ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE'S MILITARY POWER
Fyodorov
Having evolved the materialist theory of the historical process, Marx and Engels considered military phenomena in their relation to the general course of social development.
From these positions they made a comprehensive analysis of the causes underlying the victories and defeats of the belligerents in numerous wars, focusing attention on a study of the course and outcome of wars of which they were contemporaries. Marx and Engels took into account the role played in the outcome of the war by the morale of the army, by weapons and military skill. But they considered economic conditions most important to any solution of the question about the causes of victories and defeats, since they, in the final analysis, determine the military aspect.
Dependence of the Course and Outcome of War on economic conditions
The proposition that the military power of states depends on economic conditions refers to all epochs and on expresses one of the most important laws of the course and outcome of the war. In laying the foundation for this, the only correct viewpoint, Engels sharply criticised the then prevailing theory that the course and outcome of wars depend not on economic development, but are determined only "by the free will of the generals". Engels countered this theory by formulating the law that " . .. the whole organisation and method of warfare, and along with these victory or defeat, prove to be dependent on material, that is, economic conditions: on the human material and the armaments material, and therefore on the quality and quantity of the population and on technical development".1
Indeed, even in the period when only side-arms were used in wars, the outcome of battles depended on the level attained by the production of these arms. A steel sword, shield, helmet, armour, chain mail-all this presupposed a comparatively high level of dev elopment of the crafts.
The transition from side-arms to fire weapons, their improvement, the creation of artillery-all this raised the role played by the economy in the course and outcome of war.
The above, however, does not mean that the outcome of every war can be directly explained by the relation between the economic development levels of the warring states. The course and outcome of wars are also substantially affected by a number of other factors-the population figure, geographic position, international relations, etc. The economy, therefore, predetermines the outcome of the war both directly and also through intermediary links and circumstances only in the long run.
Marx's and Engels's views on military questions, their postulate that the course and outcome of wars depend on economic conditions, were creatively developed by Lenin. He proved that in the new historical epoch the dependence of the course and outcome of wars on economic and sociopolitical conditions increases enormously. He wrote.
"Never before has the military organisation of a country had such a close bearing on its entire economic and cultural system,"1
But Lenin did not confine himself to the creative development of the Marxist propositions about the conditions that determine the outcome of wars in the modern epoch. Most important in his military theoretical heritage is his daring and scientific programme for military development in the socialist state. A central place in this programme is held by the idea that in the event of war the Soviet land must be turned into a single military camp in order to mobilise all the material and spiritual forces of the people for the rout of the enemy. The propositions in this programme were not only a new word in the Marxist teaching on war and the army, they revealed an entirely new approach to problems of contemporary military science.
Let us touch in passing on the role of the economy in the First and Second World Wars. Wars of the past, up to the First World War, were generally waged with the weapons and materials produced and accumulated before the beginning of military operations. This was the case, for example, in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 when the expenditure of war materials and particularly of weapons was small: in eight months of the war the Germans expended an average of 40 rounds per rifle, and 190 shells per cannon. The expenditure of war materials grew considerably in the Russo-Japanese war when about a million shots were fired (720 shells per cannon).
This expenditure of war materials was secured by the stocks accumulated in peace-time and by the output of the armaments and powder plants. Very different conditions shaped in the beginning of the First World War. The war materials produced in anticipation of that war were spent already in the first few months. All preliminary estimates of the General Staffs turned out to be quite unrealistic. The General Staff of the Russian Army estimated that the requirement in shells in the imminent war would equal 1,000 per cannon and that a total of 7 million would be needed for the whole war. Actually, however, more than 55 million artillery and mortar shells were fired. The German mobilisation plan provided for a monthly output of 330,000 shells and 10,000 rifles. Actually, however, a monthly production of up to 12 million shells and 250,000 rifles was needed. This gross error was one of the causes for the failure of the German strategic plan in the war, the central idea of which was to inflict a quick destructive blow to France in order to smash her before the Russian Army could mobilise and mount actions. In the decisive battle on the Marne River (September 1914) the
Germans could not exploit their success mainly because of the shortage of war materials and tyres for their motor vehicles. Germany's industry, which had not been prepared in peacetime, was unable to fill advancing army's ever increasing material requirements in time.
