Clausewitlz
The
Mpilitarization
of Marxismn,
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by Jacob W. Kipp
Kansas State University
CarlvonClausewitz.
Lithograph
byF. Michelis
afterthe
painting
byW.Wach,1830.(Original
inthepossession
of Professor Peter Paret, Stanford;used with
permission.)
EVEN the most superficialreading of Soviet militarywrit-
ings would lead to the conclusion that a close tie exists
between Marxism-Leninismand Clausewitz' studies on war
and statecraft.Althoughlabeled an "idealist," Clausewitz enjoys a place in the Soviet pantheonof militarytheoristsstrikinglysimilarto thatassigned to pagan philosophersin Dante's
Hell. Colonel General I. E. Shavrov, formercommanderof the
Soviet General StaffAcademy, has writtenthat Clausewitz'
methodmarkeda radical departurein the studyof war:
He, in reality,forthe firsttimein militarytheory,denied
the "eternal" and "unchanging" in militaryart, stroveto
examine the phenomenonof war in its interdependence
and interconditionality,
in its movement and developmentin order to postulate theirlaws and principles.'
Soviet authorspoint to the fact that Lenin valued Clausewitz'
workbut refuseto see Lenin's readingof Vom Kriege as having
anyfundamental
consequences forLenin's own views on waror
militaryaffairs.2Soviet authorstake no note of whenor in what
contextLenin read Clausewitz, nor do theyconsiderthe specificmannerin whichLenin applied Clausewitz' concepts on war
to theformationofthemilitarypolicyof his party.
and statecraft
It is the purpose of thisarticleto examine the intellectualbond
between the Prussian officerand the Russian revolutionaryin
order to understand better the relationshipbetween Soviet
militaryscience and Marxism-Leninism.
The ideological baggage which Russian Social Democrats
carried with them in 1914 would seem to suggest an undying
distrustof any ideas comingfromprofessionalsoldiers of the
184
old regime. On the one hand, reformersand revolutionaries
shared the strong anti-militaristthrust of European Social
Democracy, whichviewed the militaryelite as the sources of a
vile and poisonous militarism.The professionalsoldiers' desire
forglory,like the capitalists' search for profits,only brought
sufferingto the workingclass. All socialists shared a commitmentto a citizens' militiaas the preferredmeans of national
defense. In 1917 the Bolsheviks rode this anti-militarist
sentimentto power by supportingthe process of militarydisintegration,upholdingthechaos ofthekomitetshchina,
and promising a governmentthat would bringimmediatepeace.3
These Social Democrats were also the heirs of the voluminous writingson militaryaffairsofthetwo foundersof scientific
socialism, Karl Marx and FriedrichEngels. As Peter Vigorhas
pointed out, these two life-longcollaboratorsemployed a divisionoflabor intheirmilitarywritings.Engels, who considered
himselfan amateursoldier,dealt withtactics, strategy,and the
impactof technologyon militaryaffairs.Marx dealt withinternational relations,the impactof war on domestic politics,and
the revolutionarypotentialof a given conflict.4AfterMarx's
death Engels continued writingabout militaryaffairs,and in
1887penneda chillingpredictionofwhata generalwar would be
like in capitalist Europe:
This would be a universalwar of unprecedentedscope,
unprecedentedforce. From eight to ten millionsoldiers
willdestroyone anotherand in the course of doingso will
stripEurope clean in a way thata swarmof locusts could
never have done. The devastation caused by the Thirty
Year's War telescoped into3-4 years and spread over the
MILITARYAFFAIRS
entire continent,hunger, epidemics, the universal ensavagementofbothtroopsand the masses, broughtabout
by acute need, the hopeless jumbling of our artificial
trade, industrial,and creditmechanisms; all this ending
in generalbankruptcy,the collapse of old states and their
vaunted wisdom . . . the utter impossibility of foreseeing
how all thiswillend and who will emergevictoriousfrom
this struggle;only one resultis absolutelybeyond doubt:
universal exhaustion and the creation of conditions for
the finalvictoryof the workingclass.'
Engels had littleto say about what would follow this crisis.
Its very magnitudepointed towards a general revolutionary
crisis across Europe and a rapid social transformation
from
capitalism to socialism. Once the exploiting and exploited
social classes had disappeared,the proletarianstatewould have
no need forthe militaryas the instrument
of the state's monopoly on violence since the state would have neitherexternalnor
internalthreatswith which to contend.
TWENTY-SEVEN
years passed between Engels' prediction
and the onset of thatgreatEuropean war. In the meantime
the heirs of Marx and Engels had become powerfulpolitical
forcesin manystatesof Europe. Some parties,mostnotablythe
GermanSocial Democratic Party,had abandoned revolutionary
action, althoughtheycontinuedto mouththe rhetoricof class
confrontation.European socialists had in 1890created the Second International,and theyexpected it to providethe organizational expression for a workers' solidarity,which was to preventthe outbreakof such a war. But in the Summerand Fall of
1914 the socialist parties of Europe, withthe exception of the
Serbian, actively or passively supported their governments'
entryinto the war. To the disgust of Lenin, the majorityof
Russian Social Democrats were willingto defend Russia, no
matterhow muchtheydespised the tsaristregime.But Engels'
vision came back to haunt them all. Total war graduallytore
assunder both socialist ideology and European society in the
same mannerthat the massed guns tore apart land and men.
In readingLenin's early writingson militaryaffairs,one must
be conscious of the extent to which these views have been
accepted without deep reflectionor consideration. Lenin's
observations on the colonial wars of the late nineteenthand
early twentiethcenturies,especially the Russo-Japanese War,
reflectthe preeminentconcernsfoundin the worksof Marx and
Engels: the politics of war and the impact of new technology
upon war in capitalist society.
Withthe outbreakof World War I, Lenin's speculationsand
writingsabout war underwenta radical transformation.
Ideologies, like the paradigms of a scientificdiscipline, begin to
disintegratewhen the exceptions or anomalies startto threaten
the verycore of the model. Normal ideological discourse, like
what Thomas Kuhn has called "normal science," becomes
increasingiydifficult.Lenin's concerns were shared by socialists across Europe. In Marxist terms practice, i.e., objective
circumstances, had called into question a central point of
theory.In 1914 Lenin, along withothersocial democrats,confrontedan anomaly of such scope and power that theirideological assumptionscould not but undergochange.'
