Military Leaders From The Soviet Union

"Lenin was the antichrist [...] All Russia's great troubles stemmed from Lenin."

"However doomed a man may be, he still has the great luxury of freedom of thought that can carry him soaring over the past and the future, the single attribute that can never be taken away by tyrant or circumstance."

"I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists. … I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work — for example a lawnmower."

"Design is rarely art because design, when all is said and done, exists purely to make money. And yet the AK was never designed to do that. In fact Mikhail Kalashnikov lives today on nothing more than a Soviet Army pension. And that's why his most famous creation can be called an art form. And that's what gives it soul."

"[In] 1944 Russian engineer Mikhail Kalashnikov, supported by a design team, began a competitive development against several other weapon producers to create a new selective-fire rifle that would use the intermediate round. It was a long process, and it should be noted that Kalashnikov himself was not the only key individual behind the design. Another central figure was Aleksandr Zaitsev, who convinced Kalashnikov of the need for a major redesign to enhance reliability. Yet with the war over, in 1948 their 'AK-47' entered army trials and the following year it was adopted as the standard Soviet rifle. In 1959, it was modernized- i.e. cheapened- in terms of its production methods, the receiver being a stamped design rather than machined steel. Other improvements of the AKM, as it was known, included a basic scoop-like muzzle brake, a Parkerized bolt and a wire-cutting bayonet device. The AKM became the defining, most widely distributed model in the AK series."

"Kalashnikov had already distinguished himself by inventing a device that counted the shells a tank had fired and now, as he recuperated from his wounds, he set about designing something that could rival the Germans' MP44. A hand-held sub-machinegun. Something that came to be known as the AK47. It wasn't actually read, as the name implies, until 1947, two years after Hitler's penis had been buried under the Kremlin, but that didn't stop it becoming by far and away the most successful gun in the whole of military history. No patent was ever taken out, which meant anyone with a foundry could set up shop and make one too. And they did. AKs were produced all around the world in such vast numbers that so far 70 million have been sold. And that in turn means that one person in 90 across the whole planet has got one. And as a result of that, it is said that the AK47 has killed more people than the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Think of any conflict since 1947 and it's a fairly safe bet that at least one of the sides has been using AK47s. The warlords in Mogadishu, the Vietcong in Vietnam, the Republican Guard in Iraq. This half-timbered gun has been a 50-year thorn in Uncle Sam's side."

"My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers. Man is born to protect his family, his children, his wife. But I want you to know that apart from armaments, I have written three books in which I try to educate our youth to show respect for their families, for old people, for history."

"You see, maybe all these feelings come about because one side wants to liberate itself with arms. But in my opinion, it is the good that prevails. You may live to see the day when good prevails — it will be after I am dead. But the time will come when my weapons will be no more used or necessary."

"I was in the hospital, and a soldier in the bed beside me asked: "Why do our soldiers have only one rifle for two or three of our men, when the Germans have automatics?" So I designed one. I was a soldier, and I created a machine gun for a soldier. It was called an Avtomat Kalashnikova, the automatic weapon of Kalashnikov — AK — and it carried the date of its first manufacture, 1947."

"Before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good appreciation of everything that already exists in this field."

"Whenever I look at TV and I see the weapon I invented to defend my motherland in the hands of these bin Ladens, I ask myself the same question: "How did it get into their hands?" I didn't put it in the hands of bandits and terrorists, and it's not my fault that it has mushroomed uncontrollably across the globe. Can I be blamed that they consider it the most reliable weapon?"

"When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, "All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed" ... So this has been my lifetime motto – I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable."

"Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer … I always wanted to construct agriculture machinery."

"I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence."

"These 18-year-old youths Russian conscripts in Grozny] died for Russia, and they died with a smile."

"Everybody keeps saying - reform, reform. The T-72 has proved itself wonderfully in Chechnya. So we will be making reform on the basis of T-72."

"We shall respond to every Chechen shot with thousands of our own."

