Our temporary technical backwardness, commented M. V.
Frunze, does not contradict these considerations but, conversely, only
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maneuverability will make it possible for us to compensate for the shortage of
our equipment.
However, maneuverability is not an end in itself. It should be aimed at
achieving the main goal of defeating the enemy. The basic feature of fluid
combat operations is not formal aggressiveness but initiative and activity
which ensure the successful outcome of the offensive operation in its basic
essence."(58)
For increasing maneuverability and speed of actions on the offensive it was
recommended to widely draw on the experience of the Civil War in employing
forward detachments. For example, in the course of the offensive operations
of the Eastern Front in 1919 to liberate the Urals, forward detachments were
employed to ensure continuous operations at night and during the day, for
coming out in the enemy rear and disrupting its lines of communications. A
forward detachment included three-five rifle companies, several machine guns
and one or two artillery pieces; on the most important sectors as forward
detachments they also employed reinforced cavalry units. All of this made it
possible to maintain a high rate of advance and ensure the continuous pursuit
of the enemy.
When M. V. Frunze spoke about the high maneuverability of operations and
combat in a future war, he also took into account the processes which could
lead to the development of a positional front. For this reason he gave great
importance to the questions of breaking through a fortified defensive and
exploiting the success under the new conditions of conducting armed combat.
M. V. Frunze felt that for achieving decisive goals of defeating the enemy and
maintaining the maneuverability of combat operations in the course of the war,
it would be necessary to carry out a whole series of successive operations
linked by a common plan. In elaborating these recommendations he relied on
great combat experience. In the operations of the Southern Group of the
Eastern Front one could already spot the genesis of successive operations
conducted to a great depth. In the course of the Buguruslan Operation, a new
troop groupings was established and it was given missions which were to be
carried out in the forthcoming Belebey Operation. This made it possible
without an operational pause to commence a new operation and conduct the
offensive as a whole at a rapid pace until the complete defeat of the opposing
enemy grouping. Actually, the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa Operations were
parts of the overall operation of the Southern Group which later merged into a
strategic counteroffensive by the entire Eastern Front.
The conducting of such operations was also envisaged in the future. In the
course of a strategic operation they planned to conduct several front-level
operations and in the course of the front-level one, several army-level
operations. Here they pointed to the necessity in the course of carrying out
one operation to prepare for the subsequent one so that they would be carried
out without operational pauses and not provide an opportunity for the enemy to
get its bearings, bring up reserves and organize the defensive on intermediate
lines. In comparison with previous experience, this was a completely new
phenomenon in operational art. For this reason it was considered advisable to
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prepare ahead of time new troop groupings, to plan the maneuvering of
resources and increase the effort by committing reserves to battle.
In conducting operations particularly important significance was assumed by
continuous troop command and uninterrupted troop supply with all essential
materiel. Here completely new conditions arose as well as new demands on
troop command and cooperation between the field forces and formations,
primarily between the armies.
The problem was that even in the 19th Century, it was the custom to view
armies as completely autonomous operational field forces fighting on
independent operational axes. Regardless of the establishing of fronts
(groups of armies) in World War I, this practice of conducting independent
army-level operations had changed little. Thus, the lack of cooperation
between the first and second Russian armies and the coordinating of their
actions by the command of the Northwestern Front was one of the reasons for
the loss of the 2d Army of Gen Samsonov. These same factors led to the
failure of the German Army in the Battle of the Marne.
G. Isserson correctly commented: "The entire conduct of the operation in
1914 came down to determining and aiming the groupings. The armies from the
very outset were given their own distant targets and moved toward them along
determined axes. This had been proposed even before World War I by Bernhardi,
saying that modern armies should be like released arrows. But, as is known, a
released arrow is no more given to control than was the case with the German
armies in 1914."(59)
Poor cooperation between the armies also occurred in conducting individual
operations by the Red Army, for example, in the course of the liberation
operation of the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1918 and the winter of 1919
and the May offensive of the Western Front in 1920.
Thus, as a whole the experience of World War I and the Civil War showed that
successful operations can be conducted only with close cooperation between the
armies. The armies could no longer conduct independent operational-strategic
missions with their own men and weapons and for defeating the large enemy
groupings it was essential to have constant coordination of their efforts by
the front command, the replenishing of reserves and an adjustment of the
missions and axes of operations. Without this it was impossible to have the
massing of men and weapons on the scale of a front.
Relying on the acquired experience, M. V. Frunze viewed a front-level
operation as a single system of operations and as an aggregate of closely
interrelated army-level operations unified by a single goal. The most vivid
expression of this was in the operation of the Southern Front to defeat the
Wrangel troops. In truth, in this operation, as was already said, full
coordination was not achieved between the actions of the armies. But this not
completely successful attempt merely confirms the above-given conclusion of
M. V. Frunze.
One of the most important forms of operational troop leadership during an
operation was the issuing of operational directives, combat orders and combat
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instructions. The practice of autonomous army operations in the past gave
rise to directives and orders that were too general in content. The party
Central Committee and the Republic RVS after the setbacks of the 3d Army at
Perm drew attention to the inadmissibility of such a practice and demanded
that concrete and feasible missions be set for the troops.
A majority of the directives and orders issued by M. V. Frunze was marked by
concreteness in setting the missions and clarity of wording. And they varied
in form and content. For one army commander (a more experienced one) he set
only the missions and the execution dates and for another he gave the methods
of execution. In addition to the directives and orders destined for the
command, he issued orders directed to all the personnel with an explanation of
the military-political situation and the combat missions. These orders were
drawn up in a very accessible form and carried a great emotional charge.
Thus, the first step of M. V. Frunze after assuming the position of commander
of the 4th Army was to issue an order urging all the troops to be aware of the
political and operational importance of the missions assigned to the army and
the personal responsibility of each Red Armyman for defending the victories of
the revolution. This order, in particular, stated: "...The eyes of the
workers and peasants of all Russia are focused on you. The nation is
following your successes with baited breath.... Here on the front the very
fate of worker-peasant Russia is being decided .... "(60) He issued similar
orders on other fronts, particularly in crucial moments of the development of
the operations.
In seeking clarity and concreteness in setting operational tasks and firm
command of the field forces and formations, M. V. Frunze was a supporter of
granting broad initiative and independence to subordinate commanders in
carrying out the set missions.
He had high regard for a will to victory and decisiveness of actions. In all
the regulation documents worked out under his leadership, decisiveness of
action was recognized as the basic quality for all levels of commanders and
chiefs; it was emphasized that a readiness to bear responsibility for old
decisions is the basis of command. Precisely at that time, the Field Manual
(1925) included the words which have been carried forward into modern manuals:
"A rebuke is merited not by the one who in a desire to destroy the enemy
suffers a defeat but rather the one who, fearing responsibilty, has not
committed all his resources to achieve victory."(61) Then the manual
emphasizes that the only one who does not make a mistake is the one who does
nothing.
For this reason, a senior commander (chief) should show particular restraint
for those subordinates who have suffered a setback. A punishment should occur
only in instances of negligence and flagrant violation of orders. If the
setback is a consequence of the vicissitudes inevitable in a war, a senior
chief is obliged by all means to support his subordinate. Without confidence
in the support of the chief and his benevolent attitude (even in the event of
a setback), it is impossible to develop independence among subordinate
commanders. The military testing of subsequent years fully confirmed the
correctness of this demand. As experience was to show, rapid and excessively
strong punishment for the slightest failure and the lack of understanding and
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support from senior chiefs led, as a rule, to a situation where subordinate
commanders began to fear responsibility. This fettered their initiative and
will power with all the fatal consequences for troop command.
A major contribution of M. V. Frunze was that in working out the theory of
successive operations and highly fluid combat operations, he proceeded from
the considerations of operational-tactical advisability and endeavored to make
them completely sound and supported in organizational and material terms. For
this reason he constantly introduced not only operational-tactical but also
material-technical norms into the theory and practice of preparing and
conducting operations and demanded their scrupulous study and precise
fulfillment by command personnel. He showed that without the most careful
organization of the rear based upon precise mathematical calculations, without
organizing correct support for the troops with everything needed by them for
conducting the operations, without precise calculation of transport ensuring
rear supply and without the organizing of evacuation work any correct and
reasonable conduct of major operations was inconceivable.
In exercises and military games, he was impatient with any sort of schematic
operational-tactical ideas divorced from the question of logistic support.
"...Now," he said, "the successful outcome of military operations and the
outcome of a war to a much smaller degree depend upon correct operational
leadership than upon the correct organization of the rear and all that
prepares for the conduct of military operations."(62) Here he stipulated that
without correct operational decisions any logistical support can be useless.
And the best operational decision is doomed to fail if the operation is not
thoroughly prepared and supported. For this reason, he gave crucial
significance to the organizational work of the command and the staffs in
preparing for the operations and combat actions and their all-round support.
In analyzing the practice of conducting exercises and military games, M. V.
Frunze pointed out that "usually the overall plan of an operation is correctly
set out and the particular missions stemming from the plan too, but in terms
of the organization of the operations, the coordinating of its individual
elements and support--from the viewpoint of the organization of the rear,
supply and communications--and the coordination of the individual branches of
weapons, here major flaws are observed."(63) He constantly demanded that in
preparing for the operations more attention be given to the logistic aspect of
the matter, to the details of the combat employment of the branches of troops
and as a whole to the organization of combat operations.
In the aim of the sounder theoretical elaboration of this aspect of
operational art and improving the training of personnel, upon the instructions
of M. V. Frunze the RKKA Military Academy worked out the collective work
"Vedeniye operatsiy. Rabota komandovaniya i Polevogo upravleniya" [The
Conduct of Operations. The Work of the Command and Field Headquarters]. It
for the first time set out in detail the methods and procedures for the work
of the commanders and staffs in preparing and conducting operations. The
commander's decision was viewed as a unity of the overall concept for the
operation and the methods of carrying it out. The commander should,
proceeding from the set goals of the operation, determine the axes of the main
and auxiliary thrusts on the offensive, the breakthrough areas of the enemy
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fortified position, allocate the forces, organize the maneuver and in a
defensive operation, in addition, determine the defensive lines.
The decision of the all-arms commander was viewed as the basis of troop
command as a whole and obligatory for working out the plans for the actions of
artillery and aviation and the employment of the engineer troops and other
branches of troops. The basic indicators were set for the scope of the
operation of a front and army (the width of the zones, the depth of the tasks,
the duration of the operation, and the approximate combat strength of the
front and army). Thus, a start was made to the theoretical analysis and
elaboration of the principles of troop command and control in preparing for
and conducting operations as the most important part of operational art.
M. V. Frunze considered it essential to skillfully combine the offensive and
defensive as the main forms of combat not only on the strategic scale but also
the operational-tactical one. In giving preference to the offensive as the
basic type of combat operations, he demanded the careful elaboration of the
questions of modern defense, considering that this should be employed when an
offensive was disadvantageous or impossible. "...The basic, predominant
nature of our future operations," he wrote, "will be a maneuvering one. But
at the same time, this very maneuverability demands extensive and complete
familiarity with the positional forms of waging war."(64) He cautioned both
against underestimating and overestimating the role of positional warfare in a
future war. The need for it will arise when it is necessary to support
maneuvering actions with immobile positions. The defensive was always
combined with an offensive not only in World War I, but also in the Civil War.
In practical terms the Red Army troops had to conduct defensive actions on all
the fronts.
The war convincingly showed that the choice of the type of combat operations
depends not only upon the desire and plans of one or another side but stems
objectively from the situational conditions. Thus, in 1918 and in the first
half of 1919, the Red Army due to the lack of forces conducted predominantly
defensive operations. Offensive operations made up a comparatively small
proportional amount. The defensive system was based upon small arms, machine
gun and artillery fire combined with the maneuvering of men and weapons to the
threatened sectors and the conducting of counterstrikes and counterattacks.
At the start of the Civil War, the questions of field fortifications were
clearly underestimated. Characteristically, precisely in the second half of
the Civil War, when basically offensive operations were conducted, defensive
actions began to be conducted more effectively. This was most fully apparent
in the actions of the Southern and Western Fronts in the autumn of 1920. For
example, in the defense of the Kakhov bridgehead, a developed defensive system
was established; precisely there for the first time extensive use was made of
elements of antitank defense. A large amount of engineer work was carried out
employing antitank trenches, improvised mines and other obstacles.
Thus, a sort of pattern became apparent: the more skillfully the defensive
was employed, the better the conditions created for successfully conducting
offensive operations. For this reason all the manuals and other official
documents worked out subsequent to the Civil War gave great attention to the
questions of the defensive. This was correspondingly reflected in the
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curriculum of the RKKA Military Academy and in the subject of the exercises
and military games in the troops. Some 213 paragraphs were devoted to the
questions of the defensive in the 1925 Field Manual. Detailed recommendations
were given on the defensive along a broad front, on combat in an encirclement
and breaking out of it.
According to the manual, the defensive was to be employed in the aim of
forcing the enemy to give up the offensive, to gain time for concentrating men
and weapons and creating conditions for going over to the offensive. The
manual "Boyevaya sluzhba pekhoty" [Infantry Combat Service] approved by M. V.
Frunze in 1924 pointed out that the defensive was to be employed as a means
for repelling the offensive of superior enemy forces in the aim of then going
over to the offensive. It was assumed that the defensive would have an
active, mobile and maneuvering nature; the strong holding of the occupied
positions would be combined with the launching of strong counterattacks and
counterstrikes. M. V. Frunze taught that the main thing on the defensive was
not the plugging of holes, not the bolstering of retreating units or even the
recovery of a lost position but rather the launching of an attack against the
enemy and the winning of initiative in order to fundamentally alter the
situation.
The defensive system included several defensive lines, the engineer
organization of the terrain, organized fire, counterattacks by reserves and
elements of air and antilanding defense. A division took up the defensive in
a zone of up to 10 km and the width of a regimental sector was 2-4 km. The
weak point in such a defensive configuration was its focal nature. After the
war more attention began to be given to antitank defenses and in the 1930's
this was viewed as one of the most important types of combat support.
M. V. Frunze was decisively against any sort of routine and pattern and
against making a fetish of the selected forms and methods of conducting
operations and combat actions. An infatuation with any form involved a
serious threat and ran counter to Marxism. In accord with the Marxist-
Leninist teachings, there should be nothing absolute or ossified for the Red
commander. Any means, any method could be employed in a certain situation.
"...We should endeavor," he explained, "to provide maximum elasticity and
flexibility for our methods and apparatus, making it possible to employ all
available means and forms of combat. Everything can be good at one time and
in its place and the art of a military leader should be manifested in the
ability to choose the most suitable of the numerous diverse methods and means
in each given instance."(65)
On the tactics of all-arms combat. The tactics of the Red Army in the Civil
War was marked by great flexibility and diversity. Combat was organized as
all-arms in which the different branches of troops carried out their missions
jointly. Cooperation was also developed between the formations and units of
the Ground Forces and the ships of the Navy and river flotillas. Under the
Civil War conditions, extensive use was made of combat operations in
population points, along railroads, in forests and mountains.
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In all the operations conducted by M. V. Frunze he sought a flexible
configuration of the battle formations depending upon the specific situational
conditions. He demanded the abandoning of the routine configuration of battle
orders, when they under all circumstances were an unbroken extended line of a
regiment without any reserves and the cavalry was concentrated on the flanks,
fulfilling the role of a security escort. He recommended employing battle
formations which ensured maneuvering and the countering of different
unfavorable eventualities. In accord with his instructions a company's battle
formation was to consist of platoons formed into an extended line and the
platoons left in the reserve also for protecting the flanks; the battle
formation of a battalion (regiment) respectively consisted of company
(battalion) sections and a reserve and security for the flanks. The purpose
of the extended line was to conduct firing; the purpose of the reserve was, in
the event of necessity, to reinforce the fire of the extended line, to parry
an envelopment and assist in launching the attack.(66)
M. V. Frunze constantly introduced the tactics of active fighting not only
during the day but also at night. After the Civil War, the demand to conduct
nighttime battles, upon his instructions, was incorporated in all combat
regulations. He pointed out that "nighttime operations have always been
considered an important aspect in the general course of combat operations;
with the new victories of technology the role of nighttime actions should
increase further."(67)
In preparing and conducting combat operations, M. V. Frunze gave exceptionally
great attention to the organization and constant conduct of reconnaissance as
well as countering enemy troop reconnaissance. In generalizing the experience
of combat operations on the Turkestan Front he demanded the employment of
divisional cavalry only for long-range reconnaissance ahead of the front and
on the flanks of the division and not to employ it for liaison service.
Regimental commanders of the cavalry scouts were to be employed exclusively
according to their immediate purpose of conducting reconnaissance. Since
reconnaissance was aimed at promptly detecting the enemy and observing it, it
was essential that the once established contact with the enemy not be broken,
that is, reconnaissance should be conducted continuously.
In conducting combat operations more attention should be paid to the security
and reconnaissance of one's flanks and rear in order not to permit the
appearance of the enemy there. On the Southern Front, Frunze recommended the
wider use of armored cars and airplanes for conducting reconnaissance and gave
detailed instructions on the questions of reconnaissance.
After the Civil War, Frunze continued to be vitally interested in the
questions of the development of tactics following the experience of local wars
and exercises conducted in the troops. Mikhail Vasilyevich, in proceeding
from this experience, in his works confirmed the well known idea that applied
tactics had changed with the change in weapons and equipment. Any tactics
corresponds to a certain historical age; if the means of armed combat change
and new technical advancements are introduced, then the forms of military
organization and the methods of leading the troops also change with this.
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In his work "The European Civilizers and Morocco," M. V. Frunze using numerous
examples showed that the French Army in Morocco, regardless of the completely
new conditions of war, in essence fought with the same methods as in World
War I. He critically examined the theoretical works by the French general
Cognacq who, in generalizing the experience of the war in Morocco, noted with
satisfaction that the methods of conducting military operations confirmed the
correctness of the 1918 regulations worked out from the experience of the
world war. "But her," commented M. V. Frunze, "obviously did not even imagine
the question of the conformity of this tactics to the conditions of the
specific combat situation in Morocco. For him, once the troops fought
according to the principles of the war of 1918, then certainly everything was
well and certain success was ensured."(68)
In actuality, Frunze continued, the war of 1914-1918 was predominantly a
positional war, a war of materials, a war of technology. The types and
quantity of equipment participating in the war, the ammunition and other
weapons ran into enormous figures. Naturally the military thought of the
postwar age had to take these factors into account and had to be considered by
anyone who wished to have an objective approach to the problems of a future
war. But to take into account does not mean to be the prisoner of. The
French troops in Morocco were not confronted with a fixed front line and there
was no defensive with an enemy dug into the ground and relying on strong
equipment. But the French Army continued to fight with the same methods as in
World War I. Even for overcoming the resistance of a small enemy rear guard
detachment, thousands of bombs were dropped and extended artillery softening
up was carried out. Combat operations were carried out according to the
principle: artillery and aviation conquer the space and the infantry occupies
it. There were no attempts to switch to fluid operations with the coming out
in the enemy flank and rear. Here French military theoretical thought
proceeded from the view that military operations in a future war would be
approximately the same.
M. V. Frunze in this context voiced the notion that not all the tactical,
organizational and administrative ideas worked out on the basis of the
imperialist war would maintain their importance for the future. Everything
would depend upon the "circumstances of place and time." For this reason, to
count on a "strictly positional" set-up was dangerous. Considering the
experience of the war in Morocco, Frunze reaffirmed his conclusion: "The
troops in peacetime should be organized and indoctrinated in such a manner as
to be able to carry out the tasks of both the defensive and offensive. First
of all they should be prepared for tasks of an active offensive nature for
this is the most crucial, important and psychologically most difficult part of
combat missions generally."(69)
On the question of the statement by Gen Cognacq that the French commanders did
not commit a single battalion to the attack without a preliminary thorough
artillery softening up, M. V. Frunze pointed out that troops indoctrinated in
the idea that any attack is impossible without a preliminary strong artillery
softening up cannot be good troops. Of course, it is a bad commander who does
not fully utilize all of the tactical means at his disposal for ensuring
success and reducing losses. But even worse are the commander and soldier
capable of advancing only after strong artillery softening up.
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From all of this M. V. Frunze concluded that the identifying of the tactical
procedures of the French troops in Morocco with the methods of fighting in
1914-1918 was not an indicator of well being but, on the contrary, proof of
weakness and tactical decline in the French Army which had become fettered by
the idea of positional warfare. Considering themselves the victors in World
War I, the command of the French Army did not accept any other ideas. In all
of this, in Frunze's words, you could trace an extraordinary share of
scholasticism and lifeless doetrinarism.(70) He also then warned that any
military doctrine divorced from true reality can in a future war lead to the
most lamentable consequences and this was confirmed, in particular, by the
same French Army at the very outset of World War II.
In line with this allow us to point out that the complacency of such victors
and the inability to critically assess the lessons of a previous war
considering the development prospects of military art have always been one of
the most dangerous phenomena in military affairs giving rise to stagnation in
all spheres of the military organism, dulling military thought and giving it
an extremely limited and shortsighted nature.
Considering this, M. V. Frunze constantly advised the Red Army commanders to
critically assess the experience of not only World War I but also the Civil
War, particularly in working out the questions of tactics, as of all the
component parts of military art precisely tactics responded most quickly to
the appearance of new weapons and new human material. The 1925 Field Manual
gave great attention to disclosing the nature of all-arms combat.
In speaking about the changed organization of the infantry, M. V. Frunze drew
attention to the fact that "at present a regimental commander is not simply
the chief of the infantry in the old sense of this word. He is the commander
of a whole series of troop units with different weapons."(71)
Along with a detailed exposition of the principles of offensive and defensive
combat, for the first time the manuals gave great attention to the methods of
conducting a meeting engagement. It was emphasized that combat under the
conditions of a meeting engagement, as a consequence of their rapidity and
mobility, requires the most decisive and rapid actions.
In working out the theory of tactics and the regulatory documents, M. V.
Frunze demanded a decisive abandonment of the traditional linear tactics the
failure of which had been shown even in World War I. He urged the employment
of a new deep tactics and also as an experiment the elaboration of group
combat tactics. These ideas were embodied and underwent further development
in the theory of deep combat and a deep operation.
However, as the experience of the Great Patriotic War was to show, the
advantages of group combat tactics were exaggerated. In employing this, the
battle formation of a unit was broken up into many small and poorly controlled
groups up to a reinforced platoon in strength (a tank, machine gun and
infantry group). Moreover, it was difficult to mass the tanks and support the
infantry with artillery fire. It turned out that infantry actions in the
extended line of riflemen, with their skillful employment and the diverse
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configuration of the battle formations, conformed fully to the tactics of deep
combat.
The 1925 Field Manual demanded the concentration of the predominant grouping
of men and weapons from the different branches of troops, chiefly the
artillery, on the crucial sector at the crucial moment; it demanded that all
the branches of troops be provided with an opportunity in accord with their
combat capabilities to conduct their operations in a coordinated manner to
defeat the enemy.(72)
In such combat, great importance was assumed by the initiative of the
commanders and fighters and command and cooperation among the troops became
significantly more complex. This raised new demands on the training of the
commanders and the staffs.
The basic requirement was that the commanders should work out common tactical
plans and subordinate the actions of the branches of troops to the overall
concept of all-arms combat, and should organize and constantly support
cooperation between them, directing their efforts at achieving a common goal.
This, in turn, necessitated not only an adaptation in the operational-tactical
thinking of the all-arms commanders but also a definite break in the
psychology of the commanders of the branches of troops, since not all of them
completely understood the demand of subordinating their actions to the
iterests of all-arms combat.
The main role in carrying out combat missions was assigned to the formations
and units of the Ground Forces which consisted of infantry, cavalry,
artillery, armored forces, engineer, chemical and signals troops. The
infantry and cavalry reinforced by the artillery played the leading role among
them. The infantry remained the basic branch of troops and the cavalry was to
fight not only mounted but also on foot.
Particular attention was given to dependable fire damage to the enemy. The
Field Manual pointed out that the main condition for success in offensive
combat was the complete defeat of the enemy's defensive area by the artillery.
In a future war an important role was assigned to aviation which was
characterized as a new powerful means of conducting combat operations. It was
assumed that aviation in fighting against a ground enemy would be employed for
reconnaissance, observation and liaison as well as attacks from the air. It
was viewed as the main means for combating the air enemy. It was emphasized
that the successful operations of the air forces against a ground enemy were
assured by air supremacy. At the same time, it was felt that aviation was
capable of carrying out combat missions even if air supremacy was not
achieved.
The overall trend in elaborating the methods of conducting combat operations
was set proceeding from the prospects for greater technical equipping of the
Red Army. M. V. Frunze did not approve of the attempts to adapt Soviet
military art, including tactics, to the technical level of our army which
existed in the mid-1920'x. In an explanatory note to Part 2 of the Temporary
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Field Manual a special section was made entitled "The Importance of
Equipment." It, in particular, stated: "Under the impact of our economic
chaos which developed during the imperialist and civil wars, the notion has
grown in the Red Army that in a future war we must fight not so much with
equipment as with the superiority of our revolutionary activeness and class
self-awareness. If during the period of chaos such an opinion had some
grounds, now when our industry is reaching the prewar level it is a most
harmful and dangerous evil.... We already have major achievements in the area
of strengthening the technical might of the Red Army and have every reason to
assume that this technical might will grow more and more with each passing
year. This respect for material force in combat and for material resources in
a war sharply distinguishes the new Field Manual from the old one."(73)
The manual provided recommendations not only on the combat employment of the
infantry, cavalry and artillery but also on the use in combat of aviation,
armored forces, chemical and other new branches of troops.
M. V. Frunze was clearly aware that the success of combat in a future war
could be achieved only as a result of coordinated actions and skillful
interaction among the formations, units and subunits of all the Armed Services
and branches of troops. For this reason all the new manuals emphasized that
the organization and constant maintaining of cooperation are the prime
obligation of all levels of commanders and staffs.
On political work in a combat situation. In being guided by the ideas and
experience of the Communist Party, M. V. Frunze gave enormous significance to
the questions of political work during combat and an operation. "...It must
not be forgotten," he wrote, "what an exceptional role is played by political
work in wartime, what importance political work had in ensuring our victory in
the past and what it undoubtedly will play in achieving future victories."(74)
He saw in party political work the chief means of communist indoctrination
making it possible for the masses to understand the just aims of a war, to
assimilate the revolutionary traditions and essence of the Communist Party
policy which conforms to the interests of the people, to instill in them
confidence in the victory of the ideas of socialism and inculcate in them
intrepidness and steadfastness. Precisely as a result of well organized party
political work the activities of all commanders, political bodies, staffs,
party, Komsomol organizations and the nonparty masses assume an aware,
purposeful and active nature. All of this helps to form high morale, high
political awareness and personal responsibility for the defense of the
motherland and mobilize all the personnel to successfully carry out the combat
missions.
Since political work encompasses not secondary but rather the most profound
class interests of the masses of people, M. V. Frunze viewed this as the
strongest weapon of the Communist Party which to great measure strengthened
and increased the combat might of the Red Army. It has always remained a new,
supplementary branch of arms terrifying for any of our enemies.(75)
In pointing to the enormous role played by the political bodies in this work,
M. V. Frunze said: "Who has introduced elements of order and discipline into
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the ranks of our young Red regiments which have been established to the roar
of cannon rounds? Who during the hours of setbacks and defeats supported the
courage and boldness of the men and invested new energy to their shaken ranks?
Who organized the rear of the army, established Soviet power there and created
Soviet order, thereby ensuring the rapid and successful advance of our armies?
Who by his constant and stubborn work split the enemy ranks, disrupted its
rear and thereby prepared for the coming successes?
"This was done by the political bodies of the army and it was done, it must be
said, brilliantly. Their accomplishments in the past are immeasurable."(76)
In paying proper due to the role of the political bodies, M. V. Frunze at the
same time emphasized and by his personal example always confirmed that
political work is a duty of all commanders who are party members and all
communists without exception. He viewed political work as an inseparable and
most important part of all work related to command and control of the troops
in conducting operations and combat actions.
In commanding troops on three fronts, Frunze gave great attention to working
out and implementing specific measures of party political work, employing
different forms and methods of ideological influence on the personnel and
mobilizing them to carry out the set tasks considering the situational
conditions.
The "victory campaign" was an interesting form of political work in the troops
of the Southern Front in the operation to defeat Wrangel and in the course of
this both general as well as differentiated work was actively and purposefully
carried out with different categories of commanders and soldiers as well as
special propaganda aimed at the enemy troops.
The attention of M. V. Frunze to the questions of party political work was
reflected in many works and in the regulations worked out under his
leadership. Upon his instructions the 1925 field manual incorporated a
special section on political work in a combat situation. This set out the
tasks of political work and the specific duties of the political bodies
(Article 41): a) the organization of the collection and processing of
information concerning the moral-political state of one's units, the enemy
units and the local population; b) organizing military-political work in one's
troops, propaganda in enemy troops and among the local population; c) upon the
instructions of the command the elaboration of a plan of action for political
affairs, the transmitting of this to the troops and supervision of the precise
and correct execution of instructions on the spot.
M. V. Frunze considered the indoctrination of high political awareness in all
the personnel to be a most important condition for the inner cohesiveness of
the army and strong military discipline. The state of discipline was viewed
as a result and consequence of all political work both in the command area and
the political area. Mikhail Vasilyevich vividly and persuasively explained
that political work in the Armed Forces can be carried out only under the
leadership of the party Central Committee. For this reason he, like many
other prominent leaders in our party, in 1922, came out against the publishing
by the Trotskyites of the so-called Political Regulation which falsified the
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history of our party and extolled the "accomplishments" of Trotsky. This
"regulation" played down the party's role in the leadership of the Armed
Forces. It was correctly viewed as an attempt to divorce the Army and Navy
from the Communist Party and the Soviet state.(77)
In light of this, the incorporation of regulations concerning the organization
of political work in the army has elaborated from party positions in the 1925
Field Manual was of great importance and provided a correct orientation for
the command and political personnel.
In speaking at the RKKA Military Academy in December 1924 on the results of
the plenum of the USSR RVS, M. V. Frunze unambiguously stated: "Political
work has been and always will be for us the basis for our military
organizational development. The party has played and will play the leading
role in all our military policy. Without such party work we cannot conceive
of the strengthening of our country's military might or the strengthening of
the might, inner cohesiveness, solidarity and discipline of our Red Army."(78)
The Further Development of the Theory of Military Art
The influence of the ideas of M. V. Frunze on the development of Soviet
military-theoretical thought. The strategic and operational-tactical views of
M. V. Frunze had a great impact upon the development of the theory of military
art in the 1920's and 1930's. Many of them have not lost their importance for
present-day conditions, too.
The development of Soviet military art up to World War II occurred under the
impact of the successful construction of socialism in our nation and the ever-
increasing threat of war in line with the preparation for aggression against
the Soviet Union by the imperialist states. On the basis of the nation's
industrialization, the collectivization of agriculture and the cultural
revolution, the social and technical level of our Armed Forces was
fundamentally changed. Under the leadership of the Communist Party enormous
work was done to increase the defense capability of the Soviet state and the
combat might of the Army and Navy. The party gave great importance to the
development of Soviet military science as one of the most important factors
for increasing the defense capability of the state and the combat might of the
Armed Forces. The views of M. V. Frunze which were based on Lenin's ideas
concerning the nature of a future war were fully confirmed. The theory of
military art also continued to develop.
Over the years of joint work with M. V. Frunze and subsequently, M. N.
Tukhachevskiy also did a great deal to work out the problems of the theory of
military art and the new regulatory documents. He carefully followed the
military preparations of Germany and warned that Germany was the number-one
enemy, since it was arming most intensely, creating an enormous army and
preparing for war primarily against the Soviet Union. Of the military-
theoretical works of those years the most profound trace was left by the works
of M. N. Tukhachevskiy on the questions of strategy such as "Voprosy
sovremennoy strategii" [Questions of Modern Strategy], "Voyna kak problema
vooruzhennoy borby" [War as a Problem of Armed Combat], "Voprosy vysshego
komandovaniya"[Questions of the Superior Command], "Novyye voprosy voyny"
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[New Questions of Warfare] and "Kharakter pogranichnykh operatsiy" [The Nature
of Border Operations]; the major work by B. M. Shaposhnikov "Mozg armii" [The
Army's Brain] which examined not only the questions of the organization and
work of the general staff but also many questions of preparing for war and the
problems of a coalition strategy; the book by V. K. Triandafillov "Kharakter
operatsii sovremennykh armiy" [The Nature of Operations of Modern Armies]
which was full of profound analysis and bold thoughts and which worked out the
questions of preparing and conducting operations in a future war and the most
important ideas of the theory of a deep operation.
Soviet military strategy, in taking into account the balance of forces on the
international scene, proceeded from the fact that war would have to be waged
against a strong military coalition of imperialist states. Also taken into
account was the possibility of simultaneously waging war in several theaters
of military operations, including in the East. It was shown that under the
impact of new weapons the World War II would not have a lightning nature but
rather would assume an extended one and necessitate the mobilizing of all the
state's forces and capabilities.
The theory of military art as a whole was permeated with a spirit of decisive,
offensive and fluid actions. In the event of aggression there were plans to
launch powerful retaliatory strikes with the shifting of military operations
to enemy territory in the aim of its crushing defeat. The strategic offensive
was considered to be the main type of strategic actions and this was planned
in the form of simultaneous and successive front operations conducted by the
field forces and formations of the various Armed Services. The fleets were to
be employed for conducting joint operations with the Ground Forces as well as
in independent naval operations. In recognizing the fluid nature of the
operations and battles in a future war, Soviet military-theoretical thought
also did not deny the possibility of the development of solid fronts. In this
context great attention was given to the problem of breaking through the
defenses and to exploiting a tactical success into an operational one. The
development of the Armed Forces was carried out considering this and primarily
the tank and mechanized troops, aviation and airborne troops.
The theory of Soviet military art, in contrast to bourgeois, did not put the
fluid forms of warfare in opposition to positional ones or one type of weapons
in contrast to others. It proceeded from the view that success in a war could
be achieved only by the joint efforts of all the Armed Services and branches
of troops. In highly regarding, for example, the importance of tank troops
and aviation, it did not wager solely on them.
An outstanding achievement of Soviet military science and military art was the
elaboration of the theory of a deep operation. Its essence was as follows.
In the first place, if in World War I after each engagement to breach the
defenses, in essence, a completely new situation arose which no one could
predict and for this reason subsequent operations were not planned, a deep
operation presupposed primarily the conducting of a whole series of operations
following a general plan and to a great depth until the complete defeat of the
main enemy grouping.
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Secondly, proceeding from the fact that in the course of modern warfare solid
fronts might arise, this new form of operation opened the way to carrying out
one of the most difficult tasks, that is, breaching a deliberate defense by
simultaneous fire damage to it to the entire tactical depth and the massed
employment of infantry, tanks, artillery and aviation on the chosen sectors.
Thirdly, the theory of a deep operation was to lead military art out of that
positional blind alley into which it had strayed in World War I and carry out
the main task of exploiting a tactical success into an operational or
strategic one by committing to battle the echelon for developing the success
(tanks, motorized infantry, cavalry), by landing airborne troops as well as by
quickly broadening the breakthrough sector toward the flanks and rapidly
developing the offensive to the entire depth of the operation.
Thus, instead of a series of interrupted engagements and operations limited in
depth, a theory was elaborated for an actually deep operation which most fully
took into account fundamental changes in the nature of armed combat. In
accord with these ideas, the principles of deep all-arms combat were worked
out.
Front-level operations were planned to a depth of 200-300 km. Prior to the
start of the Great Patriotic War, the conclusion was drawn of the possibility
of conducting a deep operation by the joint efforts of several fronts within a
strategic offensive.
The most important conditions for the successful conduct of deep offensive
operations were considered to be the winning of air supremacy, reliable air
defense for the troops, naval forces and rear facilities.
It must be said that certain provisions of the theory of a deep operation were
not immediately adopted. M. N. Tukhachevskiy, I. P. Uborevich, A. I. Yegorov
and other military chiefs of ours had to make a great effort to incorporate
its principles in the regulations and introduce this into the training
practices of the headquarters bodies and troops. In particular, when V. K.
Triandafillov showed the necessity of concentrating five-six divisions on the
breakthrough sector of a front, certain comrades, including K. Ye. Voroshilov,
were perplexed could not one division of our handle an enemy division?
Triandafillov was accused of an "engineer" approach and underestimating the
morale of our troops.(79) However, the Great Patriotic War demanded the
establishing of densities of men and weapons of 1.5-2-fold greater than V. K.
Triandafillov had proposed at one time and for the artillery this would be 5-
6-fold more. This reaffirms that a serious scientific discussion should not
be replaced by loud phraseology which is, however, divorced from the essence
of the question.
Regardless of a certain temporary misunderstanding, a majority of our military
personnel properly judged the advantages of the theory of a deep operation as
the most progressive form for conducting armed combat. The ideas of a deep
operation rather quickly took root in the Red Army and were practically
assimilated by the commanders, staffs and troops in commander exercises,
training and maneuvers. Here, undoubtedly, the decisive role was played by
the mastery of Marxist-Leninist methodology by the military personnel and the
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development of revolutionary creativity which blazed the trail for everything
advanced and progressive.
All of these major achievements in military-theoretical thought showed the
rise of a qualitatively new stage in the development of military art and this
became possible as a result of the technical reconstruction of the nation's
industry and the equipping of the Red Army with new technology. All of this
made it possible to effectively prepare the Army and Navy to repel aggression.
In paying great importance to the economic and moral-political factors, the
theory of Soviet military strategy also played an important role in
scientifically establishing party and government measures aimed at increasing
the nation's defense capability. As a whole, on the eve of World War II, the
theory and practice of Soviet military art had basically correctly solved the
most important questions of conducting armed combat.
The Great Patriotic War tested all the provisions of our military science and
military art. It can be said with confidence that the most important
provisions of Soviet military-theoretical thought were affirmed. In any
event, in the entire history of wars no one has as yet succeeded in predicting
with such reliability the nature of armed combat in the future. Proof of this
is the victory of Soviet military art over the military art of Germany which
had always been considered the apex of bourgeois military theory and practice
and' which was venerated and used as a source of ideas by military figures in
the entire capitalist world. No falsifiers of the history of World War II can
refute this.
At the same time it would be wrong to assert that all the provisions of our
military theory were irreproachable and had been completely worked out prior
to the war. Such an approach not only impoverishes what was achieved at a
price of enormous effort during the war but also does not help to objectively
investigate the patterns of military-theoretical preparation at present and
prevents us from correctly establishing why certain phenomena can be foreseen
before each war and some not.
In actuality, not all questions could be foreseen with sufficient scientific
reliability. The lessons of history show that one of the most important and
difficult tasks is to foresee the possible nature of the aggressor's actions
at the very outset of the war and work out the corresponding methods for
increasing combat readiness and the strategic deployment of the Armed Forces.
These complex questions must be resolved each time anew considering the
fundamental changes in the methods of conducting armed combat on the eve of
the war. In the 1930's certain mistakes were made in resolving these
questions.
Clearly overestimated were the instability of the rear of the capitalist
countries and the possibility of an immediate and organized action by the
proletariat against their exploiters. All of this turned out to be
significantly more complex. In particular, as a consequence of a series of
well known historical factors, the rulers of Nazi Germany succeeded in forcing
the basic mass of the German population to fight against the Soviet Union.
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In many works devoted to the history of the Great Patriotic War, it is stated
that on the eve of the war Soviet military theory did not take into account
the possibility of a surprise invasion by large enemy forces and had not
sufficiently worked out the forms and methods of conducting a strategic
defensive while the questions of the defensive on an operational-strategic
scale had in practical terms been worked out extremely little. However, one
of the most complex tasks which the Soviet Supreme High Command had to solve
during the very first days of the war was the organization and conduct of the
strategic defensive.
The underestimation of the defensive and the not quite correct assessment of
the changing nature of the beginning period of a war had severer consequences
than is sometimes depicted in military literature. It was not a question of
the formal recognition or nonrecognition of the defensive but primarily of
those practical conclusions and measures which stemmed from this.
In the first place, as experience was to show, it was essential to consider
the possibility of a surprise attack by an enemy which had been previously
mobilized and was ready for aggression. But this required a corresponding
system of combat and mobilizationalreadiness of the Armed Forces which ould
ensure tY,o_1 --nnnstant high readiness,. to repel .such an attack and a more
decisive. 9 c ve increase in the combat readiness of the troops.
Secondly, a recognition of the possibility of an enemy surprise attack meant
that the border military districts should have carefully elaborated plans for
repelling the enemy invasion, that is, plans for defensive operations since
the repelling of an offensive by superior enemy troops would be impossible
incidentally, merely as an intermediate task. For this it would be essential
to carry out a whole series of protracted fierce defensive engagements and
operations. But if such plans had existed, then in accord with them the
groupings of troops and weapons of these districts would have been positioned
completely differently, namely considering the defensive tasks, command and
control would have been organized differently and the materiel and other
mobilizational resources would have been echeloned.
Readiness to repel aggression also required that not only plans of defensive
operations be worked out but that these operations be readied fully, including
in logistical and engineer terms in order that the plans be mastered by the
commanders and staffs. It was perfectly apparent that in the event of a
surprise enemy attack, there would be no time for the additional preparation
of such operations. But this was not done in the border military districts.
And even in the theory and practice of operational training on the staffs and
in the academies, the defensive was studied in a far different manner than it
had to be conducted in 1941-1942 but rather as a type of combat actions to
which one resorted to for a short period of time on secondary sectors in order
to repel an enemy attack in a short period of time and thereby go over to the
offensive.
MSU G. K. Zhukov on this question wrote: "In reworking operational plans in
the spring of 1941, the particular features of conducting a modern war in its
initial period had actually not been fully considered. The People's
Commissariat of Defense and the General Staff felt that a war between such
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major powers as Germany and the Soviet Union should commence according to the
previously existing scheme: the main forces would enter the engagement
several days after the border engagements. Nazi Germany in terms of the dates
for concentration and deployment was put under the same conditions as we. But
in actuality the forces and conditions were far from equal."(80)
The idea of the continuous shifting of war at its very outset to enemy
territory (and the idea was unsound both scientifically and backed up neither
by an analysis of the actual situation or by operational calculations) had so
beguiled certain leading military workers that the possibility of conducting
military operations on our own territory was virtually excluded. Of course,
this had a negative impact upon the preparation of not only the defensive but
also the entire theater of military operations deep in our territory.
The experience of the war demonstrated that a combination of the offensive as
the main type of military action and the defensive is an objective pattern of
warfare and, like any pattern, it operates with the strength of necessity and
it is very dangerous to disregard it.
It cannot be said that the questions of the initial period of a war had not
been elaborated theoretically. On the basis of an analysis of World War II
which had commenced, a number of theoretical works had drawn important
conclusions on the fundamental change in the content and nature of the initial
period of a war. It was shown that during this period not only would the
conversion of the nation and the Armed Forces to a wartime status be completed
but also strategic operations could be carried out involving the basic
groupings of the Armed Forces. The start of World War II disclosed a new,
more dangerous method of initiating war by a surprise attack, without a
declaration of war, hoping that the peace-loving states would be unprepared to
repel aggression.
However, certain scientific conclusions and recommendations on these questions
were not noted and correctly judged by those who had to carry them out. The
initial period of the war as before was perceived as the period from the start
of military operations until the entry of the main forces into the engagement.
The basic error was that military operations during this period were conceived
of on limited scale.
It must be emphasized again that Soviet military art, in contrast to the
military art of Nazi Germany, as a rule, profoundly and thoroughly considered
the objective and subjective factors which determined the development of
military affairs, including the enemy's economic, moral-political and military
capabilities. But on the eve of the war at a certain moment a major
circumstance was forgotten that in the event of the outbreak of military
operations both in political and military terms it was impossible to proceed
solely from our desires and convictions, without considering that the enemy
would endeavor to do everything when and where this would be convenient and
advantageous for it.
Everyone realized that at that time for the Soviet Union it was very important
to gain time and win at least a year or two to prepare the state for the
defensive. But the Nazi rulers undoubtedly realized that in a year or two,
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even according to their adventuristic calculations, they would have
significantyly fewer chances for success. For this reason the main wager was
made on a surprise attack and on utilizing those temporary advantages which
they possessed.
Historical experience has_ s_hQ_wn that an
aggressor, under certain
circumstances, is halted by nothing. In this context it is essential to have
a fle an well organized system of permanent hi h nd
mobilizational readiness in the Armed Forces. V. . en n emphasized: "...It
is essen ial to ave military discipline and military vigilance brought to the
highest limits. To overlook or lose one's head means to lose everything."(81)
The war convincingly showed the exceptional importance of all-round
theoretical elaboration in peacetime of all the strategic and operational-
tactical questions. It is sometimes said that not everything is conceived of
in theory and in the event of a war the most rational methods of action will
be found. But in actuality the case is not so simple. For example, prior to
the war the insufficiently established notion was promoted that the artillery
had to be deployed on likely tank approaches and with the start of the war
many commanders did this, although the situation required something quite
different. Many such examples could be given.
This is why, from the very outset of the war, a major effort was made to bring
all the military-theoretical views into conformity with the demands of combat
operations. The Communist Party and the Soviet government gave great
attention to further developing Soviet military art, to promptly bringing
combat experience to the troops and to their skillful employment of advanced
military theory. Under the difficult wartime conditions, the theory of
military art developed in an unbroken link with combat practices. The actions
of the Supreme High Command and the Soviet Armed Forces showed an organic
unity of military science and military art, military theory and practice.
A major reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany's military art was its
adventuristic nature. Over the entire war inherent to it were an
underestimation of the enemy's forces and capabilities, a divorce of military
plans from economic and moral-political capabilities, schematicism and routine
and the inability to respond flexibly and promptly to changed conditions.
The Nazi Military Command often endeavored to fit reality to its own
theoretical views and military plans and continued to stubbornly employ them
even when reality had showed all their erroneousness. It endeavored to wage a
war against the Soviet Union, in essence, employing the same methods as in the
West.
In conducting strategic operations, the Nazi Headquarters adhered to obsolete
leadership methods. The operational tasks for the troops were set for several
months; over this period the army groups fought, in essence, autonomously;
proper attention was not paid to the questions of maintaining cooperation
between them.
The Soviet Army in the course of the war conducted scores of different
operations and all of them, as a rule, were marked by a newness of employed
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methods of action and were unexpected for the enemy. The elaboration of
flexible forms for preparing and conducting defensive operations with the
subsequent going over to a counteroffensive, the theory of a strategic
offensive operation, the solution to the problem of the operational and
strategic breakthrough of enemy defenses with the subsequent surrounding and
destruction of large groupings, the seeking out of new methods for the combat
employment and cooperation of the various Armed Services and branches of
troops, such an effective form of fire damage to the enemy as an artillery and
air offensive, new forms and methods for battle formations, all-round support
for the operations and firm troop command--these and many other questions
newly resolved in the course of the war to a definite degree have maintained
their importance under present-day conditions.
MSU G. K. Zhukov at a military-theoretical conference in 1945 characterized
the particular features of our military art in the following manner.
In the first place, an excellent knowledge of the enemy, a correct assessment
of its plans, forces and means; the ability to consider what the enemy is
capable of and incapable of and how it can be caught. This is achieved by
continuous and thorough intelligence.
The second is a knowledge of one's own troops, their careful perparation for
battle. It is essential to have the complete preparation of the command and
staffs and the early elaboration of all variations for forthcoming troop
actions.
Thirdly, operational and tactical surprise. This is achieved by the fact that
the enemy is confused on our true intentions. It is essential to act so
quickly that the enemy is always behind and thus falls in a difficult
position.
Fourthly, precise calculation of the men and weapons depending upon the set
task. The troops cannot be given tasks beyond them. This does not produce
anything except losses and an undermining of combat morale. It is better to
conduct offensive operations more rarely but accumulate the men and weapons
for decisive attacks.
Fifthly, logistic support of the operations. Under no circumstances should an
operation be carried out which has been poorly prepared in logistic terms.
The general situation can force the High Command to quickly carry out an
operation. But it can be commenced only after careful preparation and
complete support.
G. K. Zhukov considered the skillful employment of artillery and a bold
maneuver in the aim of the encirclement and destruction of the enemy to be an
important condition for the successful development of an offensive operation.
He viewed a frontal thrust only as an important stage to achieving the goal.
A breakthrough not for the sake of a breakthrough but for obtaining freedom of
maneuver as this provides an opportunity to hit the enemy from the worst
sector for the enemy.(82)
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The Soviet command during the period of the Great Patriotic War gave great
importance to the prompt generalization of combat experience and providing it
to the troops. Headquarters Supreme High Command, the General Staff, the Main
Political Directorate, the People's Commissariat of the Navy, the command and
staffs of the Armed Services and branches of troops as well as the field
forces and formations were not only bodies of practical troop leadership but
also the main centers of military-theoretical thought. Leadership of the war
would have been inconceivable without creative work to prepare scientifically
sound decisions and to work out regulations, instructions and orders which
generalized all the advanced in the experience of conducting the war. In this
regard, the finest traditions of military-scientific work bequeathed us by
M. V. Frunze were continued and raised to a new height. During the Civil War
after each operation and sometimes in the course of an operation he issued
orders which generalized combat experience.
During the war the General Staff organized the Directorate for the Utilization
of the War's Experience while the staffs of the fronts established the
appropriate sections and departments. In 1944, the military-scientific organs
of the front staffs employed 57 officers and the army staffs had around 200.
Sections for the use of the war's experience were also found in the central
directorates of the People's Commissariat of Defense, the Navy Main Staff and
the staffs of the branches of troops. Their tasks were crucial ones. In
studying the combat experience of the war, they were to draw the necessary
conclusions for the troops and make them available to a broad range of
officers. In addition, they were also involved in working out instructions,
regulations and manuals.
The rich combat experience of the Soviet Army was also reflected in the
manuals, regulations and instructions worked out and updated during the war.
For example, in 1944, they worked out and revised the Infantry Field and
Combat Manuals, the Manual for the Crossing of Rivers, the Manual for Troop
Operations in Mountains, the Regulation on Breaking Through Fortified Areas,
the Regulation on Breaking Through a Positional Defensive and others. As a
total in 1943-1944, 30 manuals, regulations and instructions involving combat
operations and troop training were revised and worked out for the first time.
One should also note the concreteness and specificness of our military-
scientific research and its strict subordination to the interests of the
successful conduct of combat on the fronts. The generalization and
theoretical analysis of combat experience were organically incorporated in the
practical activities of the military leaders, staffs and political workers.
The war required a responsible attitude toward military theory. The attempts
not to consider the acquired experience or the theoretical recommendations
elaborated on its basis were very soon felt by failures on the front. The war
quickly eliminated everything unviable that had been present in prewar theory
and practice and demanded the elaboration of a whole series of new provisions
concerning military science and military art.
At the same time it must be pointed out that the army of Nazi Germany,
regardless of the significant discrepancy of the prewar manuals to the
experience of World War II, particularly after the attack on the Soviet Union,
did not revise virtually a single regulation in the course of military
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operations, although it fought for 6 years. From captured documents and from
the evidence of officer prisoners it was established that the analysis and
generalization of combat experience in the Nazi Army were carried out solely
by the issuing of individual instructions and directives. Many Nazi generals
in their memoirs mention as one of the reasons for defeat that in the East
they fought using the same regulation documents as in the West.
Thus, the high level of military-scientific work in the Soviet Armed Forces
was one of the important conditions for achieving superiority by Soviet
military science over the military science of Nazi Germany. The experience of
its organization and conduct has largely not lost its importance and we employ
it directly under present-day conditions.
As was correctly emphasized by MSU D. F. Ustinov, "the experience gained by
the Soviet Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War is truly invaluable.
This...is one of the sources for the further development of military art."(83)
Certain directions in the development of the theory of military art in the
postwar years. The theory of military art in the postwar years developed
considering the experience of the Great Patriotic War, the new balance of
military-political forces, the appearance of nuclear missile weapons, the
extensive introduction of radio electronics in the troops and naval forces and
the complete mechanization and motorization of the troops which have brought
about fundamental qualitative changes in all areas of military affairs.
In accord with the policy set out by the CPSU and the Soviet government, our
military doctrine, including military strategy, has a strictly defensive
nature and pursues one goal of defending the peaceful labor of the Soviet
people and the other peoples in the socialist commonwealth.
A possible world war, if the imperialists succeed in initiating it, is viewed
by our theory of military art as a decisive clash between two opposite
socioeconomic systems, socialist and capitalist. The virtually unlimited
range of the nuclear weapon delivery systems making it possible in a short
period of time to defeat any groupings of enemy armed forces has altered the
notions of the nature of a war. For this reason, in strategic terms a war can
develop into a global clash which is unprecedented in history in terms of
spatial scope, fierceness and destructiveness between the two major coalitions
of armed forces.
A world war can start by the employment of just conventional weapons but a
broadening of military operations can lead to its growth into a nuclear war.
The Soviet Union is against the use of weapons of mass destruction and it will
never be the first to employ them. But any possible aggressor should be
clearly aware that in the event of a nuclear missile attack on the Soviet
Union or the other countries of the socialist commonwealth it will receive a
destructive retaliatory strike.(84)
The role.of thg niti3l__R iQd__of the war will increase further and this may
be__the.M.n._and decisive period which largely predetermines the outcome of the
entire war.
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The strategic content of a war is viewed as a complex system of interrelated
simultaneous and successive strategic operations. Modern operations are
characterized by increased scope, by the involvement in them of different
Armed Services equipped with diverse, complex combat equipment, by great
dynamicness and maneuverability of combat operations, by the conduct of them
under conditions of the absence of a solid front, by sharp and rapid changes
in the situation and by a fierce struggle to capture and retain the
initiative. All of this significantly complicates troop command and control
which should be carried out under the conditions of the massed employment of
radio electronic equipment.
In the course of a war, decisive significance will be assumed by the prompt
launching of nuclear and fire strikes against the enemy and the skillful use
of their results by the troops; by the combining of massed strikes with the
dispersed location of the troops (forces) and by the organization of
dependable defense against enemy weapons of mass destruction.
Speaking as a whole, in the theory and practice of armed combat, on the one
r hand, very substantial, fundamental changes have occurred and, on the other,
period of World War II have
/ many important provisions elaborated in the
maintained their importance and undergone further development.
Thus, the trends in the development of military art under present-day
conditions confirm how right were V. I. Lenin and one of his talented students
M. V. Frunze when they in the process of revolutionary creativity in
establishing the fundamentals of Soviet military theory boldly broke with
everything old that impeded advance and at the same time passionately and
decisively were against a nihilistic attitude toward past experience and
carefully watched so that a natural succession was maintained in the
development of military science and military art.
