Inside the Soviet Army (1982)

http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/index.html

by kumarski • 12 years ago

125 107 12 years ago

militera.lib.ru

smacktoward3• 12 years ago

I read this book many years ago, back when the Soviet Union was still a going concern. A very good read, with some interesting things to say about leadership.

josephjrobison• 12 years ago

If you don't mind, can you give me a rundown about what it's all about?

smacktoward3• 12 years ago

Sure.

The first three parts are a rundown of how the Soviet Army was organized at the time of writing (the early 1980s). This part was of great interest then, because reliable information on the Soviet Army was hard to come by in the days of the Iron Curtain, and the author (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov) was a recent defector. But for today's reader, this part is pretty dull, all tables of organization and maps of military districts. They're all safe to skip.

Part IV ("Mobilisation") departs from the data-dump format of the earlier chapters to talk about how the Soviet Army is organized so that in wartime it can double its number of units overnight, through a system the author calls "invisible divisions." If you wondered how the USSR was able to turn things around after the early disasters following the Nazi invasion in 1941, this chapter will be of interest.

Part V ("Strategy and Tactics") is where the book starts to get really interesting, because here it starts giving you insights into how different the way the Russians looked at war is from the way Western armies do. Part VI ("Equipment") expands on that theme by showing some examples of how that type of thinking informed the way the Soviets designed weapons that became world-famous for their effectiveness, like the AK-47, the T-34 tank, and the Hind helicopter.

Finally, Parts VII ("The soldier's lot") and VIII ("The officer's path") are narrative descriptions of the lives of enlisted conscripts and officers in the Soviet Army.

Overall, I found the book useful because the author's experience in that system taught him a lot of lessons about leadership -- especially leadership in situations where you're expected to achieve impossible things with limited resources and mediocre (at best) people. And the stuff about Soviet strategic thinking and weapons design has lots of interesting things to say about the value of simplicity, reliability and scale over things like feature richness or even user comfort.

These are not arguments you hear a lot from Western writers, so they are a refreshing alternative take. He's writing about weapons, of course, but the arguments are presented in such a fashion that you can easily extrapolate the lessons to really any kind of product.

(I actually referenced one of those lessons in a previous comment on HN, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5062096)

You don't have to read the book front-to-back to get the good stuff out of it; skip over the early chapters and start at Part V and you'll get all the nutrition with none of the boring, out-of-date tables and charts and maps.

leaveyou3• 12 years ago

Thanks to the OP for this link. I just found out why USSR didn't invade Romania (a long time subject of speculation in Romania). We were poor, communists enough, defenseless and not much of a threat. This is so funny when I remember how many naive Romanians thought our army had some "secret weapon " :D (actually we had, it was based on the beans served regularly to the soldiers :D).

kumarski2• 12 years ago

courtesy of RDL.

antocv• 12 years ago

For westerners, "actually we had, it was based on the beans served regularly to the soldiers :D)" I think this means the secret weapon was heavy farts?

leaveyou3• 12 years ago

yes, we liked to call them "weapons of mass destruction"...

guard-of-terra2• 12 years ago

Why would USSR invade Romania? The only scenario I can think of is reinstating Communist government.

Seriously, USSR didn't have plans to occupy and assimilate random foreign countries. Not as far as I know.

And don't forget USSR depended heavily on Romanian furniture :)

PeterisP2• 12 years ago

Keeping/reinstating Communist governments through military force was a cornerstone of USSR foreign policy for many decades at that point - e.g. Prague Spring.

yankoff2• 12 years ago

Yeah, Viktor Suvorov is pretty interesting writer. This guy was a KGB agent who escaped to the West and published a lot of books. Another his book worth checking out is "Aquarium" - about his path from a spetznaz operator to KGB and then to escape.

DCoder• 12 years ago

Viktor Suvorov was not KGB (secret police). He was GRU (Military Intelligence).

yankoff2• 12 years ago

You are right. I read this book when I was a kid, already forgot the difference.

notastartup7• 12 years ago

I found the tv production based on his book on youtube. Looks pretty interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akmZsPUudfI

nikatwork2• 12 years ago

The USSR is not Russia or the Russian Empire; it is not an empire at all.
The Soviet Union does not need new territory.
A communist regime cannot feel secure so long as an example of another kind of life exists anywhere near it, with which its subjects can draw comparisons. It is for this reason that any form of Communism, not only the Soviet variety, is always at pains to shut itself off from the rest of the world

This is a massive insight. Most current analysis of Putin centers around a WWII Lebensraum perspective of his actions. Modelling his behavior in terms of neutralizing breakaway territories seems a much better fit.

Perdition4• 12 years ago

I don't see how.

Putin isn't a communist and Western media is widely available in Russia so there is no benefit in regards to information flow in expanding the border. And there is no significant economic difference between Russia and her neighbours, the Soviets were trying to hide the evidence that average people in the West had it better than the new Soviet man.

