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Soviet Union [USSR] THE PARTY AND THE ARMED FORCES
The CPSU had three mechanisms of control over the country's
armed forces. First, the top military leaders have been
systematically integrated into the highest echelons of the CPSU and
subjected to party discipline. Second, the CPSU has placed a
network of political officers throughout the armed forces to
influence the activities of the military. Third, the KGB, under the
direction of the CPSU, has maintained a network of officers and
informers in the armed forces.
Political-Military Relations
Fearing the immense popularity of the armed forces after World
War II, Stalin demoted war hero Marshal Georgii K. Zhukov and took
personal credit for having saved the country. After Stalin's death
in 1953, Zhukov reemerged as a strong supporter of Nikita S.
Khrushchev. Khrushchev rewarded Zhukov by making him minister of
defense and a full Politburo member. Concern that the Soviet army
might become too powerful in politics, however, led to Zhukov's
abrupt dismissal in the fall of 1957. But Khrushchev later
alienated the armed forces by cutting defense expenditures on
conventional forces in order to carry out his plans for economic
reform. Leonid I. Brezhnev's years in power marked the height of
party-military cooperation because he provided ample resources to
the armed forces. In 1973 the minister of defense again became a
full Politburo member for the first time since 1957. Yet Brezhnev
evidently felt threatened by the professional military, and he
sought to create an aura of military leadership around himself in
an effort to establish his authority over the military.
In the early 1980s, party-military relations became strained
over the issue of resource allocations to the armed forces. Despite
a downturn in economic growth, the chief of the General Staff,
Nikolai V. Ogarkov, argued for more resources to develop advanced
conventional weapons. His outspoken stance led to his removal in
September 1984. Ogarkov became commander in chief of the Western
TVD, a crucial wartime command position that exists primarily on
paper in peacetime. He was retired under Gorbachev and assumed a
largely ceremonial post in the Main Inspectorate. His influence was
considerably diminished, although he continued to publish in the
military press.
Gorbachev, who became general secretary in March 1985, was a
teenager during the Great Patriotic War and apparently never served
in the armed forces. He has downgraded the role of the military in
state ceremonies, including moving military representatives to the
end of the leadership line-up atop the Lenin Mausoleum during the
annual Red Square military parade on November 7. Gorbachev used the
Rust incident in May 1987 as a convenient pretext for replacing
Sergei Sokolov with Dmitrii T. Iazov as minister of defense
(see Soviet Union USSR - Air Defense Forces
, this ch.). Gorbachev has also emphasized
civilian economic priorities and "reasonable sufficiency" in
defense over the professional military's perceived requirements.
Data as of May 1989
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