Each new war is not like the previous one. But one can clearly see the
repeating pattern: at each of the turning points in the development of
military affairs remaining viable and affirmed by practice are only those
newly elaborated theoretical ideas which, along with considering the new
prospective phenomena, also include the germs of previous experience which
have still not lost their ability for further development and for this reason
act as particles of insipient new methods of conducting armed combat. The
ignoring of this pattern and particularly the underestimating of new trends
leads, as a rule, to major mistakes.
Thus, while in World War I most experience was gained on defensive questions,
in the configuration of the defensive and its engineer organization more
elements of this experience were employed in the period of World War II,
including the positional and trench system, which they had endeavored to
unjustifiably abandon after the Civil War.
While during the Civil War the operations of the Red Army had predominantly a
decisive, offensive nature and up to the start of World War II the questions
of the offensive had been worked out most thoroughly, this along with other
objective conditions told largely on the nature of operations by our Armed
Forces during the period of the Great Patriotic War. Suffice it to say that
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of the 210 front operations, 160 were offensive ones and only 50 were
defensive ones. Here a major role was played by the circumstance that our
theory of military art, along with the skillful use of past experience, was
able to step over obsolete ways of positional warfare which fettered military
thought and spot in their very rudiment those new factors which predetermined
the possibility of escaping from the positional blind alley and conducting
armed combat in highly maneuverable forms.
All of this undoubtedly was a reflection and manifestation in life of the
dialectic, the law of negating the negation which requires the viewing of each
phenomenon as one of the links in the general chain of the ongoing development
of military art. The most important and difficult thing in this process is
the specific elucidation of what of previous experience has a future, what
must be preserved from this and what must be abandoned. On the one hand, it
is inadmissible to hold too long onto the old for this is tantamount to
preparing for the past war; on the other hand, in working out new concepts of
military theory it is equally dangerous to have the unjustified surrender to
fantasy or a divorcing from true reality. For this reason, as M. V. Frunze
warned, "major innovations in military affairs which play a decisive role in
the fate of a state should be carried out with extreme caution."(85)
With the appearance of nuclear weapons, major changes occurred in the methods
of conducting armed combat and in the literature these have been termed a
revolution in military affairs. But this has also given rise to certain
extremes when attempts have been made to depict things as if virtually nothing
remained from the previous theory of military art. A profound _andgene rally
corrg_c.t__an.a1ysis of the development prospects of the theory of__jRi1Atary
strategy considering the pparan_ce ._Q~'_._nuc.lear miss le,_ weapons has been
provided in the book "Voyennaya _strat-e~1ya!!,ilitar$txategyedited by
MSU V ~. Sokoloyskiy_._,_H~-ta_eyer .oygr the more than 20 years not all the
provisions of this book have been confirmed. --- Thus, the book stated that a whole series of known principles, norms and rules
which were previously considered as guidelines for military strategy at
present are being subjected to a fundamental revision or have completely lost
their importance. Among these the authors put the principles of concentrating
men and weapons on the decisive sector, the economy of forces and partial
victory. They proposed that strategic deployment, strategic offensive,
strategic defensive, strategic maneuver and other underlying concepts of
strategy theory have largely lost their importance.(86)
In the 1960's and 1970's, the authors of this and many other books proceeded
primarily from the view that a war, under all circumstances, would be waged
employing nuclear weapons and military operations employing solely
conventional weapons were viewed as a brief episode at the start of a war.
However, the improvement and stockpiling of nuclear missile weapons have
reached such limits where the massed employment of these weapons in a war can
entail catastrophic consequences for both sides. At the same time in the
armies of the NATO countries there has been a rapid process of modernizing
conventional types of weapons. The main emphasis has been put on the
development of highly accurate, guided weapons which in terms of effectiveness
are close to low-power nuclear weapons. Under these conditions, as is assumed
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in the West, there will be a greater opportunity for conducting a
comparatively long waW employing conventional weapons and primarily new types
of high-precision weapons. The possibility of the initiating of a nuclear war
by the imperialists is also not excluded.
ThP riesianatPd hook ri?htly nointed out that the principle which has Pxigeed
I since antiquity of concentrating men and weapons on the crugi 1 a-ctor
0 d th ditiono It should be
requires. rification and adjustment un er a new con .
jr, ` carried out not by the method of moving up a large um er of troops to the
f selected sector but chiefly by massing the weapons. But as a whole this
principle, rimaril Ant choice of the axis of the main thrust and the
massing of men And we pons on the crucial sectors, has ma ntained its
This also applies to the strategic maneuver of men and weapons in the course
of a war. The appearance of new weapons not only does npt obviate but further
maneuvering th_m duri g a war However, here a questions of dispersinthe
troops and naval forces and the measures of protecting them against enemy
weapons of mass destruction cannot be resolved by previous methods and should
be carried out considering the new demands.
increases the importance of strategic reserves and the necessity of
Under rent-gay conditions, the outcome of a war depends significantly more
than prevo_v upon the quantity and effectiveness of the effort made at the
he ?nonnmy of
very outset of the war, however the strategic principle of the.
forces as a whole survives, since it .., difficu~.t to figure on a rapid war
between ma or cog ons with their enormous potentials. F r this reason 3 t
is essential to be ready for a_Qrotracted_,_ubhnrn-and fierce armed struggle.
Regardless of the fact that the main, most powerful means of waging war are in
the hands of the superior military command and their employment can have a
decisive influence both on the course of the war as a whole and on the conduct
of military operations, the principle of a_pai:tial victory has stilt not lost
its importance, since the utilization of the results-of attacks by strategic
weapons and the concluding ofthe defeat of_ enemy groupings will depend upon
the success of combat operations on an operational and tactical scale.
Soviet military art proceeds from the view that success in a war can be
achieved only by the joint efforts of all the types of weapons and by the
coordinated actions of the field forces, formations and units of the Soviet
Armed Forces. Thheedefeat of large enemy groupings can require protracted
effort, the conducting of a series of successive operations and the employment
and combination of different methods of armed combat. In this context such
forms of strategic actions as a strategic offensive and strategic defensive
have not lost their importance, considering, of course, the new methods of
their preparation and conduct.
A different approach is also needed to the questions of-strategic deployment.
The book "Voyennaya strategiya" on this question states: "The notion which
existed right until World War II concerning the strategic deployment of the
Armed Forces as a range of successively implemented and planned measures to
cover, mobilize, concentrate and deploy the armed forces in the theater of
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military operations and which are carried out in a threatening period or with
the start of a war at present is clearly obsolete. Under present-day
conditions, a majority of these measures can be carried out ahead of time and
merely completed in the threatening period (emphasis mine.--M. G.)."(87)
Such a recommendation in principle does not arouse dispute. When there is an,
opportunity, of -cour-se one-, must work -for this..- But, in being correct
theoretically, this_ re_commensi.a_tiQn_in_practical terms does not t.akein_to
account the entire complexity of carrying outtte.. task,, in being reminiscent
of the demand of afire euef that his team arrive at the fire an hour before
it starts,
In the first. place,, the given statement does not take into ao.eount that the
imperialist states are wagering in a war against the socialist states on a
surprise attacks with-out-the preliminary deployment of all the rsQurces
required for this. The slogan which was widespread in the 1930's of "Fight On
Foreign Territory" was also designed for the early deployment of the troops
for repelling aggression, but on the eve of the war we did not succeed in
doing this for various reasons.
Secondly,, early strategic deployment of the Armed Forces prior to the start of
a war, regardless of all.the--benefits of this in purely military terms, is not
always feasible out -of _,milj.tar
y-.p.olit cal cQrisid-e - I -s. A mol~ilizat~iQ.i?, let
alone the entire range of measures related to strategic deployment, has always
been considered tantamount to a_state_.,of war and it is very difficult to
achieve a return from it back to a peacetime status. If a war generally is-
politics through and through, on the eve and at the start -of- a war its
political aspects are even more prevalent.
Considering all of this, the, present system of strategic deployment cannot be
oriented solely-on one-of the most advantageous variations for us, but should
be more flexible and -provide the organized deployment of the troops (forces)
under any conditions when the imperialist aggressors initiate a war.
Thus, at the present stage in the development of the theory of military art,
when the methods of fighting are being fundamentally transformed and the gap
between the experience of a past war and the present-day demands is becoming
ever-greater, the succession and the most permanent patterns of military
affairs to a definite degree do survive. The more profoundly they are
considered in working out new concepts and the farther theory looks ahead, the
sounder the conclusions and notions directed toward the future will be.
In _ peaking about the prospects, for the further development of the theory of
military art, in.__line,-of what,.-fete-_haye been discussing,- the problem of
maintaininghi?h _cflmbat.. readiness-.-to- repel an_enemy -surprise attack assumes
particularly impQrtant_ ignifircance,-..,The advance in the means of attack among
our probable enemies, their commitment to launching a first strike and the
growing role of the time factor at the outset of a war place new demands upon
the combat readiness of the Armed Forces. For this reason one of the
important tasks of_ military--science is to seek out ways for further increasing
the combat readiness, of the Armed Forces and their abiity to conduct decisive
actions to defeat any aggressor under any conditions of the start of a war.
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The difficulty of this problem is determined by the fact that the rapid
evolution of enemy means of attack and its attempts to ensure a surprise
strike must be countered not only by the appropriate effective means and
methods of defense but also by a more advanced and flexible system for the
combat training of our Armed Forces. This should ensure the possibility of an
immediate response to increased danger and the organized commitment of the
Armed Forces to action under the most complicated conditions.
One of the most important tasks in the theory of strategy is to continue the
profound study of the military-strategic nature of a possible war and the main
features and traits of modern operations. In turn, it is essential to have a
further elaboration of the key questions of planning and employing troops
(forces) in an operation. Here, as was pointed out by the Chief of the
General Staff and First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, MSU S. F.
Akhromeyev, "it must be remembered that changes in the nature of wars at
present are occurring faster and, hence, our response to these changes and the
demands of Soviet military art on the organizational development of the Armed
Forces should be more timely."(88)
A large amount of research is related to the questions of improving troop
command and control, particularly on the eve and with the start of military
operations, considering the new, increased demands upon the work of the
headquarters bodies. Many tasks remain to be resolved in working out the
theoretical bases in the area of increased effective cooperation between the
formations of the various Armed Services and branches of troops in preparing
and conducting joint operations and combat actions.
The problem of replacing losses remains a complex and important one. The
experience of wars in the Near East has shown that losses in modern combat,
even in combat employing only conventional weapons, increase significantly,
for the effectiveness of weapons has sharply risen. In this context, the need
arises for further improving the methods of increasing the effort,
replenishing troops, repairing and rebuilding weapons and military equipment
as well as establishing and utilizing reserves.
In the area of operational art, one of the central group of problems remains
the profound and thorough elaboration of questions related to the preparation
and conduct of all-arms, combined and independent operations by all the Armed
Services. It is essential to thoroughly study those methods of actions which
would ensure high reliability in carrying out the basic operational tasks by
the troops and fleets in a shorter time, with fewer expenditures of resources,
with minimum losses and the fullest utilization of the capabilities of the new
types of weapons and combat equipment.
In principle we have elaborated a clear system of views on the preparation and
conduct of offensive operations. But they, like other concepts in our theory,
are constantly developing. In particular, work must be continued on
investigating the methods of ensuring continuous and rapid advance by our
troops to a great depth. On this level many problems arise including:
breaking through the defenses full of various antitank weapons, the organizing
of dependable fire damage to the enemy, particularly its armored objects on
the defensive, the coordinated employment of airborne troops, forward
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detachments and the rapid exploitation of success, the combating of enemy
reconnaissance and attack weapons and so forth.
An analysis of the probable enemy's capabilities shows that our troops will
have to fight against its groupings which possess great fire and attack power,
high maneuverability and armed with a large amount of modern types of weapons
and combat equipment, including: armored vehicles, antitank weapons, air
defense weapons, helicopter gunships and so forth. In order to successfully
defeat such a grouping, it is essential to resolve the questions of its fire
damage to the entire depth of the configuration as well as splitting up the
grouping and defeating it piecemeal.
A different approach is required to conducting encirclement operations. In
the previous war an encirclement was basically carried out by the rapid
emerging of mobile troops in the flanks and rear of relatively immobile
infantry groupings. The surrounded troops now have greater opportunities for
maneuvering, for establishing attack groupings and breaking out of the
encirclement. At the same time, there has been a greater dependence of modern
equipment upon the delivery of fuel and ammunition and upon roads. This to a
certain degree will tie down the surrounded groupings. For this reason,
methods must be sought for the more dependable and rapid carrying out of this
difficult form of operation considering the new conditions.
In speaking about the problems of offensive and defensive operations, it must
be considered that at present there is an ever-stronger tendency toward a
further merging of the methods of troop operations on the offensive and
defensive. A modern offensive is a combination of fire strikes, the rapid
advance of tanks and armored infantry supported by aviation and helicopter
gunships from the air and bold actions of airborne troops deep in the defenses
and on the flanks of the opposing groupings. In e9rLtra-at to-an, offansive in
the__.periacl-nf_ the Greet P triotie._Idar not a successive advance of
the troops from .line.. t o_ .line _bltt_ .,a. ,ore,._d ci s v,~-_.~ q u1taneous hitting of - the
enemy to The entire depth of _ its.__eonfigurat on.
In line with the increased range of the enemy's operational-tactical missile
systems and artillery, the need arises for clarifying the methods of
dispersing the troops along the front and in depth both on the offensive and
on the defensive and increasing the distance of the assembly areas of the
formations, the deployment lines of the troops, the second echelons and the
reserves. Of enormous __ignificanee is the primary hitting of enemy nuclear
missile weapons and high_,_precis~on weapons even bef4.re .the. moving up of the
main grouping of one's troops into the .-lump off areas for.the offensive and'
for. launching counterstrikes,
The modern defensive is also based upon fire and maneuver combined with the
strong holding of occupied positions. This is characterized by the employment
of powerful weapons making it possible to hit superior enemy forces at the
distant approaches as well as by high activity of the defending troops.
It is essential to improve the methods of employing the formations and units
of the Armed Services and the methods of preparing and conducting independent
and joint operations as well as more thoroughly study the specific actions of
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troops (forces) under the conditions of the various theaters of military
operations.
Tactics is the most dynamic area of military art. Each change in one
generation of weapons by another is reflected first of all in tactics and
brings to life new tactical procedures for conducting combat as well as an
adjustment or reorganization of the structure of the formations and units and
the methods of their training. For example, in the Ground Forces as before
there is great importance for improving the forms of cooperation among the
tanks, infantry, artillery and aviation, the methods of neutralizing enemy
antitank defenses, the methods of combating enemy remote minelaying,
aeromobile antitank weapons, troop aviation and so forth. In each Armed
Service there are a number of problems in the area of preparing and conducting
modern combat on land, in the air and at sea.
A characteristic trait of tactics is the growing importance of the distance of
conducting a fire engagement. At present, the troops have gained the
opportunity of causing significant damage to the enemy using firearms long
before direct contact with the enemy. As the range of missile launches and
artillery fire increases, the depth of the fire fight will also rise.
Modern weapons make it possible to achieve a continuous offensive, surprise
and rapid attacks as well as great activeness and strength of defenses.
The interests of the matter demand that research on prospective questions be
combined with a thorough study of the experience of previous wars, the local
wars of our times and the history of the development of military-theoretical
thought and the practices of operational and combat training, bringing out
here, as M. V. Frunze taught, primarily the trends in the further development
of military art. In relying on the experience of our predecessors and
considering the development prospects of military affairs, we should do
everything to more accurately and fully anticipate the nature of future
operations and the methods of conducting them. The irrefutable advantages of
Marxist-Leninist military science and what we have experienced and suffered
through over many years provide us with reason to assume that our theory of
military art will always be equal to its purpose.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Leer, "Strategiya" [Strategy], St. Petersburg, 1898, Part 1, p 2.
2.
VOYENNAYA MYSL I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 4, 1923, P 78.
3.
"Leninskiy sbornik" [Leninist Collection], 37, p
137.
4.
M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, p 17.
5.
Quoted in: "Leninskiy sbornik," 12, p 437.
6.
Ibid., p 429.
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7. A. Svechin, "Strategiya" [Strategy], 2d Edition, Moscow, 1927, p 8.
8. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 15.
9. Ibid., Vol 2, p 176.
10. Ibid., p 164.
11. Ibid., p 166.
12. Ibid., p 43.
13. Ibid., Vol 3, p 218.
14. Ibid., Vol 1, p 399.
15. "Stenograficheskiy otchet 2-go dnya soveshchaniya voyennykh delegatov XI
syezda RKP(b) 1 aprelya 1922 g." [Verbatim Report of the Second Day of
the Conference of Military Delegates to the 11th RKP(b) Congress on
1 April 1922], Moscow, 1922, pp 15-16.
16. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 110.
17. Ibid., Vol 2, p 97.
18. Ibid., Vol 1, p 402.
19. A. Svechin, "Strategiya," p 40.
20. See: A. V. Golubev, "M. V. Frunze o kharaktere budushchey voyny" [M. V.
on the Nature of Future War], Moscow, 1931, p 49.
21. A. I. Verkhovskiy, "Ogon, manevr i maskirovka" [Fire, Maneuver and
Camouflage], Moscow, 1928, p 11.
22. VOYENNYYE VESTNIK, Nos 2, 3, 1922, p 5.
23. See: V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 42, p 173.
24. Ibid., Vol 44, p 209.
25. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 7.
26. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, pp 403-404.
27. Ibid., pp 222-223.
28. Ibid., pp 401-402.
29. Ibid., p 406
30. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 40, p 6.
189
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31. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 2, p 63.
32. Ibid., Vol 3, p 167.
33. TsGASA [Central State Archives of the Soviet Army], folio 2, inv. 2,
file 205, sheets 157-158.
34. "KPSS o Vooruzhennykh Silakh Sovetskogo Soyuza" [The CPSU on the USSR
Armed Forces], Moscow, 1969, P 35.
35. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 2, p 122.
36. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 45, p 401.
37. See: VOYENNOYE DELO, Nos 1, 3 and 7, 1920.
38. "Protiv reaktsionnykh teoriy na voyenno-nauchnom fronte" [Against
Reactionary Theories on the Military-Scientific Front], Moscow, 1931,
p 61.
39. See: P. P. Lebedev, "Gosudarstvennaya oborona" [State Defense], Moscow,
1924, pp 31-35, 42-43.
40. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, pp 205-206.
41. Ibid., Vol 2, p 32.
42. B. M. Shaposhnikov, "Mozg armiy," [The Army's Brain] Moscow, 1929, Vol 2,
P 135.
43. Quoted from: "Shaposhnikov B. M. i yego voyenno-teoreticheskoy
naslediye" [B. M. Shaposhnikov and His Military-Theoretical Heritage],
Moscow, 1983, p 18.
44. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 9, p 156.
45. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 2, p 97.
46. See: M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 2, p 104; Vol 3, pp 104, 105,
114, 115.
47. Ibid., Vol 2, p 49.
48. Ibid., Vol 2, pp 103-104.
49. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 42, p 140.
50. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 230.
51. See: "Vyssheye komandovaniye: Ofitsialnoye rukovodstvo dlya
komanduyushchikh i polevykh upravleniy armiy i frontov" [Higher Command:
190
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Official Manual for Commanders and Field Headquarters of Armies and
Fronts], Moscow, 1924.
52. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 2, p 115.
53. See: "Vyssheye komandovaniye...," pp 27-28.
54. A. Jomini, "Ocherki voyennogo iskusstva" [Essays on Military Art],
Moscow, 1939, Vol 2, p 3.
55. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 197.
56. Ibid.
57. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, p 405.
58. Ibid., p 417.
59. G. Isserson, "Evolyutsiya operativnogo iskusstva" [The Evolution of
Operational Art], Moscow, 1932, p 25.
60. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 1, p 129.
61. "Vremennyy Polevoy ustav RKKA" [Provisional RKKA Field Manual], Part 2
(Division and Corps), Moscow, 1925, p 19.
62. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 177.
63. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 259.
64. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, pp 46-47.
65. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, p 418.
66. See: M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 1, pp 262-265.
67. Ibid., Vol 2, p 50.
68. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 2, p 272.
6g. Ibid., p 273.
70. See: Ibid., pp 272-276.
71. Ibid., Vol 3, p 205.
72. See: "Vremennyy Polevoy ustav RKKA," Part 2 (Division and Corps), p 237.
73. Ibid., Part 2 (Division and Corps), pp VI-VIII.
74. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 2, p 163.
75. Ibid., pp 20-21.
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76. Ibid., p 20.
77. See: S. I. Gusev, "Nashi raznoglasiya v voyennom dele" [Our Differences
in Military Affairs], Moscow, 1925, p 61.
78. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 2, p 176.
79. See: A. V. Golubev, "V. M. Frunze o kharaktere...," p 27.
80. G. K. Zhukov, "Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya" [Remembrances and
Reflections], Moscow, 1974, Vol 1, pp 239-240.
81.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 39, p 55.
82.
TsAMO [Central Archives of the USSR Ministry of Defense],
folio
14,
inv. 11603, file 226, sheets 171-214.
83.
D. F. Ustinov, "Izbrannyye rechi i stati," p 389.
84.
See: "Sovetskaya Voyennaya Entsiklopediya," Vol 7, 1979,
p 564.
85.
M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 367.
86.
See: "Voyennaya strategiya" [Military Strategy], 2d Edition, Moscow,
1963, pp 19-23.
87.
Ibid., p 22.
88.
S. F. Akhromeyev, "The Role of the Soviet Union and Its Armed Forces in
Achieving a Fundamental Change in World War II and Its International
Significance," VOYENNO-ISTORICHESKIY ZHURNAL, No 2, 1984, p 24.
192
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CHAPTER 4: ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARMED FORCES
Leadership of the CPSU--The Fundamental Principle of Soviet Military
Organizational Development
The sociopolitical principles in the organizational development of the Red
Army. K. Marx and F. Engels, in working out the theory of revolutionary
struggle, formulated most important concepts about the military organization
of a victorious proletariat. They established the necessity of shattering the
bourgeois state machine including such major attributes of it as the army and
the police. At the same time, they pointed out the main areas of establishing
a new military organization of the proletarian state. However, the conditions
under which the Armed Forces of our country were established after the victory
of the October Revolution differed significantly from those which they had
conceived in the 19th Century. The main feature was that the socialist
revolution, as V. I. Lenin had foreseen, was victorious just in one country
which from the very first days of its existence was in a hostile capitalist
encirclement.
In creatively applying Marxist teachings about war and the army in the new
age, the age of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, the Communist Party,
headed by V. I. Lenin, worked out the scientific principles and specific ways
for the organizational development of the Armed Forces of the world's first
socialist state. "...The ruling class, the proletariat," said V. I. Lenin,
"only if it wishes to rule, should show this through its military
organization."(1) V. I. Lenin was the true organizer and leader of the Red
Army and Red Navy. He elaborated the most important ideas on the defense of
the socialist fatherland, he disclosed the particular features of the
socialist state's armed forces and their fundamental difference from bourgeois
armies, he brought out the sources of the new army's strength and might and
defined its social nature and purpose.
V. I. Lenin viewed the Armed Forces of the Soviet nation as a social, state
organization established to defend the victories of the socialist revolution
and as a most important weapon in the entire revolutionary class struggle of
the proletariat under the conditions of capitalist encirclement. For this
reason, he emphasized, the questions of military organizational development
can be resolved only considering the general processes occurring in the
society and the state. He pointed out that the organizational development of
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our army "could only lead to successful results as it was established in the
spirit of general Soviet construction...."(2)
V. I. Lenin considered the leadership of the Communist Party over the Armed
Forces and the entire question of strengthening the nation's defense
capability as the highest sociopolitical principle. He saw in this the
decisive source of the Red Army's might and the basis of all its victories.
"...Solely, due to the fact," wrote V. I. Lenin, "that the party was on guard,
that the party was strictly disciplined and because the authority of the party
unified all the departments and institutions and according to the slogan which
was given by the Central Committee, tens, hundreds, thousands and ultimately
millions marched like a single man and only because unprecedented sacrifices
were made--only for this reason did the miracle which occurred could happen.
Only for this reason, regardless of the two, three and four campaigns by the
imperialists of the Entente and the imperialists of the entire world were we
able to win."(3) The principle of the leading role of the party in the
organizational development of the Armed Forces was carried out in a fierce
struggle against the Trotskyites and other antiparty elements which wished to
split the army and navy from the party.
From the very start of the founding of the Soviet Armed Forces the leading
role of the party in their organizational development and training has been
carried out in the following most important areas: assessing the conditions
and the balance of forces in the revolutionary class struggle and establishing
the necessity of the armed defense of the socialist fatherland; the
elaboration of military policy; the elaboration in accord with this of the
sociopolitical, economic, ideological-theoretical, organizational and
scientific-technical bases of military organizational development; determining
the purpose and tasks of the army and navy considering the specific military-
political situation; the elaboration of the principles, specific forms and
methods of organizing and manning the Armed Forces and their technical
equipping; the training of military personnel; the organization and execution
of party political work; concern for the material support of the army and navy
personnel; the elaboration of the most important provisions of military theory
and practice and determining the content and direction of military doctrine on
this basis; the training and indoctrination of the personnel; the mobilizing
of the efforts of the entire party, the people and the state for the armed
defense of the victories of the revolution and the strengthening of national
defense.
All these areas of military organizational development were reflected in the
decisions of the 8th-11th and subsequent congresses, plenums of the party
Central Committee and numerous speeches of V. I. Lenin and other party and
state figures. The decision of the Eighth Party Congress in 1918 stated that
the revolutionary nature of the Armed Forces is achieved by their class
composition, "by the organization of commissars at the communist cells. And
by the common party and soviet leadership over the life and activities of the
army."(4)
Our party had to follow an untrod path in the organizational development of
the Armed Forces. For this reason it relied particularly widely on the
revolutionary creativity of the masses, it constantly tested out in practice
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the correctness of the proposed ideas and constantly improved the forms and
methods of military-organizational development. The "Circular Letter of the
RKP(b) Central Committee to All Party Members on the Strengthening of the Red
Army" of 14 July 1919 stated that the question of the building of the Armed
Forces of a socialist state was a new and difficult matter. For this reason
the party "should analyze as often as possible the previous experience of the
organizational development of the Red Army, look back, measure the stages
passed and weigh the new paths."(5)
One of the party figures who carefully studied previous experience and
actually carried out Lenin's ideas of military-organizational develoment was
M. V. Frunze. "All the changes," he said, "which we are now carrying out in
the area of military-organizational development are so fundamental that we can
rightly speak of the start of a new stage in military-organizational
development."(6)
The party also gave great attention to the elaboration and practical
implementation of the principle of the unity of army and people. "...The
Soviet organization," wrote V. I. Lenin, "has made it possible to create an
armed force of workers and peasants which is much more closely tied than
before with the workers and exploited masses."(7) The link between the army
and the people during the period of the Civil War was expressed primarily in
the all-round support by the workers and peasants for their army, by sending
their finest sons and daughters into its ranks, by unstinting labor in the
rear to meet the needs of the Red Army and by active involvement in universal
military training and in many other measures.
"We can say without exaggeration," commented M. V. Frunze, "that no nation
will be found which compares with usin terms of the availability of a mass of
population trained for military affairs, in terms of the strength and
solidarity of the army with the broad masses of people and the inner
cohesiveness of its command and rank...and file. All of this creates so
favorable conditions for us that we could scarcely be beaten not only by any
individual, even the most powerful state but even by an entire coalition of
them."(8)
In the leadership of military-organizational development, our party has
consistently carried out the principle of the friendship of peoples and
proletarian internationalism and this has been one of the most important
sources for the inner cohesiveness and combat might of the Armed Forces which
are the implement for defending the multinational state. In addressing the
representatives of different peoples and internationalist fighters, V. I.
Lenin said: "On you has fallen the great honor of defending the sacred ideas
with weapons in hand and-actually realizing the international fraternity of
peoples."(9)
In contrast to the bourgeois parties and states which hypocritically conceal
the antipopular essence of the imperialist armies, our party and Soviet power
from the very outset has openly proclaimed the principle of a class approach
to the organizational development of the Armed Forces based upon a
strengthening of the alliance of the working class and the peasantry and have
firmly adhered to this in practice.
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V. I. Lenin pointed out: "The army cannot and should not be neutral. Not to
involve the army in politics is the slogan of the hypocritical servants of the
bourgeoisie... who in actuality have always involved the army in reactionary
policies .... "(10) And while the armed forces in all states have been an
implement of military violence in the hands of the ruling classes, our party,
Lenin stressed, has become an implement in the struggle for worker interests.
M. V. Frunze pointed out that a class approach to the manning of the army is a
manifestation of the class nature of the proletarian elements leading it and
the very nature of class warfare. We cannot, he said, entrust the right and
duty to defend our worker-peasant fatherland with weapons in hand to those
social groups the interests of which are inimical to the interests of labor.
The right to defend the socialist fatherland with weapons in hand can be
entrusted only to the workers.
M. V. Frunze was decisively against the supraclass principle proposed the the
SRs, Mencheviks and certain military specialists from the old army of
establishing a people's army which would include the representatives of both
the workers as well as the former exploiting classes. On the basis of an
analysis of the specific balance of forces, he showed the absurdity and
harmfulness of this thesis under the conditions of a class society, under
conditions where a fierce struggle was underway between these classes. He
explained and showed that no time previously had any people's army existed or
could it exist. The so-called peoples armies of any age, in essence were
armies representing not the interests of the people but rather the ruling
classes. The word "people's" was only a manifestation of the political
hypocracy of those classes who feared to say openly that, for example, the
Tsarist Army was an army of tsars and landowners. "For this reason,"
emphasized Frunze, "we from the very outset have sharply and definitely raised
the question of establishing any mythical 'people's' army but rather a
proletarian army, an army of workers and peasants."(11)
The RKKA was established from the most aware and organized elements of the
working masses, exclusively from the proletariat and the semiproletarian
strata of the peasantry which were close to it. The class approach to its
organizational development was embodied both in the manning method and in the
recruitment and placement of military personnel so as to prevent the
penetration of hostile elements into the ranks of the Red Army and Red Navy
and ensure the moral and political unity of their personnel. Non-laboring
elements were inducted only for the rear militia.
At the same time our party viewed the class approach to the manning of the
army as a temporary phenomenon, envisaging that after the elimination of the
exploiting classes and the victory of socialism, the army would be turned into
an army of all the people.
All the sociopolitical and organizational principles in military
organizational development were elaborated and implemented by our party from
the viewpoint of solving the main task which defined the main purpose and goal
of the Armed Forces, that is, ensuring their high constant combat readiness to
repel imperialist aggression and securely defend the security of the Soviet
state.
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On the System of Military Organizational Development
What path should be followed? A permanent or militia army? The question of
what the military organization of the proletariat should be and what army
should be established for defending the victories of the revolution was the
most difficult. At the Eighth RKP(b) Congress, V. I. Lenin said: "The
question of the organization of the Red Army was completely new and it has not
been posed at all even theoretically.... We have fought for a cause for which
no one has fought so widely in the world.... We have gone from experiment to
experiment-feeling our way and testing out in what manner the problem can be
resolved in the given situation. And the task was clear. Without armed
defense of the socialist republic we could not exist."(12) He taught that the
ruling class would never voluntarily surrender its power to the suppressed
class. But the latter should show in fact that it is capable not only of
overthrowing the exploiters but also organizing itself for self-defense and
stake one's all.
F. Engels, in examining the questions of the proletariat's military
organization, in military history found the attempt to organize (form) two
systems of armed forces: a regular army and a militia (armed people's
militia). At one time Engels preferred the militia as the most convenient and
most comprehensible form of involving the revolutionary masses in the defense
of the revolution. At the same time he cautioned that "only a communistically
organized and indoctrinated society can come very close to a militia system
but may not fully achieve it."(13)
Initially V. I. Lenin also felt that after the victory of the revolution it
was essential to crush the military organization of the bourgeoisie, to arm
the working class, to establish a worker militia (detachments of the Red
Guard) and win over the soldiers and sailors of the Tsarist army. The party's
first program envisaged the replacement of a standing army by the universal
arming of the people in the form of a worker-peasant militia. But
circumstances developed in such a manner that the Red Army had to be
established in an extremely short period of time in the course of a fierce
struggle against the domestic counterrevolution and foreign interventionists
in a country that was backward, illiterate and devastated by the imperialist
war. Under these conditions small-sized, poorly trained and poorly armed
volunteer units and militia formations were unable to check the superior and
well organized forces of the numerous enemies of the revolution.
Trotsky and his supporters continued defending the obsolete principle of a
militia military organization for the Armed Forces, insisting upon the
immediate and complete conversion to a militia system or the manning of the
Red Army. This position, unfortunately, was defended not only by the
Trotskyites. Certain authoritative figures in our party, for example, N. I.
Podvoyskiy, were also in favor of the militia system for organizing the army
similar to the Swiss Army, where all males should undergo military training
without being diverted for military service for an extended time.
There was a broad discussion in the press over the question of what path
should be followed in military organizational development. On the pages of
197
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the journals, newspapers and official announcements, the most diverse
Judgments were heard. One group of military leaders including I. I. Vatsetis,
N. I. Podvoyskiy, I. S. Unshlikht, V. P. Georgadze and others proposed
disbanning the standing army, the complete abandonment of it and the
conversion to a militia system for the organizing of the army, considering
this to be the most economic and effective for organizing combat training.
Another group including M. N. Tukhachevskiy, D. A. Petrovskiy, V. Vilenskiy
and I. T. Smilga was against the militia system, considering it a "hair-
brained scheme," since a militia army under the new conditions could not
provide dependable national defense. Individual military specialists such as
A. A. Brusilov, V. P. Muratov and G. F. Girs considered it possible to
organize the army on a combined basis.
V. I. Lenin, considering the altered conditions for the defense of the
socialist fatherland, proved that the demand for the universal arming of the
people and a militia of all the people did not conform to the interests of
strengthening and defending the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Under a situation of fierce resistance from the overthrown classes which
together with international imperialism had unleashed a civil war demanded not
"the arming of all the people" but rather the arming of the workers and the
disarming of the exploiting classes, not a "militia of all the people" but
rather a class military organization of the proletariat which also included
the working peasants.
Proceeding from these Leninst concepts, our party has concluded that under the
existing extreme situation for the defense of Soviet power there was only one
way, the establishing of a regular, mass, well organized and trained army.
Such an army could not be organized on a volunteer principle; it was essential
to convert to obligatory military service for the male population and
introduce universal military instruction for the workers and peasants. This
was a fundamentally new resolution to the question of organizing the armed
forces of a socialist state. The great achievement of V. I. Lenin was that he
creatively developed the theses of Marxism concerning the breaking up of the
bourgeois army and the establishing of a new military organization for the
victorious proletariat.
The Eighth RKP(b) Congress approved the Leninist course of military
organizational development and the establishing of a centrally controlled,
class, regular and disciplined army. The congress rejected the attempts of
the "military opposition" to thwart the establishing of such an army.
The entire course of the Civil War showed how timely were the measures to
establish a mass regular army. The size of the Red Army at the outset of the
war was 800,000 men and by the end of the war the situation demanded that it
be brought up to 5.5 million men.
Thus, as V. I. Lenin pointed out, the proletariat "never could and cannot at
present achieve...rule and strengthen it except, having completely broken up
the old army...in going through a most difficult, tortuous period without any
army...but gradually...in a difficult Civil War developing a new army, a new
discipline, a new military organization of a new class."(14)
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The organizational development of the regular army. After the end of the
Civil War, V. I. Lenin insisted upon introducing a military organization which
would most fully consider both the danger of imperialist aggression as well as
the internal capabilities of the Soviet state. His idea came down to the
following: "Without relying upon the blows already dealt to imperialism, we
should maintain our Red Army at whatever the cost in full combat readiness and
strengthen its combat capability. This, of course, is not impeded by
releasing a certain portion of the army and its rapid demobilization. We are
counting that the enormous experience which was gained during the war by the
Red Army and its leaders will help us now improve its qualities. And we will
see to it that in cutting back the army we will keep a basic nucleus which
will not impose an impossible burden on the public in the sense of upkeep and
at the same time with a reduced size of the army we will better than before
ensure the possibility in the event of need of getting back on our feet and
mobilizing an even greater military force."(15)
The carrying out of such a complex as maintaining a high combat capability for
the army without excessively overburdening the economy, under those very
severe conditions as our nation was after the Civil War was possible solely on
a strictly scientific basis. Proceeding from the Leninist notions of the
importance of science in the organizational development of the Armed Forces,
the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in its decision stated: "The Worker
and Peasant Red Army should be so organized that with the least expenditure of
men and weapons to provide the greatest result and this is possible only with
the planned employment of all types of military science...."(16)
The program for reorganizing the Red Army after the Civil War was set out by
the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921. Upon the instructions of the party
Central Committee, M. V. Frunze and S. I. Gusev prepared and published the
theses proposed by them to the Tenth RKP(b) Congress as a draft resolution on
the military question. They defended the maintaining of a nucleus of a
professional army and at the same time proposed a gradual conversion to
militia formations. The congress rejected the ideas of Trotsky and his
supporters on the immediate conversion of the Armed Forces to a militia
system, having recognized these ideas as wrong and extremely dangerous under
the conditions of the complex international situation and the unabating
attempts by imperialism to stifle the young Soviet Republic.
The congress considered it possible to have only a partial conversion to the
territorial-militia formations. The decisions of the Tenth Party Congress on
this question stated: "The agitation of certain comrades for the actual
elimination of the present Red Army and the immediate switch-over to a militia
is incorrect and practically dangerous for the present moment."(17)
In 1921, in the article "A Unified Military Doctrine and the Red Army," M. V.
Frunze wrote: "In organizational terms the basis of our armed forces for the
immediate period can only be a permanent Red Army. This stems from all that
was said about the general nature of our combat tasks. This question at
present can be considered resolved once and for all in line with the
corresponding decree of the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party and
the subsequent governmental decrees. The conversion to a militia system on
the basis of Vsevobuch [Universal Military Training] will be permitted only to
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the degree that it makes it possible to achieve definite savings in the
expenditure of state funds without undermining the ability of the Red Army to
resolve active goals."(18)
Of great importance for further military organizational development was the
congress decision concerning the uniting of the economic, political and
military efforts of the Soviet Republics within the framework of a unified
Soviet state. This was expressed most vividly in the formation of the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1922.
The organizational development of the Soviet Armed Forces after the Civil War
was carried out considering these party theses and the instructions of V. I.
Lenin. The nation's economic situation did not make it possible to support a
large army. In November 1920, the Soviet government issued instructions for
reducing the army by 2 million men. But due to a number of international and
domestic circumstances and the unsatisfactory leadership by the Republic RVS
and primarily Trotsky, the demobilization of the army was carried out slowly.
By the spring of 1921, it had been reduced by just 800,000 men.
In April 1921 the RKP(b) Central Committee examined the course of troop
demobilization and in accordance with Lenin's proposal recommended a reduction
of the Armed Forces to 1.6 million men by Fall 1921, and to subsequently
reduce their numerical strenght to less than 800,000 men. This was
accomplished by October 1922. However the status of the country's economy
made it extremely difficult to maintain even this number of troops and naval
forces. In December 1922 the Party's Central Committee adopted a resolution
to reduce the Armed Forces to 600,000 men.
The complexity of the international situation and the possibility of military
complications for the Soviet Republic required the seeking out of the most
effective ways for military organizational development in order, with a
limited number, to achieve the necessary level of combat readiness for the
Armed Forces. The interests of the matter dictated the necessity also of
clear, well thought out leadership over the organizational development and
training of the Red Army and Red Navy, a high level of organization in the
work, unified understanding and specific ways for carrying out the military
tasks confronting the nation.
But the practical implementation of these tasks was impeded not only by the
intrigues of international imperialism and the severe economic state of the
nation. The situation was aggrevated also by the fact that the Trotskyites
and other party enemies did not provide an opportunity for the planned and
purposeful carrying out of the Leninist party general line both in the area of
socialist construction as a whole and on the question of national defense. By
their constant antiparty intrigues, they diverted the attention and strength
of the army and the state from solving urgent political, economic and military
questions. Particularly bad was the state of affairs in the military
department which Trotsky continued to lead. The conversion of the Armed
Forces to a peacetime status was carried out in a disorganized manner and
delayed in every possible way. Having made their way to leadership positions,
Troskyite elements sabotaged the carrying out of the decisions of the
congresses and plenums of the party Central Committee on military questions.
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The material condition of the Armed Forces personnel was extremely bad. The
organizational structure of the army and the system of its manning did not
correspond to the new tasks and demands. The RKP(b) Central Committee, in
conducting a special investigation of the state of affairs in the Armed
Forces, was forced to comment: "Having heard the report of the
commission.-the Central Committee plenum confirms the presence of serious
flaws in the army (colossal turnover, complete dissatisfaction with the
organization of supply and so forth) threatening the army with collapse."(19)
In describing the situation at that time, M. V. Frunze wrote: "If one of the
old military workers who had lived through the heroic combat age with the army
and had bid farewell to it after the elimination of the fronts would turn up
in its ranks again, he would probably be extremely amazed by the picture which
appeared before him. Not a trace remains of the former rushing, feverishly
intense pulsing with life. Deprived of a significant share of its best and
most active elements, put under heavy, technical conditions of work, and now
escaped from the view of the direct attention and leadership of the party,
today's military apparatus ekes out a rather dull existence, scarcely meeting
the concerns and needs of today. The wheels of the military machine creak
slowly and feebly; modern military thought also moves lazily and
flabbily."(20) The middle-level military worker, he continued, caught up in a
2-year period of continuous reorganizations and reformations, has finally lost
any sense of balance and has fallen into a state close to mental prostration,
dreaming only of one thing: when all of this will end and order will finally
be imposed. The unprecedentedly difficult material conditions of army life
added to all of this.
Furthermore, Frunze explained that with all the importance of the question of
national military defense, the state and the army could allocate comparatively
insignificant funds for this purpose. "But our task, regardless of the
extremely limited possibilities, remains as before: to provide the republic
with a strong, hale and at the same time cheap army."(21)
Immediate and decisive measures were required to rectify the state of affairs.
Under such conditions, M. V. Frunze had to commence the work of reorganizing
the Armed Forces. Upon the assignment of the party Central Committee and the
Soviet government, he took over the People's Commissariat for Military and
Naval Affairs. By that time, as was pointed out previously, M. V. Frunze
already had significant experience in the organizational development of the
army in the post of military commissar of Yaroslavl Province and as the
commander of an army and fronts and the troops of the Ukraine and Crimea.
Moreover, he had a thorough knowledge of the works of K. Marx, F. Engels and
V. I. Lenin, military history and the experience of foreign armies on the
questions of military organizational development.
In 1924-1925, upon a decision and under the leadership of the party Central
Committee and the Soviet government, major changes were carried out in the
Armed Forces in the aim of increasing their combat readiness. Under party
assignment, M. V. Frunze directly led their implementation. K. Ye. Voroshilov
has rightly commented on the gigantic work carried out under Frunze's
leadership: "...The enormous tasks which were posed for resolution by this
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extraordinary opened up a new stage in military organizational
development."(22)
As was already pointed out, in working out the concepts of a unified military
doctrine, M. V. Frunze raised not only military-political and operational-
strategic questions but also closely tied questions of the theory and practice
of the organizational development of the Armed Forces. One of the most
important conditions for successfully carrying out the tasks of military
organizational development and for planned and effective work in this area was
considered by him to be the elaboration of a unified understanding of both the
tasks and methods for improving the organizational structure of the troops and
the manning principles of the army and navy. This unity, in his opinion,
should encompass and permeate all aspects of army life both in peacetime and
wartime.
The mixed system for the organizational development of the armed forces.
M. V. Frunze had an understanding of the advantages of a professional army
over the militia one and considered the latter to be a temporary, enforced
measure. However, under the developing historical situation, he assumed, a
skillful, rational combination of the professional and militia army would be
the most effective form for the organizational development of the Armed
Forces. "Of course," he said, "if we had the choice between a professional
army of 1.5-2 million men and the current militia system, from the military
viewpoint all the givens would be in favor of the first solution. But we have
no such choice. The militia system, combined with regular units, undoubtedly
will provide the defense of the Union."(23)
The actual organizational development of the Red Army was carried out in two
areas: in the first place, by improving the organizational structure and
increasing the combat readiness of the professional formations and units;
secondly, by working out and introducing a territorial-militia system. A
particularly complex matter was the carrying out of the territorial-militia
system. Both in theoretical and practical terms, M. V. Frunze prepared
carefully and purposefully for carrying out this exceptionally important state
task. In 1922, he wrote the article "The Regular Army and the Militia" which
from Marxist-Leninist positions analyze the experience of military
organizational development in other nations, including the experience of
employing the militia system, and establish proposals for employing it in the
organizational development of the Soviet Armed Forces.
M. V. Frunze went on to show that the territorial-militia system, like any
other organizational forms, must not be viewed abstractly, in isolation from
the existing historical conditions of military organizational development.
Its advisability could be correctly assessed only considering the specific
conditions in the existence of the state and the army as well as all the
political, economic and military factors which influence the practical
employment of this form of military organization.
In the opinion of M. V. Frunze, "Not any militia is always better or
preferable over a standing army. This question should be posed and resolved
specifically, in close relation to the social and political conditions of time
and place. Where there are no basic conditions which would ensure the
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founding of strong militia formations, a changeover to them would be simply
harmful."(24) For us, on the one hand, the political conditions should be of
crucial importance and, on the other, the purely military requirements.
Did our nation have prerequisites for converting to such formations? asked
Frunze. He replied: For us a changeover to a militia system is possible only
gradually and only within strict limits. In any event, for a long time to
come there can be no question of completely abandoning the professional units.
He emphasized that one could only speak about a combination of these two basic
organizational forms in our military organizational development and of one or
another combination of professional units with territorial units.
M. V. Frunze using specific figures showed that without employing the
territorial-militia system to a certain degree it would be impossible to
ensure dependable defense capability for the nation. By 1925, the size of the
Soviet Armed Forces was 562,000 men. The annual induction contingent for the
nation was around 1.2 million men. With a 1-year period of service it would
be necessary to have an army of 1.2 million men to pass all the youth through
the army and train them in military terms and with 2-year service the army
would be 2.4 million men. But in this instance around 900,000 men each year
would remain outside the army. Even if one excluded the youth not fit for
military service for various reasons, all the same approximately 400,000-
500,000 men would not undergo military service. As a total the Red Army could
pass through its ranks not more than 25-30 percent of the induction contingent
while the French Army was able to pass through over 68 percent, the Romanian
could handle 66 and the Polish could take 70 percent of the induction-age
youth. This circumstance significantly reduced the mobilization capabilities
of our army.
Only by maintaining territorial formations and units was it possible to cover
this shortfall, to train reserves and in the event of war to field a
multimillion army. M. V. Frunze felt that the Red Army under the existing
circumstances was not a standing regular army in the full sense of the word,
as was the case, for example, in the old army. It represented only the
cadres, that is, the nucleus around which the millions of worker and peasant
recruits should unite.
A small professional army, undoubtedly, would not be able to ensure dependable
national defense. In the event of a war it had to be increased by several
fold and for this militarily trained reserves were required. "...We cannot,"
said M. F. Frunze, "organize our defenses solely on the so-called cadre or
professional units. If we wish to field a number of divisions which would
probably be required by a future military situation, then we must wager not
only on the professional divisions but also on divisions of a different
sort.... This is why on the question of the structure of our armed forces we
have assumed the viewpoint of a standing army plus militia formations. With
the given conditions and the size of our peacetime cadres we have no other way
out."(25)
Proceeding from all these considerations, under the leadership of M. V. Frunze
a mixed system for the organizational development of the Armed Forces was
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worked out and introduced and this combined the professional and militia
formations.
By that time relatively good conditions had developed for achieving such an
organizational form of military development. The international situation of
the USSR had been somewhat consolidated, the dictatorship of the proletariat
and its alliance with the peasantry had grown stronger and the new economic
policy had led to a certain revival in agriculture. However, the military
threat continued to exist for the Soviet state.
In accord with the decisions of the party Central Committee and the Soviet
government, preparations for establishing the territorial formations and units
started in 1922. A special commission was set up under the leadership of
M. V. Frunze and it worked out the primary measures to convert a portion of
the infantry formations and units to a territorial status in a number of the
military districts.
Military organizational development according to the territorial principle was
possible only with the active involvement and support from the party and
soviet bodies on the spot. Considering this, the 12th Party Congress held in
April 1923 obliged the party organizations to conduct a broad campaign to
explain the essence of this new system of military organizational development
for the Soviet nation, in assisting in the greatest possible success of the
question and at the same time widely utilizing the assemblies of militia units
for an agitation impact on the countryside. After the study of the first
experience at organizing territorial military organizational development in
the troops, this system was approved in legislation by the Decree of the USSR
TsIK [Central Executive Committee] and SNK [Council of People's Commissars]
of 8 August 1923. This defined the bases for the organization, manning and
standing of service in the territorial units.
The territorial-militia system began to be introduced most widely and actively
when M. V. Frunze assumed leadership of the People's Commissariat of Military
and Naval Affairs. The proportional amount of territorial-militia units in
1925 was raised to 62.8 percent.
The military reform measures, including for the territorial system of a
military organization, were also reflected in the Law Governing Compulsory
Military Service adopted in September 1925 by the USSR TsIK and SNK following
the report of M. V. Frunze. The drafting of this law and the military reform
measures required not only extensive research involved with studying the past
experience and the experience of modern armies in other countries but also the
carrying out of experimental work in the troops. As a result for the first
time in history the scientific bases were elaborated for the organizing of
military service in a socialist state.
In accord with the Law Governing Compulsory Military Service, the times were
clearly defined for regular induction and for the length of military service
for all categories of Army and Navy servicemen and for all branches of troops
and forces. A total length of active military service of 5 years was set both
for the professional and territorial units. Of these the Red Armymen and
junior commanders of the cadre directly in the troops served 2 years in the
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infantry, cavalry and artillery, 3 years in the Air Forces and 4 years in the
Navy, after which they were given early discharge with subsequent registration
in the reserves.
The Red Armymen and junior commanders of the territorial units were
periodically called up for assemblies over the entire 5 years, after which
they were discharged into the reserve. But they were taken away from their
daily occupation for undergoing military service for only 8-12 months
(depending upon the branch of troops). Thus, one portion of the youth served
2-4 years out of the 5 years while another portion served 8-12 months.
As a whole rather high demands were placed on the territorial formations and
units. M. V. Frunze considered them to be first-line troops which should be
ready to enter battle simultaneously and on equal footing with the regular
troops. He saw to it that the best trained commanders and political workers
were sent to these formations. He also demanded the creation of the best
conditions for them in terms of supply and service. The best inductees were
also to be sent to these units. The manning of the territorial formations and
units was to be carried out in such a manner that each formation constantly
received the men assigned to it from the very same area.
In the aim of providing better contact with the local and party Soviet bodies,
the territorial troops were stationed, as a rule, considering the
administrative division of the nation. For example, a division was organized
in a province, a regiment or battalion, in a district and a company in a
county [volost]. In line with this the provincial and district military
commissariats were abolished or more precisely they were changed into corps
(divisional) territorial headquarters and were placed under the commanders of
the territorial formations. District military commissariats were maintained
as the primary training-mobilizational bodies. This was done in the aim of
eliminating parallelism in the work and in order that the commanders and
staffs of the divisional corps and divisions would be directly responsible for
the training and mobilization of the subordinate formations and units. In
those areas where there were no troop units, headquarters of the territorial
districts were established under the local soviet executive committees.
For the rapid mobilization and for bringing the territorial formations and
units to a state of readiness for carrying out combat missions, in peacetime
they were to have the necessary supplies of weapons, equipment and materiel.
The training of the personnel of the territorial units was carried out in two
directions: the training of the changing command and rank and file at
periodic assemblies and the instruction of preinductees in the Vsevobuch
system. During the period of active service, the men of the territorial units
for a period of 5 years would annually be called up for assemblies. The first
such assembly lasted 3 months. Subsequently, monthly assemblies were
conducted annually. For the period of the assemblies, the personnel from the
territorial units received all they were due according to the wartime
establishment: weapons, equipment and materiel. The general assemblies of
the registered personnel usually ended by the holding of exercises on the
level of the formations and units. The most difficult question was the
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logistical support for the territorial formations, particularly supplying the
temporary personnel with uniforms.
M. V. Frunze devoted special attention to the quality of preinduction
training. He demanded that upon its completion a recruit should be trained
who knows how to handle cold steel and firearms, who is acquainted with the
main elements of field and interior service, with the equipment and combat
properties of his branch of troops and who is a literate and politically
indoctrinated citizen-soldier. He constantly reminded that in peacetime the
center of gravity in military training to a significant degree should shift to
all our party and soviet apparatus; the Red Army alone could not handle this
task.
Mikhail Vasilyevich devoted a major place in this work to the civilian
institutions of learning and to the volunteer defense societies. "For
everyone it is clear," he said, "that the correct organizing of things to
establish the militia units requires the obligatory and closest involvement of
not only the militia personnel in this work but also the entire soviet,
professional and party apparatus of the given area. Only by the combined
close efforts of these bodies will we be able to satisfactorily handle the
tasks of creating strong territorial units which in terms of their training
and combat accomplishments are the equal of the first line regular units."(26)
Generally it was a question of realizing that not the Red Army alone would be
fighting but all the people and for this reason they should be prepared for
this.(27)
It must be said that far from everyone both in the ranks of the Red Army and
outside of it showed understanding for the territorial-militia system. Even
now in memoirs one can encounter complaints over the imperfection of the
territorial divisions. As with any new undertaking, this system made headway
in a stubborn struggle. M. V. Frunze in virtually every speech had to return
to this question and explain its essence. In line with this, even now one
interesting comment by him has not lost its significance. He said that both
an overtly negative as well as a passively indifferent attitude on the part of
a certain portion of the command to the new experiment in a number of
instances "is not the result of a well thought out, careful analysis of the
comparative merits and drawbacks of either system in a concrete historical
situation, but merely the result of a biased, sterile, muddled rationalistic
attitude toward reality. Such an attitude and the moods created by it are
lethal for the question and they must be quickly and decisively ended."(28)
The main thing, he commented, is that the opponents of the new system have not
offered anything else in its place, since they could not propose anything else
without disregarding the actual situation.
