DCI DISCUSSION/DINNER ON SOVIET SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LAGS, WEDNESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 1978

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• Publication Date: October 11, 1978
• Content Type: MF

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NFAC No. 4432/78
11 October 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR: See Distribution
FROM : Coordinator for Academic Relations, NFAC
SUBJECT : DCI Discussion/Dinner on Soviet Science and
Technology Lags, Wednesday, 18 October 1978
1. On Admiral Turner's behalf you are invited to participate in a
Discussion/Dinner in his Conference Room on Wednesday, 18 October. Our
subject will be the paradox that despite its massive and continuing
investment in science and technology, the Soviet Union lags behind the
West in general and the United States in particular in nearly all S&T
areas. This is true, despite the fact that Soviet performance is
relatively better in the military than in the civilian sector.
will open the discussion by directing attention to several specific questions
that might be addressed.
2. Five senior specialists have been invited from outside. They are:
Dr. Robert R. Fossum, Director
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Dr. H. Guyford Stever, former President's Science Advisor
and former Chairman US-USSR Joint Commission on Science
and Technology (JCS&T)
Dr. Herbert Fusfeld, current member US-USSR JCS&T, professor
at New York University.
Dr. Betsy Anker-Johnson, Associate Director, Argonne National
Laboratories and former member US-USSR JCS&T.
Dr. Charles M. Huggins, Manager, International Programs,
Corporate Research & Development, General Electric
Company.
3. The plan for the evening is as follows: The company will assemble
in the DCI Conference Room between 5:30 and 6:00. Refreshments will be
served. The discussion will begin at 6:00 and continue until 7:00 when
25X1
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 Approved For Release 2005/01/10 : CIA-RDP86B00985R000200150001-4
NFAC No. 4432/78
SUBJECT: DCI Discussion/Dinner on Soviet Science and
Technology Lags, Wednesday, 18 October 1978
dinner will be served. After dinner, the discussion will be resumed
and will continue until approximately 9:00.
4. For those of you who do not consider yourselves familiar with
the background, two chapters from the book that John Thomas and
Ursula Kruse-Vaucienne edited for the National Science Foundation,
Soviet Science and Technology: Domestic and Foreign Perspectives, 1977,
are attached. If you are unable to attend, please call
Distribution:
Mr. Carlucci
Mr. Robert R. Bowie
Dr. Sayre Stevens
Mr. Leslie Dirks
25X1
STAT
2
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SOVIET SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN PERSPECTIVES
Edited by
25
251
Based on a workshop held at Airlie House, Virginia
on November 18-21, 1976
Chairman and Organizer
John R. Thomas
Published for the National Science Foundation by
The George Washington University
Washington, D.C.
 2`) ARD UNDERSTANDING SOVIET SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:
AN OVERVIEW
1. Objectives and Approach
A. Intent
Using the papers in this volume as a basis, this overview
summarizes principal issues in the science-technology relationship
between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., clarifies perspectives which are
fundamental to establishing viable ties, and develops guidelines which
should be useful in future interactions. Non-specialists in Soviet
scientific affairs from either U.S. industry concerned with commercial
interactions with the Soviets or government concerned with formulating
and implementing policies or programs with the U.S.S.R. should find this
overview a useful introduction to this volume
While ideas from the papers herein are cited to illustrate points in
this overview, it is not a complete review. Rather, we have assumed an
interpretive responsibility for identifying principal issues, for selecting
illustrative examples, and for choosing a framework which emphasizes
perspectives and guidelines which we believe to be useful.
B. Major Themes
The discussion in this volume clearly shows that an understanding
of science in any country, and particularly in the U.S.S.R., cannot result
from a study of science alone. This would yield a narrow. sterile view;
rather, science should be examined as one of several major components
in a socially dynamic system. Such an approach will tell us more about
both the science and the system.
For a better understanding of Soviet science and technology and
their interaction within the system and with the West, we have
organized the major ideas developed at the workshop into three
thematic parts: perceptions, structure and weaknesses, and oppor-
tunities and obstacles.
In Section II on perceptions, we consider how U.S. and Soviet
perceptions of each other substantially influence their respective
perspectives and actions. The extent to which we can appreciate these
perceptions improves our capacity to interpret developments and to
extrapolate trends, thus minimizing difficulties already inherent in
analyzing Soviet affairs.
Section III on the structure and weaknesses of Soviet science
provides the context for assessing how cultural patterns both account
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 for developments to date and future trends, and diminish the effective-
ness of Soviet science.
In Section IV on U.S.-U.S.S.R. interactions in science and tech-
nology, we consider these tactically as a barter paradigm in which the
needs of each side and the ease of potential transactions are assessed.
We identify factors which either promote and facilitate transactions or
which impede them.
Common threads identified in this volume are repeated as they aid
in understanding the separate themes of this overview: perceptions,
structure and weaknesses, opportunities, and obstacles. These common
threads - such as the complex relationship of the Party to Soviet
science, the inefficient integration of science with technology and into
production, the historical mandate of science, and the preemption of
resources by the military - are repeated deliberately as they take on
new dimensions or substantiate the themes in sections II, III, and IV.
Weaving these threads throughout the overview also helps to develop an
integrated view of scientific and political components
C. Views of Science and Technology
The term "science," used until now as a convenient shorthand, is
imprecise. The workshop addressed issues related to basic and applied
science, and technology and its conversion to useful practice in the
U.S.S.R. Since this broad spectrum of Soviet science and technology
then interacts with the economy, the Party, the military, industry and
the West, perhaps a term like "scientific-technological fabric" might be
more appropriate, but it seems too awkward. We use "science" in this
overview to refer in general to the spectrum from basic science to
applied technology, but we specify narrower meanings when
appropriate. The present vernacular seems to permit such a shorthand.
The use of "science" as a term which embraces both science and
technology is also warranted since this workshop was organized to
examine the interaction between the institutions of Soviet science and
other components of the Soviet system rather than to assess individual
disciplines. However, we do take note, as appropriate, of specific areas
of science for illustrative purposes. For example, Adams* traces the
political development of biology during the Lysenko affair to demon-
strate the survival instinct of the Academy; Humphrey discusses
developments in single cell protein production to show that vertical
integration of Soviet science with large-scale production can be
accomplished in the civilian sector, comparable to the process in the
military area depicted in part by Holloway.
Ganley, who chaired the final session of the workshop, stated that
reducing tensions between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. is a principal objective
of U.S. foreign policy. Both countries seek avenues of interaction which
are mutually beneficial and least contentious. Science offers such an
opportunity. The acknowledged universality of science also avoids the
impediments of proprietary commercial trade. Science strengthens
*All names used in this paper without further identification refer
to authors of papers in this volume or to participants in the workshop
discussions.
 opportunities for mutual national growth, provides broad avenues for
communication, and offers situations for applying the principles of
equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit which are required by all U.S.-
U.S.S.R. agreements in, the science and technology areas. In addition to
the objective benefits of scientific cooperation and the accompanying
progressive interdependence, members of the scientific community are
generally articulate. Therefore, the results of constructive interaction
in science can be expected to find their way into the social context of
each country through dialogues in the classroom and research
laboratory, and through published material.
But such cooperation frequently raises questions on both sides,
particularly in the U.S.S.R., as to whether comparatively unrestrained
interaction in science may not jeopardize national security, compromise
ideology, or impair commercial integrity. For example, to quote
Parrott:
Who [in the U.S.S.RJ is likely to resist the expansion of
Western ties? The regime's ideological officials appear to
dislike the idea. These officials are charged with protecting
the doctrine of the U.S.S.R.'s scientific and economic
superiority over capitalism, and heavy reliance on Western
technology would make this claim more difficult to defend.
So, even an apparently mutually beneficial program of cooperation
confined to basic science contributes to political apprehension. Despite
such negative factors, both countries seem to believe that positive
results from active cooperation in science outweigh possible losses; this
sanguine view is implicit in the papers in this volume. Few, if any,
participants advocate a diminution of U.S.-U.S.S.R. interactions; rather,
they suggest that uncertainties should be carefully considered and
political and economic realities taken into account in order to prevent
unrealistic expectations from interaction with the Soviets.
A quest to advance an understanding of Soviet science provokes a
question of "What for?" Certainly, an essential objective of such a
quest is to create a basis for extrapolating future gains, e.g., to what
extent can interactions in science reduce political tensions, what
scientific success can be expected from bilateral cooperation, and what
fruit will be borne by expanded commercial ventures? But, as in any
science, useful extrapolations depend heavily upon valid, quantitative
models. Because of lack of data, current Western models of Soviet
science and the economy exist mainly in terms of what can be described
as perceptions by the proverbial five blind 'men or by a related
understanding of the Soviet psyche which we may deduce from cultural
and historical evidence. (The workshop did not deal with the latter
question.) Thus, predicting trends in the U.S.S.R. is uncertain and we
should explicitly acknowledge this difficulty. Nevertheless, we have
accumulated substantial non-quantitative information about the Soviet
Union, particularly about its science. And the science area is a direct
link to an understanding of other aspects of the Soviet system of
interest to us, e.g., economics, politics, and defense.
Science can also be utilized as an item of exchange in diplomatic
 and commercial intercourse. It can provide an avenue for reducing
differences and for achieving common objectives. This applies
particularly to U.S.-Soviet relationships. Parrott examines Soviet
receptivity to Western know-how and finds mixed views:
Since about 1972 the Soviet leadership has judged the
prospective benefits to outweigh the anticipated costs, and
it has sought greatly increased trade and technical ties with
the West. Just how firm the support for this new policy is
within the leadership is very difficult to say. A preliminary
survey of the speeches of prominent Politburo members
shows no evidence of overt opposition to the change. There
is, though, a noticeable difference between Brezhnev's
vigorous endorsements of "long-term, large-scale economic
cooperation" and Suslov's rather neutral allusions to the new
policy.
While Parrott's discussion refers to technology, it is also relevant to
basic science. Despite possible reservations by some Soviet leaders,
large-scale Soviet efforts to date to obtain Western technology and pick
Western scientific brains are the best indicators of Soviet intentions.
The pressure on both sides to improve the quality and extent of
their interaction can be viewed as a part of the increasing international
interdependence and global concerns over food, health, energy, re-
sources, communications, and weather. As these imperatives encourage
more frequent and intense interactions, the existing tensions are likely
to be reduced.
II. Perceptions and Their Influence
A. Significance of Perceptions
Initiatives and responses by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. depend on how
each country perceives the other and how each perceives itself. This
concept is essential and will be useful to the Western reader involved in
communicating with the U.S.S.R. Because only limited reliable
information about the U.S.S.R. is available and because even this is
distorted by substantial political and cultural differences, we are forced
to act on our perceptions of Soviet reality. Thus, action derives from
perception.
An examination of how the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. perceive each
other and assess their respective internal strengths and weaknesses
provides a useful guide to effective action. From contributed papers,
we have identified seven explicit elements in U.S. perceptions of the
U.S.S.R. Since the workshop did not deal with U.S. self-perceptions,
these are not considered in this overview. We also identified seven
elements of Soviet self-perception and two elements of Soviet percep-
tion of the U.S.
We do not presume that our classifications are complete or inde-
pendent of each other. But we do believe that exploring these per-
ceptions will contribute to improving our understanding of U.S.-Soviet
interactions.
 B. U.S. Perceptions of the U.S.S.R.
First and most important, we must learn to accept the Soviets and
their system as they are rather than as we believe them to be or would
like them to become. We must not see a Soviet announcement of a new
incentive System or a decentralization measure as signs of a trend
towards capitalism, or words by a vocal Soviet dissident as precursors of
imminent revolt. Both conclusions are fallacious, but some in the West
have so far been unable - or unwilling - to recognize that despite
developments such as those noted above, the Soviets are unlikely to
change their system radically. The cultural and political roots which
spawned the system are too deeply entrenched for such a change. The
Soviet psyche seems pre-disposed to seeking and accepting societal
arrangements which spread risks, repeat long-established behavior
patterns, and militate against basic alterations. Even if the ideology
undergoes a basic change, the bureaucratic juggernaut, which traces its
origin far back into Russia's history, would no doubt continue its sway.
Such a conclusion may seem unnecessarily pessimistic. Yet, accepting
the Soviet Union as it is, i.e., as a system shaped by continuing forces
such as Russian nationalism and tradition, is the first step to clarifying
and improving the sensitivity of our perceptions. Thus, as a first step in
developing a pragmatic view of U.S.S.R. technology, Amann suggests:
An assumption which pervades much Western writing on the
subject is that Soviet problems are deeply rooted, systemic,
and almost incapable of solution short of major political and
economic reform. To date, there has been no serious
attempt to evaluate how far Soviet technological
performance in particular sectors can be explained by
systemic weaknesses and how far by historical backwardness
and deliberate (though, perhaps, misguided) policies and
priorities.
From Holliday's summary of the discussion, we note a word of caution
about superimposing the generally negative Western view of government
intrusion in societal activities on the Soviet structure:
In contrast, another discussant found fault with the typology
[of Soviet sciences because it tends to project our [Western
intellectual] values on Soviet scientists. It is fallacious, he
warned, to assume that Soviet scientists relate to political
authorities the same way their American counterparts do.
He noted, for example, that American intellectuals tend to
believe that the less political interference they encounter,
the better. Soviet intellectuals, on the other hand, tend to
believe that some degree of independence and room for
maneuver is good, but that "a lot is a disaster."
Similarly, Gustafson, in cautioning against applying Western desiderata
to analyzing the Soviet system, notes that the Soviets consider the
certainty of full employment, even if undynamic and involving under-
employment in reality, is on balance preferable to the dynamic but
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unpredictable boom and bust cycles associated with the capitalist
system. Lubrano reminds us that we must judge statistics on Soviet
science within the Soviet context.
Second, the serious lack of adequate and credible statistical
information emerging from the Soviet system adds to our mispercep-
tions. One reason for this seems to be conscious errors in presenting
data. Thus, Parrott says that pressure for performance leads to falsify-
ing information: "One source of the difficulty is the widespread inclina-
tion of specialized subordinates to falsify the information about
economic capacities and reserves on which the leadership must base its
efforts to evoke high performance." There is always the possibility that
the Soviet administration does not wish to release certain categories of
statistics or that their political decisions prevent the collection of
particular data. Further, there are some indications that the Soviets
may lack certain capability in methodology or the technical facilities
for producing the data. Probably the most significant deficiency in
information available at home or abroad concerns the Soviet military?
Holloway suggests the implications of such an information gap:
A proper understanding of Soviet science and technology and
their relationship to the military requires an examination of
the Soviet military research and development effort. This
effort absorbs a large part of the resources devoted to R&D
in the Soviet Union. It is, unfortunately, difficult to
establish precisely how large the proportion is: estimates
range from 40 to 80 percent. Whatever the true figure may
be, our picture of Soviet science and technology will be
seriously lacking if such a large part of it is left uncharted.
To emphasize the inadequacy of Soviet data, Western analysts note that
published figures for production are often the goals and not the actual
results.
Third, pervasiveness and rigidity of the Soviet bureaucracy
characterizes many spheres of Soviet life. The Soviet society seems
organically committed to stabilizing its bureaucracy. Not only is the
Soviet government itself a huge bureaucracy, but it is overseen by two
other large bureaucracies: the Party and the Secret Police (KGB). The
bureaucratic phenomenon also afflicts other groups, e.g., the Soviet
Academy of Sciences itself operates in a highly bureaucratic fashion.
Consequently, any perspective which does not recognize the Soviet
bureaucracy and its stifling effect on the system will miss the reality of
the Soviet life. Labedz speculates on the potential effect of the
bureaucracies on each other:
... it is unlikely that apparatchiki will be replaced in the
near future by technocrats in the Soviet political structure
because of the effect of necessities imposed by science and
technology on the Soviet system. It is arguable, however,
that technocratic and "rationalistic" attitudes may slowly
penetrate the mentality of the apparatchiki. Whether and to
what extent this may happen is a question on an altogether
different time scale.
 or pessimism in viewing U.S.-Soviet relationships clearly affects the
analysts' conclusions and must be taken into account.
Fifth, we tend to judge the quality of Soviet science in terms of
the number of Nobel prizes received, a limited and misleading measure.
Gustafson points out that many areas of basic Soviet science are in fact
held in high regard by foreign peer observers. In this connection,
Graham states that:
Indeed, it is probably no exaggeration to say that the
Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. is the most important
single scientific institution in the world, since in those
countries which equal or surpass the Soviet Union in quality
or science or overall scientific effort, fundamental research
is dispersed throughout a variety of autonomous universities
and institutions, both public and private.
Fusfeld, Amann, Hanson and Holloway conclude that the principal
deficiency of the Soviet science and technology organization lies in its
inability to effectively apply the results of basic research. Hence, a
view which blames the quality of the U.S.S.R.'s science for the back-
wardness of its technology is wide off the mark.
Sixth, we tend to perceive the U.S.S.R. as a homogenous monolith,
without considering individual differences and structural conflicts
within the system. To put it simply, the Soviet leadership appears to
many Western Sovietologists to be as fragmented on issues as that in
the West, despite the Soviet ideological objective of promoting
governmental and societal homogeneity. Parrott calls this to our atten-
tion by focusing on the differing views expressed by Brezhnev, Kosygin
and Suslov on the state of economic development at home and abroad.
This diversity also applies to lower levels. Thus, the Soviet scientific
community is not monolithic. Indeed, according to Graham, the
jurisdictional struggle for power here is clearly evident:
Some American scientists have spoken about serious compe-
tition to the Academy from other Soviet organizations,
especially from the State Committee for Science and
Technology. Other Western observers have considered it
inevitable that Soviet universities would gain in scientific
influence at the expense of the Academy, with the result
that the organization of Soviet science would become pro-
gressively similar to the organization of science in the
United States.
Labedz further characterizes the differences within the U.S.S.R.
by noting the issues in the administration of science:
While the post-Stalin science policy removed some of the
obstacles to the pursuit of learning in various disciplines, the
dilemmas of pure science versus applied science, of central-
ization versus decentralization, of governmental pressure to
subordinate science to the requirements of the economic
plans versus the needs of fundamental scientific research
have been as vexing as ever....
 Seventh, the structure, the product mix and the growth rates of
Soviet industry are different from those in the U.S. On this point,
Amann comments:
... some Soviet industries which have continued to expand
rapidly are industries in which the rate of growth has slowed
down considerably in other major countries; hence, for
example, plastic and man-made fibers have replaced steel
and cotton in the U.S.S.R. much more slowly than
elsewhere....
Thus, rampant enthusiasm for a new product in the U.S. may leave the
Soviets unexcited; conversely, the Soviets may be enthusiastic for a
process which the U.S. considers of little importance. Recognizing
these mismatches should both provide trade-off opportunities and serve
as caveats in dealing with the U.S.S.R.
C. Soviet Perception of Their Own Science
Seven elements in the Soviet perception of their own science can
be identified. As the first and undoubtedly most important, science and
its role in the Soviet system are viewed in the U.S.S.R. as having more
than functional tasks of providing knowledge and adding to material
well-being. Science has political, almost religious, functions in at least
two aspects:
It is regarded as an integral part of Communism. Party theoreti-
cians consider that Communism will be progressively refined and
strengthened by the results and stimuli of science; and, in a
related point,
Science is used by the Party leadership to legitimize its power.
