From The Philadelphia Inquirer

March 14, 1999

Blaming Gorbachev for Army's Downfall

The Collapse of the Soviet Military
By William E. Odom
Yale University Press, 480 pp., $35

During a distinguished career in the U.S. Army, which he concluded as director of the National Security Agency, retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom emerged as one the nation's foremost authorities on the military of the Soviet Union.

He brings that knowledge to the first five chapters of his latest book, The Collapse of ithe Soviet Military, when explaining how the military arrived at its enviable position in Soviet society by the mid-1980s. The remaining 11 chapters provide a thorough and rigorous investigation of the reasons for its collapse, paying particular attention to the military policies of Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Not only does Odom incorporate much of the most recent scholarship, archival discoveries, and memoir evidence into both parts of his book, the story of the collapse especially benefits from his numerous personal interviews with Soviet military leaders.

By the mid-1980s, according to Odom, the Soviet military possessed manpower and weapons. far beyond those required for defense—unless defense was defined in the Marxist-Leninist terms of preparing for the inevitable war between the Soviet Union and "all countries in which private ownership of the means of production existed."

Attributing to V.l. Lenin the vision to see that Marxism was "at root, a theory of war," Odom says that Lenin's ideological prescriptions not only "dictated the preference for the offensive" in military planning, but also was the source (once internalized by subsequent party and military leaders) for the relentless expansion of the military-industrial complex.

Although the Communist Party's politburo still exerted the decisive influence over resource allocations, institutions within the council of ministers (the state's executive body)—especially the ministry of defense (and its indispensable general staff) and the military industrial commission—gained increased authority as the "scale and complexity of military and military-industrial affairs became too great."

According to Odom, by the time Gorbachev became general secretary of the party and leader of the Politburo in 1985, "changes in force structure and industrial production were difficult to consider and virtually impossible to implement. New programs could be introduced, but reducing weapons production and forces was unthinkable."

Unfortunately, Odom's overview places too' much emphasis on Communist ideology (and gives too little attention to genuine external threats) when explaining the growth of the massive military-industrial complex.

Lenin did not believe Marxism to be "at root, a theory of 'war," unless you accept Odom's argument that class struggle was a type of war. Even so, Lenin differentiated between "wise capitalists" and representatives of "adventuristic elements," and asserted that a policy of peaceful coexistence could be conducted with the former, according to Andrei A. Kokoshin in his newly published book, Soviet Strategic Thought, 1917-91 (MIT Press).

Thus, there was no inexorable offensive military strategy springing from Marxist-Leninist ideology (witness the defensive strategy articulated by Aleksandr A. Svechin during the 1920s).

Nor was there an inexorable military buildup. Recently released archival evidence includes a formerly secret 1959 memorandum to the central committee of the party's presidium by Nikita S. Khrushchev that argues for the massive troop reduction actually announced early in 1960.

Dependent though the Soviet Union was on nuclear deterrence, Khrushchev asserted elsewhere that the Soviets "could never possibly use these [nuclear] weapons, but all the same we must be prepared. Our understanding is not sufficient answer to the arrogance of the imperialists," according to Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov in their book, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Harvard, 1996). Such evidence undermines the assertion made by some scholars, including Odom here, that the Soviet leadership (not merely its military strategists) thought that they could fight and win a nuclear war.

Odom both credits and blames Gorbachev for the collapse of the Soviet military. Rather than hail him as Russia's greatest reformer, as some have, Odom emphasizes his "uncommon cunning and duplicity, as well as his "ignorance"—the latter due to his lack of experience in running a non-Russian republic (and dealing with suppressed nationalism) and his lack of military service' (which informed his hatred for the military).

However, Odom does not dispute Gorbachev's widespread support for restructuring the economy, even if that necessitated cutting into the military. Specifically, military collapse resulted from Gorbachev's startling unilateral troop reduction of 500,000 men over a two-year period (announced at the United Nations in December 1988), which was designed to compel military reform, but generated massive dislocations within the military and society at large.

His policy of glasnost (openness) which exposed the military to widespread criticism from civilian military analysts, thereby abetting the "trifurcation" separating the senior officer corps from junior officers—and both from the conscripts. (Glasnost also exposed the abominable hazing that resulted in the deaths of many conscripts).

A conscript revolt, fueled by the hazings, which prompted the various nationalist movements to establish their own armies and which, according to Odom, made a much greater contribution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union than is generally recognized.

Although his focus on Gorbachev and Soviet domestic forces (and not the stalwarts in the Reagan administration) is quite correct, Odom's assessment of Gorbachev is unduly dour. Here one benefits from recalling Archie Brown's conclusion in his book, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford, 1996), that the Soviet leader presided over "the introduction of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, religious freedom and freedom of movement."

Nevertheless, The Collapse oj the Soviet Military is a superb and comprehensive study that will stand as a major pillar in support of a thorough understanding of the Gorbachev period and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It also provides needed perspective for the evaluation of the problems confronting the Russian military today.