It should be noted that the nazi strategists made a similarbut even bigger blunder when they were preparing the
war against the Soviet Union. Their plan provided for the destruction of the USSR in six weeks, which was to be achieved with the armaments produced in Germany before the attack against the Soviet Union and with those seized in the occupied West European countries. The nazi leaders, therefore, had not provided for the maximum development of military production and for the improvement of equipment during the war against the USSR. When the Blitzkrieg plan was foiled by the Soviet Army and it became essential to produce up-to-date military equipment on a growing scale, time had been lost: nazi Germany was unable to develop arms production during the war on a scale necessary to satisfy the requirements of that war.
Thus, the two world wars vividly demonstrated the qualitatively new relation between the economy and war. Its most important feature was that it had become absolutely impossible to wage such wars relying only on the stockpiles of weapons and war materials created in peacetime, and on the current production of the war industry alone. This was due to the following causes. First, as a result of the enormous scale, intensity and duration of military operations and the density of fire, armaments were quickly destroyed or worn out. Therefore, the requirements for an uninterrupted replacement of losses in equipment and of the expenditure in materiel exceeded all the production reserves and the capacity of the war industry.
Second, in the course of these wars the belligerents competed intensively as regards the quantity and quality of armaments. Hence, it was not only necessary for industry to compensate for losses, but also constantly and rapidly to increase the quantity and improve the quality of all means of the armed struggle, for in these wars military equipment was not only deteriorating physically, but was also rapidly growing obsolete.
Only the warring side whose economy was able to fulfil these extremely complicated tasks could expect victory in these wars. These tasks could not be implemented without the mobilisation of the entire industry, transport, agriculture, all branches of the national economy and science, all material resources of the warring states. Total mobilisation depends, in its turn, on the economic system and political organisation of society.
Role of the economy in Modern War
Therefore, the qualitatively new relation between the economy and the course of military operations during the two world wars consisted in the fact that the course and outcome of the armed struggle depended largely on the economic possibilities of the warring sides, on how effectively they used these possibilities for developing the constantly growing mass production of the means of armed struggle in order to secure their military-technical supremacy over the opponent. In these wars economic victory was a material prerequisite for military victory. The economy became a direct participant in the war, determining the strategic and operational possibilities at every stage.
Modern conditions introduce many novel aspects in the question of the significance of the economy in war. The relationship between the economic possibilities and military power has become more comprehensive and deeper than it was before. We have to do here not only with quantitative changes, but notably with deep qualitative ones.
The further growth of the productive forces and the rapid improvement of the industrial equipment have enormously expanded the economic possibilities of waging wars. The United States of America needed a relatively short time to create considerable stocks of modern weapons. A large part of the productive forces is used in the interests of the war machine, the means and resources are redistributed between the branches of production, and the achievements of science and technology are used to the full for the same purpose. Military production and military consumption comprise a most important part of the economy of the imperialist countries. The direct and indirect military expenditure of those countries grows with every passing year.
The competition between the powers in the field of military equipment has led to a state of affairs in which this equipment has become extremely effective, but also extremely complex and exorbitantly expensive. According to US data, a B-58 heavy bomber costs 133 times more than did its predecessor in the Second World War. Experts consider that with every new generation the cost of weapons at least doubles as compared with their cost in the preceding generation. Typical in this respect is that the US Defence Department spends 60 per cent of its budget on the material and technical supplies for the army, while the relative expenditure on armaments per serviceman has grown by 75 per cent between 1955 and 1964. The expenditure on the creation of conventional weapons and military equipment, used on a large scale mainly in local wars, is very high. According to the American press, the overall military expenditure in all countries of the world has now reached the fantastic figure of $204,000 million a year. 1
The high cost of modern weapons in the USA and other capitalist countries is due not only to the complexity of their production but also to the fact that the industrial corporations, taking advantage of their monopoly position, artificially inflate prices for military production.