As experience was to show, the chief merit of the territorial system was that
it provided the training of trained reserves and significantly increased the
army's mobilizational capabilities with comparatively small material outlays.
It provided an opportunity to provide military instruction for the basic
portion of the induction contingent and reservists without taking them away
from production for an extended time. Moreover, the territorial system,
particularly during the assemblies, established favorable conditions for
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carrying out political work among the population and primarily among the
peasantry.
The territorial system, of course, also had weak aspects. It was difficult to
organize systematic and well supported combat training in the territorial
units. In this regard, they were largely inferior to the regular units.
Subsequently, as the technical equipping of the army was improved, when the
rifle and cavalry formations and units began to include an ever-larger number
of subunits from the different branches of troops (artillery, engineer,
signals and so forth), the training and combat cohesiveness of the territorial
formations became even more complex. The combining by the corps and divisions
headquarters of the functions of the command-staff and local military command
bodies had definite positive aspects, but it was basically designed to train
reserves and a single mobilization of the formations and units. With the
departure of the headquarters and the organized troops for their operational
purpose, leadership over the military training of the public and the
mobilizing of the subsequent formations great weaker. In a protracted war,
with the straining of all the nation's forces and capabilities, the Armed
Forces required a constant replenishment with large reserves.
At the same time, we must re-emphasize that, regardless of certain
difficulties and shortcomings, as a whole the territorial-militia system at
this stage in the organizational development of the Armed Forces proved fully
effective, having solved the military problems confronting the Soviet state.
The main task was carried out of training military personnel and mobilization
resources without which it would have been impossible in a short period of
time to fully convert the Red Army to a professional system on the eve of
World War II. One can also say with certainty that the attempts to restore
the territorial system in our army in the 1960's were, of course, unjustified,
for they were undertaken without considering the new demands on troop combat
training and the fundamental qualitative changes which had occurred in the
methods of conducting armed combat.
The Organizational Structure and Technical Equipping of the Armed Forces
The organizational structure--the strongest aspect of a regular army. So
F. Engels taught. V. I. Lenin also gave enormous importance to organizational
questions. In the opinion of V. I. Lenin, as M. V. Frunze pointed out, "the
person who erred in the area of organizational problems has nullified even his
most correct ideas, concepts and views in all other areas of political
activity."(30)
For this reason, from the very outset exceptional importance was paid to
correctly establishing the organizational structure of the Armed Forces.
M. V. Frunze felt that an effective organizational structure could be produced
only proceeding from a scientifically sound prediction of the nation of a
future war and the methods of waging it. This should be permeated with an
operational-strategic purposefulness and at the same time take into account
the human and technical capabilities of the Armed Forces. The organizational
forms of the Armed Forces depended upon the methods of armed combat and in
turn, influenced them.
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Soviet military science proceeded from the view that the operations of a
future war would be conducted by the joint efforts of the various Armed
Services and branches of troops. For this reason the plans for military
organizational development were worked out and implemented considering a
rational combination of the various armed services and branches of troops in
the Armed Forces. This related also to the branches of troops which had
arisen in the course of World War I. In accord with the Law Governing
Universal Military Service adopted in 1925, it was established that the Armed
Forces would be divided into the Ground Forces, the Air Forces and Navy, the
troops of the United State Political Directorate and convoy escort.
Since the outcome of the war was determined by ground engagements, the Ground
Forces were the basic Armed Service. These included rifle troops, cavalry,
artillery, armored forces, engineer, railroad, chemical and signal troops.
The division remained the main tactical formation. However, the operational
structure of the divisions had been worked out in 1918 by old military
specialists without sufficient consideration of the new nature of a war and
the training level of the commanders and staffs and since that time had
virtually remained unchanged.
According to the 1918 TOE, a rifle division should consist of three rifle
brigades (with three regiments in each), three light battalions, one
lightened, two howitzer and two heavy artillery battalions, an antiaircraft
artillery battalion, a balloon detachment, an air battalion, a cavalry
battalion, an armored vehicle detachment, an engineer battalion, a signals
battalion and a large number of rear units. The total size of a division was
58,325 men; a division had over 24,000 horses, 382 machine guns, 170 guns and
mortars.(31)
Since such divisions were not adapted to the conditions of the Civil War and
the material and technical means did not exist for their organization and the
commanders and staffs were not prepared to command such cumbersome formations,
it was virtually impossible to adhere to these TOE. For this reason, the
divisions were organized with the most diverse composition and left as such
after the Civil War.
In viewing this situation as abnormal, M. V. Frunze raised the question of a
fundamental reorganization of the rifle and cavalry divisions. First of all,
regardless of the overall cutback in the size of the Red Army, he assumed that
from the standpoint of the combat and mobilizational readiness of the troops
and the maintaining off the cadre it was advisable not to reduce the number of
divisions but even to somewhat increase this. "The number of troop formations
had not been reduced but on the contrary, for a number of divisions we have
increased the number of presently existing units, chiefly for the special
branches of troops."(32) In actuality, while on 1 October 1923 the Red Army
had 49 rifle divisions, by April 1925 there were 77 of them, including 46
territorial ones.(33)
M. V. Frunze worked to establish a more rational organization of the
formations and units. In carrying out the reform under his leadership,
uniform TOE were worked out for the field forces, formations and units of all
branches of troops. Considering the maneuvering nature of the forthcoming
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operations, he considered it necessary to make the field forces, formations
and units more mobile. For this reason their TOE size was reduced. The
organizational structure of the corps, divisions and regiments was realized in
such a manner as to give them an all-arms nature.
A rifle division after the reform consisted of three rifle regiments, a light
artillery regiment, a separate cavalry squadron, a combat engineer company and
engineer park, a signals company and rear subunits. As a total a division
numbered 12,800 men, 54 guns, 189 medium machine guns, 81 light machine guns
and 243 grenade launchers.(34) For the regular divisions of the border
military districts, the peacetime size of a division was set at 6,516 men.
Regardless of the reduced size, the combat might of a newly organized
division had been significantly increased.
After the Civil War a so-called demonstration company was to be established in
each rifle regiment and this company was to be armed with automatic weapons.
The demonstration companies were trained in accord with the requirements of
group tactics while the remaining companies were left with the usual
organization and trained to fight in extended lines of riflemen. M. V. Frunze
pointed out that under these conditions "we did not and could not have either
a single organization or uniform tactics."(35) It was initially planned that
all the companies of the rifle regiments would be converted to the sort of the
demonstration ones, however due to the shortage of automatic weapons this
could not be done. For this reason a decision was taken for all the companies
to be converted to a uniform organization considering the positive experience
of the demonstration companies and the weapons available in the troops. These
companies were named real infantry, since they had new TOE considering certain
prospects and real possibilities.
The cavalry was viewed as an independent branch of troops capable of carrying
out important operational missions. At the same time the comment of M. V.
Frunze was characteristic: "There is not the slightest doubt that in a future
war, of course, counting this 'single future' not as decades (emphasis mine.--
M. G.)...the cavalry will play an honorable and prominent role."(36) Caveat
was not accidental. He foresaw that the mechanization and motorization of the
army and the cavalry could not develop in parallel for an any way extended
time.
The cavalry corps was the superior formation of the cavalry and this consisted
of two or three cavalry divisions, a horse-drawn howitzer artillery battalion
and a signals squadron. A cavalry division had three cavalry regiments, a
fire regiment, a horse-drawn artillery battalion, a combat engineer squadron,
a signals squadron and rear formations (a total number of 7,000 men). The
existing organizational structure of a cavalry regiment, M. V. Frunze pointed
out, in consisting of three squadrons did not meet the demands made, since a
regiment was very weak and with such a composition could not fight on foot.
For this reason the regiment was to be reinforced. In the future Frunze
considered it essential to include in the cavalry formations and units armored
and mechanized subunits which would cover the cavalry and provide it with
support.
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As a result of the reorganizing of the rifle and cavalry divisions, regardless
of the reduced number of personnel, their fire power, in comparison with the
actually existing divisions had risen. However, in terms of fire power and
technical equipping the Red Army divisions were inferior to the divisions of
the major capitalist armies.
In the course of the reorganization the structure of the artillery was also
changed. The dividing of the artillery into corps, divisional and regimental
became established. The High Command was to have available special purpose
artillery (two heavy artillery regiments and an artillery division). The
armored forces, due to their small size, were not incorporated in the all-arms
formations and in organizational terms were formed into separate heavy and
light tank battalions.
A number of changes was also made in the organization of the other branches of
troops. In particular, the engineer and railroad troops were put into larger
formations. The signal troops were also significantly strengthened. We did
this in order, explained M. V. Frunze, to create more convenient conditions
for training the troops as a large organism facilitated instruction.
The Communist Party and V. I. Lenin, regardless of the limited resources, gave
primary significance to the development of the Air Forces. Among the
outstanding figures of our party, M. V. Frunze was one of the strongest
proponents of establishing a powerful aviation. "...Even with the humblest
assessment of the future role played by the air fleet, its significance...in
actuality will be enormous,"(37) he said. According to a 3-year plan for the
development of the Air Fleet approved in 1925, the number of aircraft was to
be increased from 126 to 1,200, with the majority being fighters. The
squadrons of fighter, light bomber and reconnaissance aviation became the main
organizational unit and these were pub directly under the chiefs of the
military district air forces directorates.
Important missions in armed combat in the future were also to be entrusted to
the Navy. V. I. Lenin always gave enormous attention to the navy. Since the
outcome of a war was basically determined in ground engagements, the main
mission for the fleet was to assist the fronts on the maritime sectors.
After the war V. I. Lenin demanded that the development of the navy be
approached, as was the case incidentally for the other Armed Services,
considering the specific military-political tasks and economic capabilities.
He had high regard for the role of the navy in a future war, he was well aware
of what strong naval enemies would oppose us but advised that the question be
approached more soberly. Having weighed the situation existing in our country
and abroad, he concluded that to have a significant fleet with a large number
of capital surface ships for the Soviet state was an "excessive luxury.... It
is not possible for us to maintain a fleet of any significant size due to
economic and political considerations."(38) For this reason, the program
worked out in 1932 for the overhaul and construction of naval vessels was to
be cut back by approximately one-third and Lenin added to this: "...The
specialist sailors, naturally, in being involved in their job, will inflate
any figure, while with the enormous expenditure which we have assigned to
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aviation we should be doubly and triply cautious in terms of expenditures on
the fleet...."(39)
M. V. Frunze commented that the fate of our navy was tragic: in the course of
the revolution and the Civil War it had suffered particularly severe blows.
In practical terms our state had been deprived of a fleet. As for an overall
estimate of the role of a navy in the overall national defense system," stated
Frunze, "I should say that we cannot conceive of the possibility of firm
security for the frontiers of the Soviet land without the presence of a rather
strong navy."(40) He felt that we needed a navy and we should develop it. He
emphasized that while our nation did not possess the means to turn it into a
size which would correspond to the length of our sea frontiers and to the
interests of our naval defense, he expressed certainty that our economy in the
future would provide such a possibility. Upon the decision of the 10th RKP(b)
Congress, under the leadership of M. V. Frunze emergency measures were adopted
to rebuild the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets and the naval forces on other seas.
The tonnage of the fleet rose by 1.5-fold from 1923 through 1925.
In terms of the major direction in the organizational development of the Navy,
M. V. Frunze supported Lenin's position in asserting that we "even with the
best budgetary conditions would restrict ourselves to a program of building
small vessels of a defensive nature."(41) He based this conclusion on three
considerations: in the first place, "the navy is a very expensive weapon" and
with an overall shortage of funds it is better to use them on more acute and
primary needs which are of decisive significance for national defense;
secondly, the fate of a future war will be determined on the continental
theaters of military operations and the main mission of the Navy is to support
the operations of land groupings on the maritime sectors; thirdly, our fleets
do not have direct access to the major expanses of water.
Substantial changes had also occurred in the organization of the rear. For
the fuller utilization of local resources and for reducing expenditures on
procurement, storage and transporting, the main task of troop supply was
entrusted to the military districts and troop units. Prior to this, as M. V.
Frunze pointed out, all procurements, including troop supply articles, had to
be made at the center and then delivered to the troops and this increased the
load on transport and transport expenditures and generally created great
inconveniences in supply. Troop supply after the reform began to be carried
out according to the system of center--district--unit. The divisional and
corps rears were excluded in the supply system. From 1924, the position was
introduced of deputy regimental commander for supply.
For ensuring precise leadership over the troops and the military
commissariats, the entire territory of the nation in military-administrative
terms was broken up into seven military districts (in addition, the Turkestan
Front still continued to exist). Here certain organizational ideas of Frunze
were realized as voiced by him to the Republic RVS in 1918 in the establishing
of the Yaroslavl Military District. He considered it advisable that the
provinces comprising the district if possible be closely interlinked
economically, culturally and politically; the district territory provided
certain conveniences both in the sense of the disposition of the troops and in
the sense of the possibility of shifting them with the least difficulties; as
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a district center there was a city providing conveniences both in the sense of
geographic position and in the sense of the placement of facilities. The
sizes of the district should be as large as possible, for this was
necessitated both by the need to reduce the size and cost of the military-
administrative apparatus and also by the extreme shortage of workers.(42)
Frunze was against including the districts of one province in different
military districts as this could disorganize the military administration, the
organizing of the units and the carrying out of mobilization. He saw to it
that the provincial military commissariat within its functions was the master
in all the districts of its province.
In accord with the Leninist nationality policy and the multinational nature of
the Soviet Union, nationality [minority] formations were kept in the Red Army
and their establishment was reinforced in the decisions of the 12th RKP(b)
Congress. By the end of the Civil War, the Red Army had representatives of 50
nationalities with the Russians comprising 77.6 percent. In his work "Results
and Prospects of Military Organizational Development" M. V. Frunze pointed out
that our Red Army had never been viewed as a "Russian" army or the army of a
single nationality. The Great Russian nationality has comprised and does
comprise its core and the basis of all its might. But this did not and does
not remove from all the other nationalities the rights and duties of defending
the Soviet nation with weapons in hand. This duty should be extended evenly
and on the principles of complete equality to ultimately those nationalities
which previously were not liable for military service. In establishing the
nationality formations M. V. Frunze saw not only a military but also a
political, international purpose: we in this regard should set the example
and show the future to all suppressed peoples.
M. F. Frunze felt that the highest demands of a political and military sort
should be placed on the nationality formations, without making any concessions
for them. He said directly that "the nationality formations for us are not an
empty trifle and not a game for satisfying the national pride of the
individual peoples of the Union. This is a serious task stemming from the
entire nature of our state and determined by the basic principles of our
domestic and international nationality policy.... For this reason, the
republic is right to demand from us the establishing of those units which
would wholly and fully satisfy all modern combat demands."(43)
At the same time M. V. Frunze was against turning the nationality formations
into the core of national armies for they would not provide a unity of
military thought and risked carrying out all our work in different directions
and creating confusion in military affairs which absolutely could not be
tolerated. For this reason, he said, "we do not permit the existence of
nationality armies in each individual oblast or republic; we will incorporate
the nationality unit in the general system of our Union's armed forces."(44)
Thus, upon the decision of the VKP(b) Central Committee and under the direct
leadership of M. V. Frunze, in 1924-1925, major and important changes were
carried out in the Armed Forces and these significantly improved the
organizational structure of the Armed Forces and raised their combat
readiness.
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Increased technical equipping of the Army and Navy. V. I. Lenin took a vital
interest in the appearance of new weapons and recommended wider use of the
most recent discoveries and advances for improving the technical equipping of
the Army and Navy.(45)
During the first years after the Civil War under the conditions of the
universal economic chaos, it was extremely difficult to solve the problems of
increasing the technical equipping of the Armed Forces. But here was an
accomplishment of the party as it looked far ahead and resolved these
questions considering not only the immediate future but also the long run. In
all the decisions of the Communist Party and the Soviet government the plans
for the industrialization of the nation and for the development of the
socialist economy were closely coordinated with the tasks of strengthening
national defense. Even the decisions of the 10th RKP(b) Congress stated the
demand: "...to pay exceptional attention to all the special technical units
(artillery, machine gun, armored vehicle, aviation, engineer, armored train
and so forth); to provide these units with all necessary articles of both
combat and material-housekeeping supply .... 1106)
Also of important significance was the circumstance that during the years of
the 1924-1925 military reform, when proceeding from party notions the
principles were established for the further development of the Armed Forces,
M. V. Frunze held a very farsighted and correct position on the questions of
the technical equipping of the Army and Navy. In a future war, he was
convinced, the role of military equipment would rise significantly. In
November 1925 he wrote an article in PRAVDA entitled "Let Us Have Equipment!"
where he stated: we should have an army armed according to the last word of
modern equipment. This was a slogan with which the Red Army during the 7th
anniversary of its existence would direct to domestic industry, to the
workers, engineers, technicians, chemists and scientists of the Soviet
Union. (47)
"The experience of the imperialist war," M. V. Frunze pointed out, "has shown
what an enormous role will be played by equipment on future battlefields.
With the development of aviation, chemistry, radio and so forth, the broadest
prospects are opened up in this area. At the given moment, it is hard for us
to imagine with what the armies of the technically most advanced bourgeois
countries will appear on the fields of future battles. Probably the weapons
which they will possess will differ signficantly from what we saw in the
course of the imperialist war. A future war to a significant degree, if not
as a whole, will be a war of machines."(48) He constantly emphasized that the
Red Army would be engaged with a well equipped enemy army that was armed with
all the most recent technical advances and if our army does not have these
advances then prospects for us would be very, very bad. This must be
considered when we settle the question of the general preparations of the
nation for defense.
Considering this circumstance, M. V. Frunze insisted upon the adopting of
emergency measures to increase the technical equipping of the Army and Navy.
He saw two basic ways for carrying out this task: the first, a maximum
acceleration in the development of the defense sectors of industry and the
greatest possible development of science and technology in the aims of
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developing new models of weapons; the second was the modernizing of existing
types of weapons and military equipment. The latter would make it possible,
with comparatively small expenditures and without a fundamental revision of
production methods, to improve the quality of the technical equipping of the
troops. Thus, in 1925, the Soviet designer V. F. Tokarev improved the Maxim
machine gun; the Mosin rifle was also improved; the firing range of artillery
pieces increased from 1,500 to 5,000 m. By organizing repair and
modernization, the amount of artillery in the troops was increased by 3-4-
fold.
An increase in aircraft output was also quickly achieved. For example, in
1922, 90 percent of the aircraft was produced abroad and only 10 percent was
produced in our nation. By 1925, aircraft purchases abroad had been halted
and aircraft output had been significantly increased for the Red Army.
Tank production was started. Characteristically, M. V. Frunze even in 1921
had raised the question of the need to start tank building in our country,
"although even to the detriment and at the expense of the other types of
weapons."(49)
At the same time work was started on developing the designs of domestic tanks,
aircraft, more advanced field and antiaircraft guns, means of communications
and other types of equipment. Great attention was paid to developing antigas
protective equipment. The greatest possible intensification of scientific-
technical research and inventive activities during those years was of
exceptionally great importance and created a good start for organizing the
production of new types of weapons and military equipment in the 1930's, when
the essential military base had arisen in our country.
Centralism and One-Man Command
Centralism--one of the most important principles of military organizational
development. Centralism in the organization, set-up and command of the Armed
Forces was understood by V. I. Lenin as the reflection in terms of the
specific conditions of a military organization of the principle of democratic
centralism which had been adopted in party and Soviet construction. He
considered it one of the most important conditions for the combat capability
of the Armed Forces, without which the army could not act as a united force.
Lenin called the army one of the examples of strong organization and pointed
out that it is good in its flexibility and at the same time its capability to
give millions of people "a single will.... This is called an organization
when for the sake of a single goal and inspired by a common will, millions of
people change the form of their intercourse and their actions, they change the
place and procedures of activity and change implements and weapons according
to the altered circumstances and needs of combat."(50)
Lenin's ideas on centralism were reflected in the decisions of the Eighth
Party Congress which pointed to the necessity of "the planned organizational
development of a centralized army, a unity of organization and a unity of
command over the army only can ensure the achieving of the greatest results
with the least sacrifices."(51) V. I. Lenin emphasized that "unified command
over all the Red Army detachments and strictest centralization in the
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disposition of all forces and resources of the socialist republics..."(52) had
established the necessary prerequisites for defeating the White Guard armies
and interventionists.
The unified will which was given to the Soviet Armed forces was viewed as a
party, state will expressed and established in the corresponding decisions,
laws and demands of the military regulations. In developing this notion,
M. V. Frunze said that the Red Army "is an organism living and acting on the
basis of firm, state-established statutes."(53)
The principle of centralism in terms of Soviet military organizational
development was understood by Frunze as the organizing of unified command over
the Armed Forces by the Republic RVS and the People's Commissariat for
Military and Naval Affairs working under the direct leadership of the party
Central Committee and the Soviet government, as the unconditional
subordination of all headquarters bodies, troop and naval formations from top
to bottom to central authority and to the single High Command. This at the
same time presupposed the subordination of all the field forces, formations,
units and military facilities to the corresponding superior commands up a
strictly established chain of command.
It should be pointed out that M. V. Frunze profoundly and precisely understood
the necessity of establishing a single and clearly regulated procedure for all
the major questions of military service. If the necessary instructions from
above did not exist for any type of activity, he immediately established the
corresponding regulations within his authority. We have already mentioned the
regulations worked out by him for the combat militias in working underground,
the regulations and instructions concerning the procedure for forming new
troop formations and units in the Yaroslavl Military District, the first troop
regulations in the Ukrainian and Crimean troops and so forth. Even now one is
amazed how thoughtfully and intelligently he worked out instructions down to
the last detail on covert troop command. These instructions were announced in
an order to the armies of the Southern Group of Forces of the Eastern Front
No 1/1 of 30 March 1919. While commander of the Turkestan Front, he issued
instructions to partisan detachments operating in the area of the front and
these set out their tasks, the most effective methods of action and the
procedure for cooperation with regular troops.(54)
M. V. Frunze responded in a principled manner to all instances of violating
established procedures for centralized troop command wherever these might
arise. Thus, in October 1918, in a special order for the Yaroslavl Military
District, he strictly warned all the provincial military commissars on the
inadmissibility of turning directly to the fronts and central directorates on
questions comprising the competence of the district command. M. V. Frunze
repeatedly sent urgent requests to the All-Russian Chief Staff so that orders
were not issued without notification of the district military commissar of the
stationing of new formations and units on the district territory, for several
units ended up being sent to the same points and this led to disorganization
and a disrupting of troop order.(55) He argued back when the staff of the
Eastern Front endeavored to command individual regiments over the head of the
divisional and army commanders.
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At the same time M. V. Frunze expressed his disagreement if the essence of
centralism was distorted and understood in a formal bureaucratic manner. When
the main staff issued instructions to all the military commissars of the
military districts to utilize the orders of only the All-Russian Main Staff,
Mikhail Vasilyevich turned to the All-Russian Bureau of Military Commissars
with a request to adjust this order.(56) He rightly pointed out that such a
formal approach merely impeded the work, for the military commissars, along
with instructions from the main staff on the questions inherent to it, should
carry out the instructions of the political directorate, the supply bodies and
other central directorates which were not under the main staff.
The value of this idea of M. V. Frunze was that the centralization of command
and control does not mean carrying out leadership and cooperation of the
various levels only along the vertical line of command, but it should also be
carried out along the horizontal. Such a form of subordination or reporting
of the inferior levels to the superior bodies on the appropriate special
questions, without disrupting the principle of direct subordination, creates a
broad front of contact, professional cooperation, in increasing the
effectiveness and efficiency of troop command and control. This idea was
considered subsequently in the reorganization and setting of the functional
duties for the directorates of the central apparatus of the military
department, the military districts and fleets.
In carrying out the reform, along with the organizational changes in the
military bodies, there was also a major revision of the principles and methods
of their work. M. V. Frunze expressed his attitude to these questions most
extensively in the report "On the Reorganization of the Military Apparatus"
given at the RKKA Military Academy in April 1924.(57)
In the first place, M. V. Frunze proceeded from the view that authentic
centralism is impossible without planning and a system in the work, recalling
the words of V. I. Lenin that "it is impossible to work without having a plan
calculated for an extended period and for a major success."(58) Upon the
instructions of M. V. Frunze, the RKKA Staff and the other central
directorates worked out a series of long-range plans for the organizational
development of the Armed Forces as a whole and for the individual services
(Air Forces, Navy), for improving mobilizational readiness, for working out
regulations, for military scientific work and other major questions. He
sharply criticized the directorates of the central apparatus for the fact that
by justification of the limited nature of the resources allocated to the Red
Army, they had been solving the questions of long-range planning slowly and
without a proper eye to the future. In speaking about the shortcomings in the
elaboration of the operational and mobilizational plans and their isolation
from real capabilities in the nation, he commented that the questions of
coordinating our operational goals with material capabilities and the
questions of coordinating military mobilizational plans with the plans of
industrial measures do not depend upon the shortage of resources and should be
fully resolved by the central directorates of the military department jointly
with the other bodies. Consequently, it was essential first of all to improve
the style and methods of leadership.
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Secondly, M. V. Frunze considered as inadmissible a state where there was no
uniform understanding of the tasks confronting the army and navy. For
surmounting the differences of opinion it was essential to introduce the ideas
of a uniform military doctrine into the minds of all the personnel and
primarily the commanders and political workers. He in every possible way
fostered creative initiative, he participated in debates on scientific
questions and was sincerely pleased by the slightest manifestations of the
new. At the same time, he assumed that a discussion of theoretical questions
should be terminated by the elaboration of ideas and conclusions which would
be obligatory for all and which would be followed unswervingly by all
officials. This, actually, was the sense of a military doctrine and its main
distinction from military science and military theory generally, since the
formally approved conclusions and recommendations required not debate but
fulfillment.
Thirdly, M. V. Frunze considered dangerous an isolation of the leadership
apparatus from the army rank and file; he fought to eradicate the vestiges of
bureaucracy, paper-shuffling and red tape. He considered these abnormal
phenomena to be unnatural and contradictory to the entire essence of the
military system of command which demanded simplicity and clarity, preciseness,
definiteness, flexibility and efficiency in work. "When we come close to this
question," he said, "it turns out that the work of our staffs was three-
quarters and, for example, in the naval department nine-tenths burdened down
with completely unnecessary and useless reporting. As a curiosity one might
mention that fact that in the naval department there was a form of reporting
which had been inherited from the times of Peter the Great and which had no
bearing on modern needs and the requirements of our fleet.
"All of this shows that in the organization of our work we have still too many
vestiges of the old routine which impede our work and prevent a vital approach
to the job."(59)
Red tape had led, on the one hand, to the swelling of the administrative
apparatus and, on the other, prevented the troops from being concerned with
vital matters. Even Suvorov had said: "Large staffs mean small victories."
As the work of the commissions to investigate the activities of the central
apparatus was to show, the excessive size of its staffs had led to a situation
where it became hard to manage. The leaders of certain departments, in
experiencing major difficulties in controlling the subordinate apparatus,
gradually became fenced off from their main administrative bodies by personal
office staffs. As a result the main apparatus began to stand idle while they
endeavored to resolve major questions through insufficiently competent
persons. This sharply reduced the effectiveness of both the leaders
themselves and the command and control bodies as a whole. Frunze boldly moved
to reduce the central apparatus by almost one-quarter (prior to the reform it
numbered over 3,500 men).
It must be said that even after the Civil War at the center they had cut back
on the administrative apparatus several times but after a certain period of
time it had begun to grow. For this the bureaucrats employed the long-tested
method of establishing a system of cumbersome reporting and a bureaucratic
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exchange of letters over any, even the most insignificant question and thought
up all sorts of questions on each document which frequently already provided
this information. Here they themselves thought up a form of reporting and
then explained that this had been established by the appropriate orders and
rulings of the superior levels. With good reason V. I. Lenin warned
constantly about the threat of bureaucracy, for each bureaucrat and official
is dangerous in the fact that he is formally right.
In considering the particular lethalness of bureaucracy for troop leadership,
M. V. Frunze worked decisively to eradicate this evil and introduce into the
work practices of the military personnel new methods and a Leninist style of
work. We are endeavoring, he said in a report, to minimize paper reporting
and control and instead of this introduce vital control, direct leadership and
supervision. In the place of the numerous reports comprising a flow of red
tape, we want to more widely introduce the practice of the more frequent
visiting of subordinate units by the appropriate superior chief. At the same
time, he warned that the granting of great rights and opportunities for hands-
on leadership and the reduction in paper reporting did not mean a lessening of
demands for a knowledge of the state of affairs in one or another area, it did
not mean a reduction of responsibility but presupposed a rise in this in all
levels.
As a whole, all the measures of the 1924-1925 military reform, starting with
the ordering of the command system at the center, establishing a uniform
procedure for undergoing military service and ending with the establishing of
uniform TOE for the field forces, formations and units and the introduction of
military manuals, were aimed at realizing in practice the principle of
centralism in military organizational development on a scale of the Republic's
Armed Forces. Thus, in addition to the passage of a number of laws and
provisions in 1924-1925, the following were also worked out and introduced:
the RKKA Temporary Field Manual, Part 2 (Division and Corps) which was an all-
arms manual and standard for all the branches of troops; combat regulations
for the infantry, cavalry and artillery (in 6 parts) and armored forces; all-
arms regulations including the Temporary Regulation for Garrison Service,
Temporary Disciplinary Regulation, Temporary Internal Service Regulation and
Temporary Firearms Regulation (the use of firearms and weapons training). A
series of manuals and instructions were also issued on special questions. The
all-arms regulations for the first time in the history of Soviet military
organizational development clearly set out the rights, duties and
relationships of the servicemen in a combat situation and in pracetime
service. All of this provided an opportunity for the command and political
cadres to lead the subordinate troops in a more confident and effective manner
and at the same time helped to increase the responsibility of all the
personnel for carrying out their military duty.
M. V. Frunze was clearly aware that there was a very great distance in
practice between the establishing of the principles of centralization and
their introduction. Enormous indoctrinational and organizational work was
required. In formal terms, in a general setting, the necessity of
centralization was recognized by a predominant majority of the command and
political personnel. However, in practical activities at the outset there
were numerous attempts to avoid or inaccurately carry out the demands stemming
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from the principle of centralism. M. V. Frunze, in the report "The Red Army
at the Start of the Eighth Year of Its Existence" brought out the roots of
these phenomena. Certain commanders even of the superior grades, he said,
have granted themselves arbitrary rights, even to the point of the independent
shifting of units. And not because of any conscious violation of orders.
M. V. Frunze was inclined to explain this to a significant degree by the
vestiges of the age of the Civil War and by the remnants of the administrative
and organizational procedures in partisan units, when the troops too long
lived without permanent organizational forms.... They too long lived by their
own wits. Each person, in fighting in a difficult situation, endeavored to do
what he was capable of, he was concerned with creativity and each thought in
his own way, being guided, certainly, by the best intentions. Now not all
comrades have realized that this period is now over and that the army should
remain within definite, permanent organizational limits and at present we
should not have any such actions. At present the army, as an organized whole,
lives and should live according to orders and instructions.(60) M. V. Frunze
urged the waging of a decisive struggle against any violations of the
established laws and rules of military life.
At the same time, Frunze explained that centralism and strict regulation in
military life not only do not contradict creativity, initiative and
independence of subordinates, but, on the contrary, presuppose an obligatory
manifestation of these qualities by them for seeking out the best methods of
resolving the set tasks. Particularly inadmissible is the excessive "over-
centralization" of initiatives coming from below. "I have in mind," he said,
"a push for obligatory centralization of any initiatives even when things are
just beginning to move."(61) Thus, he did not advise the excessive regulation
of activities in the primary military-scientific societies, the volunteer
defense and other societies until definite experience had been gained on the
spot.
The basic notion of M. V. Frunze came down to the fact that the regular army
could be successfully organized and operate only with centralized control.
However, centralization is not an end in itself; it should be carried out
within limits and in such a combination with initiative and broad creativity
that as a whole all of this ensure the necessary effectiveness of troop
command.
In order to be victorious, iron, military discipline is required. Centralism
in the organizational development of the Armed Forces had been constantly
tied to discipline which is one of the conditions for the organized activities
and combat readiness of the Army and Navy. V. I. Lenin said: "If one thinks
about what ultimately lies at the very basis of that historical miracle which
has occurred, that a weak, impotent and backward nation has been victorious
over the strongest nations of the world, we see that what this is is
centralization, discipline and unprecedented self-sacrifice."(62) It is well
known how profoundly Lenin thought out and weighed each word in his oral and
printed comments. And if he was forced to say: "The person who does not help
the Red Army totally and unstintingly and does not support order and
discipline with all his strength is a traitor...and must be eliminated
mercilessly,"(63) it is not difficult to understand what enormous significance
he gave to discipline in the Army and Navy and how acutely and sharply he
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raised this question. Lenin's conclusion on this score was completely
definite and constant: in order to be victorious there had to be the greatest
struggle, there had to be iron, military discipline and this had to be
instilled firmly and uncompromisingly.
In 1918, in line with the setbacks of the Southern Front, the party Central
Committee demanded with an iron hand that the command, superior and inferior,
be forced to carry out combat orders at the price of whatever means.
M. V. Frunze profoundly understood and with his entire soul shared such a
severe and exacting approach to the questions of discipline. All his life and
activities were the greatest example of party and military discipline. He
considered the maintaining of official discipline in army ranks to be an
obligatory and most essential condition for its might and warned that the
demands of the Soviet state in this regard were the most decisive.
Being a supporter of rigid exactingness on the questions of military
discipline, Frunze at the same time emphasized that its bases in the Red Army
were fundamentally different from those in the Tsarist Army and for what
exists in the bourgeois armies. In a speech on the results of a plenum of the
USSR RVS in December 1924, he explained that we were against barracks drill as
a method of the mechanical subordination of the rank-and-file to a superior
will. This was the method of the capitalist armies, where discipline was based
upon the class subordination of the private, almost exclusively a peasant or
worker, to a bourgeois officer class. There discipline was a reflection of
the class, social inequality and suppression by the exploiting classes. In
the armies of the capitalist states discipline was based on naked coercion of
the soldier and on a fear of punishment. In the Red Army and Red Navy there
was not and could not be any opposed class interests among the command
personnel and the Red Armymen, since both came basically from the workers and
peasants and were called to defend the victories of the revolution and the
interests of the workers. Red Army discipline was based not on class
subordination but on the necessity of the correct division of labor, correct
leadership and correct responsibility. It was founded upon a voluntary,
conscious execution of one's military duty.
In demanding unconditional subordination to his orders, each commander should
be fully aware that the revolutionary discipline of the Red Army cannot be
mechanical. Our Red Armyman is not the former Tsarist soldier silenced and
intimidated to the point of loosing the feeling of one's own worth. We do not
need such a soldier. Our Red Armyman is a full citizen of the Republic. He
is fully aware that revolutionary discipline is a difficult burden only for
the person who does not understand its aims and importance. The essence of
military discipline is in subordination to the laws of the worker-peasant
government, strict observance of the rules of military service and the
unswerving fulfillment of the orders and instructions of the commanders and
commissars. Hence it is clear that any nonfulfillment of an official order
from a commander is a major crime before the law. "Each Red Armyman should be
indoctrinated in an awareness of the need for the unswerving, rapid and
precise execution of all official orders. In this regard there can be no
concessions made by the command and political personnel."(64)
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M. V. Frunze considered particularly inadmissible instances of laxness by the
commanders and a desire of some of them to "make up" to subordinates, to
acquire cheap popularity or overlook infractions of discipline due to a lack
of civil courage. Even more aggrevating and intolerable were instances when
commanders and political workers carried out conflicting lines and when the
political workers did not support the official authority of the commanders.
M. V. Frunze demanded that such phenomena be prosecuted unmercifully. He
urged the most decisive struggle be waged against all instances of negligence,
slovenliness and lack of discipline. No instance of nonfulfillment of an
official order by whatever party should remain unpunished.
A most important condition for the strengthening of discipline was considered
by Mikhail Vasilyevich to be the example set by the command and political
personnel itself. "The slightest instances," he said, "of undisciplined
behavior by the supervisory personnel have the worst effect on the discipline
of the rank and file.... Any undisciplined action by any commander or
political worker should be met by the strongest rebuff and in no instance be
allowed to go unpunished. Only in such a case can one tighten discipline from
top to bottom."(65)
On one-man command. The principle of one-man command is inseparably linked
with centralism and the maintaining of high military discipline and
organization in the Armed Forces. The party and V. I. Lenin thoroughly
established and consistently carried out the principle of one-man leadership
not only in military organizational development but also in the area of state
and economic activities.
Any large-scale machine-based industry or transport, V. I. Lenin said, "cannot
function correctly if there is no unity of will linking all the available
workers into a single economic organ operating with the preciseness of a clock
mechanism."(66) One-man command "most ensures the best utilization of human
abilities and provides a real and not a verbal check on the work,"(67) and
ensures the responsibility and organization of human activity.
One-man command in no measure contradicts socialist democracy. V. I. Lenin
wrote: "...There is decisively no fundamental contradiction between soviet
(that is, socialist) democracy and the employment of the dictatorial power of
individuals."(68) Socialism, as the most highly organized society, requires
the unswerving obedience of the masses to a single will of the leaders of the
labor process. Just how consistent and unswerving Lenin was on this question
was can be judged from his instructions that in instances when the demands of
one-man command and the interests of the question did not coincide with the
desire of individuals or groups, and when the conscious observance of
discipline was lacking, one-man command "can assume the abrupt forms of
dictatorship.... 11(69)
If the question of one-man leadership in the national economy was posed so
acutely and certainly, in the Army and Navy it undoubtedly had and does have
even greater significance, since the very nature of military service and
particularly a frontline situation requires the highest organization, unity of
action and firm troop command. Without unity of leadership and a unity of
will, V. I. Lenin pointed out, "there can be no dictatorship on the front and
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there will be mere dawdling."(70) In conducting a merciless struggle against
the Trotskyites and "leftist" opportunists, Lenin said outright:
"Irresponsibility covered by references to collegiality is the most dangerous
evil which threatens everyone who does not have very great experience in
actual collegial work and which in military affairs quite often leads
inevitably to catastrophe, chaos, panic, divided power and defeat."(71)
The introduction of the institution of military commissars during the period
of the Civil War was viewed by him as a temporary, enforced measure under the
existing extraordinary historical conditions when there was not a sufficient
number of ideologically tempered commanders devoted to the revolution and it
was essential to draw upon military specialists from the old army and when the
Red Army could be penetrated by hostile elements. Clearly under the
conditions of the fierce class struggle, Soviet power could not rely fully on
such command personnel and was forced to have political supervision.
Political work was needed to win the masses and draw them over to the side of
the revolution. As M. V. Frunze said, "This was a completely essential stage
in the process of establishing the armed force of our worker-peasant
state."(72) The commissars carried out enormous work and played a decisive
role in the course of the Civil War, particularly in indoctrinating the
command personnel and the entire mass of Red Armymen. They worked to
strengthen the moral and political unity of the personnel and thereby
established conditions for introducing one-man command in the Armed Forces.
In the following periods, when it was essential to return to the institution
of military commissars, this was a forced measure.
The Leninist understanding of one-man command as the only correct organization
of work and as the most effective method of troop command has remained
immutable. But, as V. I. Lenin taught, every, even the most correct principle
is applied in practice considering the specific situational conditions.
M. V. Frunze pointed out: "...We recognize and always have recognized the
advisability of switching to one-man command in all the organizational stages
of the Red Army and Navy. But, as in other questions of our life, in
assessing any situation, here we, as Marxists, cannot approach the question in
an abstract manner. Each principle, each idea must be assessed from the
viewpoint of its conformity to the existing situation. Such an attitude must
also be extended to the principle of one-man command."(73) He then went on to
stipulate that in the period of the Civil War it was impossible to do this but
since then the situation in the Red Army had significantly changed.
It must be pointed out that in the period of the Civil War where M. V. Frunze,
V. V. Kuybyshev, V. K. Blyukher, K. Ye. Voroshilov and other commanders and
commissars who had undergone the school of revolutionary struggle were working
together, there were no formal relationships between the commander and
commissar. Mutual trust and the interests of successfully carrying out combat
missions created a situation where the commanders, in essence, fully and
without any limits restricting their power exercised operational command of
the troops while the commissars, participating as necessary in command focused
their efforts on political work, skillfully involving the commanders in it.
All of this had a beneficial effect upon the effectiveness of troop leadership
and was a reflection of the objective necessity of one-man command.
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The changes carried out in 1924-1925 in the Red Army, the strengthening of the
military command bodies with experienced party cadres and the purging of the
Trotskyites from them created conditions for introducing one-man command into
the Army and Navy. By this time, 40 percent of the commanders were communists
and there was a higher proportional amount of commanders who had come from
worker and peasant backgrounds (together these comprised around 85 percent).
A recertification of the command, political and administrative personnel had
been carried out. A single rank of RKKA commander had been introduced. In
addition, the new complex tasks confronting the Red Army required further
centralization of troop command.
In analyzing this problem and noting the great contributions by the commissars
during the Civil War and the role of the military commissar in the postwar
period, M. V. Frunze wrote: "His primary functions which came down to the
role of the 'eye of the soviet state' soon under the influence of naturally
developing events broadened and our military commissar has been turned into an
organizer and administrator. This process was inevitably linked to a certain
reduction in the rights and functions of the commander, particularly when the
latter was a nonparty person. Then there emerged the reverse side of the coin
when the commander gradually lost the most important property of any good
commander, that is, will power and the capacity to take independent, quick
decisions. This phenomenon for a number of reasons has become rather common
for the Red Army."(74) All of this, he continued, shows the timeliness and
necessity of quickly implementing a series of measures to actually realizing
one-man command in the army.
In July 1924, the RKP(b) Orgburo [Organizational Bureau] adopted a decision on
gradually converting to one-man command in the Armed Forces and entrusted the
fulfillment of this task to the Republic RVS. On 2 March 1925, the RVS issued
an order signed by M. V. Frunze on introducing one-man command in the Red Army
and Navy.
Initially complete and incomplete one-man command was introduced. M. V.
Frunze in preparing the decision on this question, proceeding from the above-
given Leninist theses, was firmly convinced that the superior and most
desirable type of one-man command would be the combining of the functions of
both line and party leadership in one person. Over the long run this type of
one-man command would be the apex of our achievements, he emphasized. But at
that time, regardless of the first successes in the training of military
cadres, such a principle could not immediately be carried out in practice.
The combining of operational-line and political functions, Frunze felt,
required from the commander the properties and qualities which could be found
in far from all of even the party commanders, let alone the nonparty ones.
Considering all of this, M. V. Frunze considered it better to institute
several forms or types of one-man command. In speaking in December 1924 in
the RKKA Military Academy giving a report on the results of the plenum of the
USSR RVS, first of all he drew attention to the fact that the question of one-
man command related not to the institution of political workers but to the
institution of commissars. At present all leadership in the area of line,
administrative and housekeeping affairs could and should be concentrated in
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the hands of the commander; the functions of political indoctrination remained
fully in the hands of the political apparatus. He considered it wrong also to
extend the principle of one-man command solely to the party command personnel,
as had been proposed by certain comrades. One could not assume that all the
command personnel would consist of party members and one-man command had to be
introduced in the army.
For this reason, three types of one-man command were introduced a description
of which was given by M. V. Frunze at the plenum of the RVS and in the above-
mentioned speech after the plenum.(75)
The first type. The commander who is solely in command not only for line and
administrative-housekeeping affairs, but also for the questions of political
leadership and indoctrination. This type would not be widespread and would be
introduced only where they had actually succeeded in selecting commanders who
met the high demands of both a commander and political leader.
The second type. The solely-responsible commander in the area of line,
housekeeping and administrative affairs. This type of solely-responsible
commander was to be the predominant one; such solely-responsible commanders
could be all of both the party and non-party commanders of the Red Army.
The third type of one-man command should be introduced on the staffs and other
administrative headquarters. Here the functions of political work would be
entrusted to the party cells under the control and leadership of the
appropriate political bodies.
A slow rate of introducing one-man command was established for the Navy where
old military specialists still predominated among the command personnel.
It was proposed that political commissars remain in the nationality formations
until the completion of their organization.
Special attention was paid to close contact in the work of the solely-
responsible commander of the second type with the party and political
leadership in order not to allow a gap between these areas of work. M. V.
Frunze was sharply critical of those who assumed that the introduction of one-
man command would lead to a playing down of the role of political bodies. He
firmly and persuasively explained that political work was and always would be
the basis of our military organizational development.
In line with the introduction of one-man command the order of the USSR RVS of
2 March 1925 demanded "the concentration of line and administrative-
housekeeping functions completely in the hands of the commander and chief,
having commenced the carrying out of this measure primarily in the RKKA....
All commissar personnel was to be freed...from the duty of daily supervision
over the line, administrative and housekeeping activities of the commanders
and chiefs, fully maintaining for the military commissars the functions of
party and political leadership and responsibility with the commanders for the
moral-political state of the unit or formation.... At the same time the
commanders and chiefs are obliged to keep the commissars informed of all the
line and administrative-housekeeping life in the unit or formation."(76) A
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commissar was granted the right to contest the orders of a commander or chief
to superior levels, without halting their fulfillment.
Considering the importance and complexity of the transition to one-man
command, the party Central Committee in March 1925 sent to all party
committees a directive letter which proposed every assistance to the army
political bodies in carrying out the principle of one-man command and
strengthening party influence in the Armed Forces.
M. V. Frunze cautioned that the introduction of one-man command would require
greater work in the training and indoctrination of command personnel so that
they consistently carried out the policy of the party and the Soviet state,
they did not permit administration by mere injunction or the abuse of power
and were politically mature and competent commanders. In their work they were
to rely on the support of the political bodies, the party organizations and
all the communists. Once we have readied the army for a decisive struggle, he
explained, against major and serious enemies, we should have at the head of
our units persons who possess sufficient independence, firmness, initiative
and responsibility. We must have a command personnel which does not become
muddled in any situation whatsoever and which could quickly take the
appropriate decision, bearing responsibility for all its consequences and
firmly carry it out. The former system of divided command which had been
caused by political considerations impeded the development of such command
personnel. For this reason, M. V. Frunze considered the policy of instituting
one-man command to be an important condition in strengthening the state's
military might.
He then went on to point out that: "Our commander should be able to organize
things so that the masses see in him not only a technical leader but also an
indoctrinator. But this is possible only in the instance that our commander
has a sufficiently broad political viewpoint so that he is able to analyze all
that complicated and constantly changing tangle of class and national forces
with which reality confronts us...."(77) This notion has not only maintained
its importance but has become evermore pertinent for all officer personnel
under present-day conditions.
Organizing the Training of Military Cadres
Military cadres--the basis of army and navy military might. F. Engels
correctly forsaw that in creating a new army the main and most difficult
question would be "creating a corps of officers and junior officers"(78) which
would determine the strength of the entire organization of armed personnel.
Our party has always given great attention to the training of military cadres
who are dedicated to the cause of the revolution and are highly trained.
V. I. Lenin said: "The success of the Russian and world socialist revolution
depends with what energy the workers take to administrating the state and to
commanding an army of workers and exploited persons who are fighting to
overthrow the yoke of capital."(79) He felt that the problem of military
cadres had to be solved in two ways: by using the officer and junior officer
personnel of the old Russian Army and training our own revolutionary command
personnel from the workers and peasants.
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Generally known is the resistance evoked from the "leftist" communists, the
"military opposition" and certain confused party, state and military workers
to the idea of V. I. Lenin on widely drawing officer personnel from the old
Tsarist Army into the Red Army. One of their arguments was that the Tsarist
Army was made up of officers of noble origin who under no circumstances would
fight on the side of the revolution. But this was merely a formal approach
concealed behind a pseudorevolutionary phraseology and not considering the
true state of affairs. On this question one can clearly see the inspired
simplicity of the decision found by Lenin and based not on formal and abstract
slogans but rather on a profound and specific analysis and consideration of a
concrete historical situation.
He boldly took the step of using officers from the old army, taking into
account those major changes which had occurred in the Russian Army during the
years of World War I. On the eve of this war the Russian Army had around
45,000 generals and officers, and among the superior officers (the most
numerous part of the officer personnel), noblemen comprised not more than one-
half. But by the end of the war there were 240,000 officers. During the war
in short courses some 220,000 persons had been trained as warrant officers
alone and 80 percent of them came from the middle and petty bourgeoisie and
from the intelligentsia; there were even individual representatives of the
working class and peasantry among them.
Proceeding from this, V. I. Lenin reached the conclusion that:
"Defeats... have hardened the army and have eliminated enormous amounts of its
old command personnel of a hardened noble and particularly a rotten
bureaucratic nature, and have replaced it with a young, fresh, predominantly
bourgeois, mixed and petty bourgeois personnel."(80) Many democratically
inclined officers from the very outset sided with the revolution.
As the experience of the Civil War was to show, Lenin's ploy proved completely
right. By the end of the war former officers comprised more than one-third of
the Red Army command personnel. In accord with the instructions of he party
Central Committee, their actions were closely followed by the commissars
appointed for this, since there were instances of treason by the old officers.
For this reason at the Eighth Party Congress, Trotsky and his supporters in
the military department were informed that they had excessively trusted the
military specialists and poorly monitored their activities. But a majority of
the officers from the old army basically served honestly. V. I. Lenin in
November 1919, on this question commented: "You have heard about a series of
brilliant victories by the Red Army. Working in it are tens of thousands of
old officers and colonels. If we had not put them into service and forced
them to serve us, we could not have created an army."(81)
Using out of necessity the military specialists of the old army, V. I. Lenin
and the Communist Party still wagered chiefly on the training of officers from
the workers. V. I. Lenin constantly demanded "in building the new army...to
take commanders only from the people. Only the Red officers will have
authority among the soldiers and be able to strengthen socialist in our army.
Such an army will be invincible."(82)
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The questions of organizing the training of military personnel were discussed
at the 10th and 11th RKP(b) Congresses and at numerous plenums of the Party
Central Committee. A number of party and government decrees were published on
the reorganization and improved training at military schools. Measures were
adopted to increase the party stratum among commanders. There was a
significant rejuvination of the command personnel. Thus, in 1921, put on
permanent leave were all persons of command personnel, regardless of the
position held, who had reached the age of 50, while for battalion and
regimental commanders the age was 40 and for commanders of companies and below
35 years of age.(83)
Immediately after the Civil War (in 1921) V. I. Lenin signed the decree of the
Labor and Defense Council on converting many short courses into military
schools with a corresponding lengthening of the period of instruction. Three
stages were planned for training command personnel in military schools:
secondary military schools with a period of instruction of 3-4 years, higher
schools and courses for the advanced training of personnel after work in the
troops and military academies.
A most serious problem was the filling of the VUZes with officer candidates
from workers and peasants. Even under the condition that the military schools
admitted those with a three-grade education, it was extremely difficult to
recruit the required number of literate students.
M. V. Frunze called the command personnel the backbone of the army, the basis
of its might and during the period of conducting the military reform also gave
great attention to the question of improving the training of military
personnel and their military service.
Here it was essential to overcome also the consequences of the incorrect
personnel policy carried out by the Trotskyites, particularly in relation to
commanders from the workers and peasants. In the process of reducing the
army, the Trotskyites had endeavored to get rid of them. Thus, of the 87,000
persons who completed Soviet military schools, by the start of 1924, just
25,000 officers were in the army. A majority of the graduates from the first
class of the General Staff Academy and who had experience in the Civil War had
even been dismissed.
In carrying out the instructions of the party Central Committee, M. V. Frunze
first of all posed the problem of stabilizing the command and political
personnel of the Armed Forces and strictly regulating their military service.
For this purpose a regulation on service in the military department was worked
out and put into effect in October 1924. The terms of service and obligatory
service after completing military schools were established. Of great
importance for systematizing service was the establishing of maximum and
minimum service times for each position. A procedure was instituted for
certifying the command and political personnel.
The reduction in the army was also employed for improving the qualitative
composition of the commanders and political workers. The worker group among
them in 1925 had increased by 1.5-fold and the party group by 2-fold. At the
same time, the number of old military specialists was reduced. By the end of
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the Civil War they were 34 percent of the command personnel, including 13.1
percent in 1925.
Great attention was given to strengthening the party and Komsomol
organizations in the troops, and particularly the party cells. In October
1924, the army had 46,000 party members and candidate members and 36,700
Komsomol members. A major event in the life of the Red Army was the holding
of the first all-army conference of party cell secretaries held at the end of
February and the beginning of March 1925. This conference defined the
specific tasks and ways for further strengthening party influence in all
elements of the troop organism. The army Komsomol had also gathered strength.
A. S. Bubnov commented: "The military Komsomol since 1924 has grown
gigantically. It now is the first assistant of the party in all its party and
political indoctrination in the ranks of the Red Army. The Komsomol
organization is the main instrument of party influence in the barracks, in the
crew and on the ship."(84)
In line with the difficult material situation of the command and political
personnel, in March-April 1924, upon the initiative of M. V. Frunze the USSR
RVS submitted for review by the RKP(b) Central Committee the question of
improving the material status and living conditions of the command personnel.
The plenum adopted a number of measures aimed at solving this question. These
problems were also raised in the report of M. V. Frunze at the Third Congress
of USSR Soviets. The congress obliged the TsIK and SNK as well as the
equivalent Union republic organizations to improve the material and living
conditions of the RKKA and primarily its professional personnel.
Improving the system of military schools. In the aim of improving the
training of military personnel, the USSR RVS, under the leadership of M. V.
Frunze, carried out a number of measures to further develop and improve the
system of military schools. In November 1924, it approved the Decree "On the
Network of Military Schools." For training middle-level command personnel,
instead of the short courses, a uniform normal military school was introduced
for the branches of troops with standard TOE. The organizational structure of
the schools was brought close to that of the troops with the schools
consisting of battalions, companies (batteries and squadrons). In a number of
republics nationality military schools were established.
Of great importance was the demand of M. V. Frunze set out in the decree of
the USSR RVS: the RVS of the military districts should provide the military
schools with everything necessary for studies and life, they should be manned
by the best command personnel, the admission to the schools of Red Armymen
should be increased from the troop units, the schools should be helped in
establishing training facilities and the necessary weapons and equipment
supplied.
M. V. Frunze was a supporter of increasing the size of the military schools.
As experience was to show, small military schools were not effective. Such
schools spent too much training time on self-servicing. At them it was harder
to create proper training facilities.