Marxism,withits historicalmaterialistanalysis of the world,
and itsemphasisupon class conflict,had held out the promiseof
liberatingthe essential potentialitiesof man amid the deprivations of reality.Hegel had placed this philosophicalconcern in
the historicalcontextof his timeand so had made manifestthe
fact that man's knowledge, activity,and hope were directed
towardsthe establishmentof a rationalsociety. Marx set out to
demonstratetheconcreteforcesand tendenciesthatstood in the
path of this goal and those that promised it. This material
connectionof his theorywitha definitehistoricalformof praxis
negatednot only philosophy,but sociologyas well. As Herbert
Marcuse has pointed out, the social facts that Marx analyzed,
OCTOBER 1985
i.e., the alienation of labor, the fetishismof the commodity
world, surplus value, exploitation,are not akin to sociological
facts,such as divorces,crimes,shiftsin population,or business
cycles. The fundamentalaspects ofMarxiancategoriesdefyany
empirical science. i.e., one preoccupied with describingand
organizingthe objective phenomenaof society. They appear as
facts only to a theory that takes them in preview of their
negation.Correcttheoryis nothingless thana consciousness of
a praxis thataims at changingthe world.7Marx put the proposition succinctlyin his eleventh thesis on Feuerbach: "The
philosophershave only interpretedthe world in various ways;
the point, however, is to change it."'
WhatMarxistsacross Europe faced in the Summerand Fall of
1914 was an anomaly so glaringthat realityseemed to negate
existingtheory. In the face of its proclaimed internationalism
and pacifism,the Social Democrats of Europe had to confronta
general European war, which theirtheoryhad held to be an
impossibility.The Second Internationaland workersolidarity
were supposed to preventa general war among the powers.
True, as in the case of analogous circumstanceassociated with
scientificrevolutions,observers in the decades prior to the
outbreakof WorldWar I had notedanomalies in maturecapitalism, which did not fitthe essential paradigmoutlinedby Marx
and Engels. But the shock of modernwar, i.e., praxis, set offa
deep crisis in theory.9
In Lenin's case, this crisis had a profound,but largelyunacknowledged consequence, for Soviet militaryscience. For
Lenin, the committed revolutionary,the ramificationsof a
general European war were no abstract concern. On the contrary,because he was committedto changingthe world. Lenin
requiredof theorythatit granthim"scientificforesight"- the
abiltyto foreseethewar's course and outcome. On theone hand.
this led Lenin to review the substantialbody of socialist literatureon financecapitalismand imperialistrivalries.culminating
State
in 1916 withhis syntheticwork,Imperialismthe Hi,g4hest
oflCapitalism."' On the otherhand. Lenin was concerned with
the problemof theoryreconstruction,a task made essential by
the apparentfailureof accepted Marxismto predictor prevent
the war. It is most typical of Lenin that in the face of such
earth-shakinghistoricalevents, he should returnto philosophy
in orderto finda theoreticalframeworkupon whichto analyze
these events and to guide his actions.
Unlike the dry and largelyahistoricalexposition of Lenin's
views to be found in most Soviet works, this process is intellectuallyintriguingand highlyrelevantto our concern, the
development of Soviet militaryscience. This process inof Lenin's generaltheory.2
volved a fundamentalrestructuring
Down to 1914,forall his declarationsabout dialecticalmaterialism, Lenin never transcendedthe historicalpre-Marxian,mechanistic materialismof the Enlightenment.In one of his earliest writings(1894), "What the Friends of the People Are,"
Lenin had asserted that "insistence on dialectics . . . is nothing
but a relic of Hegelianismout of which scientificsocialism has
grown,a relicof its mannerof expression." 13Whilerecognizing
a need forsome philosophicalunderpinning
to Marxism,Lenin
did not himselfenterintodebate untilpracticalissues of policy,
i.e., whetherthe Bolsheviks would take partin the electionsfor
the Third Duma, broughthim into conflictwith the Bogdanovitesand theirMachian Empiriomonism.When it appeared that
Bolshevism was being identifiedwith Machism and suffering
Lenin did address the issue
politicallyfromthis identification,
14 Lenin's approach, and
in Materialism and Empiriocriticism.
one to be foundin Soviet worksto thisday, was to postulatea
strugglebetween philosophical idealism and materialism:
The question here is not of this or that formulationof
materialismbut of the antithesisbetweenmaterialismand
idealism, of the differencebetween the two fundamental
lines of philosophy. Are we to proceed fromthingsto
sensations and thought? Or are we to proceed from
thoughtand sensation to things?'
185
Two doctrinesformedthe centralthemes of Lenin's materialism: the externalrealityof the worldand the "copy" theoryof
knowledge.This can stillbe foundas the epistemologicalfoundation of all Soviet writingson philosophy, includingthose
relatingto militaryaffairs.
WITH
the unexpected disintegrationof internationalism
and the outbreak of a general European War, Lenin
turnedto philosophyin orderto reformulate
theoryin theface of
these anomalies. Lenin devoured Hegel and engaged in his first
systematic treatmentof the dialectic. His notes, which extendedto about 300 pages, reflecthis changinginterpretation
of
Hegel. Initially,it seems Lenin intendedto use his study of
Hegel to give a correctaccount of Marx's materialism.But in
the process of his study of Hegel's Logic, Lenin's critical
commentsgave way to enthusiasticacceptance. At the end of
his notes, he wrote, "In this most idealistic of Hegel's works
thereis the least idealismand the most materialism."'6In what
was an explicitacknowledgementthatprewarMarxists'general
theoryhad been utterlywrong-headed,Lenin wrote:
It is impossibleto understandcompletelyMarx's Capital,
especially its firstchapter[dealing withMarx's treatment
of use-value and the fetishismof commodities],without
having thoroughlystudied the whole of Hegel's Logic.
Consequently,half a centurylater none of the Marxists
understoodMarx!