Thus, good science is taken to imply effective Party administra-
tion. Both Joravsky and Rabkin discuss science as a legitimizer
of the leadership. )
These points are sharpened if we focus on technology and produc-
tivity of the Soviet economy. (The latter is viewed as a direct
indication of the success of Communism.) Because of a poor
productivity record to date and because productivity is limited directly
by the effectiveness of technology, the Soviets do not tout their
technology. Instead, they link technology to science, which has a better
record, and wrap up the whole complex in what they call the scientific-
technological revolution. The latter is expected to shape the future
Soviet working environment and solve social problems. On this point,
Turkevich quotes Party Secretary Suslov on the occasion of the Soviet
leader's receipt of the Soviet Science Academy's Marx Gold Medal in
1976:
Contemporary scientific-technological revolution opens
before society unseen possibilities for using science for
mastering the forces of nature, protecting it and solving
social problems ... and at the same time acts as a material
preparation for communist civilization.
 This formulation clearly couples science as a magic genie with science
as a driving engine of Communism. Labedz notes that this adumbration
is not really new since the Czars also enshrined science in their days.
Second, science in the U.S.S.R. is intended to contribute to
meeting social and economic needs. The Soviet leadership has
expressed this intent on various occasions. Labedz points to one such
occasion:
Khrushchev's "destalinization" after 1956 removed some of
these obstacles. Growing attention was devoted to the
problem of technological innovation, and science was ele-
vated to the status of a "productive force" in the new Party
Program at the 22nd Party Congress, with the implication
that it would play a more fundamental role as part of "the
material basis" and not merely as an aspect of the
"superstructure."
The creation in 1961 of the forerunner of the present State
Committee for Science and Technology (SCST), and SCST's growing
power since then, are other important indications of the pressure by
Soviet leaders on Soviet science to meet the U.S.S.R.'s needs. In fact,
the State Committee was set up precisely because of the leadership's
dissatisfaction with the Science Academy in meeting Soviet production
needs.
Third, the Soviet leaders expect the U.S.S.R.'s scientific com-
munity and its programs to be subservient to political needs. Should the
Soviet scientific establishment fail to respond to political pressure,
Labedz predicts the inevitable outcome: "... the Soviet scientific
establishment will, when the chips are down, accommodate itself to the
system, rather than the Soviet system accommodating itself to the
scientific establishment."
Fourth, science has traditionally been viewed as a vital and
respected part of Russian culture, with associated prestige and
influence. In contrast to some present anti-scientific trends in the U.S.,
Soviet science enjoys strong support at all levels of society. Moreover,
Soviet science is a distinct and important part of the governmental
structure and is incorporated in the official planning process. And, the
fact that many of the vocal dissident scientists have to date been
protected in most cases against drastic physical repression because they
are members of the Soviet science community, owes much to the
enshrinement of science. Finally, the creation of numerous science
centers, most notably Akademgorodok outside Novosibirsk, together
with a plethora of scientific laboratories, also serves as evidence of
broad support of science in the U.S.S.R. Graham confirms a continuing
and favorable societal view of science: "The commitment of the Soviet
government and of Soviet society to the support of fundamental
research seems to be firm, and the Academy is the primary beneficiary
of that largesse." In this connection, Turkevich notes that the
U.S.S.R.'s political commitment to science and technology is symbolized
by the fact that most of the 20 members of the ruling Politburo are
technologists, as are most of the 60-some members of the Council of
Ministers.
 Fifth, science is considered to be a key component in Soviet
attainment of military preeminence. Holloway argues that because the
U.S.S.R. feels it needs sophisticated weaponry, it must increasingly rely
upon science to contribute strategic ideas and options. Furthermore,
contrary to the generally uneven and inefficient integration of science
and technology into production in the civilian sector, the military area
is structured to maximize benefits from scientific results. Holloway
cautions us, however, that quantitatively sizeable Soviet military capa-
bilities cannot be taken as automatic evidence of superior technology.
Sixth, the linkage between science and technology is not suf-
ficiently developed, accounting in great part for the poor performance
of Soviet technology relative to Soviet science. This widely acknow-
ledged weakness of the Soviet system is what Hanson specifically, and
Amann and Fusfeld indirectly, refer to as lack of effective vertical
integration, i.e., while Soviet scientific knowledge unquestionably can
be outstanding, it is not properly utilized within the U.S.S.R. This
weakness, which is discussed later in more detail, exists in part by
conscious choice: political, control takes precedence over efficiency.
But the Soviet regime clearly recognizes this shortcoming and has
sought many times to alleviate it by reorganizing the Soviet scientific
and technical efforts, while at the same time not losing any control.
Amann identifies four Soviet programs undertaken to improve the
situation. And Zaleski analyzes several recent decrees issued by the
Party which, in effect, aim to solve these problems.
Seventh, there is growing Soviet interest in developing a more
organized and quantitative view of science. This aims to give the
Soviets a more accurate view of their science and presumably a means
to improve it as well. To understand the nature of this development,
Gustafson analyzes the Soviet view of U.S. science. He argues that how
the Soviets interpret U.S. science reveals a great deal about science in
the U.S.S.R. itself. In this context, Rabkin describes how the Soviets
are developing the discipline of science policy (naukovedenie) and
comments on its implications. He is especially impressed by the candor
with which the Soviets criticize their own science; he attributes this to
a widely accepted Soviet assumption that because the scientific
establishment gets preferential treatment from Soviet authorities, it
also deserves close scrutiny and criticism when warranted. Rabkin
notes that Soviet analysts themselves see restricted communication
with scholars abroad as a significant barrier to quick diffusion of
information. He speculates on the future of naukovedenie as to whether
it will be over-bureaucratized and lose its initial zeal or whether it will
eventually provide access to useful and timely information to experts
within and outside the U.S.S.R. If the latter proves to be the case, then
the correction of some Soviet shortcomings may follow.
According to Gustafson, the Soviets have diligently compared the
relative value of the U.S. project-grant system with the longer-term
Soviet funding of large institutes. They seem fully aware that the
former is more responsive to national needs while the latter may lead to
parochialism or irrelevance. Gustafson quotes one Soviet researcher
who remarks cynically that
 ... the excessive generosity with which we are funded some-
times creates conditions which support idle exercises for
years, under the umbrella of "unlimited freedom of inquiry."
The champions of this freedom passionately exclaim, "Who
can deny the possibility that my thesis, which seem un-
promising today, may not cause a revolution in scientific
theory tomorrow!" Then examples are cited from the school
child's history of great scientific discoveries....
Gustafson infers that the Soviets seem to have become weary of their
own incentive system and may be examining the more productive
incentive system in the U.S. for some form of adoption in the U.S.S.R.
D. Soviet Perception of the West
Two ideas seem to dominate the Soviet perception of the U.S.
First, despite assertions of their own ideological supremacy, the Soviets
consider U.S. achievements as the principal criteria in measuring their
own success. In fact, the Soviet goal of "overtaking and surpassing the
U.S." dates back to the 1930s. In this context, Parrott suggests that the
Soviets find themselves challenged by U.S. progress even more today:
... a 1970 article in Kommunist cautioned that "it is
extremely dangerous to manifest slowness in using the
enormous advantages of socialism over capitalism in the
area of the comprehensive and accelerated development of
science and technology and the improvement of
administration." The implication was that the developed
capitalist states had raised a new economic and techno-
logical challenge which required that the Soviet leadership
respond with major changes of policy.
This challenge arises in the midst of a continuing Soviet habit of
borrowing from the West, underscored by Hanson:
At all events, the situation which Soviet policymakers are
trying to alter by international transfer is one in which they
currently lag behind the West. There is nothing new about
it. Russia has been trying to catch up by importing Western
technology, as several writers have pointed out, at least
since Peter the Great.
Hanson considers the general Soviet predicament as one of the U.S.S.R.
being thrust on a treadmill while simultaneously shooting at a moving
target:
Once it was widely grasped by Soviet managers and planners
that catching up with Western technology meant chasing a
rapidly moving target over an ever-increasing product range,
a shift in policy was almost inevitable.
Holloway identifies the technology gap problem specifically in the
military area:
Military rivalry with technologically more advanced states
(which has been such a marked feature of Russian and Soviet
 history) has had an important influence on the Soviet mili-
tary R&D effort. The Soviet Union has drawn considerably
on foreign science and technology, not only in the form of
imported weapons (mainly in the 1930s and 1940s), but also
in the form of design concepts, and more generally in basic
and applied scientific research. A second consequence of
the rivalry has been that the political leadership and the
Armed Forces have made major efforts to extract resources
from the economy and the society to meet what they saw as
the needs of this competition.
A second element in the Soviet attitude toward the West is their
strong desire to be perceived and accepted by the West as a technologi-
cal equal. To attain this goal, the Soviets take advantage of any oppor-
tunity to create a favorable global image of their scientific and tech-
nical capability. Certainly, the recent collaborative Apollo-Soyuz space
effort fits into this scheme. Beyond this, any U.S.-U.S.S.R. agreement
for cooperation in various areas of science serves to promote the Soviet
objective. It is not clear whether the Soviet desire for acceptance as a
technological equal by the West is motivated by commercial strategy to
obtain, by association with the West, greater acceptance of Soviet
products or whether it is mainly a matter of prestige.
III. The Structure and Weaknesses of Soviet Science
A. Elements in the Structure of Soviet Science
The principal institutional features of Soviet science can be
summarized as follows:
Soviet science is organizationally linked directly and at high levels
to the government.
. The producing elements of Soviet science are laboratories at the
Academy, ministries, and universities.
? The State Committee for Science and Technology (SCST)
coordinates science within the Soviet Union and with foreign
countries, with the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) having
some domestic planning functions.
The overall structure of Soviet science is described by Turkevich.
Graham discusses the structure of the Academy. Thomas describes the
jurisdictional and conflicting mission problems within Soviet science.
Adams shows how Soviet science responds to a crisis, as illustrated by
developments in biology. Lubrano assesses the professional competence
of scientists while Joravsky interprets their intellectual integrity. The
problems of integrating science with production - vertical integration
- are considered by Fusfeld in overall terms, by Humphrey in terms of
an illustrative single industry, by Holloway in a military-related area,
and by Amann, Hanson, Parrott, and Labedz in terms of systemic
problems.
The workshop papers deal extensively with the Academy and its
 role in vertical integration; much less is said about the structure and
operation of the laboratories in the Ministries. The latter area is less
well-known, and deserves more detailed attention. Finally, research at
Soviet universities is not discussed at length. In part this reflects the
fact that Soviet universities do not play the same extensive role in
fundamental research as American universities.
The four critical issues significant to understanding the contem-
porary structure of Soviet science are:
? The extent of SCST's responsibility for the direction of the Soviet
scientific effort.
? The strength of the Academy of Sciences.
? Improvements in the efficiency of vertical integration.
? The possibility of the present vertical integration in the military
sector serving as a model for similar structuring in the domestic
sector.
Each of these issues is considered below.
1. The State Committee for Science and Technology
In order to define the role of the State Committee for Science and
Technology within the structure of Soviet science, Graham analyzes the
Committee's impact on the Academy. In responding to a view of
Western scientists on the possible decline in the influence of the
Academy, Graham states that the SCST indeed encroaches the most on
the traditional hegemony of the Academy. This starts with political
protocol: the head of the SCST, who is also Deputy Premier, outranks
the President of the Academy in the Council of Ministers of which both
are members. Beyond protocol, the SCST facilitates and coordinates all
aspects of science in the U.S.S.R. as well as science relations with
foreign countries. Graham points out that SCST also selects priority
projects for U.S.S.R.'s National Plan:
The State Committee periodically compiles a list of the
current 200 to 250 most important scientific-technical
problems facing the country and works with the State
Planning Committee (Gosplan) in seeking their solution.
But the SCSI may exert its most decisive influence on the direc-
tion of Soviet science by its financial leverage. According to Graham,
the SCSI annually receives 2-3% of the total R&D budget to be
distributed as SCST seet fit. This is persuasive leverage for appealing
to the self-interest of Soviet scientists. On the other hand, an optimist
might view this capability of the SCST as a way of getting the Soviet
laboratories to conduct science which is both high quality and relevant
to immediate needs.
While the SCST does not have scientific in-house capability, it
integrates the input from the scientific community through a system of
advisory subcommittees and scientific councils; as Graham points out,
this gives the SCST the voluntary assistance of thousands of Soviet
 scientists, including most Academicians. Of course, the SCST retains
the executive authority over these bodies.
If the aphorism that success breeds success applies, the influence
of the SCST will grow. One can speculate that its financial leverage,
institutional flexibility, and network of contacts may prove effective
tools for improving performance along the entire Soviet science-
technology spectrum while at the same time reducing into impotence
those organizations which do not comply. However, it should be noted
that the SCST is itself a large bureaucracy and may not effect its
intentions of providing productive leadership.
2. The Academy's Strength
The Academy is a pervasive and enduring institution in the Soviet
system. Pressures on it for relevance have been exerted spasmodically
throughout its life, according to Labedz:
Soviet science policy reflected from the beginning some
ancient problems in this field. When Peter the Great
founded the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1724, it
was given the task not only of carrying out scientific
research but also of helping, the government to solve
practical problems. Its statute made it mandatory for its
members to work on projects given to them by various
departments of the government. With time these obligations
fell into disuse as the academicians tended to pursue
knowledge for its own sake. But the first World War and the
October revolution in particular reversed this trend.
After the Academy lost in the early 1960s jurisdiction over
laboratories engaged in applied science - approximately 40% of the
total Academy laboratories at the time, according to Graham - it
retained the primary mandate for conducting fundamental science in
the Soviet Union. According to Graham, the incentive for this change
came from within the Academy:
The removal of the industrial research institutes from the
Academy in the early sixties was not an action that was
forced on the Academy, but a reform that was strongly
supported by an influential group of Academy members
working in the basic sciences, particularly chemistry,
physics and mathematics. These scientists wanted to
correct what they saw as an exaggerated emphasis on
applied research during the Stalinist period.
A cultural subtlety identified by Graham tends to confirm the
continued vitality of the Academy:
Whether one is interested primarily in promoting intellectual
quality or defending those areas of relative political autono-
my which exist in the Soviet Union, the Academy is a pre-
cious institution to the Soviet intelligentsia. This alliance of
establishment and non-establishment sentiment is rare
among intellectuals in the Soviet Union, and is one of the
 Approved For Release 20
hidden strengths of the Academy.
The Academy also exerts a decisive influence on the quality and
permanence of fundamental science through its influence upon
university education. Graham states:
Many of the academicians and leading researchers in the
Academy also have connections with the universities. When
they identify bright and promising young students at the
university, they often invite them to participate in research
in the institutes of the Academy, which, like the
universities, have the power to award advanced degrees.
The negative side of this process is that the universities
have difficulty building up an independent research system
of high quality, since the Academy often takes their best
students.
The Academy's mandate for fundamental science has been skewed
somewhat by continuing government pressure for relevance. However,
the extent to which this pressure affects laboratory programs is
questioned in the analyses of Gustafson, Adams, and Rabkin. Adams
demonstrates how the Academy adroitly dealt with Lysenkoism by
simply incorporating the needed biological science into institutes with
responsibilities in other subject areas. Gustafson as well as Rabkin
show that research mandated through budgets are not perceived or
acted on by the bench scientists; moreover, they can work,
bureaucratically insulated and deep in the institutional labyrinth, on
essentially whatever pleases them.
Graham concludes his analysis by saying that, on balance, the
Academy has to date retained its institutional strength, though
ultimately this will depend on the activity of the State Committee with
which the Academy must willy-nilly interact.
3. Problems of Vertical Integration
While contributors to this volume comment extensively on the
weaknesses of vertical integration in the U.S.S.R., few describe the
interacting institutional elements except for Humphrey, who deals with
the Soviet development of enriched feed from single cell protein.
Instead, the discussion of vertical integration has focused more on
political and cultural, i.e., systemic, causes. In this overview, the
vertical integration problems are dealt with in the "weaknesses" part of
this section and in the final section concerning obstacles to interaction.
4. The Interaction of the Military Sector with Civilian Science
Soviet military programs interact with non-military science in
several important ways. Holloway unravels a threat which winds from
Trotsky to Brezhnev and examines the commonly accepted notion that
the level of military technology in the U.S.S.R. is higher than that of
civilian technology; this gives rise to the view that the Soviet civilian
sectors should adopt the military approach. Holloway ascribes the
sophistication of military science and technology to two factors: first,,
the increasing complexity of military weaponry requires a more refined
 scientific input; second, the scientific community in turn proposes
weapons, the potential of which stuns even the military. Holloway
summarizes the interaction of science and the military as follows:
First, "while in relation to production, science is becoming a
direct productive force, in terms of military affairs it is
gradually becoming their most important element;" modern
weapons cannot be created without the application of
scientific results from a whole range of disciplines.
Secondly, scientific progress has outstripped military affairs
and is throwing out new possibilities for weapons develop-
ment. Thirdly, before the Second World War it was, as a
rule, the applied and technical sciences that influenced the
development of weapons; but now basic research is coming
to have a direct and immediate impact. Fourth, all
scientific research is relevant to defense: "Now it is
impossible to name with firm conviction any branch of
natural science which would be neutral or unnecessary for
the development of military affairs. Any branch of natural
science either already takes part, or can potentially be used
in (military affairs)." Fifth, the creation, production,
operation and control of modern military equipment is so
complex that not only are scientists drawn in to work on
military problems, but many officers have to become
scientists in their own right.
Holloway suggests that the present nature of the interaction between
the Soviet military and science derives from the competitive struggle
with the West; from the substantial military pressure to meet schedules
and quality criteria; and from the high priority and quality which the
military demand and get in both materiel and personnel. Regarding the
attraction of top scientists, he notes an interesting impediment which
no doubt decreases the appeal of work in military laboratories:
The defense sector has first priority in the allocation of
materials or parts which are in short supply. Engineering-
technical personnel in the defense sector are better paid
than those in civilian industry, and, by and large, the
workers also receive higher wages than in civilian
production. It does not follow, however, that the quality of
personnel is in fact higher, for many scientists and
engineers, in particular those who seek recognition through
publication of their work, find the secrecy stultifying and
are thus not attracted by the higher pay.
Holloway cites another element linking the military with science
and the economy, viz., the fact that 42% of the production of the
military plants is directed to the civilian economy, mostly the
transportation industry. This is not to discount the weight of the
military. Thus, in discussing the impact of the current Tenth Five-Year
Plan on the Soviet economy, Bush presents statistics that show the
military sector taking 11% of the 1975 GNP of the Soviet Union;
 moreover, he asserts that the military's share of production of consumer
goods will rise from 18% in 1975 to an expected 22% in 1980.
Historically, Holloway points out that many of the important and
more sophisticated military projects were initiated under the aegis of
the Academy and only later were separated from the Academy:
The Academy may well have had a role in military R&D for
the "traditional" defense industries, but its most important
military work was in the development of advanced tech-
nologies. In the summer of 1943 a special laboratory had
been created in the Academy to work on the development of
the atomic bomb. This later became the (Kurchatov)
Institute of Atomic Energy and remained part of the
Academy until 1961.
