The Soviet Armed Forces in 1989

CHAPTER 8

In 1989, the consequences of Mikhail Gorbachev's four-year effort to reform the Soviet system were at last brought home to the Soviet armed forces.  The policy of perestroika, with its rejection of the traditional Stalinist emphasis on political conformity and a command economy, had from the outset implied a diminution of the military establishment's long-sacrosanct position.  Reformers had begun undermining this position at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986, when the Party adopted a military strategy of "sufficient defence".  In May the following year, the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact announced the adoption of a "defensive military doctrine".  Throughout the latter part of 1987 and early 1988, an unprecedented spate of articles by civilian defence analysts laid the conceptual groundwork for reductions in Soviet military forces.  Concurrently, an assault on the defence bureaucracy was spearheaded by Dmitri Yazov, a little-known commander from the Far East whom Gorbachev put in charge of personnel policy at the Ministry of Defence.  A few months later, Gorbachev exploited the landing of a small Cessna aircraft on Red Square to dismiss several conservatives in the Ministry of Defence and to move the reform-minded Yazov into the top military slot.

Yet it was only in the closing weeks of 1988 that the armed forces began to feel the full force of the changes to defence policy proposed earlier by Gorbachev that were to condition the events of 1989.  The watershed in this process was Gorbachev's announcement at the United Nations in December of a unilateral reduction in Soviet military manpower (of 500,000 men) and equipment (including 10,000 tanks).  The announcement represented a union of interrelated domestic and foreign policy initiatives.  Gorbachev hoped to halt a rapid deterioration of the Soviet economy by redirecting resources from the defence to the civilian sector while launching an international peace initiative designed to obviate the need for massive military forces.  A more direct result of the announcement was a further purge of the High Command, which had steadfastly opposed unilateral Soviet concessions, and the appointment of another relative unknown from the Far East, Mikhail Moiseev, to the prestigious post of chief of the General Staff.

Indeed 1989 brought abundant evidence of a victory for the "New Political Thinking" in the conduct of Soviet security policy, including a shift from military to so-called political forms of international competition and the repudiation of a class-based analysis of foreign affairs in favour of one that stressed "common human values".  In February, the Soviet Union ended its decade of military intervention in Afghanistan, only to replace combat personnel there with vast amounts of military aid and launch a world-wide diplomatic offensive.  In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, Soviet influence was undermined by a broad, popular repudiation of communism even as Soviet troop withdrawals from the region continued and, latterly, the reunification of Germany became a possibility.  In the midst of these revolutionary upheavals, pressures for a radical reduction of both strategic and conventional arms grew apace, and legislators everywhere from Washington to Moscow increased their demands for cuts in military spending.  In attempting to remain astride this burgeoning peace movement, the Soviet leadership did the unthinkable, announcing its culpability for the invasion of Afghanistan and admitting its violation of the ABM Treaty.

The past year also saw the armed forces treated rudely at home.  Minister of Defence Yazov continued to be but a candidate member of the Politburo, clearly subordinate to his rival in defence policy-making, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.  Civilian control over the military appeared to be strengthened too.  Gorbachev looked increasingly to the Foreign Ministry and to civilian defence experts for advice on security policy.  At the same time he shuffled top military personnel and imposed his policies upon the High Command with relative ease.  Finally, civilian control was established on a more solid, legal basis.

That the legislature had become a force to be reckoned with in the defence arena was made clear in July during the heated debate that accompanied the confirmation of Yazov as minister of defence.  He was grilled by the deputies, and his confirmation was secured only as a result of some last-minute alterations of the rules and Gorbachev's strong advocacy of his candidacy.  Supreme Soviet hearings also brought into the open long-secret details of the defence budget and the workings of the USSR Defence Council.  The most publicised victory over the military establishment came, however, with the Supreme Soviet decree in July that ordered the deactivation of some 176,000 former students from active military service.  The action was strongly opposed by the military leadership, and its adoption was greeted with stormy applause by members of the Supreme Soviet.  Landmark legislation was also passed that broadened the deferment opportunities available to students in higher education.

