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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.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1948

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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. 1213.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 5657.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

16 Baykoff, , op. cit., p. 308.Google Scholar

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

20 The basic figures for 1945 can be found in Perejda, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Herman, L. M., “Soviet Iron and Steel Industry,“ International Reference Service (published by the U. S. Department of Commerce), July 1947, p. 5Google Scholar; and Schwartz, H., op. cit., p. 30. Figures for 1946 and 1947 are calculated on the basis of relative figures appearing in the reports of the state planning commission on the achievement of industry in 1946 and 1947.Google Scholar

21 Economist, March 14, 1948.Google Scholar

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

23 New York Times, June 28, 1948.Google Scholar

24 Figures for 1938 are given in my Great Retreat, table on p. 451. Figures for 1945 may be derived from the Fourth Five-Year Plan which gives absolute figures expected to be attained in 1950 and the percentage of increase from 1945 to 1950. Figures for 1947 are communicated in Andreev's report, quoted above.Google Scholar

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

30 These were the Crimean, the Kalmyck and the Chechen-Ingush republics and the Karachaeyev autonomous area. The republic of the Volga Germans was dissolved in the beginning of the hostilities.

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

32 Cf. Steinbeck, John, op. cit., pp. 5758.Google Scholar