Red Commanders: A Social History of the Soviet Army Officer Corps, 1918-1991 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Red Commanders: A Social History of the Soviet Army Officer Corps, 1918–1991 Patrick M. Albano Red Commanders: A Social History of the Soviet Army Officer Corps, 1918–1991. By Roger R. Reese. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. ISBN 0-7006-1397-8. Photographs. Tables. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. xiii, 315. $35.00. Red Commanders examines the Soviet officer corps from revolutionary genesis in 1917 to institutional demise in the 1990s. Roger Reese exposes fundamental problems within officer ranks that deter attempts at professionalizing. Foremost is the party that creates the military "hydra," micromanages it, and never lets go. For the party, binary issues include how to equip a modern army to defend the state, while at the same time limiting functionality within that army. But extant social problems magnify the crisis. Brutality, coercion, divided loyalties, ethnic divisions, and a perceived notion by some officers that they deserved special treatment or upward social mobility as new "cogs" in the Soviet wheel of advancement also act as deterrents. Culpability passes to officers because they do not serve a crucial function as a "conduit" between soldier and senior commander. Without that bridge, discipline and the officer as a role model never materialize. Reese demonstrates that the officer corps failed at critical junctures—Civil War, World War, and Cold War—to establish a professional ethos. Crisis presaged reform and reform attempted to correct deficiencies but each [End Page 881] periodization produced additional crisis. Another topical issue is the author's attempt to reinstate Leon Trotsky's place in Russian history. Trotsky is portrayed as a theorist and strategic visionary who understood the delicate balance of social factors at play in creating a professional army. Although Reese proves forcefully that civil-military relations failed each other, attempts to speculate on Trotsky's legacy become more problematic. By the author's own assertion, "Trotsky—the theorist" had difficulty putting theory into practice (p. 56–58). Had it occurred would anything have changed? If the author wishes to restore Trotsky then perhaps others need reexamination. Reese depicts the "draconian methods" approach to combat employed by Marshal G. Zhukov in World War II and hints it might have been to "save" himself (p. 163). If so, is it time to revaluate this legendary soldier within the army's social amalgam? Could culpability reach higher into the Officer Corps to include high command, and STAVKA? This book is an interesting study of state and military manipulation in army growth. It addresses the social fabric of Russia in understanding how a military "eclecticism" defined the army, and its resultant deficiencies. At each phase of professional growth the army was doomed. At inception the state cut off its arms and legs so at best it could only hobble along, dependent on its creator. Ethnic divisions ripped out its social identity—that sense of "self" that a military needs for unit cohesion. Finally, the officer corps never became the important link to forge a bond between enlisted ranks and senior commanders. The end product was a military lacking any professional backbone. This continued a trend from Tsarist days of service to state in robotic fashion. Lacking incentive, military and social mobility, and with only a small understanding of any military ethos—the Soviet Army never had a chance. The army never had the ability to think on its own because it was deprived of any institutional initiative and development. Like the party that created it, by 1991, not much remained. In the end, the party leaders failed the army. The army failed its officers. The officers failed their men. Patrick M. Albano Fairmont State Technical and Community College Fairmont, West Virginia Copyright © 2006 Society for Military History