This most revealingact of criticismand self-criticism
marked
a fundamentalshiftin Lenin's and subsequently Communist
ideology. This shift,denied in Soviet works forthe purpose of
maintainingan uninterruptedideological continuitybetween
Marxism and Leninism, had radical implicationsfor Lenin's
developing paradigm of modern war. Maintaininghis revolutionary,internationalistposition on the war, Lenin turned
fromHegel and philosophyto polemicalwritingson the war and
the politicalstruggleto transformthe war into an international
civil war, pittingclass against class. In the process, Lenin
turnedto the studyof theconductof war. He receiveda copy of
Karl von Clausewitz' Vom Kriege fromG. I. Gusev, a fellow
Bolshevik and formereditor of the MilitaryEncyclopedia. As
an editor of the encyclopedia Gusev had contact with many
reform-mindedgeneral staff officers who after the RussoJapanese War had embarkedupon the process of modernizing
Russian militarythoughtand doctrine under the banner of
creatinga "unified militaryschool.""8 Lenin devoured Clausewitz' book, fillinga large notebook with his observationsin
early 1915 and applyingthese to the politics of the socialist
movement. During this period we can observe the transformationof Lenin's dialectical materialismfroman emphasis on
the latterto the formeraspect.",
His firstcitationof Clausewitz' work is most instructivein
what it reveals about his method and technique. The citation
came in a work devoted to the collapse of the Second International,whichwas writtenin the firsthalfof June 1915.2' Here
Lenin presents his paradigm shiftin the formof intellectual
synthesisof Clausewitz, Hegel, Marx, and Engels, transforming the dialectic froman external process of 'copying" observed empirical phenomena into an internalizedtool for the
unificationof theoryand practice:
Applied to wars, the basic thesis of the dialectic, so
shamelesslydistortedby Plekhanov[thendefendingRussia's prosecution of the war as part of a democratic
to the purposes ofthe
struggleagainstGermanmilitarism]
bourgeoisie,is this,that -v'ar is simplythe continuation
oJpolitics by other(namelyviolent)means." Such is the
formulationof Clausewitz, one of the greatestwriterson
questions of military history, whose ideas were engenderedby Hegel. And such ideas were always the point
of view of Marx and Engels, each war, theyviewed as a
continuationof the politics of a given interestedpower
186
and of the differentclasses withinthem -
time.2"
at a given
The firstobservationto be made concernsthe revisionof Clausewitzdone by Lenin. In Vom Kriege, war is thecontinuationof
politics but these are conducted by the supra-class, rational
state in the name of the general interestsof the entirepopulation, which the state seeks to mediate. In Lenin, the state is
stillMarx's executive committeeof the rulingclass, and so its
policies are, at best, the realisticinterestsof the rulingclass, or
worse, the irrationaland self-destructiveinstinctsof a class
caughtin irresolvablecontradictions.22
Althoughwell aware of
the influenceof Kantian philosophyon the youngClausewitz,
Lenin chose to attributea philosophicaland historicalrelationship to Hegel. Now, in fact, as modern scholarshipon Clausewitz has acknowledged, there is an implicit relationship
between Hegel and the Prussian generalin the latter'smode of
exposition. As Peter Paret has observed, German philosophy
did provide Clausewitz "with a fundamentalattitudeand with
the intellectualtools to express it." More specifically,Clausewitz employed the dialectic as his method in developinghis
conceptions, i.e., the posing of opposites to be defined and
compared not only so thateach partcould be more completely
understood,but also so thatall thedynamiclinkagesconnecting
all of the elements of war could be examined in a state of
permanentinteraction.23
The reality of war and the bitterintersocialistpolitics of
1915-1916broughtLenin to a radical revisionof Marxistthought
on war. If the European workingclass could not deter war
throughsolidarityand proletarianinternationalism,then the
question became one of how to benefitfromanomaly. The
answer was to transformthe imperialistwar into a civil war.
Lenin embraced Clausewitz in a fashionneverdone by Marx or
Engels. Indeed, Engels' referencesto Clausewitz are either
banal or of a purelyperipheralnatureto the subject and topic
under discussion, i.e., the level of education of the Prussian
officercorps.24Lenin's readingof Clausewitz assumed central
significance with the increasing militarization of Lenin's
thoughtfromthe questions of organizingan armed insurrection
to the command of the forces of the new Bolshevik state. The
Prussian provideda model of the applicationof the dialectic to
issues of militaryscience, allowing Lenin to break down the
"immutabiltyof the firmprinciplesof militaryscience" and to
reformulatehis own conceptions of war and the armed forces.
An examinationof Lenin's referencesto Clausewitz in the
period after his reading of Vom Kriege is most instructive.
Marxism has always retained a predictiveelement, thanksto
utopiantractsand the Enlightenment'sfaithin humanprogress,
but in the face of a worldwar, whichchallengedthe most pious
hopes of socialists. doctrinerequiredanothertypeof foresight,
a tool for immediateuse in assessing and analyzing the conflictingtrends. In the Summer of 1915, Lenin articulatedhis
own synthesisof Marx and Clausewitz in the formof an historical typologyof wars coveringthe period 1789 to 1914. In this
essay, "The Principlesof Socialism and the War, 1914-1915,"
Lenin drew the conclusionthatwar had been transformed
from
bourgeois-nationalstruggles,which he identifiedas just struggles by the bourgeoisieagainst the survivingfeudal order,into
imperialistwars among capitalist powers. The firstera had
lasted until1871,and since thenas a consequence ofthe uneven
developmentof capitalismthe number,extentand intensityof
local wars had been growing over colonial questions, culminatingin the general imperialistwar. In this typology,war
had become a central feature of the capitalist international
systemand was presentedas a consequence of internal,i.e.,
class, politics. '*War is a continuationof politicsby other,i.e.,
violent, means" becomes in Lenin's hands, a tool fora class
analysis of the imperialistwar and the emergence of anticolonial strugglesoutside Europe. It is also a weapon to be
turnedupon his opponents, those Social Democrats who had
MILITARY AFFAIRS
agreedto supporttheirgovernmentsduringthe war, and, therefore, opposed Lenin's defeatism.25
IN 1917, Lenin foundhimselfconfrontedby a revolutionary
upheaval in Russia, which no partycould have claimed to
have authored- save possiblythetsaristgovernmentin its own
incompetence. Yet, Lenin more quickly than other radicals
reached theconclusionthatthisrevolutioncould onlybe understood in the contextofthe war. He believed thathis factionand
the workingclass could thusdirectthe war to theirend. In May
1917, in the midst of the firstcrisis of Russia's Provisional
Governmentover the politics of war aims, i.e., whetherthat
governmentwould rejectthe promisedRussian territorial
gains
containedin various secrettreatiesamongthe Allies and accept
a peace withoutvictors, Lenin applied Clausewitz to the existingpolitical-military
situation.Lenin began "War and Revolution" with what was for him the central question: the class
natureof the war. Afteran historicalanalysis of the rootsof the
conflict,Lenin turnedto Clausewitz:
The dictum of one of the most famous writerson the
philosophy of wars and on the historyof wars, Clausewitz, is well known. It states,"War is a continuationof
politicsby othermeans." This dictumbelongs to a writer
who reviewedthe historyof wars and deduced the philosophical lessons fromthat history- shortlyafterthe
epoch of the Napoleonic Wars. This writer,whose basic
ideas have become at present time the undoubted acquisition of any sort of thinkingperson, already about
eightyyearsago struggledagainstthenarrowand ignorant
prejudice, that war could be isolated fromthe policy of
the corresponding governments, the corresponding
classes, as ifwar could be looked upon as simpleaggression, which disturbs the peace, and then follows the
restorationof thatdisturbedpeace. They foughtand then
theymade up! This coarse and ignorantview decades ago
was refutedand disprovedby any sortof attentiveanalysis of any historicalepoch of war.26
The junctureof class analysis and the politicalnatureof war is,
of course, Lenin's own insight.In embracingthe dialectical
approach to questions of war and peace, Lenin sought to put
revisedtheoryintopractice.In May, 1917,theobjectivewas the
transformation
of the imperialistwar into an internationalcivil
war:
Withouta workers'revolutionin several countriesno one
can win in this war. War is not a toy; war is an unprecedentedthing;war costs millionsof lives, and it is not so
easy to end it.27
Lenin intendedhis analysis to provide foresight,and foresight
in turnwas to preparehis partyand the workingclass of Russia
for action. While the events of the Summer and Fall of 1917
confirmthat Lenin could not control the social forces acting
upon the Russian polity, in July he went along with demonstrationsthathe could notcontroland faced theirfailureand the
suppressionof his party. Then, in October he could not convince his own partyelite of the timelinessof preparationsforan
armed insurrectionagainst a bankrupt Provisional Government.2' His own synthesisof class analysis, the centralityof
politicsto war, and an interpretation
of the immediatepast that
seemed to hold out the prospectof immediate,sweeping,revolutionarychanges allowed Lenin to speak of "scientific prediction" and foresight.This, in turn,gave Lenin the confidence
to act decisively.
