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[introduction.]

p The development of armies of a new type in the socialist countries shows that while there are some specific features in their development, it is the common regularities that are chief and decisive. This is because the states in the socialist system are of the same economic and political type, and because they all adhere to the identical Marxist-Leninist ideology, which is expressed in the unity of the aims and tasks of their armies, in the unity of the principles underlying their leadership by the Communist and Workers’ Parties, their development, and the education and training of the personnel. At the same time the specific features in the development of each army must be taken into account in order to ensure the further consolidation of these armies, correctly to organise their co-operation and to increase their combat efficiency.

p Historical experience also shows that any deviation from Marxist-Leninist principles in development, education and training, any deviation from the principle of co-operation of 254 the socialist armies, lowers the defensive capacity of the states of the socialist system, endangers the revolutionary gains of the people and the possibility of successful socialist construction.

The Communist and Workers’ Parties of the socialist countries, having created armies of a new type, have proved that the experience of Soviet military development is not of local but of international significance. They use it successfully, while taking into account the historical and national specifics of their countries.

Specific Features in the Formation and Development of an Army of a New Type

p The armies of a number of socialist countries have inherited the noble traditions of the armed detachments of the working class, created under the leadership of the Communist Parties during the revolutionary battles waged between 1918 and 1923. During those years armed detachments were created in Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Poland and some other countries to fight for the socialist revolution. Some of them were called the Red Guard or the Red Army. Many of the men and commanders in these detachments had formerly fought in the international units of the Red Army of Soviet Russia. There were also Russian workers and peasants in the ranks of the Hungarian Red Army, the Red Guard and Red Army in Germany, in the armed detachments of the Polish proletariat. Thus, the comradeship- inarms of the proletariat of different countries in the fight for national and social liberation, against common enemies, is a regularity that is fully manifested in the relations between the armed forces of the socialist states to this day.

p In 1921 the Mongolian working people, relying on the fraternal assistance of the Soviet Red Army, won the armed struggle against foreign oppressors and local feudals. The relations between the Soviet Army and the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Army (the People’s Army of the Mongolian People’s Republic since 1955) clearly showed features typical of the relations between the new armies: they helped each other to fight the common enemy, the Soviet Union helped to equip the Mongolian Army with the latest weapons, the Mongolian Army mastered advanced Soviet military science, and the two armies supported each other in combat actions. In 1939 the Soviet and Mongolian soldiers 255 jointly inflicted a crushing defeat to the Japanese aggressors. In the summer of 1945 the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Army, in joint action with units of the Soviet Army and the People’s Liberation Army of China, contributed to the rout of the Kwantung Army and the liberation of the Chinese people from the Japanese invaders.

p The Chinese Red Army (renamed in 1937 into the People’s Liberation Army) was set up in 1927 in the course of the revolutionary-liberation struggle of the working class and the peasantry against the bourgeois and landowner counter-revolutionaries. It became the chief force in the Chinese people’s struggle against the Japanese invaders. Before the rout of Japanese militarism by the Soviet Armed Forces the People’s Liberation Army of China was logistically linked with areas in which there was no industrial proletariat and recruited exclusively peasants. During that period it considered the struggle for the national liberation of the country its main task.

p The Soviet Army gave decisive assistance to the Chinese people in routing the Japanese invaders. Of great importance was the transfer to the People’s Liberation Army of the weapons and equipment seized by the Soviet troops from the Kwantung Army. As a result, when Chiang Kaishek’s army mounted military operations against the People’s Liberation Army in 1946, the latter was wellequipped and well-prepared for the struggle against the internal counter-revolutionaries. Of decisive importance at that stage was also the fact that the Soviet Union prevented the transfer of any considerable contingents of US troops to China. The counter-revolutionary forces did not receive help by direct US military intervention as they had expected. The great strength and decisive stand of the Soviet Union prevented the use of atom bombs against the Chinese people by the USA, on which some US political and military leaders were insisting. In these favourable external conditions the People’s Liberation Army of China smashed Chiang Kaishek s troops and only their remnants escaped to the island of Taiwan which was occupied by the United States of America. The Chinese leaders do not want to speak about it now.