The material expenditure for production of the newest types of military equipment, first and foremost of missiles and nuclear weapons, is astronomical. Their production puts extremely high demands on industry and also on the further development of scientific and technological thought. In present-day conditions only the biggest and economically most developed powers can afford to supply the armed forces with all the necessary means of struggle. Only a country possessing a powerful economic, scientific and technological basis is able to outdo its probable opponent in military-technical respects.
The role of economic conditions in modern war has not only grown considerably but has also changed essentially in comparison with the world wars of the past. In a world nuclear war exclusive importance will be acquired by the stockpiles of nuclear warheads and the means for their delivery to target, notably of all sorts of missiles and other modern weapons. The importance of the stocks of basic materials, which are being accumulated already in peacetime, will also grow.
The CPSU defines the tasks facing the Soviet state in strict keeping with the new demands made on the preparation of the country for the repelling and foiling of imperialist aggression. While the country's economic development plans have a peaceful character, they provide also for its military defence. The socialist economy plays the decisive role in strengthening the military power of the Soviet Union.
Already in wars of the past the armed struggle (the course and outcome of which were to a high degree determined by the economic resources of the warring states) was conducted not only against the armed forces but to some extent also against the enemy's economic objectives. This was done with the aim of undermining his power. The most important means the warring states used to expand their economic resources and to destroy those of the opponent was to seize his territory and to enforce a blockade. The latter served to interfere with the communications (especially sea communications) of warring and neutral countries. Beginning with the Second World War a major role was assigned also to the third method of influencing the economy of the opponents-serial bombing. However, as yet such bombings did not succeed in knocking any country out of the war.
In modern conditions the possibilities of undermining the economic potential of warring states have changed completely. In addition to strategic missiles the deep rear of the enemy can also be hit by missiles of an operational tactical designation, and also by missiles carried by aircraft and submarines, especially atomic-powered submarines. Missiles with nuclear warheads are able to paralyze entire industrial regions. Therefore, at the very beginning of the war, after the first nuclear missile exchange, a sharp and radical change may set in in the relation of the combatants' economic potentials.
Does all this mean that the economy, which plays a decisive role during the period of the preparation for nuclear war, will have no importance in the course of the war itself? Some bourgeois authors draw this conclusion irrespective of whether the future war will be a short or a long one, or of how it will begin. For example, some military experts believe that in modern conditions vast manpower and also industrial and material resources are no longer decisive and that nuclear, especially thermonuclear weapons are therefore the only yardstick of a nation's military power. It is difficult to agree with this point of view-the war may start as a conventional one and may only eventually grow into a nuclear one; the warring sides may under definite conditions be strong enough to wage a lengthy war and then its course and outcome will be enormously effected by the state of the combatants' economy.
The important role of the economy in war has been stressed also by some bourgeois sociologists and military theoreticians. Thus, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Wagner, a staff officer of the West German Bundeswehr, wrote about the decisive importance of the economic possibilities of the state, saying that "a statesman should be guided both by the laws of armed struggle and by economic laws", and "a soldier is obliged to take economic development into account" .1
In all probability the war will not end with an exchange of annihilating nuclear missile strikes. Despite the heavy destruction some part of industrial enterprises and other economic objectives will survive. It is therefore very possible that the remaining enterprises will be engaged both in the production of weapons and in catering to the needs of the population who have survived the bombings and radiation.
Under these conditions decisive importance is acquired not only by the existing industrial potential of the warring coalitions, but also by their viability and mobility: the vulnerability of industry and communications, and the ability to restore industrial production in the course of the war.
Economic Potential
The ever growing significance of economic conditions to the course and outcome of wars, especially after the Second World War, which is connected with radical changes in the socio-political life of states, made it necessary to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the economic potential.
The economic potential of every state is the maximum possibility possessed by its national economy to secure the material requirements of society and also to produce everything necessary for the conduct of war. It is expressed by the volume of social production, by the rates of its growth, the character of the economic structure and the economic laws of the country's development and by the extent to which they correspond to historical progress. As applied to modern wars, to the possible nuclear war, the economic potential can be characterised by the following key factors.