Upon coming to power Lenin had to confrontthe starkrealities of the social. political, and economic disintegration
which had transpiredin Russia in 1917, and to which the Bolsheviks had contributedthemselves.Lenin and the Bolsheviks
found themselves the nominal rulers of a vast countryin the
process of disintegration
as nationalminorities,whichhad been
held in check by the autocratic police power, sought national
OCTOBER 1985
autonomy. Powerfulsocial groups grudginglyaccepted Soviet
power, but were already in the process of becoming political
movementsdedicatedto theoverthrowoftheregime.Lenin was
acutelyaware ofthetwo centralthreatsto theregime'ssurvival:
the trauma of the continuingwar and the processes of social
disintegration.These twin threatsexplain much of Bolshevik
policy duringthe Winter-Spring
of 1918.
Negotiationswith ImperialGermanyand its allies produced
neithera compromisepeace nor a social revolutionin Berlin.
Germantermsforpeace became harsheras Soviet Russia grew
weaker. The Soviet governmentdecreed the abolitionofthe old
armyand navy and on 28 January1918 (N.S.), proclaimedthe
formationof the RKKA, the Red Armyof Workersand Peasants. This new force, which was originallydrawn out of available Red Guard unitsfromamong the proletariatand remnants
of militaryformationswhich had demonstratedtheirloyaltyto
Soviet power, began as littlemore than a stop-gapmeasure to
providethe regimewithat least some crediblemilitarypower in
the face of thatincreasingGermanpressureat the peace talksin
Brest-Litovsk.2
Lenin identifiedthe Red Armyas a new typeof militaryforce
in keeping withthe state formationwhich the Soviet Republic
represented.The Red Armyin manyways negatedthe imperial
militarytradition. But it also negated much of the prewar
socialist ideas about a citizenarmy,whichwould dispense with
the services of a professionalofficercorps. Lenin and L. D.
Trotsky,the newly-appointedcommanderof the RKKA, rejected the cult of the militiawhichhad been seen as the military
embodimentof radical democraticand socialist ideologyin the
nineteenthcentury. This break became apparent during the
inter-partydebates over the acceptance of the final German
termsat Brest-Litovsk.Once the Germans had demonstrated
theirwill to continuemilitaryoperationsin the East untiltheir
politicalobjectives were obtained,concessions became vitalto
the regime's survival. Lenin argued fora policy of realism; he
labeled the Treatyof Brest-Litovska "Tilsit Peace," an agreement which would, however humiliatingand damaging the
terms,buy time for the regimeto consolidate its power.3"
Again Lenin drew upon Clausewitz to justifyhis government's acceptance of the unfavorableterms as a necessary
Lenin and the
means of self-defense.October had transformed
Bolsheviksfrom"defeatists" to "defensists" inthecause ofthe
young Soviet republic:
Since we became the representativesof a rulingclass,
which has begun to organize socialism, we demand from
everyone a serious relationshipto the defense of the
country.To relate seriouslyto the defenseof the country
means to be thoroughlyprepared and to calculate accuratelythe correlationof forces. If those forcesare plainly
inadequatethenthe mostimportantmeans ofdefenseis to
withdrawintothedepthsofthecountry.Those [advocates
ofcontinuingthe strugglewithGermanyas a partisanwar]
who would see thisas an attractiveformulain the present
situation can read about the results of the lessons of
historyin thisaccount in old man Clausewitz, one of the
greatestmilitarywriters.3'
"Old Man Clausewitz" appeared here withoutideological trappings,and Lenin's remarksdo suggesta carefulreading.Lenin
called to his reader's attentionthe three specific conditions
which Clausewitz had cited as being necessary to make such a
strategicwithdrawalinto the interiorof the countrya proper
course of militaryaction:
a. When our physicaland psychologicalsituationlvisa lvis
the enemy rules out the possibility of successful
resistance at or near the frontier
b. When our main objective is to gain time
c. When the condition of the countryis favorable to it
32
For Lenin the thirdfactorwas decisive in dictatinga peace with
187
justify its decision to utilize voenspetsy on the basis of the
writingsof Marx and Engels. To this, Lenin responded that
neitherman could offerany guidance on thisquestionbecause,
"for themthe question did not existforthe simplereason thatit
arose only when we (the Bolsheviks) undertook the con-
Germany.The Soviet Republic had just overseen the abolition
of the old armyand was only thenin the process of creatinga
new one. Internalunrestand an emergingthreatof civil war
made it imperativefor the Soviet governmentto concentrate
upon the internal,i.e., class war, which Lenin viewed as decisive for the survivalof the dictatorshipof the proletariat.
Lenin rejected out-of-handleft-wingromanticism, which
called for a partisan war against the German invaders. For
Lenin the 'breathingspace" was to providean opportunityfor
the regimeto arm itselfwitha powerfulstandingarmy.Nikolai
Bukharin,one of those who advocated a guerrillawar, or particanstvo,recognized Lenin's priorities:
struction of the Red Army."38
M. N. Tukhachevsky,a formertsaristofficerhimself,wrote
to Lenin that the new regime was unlikelyto get eitherthe
brightestor the best fromthe formertsaristofficercorps. Much
of it was badly educated and thereforeprofessionallyincompetent.Many oftheverybest had alreadygiventheirlives on the
battlefieldsof the Eastern Front, and of the rest, many had
already chosen to side withthe Whites.3"Others,most notably
the TsaritsynShaika (gang) whichgrew up aroundJ. V. Stalin,
K. Voroshilov and S. M. Budennyi,raised politicalobjections
and called intoquestionthe loyaltiesof voenspetsysentto their
theater.4"
Lenin and Trotskyanswered these critics by assertingthat
they grossly underestimatedthe positive role that v'oenspetsy
could play, failedto appreciate the value of bourgeoismilitary
science, and overestimated the value of partisan warfare.4
Under conditionsof dire emergencyand withappropriatepolitical controls to guarantee theirloyalty,they saw the voenspetsy and bourgeois specialists in general as critical to the
survival of Soviet power. The regimeneeded professionalexpertisefromany source that could provide it:
Comrade Lenin has chosen to define revolutionarywar
only and exclusively as a war of large armies in accordance to all the rules of militaryscience. We propose that
war fromour side - at least in the beginning- will
inevitablytake the characterof a partisan war of flying
detachments.33
L
ENIN not onlygot the Partyto accept Brest-Litovsk,butin
the monthsfollowingthe ratificationof the treatyas civil
war erupted across Russia, Lenin and Trotsky directed the
creationof a powerfulstandingarmy. In this process, the two
men played an instrumental
role in shapinga series of decisions
that would affect the institutionalrelationship between the
Partyand the militaryand the ideological relationshipbetween
Marxism-Leninismand militaryscience. One of the most importantinitialdecisions was the acceptance of the mobilization
of formertsarist officersas militaryspecialists, voenspetsy.