B. Weaknesses in Soviet Science
Soviet science may be considered "weak" if judged by Western
standards; but using our criteria may possibly prevent more accurate
understanding of the adequacy of Soviet science within the Soviet
system. A criterion that may be adequate for gauging the Soviet
system is the relative self-sufficiency of the U.S.S.R. in meeting its
desires. Such a criterion may be irrelevant to a country without natural
resources, without a cultural environment receptive to the pursuit and
use of science, or without effective communication with the industrial-
ized world. The U.S.S.R. is clearly free of such limitations. Therefore,
any major requirement for imports by the U.S.S.R. is a sign of inade-
quate organization and utilization of the country's resources -
material, intellectual, and labor - to meet national objectives.
The persistent efforts of the U.S.S.R. to import Western tech-
nology partly reflects "weaknesses" in terms of this criterion. However,
the principal reason for the Soviet need may be Soviet assent to
allowing the West to set standards for achievement. In effect, the
Soviets may have permitted themselves to become slaves to goals set by
the West and not by the U.S.S.R. itself. An inevitable pressure then
develops to turn to the West for advanced technology. Undoubtedly, the
Soviets view this as a temporary condition, and that their desires and
their own ability to meet their needs for such technology will soon
converge. But the authors in this volume express doubt about such
convergence, given the fundamental sluggishness of the Soviet system.
Both Western and Soviet critics identify two paradoxes concerning
the effectiveness of Soviet science:
If Soviet science and technology is so good, why import from the
West?
If the Soviet regime wants to improve vertical integration, why
not eliminate the stifling bureaucracy, rigid planning, and over-
emphasis on quantitative, rather than qualitative, production
goals?
Labedz comments directly on the first paradox:
There are indeed many ironies in the situation. The
Soviet system is allegedly based on a scientific theory
 ("scientific socialism"). Moreover, the prestige of science in
the country has always been high, and yet after it has been
enhanced even more by being officially declared "the force
of production" in the new. Marxist framework, the Soviet
Union is forced to implement the belatedly-discovered
"scientific-technological revolution" by imports of Western
technology.
Parrott notes further the unsettling ideological implications raised by
import of Western science:
Today, as in the past, the Soviet Union's economic and
technological performance in comparison with that of
Western countries has profound implications for Soviet
military and political influence abroad. It also has serious
implications for the Soviet elite's professed belief in their
own political system as the most modern and dynamic.
Labedz suggests that the repeated Soviet reliance on the West may
create a continuing dependence - and consequent weakness - such
that the U.S.S.R. becomes addicted to periodic infusions of Western
technology. Presumably, this view of dependence should not be pursued
to such an extreme as to lead us to grossly underestimate the underlying
strength of the Soviet system. Nevertheless, reliance on Western
science began with the Czars and has continued since despite the
changes in governmental systems, viz., from Tsarist to Soviet. Even
recent changes within the U.S.S.R. have not reduced Soviet dependence
on the West. Thus, Thomas notes that Soviet leaders cannot terrorize
their scientists today as Stalin could and did in his days. Yet the low
Soviet productivity on the whole and the resultant need for external aid
remain. In this context, Holloway quotes Sutton, who has done the
definitive study of Western technology transfer to the U.S.S.R., on the
paradox of Soviet innovation" - an extraordinary lack of effective
indigenous innovation in the civilian sector versus relatively effective
procedures in the military sector.
The foregoing comments are intended to indicate that the general
weakness of Soviet science stems from a complex mixture of Soviet
systemic deficiencies, Russian historical development, and cultural
background.
More specifically, twelve weaknesses affecting Soviet science and
technology can be identified in the system.
First and foremost, is Party interference in science affairs, as
described by Graham, Katsenelinboigen, and Thomas. The point is
epitomized by Graham:
At the 24th Party Congress in 1971 the Party Statutes
were revised to give Party organizations in fundamental
research institutions greater control over research admini-
stration. The effects of this change in the statutes were
felt primarily in the Academy of Sciences. Paragraph 60 of
the Party Statutes had earlier exempted non-industrial
(academic) research institutes from administrative control
by the primary Party organizations.
 And Katsenelinboigen notes that the Party continues to interfere
directly with the economy:
The Party apparatus is another user of the economists'
work. The Party apparatus, as is well known, fulfills a dual
role in the Soviet society. On the one hand, it formulates
and implements ideological policies. On the other, it
intrudes directly into the economic life of the country and
participates actively in the process of shaping and fulfilling
economic plans.
In this connection, Thomas notes that the Party's intrusion into
Soviet science and technology has traditionally been triggered by its
efforts to maintain control in all spheres of the Soviet system (the
military, arts and literature, etc.), even if this has to be done - as in
the past - at the expense of efficiency.
Second, inflexible planning and management - a reflection of
overcentralized authority - discourages productivity. Reorganizations
in the late sixties designed to stimulate production only increased the
authority of the central organizations. As Zaleski notes: "There is
some evidence that research institutes currently are subject to tighter
controls by the agencies to which they are accountable." In a
comparable vein, Holloway considers the military rigidity to be stifling:
The third concern is that, in spite of its relatively
successful operation, the military "research-production
cycle" is not flexible enough to cope with present require-
ments. One military writer has commented that "the search
for a more flexible organizational structure for research
establishments is one of the ways of raising the effective-
ness of scientific research in the interests of the country's
defense."
In broader terms, Parrott also notes the effect of rigid planning on
Soviet economic performance:
Taut planning also makes the participants less willing to
accept the economic risks of innovation. All this is a
familiar syndrome, but its consequences for technological
innovation are graver than for other types of activity.
Third, the stifling effects of historical Russian bureaucracy have
already been identified in this discussion. Even the Soviets recognize
the pervasiveness of their own bureaucracy which seems to be rooted in
a cultural propensity for avoiding risk and responsibility. As a result,
the cumbersome administrative machinery substantially diminishes the
vitality of the economy.
Fourth, the preemption of resources by the military, who have
first call on scientists and equipment, affects negatively the efficiency
of the civilian sector.
Fifth, dependence on the West for scientific input is a self-
perpetuating weakness which may grow with time.
Sixth, resistance to technological change and specifically to
innovation in the industrial sector is widespread in the U.S.S.R. This
 exists because potential changes are viewed as threatening fulfillment
of near run production quotas on which career advancement depends.
As Katsenelinboigen notes:
... A threat that this may curtail the authority of the Soviet
management apparatus, the inability to implement new methods
of planning, etc., have led many Soviet managers to oppose the
introduction of new economic methods.
In a related vein, Thomas notes that innovation is resisted because
no allowance is made by the political leadership to the production
ministries for the fact that production goals might be missed because of
downtime required to re-equip plants with new machinery and to re-
train workers to use that equipment.
Seventh, lack of technical management and organizational infra-
structure restricts the flow of new industrial products and processes.
Labedz points out that:
It is obvious that for new technology to function effec-
tively it is not sufficient to copy the hardware; it is also
necessary to create organizational and managerial infra-
structure, as well as the pattern of rationality which would
permit it. This raises the perennial problems of ideology
versus rationality and of apparatchiki versus technocrats in
the absorption of - say - computer technology into the
Soviet system.
Eighth, political dominance over science affects the quality of
scientific personnel. While Soviet science is considered by Western
peers to be excellent in many respects, Joravsky implies that its repre-
sentatives do not always sustain its excellence, whether by choice or by
force. Adams addresses the ambivalence of Soviet scientists, operating
in a highly politicized environment:
... Nor should we be surprised to find many Soviet scientists
who had risked political difficulties to defend genetics now
signing petitions against Sakharov: scientists speaking on
political matters threaten to undo the symbiotic relationship
predicated on the separation of science and politics, and
invite the kind of political interference in science which led
to the Lysenko problem in the first place.
Ninth, the inability to successfully integrate science with pro-
duction and marketing is a recurring theme in discussion of Soviet
weaknesses by Hanson, Fusfeld, Amann, Parrott, and others. Analyzing
the problem, Parrott points to the lack of incentives to promote
competition. He concludes that the problems are rooted more in the
rigid structure than in personnel.
Tenth, slow diffusion of information within the U.S.S.R. impedes
scientific achievements. Hanson blames the sluggishness on low credi-
bility of regime-supplied information. Other reasons for slow diffusion
include lack of photocopy machines, a scarcity of advertising literature,
and ineffective technical professional societies.
 Eleventh, there exist difficulties in relating science to broader
economic goals, as discussed by Zaleski and Labedz. The former
comments that:
One of the greatest difficulties in planning science in
the U.S.S.R. is to connect it to broader economic goals. The
difficulties encountered in this area have been noted
continuously. Recently, the Soviet government made a
special effort to solve this problem by devoting - for the
first time - a special chapter in the national plans on the
planning of science and technology. The effort attempts to
link R&D with production by prescribing in detail the
transfer of new technology and research results to the
production process....
In this connection, Zaleski discusses numerous efforts to reorganize the
Soviet research and development structure to strengthen the effect of
science on economic growth.
Twelfth, insufficient material incentives for innovation undermine
the effectiveness of scientific activities. Honorary titles and medals
apparently do not provide sufficient incentives for the average Soviet
citizen to increase his productivity.
IV. Opportunities and Obstacles in U.S.-U.S.S.R. Cooperation
In addition to improving our understanding of Soviet science, the
analyses in this volume are intended to provide guidelines for considera-
tion by those in government, industry, and universities whose responsi-
bilities involve direct interaction with the U.S.S.R. This section
discusses specific operational ideas. In considering how these ideas
might best be organized, we decided to use the barter paradigm because
the U.S.-U.S.S.R. interactions seem to be dominated by perceptions of
equivalent value that go beyond strictly monetary transactions.
In any barter interaction, the bargaining parties, intuitively or
explicitly, make two preliminary assessments: 1) what are the per-
ceived needs of the two parties? 2) what are the impediments and, in
reverse, the facilitating factors? The barter then proceeds until a
perceived equality of satisfaction is achieved; the magnitude of the
exchange depends on the degree of success in overcoming impediments.
Thus, the following discussion considers from a U.S. viewpoint
these operative questions: what does the U.S. require? What does the
U.S.S.R. require? What factors in the U.S.S.R. will facilitate trans-
actions? What factors in the U.S.S.R. will impede transactions?
A. I I.S. Requirements
Since the workshop focused on Soviet needs with reference to the
Soviet system, our comments on U.S. requirements are brief. There is
little question that the U.S. needs relative to the U.S.S.R. involve at
least the following:
1. In foreign policy, our principal need is the easing of tensions
with the U.S.S.R. This was stressed by Ganley in his remarks
to the workshop.
 2. In regard to commercial interests, there is continuing
pressure for increasing commercial relations with the
U.S.S.R. It is perceived that expanding markets aid economic
growth within the U.S. and reduce our trade imbalances.
Moreover, it is generally presumed that increasing
interdependence through commercial relations contributes to
easing tensions.
3. In science and technology, cooperative relations may con-
tribute to increasing U.S. strength. The scope and intensity
of Soviet scientific commitments increase the possibility that
the U.S.S.R. will become a major source for new scientific
advances. While lagging behind the U.S. in most areas today,
the U.S.S.R. has demonstrable potential in many areas.
Therefore, even though benefits to U.S. science and tech-
nology from cooperation with the U.S.S.R. may be minimal
today, they could increase under the right circumstances.
B. U.S.S.R. Requirements
Soviet requirements are cultural-political as well as economic,
and these are often interdependent. U.S. initiatives which meet these
requirements should obtain corresponding U.S.S.R. concessions relevant
to U.S. needs.
In considering the question of Soviet needs, the U.S. should recog-
nize that by setting global trends it contributes to increasing the Soviet
requirements. Thus, as the U.S. continues its steady advance in tech-
nology, the gap between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. widens further and there-
fore defines even greater U.S.S.R. needs. Naturally, it is not in the
interest of the U.S. to minimize its quest for technological break-
throughs and innovative approaches. However, as the U.S. continues to
function as the yardstick for the U.S.S.R., it is, by developing more
sophisticated products and processes, creating a gap that may not be
closed in the near future, if ever. Indeed, Hanson, Parrott, and Amann
observe that, if anything, the gap is progressively widening.
Unwittingly, the West makes the Soviets more dependent on external
sources, not only by defining the upper parameters of needs but also by
provoking the Soviets to come to the West for instant transfusions
rather than to depend on their own slower paced developments. Since,
as Fusfeld clearly shows, the Soviets do not integrate their R&D,
production, and marketing effectively, in many cases they are already
behind when the race to develop a new product begins - computers are
a case in point.
Their need for technology from the West is quantitatively esti-
mated by Green and Levine; they assert that the Soviet investment in
western technology returns three to four times as much as the same
investment in domestic technology. While Hanson questions the
m=.onitude of the return, he acknowledges that the idea is basically
correct. Green and Levine further note that 8% of the Soviet growth in
tl-he 1968-1973 period could be attributed to Western machinery.
Some of the U.S.S.R. requirements described below are restate-
rnents of the characteristics of the Soviet system presented in earlier
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 parts of this overview. They are collected and enumerated here for
U.S. consideration in interactions with the U.S.S.R.
First, the Soviet need arising from the discrepancies between
anticipated and the actual effectiveness of the Communist system is
exemplified by the deficiencies of Soviet industrial enterprises. Their
relatively poor performance is inconsistent with either ideological or
economic goals. As a result, the U.S.S.R. promotes major interaction
with the West to make up for its deficiencies.
By contrast, basic science in the U.S.S.R. cannot on the whole be
considered deficient. Graham notes that the U.S.S.R. Academy of
Sciences is the most respected single institution in the U.S.S.R.
Competent academicians are found in all laboratories: university
ministry, and Academy. Turkevich notes further that the dispersion of
academicians within Soviet institutions gives the Academy power and
i
fl
n
uence which are unique in any society. If there is a deficiency in
Soviet science, it is, according to Gustafson, in its organization and the
utilization of its research output.
Preoccupation with production goals prevents Soviet enterprises
from establishing more productive relationships with the science
community, i.e., the development of new products and processes is
frustrated by commitments to existing production methods which turn
out inferior products. As a result, the Soviets turn to the West for
whole new plants and processes which can be plugged into their
economy as a substitute for indigenous development. But their society
is then cheated of incorporating preliminary trial-and-error experience
into its technological culture; this contributes to the U.S.S.R.'s systemic
weakness.
Second, the Soviets aim to strengthen their science as a base for
developing their military power. Soviet military requirements play a
major role, given the Soviet leaders' superpower ambitions. Since
Khrushchev's days, these have been described in terms of the U.S.S.R.
being a velikaya derzhava (great power) with incontestable rights to
assert its interests in all parts of the world. In this context, we can fit
Holloway's conclusion that the foundation for the priority scientific:
effort in the U.S.S.R. is the meeting of military requirements by what-
ever means and from whatever source, Soviet or Western. And as
military weapons become increasingly complex, this leads to greater
reliance on basic science; in turn, this results in Soviet science devoting
more effort to meeting military rather than civilian needs. But because
it cannot provide all the answers to the production of sophisticated
military hardware, this increases the pressure within the U.S.S.R. to
obtain new techniques and ideas from external sources. Consequently,
one cannot avoid facing the implication that Western science is likely to
be incorporated into the Soviet military and that part of the Soviet
initiative to establish science exchanges with the U.S. arises from
military needs. In this connection the military origin of the State
Committee for Science and Technology (SCSI) should not be over-
looked. Holloway reasons that:
Much research of military importance is done in the
"civilian" sector, and it seems likely that the State Com-
 mittee has a role in fostering and directing research of
military interest, and in drawing military attention to
promising lines of research.
Third, the Soviet goal of achieving international recognition and
prestige equal to the West reflects a national need. Thus, if the Soviets
are partners with the U.S. in scientific exchanges, they are viewed by
others in the world as equals of the U.S. The Apollo-Soyuz space
rendezvous illustrates the point: the joint effort has created a
perception among some of equality between the two nations. By
consciously nurturing such an image, the Soviets hope to use it to nego-
tiate more effectively with other countries. We conclude that the
Soviets will propose some joint projects designed to promote the image
of U.S.-Soviet equality in both science and technology.
Fourth, the Soviets seem to require a rational approach that
avoids risks. They are more sensitive than Western nations to the
embarrassment of failure. Moreover, in their more structured system,
fewer options are available once failure occurs. As insurance in the
event of such an eventuality, the natural reaction of Soviet officials is
to avoid making decisions that can be traced to them individually.
Thus, one can assume that, in dealing to obtain science and technology
from the West, Soviet negotiators can adroitly pass the buck to their
leaders who initiated the interactions with the West or, preferably, to
the West. This probably accounts for the extreme guarantees required
by the Soviets on various license arrangements and turnkey projects.
The preoccupation with avoiding risks is well summarized by Parrott; he
notes that Soviet plant managers prefer to maximize their personal job
security, even if this involves overregulation and excessive limits on
their production freedom, rather than to be given free market choices.
Fifth, the current Soviet need for hard currency affects their
negotiating position vis-a-vis the West. Indeed, the situation may force
them to give up a number of large turnkey projects in favor of licensing
agreements with the U.S. Although, as Bush emphasizes, the Soviets
are reluctant to sell their natural resources, their present trade deficit.
of some $35 billion may force them to reconsider. To further reduce
their currency problems, the Soviets want to sell their finished products
on the world market. However, according to Bush, the quality of Soviet
goods is on the whole shoddy, making the Western countries reluctant to
purchase them. In any case, the perennial Soviet hard currency problem
gives the U.S. an advantage in transactions with the U.S.S.R.
Sixth, science helps provide legitimacy to the communist system.
The mandate for science arising out of communist doctrine has already
been identified. To the extent that Soviet science is strong, influential,
and a major source of economic strength, the rule of the leaders is
legitimized. Science adds to their security because its achievements
provide a critical margin for stabilizing their political power structure.
C. Facilitation
The major facilitator of U.S. initiatives toward the U.S.S.R. over
the long run is the array of Soviet requirements; it creates great
receptivity on the part of the Soviets. The role of specific needs varies
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 Approved For Release 2005/01/10: CIA-RDP86B00985R0
cyclically and depends on the political climate at a given time. Below
we examine several mechanisms by which U.S.-Soviet transactions can
be facilitated.
Organizationally, the U.S. entry into the system of Soviet science
and technology is encouraged by the high level connections between
science and government in the U.S.S.R. Thus, the starting point for
U.S.-U.S.S.R. technical exchanges, and also those related to trade, is
the State Committee for Science and Technology (SCST). Its high
political status insures the necessary contacts throughout the Soviet
system. The fact that the SCSI has organizational flexibility and direct
institutional responsibility for coordinating all Soviet science and
technology means that it can put Western organizations in touch with
their Soviet counterparts.
Similarly, the Academy of Sciences has high level political ties
and is operated by a strong, central command. All Academy institutes
are linked by a central organization; their activities with many
university and ministry laboratories are also conducted through a
central organization. Therefore, the Academy provides a single
mechanism for almost all cooperative ventures in basic science.
The Soviet production ministries, along with their "enterprises,"
and the U.S. private sector are encouraged to establish direct contacts
under Article IV of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Agreement on Scientific and
Technical Cooperation, even though the focus of the Agreement is on
science and technology. Thus, some commercial arrangements could be
expedited by the mechanism of Article IV, often with the active
involvement of the SCSI.