Putin's actions look much more like those of the 19th century Russian Empire than of the USSR (which never used nationalist rhetoric).

tumanian• 12 years ago

Putin's administration justifies the current economic state and the rampant corruption in Russia by that Russia has is own 'special way' of development which is limited the history and the socio-economic heritage of the communist regime. If Ukraine(or any other ex-Soviet country) manages to get rid of the current cleptocratic system and launches succesfull socio-economic reforms that tackle corruption, it will be a strong signal to the broad russian population that the current regime is not the driver, but a hindrance to the overall development. That is why any regime change in ex-Ussr countries is viewed by suspicion or even open hostility by the elites in Russia.

Spooky23• 12 years ago

Current analysis on the general consumption news is always specious. Usually it's some form of regurgitating whatever the administration says via press release.

The current situation is more like the 19th century "great game". The Ukraine is in Russia's turf, and Putin is all about rebuilding the lost greatness of the nation (while enriching himself & friends as much as possible).

Maneuvering to place the Ukraine under the umbrella of NATO, dominated by the US, or the EU, dominated by Germany, just feeds that message. I don't watch Russian news, but I'm sure the last 6 weeks have been longest victory lap of all time.

People are reverting to WW2 stories because they can't figure out WTF the point of US policy is, and it's easier to say "OMG, Hitler!" than attempt to explain why the Vice President is flying around re-affirming US willingness to go to war with Russia in order to protect Estonia and Latvia.

abcd_f• 12 years ago

This is a massive insight.

Don't forget that it was provided by a KGB defector who was sentenced to death and was living under protection of his asylum country. Anything that's not a verifiable fact should really be assumed to have a massive bias.

foohbarbaz• 12 years ago

"The soldier's lot":

http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/07.html

is spot on! Been there.

eternalban• 12 years ago

Little background music while you read, Tovarich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHomETco0MI

ommunist• 12 years ago

What is more interesting is to look into experiences of the Soviet military in modern warfare in Angola for example.

notastartup7• 12 years ago

As someone very interested in Soviet Union, it's system, this is a great resource. I'd love it if this was available on kindle or a paperback.

Even Russians will say Soviet Union is shit or people will react like, 'why are you learning russian and so obsessed with Soviet Union', I think it's because I think it could've been a great system, it's a noble ideology that men and women of all races are integrated and all receive the similar dividends but human greed and corruption always ruins things. I don't like the way people have been persecuted because of Soviet Union, but I find it's technologies and philosophies very interesting.

smacktoward3• 12 years ago

You should be able to track down a reasonably priced copy of the hardback edition via a good used bookstore. The copy I have now I got via Alibris a few years back.

brc4• 12 years ago

I hope your research leads to the correct conclusion that trying to force people into equality leads to the use of force to stop dissent, and leads people to flee or campaign against it.

Socialism ends in death and misery, every single time. At this point death and misery is a feature, not a bug that can be fixed.

blumbo• 12 years ago

i'd like to hear more about this, exactly how horribly miserable would you end up if you have trillions and you would be forced to give up 99% of your wealth?

Synaesthesia• 12 years ago

That's not true, look at Sweden, France, Germany, UK ... all practising socialism. It's helped their people with free health care, education. There are many good things about socialism.

The Bolsheviks were dictatorial bastards, no doubt. And many people think Bolshevik communism is the only way to go, it certainly is not.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

Socialism ends in death and misery, every single time.

Leninism and its descendents might, but every country in the developed West -- where the 19th Century socialists criticism of capitalism was focussed, and whose conditions their program was largely designed for -- adopted, between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, a substantial portion of the socialist program, and its generally not ended in "death and misery", indeed, compared to those same countries experience under the system for which the name "capitalism" was created, its alleviated the "death and misery".

You can't really judge "socialism" by the results of a particular family of efforts to implement it outside of the context for which it was designed, which is exactly what judging socialism by Leninism and its descendants is.

erkkie• 12 years ago

The philosophies were a ruse, no-one at the top tier lived accordingly.

"To everyone according to their needs" sounds noble in theory but I'm not sure it would ever be workable in practice, without externalities (like labor camps, authoritarian force) subsidizing it.

x4m4• 12 years ago

I'd love it if this was available on kindle or a paperback.

I can mail you a copy in Russian (: If there is one in a local book store, not sure Rezun is popular currently.

notastartup7• 12 years ago

please do, although it will take me forever to read with a Eng-Rus dictionary.

