The Role of the Armaments Complex in Soviet Society (Is there a Soviet Military Industrial Complex?)1

Abstract

This article discusses the usefulness of the notion of a 'military industrial complex' as applied to the Soviet Union; it reaches the conclusion that this notion reflects the self-image of liberals in bourgeois society and is not applicable to a society with a different mode of production. The author takes up the Marxian concept of mili tarism, which conceives the military and the state bureaucracy not as actors but as agents of social class interests; on the basis of traits peculiar to militarism we find that there also exists a militarism in the U.S.S.R., but one quite different from the traditional militarism of capitalist so ciety.