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The Party, the Military, and Decision Authority in the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Abstract

Soviet military decision making is characterized by a division of labor between the party, which issues broad policy guidance, and the professional military, which oversees the development of the armed forces based on that guidance. There is to date no civilian institution whose functions parallel those of the General Staff. The party is now, and has historically been, dependent on the professional military for the formation of options on strategy, organization, and force composition. The Soviets have never equated civilian control and authority with civilian management. Absolute party authority over defense policy has been maintained through control of personnel and resource allocation.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , October 1987 , pp. 55 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1987

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References

1 Meyer, Stephen makes this argument and links it to technology in “Civilian and Military Influence in Managing the Arms Race in the U.S.S.R.”, in Art, Robert J., Davis, Vincent, and Huntington, Samuel P., eds., Reorganizing America's Defense: Leadership in War and Peace (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1985), 37–61.Google Scholar

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12 M. V. Zakharov, Krasnaya zvezda, February 4, 1965.

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22 A recent reference to this hierarchy can be found in the speech by Minister of Defense Marshal S. L. Sokolov to the 27th Party Congress. Krasnaya zvezda, March 2, 1986.

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24 The range and scope of General Staff activities is one indicator. Military staffs are said to resemble “large research institutes” with specialists from a variety of disciplines coming together to analyze problems. The General Staff also “contracts out” to the Voroshilov and Frunze Academies, and sometimes to specialists from the Academy of Sciences. Kulikov (fn. 15), 20.

25 “General'nyi stab” [General Staff], Voennyi entsiklopedkheskii slovar [Military encyclopedic dictionary]; (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel'stvo, 1983), 186.Google Scholar

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34 Pravda, October 21, 1981.

35 The size of the slowdown is a matter of controversy, and the dollar costing method used is replete with methodological problems. David Holloway has provided a useful discussion of this problem in The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven: Yale, 1983), 114.Google Scholar

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42 Defense Minister D. T. Yazov discusses the Warsaw Pact's appeal for these discussions in Pravda, June 27, 1987. He forcefully asserts, however, that Pact doctrine is already defensive.

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45 Gareyev (fn. 8).

46 I am debted to David Albright and to Gary Sojka for their insights on the future role of the General Staff.