p After 1958 the development of the People’s Liberation Army of China differed substantially from that of the 256 socialist armies. During that period it was used to fight Party committees, the trade unions and the bodies of the people’s power. The personnel was indoctrinated with the ideology of militant anti-Sovietism, hegemonism and nationalism.

p The modern people’s armies of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and also the Albanian army emerged as anti-fascist armed detachments which were set up for the struggle against the German and Italian invaders between 1941 and 1944 on the initiative and under the leadership of the Communist Parties. In the struggle against the Japanese invaders the Communist Parties of Korea and Vietnam organised armed revolutionary detachments which grew into the present People’s Armies of the Korean People’s Democratic Republic and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

p The internal and external conditions of the struggle against fascism determined the principal forms in which the people’s armed formations initially emerged and developed. These forms were: guerilla detachments and groups, people’s liberation armies and armed formations organised in the Soviet Union.

p The first guerilla groups and detachments were created in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Albania after the nazis attacked the USSR. Their nucleus was formed of Party and Komsomol members. The rout of the German fascist troops near Moscow and at Stalingrad by the Soviet Army opened to the working masses of the countries occupied by nazi Germany the prospect of a full victory over fascism. The guerilla movement in a number of countries assumed a mass scale and tens of thousands of workers, working peasants and intellectuals joined the partisan detachments. The guerilla movement was led by the Communist Parties. Party organisations were set up in the detachments and groups, and there were military commissars in most guerilla formations. The men were educated in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, were educated to fight for the solution of the tasks of the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist revolution and for the subsequent carrying out of the socialist revolution.

p A higher form of organisation of the armed detachments of a new type were the people’s liberation armies, which 257 were created on the basis of the guerilla detachments and drew large numbers of the working masses into the armed struggle against the foreign invaders and “domestic” fascism. In Yugoslavia the first detachments of the People’s Liberation Army emerged at the end of 1941. In 1943 the Armia Ludowa was formed in Poland, and in 1943 the People’s Liberation Insurgent Army in Bulgaria. The leadership of the people’s liberation armies, as well as of the guerilla detachments, was effected by the Communist Parties only. The Communists took into account the expanding social basis of the armed anti-fascist movement, with the broad mass of the workers, peasants and intellectuals being drawn into active struggle for the implementation of anti-fascist general democratic reforms. To expand the armed struggle against fascism the Communist Parties in some countries co-operated with the progressive forces in the democratic parties (the peasants’, Social-Democratic parties, the parties of the petty urban bourgeoisie and part of the medium bourgeoisie). As the joint struggle of all progressive forces against fascism intensified, popular fronts and governments of the popular front were set up. The leading force in the popular fronts were the Communist Parties, the initiators and leaders of the anti-fascist struggle.

p The formation of people’s liberation armies was of great. military and political importance. As distinct from the guerilla detachments, the army was a component part of the emergent revolutionary state. This exerted a major influence on the layers of the population who were still vacillating, added to their conviction in the victory of the revolutionary forces. It became possible to concentrate all efforts of the revolutionary army at striking at communications, large garrisons and the main groupings of the enemy, to foil punitive operations, to liberate and firmly hold whole districts of the country, to set up supply bases, hospitals, etc., in the liberated districts. The creation of people’s liberation armies made it possible to organise operational co-operation between these armies and the Soviet Armed Forces and the people’s liberation armies of other countries.

p Before the emergence of the state of a new type the guerilla detachments and people’s liberation armies were the 258 most important, and in some countries the only means through which the Communist Parties exerted influence on the broad mass of the working people, an instrument for the mobilisation of the latter for the struggle for national and social liberation. The people’s liberation armies carried out political and economic revolutionary transformations on the territories liberated from the enemy, acted as administrative and judicial bodies. Of great importance was the creation by representatives of the people’s liberation armies of local democratic organs of power, the distribution . among the working peasants of the land and the property of feudals who had fled the country, the lowering of rents, and the supply of the working people with foodstuffs seized from the enemy.

