Soviet Command Research Articles

The Role of the USSR’s Intelligence Services in Providing the Country’s Leadership with Information about the Plans of the German Command for the Spring–Summer Period and in Making Key Decisions in March–May 1943

ABSTRACT The extent to which the Soviet command was aware of German offensive plans against the Kursk Salient in the Summer of 1943 remains an area of controversy in the historiography of the Eastern Front. This article provides an up-to-date assessment of both the information available and the use to which it was put. It concludes that ultimately it was the sound judgment of key Soviet military leaders in the face of an incomplete intelligence picture that was crucial in the Soviet decision to mount a robust defense of the Kursk Salient.

Нормативно-правовые основания организации штрафных подразделений Красной армии в годы Великой Отечественной войны (1941–1945)

The article deals with one of the most controversial problems that attracts the attention of both professional historians and artists, namely the topic of disciplinary battalions, disciplinary companies and their servicemen in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War of 1941- 1945. This topic is multidimensional and, without claiming to cover all or at least most of its aspects, we have focused on the study of the normative and legal foundations of the organization of disciplinary battalions and disciplinary companies. The exploration of this aspect is inevitably connected with the confrontation of facts and their analysis with various mythologems and speculations on the subject of disciplinary units in the Red Army. The author examines not only the orders of the People's Commissariats of the USSR, primarily the People's Commissariat of Defense (hereinafter - PCD), but also pre-war legislation, in particular, the Criminal Code of the Russian SFSR of 1926 and the criminal legislation of the Union republics within the USSR, which allows us to find in the pre-war criminal legislation the possibility of replacing a conviction, punishing a serviceman in wartime with imprisonment without loss of rights, with sending him to the active army, with the sentence execution being postponed until the end of hostilities. Consequently, there is a reason to assert that the normativelegal acts issued during the Great Patriotic War and, in one way or another, related to disciplinary units were adopted on the basis of and in fulfillment of the Criminal Code of the Russian SFSR of 1926 and similar codes of the Union republics. We believe that, contrary to the opinion that the creation of disciplinary units was an extremely cruel and unjustified measure of the Soviet command, this decision was dictated by the extremely difficult situation at the fronts at the height of the summer of 1942 and contributed to the strengthening of discipline both at the front and in the troops of the internal districts, i.e. was necessary and justified. The very assignment to a disciplinary unit did not mean a death sentence, either legally or actually, ; rather it gave a chance to perpetrators to be released or to have their criminal punishment commuted. The author also examines the grounds for assignment to the Red Army disciplinary units

К вопросам обоснованности и целесообразности обороны Приазовского побережья частями 17-го казачьего кавалерийского корпуса весной – летом 1942 года

In the light of the emergence of new views on the problem, an attempt was made to study issues related to the validity of the decision of the Soviet command on the antiamphibious defense of the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov in April - July 1942 and the expediency of its implementation by parts of the cavalry unit. The achievement of these goals is ensured by solving the introducing new documents into circulation, to analyze the facts of the existence of a real danger of enemy naval and (or) airborne landings on the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov in the spring - summer of 1942. It turns out whom and what decisions were made on the defense of the specified area, the forces and means designed to ensure the fulfillment of the assigned tasks. The circumstances that contributed to the choice of a cavalry unit for the antiamphibious cover of the Azov coast are being established. At the time of the decision at the end of April 1942 and until the end of July 1942, the preventive measures of the Soviet command for the antiamphibious defense of the Azov coast were dictated by the objective situation and were completely justified. It was also expedient to select the 17th Cossack Cavalry Corps to carry out this task.

