The Military and Militarism in Soviet Society

The Military and Militarism in Soviet Society "Only after the proletariat will disarm the bourgeoisie, can it, without betraying its world revolutionary tasks, throw out for destruction any kind of weaponry, and the proletariat undoubtedly will do it. But only then and under no circumstances before.'' -V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 30, pp. 135-136. "Russian monarchs traditionally considered the military, that is, the army, the closest to their heart among all branches of the administration. It is precisely there they considered themselves the most competent and consequently interfered in all spheres of its life." -P. A. Zayonchkovskiy, Samoderzhaviei Russkaya Armiya na Rubezhe XIX-XX Stoletiy, p. 31. T h e r e is more to SOviet militarism than an open-ended accumulation of military power and a growing reliance on force as a principal foreign policy instrument. In the Soviet Union militarism begins at home. It is rooted in the Russian historical tradition, in the very structure of Soviet society and politics today, as well as in the interests and the mindset of the ruling elite. But an appreciation of the utility of force to protect one's security is not evidence in and of itself of a militaristic orientation. Nor is the use (or even the abuse) of power something unique to the Soviet or to the Russian experience. In his authoritative work, A Histoy of Militarism, Alfred Vagts makes a crucialdistinctionbetween what he calls the military way and the militaristicway. From his standpoint: The military way is marked by a primary concentrationof men and materials on winning specificobjectives of power with utmost efficiency, that is with the least expenditure of blood and treasure. It is limited in scope, confined to one function, and scientific in its essential qualities. Militarism, on the other hand, presents a vast array of customs, interests, prestige, actions, and thought associated with armies and wars and yet transcending true military Dimitri S h e s is Executive Director of the Soviet and East European Research Program and a member of the faculty at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies. He was formerly associated with Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and lnternational Studies, and until 1972, with Moscow's lnstitute of World Economy and International Relations UMEMO). International Security, Winter 1981/82(Vol. 6,No.3)0162-2889/82/030123-21 $02.50/0 @ 1982by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 123 International Security I 124 purposes. Indeed, militarism is so constituted that it may hamper and defeat the purposes of the military way. Its influence is unlimited in scope.’ Being unlimited in scope is not synonymous with being predominant. For there is far more to the Soviet regime than its militaristic dimension. Ideological heritage, economic considerations, and the requirements of running a welfare state obviously have their bearing on the Sovietleadership’s thinking on national security affairs. Militarism has many incarnations, and it would be an oversimplification, for instance, to compare the modern Soviet Union with Nazi Germany.*Nevertheless, if there is much more to the Soviet Union than its giant military machine and the military ethos that prevails within it, it is equally true that the Soviet regime-its policies both at home and abroad-cannot be understood without an appreciation of the special place occupied by the armed forces in communist Russia. RUSSIAN OR SOVIET? Russian history provides grounds for strikingly different interpretations of the Soviet military phenomenon. A fairly benign view is articulated by George Kennan. He believes that Soviet preoccupation with force reflects a fundamental sense of insecurity “flowing from Russia’s relative weakness and vulnerability.” The concerns of Russian leaders, both before and after the Bolshevik Revolution, run to the “protection of their own rule within Russia, and also the security of the Russian heartland.”4 The absolutist Soviet concept of security and the Soviet tradition of large standing armies do not particularly alarm Kennan, who reminds us of the numerous invasions , occupations, and devastations that Russia had to suffer over the centuries . A very different point of view is argued by Richard Pipes, who points out that ”a country does not become the largest...