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With the appearance of the new branches of troops, the appropriate technical
schools were also established. As a total for the Ground Forces there were
plans to have around 60 normal military and unified schools. In addition, 8
air force schools and 2 navy schools were established. As a total in 1924-
1927, the military schools graduated around 24,000 middle-level command
personnel.
In giving great importance to military professional training of the future
commanders, M. V. Frunze raised the question of establishing military
preparatory schools (similar to the cadet corps of the old Russian Army).
These were to provide basic military training for the most capable and
physically strong young persons from the workers and peasants, instill in them
a love for military affairs and prepare them for lifelong military service in
command positions. Upon the completion of the military preparatory school a
young man had the right to enter a normal military school without an exam.
Arguing against this proposal by Frunze were the People's Commissar of
Education and certain leading workers from the Directorate of Military
Schools. However, Mikhail Vasilyevich succeeded in defending his viewpoint
and the government permitted him as an experiment to establish two military
preparatory schools (in Kharkov and Baku). The Kharkov school had seven
graduating classes. In subsequently establishing the Suvorov military
schools, the idea of M. V. Frunze was again realized and to a definite degree
the experience of the first military preparatory schools was taken into
account.
The system for training the middle-level political personnel was also
reorganized. In line with the transition to one-man command on the level of
the company, battery and squadron and in the aim of the sounder military
training of the political workers it was considered advisable that a political
worker without fail have a military education on the level of a normal
military school. For this reason from 1926 it was planned to convert to
combined training and combined service of the middle-level political
personnel. Subsequently, the political instructors of the subunits were
appointed from among the platoon commanders who had completed a military
school. This was of great importance for increasing the military skill and
authority of the political workers.
Junior command personnel was trained in units, in the regimental schools with
a period of instruction of 7-10 months considering the specific features of
the branches of troops.
Certain changes were also made in the organizing of training for the senior
and higher supervisory personnel. In line with the significant reduction in
the size of the army and the expenditures on its upkeep, the number of
military academies was also somewhat reduced. In 1924, the Military
Administrative Academy was closed. Training for the supervisory personnel
assigned to operational-rear work was entrusted to the RKKA Military Academy
while the training of supply workers for special services (food, clothing,
veterinary and so forth) was entrusted to civilian VUZes.
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& 1 vcclVlriL UM V1YL1
In 1925, the Military Engineer and Military Artillery Academies were merged
into one, the RKKA Military-Technical Academy. The Military-Political
Institute imeni N. G. Tolmachev was turned into the RKKA Military-Political
Academy (subsequently, the Academy imeni V. I. Lenin). Military academy
courses for training the higher command personnel were reorganized into the
higher advanced training courses where commanders who had completed the Higher
Academy Courses and the RKKA Military Academy were to undergo retraining.
M. V. Frunze considered it advisable not only on the middle but also the
senior and higher levels wherever possible to standardize the training of the
command and political personnel and achieve a unity of their instruction and
indoctrination. Proceeding from this, the Higher Advanced Training Courses
were combined with the Military-Political Academy Courses and Courses for the
Advanced Training of Higher Supervisory Personnel were established under the
RKKA Military Academy with military and political departments. "The
organization of advanced training courses...," said M. V. Frunze, "shows that
from motley, improvised and hurriedly put together command personnel we have
taken a step, and a major step, ahead along the path to establishing a unified
properly trained command personnel which is up to the demands of modern
warfare."(85)
As a result of the reform, six military academies remained in the RKKA: the
RKKA Military Academy, the Military-Technical Academy, the Air Force Adademy,
the Naval Academy, the Military-Political Academy and the Military-Medical
Academy. In addition, four higher schools existed.
M. V. Frunze took into account that it was essential to train personnel not
only for the then small Red Army but also for the event of its development
during a war into a multimillion-man army. For this reason he constantly
raised the question of establishing military faculties in civilian VUZes. In
the civilian institutes, five military faculties were opened and there were
plans to subsequently increase their number. Provision was made to train
reserve commanders in the civilian higher and middle-level institutions of
learning. After completing a VUZ, the persons who had undergone higher
preinduction training would be inducted into the Army for 9 months and 1 year
for the Navy. After acquiring practical experience in the troops and after
passing exams, they would be discharged from active service and put into the
reserves with a rank of a middle-level commander.
The military academies were entrusted not only with the training of military
personnel considering the new demands and the changeover to one-man command
but also they were to become the main centers of military-scientific thought
and were to work out books and aids both for the training process in the VUZes
as well as for the command and political personnel in the troops and fleets.
Upon the instructions of the party Central Committee, constant concern was
shown for improving the social composition of the officer candidates and
students and for increasing the party contingent among them. In 1924-1925,
among the students of the military academies some 80 percent were communists.
A major problem was the training of a faculty for the VUZes. The faculty from
the old military specialists did not have experience in the Civil War or the
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necessary ideological maturity, they had not mastered Marxist-Leninist theory
and could not fully carry out the education and indoctrination of the students
and officer candidates. For this reason instructor work in the academies was
assigned first to the most able young graduates of the academies from party
members who had experience in the war and troop practice.
Regardless of the general reduction in the number of VUZes, measures were
taken to increase the number of students and improve the training process in
the Military Pedagogical School which trained instructors of tactics and
special disciplines. Generally the specialized pedagogical training of future
instructors for VUZes at this school was very beneficial.
For training highly skilled instructors and military scientific workers in
1924 the institution of graduate students was established. Admitted as
graduate students, as a rule, were the most capable commanders and political
workers who had practical experience and who had completed military academies
and the military faculties of civilian VUZes.
Along with an organizational reform of the VUZes, M. V. Frunze devoted great
attention to setting up scientific, educational and indoctrinational work in
them. He took a vital interest in their activity and participated in numerous
scientific and academic measures. The same thing was done by A. S. Bubnov and
other associates of Frunze. M. N. Tukhachevskiy in holding the position of
deputy chief of the RKKA Staff and deputy people's commissar, for many years
gave a course on strategy in the RKKA Military Academy. B. M. Shaposhnikov as
the chief of the RKKA Staff, regularly gave lectures at the advanced training
courses for the superior personnel.
Previously mention has been made of the work done by M. V. Frunze in this
area, when he held the post of chief of the RKKA Military Academy. But after
he had been moved to a different position, he did not break his creative ties
with the academy. Characteristically, after each plenum of the USSR RVS which
discussed fundamental questions of the organizational development and training
of the Armed Forces, he felt it necessary to speak on these questions at the
RKKA Military Academy. And he did this regardless of his enormous involvement
in political, state and military work.
Mikhail Vasilyevich realized well that if the Military Academy was not kept up
on the major events of army life, then it would not truly know the
operational-strategic and organizational problems, it would not be able to
function fully and could not be the center of everything advanced and new.
None of this could be replaced by any strict demands or any noble appeals.
Just as dry, unirrigated and unfertilized soil cannot produce a good crop, so
the Military Academy without vital direct contact with the leadership of the
Armed Forces and command personnel from the troops would be unable, in turn,
to supply the army and navy with new ideas and scientific recommendations and
develop major scientific authorities. This, certainly, applied to all the
military institutions of learning.
Thus, in preparing and conducting the military reform, M. V. Frunze, in accord
with our party's instructions, carried out great work to scientifically
establish a system for organizing the training of military personnel and
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practically realize the ideas stemming from this. For example, he carefully
studied the history of the organization and development of military schools in
Russia and a number of other countries. He was particularly interested in the
system of training military specialists in the American civilian institutions
of learning. He re-read the literature existing on this question without
altering his rule: a practical resolution of any major question should be
preceded by a thorough theoretical elaboration.
As a result of all this well thought out work, an ordered system was
established for the service of military personnel and their training in the
military schools and the bases of this have kept their importance at present.
Much was also done to work out and introduce forms and methods of instruction
and political and military indoctrination of the military personnel
corresponding to the new conditions.
As a whole, as a result of the military reform carried out in 1924-1925, the
Soviet Armed Forces acquired a more ordered organizational structure. Their
combat and mobilizational readiness was significantly increased. However,
while in organizational terms the Red Army was already the equal of the armies
of the major capitalist countries, it still remained extremely small and
particularly weak in technical terms.
The Organizational Development of the Armed Forces in the Subsequent Stages
Constant work of improving the organizational development of the Armed Forces
was continued in subsequent years. The growing threat of war required
immediate measures to further increase the combat capability and readiness of
the Soviet Armed Forces and primarily their technical equipping. M. V. Frunze
understood this well and in a short period of time he had done extraordinarily
much. Moreover, he had outlined an extensive program for the further
development of the military organization. Fate granted him too little time
for carrying it out. But the work commenced by him was continued by his
associates and students.
The ideas of M. V. Frunze, the theoretical concepts elaborated by him and the
measures implemented in the area of the organizational development of the
Armed Forces were completely sound and were a basis for their development
during subsequent years. The Decree of the VKP(b) Central Committee of
15 July 1929 gave high tribute to all the work done in the area of military
organizational development. It stated: "The basic result of the previous
five-year plan (1924-1929) in the planned organizational development of the
armed forces has been the establishing of a strong, battleworthy army which in
political terms is completely dependable and in technical terms stands on the
level of development of the nation's productive forces."(86)
In speaking about the ideas of M. V. Frunze in the area of military
organizational development, it is essential to bear in mind that many of his
statements were directly not only at the distant future but also the immediate
one, since a real threat of imperialist aggression existed constantly and it
was essential to be ready to carry out defense tasks with those forces and
means which existed at that time. It was for this reason that he was involved
in carefully calculating the number of carts in the nation in order to adapt
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them to meet the needs of war. For example, no one would have understood him
if in the middle of the 1920's he began to talk about the lack of future of
the cavalry. At that time, there was nothing to replace it in the territorial
formations. But there could be no doubt that at the beginning of the 1930's
he would have held a different position on the question of the number of
cavalry or territorial divisions in the Red Army.
Not all that M. V. Frunze correctly foresaw was carried out with complete
consistency. Contrary to the warnings of V. I. Lenin and the recommendations
of M. V. Frunze, large amounts of money were spent in building large ships
although subsequently it was recognized that we would have been better off to
place the main emphasis on the development of a submarine fleet and naval
aviation.(87)
Regardless of individual flaws, as was subsequently shown in the Great
Patriotic War, in a majority of the main, most fundamental questions the basic
trend in the organizational development of our armed forces from the very
outset was correctly established and carried out with a profound and thorough
consideration of the nature of a future war. Of decisive significance was the
farsighted, scientifically-sound approach to such problems as the development
of military organizational development along the path of mobilizing all the
state's forces for strengthening national defense, the creation of a mass
regular army, the rational combination and proportional development of all the
Armed Services and branches of troops, the relationship of man and equipment
in a war and so forth.
Under the leadership of the party Central Committee at the end of the 1920's
and in the 1930's, extraordinary measures were taken to increase the level of
the technical equipping of the Armed Forces and to strengthen the nation's
defense capability as a whole. A modern defense industry was established
virtually from scratch, including tank, aviation, automotive-tractor, chemical
and so forth. The literacy and culture of the people increased sharply. By
the start of the Great Patriotic War all of this had fundamentally transformed
the social, organizational and technical level of the Red Army and Navy. It
is sufficient to give such figures. In 1928, the Red Army had.a total of 7,000
light guns, 200 tanks and armored vehicles, 100 aircraft of obsolete design,
350 trucks; there was no antitank and antiaircraft artillery at all. On the
eve of the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army was now armed with thousands of
tanks, aircraft and other types of weapons. Over the war our industry
produced over 830,000 guns and mortars, 102,000 tanks and SAU [self-propelled
artillery mount] and 112,000 combat aircraft.(88) While in 1924-1927, the
military schools graduated 24,000 commanders and political workers, in 1941,
more than 300,000 persons were studying in the VUZes and courses.
M. V. Frunze dreamed about the time when the Soviet Armed Forces would surpass
the armies of the major capitalist states not only in social and moral-
political terms but also in terms of the highest level of organization,
training and technical arming. During the period of the Great Patriotic War,
they actually demonstrated their superiority in all terms, although they had
to fight against the strongest enemy over all our motherland's history.
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After the Great Patriotic War, due to the concern of the party, the government
and all the Soviet people, the Soviet Armed Forces moved far ahead and
presently have everything necessary for securely defending their homeland and
the other countries of the socialist commonwealth. From the viewpoint of the
internal conditions, the Soviet state, as a state of all the people and
developed socialism, does not need armed forces. But since a military threat
remains deriving from the imperialist countries, our party, as was pointed out
in the CPSU Program, "considers it necessary to maintain the defense might of
the Soviet state and the combat readiness of its Armed Forces on a level
ensuring a decisive and complete defeat of any enemy which would dare encroach
on the Soviet motherland."(89) The present state of the Soviet Armed Forces
is the most vivid and visible embodiment of Lenin's ideas and the thoughts of
M. V. Frunze on the military organizational development of the socialist
state.
The very heart of Soviet military organizational development is the leadership
by the Communist Party over the Armed Forces and the growing role and
influence of the party organizations in the army and navy. Under present-day
conditions, the role of the party in strengthening the defense capability of
the nation and in the organizational development of the Armed Forces is
growing even more. This is explained by the complexity of the international
situation, by the importance and broadening of the military, economic and
sociopolitical problems of military organizational development, by the
fundamental changes in the nature and methods of waging war, by the increased
role of the Armed Forces as a factor in restraining the aggressive aspirations
of imperialism, by the broadening of their international tasks and by the
necessity of strengthening the communist indoctrination of the personnel.
The organizational development of the Armed Forces and the ongoing increase in
their combat might and readiness have been carried out under CPSU leadership
and a number of measures has been carried out to strengthen the nation's
defense capability, including in the area of training the induction and
reservist groups. Being, in the expression of M. V. Frunze, a precise copy or
image of our worker-peasant nation, the Soviet Armed Forces have developed not
only in organizational and technical terms but also in sociopolitical ones.
With the building of a developed socialist society in the USSR, they have been
enriched with a new content and in terms of their social nature have been
turned into an organ of the state of all the people, truly into a people's
army in the new socialist understanding, reflecting the sociopolitical and
ideological unity of Soviet society and the unshakable friendship of peoples.
Here our Armed Forces have not lost their class nature in relation to the
external enemies and in terms of the ideological and political focus of
military doctrine.
A question of constant concern for the party has been the technical equipping
of the Army and Navy, the development and introduction of new types of
weapons, the development of military science and the improvement of combat
training and party-political work in the Armed Forces. The Soviet Armed
Forces at present are equipped with the most advanced combat equipment and
weapons. In comparison with the last years of the Great Patriotic War, the
capabilities of all the Armed Services have immeasurably risen.
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The strategic rocket troops have been established and turned into a major
force and they are a sure means for restraining the imperialist aggressors;
they are constantly ready for a devastating retaliatory strike.
The development of the Ground Forces is being carried out by increasing the
fire power and strike force, mobility and maneuverability. The all-arms
formations are armed with powerful tanks and armored vehicles, more advanced
conventional and rocket artillery, antitank weapons and mortars. The
motorized rifle subunits and units are equipped with guided and homing weapons
and this makes it possible with great reliability to hit targets both during
the day and at night. The signal troops, engineer and other special troops
have also undergone further development.
The Air Defense troops are a mighty means for defending the state and Armed
Forces against enemy air strikes. They are in constant combat readiness, they
possess modern means for warning of an air attack, powerful airborne and
antiaircraft missile equipment capable of destroying any airborne enemy
targets under difficult situational conditions.
The Air Forces have made a major qualitative jump in their development and
they are present based on supersonic aviation, missile-carrying aircraft
capable of launching powerful strikes against the enemy using both nuclear and
conventional weapons. The speed of modern aircraft and their bombload have
risen by many times and advanced missile weapons make it possible for them to
hit the enemy without entering the enemy air defense zone.
The Navy has become ocean-going. Nuclear submarines and missile-carrying
naval aviation have become its main force.
Great work is being done to further improve the rear of the Armed Forces and
the Civil Defense troops of the nation. In all the Armed Services they are
continuing to carry out extensive automation of the troop control processes.
But with all the technical modernity and might of the weapons, the main force
of the army is comprised of the personnel which skillfully operates these
weapons and equipment. The dream of M. V. Frunze has come completely true of
the high literacy of the personnel and technical skill of the command
personnel. At present, 80 percent of the Army and Navy personnel have higher
and secondary educations. As was pointed out by the USSR Deputy Minister of
Defense for Personnel, Army Gen I. N. Shkadov, "almost 70 percent of the
officer personnel has a higher military and military-specialized education....
It is also noteworthy that at present...all the command personnel is receiving
the appropriate skill of engineer in the military schools."(90)
However, it must also be considered that under present-day conditions the
complexity and responsibility of carry out the missions entrusted to the Armed
Forces have immeasurably grown. This is determined, in the first place, by
the completely new conditions for military service and by the new demands on
the combat readiness of all the Armed Services and branches of troops.
Secondly, the Soviet Union considers it its international duty, along with the
other allied states, to ensure the guaranteed security of all the socialist
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commonwealth nations. In this context the scope of the international tasks
for our Army and Navy has risen in the system of the Joint Armed Forces of the
Warsaw Pact states.
Thirdly, the probable enemies opposing us cannot be compared with anything in
the past. Under present-day conditions, our Armed Forces must be ready to
wage war against a strong, technically equipped and perfidious enemy.
The theory of the organizational development of the Armed Forces has developed
in accord with these increased demands. Particular urgency has been assumed
by further research on the ways for the coordinated development of the various
weapons, improving the structure and increasing the fire power of the Armed
Services, the branches of troops, field forces, formations, units and
subunits.
The organization and establishment of the units, formations and field forces
should ensure the most effective use of all the combat capabilities of the
weapons and equipment, their fire and strike power as well as an improvement
in the system of control. In line with the major social changes which have
occurred in the nation, the need has arisen of improving the overall manning
system of the Armed Forces, the standing of military service and the training
of officer cadres in the military schools, the elaboration of scientific
principles for strengthening military discipline and the organization of troop
service considering modern demands.
Our military-scientific thought must help provide the Armed Forces with
weapons and equipment which fully meet the conditions of modern warfare and
which possess high readiness for action, rapid fire, range and accuracy of
employment as well as reliability and portability.
As weapons and military equipment develop, many new problems arise and will
constantly arise in the area of investigating the questions of their
standardization and reducing the number of models, increasing resistance to
jamming, the elaboration of new methods and means of electronic combat and
other tasks related to increasing the combat might of the Armed Forces and the
defense capability of the Soviet State.
At one time I. V. Stalin commented: "The aggressive nations, as attacking
nations, ordinarily are more prepared for a new war than the peace-loving
nations,"(91) considering this a historical pattern. However, times have
changed and under present-day conditions this cannot be permitted and we have
real economic and defense capabilities for not permitting it.
The Soviet Army and Navy, like all our nation, no longer alone opposes the
entire surrounding capitalist world as was the case in the 1920's and 1930'.
The armies of the fraternal socialist countries stand together with the USSR
Armed Forces. Their combat alliance is a source of might and a dependable
guarantee for the security of the socialist countries. The Chief of the
General Staff and USSR First Deputy Minister of Defense, MSU S. F. Akhromeyev
emphasized: "The Soviet Union, in affirming its adherence to the Leninist
peace policy, cautions that it will not permit any military superiority. No
one should dispute this. Any attempt to undertake aggressive actions against
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our nation, its friends and allies will encounter the most decisive rebuff and
will be fatal for its initiators. The aggressor will be overtaken by
retribution inevitably and without delay.(92)
During the postwar years, imperialism has repeatedly brought mankind to the
dangerous brink of a major military conflict, having encountered the might of
the socialist forces was forces to retreat. The military capabilities of
imperialism are growing but the ability to achieve its political aims by armed
violence is declining. Prof D. A. Volkogonov is right when he points out that
"in this is the dialectics of the new role of the army which over the entire
history of antagonistic societies has been exclusively an instrument of war
but under socialism has been turned into an instrument of preserving
peace."(93)
The most important lesson of the past and the major task of today are not to
allow the outbreak of a new war. Before it is too late, every measure must be
taken to halt the aggressive aspirations of imperialism by the common peace-
loving forces.
FOOTNOTES
1. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 38, p 139.
2. Ibid., Vol 40, pp 76-77.
3. Ibid., p 240.
4. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh...," Vol 2, 1970, p 67.
5. Ibid., Vol 2, p 110.
6. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 2, p 26.
7. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 38, p 92.
8. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 2, p 47.
9. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 37, p 26.
10. Ibid., Vol 12, p 113.
11. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 38.
12. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 38, pp 137-139.
13. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Sock.," Vol 32, p 18.
14. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 37, p 295.
15. Ibid., Vol 42, pp 130-131.
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16. "Syezdy Sovetov RSFSR v postanovleniyakh i rezolyutsiyakh" [Congresses of
the RSFSR Soviets in Decrees and Resolutions], Moscow, 1939, p 89.
17. "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh...," Vol 2, p 264.
18. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 225.
19. K. Ye. Voroshilov, "Lenin, Stalin i Krasnaya Armiya: Stati i Rechi",
[Lenin, Stalin and the Red Army: Articles and Speeches], Moscow, 1934,
p 81.
20. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. loch.," Vol 1, pp 425-426.
21. Ibid., p 426.
22. PRAVDA, 31 October 1926.
23. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, p 289.
24. Ibid., Vol 2, p 7.
25. Ibid., Vol 3, pp 114, 221.
26. Ibid., Vol 2, p 50.
27. See: M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 119.
28. Ibid., p 63.
29. See: K. Marx and F. Engels, "Soch.," Vol 15, pp 413-414.
30. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 199.
31. See: "Sovetskiye Vooruzhennyye Sily" [The Soviet Armed Forces], Moscow,
1978, p 59.
32. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 147.
33. TsGASA, folio 9, inv. 1, file 58, sheet 30.
34. See: "Sovetskiye Vooruzhennyye Sily," p 160.
35. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 148.
36. Ibid., p 144.
37. Ibid., p 328.
38. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 45, pp 311, 313.
39. Ibid., p 313.
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40.
M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 129.
41.
Ibid., Vol 2, p 147.
42.
TsGASA, folio 25906, inv. 1, stor. unit 15, sheet 5.
43.
M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 2, p 140.
44.
Ibid., p 191.
45.
See: V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 36, p 116; Vol 13, p 375; Vol 11, p 270.
46.
"KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh...," Vol 2, p 263.
47.
See: M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 91.
48.
Ibid., pp 251-252.
49.
Ibid., Vol 1, p 254.
50.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 26, pp 258-259.
51.
"KPSS o Vooruzhennykh Silakh...," p 40.
52.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 38, p 400.
53.
M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, pp 274-275.
54.
See: M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 1, pp 158-160,
265-269.
55.
Ibid., pp 88-89.
56.
See: Ibid., pp 100-101.
57.
See: M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 2, pp 26-41.
58.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 42, pp 153-154.
59.
M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 2, p 33.
60.
Ibid., Vol 3, p 121.
61.
Ibid., Vol 2, p 19.
62.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 40, p 241.
63.
Ibid., Vol 39, p 152.
64.
M. V. Frunze, "Sobr soch.," Vol 2, p 188.
65.
Ibid., p 187.
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66. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 36, p 157.
67. Ibid., Vol 40, p 76.
68. Ibid., Vol 36, p 199.
69. Ibid., p 200.
70. Ibid., Vol 40, pp 222-223.
71. Ibid., Vol 39, p 46.
72. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 2, p 140.
73. Ibid., p 180.
74. Ibid., p 142.
75. See: Ibid., p 183.
76. Ibid., p 310.
77. Ibid., p 163.
78. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Sock.," Vol 12, p 220.
79. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 37, p 88.
80. Ibid., Vol 31, p 15.
81. Ibid., Vol 39, p 313.
82. Ibid., Vol 37, p 200.
83. See: "Sovetskiye Vooruzhennyye Sily: Istoriya stroitelstva" [The Soviet
Armed Forces: History of Organizational Development], Moscow, 1978, p 138.
84. A. S. Bubnov, "Boyevaya podgotovka i politicheskaya rabota" [Combat
Training and Political Work] Moscow, 1927, p 74.
85. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 185.
86. "KPSS o Vooruzhennykh Silakh...," p 264.
87. See: "Voyennaya strategiya," Edited by V. D. Sokolovskiy, Moscow, 1963,
p 170; N. G. Kuznetsov, "Nakanune" [On the Eve], Moscow, 1966, pp 256-261;
S. G. Gorshkov, "Morskaya moshch gosudarstva" [The Sea Power of a State],
Moscow, 1976, pp 442-446.
88. See: "Istoriya vtoroy mirovoy voyny. 1939-1945" [The History of World
War II. 1939-1945], Vol 12, p 168.
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89. "Programma KPSS" [The CPSU Program], Moscow, 1976, p 111.
90. I. N. Shkadov, "The Responsibility of a Commander Responsible for
Military and Political Matters," KRASNAYA ZVEZDA, 8 September 1983.
91. I. V. Stalin, "0 Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyne Sovetskogo Soyuza" [On the
Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union], Moscow, 1951, pp 166-167.
92. S. F. Akhromeyev, "The Role of the Soviet Union and Its Armed Forces in
Achieving a Fundamental Turning Point in World War II and Its Inter-
national Significance," VOYENNAYA-ISTORICHESKIY ZHURNAL, No 2, 1984,
pp 22-23.
93. D. A. Volkogonov, "Soldiers Are Not Born," LITERATURNAYA GAZETA,
24 February 1982.
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CHAPTER 5: MILITARY INSTRUCTION AND INDOCTRINATION
Military Pedagogical Views
Marxist-Leninist ideology--the philosophical basis of military training and
indoctrination.The military-pedagogical views of M. V. Frunze evolved in the
course of his revolutionary and military activities under the influence of the
ideas of Marxism-Leninism. K. Marx and F. Engels devoted particularly much
attention to the questions of the military training of revolutionary troops.
F. Engels in his article "The Lessons of the American War" pointed out that
"no army newly organized from civilians could never exist in an effective
state until it is trained .... "(1) He gave crucial significance to the
principle of teaching the troops what is needed in a war and in all his works
was sharply against an excessive concern with parade drill instruction to the
detriment of field training. At the same time in the article "Company
Training" and certain other words, he convincingly showed that the
revolutionary soldiers must also not avoid drilling. Although volunteers in
this regard could not rival regular troops, they still should be trained up to
a point where their movements and actions occur simultaneously and have
reached the point of becoming automatic.
F. Engels realized well that military affairs are primarily of a practical
nature and lose any sense if they come down to just giving oral commands.
Systematic company and battalion exercises were considered by him to be the
best form of military training.
V. I. Lenin and the Communist Party, in creatively applying the ideas of
Marxism, worked out the questions of military training and indoctrination,
proceeding from the need of establishing a regular, well trained army. The
demand of V. I. Lenin "to study military affairs effectively" permeated and
directed all aspects of the training of the Armed Forces. "The best army," he
said, "the men most dedicated to the revolution will inevitably be
exterminated by the enemy if they are not sufficiently armed, supplied with
food and trained."(2)
Long before the revolution, he urgently recommended that they follow the
advice of F. Engels on studying not only the theoretical but also the
practical aspect of military affairs. During the period of the Civil War,
Lenin demanded that the communists particularly zealously study "machine gun,
artillery and armored affairs and so forth, for here our backwardness is most
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tangible, here the enemy's superiority with a large number of officers is more
significant, here the causing of a major damage by an unreliable military
specialist is possible and here the role of the communists is greatest."(3)
The Red Army from the very outset of its founding, in fighting on numerous
fronts, carried out the instructions of its leader, in simultaneously working
hard on combat training. "We know," said V. I. Lenin, "what a difficult
matter it is when the working class for so long has been removed not only from
command and control but also from literacy and we know how difficult it is to
learn everything all at once. The working class in military affairs, the most
difficult and dangerous, has nevertheless made this change."(4)
M. V. Frunze was one of the most zealous students (and then teachers) of
military affairs. Like all outstanding military leaders, her at the same time
was an outstanding military pedagogue, he had a good knowledge of the
psychology of the men and was a great master of military training and
indoctrination.
In analyzing the experience of major wars, he concluded that "the might of any
army, including our own, is based upon two factors: in the first place, on
the political mood and, secondly, on factors related to skill and combat
training."(5) "Even with a good political mood and ready to enter battle and
give up one's life, we may be unable to sustain a victory if we have poor
skills. In addition to a good political mood, it is essential to have
ability... combat skill."(6) M. V. Frunze pointed out that the Red Army should
be indoctrinated and trained on the basis of uniform concepts and uniform
views on all questions related to its activities and tasks.
Here Mikhail Vasilyevich proceeded from the view that the sociopolitical
principles in military organizational development extend fully to the area of
combat training and indoctrination. He pointed out that the basic provisions
deriving from the nature of the worker state and from the entire essence of
its ideology should gain an actually have gained expression in the principles
governing the organizational development and training of the Armed Forces.
Those political ideas which should make out of the Red Army soldiers conscious
fighters for the worker-peasant cause have been set completely by the ideology
of the working class and by the Communist Party Program.
In contrast to bourgeois armies where apoliticalness and inaction are
instilled and the class essence of the military organization is denied, we,
said Mikhail Vasilyevich, base all the strength of our Red Army and all its
might precisely on broadly and deeply developed political education. He
viewed the entire process of troop training in an organic unity with political
indoctrination with the determining, leading role played by political
indoctrination. In many of his speeches and works he explained the Leninist
thesis that strength, according to the bourgeois notion, is when the masses
blindly go into battle, obeying the bidding of the imperialist governments.
According to the communist system of indoctrination, a state is strong in the
awareness of the masses, when the masses know everything, for they can judge
everything and do everything consciously. "A conviction of the justness of a
war and an awareness of the need to sacrifice one's life for the sake of one's
brothers," wrote V. I. Lenin, "raise the spirit of the soldiers and cause them
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to endure unprecedented hardships.... This awareness by the masses of the
aims and causes of a war is of enormous significance and ensures victory."(7)
Throughout the entire system of political work in the Armed Forces, M. V.
Frunze gave particular significance to the development of Marxist-Leninist
ideology and to achieving a profound awareness by all the personnel of the
policy of the party and the Soviet government and the importance of military
duty in the defense of the socialist fatherland. He constantly explained that
the just nature of a war which would be waged by the Red Army is reflected in
all aspects of its life and activities, "it permeates the entire system of our
organization and is reflected in the army training and indoctrination methods
and in a whole series of other practical conclusions."(8)
In this context, in the process of combat and political training it is
essential to train not only a narrow military specialist, as in bourgeois
armies, where everything thinking and alive is eradicated from the creation of
a soldier, but primarily a citizen-soldier who is politically developed and
loyal to the ideals of the revolution.
In the old Russian Army, as in other armies of the capitalist states, there
was a particularly noticeable distance of the officers from the soldiers and
from the masses of people as a whole and the officers were viewed as a
separate caste. M. V. Frunze emphasized that our officer corps should be
trained and indoctrinated on the common principles of Soviet pedagogics. We
are not a caste but rather a branch of Soviet society, he said. "The most
characteristic trait for that edifice which we have now created is the
closest, deepest tie of the leading military upper group with the entire body
of the army and through it with all our Soviet social organism."(9)
M. V. Frunze considered one of the major evils in the training system of the
old army to be the divorce of theory from practice, dogmatism, routine and a
mechanical, witless coaching and learning by rote. He constantly fought
against these vestiges in the training and indoctrination of the personnel and
which had made themselves felt also in the Red Army particularly in the work
practices of the old military specialists.
The difficulty of elaborating the principles of Soviet military pedagogics in
those years was explained also by the fact that the very pedagogics of
communist indoctrination were just being established. For this reason the
paths of military training and indoctrination in the Soviet Armed Forces had
to be laid in surmounting various reactionary and idealistic currents in the
area of pedagogics and psychology.
On the principles of military training and indoctrination. Proceeding from
the general party notions on the questions of the communist indoctrination of
the workers, M. V. Frunze felt it necessary to found military instruction and
indoctrination in the Armed Forces on new principles that were completely
different from those in the bourgeois armies.
He assigned a leading role to the principle of communist ideological and party
loyalty in training and indoctrination as this principle must ensure the
political awareness of all the personnel and its wholehearted dedication to
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the cause of the party and the people. He considered the ideology of the
Bolshevik Party to be the basis of all political and military indoctrination.
Party and government policy was that vital basis on which state, cultural,
military and training-indoctrinational work in the army was based. "A
profound, unswerving dedication to it (the party.--M. G.) and the following of
its ideals, its discipline and steadfastness serve as an indispensable
condition for the strength of the Red Army and Navy and their combat
capability."(10)
In accord with the instructions of the RKP(b) Central Committee, Frunze
demanded that the barracks be brought as close as possible to a military
school and that they be made a center of not only military training but also
general education and political indoctrination. "In this regard," he said, "I
should say with pride that no army of other states can compare with our Red
Army. Our Red barracks, our Red Army are not only a school for combat
indoctrination and combat training of the Red Armyman but also a school for
his indoctrination as a citizen.... 1101)
M. V. Frunze viewed military and political training as the most important
means for carrying out party and state military policy and for achieving
dependable defense of the socialist fatherland. In assigning an important
role to the commanders and political workers, at the same time he emphasized
that military and political training in the Army and Navy are not their
personal concern but rather a major party and state question, their party and
state duty.
As our party has demanded, on the question of the ideological indoctrination
of the personnel and increasing party influence in the army and navy, M. V.
Frunze gave exceptionally great significance to party political work, to
increasing the activities of the party and Komsomol organizations and ensuring
the vanguard role and example set by the communists and Komsomol members. The
decision of the Eighth Party Congress stated that belonging to a communist
cell did not give a soldier any special rights but merely placed on his the
duty to be the most self-sacrificing and courageous fighter.(12) Frunze
repeatedly recalled that the task of a party organization is by its party
influence and by party work to support all the measures of the command aimed
at increasing the level of combat and political training and, consequently,
the combat readiness of the units and subunits. The quality of party
political work should be determined by the degree of carrying out this major
task. A party cell which does not ensure a high political-moral state of the
personnel, the combat readiness of the unit and subunit and firm military
discipline, is not carrying out its main task in the army--this was how firmly
and definitely M. V. Frunze posed the question.
He emphasized that stemming from the principle of ideological and party
loyalty was the principle of the unity of training and indoctrination and
primarily a close link of training with political and military indoctrination.
On the question of the military-political indoctrination of the Red Army,
Frunze demanded that the commanders and political workers pay attention to the
need to merge the purely military line and the political line. He considered
"it absolutely necessary that any practical activity be carried out under the
slogan of the greatest possible merging of these two areas."(13)
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M. V. Frunze also taught that military training and indoctrination can be
separated only theoretically but in practice they should be inseparable and
fused into one. In all exercises it is essential not only to inculcate
knowledge and skills but also to continuously indoctrinate the personnel.
Precisely a unity of training and indoctrination, particularly a unity of
political and military indoctrination, helps most in developing intrepidness
and a readiness in the men at any price to carry out the missions set in a
combat situation. M. V. Frunze pointed out that the readiness of the
personnel for self-sacrified in the Red Army is immeasurably higher than in
the army of any bourgeois country. "The Red Army is the army of the future,
an army carrying new ideals. Hence its strength, hence that heroism, that
ardent enthusiasm which made it possible for us in the past Civil War to
emerge as the victors from the combat trials .... 11(14)
Considering this, Mikhail Vasilyevich constantly recommended that at exercises
and in personal talks, orally and through the military press the commanders
and political workers clearly and simply explained to the men our common
military and political tasks, pose and facilitate the resolving of the
questions of barracks internal life and widely popularize the requirements of
our regulations.
Frunze gave great importance to the principle of the unity of theory and
practice which should gain its fullest expression in the teaching of the Armed
Forces personnel primarily what would be needed in a future war. Our military
might, he emphasized, is based not on a separation of it from life but, on the
contrary, on the deepening and broadening of ties with it. Precisely from the
principle of teaching the troops what would be needed in a war stemmed the
demand of M. V. Frunze of giving a practical focus to the entire process of
military training and indoctrination. He demanded that no gap be permitted
between the content of combat training in peacetime and the actions which
would be required from the troops in a war, the shifting of the center of
gravity to their training in the field, on diverse terrain and under
conditions close to a combat situation, "so that in the event of necessity we
will fight a new war with the least losses and sacrifices, 'with little
blood,' as one of the greatest military Suvorov said."(15) Frunze felt that
it was impossible to train a Red Armyman or commander in military affairs by
words alone, even the best. Without active independent labor and practical
drills, it was impossible to gain the skills needed in a combat situation.
The drills should be systematic in order to gain confident actions in a
formation, at the weapons and on the battlefield.
In being against drilling in the old understanding, M. V. Frunze explained
that the word "drill" to many seemed awful due to the prejudice and the
incorrect understanding of its essence. The main thing was not to disregard
the necessary external elements of discipline and training but rather that
these external elements are not made the basis of military training and
indoctrination.
In speaking about the unity of theory and practice, M. V. Frunze also had in
mind that political training should not be abstract but organized in close
contact with the tasks of combat training and the daily life of the formations
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and units. "Our educational work," he demanded, "should be so organized that
we produce both a Red Soviet citizen and a Red soldier. Here I would like to
place particular emphasis on the second part of this formula. The question is
that we are sometimes too involved with the tasks of a civil sort and forget
that our duty is primarily to be concerned with producing a well trained and
indoctrinated Red soldier from the peasant who has been inducted into the
army."(16)
Of the general pedagogical principles, M. V. Frunze gave greatest importance
to the following principles: awareness and activeness of the personnel in the
training process; an individual approach to each serviceman with a
simultaneous reliance on the collective; systematicness and planning;
accessibility, stability and visibility of training.
M. V. Frunze drew attention to the fact that for realizing these pedagogical
principles in an army of the socialist state, new training and indoctrination
methods were required. Many training methods employed in the old army could
not be applied in the Red Army. In the old army it was not so much that they
trained and indoctrinated the soldiers as anesthetized them, they did not
enlighten but rather dulled their conscience. Prevailing there were the
methods of drilling and the mechanical memorizing of material and for this
reason the officer played an active role in the training process while the
mass of soldiers remained passive and inert.
In the Red Army, M. V. Frunze felt, one must proceed from the fact that not
only innate abilities, as certain reactionary theories asserted, but primarily
the social milieu and the troop collective shape the views, convictions,
habits and skills of the servicemen. At the center of all military political
work was a man with his conscience, feelings and individual features and for
this reason the main place in training and instruction should be given to
awareness, activeness and personal responsibility of the trainees themselves.
"...It is essential to organize everything," pointed out M. V. Frunze, "at
achieving... maximum development of personal initiative and the independence of
each Red Armyman. In this regard, the characteristic features of our state
and our army open up the broadest prospects.... While each bourgeois state
should fear the acquiring of knowledge and the development of spiritual
activity by the slaves of capital, for us this development itself is the most
dependable guarantee for victorious accomplishments. The entire apparatus of
our training for the individual soldier should be adapted to this demand."(17)
A soldier, in his opinion, was a good one when his own personality lived
together with the social nature of awareness.
Due to the low literacy of the personnel, Frunze gave particular importance to
the accessibility of knowledge and to the ability of the commanders and
political workers to set out for the Red Armymen the most complex political
and military questions in a popular and persuasive form. He himself by his
speeches set a brilliant example of how to do this. Frunze explained: if the
Red Armyman or a commander are immediately explained complicated things which
are completely incomprehensible to him, this kills a desire to learn and the
exercises do not achieve their goal. For this reason he advised gradually
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leading the trainees up to complex questions. Then this instills confidence
in one's forces and activates the training process.
At the same time Frunze warned that the accessibility of instruction should
not be understood as its simplification or artificial facileness. The
instruction process should being about a straining of both thought and
physical forces and should strengthen the will and character of the trainees.
He constantly recommended at exercises both with Red Armymen as well as with
command and political personnel that the interest of the trainees be aroused
and instill a love for military affairs and a desire oneself to constantly
improve one's knowledge and practical skills. In giving great significance to
the form and method of presenting the material, he cautioned at the same time
that forms and methods should not be turned into an end in themselves. The
main thing should be the ideological content of the training and
indoctrination. "...There must be," he said, "a thrusting forward of
content."(18)
In the new army, as in a socialist society generally, the force of an example
is the strongest indoctrinational means. If there is no personal example and
authority of the indoctrinator, Mikhail Vasilyevich emphasized, "then by the
mechanical subordination of the Red Armyman by drilling him we will not
achieve anything.... This applies to any command level."(19) He constantly
explained that the commander or political worker should be able to correctly
approach each serviceman, to consider his individual features, to influence
not only his awareness but also feelings and see to it that there is full
mutual understanding between superiors and subordinates. For this each
commander and political worker should be a good pedagogue and psychologist.
In demanding the giving up of old training and indoctrination methods and the
introduction of new ones which met the particular features of the Red Army,
M. F. Frunze cautioned the commanders and political workers against two
mistakes in this area. In the first place, one should not completely abandon
all the old in the training methods merely because it is old. All useful
pedagogical experience must be taken up and skillfully and creatively
employed. Secondly, neither old nor new training and indoctrination methods
should be turned into a routine pattern. "Generally speaking here each Red
commander should firmly realize that the most dangerous thing for us is
routine and an overinvolvement with any definite scheme or any definite
method.... For us there cannot be anything absolute and ossified; everything
flows and changes and any means, any method can be employed in a certain
situation."(20)
Training of the Command and Political Personnel
New demands upon the training methods for commanders and political workers.
M. V. Frunze with great satisfaction pointed out that our party and state,
regardless of the exceptionally difficult conditions under which the new army
had been created had succeeded in indoctrinating its own military cadres. He
emphasized that the class composition of the Red Army and the higher military
school sufficiently eloquently showed whose interests were being served by our
command personnel. The successes in the training of military cadres were
explained by him not by any special talents or accomplishments of the military
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workers but by the fact that in the course of the revolution the objective
situation had pushed military problems to the forefront and attracted the
attention of the party, the attention of the working class and peasantry.
M. V. Frunze constantly reminded that the postwar situation and the nature of
a future war placed very high demands upon the command and political cadres
and the level of their training was still far from meeting the new conditions.
As a whole, the Red Army at that time was experiencing a great hunger for
highly skilled, young Red commanders. In the work "The Questions of Higher
Military Education" Mikhail Vasilyevich explained why such a situation had
developed precisely in the area of training the military cadres.
In all states based on social inequality, the outcome of a class struggle has
always been determined and is determined ultimately by armed force. For this
reason the ruling classes have always given particular attention to this
force and have always been very careful that leadership over it remained
completely and fully in their hands. Access to this area of social activity
and the road to military knowledge and to military art were closed off to the
people. Military affairs themselves were clothed in unique talent and
inaccessibility for the comprehension of simple minds. All of this was done
of course to place a sort of taboo on military art and military science and
thus prevent access to the exploited classes. Moreover, a mastery of military
art was possible with a certain general literacy and for this reason placed
rather demands upon its specialists. And since culture in a class society is
the monopoly of the ruling class, the military specialists and commanders were
recruited precisely from this class. World War I forced Tsarism to train
officers also from other strata of the population. But in their predominant
majority they did not have a higher military education and basically had
experience only in the inferior troop levels.
Considering all of this, M. V. Frunze showed constant concern for improving
the professional training of the military cadres, considering this an
important condition for successfully carrying out all tasks in the area of the
organizational development and training of the Armed Forces. "One of the
major shortcomings in our military work," he said, "I consider to be the
absence of our own skilled workers who are trained, who have fully mastered
their subject and at the same time are closely linked with the Soviet system.
The present composition of workers with a higher military skill is a
mechanical aggregate of persons with a higher military education in part from
among those who completed our Red Academy and in part inherited from the old
Tsarist Army. Understandably, being motley in is competition, views, skills
and traditions, it cannot be an ideological leading center.... The designated
fact is reflected in all the organizational development of the Red Army, being
the reason for a whole series of flaws and shortcomings."(21) Frunze pointed
out that old military art cannot satisfy us but as yet we have not created a
new one. And this has been in no way a consequence of our reticence or
oversight but simply is the result of inability and ignorance. The acuteness
and complexity of this problem have increased due to the fact that military
affairs after two major wars continued to develop rapidly.
Proceeding from the instructions of the party Central Committee on the
questions of the training of cadres and the above-given considerations, M. V.
Frunze proposed a number of new demands on the training and indoctrination of
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the Red Army commanders and political workers. Even in establishing the first
command courses in the Yaroslavl Military District, M. V. Frunze demanded the
training of an instructor commander who possessed the following qualities: 1.
The instructor should have an ardent and revolutionary spirit and passion for
carrying out the ideas of communism and should be able to inculcate this
spirit...in the Chinese. 2. He should possess a store of mental forces and
be...a well developed person. 3. He should quickly perceive external
impressions and analyze the phenomena of life occurring around him.... He
should possess a total of certain knowledge in his military specialty. He
should be able to get across to the trainee what he has learned, that is, have
pedagogical abilities.(6) He should have an understanding of the methods of
instruction and procedurally train his students moving from the simple to the
more complex. 7. He himself should be an example of a soldier, in looking at
whom the trainee would see an example worthy of imitation. 8. The instructor
should be irreproachable in moral terms.(22)
Considering the nature of a future war, the demands on the training of command
and political cadres would increase even more. For this reason Frunze
constantly reminded the commanders and political workers that one must follow
what is happening in our Armed Forces and in the armies of other countries and
there must be constant, systematic work on one's own education. "This is a
duty for all commanders without exception," he emphasized. The person who
does not do this will soon end up behind and in this instance can only blame
himself."(23)
Frunze emphasized that in order to best serve the interests of the workers and
peasants, it is not enough to merely belong to the proletariat or to the
peasantry or even to possess the most unstinting dedication to the interests
of the workers. Also insufficient here is a mere mastery of the techniques of
military art as is required from a commander in bourgeois armies. A Red
commander needs significantly more. In order that a Red Army commander is on
the proper height, as a commander of an army of the socialist revolution, for
this he must also master the method of Marxism-Leninism. This, in turn, can
be ensured only in the instance that all the work of the higher school and all
the training of the command and political personnel in the Army and Navy are
permeated with a spirit of Marxism-Leninism and if all military disciplines
are given a Marxist-Leninist approach.
In April 1924, the Directive of the USSR RVS "On Involving Command Personnel
in Political Education" was issued. This pointed out that all levels of
commanders should take a personal part in party political work. Subsequently
this demand was reflected in the Temporary Internal Service Regulations which
for the first time in the history of our Armed Forces defined the duties of
the commanders and other officials in the area of the political and military
indoctrination of the personnel.
Equally important Mikhail Vasilyevich taught, is the mastery of the principles
of military science and military art. In his article "On the Academy and
Academies" M. V. Frunze wrote that while in welcoming in every possible way
creativity and a critical reevaluation of previous experience, at the same
time one must act decisively against nihilism in military affairs and
excessive complacency on the part of certain young commanders. He did not
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approve of the commanders, including the young academy students, who under the
pretext of a revolutionary breaking with all the old, without having yet
studied either the old or new experience and not yet knowing anything as they
should, resorted to a "disrespectful scorning and spitting at the old
specialists."(24) Confidence in one's own forces and in oneself, Mikhail
Vasilyevich taught, is a fine thing, particularly when it is based upon a
solid ground of knowledge and experience. But when there is no such base, it
threatens to become conceit and presumption.
Mikhail Vasilyevich was not afraid to admit that the Red commanders were still
very poor specialists in their job. In this he showed an example of a
demanding, self-critical attitude not only toward others but also toward
himself. "I can say honestly and openly about myself," he said, "that for a
whole series of questions I have constantly felt my greatest backwardness.
One feels how much work there is to be done to actually become worthy of those
posts to which the Soviet government has assigned us."(25) It is essential to
remember, he continued, that we still are students and in many regards
students of a subpreparatory class. However, recognition of oneself as a
student does not exclude the possibility of showing one's own initiative. One
must merely not permit presumption and boasting. It is better to be humbler
but stronger. Hence the conclusion: we, the Red commanders, must study,
study and study.
Frunze constantly reminded us that the commander "who rests on his laurels,
who counts only on his old accomplishments will, on this basis, not move
forward in his own education and at advancement; this commander will not
encounter support from us."(26)
In speaking in August 1924, at the graduating class of students from the RKKA
Military Academy, M. V. Frunze reminded the new detachment of young commanders
that our party, while still underground and during the first days after the
October Revolution, was concerned for training its own military cadres which
would be loyal to Soviet power. But at the moment of the greatest struggle
and open clash with the enemy, it was impossible to think of raising the
entire mass of the laboring lower classes and soldiers to the proper height
but rather it was essential first of all to be concerned with who would lead
these millions of the masses into battle. And there was no time to thoroughly
and properly train those who would lead the masses into battle. Now, Frunze
emphasized, when we for the first time have gained an opportunity to train
truly educated and ideologically mature commanders, the academy graduates
should have a particularly acute sense of their responsibility. For this
reason, one must recall one's duty to be an any point the center organizing
creative activities and to work in such a manner that each person, regardless
of where he works or where he is, provided an impetus to all further work and
becomes a source of new accomplishments and new progress. He saw to it that
the graduates of the RKKA Military Academy were sent to work first on the
staffs of the operational-strategic level. "We must not," he said, "be so
wasteful as to keep our Red academy graduates for long periods of time in line
positions, particularly when they already had definite line service in the
past."(27)
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One of the characteristic traits of M. V. Frunze was frankness and directness
in talking with people and the ability not to skirt acute questions but rather
to focus attention precisely on them. In his speech to the academy graduates,
he did not conceal those difficulties which they would encounter in the
troops. He told them directly that they would be returning to an atmosphere
that was rather gray to an atmosphere of the everyday and Philistine, with its
routine and with its ordinary interests. Undoubtedly this situation would
cause the greatest obstacles along the way of solving the set problems. But
it would be a bad thing if a person fell into depression or a state of
apathy. A true organizer-commander would be tested precisely in this
situation, in this daily routine work. The role of a true Red Army commander
would be claimed only by the person who is able to handle this situation, who
does not give into it and is able himself to work and to lead others. He
cautioned the commanders that military science and military affairs were
moving rapidly forward. Thought, if it is not strengthened and if it does not
follow all the accomplishments of military affairs will become powerless and
sterile. Hence the conclusion: "Only those of you who feel a constant
dissatisfaction with yourself, a dissatisfaction and incompleteness of one's
scientific knowledge carried out of the academy, only the person who
endeavors to broaden his viewpoint and supplement his theoretical and
practical knowledge--only this person will not fall behind in military
affairs, will move forward and, possibly, bring with him scores and hundreds
of others."(28)
In demanding a broad political viewpoint from the commanders, M. V. Frunze
placed equally high demands upon the military training of the political
workers. "I draw particular attention of the political workers to this
circumstance," he said. "They should not only master their special type of
weapons, political weapons. According to the glorious combat traditions of
the Red Army, our political workers have always marched in the front
ranks...our political workers should know well the equipment of their
unit...so that the Red Armymen would show even greater respect for them and to
an even greater degree recognize their authority.(29)
M. V. Frunze disdained the commanders who still have not had an opportunity to
gain the necessary theoretical training. Mikhail Vasilyevich spared not time
and effort to work closely with them and direct their self-education in the
necessary direction. But he was extremely patient of dilatantism evidenced
not in insufficient knowledge but rather in the fact that a person not only
did not know but did not want to know, for a dilatant, without knowing the
essence of the question and in being satisfied only with superficial
knowledge, takes it upon himself to self-confidently and unquestionably judge
various problems of theory or practice.
Frunze considered the constant study of major questions using primary sources
to be one of the conditions for serious and sound preparation by the
commanders and political workers. Mikhail Vasilyevich was convinced that it
was impossible to learn something properly in a surrogate or spiritual
delicacies. Only with a direct study and investigation of the facts,
documents and works (as he had done in generalizing the experience of the war
in Morocco; or B. M. Shaposhnikov in creating the work "Mozg armii") were
convictions sharpened and profound thoughts born. Even more one could not
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expect anything useful from a military man if he never read anything. Proof
of this was the example of the untalented military minister of the Tsarist
government, Gen V. A. Sukhomlinov, who even boasted that he had not read a
single book in 20 years.
As for Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, he hated and disdained any manifestation of
mental flabbiness and intellectual laziness. Working in 1921 on the article
"On the Reorganization of the French Army," he advised one of the responsible
staff workers to read a book devoted to the questions of military
organizational development abroad. And when at the next meeting Mikhail
Vasilyevich realized that this comrade himself had not read the book but had
assigned his subordinate to do this, without concealing his disappointment, he
simply broke off the conversation. Such an attitude toward books seemed
unnatural to him as if a person assigned another person to perform the bodily
functions of his organism. While physical emaciation from systemic
malnutrition is felt rather quickly and immediately becomes noticeable, mental
emaciation, unfortunately, occurs more covertly. For this reason it is
particularly dangerous.
During those years such demandingness for self-education, for the development
of a viewpoint, for competence, and for the ability to dig down to the
details, to the depths of any question was sometimes seen as excessive and not
corresponding to the then existing training level of the personnel. But
Frunze was looking far ahead, for even then the grains were being sown the
sprouts of which were to determine the intellectual level in the training of
the command and political cadres in subsequent years. The main thing for him
was not the very fact of knowledge or ignorance of one or another question on
the part of a commander (this was always rectifiable) but rather his
fundamental attitude toward his own self-education. The military-theoretical
backwardness of a senior leader, when he due to his insufficient competence
not only cannot effectively head the assigned job, see all its aspects and
skillfully direct but is not even capable of even understanding what
subordinates are reporting to him was considered by Frunze to be the greatest
evil for military service.
Life subsequently was to show how profoundly right Frunze was, in placing such
high demands upon the superiority and personal preparedness of the military
cadres.
Simultaneously, M. V. Frunze recommended that the commanders and political
workers not merely store up the acquired knowledge but more quickly put it
into action in practical work and generously and skillfully pass this on to
their subordinates. He urged them to take a greater and more active part in
the work of the party organizations and to more boldly involve all the command
personnel in political-indoetrinational and social work. All of this sounds
close to modern demand. D. F. Ustinov at the Sixth All-Army Conference of
Primary Party Organization Secretaries in a concise and complete manner
formulated the qualities which should be inherent to a modern military leader:
"This is competence, a sharp sense for the new, the ability to assume
responsibility for solving difficult problems, to promptly spot and support
initiative, to mobilize the will and energy of the personnel...an ability to
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think and act under the conditions of an extremely rigid time limit and with
enormous moral-psychological and physical stresses."(30)
On the organization and methods of commander training. M. V. Frunze is
rightly considered the founder of commander training in the Soviet Armed
Forces. Precisely with his appointment to the post of chairman of the USSR
RVS were uniform principles established for organizing the training and
indoctrination of command and political personnel in the military schools and
in the commander training system in the troops and naval forces.
