Abstract
Frunze revealed a secret in March, 1925. His secret touched on the debate between him and Lev Davidovich Trotsky concerning questions of military doctrine. The debate had been sharp and, at the Eleventh Party Congress, even acrimonious.
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References
Mikhail Vasil’evich Frunze, Sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1927), III, p. 150. This speech is not included in the 1957 Izbrannye proizvedeniia of Frunze.
Mikhail Vasil’evich Frunze, Sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1927), III, p. 150.
Sergei Arkad’evich Sirotinskii, Put’ Arsenii: Biograficheskii ocherk o M. V. Frunze (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1956), p. 230.
Sirotinskii’s biography of Frunze received favorable reviews in the following Soviet periodicals, none of which commented on the statement that Lenin supported Frunze’s theses on a unified military doctrine: Agitator, No. 4, 1957, pp. 57-59; Krasnaia zvezda, August 21, 1957; Novyi mir, No. 12, 1956, pp. 268-269; Sovetskii patriot, March 17, 1957; UchiteVskaia gazeta, January 11, 1958; and Zvezda vostoka, No. 5, 1957.
Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1957), I, p. 27.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Semen Mikhailovich Budennyi, “Vydaiushchiisia polkovodets i gosudarstvennyi deiatel’ (K 25-letiiu so dnia smerti M. V. Frunze,)” Znamia, No. 10, 1950, p. 129.
Colonel S. N. Shishkin, “M. V. Frunze — odin iz stroitelei Sovetskoi Armii,” Mikhail Vasil’evich Frunze: Polkovodcheskaia deiatel’nost’, Sbornik statei2 (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1951, p. 204.
N. G. Kornienko and D. V. Oznobishin, “Iz perepiski M. V. Frunze s V. I. Leninym (1919–1920 gg.),” Istoricheskii arkhiv, No. 3,1958, p. 32.
Sovetskaia voennaia pechat’ (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1960), p. 110. This book adds that Frunze “proceeded from the Leninist teachings on imperialism and from the experience of the Civil War.”
V pomoshch’ ofitzeram, izuchaiushchim marksistsko-leninskuiu teoriiu (Sbornik statei) (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1959, p. 141.
A. Vol’pe, Oborona strany i M. V. Frunze (Moscow and Lenningrad: Gosudarst-vennoe izdatel’stvo, 1928), pp. 20–21.
Sobranie sochinenii, op. cit., I, 1929, p. xxvi.
Andrei Sergeevich Bubnov, O Krasnoi Armii (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1958), p. 86.
For a description of the reforms of 1924, see Dmitri Daniel Fedotoff White, The Growth of the Red Army (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), pp. 199-276. See also Il’ia Borisovich Berkhin, Voennia reforma v SSSR (1924–1925 gg.) (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1958).
Izbrannye proizvedeniia, op. cit., II, p. 20. Frunze said, “In the organizational respect, the basis of our armed forces for the near future can only be a permanent Red Army. … We can permit a changeover to the militia system an the basis of Vsevobuch only to the extend to which it allows the achievement of definite economies in the expenditure of state resources and does not undermine the ability of the Red Army for the solution of active aims.”
Bubnov, op. cit., p. 226.
Ibid., note 2. V pomoshch’ ofitseram, izuchaiushchim marksistskolieninskuiu teoriiu, op. cit., p. 208, defines “military art” as “a system of scientific views, principles, and rules, accepted in one form or another, on questions of the employment of armed forces in all scales of military operations.” Soviet military art is divided into “strategy, the operational art, and tactics.” The leading Soviet work on strategy is Marshal of the Soviet Union V. D. Sokolovskii, ed., Voennaia strategiia (2d ed: Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1963). The operational art, m the Soviet view, is a sort of middle ground between strategy and tactics. It appears to be an arbitrary classification developed by Soviet military thinkers with its upper and lower limits not clearly defined. The leading Soviet work on the operational art is Major General V. A. Semenov, Kratkii ocherk razvitiia sovetskogo operativnogo iskusstva (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1960). See also my “The Art of Operations,” Army, November, 1961, pp. 60 ff. The Soviet view on the limits of tactics seems to correspond with that held in other armies of the world. There are numerous Soviet works on tactics.
See H. S. Dinerstein, War and the Soviet Union (New York: Praeger, 1959), pp. 28–63 and passim. See also my “A Soviet Attack Capability,” Military Review, XXXVI (December, 1956), pp. 41-44.
The post-Stalin debate has developed dynamics of its own. The best recent account is Thomas W. Wolfe, Soviet Strategy at the Crossroads (Cambrklge: Harvard University Press, 1964).
F. Engel’s (Engels), Izbrannye voennye proizvedeniia (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’-stvo, 1957), p. 635.
For a discussion of the Bogdanov thesis, see Edward Hallett Carr, Socialism in One Country (London: Macmillan, 1958), I, pp. 48-51. Leonard Schapiro has suggested, in The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Random House, 1959), p. 344, that Lenin’s opposition to the Proletkul’t project was more a personal aversion to Bogdanov than to the content of the thesis.
Professor Daniel Bell of Columbia University has suggested to me that this seeming contradiction in Frunze may be explained by the fact that he was an autodidact.
A scholarly effort has been made in Barrington Moore, Jr., Soviet Politics — The Dilemma of Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950).
Stalin’s theory of warfare is based on the permanently operating factors, or factors which are supposed to influence all military actions in contrast to temporarily operating factors which may influence military actions. The permanently operating factors, according to Stalin, are: 1) the stability of the rear, 2) the morale of the army and the home front, 3) the number and quality of divisions, 4) the equipment of the army, and 5) the quality and capability of the command personnel. Voroshilov has suggested the addition of the matter of adequate reserves. In the debates immediately following Stalin’s death, the permanently operating factors were the subject of extensive debate in Soviet military circles.
See, for example, Nikolai Ivanovich Shatagin and Ivan Petrovich Prusanov, Sovetskaia armiia — armiia novogo tipa (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1957). There are countless other examples from the almost daily statements of Soviet spokesmen.
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© 1969 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Jacobs, W.D. (1969). The End to a Debate. In: Frunze: The Soviet Clausewitz 1885–1925. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9112-8_8
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