Another major factor in facilitating U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation is
the cultural predisposition of the Soviet people towards science. Anti-
intellectualism was not part of the Russian people nor is it of Soviet
society. The broad societal acceptance of science is reflected in the
steady growth of R&D budgets in the national plan, and in the
establishment of science cities such as Akademgorodok, near Novo-
sibirsk. Science support in the U.S.S.R. will probably enjoy uninter-
rupted support and stability in the future.
Interestingly, the Soviet military may be another facilitating
factor. This is due not only to the need for advanced Western science
and technology related to military weapons development. Rather, the
effectiveness of the military in organizing the vertical integration of
science with production may be progressively adopted in the civilian
sector. Any resulting improvement in the quality of Soviet science and
technology would make cooperation of greater interest to the U.S.
because of presumed benefit it could derive.
Finally, there is a clear trend in the U.S.S.R. towards improving
the incentive system in order to create greater responsiveness to new
ideas. The Soviets appear to have concluded that this path, while
politically questionable, may nonetheless be pragmatically necessary. If
reforms are adopted, they might make the Soviets more receptive to
U.S. inputs.
 L). Obstacles
Numerous obstacles stand in the way of large scale U S.-U S.S.R.
cooperation. First and foremost is the general concern of the Soviet
regime about the contaminating effect of contacts with foreigners on
the Soviet people. Some institutions of the Soviet system are deeply
troubled by this and actively oppose interaction with the U.S. These are
principally elements in the Party and the secret police (KGB). Concern
for preserving ideological purity of the Soviet people and fear over
compromising national security are the ostensible reasons. But strong
elements of traditional Russian xenophobia are also at work. These
factors are responsible for the careful selection of Soviet people
involved in direct interaction with the U.S. The overriding criteria for
such selection seem to be political reliability, with technical compe-
tence only a distant second; this situation impairs the quality of U.S.
scientific cooperation with the U S.S.R.
The next greatest single impediment to interaction between the
U.S. and U.S.S.R. is the fear of Soviet citizens of the risks involved in
contacts with foreigners. This prevents them from making personal
commitments or taking responsibility. The situation can be traced to
the days of the Czars, but seems worse in the present Soviet system.
The overwhelming Soviet governmental bureaucracy is the most visible
as well as the most stultifying expression of the Soviet propensity for
risk avoidance. Several papers in this volume make it clear that even
some Soviet officials resent this burden, despite the fact that it is self-
inflicted. In addition to the bureaucracy of the planning organizations
and the ministries which may be viewed as monitoring organizations in
the system, the Party has a parallel structure which oversees all aspects
of Soviet scientific and technical activities. And, as if this is not
enough, the KGB exerts direct and indirect influence on the contents of
published papers, on foreign trips of Soviet scientists, and on the access
of foreigners to the Soviet people and institutions.
These multiple layers of organizations for surveillance provide the
pressure for risk aversion. Moreover, national and subordinate plans
foster the excessive emphasis upon central planning, which in itself is
immobilizing. If the plan is extensively organized, no one takes risks;
ana if the planning organization is large enough, no one can be blamed.
Caution is abetted by the fact that if an error occurs, the system
unfailingly identifies an unfortunate scapegoat whose demise somehow
absolves the system.
It is surprising that a system which places so much ideological
emphasis on scientific approach has been able to make the progress to
date it has in the face of a choking bureaucracy. One can speculate
that the current great preoccupation with cybernetics in the U.S.S.R.
is, in part, a vicarious yearning for the abstractions of feedback
processes which might provide the flexibility and vitality absent in real-
lif _.
The reality of an entrenched Soviet bureaucracy impinges upon
the west in many ways. For example, in commercial interactions it
leads to Soviet pressure for unreasonable contractual terms and for
unattainable specifications, to frustrating delays, and to unfulfilled
expectations.
 A third, serious impediment to wider U.S.-U.S.S.R. interaction is
the Soviet lack of hard currency. This limits major cooperative
ventures involving Western technology. The problem is exacerbated by
the difficulties the Soviets encounter in developing hard currency
reserves. One solution to the hard currency problem generates its own
impediments. Commercial projects have often been proposed in which
the Western investor would be paid "in kind." that is, by gas, oil or
metal produced with Western know-how and investment. There is some
internal Soviet resistance to such proposed arrangements, however, on
the grounds that this is giving away natural resources which are the
foundation for U.S.S.R.'s own future economic development and growth.
These objections must be recognized in planning major industrial
projects in the U.S.S.R.
A final obstacle arises from the Soviet regime's attitude and
practice regarding the availability of data. Even most trivial
information, or comparable data which is routinely made available in
the West, is often withheld by the Soviets; in other cases, the
information made available is suspect as to accuracy or completeness.
V. Concluding Thoughts and Perspectives
This volume examines in detail those components of the Soviet
system which relate to or affect Soviet science and technology. The
discussion of these varied aspects at the workshop produced a
perspective on Soviet behavior that can serve to guide our present and
future interactions.
Specifically, this perspective includes the following elements:
1. The Soviet, as well as the earlier Tsarist, system has
depended on Western science and technology. Barring drastic
internal political modifications and economic reform, the
U.S.S.R. will continue to need significant inputs from the
West if it is not to fall further behind the U.S. in technology
across the board.
2. If achieved, massive Soviet imports of Western technology
and science know-how could ultimately provide more and
better policy options to the ruling Soviet gerontocracy in
meeting the problem of allocating limited resources between
the U.S.S.R.'s military and civilian needs.
3. However, offsetting any advantage gained by massive imports
of Western science and technology may be Soviet inability to
effectively and efficiently apply foreign know-how and
equipment.
4. Soviet Union's traditional and continuing emphasis on military
and heavy industry development heavily dictates its priorities
in the selection of areas for U.S.-U.S.S.R. scientific-techno-
logical cooperation.
5. Joint activities and contacts of Soviet scientists with foreign
scientists are closely directed and continually monitored by
the Soviet regime; this serves to constrain personal and
professional contacts and produces continuing tensions
M
 between a regime determined to maintain control and Soviet
scientists seeking greater freedom for less guided research
and open-ended contacts with their counterparts abroad.
To the foregoing, a principal element affecting the U.S.'s own
judgemental capabilities should be added: information in the U.S. on
Soviet Union's scientific and technological capabilities is dispersed
among numerous individuals and institutions; consequently, the U.S.
lacks a coherent perspective on the basis of which to develop an
effective long-term policy for cooperation with the U.S.S.R. in science
and technology; it should develop such a perspective if it is to maximize
the benefits from such cooperation and safeguard more completely its
interests.
While the papers in this volume identify the reasons for the
U.S.S.R.'s desire for Western science and technology, they also imply
potential benefits of such exchanges to the U.S. Consequently, we can
expect both sides to continue cooperative efforts in science and
technology. In this context, any improvement in our understanding of
the Soviet system can only enhance our current and future programs
with the U.S.S.R. Whether specific interactions are possible or
desirable for us depends greatly on our evaluation of Soviet scientific
and technical requirements and activities in the broad context of the
Soviet system as a whole. To develop such a comprehensive picture and
appreciation of Soviet complexity was the principal objective of the
workshop and, it is hoped, is the achievement of this volume.
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 SOVIET MILITARY R&D: MANAGING THE
"RESEARCH-PRODUCTION CYCLE"
by David Holloway
Introduction
A proper understanding of Soviet science and technology and their
relationship to the military' requires an examination of the Soviet
military research and development effort. This effort absorbs a large
part of the resources devoted to R&D in the Soviet Union. It is,
unfortunately, difficult to establish preciselly how large the proportion
is: estimates range from 40 to 80 per cent. Whatever the true figure
may be, our picture of Soviet science and technology will be seriously
lacking if such a large part of it is left uncharted. What this paper
seeks to do is to outline the institutional framework of the military
"research-production cycle," and to identify the agencies which plan and
manage the cycle and the establishments which carry out the research
and development work.
Although there is no agreement on the size of the military effort,
there does exist a general consensus that military R&D is more
effective than civilian R&D in the Soviet Union. Various explanations
have been given for this. The most common is perhaps that the defense
sector has enjoyed the highest priority in the allocation of resources. It
has also been argued, however, that the relative success of military
R&D is the result of the Armed Forces' ability to impose their wishes on
the processes of innovation and production. In other words, the
effectiveness of the military effort is to be explained not so much by
the resources devoted to it, but rather by the efficiency with which
those resources are translated into military equipment. These two
explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, for it is possible
both that the military effort enjoys priority and that it is better
managed. But if military R&D is better managed, then less weight
needs to be given to the resources devoted to it in explaining its
relative success. Consequently, this paper looks particularly at the
military role in managing the "research-production cycle."
This paper does not claim to provide a comprehensive analysis of
the Soviet military R&D effort. Some very important issues are
omitted, or merely touched on in passing, such as for example: The size
of the military R&D effort; the role of the arms race in stimulating
technological progress; the importance of foreign science and tech-
nology to the Soviet military effort. Nevertheless the paper does
suggest conclusions which are not only important in themselves but are
relevant to these issues.
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 The Level of Military Technology
It is commonly accepted that the level of military technology in
the Soviet Union is higher than that of its c'"iiian technology. Forty
years ago Trotsky wrote that "the machinery )f destruction is of better
quality, not only than the ?bjects of consu'nption, but also than the
instruments of production." Soviet leaders have echoed this assess-
ment. In 1962 Khrushchev called for a reorganization of civilian R&D
along the lines of military R&D, beause the latter had been successful
in developing advanced weapons. At the XXIV Party Congress
Brezhnev spoke of the "high scientific-technical level" of the defense
industry and the need to transmit its "gxperience, inventions, and
discoveries to all spheres of our economy." Foreign students of Soviet
technology have agreed with this general verdict. Thus Sutton, at the
end of his exhaustive study of Western technology and Soviet develop-
ment, writes that "Soviet innovation presents a paradox: an extraord-
inary lack of effective indigenous innovation in industrial sectors is
offset - so far as can be determined within the limits of open
information - by effective innovation in the weapons sectors."6 A
similar assesrsment is to be found in most of the Western writing on
Soviet R&D.
Nevertheless this assessment should be qualified in two ways.
Firstly, it cannot be said that the level of Soviet military technology is
as high as the most advanced foreign technology. The technical
comparison of weapons systems is methodologically very complex, and
it is easy to confuse two distinct categories: military effectiveness and
the level of technology. There is no necessary relationship between the
two: a higher level of technology will not necessarily lead to a superior
capability, while a better capability cannot be taken as conclusive
evidence of a higher technological level. Within certain limits,
designers can create equipment not inferior to its foreign counterparts,
even though the technology embodied in the component parts is of a
lower level. In other words, design is the process whereby the whole is
made greater than the sum of its parts, and consequently it intervenes
in the relationship between technological level and military effective-
ness. Thus the undoubtedly formidable power of Soviet armament
cannot be taken as evidencegthat the level of military technology is as
high as in the United States.
Secondly, a distinction can be drawn between military and civilian
technology insofar as the former is specifically designed for use in war.
There is nevertheless a considerable overlap between the two, and the
distinction grows more blurred the closer one moves towards the
research end of the "research-production cycle." Moreover, much
development work on military technology may be indistinguishable from
the civil~n effort: this could be true of computer technology, for
example. It seems to follow that the more advances in military
technology come to depend on a large R&D effort, the greater will be
the overlap between civilian and military. Of course it is necessary to
distinguish between the more advanced and less advanced areas of
military technology, but there can be little doubt that the relationship
between military and civilian R&D has changed as weapons development
 has come to depend more and more on basic scientific research.
The growing dependence of weapons development on scientific
research is seen as part of the "scientific-technical revolutif " and has
been the subject of much discussion in the Soviet Union. Several
features have been identified in this new relationship. First, "while in
relation to production science is becoming a direct productive force, in
terms of military affairs it is gradually becoming their most important
element;" modern weapons cannot be created without ttjel application
of scientific results from a whole range of disciplines. Secondly,
scientific progress has outstripped military affairs and is throwing out
new possibilities for weapons development. Thirdly, before the Second
World War it was, as a rule, the applied and technical sciences that
influenced the development of weapons; but now basic research is
coming to have a direct and immediate impact. Fourth, all scientific
research is relevant to defense: "now it is impossible to name with firm
conviction any branch of natural science which would be neutral or
unnecessary for the development of military affairs. Any branch of
natural science either already takes part, or can potentially be used in
(military affairs):' Fifth, the creation, production, operation and
control of modern military equipment is so complex that not only are
scientists drawn in to work on military prplems, but many officers
have to become scientists in their own right.
The "Research-Production Cycle" and the Creation of New Weapons
The R&D effort can best be understood if it is seen in terms of
the "research-production cycle." The stages in this cycle can be
categorized in various ways; two Soviet definitions are given in Table 1.
The differences between these definitions are more apparent than real:
Gvishiani classifies mission-oriented basic research as applied research,
while Kosov and Popov classify it as basic research; Gvishiani specifies
applied research more clearly; Kosov and Popov include assimilation
(osvoenie) in the cycle, while Gvishiani omits it.
The "research-production cycle" can form the basis for examining
the relationship between the military, science and industry, since the
same fundamental processes are involved whether scientific knowledge
is being translated into civilian or military production. But some
additions to the "research-production cycle" are needed to take account
of the role which military requirements play in the creation of new
weapons. Cherednichenko writes that
the creation of new weapons systems includes: scientific
research - the appearance of the idea, the formulation of
system requirements, analysis of the economic and
scientific-technical possibility of creating it; experimental-
design work, the manufacture of an experimental model,
testing; the organizaltion of mass production, and assimila-
tion into the arsenal.
Here the stage of scientific research is accompanied by the formulation
of the military requirement; in some cases the requirement will initiate
the research, in others the research will suggest the requirement.
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 The "Research-Production Cycle"
1 Basic Research
B
I Basic Research
(a) free
(b) special-purpose
2 Applied Research
(a) application-oriented
basic research
2 Applied Research
(b) laboratory verification
and selection of alter-
natives
3 Development
(a) experimental-design work
(b) project-design work
3 Development
(a) experimental-design work
(b) technological and organiza-
tional preparation of
production
(c) assimilation of production
of new products
A D. M. Gvishiani, as quoted in Simon Kassel, The Relationship
Between Science and the Military in the Soviet Union, R-1457-
DDRE Arpa, Rand Corporation, July 1974, p. 25.
B Ye. V. Kosov, G. Kh. Popov, Upravlenie mezhotraslevymi nauchno-
tekhnicheskimi programmami, Moscow, 1972, pp. 9-15.
 Before a decision is taken to go ahead with design and development,
however, feasibility studies will be done to consider the economic and
technological aspects of the proposal. If design and development are
approved, experimental-design work will be undertaken and, where
appropriate, models prepared and tests made in order to evaluate the
design. On this basis a decision will be taken about production. If
production is approved, responsibilities will be assigned and the project-
technological bureaus will prepare the new production processes.
Finally, the Armed Forces will receive the equipment and assimilate it -
a process which may entail considerable retraining and reorganization
to ensure satisfactory operation and maintenance.
Of course this description is schematic, and the actual process
will be more complicated. But it does emerge that there are two main
decision points in the process of creating a new weapon: the first is the
design and development decision, and the second is the decision to
proceed with production. These decision points do not fit into the
divisions between basic research, applied research and development. A
great deal of applied research will come before the design and
development decision, and some may be required afterwards; and some
design and development work inevitably follows the production decision.
The military "research-production cycle" has been greatly
extended and complicated by the scientific-technical revolution. In the
words of one Soviet writer:
The significant increase in the role of science in strengthen-
ing the country's defense has led to a change in the
character of the organizational link between it and military
affairs. For a long time science and military affairs were
related to each other in this way: from military affairs to
science and back to military affairs. In military practice a
definite requirement arises. At a certain stage this is
realized by military specialists and formulated by them as a
concrete request which is presented by them to the
competent scientific establishments and finds there its
solution. With the development of science and the growing
complexity of the tasks of strengthening the country's
defense, another type of relationship begins to become
widespread - from science to military affairs, since modern
science is able to find ways of raising the combat capabili-
ties of the army and navy which are new in principle and do
not flow Directly from the traditional forms of their
existence.
The growing role of scientific research has made the formulation of
military requirements more complex, for the military planners have to
be m-_,ch more sensitive to, and informed about, the possibilities of
technology; and they now have an interest in ensuring that scientific
research is directed, in a general way, towards military purposes. This
makes the first stage of the cycle and the first decision point - the
formulation of a requirement and the initiation of design and develop-
ment - much more important and much more difficult than before.
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 The Institutional Framework
Because the information on Soviet military R&D is fragmentary it
will be helpful to trace the history of the institutions concerned with
the development, production and procurement of arms and materiel. In
this way the sparser data for recent years can be most fruitfully
interpreted, and the impact of the scientific-technical revolution most
clearly assessed. The Armed Forces, defense industry and military R&D
establishments conduct their work under the direction and management
of the central Party and government bodies. The role of the central
Party bodies is of particular importance. The Politburo is the supreme
policy-making body; the Central Committee Secretariat has a depart-
ment for the defense industry and a political department for the Armed
Forces; at various times Central Committee secretarligs have had
responsibility for defense policy and the defense industry. There is no
need to outline the nature of Party direction and management here, but
mention must be made of the specialist central bodies for defense
policy-making.
A. Central defense policy-making bodies
The present formal structure of the defense policy-making bodies
bears a marked similarity to that which existed in the late 1930s. At
that time major questions of defense policy were decided in the Defense
Committee vached to the U.S.S.R. Council of People's Commissars
(Sovnarkom). This Committee, which had been created in April 1937,
was supplemented in January 1938 by a permanent Military-Industrial
Commission (Voenno-promyshlennaya komissiya) which had the task "of
mobilizing and preparing industry, both defense and non-defense, to
secure completely the fulfillment of the plans and assignments of the
Defense Committee for the production and delivery 47 arms to the
RKKA and the People's Commissariat of the Navy." Within the
Defense Commissariat major decisions were taken by the Main Military
Council (Glavnyi Voenny Sovet) of the Red Army, which was formed in
March 1938. In December 1937 a separate Naval Commissariat had
been established, Nd in March 1938 a Main Military Council was
created there too.) This Council consisted of the People's Commissar
(Narkom), his deputies and one member of the Politburo, although the
most important decisio0 were taken with Stalin and other members of
the Politburo present. In practice no decision was taken without
Stalin's participation; if he was not present at a meeting, the decisions
were forwarded to him for approval.
Both of these bodies were superseded during the War. On June 30,
1941, the State Defense Comm Wee (GKO) was set up, with all the
power in the state in its hands. The Main Military Council of the
Defense Commissariat, which acted as chief command organ for the
first day of the War, was eventually transformed into the General
Headquaf-ers of the Supreme Command (Stavka Verkhovnogo Komando-
vaniya). In September 1945 the GKO was abolished and the Sovnarkom
assumed its former role (althoui there is no evidence that the Defense
Committee was reestablished). In January 1946 the Politburo decided
to combine the Defense and Naval Commissariats, and a Higher Military
 Council (Vysshii Voennyi Sovet) was formed in the new Commissariat in
place of the Stavka. This was "the collegial body which had existed
before the war," and consisted of members of th24Politburo and Central
Committee and leaders of the Armed Forces. In March 1950 the
Ministry of the Armed Forces was split once again into two Ministries.