In order to properly appreciate the innovations of M. V. Frunze in this area,
it is important to recall that in the Russian Army, for example, no system at
all existed for compulsory commander exercises for officer personnel. The
Instructions for Officer Exercises issued in 1882, in being a program for the
tactical training of officers and remaining unchanged until 1904, stipulated
that officer exercises for tactics should be held during "leisure" hours.
Certain commanders of military districts conducted exercises upon their own
initiative. But these exercises came down basically to lectures; sometimes
military games were conducted on the senior level.
In the Red Army the official start to commander training was made in January
1919 by the Order of the All-Russian Chief Staff "On Exercises With Command
Personnel." In February 1920, the people's commissar for military affairs
approved the Regulation for Exercises With the RKKA Command Personnel. In
1922, a system was instituted for filling the training groups for command
personnel according to the principle of the position held. Two hours twice a
week were assigned for commander exercises during free time from training the
Red Armymen.(31) However, there still was no systematic commander training
which was obligatory for all the commanders and political workers.
Upon the instructions of M. V. Frunze, a unified and obligatory system of
command training for all categories of supervisory personnel was instituted in
the Red Army. Commander exercises were viewed not as a personal, voluntary
question for the officers but as a most important part of service activity and
were conducted during service time.
M. V. Frunze proceeded from the view that the commander training programs
should provide successive mastery of all the main achievements of military
science and military art. At the same time, he was decisively against
overburdening the commander training programs in the troops and the curricula
in the VUZes. "If we do not make any major changes here," he said, "then this
threatens a major danger, primarily in the sense that all these enormous and
good programs of ours will remain on paper, since they cannot be actually
implemented by us. They will simply be a formality and in no way assimilated.
On the other hand, such an overloading will lead to increased apathy and
indifference among the command and political personnel. For this reason I
consider it our greatest and most enormous task to now set to work on further
studying this question so that we could now make our programs viable.... It
is essential to approach the question in a practical manner. It would be much
better if we shortened our programs than, in having extensive programs, they
would be organized in such a manner that there was not even any hope of
mastering them."(32)
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The more time passes since these words were said, the more pertinent they
sound. For as equipment has developed and military affairs have become more
complex, the range of knowledge and skills which an officer needs has grown
while the desire to incorporate a large amount of subjects in the programs has
also grown and this has led to the overloading and overstraining of the
training process and told negatively upon the effectiveness of instruction.
For this reason, both in the past and at present the seeking out of an optimum
volume for the programs which would consider, on the one hand, the development
level of military affairs and on the other, the actual opportunities for their
effective assimilation remains one of the major problems in organizing
commander training and the training process in the military schools, in the
troops and fleets.
The way out of this situation was seen by M. V. Frunze in the independent work
of the commanders and political workers. For this reason, in giving great
importance to improving the training process in the VUZes and commander
training in the troops, he considered self-education to be the main form for
increasing the training level of the commander and political worker. In
analyzing the elaborated programs, he pointed out that it would be correct and
timely to shift the center of gravity in training and studies to independent
work.
M. V. Frunze saw perfectly clearly that this demand could be realized only in
the instance that conditions would be established for the self-education for
the command and political personnel by reforming and systematizing the entire
system of military service. In this context he for the first time raised the
question of the work day of the commander and political worker and spoke about
this in detail at a conference for the command and supervisory personnel in
Tiflis.
During the first years after the Civil War, the question of the commander's
work day was not particularly raised by anyone. For in a war, where combat
work goes on continuously, around-the-clock, the commanders could rest only in
breaks and the presence of even any rest was a pleasure. Out of inertia work
on the staffs and in the troops in peacetime was carried out according to a
wartime pace. When several special commissions organized for studying this
question established that the average length of the work day for a commander
was 12-14 hours, M. V. Frunze drew attention of the army leadership to the
abnormality of such a situation. On this question he proceeded not only from
considerations of general concern for the commander and political worker. He
was also disquieted by the circumstance that with such working conditions the
problem of self-education for the command and political personnel could not
make progress. In addition to adding to their political and military
knowledge, a majority of the commanders also had to increase their general
literacy and culture.
Mikhail Vasilyevich realized that this problem could not be solved by orders
and appeals. In contrast to certain leaders, he took into account its
complexity and did not issue any easy promises to the command personnel. He
even warned that as equipment became more complex along with military affairs
as a whole, the demands and the range of questions resolved by command
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personnel would increase. He was convinced that for systematizing the
commander's work day it was essential to fundamentally revise the entire
system of work for the command and political personnel from top to bottom and
the question had to start from the center.
Frunze saw the main ways for solving this question in the following. In the
first place, clear, calendar, as he expressed it, planning of work of the
central apparatus and then the districts, fleets, field formations and units.
But this was not to be formal planning but well thought out and realistic and
which should be strictly followed by all officials. Any deviation from the
plan at the center would cause a chain reaction of violations in planning work
on all levels. Secondly, a clear delimitation of the questions which should
be resolved at the center, in the districts (fleets) and in the formations.
They must abandon the practice of issuing instructions from above on questions
which did not require a centralized solution. "We devote too much time to
such things," pointed out Frunze, "which could be settled much sooner and
simpler. We must make it our task that everything which could be done by the
individual order of a commander be done by it."(33) Thirdly, the
systematizing of the work day on all levels depends both upon the senior and
subordinate commanders. If the subordinates work well, carrying out their
duties fully, then there is more rarely the need of intervention into the
affairs of subordinate units by the senior chiefs and fewer additional
measures are carried out involving the providing of help and various
investigations.
Since the problem of an officer's work day to one degree or another will
always exist, at present it would be a good thing to reflect on the advice
given by M. F. Frunze.
In examining the contents and methods of training the commanders, M. V. Frunze
pointed out that the command personnel which had received good practical
schooling in the Civil War mostly did not lack theoretical training and
general culture. But he simultaneously pointed to the need of a close link of
theoretical studies with practical work in the troops. He cautioned that a
young commander who showed uncertainty in carrying out practical tasks would
get into a difficult situation in the troops. For this reason Mikhail
Vasilyevich drew attention to the main drawback of the training process at the
RKKA Military Academy and the other military schools. This was a separation
of the training process from practice, an abstractness and nonconcreteness of
many lines of argument of the instructors and students and the inability to
spot the main thing and creatively apply theoretical knowledge in carrying out
practical tasks. "At present, the main thing," he said, "is not discussions
or literary exercises on general questions but rather energetic assiduous and
painstaking work both in training oneself and in mastering that work which
each of us is assigned."(34)
At the same time Frunze considered it essential to overcome the conservatism
of the old-school faculty and advised realizing that the new will grow and
demands room and that it is essential to keep pace with this growing new, for
ultimately this new, sometimes in truth, in an unclear and confused form,
expresses and reflects what will be the truth of life tomorrow.
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Frunze urged the faculty to avoid formalism in educational and in
indoctrinational work. He urged that they judge the assimilation of the
training material by the students not from their answers but how they were
able to apply the knowledge in practice. He wanted them to develop the
students' ability to clearly and precisely formulate their decisions, to give
missions to subordinates and actually organize their fulfillment. In
instilling in the students standard norms and rules of work which were
obligatory for all, they should not permit excessive leveling of their work
methods or suppress the individuality and uniqueness of a commander. They
should be more concerned for shaping a firm commander character and other
organizational and volitional qualities. In the process of training in the
VUZes and commander training in the troops, he demanded that chief attention
be given to the tactical training of the commanders. "The elimination of
tactical impotence" was considered by Frunze to be the main task of the RKKA
Military Academy.
Creativity in military affairs was linked by Mikhail Vasilyevich to a
significant degree with military scientific work which had developed widely
among the command and political personnel. Here he recommended that it be
given a concrete nature. Questions for review and discussion should be set
primarily in terms of one's own formation. If, for example, questions of the
offensive or defensive were being worked on, then one should figure out how to
better organize combat under the various situational conditions proceeding
from the organization and combat capabilities of one's units.
Frunze was particularly demanding on the training process in the military
schools, including on increasing the personal responsibility of the students
and officer candidates. He said directly that it was the duty of each student
to justify those large material outlays which the state was making on his
instruction. "The time spent...in the walls of the RKKA Military Academy must
be 100 percent used in order to shape oneself as well as possible for the
coming responsible work. Studies and the assimilation of a subject should be
in the forefront."(35)
Thus, M. V. Frunze saw three main areas for improving the training system for
command and political personnel: in the first place, the elaboration of
optimum and realistically planned training programs in accord with the
development level of military science and military art; secondly, the
development of the training forms and methods considering the new demands on
the training of the Army and Navy; thirdly, the greatest possible rise in the
personal responsibility of the trainees and the authority of the knowledgeable
commander and political worker as well as increased activity in the training
process.
Improving Combat Training
The planning and organizing of combat training. The Red Army has been
concerned with combat training constantly, including in the course of the
Civil War. But under peacetime conditions this became the main task of the
Armed Forces and the entire training system had to be given greater planning,
systematicness and uniformity.
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M. V. Frunze gave a great deal of attention to the questions of organizing
combat training. While holding the position of the commander of the Ukraine
and Crimea, on 30 May 1921, he issued an order with detailed organizational
instructions "On the Holding of Summer Exercises Upon Completing Initial Drill
Training and Improving the Combat Training of the Troops,"(36) and which
demanded that the first summer assemblies after the Civil War be thoroughly
prepared for. According to the results of combat training in 1923, an order
was issued with an appended List of Instructions on Field Training of the
Troops (emphasis mine--M. G.).(37) Thus, in the general system of combat
training Frunze for the first time isolated the notion of the field skills of
the troops.
On an even larger scale, Frunze continued work on improving the organization
of troop (naval) training upon assuming the position of deputy chairman and
then chairman of the USSR RVS. Actually only as a result of carrying out the
military reform were conditions established for initiating planned and
effective combat training for the troops and naval forces. As M. V. Frunze
pointed out: "The general improvement in the conditions of army life and work
has provided an opportunity to put the question of army indoctrination and
training on a firm footing. In essence only now can we actually set to
training. In previous years, with the turnover of the personnel, the
difficult material conditions of existence, the lack of a firm procedure for
service and so forth, we were actually deprived of any opportunity to organize
the army as an effective combat force."(38) He considered a uniform system of
troop combat training to be a most important part of military doctrine. One
of the reasons for the defeat of the Russian Army in the Russo-Japanese War
was seen by him in the fact that the troops were trained and indoctrinated
differently in the various military districts and as a result in joint
operations on the battlefield, chaos and a lack of coordination became
apparent. M. V. Frunze constantly reminded the commanders that these
lamentable lessons should be taken into account in the Red Army.
In accord with the instructions given by M. V. Frunze, starting in 1925, in
our Armed Forces centralized planning was established for basic measures
related to the training of the troops and naval forces. The questions of
organizing and the direction of combat training were taken up at a plenum of
the USSR RVS at the end of 1924. In accord with the plenum decisions,
starting in 1925, a uniform plan of combat training was introduced for the
entire Red Army; this was designed for the entire stay of the Red Armyman in
the army ranks, both in the professional and territorial units. The practice
was introduced of the annual setting of tasks for combat training of the
troops (naval forces) and the summing up of the results in an order of the
USSR RVS. Of great importance in this regard were also the elaboration and
introduction of uniform combat training programs for the branches of troops.
In accord with the approved programs, specialty troop training was carried out
basically in the winter training period. During this period, in the course of
special assemblies with the subunits and units, one-sided exercises were
organized with the simulating of the enemy and field firing. During the
summer training period, the development of the subunits was continued and
exercises were conducted with the units and formations as well as major
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maneuvers. Tactical exercises and maneuvers began playing an important role
in the training of headquarters bodies and the troops.
Already in September 1921, under the leadership of M. V. Frunze, two-sided
maneuvers were conducted on the territory of the Southwestern Ukraine
involving the troops of several military districts.
Combat training in the training year usually ended with maneuvers or two-sided
exercises of the formations. Maneuvers were considered to be a higher form in
the practical training of the command-political personnel, the staffs and the
troops.
In contrast to the practice which existed in the Russian and other bourgeois
armies, the commanders, staffs and troops prepared ahead of time and carefully
for these concluding exercises and maneuvers. For the questions which were to
be worked on in the coming exercises, additional drills were conducted with
the command and political personnel, command-staff exercises were held with
the staffs, while battle drill, special tactical and tactical exercises
were held for the subunits and units of all branches of troops. In those
instances when new questions were to be worked on, demonstration exercises
were conducted for the most difficult of them for the commanders and political
workers. Company, battalion and regimental exercises preceded the maneuvers
and exercises with the formations.
The reorganization of the formations and units during the period of the reform
gave the exercises an all-arms nature. The artillery, engineer subunits and
other reinforcements were involved in the battalion, regimental and divisional
exercises. Aviation more and more often began to be involved in major
exercises. The questions of cooperation between the branches of troops were
more fully worked out in the exercises.
M. V. Frunze pointed out to the commanders that it must be constantly
remembered that without such joint actions an exercise cannot even to the
slightest degree be considered satisfactory from the viewpoint of conducting
modern combat. In line with the appearance of the new branches of troops,
along with all-arms exercises, they began conducting special exercises with
the formations and units of aviation, field and antiaircraft artillery and
other branches of troops.
The number of largest exercises, the times of their holding and their subject
were planned for the year by the RKKA Directorate and sent out ahead of time
to the military districts.
M. V. Frunze considered that under peacetime conditions the army would always
be confronted by two main problems. The first was on the basis of a correct
anticipation of the nature of a future war, to determine the content of combat
training, that is, what must be taught to the troops. This problem was
basically solved by the elaborating of new regulations. The second was how to
instruct the troops, that is, to develop the forms and methods of military
training and indoctrination which would ensure the mastery by army and navy
personnel of the new demands and concepts of military science and military
art.
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In the report "The International Status of the USSR and Our Military Tasks"
M. V. Frunze drew the attention of the command and political personnel to the
fact that the elaboration of combat training procedures considering the new
demands on troop training was assuming particularly great importance. He
pointed out that precisely this aspect of the question most often lags behind
and cautioned against the danger of a gap in the future between the growth of
the political and cultural level of the Red Armymen and the educational skill
of the command and political personnel. In our training methods, Frunze said,
we still have many vestiges of the past; quite often training was provided by
mechanical cramming and by coaching the Red Armyman. He demanded that such
training methods be eliminated and eradicated from the Red Army. "We must
learn in a short period of time to be able in a comprehensible form to get
across that information which is vitally essential for combat, leaving the
particulars on the sideline."(39)
In working for strict systematicness and successiveness of instruction, M. V.
Frunze demanded that this principle be most fully considered not only in
exercises but primarily in the combat training plans and the programs of the
military schools in the aims of ensuring a gradual growth and firm retention
of the knowledge and skills of the trainees. He saw a great evil in numerous
subjects being studied in the military schools and demanded that the excessive
number of subjects be eliminated. Very important was his notion that in
working out the programs and plans, the studied disciplines and problems
should be united by the common goal of combat and political training of the
army and navy considering the nature of future operations and combat actions.
M. V. Frunze considered the excessive restriction to barracks areas to be a
major shortcoming in the organization of training in the cadre units.
Exercises conducted largely in the quarters or on the drilling field
contributed little to the training of the Red Armyman for actions in a combat
situation. Frunze demanded that the chief attention of the trainees be
focused on practical exercises in the field, on the most diverse terrain and
under different conditions. Here, while the best conditions for such
exercises for the cadre units were created during the camp assemblies and
maneuvers, for the territorial units where training time was extremely
limited, field exercises should be the general rule.
M. V. Frunze always adhered to this demand. Even in one of the first orders
of the Yaroslavl District Commissariat for Military Affairs, he pointed out:
"...Everything required by the programs is to be conducted if possible in
practice, in the field, by demonstration exercises and field exercises with
tactical problems, in order to provide an opportunity for the trainees to gain
the necessary knowledge under conditions precisely coinciding with reality....
Theoretically, by talks, one should conduct only what cannot be taught
practically for one or another reason.... 11(40)
Frunze gave great attention to organizing combat training in the territorial
units. He considered it wrong that the directorates of the central apparatus
and the military districts were concerned chiefly with directing the combat
training of the regular formations and units. Mikhail Vasilyevich demanded,
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without forgetting the regular troops, that basic attention be given to the
territorial troops which most needed supervision and help.
In the work "The Regular Army and the Militia," M. V. Frunze, along with the
organizational bases for the development of the territorial formations, also
set out the particular features of organizing their combat training. The
cadres of the territorial divisions were given two tasks: in the first place,
the training of the rotating command and Red Armyman personnel of these
divisions; secondly, training the group of senior preinduction ages.
Initially during the assemblies of the territorial units, a portion of the
training time was spent on holding exercises in literacy elimination courses.
M. V. Frunze considered this wrong. Such exercises in his opinion, should be
held only during non-training time. He assumed that the problem of
eliminating illiteracy should be solved without fail during the period of
preinduction training with the aid of cilivian organizations, primarily the
bodies of the People's Commissariat of Education.
For the rotating personnel of the territorial units the following sequence of
instruction was established: the junior induction age would undergo training
during a period of 3-month assemblies; the following age in terms of seniority
would be called up by the end of the first month of assemblies for the junior
induction age and trained during the period of 2-month assemblies; the last
two senior ages would be called up by the end of the second month of the
assemblies of the first ages and undergo training for a month. For training
during the assembly periods persons from the command, political and
administrative-housekeeping personnel of the mobilizational reserve would also
be called up. And it was envisaged that they would be called up first so that
by the moment the assemblies for the rotating Red Armyman personnel were to be
held, they would be able to receive preliminary training.
Questions of troop training methods. M. V. Frunze worked constantly to seek
out more effective forms and methods of troop instruction. For this purpose,
upon his instructions, a number of procedural instructions and aids were
worked out on the questions of troop training methods. The most important
recommendations on troop training were also incorporated in the field manuals.
The methods for preparing and conducting the exercises also underwent further
improvement. An effort was made to bring them as close as possible to the
conditions of combat reality and they were held in a more instructive manner
than in the Tsarist Army and other capitalist armies. More attention was
given to the content of the exercises and less to the props. Various
simulating devices were widely employed. Small arms fire was designated by
the firing of blanks; the enemy's use of gases by colored smoke, dyes and
strong smelling liquids. Markers were also employed for designating the fire
of various types of weapons. Skillfully conducted political work in the
troops and among the population contributed largely to the instructiveness of
the exercises.
M. V. Frunze demanded that in all exercises and military games, the commanders
and staffs being trained be given more initiative and independence. In 1924-
1925, a start was made to working out an ordered system for organizing an
umpire staff and in subsequent years this continued to be improved.
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For comparison let us point out that in the Russian Army, as in other armies,
only a system of troop umpires existed until World War I. The lack of section
umpires did not make it possible in an instructive and effective manner to
play through combat actions in the colliding of sides. The sorting out of the
troops took a great deal of time. In the French Army, in certain exercises
they used a system of only section umpires without the designating of troop
umpires for the sides.
In 1924, the Red Army issued the Manual for Maneuvers and Instructions to
Umpires. According to the requirements of this manual, the area of the
exercise was to be divided into sections and section umpires were to be
assigned to each of these with a staff and personnel of junior umpires. The
junior umpires, in working out the most important episodes, were to be sent to
the subunits being trained on both sides.
Thus, for the first time in the methods of conducting an exercise, an attempt
was made to combine the activities of section and troop umpires, however this
good idea at that time was still not carried out to its logical conclusion.
The absence of troop umpires at the commanders and staffs being trained from
the formations and units did not make it possible for the leadership and the
section umpires to promptly take into account the decisions of the sides and
the measures of the trainees to support combat operations.
In accord with this manual, the depth and duration of the exercises were still
too short; it was recommended that in the course of the exercises nighttime
breaks be provided. All these shortcomings were taken into account and
eliminated in working out the subsequent manuals on conducting exercises and
maneuvers.
M. V. Frunze taught that the issuing of orders and the working out of programs
were just the start of the work in directing combat training. The main thing
for the leadership was organizational work in the troops, supervision over the
carrying out of the plans and personal participation in the training of
subordinates.
In 1924-1925, he visited many units of the Moscow, Leningrad, Tula, Voronezh,
Rostov, Baku, Tiflis and other military garrisons. In the summer of 1925, he
participated in a major overseas cruise by ships of the Baltic Fleet. The
cruise which lasted from 20 through 27 June 1925 was full of various exercises
and training drills. During the cruise, along with Frunze on the flagship
were the Chief of the Naval Forces V. I. Zof, the Commander of the Baltic
Fleet A. K. Vekman and the Deputy Commander of the Leningrad Military District
B. M. Shaposhnikov. With them he worked out the most important questions of
cooperation between the district troops and fleet forces. At the same time
during the entire cruise Frunze most carefully studied fleet service. Here he
was not inhibited by his ignorance of various questions and carefully listened
to the explanations of specialists and asked detailed questions on various
points of ship design, weapons and the methods of conducting combat operations
at sea. Here also he set an example of how one must not only teach but also
constantly learn and learn.
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In the course of work in the troops and on the fleet, he noted with
satisfaction, regardless of numerous material and everyday difficulties,
everywhere there reigned a political upswing and a fighting mood among the
personnel. He was pleased by the increased gravitation of the commanders and
Red Armymen to political and military studies. But he also noted the lag of
the troops and particularly the command personnel, in technical and weapons
training. In both he noted certain positive shifts but at the same time
pointed out that in technical and firing training, our troops still lagged
behind the armies of foreign countries and in weapons training even behind the
old Russian Army. Frunze demanded that the command personnel set the pace in
carrying out these tasks for in the ranks of the Red Army there should not be
a single commander and political worker who could not serve as an example for
firing for the Red Armymen. Then weapons training would also be improved in
the troops.
M. V. Frunze considered movement and fire to be the most important elements in
combat. For this reason, he gave great attention to indoctrinating troop
endurance, their march training, to the rapid deployment of infantry, cavalry
and artillery for fighting in the most unexpected situations, and in this
regard always set the Suvorov troops as an example.
In analyzing the results of the reorganization in the French Army from the
experience of World War I, Mikhail Vasilyevich concluded that "in modern
combat fire is the decisive factor and main force. Only with the aid of fire
is it possible to gain supremacy over the enemy.... For this reason, any
group of troops, any branch of arms should appear before the enemy, that is,
on the battlefield having guaranteed itself fire supremacy. This is the first
directive, the first task and the first goal which we should achieve, in
carrying out the question of organizing our forces and our headquarters in
terms of all the branches of arms without distinction."(41) He applied this
same demand to the combat training of all the branches of troops, and above
all to weapons training.
M. V. Frunze pointed out that a thorough study and skillful mastery of the
weapons and equipment, on the one hand, ensure the more complete utilization
of their combat capabilities for hitting the enemy; on the other, they
develop confidence of actions. The psychological effect, particularly in the
employment of new weapons, can be significantly greater than the material
damage. This is why Frunze demanded that in exercises conditions be set for
the troops so that they be acquainted with all the new means of extermination.
The entire army should know them and should be indoctrinated in its attitudes
and feelings so that the use of new weapons be not unexpected for the
personnel and not cause panic.
The experience of the Great Patriotic War and local wars in the postwar years
has completely confirmed this idea of M. V. Frunze. For example, for us, the
participants of the previous war, it is not somewhat awkward to recall how
much trouble and difficulty were caused during the first days of the war even
by the Nazi submachine gunners who penetrated in small groups into the flanks
and rear of our troops. But when our troops analyze the methods of their
actions, the Nazis themselves abandoned this method of their employment. This
shows that in a war the most terrible and dangerous thing is what the troops
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are not familiar with and what is unexpected for them. For this reason, as
M. V. Frunze taught it is essential even in peacetime to put the troops in
exercises under conditions where they would employ and work out all the
possible means and methods of actions, including surprise ones, which they
might encounter in a combat situation.
In considering tactical exercises and maneuvers to be the main form of combat
skills for the troops and for the combat coordination of the formations and
units, M. V. Frunze was exceptionally demanding on their preparation and the
instructiveness of their holding. He was most demanding upon the command and
political personnel, seeking the creative employment of the provisions of the
manuals, considering the specific situational conditions, bold maneuvering on
the battlefield and decisiveness of actions in accord with the demands of
Soviet military doctrine. He was most critical of the thoughtless, routine
application of the provisions of the manuals and theoretical concepts
generally in isolation from the actual reality.
In analyzing various unsuccessful actions of the commanders, staffs and
troops, Frunze convincingly showed that for manifesting a high level of
military art it is not enough to merely apply military theory in practice.
Each specific combat situation is in its own way original and unrepeatable.
The decisions of the commanders and the troop actions should be the same,
otherwise they would not correspond to the developing situational conditions
and, consequently, could not be successful. "The summer and autumn exercises
have shown," commented Frunze, "that a knowledge of the appropriate parts of
the manuals does exist among the command personnel but quite often there is no
ability to apply this knowledge in practice. As a result, in the course of
the mobile assemblies and maneuvers, there was a whole series of facts and
phenomena which, had they occurred in a combat situation, would have had the
most fatal impact on the operations. There were particularly many failings in
this regard among the junior and middle command personnel. This is a most
serious and most dangerous shortcoming for us which in the event of military
testings could threaten to become a source of our failures."(42)
M. V. Frunze strongly recommended that the commanders carefully and thoroughly
study the probable enemies, the organization and capabilities of their
formations and units and their methods of fighting. He himself set a
magnificent example in this regard, in closely following the organizational
development and training of the capitalist armies. He never showed a
disdainful attitude toward the enemy and demanded an objective evaluation of
it. Thus, in analyzing the experience of the operations and combat actions
against the Kolchak and Wrangel troops, he not only pointed to the weak
aspects of the White Guard armies but on a number of occasions also commented
on the skillful and active operations of the Wrangel troops. With such an
approach our victory over the enemies became more significant. In all
exercises and training Frunze demanded the detailed working out of the
questions of conducting reconnaissance, security and all other types of combat
support. Here he sought the real designating of a strong and active "enemy."
In troop training Frunze constantly drew the attention of the commanders to
the bold employment of the terrain, concealment and surprise of actions. He
recommended that all the personnel be instructed in effective camouflage and
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rapid digging in. In summing up the results of the combat training of the
Ukrainian and Crimean troops, he pointed to essential shortcomings in their
training and in particular made the following comment: "I consider it a very
dangerous phenomenon... that in the course of the maneuvers by the infantry
units almost nowhere was digging in practiced. In training the troops under
such conditions, without the use of a shovel, we risk instilling in them
completely pacific notions of the nature of future battles."(43) Mikhail
Vasilyevich demanded an improvement in field fortifications, the bringing of
these closer to the troops and their skillful complementing of the main
elements of combat, movement and fire. A particularly important place was
given to fortifications on the defensive, where they should increase the
strength of the troops.
M. V. Frunze gave important significance to the developing of coordination and
to the training of the staffs. In analyzing the experience of the maneuvers
conducted, he pointed out that quite often proper coordination and interaction
were lacking in the work of the commanders of the troop formations and their
staffs. Up to the present, he pointed out, there have been instances of a
misunderstanding of the role of the chiefs of staff as responsible assistants
in working out operational assignments and the ensuing attitude toward them as
messengers assigned for the simple mechanical transmitting of the commander's
orders. As a result, the capabilities of the staffs are not employed and the
chief of staff is an unnecessary appendage while the interests of the matter
suffer terribly from this. He saw in this the vestiges of a partisan warfare
mentality and demanded that this be decisively ended.
After exercises, tactical drills or firing M. V. Frunze made it a practice to
hold an analysis directly in the field where the combat actions had been
played out. He also employed such an analysis method where the commanders of
the operational sides themselves analyzed and justified their actions. Frunze
recommended that the leaders of exercises not be in any rush to make
conclusions on the various decisions and actions of the commanders and troops
but rather skillfully bring out their strong and weak points and in every
possible way encourage bold decisions and the showing of initiative. In his
opinion, only instances of inertia, passivity and indecisiveness of the
trainees merited sharp condemnation.
M. V. Frunze reorganized the methods of inspecting and checking the troops on
the questions of combat and political training. He demanded that the
inspecting personnel combine objectivity and exactingness with a vital
interest in improving the state of affairs in the formations and units being
inspected. In work in the troops he advised not only the bringing out of
shortcomings but above all find positive examples in order to indoctrinate
subordinates with them. He recommended on the spot instructing the commanders
in the organization of service and the procedures for training and
indoctrinating the personnel; the results of the inspections should be
announced in orders and specific instructions given on eliminating the
disclosed shortcomings.
He saw to it that as a result of an inspection and checks the viability and
effectiveness of the programs, plans and orders worked out at the center be
established so that considering this the style and methods of work for the
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superior levels could be improved in troop leadership. For encouraging and
intensifying combat training, he considered it very useful to employ a
competition between the formations and units and commendation of the best
units by various means.
Even in those years M. V. Frunze raised the questions of the psychological and
professional recruitment of personnel for the military schools and for service
in the units of the branches of troops. He said: "With a 2-year period of
service for regular personnel and with our territorial system, where periods
of service are even shorter, the question of a correct approach to the
allocation of the induction group among the various branches of arms in many
instances is almost crucial for us."(44) Frunze advised studying the
experience of widely employing "psychological testing" in the armies of the
capitalist nations, in particular in the U.S. Army. He felt that the basic
work in the area of a thorough investigation of the personality of future Red
Armymen and officer candidates employing the scientific methods of
psychological testing research should be carried out in the period of
preinduction training. The result of this work should be a conclusion on the
assigning of draftees to the corresponding branches of troops.
M. V. Frunze viewed the level of combat training as a most important component
in the combat readiness of the troops as a whole. Leadership over combat and
political training was considered by him to be the main duty of the command
and political personnel and in terms of combat training, the basic indicator
for the maturity of any leader. He examined and resolved the questions of
troop combat training starting from planning and the individual instruction of
the Red Armymen and ending with the elaboration of the methods for conducting
the exercises and troop leadership in a close relationship with one another,
directing all efforts at the single goal of increasing the combat skills of
the troops and their readiness at any moment to carry out combat missions.
On Military Indoctrination
Demands on the military indoctrination of the Red Army. Military
indoctrination has always been viewed as a process of systematic and
purposeful effect on the spiritual, volitional and physical development of the
servicemen in the aim of shaping their moral and combat qualities needed for
military service and for carrying out missions in a combat situation. The
military organization, said M. V. Frunze, is a specific organization requiring
from its members particular clarity, accuracy, efficiency, endurance, speed in
carrying out all orders and so forth. In his speeches he repeatedly
emphasized that the command personnel must above all have the ability to
rapidly size up the situation and take sound decisions, firmness and tenacity
in carrying them out, decisiveness, initiative and independence of actions,
courage, the ability to take a reasonable risk and assume responsibility for
one's decisions and actions under difficult situational conditions as well as
other organizational and volitional qualities. He had a high regard also for
accuracy, preciseness and neatness of the commander, emphasizing that the
commander's accuracy most vividly shows his respect for the military
collective. For this reason in a good commander accuracy and neatness should
be an inner need.
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Frunze considered as the main tasks in military indoctrination of all
personnel to be the development of discipline, boldness, self-sacrifice,
physical endurance, the ability to steadily endure the hardships of a combat
situation and a readiness to carry out the combat mission regardless of any
difficulties.
The necessity of these qualities stems objectively from the nature of a combat
situation and for this reason at all times great importance has been given to
developing them in the men, particularly military discipline and organization.
The French military writer A. Blondel has aptly written: "Bring together
100,000 men, give them weapons, uniforms and ammunition and you still will not
have an army. Teach them to employ all means of self-preservation and
extermination of the enemy, assume that they are courageous and strong and
then you will have 100,000 soldiers but not yet an army. If they are inspired
by one feeling, lead them against the enemy and possibly they will win an
instantaneous victory but on the next day will fall apart; they still do not
form an army."(45) What is still lacking in order for them to become a
battleworthy army? he asked and answered: they lack discipline which is the
only thing that turns a mob into a terrible war machine.
Regardless of the obviousness of such statements, in the revolutionary troops
and generally among revolutionaries there was not always a uniform approach to
certain elements of troop indoctrination. During the French Revolution and
the Civil War in America, the Paris Commune and the Civil War in Russia, there
were many outstanding military leaders who excelled in talent, bravery and
other military virtues. However, many of them, in recognizing in principle
the great importance of troop indoctrination, in their practical activities
sometimes suffered from elements of false democracy and at times
underestimated the necessity for rigid and severe organizing of troop
indoctrination, particularly on the questions of discipline and organization.
At the Eighth RKP(b) Congress in 1919, such prominent party figures as A. S.
Bubnov and K. Ye. Voroshilov ended up on the side of the "military
opposition." The supporters of the "military opposition," in defending the
electing of command personnel and the methods of partisan warfare, in essence
were against the party line of establishing a regular, centrally controlled
and disciplined army. They argued sharply, for example, against the demands
of the Red Army Internal Service Regulations on the saluting of commanders by
Red Armymen, seeing in this "the vestiges of an autocratic-serf-holding
order." K. Ye. Voroshilov in subsequent years revised his views and as a
whole held a correct position on these questions. He did a great deal to
carry out party policy in the area of the organizational development and
training of the Red Army. However, subsequently, in the 1930's, the demands
on military indoctrination of the personnel were somewhat loosened. In 1940,
after the Soviet-Finnish conflict, an abrupt about-face had to be made on this
question upon instructions of the VKP(b) Central Committee.
As is known, the founders of Marxism-Leninism were always disapproving of any
sort of manifestations of underestimating military discipline and organization
in the troops. F. Engels in the article "Company Exercises" belittled the
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volunteers who in a lax and sloppy manner performed the drilling exercises and
were "proud" of the fact that they performed them out of time and differently.
M. V. Frunze was a military figure and theorist who profoundly understood the
questions of military indoctrination and gave them exceptionally great
importance. His revolutionariness, simplicity and democracy in conduct did
not prevent him from being severe and rigidly demanding when it was a question
of military discipline and military indoctrination generally.
In light of this it is not hard to realize of what great importance for our
military organization was the circumstance that during this difficult, crucial
period in the development of the Red Army, when equally dangerous phenomena as
both false democracy and eructations of the old regime orders were making
themselves felt, the party put at the head of the Soviet Armed Forces a person
who profoundly understood the essence of military organization and discipline
and as a professional revolutionary, party figure and most experienced front
commander had unasailable authority throughout our Army and Navy, among the
commissars, the commanders and all the personnel. His principled position on
the questions of military indoctrination, in being supported by our party's
Central Committee, made it possible to overcome the negative phenomena in this
area and for many years to come predetermined the only correct approach to
this major question in the training of the Armed Forces.
M. V. Frunze considered the very basis of discipline to be unswerving
obedience and execution. A good commander, in his opinion, should be not only
able to give orders but also to carry out orders and to obey unquestionably.
History has kept for us an example which could be used in the entire primer on
military indoctrination. Upon arriving in 1919 at the Eastern Front in the
position of commander of the 4th Army, Frunze, in the course of preparing the
operation, visited the troops, held drill inspections, viewing the smartness
and organization of the personnel as one of the most important elements of
troop discipline and their readiness to carry out combat missions and their
military duty to defend the republic.
During the troop inspection in Uralsk, Mikhail Vasilyevich was forced to make
sharp comments to certain commanders on the low discipline in their units.
After this one of the brigade commanders requested that the army commander be
present at an assembly of the commanders to explain his comments at the drill
inspection. In the units rumors had spread that Frunze was a general from the
Tsarist Army and for this reason was implanting old regime procedures. Frunze
left the first note unanswered but, having received a second "summons,"
decided to visit the brigade. Here he very delicately took into account
military psychological aspects. They tried to persuade him not to go or to go
later when the brigade command personnel had quieted down. But Frunze felt
that a psychological about-face was essential among the army commanders and
political workers, since after the murder of Commissar Lindov some of them
were even afraid to show up in the units. It would be possible to take a
strengthened security but this could merely lead to complications and not
produce results. Having weighed all the pluses and minuses, Frunze took the
decision to visit the brigade accompanied only by one aide.
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As witnesses were later to describe, when Frunze appeared at the commander
assembly, everyone fell silent, no one stood up, the mood was dark and threats
were heard. Those who spoke complained most that here they were fighting,
shedding their blood but then others arrive, hand down sentences, teach you to
march and organize general parades.
M. V. Frunze let everyone have his say and then, weighing every word, turned
to those assembled, saying:
"First of all, I assure you that I am not an army commander here. An army
commander cannot and should not be present at such a meeting. I am here as a
member of the Communist Party. And on behalf of the party which sent me to
work in the army, I reaffirm all my comments on the question of the
shortcomings noticed by me in the units the commanders and commissars of which
you are and the responsibility for which you, consequently, bear to the
republic.... Your threats have not frightened me. I am a Bolshevik. The
Tsarist court twice condemned me to death but was unable to force me to
abandon my convictions. Here it has been said that I am a general. Yes, I am
a general but not from the Tsarist punitive forces but from the revolution. I
am unarmed and am here only with my aide. I am in your hands. You can do
with me what you like. But I firmly assure you on the question of today's
summoning of me here as a commander that in the event of repeating such
phenomena I. will punish most unmercifully even up to execution. In violating
discipline, you disrupt the army. Soviet power will not permit this."
Mikhail Vasilyevich fell silent. Stunned by the truth stated so boldly, the
commanders also fell silent. And when he, in saying farewell, went toward the
exist, the commanders stood up and formed a line, with some of them coming out
to bid him farewell.(46)
V. L. Arkhangelskiy in the book "Frunze," in referring to the memoirs of
I. Kutyakov, has doubted the reliability of this episode. He has based his
assertion on the fact that Mikhail Vasilyevich was a surprisingly humble
person and that the sharp tone of the discussion described by S. A.
Sirotinskiy was unlike Frunze. But I. Kutyakov was not a participant of the
described event and writes about it secondhand. Moreover, the unflinching
firmness of Frunze on questions of instituting military order and the
plausibility of his comments to the brigade command personnel are confirmed by
the content and tone of the order issued after this to the troops of the 4th
Army No 92/39 of 3 March 1919, where the above-described instance is recalled
and it is directly stated: "...Any violation of service duty and discipline
in the future, after the publishing of the present order, will be viewed by me
as nothing more than a malevolent and conscious crime and as such will be
punished unmercifully by me."(47) For this reason, any doubt on this score is
devoid of foundation.
M. V. Frunze was forced to act more than once in similar extraordinary
circumstances. Any professional military leader could envy the profound
understanding of the foundations of military discipline and as a whole
military indoctrination, the firmness and unswervingness in maintaining
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military order which were shown by M. V. Frunze from the first days of
commanding the army.
And after the Civil War, in resolving all the questions of the organizational
development and training of the Armed Forces, Mikhail Vasilyevich constantly
carried out this line, in giving particular significance to the maintaining of
high military discipline in the Army and Navy. In condemning the methods of
instilling discipline which existed in the Tsarist Army where the prime place
was held by mechanical obedience and coercion by the extensive employment of
repression, intimidation and insulting the personal dignity of the soldiers,
he explained that in the Red Army discipline should be maintained on a
different basis.
In military service, where all the life and activities of the servicemen are
strictly regulated, methods of coercion can and should be employed, including
in our army. But discipline cannot be created on coercion alone. Military
discipline in the Soviet Armed Forces must be based primarily on the high
revolutionary awareness of the personnel. M. V. Frunze was in favor of
combining the methods of persuasion and coercion but considered the method of
persuasion to be the main, determining one. Undoubtedly, there could be
instances when persuasive methods alone were not sufficient and then it was
necessary to resort to compulsion carried out firmly and consistantly. But,
he emphasized, the better commander will be the one who succeeds in carrying
out his mission without any use of punishments.
M. V. Frunze repeatedly explained to the commanders and political workers that
it is impossible to achieve much in the strengthening of discipline by
punishment alone. It is essential first of all to endeavor to more profoundly
understand the psychology of the subordinate, to influence him with the
commander's authority and by persuasion and to be able to influence his
feelings. "Of course," he commented, "such an approach demands from the
command and political personnel much greater sensitivity, restraint, political
awareness and service qualities than employing the methods of simple orders
and penalties. But for a commander of our army there cannot be any other
approach as it is our worker-peasant Red Army."(48)
In the report "The Next Questions of Military Affairs," in examining the
questions of military discipline, Mikhail Vasilyevich said that recently he
had repeatedly heard from certain commanders and Red Armymen that excessively
high demands were beginning to be placed on discipline and that we were
"exaggerating" excessively on this question. "Certain comrades are inclined
to see in this a manifestation of unnecsssary drilling, nitpicking, pettiness
and so forth. Such an assessment," Frunze stated firmly, "is absolutely
wrong. We have nothing reminiscent of the old Tsarist drill in our army and
we will not.... We demand firm revolutionary order and want each commander
and each political instructor and each Red Armyman...in all his life, in all
his work and even in terms of appearance to bear the impression of this
profound, firm and internally felt revolutionary discipline... we also draw
attention to external appearance, for the latter is a reflection of internal
content."(49)
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During the drill inspections at the Tiflis Garrison, Frunze was particularly
indignant over instances of lax conduct in formation, whispering and talking,
including from the command and political personnel. In the analysis he
pointed out with all severity that discipline in formation is a reflection of
everything that is done in the troop unit. He persuasively explained that all
of this is needed not for a parade but for the military indoctrination of the
personnel. For modern military affairs which are characterized by the broad
employment of equipment are extremely complex. "In addition to ability and
awareness, it requires from each man agility, skill, efficiency and clarity in
actions. The carrying out of the prescribed demands 'taking one's time' and
'any old way' is a dependable path to defeat. This is why any person who
equates these demands of combat indoctrination to a desire to implant lifeless
drill of the old Tsarist Army or does not try to understand anything in
military affairs is either an enemy or a traitor who consciously works to
weaken the combat might of the Red Army. Order and discipline in the Red Army
should exist and we are obliged to work for this. All the requirements of our
regulations...should be carried out unconditionally ...in order by its external
appearance and inner state, the Red Army says to each worker and peasant of
the Union that it at any moment is ready to set to battle against the enemy
and that it hopes to win this battle with honor. Both our enemies and friends
should feel this in merely looking at our Red Armyman and commander, that here
there is a well formed, organized and tight force which by its every deed,
every word and step bespeaks the presence of firm revolutionary will power and
deep inner tempering."(50)
Ways of military indoctrination of the personnel. As was already pointed out,
M. V. Frunze viewed the problems of military indoctrination inseparably linked
with the political indoctrination of the servicemen, since all the moral-
combat qualities needed for military service can be indoctrinated only on the
basis of high political awareness, dedication to the cause of the revolution,
where every fighter profoundly understands the importance of military duty.
Since 1925 a uniform 2-year program of political training was introduced. The
basic form of political indoctrination has been and remains political
exercises. They should shape a communist ideology which, in defining a
person's position in life, is also of crucial significance for military
indoctrination. M. V. Frunze emphasized that political studies contribute
most to military indoctrination when these are skillfully related to the tasks
of combat training and the strengthening of military discipline, and when it
persuasively brings out the purpose of military service and the demands of the
military oath and regulations. He considered a major task of military
indoctrination to be a profound understanding by each serviceman of the
importance of his military duty and personal responsibility to defend the
motherland in order, as he said, all of this would be infinitely dear and
without which, seemingly, "life itself has no meaning."
"The task of indoctrination can...be considered resolved only when," M. V.
Frunze pointed out, "each...Red Armyman is inculcated with a feeling of love
for his unit and via it for all the Red Army, when he will be proud of
belonging to it, joyous over its successes and disappointed over its
failures."(51)
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He saw the link between political exercises and combat training and military
indoctrination not only in the coordinating of their subjects with the tasks
being carried out by the troops. The main thing, Frunze was convinced, was
that indoctrination which is established in political exercises should be
continued in other forms at other exercises and in daily life. He saw the
main shortcoming in the indoctrination of the personnel in the gap between
what is said at exercises on discipline and military order and what is
practically done; the entire question of indoctrination suffers most from
this. If political and other exercises are concerned with proper military
order but in daily life the commanders and political workers overlook the
violations of the regulations or even violate them themselves, then this
corrupts people and leads them to think that what is said at political
exercises is not so important to carry out.
For precisely this reason Frunze so constantly emphasized the importance of
the personal example set by the command and political personnel. The strength
of a personal example is that it possesses the greatest visibility and serves
as the most important means for developing in the servicemen awareness, will
power, character, traditions and military habits.
At the same time, M. V. Frunze explained that no matter how well and how many
political exercises, conversations and other general indoctrinational measures
were carried out, no stories about heroism, courage and discipline could
instill these qualities just as it is impossible to learn to swim without
going into the water, merely listening to a lecture. He realized very well
that for the indoctrination of high moral-combat qualities there is only one
way: to put the men in all exercises, drills and in daily life under those
conditions where they would be forced systematically and constantly to
manifest these qualities. Later the essence of this pedagogical formula was
clearly and very aptly defined by A. S. Makarenko: "It is impossible to
indoctrinate a courageous man if he is not put under conditions where he could
show courage...."(52)
Proceeding from these considerations, M. V. Frunze demanded that at the
exercises and drills a combat training situation be established which would
reproduce as completely as possible actual combat so that the commanders,
political workers, the junior commanders and Red Armymen could show the moral
and combat qualities needed in combat.
In urging that the Red Armymen be indoctrinated in the heroism of the Civil
War, M. V. Frunze pointed to the necessity of conducting a decisive struggle
against cowardice. V. I. Lenin copied out of Napoleon's book "Thoughts" the
following words: "...In each engagement there is a moment when the bravest
soldiers, after the greatest effort, feel a desire to flee, this panic is
engendered by the absence of confidence in their own courage; the most
insignificant occasion and any pretext is sufficient to return this confidence
to them; the high art is to create them."(53)
Under these conditions the personal example of the commander, his bravery and
his presence where a psychological break has formed can play a crucial role.
This is precisely how M. V. Frunze himself proceeded, for example, in crossing
the Belaya River at Ufa. He gave equal significance to the personal example
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and to the personal effect on subordinates in peacetime. It is interesting to
point out that Mikhail Vasilyevich recommended in exercises that suitable
episodes be created in order to teach the commanders and political workers to
find the procedures and methods for controlling the combat mood of the
personnel.
One of the factors which gave rise to the indecisiveness of commanders and
cowardice of the Red Armymen, M. V. Frunze felt, was the extended remaining of
troops in a passive state. For this reason, during a war and in going over to
the defensive, even if the enemy was not advancing, he demanded that the
troops conduct active reconnaissance, make raids against the enemy flanks and
rear and conduct frequent combat actions. A good commander should always seek
out battle, remembering Suvorov's admonishment: It is better to meet danger
head on than to wait for it in place. And in peacetime he saw to it that the
troops were never idle but were constantly engaged in intense combat training.
Precisely active and decisive combat operations in wartime and in exercises in
peacetime helped most to indoctrinate volutional qualities both in the
commanders and among all the personnel. He taught that the will of a
commander or a Red Armyman can be indoctrinated only in the overcoming of
difficulties, emphasizing that great hardships as well as physical and
psychological stress will rest on the shoulders of the personnel in a combat
situation. In order that all these difficulties are not unexpected for the
men with the outbreak of a war, they must be accustomed to all of this in
peacetime.
In giving great importance to the drill instruction of the troops, M. V.
Frunze drew attention primarily to its role in the military indoctrination of
the personnel. As is known, the bases of drill instruction for an army were
established since antiquity, in the first attempts to introduce elements of
organization into troop operations in combat. Even then it was clear that
only a man who had undergone special drill training could successfully employ
weapons not only on an individual basis but also together in a team, together
with others.
In being against drill and senseless parading, Frunze demanded that a military
purpose be given to drill instruction and that the drill elements needed by a
soldier be mastered to the point of perfection, since there was no better
means than drill instruction to teach the personnel attentiveness and the
quick and precise execution of commands. F. Engels wrote: "This introduces
into the conscience of the soldier the fact that they actually comprise a
single body; that they as a whole are in the hands of the commander who can
employ their force in the shortest time and with the greatest result."(54)
And the more battle formations developed and were split up and the more
complex and fluid battle actions became, the greater importance assumed by
drill instruction as the most important means for the military indoctrination
of the personnel.
M. V. Frunze in many of his speeches and articles emphasized that such
qualities as organization and discipline can be developed in the personnel
only by the entire way of military life based upon the precise and unswerving
fulfillment of the order of the day and the requirements of the military
regulations. Exemplary internal order in the unit and barracks, if it is
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instilled not in a rush or randomly but is maintained day after day and
systematically, is of great indoctrinational significance. Frunze considered
guard duty and detail for regimental duties to be good schooling in military
indoctrination and demanded the scrupulous observance of all the rules for
standing this.
Noteworthy is the idea of M. V. Frunze that in the Red barracks troop order
must be maintained not by commander pressure but rather as a result of
skillful military indoctrination this becomes a personal need for each
serviceman. He was constantly concerned that the Red Army barracks did not
pick up from the old army the heavy atmosphere of oppressiveness, harassment
and alienation of the soldiers.
Since there was no experience in organizing troop life in the Red barracks, in
some places, under the influence of the old military specialists, elements of
the old barracks began to actually be resurrected. M. V. Frunze, in speaking
in Tiflis in April 1925, said to the commanders and political workers that in
the institution of the Red barracks we want to have a facility which is not
only the site of military instruction for the Red Armyman but also a place for
his political and cultural indoctrination so that the Red Armyman does not
feel homesick. "As for the internal life of the Red Army," he commented, "it
should be organized toward coming as close as possible to the ideals of a
communist community...the internal order and regimen in the army of a worker-
peasant Soviet state should be free of any privileges not based upon the needs
of service and not stemming from its nature. Only on this grounds can we
conceive of establishing that comradely unity and mutual understanding among
the army superiors and inferiors and which are the main guarantee for the
physical and spiritual might of the Red Army."(55) Mikhail Vasilyevich
emphasized both great exactingness on subordinates as well as great concern
for them, particularly in satisfying their material needs. Indifference and a
bureaucratic attitude toward the needs of the men were viewed by him as a
completely intolerable phenomenon for the Red Army. With the converting of
the army to a peacetime status, even under the conditions of chaos and
universal disorder, he was concerned for the amenities of the barracks, he
thought a great deal and sought advice from the commanders and political
workers on how to establish in them at least elementary comfort for the Red
Armymen.
M. V. Frunze felt that on the question of establishing firm military order,
the commanders and political workers should act as an united front. He
sharply condemned individual instances when the commanders demanded order but
the political workers, on the contrary, endeavored to play the role of the
"protectors of the Red Armymen against suppression by the commanders." He
pointed out that this was not characteristic for a majority of the political
workers, but even individual instances were inacceptable, since there was
nothing more harmful and more inadmissible for the Red Army than such
relationships. In speaking always with great respect about the political
workers, he emphasized that our political worker, as a representative of the
Communist Party, should always be the carrier of the idea of order and
discipline and which has always been most inherent precisely to our party.
For this reason the political worker should be that element which better, more
dependably and more strongly than any other helps to strengthen discipline and
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military order. Frunze drew attention to the fact that among certain
commanders as well as among the political workers, "in many instances instead
of the firm and categorical demand for performing service duties there is an
unprincipled 'playing up' to the Red Army masses and a desire to show one's
exceptional 'democracy.'
"This 'democracy' is the most flagrant distortion of all and any bases of
discipline in our Red Army. An order is an order. Persuasion and
admonishment to carry out orders by their very nature are flagrant violations
of discipline."(56) But strictness and exactingness, M. V. Frunze was
convinced, should not lead to the alienation and separation of the command and
political personnel from the Red Army masses. He put among the most valuable
qualities of the Red commanders their ability to live in the midst of the Red
Army masses, to be linked daily with their subordinates, to know their needs,
requests and be concerned with satisfying them.
M. V. Frunze assigned a leading role in the area of military indoctrination to
the junior command personnel comprising that "basis on which is founded the
entire question of discipline, combat unity and combat training of the unit.
In being constantly in the midst of the Red Armymen, the junior command
personnel is the sole conductor of all the influences and effects from above
indoctrinating the unit."(57)
For this reason, Mikhail Vasilyevich emphasized, the careful selection of
personnel for the junior commander positions, their training conforming to
modern requirements and the quantitative and qualitative strengthening of the
reserve of junior commanders in the event of war--all of this is assuming
primary significance in the tasks of military organizational development. He
demanded that the regimental schools should recruit the most literate, bold,
energetic and at the same time the socially and politically most reliable men.
He drew attention to the fact that the regimental schools should become a
model of military indoctrination and order. And during the war he viewed all
the Red Armymen of regular service as future junior commanders. "Our task in
the area of the skills of the present Red Army personnel," he wrote, "comes
down to making each fighter coming into its ranks capable of subsequently
becoming a squad commander."(58)
M. V. Frunze taught the commanders and political workers to make skillful use
of all the levers for influencing their subordinates. An important role, in
his opinion, could be played by arousing a spirit of competition within the
formations and units, as well as between individual subunits, including the
militia units with regular ones. It was extremely important to organize all
sorts of sports contests and prize shooting involving the local civilian
population. In this regard, good service could be stood by the establishing
of special divisional, regimental, battalion and company holidays to which the
sports competitions should be timed if possible. It is interesting to point
out that M. V. Frunze was the initiator of establishing the Red Army clubs and
personally opened the first such club in Kharkov. He felt that the Red Army
club should become one of the important centers for the political and military
indoctrination of the men. He constantly recommended that questions of a
military-technical sort be raised and propagandized in the Red Army clubs.
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As a whole, M. V. Frunze viewed troop indoctrination as a complex, many-sided
process which is carried out by the commanders and political workers in the
course of political indoctrination, combat training and military service as
well as by the entire way of daily military life in accord with the
requirements of the military oath and military regulations. In the military
indoctrination system not only are the commander and political worker an
active character but also the Red Armyman who should adopt all the elements of
discipline and military order not out of compulsion, not out of enforced
obedience but as a profoundly aware necessity making it possible for him along
with the entire troop collective to successfully carry out the sacred duty of
defending the socialist fatherland.