Colonel 1. A. Korotkov has creditedthese "spetsy" with"the
firststeps of Soviet militaryscience.''4
Two elementsseemed to have shaped Lenin's attitudeon this
question. The firstwas his general respect for professional
competence. At the core of Lenin's theoryof the partywas the
concept of leadership by professional revolutionariesas outlined in WliatIs To Be Done? so manyyears before. Lenin had
little use for amateurs in politics, culture, or the military.
Second, Lenin's realismmade himacutelyaware oftheneed for
professionallycompetentstrategicleadership,ifthe regimewas
to survive.3sAlthoughSoviet authors still vilifyTrotskyfor a
policy of "capitulation" before the so-called professionalcredentials of the voenspetsy, his views in 1918 were close to
Lenin's. Afterthe decision had been made to recruitbourgeois
specialistsforthe Red Armyon 31 March 1918. Trotskywrote
the followingcomments,explaininghis support for the measure. which he considered essential to the survival of the
But although our party is thoroughlyand inseparably
linkedwiththe workingclass, it neverwas and nevercan
become the simplebooster of the workingclass, whichis
content with all that the workers do . . . The proletariat
and even morethe peasant masses have onlyjust emerged
frommany centuriesof slavery and carryin themselves
all the consequences of oppression,ignorance,and darkness. The seizure of power in and of itselfhas not at all
transformed
the workingclass and has not attiredit with
all the necessary merits and qualities: the seizure of
power has only opened before it the possibilityto really
learn, develop and purge itselfof its own historicaldeficiencies.42
The spetsy became the instrumentsthroughwhich a future
generationof Communistcadre would be created. The iowensp)etsyplayed a crucial role in the formationof the Soviet staff
and officer-education
systemsduringthe Civil War and in the
postwar decade.43On 8 May 1918,the Soviet governmentcreated the All-Russian Main Staff,and subordinatedit to the
RevolutionaryMilitarySoviet of the Republic (RVSR). In June
the firstnumberof Voennoc delo (MilitaryAffairs),the Red
Army's firstmilitary-theoretical
journal appeared. The prestigious Voennaia mysl' of the modern Soviet Armed Forces
can trace its originsthrougha series of succeedingjournals to
that publication.44In August 1918, the RVSR authorizedthe
creationof the Military-Historical
Commissionforthe Writing
of the History of World War I.4' Those developments,when
combined with the effortsto restore discipline, end the komitetshchina,and begin conscription,confirmthe accuracy of
Bukharin's assessment of Lenin's militarypolicy directed
towardsthe creationof a professionalmilitaryestablishment.If
further
evidence of thisdirectionwas needed, Lenin providedit
by arguingfor the creation of the MilitaryAcademy of the
General StaffoftheRed Armyand callingfortheuse ofthemost
qualified members of the teaching staffof the tsaristgeneral
staffacademy to man the new academy in October 1918withits
firstclasses being held in December.46
To those socialists who accused him of revisionism and
militarism,Lenin repliedthatthe Soviet government'sdecision
flowed fromthe events, i.e. fromthe demands of praxis. In
Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky," written
'XProletarian
in 1918, Lenin stated that a new social class upon coming to
power could do nothingelse but disband the old army. But in
orderto stayin power withthe threatof civil war mounting,the
regime:
We need a real armed force,constructedon the basis of
militaryscience. The active and systematicparticipation
in all our work of the militaryspecialists is thereforea
matterof vital importance.The militaryspecialists must
have guaranteedto themthe possibilityof exertingtheir
powers honestlyand honorablyin the matterof the creation of the army.3"
Neither he nor Lenin had any blind faithin the political reliabilityof formertsarist officersdrawn from the privileged
classes of the old regime.On 18 April 1918. withintheNarkom
po l'oennymdclam (People's Commissariat for MilitaryAffairs),theSoviet statecreatedtheCommissarBureau to oversee
the recruitmentand assignmentof the political commissarsas
watchdogs over the wOenspetsv."3The question of the loyalty
and value of the iowenspetsy
became one of the most volatile
issues of militarypolicy for the Party duringthe Civil War.
Some Bolsheviks/Communistsobjected to the specialists on
ideological grounds; others questioned their utilityon the
groundsof theirtechnical competency.
Initially,theoppositionto the voenspevtsyhad come fromLeft
Communistswho favoreda guerrillawarfarefoughtalong class
lines. This iMilitary Opposition" demanded that the Party
188
8
8MI
L
I
TA
AFFAIRS
regimehad to establisha new army,a new discipline,and a new
militaryorganization, based upon the correlation of forces
confronting
the victoriousclass.47
With the outbreak of the Civil War and the beginningof
foreignintervention
the Soviet Republic imposed War Communism, carried out the total nationalizationof all means of procenduction,embarkedupon a policyof extremeadministrative
tralization, draconian social legislation, and the forced expropriationof grain from Russia's villages. Thus practicing
total war withinthe context of a civil war, Lenin and the
CommunistParty were able to field their new army, which
numbered5.5 millionmen by 1921, and defeat the Whites.48
Lenin consideredthis state socialism to be a Marxistvariation
of the statecapitalistregimeswhichhad prosecutedWorld War
I. Some Party leaders agreed with this characterization,but
Levicame to see beneath it the threatof a twentieth-century
athan state, Bukharindescribed this warfarestate as:
. . . a militaristicstate capitalism. Centralization becomes the centralizationof the barracks;amongthe elites
the vilest militarisminevitablyintensifiesas does the
brutalregimentation
and bloody repressionofthemasses.
Lenin did not share Bukharin'sfearsregardingsuch an order.
But, by 1921he had concluded thatWar Communismhad to be
abandoned. In his defenseof the New Economic Policy withits
toleranceforthe restorationof the marketin agriculture,smallscale industry,and internaltrade, the militarizationof Lenin's
thoughtpersisted.In the Summerof 1921 Lenin explained the
shiftin partyline to foreigncommunistsby describingthe new
policy as anothertactic imposed upon the regime by the domesticsituation.He justifiedthe NEP as a means of providing
for the survival of the regime in the face of a restablized,
capitalist Europe:
So, we have begun our new tactic[the NEP]. There is no
need to be nervous,we cannot be too late, and ifyou ask,
how longcan Russia holdout, we answer,thatwe are now
conductinga war with the pettitebourgeoisie, with the
peasantry,an economic war which is more dangerousto
us than the late civil war. But as Clausewitz said, the
elementsof war are dangerous,and we have not forone
instance stood outside that danger."
