The August 1991 Coup and Its Impact on Soviet Politics

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Dunlop
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The State ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military ◽  
Coup Attempt

A book published by the author in 1993 contained a lengthy chapter on the August 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union. This article builds on and updates that chapter, making use of a trove of newly available documents and memoirs. The article discusses many aspects of the coup attempt, but it particularly seeks to explain why the coup failed and what the implications were for the Soviet Union. The events of December 1991 that culminated in the dissolution of the Soviet Union were the direct result of changes set in motion by the failed coup. The major state and party institutions that might ordinarily have tried to hold the country together—the Communist Party apparatus, the secret police, the military-industrial complex, the Ministry of Defense, and the state administrative organs—all were compromised by their participation in the coup. As a result, when events pushed the Soviet Union toward collapse there was no way of staving off that outcome.

New War, Old Law: Can the Geneva Paradigm Comprehend Computers?

2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-51
Author(s):  
Jason Beckett
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Information Warfare ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The West ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military

Strategic Information Warfare (SIW) has recently begun to garner significant interest among the military and strategic defence communities. While nebulous and difficult to define, the basic object of SIW is to render an adversary's information systems inoperative or to cause them to malfunction. While information is the key, the means, and the target of SIW, real world damage is the intention and effect. It is, nonetheless, an area which has been almost completely ignored by positive international law. The purpose of the present article is to begin to resolve this lacuna by analysing the applicability to, and effect of, international humanitarian law (IHL) on SIW. The author makes recommendations as to possible alterations and improvements to IHL to resolve this lacuna. [In] 1956 when Khrushchev said: “We will bury the West.” What he was really saying was that the military industrial complex of the Soviet Union would win out over the military industrial complex of the West – and note that it's industrial. What Khrushchev didn't understand was that 1956 was the first year in the United States that white-collar and service employees outnumbered blue-collar workers. […] The industrial complex, military or not, was at its end point.Alvin Toffler, Novelist and Social Theorist

REFORMING THE CREDIT SYSTEM IN THE USSR IN THE PERIOD OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-194
Author(s):  
Yury F. Likholetov ◽  
Igor A. Grigoriev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Economic Management ◽  
Financial Flows ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military ◽  
Further Development

Introduction. In modern Russia, even today, the process started back in the 1990s continues to gain momentum – the emergence of state-monopoly capitalism. This phenomenon always includes such a feature as centralization in the economic and political spheres of public life. The concentration in the hands of the state of the mechanism for the regulation of economic processes in a country is not always negative. There are enough examples in history to prove this thesis. The purpose of this article is to show a positive example of competent centralization of the economic sector, referring to the experience of reforming the credit system in the Soviet Union during the period of industrialization. The authors of the article strive to demonstrate an example of an effective mechanism for maneuvering means, as well as to evaluate the results of this process. Materials and methods. This research is based on traditional methods used in Russian historical science: problem-chronological, systemic, and comparative-historical. Results. The reform of the credit and banking sector carried out in the Soviet Union was a logical conclusion to the centralization of the country’s internal economic management system, which enabled the state to take a more precise approach to planning, distribution and, most importantly, to accounting for funds. Discussion and Conclusion. The result of the reform was that all financial flows concentrated in the hands of the state proceeded in the order strictly established by the party, in accordance with a single political line. In turn, this made it possible to create a base for maneuver with the means that went to strengthen the defense – industrial complex and qualitatively re-equip the army. The development of centralization, in fact, became the basis for the further development of the military economy with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

Why the Soviets Buy the Weapons They Do

1984 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Evangelista
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
Weapons Procurement ◽  
The Military

The authors of three recent books attempt to account for Soviet military developments by exploring a wide range of possible explanations. In Soviet Strategic Forces, Berman and Baker adopt a“requirements“approach; they argue that the Soviet strategic posture has developed mainly in response to threats generated by the West. Andrew Cockburn, in The Threat, maintains that internal factors—in particular, bureaucratic politics and the workings of the military-industrial complex—are responsible for Soviet weapons decisions. David Holloway's more eclectic explanation, in The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, describes both the internal and external determinants of Soviet military policy. The evolution of Soviet regional nuclear policy, and particularly the deployment of the SS-20 missile, can be accounted for by several different explanations—indicating a problem of overdetermination of causes. One way to resolve this problem is by adopting a framework developed by James Kurth to explain U.S. weapons procurement. It suggests that the“modes of causation” for Soviet weapons decisions are generally the opposite of those for American decisions. This generalization is consistent with what an analysis based on the relative strengths of state and societal forces in the two countries would predict.

scholarly journals Zmiany w funkcjonowaniu rosyjskich parków naukowo-technologicznych

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 145-152
Author(s):  
Urszula Grzyb
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Science Park ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Industrial Crisis ◽  
The Military

Science and technology was thought to be one of the main assets of the Russian Federation, the basis for an economic recovery once it was no longer submitted to central planning. It was expected that this wealth of knowledge bequeathed from the Soviet Union would give rise to a boom in the creation of innovation companies and that foreign investment would flow in large amounts into the science sector, but both these expectations did not materialise.In Russia the first science park (science parks created by universities are called by the Russian name technoparks) was established in Tomsk in 1990 by higher education, scientific institutions and industrial enterprises jointly. Federal programmes provide support to the existing technoparks, but this support is rather meagre. Due to the industrial crisis and to the severe cutbacks in federal financing, the scientific institutions, more than 70% of which were in 1990 still connected with the military industrial complex, are nowadays experiencing a serious crisis. The number of scientific workers decreased more than twofold between 1989 and 1994 and continues to fall. Nowadays the innovation centres have a more commercial profile and, therefore, are more selective in the choice of the tenants as they have to become self-sufficient and repay the debts arising from re-construction of their premises.