"The leading force in the struggle for peace and for strengthening cooperation among the peoples is the Soviet Union."

"The Germans had thought they could replace light artillery with mortars, believing it unnecessary to furnish their troops with light guns and howitzers. The theory was wrong as they found out during the invasion."

"We are going for the enemy's fortifications. Artillery is doing its share in every phase of the battle. Automatic weapons are so extensively used to-day that we cannot possibly limit our operation to silencing enemy gun emplacements. Drive them underground? No, we have to wipe them out! The artillerymen can no longer be guided merely by orders for the infantry. It is waging battle in its own right."

"Think of the 40 years of confrontation. What is it we gained?...The old style has exposed itself: it is fruitless."

"We are not pursuing research to develop ABM space systems. There are studies to improve systems of warning against a missile attack, communications and navigation systems and to develop ground-based ABM defences."

"The longer the war drags on, more and more civilians are getting killed."

"If both sides reduced their long-range missiles by 50%, SDI would be an unacceptable threat to the remaining Soviet rocket forces."

"If it is necessary we will find a quick answer and it will not be the way the United States expects it. It will be an answer that devalues the 'Star Wars' program."

"We ceased to deal seriously with mobile combat. We relegated to oblivion the fundamentals of combat-in-depth tactics and of combined arms maneuvers which had been widespread before the Finnish campaign."

"The Germans also attempted to muddle the issue. They composed fables and wrote on their lists that the Soviet generals had voluntarily deserted to the enemy side. None of us believed this. We knew well that such distinguished generals as Khomenko and Bobkov would not surrender alive to the enemy."

"Soviet rocket troops possess enough equipment to be able, if need be, to sweep any aggressor from the face of the earth at whatever point of the globe he may be and whatever military power, territory, or economy he may possess."

"The storming of the Mannerheim Line was regarded as a model of operational and tactical art. Troops were taught to overcome the enemy's protracted defense by a gradual accumulation of forces and a patient "gnawing through" of breaches in the enemy's fortifications in accordance with all the rules of engineering science. Insufficient attention was paid to questions of co-operation among different branches and services of the armed forces under rapidly changing conditions. We had to retrain ourselves under enemy fire, paying a high price for the experience and knowledge without which we could not beat Hitler's army."

"The problem of destroying enemy rockets in flight has been successfully solved in our country."

"I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence...I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then."

"For us military men, it is impossible to forget."

"Liberalization and democratization are in essence counter-revolution."

"At the present stage, the historic function of the Soviet Armed Forces is not restricted merely to their function in defending our motherland and the other socialist countries. In its foreign policy activity the Soviet state actively and purposefully opposes the export of counter-revolution and the policy of oppression, supports the national liberation struggle, and resolutely resists imperialist aggression in whatever distant region of our planet it may appear. The party and Soviet Government rely on the country's economic and defense might in fulfilling these tasks...The development of the external functions of the socialist armies is a natural process. It will continue."

"The lesson of that victory was that Soviet citizens must still heed Lenin's warning of 1921."

"The Communist Party and the Soviet Government display constant concern to strengthen the country's defensive might and raise the combat readiness of the Armed Forces."

"We do not have the right to forget that reactionary imperialism exists and its forces actively operate in the world, that they encourage the arms race and that they try to restore the spirit of the Cold War."

"Many desire it. We are a slack people but deeply destructive. Should there be a revolution, only God knows where it will end. I think that a constitutional regime would mean the end of Russia. We need a despot!"

"There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on the Vistula, the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent."