L
ENIN has come full circle. War and politics have been
transposed as subject and object. Here politics have become a continuationof war by other means. The NEP was a
tactical device to restore the national economy and regain
peasant supportin theface of armed uprisingsat Kronstadtand
in the Tambov region.The NEP's success as an economic and
political measure was in no small degree dependent upon the
demobilizationoftheRed Army,and Lenin in his last monthsof
activitybeforehis finalillness supportedthecreationofa mixed
cadre and territorial
militaryforce.>' The militarypolicy of the
Party and its general line were thus fused. Indeed, during
Lenin's final illness V. Sorin wrote in Pravda that in a discussion withhim,Lenin had recommendedthatPartyworkers
read Clausewitz since politicaltacticsand militarytactics were
iadjoining fields" (Grenzgebiet).'2
Lenin's militarizationof Marxism involved a substantial
shift in the place of war in socialist ideology. War, while
previouslyseen as a social evil imposed upon the workingclass,
had never stood at the centerof Marxistanalysis of capitalism.
Lenin put it there. He emphasized the inevitabilityof wars
among capitaliststates in the age of imperialismand presented
thearmedstruggleofthe workingclass as the onlypathtowards
the eventual eliminationof war. With war at the center of his
analysis of capitalism, Lenin and his followers, when confrontedby civil war and foreignintervention,
extendedwar and
the systematicpreparationfor war as indispensable elements
for the survival of the Soviet state, surroundedas it was by
capitalist powers. Lenin hoped to use a policy of peaceful
coexistence to aid in therecoveryof the Soviet economyand to
OCTOBER 1985
preventthe formationof a grand,anti-Sovietcoalition. In this
process he counted upon uneven capitalist developmentand
geopolitical circumstances to aid his regime while it sought
anotherbreathingspace.
MikhailFrunze, one of the most notableRed commandersof
the Civil War and the fatherof the concept of a Soviet 'unified
militarydoctrine," put this Leninist formula of a long and
intense strugglewith the world capitalist system in military
terms:
Between our proletarianstateand therestofthebourgeois
world there can only be one condition- that of long,
persistent,desperate war to the death: a war which demands colossal tenacity,steadfastness,inflexibility,
and
a unityof will. . . The state of open warfaremay give
way to some sort of contractualrelationshipwhich permits,up to a definitelevel, the peacefulcoexistence ofthe
warringsides. These contractualformsdo not change the
fundamental character of these relations.
. .
. The com-
mon, parallel existence of our proletarianSoviet state
withthestatesofthebourgeoisworldfora protactedperiod
is impossible.`'3
Frunze summedup the essence of militarizedMarxism.Here
Clausewitz' dictum on war as a continuationof politics was
applied to the strugglebetween the Communistand capitalist
systems which must end in the victory of one and the annihilationof the other.Limitation,definedas the articulationof
specificends and means in keepingwitha given correlationof
forces,became nothingmorethana tacticaldecision. Accepting
the terriblelogic of this position led to the recognitionof the
need to prepare for total war. It placed great stressupon economicpreparationsforwar, state-directedindustrialization,
the
peacetime mobilizationof the citizenry,and the centralcommand and controlof the state machine.
AfterFrunze's death in 1925 M. N. Tukhachevskii,one of
Lenin's favored young commanders and Frunze's close collaborator,began to call fora militarization
[voenizatsiia] of the
entirecountryincludingstate-directedindustrialization."Tukhachevskiijustifiedsuch a course by referring
to the existing
capitalist encirclement and the mechanization of warfare,
which he and others in the RKKA Staffwere already anticipatingin theirdiscussions of "futurewar." He did not, however,findmuchsupportforsuch views withintheupperreaches
of the Party. Ironically,as the Soviet state embarkedupon the
process of dismantlingthe NEP, total mobilizationof the society, super industrialization, and forced collectivization,
which he had advocated, Stalin removed him fromthe central
leadership of the RKKA. In May 1928 Tukhachevskii was
reassigned fromhis post as Chief of Staffof the RKKA and
"exiled" to the command of the Leningrad MilitaryDistrict.
To theirdismayBukharinand the Party's ring-wing
now saw
theirally, Stalin,embracethe verypolicies whichthreatenedto
create a leviathan,the warfarestate,whichtheyso feared.Even
afterthe Partyhad embarkedupon his programof super industrialization and collectivization in the First Five Year Plan
Stalin did not immediatelyembrace militarizationas an objective or use it to justifythe tremendoussacrificesimposed upon
town and village. In the Summer of 1930 Stalin identifiedhis
new revolutionfrom above with Peter I's transformation
of
Russia and relatedthe buildingof factoriesto economic mobilization forwar. Tukhachevskiireturnedto favorand took over
as Deputy Commissarof Defense and Director of Armaments.
In 1931,whenthe warfarestatewas alreadyunderconstruction,
Stalin defendedthe choice in his own Social-Darwinistrendering of militarizedMarxism:
Those who fallbehind,get beaten. . .. Such is thejungle
law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weaktherefore,you are wrong. Hence, you can be beaten and
enslaved. You are mighty; therefore, you are right.
Hence, we must be wary of you.>'
189
REFERENCES
1. 1. A. Shavrovand M. I. Galkin,eds., Metodologiia voennonlli(chnog(o/oznaniia (Moscow: Voenizdat., 1977), 96.
2. A. S. Milovidov and V. G. Kozlov, ed., FilosoJfkoenasledie V. I. Lenina i problemy sovremennoi voiny (Moscow:
Voenizdat, 1972), 95-96.
3. Recent works dealing withthe disintegrationof the Russian armedforcesin 1917includeAllen K. Wildman,ThleEnd of
the Russian ImperiailArmyand the Soldiers' Revolt (MarchApril 1917), (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980);
Norman Saul, Sailors in Revolt: The Baltic Fleet in 1917 (Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1978); Evan Mawdsley,
The RuissitnReviolutionand theBaltic Fleet: Wlarand Politics,
February1917-April19/8(New York: Barnes and Noble. 1978);
and M. Frenkin.Riisskaitaarmiia i revoliuitsiia(Munich: Logos,
1978).
4. P. H. Vigor,The Soviet Vietwof'War,Peace and Neutrality
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), 9-10.
5. Soi'ctskaia voennaia entsiklopediia (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Slovaro-Entsiklopedicheskoe Izdatel'stvo,
1933). 1, cc. 834-835. Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, Karl
Marlx Frederic/h
Engels Werke,21 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972),
350-351. On Engels' subsequent views of socialist movement
and the prospectsforrevolutionsee David McLellan, Marxism
AfterMcarxv
(Boston: Houghton MifflinCompany, 1979), 9-17;
W. 0. Henderson,The Lifev
of'FriedriclIEngels (London: Frank
Cass, 1976), 11, 416-446; and Marx and Engels, Karl Marx
Frederic/hEngels Werke, 22 (Berlin: Dietz Verleg, 1972),
509-527.
6. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structureof ScientificRevolutions
(Chicago, 1970), 2nd Edition, 43-76.
7. Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Rev,olution (Boston:
HoughtonMifflinCompany, 1960),321 and Karl Korsch, Mirxismus iund Pliilosopiy, Ed. F. Halliday (London: NLB, 1970),
61ff.
8. Robert Tucker, Marx and Engels Reader (New York,
1978), 2nd Edition, 145.
9. McLellan, 20-54.
10. V. I. Lenin, Polnoc Sobranie soclhinenii,27 (Moscow:
Progress, 1965-1970),299-426.
11. Marxism-Leninismon War and Army (Moscow: Progress, 1972).
12. The literatureon Lenin as a militarytheoristis quite
extensive.The followingworksare reflectiveof thegeneralline
of Soviet scholarshipon the topic. A. Strokov, 'V. 1. Lenin o
zakonomernostiakhvooruzhennoibor'by, o vsaimosviazi, razvitii i smene sposobov i form voennyky deistvii," Vestnik
l'oennoiistorii,Nalclinve /lapiski,2 (1971), 3-25; 1. Korotkov,
"K istoriistanovleniiasovetsko voennoi nauki," Vestnik wOennoi istor-ii,
2 (1971), 42-70; A. N. Lagovskii,
naiwtlinyea,)piski,
V. I., Lenin i soietskaia loennailanatika,2nd Edition(Moscow:
Voenizdat, 1981).
13. Lenin, Polnoc sobrinie sochiinenii(Moscow, 1958-1966),
1, 164.
14. A. A. Bogdanov (nee A. A. Malinovsky)was a physcian,
economist, writer,and early Bolshevik. Bogdanov had a large
followingin the left wing of the Bolshevik faction and quarrelledwithLenin over tactical issues, includingparticipationin
the electionto the ThirdDuma. On philosophicalissues, Lenin
seems not to have demanded any single line and toleratedthe
early effortsto develop a philosophical system in which the
physicistErnst Mach's concept of sensual materialismfigured
prominently.Bogdanov's Empiriomnonism,
which combined
Mach withideas taken fromBerdiaev and Lunacharsky,called
into question the philosophical foundations of Marx's own
materialism,which had their roots in Spinoza and Holbach.
Lenin did not, however, attack this philosophical revisionism
untilBogdanov's Empiriomonismwas identifiedin printas the
philosophyof Bolshevism and threatenedto bringdown upon
the factionthe charge thatLenin mostfeared ideological revisionism. Then Lenin enteredinto the philosophicalarena to do
battle in the name of orthodoxyand in order to separate BolshevismfromEmpirimonismand Bogdanov. On Bogdanov and
Lenin see S. V. Utechin,'Philosophy and Society: Alexander
Bogdanov," in Leopold Labedz, ed., Re)visionism:Essalys on
thecHi.storyof Maxrxist
Idccas (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962), 117-125.
15./Ibid., 35.
190
16. Ibid., 215.
17. Ibid., 162.
cht- Cal'oevlii
18. Iu. I. Koroblev, V. I. Lenin i -asIhi(IltU
ikogo oktiatbria,2nd Edition (Moscow: Nauka, 1979). 90.
19. "Vypuski i zamechaniia na kniguKlauzewitsa?O voine
i vedenii voin'," Leninskiisbornik, 12 (1931), 387-452. For an
Englishtranslationsee Donald E. Davis and WalterS. G. Ohn,
eds., "Lenin's Notebook on Clausewitz," Soviet ArmedForces
Review Annuial(Gulf Breeze, Florida: Academic International
Press, 1977), I, 188-229.
20. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie soc Iinenii, 26, 224.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., Selected Works,2 (Moscow, 1960), 320.
23. Peter Paret, "The Genesis of On War," in Carl von
Clausewitz, On War (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress,
1976), 15-16.
24. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, 14
(Moscow, 1980),434-435.In thisreferencefroman articleon the
armies of Europe Engels compared Jominiand Clausewitz as
both being respected authoritieson militaryaffairs.The entire
pointof the section was to show thatthe Prussian officercorps
was the best educated militaryelite in the world. It said nothing
about the substance of Clausewitz' ideas. A letterto Marx in
1859 does show that Engels had read Von Kriege, but his
subsequentreferencesto theworkwere,at best, pedestrian.See
Collected Works, 18, 279. On the relationship,or lack of it,
between Engels' readingof Clausewitz and Lenin's views see
MartinBerger,Engels, Armies and Revolution (Hamdon, CT,
1977), 168-169.
25. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 26, 316-317.
26. Ibid., 32, 78-79.
27. Ibid., 104.
28. Alexander Rabinowitch,The BolsheviiksCome to Powver
(New York, 1976).
29. N. R. Pankratovet (il., V. I. Lenin i Sovetskie Voorulzhennye sily (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1980), 88-91; S. A.
silv: Istoriia stTiushkevich et al., SoveetskieVoorulzhennye
roitel'stvca(Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel'stva, 1978). 11 ff; and
AlexanderFischer,"Die AnfangederRotenArmee 1917/18.Zur
Theorie und Praxis revolutionarer Militarpolitik in bolschewistischen Russland, Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 18 (1975), 63-74.
30. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 35, 244, 250, 256.
31. Ibid., 36, 292.
32. Clausewitz, On War, 497.
33. V. Sorin, Partiia i oppocitsii: Ic istoriioppozitsionnykh
kommanistov),(Moscow, 1925), 72.
techlzenii
(Jraktsiialev,yklh
34. 1. A. Korotkov, Istoriia sovetskoi vooennoimysli (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), 28.
35. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie soclhinenii,35, 409.
36. L. D. Trotsky,Socliineniia (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe
Izdatel'stvo, 1925), XVII, pt. 1, 316.
silv, 38-39.
37. Tiushkevichet al., SoivetskieVoora-izchennyc
38. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochineniia, 38, 139-140. See
also Fediukin, Soivetskaia vlast i batrzhlaaznyespetsialisty
(Moscow: Mysl', 1965), 154-156.
39. M. N. Tukhachevsky,Ic7brannye
proi.7i'edeniia(Moscow:
Voennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1963), 1, 27-28.
spet40. S. A. Fediukin, Soivetskaiavilast' i buarZlhazny'e
sialisty, 59-61.
41. Ibid., 62.
42. Trotsky,Socliineniia, XVII, pt. 1, 371.
43. V. G. Kulikov, ed., Aktdemiia genercal'nogoshtatba:
Istoriia vOennoi ordenov, lenina i Sui'oroi'a I stepeni akadvemii
general'nogo slitatb *ooruzlennvklisil SSSR imeniK. E. Vorochzilov(Moscow: Voennoe Ixdatel'stvo, 1976), 19-21;and Korotkov,Istoriia sovetskoi voennoi mvsli, 28-31.