The Battle of Smolensk in 1941 in Soviet and Modern Historiography

The article analyzes the state of historiography of the Battle of Smolensk in
 1941. Although this issue has already been studied in Soviet historiography, a number of new studies have been published over the past two decades, and the active use
 of previously closed archival documents, both Soviet and German, has begun. Photographic materials have become an important source of studying the battle. The author paid special attention to the analysis of the works of recent years. It was revealed
 that in modern historiography several approaches to the assessment of the Battle of Smolensk have been portrayed. This is an exaggeration of the successes of the German troops, and, consequently, emphasizing the shortcomings and blunders of the
 Soviet command, and even distorting individual episodes of events. This is especially true for works of a popular nature, and especially affecting the younger generation. At the same time, there were works whose authors strive to maintain objectivity while assessing events. A special issue in modern historiography is the question of the price that the Soviet people paid in order at least to suspend the offensive of German troops in the most important – Moscow strategic direction.

The Red Army's Offensive in the Sychevsky Direction
 during Operation «Mars»

The article is devoted to the offensive of the Red Army in the Sychev direction during Operation «Mars» in November-December 1942.
 This offensive was one of the bloodiest battles among all the private diversionary battles of Operation «Mars». It was here, northeast of Sychevka, that the troops of the 20th Army, focusing on the mass use of tanks reduced to tank corps, tried to cut the Sychevka-Rzhev railway, which would inevitably lead to the fall of
 Rzhev. However, the enemy, who had guessed the plan of the Soviet command, took serious measures to organize anti-tank defence, for the first time applied new effective means of combating Soviet tanks. This allowed him to achieve superiority over the Soviet tank corps, which tried in vain to break through the heavily fortified German positions. The positional deadlock formed near Sychevka became victorious for the enemy (he defended Sychevka and the railway to Rzhev).
 For the Red Army, the battles near Sychevka turned into great losses. Tactically, the troops of the 20th Army did not achieve their goal and did not fulfill their combat mission. However, operationally, they fought fierce battles exhausting the enemy throughout the operation, requiring constant reinforcements from him.
 As a result of Operation «Mars», the Red Army shackled huge enemy forces, including reserves that never fell under Stalingrad. In this regard, she successfully fulfilled her strategic task, contributing to the defeat of the Germans on the Volga.

Hungarian Volunteer Anti-Fascist Armed Groups during the Great Patriotic War

Using the example of the history of Hungarian volunteer anti-fascist groups created during the Great Patriotic War, the author identifies the factors that became decisive in the formation of a “foreign” military unit. The source base used in the research includes both published and unpublished documents from three federal archives - the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, the Russian State Military Archive, and the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The creation of Hungarian military units was complicated by the lack of an organized anti-fascist movement among prisoners of war, who for the most part remained loyal to the regime of Miklós Horthy. The changes in the domestic and foreign political situation of Hungary in 1944 contributed to the development of the volunteer movement and the beginning of the process of forming Hungarian volunteer anti-fascist groups. The author comes to the conclusion that the decisive factors that influenced the formation of the Hungarian volunteer units were the external ones. They contributed to the growth of anti-fascist and anti-German sentiment among prisoners of war, which led to a change in the attitude of the Hungarians to the idea of creating volunteer units; it allowed the Soviet command to begin their deployment at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War.

Automating away the centre? Optimal planning and the menace of bureaucratisation

Within the wider discourse on economic planning, this paper critically interrogates practical challenges in applying optimisation algorithms to achieve allocative efficiency on the scale of national economies. In questioning whether contemporary information technology solves the shortcomings of Soviet command planning, the paper provides a historical introduction to optimal planning and engages with four fundamental problems optimal planners would face, namely: the concern of computational complexity, the challenge of generating the economic data necessary for the constitution of such a system, the issue of reconciling a static optimum with the dynamism of real economies, and ultimately the relation of optimisation solvers to a hierarchy of ends. Besides epistemic concerns, the greatest risk of such a planning framework is constituted by the possibility of a slow descent into an authoritative system that would mirror the Soviet experience because of its reliance on bureaucratic institutions to make this machine work.