Main Military Councils were now created in these Ministries, while the
Higher Military Council was moved upwards and attached to theouncil
of Ministers, apparently with reduced military representation. The
Main Military Council 2gf the Ministry of Defense (reunified in 1953)
appears still to exist. The Higher Military Council seems to have
survived into the 1960s, but at some point i 7 was replaced by, or
renamed, the Defense Council (Sovet Oberony). It has recently been
revealed that Brezhnev is Chairman of this body, and that it concerns
itself with "questions of military development (voennoe stroitel'stvo)
and of strengthening the might and combat readiness of the28Soviet
Armed Forces," i.e. with military policy and defense production. The
Defense Council appears to be attached to neither the Politburo nor the
Council of Ministers. In 1972 it became known that there exists a
Military-Industrial Commission, headed by L.2'. Smirnov, one of the
Deputy Chairmen of the Council of Ministers. This Commission may
occupy a position similar to its prewar namesake.
B. The Defense Industry
One of the main aims of Soviet industrialization was to provide
the Red Army with modem military equipment. The first Five Year
Plans for economic development were accompanied by Five Year Plans
for the30development of the Red Army (plany stroitel'stva Krasnoi
Armii). During the 1930s the defense industry grew to meet the Red
Army's needs. In December 1936 a special Defense Industry Commissa-
riat (NKOP) was created, with four main adminis;1ations (glavki) for
aircraft, armament, ammunition and shipbuilding. In January 1939
the NKOP was dissolved and four new Commissariats were created on
the basis of the former lg avki. Each of the new Commissariats had its
own administrations, construction trusts, design organizations, hig
and secondary educational establishments, and factory trade schools.
Not all defense production was undertaken by these Commissariats;
with the growing prospect of war the various machine-bu#Ijling
commissariats turned increasingly to the production of weapons. In
1937 defense production received about 30 per cent of all budget
allocations for capital investment and workin4 capital in industry; the
proportion rose to 40-50 per cent in 1939-41. As the defense sector
grew it became more difficult to manage. In April 1940 the Economic
Council (Ekonomsovet) of the U.S.S.R. Sovnarkom was reorganized and
several councils set up for the main branches of the economy. One of
these was the Economic Council of the Defense Industry (Khozyaist-
ve: nyi sovet oboronnoi promyshlennosti) which had the task of direr ~ng
During World War 11 the branch structure of the defense industries
was retained, and two new Commissariats were created: for the Tank
Industry (September 1941) and for the Mortar Industry (November
Approved
 1941).36 The defense industries carne under the direct control of the
State Defense Committee (GKO), some members of which assumed
responsibility for different branches: Beria for armament and ammuni-
tion, Malenkov for aircraft and aeroengines, Molotov for tanks, Mikoyan
for fuel and stores, Kaganovich for rail transport. These GKO members
necks and the retraining of workers. One of the main difficulties was
new production processes, new ma~l3inery, the elimination of bottle-
without difficulty. During the Wafllittle preparation had been made for
The transition from wartime to peacetime was not accomplished
enterprises went over completely to civ3.~ian production, but many
continued to turn out some military goods. The process of conversion
was accompanied by a reorganization of the defense industry: ent4e-
conversion of industry from military to civilian production. Some
to produce fertilizers. In May 1945 the GKO issued a decree on the
ery, while the Chemical and Ferrous Metallurgy Industries were ordered
and Mortar Industries were instructed to turn out agricultural machin-
reduced to make way for civilian goods. The Medium Machine- Building
By 1944 the production of military equipment was already being
government apparatus, but also through party org*zations and a
exercised control over military production not only through the
coordinated the needs of the front with military production cap3~city,
and under their direction the Commissariats compiled their plans. The
GKO created special committees and commissions as it saw fit, and
created by the much more complex nomenclature (nomenklatura) of
output that the peacetime economy needed. Thus the plants of the tank
industry which during the War had had seven or eight basic types of
output, in 1946 had to adjust to the series production of more than forty
basic types of locomotive, wagon and transport machinery. 4 a
consequence productivity fell, and the workers had to be retrained. In
1946, as a result of the sharp drop in military production and of the
difficulties of conversion, the gross output of industry was seventeen
per cent to ~r than in 1945. Only in 1947 did sustained rapid growth
begin again.
The next major reorganization of the defense industry came in
1953 and 1954. The defense sector did not escape the formation of
super-ministries immedi5tely after Stalin's death, but these were
disbanded by April 1954. At the same time two new ministries were
set up with defense production responsibilities: in June 1953 the
Ministry of Medium Machine-Building took over the nuclear program
which had hitherto been administered directly by the U.S.S.R. Council
of Ministers, and in Janujr6y 1954 the Ministry of the Radiotechnical
Industry was established. In April 1955 a Ministry of General
Machine-Building was created; this seems to have taken over the
production of conventional weapons which had been the responsibility of
various machine-building ministries, but4ip May 1957 it was absorbed
into the Ministry of the Defense Industry.
Between 1957 and 1965 the defense industry, like the rest of the
 Soviet economy, underwent a number of confusing reorganizations; but
it is important to note that the defense sector was treated differently
from the rest of the economy. The Law of May 10, 1957 disbanded most
industrial ministries and assigned their plants to the new regional
sovnarkhozy. The Ministries of the Aviation, Defense, Radiotechnical,
Shipbuilding Industries and the Ministry of Medium Machine-Building
~v ere not disbanded, although their plants were to be planned through
the sovnarkhozy. In December, however, all of these ministries, except
that for Medium Machine-Building, were converted into State Com-
mittees which rained central control of R&D and the introduction of
When the Supreme Council of the Economy (VSNKh) was set up in
1963 some State Committees - including those for the defense industry
- were placed directly under the VSNKh rather than under Gosplan;
these State Committees sen to have regained plant-management and
major economic reform, six State Committees were formed into
Ministries: Aviation, Defense, Radioelectronics, Shipbuilding, Medium
:Machine-Building (which had been made a State Production Committee
in March 1963) and ElectronigA (the State Committee for which had
been set up in March 1961). At the same time the Ministry of
General Mhine-Building was formed, with responsibility for missile
production. In February 1968 the Ministry of Machu-Building was
Ministry of Communication Equipment was established separately from
the Ministry of the Radio Industry.
It will be clear from this outline of its development that the
Soviet defense industry forms a separate sector in the Soviet economy.
Of course not all its output is military; for example, it produces civil
aircraft, merchant ships and consumer durables. In 1971 Brezhnev
declared that "42 per cent of the ent Se volume of the defense industry's
"
production is for civilian purposes.
Not all the rest need go to the
Ministry of Defense, since the 58 per cent may cover production for
strategic reserves, the Frontier Guards, KGB and MVD troops, and for
export. At the same time some military equipment is produced by
enterprises outside the defense industry: for example, trucks by the
Automobile IndustSS, and fuel and chemical warfare agents by the
Because of its scope and complexity the activities of the defense
industry have required some form of direction and coordination at the
Council of Ministers level. Before the War the Military-Industrial
Commission and the Economic Council of the Defense Industry had
functions of this kind, and their responsibilities extended to all defense
production, no matter in which branch it took place. During the War
the GKO exercised direct control, and after the War the practice of
m_.{ing individual leaders responsible 99r particular areas of defense
agencies were created within the Council of Ministgs to manage the
195~s a special body under the Council of Ministers has had general
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 responsibility for the defense industry. From 1957 to 15`63 this was
headed by D. F. Ustinov; and since 1963 by L. V. Smirnov.
There exists in the defense sector (as in other branches of Soviet
industry) a very powerful tendency towards ministerial autarky: the
pursuit of autonomy through the creation of supply industries under the
Ministry's own control. In the 1930s the defense. industrial Commissari-
ats had their own metallurgical base, and by the end of the decade they
were responsible for about 20 per cent of stet output and between 17
and 20 per cent of machine-tool production. In the early 1960s the
Aviation Industry was reported to have plants for producing sheet
aluminum and magnesium alloys, shaped metal and plastic and rubber
products. Over 90 per cent of all aviation production (airframes,
aeroen
ines
's
instruments
avionics) was concentrated in the Ministr
y
g
59
,
enterprises. It seems that all branches of the defense industry
is not uniform. Before the War the twenty-one plants of the
Shipbuilding Industry coopergtled with more than two hundred factories
of other industrial branches. When the Ministry of General Machine-
Building was set up in 1965 the plants engaged in missile production
were removed from the Ministry of the Aviation Industry. But the
metallurgical plants which produce the light alloy rolled stock which is
needed in missile production have remained under the Ministry of the
Aviation Industry; moreover, the new Ministry succeeded in gaining
control of only part of the missile electronics programs (the rgs2t are
As part of Soviet industry the defense sector is subject to central
planning and management, and its Ministries are organized in the same
way as other industrial ministries. At the same time, however, Were
are important differences in the internal arrangements of the defense
sector. Many of these relate to the role the Ministry of Defense plays
in supervising military production, and will be examined later; but some
of the defense industry's special features can be pointed to here. The
defense sector has first prigyty in the allocation of materials or parts
defense sector are better paid than those in civilian industry, and, by
and large, 6~he workers also receive higher wages than in civilian
production. It does not follow, however, that the quality of personnel
is in fact higher, for many scientists and engineers, in particular those
who seek recognition through publication of their work, find the secrecy
stultifying and are thus not attracted by the higher pay. The secrecy
which prevails in the defense sector makes it easier to gain higher
degrees, and so qualifications are not necessarily a good indication of
quality. Furthermore, the benefits which the defense industry can offer
to employees - in housing and radical care, for example - are now less
attractive than they used to be. Consequently the priority position of
the defense industry does not automatically guarantee that it receives
the best workers and R&D personnel.
The legal and accounting relationships in the defense sector are
different from those in the rest of the economy. Their distinctiveness
consists in:
 less control by the bank and budgetary financial organs over
the economic activity of the enterprise, in direct financing
by superior agencies, without the use of bank credit. The
relations between customer and supplier are regulated not
only by economic contracts, but also by allocation certifi-
cates (naryadyzakazy) from the appropriate agencies.
Not all the enterprises which serve the defense sphere
have sources for paying funds into the state budget. Before
the transition of the new system of planning and economic
management, the main source for accumulation and for the
formation of incentive funds was the saving made from
lowering the average cost price (sebestoimost') of defense
production and the profit made from the production of those
commodities which were sold outside the defense sphere.
The plan of the volume and the basic assortment of the
output of defense industry enterprises is determined by
superior bodies as an appro riate command, which it is
obligatory to fulfil precisely.
This indicates that before the 1966-67 price reform no planned
profit or turnover tax was included in the price of military goods, so
that these goods were sold at cost price; planned profit seems not to be
included. It suggests, also, direct and specific central management of
defense production, with financial control playing a nugatory role. It
appears, for example, that the missile output of the enterprises of the
.Ministry of General Machine-Building is regulated by decrees (Posta-
novleniya) from the Council of Ministers. These cH be issued at any
time and are not constrained by existing state plans.
The defense industry forms a distinct sector in the Soviet
economy, with its own specific features. It does not seem, however,
that the creation of a separate arms economy has been a conscious goal
of policy. The tendency towards separation appears to be a by-product
of the Soviet effort to create mechanisms for extracting resources from
the whole econo1~ and applying them as effectively as possible to
military purposes.
C. The R&D Establishments
Military R&D is carried on in three different types of establish-
ment. The research institutes and design bureaus of the defense
industrial Ministries concentrate on applied research and development.
The Academies of Sciences and the VUZy engage mainly in basic
research. The research institutes and academies of the Ministry of
Defense focus on theoretical and applied research with a specific
military-operational orientation. These distinctions do not hold rigidly,
since it has been Soviet practice in high priority areas to set up special-
purpose orgizations and programs which cut across interdepartmental
boundaries.
Each of the Ministries in the defense industry has under its control
central research institutes which engage in applied research in their
branch's field, and a network of design bureaus which design and develop
 new weapons and new production processes. The work of these
establishments is planned, directed and supervised by the Technical
Administration of the Ministry. These R&D establishments are largely
financd from the State Budget and do not operate on a khozraschot
basis.
The organization of these R&D establishments may vary from one
branch to another. In tank and artillery development the design bureaus
are attached to production plants, where they may have experimental
shops at their disposal. In the Shipbuilding Industry the shipyards
have their own design bureaus, but there may exist central design
bureaus as well, for Aere is ample evidence of firm central control in
the design of ships. In the Aviation Industry experimental-design
bureaus pytno-ko sstruktorskie L LM) exist as relatively autonomous
organization with their own experimental factories which can produce
prototypes. In aviation and missile production the design bureaus play
a crucial role (which accords well with the publicity designers receiv
for all production plants are assigned to one or other design bureaus.
The decrees of the Council of Ministers which regulate production in
the Ministry of General Machine-Building are in effect government
ratifications of contracts concluded between the Ministry of Defense
and the design bureau. These decrees stipulate the dates for
experimental and series production, specify the subcontractors, assign
funds for each part of th, work, and make an individual responsible for
fulfillment of each part. This is not to say, however, that the design
bureaus are free agents, for their design and development work is
regulated by the Ministry which allocates material and lays down
norms for their use, and by the bran c37research institutes which provide
guidelines and procedures for design. The constraints under which the
design bureaus work encourages commonality (the use of standardized
parts and subsystems), which7s one of the design features that can be
discerned in Soviet weapons. At the same time the subordination of
production plants to design bureaus helps to account for the element of
redundancy in Soviet military production: not only are parallel and
competing designs drawn up, but they are also put into production (see
the SS-17 and SA 19 ICBMs, and the MiG-23 and Su-17/20 tactical
fighter aircraft).
The second sector in which military R&D is conducted is the
network of research institutes, academies and higher educational
establishments of the Ministry of Defense. In the pre-war years the
research institutes appear to ave played an important role in some
areas of weapons development. For example, the Communications
Research Institutes of the Army and Navy (NIISKA and N1JS VMF)
played a role in the development of radiotechnology and radar. Little
is known of the present organization or work of the Ministry of
Defense's research institutes; the available evidence suggests that they
do not play a major role in military R&D. The research institutes, like
the academies and to a lesser extent the VUZy, appear to concentrate
on those areas most immediately relevant to the definition of military
requirements and to the employment of equipment when it is delivered.
The main preoccupations of the Ministry of Defense's network seem to
 be: strategic, operational and tactical questions; research in such
applied fields as ballistics, navigation, control theory; keeping abreast
of foreign science srd technology; forecasting the development of
weapons and forces.
Before 1941 the institutions of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences
were involved in military R&D ?91y to the extent of giving scientific
advice on technical questions. After the German invasion the
Academy set itself the task of making practical use of scientific
research, 'and its establishments bega23to work on the development of
new weapons, ammunition and fuel. Most of this research was
concerned with specific problems, for example: the development of fire
control equipment (I. S. Bruk), the elimination of flutter on aircraft at
high speed (M. V. Keldysh), J ie development of subcalibre tank
projectiles (N. T. Gudtsov) etc. Commissions were set up by the
Academy for many important areas of research; among them were: the
Scientific and TechVcal Problems of the Navy, Anti-Tank Weapons,
Military Geography.
Towards the end of the War the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences
drew up recommendations for scientific research in peacetime. Among
the areas given particular importance were: the study of nuclear
reactions and intra-atomic energy, semiconductors, electronics, radar,
polymers, calculating machines, jet technology, the theory of combus-
tion, etc. These recommendations (which have a clear military
eleme i) were used in compiling the plans for the Academy's post-war
work. The importaffe of close cooperation with industry was
stressed in these plans. The Academy may well have had a role in
military R&D for the "traditional" defense industries, but its most
important military work was in the development of advanced technolo-
gies. In the summer of 1943 a special laboratory had been created in
the Academy to work on the development of the atomic bomb. This
later became the (Kurchatov) Institut~g)f Atomic Energy and remained
part of the Academy until 1961. In 1951 the Institute of
Radioengineering and Electronics was set up at the instigation of
Academician A. I. Berg, who also has the military rank of Engineer-
Vice-Admiral. In 1953 Berg left the Institute to become Deputy
Minister of Defense for Radar and Radioengineering (a position he held
until November 1985'). In 1961 this Institute too was removed from the
Academy system. Where an institutional base for R&D already
existed - as in aviation, shipbuilding and even in missile development -
the role of the Academy appears to have been less important.
The reform of 1961 redefined the Academy's role as primarily that
of basic research; in 1963 the mission-oriented nature of basic research
was re-emphasized and the Academy given responsibility for9~ointing
out the technological possibilities of fundamental research. (Some
technologically-oriented institutes in the Academy syster1l have their
own design bureaus and experimental production facilities.) In spite of
the removal from the Academy of some important institutes in the
early 1960s, On line with the change in policy) the Academy's role in
military R&D has not ended. It has been shown clearly that basic
research of military relevance is conducted in the Academy's institutes.
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 For example, work on high-energy gas dynamic lasers, optical plasma-
trons and high-current charged particle beams is done at the Lebedev
Physics Institute, the Institute of the Problems of Mechanics of the
U.S.S.R. Academy, the Physico-technical Institute of the Ukrainian
Academy, and the Institute of Theoretical a9g Applied Mechanics of the
Siberian Division of the U.S.S.R. Academy. It thus appears that one
of the main features of military R&D since the War has been the
involvement of the Academies of Sciences. At first the U.S.S.R.
Academy helped to foster new science-based technologies; since the
early 1960s it has concentrated on basic research and a small number of
very advanced technologies. But since basic research is acknowledged
to be an increasingly important element in miliyry R&D, the
Academy's role may be growing rather than diminishing.
D. The Armed Forces
If military production is to be coordinated with industrial
production as a whole, long-term plans have to be prepared for the
development of the Armed Forces. The prewar Five Year Plans for
military development have already been mentioned. Long-term plans
(from 5 to 20 years) are still drawn up. These determine the numbers
and types of equipment to be acquired, changes in the organizational
structure of the Armed Forces, the missions and roles of the Armed
Forces in war, the creation of stocks of arms, materi~4and other stores,
and the training of reserves and command personnel. But just as the
economic plans do not lay down a rigid and immutable policy, so too the
long-term plans for military development can be changed if circum-
stances require it. In the 1930s many important militj' production
decisions were taken outside the framework of the plan; Sokolovskii
suggests that new plans may be called for bWechnological develop-
ments or changes in the international situation; and, as has been seen,
orders for the production of strategic missiles are not bound by the
State economic plans.
The first Five Year Plans for the development of the Red Army
were drawn up by the Staff of the RKKA (from 1935 the General Staff)
on the basis of guidelines laid down by the Central Committee and the
Sovnarkom. The initial work for the plan was done by the administra-
tions of the central apparatus of the Defense Commissariat and was
then coordinated by the RKKA Staff. This plan was confirmed by the
Revvoensovet in 1928, but, under pressure from the Politburo, was
greatly revised betwpn 1928 and 1931, with an increase in its targets
and control figures. It is probable that a similar planning process
exists today: the political leadership will give guidelines for the
development of the Armed Forces; the General Staff will coordinate the
plans and reconcile the claims of the different branches of the Armed
Forces and main administrations of the Ministry of Defense; the Main
Military Council (or a collegial body in the Ministry) will review the
plans; and a fiW decision will be reached by the Politburo before
implementation. This process will naturally involve continuous consul-
tation and iteration.
