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The Strength and the Weaknesses of the Soviet Union
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
On the political scene of the postwar world, the opposition between the United States and the Soviet Union has been the dominant fact. The unfolding of this opposition has been, and will be, to a large extent, determined by the relative strength of the two parties: the closer it is to equality, the easier could it develop into a shooting war. If it so develops, die same relationship of strength will become one of the major determinants of victory.
What is the relative strength of the central foes? In this paper, the strength of the United States will be taken for granted. Contrariwise, the strength of the Soviet Union will be treated as an unknown magnitude to be found on the basis of evidence available.
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1948
References
1 In this table, the “area of annexations” cover the territories annexed in 1939–40 and additionally in 1945–46. The “area of dominance” covers Finland, Poland (in new boundaries), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania and the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. Population figures are estimates for 1939.
2 Here and later, the terminology introduced by the geopoliticians (beginning with H. J. Mackinder) is used; this is not tantamount to the endorsement of their specific theories.
3 Formerly the GPU, still earlier the Che-Ka.
4 Cf. the table in my Great Retreat, p. 453.Google Scholar
5 Cf. Baykoff, A. A., The Development of the Soviet Economic System, (1946), p. 8.Google Scholar
6 Cf. my Great Retreat, p. 385.Google Scholar
7 This estimate is made in the present writer's paper, “The Postwar Population of the Soviet Union,” in the American Journal of Sociology of September 1948.
8 Presidency of the Council of Ministers (of Poland). Statement on War Losses and Damages (in Polish, 1947), p. 43.Google Scholar
9 See for instance John, Steinbeck, A Russian Journal (1948), pp. 81, 99 and passim. Confirmed by V. I. Tereschenko, representative of the UNRRA in the Ukraine, in an oral communication to the present writer.Google Scholar
10 A few parts of this film have been reproduced in Sign, June 1948, pp. 12–13.Google Scholar
11 These reports (in Russian) may be found in the Proceedings of the Congress and in pamphlets published by the Gosizdat.
12 On the war and postwar economy of the Soviet Union see Vosnessenski, N., War Economies of the Soviet Union (in Russian), (1948)Google Scholar; and Schwarz, Harry, Russia's Postwar Economy, (Syracuse, 1947).Google Scholar
13 Voznessenski, , op. cit., pp. 42 and 56–57.Google Scholar
14 Ibid., p. 43.
15 Perejda, A. D. “Russia in the Oil Age,” American Reviem of the Soviet Union Aug. 1946, p. 6.Google Scholar
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17 Voznessenski, , op. cit., pp. 48, 51, 53, 80.Google Scholar
18 Calculated on the basis of Schwartz, H., op. cit., p. 30.Google Scholar
19 Pravda, Jan. 21, 1947; Jan. 18. 1948.Google Scholar
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22 The harvest of 1945 can be calculated on the basis of figures communicated by Andreev in his report to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, published in Pravda, March 7, 1947. The figure for 1946 is an estimate made by Schwartz, S. in the Socialist Messenger (published in Russian, in New York), 1947, No. 5, p. 80Google Scholar. The figure for 1947 may be then derived from a communication of Pravda, October 15, 1947.Google Scholar
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25 Figures for 1939 appear in Kulturnoye Stroitelstvo (1940), p. 29Google Scholar. In 1947, approximately the same number of pupils attended the Soviet schools as in 1939 (Information Bulletin of the Soviet Embassy, 1947, No. 6, p. 12), but no data about the distribution of pupils among the three divisions are available.Google Scholar
26 Information Bulletin, same quotation as in previous footnote. The figures are roughly comparable with those of the United States because, in the course of the revolution, the Russian system of the institutions of higher learning has been brought close to the American pattern while, before the revolution, the German pattern prevailed.
27 Economist, Feb. 14, 1948.Google Scholar
28 In September 1946, the Red Army was renamed the Soviet Army.
29 On the peculiar mixture of old and new in military equipment see White, W. L., Report on the Russians (1945), pp. 115, 122, 181 and passim.Google Scholar
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31 On the Vlassov movement see an article of Nicolaevsky, B. in The New Review (published in Russian in New York), vol. 18, pp. 209–32.Google Scholar
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