Sowiecko-polskie relacje wojskowo-polityczne na Wileńszczyźnie w latach II wojny światowej

The Polish underground in the Wilno region made three attempts to reach an agreement with the Soviet occupier, who was a major player in the anti-Nazi coalition. The question of Poland’s borders after World War II was a key hurdle to the Soviet-Polish agreement. The Polish government-in-exile could not maintain diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union during the decisive period, which made it difficult to find local agreements of the Polish underground in the Wilno region with “an ally of our allies”. In its relations with the Polish underground in the Wilno region, the Soviet command hypocritically used the Soviet--Polish talks to accomplish its goal – the destruction of the Polish underground.

Dagestanskaya ASSR v organizacii neftedobychi i tranzita nefteproduktov v period Velikoj Otechestvennoj vojny

The article examines the importance of the Dagestan ASSR in the organization of oil production and transit of petroleum products in the south of the country during the Great Patriotic War. The article shows the change in the role of the capital and the largest industrial hub of the republic Makhachkala in oil production during wartime: from a major transit point of Baku and Grozny oil, whose cargo turnover increased sharply during the initial period of the war, to an actively developing oil-producing center. On the basis of archival documents, the complex of measures taken by the Soviet command to ensure oil production and transit of petroleum products needed by the front in the conditions of the loss of part of the oil-producing regions of the Caucasus and the Black Sea ports is analyzed.

The Confrontation between Soviet Intelligence and Japanese Special Agencies on the Eve of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation (1945)

The article is devoted to the confrontation between Soviet intelligence and Japanese counterintelligence agencies on the eve of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive operation (1945). According to the point of view officially accepted in Russian historical science, the Soviet military, naval and foreign intelligence agencies were able to provide the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff of the Red Army with reliable information about the state of the Japanese grouping of troops in Manchuria and Korea. This became one of the factors of the rapid defeat of the Kwantung army during the Manchurian strategic offensive operation in August 1945. However, the documents put into circulation indicate that, despite the efforts made by the Soviet command to collect intelligence information about the enemy, it had a distorted idea of the combat composition, deployment, number and operational plans of the Japanese troops. The reason for this was the strict counterintelligence and administrative-police regime that Japan established on the territory of Manchuria and Korea that it captured. By the beginning of 1945 there was a passport system, a special regime for staying in the border zone, and military and agent protection of the Soviet-Manchurian border was organized. The diplomatic institutions of the USSR were under close surveillance by Japanese counterintelligence, measures were taken to identify unreliable elements among Russian white emigrants, as a result of punitive operations, the anti-Japanese partisan movement was practically destroyed by 1941. In addition, several well-equipped radio counterintelligence services operated on the territory of Manchuria, which, in cooperation, identified Soviet radio-equipped intelligence groups and, after the arrest of radio operators, conducted radio games.

Features of the Industrial Development of Leningrad within the Soviet Command Economy (1944–1949)

Features of the Industrial Development of Leningrad within the Soviet Command Economy (1944–1949)

“Back to the Routes” – Kyrgyzstan’s Renewal of the Nomadic Life Style

Central Asia is regaining the importance it used to have, due to individual collaborations between the ex-Soviet states, but above all due to the integration or special role as a bridge between Asia and Europe in the course of the Belt and Road Initiative. Not only is the transcontinental and transnational cooperation increasingly offered in the course of the Silk Road Initiative, but certain countries are rediscovering themselves, and reviving forms of life that were in part prohibited. The Soviet command economy has had its day in the period of the independent states’ self-discovery, as well as during the structural crisis. The survivability of nomadism is particularly evident in the countryside, where it became important again after its prohibition. Nevertheless, adaptation to the new circumstances and economic opportunities, and challenges, is necessary. The Silk Road is a symbol that officially stands for a lively, functioning political, social and economic ecosystem – whether it works depends on everyone involved. The present text presents the historical and current economic and social situation of the individual Central Asian ex-Soviet republics and their path in the future.

