The Sacred Cause: Civil-Military Conflict over Soviet National Security, 1917–1992

Thomas M. Nichols

Published by Cornell University Press 1993

The Sacred Cause

Civil-Military Conflict over Soviet National Security, 1917–1992

Thomas M. Nichols

In the series Cornell Studies in Security Affairs

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501737312

Overview
Contents

About this book

To the officers of the USSR Armed Forces, the defense of the Soviet Union was, in the words of a Soviet general, a "sacred cause." What was the nature of
Soviet civil-military relations, and what have the new militaries inherited from the Soviet experience? In this book Thomas M. Nichols examines the struggles over national security policy between military officers and political leaders in the USSR, and shows that the Soviet civil-military relationship has a long history of conflict rather than cooperation.

Nichols disputes the longstanding Wes tern belief in Party–Army amity. He argues that Party control over the Soviet armed forces has been tenuous since Stalin's death; the relationship was inherently unstable and conflictual, growing in intensity because of Gorbachev and his approach to domestic and foreign policy reforms.

The source of this instability lay in the creation of the Soviet Armed Forces as a Marxist military, and Nichols maintains that this privileged and highly ideological institution found itself in frequent conflict with a Party that had of necessity to take an increasingly pragmatic approach to international politics. Movement toward a politically isolated and professionalized military, he shows, was continuously subverted by civilian leaders who sought to control military issues through political intrusions into doctrine and strategy.

He concludes that the new leaders of the post-Soviet republics have inherited a group of military organizations that continue to resist the abandonment both of their ideological foundations and of their cohesion as a multinational military-a situation he believes may prove to be one of the greatest threats to the emerging post-Soviet democracies.

Author / Editor information

Thomas M. Nichols is Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.

Reviews

Harry Gelman, The Rand Corporation:

Nichols has provided fresh and important insights into the thinking that shaped the behavior of the Soviet military institution. His interpretation of the recent past is valuable for our understanding of the difficult role played by the military in Russia today.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: "Our National and Sacred Cause" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Bureaucrats or Bonapartes? Western Views of the Soviet Military Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. Setting the Stage: Stalin and the Military Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
3. Khrushchev's Revolution: Stalinism without Stalin? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
4. The "Golden Age" and After: Brezhnev's Retreat and Military Ascendance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
5. Reform and Resistance: Gorbachev and the Military, 1983-1986 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	130
6. Abandoning Pretenses: Gorbachev and the Military, 1987-1988 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
7. The End of an Era: The Soviet Armed Forces and the "Political Struggle" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
8. Rethinking Soviet Civil-Military Relations: Prospects for the 1990s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 304
Keywords: Political Science & Political History; Security Studies; International Studies

eBook

Published: May 15, 2019
ISBN: 9781501737312