Challenge accepted.

contulluipeste2• 12 years ago

That ideology was just a tool to prop up a system of occupation. What really happened behind all that was an ongoing russification all over the Soviet Union, effects of which make themselves visible in an outstanding manner today in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Latvia, and other countries. Yeah, it was pretty that red color from outside, but living under it was a nightmare (unless you were reaaally stupid, in which case the system took care of you).

alexeisadeski33• 12 years ago

Quote From Part VIII:

Soviet Communists are frequently reproached for having attempted to build a socialist society but having produced something which closely resembles a prison. Such a charge is entirely unjustified. In the Soviet Union some of the inmates have larger cells than others, some eat well, others badly. There is complete confusion-a lot remains to be done to tidy up the situation. True socialism, in which everyone is truly equal, does not just resemble a prison-it is a prison. It can not exist unless it is surrounded by high walls, by watchtowers and by guard-dogs, for people always want to escape from any socialist regime, just as they do from a prison. If you try to nationalise medicine and, from the best possible motives, to guarantee work for all the doctors, you will find that they pack their bags and leave the country. Try to bring a little order into the situation and your engineers (the best ones), your designers, your ballerinas (again, the best ones) and many, many others will also flee abroad. If you continue your attempts to establish a model society you will need to build walls around it. You will be forced to do this sooner or later by the flood of refugees.

brc4• 12 years ago

I wish more people understood and accepted this. It seems like every other day I read something which is wistful for a bit more 'enforced equality'. Ther can be no such thing, nor is it desirable. People have different talents and different levels of motivation. As such they produce Inequal results - and that is just life. Trying to prevent inequal results can only be done through force in the end, so a prison is the result.

njharman• 12 years ago

It's not equality, or inequal results. It's basic needs and inequal rewards.

dccoolgai• 12 years ago

Read Vonnegut's "Harison Bergeron".

simonh• 12 years ago

The basic point is valid regarding communism and forced equality, but e.g. plenty of countries have very efficient, well funded and cost effective nationalized medical services. It's a particularly poor example to choose to try and make the point.

The problem with communism isn't that so many of it's services are nationalized, it's that one-party politics leads to an ossified, excessively powerful, corrupt bureaucracy with no checks and balances.

Any political system that lacks dynamism and protects cronyism would suffer the same problems, regardless of it's ideological base. That's why in practice Fascism and Communism produce functionally indistinguishable resultant states.

GFischer• 12 years ago

I have yet to see an efficient nationalized medical service.

They are usually MUCH better than the U.S. model (in that everyone has basic healthcare and nobody gets bankrupt), but I wouldn't use words like "efficient" and "cost effective" to describe them.

At least within a democracy, they don't get "that" ossified, but you do get a massive, powerful and somewhat corrupt bureaucracy (at least in my country).

I find it incredible that the waste generated is less than the waste from the U.S. insurance system, yet it is so.

alexeisadeski33• 12 years ago

Where does he say that socialized medicine can not be efficient, well funded, and cost effective???

He says only that the effect is to place the doctors into a sort of "prison" scenario. Prisons can be efficient and well run. The problem is that they're prisons.

Imagine your own sector being socialized.

spingsprong2• 12 years ago

"It is, in fact, impossible to reach the speeds of which the MIG-25 is capable using titanium: yet the Soviet designers had managed to build this, the fastest combat aircraft in the world, from ordinary steel. "

Right...

MiG-25, Mach-2.8. All steel.

SR-71, Mach-3.5. Uses titanium for 85% of its structure.

rangibaby2• 12 years ago

Combat aircraft. SR-71 is a spy plane.

spartango• 12 years ago

While it is true that the SR-71 & A-12 were spy planes, and that the GP makes a slightly asinine statement, the pedant (and aviation geek) in me feels obliged to point to the YF-12[1].

The YF-12 was a twin-seater derivative of the A-12 that was developed as a fighter aircraft, complete with a look-down/shoot-down radar and missile bays.

The F-12 never made it to production, but a small number high-speed of weapons tests were conducted with the 3 YF-12 airframes that were built.

With that said, the MiG-25 should certainly not be belittled as a marvel of aviation. It was a blisteringly fast interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft, with an impressive radar system for its time. It filled a special role in the Russian Air Force until last year[2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12 [2] https://medium.com/war-is-boring/21d12739b5db

kjs3• 12 years ago

The SR-71 and the MiG-25 were originally envisioned for exactly the same role: next-gen high speed, high altitude interceptors. We made a decision that missiles would fill the niche better, and the SR-71 became a recon platform, but it's roots are still in combat.

njr123• 12 years ago

Pretty sure the SR-71 is not a combat aircraft.

spingsprong2• 12 years ago

And that matters because?

ckozlowski• 12 years ago

I think this was an area for which the writer simply wasn't as well informed. Titanium and steel are both capable of fulfilling the requirements, but titanium is very difficult to work with. (Lockheed had particular trouble with it as well.) It's more ideal to use because its so much lighter, and increasing weight is the bane of any aircraft's existence. The Soviets would have preferred this, but they couldn't overcome the machining challenges, especially not in the scale required to build the numbers required. So they went with the safer, if less ideal alternative. And since the Soviet system did not exactly encourage discussion of shortcomings, and the "simple is better" tradition fits well, its not far to see how the "steel is better" explanation became the accepted one.