Măsurile pregătitoare politico-diplomatice și militar-propagandistice ale U.R.S.S. pentru anexarea Basarabiei și a nordului Bucovinei (II)

"A significant turning point in relations between the Soviet Union and Romania was associated with the incorporation of Bessarabia and northern part of Bukovina into the USSR, which took place in the context of Soviet-German rapprochement. To this end, the Soviet leadership developed a set of preparatory political-diplomatic and military-propaganda measures. Soviet political and diplomatic actions were based on fundamental military preparations. In order to prepare and further joining Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina to the USSR, the Southern Front was created on the basis of the Kyiv Special and Odessa military districts. Army General Georgy Zhukov was appointed as a commander. The General Staff of the Red Army developed two variants of actions by Soviet troops. The first one provided for measures in case the Romanian government would not agree to the peaceful transfer of Bessarabia and Bukovina to the USSR. The second variant was an action plan in case of a voluntary retreat of Romanian troops west of the Prut. The first option was taken as the base. As early as June 26, 1940, on the border with Romania, the Soviet command concentrated 32 infantry, 2 motorized infantry, 6 cavalry divisions, 11 tank, 3 airborne brigades, 16 artillery regiments of the commander-in-chief’s reserve, 14 corps artillery regiments and 4 separate artillery divisions. In the main areas of the offensive, more than a triple advantage in manpower and means was provided. At the same time, for the purpose of ideological support, a huge propaganda apparatus was prepared to work with the population. In accordance with the Directive of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army № 0140 (June 21, 1940), a large number of political workers were sent to the disposal of the Southern Front. One month before the start of the military operation, all employees of party and Soviet organizations were considered as mobilized. After appropriate training, they were ready for further activities as editorial staff, propagandists and agitators. Concert brigades and drama theatre groups were organized for the cultural service of the population. There were selected mobile library, gramophone records, and films. Book-mobile was arranged; everything necessary for the publication in Romanian newspaper was completed and provided with everything necessary. Due to the diligence of all these preparatory acts, the territories of Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina were occupied by the Red Army according to all the rules of military art (all elements of military operation were used: military force, local military pressure, military intelligence and counterintelligence, agitation and propaganda), thanks to which the USSR could reach its purpose. "

Факторы боевого применения советской авиации в конфликте с Финляндией 1939–1940 годов

This article is devoted to the analysis of the factors which influenced the effectiveness of the combat use of the Soviet aviation during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. The object of the study is the armed forces of the Red Army, the subject of the study is the air force of the Red Army which participated in the war with Finland in 1939-1940. The sources for the work are archival materials - reports on the combat work of the Air Force of the combined arms armies during the conflict, on the use of certain types of aircraft, as well as military command work documents. In addition, the study contains published materials from compilations - documents of the Main Military Council, the Headquarters of the High Command, the command of the Leningrad Military District, as well as the conclusions and minutes of meetings of the Main Military Commission and the Air Force Commission. The aim of the work is to study various conditions and factors which inluenced the work of Soviet pilots during this conflict. The study examined the initial plans and tactics of the Soviet command for the use of aviation, their evolution in the course of hostilities. In addition, various problems and emergency situations which Soviet pilots faced with during the war were analyzed in this study. For the sake of completeness of the study at the end of the article attention is paid to the post-war analysis of the participation of the Soviet aviation in hostilities, and those problems which the Soviet command drew attention to are considered. The main factor underlying the entire combat work of the Soviet aviation at the initial stage of conflict was the fact that for the Soviet command the war with Finland was the first large-scale clash with another state, when a large number of aircraft were to participate in the hostilities. The Soviet leadership simply did not have experience in such operations, did not know how to use aviation correctly and what those operations required for. It were namely these facts which determined the initial not entirely successful tactics of using aviation, the poor preparedness of air reconnaissance. In addition, misunderstanding of the conditions of the future theater of operations played a significant role. Soviet air units were not equipped with the necessary uniforms and machinery. Weather conditions, in turn, also made their own adjustments to the work of aviation. At the same time, it is necessary to point out the insufficient training of pilots.