Firstly, the absolute volume of production of material means necessary to wage war, which the given state is able to achieve by straining its powers to the maximum. We have in mind not only the realisation of the country's (coalition's) economic possibilities during the war, but also the possibility of securing in advance a rational utilisation of all potentialities. This is largely determined by a correct military-technical policy in peacetime. One can expend three times more resources but create only unnecessary things. Without a rational military-technical policy it is impossible to stand the colossal strain of war even with a wealth of resources.
The volume of military production is determined by:
a) the general structure of production, the level of development of all the branches of the national economy (industry, agriculture, transport), especially by the potential of heavy industry and, in the first place, of branches capable of producing modern military equipment; b) the population figure, the cultural level and qualification of the workers and the engineering and technical personnel engaged in the national economy; c) the labour productivity; d) the natural resources of the country; e) the size of material reserves and notably of strategic materials. The efficiency with which material and human resources are used for military production is directly determined by the character of the economic and political system of the given state.
Secondly, the economic mobility of the given state, that is: a) the rapidity with which the switchover from peace time economy to a smoothly functioning war economy is effected; b) the growth rate of the production of key items of military equipment; c) the rapidity with which new samples of military equipment and armaments are introduced into serial production. Economic mobility helps to win time in the competition with the opponent and often this provides a decisive advantage in the course of the war. By its very nature the enormous productive apparatus of the national economy possesses a much greater inertia than the rapidly changing demands put upon it by the armed struggle. The cumbersome economic machinery is often unable to change as quickly as military operations require. Therefore, the ability constantly and continuously to outstrip enemy countries in the satisfaction of new military demands is of crucial significance.
Thirdly, the viability of the national economy, its effective defence, especially that of industry and transport at a time when mass destruction weapons can be used against it. Economic viability is affected by: a) the social organisation of production and the nature of the division of labour; b) the geographical distribution of key industrial entrées and the vulnerability of communications; c) the ability to restore destroyed enterprises.
The development rates, mobility and viability of the economy are determined, first and foremost, by the specific features of the dominant system of relations of production and by the efficiency of the state's economic policy, and depend on the morale of the population, its willingness to support that policy.
In addition to the above characteristic of the economic potential, there exists the concept "military-economic potential".
The economic potential expresses the possibility of the state (coalition) to satisfy all requirements of the war (the preparation for it and its conduct), while the military economic potential has to do with the ability of the economy to secure the direct needs of the armed forces both in peace and wartime. Countries with approximately identical economic possibilities may have different military-economic potentials. This is determined primarily by the economic system, the socio-political conditions and the development of the material and technical basis.
Advantages of Socialist States in utilising the Economic Potential
In their attempts to evaluate the economic potential of bourgeois and socialist countries many bourgeois theoreticians confine themselves to a mechanical comparison of figures characterizing the production of articles and materials of strategic importance and belittle the possibilities of the socialist system in developing its economic potential Andin using it in case of war.
Let us note that bourgeois economists are increasingly beginning to understand the effectiveness of the planned socialist system in the development and use of economic resources. The US Professor Oscar Morgenstern wrote:
"We are completely misled when we comfort ourselves in the light of the figures giving total steel production. Or, we are scared less than we should be when we see how the total Russian steel output begins to creep up to our level. The use of the steel gives the significance to this information."1 The Russians, Morgenstern added, use it ever more purposefully, ensure an increase in productive capacity and defensive needs, whereas in the USA steel is often used irrationally.
However, bourgeois economists are unable to understand the essence and advantages of the socialist mode of production, namely, that its development is determined by qualitatively different, specific laws and is effected in a different way-not spontaneously, but through the planned guidance by the state. This makes it possible successfully to resolve vitally important tasks of peaceful construction as well as to strengthen the defensive capacity of the country. The operation of the economic laws of socialism secures unprecedented rates of economic development and makes it possible in case of war most fully to mobilize and utilise all the powers of the people and all the resources of the socialist republics for the rout of the enemy.