Military development cannot be isolated from economic planning:
 Coordinating the planning and development of the Armed
Forces with military production in the national economy has
exceptionally great significance. The appropriate military
bodies, together with the agencies of national economic
leadership, work out the principles of a unified military-
economic and military-technical policy, coordinate the plans
for rearmament and material-technical supply with the plans
for the delivery of output by industry and so on. In this the
military bodies concentrate their attention on presenting
orders to the national economy in good time, on control
(kontrol') over the course of fulfillment of the orders, and -
in the event of a cl ge in requirements - on rapid
correction of the orders.
Military requirements must be matched to productive capacity. Mili-
tary production has been planned and managed by specialist bodies at
the Council of Ministers level; presumably the Ministry of Defense and
the General Staff now Work with the Military-Industrial Commission in
drawing up the plans for military production. Sheren suggests that this
Commission "might be composed of representatives of the defense-
industrial Ministries, the Ministry of Defense, and any other organiza-
tion concerpl with military research, development, testing and
production." The role of the military in this process is to place
orders and to supervise production. The Military-Industrial Commission
will have to see if the military requirements can be met with the
resources available to them. They will have to coordinate their plans
for military proqvion with the work of the central planning agencies
such as Gosplan.
It is the General Staff and a collegial body of the Ministry of
Defense which draw up and approve the plans for military development
(subject of course to central Party direction and ratification). But it is
a notable feature of Soviet military organization that special agencies
have been set up within the Ministry of Defense or General Staff to
handle major re-equipment programs. In November 1929, the post of
Chief of Armament (nachal'nik vooruzheniya) was created to help carry
through the technical reconstruction of the Red Army. The Chief had
four administrations (Artillery, Chemical, Signals and Telemechanics)
under him, although the actual scope of his influence and activity
much wider than the names of these administrations might suggest.
Tukhachevskii, who held the post from 1931 to 1936, had an irlnegrtant
role in the development of air and tank forces in the Red Army. The
Chief of Armament's apparatus was in effect a technical staff which
worked closely with t RKKA Staff and played a major part in the
policy of rearmament.
In 1936 the post of Chief of Armament was abolished and his
functions were given to the newly created Main Administration of
Armament and Technical Supply (Glavnoe upravlenie vooruzheniya i
tekhnicheskogo snabzheniy) which had three departments (mobiliza-
tion-planning, standardization, inventions) and a technical inspectorate.
Although subordinate to the Defense Commissariat, it worked in
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 practice in accordance with General Staff directives. The functions of
this Main Administration were: to supervise the realization of
armament plans; to develop and coordinate the plans for research,
design and invention work in the field of armament and technical
supply; to take stock of the provision of arms and materiel to the Red
Army on f9bilization; to inspect the condition, exploitation and storing
of arms. This Main Administration had vanished by June 1941. In
the months immediately before the German invasion its responsibilities
appear to have been shared by several different bodies, including the
Main Artillery Admin titration, the Main Armor Administration and the
Bureau of Inventions.
Since the War the post of Deputy Minister for Armament has
existed twice: in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and again since
November 1970; and from 1953 to Novem- 1957 there was a Deputy
Minister for Radar and Radioengineering. The precise responsibili-
ties of these Deputy Ministers is not known, but presumably they
included the supervision of development and production programs, and
the assimilation of arms and materiel into the Armed Forces. The first
Deputy Minister for Armament was Marshal of Artillery N. D.
Yakovlev, who was chief of the Main Artillery Administration from
1941 to 1948; then came Chief Marshal of Artillery M. 1. Nedelin, who
commanded the missile troops from 1945 to his death in 1960 (in this
time they were transforjV from an experimental unit into the
Strategic Missile Forces). The present holder of the position is
Colonel-General N. N. Alekseev, who was Chairman of the General
Staff's Scientific-Technical Committee from 1960 to 1970; and from
1955 to19A he had been in "responsible work" in the Council of
Ministers. The Deputy Minister for Radar and Radioengineering was
Engineer-Admiral Academician A. I. Berg, whose role in radar develop-
ment has already been referred to. Lower-level bodies with procure-
ment and (some) R&D responsibilities have existed throughout the post-
war period: the Navy has a Main Administration of Shipbuilding and
Armament, while the Ground Forces have the Main Misls1W and Artillery
Admnistration, and the Air Force has a similar agency.
The Ministry of Defense occupies a very special position in the
formulation and management of military-technical policy. It not only
orders the arms and materiel, but also supervises their production. This
gives the Ministry a kind of consumer sovereignty - the ability to
impose its wishes on the production process - which does not exist
elsewhere in the Soviet economy. The degree of control the Ministry
exercises can be illustrated by examining the part it plays at the various
stages of weapons design and production.
The Ministry of Defense either initiates or approves the proposal
for a new weapons system and lays down the general performance
parameters that it requires. Designs are prepared by the design bureaus
and submitted to Ittig Ministry, which selects those that are to go ahead
to development. A special body in the Ministry checks the
specifications and makes sure that some general conditions are met -
for example, vibration stability, ability to perform in certain climatic
conditions, and perhaps also protection against nuclear weapons
 effects.112 When a model or prototype is prepared it will undergo
factorylt3ests (in which the military representatives take part) and troop
trials. A State Commission, usually headed by ff4officer, will check
that all the specifications have been fully met. If the design is
approved for production (decisions not to produce or to modify can be
taken) a contract will be concluded with the design bureau. In this
decision process the Ministry of Defense may rely heavily on outside
scientific and technical advice, and will have to obtain Party and
Council of Ministers approval and ratification for its decisions; but it is
clear that th715egree of supervision exercised by the customer is very
great indeed.
After the production decision the design bureau will prepare the
documentation for its enterprises; and no change may blel~rnade in the
design without the approval of the design bureau. Project-
technological bureaus and branch research institutes will prepare the
appropriate new production processes. The transition from development
to production is an extremely important stage in the "research-
production cycle." In the words of one Soviet source:
The high quality of weapons is ensured by careful finishing-
off (otrabotka) of the designs and testing of prototypes, by
the compilation of good technical documentation, by the
development of a rational technological process and the
orgajy tion of well-ordered (nalazhennyi) series produc-
tion.
But the effort to ensure a high quality of armament does not end here.
Since the 1930s (at least), a group of military representatives (voennye
predstaviteli) has b? assigned to each of the plants engaged in
military production. This group consists of military engineers,
technicians and office personnel. In the larger plants "the commander
of the military team is a fi~]O grade officer equal in experience and
status to the plant manager." The voenpredy exercise strict quality
control throughout the production process. They are paid by the
Ministry of Defense and, unlike the departments of technical control
(otdely tekhnicheskogo kontrolya) in civilian industry, have no material
interest in the factory's pl Ofulfillment; hence they have no incentive
to accept defective goods. Moreover, the quality standards enforced
in military production are higher than those in civilian industry. It has
been reported that even for the same goods three different standards
are leforced: for defense, for export, and for "common" domestic
use. The voenpredy are apparently quite willing 1~2exercise their
power to refuse goods which do not meet specification.
The Science Policy and the Management of Military R&D
Since the end of the War, and in particular since 1955, the effort
to stimulate technological progress has grown in importance as an area
of government activity in the Soviet Union. Special science policy
agencies have been set up with responsibility for the management of
R&D. The emphasis of these agencies' work has shifted from the latter
to the earlier stages of the "research-production cycle," in part because
Approved For Re
 of the need to establish a satisfactory division of labor with the branch
Ministries. The industrial Ministries have been responsible for the
introduction of new technology, and have resisted outside interference.
It is no accident that the major effort to coordinate R&D cant in the
period 1957-65 when the Ministries were no longer in existence.
The military role of the science policy agencies can best be
explored if the development of those agencies is traced and earlier
approaches to the planning of military R&D outlined. Although science
policy has grown more important in the last twenty years, the planning
of military R&D is not a recent phenomenon. At the end of 1937 a plan
was drawn up which aimed at the creation of modern armament by
developing new models and modernizing the most promising old systems.
This plan seems to have stimulated the development of the R&D base:
'In the basic leading enterprises there grew up powerful experimental
shops 1~~d design bureaus, and research institutes were strength-
ened." In 1938 the Main Artillery Administration (GAU) of the NKO
had 60 million rubles to spend on research, and in 1939 it had 92 million.
This amounted to about one per cent of the total value of GAU's orders
existing state of the art. After tests a production decision was made.
With the growing dependence of weapons development on scientific
research, a new element was brought into the relationship between
science and military affairs. There is, however, no evidence of a
unified military R&D policy in the immediate post-war years: the most
important areas of advanced technology were handled by specialized
bodies. The Committee on Radar remained in being; in 1945 special
agencies were set up in the Sovnarkom and the Armed Forces to manage
for equipment (lwich in turn constituted about 20 per cent of the
defense budget).
During the Great Patriotic War a Technical Council was attached
to the State Defense Committee. This Council, which had various
specialist sections, seems to have supervised and coordinated R&D. In
September 1941, for example, it cynussed and approved the Academy of
Sciences' plan for defense work. Other councils were created for
more specialized fields. On 10 July 1941 a Scientific-Technical Council
for Chemical Problems cou7cted with Defense was set up under the
State Defense Committee. In 1943 a Council (later Committee) on
Radar was established. This had responsibility for expanding research
on ultra-high frequencies, organizing an industrial base, training
personnel and creating a radar system for the Army and Navy.
Malenkov was the Council's first Chairman, aji A. I. Berg his deputy;
M. Z. Saburov succeeded as Chairman in 1947. The NKO maintained
contact with the Academy of Sciences through Colonel-General A. V.
Khrulyev who, besides being Chief of the Rear, was head of the
Commissariat's Scientific-Technical Admir Nration. Some military
specialists took part in the Academy's work.
Since the end of the War the management of military R&D has
become more complex. Before the War, weapons development does not
seem to have included research in any systematic way. The process of
development was most commonly initiated by the formulation of a
military requirement which the designers then tried to meet within the
 the atomic bomb and missile development programs;130 in December
1945 a plan for aviation R&D was adopted af1e31 extensive discussions in
the Central Committee and the Government.
The late 1940s saw the first attempt to create a special
institution to carry out a national technical policy. This was the State
Committee for the Introduction of New Technology into the National
Economy (Gosudarstvennyi komitet vnedreniya novoi tekhniki v narod-
noe khozyaistovo, or Gostekhnika , which was sup in December 1947
and remained in existence until February 1951. It was headed by V.
A. Malyshev, a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and one of
the leading industrial managers. Malyshev had been Commissar for
Heavy Industry and for the Tank Industry, had played an important role
in the early stages of the atomic bomb project, and was to take over the
Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry in January 19510jjvhen it was embarking
on a ten-year warship-construction program. The responsibilities
laid on the Committee were extensive: "the forced introduction of new
technology into the national economy with the aim of further
accelerating the tgr3 inological arming and rearming of the U.S.S.R.
national economy." But Gostekhnika's actual work is not clear. The
short lifetime of the Committee - three years, and only two with
Malyshev as full-time Chairman- suggests either that it was ineffective
in performing its general role (even though the first annual plan for the
introduction of new technology was approved in 1949), or that its
general responsibilities hid a quite specific task which it completed
successfully. There is, however, no evidence to support the latter
conclusion.
By the early 1950s new industrial Ministries had been created for
nuclear weapons and radiotechnical equipment. In March 1955
Malyshev, who was still Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers,
moved from his position as Minister of Medium Machine-Building to be
entrusted in the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers with the responsibility of
leading a group of ministries concerned with machine-bj~cling" (this
latter term might have indicated the defense sector). In May
Malyshev was appointed head of the new Gostekhnika. Whether the
March and May appointments were in fact the same is not clear; if they
were different, Malyshev may have been succeeded by Khrunichev, who
had been his first deputy at the Ministry of Medium Machine-Building
and had been made Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers in
February. In December 1956 Malyshev became First Deputy Chairman,
and Khrunichev Deputy Chairman, of Gosekonomkommissiya, and both
lost the rank of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Malysle6v
remained Chairman of Gostekhnika until his death in February 1957.
1955 marked a turning-point in Soviet science policy. The July
Plenary Session of the Central Committee indicated how seriously the
leadership took the problem of technological innovation, while the new
Gostekhnika was the first of an unbroken series of science policy bodies.
The y function of these institutions is not known, but it is
possible to suggest what it may have been. As the emphasis of their
work has moved towards the earlier stages of the "research-production
cycle," it is probable that their role has become more significant for the
Approved For Release 2005/01/10: CIA-RDP.86B0
 defense sector. This is because they have acquired increasing
responsibility for services and functions which have not traditionally
been performed by the defense industry but have nonetheless become
more important for its work. It is unlikely that the defense industrial
Ministries would allow control over the later stages of the "research-
production cycle" to pass from their hands. But they are likely to have
found some of the functions of the science policy bodies increasingly
relevant: the coordination of basic research in the Academy system;
the provision of scientific and technical information; the study of
foreign science and telcjnology; the forecasting of developments in
science and technology.
The close ties between Malyshev and Khrunichev, and their
background in the defense industry, suggests that Gostekhnika might
have had some military responsibilities between 1955 and 1957. But, for
a variety of reasons, the military role of Gostekhnika's successor - the
State Scli.$tific-Technical Committee (1957-1961) - was probably very
limited. From 1957 to 1965 military R&D was organized differently
from civilian R&D. With the transformation of the defense industrial
Ministries into State Committees in December 1957, Ustinov became
Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers with responsibility for the
defense industry as a whole; and the primary activity of the State
Committees for which Ustinov was responsible was the planning and
management of R&D. At the XXI Party Congress Ustinov devoted
much of his spel55h to the successes of technological innovation in the
space program.
The State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research
(GKKNIR), which was set up in 1961, had wider power than its
predecessors. It could decide on the most important research projects
and assign research institutes to work for them. A had special
responsibility for "complex" and inter-branch programs. Khrunichev
and Rudnev, its two Chairmen between 1961 and 1965, were leading
defense industry managers. The same reasons for supposing that the
State Scientific-Technical Committee had a limited military role apply
here too. But with the growth of the Committees' powers and
responsibilities in the earlier stages of the "research-production cycle,"
their usefulness to the defense sector might also have increased. In
1965, in line with the reform of the system of economic planning and
management, the GKKNIR was transformed into the State Committee
for Science and Technology. This was given wide powers and the task of
ensuring a "unified state policy" in the field of scientific-technical
progress and in the ut1 L ation of scientific and technological achieve-
ments in the economy.
None of the leaders of the State Committee for Science and
Technology are men with experience in the defense industry, and it has
been reported that the Committee does not have responsibility rf
reviewing the budgets for R&D in defense, space or atomic energy.
This doe10ot mean, however, that the Committee has no military
function. As has been seen, much research of military importance is
done in the "civilian" sector, and it seems likely that the State
Committee has a role in fostering and directing research of military
 interest, and in drawing military attention to promising lines of
research. What is not clear, however, is whether the State Committee
has any responsibility for coordinating military interbranch R&D
programs. It seems likely that if institutes are engaged in military
work, at some stage that work will come under the control of a
military or military-production body.
There are many gaps in the history of Soviet science policy
organization; but this outline suggests that although the military
"research-production cycle" has been made more complex by the
growing importance of basic research, this new element in the cycle has
not been brought under the direct administrative control of the Ministry
of Defense or of the defense industry. This is not to say, however, that
the Ministry of Defense plays no role in planning and directing research
outside the defense sector. The Ministry has a network of scientific-
technical 14committees which provide advice on proposals for new
weapons, and perhaps also on the promising directions of scientific
research. Although special agencies may be set up for some programs,
coordination between the defense sector and the research institutes in
the Academy system is probably effected at the Council of Ministers
level, with the State Committee incorporating into its plans the
requirements of the Ministry of Defense and the Military-Industrial
Commission. It is possible that continuous consultation takes place
between the State Committee's advisory apparatus and the Ministry of
Defense and defense industrial Ministries.
The Management of Military Technical Policy
The analysis so far makes it clear that the Ministry of Defense
and the General Staff play a major role in the management of the
military "research-production cycle." As technological progress has
become more important in defense, the military leaders have paid
increasing attention to the management of innovation. Marshal
Grechko has written that a "unified military-technical policy" (edinaya
voenno-tekhnicheskaya olp itika) is one of the chief ways of stimulating
technological progress and ensuf4rr that military equipment is "on the
level of modern requirements." He has defined the goals of such a
policy as follows:
A unified military-technical policy is called on to secure the
favourable development of those directions of scientific-
technical progress in the military field which are capable
most fully and comprehensively of satisfying the growing
requirements of the defense of the U.S.S.R. for effective
means of conducting modern military actions. Along with
the solution of current questions it orients scientific-
technical cadres to the working-out of different long-term
problems, the results of which can find wide application in
military affairs in the future. Of particular significance are
fundamental research aimed at the discovery of as yet
unknown properties of matter, phenomena and laws of
nature, and the development of new methods of studying and
 using these for strengthening the state's defense capability.
... A unified military-technical policy ought to ensure
the union of industry with science in the interests of
creating such models of weapons and military equipment as
will not become obsolete for a long time, will be highly
effective; that is, so that every type of weapon and military
equipment, with the least expenditure on its development,
production and exploitation, will possess the highest
tactical-technical possibilities, in the first place powerful
strike characteristics.
... The object of a unified military-technical policy is to
see to the rational improvement of the weapons and combat
materiel of all services of the Armed Forces and all arms of
service in accordance with their role and mission in modern
war. In this it is extremely important to penetrate into the
laws (zakonomernosti) of development of military affairs, to
study the basic directions for using the achievements of
scientific-technical progress abroad, to take account of the
tendencie1s46 of development of weapons and combat
materiel.
Grechko points to two further goals of military-technical policy: a
reduction in the element of physical labor in military work through
mechanization and automation; and an improvement in the methods of
troop control. For the purposes of this paper Grechko's statement is
interesting because it indicates the wide range of military-technical
policy objectives: the direction of fundamental researchto military
purposes, the stimulation of technological innovation, but with due
regard to cost; the analysis of the development of armed forces and
their armament and roles, with particular attention to foreign military
technology.
The "scientific-technical revolution" has made the management of
technological innovation in the defense sector not only more important
but also more difficult. In the words of Cherednichenko:
The definition of the state's military-technical policy consti-
tutes today a complex scientific problem. The task consists
of ensuring the constant high combat preparedness and
combat readiness of the Soviet Armed Forces with the
maximum optimization of costs. The choice and creation of
the most appropriate, effective, promising (perspective) and
economic system of armament are assuming primary impor-
tance. In that is 14/ essence of military-technical policy at
the present stage.
Since the mid-1960s (at least) the Soviet military press has shown great
concern about the formulation and execution of military-technical
policy, and has expressed a growing interest in new approaches to
policy-making and management. This interest marks a response to the
new pressures and demands on the Ministry of Defense and the General
Staff, for it is they who, together with the appropriate planning
agencies, devise military-technical policy; they act, it has been said, as
 "a sort of legislator" in this field.148
The writings about defense decision-making and management
illustrate three main concerns. The first is anxiety about the cost of
the defense effort. The party leadership has been v.illing to accord
defense first priority, but has been conscious that this imposes a heavy
burden on the rest of the economy. In 1963 Khrushchev declared that
because the production of defense industries enterprises is
secret, shortcomings in the work of such enterprises is
closed to criticism ... Defense industry is coping successfully
with creating and producing modern weapons. But these
tasks could1 ~ve been carried out more successfully and at a
lower cost.
