
Inside the Soviet Army (1982) - kumarski
http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/index.html
======
alexeisadeski3
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._

~~~
simonh
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
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.

------
nikatwork
_> 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.

~~~
Perdition
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
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.

~~~
korzun
Ukraine is broke. They owe Russia millions of dollars and have been living on
pretty much free gas (courtesy of Russia).

I assume you live in US? Do you not find it ironic that you blame Russia for
taking this seriously (in their own backyard) while US have been staging
government coups within other countries (with multiple death tolls) for
decades?

And in regards to corruption:

"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"

Perhaps you should focus on your own backyard first ;)

~~~
vasilipupkin
Ukraine is broke to a large extent because it's economy has been essentially
taken over by corrupt oligarchs with close Kremlin ties. As far as comparisons
with U.S., in the context of the cold war U.S. has done some nasty things. But
look at all the countries which U.S. was heavily involed in. Taiwan? South
Korea? Chile? Germany ? Japan? How are they doing 20, 30 years later. Now look
at countries that have had heavy Russian / Soviet involvement. Cuba? North
Korea? Sorry, but the comparison doesn't quite compute.

~~~
notastartup
South Korea definitely had a period of dictatorship and hard knock life for
it's citizens. I think Taiwan also had a period of such oppressive rule. Chile
as well had dictatorship up to 90s.

At least South Korea is doing well because it has seen so much sacrifice of
it's own people by enriching the nation's government and it's handful of
conglomerates. They may be doing well but South Korea and Japan has the
highest suicide rates, a sign that although economically prosperous do not
equate to collective happiness. Chile for instance has a higher happiness
index than of South Korea or Japan.

However, I will add that such economic progress is not at all miserable and
unwanted situation. U.S. has provided much of the security guarantees and the
environment for such successes.

~~~
Demiurge
You are entirely correct. All of these Asian economic successes were under a
military dictatorship. The work week in South Korea is 6 days, 16 hours a day.
It's not magic, it's really hard work and strictness.

------
rdl
(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.

~~~
buro9
"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
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.

~~~
buro9
Agreed. If you don't actually give the recognition and promotion after making
it clear what is needed to reach the next level... then none of this works and
morale will crash.

We put in place quarterly reviews that were heavily focused on employee
improvement, learning and application of that learning. Promotions were
automatic and didn't need many levels of buy-in to approve. It was simply "are
you doing the job of a senior dev? Congrats, then you are one".

This was also strange as to most it was very different from quarterly or
annual reviews they'd encountered elsewhere that had focused on project
progress and milestones. The business goal was to build and retain the best
team, focusing on that meant the project goals naturally followed.

------
leaveyou
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).

~~~
guard-of-terra
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 :)

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

~~~
guard-of-terra
Well, Romania was keeping Communist government so they didn't have to worry.

~~~
Jongseong
Concurrent to the Hungarian uprising of 1956, there was some unrest in Romania
as well, and the Soviet military presence there was strengthened in response.
Romania began to oppose the Soviet hegemony in the 1960s—Ceaușescu spoke out
against 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Romania built friendly
relations with the anti-Soviet bloc. So it's not entirely a given that the
Soviet Union would not have considered military intervention in Romania at
some point like they did in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. You can't excuse the
Romanians for wondering how their government could afford to get away with
their open defiance of Soviet hegemony.

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

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

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

~~~
smacktoward
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](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](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.

------
foohbarbaz
"The soldier's lot":

[http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/07.html](http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/07.html)

is spot on! Been there.

------
spingsprong
"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.

~~~
rangibaby
_Combat_ aircraft. SR-71 is a spy plane.

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

~~~
Theodores
Just out of interest, was the MiG-25 'all steel' and 'all valves'? As in no
electronics as we know them, just valves? I had heard that it was EMP-proof
due to the lack of any transistors on board...

~~~
rangibaby
80% nickel steel alloy, 11% aluminium, and 9% titanium. Using valves instead
of transistors meant for easier maintenance in addition to resistance to EMP.
[0]

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-
Gurevich_MiG-25](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25)

------
eternalban
Little background music while you read, Tovarich
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHomETco0MI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHomETco0MI)

------
sly_g
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.

~~~
das_alexander
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](http://www.solonin.org/en)), Hoffman
([http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-
Extermination-1941-1945-Do...](http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-
Extermination-1941-1945-Documentation/dp/0967985684)), Danilov, Gorkov, etc

~~~
trurl123
Ha-ha, professional historians. Solonin wrotes very much false too. See
comments about his book:
[http://awas1952.livejournal.com/58827.html](http://awas1952.livejournal.com/58827.html)

------
trurl123
Real name of author is Vladimir Rezun. Well known historic liar.

~~~
67726e
Care to elaborate? Best I could find was that his writings about WWII are, at
worst, disputed. Nothing about him being a fraud.

------
berkut
Awesome read.

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

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

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

------
notastartup
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.

~~~
brc
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.

~~~
Synaesthesia
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.

~~~
Maakuth
This is only true for the American populist definition of socialism. Here in
Europe we usually talk about social democracy, where basic needs of people
(healtcare, education, not starving) are addressed by the state, but one is
free to form private enterprises
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model)).
This is quite different from the brand of socialism the USSR was aiming for,
where all private property would have been abolished.

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

