Underlying military mass was the economy. In wartime the Soviet Union was more thoroughly mobilised economically than Germany and supplied the front with a greater volume of resources. This is something that could hardly have been predicted. Anyone reviewing the experience of the poorer countries in the First World War, including Russia, would have forecast a speedy Soviet economic collapse hastened by the attempt to mobilise resources from a shrinking territory.
On the eve of war the Soviet and German economies were of roughly equal size; taking into account the territorial gains of 1939 / 40, the real national product ofthe Soviet economy in 1940 may have exceeded Germany's by a small margin. Between 1940 and 1942 the German economy expanded somewhat, while the level of Soviet output was slashedby invasion; as a result, in 1942 Soviet output was only two-thirds the German level. Despite this, in 1942 the Soviet Union not only fielded armed forces more numerous than Germany's, which is not surprising given the Soviet demographic advantage, but also armed and equipped them at substantially higher levels. The railway evacuation of factories and equipment from the war zones shifted the geographical centre ofthe war economy hundreds of kilometres to the east. By 1943 three-fifths of Soviet output was devoted to the war effort, the highest proportion observed at the time in any economy that did not subsequently collapse under the strain.25
There was little detailed planning behind this; the important decisions were made in a chaotic, unco-ordinated sequence. The civilian economy was neglected and declined rapidly; by 1942 the production of food, fuels and metals had fallen by half or more. Living standards fell on average by two-fifths, while millions were severely overworked and undernourished; however, the state procurement of food from collective farms ensured that industrial workers and soldiers were less likely to starve than peasants. Despite this, the economy might have collapsed without victory at Stalingrad at the start of 1943. Foreign aid, mostly American, also relieved the pressure; it added about 5 per cent to Soviet resources available in 1942 and 10 per cent in each of 1943 and 1944. In 1943 economic controls became more centralised and some resources were restored to civilian uses.26
25 Mark Harrison, 'The Economics of World War II: An Overview', in Harrison (ed.), Economics of World War II, p. 21.
26 Harrison, SovietPlanninginPeaceandWar, chs. 2 and4,andAccountingforWar, chs. 6and7.
How did an economy made smaller than Germany's by invasion still outproduce Germany in weapons and equipment? Surprising though this may seem, the Soviet economy did not have a superior ability to repress consumption. By 1942 both countries were supplying more than three-fifths of their national output to the war effort, so this was not the source of Soviet advantage. Stalin's command system may have had an advantage in repressing consumption more rapidly; the Soviet economy approached this level of mobilisation in a far shorter period of time.
The main advantage on the Soviet side was that the resources available for mobilisation were used with far greater efficiency.[41] This resulted from mass production. In the inter-war period artisan methods still dominated the production of most weapons in most countries, other than small arms and ammunition. In wartime craft technologies still offered advantages of quality and ease of adaptation, but these were overwhelmed by the gains of volume and unit cost that mass production offered. The German, Japanese and Italian war industries were unable to realise these gains, or realised them too late, because of corporate structures based on the craft system, political commitments to the social status of the artisan and strategic preferences for quality over quantity of weaponry. In the American market economy these had never counted for much, and in the Soviet command system they had already been substantially overcome before the war.
The quantitative superiority in weaponry of the Allies generally, and specifically of the Soviet Union over Germany, came from supplying standardised products in a limited assortment, interchangeable parts, specialised factories and industrial equipment, an inexorable conveyor-belt system of serial manufacture, and deskilled workers who lacked the qualifications and discretion to play at design or modify specifications. Huge factories turned out proven designs in long production runs that poured rising quantities of destructive power onto the battlefield.
The Red Army in defeat and victory
A contest over the nature of revolutionary military organisation began in March 1917, when the Petrograd Soviet decreed that soldiers could challenge their officers' commands. While the army of Imperial Russia disintegrated, the Red Guard emerged as a voluntary organisation of revolutionaries chosen for working-class origin and political consciousness. But when revolution turned into civil war these founding principles had to face the realities of modern military combat. Trotsky, then commissar for war, responded by instituting conscription from the peasantry and the restoration of an officer corps recruited from imperial army commanders willing to serve the new regime.
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army that Trotsky created reflected a sweeping compromise of political principles with military imperatives: professional elements combined with a territorial militia, military training of the rank and file side by side with political education and party guidance, and dual command with military officers' orders subject to verification by political 'commissars'; the latter term, used widely in English and German, approximates only loosely to the Russian politruk (short for politicheskii rukovoditel': political guide or leader). After the civil war Trotsky's successor, Frunze, introduced military reforms that created a General Staff and unified military discipline. Over the next quarter-century the Red Army evolved from its radical origins to a modern military organisation.
A feature of the revolutionary tradition in the Red Army was its emphasis on offensive operations, and specifically in the counter-offensive as the best means of defence. Underlying this was the belief that, in a world polarised between capitalism and communism, no country could attackthe Soviet Union without risking mutiny at the front and revolution in its rear. Therefore, the moment when it was attacked was the best moment for the Red Army to launch a counter-attack. When this proved to be an illusion, Red Army doctrines shifted to a more defensive stance based on a war of attrition and falling back on reserves. Then, when forced industrialisation created the prospect of a motorised mass army with armoured and air forces capable of striking deep into the enemy's flanks and rear, Tukhachevskii's concept of'deep battle' again radicalised Red Army thinking. [42]
The size of the armed forces followed a U-shaped curve in the inter-war years. It stood at 5 million at the end of the civil war in 1921 and 5 million again at the German invasion of 1941. In the 1920s wholesale demobilisation and cost-cutting took the Red Army and Navy down to little more than half a million. In the 1930s modernisation and recruitment reversed the decline. The Red Army of 1941, with its thousands of tanks and aircraft, bore little visible comparison with the ragged-trousered regiments who had won the civil war.
Beneath the surface, the new army was nearer in spirit to the old one than might appear. It was difficult to break the mould of the civil war. One problem was that, as numbers expanded, the quality ofpersonnel deteriorated amongst both rank and file and officers. It was impossible to recruit officers in sufficient numbers, give them a professional training and pay them enough to command with integrity and competence. Another was the cost of re- equipping the rapidly growing numbers with motorised armour and aviation at a time of exceptional change in tank and aircraft technologies. The industry of a low-income, capital-scarce country could not produce new weapons in sufficient numbers to equip the army uniformly in the current state of the arts; instead, the army had to deploy new and obsolete weapons side by side.
41
Mark Harrison, 'Wartime Mobilisation: A German Comparison', in John Barber and MarkHarrison(eds.),