Conversely, the laws of the capitalist economy, the spontaneity and anarchy ruling the bourgeois economy, hamper the effective mobilisation of material resources for the conduct of war. True, the bourgeoisie attempts to remedy these shortcomings by a transition to state-monopoly capitalism, by state regulation of the economy, by programming its development, by attempts to co-ordinate the various levers for influencing the economy with a view to achieving the objectives of monopoly capital. But, while the measures taken by the bourgeois states are able in some degree to mitigate the difficulties in mobilising resources for military purposes, they cannot overcome them completely. At the same time, however, we observe a process of integration, of a unification of efforts towards the creation and utilisation of modern means of armed struggle in the capitalist countries. This is a new phenomenon. It has economic, political and military roots which must be taken into account. This integration has a contradictory character. Its aim is in some measure to co-ordinate imperialist interests on an international scale and thereby to transcend inter imperialist contradictions. But they cannot be removed because they are endemic in the capitalist system.
Let us give a few examples providing vivid proof of the supremacy of the socialist mode of production in the utilisation of the economic potential. During the Great Patriotic War the Soviet Union and its Armed Forces relied on much smaller productive capacities than did Nazi Germany, which had at its disposal the economic potential of practically all of Europe. In 1940 the USSR smelted 18.3 million tons of steel while Germany and the countries she had occupied smelted 25 million tons. Owing to the occupation by the German troops of the country's southern areas, steel production in the USSR dropped to 9 million tons. Nazi Germany was able to expand her iron and steel industry and to use the metal of the occupied West European countries. As a result, in 1943, steel production in Germany and in the countries she had seized reached a total of 34.6 million tons.
Even under these difficult conditions the Soviet state, headed by the Communist Party, was able to make the comparatively smaller volume of productive capacities provide the front with larger quantities of military equipment (aircraft, tanks, guns and mortars) and war materials than Nazi Germany and her satellites. The Soviet economy demonstrated its supremacy over the economy of the enemy and was a decisive factor in the victory over Nazi Germany.
The advantages of the socialist system manifested themselves particularly strikingly in the rapidity with which the production of new kinds of military equipment was mastered and introduced into serial production. For example, the nazi military experts considered the introduction of the T-34 tank into a serial production a unique record. "The T-34," they wrote, "caused a sensation .... By creating an extremely successful and entirely new type of tank the Russians made a big leap forward in the field of tank building. The sudden appearance of the new machine at the front produced a major effect."1
An even greater achievement was the creation and production in an extremely short time of the atom and later of the hydrogen bomb. Foreign experts were convinced that the USA would keep its nuclear monopoly for a long time and that for at least 20 years the Soviet Union would be unable to create its own atom bomb.
The creation in the Soviet Union of ballistic, global and anti-missile missiles had an eye-opening effect all over the world. The measures introduced to improve the management of the country's economy are also extremely important to the fuller utilisation of the advantages of the economic potential for strengthening the Soviet Union's defensive power. The economic reform which signifies a new approach to the economic management expresses the necessity of adjusting the management of socialist economy to the level and character of the development of the productive forces. It helps to strengthen economic methods of management, to improve state planning and to heighten the economic independence and initiative of enterprises. All this leads to a. further upsurge of the country's economy and thus strengthens the defensive capacity of the state. Similar reforms are being carried out in a number of other socialist countries. This creates conditions for the victory of socialism in the economic competition with capitalism and for a further increase in the military might of the socialist community.
As the world socialist system develops, the advantages of the socialist economic system come ever more clearly to the fore. The economic relations between capitalist countries are based on a cruel competitive struggle and on the striving of states with a developed economy to subjugate and exploit those with less developed productive forces. An entirely different picture is observed in the relations between the countries in the world socialist system. Here, such old forms of economic links between countries as trade and credit have been filled with a new content, they are used to promote the most rapid economic development of all socialist countries and to raise the less developed to the level of the most developed.
Moreover, new forms of economic co-operation and socialist mutual assistance have been devised: the co-ordination of national economic plans, the specialisation and co-operation of production on the basis of the international socialist division of labour, the exchange of scientific and technological achievements, assistance in the training of specialists; and the joint construction of industrial enterprises, power and transport projects.
All these new relations have raised the economic potential of the socialist community and will promote the rapid and efficient utilisation of its material and human resources in case of war.
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