Present-Day Questions of Military Training and Indoctrination
The trends in the development of military training and indoctrination. As in
the start of organizational development and training of the Soviet Armed
Forces, the further development of military training and indoctrination has
been carried out in accord with the demands of Marxist-Leninist ideology and
the party decisions on the questions of the communist indoctrination of the
workers and the strengthening of army and navy combat might. The practical
measures and military-theoretical works of M. V. Frunze had a substantial
impact upon shaping the principles, the concrete forms and methods of military
indoctrination and training. The provisions worked out by him on these
questions were basically reflected in all the subsequent regulations and
manuals of the Red Army. The RKKA Temporary Internal Service Regulations put
into effect in 1924 existed until 1937.
The forms and methods of military training and indoctrination were
continuously improved in accord with the changed sociopolitical composition,
technical equipping and organizational structure of the Armed Forces and with
the development of military art. In the 1930's and 1940's the forms and
methods of operational and combat training underwent the greatest development.
Prior to the start of the Great Patriotic War, the headquarters bodies and the
troops were engaged largely and intensely in operational and combat training.
Exercises and maneuvers were carried out widely. They assumed a new content
considering the development of the methods of conducting operations and combat
actions. It was generally recognized that in those years, in the Red Army,
the most advanced system for organizing the umpire personnel was established
and this significantly improved the methods of playing out combat. The
marksmanship of the personnel was rather high. As a whole, the combat
training of the troops undoubtedly was higher than in the mid-1920's, when
M. V. Frunze established the bases of Red Army Combat Training.
But the development of military affairs with each passing year placed evermore
important demands on military training and indoctrination of the army. At the
same time, the exactingness of the leadership for these questions and the
training and indoctrination procedures were not always up to these new tasks.
On certain questions related to training and particularly combat
indoctrination, the advice of M. V. Frunze was not completely carried out. No
one denied its importance and significance. But as experience was to show, in
order to maintain the necessary intensity in combat training and to constantly
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bring combat training and indoctrination closer to the conditions of an
evermore complex combat situation, there also had to be great exactingness
corresponding to the new conditions and constant pressure. Under various
pretexts these had caused overt and concealed resistance, diverting the
question of combat training from what was needed in a war. In peacetime such
exactingness is irreplaceable.
In the 1930's, field skills were primarily underestimated. The intensity of
combat training was low in wintertime and at night. Not enough attention was
given to exercises involving field firing and bombing. The demands on
military indoctrination were somewhat reduced, particularly drilling skills
and smartness. The People's Commissar of Defense, MSU S. K. Timoshenko in 1940
was forced to admit: "We have spent a very long time in the classrooms, we
have become acustomed to learning by verbal explanations, without bothering
ourselves with the difficult conditions of a combat situation or difficult
terrain conditions, in a word, everything that rests on the shoulders of a
fighter, commander and political worker during a war and in combat...."(59)
There were also objective difficulties. In 1935, in the Ground Forces 74
percent of the divisions were territorial and only 2 years before the start of
the war were they fully converted to a regular system. A large number of new
formations and units was fielded and the command and political personnel
replaced. All these troops only on the eve of the war had actually begun
regular combat training.
On the basis of the experience of the Soviet-Finnish War and the commenced
World War II, the party Central Committee and the Red Army Command took
decisive measures to improve the entire combat training system and
particularly for strengthening discipline, military order and generally
improving military indoctrination. Over a short period of time, enormous work
was done to bring troop training closer to wartime needs. But there was not
enough time prior to the start of the war. The decisive measures undertaken
in those years in the area of military training and indoctrination seemed
unjustifiably rigid to certain commanders and political workers. But the
Great Patriotic War was to place even more severe demands in this area.
During the entire war the Red Army was constantly and intensely engaged in
combat training considering the specific experience of the war and the
forthcoming combat missions. Combat actions themselves served as irrepaceable
schooling in the improving of military mastery and the combat-moral qualities
of the personnel.
The main conclusion from the war's experience in this area was that combat
training maintained its purpose and met its sense only when in peacetime under
no circumstances was it diverted from the guidelines which would determine the
nature of a future war. The lessons of the war with exceptional strength
confirmed the wisdom and vitality of Lenin's words: "Intensified military
training for a major war requires not a rush, not shouting, not a battle
slogan, but rather protracted, intense, most stubborn and disciplined work on
a mass scale."(60)
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During the postwar years the system of military instruction and indoctrination
has continued to be improved considering the experience of the Great Patriotic
War and the appearance of nuclear and other new types of weapons and military
equipment. Fundamental qualitative changes in military affairs have
immeasurably increased the demands made on combat skills, on moral-political
qualities and on the ideological and psychological tempering of the personnel.
Proceeding from these demands in the postwar period, particularly in recent
years, the questions of military training and indoctrination have been raised
to a new, higher level corresponding to the nature of modern combat actions.
The tactical and special tactical exercises and maneuvers play a particularly
important role in increasing field, air and sea skills. The methods of their
preparation and execution reflect all the finest that was gained in our Armed
Forces and in the socialist nation armies.
The characteristic features of modern military training and indoctrination
are: the bringing of these as close as possible to the conditions of a
possible war; complicating the tasks and broadening the range of questions
studied considering the development level of military art; the thorough
consideration of the particular features of the theaters of war; increasing
the scope of the conducted exercises and their full saturation with field
firings, missile launches and other practical actions involving the use of the
weapons and combat equipment. The ability of the leaders is becoming evermore
apparent of putting the commanders, staffs and troops being trained under the
difficult conditions of an acute and dynamic situation as these most fully
reproduce combat actions which are characteristic for a modern war.
The joint exercises of the socialist country armies play an enormous role in
strengthening combat cooperation, being a true school of fraternal friendship
and combat comradeship for the men of the Warsaw Pact states.
The complicating of the international situation, the new round of the arms
race unleashed by the reactionary imperialist forces, the outright wagering of
the leadership of the United States and the other NATO countries on military
force and achieving military-technical superiority over the Soviet Union do
not give the Soviet military personnel the right to be content with the level
achieved. As was pointed out by MSU S. L. Sokolov, the logic of development
of military affairs is such that at each new stage of it more complicated and
responsible tasks are carried out. In the present international situation, in
the age of scientific-technical progress, "it is a law in the life of the
Soviet military to follow the party demand not to be complacent with the
successes, not to be content with the level achieved but rather to constantly
move forward and achieve more."(61)
Considering all of this, modern military training and indoctrination are based
on the demand of teaching the troops to carry out missions under the most
difficult conditions which could exist in a future war, if it is impossible to
prevent it.
In carrying out these missions even greater significance than before is
assumed by the Marxist-Leninist training of the officers and the political
studies of all the personnel and by observing the principle of party loyalty
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in the entire system of troop training and indoctrination. Only on the basis
of a profound study of Marxist-Leninist theory, by ideological conviction, a
communist attitude toward labor and a correct understanding of military duty
can all the other tasks of training the Armed Forces be successfully carried
out.
In accord with the decisions of the 25th and 26th Party Congresses concerning
a comprehensive approach to the entire question of the indoctrination of
Soviet people, the system of troop training must be carried out in close
relation to the ideological-political, moral and military indoctrination of
the personnel, considering the specific tasks which are carried out by the
troops and naval forces. Observing the principle of party loyalty in
preparing and carrying out training and indoctrination measures gives the
entire process of training and military indoctrination a highly ideological
nature and creates the basis for a thorough mastery of miltiary affairs.
These questions have assumed particular urgency under present-day conditions,
when the importance of ideological struggle has increased sharply and the
moral-political factor is a most important element in the combat capability of
the Armed Forces.
Historical experience convinces us that the greater the successes of the
socialist countries demonstrating the triumph of the ideas of Marxism-
Leninism, the more activity shown by the reactionary imperialist circles on
the ideological front. This is no accident. In being expressed in a military
language, the enemy is constantly throwing its main forces where the chief
danger threatens it.
Considering all of this, the commanders, the political workers, the party and
Komsomol organizations must further intensify work in the area of carrying out
the decisions of the June (1963) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee on
ideological questions, know the procedures of psychological warfare employed
by the imperialist circles, they must aggressively fight against the
ideological subversion of our class enemies and instill hate for the enemies
of the socialist fatherland as well as high political vigilance among the Army
and Navy personnel.
Ways of improving military training and military indoctrination. An analysis
of the new factors and conditions in the organizational development and
training of the Armed Forces indicates that a further rise in the quality and
effectiveness of military instruction and indoctrination can be carried out in
the following basic directions.
In the first place, in the area of improving the planning of combat training
and all training and indoctrinational measures. This provides the prompt
mastery by the personnel and primarily by the military cadres of the modern
achievements of military science and military art which comprise the content
of military training and indoctrination. As is known, planning is the central
core of any leadership. The effectiveness of troop training and the organized
execution of all planned measures depend largely upon its viability and
careful elaboration.
Even M. V. Frunze pointed out that one of the most important and complex
questions in planning is to set the proper amount of drills, exercises and
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other measures to be carried out in the area of troop indoctrination and
training. On the one hand, there is an objective need to constantly increase
the training and indoctrination measures and, on the other, an excessive
increase in their number can lead to a decline in their quality and
effectiveness. It is perfectly obvious that this question requires an
objective approach which more fully takes into account present-day demands on
troop training.
The issue is that the preparation and conduct of modern combat encompass a
large range of diverse military-technical, tactical and special questions.
Among these first of all are: converting the troops and staffs to a wartime
status under the various conditions of a military threat or the unleashing of
a war by an aggressor; carrying out long-distance transport and marches;
conducting offensive and defensive battles. Within each type of battle, one
must work out the methods for performing various tactical missions such as:
conducting a meeting encounter, launching or repelling a counterattack,
crossing a water obstacle, combat, rear and technical support and so forth.
It is impossible to work out this in all details at one or two drills or
exercises and even as a result of carrying out all measures related to combat
training during the year. For this reason, the need arises for the staffs to
draw up a list of the most important questions stemming from the content of
military art and which should be worked through with the headquarters bodies
and the troops and then determine the sequence of their study in various
combat training measures. The planning must be carried out in such a manner
that over a certain period of time the main questions of preparing and
conducting various types of combat are worked through. Only under this
condition is it possible to ensure the proper combat readiness of the
formations and units.
In other words, the main measures in the training of the staffs and the combat
training of the troops (drills, military games and exercises) as much as
possible should be intercoordinated by a single tactical and procedural plan
so that at each drill or exercise a minimum necessary number of questions is
raised, the most important of them are worked through in succession and as a
result of carrying out a range of intercoordinated measures complete and
thorough preparation of the headquarters bodies and the troops (naval forces)
to carry out any combat missions which might occur during a war is achieved.
In planning combat training it is advisable to plan for the full utilization
of the entire arsenal of its forms and methods, including: training
procedural assemblies and monthly commander exercises; staff drills and
exercises, military games; command-staff and special tactical exercises with
the troops. The command-staff exercises and tactical exercises with the
troops are the most effective forms of combat training. But they achieve
their goal only in the instance that they are preceded by appropriate staff
drills, staff exercises, military games and troop command drills as this
ensures the successive transition to carrying out more complex tasks.
One must also avoid the other extreme, when all the exercises at the training
and procedural assemblies, staff drills, military games and other measures are
devoted solely to the questions of the forthcoming tacitcal exercise. This
280
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can lead to the working through of the same tactical problems while other
equally important ones remain unassimilated. In order to avoid such one-
sidedness in troop training, it is desirable, in paying chief attention to the
main subject, at the same time to plan for the working through of other
subjects. In the course of the assemblies, drills and other measures, as was
already pointed out above, all types of combat and methods of carrying out
combat missions should be mastered.
This also applies to the planning and organizing of the training process in
VUZes and commander exercises in the troops.
In the training of officers, it is particularly important to determine the
content of instruction on the basis of correctly anticipating the development
prospects of military affairs stemming from the nature of a future war. The
remarkable pedagogue V. A. Sukhomlinskiy has written that without "scientific
prediction, without the ability to instill in a person today those kernels
which will sprout in decades, indoctrination would be turned into a primitive
supervision, the indoctrinator would become an illiterate nanny and pedagogics
into sorcery. It is essential to scientifically predict and this is the
essence of skill in the pedagogical process and the more accurate and
thoughtful the prediction the fewer the unexpected misfortunes."(62) In terms
of military affairs, this idea should be taken into account with particular
consideration in working out long-term training programs.
Secondly, an important area in increasing the effectiveness of military
training and indoctrination is the developing in the officer personnel of the
qualities needed for showing a high level of military art for which M. V.
Frunze was so concerned. We are the opponents of an arms race and are not
endeavoring to achieve military and technical superiority but we are inferior
to no one on the level of military mastery.
Improving the military art of the military cadres and the combat skill of all
the personnel is one of the most important and inexhaustible sources for
increasing the combat might of the Soviet Armed Forces virtually without any
material outlays. For this reason, the task of the military cadres at the
present stage is to effectively utilize this source. Here it is essential to
bear in mind that as military affairs develop the necessity for military valor
and high moral-combat qualities increases while the conditions for manifesting
them become evermore complex. Even for manifesting ordinary self-possession
on the battlefield a level of straining of the spiritual and physical forces
must be completely different than the one in previous wars.
For this reason, along with profound theoretical knowledge, in the training of
generals, admirals and officers, decisive significance is being assumed by an
improvement in the practical skills of troop command, the combat cohesiveness
of the staffs and the formations as a whole as well as the shaping of the
necessary organizational and volitional qualities. V. I. Lenin said: "...No
school, no university is worth anything if there is no practical ability."(63)
This is particularly important in military art. Of course, the manifesting of
military art is impossible without profound theoretical knowledge. But the
circumstance must also be considered that the most progressive theoretical
views become a material force and a component part of military art if they are
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r"Uh ur r-1GJAL uJe. Ui' LI
actually mastered not only by the individual military leaders and commanders
but also by the basic mass of the officer personnel. In the course of the
Great Patriotic War, the command personnel of all levels constantly studied
the art of the practical preparation for and conduct of combat.
Particular carefulness and a detailed working through of all questions was
required in organizing cooperation and combat as a whole. When at present one
looks through the documents related to operational planning worked out during
the period of the Soviet-Finnish military conflict or in preparing certain
offensive operations of 1941-1942, externally everything appears quite in
order and in formal terms they were worked out correctly. From the
theoretical viewpoint the tasks were set intelligently and the sequence of
their execution was set, the allocating of the necessary men and weapons was
envisaged and many other missions were correctly carried out. But why did
these operations not end up successfully? The main reason for the failures
was: there was not a good knowledge of the enemy and because of this its
dependable neutralization; far from all that had been planned and conceived of
could not be promptly and precisely carried out; in preparing the operation
and as a whole in the work of the commanders and staffs there was a lack of
concreteness, detailing and carefulness in organizing and supporting combat
actions and a lack of skillful organizational work directly in the troops and
in the field. If this does not exist, then the best plans and a brilliant
exposition of their content lose any sense. The planning of an operation and
combat and the setting of missions are very important but only the initial
part of the enormous practical work of preparing the operation and combat.
It is essential that in the exercises all the questions of the practical
organization of cooperation and as a whole the organization of combat and its
combat, technical and rear support be worked out fully and in all detail. For
carrying out these tasks in exercises as much time should be assigned as would
be needed in a combat situation.
Even in command-staff exercises, where only simulated subunits are employed,
in these subunits it is essential to carry out the entire range of the planned
measures related to preparing combat, including: to actually organize and
conduct reconnaissance, to carry out the engineer organization of the terrain,
to establish the required material stocks, to carry out the stipulated
technical servicing of the combat equipment and so forth.
Special attention must be paid to organizing the cooperation of the subunits
and units of all branches of troops. Here this work should not come down to
solving formal theoretical questions, as is sometimes the case still in
exercises, but should have a professional character and involve primarily the
fundamental questions a correct solution of which would determine the
coordinated actions of the troops; this should ensure a uniform understanding
by all the personnel of the set combat missions and the methods of carrying
them out. The exercise leader must carefully verify whether everyone
correctly understands the directions of the forthcoming actions, where the
"enemy" weapons (target coordinates) are specifically located, what artillery
or aviation is to hit them and when, the procedure and signals for calling in
and halting fire in the course of combat, the location of passages through
"enemy" obstacles and other questions. When necessary it is essential to
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request an additional or a repeat working through of these questions but under
any circumstances not allow the commanders and staffs being trained to
commence an insufficiently prepared combat.
Consequently, the shaping of the qualities needed for showing a high level of
military art is achieved primarily by the unswerving carrying out of the main
demands of instruction and troop Indoctrination, that is, to teach what is
needed in a future war if this is forced on us.
The third area for increasing the effectiveness of troop training is improving
and further developing the forms and methods of military training and
indoctrination. A most important form for increasing the training level of
officer cadres remains their independent work. As V. I. Lenin pointed out,
"without certain independent work the truth cannot be found in any serious
question and the person who fears labor deprives himself of the opportunity to
find the truth."(64) From these words of Lenin's it follows that the main
thing in self-education is an analysis of the studied material and the search
for the truth. With no other form of instruction can this be fully achieved?
In this context we should recall the thought of V. G. Belinskiy: "An idea
read or heard and probably understood as it should but not carried out through
its intrinsic nature and which has not received the imprint of your
personality is dead capital...."(65)
In the aims of developing independent, developed operational thinking in the
command and supervisory personnel, M. V. Frunze gave particularly great
importance to the profound study of the history of military art both in
military schools and in the troops. And he sought not an abstract study of
military history but rather the ability to extract the necessary conclusions
from it for today and the future. All the associates and students of Frunze
excelled in the ability in their scientific and practical work to inseparably
link a careful study of previous experience with a bold look forward. B. M.
Shaposhnikov wrote: "The Academy gave me a love for military history and
taught, me to draw conclusions from it for the future. I have always generally
gravitated toward history and it has been a bright light on my path. It was
essential to further continue the study of this fount of wisdom."(66) And
further: "That history is the best mentor in practical affairs and which
certainly includes military affairs is beyond any dispute .... "(67)
The experience of the older generations has also shown the exceptional value
of the assignments which were given to generals, admirals and officers in the
area of the independent study of the experience of the most important
engagements, operations and campaigns with the subsequent hearing of their
reports. The question is that the preparation of reports by officers on
theoretical subjects, without an analysis of specific combat experience or the
experience of the conducted exercises, does little to encourage the thought
process and does not sufficiently develop creative habits.
For today's officer, constant work in the area of acquiring military knowledge
and the creative analysis of it are particularly important. In any sector,
the insufficient preparedness of the leader harms the question and for an
officer poor preparation is completely inadmissible, as his activities,
particularly in a combat situation, determine the life of other persons whom
he must reasonably use and at the same time, under any circumstances, carry
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out the set combat mission. It has long been known that war for a military
person is a testing the date of which is not known but for which one must
prepare all one's life.
However, independent study cannot be the concern of just the officers.
Certain organizational measures and moral incentives are also needed, namely:
indoctrination in the officers of a strict critical attitude toward one's
preparation, the creation of a situation of great exactingness and intolerance
for any manifestations of indifference and compacency in this matter. The
independent work of the officers should be skillfully directed by the senior
chiefs by individual assignments, colloquiums and other methods. In a number
of military districts, for example, each year the entire officer personnel is
given a list of books which the officer should read without fail. On the
other hand, there must be a further rise in the responsibility and interest of
the officers themselves in the results of their preparation as well as greater
importance for this in the certification system and in service.
The preparation of military cadres to carry out functional duties in wartime,
undoubtedly, remains the main area in their military training and
indoctrination. However, the demand to teach the troops what is needed in a
war can be carried out only with the skillful organization of the work by the
commanders, the political workers and the officers of the staffs in peacetime.
In the VUZes and in the system of commander training in the troops, in
addition to the questions of military art, it would be advisable to more
thoroughly study the principles of management science, the forms and methods
of combat and political training, military indoctrination, the organization of
troop service, the strengthening of military discipline and other questions
related to the leadership of the troops' daily life.
All these questions in the organization of military service and troop
leadership in peacetime represent a complex range of sociopolitical, legal,
military, pedagogical, special and technical knowledge which the military
cadres must thoroughly master, improving organizational and volitional
qualities simultaneously in the course of practical work. Without this there
cannot be a truly scientific level in troop leadership.
Under present-day conditions, when the range of military knowledge and the
practical skills needed by the officers is growing and it is virtually
impossible to increase the training time, the necessity arises of intensifying
the training process, of widely and constantly introducing progressive
teaching methods as well as more fully utilizing the achievements of
psychology, pedagogics and cybernetics.
A major task remains the improving of the troop training methods and the
combat teamwork of the subunits and units, starting with the planning of the
exercise, the creating of an instructive initial situation and ending with the
playing through of combat actions. First of all, it is very important that
the initial situation correctly reflect the possible conditions for carrying
out the combat missions. The initial situation and all the additional inputs
related to intensifying it and playing through combat actions should as fully
as possible reproduce the nature of modern combat, correspond to the goals of
the exercises, put the trainees under difficult conditions of a ground, sea
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and air situation, abound in acute situations requiring profound reflection,
difficult creative searches and original decisions stemming from this, a quick
response to a changed situation and the ability to find a way out of the most
difficult situations.
Only in such a manner is it possible to instill in each officer strong will
power, high organizational abilities, tenacity and inflexibility in achieving
the goals. As was pointed out by the USSR Minister of Defense MSU S. L.
Sokolov, a Soviet officer "should find alien to him feintheartedness,
indecisiveness and inefficiency. He must act according to the rule: if an
order has been given, then it must be carried out no matter what. No
difficulties or obstacles should shake the commander's will."(68) All the
methods of preparing and conducting exercises and drills should be subordinate
to the interests of developing all these qualities.
The fourth area of improving the quality of military training and
indoctrination is the further development of the training facilities. Of
particularly great importance in this area is improving the field training
facilities and trainers.
Thus, the forms and methods of military training and indoctrination should be
continuously improved in accord with the overall process of the development of
military affairs.
Certain questions in the specific features of military indoctrination. A
number of new problems has also arisen in the area of military indoctrination.
On the one hand, objectively in line with the fundamental qualitative changes
in military affairs, the importance of military indoctrination has been
constantly growing. On the other hand, under conditions where there is a
higher level of equipping the army and navy with complex weapons and the
proportional amount of technical specialists has increased in the Armed
Forces, individual manifestations have appeared of underestimating troop
drill, internal order and certain military rituals. There have always been
shortcomings in this area. This is natural under conditions where there has
been an ongoing process of military indoctrination for constantly new
generations of young soldiers. And if everything proceeded from the fact that
this was the result of unfinished work and better work must be done in this
area, the problem could be more easily solved. But the question is that
sometimes individual young officers pose the question differently: have not
certain military rituals become an anachronism?
In actuality, military affairs are becoming more and more complicated while
there is less and less time to cover all the questions of military life. In
the 1920's and 1930's, a Red Armyman from the rifle forces had to basically
know his rifle. Now a soldier must master the most complicated combat
vehicles and be able to conduct combat under conditions of the use of weapons
of mass destruction by the enemy. Even the circumstance that people have
become more educated, in addition to advantages, also creates certain new
problems in the process of military training and indoctrination. People do
not accept absurdity in anything or any unjustified actions. In a word, it
has become more difficult to resolve the questions of military indoctrination.
A new approach is required and somewhat different methods of the work done by
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the indoctrinators themselves. The essence of them, to put it briefly,
consists in having significantly more persuasiveness, awareness and analysis
of the military indoctrination procedures and a closer linking of them with
the interests of carrying out combat missions.
At the same time, it must be said with all certainty that with the fundamental
changes which have occurred in military affairs there have been no changes
which would provide grounds to play down the importance of military
indoctrination. Conversely, everything shows that modern military service has
placed increased demands in this area and we must be even more seriously
concerned with military indoctrination. An immeasurably more complex and
important problem is the rapid restoring of control, the subordinating of the
troops to a single will, the maintaining of their organization and
battleworthiness in a modern combat situation, when the personnel must endure
enormous psychological stresses and in short periods of time entire subunits
and command posts can be knocked out. For example, the trail of a radioactive
cloud has been discovered during the march of the troops. In this situation
what speed is required in taking decisions and what clarity in transmitting
commands and signals is needed in order that all the subunits and units
receive them promptly and immediately begin to carry them out in order to
bypass the dangerous zone of radioactive contamination and employ protective
equipment!
The aim of military indoctrination under present-day conditions is to develop
in the personnel an entire series of special qualities needed in combat so
that under any circumstances, in difficult situations there are high
organization, discipline, clarity and promptness in carrying out orders and
combat instructions so that all the subunits and units be well controlled and
any given command is quickly received and carried out with a show of
initiative and independence in the actions, so that the troops advance
decisively and boldly, defend themselves stubbornly and steadfastly and so
that the personnel be physically tenacious and courageously endure the
hardships and deprivations of a combat situation.
As M. V. Frunze taught, this can be indoctrinated only by the entire system of
combat and political training and by the entire set-up of a strict prescribed
military life, when the personnel is constantly and systematically trained in
showing high moral-combat qualities which define the content of military
indoctrination considering the nature of a possible war.
MSU G. K. Zhukov, in recalling his service, has written: "I have been accused
of excessive exactingness which I considered an indispensable quality of a
Bolshevik commander. Looking back, I feel that at times I actually was
excessively demanding and was not always restrained and patient with mistakes
by my subordinates. My equilibrium was upset by any lack of conscientiousness
in work or in the conduct of a serviceman. Some did not understand this but
I, in turn, clearly was not sufficiently compassionate for human
weaknesses."(69) In actuality a combination of profound respect for a person
with great exactingness is the main principle of military indoctrination. A
lack of exactingness in peacetime costs too much in a war. A leader who in
peacetime does not show proper demandingness although this may impress some,
in essence, least of all shows true respect for his subordinates. The
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experience of the ages teaches that the more severe, like combat reality
itself, the exactingness in peacetime, the less losses and the more victories
there will be in a combat situation. This old truth recognized by all, in
being clearly and flagrantly apparent in war, unfortunately, has begun to be
obscured in peacetime.
The high art of military indoctrination of Suvorov, Frunze, Zhukov and other
outstanding military leaders was that they were able to dispell this fog in
peacetime, too, they themselves clearly saw and were able to indicate to
subordinates the only true goal of military indoctrination, that is, to carry
out one's duty honorably in wartime. When on the question of military
training and indoctrination they showed stiff exactingness for subordinate
troops, in this one could feel both the higher concern for the interests of
the fatherland as well as the humaneness and true respect for man in their
highest and most noble understanding.
A specific knowledge of the psychology of each man also is of exceptionally
great importance in the question of military indoctrination.
"...Indoctrination in the broad sense," wrote V. A. Sukhomlinskiy, "is a many-
faceted process of constant spiritual enrichment and renewal--both of those
who are being indoctrinated and those who are indoctrinating; here this
process is characterized by the profound individuality of the phenomena: the
same pedagogical truth which is true in one case becomes neutral in a second
and absurd in a third. Such is the nature of our pedagogical job."(70)
With the present educational level and development of the military
personality, without well organized, well conceived and purposeful individual
work, it is impossible to count on any serious success in indoctrinational
work. Consequently, at present, particularly on the question of strengthening
military discipline, decisive significance is being assumed by work with each
man, let alone each sergeant and officer. The issue is that all measures of a
general sort in the general mass of the personnel, to put it figuratively, is
reminiscent of area artillery firing, that is, the probability of the shell
hitting the target is low. Individual work in psychological terms is direct
laying at a well reconnoitered and ranged target. Its effectiveness is
incomparably higher.
But if this is the case, then we cannot consider as sound the practice where
in certain units the indoctrinational work plans include only measures of a
general sort while individual work is let slide and, in essence, is not
planned at all. In such instances it usually comes down to working with those
who have already committed one or another service violation and for this
reason has not fully achieved its aim.
The interests of the matter require that individual work be carried out
purposefully and according to carefully worked out and conceived plans,
bringing under their influence all the personnel and anticipating possible
deviations from the rules of standing military service. All of this does not
mean any underestimation of the general indoctrinational measures involving
all the personnel. These are indefensible. But they should be combined with
more effective individual work with each serviceman.
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Consequently, the advanced weaponry, the growing role of the time factor and
the establishing of mass professional armies in the leading capitalist
countries have placed increased demands upon the readiness of the troops to
immediately carry out the combat task assigned to them. In previous wars,
shortcomings in troop training and indoctrination, albeit with difficulty,
could still be eliminated in the course of combat. But this was often achieved
at too great a price. The necessity of continuing troop training in the
course of the war obviously never was completely eliminated, although under
present-day conditions there will be less time and opportunity for this. But
the consequences of the insufficient training of commanders, staffs and troops
can be even more grevious. In line with this the importance of the quality
indicators is sharply increased in the training of the Armed Forces and a
constant improvement in the content and methods of military training and
indoctrination is needed.
The entire system of military indoctrination and training of the personnel of
the Soviet Armed Forces should ensure the carrying out of the main tasks set
by the USSR Minister of Defense, MSU S. L. Sokolov, "To further vigilantly
guard the peaceful, creative labor of the Soviet people, together with the
armies of the other socialist commonwealth countries to securely defend the
victories of socialism and to always be ready to rebuff any aggressor."(71)
1. F. Engels, "Izbr. voyen. proizv." [Selected Military Works], Moscow,
1957, p 428.
2. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 35, p 408.
3. Ibid., Vol 39, p 58.
4. Ibid., Vol 37, p 383.
5. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr proizv.," Vol 2, p 318.
6. Ibid., p 320.
7. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 41, p 121.
8. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, p 251.
9. Ibid., Vol 32, p 151.
10. Ibid., Vol 2, p 68.
11. Ibid., p 234.
12. See: "KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh.
13. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 1, p 408.
..,it
Vol 1, p 436.
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14. Ibid., Vol 3, p 87.
15. Ibid., p 199.
16. Ibid., Vol 2, p 146.
17. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 21.
18. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, p 154.
19. Ibid., p 120.
20. Ibid., Vol 1, p 403.
21. Ibid., Vol 2, p 16.
22. Quoted in: VOYENNO-ISTORICHESKIY ZHURNAL, No 2, 1972, PP 93-94.
23. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 2, p 172.
24. Ibid., p 17.
25. Ibid., p 37.
26. Ibid., p 171.
27. Ibid., p 18.
28. Ibid., p 80.
29. Ibid., Vol 3, pp 198-199.
30. KRASNAYA ZVEZDA, 12 May 1982.
31. TsGASA, folio 7, inv. 3, file 46, sheets 97-98.
32. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, pp 236-237./
33. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 208.
34. Ibid., Vol 2, p 19.
35. Ibid., p 19.
36. TsGAV VMF [Central State Archives of the Navy], Orders of M. F. Frunze
for 1921: Order No 712 of 30 May 1921.
37. Ibid., Orders of M. V. Frunze for 1923: Order No 1525 of 14 November
1923.
38. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 160.
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39. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 3, p 86.
40. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 1, p 123.
41. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, pp 237-238.
42. Ibid., pp 593-594.
43. Ibid., p 595.
44. Ibid., Vol 3, pp 260-261.
45. A. Blondel, "Vzglyad na obyazannosti i dukh voyennogo znaniya" [A View of
Duty and the Spirit of Military Knowledge], St. Petersburg, 1836, pp 24-
25.
46. See: S. A. Sirotinskiy, "Put Arseniya: Biograficheskiy cherk o M. V.
Frunze" [The Path of Arsenius: Biographic Essay on M. V. Frunze], Moscow,
1959, pp 126-127.
47. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 1, p 142.
48. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 3, P 359.
49. Ibid., p 200.
50. Ibid., pp 201-202.
51. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 79.
52. A. S. Makarenko, "Sock." [Works], Moscow, 1958, Vol 5, p 424.
53. Quoted in: "Leninskiy sbornik," 12, p 38.
54. F. Engels, "Izbr. voyen. proizv.," p 420.
55. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. sock.," Vol 1, pp 225-226.
56. M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv," Vol 2, p 161.
57. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 3, p 287.
58. Ibid., Vol 1, p 542.
59. PRAVDA, 25 August 1940.
60. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 36, p 325.
61. KRASNAYA ZVEZDA, 28 August 1984.
62. V. A. Sukhomlinskiy, "0 vospitanii" [On Indoctrination], Moscow, 1973,
p 14.
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63. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 42, p 77.
64. Ibid., Vol 23, p 68.
65. V. G. Belinskiy, "Sobr. soch." [Collected Works], Moscow, 1948, Vol 3,
p 798.
66. Quoted in the book: "B. M. Shaposhnikov i yego...," p 42.
67. Ibid., p 43.
68. S. L. Sokolov, "Leninskiy stil v rabote voyennykh kadrov" [The Leninist
Style in the Work of Military Cadres], Moscow, 1983, p 31.
69. V. K. Zhukov, "Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya," p 98.
70. V. A. Sukhomlinskiy, "0 vospitanii," p 14.
71. S. L. Sokolov, "Leninskiy stil v rabote...," p 37.
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CHAPTER 6: THE DEVELOPMENT OF LENINIST IDEAS AND THE THOUGHTS OF M. V. FRUNZE
ON A MODERN SYSTEM OF KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING WAR AND THE ARMY
In the postwar years the CPSU has continued to give great attention to the
development of science, directing all efforts at a profound investigation of
the patterns of nature and society, at increasing the role of science in
creating the material and technical base of communism and in shaping the
communist ideology of the workers. Rapid scientific and technical progress
and major shifts in all socialist production have led to a new jump in the
development of military theory and practice and changes have occurred in all
areas of military affairs. The 25th and 26th Party Congresses particularly
emphasized that the importance of scientific research on the fundamental
problems of social life is ever-increasing, including the problems of the
clash of forces over the main question of modern times, the question of war
and peace.
The decisions of the CPSU and the other fraternal communist and worker parties
have further developed the Marxist-Leninist teachings concerning the war and
the army, considering the interests of defending all the socialist
commonwealth countries. Of particularly great importance are the conclusions
and theses concerning the following: the nature of the modern age and the
decisive influence of the world socialist system on the course of social
development; imperialism as a source of aggressive wars; the possibility of
preventing a worldwide nuclear war; the nature, types and sorts of wars under
present-day conditions and the attitude toward them on the part of the
communist parties and the socialist countries; the factors determining the
course and outcome of modern wars; the growing role of the communist and
workers parties in strengthening the defense capability of the socialist
countries and in directing the organizational development and training of the
armed forces; the functions of a state of all the people and the armed forces
of developed socialism; the nature of the fundamental qualitative changes in
military affairs related to the appearance of nuclear weapons and rapid
scientific and technical progress and so forth.
In light of the decisions of the party congresses and the Central Committee
plenums, our military scientific thought has done a great deal in analyzing
and resolving methodological and specific pertinent problems related to
military theory and practice. The publishing of the fundamental 12-volume
work "Istoriya vtoroy mirovoy voyny. 1939-1945" [History of World War II.
1939-1945] with MSU D. F. Ustinov as the chairman of the Main Editorial
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Commission, contributed to a more profound generalization of the experience of
the last war and to establishing a firm base for investigating the present-day
problems of war and peace. Also of important significance for systematizing,
deepening and clarifying the system of scientific knowledge concerning war and
the army was the publishing for the first time in the history of our nation(1)
of the Soviet Military Encyclopedia and the Military Encyclopedic Dictionary
edited by MSU N. V. Ogarkov.
The pages of military journals have discussed certain general problems of
military science. A series of monographs and scientific works has been
published on these problems at the Military Academy of the General Staff imeni
K. Ye. Voroshilov at the Military Political Academy imeni V. I. Lenin, the
Military Academy imeni M. V. Frunze, the Institute for Military History and
other VUZes and scientific institutions. A number of works and publications
has thoroughly investigated the relationship of war and politics, war and
ideology, the sources and mechanism for the outbreak of wars, their types, the
political content and military-strategic character have been disclosed, an
analysis has been given of the possibilities for the main sociopolitical
forces capable of preventing a world nuclear war. The results of this
research and the analysis of the development prospects for military theory and
practice, like historical experience, have convincingly confirmed the
objectivity of the patterns discovered by the founders of Marxism-Leninism and
the fundamental methodological provisions worked out by them for a system of
scientific knowledge concerning war and the army as well as the views of M. V.
Frunze on these questions.
The achieving of a unity of views was largely aided by the conference held in
Warsaw in 1977 for the representatives of the military scientific bodies of
the Warsaw Pact armies and here they creatively discussed the most important
methodological and ideological military-theoretical problems.
In line with the major sociopolitical changes in the world, many disputed
questions of war and the army have required a further profound investigation
and a review of them within the general system of knowledge concerning war and
the army encompassing all the processes and phenomena which comprise the
single whole.
Particular urgency has been assumed by methodological questions involving the
processes of self-cognition, self-analysis of the sciences and theories
investigating war and the army. This is to be explained, on the one hand, by
the fact that the complicating of the sociopolitical and military-strategic
nature of a war has led to the appearance of a large number of different areas
of knowledge and to their further differentiation. This has created a
tendency to weaken the ties between them. Sometimes, it turns out, it is
easier to see all the examined phenomena and processes in the most minute
detail than it is together and as a whole.
On the other hand, the boundaries between the different sciences investigating
the problems of war are evermore noticeably becoming obliterated and
conditional, and the reverse processes are growing involving the integration
of different areas of knowledge and the growing need for analyzing all
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objective processes from the same standpoints. "Without the constant delving
into details," writes G. Kh. Shakhnazarov, "which by necessity is accompanied
by specialization, subsequent synthesis is impossible. But specialization
always represents the divorcing (to some degree artificial) of a part of the
whole and hence certain violating of the subject's essence. The farther this
goes the more acutely one feels a need for bringing together knowledge and for
an approach to the subjects and phenomena of nature and society as an organic
whole."(2)
For precisely this reason, under present-day conditions, in analyzing all the
knowledge concerning war and the army an ever-greater role is being assumed by
Marxist-Leninist philosophy and all the components of Marxism-Leninism which
comprise a truly scientific and integrated approach to their investigation and
cognition.
From the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism and considering present-day scientific
achievements, it is advisable within the general system to review the
classification of the entire aggregate of scientific knowledge concerning war
and the army and clarify the place and role of military science in this system
of knowledge, its subject and structure. This is also important because for
many of these problems until recently there has not been a unity of views and
for some of them even now there are different interpretations.
Methodological Bases for a Classification of Sciences
On the principles of a classification of scientific knowledge. War and armed
combat. In the sketch of the general plan "Dialectics of Nature" F. Engels
viewed a classification of sciences as their relationship which determines the
general architectonics of all scientific knowledge and all relationships
running between the various areas of the world in the course of its inherent
development as well as between various areas of knowledge concerning the world
in the course of the development of human cognition. He proceeded from the
fact that a general classification of sciences would reflect the logic of the
subject being studied as well as general views concerning the world and its
cognition by man.
The founders of Marxism-Leninism, proceeding from the existence of the various
forms of the movement of matter, formulated the underlying principles for a
classification of sciences: the principle objectivity which means that
sciences reflect different processes and laws of nature, society and thought;
the principle of development according to which sciences in the general
classification are placed in a definite sequence from the simple to the
complex and from the inferior to the superior; the principle of the unity of
the historical and logical, the unity of theory and practice and so forth.
These general principles of classification make it possible to ascertain the
place and role of one or another science in the general system of sciences.
But they still do not provide an opportunity to resolve all the methodological
problems for classifying the various areas of knowledge within each science as
well as their interrelationships. For this reason there can be various
approaches to the classification of science or a group of sciences which study
the same object.
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With a subject classification one proceeds primarily from what patterns this
science studies. Here usually the principle of subordination is employed and
this reflects the inner, organic relationships between the sciences when they
out of necessity derive (develop) one from the other. Sciences can be
classified from the viewpoint of their immediate relationship with practice by
a dividing into fundamental and applied.
The interests of the effective development of various areas of knowledge also
necessitate a problem classification, when new areas of knowledge develop in
relation to the movement of major theoretical and practical problems to the
forefront. Here, along with the principle of subordination, the principle of
coordination can also be employed and this takes into account only the
external relations between sciences which are ranked in a certain order.
The growing processes of the differentiation and integration of sciences, the
constant appearance of new areas of knowledge and their ever-greater
specialization have brought about growing importance for a systematic review
of an entire series of related problems and areas of knowledge and the ever-
greater spread of the problem classification of sciences. This serves as one
of the ways for bringing theory closer to the needs of practice. Here a
problem classification of the various areas of knowledge can be made in such a
manner that their subject structure and relationships, as well as the
succession of their placement are not disturbed but they are reduced to other
groups in accord with the needs of the comprehensive investigation of major
theoretical and practical problems. Possibly such an approach could more
accurately be called a subject-problem classification.
These are the basic principles proceeding from which a modern classification
of knowledge concerning war and the army can be made. This means, in the
first place, that the classification of sciences comprising this system should
ensure their integrated review in close relationship to one another.
Secondly, these sciences and theories must be put into the appropriate groups
proceeding from those objective patterns which they directly study and
perceive. Thirdly, it is essential to classify them and place them in a
logical sequence according to the role which they play in the preparation and
conduct of a war at a given historical stage considering the degree and scope
with which these encompass the various aspects and facets of a war and the
army. Finally, the structure of the knowledge being classified should be
mobile, flexible and with maximum completeness reflect the processes of the
differentiation and integration of sciences. At the same time, it should
provide systematic and primary research on the most important and pertinent
problems raised by the needs of practice.
It must also be emphasized that any system of knowledge can be reliable if it
correctly reflects objective reality. For this reason a scientifically sound
classification is possible only with the deepest elucidation of the contents
of the object and the subject of research comprising this system of sciences.
Precisely an incorrect approach to an understanding of the essence of this
question has given rise to most differences and unsound judgments on the
question of classifying the system of scientific knowledge concerning war and
the army.
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First of all one must point out with regret that in certain encyclopedic
publications and works the concepts of "war" and "armed combat" are considered
identical and the entire content of a war, in essence, is reduced solely to
armed combat.(3)
The Soviet Military Encyclopedia, the Military Encyclopedic Dictionary and a
number of scientific works have convincingly shown the erroneousness of such
an interpretation of the definition of a war. But, regardless of this, the
Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary which was published in 1983 states:
"War is organized armed combat between states (groups of states), classes or
nations (peoples)."(4) Subsequently, the article says nothing further about
other forms of combating the enemy during a war.
For justifying such a definition, reference is sometimes made to the statement
of V. I. Lenin: "In certain periods of acute economic and political crises,
the class struggle has developed up to the point of direct civil war, that is,
an armed combat between two parts of the people."(5) However, this Leninist
thesis does not provide grounds to feel that he identified a war with armed
combat. In the given instance he emphasizes what comprises the main content
of a war and points out that in a period of war armed combat becomes the main
and decisive form of carrying out politics.
Some people generally argue against the term "armed combat," considering it
unscientific. At the same time, this term has been used in the works of V. I.
Lenin, it has taken its place in our military vocabulary and is completely
valid.
The identifying of war and armed combat leads to the ignoring of the class-
political essence of a war, since not every armed combat is a war. Without a
political goal, the most acute battle will not be a battle but merely a fight,
pointed out V. I. Lenin.(6) A war is not restricted merely to the clash and
combat of armed forces. It is a more diverse and complex sociopolitical
phenomenon which influences the entire life of society.
A war represents a struggle of classes, states, coalitions and social systems.
In viewing a war in all its complexity, it reflects not only some
contradiction but also all the sociopolitical and economic contradictions and
the various forms of struggle stemming from them. A war is a state of all
society which represents not only the clash of armed forces but also a
struggle in the area of politics, economics and ideology which during the war
assumes a particularly fierce and implacable nature.
Although armed combat does comprise a decisive feature of a war and a specific
trait, a war is not restricted to this. In addition to armed combat, a war
also includes other forms of struggle which during a war are carried out not
only by ordinary but also violent means. Here other means of struggle are
subordinate to the interests of armed combat. V. I. Lenin emphasized that "a
war includes all types of all areas of development" and a war is "the testing
of all the economic and organizational forces of each nation."(7)
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With the outbreak of a war "all political and social institutions are
subjected to the testing and trial 'by fire and sword.' Strength and weakness
of the institutions and orders of any people are determined by the outcome of
the war and by its consequences."(8) V. I. Lenin spoke of the change in the
entire life of society during a war and of the profound interaction of the
front and the rear as well as the diversity of forms of violence in a civil
war. In criticizing the views of Kautsky and other opportunists on the
essence and content of a war, he referred to Clausewitz: "Everyone knows that
wars are caused solely by political relations between governments and between
peoples; but usually they are presented in such a manner that with the
outbreak of a war these relations halt and a completely different situation
occurs subordinate solely to its own particular laws. We affirm the contrary:
war is nothing more than the continuation of political relations with the
intervention of other means."(9) Lenin even said that Clausewitz 80 years
previously had belittled the primitive view that with the outbreak of a war
the historically prepared political relations between peoples and classes are
broken off and a different situation begins.
The relationship of war and armed combat in our science has always been
understood in this manner. M. V. Frunze in the work "European Civilizers and
Morocco" wrote: "...The army alone, of course, could not do a great deal if
at the same time its struggle were not facilitated by a series of economic and
political measures aimed at weakening the enemy."(10) M. N. Tukhachevskiy
pointed out: "Of course, war is not the only means of politics and is not
exhausted by just military operations. The actions of the armed forces are
accompanied by organized and combined pressure and attacks against all the
fronts of the struggle (economic, political and so forth)."(11)
The book "Voyna i armiya" [War and the Army] rightly states: "Historical
experience teaches that the restricting of the concept of war to armed combat
of the troops leads to an underestimation of the decisive role of the masses
of peoples, it plays down the importance of political leadership in a war and
does not make it possible to correctly ascertain the role of the unity of
front and rear. Such flaws would be particularly dangerous in a modern war
which has an all-encompassing nature and places extremely high demands on
military organizational development. Ensuring the armed defense of the
motherland presupposes the complete and all-round use of the economic,
political, scientific, moral and specifically military potentials of a
nation. "(12)
This thesis is established very soundly in the books of S. A. Tyushkevich
"Filosofiya i voyennaya teoriya" [Philosophy and Military Theory], N. N.
Azovtsev "V. I. Lenin i sovetskaya voyennaya nauka" [V. I. Lenin and Soviet
Military Science] and other works.
The authors of the book "Voyennaya strategiya" [Military Strategy] have
endeavored to show that war is fully covered by armed combat. They write:
"Precisely as a result of miltiary operations, armed combat and the use of the
means of violence and not any 'non-military' and 'indirect' actions during
World War I some 10 million persons were killed and over 20 million persons
mained and wounded. World War II carried off almost 50 million lives."(13)
Actually, these losses were chiefly the result of military operations. But
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why did such losses not occur in the wars of the 19th Century? Merely because
wars were waged not by peoples but by armies half divorced from the people
because at that time there was not such a close link between the economy and
armed combat.
The sense of economic conflict in the wars of the 20th Century consists in the
fact that the economy, in relying on its growing capabilities, should not
merely supply armed combat (without which there would not be such mass losses)
but also win the contest for economic survival of the state and the people as
a whole. There have been periods of a war when military operations themselves
were subordinate to the interests of carrying out an economic blockade as was
the case, for example, in German operations against England during certain
periods of World War II.
In World War I, Germany surrendered because of the economic and moral-
political collapse of the nation's rear without still having suffered a
complete defeat on the battlefield. One of the reasons for the victory in the
Civil War was seen by V. I. Lenin in the fact that "by agitation and
propaganda we have removed the Entente's own troops."(14) In the given
instance the enemy was deprived of its troops not only as a result of military
operations but also as a consequence of the fact that the ideological struggle
took away a part of its troops. These are not merely "indirect" actions but
actions to a definite degree which are the equivalent of military operations.
After this how can one deny the existence of such a form of conflict during a
war?
The importance of the diplomatic struggle is even more obvious. Skillful
diplomacy not only creates good conditions for conducting military actions; it
can lead to the establishing of a completely new military-political situation
for conducting armed combat. For example, it is not hard to imagine under
what conditions our Armed Forces would have had to fight if in the course of
World War II the imperialists had succeeded in a united action of the
capitalist states against the USSR, as was planned by them.
Thus, a true Marxist-Leninist understanding of the examined question comes
down to the fact that a war is primarily the continuation of politics by
violent means. It is a sociopolitical phenomenon and represents a clash
(struggle) of classes, nations, states, coalitions and social systems
employing armed violence which is combined with other forms and means of
struggle (economic, ideological, diplomatic and so forth). Such a definition
has been also given in the recent edition of the Great Soviet
Encyclopedia.(15)
Armed combat is the basic form of struggle in a war and the aggregate of
military actions to achieve certain political goals. It represents one of the
most acute forms of social struggle and consists in the organized employment
of the armed forces as well as other forces and means (the partisan movement,
people's militia and so forth) in the aim of destroying the enemy, capturing
or defending territory and national assets.
Certain judgments on the object and subject of the system of knowledge
concerning war and the army. Proceeding from one or another understanding of
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the essence of war and armed combat in the military literature, the most
diverse judgments have been made on the specific content of the system of
scientific knowledge concerning war and the army. In our nation during the
postwar years over 30 different publications have come out and each of these
has given its own definition for the system of military knowledge, including
military science.
In particular, a viewpoint has been expressed that this system should include
the Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army, military science,
military doctrine, the military questions of scientific communism, military
economic knowledge and military history. The opinion also existed that the
system of knowledge concerning war and the army, in addition to the above-
listed, should also take up the history of party political work, military
pedagogics, militaryl psychology and military legal science.(16) The Officer's
Manual states that the system of scientific knowledge concerning war and the
army includes the Marxist-Leninist teachings concerning war and the army,
military science and military doctrine.(17)
Frequently an arbitrary and subjective approach has been permitted in the area
of defining the structure and content of military knowledge. The authors of
certain articles and theoretical works, instead of analyzing the objective
processes and patterns and on this basis defining the appropriate areas of
knowledge which relate to these, have reduced all of this complex and delicate
work to a formal distribution of military problems over the various areas of
knowledge, adapting them to the existing structure of the present chairs and
training programs.
S. I. Krupnov in his dissertation "Logiko-metodologicheskiy analiz voyennykh
znaniy" [A Logical-Methodological Analysis of Military Knowledge] has written
correctly: "The failures which up to now have pursued scientists in settling
the question of the subject of military science are partially to be explained
by the fact that they have frequently approached the solution to this problem
on a methodologically incorrect basis, that is, outside of a relationship to
practice, not historically. Usually first a purely intuitive definition of
military science is given and then the appropriate phenomena are fitted to
this definition. Thus, the question is put back to front."
The author of this interesting dissertation as a whole has soundly
investigated and newly posed a number of methodological questions of military
science as a specific form of cognition. In examining them on a general
theoretical level, a majority of the theses advanced by the author does not
raise any doubt. However, when it is a question of approaching a specific
classification of military knowledge, in a number of instances he departs from
his own generally correct methodological premises.
First of all, it is impossible to agree that the Marxist-Leninist teachings
concerning war and the army are only a portion of historical materialism and
scientific communism (page 89) as if, for example, political economy did not
have any problems related to war.
Furthermore, debatable is the categorical assertion that as a result of the
processes of the differentiation and integration of scientific knowledge, "the
situation has developed where there is no military science as something
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monolithic and indivisible. Military science has reached the same point as
physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences which also, as a consequence of
the differentiation and integration of scientific knowledge, have split into
individual independent sciences."(18) In accord with such an understanding,
S. I. Krupnov has divided all sciences studying the specific laws of war into
seven groups: in the first group he includes the sciences studying armed
combat, the theory of the organization of armed forces and their control;
secondly, military historical sciences; the third group, in the author's
opinion, "has as its object the means of armed combat" (emphasis mine--M. G.,
since in the given instance the classification of knowledge is no longer being
made according to the subject but only according to the object of cognition);
the fourth group is made up of the sciences which study man (military
psychology, military pedagogics and so forth); the fifth includes the sciences
which study the questions of economic support for military actions; the sixth
is the group of military sciences studying the influence of natural conditions
on the conduct of military actions (military geography, military topography);
the seventh is the military mathematical sciences.
Thus, here we do not see even any attempt, as the author recommended, to
initially analyze modern military practice, the ensuing uniform or similar
patterns and only then define the sectors of science which actually are
capable of understanding them. Instead of this, basic military scientific
knowledge is distributed over arbitrarily established groups of sciences, and
under the guise of military sciences the author includes a whole series of
branches of knowledge which have completely different patterns and no direct
bearing on the military area. This is done solely on the grounds that the
given areas of knowledge are employed in military affairs. With the same
success one could then include here both physics and chemistry as well as the
other natural and technical sciences, adding to them the word "military."
Even the theory of party political work in the army and navy is artificially
divorced from the science concerning party construction and is included in the
"military sciences concerning military indoctrination." However, as is known,
the tasks of party political work go beyond military indoctrination.
The author has agreed to call "military science per se" only that knowledge
included in the first group, but excludes from it the questions of military
indoctrination. Moreover, in the entire system of military knowledge no
mention at all is made of the problems of military training. Also not
considered is the circumstance that such questions as the method of preparing
and conducting exercises cannot be worked out by military pedagogics and no
other science, as for this battles and operations would have to be reproduced
and this is a question for military science.
In a number of other works and articles, the system of military scientific
knowledge includes the teachings concerning war and the army, the teachings
concerning the defense of the socialist fatherland, military economics,
military psychology, military ethics, the military problems of scientific
communism, international relations, law and so forth. Often this is done
without any explanation as to what principle has been employed in selecting
and listing these areas of knowledge. For example, why do the teachings
concerning war and the army and the teachings concerning the defense of the
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socialist fatherland exist separately or why is military economics related not
only to political economy but also to concrete economic sciences and military
science put in the same row with the components of Marxist-Leninist theory
while military science is not mentioned (a system of military scientific
knowledge without military science!). At times, an attempt has been made to
put military doctrine into a separate group of scientific knowledge, although
military doctrine is based upon the entire aggregate of knowledge concerning
war and the army and is not a separate scientific area.
Often the theoretical works and articles mention economic, ideological and
other forms of struggle but it remains unclear just what sciences study these
forms.
The authors of the book "Marksistsko-leninskaya filosofiya i
metodologicheskiye problemy voynnoy teorii i praktiki" [Marxist-Leninist
Philosophy and Methodological Problems of Military Theory and Practice] assert
that "as an integrated teaching concerning war and the army which synthesizes
in a detached form the achievements of political economy, scientific communism
as well as generalized conclusions of military science one can draw on the
Marxist-Leninist (sociological) teachings about war and the army as a
relatively independent branch of historical materialism."(19) It is difficult
to understand how it would be possible, in adhering to a Marxist-Leninist
methodology, to incorporate the achievements of political economy, scientific
communism and the conclusions of military science into historical materialism
or view them only as a branch of historical materialism.