scholarly journals ≪Non-discoverable-spaces≫ of full-fledged socialism’s technological parks

2021 ◽  
pp. 70-76
Author(s):  
N.P. Knekht ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Late Socialism ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Military

The author tries to outline the ways to build a new, deeper ontology of the Soviet Union as a dynamic interaction of human and «non-human» actors that create the specifics of the «natureculture » of late socialism. The article examines the influence of the military-industrial complex on the geography and life of people. Starting from the concept of «performative shift» (Alexey Yurchak), the author shows that the Soviet map reflects a specific changing technoscientific object located on the border of Nature and Society.

scholarly journals Commissariats of Military Industry during the Great Patriotic War

2015 ◽  
pp. 26-36
Author(s):  
Yu. V. Il’In
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Defense Industry ◽  
Aviation Industry ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Military Industry ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
The Military

Strengthening national defense by building up military and economic potential was the most important vital task of the Soviet Union during the whole period of its existence. The price of enormous effort of labor, research and design teams, huge material and financial costs in the course of the prewar five-year plans in the Soviet Union was paid and incurred to create the military-industrial complex (MIC) - sector of social production, designed to provide security for the state in armed struggle. The core of the DIC were four industry: Commissariat of Aviation Industry (NCAP), the People’s Commissariat of ammunition (NBC) weapons Commissariat (IEC) and the People's Commissariat of the shipbuilding industry (NCSP), formed in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on January 11, 1939 by separation of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry of the USSR. They became a separate group of central government, designed to provide measures for the implementation of strategic decisions of the military and political leadership of the country. Objective assessment of commissariats effectiveness were the results of their operations in wartime. From this point of view it is necessary to ascertain performance of its mission - to supply front with modern means of warfare. Largely due to this fact, the Soviet Union won in serious confrontation with the military-industrial complex military industry of Nazi Germany and its satellites. On the basis of archival documents and testimony of contemporaries the article shows the contribution of the defense industry in the Soviet Union's victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The Trials of Arnošt K.

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gordin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Soviet Authority ◽  
The Soviet Union

The Prague-born philosopher and historian of science Arnošt Kolman (1892–1979)—who often published under his Russian name Ernest Kol’man—has fallen into obscurity, much like dialectical materialism, the philosophy of science he represented. From modest Czech-Jewish origins, Kolman seized opportunities posed by the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution to advance to the highest levels of polemical Stalinist philosophy, returned to Prague as an activist laying the groundwork for the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, was arrested and held for three years by the Soviet secret police, returned to work in Moscow and Prague as a historian of science, played vastly contrasting roles in the Luzin Affair of the 1930s and the rehabilitation of cybernetics in the 1950s, and defected—after 58 years in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—to Sweden in 1976. This article argues that Kolman’s biography represents his gradual separation of dialectical materialism from other aspects of Soviet authority, a disentanglement enabled by the perspective gained from repeated returns to Prague and the diversity of dialectical-materialist thought developed in the Eastern Bloc. This essay is part of a special issue entitled THE BONDS OF HISTORY edited by Anita Guerrini.

scholarly journals STRENGTHENING THE FINANCIAL STABILITY OF ENTERPRISES IN THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: DEFENSE PROCUREMENT AND ACQUISITION OR CONVERSION OF PRODUCTION?

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-131
Author(s):  
И.В. Баранова ◽  
М.А. Власенко
Keyword(s):  
Financial Stability ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Dual Use ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Defense Procurement ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
State Defense ◽  
The Military

В статье рассмотрен гособоронзаказ как драйвер развития предприятий оборонно-промышленного комплекса, требования обеспечения финансовой устойчивости предприятий при исполнении ими гособоронзаказа. Диверсификация оборонно-промышленного комплекса РФ и конверсия производства предприятий, входящих в данный комплекс, ориентированные на производство продукции двойного назначения, а также повышение объемов продаж в среднесрочной перспективе рассматриваются как факторы повышения их финансовой устойчивости. The article considers the defense procurement and acquisition as a driver for the development of enterprises of the military-industrial complex; the requirements for ensuring the financial stability of enterprises when they perform a state contract under the state defense order. The diversification of the Russian military-industrial complex and the conversion of production of enterprises included in this complex, focused on the production of dual-use products, increasing sales in the medium term, are considered as factors for increasing the financial stability of enterprises in the military-industrial complex.

FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION PERSONNEL POLICY IN THE 1930-S – 1940-S

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-167
Author(s):  
S.A. TARASOV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
The State ◽  
Organization Of Work ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Personnel Policy ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
The Soviet Union

The main purpose of the article is to reveal the features of the organization of work with the leading per-sonnel of the Soviet Union in the 1930-s – 1940-s, as an important component of the effective state man-agement. The article examines the state of work with the highest leading personnelof the Soviet Union in the 1930-s – 1940-s on the example of the personnel bodies’ activities of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)(VKP (b)).The focus of the study is on the Personnel Departmentof the Central Committee, the time of functioning of which falls on the specified chronological period.On the basis of archival materi-als, the organizational structure of the Department and the most important tasks faced by its employees in the process of working with the highest party, Soviet, economic and military leaders of the country are revealed.Brief biographical information of a number of officials who held key positions in this party body is provided.The existing shortcomings in the work, the procedure and the ways of fixing them are highlighted.

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