The appointment of Ustinov as Minister of Defense this year may (in
part) have reflected concern about the burden of defense spending. In
any event it seems unlikely that the military press would have shown its
recent interest in the economics of defense unless constrained to do so
by political and economic pressure.
The interest in defense economics is closely related to the second
major area of concern: the problem of weapons selection and force
planning. The selection of designs for development and of models for
production has been made more difficult by scientific progress and the
complexity of technological choice. Since the early 1960s there appears
to have been a growing emphasis on incorporating costing into the
military decision-making process and using cost-effectiveness as a
criterion of selection. This appears to apply both at the level of
individual development project, and at the more general level of force
planning. Thus, defense economics began to receive new attention in
the military academies in the 1960s; and Cherednichenko has proposed
the introductin0of what is in effect a full-dress PPBS into defense
policy-making.
The third concern is that, in spite of its relatively successful
operation, the military "research-production cycle" is not flexible
enough to cope with present requirements. One military writer has
commented that "the search for a more flexible organizational
structure for research establishments is one of the ways of raising the
effective ln31s of scientific research in the interests of the country's
defense." Another has pointed to the need for closer links betw q
the Navy and research institutes and design bureaus in industry.
Two other military writers have argued that "organic unity" between
the Armed Forces, project-technological bureaus and enterprises is "a
necessary condition for the really effective solution of t tasks of
supplying the Armed Forces with modern combat materiel." Sokolov
has written that technological progress requires constant improvements
in "the form and method of coordinating the activities of the armed
forces and the national economy in the interests of the unity and
iexibility of th15V stem of economic support for the defense of the
socialist states."
There appear to be two specific anxieties here. The first is that
scientific opportunities and military requirements will not coalesce
 quickly enough to ensure the development of the most advanced
weapons. This is an important problem because rapid technological
innovation lies at the heart of the East-West arms race. It is also a
difficult problem because it requires flexibility and ease of communica-
tion in a political system dominated by departmental barriers and
secrecy of information. The second anxiety is that the Ministry of
Defense is not wholly successful in welding together the institutions in
the "research-production cycle." There appear to be structural tensions
between the Ministry and the defense industry. Orders placed by the
Ministry have sometimes ignored the interests of the industrial
managers, and have upset production schedules, called I r frequent
changes in production and interfered with plan fulfillment. 557
The problems of decision-making and management are made clear
not only in the writings on new approaches, but also in Soviet
reflections on the disaster of 1941 and its causes. Two examples may
be cited here. The first is that there are a number of cases where
weapons which later proved extremely important met with military
hostility or indifference. The Stalinist. political process may have been
effective in exercising power in support of priorities already decided
upon; but the selection of specific programs as priorities of "state
significance" was complex and hazardous. Radar development, for
example, fell foul of disagreements betweg~6the artillery and air
defense forces about their own requirements. The potential of the
"Katy l a" rocket artillery was not appreciated by the military at
first. The slow initial production of the T34 and KV tanks (the
former now recognized as having been the best medium tank in the
world at the timg~8was, at least in part, a consequence of the lack of
military support. According to Yakovlev, early in the War Stalin
frequently reproached the militirr'9 with lack of initiative and creative
thinking in military technology. This shows how great a responsi-
bility their dominant position in the "research-production cycle" lays on
the Armed Forces.
A second lesson to be drawn from the pre-war years is the need to
coordinate military development with military production, and to plan
carefully the whole assortment of military output, in particular the
balance between old and new weapons. Thus Grechko:
Before the last war the procurement of new models of
military equipment proceded slowly. Thus, right up to the
beginning of the War we did not succeed, as we should have,
in expanding the production of automatic rifles, and the
army's requirement was only thirty per cent satisfied. In
spite of the continuous growth of output of ammunition in
the prewar years, industry on the eve of the War did not
meet the army's requirement fully. By the middle of 1941
our aviation industry was only being restructured, its
production base expanded, and preparation made for the
series production of new, completely modern aircraft. By
the beginning of the War only 20 per cent of the "park" of
combat aircraft were new machines. The rest were
 obsolete, and moreover, of various different types which
made them more complicated to operate. Tanks of new
design, which were significantly superior in quality to the
German tanks, were being turned out as yet in limited
quantity, and by the summer of 1941 we had only about 9 per
cent of them. The numerous other machines which the
mechanized corps had were of obsolete types, of the most
varied brands. This had very negative consequences in the
ensuing events, in spite of the fact that we were16iperior to
the Wehrmacht in quality of aircraft and tanks."
The problem of obtaining the right balance between different types of
military production evidently remains.
The new decision-making and management approaches might
indeed go some way towards meeting the anxieties of the military and
political leadership. Economic calculation and the introduction of some
kind of program or output-budgeting might help to make the defense
effort more efficient. Scientific-technological forecasting could
improve the process of weapons selection, in particular in the earliest
stage when technological possibility is married to military requirement.
Network analysis and quality control techniques might give the Ministry
of Defense and the Military-Industrial Commission more effective and
flexible control over development and production programs. The
systems approach which is much advocated might provide I~gtter
cooperation and balance in military-technical policy as a whole. But
considerable problems would remain. There is no guarantee that
economic calculation on thg6basis of existing prices would lead to any
real increase in efficiency. Moreover, the pursuit of efficiency by
the Ministry of Defense might merely mean trying to ensure that the
R&D establishment and the defense industrial enterprises bore as much
of the cost as possible. An efficiency-conscious Ministry of Defense
would not necessarily place a smaller military burden on the economy.
Conclusion
This paper has tried to sketch the institutional framework of the
military "research-production cycle," and to outline the military role in
managing technological innovation. It has tried also to show how the
operation of the cycle has adapted to the emergence of a new
relationship between science and military affairs. As was pointed out in
the introduction, some very important issues have been omitted, and
some aspects of the problems discussed have been given scant
treatment, as for example: the effects of secrecy and the security
agencies on the processes of innovation; the role of economic calculus
in military R&D decision-making; changes in the style of decision-
making over the last forty years; the working of the priority system;
a;id % effect of new management approaches on power relation-
ships.
This paper has looked at the development of the institutional
framework of the military R&D system over the last forty years, in the
belief that this approach makes the best use of the available material.
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 But one crucial element in the development of these institutions has
received little emphasis: military competition with foreign powers.
For most of the last forty years the Soviet Union has been caught up in
an arms race - at first with Japan and Germany; after the War, with the
United States and Western Europe; more recently, rivalry with China.
has come to the fore. Military competition with technologically more
advanced powers has placed constant demands on the defense sector to
produce new weapons. The drive "to catch up and overtake" has been
very powerful in the military field. The fact that the Soviet leadership
has most nearly achieved its "historic mission" in this field has not led
to a diminution of effort; it has rather reinforced the commitment to
military-technological progress, for fear that relaxation may lead to
falling behind.
Military rivalry with technologically more advanced states (which
has been such a marked feature of Russian and Soviet history) has had
an important influence on the Soviet military R&D effort. The Soviet
Union has drawn considerably on foreign science and technology, not
only in the form of imported weapons (mainly in the 1930s and 1940s),
but also in the form of design concepts, and more generally in basic and
applied scientific reserach. A second consequence of the rivalry has
been that the political leadership and the Armed Forces have made
major efforts to extract resources from the economy a g4the society to
meet what they saw as the needs of this competition. The relative
effectiveness of the military "research-production cycle" can be
explained in terms of the powerful demands made upon it by the
political and military leaders. It is their requirements that the cycle
has to meet, and it is the management by the Soviet Armed Forces,
backed by pressure from the political leadership, that has overcome, t:o
a greater or lesser extent, the obstacles to innovation that are to be
found elsewhere in the economy. The two elements of military
management and political pressure are closely interwoven, for military-
political consultation is crucial in defining military requirements, and
military management is effective because it is underpinned by both
political support and pressure.
This is not to say, however, that the dynamic of Soviet military
R&D is to be explained only in terms of the competition with other
states. The effort to ensure military-technological progress has created
bureaucratic and political interests which have come to play a part in
determining the course of that progress; it may be, indeed, that the
Soviet effort is (to a greater or lesser extent) driven by an internal
dynamic, created in the course of international rivalry but rooted now
in the domestic power structure. Although the Soviet Armed Forces
enjoy a special position in being able to impose their wishes on the
production process, the structure of the defense sector itself gives a
particular pattern to military output. Economic constraints and the
internal arrangements of the sector affect the design and development
of weapons: they foster commonality, simplicity and evolutionary
design; they also encourage redundancy in development and production.
This means, in general terms, that although particular military
requirements may spring from international military rivalry, the way in
 ,vhich the requirements are met will be given a specific character by
the institutional arrangements of the defense sector.
The defense industry and its R&D establishments impose a
particular pattern on military output, but the analysis in this paper does
not suggest that they generate rapid technological innovation. The
pressure for innovation comes from two main internal sources: the
armed Forces and the political leadership, which make demands on
defense production, and "civilian" institutions (especially the U.S.S.R.
Academy of Sciences), which have provided the basis for new
technologies with military applications. In the defense industry itself,
two self-sustaining mechanisms can perhaps be identified: an action-
reaction mechanism whereby the development of one weapon automa-
tically triggers the search for a counter to it; and a "follow-on"
mechanism whereby work more or less automatically begins on the
design of a new generation of any weapon. In a sense it is the objective
of the Armed Forces to make these internal mechanisms innovative by
pressing military requirements and by grasping new technological
possibilities.
Besides these general conclusions, three final points can be made.
First, what differentiates the military "research-production cycle" from
its civilian counterpart in the Soviet Union is the demands made on it,
the resources made available to it, and the control exercised over it.
These conditions cannot, however, be reproduced throughout the
economy, for they depend on the peculiarly powerful position of the
Armed Forces within the power structure, and hence on their power as
customer; and on the granting of high priority to defense, and hence of
low priority elsewhere. Secondly, this analysis gives particular
importance to the Armed Forces in explaining the dynamic of military-
technological progress. This implies, of course, a strong commitment to
such progress on their part. Such a commitment - which certainly
seems to exist - cannot be taken as unproblematic, however, especially
in view of past failures. It remains, therefore, something to be
analyzed and explained, and not merely taken for granted.
Thirdly, as military-technological progress has come to depend
more on basic research, the distinction between civilian and military
has blurred and new problems of management and decision-making have
arisen. The system of weapons acquisition whose basic features were
created in the 1930s has had to be adapted, and elements outside the
cefense sector (narrowly defined) integrated into the military
"research-production cycle." The blurring of the civilian/military
distinction is reflected in institutional arrangements. Although there
are secret military R&D establishments, much military R&D is done in
the establishments that are visible to us; consequently it is wrong to
assume the existence of two separate R&D networks. In view of the
new problems of management and decision-making in military R&D, it
ems likely that the role of science policy agencies has grown for the
defense effort, not in the sense of managing the military "research-
production cycle" (where they may never have had any responsibility),
but in servicing the needs of the defense sector.
 'See, for example, Robert Mikulak, A Second Look at U.S. and
Soviet Research and Development, Center for International Studies,
MIT, February 1971; Resources Devoted to Military Research and
Development, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 1972;
World Armaments and Disarmament SIPRI Yearbook 1974, Stockholm,
1974 pp. 172-204; N. Nimitz, The Structure of Soviet Outlays on R&D in
1960 and 1968, R-1207-DDRE, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, 1974;
W. T. Lee, "Soviet Defense Expenditures," in W. Schneider Jr. and F.
P. Hoeber (eds.), Arms, Men and Military Budgets, New York, 1976.
2In particular by Nimitz, off. Sit.; and also by M. Agursky, The
Research Institute of Machine-Building Technology, The Hebrew Uni.-
versity of Jerusalem, The Soviet and East European Research Centre,
Soviet Institutions Paper No. 8, September 1976.
3L. Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Faber & Faber, London,
1937, p. 198.
4At the November Plenary Session of the Central Committee;
quoted by A. Korol, Soviet Research and Development: Its Organiza-
tion, Personnel and Funds, Cambridge, Mass. 1965, pp. 343-44.
5Materialy XXIV ogo s"yezda KPSS, Moscow, 1971, p. 46. This
theme was taken up by military writers; see, for example, Major-
General M. Cherednichenko in Kommunist vooruzhennykh sil, 1971, No.
18, p. 28.
6A. C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Develop-
ment 1945-1965, Stanford, California, 1973, p. 361.
7See, for example, R. Perry, Comparisons of Soviet and U.S.
Technology, R-827-PR, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, 1973, p. 35;
N. Nimitz, The Structure of Soviet Outlays on R&D in 1960 and 1968,
R-1207-DDRE, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, 1974, pp. vi, viii.
8See Perry, op. cit.; Congressional Record, Extensions of
Remarks, August 4, 1971, pp. E8955-E8963; A. J. Alexander and J. R.
Nelson, Measuring Technological Change: Aircraft Turbine Engines, R-
1017-ARPA PR, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, 1972; N. D. Brodeur,
Comparative Capabilities of Soviet and Western Weapon Systems, in WI.
MccGwire, K. Booth, and J. McDonnell (eds.), Soviet Naval Polic.:
Objectives and Constraints, New York, 1975, pp. 452-468. 1 have
discussed the methodological problems, and made two case studies of
Soviet weapons development (medium tanks and ICBMs) in a chapter in
R. Amann, J. M. Cooper and R. W. Davies (eds.), The Technological
Level of Soviet Industry, Yale UP, 1977.
 9F. A. Long, in B. T. Feld et. al. (eds.), Impact of New
Technologies on the Arms Race, Cambridge, Mass., 1971, p. 278; see
also M. Leitenberg, International Social Science Journal, 1973, No. 3.
10For example, see N. A. Lomov et. al. (eds.), Nauchno-_
tekhnicheskii progress i revolutsiaya v voennom dele, Moscow, 1973.
11Lomov, op.. cit., p. 29.
12lbid. This paper does not look at the effects of technological
change on "military work" or on the officer corps; I have touched on
some aspects of this question in my Management, Technology and the
Soviet Military Establishment, Adelphi Paper no. 76, ISS, London, 1971.
13M. Cherednichenko, "Ekonomika i voenno-tekhnicheskaya politi.-
ka," Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, 1968, No. 15, p. 13.
14V. Bondarenko, "Nauchno-tekhnicheskii progress i ukreplenie
oboronosposobnosti strany," Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, 1971, No..
24, p. 15.
15See M. Gallagher and K. Spielmann Jr., Soviet Decision-Making
for Defense, New York, ch. 2.
16Informally, of course, Stalin dominated policy-making, and the
niceties of jurisdiction and responsibility were ignored.
17"0 sozdanii voenno-promyshlennoi komissii pri Komitete
Oborony," KPSS o vooruzhennykh silakh Sovetskogo Soyuza, Moscow,
1969, p. 278.
1850 let Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR, Moscow, 1968, p. 199.
19G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, Moscow, 1969, p.
20 K. Meretskov, Serving the People, Moscow, 1971, p. 95.
21 KPSS o vooruzhennykh silakh Sovetskogo Soyuza, p. 302.
2250 let ..., pp. 256, 267.
2350 let ..., p. 477.
24 Yu. P. Petrov, Stroitel'stvo politorganov, partiinykh i
omsomol'skikh organizatsii armii i flota (1918-1968), Moscow, 1968, p.
391.
 Defense for the Rear, ceased to be a member of the higher Military
Council in 1950. See Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopedia, 2nd ed., vol
46, p. 387.
26See Petrov, op. cit., p. 507; V. I. Lenin i Sovetskie Vooruzhennye
Ste, Moscow, 1967, p. 148.
27 Yu. P. Petrov mentions the Higher Military Council in connec-
tion with Marshal Zhukov's dismissal from political life in 1957; see his
Partiinoe stroitel'stovo v sovetskoi armii i flote, Moscow, 1964, p. 462.
References to a Supreme Military Council in 1960 and 1961 may be
found in The Penkovsky Papers, Fontana Books, 1967, pp. 140-41.
29John Newhouse, Cold Dawn. The Story of SALT, New York,
q~' 4s
1973, p. 251.
30M. Zakharov, "Kommunisticheskaya partiya i tekhnicheskoe
perevooruzheniye armii i flota v gody predvoennykh pyatiletok,"
Voennoistoricheskii zhurnal, 1971, No. 2, p. 3.
31Julian Cooper, Defense Production and the Soviet Economy
1929-1941, CREES Discussion Paper, University of Birmingham, 1976, p..
32lstoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny 1939-45, vol. 2., Moscow, 1974, p.
35 V. A. Anfilov, Bessmertnyi Podvig, Moscow, 1971, p. 95.
36lstoriya kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soyuza, vol. 5,
book 1 (1938-45), Moscow, 1970, pp. 283-4.
37Ibid., p. 276; V. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, London, 1947,
404.
38 Istoriya kommunisticheskoi ap rtii Sovetskogo Soyuza, vol. 5
book 1, (1938-45), pp. 281-309; 436-473; A. M. Belikov, "Gosudar-s
stvennyi Komitet Oborony i problemy sozdaniya slozhennoi voennoi"
ekonomiki," Sovetskii Tyl v velikoi otechestvennoi voine, vol 1, Moscow
1974, pp. 70-79.
39E. Yu. Lokshin, Promyshlennost' SSSR 1940-63, Moscow, 1964,
pp. 108-9.
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 40 Lokshin, off. cit., pp. 110-112; Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn' SSSR,
book 1, 1917-1950, Moscow, 1967, pp. 391-92.
41A Yakovlev, Tsel' Zhizni, 4th ed., Moscow, 1974, p. 420.
45Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn' SSSR, book 2, 1951-65, Moscow, 1967,
pp. 459, 462, 473.
46Ibid., pp. 461, 470; Andrew Sheren, "Structure and Organization
f o Defense-Related Industries," Economic Performance and the Military
Burden in the Soviet Union, A Compendium of Papers Submitted to the
Subcommittee on Foreign Policy of the Joint Economic Committee,
U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., 1970, p. 130.
47Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn' SSSR, book 2, (1951-1965), Moscow,
1967, p. 486; Sheren, loc. Sit., p. 130; that the Ministry of General
Machine-Building produced conventional weapons in 1955-57 is
suggested by the fact that P. N. Goremykin, the Minister, had been
People's Commissar of Ammunition in 1941-42.
48 John McDonnell, "The Soviet Defense Industry as a Pressure
Group," M. MccGwire, K. Booth, and J. McDonnell (eds.), Soviet Naval
Policy. Objectives and Constraints, New York, 1975, p. 90; the degree
to which operational control of the enterprises passed to the sovnar-
khozv seems problematic in view of the fact that central control of
P. &D was retained. Of course, the defense industry plants would have
to have been tied into the sovnarkhoz system in some way for planning
and supply purposes.
49 See Korol, op. cit., pp. 45-49.
50Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn' SSSR, book 2, 1951-1965, Moscow,
1967, pp. 825, 654, 740.