p Such functions could be fulfilled only by armies of a new type. The more resolute and deeper were the reforms they carried out in all spheres of social life, the more actively were they supported by the working masses, and the more workers and peasants in those countries joined the national liberation and revolutionary struggle.

p A specific form of anti-fascist armed contingents were the 1st and 2nd Polish armies, the 1st Czechoslovak army corps and the two volunteer Rumanian divisions formed in the Soviet Union. Together with the guerilla detachments and the people’s liberation armies they formed the basis of the armed forces of a new type in their countries. The birth and consolidation of the first socialist state in the world enabled the working class and the working masses of nonsocialist countries, for the first time in history, to set up their armed contingents on its territory, and thus to resolve the tasks of freeing their countries from all forms of national and social oppression and later of defending their revolutionary gains. The Soviet state provided them with up- todate weapons and military equipment, and the Soviet soldiers shared their rich experience with them and assisted them constantly in joint operations.

p The units formed on Soviet territory were open to all patriots wishing to participate in the struggle for the liberation of their countries from the nazi invaders. The vast majority of the men and non-commissioned officers and a large part of the officers were workers, peasants and intellectuals.

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p The volunteer Rumanian divisions were manned by prisoners of war—active anti-fascists, mainly workers and peasants—who expressed the wish to take up arms to fight for the liberation from the German invaders and the Antonescu regime. Most officers were retrained noncommissioned officers and men, former workers or peasants.

p Communists with experience in revolutionary struggle, some with combat experience acquired in the international brigades in Spain, were generally made political workers.

p A major role was played also by the fact that the Czech, Slovak, Polish and Rumanian working people had learned from the experience of the USSR of the advantages of the socialist system and decisively opposed the forces who wanted to restore the capitalist system in countries liberated from the nazi invaders.

p During the battles for the liberation of their countries the contingents set up in the Soviet Union united with the guerilla detachments in Poland and Czechoslovakia and with the Workers’ Guard in Rumania. This strengthened yet further the proletarian core in the anti-fascist people’s armies and accelerated their transformation into armies of a new type, as the socialist revolution was unfolding.

p Of great interest in this connection is the experience of the Communist Parties of Bulgaria and Rumania in the radical transformation of their armies from instruments of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie into instruments of the dictatorship of the working class.

p From the beginning of the armed anti-fascist struggle, from June 1941, the Bulgarian Workers’ Party ( Communists)—BWP(C)—took steps to draw the army over to the side of the revolution and to prepare it for participation in the armed uprising. By September 1944 underground soldiers’ committees of members of the BWP(C) and the RMS  [259•1  had been set up in most companies, battalions and regiments. During the uprising, the soldiers’ committees, carrying out the policy of the BWP(C) in matters of military development, dismissed the reactionary officers and introduced in the army a new, conscious discipline, set up 260 efficient revolutionary units, educated the personnel in the spirit of devotion to the Communist Party and the National Front.

p The armed uprising of September 9, 1944 marked the beginning of the socialist revolution in Bulgaria. Therefore, the Bulgarian Communists were faced with the problem of forming a workers’ and peasants’ army able to defend the socialist gains immediately after the triumph of the revolution. At the initiative and under the leadership of the BWP(C), detachments of the National Liberation Insurgent Army were incorporated in the army units. Most commanders and commissars of the Insurgent Army were appointed to commanding posts in the new army. As of September 20, 1944 the post of assistant commander for political matters was introduced. These assistants were assigned the role of political commissars. A decisive role was also played by the setting up of Party and Komsomol organisations in all units and sub-units.