All that being said, I point out that the plane did what they set out to do, and regardless of whatever compromises had to be made, it was an aerospace achievement.

arethuza• 12 years ago

Speaking of titanium, the Soviets also had a class of attack submarines with titanium hulls:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa-class_submarine

thescrewdriver• 12 years ago

Perhaps a typo/misquote. The point being made is that the high speeds were achieved using steel (rather than more exotic materials). As others have pointed out the SR71 wasn't a combat aircraft.

rdl• 12 years ago

(I think you posted this to hn because I posted it to Facebook again, yes?)

The really interesting things to me are:

1) Invisible divisions, and the system to split units

2) Hiding top-tier equipment from the West -- even at the cost of not allowing their own soldiers to know what equipment they're supposed to ultimately use. Vs. the US, where soldiers are expected to be intimately familiar with their assigned weapons systems.

3) A really naive view of economics, that the military is "free" because the State provides it. It doesn't correctly assign the cost as that of the foregone alternative -- a tank means 100 fewer cars, etc.

4) "Role before Rank" promotions -- officers being promoted into a role above their rank as a precondition to attaining that rank. In the US system, that only really happens for certain General Officers; everyone else is promoted and then assigned, with most early to mid career promotions being either automatic or based on seniority and checkboxes.

buro92• 12 years ago

"Role before Rank" is how I laid out a company remuneration and incentives program.

The essence was "to be a senior dev you must already be doing these things". The proof (observed by two senior people and acknowledged by colleagues at and below your level) that you were fully performing the given role meant that you would be given the job title and salary to match.

We felt this was an improvement on other systems as it made it very clear what it meant to the individual. In that they needed to improve, learn things, operate differently, to be able to progress from one tier of recognition to the next and left it up to the individual to say whether they wanted to or not. It also handled the scenario of demotion... failure to maintain a standard of work meant that you'd set your role (and thereby rank) at the step below.

Did this work? Mostly, yes.

Definitely some rough edges when it came to dealing with long-time serving people who didn't (or couldn't) improve themselves. For those people the title and salary seldom matched their expectations.

mu_killnine• 12 years ago

I thought I was the only one in an organization structured like this.

While off topic a bit... I found this structure pretty discouraging.

If you don't promote your developers into the role they are actually fulfilling, it quickly begins to feel like you're taking advantage of them. That is, treating them and giving them the responsibilities of a Sr. Engineer but only compensating them like a typical engineer (or developer).

There's only so many 'atta boys you can give someone before it seems like you're dodging meaningful compensation for their efforts.

ArbitraryLimits• 12 years ago

In the US system ... everyone else is promoted and then assigned

It's worth pointing out that one of the reasons this system works in the US army is that non-commissioned officers are trusted with a great deal more responsibility than their Soviet counterparts were. The mechanical promotion of junior officers would be impossible without 15 year veteran NCOs taking care of a lot of the grunt work that Soviet officers got stuck with, simply because the system wouldn't trust NCOs with it.

kumarski2• 12 years ago

Yep. You'll note below, I wrote "courtesy of RDL"

I just found the post fascinating. Reminded me of this for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJbtbh4tDE

watwut• 12 years ago

Anyone has any idea on what license does it have? What can be legally done with that book?

aluhut• 12 years ago

I am really looking forward for such a read about North Korea in some years. I hope I live long enough to see it.

berkut• 12 years ago

Awesome read.

Final sentence of Conclusion: "Protest today. Tomorrow it will be too late."

trurl1232• 12 years ago

Real name of author is Vladimir Rezun. Well known historic liar.

67726e• 12 years ago

Care to elaborate? Best I could find was that his writings about WWII are, at worst, disputed. Nothing about him being a fraud.

sly_g• 12 years ago

Author of this book has committed treason and famous for his pseudo-historical books, that usually paint USSR in blackest colors possible. No serious historian in Russia takes his works seriously. So I'd question anything that written in the book.

jotm3• 12 years ago

No kidding, half of Americans think that Snowden is a traitor.

das_alexander2• 12 years ago

False. - anybody went along with Soviet Union dissolution technically committed treason - he is not a professional historian, and it shows. However majority of his theories have been confirmed by professional historians, such as Solonin (http://www.solonin.org/en), Hoffman (http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-Extermination-1941-1945-Do...), Danilov, Gorkov, etc

trurl1232• 12 years ago

Ha-ha, professional historians. Solonin wrotes very much false too. See comments about his book: http://awas1952.livejournal.com/58827.html

Inside the Soviet Army (1982)

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