The Soviet Military Administration and the Creation of the North Korean Police in 1945

The liberation of Korea by the Red Army in August 1945 brought an end to the Japanese colonial rule and opened a new page in the history of Korea. However, the circumstances in which Korea met its liberation played a fateful role in the developments after the liberation. Division of the country into Soviet and American occupation zones became an essential background for the creation of two different political regimes. Their confrontation eventually led to the devastating Korean war, the consequences of which still vividly felt today across the 38th parallel. This article focuses on the creation of the North Korean police force by the Soviet military administration. The police would become an important tool for establishing control over North Korea and will play important role in its political unification. Drawing from the Soviet archival evidence as well as several Korean-language sources this article argues that the creation of the North Korean police was not initially driven by political goals or goals of creating a military for the future North Korean regime. The evidence suggests that despite the direct nature of the Soviet control over North Korea, the creation of the police was primarily guided by the practical need of the Soviet command to overcome a number of serious issues that plagued North Korea from the very first days after the liberation. One of the primary tools for the creation of the North Korean police force was the commandant offices. As the grassroots level organisation of the Soviet military administration tasked with implementing its policies, the commandant offices were directly responsible for monitoring and controlling the work of the police. Equally important, however, was their role in fighting the crimes committed by the soldiers and officers of the Red Army.

From Russia with Code: Programming Migrations in Post-Soviet Times ed. by Mario Biagioli and Vincent Antonin Lépinay (review).

Reviewed by: From Russia with Code: Programming Migrations in Post-Soviet Times ed. by Mario Biagioli and Vincent Antonin Lépinay Barbara Walker (bio) From Russia with Code: Programming Migrations in Post-Soviet Times Edited by Mario Biagioli and Vincent Antonin Lépinay. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. 384. While the title and back matter of this fascinating collection suggest that it covers contemporary Russian coding practices with a global impact, the volume does not address the most notorious of those practices—economic and political hacking with impacts around the world. Yet these elegant, deeply researched articles, predominantly by Russian scholars, illuminate a central quality of Russian IT culture that may explain the difficulty of addressing such illicit phenomena. That quality is a complex tension between professional and entrepreneurial identity that shapes the IT innovation emerging from this region. It originated historically in the massive Soviet state investment in computing initiated in the 1960s, when many in both the Soviet intelligentsia and the state hoped to secure the Soviet command economy through cybernetics. For working together, those players created a unique Soviet professional culture of almost religious national commitment and "enthusiasm," with little explicit acknowledgement of the profit motive. Part I brings out the theme of professional identity in Russian IT culture as influenced by a pursuit of spiritual meaning. Ksenia Tatarchenko's [End Page 266] article shows how Soviet-era Andrey Ershov sought to build a spiritually rich, new professional programmer identity and community. Marina Fedorovna explores the professional community of the search engine Yandex, originally a search tool for the Bible, as one of ritual practices to preserve and enhance the "sacred corpus" of its code. Ksenia Ershina's research on Russian civic hacking communities reveals a link between that spiritual emphasis in professional identity and Western academic predictions of the 1980s and 1990s that the collapse of the Soviet Union would see the rise of a "civil society." This concept emphasizing a non-profit culture may have discouraged Russian IT practitioners and scholars from exploring the full significance of the profit motive in post-Soviet IT. Part II turns to the inter-relations on Russian territory among entrepreneurship, professional university culture, "enthusiasm," and the Russian state. We learn of a small IT industry in the far eastern city of Vladivostok formed around commerce in used Japanese cars. Nourished by local university and "enthusiast" networks, this thriving community was easily damaged by tariffs and university reforms instituted by the government. The would-be "showcase" city of Kazan, with government-funded European-style physical infrastructure built to attract entrepreneurs, suffers from a government failure to invest in the institutional and legal infrastructure required for a successful entrepreneurial culture. An article on technoparks in and near Moscow, the center of Russian state power, echoes similar themes while also revealing the impact of brain-drain on the region. Andrey Indukaev analyzes IT software business activity in Siberia, nurtured by the strong research community networks emanating from the Soviet-built Academy of Sciences community near Novosibirsk. He raises a central dilemma for legitimate Russian entrepreneurship in IT: "the long-lasting aversion that Russians have toward making money through technological entrepreneurship" (p. 210). In the only article on non-Russian post-Soviet IT cultures, Daria Savchenko discusses the successes and difficulties of "e-Estonia" as a bulwark against historically lethal Russian government interventions in that country. Following an "interval" to transition readers from the post-Soviet to the Russian émigré experience, part IV traces émigré activities in Great Britain, the United States, and Israel. Each case study reveals the impact of Soviet-rooted professional culture. Irina Antoschyuk focuses on the experiences of Russian students in British academia. Diane Kurkovsky West describes how many Russian IT emigrants in Boston, not culturally inclined toward entrepreneurial activities, typically turned to what she calls "upper-middle tech" corporate IT employment. Maria Fedorov completes the volume by discussing the difficulties for Russian IT émigrés to Israel of adapting to Israeli business (as well as military) needs and networks, as their cultural discomfort with entrepreneurship has extended even into the next generation. [End Page 267] This is a superb collection of articles on post-Soviet IT by...