51 Sheren, loc. cit., p. 130; Michael Agursky, The Research
Institute of Machine-Building Technology, The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem,Th -Soviet and East European Research Centre, Soviet
Institutions Series Paper No. 8, September 1976, p. 31. According to
Agursky, the Ministry of General Machine-Building has a Technical
ndmin:stration and four production lavki: for the production of ground
equipment; for the production of rocket motors; for the production of
control instruments; for the production and assembly of missiles. In the
history of Soviet missile development Chief Designers have existed for
these four areas; Korolyev was leader of the Council of Chief
0'150
 Designers. See B. V. Raushenbakh, Yu. V. Biryukov, S. P. Korolv_ev -
osnovopolozhnik prakticheskoi kosmonavtiki, Trudy XIII mezhdunarod-
nogo kongressa po istorii nauki, Sektsiya XI1, Moscow 1974, p. 150.
52Sheren, loc. cit., p. 130; Agursky, op. cit., p. 6.
53Materialy XXIV s" ezda. KPSS, Moscow 1971, p. 46.
op. cit., p. 5, names V. N. Novikov as head of the Military-Industrial
Committee before 1970; perhaps there are two committees?
58Cooper, op. cit., p. 24.
vo . , oscow, 1976, p. 587.
56Army General V. Tolubko, "Osnova boevogo mogushchestva,'
Tekhnika i vooruzheniye, 1974, No. 11, p. 3.
57M. Tatu, Power in the Kremlin, London, 1969, D. 344. Agursky
dei elopment of cosmonautics;" see Sovetskaya Voennaya Entsiklopedia,
weapons and their supply to the Soviet Armed Forces, and the W
tion, development and production of the newest military equipment and
Secretary who concerned himself with heavy industry and "the construc-
rather than specific responsibility for the defense industry; thus from _v
programs. By the mid-1950s, Party Leaders seem to have had general
54Agursky, op. cit., p. 7.
55Beria retained control of the nuclear weapons and missile
59L. M. O1'shchevits, N. A. Orlov, (eds.), Organizatsiva,
planirovaniye i ekonomika aviatsionnogo proizvodstva, Moscow, 1963, p.
70.
60N. Nimitz, op. cit., p. 44.
61 G. S. Kravchenko, Ekonomika SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechest-
vennoi voiny, Moscow, 1970, p. 85.-_
62Agursky, op. cit., p. 33.
257; Agursky, op, cit., p. 12; H. Smith, The Russians, London, 1976, p.,
227.
63See Agursky, op. cit., p. 6.
64Istoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny 1939-45, vol. 1, Moscow, 1973, p.
65Agursky, op. cit., pp. 21-22, 28-29; Smith, op. cit., p. 236;
Cooper, op. cit., p. 3.
66Agursky, op. cit., pp. 20-31.
 001
OdON ?
67P. V. Sokolov, ed., Voenno-ekonomicheskie vo ros v kurse
politekonomii, Moscow, 1968, P. 229.
68Agursky, op. cit., pp. 33-34.
69The defense industry is only one part of the "military economy"
which includes transport, etc; moreover, the defense industry is
conceived of in terms of a core (or cadre) and a reserve defense
industry which could be turned rapidly to military production if the need
arose. In the nuclear age the possibility of industrial mobilization
during war has been much reduced, but it seems nevertheless to remain
an important element in Soviet military-economic planning. See, for
example, Sokolov, op. cit., pp. 209-17.
70Thus R. Tsvylev has argued that Soviet successes in space
exploration, in the atomic and chemical industries and in aircraft
development "have been to a great extent determined not only by the
talent of the designers themselves, but also by the fact that design
bureaus acted as the head, coordinating organ which disposed of
resources freely for the solution of tasks set by the state. The
departmental interests of the cooperating bodies were here superseded
by the interests of achieving the goal set by the state." Vo ros
Ekonomiki, 1971, No. 7, p. 73.
71 E. Zaleski et. al., Science Policy in the U.S.S.R., Paris, 1969, p.
404; Nimitz, op. Sit., pp. 7-14; A. J. Alexander, R&D in Soviet Aviation,
R-589-PR, 1970, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica.
72See J. Milsom, Russian Tanks 1900-70, London, 1970, p. 41; V.
D. Mostovenko, Tanki, Moscow, 1958, p. 115; Sotsialisticheskava
Industriya, 11 and 12 February, 1975; V. G. Grabin, "Oruzhie pobedy."
Oktyabr,, 1973, No. 10, p. 122.
73 See S. Breyer, Guide to the Soviet Navy, Annapolis, 1970, ch. 3;
J. W. Kehoe Jr., in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1975.
74See Alexander, op. cit.; Yakovlev, op. cit.; L. L. Kerber, Tu -
Chelovek i Samolet, Moscow 1973 for discussion of the work of aviation
design bureaus.
75Agursky, op. cit., p. 11; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 2
July 1973, report on the Tu-144. This arrangement does not seem to
have existed before the war; it was perhaps introduced during 1957-65
when the design bureaus remained under central control although the
plants were nominally transferred to the sovnarkhozy. Agursky com-
ments that in military design and development the psychological
atmosphere is quite different from that in civilian industry becuase it is
only here that the enthusiasm and passion of the Soviet system are felt;
S12. cit., p. 13.
5UV
 76Agursky, ?P. cit., pp. 33-34.
77See Alexander, op. cit., pp. 11-16.
78Alexander, op. cit., pp. 17-28; Kehoe, loc. cit.; Congressional
Record, loc. cit., p. E8962; M. MccGwire, "The Turning Points in Soviet
Naval Policy," in MccGwire (ed.), Soviet Naval Developments. Capa-
bility and Contest, New York, 1973, pp. 176-209.
79AWST, October 11, 1976, p. 15.
80 D. M. Berkovich et. al., (eds.), Ocherki razvitiya tekhniki v
SSSR. Mashinostroenie. Avtomaticheskoe upravle iie mashinami i
sistemami mash in. Radiotekhnika, elektronika i elektrosvyaz'. Moscow,
1970, pp. 349-351; Sovetskaya Voennaya Entsiklopedia, vol. 1, Moscow,
1976, p. 444.
81 V. D. Skugarev, "Povyshat' effektivnost' nauchnyka
issledovanii," Morskoi Sbornik, 1967, No. 1, p. 24. The Academy of
Artillery Sciences, which existed from 1947 to 1953 and was one of the
main efforts to establish a military scientific center, had four main
tasks: to develop the theory of armament and of combat application of
artillery; to make expert assessment of new models of armament; to
prepare a history of artillery; and to train scientific cadres. Sovetskaya
Voennaya Entsiklopedia, vol. 1, Moscow, 1976, pp. 130-31.
82B. V. Levshin, Akademiya nauk SSSR v god, velikoi
otechestvennoi voiny, Moscow, 1966, p. 34.
84Levshin, op. cit., pp. 39-61.
85Levshin, op. cit., p. 22; Zaleski et. al., op. cit., p. 198.
86Levshin, op. cit., p. 150.
87Komkov et. al., p. 390.
88I. N. Golovin, I. V. Kurchatov, 2nd ed., Moscow, 1973, p. 55;
Zaleski et. al., op. cit., P.'22 7; the date of transfer was perhaps 1963).
89Zaleski et. al., op. cit., p. 227. The Institute of Radio-
engineering and Electronics set up in the Academy in 1951 may have
started life in 1944 under the GKO's Council on Radar; see 1:.
Radunskaya, Aksel' Berg - chelovek XX veka, Moscow 1971, p. 211; also
I. V. Brenev, A. I. Bergu, "75 let," Izvestiya vuzov SSSR ?-
radioelektronika, 1968, No. 10, pp. 1113-20.
G. D. Komkov et. al., Akademiya nauk SSSR, Moscow, 1974, p.
 91 For example, the Institute of Cybernetics of the Ukrainian
\cademy of Sciences, and the Institute of Control Problems; Entsiklo-
nedia Kibernetiki, vol. 2, Kiev 1974, pp. 140-41.
925. Kassel, The Relationship between Science and the Military in
the Soviet Union, )T457-DD AR A,, 1974, Rand Co-porationSanta
'.+onica, pp. 12-24; see also Berfovich et. al., op. cit., pp. 412-415.
93Agursky, o cit., p. 5, writes that the Academy of Sciences and
nearly all researc. institutes, universities and educational establish-
ments have "closed" military programs and military and military-
industrial research topics.
94V. D. Sokolovskii, Voennaya strategiya, 3rd ed., Moscow, 1968,
D. 378.
95For example, the 1940 decision to give the Aviation Industry
seven factories from other branches of industry; Istoriya KPSS, vol. 5,
book 1 (1938-45), Moscow, 1970, p. 118.
96Sokolovskii, op. cit., p. 378.
97Zakharov, loc. cit., pp. 3-4; Istoriya vtoroi mirovoi voinny 1939-
'5, vol. 1, Moscow, 197 pp. 257-58; the guidelines laid down initially
-ere: (1) not to yield to probable enemies in the number of troops in
;`,e main theatre of war; (2) to attain superiority over the enemy in the
decisive forms of armament - aviation, artillery and tanks.
98 E. L. Warner III gives a similar account in "The Bureaucratic
Politics of Weapons Procurement," in M. MccGwire, K. Booth, and J.
`.IcDennell (eds.), Soviet Naval Policy. Objectives and Constraints.
`ewx York, 1975, pp. 70-71.
101 V. M. Ryabikov, holder of nine Orders of Lenin, and a former
deputy Minister of Armament, was First Deputy Chairman of Gosplan
from 1961 to 1974, where he may have had responsibility for the
defense industry. See Pravda, 22 July 1974.
102 Zakharov, loc. cit., p. 4; 50 let ..., gives July 1929 as the date
w~.w en the post was set up7see appendi3
103See Marshal Biryuzov's introduction to M. N. Tukhachevskii,
lzbrann ,e proizvedeniya, vol. 1, Moscow, 1964, p. 13ff.
 107Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopedia, 3rd ed., vol. 17, col. 1198;
Sovetskaya Voennaya Entsiklopedia, vol. 1, pp. 145, 444.
108For Nedelin see BSE, 3rd ed., vol. 17, col. 1198. Yakovlev held
the post from 1948. See Pravda, 12 June 1972, and Prominent
Personalities in the U.S.S.R., New York, 1968.
109 Sovetskaya Voennaya Entsiklopedia, vol. 1, p. 145.
110Boevoi Put' Sovetskogo Voenno-Morskogo Flota, 2nd ed.,
Moscow, 1974, p. 533; U.S.S.R. Strategic Survey: A Bibliography,
Washington, D.C., 1969, p. 196; R. Kilmarx, A History of Soviet Air
Power, New York, 1962, p. 113.
111See Yakovlev, op. cit., pp. 501-07; M. Gallagher and K. F.
Spielman Jr., Soviet Decision-Making for Defense, New York, 1972, p.
20, Alexander, op. cit., p. 17ff.
112Agursky, op cit., p. 8; Agursky does not mention nuclear
protection, but it is such a pervasive feature of Soviet weapons design
that it might be written in at this stage.
113Zhukov, op. cit., pp. 206-207.
114Agursky, op. cit., pp.8-9.
115Various memoirs have made clear Stalin's detailed intervention
in weapons development decisions; Zhukov (op. cit., p. 307) comments
that "without Stalin's approval ... not one model of armament or combat
materiel was taken into the arsenal or removed from it. Of course, this
restricted the initiative of the Defense Commissar and his deputies who
dealt with questions of the Red Army's armament." Khrushchev's role is
not so clear, though he did not hesitate to express his views about the
obsolescence of tanks and surface warships. Approval for all major
programs is evidently still required, but it seems unlikely that the Party
leaders still make detailed intervention in design decisions.
116Agursky, op. cit., p. 11.
117F. P. Avramchuk and S. A. Bartenev, "Ekonomicheskoe
obosnovanie voennotekhnicheskoi politiki," Morskoi Sbornik, 1969, No. 2,
p. 25.
118Zakharov, loc. cit., p.8.
 120Agursky, op. cit., p. 9.
121Smith, pp. cit., p. 236; Cooper, op. cit., p. 3.
122Agursky, op. cit., pp. 9-10.
124lstoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny 1939-45, vol. 2, Moscow, 1974,
pp. 188-9.
125Ibid.
126 Lev shin, op. cit., p. 34.
127G. S. Kravchenko, op. cit., p.205.
128Berkovich et. al., eds., op. cit., p. 374; Radunskaya, op. cit., p.
129 Levshin, op. cit., p.36.
130Tolubko, loc. cit., p. 3.
131 Yakovlev, op. cit., pp. 420-21.
132 Korol, op. cit., pp. 337-38.
133See Golovin, op. cit., p. 68; R. W. Herrick, Soviet Naval
Strategy, Annapolis, 1968, pp. 63-64.
134Korol, op. cit., p. 337; the first annual plan for the intro-
duction of new technology was approved in 1949; see Zaleski et. al., op.
cit., p. 75.
135 Quoted by McDonnell, loc. cit., p. 92.
136Ibid.; Alekseev, the present Deputy Minister of Defense for
Armament, was working in the Council of Ministers from 1955-58 (see
note 109 above), which might suggest the existence of a special military
R&D or military- industrial body at that time.
137 Kassel, op. cit., pp. 34-37.
138Although Maksarev, its head, was an associate of Malyshev's
and had been director of plant No. 183 which produced tanks during the
W or.
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 139XXI s"yezd KPSS. Stenograficheskii Otchet, vol. 2, Moscow,
1962, pp. 275-82.
140 Korol, op. cit., pp. 325-335; Zaleski et. al., op. cit., pp. 56??57.
141 Zaleski, et. al., op. cit., p. 57ff; Kassel, op. cit., pp. 4-11.
142Robert Adamson, "Mobilizing Soviet Science," Scientific
R
esearch, 22 January 1968, p. 25.
143 Kassel, op. cit., pp. 38-40.
144 Gallagher and Spielmann, qj2. cit., p. 20; these bodies figure
prominently in the history of weapons development, but little is known
of their present activities. It is interesting to note, however, that the
Technical Committee of the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact
(Tekhnicheskii komitet Ob"yedinennykh Vooruzhennykh Sil) concerns
itself with the development and improvement of armament and
equipment, "with coordination of the efforts of the allied armies in the
sphere of R&D (NIOKR).... In recent years the Technical Committee
has carried out highly significant work in coordinating R&D connected
with the equipping of the allied armies with armament and materiel,
and this has had great economic results. Thanks to the coordinated
work of the Technical Committee and of the organs in charge of
armament and equipment, the armies of the member states of the
Warsaw Pact are at the present time succeeding in solving in the most
effective way the problems of creating equipment and armaments, and
all other questions connected with this. The work of the Technical
Committee is carried out in close contact with the corresponding
national organs." (I. 1. Yakubovskii, ed.), Boevoe sodruzhestvo bratskikh
narodov i armii, Moscow, 1975, p. 146). This ambiguous passage seems
to imply an important military role in the management of R&D; would
the "corresponding national organ" in the Soviet Union be the General
Staff's Scientific-Technical Committee?
145 A. A. Grechko, Vooruzhennye Sily Sovetskogo Gosudarstva, 2nd
ed., Moscow 1975, p. 193; "Military-technical policy" has been defined
as "the system of measures which support and direct the activity of
developing, producing and assimilating military equipment in accord-
ance with the demands of the objective laws of war and the task of
achieving maximum combat effectiveness at minimum cost;" Avrarri-
chuk and Bartenev, loc. cit., pp. 24-25.
146 Grechko, op. cit., pp. 193-94.
147M. Cherednichenko, "Ekonomika i Voenno-tekhniceskaya politi-
ka," Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, 1968, No. 15, p. 9.
148Avramchuk and Bartenev, loc. cit., p. 25.
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 149 Quoted in Hearings before the Subcommittee on Economy in
Government of the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United
States, Part 3, The Economic Basis of the Russian Military Challenge to
the United States, June 233 and 24, 1969, Washington, D.C., p. 963.
150See Yu. Vlas'evich, "Voenno-ekonomicheskie voprosy v kurse
politekonomii," Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, 1968, No. 22, p. 89-92;
1. Prokhorenko, "Ekonomicheskaya podgotovka voennykh inzhererov,"
Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, 1966, No.5, pp. 47-51; M. Chered-
nichenko, "Sovremennaya voina i ekonomika," Komrunist Vooruzhen-
nykh Sil, 1971, No. 18, pp. 25-27.
151ti, Bondarenko, "Nauchno-tekhnicheskii progress i ukreplenie
oboronosposobnosti strany," Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, 1971, No.
24, p. 16.
152Skugarov, loc. cit., p. 25.
153Avramchuk and Bartonev, loc. cit., p. 25.
155As in civilian industry, so in military production: the
enterprise has an interest in long, undisturbed production runs.
156See J. Erickson, "Radio-location and the Air Defense Problem:
The Design and Development of Soviet Radar 1934-40," Science Studies,
1972, No. 2, pp. 241-68.
157 Zhukov, op. cit., pp. 213-14.
158 1Krupchenko, "Marshal bronetankovykh voisk Ya. N.
Fedorenko," Voennoistoricheskii zhurnal, 1966, No. 10, p. 48.
159 A. S. Yakovlev, Tsel' Zhizui, 2nd ed., Moscow, 1968, p. 502.
160A. Grechko, "25 let tornu nazad," Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal,
1966, No. 6, pp. 8-9.
161 See Grechko, off. cit., p. 193; Yu. S. Solnyshkov, Optimizatsiya
v bora vooruzheniya, Moscow, 1968.
1621 have not examined here the thorny problem of prices; Sokolov
22. cit., pp. 226-27) points out that a uniform level of wholesale prices
is needed if the "real outlays of society on the defense of the country"
are 'o be established and compared with other outlays. The implication
seems to be that such uniformity does not exist; see also M. Checinski,
"The Costs of Armament Production and the Profitability of Armament
Exports in COMECON Countries," Osteuropa Wirtschaft, 1975, No. 2,
 p. 134.
1631 have explored some of these issues in Management,
Technology and the Soviet Military Establishment, Adelphi Paper No.
76, ISS, London, 1971, and in "Technology and Political Decision in
Soviet Armaments Policy," Journal of Peace Research, 1974, No. 4, pp.
257-279.
164See A. C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic
Development 1930-1945, and Western Technology and Soviet Economic
Development, 1945-1965, Stanford, California, 1971 and 1 773.
 The Soviet Defense Industry
Ministry of Defense Industry
Ministry of Aviation Industry
Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry
Ministry of Electronics Industry
Ministry of Radio Industry
Ministry of Medium Machine-
Building
Ministry of General Machine-
Building
Ministry of Machine-Building
- conventional weapons
- aircraft and aircraft parts
- ships
- nuclear weapons
- strategic missiles
- ammunition
electronic components and
equipment
Andrew Sheren, "Structure and Organization of Defense-Related In-
dustries," Economic Performance and the Military Burden in the Soviet
Union, A Compendium of Papers Submitted to the Subcommittee on
Foreign Economic Policy of the Joint Economic Committee, U.S.
Congress, Washington, D.C., 1970, pp. 123-132; Michael Agursky, The
Research Institute of Machine-Building Technology, The Hebrew Univer-
s: y of Jerusalem, T-Fe Sovie^~ East European Research Centre, Soviet
Institutions Series Paper No. 8, September 1976, p. 6.
F, nl_Wat~11701%
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