9 - Military institutions and the militarization of labour

Summary

THE ORGANIZATION OF MILITARY SUPPLY

The process of organization of the Soviet economy was characterized, as has been shown, by ambitious aims, contradictory processes, a great deal of improvisation, a firm belief in the thaumaturgic powers of the state, and, last but not least, a predatory policy for food procurement. The outcome of all this could not be, and was not, a centralized economy, although strenuous effort was made to bend the economy to central orders. The question then arises as to how the Bolsheviks were able to win the civil war and to establish their power firmly, in spite of the widespread political and military opposition. As for any sort of conflict, part of the answer is to be sought in the poor performance of the ‘losers’, whose lack of common goals, military and political mistakes, scarce determination in waging an unpopular war particularly on the side of the Allied Powers, and poor understanding of the social process of transformation that the country had undergone have been widely explored by a specialized literature. It is beyond the scope of this book to deal with this side of the problem. Another part of the answer, however, is to be found in the performance of the Bolshevik military – economic organization, as distinct from the organization of the civil economy. The latter, as I have indicated, was highly conditioned by the anti-market approach which belonged to the Marxist tradition rather than to a model of war economy.