"Soviet preparations in the Far East, and the more general build-up of the Red Army, were well covered by Japanese intelligence, not least the development, by the end of 1935, of a 170-strong long-range Soviet bomber force able to reach Japan. In turn, the Japanese army produced plans for an invasion of the Soviet Far East and eastern Siberia. The Soviet government saw the challenge it faced in ideological and geopolitical terms. Reports in late 1935 about an Anti-Comintern Pact, which Japan, in fact, was to sign with Germany on 25 November 1936, led Soviet strategists to fear a war on two fronts, as opposed to their previous confidence that they would be able to fight on one front at a time. This fear prefigured their concern in the 1970s and 1980s about conflict with both the USA and China. In January 1936, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the commander of the Red Army (who was to be shot on the night of 12 June 1937), pressed the Central Committee of the Communist Party on the need to confront the danger of simultaneous war with Germany and Japan. Concern about Japanese intentions towards neighbouring Mongolia led the Soviet Union to sign a pact of mutual assistance with Mongolia and to warn Japan against expanding there. Moreover, signing a non-aggression pact with China on 21 August 1937, and supplying Jiang Jieshi with plentiful arms, including 297 planes flown by Soviet pilots, and over 3,000 advisers, were steps taken by Stalin to divert Japan into a new intractable commitment in China. Full-scale war had broken out between Japan and China in July 1937, and Japan captured Beijing, Shanghai and the Chinese capital, Nanjing, that year."

"I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Buereau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Chechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of a banquet - he had got rather drunk - he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky - and so many of his followers."

"Tukhachevsky hid Napoleon's baton in his rucksack."

"[A]ll the non-Stalinist versions concur in the following: the generals did indeed plan a coup d'état... The main part of the coup was to be a palace revolt in the Kremlin, culminating in the assassination of Stalin. A decisive military operation outside the Kremlin, an assault on the headquarters of the G.P.U., was also prepared. Tukhachevsky was the moving spirit of the conspiracy... He was, indeed, the only man among all the military and civilian leaders of that time who showed in many respects a resemblance to the original Bonaparte and could have played the Russian First Consul. The chief political commissar of the army, Gamarnik, who later committed suicide, was initiated into the plot. General Yakir, the commander of Leningrad, was to secure the co-operation of his garrison. Generals Uberovich, commander of the western military district, Kork, commander of the Military Academy in Moscow, Primakow, Budienny's deputy in the command of the cavalry, and a few other generals were also in the plot."

"Sedov (Trotsky's son) spoke a lot about the necessity of the maximum, the closest possible connections with Tukhachevsky, inasmuch as, in Trotsky's opinion, Tukhachevsky and the military group were to be the decisive force of the counter-revolutionary action. During the conversation it was also revealed that Trotsky entertained fears regarding Tukhachevsky 's Bonapartist tendencies. In the course of one conversation Sedov said that Trotsky in this respect even expressed the fear that if Tukhachevsky successfully accomplished a military coup, it was possible that he would not allow Trotsky into Moscow. . . . Trotsky therefore proposed that during the coup d'etat we should everywhere place our own people, people who would be faithful to Trotskyism and who could be relied upon as regards vigilance."

"An atmosphere of extreme tension reigned during this period; it was necessary to act without mercy. I think that it was justified. If Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Rykov and Zinoviev had started up their opposition in wartime, there would have been an extremely difficult struggle; the number of victims would have been colossal. Colossal. The two sides would have been condemned to disaster. They had links that went right up to Hitler. That far. Trotsky had similar links, without doubt. Hitler was an adventurist, as was Trotsky, they had traits in common. And the rightists, Bukharin and Rykov, had links with them. And, of course, many of the military leaders."

"With the emergence of nuclear-missile weaponry, cybernetics, electronics, and computer equipment, any subjective approach to military problems, hare-brained plans, and superficiality can cause irreparable damage."

"Attention must be given to the study of the given operations. Their study with due allowance made for the existing means of warfare will make it possible to reach a number of useful theoretical conclusions for conducting operations in the initial phase of a war."

"The time when Russia could be kept out of the world's oceans has gone forever. We shall sail all the world's seas; no force on earth can prevent us."

"It was necessary to close the front against Germany and that it (victory) depended on us whether it was to be closed or not."

"I personally believe that war is highly unlikely."