In the structure of sociological science one usually establishes three levels:
a general theory or historical materialism which also remains a component part
of Marxist philosophy, special theories and particular impirical research.
Such cooperation and integrating of sciences are also possible in a system of
scientific knowledge concerning war and the army. But for this it is
essential to proceed first of all from the unity of Marxism-Leninism,
including the integrity of the teachings about war and the army, since the
entire sense of sociology, as a science dealing with society, is to study the
most complex social phenomena as an integral whole. The authors of the
mentioned work refer rightly to the statement of V. I. Lenin that Marxism
requires an integrated economic and political analysis of each specific war
and that on the questions of military organizational development and military
organization it is essential to proceed from the positions of Marxism as a
whole.(20)
In our military literature, other viewpoints have also been voiced showing a
different approach to the structure of the system of knowledge concerning war
and the army. A positive aspect of these theoretical works has been that they
show a sound desire to examine a series of important areas of the system of
knowledge concerning war and the army altogether, in an interrelationship. A
completely correct conclusion has been drawn that war, as a complex
sociohistorical phenomenon, is studied not only by military science alone but
by many sciences in accord with their specific interests. However, in many
theoretical works the entire aggregate of knowledge concerning war and the
army has not been covered and substantial errors of a methodological sort have
been made.
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In studying all these diverse definitions and formulations, one involuntarily
wonders with what flippancy at times they have approached the forming of a
structure of military-scientific knowledge, ignoring here the scientific bases
and criteria for the classification of the sciences. Some authors include,
for example, in the theory of the organizational development of the Armed
Forces, the questions of training and indoctrination which are related to
pedagogical and psychological patterns, while others include in this same
theory the problems of the combat employment of the Armed Forces while these
are the subject of the theory of military art, exclaiming here: what sort of
organizational development of the army and navy can there be without employing
these?! Thus, all military science is reduced to the theory of the
organizational development of the Armed Forces. With such a confused and
methodologically unsound approach there cannot be any clear classification of
the sciences. For there cannot be any strategy without operational art and
tactics, there cannot be any military affairs at all without considering and
utilizing the mathematical or natural and technical sciences, or the
appearance of a science, the subject of any sector of it are determined not by
what it uses or takes into account but rather by what it itself directly
knows.
When it is a question of designing a new type of aircraft engine or missile,
not every person would take it upon himself to judge how this could be done
better. But when things reach the point of resolving methodological
questions, for example, determining the subject or structure of military
science, many persons, even without giving particular thought to this, would
give out their definitions directly and categorically. Here it is not
considered that in the history of science and in the methodological bases of
any science there are many special types of knowledge and fine points which
are no less complex than any other technical or special questions and in order
to judge them, they, like any other scientific knowledge, must be carefully
and thoroughly studied and, of course, taken into account without fail.
One thing is clear. It is impossible to agree fully with the above-described
methods for approaching the classification of a system of knowledge about war.
In accord with the Marxist-Leninist methodology of classifying sciences and
considering an analysis of the present-day objective nature of a war and
army--with an integrated examination of war as a complex sociopolitical social
phenomenon representing not only the clash of armed forces but also the
struggle of classes, states, coalitions and social systems--in our opinion,
there clearly are three groups of ob ective processes and phenomena with their
inhere_n patterns reeuiring their own examination, cognition and the
corresponding scientific depiction in the system of knowledge concerning-ear
and the army; in the first place, the sociopo ical essence of war, its role
and place among the other social phenomena, secondly, armed combat; thirdly
the econpmic. ideoloarical and other non-m -military means and forms of combating
an enemy during wartime.
The first group includes the most general laws of war, the aggregate of
cardinal, underlying problems concerning conditions of the rise of war and the
army, their relationship with other social phenomena; the philosophical and
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sociological, sociopolitical and socioeconomic essence of war as a whole; the
problems stemming from this of all the forms for waging war both by armed
violence as well as by other non-military means. These questions are studied
by all three component parts of Marxism-Leninism and comprise its teachings
concerning war and the army.
The second group of objective phenomena and patterns which are the main and
decisive ones in a war is related to the specific features of continuing
politics by the means of armed violence in close relation to the moral-
political, economic and scientific-technical factors which ensure the conduct
of armed combat. These questions serve as the subject of investigation of
military science as well as the special areas (military areas) of a number of
social, natural and technical sciences which are continguous (bordering)
military science and provide for the preparation and conduct of armed combat.
The third group covers the phenomena and patterns stemming from the particular
features of combating the enemy by non-military forms and means. As is known,
politics during a war is carried out chiefly by the means of armed violence,
but armed combat does not exhaust all the means and forms of politics. For
this reason, for carrying out politics during a war as a whole other forms of
struggle are needed: economic, scientific-technical, ideological, diplomatic
and others with the subordinating of them to the interests of the successful
conduct of armed combat. The internal patterns of these forms of struggle are
investigated by various social, natural and technical sciences in accord with
their specific concern.
From this review we can see that an elucidation of the social essence of war
and the army and the study of the various forms of combat involve an
investigation of the most diverse sort of patterns including sociopolitical,
economic, military, technical and the elaboration of fundamentally different
theoretical and applied problems. For this reason, their understanding as a
whole cannot be provided by any one science. For investigating all these
complex and diverse phenomena it is essential to have the combined efforts of
a large number of sciences, including military. Just as there is no one
science which could study all aspects and phenomena of nature and society, so
there can be no single science about war.
All the listed areas of knowledge study war and consequently they have the
same object of cognition. However, the subjects are different; these are
caused by the studied patterns, their inherent categories and research
methods. In determining the subject of research of any science one must
always consider that for any science it is important first of all what
comprises its specific features and what distinguishes it from other sciences.
At present, there are hundreds of sciences and without such an approach it
would be impossible to distinguish between them. The pattern of development
is already: the wider and more complex the objective of research becomes the
larger the number of sciences studying it.
The most widespread errors frequently leading to futile disputes and unsound
conclusions is that the subject of the science is identified with its object.
However, the object of a science does not always coincide with its subject.
For example, various problems of politics are studied by the theory of state
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and law, by philosophy, sociology, political economy, political geography and
other sciences. Man is also studied by many sciences including physiology,
anthropology, psychology, medicine and so forth. A whole series of sciences
studies the earth and space.
There is one object of study for different sciences but there subjects are
completely different. Thus, war is the object of investigation for military
science. But such questions as the conditions for occurrence,(21) the essence
and origin of war and others cannot be considered as among the subject of
military science. In studying only wars, it is never possible to answer the
question of why they occurred. Military science is unable to understand these
questions. The founders of Marxism-Leninism disclosed the source of wars as a
result of studying the economic structure of society. They established that
wars arose with the appearance of private property and the dividing of society
into classes. But this is the subject of historical materialism and political
economy and not military science.
It is also perfectly obvious that not all scientific knowledge (economic,
political, legal, mathematical and so forth) which is used in military affairs
is applied in the practical activities of the armed forces and not all the
scientific disciplines which are studied in military schools relate to
military science. But sometimes attempts are made to define the subject of
research for military science not in accord with the patterns understood by it
and which is the only possible scientific approach, but rather proceeding from
the erroneous notion that all knowledge which is essential for the preparation
and conduct of a war can be incorporated in military science. This is just as
incorrect as if all knowledge concerning nature were included in one certain
science.
Or, for example, a war must not be reduced solely to armed combat. Economic,
political and ideological forms of struggle are most important means which
contribute to the successful conduct of a war. It is essential to prepare not
only the armed forces for waging war but also the entire country, the economy
and all the people. Military science must not stand on the sidelines of these
tasks. It, in particular the theory of military strategy, determines the
demands on the nation's military preparation, it considers the state's moral
and economic possibilities but carries this out not by direct research on
these questions but proceeding from the conclusions of other socioeconomic
sciences and as a result, of studying armed combat.
The establishing of the economic and moral-political potential necessary for
waging war is a function of party and state policy as a whole and requires
consideration of a whole series of internal economic and moral-political
patterns. Even during a war, when everything is subordinated to the aims of
achieving victory, one must not direct ideological work and the national
economy proceeding solely from the ideas of military science. Political
leadership resolves these complicated and diverse problems on the basis of
Marxist-Leninist theory, using the achievements of many sociopolitical,
technical and other sciences, including military.
Undoubtedly, armed combat cannot be divorced from the other phenomena of
social life and from other forms of struggle and it must not be viewed in
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isolation from the moral-political and economic factors. Military science
cannot validly investigate the methods of preparing and conducting armed
combat without profound knowledge of the economic and political essence of a
war as well as without a knowledge of the laws of the dialectic, but this, as
was already pointed out, does not directly investigate the origin and essence
of a war but rests, in examining these questions, on the ideas of the Marxist-
Leninist teachings about war and the army and the conclusions of other
sciences. To directly understand the various phenomena and to consider and
utilize the results of an understanding of other sciences are not the same
thing.
According to the laws of the dialectic, everything in the world is
interrelated but if only this aspect of the matter is considered and the
differentiation of scientific knowledge is not taken into account, if all
sciences should investigate only one object common to them and did not have a
specific subject of cognition for each, then modern science would have
remained on a level of ancient philosophy which encompassed the entire
aggregate of knowledge concerning nature and society. On this basis it would
be wrong to pose the question that both Marxist-Leninist teachings concerning
war and the army, military science and other areas of military scientific
knowledge should continue to study war as a whole, without having their own
subject of cognition, as this would eliminate any sense in classifying the
system of knowledge about war and would not provide a profound knowledge of
all its aspects and diverse phenomena.
It is impossible to agree with the situation where they approach determining
the subject of a science from the viewpoint of what department this area of
knowledge serves, who uses it, proceeding from the primitive assumption that
military science exists only for the military and other sciences have no
regard to it. If one were to speak about military science, then of course it
serves primarily the Armed Forces. But at the same time recommendations of
military science are taken into account by the socioeconomic, technical and
other sciences as well as in practical activities and by many other
departments. It is completely inadmissible when the question of including
knowledge in one or another area of science is viewed from the viewpoint of
prestige considerations, from the subordination of one department to another
or generally proceeding from subjective desires.
In classifying the system of knowledge about war and the army, it must be
considered that the founders of Marxism-Leninism investigated not only the
philosophical, economic and sociopolitical bases of war and the army. They
also worked out many concrete theses of military science, including the theory
of military art. For this reason, it is wrong, as is sometimes done, to
incorporate these questions in the appropriate sections of Marxist-Leninist
teachings concerning war and the army. V. I. Lenin not only developed the
teachings of Marx and Lenin about war and the army but also established the
foundations of Soviet military science and left a series of very valuable
instructions on the concrete questions of military art.
Many of the ideas worked out by M. V. Frunze relate both to the Marxist-
Leninist teachings of war and the army and to military science. This
scientific knowledge should be examined within the context of the
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corresponding sciences. In this regard of exceptional importance is the idea
of F. Engels voiced in the book "Anti-Duhring": "As soon as the demand is
posed for each individual science to ascertain its place in the universal
connection of things and the knowledge about things, any particular science
about- this -universal s:onnectinn becomes_ superfluous. Then out of all previous
philosophy, the teachings about thought and its laws, formologic and
dialectics, still maintains an independent existence. All the rest is
incorporated in the positive science concerning nature and history."(22)
The Marxist-Leninist methodology requires a clear definition of the subject
and boundaries of research on all the main areas of the system of knowledge
concerning war and the army. In accord with this and considering modern
objective conditions, let us examine in a most concise form the content of the
sciences and theories comprising this complex system of knowledge.
Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army
A sector of science concerning the general phenomena of war. Marxism-
Leninism, as has already been pointed out, studies the most general laws of
war and its most cardinal problems, encompassing all phenomena in a most
complete form. Prior to the rise of Marxism there was no truly scientific
theory concerning war and the army. At the same time, it is essential to
point out that even at the beginning of the 19th Century the somewhat hazy
understanding had arisen that war is broader than armed combat and that it
cannot be examined solely within military science. Opinions of a dual sort
were voiced about this.
Some felt that regardless of the fact that war is broader than the actions of
the armed forces, the theory of strategy and, consequently, military science
should continue to study all social phenomena related to a war, that is, the
subject of military science should include questions which it could not
directly investigate.
Other, more farsighted researchers raised the question of the appearance of an
area of knowledge concerned with the general questions of war which did not
fit within the framework of military science. Thus, the Decembrist I. G.
Burtsov wrote that "for the full formation of a military leader even military
knowledge alone is not sufficient; all political sciences effecting the
security of the people, as continguous with the military (emphasis mine.--
M. G.) and on the other hand, all the moral sciences providing the rules to
master the human heart should be included in a general, vast theory which
controls the actions of true military leaders."(23)
From this statement, the authors of the book "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" [On
Soviet Military Science] draw the following conclusion: "Thus...the
Decembrist Burtsov...defined the necessity for military science not to be
confined to the limits of military art but to include the study of other
factors in its subject."(24) However, the given excerpt shows that Burtsov
was writing completely about something else: for understanding the political
aspect of a war military knowledge is not sufficient but there must be a
broader area of scientific knowledge. He said directly that this knowledge is
not part of military science but is rather contiguous in relation to it.
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Also unsubstantiated are the references of the book's authors to another
military theorist from the mid-19th Century A. I. Astafyev who wrote that all
considerations which are political relating to state administration, political
economy, geographic, statistical and other "which embrace the general
question, are combined above the sphere of the military leader and comprise
the concern of the government and which should not be embrased by
strategy."(25)
On this basis the authors of the mentioned book reached the conclusion that
Astafyev understood the subject of military science as wider than military
art, although Astafyev unambiguously repudiates these concocted conclusions of
the modern interpreters of his views. He writes: "Consequently, a war in a
general form belongs to the state or its government; it assigns the conduct of
the war only in part and directly to the army. Here is the second part of a
war the aim of which is achieved directly by the army and by the means
belonging to it and military science should have its own subject (emphasis
mine.--M. G.)"(26)
Such a viewpoint was voiced by certain other theorists at the end of the 19th
and the beginning of the 20th Centuries. They to one degree or another began
to understand that a war is no longer limited to armed combat and does not fit
within the framework of military science and military art.
In bourgeois countries, it is now generally recognized that the highest
teachings about war is polemology (from the Greek polemos--war), a science
concerning war as a phenomenon of a social nature, its causes and consequences
in all aspects: economic, political, demographic, moral and so forth.(27)
In our nation, after the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Civil War,
certain military specialists, for example A. Snesarev, proposed "in trusting"
to military stratety the study of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic
phenomena of war and in this context to broaden the limits of strategy,
without considering here that these questions could not be the subject of
direct investigation for the theory of strategy and that such an approach
would disrupt the scientific bases for the classification of sciences.
M. N. Tukhachevskiy proceeded from the view that the Supreme Command which
directed the war as a whole, could not be guided solely by military strategy
or the old type "pure strategy," and for this reason the necessity had arisen
for a certain new, higher strategy. For this higher teaching concerning war,
he proposed the term "polemostrategy." M. N. Tukhachevskiy and certain of his
followers on this question viewed this teaching about war as a science
concerning the essence of war, the preparation and most effective use of the
nation's forces and means for victory.(28)
M. V. Frunze also recognized that the teaching about war as a whole could not
be fitted into the framework of strategy and that military science cannot
directly know the political aspect of war. But he did not consider it
necessary to introduce any new area of science concerned with the
sociopolitical essence of war. He firmly adhered to the viewpoint that in the
general system of scientific knowledge concerning war and the army, Marxist-
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Leninist teachings about war and the army provide a knowledge of this aspect
of war. On the question of the leadership of a war he assigned the crucial
role to political strategy.
Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army. More than 100 years of
experience has affirmed that only Marxist-Leninist theory can provide a truly
scientific explanation of phenomena. The problems of war and the army are
investigated by all the components of Marxism-Leninism which, as an
integrated, unified theory, studies them with the aid of laws, categories and
principles of philosophy, communism and political economy. Proceeding from
this, in the structure of Marxist-Leninist theory it is possible to isolate
philosophical-sociological, sociopolitical and political-economic bases
(aspects) of the teachings concerning war and the army and these in their
aggregate comprise an interrelated, single Marxist-Leninist teaching about war
and the army.
In investigating the essence and general laws of war and the army, the leading
role is played by Marxist-Leninist philosophy and primarily historical
materialism which is the methodological and philosophical basis for the entire
system of knowledge concerning war and the army. In particular, historical
materialism studies the following: the philosophical and sociological bases
of the teachings concerning war and the army; the essence of war and the army,
the general sociological patterns of their rise and development; the
relationship of war and politics, war and ideology; the social nature and
types of wars; the role of war and the army in history; the relationship of
the objective and subjective in a war and in military affairs; the role of the
masses of people and the individual in a war; philosophical bases for shaping
moral-combat qualities in soldiers; philosophical and sociological aspects of
militarism and so forth.
In examining these questions under present-day conditions, many new problems
arise. In the 1970's, when there was a tendency toward a lessening of
international tension, certain bourgeois ideologists wrote about a change in
the aggressive essence of imperialism and its pacificness. Now, when the
situation in the world has become exacerbated, they, on the contrary, are
shouting about the inevitability and necessity of wars. For this reason,
exceptional important significance has been assumed by the questions related
to investigating the aggressive essence of imperialism under present-day
conditions, the specific sources and causes for the outbreak of wars in our
times and the questions of the struggle to prevent a world nuclear war.
The sociopolitical aspects of the teachings about war and the army are studied
by scientific communism and primarily the teachings about the defense of the
socialist fatherland. Scientific communism investigates the problems of war
and peace in the modern age, the sources of military danger, the necessity and
patterns of defending the socialist fatherland and the sociopolitical
principles of military organizational development and the military
organization of the socialist state; it discloses the objective necessity of
the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party in defending socialism and
military organizational development, the military aspects of the political
strategy of the communist, workers and national liberation movement. One of
the most urgent tasks in this area remains a profound study of the patterns in
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strengthening the military-political union of the socialist states, the
military-political aspects of the joint defense of socialism and the
cooperation of the socialist armies, the sociopolitical bases for the military
might of the socialist countries.
The political and economic aspects of the teachings about war and the army are
tied to an understanding of the economic patterns of the war and the army; the
influence of the economic factor on the course and outcome of a war; the
material bases for the military might of states; the specific actions of
economic laws in the period of preparing and conducting wars in various
socioeconomic formations.
Under present-day conditions, when the aggressive circles of imperialism have
exacerbated the international situation to the limit and have begun a new
round of the arms race, while the interests of all mankind demand a reduction
in weapons and disarmament, great urgency is being assumed by research on the
particular features of the manifestation of the economic laws of capitalism in
military production and to what limits it is possible to have an arms race in
economic terms. Of important significance is research on the effect of
militarism on various aspects of the production relations in a capitalist
society.
The political economy of socialism investigates the impact of public ownership
on the military-economic processes; the particular features of the social
aspect of military production in a socialist society; the role of planned
economic development for mobilizing material resources in the interests of
defense; the nature of socialist expanded reproduction in the course of
preparing and conducting a war; the role of the economy in strengthening the
defense capability of the Soviet state and other problems.
Thus, Marxist-Leninist teachings concerning war and the army are not only a
component part of historical materialism, as was portrayed once in our
literature and training practices.(29) It is a synthesis of the interrelated
study of war and the army by all the component parts of Marxism-Leninism. The
necessity and validity of such an integrated examination of the Marxist-
Leninist teachings about war and the army are perfectly apparent and are
explained by the following considerations.
In the first place, not only the teachings about war and the army but also
many other fundamental teachings and concepts of Marxism-Leninism, although
being investigated by component parts of Marxism-Leninism from different
viewpoints, comprise a uniform teaching concerning the state, classes and the
class struggle, proletarian revolution and so forth. For example, historical
materialism understands the essence of the state, its role and place in the
political organization of society; political economy investigates the economic
structure of society and its influence on the structure and nature of the
state superstructure; the theory of scientific communism investigates the
essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the development of the
state in the period of socialism. V. I. Lenin in the book "Gosudarstvo i
revolyutsiya" [State and Revolution] provided the subheading "The Teachings of
Marxism About the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution."
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Secondly, objectively all the phenomena related to war and the army are
closely interlinked and they can be split into component parts only
arbitrarily. For example, the elaboration of the theory of the defense of the
socialist fatherland is impossible without a knowledge of the philosophical-
sociological and economic bases of war and the army. A war is a bilateral
phenomenon and the problem of defending the socialist fatherland cannot be
investigated abstractly, in isolation from such questions as the aggressive
nature of imperialism, the possible sources, types and sorts of wars, as well
as the general laws and factors determining the course and outcome of a war.
Thirdly, if the Marxist-Leninist teaching about war and the army is examined
in the form of isolated, individual teachings and even such a question as the
military organization of socialism is considered an individual teaching not
comprising the theory of the defense of the socialist fatherland while the
latter is not included in the Marxist-Leninist teaching of war and the army,
then with such an approach it is impossible to have their systematic
examination and, consequently, to view them in all their coplexity and
fullness. This is without saying that such ecclectic theoretical constructs
are devoid of elementary logic. One might ask what is the theoretical and
practical sense of the Marxist-Leninist teachings of war and the army, if they
do not answer the main question: how to defend the socialist fatherland or
what could be the defense of the socialist fatherland without a definite
military organization, or how is it possible to view war and the army in
isolation from one another if without an army there cannot be armed violence
and without this a war?
Sometimes concern has been voiced and is voiced over the question of
broadening the subject and functions of the teaching about war and the army or
the "pulling apart" of this teaching and appeals are heard to maintain the
specific subject of the philosophical and sociological system of knowledge
concerning war and the army. But these fears are imaginary, for no one has
ever proposed or is proposing to "pull apart" the Marxist-Leninist teachings
about war and the army and is not attacking its specific features. It is
simply impossible to call just the philosophical-sociological part of the
teachings the "Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army," since this
concept inevitably encompasses the problems of all three component parts of
Marxism-Leninism.
When V. I. Lenin examined the teachings concerning the state which had their
theoretical sources in all three component parts of Marxism, he did not sweep
aside their specific subject, he did not "narrow" or "widen" their content but
viewed them in a unity and interrelation, encompassing all aspects and tacets
of the studied phenomenon and on this basis established an integrated, ordered
teaching concerning the state.
Marxism, said V. I. Lenin, was forged out of a single piece of steel. In
explaining this Leninist thesis, Academician P. N. Fedoseyev has emphasized:
"An essential feature of Marxist theory is the fact that it can be
successfully developed only by remaining an integrated teaching, with an
organic unity of its component parts, disclosing at each historical moment and
at each stage of its development, an inner relationship and intercausality of
all its aspects and facets."(30)
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There should be the same approach to studying war and the army. Actually, if
one consistently adhered to the logic of these teachings, then it would be
impossible to view them otherwise. For example, in the book "Marksizm -
leninizm o voyne i armii" [Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army], the authors,
in identifying the philosophical and sociological portion of the teachings
about war and the army with Marxist-Leninist teachings about war as a whole,
have endeavored to fit all the contents of the latter to their narrow
understanding of its subject. However, when this book sets out the specific
questions of the teachings about war and the army, particularly the history of
the development of these teachings, the authors convincingly show that over
all of history the founders of Marxism-Leninism viewed the theory of the
defense of the socialist fatherland and other questions about war as an
inseparable part of the teachings about war and the army.
Characteristic is the very title of the book "Marksizm-leninsizm o voyne i
armii." Actually in this generally informative and well written book which
has undergone five editions, it is a question of the entire range of Marxist-
Leninist views on these questions, including the theory of the defense of the
socialist fatherland and the problems of war and the army in the other
component parts of Marxism-Leninism. This is no accident, for all the theses
of the Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army objectively and
logically exist precisely in such a relationship and only in such a
systematized form can they be employed both in the training process as well as
in practical activity.
The Marxist-Leninist teachings about war and the army, in withstanding the
test of time, under present-day conditions demonstrate their scientific
unshakability, vitality and are the organizing and ideological-methodological
core of the entire aggregate of knowledge concerning war and the army,
including military science.
Military Science
The branches of military science. In the general system of knowledge
concerning war and the army, military science holds an important place. Since
it most of all is related to an understanding of armed violence as the
decisive means of politics during a war, it holds the main role in working out
the methods of achieving the political aims by armed means. This also
determines its subject.
As was already pointed out above, at one time M. V. Frunze sharply criticized
the Trotskyites who asserted that military affairs are based on all sciences,
starting with geography and ending with psychology and for this reason there
was no need for any separate military science. Mikhail Vasilyevich with
profound persuasiveness showed that precisely the presence of a specific
subject provides an objective basis for the existence of military science,
although in military affairs it is essential to draw on the achievements of
other sciences.
What specific objective processes must military science investigate and which,
aside from it, no other area of knowledge can understand? Among these are)
primarily: the nature of armed combat, the methods of its preparation and /
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run urrlkiIAL u . UaL1
conduct on the strategic, operational and tactical scales; the composition,
organization and technical equipping of the Armed Forces required to conduct
armed combat; the processes of controlling (leading) the troops (naval forces)
in peacetime and wartime, their military training and indoctrination; the
influence of armed combat on the economy and the economic support for the
organizational development, training and combat employment of the Armed
Forces; previous military experience.
Proceeding from the possibility of a knowledge of these objective phenomena
and their patterns, the subject, content and structure of military science are
determined.
The results of many year's of research and the outcome of debates on this
question have gained their most correct scientific statement in the Soviet
Military Encyclopedia and the Military Encyclopedic Dictionary, where military,
science is viewed asp system of knorrledae Concerniing.__the__nature _and .lawn-, of
war, the yreparation of the Armed Forces and the nation for war and the
methods of waging it.(31) Armed combat in a war is the main subject of its
research.
At first glance, it may seem contradictory that, on the one hand, armed combat
is the subject of military science and, on the other, its subject includes the
laws of war, the methods of waging it and the questions of preparing for war
not only the Armed Forces but also the nation as a whole. This definition
emphasizes: the basic subject of military science is armed combat, for
military science, in being guided by the Marxist-Leninist methodology and the
teachings about war and the army and relying on the achievements of other
sciences, investigates armed combat in an inseparable tie with the general
laws of war, the socioeconomic and sociopolitical factors as well as the
influence of armed combat on these factors. With the present nature of war,
armed combat cannot be examined in isolation from these factors. But military
science investigates only those aspects of the phenomena which comprises its
specific features. In particular, when it is a question of preparing the
nation for a war, then this means the military aspect of this matter. At the
same time, it must be taken into account that armed combat is examined not
only by military science but also by other sciences within the range of their
concern.
War, as a continuation of politics by the means of violence, is a social
phenomenon; the armed forces are a part of the sociopolitical superstructure,
a social organism. For this reason, military science, in investigating the
phenomena of war within the limits of its subject, studies primarily the
social forms of the movement of matter and is a social science. At the same
time, it is concerned not only with the social but also the natural-technical
processes and phenomena. By this part of its concerns it is also closely
linked to the natural and technical sciences.
In determining the structure of military science and the role and place of its
various sectors, we use the general principles of classification. But the
special nature of war and military affairs also requires the considering of a
number of particular features. The branches of military science can not
always be ranked according to the principle of from the simple to the complex,
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from the inferior to the superior. As is known, war is a continuation of
politics, military strategy is subordinate to politics and derives from it,
operational art proceeds from the requirements of strategy and so forth. Here
all the questions of the organizational development, training and support for
the armed forces are resolved proceeding from the strategic nature and methods
of conducting armed combat and which require an answer to the question: what
armed forces are needed, for what war must they be prepared and how and so
forth. At the same time, the feedback from below is also taken into account.
A strategic or operational success is formed from the aggregate of successful
combat actions of the subunits, units and formations. It is essential to take
into account a multiplicity of complex ties along the horizontal and the
diagonal, particularly the influence of the development of weapons and
equipment on the methods of combat and a whole series of other relationships
and interdependences.
The structure and content of military science should reflect most fully
precisely these objective processes examined by it. However, they are often
determined without considering these demands and are incompletely disclosed.
For example, excluded from military science are the general theory, the theory
of the control of the Armed Forces, the theory of the organizational
development of the Armed Forces, the theory of the military economy and the
rear and certain other areas of knowledge. Proceeding from the above-given
definition of the subject of military science, its structure and content can
be represented in approximately the following form.
With a subject classification of the areas of military science made in accord
with the investigated patterns, military science includes: general bases or
general theory of military science, the theory of military art, the theory of
the organizational development of the armed forces, the theory of military
training and indoctrination, the theory of military economy and the rear of
the Armed Forces, the history of the Armed Forces and military art.
Military science, like any other science, has primarily its own general bases
or general theory. V. I. Lenin in the work "Materializm i empiriokrititsizm"
[Materialism and Empirical Criticism] raised the question of establishing a
general theory of political economy and voiced the idea of the need to work it
out from the positions of Marxism.(32) This idea is of important significance
for all sciences, including for military science. M. V. Frunze spoke about
the range of general ideas which comprise the general part of military
theory.(33)
The general theory of military science under present-day conditions examines
the system of laws of armed combat in relationship with the general laws of
war, the subject and structure of military science, its role and place in the
general system of knowledge concerning war and the army. At present, when the
history of science has appeared, it is very important that this science
concerning sciences have its own support points in all areas of knowledge in
the form of general bases or theories. A more profound self-understanding of
each science will help to bring out the general processes occurring in all
sciences.
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The content of general theory of military science was thoroughly examined in
the works of Lt Gen V. I. Zemskov and a number of other works. At the same
time, it seems wrong to us to include in the general theory of military
science questions which are not inherent to it and which comprise the subject
of examination of the theory of strategy and other areas of military science
(a consideration of economic, moral, military and scientific-technical
potentials; forecasting the military-strategic appearance of types of wars;
the general patterns and principles of the organizational develoment of the
Armed Forces, studying the probable enemy in the theater of war and so forth).
With such an approach the general theory of military science loses its
specific features, for it should understand the most general questions
relating to military science as a whole and which should be considered by all
its other branches.
The theory of military art is the core of military science. It investigates
the laws, nature, principles and methods of conducting armed combat on
strategic, operational and tactical scales and correspondingly includes the
theories of strategy, operational art and tactics.
The theory of strategy, being the higher area of the theory of military art
and being uniform for the Armed Forces, investigates the military-strategic
nature of war, the laws, principles and methods of armed combat on a strategic
scale, and elaborates recommendations on preparing the nation in military
terms, the forms and methods of strategic operations, the problems of the
control of the Armed Forces, the questions of considering and utilizing the
moral-political and economic capabilities of the state in the interests of
conducting armed combat and the organization of strategic support.
The theory of operational art studies the nature, patterns, principles and
methods of preparing and conducting all-arms (all-fleet), joint and
independent operations (military actions) by the field forces of the Armed
Forces, the activities of operational units involved in the command of the
troops (forces), the questions of considering and utilizing the moral-
political and economic factors in preparing and conducting the operations, the
organization and methods of operational, rear and special tactical support for
the operations. Correspondingly, it includes the theory of all-arms
operational art which investigates the principles of operational art which are
common to all the Armed Services as well as the theory of employing the Ground
Forces; the theory of operational art of the Strategic Missile Troops, the Air
Forces, Air Defense Troops, and Navy, the operational rear and civil defense.
The theory of tactics is concerned with the questions of the preparation and
conduct of combat by subunits, units and formations in various spheres: on
land, at sea and in the air. In accord with this it includes the theory of
the tactics of all-arms combat and the theory of tactics of the Armed
Services, branches of troops (naval forces) and special troops.
The theory of the organizational development of the Armed Forces investigates
the problems of maintaining the troops and naval forces in a high degree of
combat readiness to carry out combat missions and for mobilization; the most
effective organizational structure of the Armed Forces; the principles and
methods of their manning and technical equipping, the training of reserves;
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the system of training military cadres and their military service; the
organization of troop services and the strengthening of military discipline;
the billeting of the troops (naval forces) in peacetime and wartime and other
questions.
The theory of military training and indoctrination works out the forms and
methods of operational and combat training, the development in the men of high
political and moral-combat qualities, their military indoctrination in the
process of all military service and the development of teamwork among the
subunits, units (ships) and formations in the aim of ensuring their high
combat capability and readiness.
In examining the questions of military training and indoctrination, along with
the general pedagogical principles and methods, also considered are such
demands as the necessity of indoctrinating in the personnel special moral-
combat qualities, not only the training of individual servicemen but also the
combat teamwork of the formations and units for joint combat operations, the
maintaining of constant combat readiness in the training process for the
troops and naval forces and a number of others. This also determines the role
and place in the system of military science of the theory of military training
and indoctrination and which investigates the specific questions of training
the Armed Forces considering the principles of military pedagogics and
psychology.
The theory of the military economy and the rear of the armed forces. In our
military press and at a conference of military-scientific bodies in Warsaw in
1977, individual statements were made that the entire problem of the military
economy should be studied by one so-called military economic science or the
theory of the military economy. Doubt was expressed as to the validity of
incorporating the theory of the military economy and the rear into military
science. But such opinions did not receive support as a consequence of their
insufficient scientific soundness. The problem is that the military economy
is, in essence, the entire national economy which has been converted to a
wartime footing. If in peacetime the economy is studied by hundreds of
sciences, then can this same economy converted to a war be studied by just any
one science, in particular, military economic science.
In actuality the questions of the military economy and the economic support
for the war are studied by many sciences which form a system of military
economic knowledge. On the methodological level this can be divided into
three interrelated groups.
The first group is the military aspect of political economy which examines the
economic bases of the might of a state and its armed forces, the importance of
the economic factor and its impact on the course and outcome of a war as well
as other fundamental concepts which comprise the methodological basis of the
entire system of military economic knowledge.
The second group is the military question (military aspect) of the
intersectorial and sectorial specific economic sciences such as: the science
of economic planning, labor economics, economic statistics, financial science
and many branches of the economics of industry, agriculture, transport,
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communications and so forth. For example, financial science, in studying the
laws of the functioning of finances in peacetime, cannot turn over these
functions of its in wartime to any other military economic science. Only it,
in relying upon the general principles of financial science, can and should
study the particular features of the functioning of finances in wartime. No
other science is able to be concerned with these problems. This also applies
to other economic problems and sciences.
The third group includes the theory of the military economy and the rear of
the Armed Forces as a component part of military science. This studies only
that which is related to the subject of military science in this area: the
military strategic nature of the war and the ensuing demands on the economy,
the military aspects of ensuring its viability; the general (military)
principles in mobilizing and converting the economy from a peacetime to a
wartime status; the economic support for the actions of the Armed Forces (the
element of the link of the nation's rear with the rear of the Armed Forces).
In terms of the rear of the Armed Forces, the theory should study: the
general patterns and principles in the organization and functioning of the
rear of the Armed Forces; the system of rear support for the Armed Forces in
peacetime and wartime; the organization and activities of the strategic rear,
its relationship to the military economy; the role and place of operational
and troop rear services in the general system of the rear of the Armed Forces;
rear support for all types of operations; economic work in the troops in
peacetime. It can be said that precisely in this area of military science one
can see most clearly the importance of the subject-problem classification.
The theory of the military economy and the rear of the Armed Forces cannot be
a military question for the other economic sciences, as is sometimes proposed,
for the above-listed questions are related to the nature of armed combat and
for this reason only military science can investigate them.
In examining this and certain other similar questions, sometimes a confusion
is made between the science, a branch of science and an academic scientific
discipline. For example, completely valid is the existence in the VUZes of
the academic scientific discipline "Military Economy," where in a generalized
form they set forward the basic information from the existing areas of
political economy, military science and specific economic sciences. Here the
principle of the approach is the same a in working out textbooks on "Social
Science" or "Natural Science" which includes a certain amount of knowledge
from various social and natural sciences. But this is done for an educational
purpose and not as a classification of sciences, where the above-examined
methodological criteria and principles are obligatory.
With a subject-problem classification of the branches of military science,
such branches are isolated and viewed as part of military science as the
theory of the control of the Armed Forces, the theory of the Armed Services
and civil defense. The process of the differentiation of military-technical
knowledge and at the same time the necessity of its integrated examination in
close relationship to operational-stratetgic questions, have brought about a
tendency toward the isolation and separate examination of weapons theory as a
component of military science.
316
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The establishing of these branches of knowledge as part of military science is
a reflection of one of the patterns in the development of scientific knowledp:c
generally, when a problem classification leads to the formation of a number f
interdisciplinary sciences. This is one of the forms of the integratiorn f
sciences under the conditions of their ongoing differentiation and narrow
specialization. As S. T. Melyukhin has written, "with narrow specialization
the achievements of related sciences are not utilized and at a price of great
effort a narrow path is trod in those areas where nearby, for other sciences a
good road has already been laid previously but which, however, remains unknown
to the scientific workers."(34)
In accord with the principles of the problem classification, all the above-
listed branches of military knowledge can be put among the interdisciplinary
branches of military science which coordinate the efforts and methods of
various theories and contiguous sciences, just as, for instance, the
corresponding sections of physics, chemistry, geology, geography, biology and
so forth are concentrated in oceanology.
The necessity of isolating certain branches of military science with a problem
classification arose with the systematic examination of all realted,
interconnected problems arising simultaneously in the different branches of
military science as well as due to the establishing of good conditions for the
fullest use of the advances in the area of other social, natural and technical
sciences in the interests of resolving these problems.
Thus, the theory of control of the Armed Forces is examined primarily in the
system of strategic, operational and tactical leadership of the troops (naval
forces) in preparing and conducting operations and combat actions. However,
the control processes occur not only in conducting military operations but
also in the organizational development of the Armed Forces, the training and
indoctrination of the personnel and so forth. It is no question of removing
the questions of control from these areas of activity of the military cadres.
This would be impossible. There are patterns and principles which are equally
important for control processes in any area of military activity and which
control theory should examine together and from uniform positions, using the
achievements of cybernetics and the concepts of control science.
Incidentally, questions of control are examined and worked out in the area of
industry, agriculture, transport and in many other spheres, but at the same
time there is a universally recognized science of control which examines the
common patterns and principles and the bases of control activity as a whole.
This also applies to the theory of control of the Armed Forces which cannot be
restricted to just the theory of military actions. Leadership over the
complex and diverse life of the troops (naval forces) in peacetime--
maintaining high combat and mobilizational readiness, organizing operational,
combat and political training, the maintaining of weapons and equipment, the
organization of troop service and the maintaining of military discipline--this
is an enormous area of activity which cannot but have its own scientific
bases. It requires a sound theoretical elaboration and practical assimilation
by the military cadres. Only under this condition is it possible to increase
the scientific level of troop leadership.
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Weapons theory must elaborate scientifically sound conclusions and
recommendations for carrying out a uniform military-technical policy in the
Armed Forces, proceeding from the nature of armed combat and the requirements
of military art. Its major problems are: elucidating the development
patterns of weapons and military equipment considering the change in the
nature of armed combat; working out long-range strategic and operational-
tactical demands on the weapons systems; theoretical bases for developing
long-range and current weapons programs and for employing systems analysis
methods for determining the optimum ratio of the various types of weapons and
military equipment and the directions for coordinated weapons development.
Since war is a two-sided phenomenon, in determining the contents of the
various areas of military science, it must be kept in mind that in their
subject of research they include the organization, weapons and methods of
actions not only of their own groups but also the troops of probable or actual
enemies.
On the theories of the armed services and the unity of military science. All
the areas of knowledge comprising military science, in turn, have a complex
structure. They have close coordinating and coordination ties. The processes
of the differentiation and integration of sciences also necessitate a
systematic examination of various problems related to the use of the Armed
Services in a war. Their complex, practical activities are carried out both
in peacetime and wartime and this objective reality should be reflected in
science.
In each Armed Service, in addition, certain problem areas of knowledge can be
established. This is a completely natural process in the development of any
science. Certainly there is a unified Marxist-Leninist theory and at the same
time such interrelated components as philosophy, political economy and the
theory of scientific communism have become relatively independent theories.
There is an integrated system of biological sciences (zoology, botany,
medicine and so forth) each of which includes a number of other sciences and
theories. There are many such sciences which have a complex structure. No
one would dispute this. Even F. Engels, in examining the laws of the
evolution of science, pointed out that "in the same manner that one form of
movement develops from another, as a reflection of these forms, the various
sciences by necessity should derive from one another."(35)
In the course of the development of military science, new theories and
scientific schools have also arisen and become established as relatively
independent branches. But still military science, under present-day
conditions, is viewed as a complex but unified system of interrelated and
constantly developing branches of knowledge.
Academician B. M. Kedrov, one of the most prominent scientists in the area of
the classification of sciences, in analyzing the basic development trends in
modern scientific knowledge, has rightly pointed out: "The process of the
differentiation of sciences is presently occurring not from the further break-
up of scientific knowledge and the growing separateness of its different
sectors but precisely the contrary, that is, due to the interconnecting and
joining of its previously isolated branches."(36) This trend is particularly
318
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apparent in the system of military knowledge which investigates armed combat.
In line with this it seems wrong to establish separate sciences for the Armed
Services. This is explained by the following circumstances.
In the first place, as was already established, according to Marxist-Leninist
methodology sciences are distinguished primarily proceeding from what patterns
they attempt to understand. In accord with this military science is based
upon an understanding of the objective patterns which are common to armed
combat and the experience of conducting military operations has not disclosed
any particular laws of armed combat inherent to just one or another Armed
Service. Although, for example, naval theory possesses the greatest specific
features and the richest tradition, it, like the theories of the other Armed
Services, is closely tied to other areas of knowledge. The questions of the
organizational development and employment of the Navy have been thoroughly and
soundly examined in the book by Flt Adm SU S. G. Gorshkov "Morskaya moshch
gosudarstva" [Sea Power of a State].(37)
Secondly, the increased importance of the unity of modern military science is
determined by the altered conditions of waging war. In the past, when there
were two relatively independent armed services (ground forces and navy) in a
number of nations and which often proceeded from different strategic concepts
and carried out their missions independently of one another, one could still
justify the separate existence of military and naval sciences.
But in a modern war there has been a sharp increase in the importance of joint
strategic actions by our various Armed Services and also in the role of
strategy as a whole which is common to them. In practical terms the different
forms of strategic actions and strategic operations, including in sea theaters
of war, can now be conducted only by the joint efforts of different Armed
Services. Since each Armed Service cannot have its own separate strategy, the
existence of individual sciences for the Armed Services is impossible without
such an important part of military science which comprises its basic core.
Generally under present-day conditions decisive importance has been assumed by
the examination of all questions concerning the organizational development and
training of the Armed Forces from uniform positions, from the viewpoint of
their common interests and considering, of course, the corresponding specific
features of the services.
Moreover, the interests of the matter demand the elaboration of an ordered and
scientifically sound structure of military science with a uniform approach to
all the Armed Services.
Certainly each Armed Service has its own essential operational-tactical and
military-technical features. In line with this it is completely valid to view
as inseparable parts of a unified military science the theories of the Armed
Services which include the theories of military art of the Armed Services,
the particular features of their organizational development, troop training
and indoctrination as well as the history of the Armed Services.
Consequently, it is a question not of denying the long-existing knowledge
relating to the Armed Services but merely a correct and scientifically sound
formulation of this knowledge. The word "theory" in no way disparages this
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military knowledge but merely emphasizes its belonging to a unified military
science.
This also applies to all the branches of troops, special troops and services
and to all types of operational (combat) and special technical support. The
methods of employing these troops and types of support for the operations can
and should be viewed altogether in terms of armed combat as a whole, as well
as in terms of individual operations, types of combat actions and the combat
employment of the branches of troops. All these scientific problems are
included both in the corresponding branches of military science as well as in
the theories of the Armed Services.
Civil defense theory, being related to many social, natural and technical
sciences, in the area of armed combat examines as a single complex: the
principles of protecting the population and the national economy as a whole in
a modern war; the ways for raising the stability of the economy; methods of
organizing work to eliminate the consequences of an enemy attack; methods of
actions of the civil defense units and paramilitary formations; the
organization and methods of controlling the nation's civil defense forces and
means.
Military science has an applied theoretical nature. The theoretical nature of
military science consists in the fact that it, on the basis of the Marxist-
Leninist teachings about war and the army, studies the laws of armed combat
and analyzes the mechanism of their action. A knowledge of the objective laws
makes it possible for military science to disclose the essence of phenomena
and not merely explain them but also predict the development prospects of
military affairs. The predicting of the future is the main goal of any
science. If this does not exist we are always beyond the limits of science.
The applied nature of military science is manifested in the fact that it, on
the basis of a knowledge of objective laws, works out specific
recommendations, principles and rules aimed at increasing combat readiness and
training of the Armed Forces and at the successful conduct of armed combat. A
solution to the applied problems of military science at present is impossible
without the elaboration of theoretical problems. The 25th Party Congress
stated that "the full flood of scientific and technical progress will dry up
if it is not constantly fed by fundamental research."(38)
Since military science is primarily a social science, it cannot have solely a
particularly national affiliation. If one speaks about its essence and
examines it from party, class positions, it must be pointed out that in
practical terms there are a military science of socialism (Marxist-Leninist
military science) and bourgeois military science, just as there is no English
or Russian political economy but rather the political economy of socialism and
the political economy of capitalism. For this reason it is impossible to
recognize as valid, for example, the assertion that each capitalist state has
its own military science-09) Here, of course, one cannot deny definite
national featurs of military science.
Marxist-Leninist military science and the military doctrine of the Warsaw Pact
states, like the construction of socialism as a whole, are a unity of the
international and national.
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Their international character derives from the common socialist social and
state system; from the unified Marxist-Leninist ideology and coordinated
policy; from the common laws of war and principles of miltiary art and
organizational development of the socialist commonwealth armies for defending
the victories of socialism. At the same time, the national features related
to the specific features of each country and its armed forces are taken into
account in the organizational development and training of the armed forces and
in working out the questions of military art in the fraternal armies. In this
sense with complete justification and pride we can speak about Soviet military
science which reflects the achievements of our military scientific thought and
the experience of the most powerful and militarily tempered Armed Forces of
the Soviet state just as we speak about Soviet science as a whole.
The Military Aspect of Social, Natural and Technical Sciences
The change in the nature of war and the strengthening and broadening of the
ties of military science with the social, natural and technical sciences have
led to the appearance of the military aspect as part of a whole series of
social, natural and technical sciences involved with the preparation of the
Armed Forces for war, the development of weapons and military equipment and
the all-round support for the preparation and conduct of armed combat.
In actuality, for the successful conduct of a war it is essential to
profoundly consider many sociopolitical questions and the influence of natural
conditions on its conduct to design and develop weapons and military equipment
corresponding to the nature of a future war as well as investigate and work
out other questions related to all-round support, the preparation and conduct
of operations and combat actions. All of this requires the involvement and
use of many sciences in the interests of national defense.
The Soviet Union is against involving science in the sphere of military
preparations and it is not aiming at military-technical superiority, but the
ever-greater use of scientific and technical progress for military purposes by
the imperialist countries has forced the socialist countries to pay proper
attention to the technical equipping of the armed forces.
The experience of training the Army and Navy personnel for war, the
development of military equipment and its operations under combat conditions
show that in the interests of armed combat it is completely insufficient to
use the achievements of social, technical and natural sciences in a "ready-
made form." The missions carried out in the course of a war differ
fundamentally from the tasks carried out in other social processes. The
professional, moral-political and psychological preparation of the personnel
for a war presupposes the development in the men of special qualities which
will be needed in a combat situation. In nature there are no such military-
technical mechanisms as missiles, tanks and guns. Combat equipment, as a
rule, is not employed in industry and agriculture. The more complex military
equipment becomes, the more it differs from the equipment employed in the
national economy. In this context, special branches of these sciences occur
and they, in having their roots in the area of the corresponding social,
natural and technical sciences, interact closely with military science and are
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contiguous or adjacent to it. Such an intertwining of sciences also occurs in
other areas of knowledge. We might recall that there are physical chemistry,
chemical physics and so forth.
In a number of areas of knowledge one can see a tendency when its military
aspect becomes so complex and intertwined that, while maintaining its ties
with the base sciences, gradually becomes the special branches of military
knowledge, in coming close to military science. This to a definite degree has
already occurred with military geography, military electronics, automating
troop control, military pedagogics and psychology and certain other areas of
military scientific knowledge. This is also characteristic of other sciences.
Paleontology arose on the border of geology and biology, mathematical logic
appeared on the boundary of logic and mathematics as well as other new
sciences.
In the area of sociopolitical sciences, in addition to the Marxist-Leninist
teachings about war and the army, of important significance for the Armed
Forces are the science concerned with party construction and its branch, the
theory of party political work in the Armed Forces, the theory of military
law, military psychology, military pedagogics, military history and so forth.
The theory of party political work, proceeding from the general scientific
bases of the construction of the CPSU and remaining part of this social
science, works out the questions of party political work considering the
specific features of the Armed Forces and armed combat. The forms and methods
of political work for the commanders and political bodies, the party and
Komsomol organizations in a combat situation are completely different than
under any other conditions and for this reason these questions can be
profoundly worked out solely on the basis of a knowledge of the laws of armed
combat and the principles of military art with the decisive significance for
general party concepts.
The theory of military law elaborates recommendations on establishing a system
of legal standards in the area of the organizational development of the Armed
Forces, regulating relations between the servicemen, defining their duties,
rights and responsibilities in military service during peacetime and wartime.
The standards of military law bear the imprint of the requirements of the
Armed Forces (unfailing obedience of superiors, the system of one-man command
and so forth). International military law questions are also taken into
account.
Military psychology, being a branch of psychological science, discloses the
particular features of human psychology in the process of armed combat, Union
recommendations on the psychological training of the men, it examines the
psychological bases of the formation and actions of military collectives and
works out the methods for disclosing a person's abilities to perform various
types of military activities. These tasks cannot be carried out by other
sectors of psychological science.
Military pedagogics is a branch of pedagogical science which studies the
patterns of serviceman training and indoctrination, the particular features of
employing pedagogical principles and training methods in the process of
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operational, combat and political training. Military pedagogics is closely
tied to military science (the theory of military training and indoctrination)
and the theory of party political work in the Armed Forces.
Among the related sciences an important role is played by military history
which studies the history of wars, the history of the Armed Forces and
military art, military historiography and military bibliography, military
history statistics and military archeology. As for the history of the Armed
Forces and military art, it, in turn, includes the history of military science
(military scientific thought), the history of strategy, operational art and
tactics, the history of the organizational development of the Armed Forces,
the history of the development of weapons and military equipment, the history
of the military economy and rear, the history of military training and
indoctrination, that is, all those areas of practical military activity and
military knowledge which are encompassed by the theory and practice of
military affairs.
Being a part of general historical science, military history at the same time
is directly in contact with military science as well as its branches such as
the history of the Armed Forces and military art, and are a component part of
military science. The latter have sometimes been debated, but it is very
difficult to agree with this. N. G. Chernyshevskiy has said that without the
history of a subject there is no theory of a subject and without a theory of a
subject there cannot even be any idea of its history.(40) This is fully
understandable. Many sciences organically include the history of their
subject. For military science this is particularly important.
The separating of the history of military art from military science is just as
wrong as attempts to view the history of philosophy outside of dialectical
materialism or along with it, as a separate component of Marxist philosophy.
Scientific conclusions cannot be based solely on an analysis of the present
state of affairs. "...Not naked conclusions," said F. Engels, "but, on the
contrary, study--this is what we need most of all: conclusions are nothing
without that development which led to them...."(41)
The path to a knowledge of the development laws of science runs through the
study of the history of science and the subject of its examination, since the
development of science at present and in the future is a natural continuation
of its previous historical development. The main task of any science is to
understand the objective patterns of the studied phenomena and this is
possible only in viewing them in development. When different states of
various phenomena in the past, present and future are examined in isolation
from one another, we gain an opportunity merely to compare: what was, is and
will be, but we cannot answer the main question of how one phenomenon arose
from another and we cannot disclose the mechanism of their ties and relations.
A historical work itself, if it is carried out abstractly, loses its sense; it
should contribute to the skillful use of past experience for solving present-
day problems.
The development of military aspects in the area of natural sciences has led to
the appearance of a whole series of such special military sciences as military
geography, military cartography, military geodesy, military topography,
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military hydrometeorology, military navigation, military medical sciences and
others the purpose of which is perfectly obvious.
In the area of technical sciences, a series of branches of knowledge has
appeared which could be termed military-technical sciences. Each of these has
its particular features, but as a whole they are related to the elaboration of
the following main problems: the design and production of weapons; the ways
for the effective use of the combat capabilities of weapons and military
equipment; principles of operating and repairing the weapons. This includes
such sciences as ballistics, firing theory, communications, military radio
electronics, military cybernetics, military engineer, military-chemical and
many other sciences.
The Accountability Report of the CPSU Central Committee at the 25th Party
Congress commented: "New opportunities for fruitful research both of a
general theoretical, fundamental and applied nature are opening up on the
borderline of various sciences, in particular the natural and social. These
must be fully utilized."(42) This also applies to military science and to the
sciences contiguous to it. The appearance on the boundary of military science
and other sciences of general problems the solution to which can be achieved
within the context of several areas of knowledge ensures a thorough study of
the problems of preparing and conducting armed combat considering the moral-
political, socioeconomic and scientific-technical factors and the fuller
utilization of the achievements of all sciences for strengthening the defense
capability of the Soviet state and for raising the combat might of its Armed
Forces. The broadening and deepening of the ties of military science with
social, natural and technical sciences enrich not only its content but also
the research methods. Particularly characteristic in this regard is the ever-
broader introduction of a systems approach, heuristic, mathematical and other
methods into military science.
Branches of Sciences Investigating Non-Military Forms of Combating the Enemy
As was already pointed out, at the basis of all contradictions and conflicts
which give rise to wars lie profound social roots and an entire complex of
political, economic, ideological and military ties and relationships between
the classes and states, stemming from the social system and the political aims
of the war. For this reason, a war expresses not any one contradiction but
rather all the sociopolitical and economic contradictions and the ensuing
different forms of combat.
A clash with the enemy encompasses both armed combat as well as the
immediately economic, ideological and diplomatic forms of struggle. Although
war is a continuation of politics by the means of armed violence, this is the
main but not the sole form of combating the enemy. During a war politics as a
whole continues; here it applies all the available forms and methods of
combat. In actuality, as was shown by the Great Patriotic War, for achieving
victory it is possible to mobilize all the forces and means existing in a
state; the entire life of the nation and all its scientific-technical
achievements can be subordinated to the interests of waging war.