Novaya Zemlya Archipelago in the Defense System of the Soviet Arctic During the Great Patriotic War

This analyzes the significance of Novaya Zemlya in the course of military operations in the Arctic during World War II. Data on the deployment of troops in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and nearby islands are provided based on an analysis of archive documents. The military history of the archipelago is examined from the creation of the Belomorskaya military flotilla in 1941 until its disbandment in April 1945. Minor importance of the region at the initial stage of the war is replaced by an increase in the activity of the German naval forces in 1942, especially submarines. The result of this was the expansion of military operations in the Arctic Sea theater, expressed in enemy attacks on polar stations and sea convoys. In response, the Soviet command created a naval base on Novaya Zemlya and increased the fleet’s ship composition. By the end of the war, there was a qualitative and quantitative increase in military infrastructure. The natural and climatic factor had a huge impact on the conduct of military operations, because of it the main combat activity of the warring parties directly depended on the polar summer and navigation period. The experience of the main Department of the Northern Sea route in the development of the region in the 1930s was taken into account. The author concluded that the possession of Novaya Zemlya was key both for the control of navigation and for the possession of the entire surrounding region. Despite all efforts, the enemy still failed to disrupt Maritime navigation in the Arctic, and to break the courageous resistance of military seamen and employees of the Main Administration of the Northern Sea Way.

Оценка действий советского командования в литовских учебниках истории

In this article, the author examines two popular Lithuanian Modern History textbooks. The article is devoted to the theme of World War II, because it is one of the main themes, which form children’s historical memory. The article shows what influence, according to the authors of the textbooks, had the Soviet command in the victory over Nazi Germany.

Fighter Battalions of the Leningrad Region Defending the City During the Summer of 1941 — Spring of 1942

The Great Patriotic War became not only the most tragic event in modern Russian history, but also a test for the state system of the USSR, which underwent a number of changes after the outbreak of war. Among other things, the war also affected structures subordinate to the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). New irregular units were created in the NKVD structure, the so-called fighter battalions designed to protect the Red Army’s near rear and to maintain order in the frontline zone. The article explores issues related to the formation and application of these units in one of the most difficult sections of the Soviet-German front, the Leningrad front. In particular, the process of creating fighter battalions in this region is studied, the level of their material support, and how these units were used in conditions of the German army’s rapid attack on Leningrad and how they were used somewhat later during the siege. The source base includes previously unpublished documents from the Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documents of the city of St. Petersburg and the State Archive of the Russian Federation. An analysis allows not only a comprehensive study of the above problems, but also possible answers to one of the little-studied questions of the history of the Great Patriotic War: how the Soviet command used irregular military formations at the first stage of the war and what role they played in achieving victory.

Features of the industrial development of Leningrad within the Soviet command economy (1944–1949)

Features of the industrial development of Leningrad within the Soviet command economy (1944–1949)