44. Korotkov, Istoriia sovetskoi l'oennoi mysli,244.
45. Sovetskaia voennaia entsiklopediia,11,210, 314.
46. Kulikov, Akademiia general'nogo slitaba, 6-7.
47. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 35, 395-409.
48. N. 1. Shatagin, Organi,catsiiai stroitel'sti'o soivetskoi
armii v period inostrannoivoennoi8intervntsii orijrafdavnsk,oi
voinv(1918-1920) (Moscow: Nauka, 1970), 383-394.
49. N'. Bukharin, '"'K teorii imperialisticheskogo gosudarstva,"Re^voliustsiiapravta: Sbornikpevrivi (Moscow, 1925),
31. In 1919 Bukharinand E. Preobrazhenskycollaborated in
writingThecABC ofCommulnism,a textbookforpartyagitators
MILITARY AFFAIRS
and propagandists,explainingthe Party's new program,which
had been adopted by the 8thPartyCongress in March 1919. In
thatworktheauthorstalkedabout thenegationoftheRed Army
in its final victory over capital, about its foundations in a
workers'militia,and about the hostilityto the barracks system
of training,and about the temporaryutilityof the military
specialists.In the end bothmen saw the armydisappearingafter
the victoryin the civil war and were hostileto the creationof a
permanentmilitarycaste. See Nikolai Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky,The ABC of Communism:A Popular Explanation
of theProgram of the CommunistPartv of Russia (Ann Arbor:
Ann Arbor Paperback, 1967), 205-219. For a ftulldiscussion of
the relationship between Bukharin's perceptions about developmentof state capitalism and the concept of equilibrium
theory in his historicalmaterialism,see Stephen F. Cohen,
Bukharinand theBolshevikRevolution:A Political Biography,
1888-1938(New York: AlfredA. Knopf, 1973), 117-122.
50. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 44, 60.
51. N. F. Kuz'min, Na strazhe mirnogo truida(1921-1940
gg.), (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1959), 6-9.
52. "Vypuski i zamechaniia na kniguKlauzevitsa 'O voine i
vedenii voin'," Leninskiisobrnik, 12 (1931), 390.
53. Frunze, "Edinaia voennaia doktrinai Krasnaia armiia,"
Voennaia Nauka i revoliutsiia,No. 2 (1921), 39.
54. M. N. Tukhachevsky,"K voprosu o sovremennoistrategii," in Voina i voennoe iskusstvo v sveta istoricheskogo
materializma (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1927), 127; and M. N. Tukhachevskii,Izbrannyeproizvedeniia, II, 26-27 (citingan article in Pravda of 23 February 1928). It is noteworthythat in his
call for militarization,Tukhachevskii cited Clausewitz and
Lenin. See "K voprosu o sovremennoistrategii," 116-123.
55. Joseph Stalin,Leninism: Selected Writings(New York:
InternationalPublishers, 1942), 200.
JacobW.Kippis Professor
ofRussianHistory
atKansasState
Forthelasttwoyearshe has beena visiting
University.
professor
at MiamiUniversity
inOxford,
Ohio.A graduateofShippensburg
he receivedhis PhD fromthe Pennsylvania
University,
State
in1970.He is co-editor,
University
withRobinHigham,
ofSoviet
Aviation
andAirPower(Westview,
1977)andservedas associate
editorof Military
Affairs,
1979-1983.He has publishedmany
articleson Russianand Sovietnavaland military
history.
This
articlewas acceptedforpublication
inFebruary
1985.
by David Kahn
CARLISLE
Barracks, Pa. - Intellectualfisticuffs
broke out
on 25 and 26 Aprilat the firstconferenceever held in the
United States on Carl von Clausewitz, widely regardedas the
world's greatestphilosopherof war.
Militaryhistoriansand majors and colonels who are students
at the U.S. ArmyWar College here disputed whetherClausewitz' classic work,On War, whichis requiredreadingat many
militaryacademies, has been outdated by moderntechnology.
Clausewitz, a Prussiangeneralstaffofficerwho foughtin the
Napoleonic wars, died in 1831. While early militarywriters
had concentratedon such mattersas lines ofapproachto a battle
or encirclingstrategies,Clausewitz emphasized the psychologicalaspects ofwar, such as the need fora generalto be firmof
purpose, and the political aspects. His most famous dictum
describes war as the continuationof politics by other means.
Michael Handel, a professorat the War College and organizer
oftheconference,pointedout areas in whichnew weapons have
affectedClausewitz' theories. "Strategic surprise, which he
thoughtnot possible, is now feasible," said Handel. "This also
makes intelligencemuch more importantthan he saw it as."
Unity of command has also become much more complex,
Handel said.
Martinvan Creveld, a professorat the Hebrew Universityin
Jerusalem,declared of Handel's presentation,"I don't agree
witha singleword he said. If Michael is correct,you'd have to
add a new dimensionto whatClausewitz wroteevery 10 or 20 or
25 years, and thiswould mean he'd have a hundreddimensions
and would be entirelyout-of-date,and we wouldn't be sitting
here today."
In his own remarks,Creveld said, "Justas cookbooks tellyou
how to cook a chicken,mostbooks on war tell you how to fight,
OCTOBER 1985
so they can't withstandany changes on technology.On Wair
doesn't tell you how to cook. It says what cooking is and what
does it serve. Clausewitz is useful because he is not useful.
Everybodyelse has triedto be useful- and that's whythey're
outdatedby the next weapons systemthathas come aroundthe
corner.Clausewitz deals withideas, not reality,and thisis why
he is eternal."
RetortedHandel: "What happens in theoryisn't as important
in war as what happens in reality."
Voices were occasionally raised in the wood-paneled conand toughferenceroom,and therewere plentyof interruptions
soundingremarks. "I want to drop a bomb on Martin," said
WilliamsonMurray,professorof historyat Ohio State. But the
participantssaid the remarkswere just part of academic giveand-take.
During a free-wheelingdiscussion on politics in war, John
Gooch, a professorat the Universityof Lancaster in England,
said he had been told the Soviets were pickingtheirtargetsfora
conventional war in Europe not on militarybut on political
grounds. When someone contradictedthat, Gooch responded,
"If you reallythinkthat,that's whyyou're goingto lose thenext
war against the Russians - if there is one."
Creveld contendedthatthe Prussian regardedintelligenceas
essential, but other participantsobserved that the problemof
uncertaintyin intelligence,whichClausewitz stressed,remains
serious,despitemodern-daysatellitephotographyand electronic intercepti9n.They pointed to such intelligencefailuresas
Pearl Harbor,theTet offensivein Vietnam,theoverthrowofthe
Shah of Iran, and the Arab surpriseattackon Israel thatstarted
the Yom Kippur war in 1973 as demonstratingthat in intelligence as in othermatters,Clausewitz still has much to teach.
191