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run urriv.LnL, vu" W.1-
If military science along with the military aspect of contiguous branches of
other sciences ensures the conduct of armed combat, the other social and
natural-technical sciences study different forms of struggle against the enemy
and the activities of the states: ideological, economic, diplomatic, legal
and so forth.
During the war, ideological struggle has a particularly fierce nature. The
moral-political factors played, for example, a crucial role in the victory of
the Vietnamese people over American imperialism. In a modern war, the clash
of ideas and morale of the peoples and armies assumes even greater
significance. This form of struggle also occurs in peacetime, but is carried
out by different methods and means. And in order to employ it effectively
during a war, the appropriate sectors of sciences examine and work out the
problems of the ideological struggle.
Economic conflict is carried out in the aim of ensuring economic superiority
over the enemy. Under the conditions of employing modern weapons,
particularly nuclear missile weapons, the economy of the belligerents becomes
the object of even more powerful and intense armed effect. However, the
increased difficulties of ensuring the survival of the economy under the
conditions of employing nuclear missile weapons do not exclude economic
conflict but make it more acute.
Economic sciences examine the specific features of the functioning of the
national economy under wartime conditions. In particular, they work out
recommendations to convert the national economy from a peacetime status to a
wartime one and study the particular features of national economic planning
under wartime conditions, the specific work and organization of industry,
transport, agriculture, finances under wartime conditions, the questions of
manpower and wages, price formation and cost accounting in the military
economy, the ratio between military and civilian products in the national
economic balance, controlling the allocation of manpower and managing the
economy during the war and so forth.
Diplomatic conflict in the course of a war has always played a significant
role. V. I. Lenin said: "As long as there is a war, secret diplomacy should
also exist as one of the means of war.... The assessment of this diplomacy
depends upon the overall assessment of the war."(143) Diplomatic conflict has
not lost its role under present-day conditions. It is aimed at strengthening
the socialist coalition, the struggle for allies and the collapse of the enemy
coalition.
On Military Doctrine
In the overall system of knowledge concerning war, military doctrine holds a
special place. Military doctrine in its present-day understanding is a system
of scientifically sound guiding views which are officially adopted in one or
another state and concern the essence, goals and nature of a war, the
preparation of the nation and the armed forces for it and the methods of
waging it.
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The political bases of a military doctrine disclose the sociopolitical essence
of modern wars, the nature of the political goals and strategic missions of a
state in a war, the basic requirements on strengthening national defense and
the organizational development and training of the armed forces. The
military-technical bases of the doctrine determine what the strategic nature
of a future war can be like and for what sort of war and against what enemy
one must be prepared to fight; what armed forces are needed for such a war
(their effective strength, organization and technical equipping); what the
methods could be for carrying out strategic and operational-tactical missions
in a future war; what forms and methods can be used to train an army and navy
(to carry out military training and indoctrination) considering the nature of
a future war.
Military doctrine is not a separate area of science which independently
investigates various problems. It selects the necessary data from the entire
system of knowledge concerning war and the army. Military practice realizes
scientific achievements precisely through military doctrine. M. V. Frunze, in
emphasizing that the nature of military doctrine is determined by the factor
of the general political line in a state, at the same time felt it necessary
to bring Soviet military doctrine into accord with the tenets of military
science and military art.(44)
In theoretical terms the sociopolitical aspect of military doctrine is based
on the Marxist-Leninist teachings concerning war and the army and other social
sciences; its military-technical aspect is founded on the ideas of military
science and the military aspects of other sciences.
In line with this, the assertions sometimes encountered in literature that
military doctrine is shaped with the aid of military (only.--M. G.) science
and is based on its conclusions(45) are inaccurate. It is perfectly obvious
that the political aspect of military doctrine cannot be based solely on the
achievements of military science.
The question is frequently raised wh.yL _along with scientific knowledge
teachings_.abo.ut war and_ a arm military science there is also a military
doctrine. The issue is that in military science various views can and should
exist on the methods of carrying out various missions. For a science, this is
completely acceptable, for a clash of opinions stimulates its development.
But at a certain stage doctrine selects the mos t sffeetive views aid
reinforces them in official documents and manual a_as guiding concepts which
are_ obligatory for all. For example, with the appearance of nuclear weapons
the question arose of what should be the chief means of their delivery:
missiles or aircraft. The basic direction in the organizational development
and technical equipping of the Armed Forces and the methods of conducting
operations depended upon a correct resolution to this question. Certainly
proceeding from this the corresponding orders are given to the defense
industry. In similar instances, without uniform doctrinal views it is
impossible to provide effective organizational development and training of the
Armed Forces and strengthen national defense as a whole.
Military doctrine, in having military political and military technical parts,
encompasses all aspects of a war, being the result of its study. For this
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reason it plays a major coordinating and organizing role. In practical terms,
it proceeds from the specific ideas of politics and the decisions of the
political and military leadership. The provisions of military doctrine are
obligatory for fulfillment. But, as historical experience shows, they should
be not merely proclaimed, rather they should correctly express the entire
spirit and sense of military affairs at the present stage, they should
penetrate deeply into the Armed forces and be internally accepted by the
military cadres. Then military doctrine truly permeates army and navy life in
all its manifestations and unifies it. A doctrine which does not correspond
to these requirements loses much of its significance. In analyzing the
military doctrine of Tsarist Russia which uncritically borrowed in a number of
instances from foreign sources, M. V. Frunze said that such a "doctrine is a
stillborn child of our few military theorists, remaining alien not only to the
entire mass of the ordinary command personnel but also to its superior
leaders."(46)
Military doctrine includes not the entire system of knowledge concerning war
and the army but focuses solely on its main, basic provisions. While military
science includes both reliable and practically tested knowledge and hypotheses
which still must be confirmed, a military doctrine selects, as a rules only
the,_tpBt_d and reliable knowledge necessary for practical activities. Soviet
military doctrine takes from science all that is progressive, in considering
the situation and the capabilities of the state. In this regard it plays an
enormous ---r-ol-e . n the question of introducing scientific and__ technical
achievements into practice. Military doctrine, in turn, influences the
development of the system of knowledge dealing with war and the army and it
focuses the efforts of science on solving the most important and primarily the
new problems and itself develops in accord with this.
Thus, the philosophical-sociological, sociopolitical, economic, military and
military-technical, legal, historical, psychological and pedagogical knowledge
concerning war and the army form a fully determined system which is unified by
a single methodological basis, Marxism-Leninism. They study war and the army
from different viewpoints, on a varying scope and with a varying degree of
concretization and generalization and answer all the urgent questions of the
modern age, starting with determining the place of military violence in the
defense of socialism and ending with the elaboration of recommendations on
preventing a world nuclear missile war. For this reason, the study of war and
the army cannot be a monopoly of one or even several sciences. Inherent to
war and the army are patterns, traits and features which are not exhausted by
study either within the context of the Marxist-Leninist teachings of war or
the army or within the framework of military science. A thorough and full
study of all aspects of a war and the army is possible only within the
framework of the entire system of designated knowledge.
Sometimes it is proposed that the system of knowledge concerning war and the
army be called military theory. But this concept cannot encompass the entire
total of complex and diverse scientific knowledge concerning war and the army
since in this system we are concerned with completely different patterns and
categories many of which do not have a purely military nature.
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Considering all of this, it seems more effective to us to employ the
collective concept already established in our science, that is, "a system of
knowledge concerning war and the army" as the entire total of knowledge
relating to these phenomena. At the same time, in our view, also valid would
be the term "military theory" under the condition that it is employed in terms
only of the total of military knowledge (the teachings about war and the army,
military science and the military aspects of other sciences). The founders of
Marxism-Leninism in a generalized manner sometimes termed precisely this
aggregate of military knowledge the military sciences in the same collective
sense as social or natural sciences.
From what we have examined it can be seen that the classification of sciences
is not an end in itself and is a far from abstract question. It should serve
as the theoretical basis for practical activity. For example, under the
conditions of the existence of a threat of the initiating of war by the
imperialists, the interests of the matter demand that all the social, natural
and technical sciences, along with their other inherent tasks, be concerned
with the questions of strengthening the nation's defense capability. For this
is a question of the entire party, all the state and all the people.
In line with this the posing of the question of whether military science
should be concerned with the study of war as a whole or the preparation of the
entire nation for a war, in addition to its methodological falaciousness, in
practical terms does not aid the combined, interdisciplinary research on war
with the calling in of other branches of science and does not focus them on
resolving the tasks of strengthening the defense capability of the nation. At
the same time, a systems approach to the study of war and the army by the
joint efforts of many sciences will make it possible to understand them in all
their completeness and diversity, to form an ordered system of categories, to
establish a more viable theory and formulate effective and concrete principles
for practical activities.
Precisely this approach has been employed in determining the nomenclature
approved in 1984 by the State Committee for Science and Technology for the
specialties of scientific workers in the area of military science and the
other social, natural and technical sciences.
A precise classification of scientific knowledge which comprises the content
of military science makes it possible to soundly determine on the development
of which scientific sectors one must concentrate the main efforts at one or
another stage in accord with practical needs; to establish the head
organizations responsible for working out the main branches of science, the
organization and structure of the scientific institutions; to provide a
systems approach to the planning of scientific research, having pooled the
efforts of a number of scientific collectives for solving the most complicated
and pressing problems; to improve the curriculums of the VUZes as well as the
programs for operational and combat training in such a manner that the
military cadres would study all the main branches of military science and the
military aspects of other sciences and thereby ensure the prompt assimilation
of scientific achievements.
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Such an approach will provide the opportunity to thoroughly and profoundly
investigate the problems of war and peace in the modern age and with greater
effectiveness to carry out the responsible and complex tasks posed in this
area by the Communist Party.
Certain Conclusions on Further Improving Military Scientific Work at the
Present Stage
An analysis of the views of M. V. Frunze on the questions of military
scientific work and as a whole the previous experience in this area indicate
that on the question of the organization and execution of scientific work in
the Armed Forces each stage in its development had its particular features,
there were major advances and definite difficulties were also encountered.
The most fundamental problems which M. V. Frunze encountered in the
organization of military scientific work have made themselves felt over the
entire development of our military scientific thought. Certain major
principles in the approach to solving them have kept their importance.
In the first place, the basic sources of the strength and vitality of Soviet
military theory, including the military theoretical heritage of M. V. Frunze,
have been and remain loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and the creative application
of its provisions in scientific and practical activities. As was emphasized
in the report of K. U. Chernenko at the June (1983) Plenum of the Party
Central Committee, the most important thing in the area of social sciences is
"to be constantly guided by revolutionary theory and to skillfully apply the
tested Marxist-Leninist methodology of scientific search.... Philosophical
clarity, if you wish, methodological discipline of thought are an
indispensable condition for the successful development of social
sciences."(47) Only on this basis are sound conclusions and forecasts of the
future as well as truly scientific prediction possible, including in the area
of military theory.
M. V. Frunze considered a fundamental question in all military scientific work
to be the correct elucidation of the nature of a future war, subordinating all
research both on the experience of previous wars as well as modern military
affairs to this goal. The solving of this problem has been and remains a most
important task for military science. At the same time,. the prediction an4
elaboration of the theoretical bases for a still-to-come armed combat, as
there has been a greater qua i a ive gap between the meant wag ng a
previous and future war, become evermore difficult.
Under the present-day conditions of rapid scientific and technical progress
not only in military affairs but also in other areas of human activity, more
and more frequently it is essential to take decisions without relying on
experience and in the absence of any experience. Military practice in
peacetime has always been comparatively restricted. In exercises it is
impossible to fully reproduce everything that can occur in a war, particularly
under the conditions of the use of weapons of mass destruction by the enemy.
For precisely this reason the existing experience of previous wars, the
conducted exercises and as a whole military practice have assumed even greater
value.
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In his research M. V. Frunze convincingly showed that in history frequently
after a major war (Franco-Prussian, Russo-Japanese and World War I) there were
attempts to present things as though nothing remained of previous military
art. But the following war, in engendering new methods of conducting armed
combat, also preserved many of the previous ones. At least, up to now in
history there has still not been a war which eradicated everything that had
existed in military art prior to this.
In the 1920's and 1930's, our military science as a whole succeeded in
correctly determining the development sequence of military affairs and the
elements of the new in this. But in the 1930's, certain errors were made
when, for example, from the experience of military actions in Spain (in
particular, on the use of tanks) we sometimes took what did not actually
derive from this experience. In the given instance, as in certain others, the
failure was not the experience of the war itself but rather the incorrect
conclusions which were drawn from it. V. I. Lenin taught that any positive
phenomenon or any accomplishment under certain circumstances can be turned
into a shortcoming; if these accomplishments "are extended more than should
be, are brought out not when they should be or where they should be, then they
are shortcomings."(1$8)
For use in the future it is essential to have not merely the existing
experience, not what lies on its surface but rather those profound, sometimes
concealed permanent processes and phenomena which have a tendency toward
further development and which manifest themselves at times in new, completely
different forms than was the case in the previous war. Such experience from
any war will never completely lose its significance.
At the same time, it must be considered that each subsequent war keeps ever-
less elements of the old and more and more engenders the new. This pattern
not only remains but is assuming new potential strength. In line with this,
under present-day conditions particularly pertinent is the question of the
scientific prediction and forecasting of the nature and methods for waging a
possible future war. For this, in addition to the traditional methods of
historical analytical research of past and present experience, research and
experiments conducted in exercises and weapons testing as well as other known
procedures of scientific search, particularly major significance is being
assumed by the modeling of future operations (combat actions) and as a whole
the broader use of mathematical research methods for the most complicated
problems of military science.
Secondly, in accord with Marxist-Leninist methodology, the appearance of new
weapons and new human material is having a decisive impact on the methods of
conducting combat operations and, consequently, on the development of military
theory. Both in the times of M. V. Frunze as well as in subsequent years, our
military science has assessed these major sources of its development in
basically a correct manner. But in our times this task has become
immeasurably more complex, particularly in line with the accelerated
development of weapons and military equipment.
The development of military science and its increased role have been
enormously influenced by the new qualitative jump in improving weapons and in
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developing both nuclear and conventional types of weapons and military
equipment of the new generation based upon the most recent scientific and
technical achievements. On the part of Soviet military science this
circumstance requires the theoretical elaboration of many important problems
related to the organizational development and training of the Armed Forces,
presupposing a shift of the center of gravity into the area of military-
scientific and scientific-technical research.
The prompt elaboration of a sound operational-tactical ideology of weapons
development has assumed particularly important significance. The thesis of
Engels that the development of weapons determines the development of the
methods of conducting armed combat remains true today. But now_ military
science can no longer restrict itself to_J_uat considering this influence.
Under present-day conditions, there-has been-a, sharp rise-in. the reverse
impact of military science which itself should more actively determine the
most important areas for the development of weapons and equipment, having
placed the chief -.emphasis on the most promising types of weapons which in the
future will be of crucial signif canoe.
Here it must be considered that the arms race caused by the imperialists is
assuming an unprecedented scale, weapons are becoming evermore expensive and
we are opposed by enemies that are economically significantly more powerful
than ever before. For this reason military-theoretical thought should be
working constantly on how to most rationally utilize the means allocated for
military needs within the limits of strict necessity so that defense be
reliable and at the same time not too burdensome for the state. The essence
of this problem, the chief thing which should permeate all scientific research
is the greatest possible rise in the effectiveness of all the measures carried
out related to the organizational development and training of the Armed
Forces, a stricter and more profound consideration of military-economic
factors, a better scientific level of leadership over the troops and naval
forces and the fuller utilization of scientific achievements in practical
activities.
Thirdly, according to Lenin's teachings, for the elaboration and development
of revolutionary theory it is essential to have a combination and organic
unity of the activities of major theorists with the revolutionary creativity
of the masses. Proceeding from this, M. V. Frunze felt that for the effective
development of military science, it was essential, on the one hand, to have
the participation of a broad range of command and political personnel in
military scientific work and, on the other, the presence of special scientific
research institutions headed by prominent scientists for interdisciplinary
research on the most complicated scientific problems. Along with more active
military scientific work on the staffs and in the troops, he constantly sought
the training of widely specialized young scientists who would be capable from
Marxist-Leninist positions to analyze the complex phenomena of war
encompassing all the sociopolitical, economic and military factors.
The necessity of training such cadres in our times is particularly apparent,
for the higher the degree of specialization and differentiation in the various
areas of military knowledge concerning the Armed Services and branches of
troops, the greater the importance assumed by systematic research on the
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complex problems of war and military science considering all the factors
influencing their development and showing the profound sense of the
fundamental qualitative changes in military affairs and the prospects of their
development. For this, in addition to the creativity of the leading cadres,
it is essential to have modern scientists with high skills, with a broad range
of military-political, operational-strategic and military-technical thinking.
The opinion prevalent in a number of instances that military theory is worked
out and developed basically in the process of the practical activities of the
leading cadres and the scientists merely establish and formulate the proposed
ideas has led to a drop in the scientific-theoretical level of the tasks being
carried out.
The issue is that not all military knowledge has the same scientific level.
In their activities the military cadres encounter first of all two types of
military knowledge: ordinary, practical-specific encompassing usually only
the external aspect of military practice and worked out by employing already
existing knowledge and the scientific-theoretical. The latter presupposes a
profound penetration into the essence of phenomena and an understanding and
elucidation of their patterns. K. Marx rightly pointed out that science would
be unnecessary if the external appearance and the inner essence of phenomena
coincided.(49) Scientific work involves, as a rule, the discovery of new
knowledge and new ways for resolving practical problems. V. I. Lenin in his
work "Chto delat?" [What Is To Be Done?] emphasized that such scientific
knowledge is the result of research activity by educated people.(50) He then
went on to explain that this, of course, does not mean that workers do not
participate in the elaboration of a socialist ideology, "but they participate
in it not as workers but rather as the theorists of socialism... they
participate, in other words, only when and to the greater or lesser degree
that they have been able to master the knowledge of their century and advance
this knowledge."(51)
This Leninist thesis applies fully to military affairs. In truth, in the area
of military art more frequently than in any other sphere, precisely the
military leaders and chiefs were the pioneers of new ideas. But still broad
scientific generalizations and fundamental science are created usually by
prominent scientists, military thinkers, including military chiefs, relying on
the experience and practical activities of the masses. For fundamental
scientific research it is essential to have not only knowledge and experience
but also sufficient time, the necessary skills and abilities. As is shown by
the example of V. I. Lenin and such students of his as M. V. Frunze who
skillfully combined practical work with science, the main thing, of course, is
their ability for great and profound theoretical generalizations.
The complexity of military scientific tasks even in the 1930's showed that
research on major problems cannot be the concern of individual scientists but
for this there must be large scientific collectives which have at their
disposal the necessary experimental facilities and, in our times, also
computers. In the area of the development of new types of weapons and
equipment, this idea was immediately understood and realized. No one figured
that each commander himself would invent a weapon in the troops. But in the
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military theoretical area, the necessity of such well organized scientific
research by highly trained specialists was sometimes underestimated.
At the same time, it is well known that in science no less than in combat one
must rely not on numbers but ability. Everyone realizes that if one attempted
to establish a literary institute numbering several thousand men and assigned
it to create an artistic work like "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy, nothing
would happen. And in science they sometimes endeavor to solve creative
problems in this manner. Life has convincingly shown that even where large
scientific collectives are involved in scientific research they can function
fruitfully only in the instance that among them there are leading, prominent
scientists who act as the pacesetters of scientific thought.
Academician M. A. Lavrentyev in recalling the history of the establishing of
the Siberian Division of the USSR Academy of Sciences, related: "We proceeded
from the view that each institute should have an authoritative scientific
leader who would also determine (at least in the first years) the appearance
of the institute. In brief, we adhered to the principle of establishing an
institute 'for the director' and not to seek a director for the planned (even
a good) institute. Here it was important to find scientific leaders for all
the main areas of science which would be necessary for establishing an
interdisciplinary scientific center."(52) As the military-technical area
needs its own general and chief designers, so in the other areas of military
science there must be major authorities whose opinion should be followed by
everyone who is involved in the theoretical elaboration or practical solution
to one or another question. But such authorities do not arise by themselves.
For their appearance a good creative situation in science is required. Under
the conditions of a socialist society the best opportunities are opened up for
this. And these tell favorably on the general development level of Soviet
military theory and practice.
However, in the area of social sciences, including in the area of military
science, it has not always been possible to fully realize these possibilities.
The decree of the CPSU Central Committee of 30 July 1956 "On Overcoming the
Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" points out that the cult of
personality had certain negative consequences for the development of science.
In the area of military theory this was expressed in a desire to fit
scientific conclusions and even the experience of the war to certain
statements or ideas and to substitute quotations for the search for truth,
arguments and proof; there was an impatience with other opinions and in a
number of instances a lack of publicity in science and social criticism.
Under these conditions the scientific sphere could easily be penetrated by a
mass of mediocrities which created the blank wall on which many new ideas and
discoveries crumbled in the history of science. This, in turn, sometimes led
to a decline in the theoretical level of the training and indoctrination of
the cadres and the forcing of them to accept ready-made ideas and conclusions
instead of a reasoned and creative assimilation of scientific knowledge. In
such a situation true scientific knowledge and abilities were not always
properly regarded and individual insufficiently principled persons lost the
habit of hard work.
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Moreover, certain commanders who had fought well during the first years after
the Great Patriotic War remained too long in a state of complacency with
previous successes and did not show much respect for theory which, due to the
above-given factors, sometimes lagged behind the enormous combat experience
and the highest level of military skill of our cadres gained during the war.
Certainly life teaches that at times it is easier to draw lessons from defeat
than from victory.
All of this as well as certain other subjective factors related to
shortcomings in the leadership of scientific work to a definite degree impeded
the creativity of the military cadres and prevented the appearance of major
military authorities and scientists.
But, as was pointed out in the above-mentioned decree of the CPSU Central
Committee, the deviations related to the cult of personality from the
standards of party and state life could not nullify the enormous advantages of
socialism in the development of science and in other areas of social life.
The measures adopted by the party to intensify scientific work and accelerate
scientific-technical progress led to enormous advances in scientific and
technical development, including in the development of military theory and
practice and which were marked by a true revolution in military affairs.
Regardless of the achieved successes, the need to constantly encourage
creativity in science and establish better conditions for its development has
not been eliminated; here there can be no limit to improvement. The task of
increasing the effectiveness of scientific work has become evermore sharply
posed in recent years at the party congresses and Central Committee plenums.
A number of decrees of the CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet government
points to existing shortcomings in this area and define the ways to eliminate
them.
The establishing of a creative situation in science presupposes primarily
objectivity of research, for the main purpose of any science is to understand
objective patterns. For this reason, in scientific research our party demands
that we proceed from that reality which exists, with all its pluses and
minuses. Where there is even the slightest deviation from objectivity, where
reality is represented not as it is in fact but as one wishes to see it, when
one avoids acute questions raised by life and one tries to create the
appearance of seeming well being, truly scientific research is impossible. It
is essential, V. I. Lenin taught, to proceed not from the possible but from
the actual and "assimilate the indisputable truth that a Marxist should
consider true life and the accurate facts of reality...."(53)
This circumstance also predetermines the exceptional importance of the
informing of scientists and generally scientific workers on those questions
which they are investigating. Only under this condition is it possible to
realize Lenin's instructions that with scientific research it is essential to
take not individual, arbitrarily seized upon facts but rather their entire
aggregate without exception, with all complexities and contradictory
manifestations. Without a knowledge of all the circumstances of the question,
without possessing exhaustive data on the essence of one or another question,
a truly scientific, objective truth cannot be found. This is why it is also
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important that the researcher not close himself off in a circle of just
theoretical speculation but be constantly tied with real life and military
practice. He must carefully study all aspects of the investigated question
and derive all his conclusions from an analysis and generalization of the
phenomena of objective reality and not fit the phenomena of life to a
previously predetermined theoretical scheme. It has long been established
that a true scientist needs not only a good knowledge of his specialty but
also great general culture, breadth of thinking, the ability not to circumvent
but be the first to spot newly arising contradictory phenomena which go beyond
the framework of existing views, to dig down to the deepest essence, to the
roots of each new phenomenon and more boldly pose new questions. "When the
waves of the technical revolution are crashing around us...," said F. Engels,
"fresher, bolder heads are needed .... 11(54)
M. V. Frunze considered as a most important condition for the development of
military science the holding of discussions on its fundamental questions with
the broad involvement of the command and political personnel. The entire
history of science shows that its development is possible only by overcoming
contradictions, in a struggle of opinions. For this reason, there is
particularly great importance in the holding of military scientific
conferences and other forms of scientific debates. As scientists aptly put
it, when in any science there are no contradictory views or no struggle, then
this science is on the way to bury itself. V. I. Lenin on the question of the
work by N. A. Rubakin "Sredi knig" [Among Books] was against the author's
assertion that polemics obscures the truth by all sorts of emotions. V. I.
Lenin wrote that "in the first place.-there never has been, it not and cannot
be the human search for truth without 'human emotions.' The author forgets,
in the second place, that he wants to provide a review of the 'history of
ideas' but the history of ideas is the history of the alternation and,
consequently, the struggle of ideas."(55)
But discussions with an active debate of urgent questions cannot arise by
themselves and be conducted spontaneously. These must be skillfully
cultivated and directed. First of all, the scientific conferences must be
preceded by great research work, including at various exercises, so that there
be something to be discussed. In the course of the conferences and meetings
it would be desirable to devote one main report and not more than one or two
co-reports to setting out the results of the conducted research. And these
should not be like a lecture with a statement of all the known questions on
the given subject. In them it is advisable to raise the most acute, problem
questions which actually require a collective discussion so that the
conference participants in their speeches can thoroughly discuss these. A
more lively and interesting discussion of the questions is aided by the method
when the co-reporters do not limit themselves to additions to the main report
but also act as opponents. If there is no active discussion and each speaker
reports only on his own questions, as if he had not been in the auditorium
during the reports, the conference usually does not achieve its aim.
A great deal depends upon the leader of the conference or meeting and he
should be able to create a creative atmosphere and work to cause lively
debates. M. V. Frunze, for example, in the course of scientific debates did
not shy, when necessary, from directing the course of the statements,
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demanding that the speakers talk to the essence and without fail voice their
view on the posed questions. At the same time he did not restrict them, he
did not try to lead them to preset conclusions but in every possible way
encouraged the voicing of opposite viewpoints in order in the clash of
opinions to bring out the truth more profoundly and better, seeing in this the
main purpose of any scientific discussion. And in order that the clash of
opinion and disputes did not have a negative impact on a healthy and creative
atmosphere, in accord with the Leninist tradition in a scientific dispute
there could and should be opponents but no enemies.
Fourthly, in accord with the Marxist-Leninist thesis on the unity of theory
and practice, the purpose of a scientific work reaches its logical conclusion
only with the prompt introduction of the scientific achievements into
practical activity. M. V. Frunze was greatly concerned for this. As the
experience of military scientific work shows, the development of science
ultimately rests on the problem of realizing its achievements; the solution to
this problem remains the most complex and topical.
For example, we have already said that certain theoretical ideas on the
initial period of a war by the end of the 1930's were significantly richer
than they were embodied in practice. Not all the scientific achievements had
been fully realized either for other questions. This problem has not been
eliminated now.
Yu. V. Andropov at one time said: "Unfortunately...things are still going
badly... precisely with the introduction of our scientific and technical
achievements into practice."(56) And this to a definite degree also applies
to military theory and practice. The question is so acute with good reason.
Without the prompt introduction of new scientific ideas into practical
reality, science is largely debased and loses its sense. What is the sense of
the best scientific developments, research or works if they are not noticed or
are not employed by those who should carry them out, or if they are judged by
persons who do not have the opportunity to study or think about these problems
and hence draw their own conclusions by rule of thumb, without sufficient
qualification. This gives rise to indifference and reduces the interest in
science.
Of crucial significance in this area are competence and an interest in the new
ideas of science onthe part of leading cadres. If any rank of leader is not
on top of the scientific knowledge, he is unable to understand it or, let
alone, carry it out. In military affairs, this question is particularly
acute, for practically in military service any new idea, any new undertaking
can be carried out in one or another area of work only with the agreement and
approval of a senior chief. From this viewpoint, greater exactingness on the
training and indoctrination of the cadres and their accustoming to military
scientific work are of enormous significance.
But this is not all. The problem is significantly more complex. At times
even the most progressive leader needs a good deal of effort and tenacity to
introduce advanced experience and new initiatives in the troops. In principle
no one argues against the new, but in life the breaking of old ideas and
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habits and the introduction of new scientific achievements and initiatives
always occur with some difficulty.
In looking back and reviewing the distance come from the heights of today, it
is perfectly apparent to any man how right M. V. Frunze was when he said that
Soviet military science can develop only on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and
when he with great tenacity raised the question of the need to elaborate a
unified military doctrine as well as other questions of the organizational
development and training of the Armed Forces and the methods of their
employment in a war. At present, it even seems strange that at one time they
had to work so hard to prove and defend all of this in a fierce struggle
against open and covert enemies who often did not shun intrigues, scandals and
the most evil fabrications which distorted the true viewpoint, and at times
simply had to deal with ordinary misunderstanding.
A. M. Gorkiy was indignant over the desire of the philistine to belittle the
unusual person at whatever the cost and to reduce him to a level of the
philistine's understanding. Everything unusual prevents the philistine from
living as he wishes. But unusual people do not want to accept the existing
views and habits of this ordinary life.(57) New discoveries and ideas never
take hold without a struggle against the old. As the research of certain
scientists has shown, the conservatism of many people is partially explained
by the fact that the search for new ideas usually begins where the logic of
already known knowledge and facts disappears. Where a majority of people sees
only pat answers, an innovator sees new questions posed by life. Even a
conservatively thinking person in our times now realizes that, for example,
Suvorov and Frunze were correct. But the great misfortune is that this person
is unable to understand the truth of the discoverers of modern ideas.
The General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the
Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, K. U. Chernenko, in his speech at the
jubilee plenum of the Board of the USSR Writers Union pointed out that
"constant work is needed to increase the awareness of the masses and to bring
about a certain, if you wish, reorientation of public awareness so that it
more quickly assimilates new ideas put forward by the party and more
decisively escapes from obsolete, backward views."(58)
For this reason, in recognizing the inevitability and naturalness of the
struggle of the new against the old, thought must also be given to by what
ways under present-day conditions we can better instill in the military cadres
a breadth of thought, creativity and the ability to understand and accept all
the new that is put forward by life. In the age of scientific and technical
progress, this is one of the most important and fundamental problems.
A particularly urgent and difficult task is to realize and introduce into
practice not merely scientific ideas but ideas which look to the future, the
ability to find and employ in today's practice those ideas which are still in
the shadow but have the promise of growth and development. As is known, the
founders of Marxism-Leninism with great foresight and a view to the future
worked out the theoretical bases of the proletarian revolution and the
construction of socialism, setting in this regard a great example for
subsequent generations of revolutionaries. To act with an eye to the future
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and to promptly spot arising trends remains an indispensable demand of the
party on scientific work under present-day conditions.
At theoretical exercises and meetings this, as a rule, has been and is
recognized by everyone. But in actuality this is not always the case. For
example, one of the arguments used by the opponents of the theory of a
depauperation and combat was that at the beginning of the 1930's our army
still did not have the necessary material conditions for carrying it out in
practice. Such "arguments" on certain questions are sometimes raised today.
But such judgments have nothing in common with the Marxist-Leninist approach
to theory and practice. If one were to reason in this manner, how could Marx,
Engels and Lenin talk about the fundamentals of socialism when this still did
not exist?
A theory which proves only that which exists and does not look to the future
does not have any great scientific value. For this reason it is essential
that our modern scientific theory not fear to look ahead and more boldly bring
out the prospects in the development of military affairs. At the same time,
one must remember constantly that the sprouts of the new are even now being
constantly introduced into practice and that new scientific data are being
verified on this basis.
Not all fundamental theoretical ideas can have an immediate and direct access
to practice. But any, even the most abstract scientific ideas should
ultimately be assessed from the viewpoint of practical needs. When various
theoretical searches are made outside of any contact with life, then such
"circumscientific" research produces a product fit only for internal
consumption of a narrow range of persons who pursue one or another area of
science out of the carelessness or laxness of the corresponding scientific
bodies and the scientific community.
Academician P. L. Kapitsa on this issue recalled Calvin who compared theory
with the millstones and experimental data with the grain which was being fed
into these millstones. It is perfectly obvious that the millstones
themselves, no matter how they turned, did not produce anything useful (theory
is concerned only with itself). But the quality of the flour is determined by
the quality of the grain and rotten grain cannot provide nourishing flour.(59)
In a word, as V. I. Lenin taught, it is essential "that our science remain not
a dead letter or a fashionable phrase... that science truly becomes flesh and
blood and is turned into a component element of everyday life in a complete
and real manner."(60)
In speaking about the prospects for the further development of military
science and the improvement in military scientific work under present-day
conditions, it is essential to emphasize the ever-increasing influence on them
of the sociopolitical and economic factors. First of all, it must be
considered that in the politics of imperialism at present one can see evermore
clearly an adventurism and a readiness to wager the vital interests of mankind
for the sake of political and economic goals. Never since World War II has
the situation been so serious. What specific factors have caused this?
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First of all, under the conditions of the deepening economic and general
crisis in capitalism, the aggressiveness of imperialism has risen and this
remains the main source of wars. Imperialists have always sought the way out
of a crisis by the militarization of society, an arms race and military
provocations. But the main thing is that a political justification is needed
for the constantly widening arms race and for this reason the military-
industrial magnates are demanding a stronger aggressive policy and the wide
use of threats and adventures which are fraught with their evolution into a
war. Also related to this is the abrupt about-face in U.S. policy and the
course of the American administration to sharply intensify military
preparations and direct material preparation for war at a pace and in forms
never noted before.
The increasingly uneven development of capitalism has exacerbated
contradictions between the capitalist states up to the point of military
clashes (the Greco-Turkish, Anglo-Argentine and other conflicts). At the same
time, the historical process of the weakening of capitalist forces and the
growth of socialist forces has caused the imperialist countries to draw
together on a common platform of anticommunism; the influence of the
aggressive American policy on them is growing. All of this increases the
possibility of a united action by the capitalist states against the socialist
commonwealth countries. The development of the class struggle on the world
scene confirms the law established by V. I. Lenin: "...The force of the
revolution, the force of impact, the energy, decisiveness and triumph of its
victory at the same time increase the force of resistance from the
bourgeoisie. The more we are victorious the more the capitalist exploiters
learn to unite and switch to more decisive offensives."(61)
The increase in the contradictions between the imperialist states and the
peoples conducting the national liberation struggle, particularly in line with
the desire of the imperialist states to establish their domination over areas
with rich energy resources and the developing countries to defend their
national interests, has engendered and will engender a whole series of
military conficts. The imperialists give special significance to the
preparation and initiating of local wars in the aim of eliminating progressive
regimes conducting an anti-imperialist struggle.
Thus, at the present stage and in the foreseeable future, the threat of a war
will objectively remain, being a consequence and continuation of the
aggressive policy by the imperialist powers and the states siding with them.
The growth of this threat can be checked and put back but, as long as
imperialism exists, it cannot be fully eliminated.
All these reasons and objective factors intensify the danger of the outbreak
of wars or military conflicts which at any moment can take on the most
unexpected turn, in closely involving the state interests of the USSR and the
other socialist countries.
The constant threat to the socialist countries deriving from the aggressive
essence of imperialism, the great dynamicness of world processes and the
possibility of abrupt changes in the military political situation make all the
more difficult a scientific definition of the nature of local wars and
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military conflicts which can be instigated by imperialism, as well as the
strategic nature of a world war and the conditions of its outbreak and
conduct. Miscalculations on these questions have always been fraught with
severe consequences and now they are simply inadmissible. For this reason
there must be daily painstaking work on a profound and thorough analysis of
the basic areas of military policy in the imperialist states at the present
stage and in the immediate future, of the militarily potentially dangerous
areas of the world and the main directions in the development of the military
strategic situation.
Certainly in resolving these questions Soviet military science is guided by
the conclusions and ideas of the scientifically sound policy of the Communist
Party and the Soviet government and by the achievements of other
sociopolitical sciences. Proceeding from them military science can and should
provide sound forecasts for the outbreak and development of possible critical
situations, the probable variations of the start of a war as well as the forms
and methods of waging it.
The General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, K. U. Chernenko, in his
speeches at the February and April (1984) Plenums of the CPSU Central
Committee pointed out that the teachings of Marxism-Leninism must be developed
creatively and with a profound analysis of modern reality. He urged that this
work be continued constantly in all areas of science. The task is not merely
to study but also to be able to apply in practice the great ideas of the
founders of Marxism-Leninism and to develop them in all areas in terms of
modern conditions.
Soviet military theory in its development has reached enormous heights and has
great achievement in all areas. It has become one of the main factors in
increasing the combat readiness of the Soviet Armed Forces and in
strengthening the nation's defense capability. MSU N. V. Ogarkov has pointed
out: "In elaborating new concepts on the basis of the results of scientific
research and an analysis of the experience of the war and postwar exercises
and maneuvers, many theoretical concepts of military art and the
organizational development of the army and navy have been critically reworked
and an optimum combination has been found for new and previously existing
views on the preparation of the nation and its Armed Forces for war as well as
the methods of conducting military operations."(62)
Zi1itarv science and militar art.
7_T __,B a whole a new qualitative shift i
s
maturin$: in the developmgnt__of mili_tark_affaisrelated both to the further
improvement in nuclear weapons as well as particularly to the appearance of
new types of conventional weapons. In line with this the need arises to
rethink the fundamental military-political and operational-strategic problems
of defending the socialist fatherland.
From all of this derive new, higher demands upon the organization of
scientific work in the Armed Forces. As in carrying out other tasks, on this
question we are guided by the instructions of the 26th CPSU Congress and the
subsequent plenums of the CPSU Central Committee which have demanded the
focusing of the main efforts of science primarily upon the prompt solution to
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the major practical problems, a sharp rise in the effectiveness and quality of
the scientific research and the more effective introduction of scientific
achievements into practical activity.
The new tasks demand the corresponding scope and higher pace in carrying out
scientific work. In the past, when the material basis of a war changed
comparatively slowly, the scientific elaboration of certain problems took
years. Under present-day conditions the situation has fundamentally changed
and a delay in working out the urgent problems of military science is
completely inadmissible. The rapid modernization of weapons and equipment and
the related frequent changes in the methods of conducting armed combat demand
a constant rise in the intensity of scientific research, in the promptness of
working out the most important problems as well as a widening of the forms and
methods of military scientific work.
Particularly urgent is the question of elaborating future problems on the
basis of short- and long-term forecasts. In this context important
significance is assumed by a rational combination of fundamental and applied
research in such a manner that along with the resolution of practical
problems, research be conducted widely on the fundamental problems of military
affairs, the elaboration of key problems be ensured and a definite scientific
back-up be established for the future.
The major qualitative changes in military affairs have demanded a
clarification of the principles of planning and organizing the research, the
forms and methods of scientific work, the criteria for assessing its
effectiveness and the procedure for utilizing the achievements of military
theory in the life and activities of the troops. The most important demand on
scientific work is to ensure a high quality of the research carried out. The
main thing in assessing the state of scientific work is not the quantity of
measures _ carried out, research works of defended dissertations, but rather the
real _contribution whichis made to inc easi ng the combat readi pegs of the
Soviet Armed Forces. The Decree of the June (1983) Plenum of the CPSU Central
Committee states that scientific developments should develop into practical
recommendations and give sound social forecasts.(63)
Particularly important significance is assumed by the theoretical soundness
and accuracy of the conducted military scientific research. The more complex
and diversethe arising tasks, the more centralized and effective the
leadership of the scientific research should be. This is essentially
primarily in order to focus the chief efforts on the most important and
pertinent problems, to achieve greater coordination and effectiveness in the
scientific work and ensure a systematic approach to elaborating the most
important problems.
In all areas of military science, in addition to the fundamental problems
which are basically the concern of military academies as the main centers of
military theoretical research, the need has arisen for a large amount of
applied research. With the rapid change of weapons and combat equipment, it
is not always possible in a centralized manner to work out new methods of
their combat employment considering the specific features of each theater of
war. All of this-can be done promptly and effectively with the active
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participation in the military scientific work of a broad group of generals,
admirals and officers in the troops and fleets. Here an ever-greater
proportional amount is being assumed by the scientific elaboration of problems
and the carrying out of research directly at the headquarters and staffs,
where these questions are solved so that the practical solution to each
problem is preceded by its profound theoretical study.
As has been demanded by the USSR Minister of Defense, MSU S. L. Sokolov, the
practical activities of all directorates, staffs and military schools as well
as military cadres should be organically combined and fused with scientific
search. Military scientific work cannot be viewed as something separate from
service activities. It is the most important duty of all officials and
without it it is impossible to successfully carry out the complex and
responsible tasks which confront the Army and Navy.
As a whole, Soviet military theory at the present stage must help to solve the
main problem of ensuring the secure defense of the state interests of the
Soviet Union and the entire socialist commonwealth.
Our progressive Marxist-Leninist military theory provides a scientifically
based nature for Soviet military doctrine which derives from the peace-loving
policy of the CPSU and the Soviet government. The adherence to the cause of
peace and peaceful collaboration with other countries is determined by the
essence and nature of the socialist society. In our nation there are no and
cannot be any persons interested in an aggressive policy and war. The
defensive focus of Soviet military doctrine stems invariably from this.
Over all its history the USSR has never threatened anyone with a war and has
attacked no one and this in actuality shows the focus and nature of Soviet
military doctrine. M. V. Frunze even in 1922 at the 11th Party Congress
stated: "...i consider as a most harmful, stupid and childish undertaking to
speak now about offensive wars on our behalf."(64) We have repeatedly had to
conduct military operations but each time these were defensive wars in the
defense of the Soviet state or the carrying out of treaty obligations to
allies in repelling attacks on them.
At present, our military doctrine is aimed solely at ensuring the reliable
security of the Soviet Union and the nations of the socialist commonwealth.
It has no other goals. The Soviet Union has solemnly assumed the obligation
not to use nuclear weapons first. Along with the other Warsaw Pact states,
the USSR has proposed the concluding of a treaty with the NATO countries on
the mutual repudiation of military force and the maintaining of relations of
peace, in other words, repudiating the use first against one another of either
nuclear or conventional weapons or any force at all.
In the West there are many people who assert that the USSR supposedly
threatens other states. Such slanderous fabrications have been voiced before.
On the eve of World War II, when Naziism was threatening the world, the West
was trumpeting about the "Soviet threat." Considering these historical
lessons, the present militaristic course of NATO headed by the United States
has forced us to maintain the nation's defense capability on the proper level.
In order to defame the defensive focus of our doctrine, reference is made to
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the high combat readiness to the Soviet Armed Forces and to the active and
decisive nature of the methods of combat. However, these are different
things. The defensive nature of a military doctrine does not exclude either
high combat readiness of the Armed Forces or active offensive operations
against the aggressor should it attack our country or its allies.
As was pointed out by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee,
K. U. Chernenko, in a speech in a pre-election meeting of voters in the
Kuybyshev Electoral District of Moscow, the difficult international situation
"forces us to pay the most serious attention to strengthening national
defense. The Soviet people do not want to increase weapons but rather reduce
them on both sides. But we must be concerned about the sufficient security of
our nation, its friends and allies. This is being done. And let everyone
know that no proponents of military adventures will catch us unaware and no
potential aggressor can hope of escapting a crushing retaliatory strike."(65)
1. The publishing of the Soviet Military Encyclopedia commenced in 1932-
1933, it was published in two volumes and after this publication was
halted.
2. G. Kh. Shakhnazarov, "Sotsialisticheskaya sudba chelovechestva" [The
Socialist Destiny of Mankind], Moscow, 1978, p 39.
3. See: "Malaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya" [Small Soviet Encyclopedia],
Moscow, 1958, Vol 2, p 544; "Voyennaya strategiya," 2d Edition, Moscow,
1963 and so forth.
4. "Filosofskiy entsiklopedicheskiy slovar" [Philosophical Encyclopedic
Dictionary], pp 88-89.
5. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 14, p 8.
6. See: Ibid., p 113.
7. Ibid., Vol 40, p 76; Vol 39, p 321.
8. Ibid., Vol 20, p 245.
9. Quoted in: Ibid., Vol 26, p 224.
10. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soeh.," Vol 2, p 221.
11. M. N. Tukhachevskiy, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 11.
12. "Voyna i armiya: Filosofsko-sotsiologicheskiy ocherk" [War and the Army:
Philosophical-Sociological Essay], Moscow, 1977, p 72.
13. "Voyennaya strategiya," p 218.
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14. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 40, p 125.
15. See: "Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya," Vol 5, pp 282-284.
16. See: G. V. Telyatnikov, "Filosofskiye voprosy teorii upravleniya
voyskami" [Philosophical Questions of the Theory of Troop Control],
Dissertation Resume, Moscow, 1974, p 38.
17. See: "Spravochnik ofitsera" [Officer's Reference], Moscow, 1971, p 47.
18. S. I. Krupnov, "Logiko-metodologicheskiy analiz...," p 88.
19. "Marksistsko-leninskaya filosofiya i metodologicheskiye problemy voyennoy
teorii i praktiki" [Marxist-Leninist Philosophy and Methodological
Problems of Military Theory and Practice], Moscow, 1982, p 245.
20. See: V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 32, p 77; Vol 27, p 93; Vol 38, p 138.
21. See: "Malaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya," Vol 2, p 506.
22. K. Marx and F. Engels, "Sock.," Vol 20, p 25.
23. Quoted in the book: "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke" [On Soviet Military
Science], S. N. Kozlov, M. V. Smirnov, I. S. Baz, P. A. Sidorov, Moscow,
1964, p 162.
24. Quoted in the book: "0 sovetskoy voyennoy nauke," p 162.
25. A. I. Astafyev, "0 sovremennom voyennom iskusstve" [On Modern Military
Art], St. Petersburg, 1856, Part 1, p 143.
26. Ibid., pp 25-26.
27. See: "Slovar inostrannykh slov" [Dictionary of Foreign Words], Moscow,
1979, p 396.
28. See: VOYNA I REVOLYUTSIYA, No 10-11, 1927, p 26; V. D. Ryazanov,
"Marxism and Military Affairs," VOYENNYY VESTNIK, No 3, 1926, pp 14-15.
29. See: "Marksizm-leninizm o voyne i armii" [Marxism-Leninism on War and
the Army], 5th Edition, Moscow, 1968, p 346.
30. P. N. Fedoseyev, "Dialektika sovremennoy epokhi" [Dialectics of the
Modern Age], p 9.
31. See: "Sovetskaya Voyennaya entsiklopediya," Vol 2, pp 183-188; "Voyennyy
entsiklopedicheskiy slovar" [Military Encyclopedic Dictionary], pp 136-
137.
32. See: V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 18, pp 363-364.
33. See: M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 227.
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34. S. T. Melyukhin, "Filosofskiye problemy sovremennoy fiziki"
[Philosophical Problems of Modern Physics], Moscow, 1966, pp 3-4.
35.
K. Marx and F. Engels, "Sock.," Vol 20, p 565.
36.
B. M. Kedrov, "Marxist Philosophy: Its Subject and Role in the
Integration of Modern Sciences," VOPROSY VILOSOFII, No 1, 1982,
p 52.
37.
See: S. G. Gorshkov, "Morskaya moshch gosudarstva," Moscow, 1976.
38.
"Materialy XXV syezda KPSS" [Materials of the 25th CPSU Congress],
Moscow, 1976, p 48.
39.
See: M. A. Milshteyn and A. K. Slobodenko, "0 burzhuaznoy voyennoy
nauke" [On Bourgeois Military Science], 2d Edition, Moscow, 1961, p 11.
40.
See: N. G. Chernyshevskiy, "Izbrannyye filosofskiye sochineniya"
[Selected Philosophical Works], Moscow, 1950, Vol 1,
p 303.
41.
K. Marx and F. Engels, "Soch.," Vol 1, p 585.
42.
"Materialy XXV syezda KPSS," p 72.
43.
"Leninskiy sbornik," 36, p 132.
44.
See: M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 217.
45.
See: N. N. Azovtsev, "V. I. Lenin i sovetskaya voyennaya nauka" [V. I.
Lenin and Soviet Military Science], p 17.
46.
M. V. Frunze, "Izbr. proizv.," Vol 2, p 12.
47.
"Materialy Plenuma Tsentralnogo Komieteta KPSS" [Materials of the Plenum
of the CPSU Central Committee], Moscow, 1983, pp 34-35.
48.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 44, p 323.
49.
See: K. Marx and F. Engels, "Sock.," Vol 25, Part 2, p 384.
50.
See: V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 6, p; 30-31.
51.
Ibid., p 39.
52.
"Sovetskiye uchenyye: Ocherki i vospominaniya"
Essays and Memoirs], Moscow, 1982, p 255.
[Soviet Scientists:
53.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 31, p 134.
54.
K. Marx and F. Engels, "Sock.," Vol 22, p 395.
55.
V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 25, p 112.
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rvn vrri .L1tL UO VLYL1
56. Yu. V. Andropov, "Izbrannyye reehi i stati" [Selected Speeches and
Articles], 2d Edition, Moscow, 1983, p 288.
57. See: A. M. Gorkiy, "Literaturnyye portrety" [Literary Portraits],
Moscow, 1983, p 28.
58. PRAVDA, 26 September 1984.
59. See: P. L. Kapitsa, "Teoriya, eksperiment, praktika" [Theory,
Experiment, Practice], Moscow, 1966, p 19.
60. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 45, p 391.
61. Ibid., Vol 40, p 244.
62. N. V. Ogarkov, "Military Science and the Defense of the Socialist
Fatherland," KOMMUNIST, No 7, 1978, p 115.
63. See: "Materialy Plenuma Tsentralnogo...," p 70.
64. M. V. Frunze, "Sobr. soch.," Vol 1, p 397.
65. PRAVDA, 3 March 1984.
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Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze lived just 40 years. All his life was marked by
ebullient activity. He participated in all the major events during the period
of the preparation and carrying out of the socialist revolution in our nation,
the Civil War and the first years of peacetime construction. On the day of
his death, PRAVDA wrote: "The underground, the barricades, death row, forced
labor, the revolution, the leadership of revolutionary troops and the glory of
great victories--this was the path of Comrade Frunze."(1) His accomplishments
to the revolution, the party and the Soviet state were enormous. They were
determined primarily by the large number of brilliantly executed, remarkable
deeds and feats for the sake of the revolution, by his wholehearted dedication
and self-sacrifice in carrying out the party's assignments.
A profound ideological conviction and passionate thirst for the revolutionary
struggle, a clear mind, great all-round knowledge, organizational talent,
enormous energy and capacity for work made it possible to M. V. Frunze to
rapidly win trust and high authority wherever he worked and mobilize the
people to carry out the most complicated tasks. Along with thousands of other
Communist Party members he brought into the ranks of the revolutionary
fighters and the RKKA the Leninist ideological and party loyalty inherent to
the Bolsheviks, a spirit of revolutionary creativity and energy, discipline
and organization, decisiveness and boldness.
M. V. Frunze was an outstanding revolutionary and military leader; he won many
brilliant victories and did not know defeat. Along with this he was and
remains a major Soviet military theorist who enriched the theory and practice
of the proletariat's revolutionary struggle, military science and military art
with new concepts which for a number of questions predetermined their
development for many years to come and have maintained their importance under
present-day conditions. Fate gave him too little time and he was unable to
carry out much that he saw. But, as V. I. Lenin said, "each month of such
work and such experience is worth 10 if not 20 years of our history."(2)
M. V. Frunze possessed a special gift for a profound penetration into the
essence of phenomena, creative perception and employment of Marxist-Leninist
teachings and other scientific knowledge in carrying out specific practical
tasks of the revolutionary struggle as well as party, state and military work.
In terms of his nature and calling he was a pioneer who relied upon the
creativity of the masses of people.
347
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M. V. Frunze can rightly be considered a founder of military scientific work
in the Soviet Armed Forces. The principles, forms and methods worked out by
him for planning, organizing and carrying out military scientific work have
not lost their importance today. His personal passionate involvement in
science, his dedicated scientific research to generalize the experience of the
wars and work out the problems of a future war, the ability to inspire by
creative enthusiasm and involve the broad masses of command and political
personnel in scientific research as well as the ability to organically combine
scientific and practical work, to constantly rely and utilize scientific
achievements in his activities--all of this has served, serves and will always
serve as the greatest example and model of how in fact one must carry out
Lenin's legacy concerning the scientifically sound organization of the defense
of the socialist fatherland.
In the works of Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze the reader today will find many
profound thoughts and statements on the general problems of military science,
the theoretical and practical questions of military art, military
organizational development, training, political and military indoctrination of
the personnel. No matter how far ahead military affairs move, the dialectics
of their development, the methods of a creative approach to solving urgent
problems, the penetration into the profound processes of the studied phenomena
and analysis of the concrete historical conditions which M. V. Frunze so
skillfully applied in the future will serve as dependable guidelines in
scientific work.
Over the 67 years of their existence, the Soviet Armed Forces have been
fundamentally changed. The military-technical revolution of recent years has
brought about fundamental qualitative changes in the organization, technical
equipping of the Army and Navy, in the development of military art and in all
areas of military affairs. But none of this arose from a vacuum. The present
achievements of military science and military art include all the preceding
military experience and above all the experience of the Soviet Armed Forces
and are a continuation of this on a qualitatively new level. For this reason
the men from all the armies of the socialist nations and the peoples fighting
for their liberty and independence with enormous gratitude and reverence will
always esteem the memory of the first pioneers in organizing the new worker-
peasant army and who under the leadership of our party under unbelievably
difficult conditions of hardship, adversity and severe trials established the
bases for victorious Marxist-Leninist military science.
A careful study of the works by one of the most talented students of V. I.
Lenin, Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, the further research and development of his
military-theoretical heritage will contribute to a more profound elucidation
of the genesis of military theory and practice of the socialist state and the
present-day processes in the development of military affairs as well as to the
creative resolution of the complex and responsible problems posed by the
Communist Party and history before the Soviet Armed Forces.
348
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1. PRAVDA, 31 October 1925.
2. V. I. Lenin, PSS, Vol 36, p 499.
COPYRIGHT: Vpyenizdat, 1985
10272
CSO: 8144/1209 - END -
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Figure 1
The Republic of Soviets in a Ring of Fronts
`mss
Riga.
Astrakhan'
ssacks,
18 1920
Caspian
Sea
Lines of Furthest Enemy Advance
-- 1918
1919
-~ 1920
Landing by Entente &
US troops
1914 state frontiers
'Ural'
a
~"'a