The Soviet political leadership also appeared to intensify its efforts to cut the military budget in 1989, with Gorbachev and various members of the military leadership calling for an overall reduction of approximately 14 per cent over the next couple of years, including a 19-20 per cent cut in arms production.  The conversion of defence industries to produce civilian goods emerged as a significant element in such discussions, with claims that the current 40 per cent of defence industry production devoted to civilian goods would be increased to 60 per cent by the mid-1990s.  The military leadership publicly embraced Gorbachev's proposals in this area.  They warned, however, that the attempts of some commentators to attribute current Soviet economic problems exclusively to defence spending were not only misguided but threatened to undermine economic reform and national security.

At a more fundamental level, the progress of democratisation and glasnost in 1989 revealed the extreme resentment felt by the Soviet population -- in particular the intelligentsia -- towards the military establishment.  Although the High Command objected loudly, press criticism of the armed forces reached unprecedented heights, and a seemingly endless stream of military accidents and misadventures further eroded the armed forces' prestige.  Perhaps the most damaging of all was the army's involvement in the tragic Tbilisi massacre, an event that led to the dismissal of the local commander and implicated the minister of defence.  Amid a welter of publicity excoriating "hazing" in army life, the armed forces found it increasingly difficult to attract capable young men -- especially Russians -- to careers in the armed forces.

Exploding ethnic tensions and resurgent nationalism all over the USSR in 1989 had dire consequences for the armed forces.  The authorities encountered increased resistance to military service among non-Russian youth, and the Soviet army found itself saddled with the appellation "occupation army" by certain radical groups in the Baltic republics.  Such tensions isolated army personnel in the republics and exacerbated already serious housing and supply problems.  Internally, burgeoning nationalism intensified ethnic tensions and threatened to destabilise the armed forces as a cohesive fighting force.

These developments inspired calls for the transformation of the present cadre-conscript army into an organisation based on the principles of a professional and/or territorial force.  The military leadership steadfastly opposed these proposals, arguing that a professional army would be too costly and that territorial formations would seriously lower defence capabilities.  Events may, however, dictate a move in precisely this direction, much as in the mid-1920s, when the Soviet Union drastically cut back its forces and backed up a small cadre army with national territorial units.  The conditions prevailing at that time bear a striking similarity to those today:  international tensions had eased;  the USSR was in dire need of rebuilding its economy;  and ethnic tensions within the country required assuaging.

The benign face that the Soviet Union showed to the outside world in 1989 must be regarded as an outgrowth of the political leadership's growing preoccupation with a deteriorating domestic situation.  Despite some grumbling within its ranks, the High Command appears to subscribe to the consensus that scarce resources, human and otherwise, must be shifted from the defence sector to the ailing domestic economy.  A rapidly rising crime rate and increasing ethnic violence have also enhanced the role of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and many of the troops released from the regular armed forces have found their way into its service.  The political leadership, it appears, is reluctant to employ regular army troops on internal police work.  All the same, the prospect of thousands of officers being deactivated is causing tensions within the military establishment and threatens to exacerbate an already serious shortage of housing in the civilian sector.

Despite the fact that the armed forces appear to be among the most spectacular losers in 1989, it is important to view military retrenchment in a broader context.  Gorbachev's reform program has hit all the Soviet Union's entrenched bureaucracies, and there is clearly a recognition on the part of many officers that radical change is needed, even if they do not agree with every aspect of it.  Furthermore, the much-needed unclogging of promotion channels as a result of the removal of older and more conservative officers can only have pleased the younger officers who have taken their places.  The military establishment has also benefited from glasnost and democratisation inasmuch as it too can now polemicise in public.  Representatives of the military establishment have filtered into the restructured defence-policy-making community, taking over important positions within the Party and state apparatuses and also in the various civilian think-tanks.  Finally, as 1989 drew to a close, the officer corps appeared to realise that Gorbachev's attempt to revitalise the Soviet system could, if successful, ultimately contribute to building a military machine that would be not only more efficient by also more effective.