p As regards the class composition of the officer corps and the discipline practised in it, the Rumanian Army remained a bourgeois-landowner one, even after the overthrow of Antonescu’s fascist regime. It remained part of the state apparatus in which representatives of the bourgeois and landowner parties were in the majority. However, according to the terms of the armistice agreement, the observance of which was strictly supervised by the Soviet Army, the reactionary forces could not use the Rumanian Army against the working people.

p In March 1945 the National Democratic Front, headed by the Communist Party, came to power in Rumania. This ushered in the process of the liquidation of the bourgeoislandowner army and the creation of an army of the new type. In the solution of this task the Communist Party relied on the two volunteer divisions formed on Soviet territory and on the armed workers’ detachments created during the armed uprising against the fascist regime. A major role in revolutionising the army was played by 16 Rumanian divisions which participated in the operations against nazi Germany between September 1944 and May 1945.

p The development of armies of the new type in the People’s Democracies in the course of socialist construction had a number of important specific features.

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p Vestiges of bourgeois discipline were preserved in the People’s Army of Bulgaria till March 1946, and in those of Hungary, Rumania and Czechoslovakia till 1948. Many officers in those armies belonged to classes alien to the proletariat and were unfit for commanding functions in armies of the new type. The content and system of political education did not fully correspond to the new tasks of the socialist revolution. The reactionary forces in the ministries of defence, and the officers who had formerly served in the bourgeois armies, adopted a hostile attitude towards Partypolitical work, towards the Communist commanders and political workers. Defending the slogan of an army outside of politics, the reactionaries attempted to preserve and consolidate their positions, to restore in the army a system typical of the armies of capitalist states.

p To prevent armed action by the counter-revolutionaries, the working class, at the initiative and under the leadership of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, created special armed detachments, which were manned according to the class principle by revolutionary workers and peasants fully devoted to the socialist cause. These were the national security forces and the state militia, as well as the workers’ militia, that is, the armed workers’ detachments set up at factories, mines, etc. The workers’ militia and the national security forces played a decisive role in preventing armed action by the counter-revolutionaries in Czechoslovakia in February 1948.

p In 1945-1946, in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and Czechoslovakia, the bourgeois parties, which then formed part of the national fronts, sought permission to set up their organisations in the armies in order to demoralise the soldiers politically, to support reactionary officers and to strengthen their influence in the army. To prevent this, the governments, at the initiative of the Communist Parties, permitted the activity only of organisations of the national fronts in the armies. Under these conditions the leadership of the armed forces and the education of the personnel was effected by the Communist Parties. The Communists, who headed the national fronts, were able, through the leading bodies and the governments of the national fronts, to guide the armed forces development, determine the content and the forms of political work, train 262 and appoint the commanders of working class and peasant origin, purge the armed forces of reactionary officers, etc.

p On December 22, 1944 an army of the new type was formed in Vietnam. Formed by the Communist Party of Indochina in the course of the armed struggle against the Japanese colonialists, the People’s Army of Vietnam fought a heroic national liberation, revolutionary war for almost eight years against the French colonialists and internal reactionaries who were representing the interests of the landowners and comprador bourgeoisie. After they had vanquished the enemy, the working people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam launched the building of socialist society. Simultaneously, the army was further developed in political and military-technical respects.

p For many years now, the Vietnamese people and its People’s Army have, with the support of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, been heroically fighting US aggression. The US army and the army of the US puppets have been suffering defeat in Vietnam.

p In the Korean People’s Democratic Republic an army of the new type was created in 1948. It was formed of the guerilla detachments organised by the Communist Party during the Korean people’s struggle against the Japanese invaders.

p In the grim war imposed on the Korean people by US imperialism and the Syngman Rhee reactionary regime, the Korean People’s Army proved its high morale and battleworthiness and acquired considerable combat experience.

p The formation of armies of the new type had a number of specific features in the Hungarian People’s Republic and in the German Democratic Republic, too. The old, fascist armies of Hungary and Germany were routed by the Soviet Army. An important form of military assistance to the revolutionary forces of these countries by the Soviet Armed Forces was the prevention by them of the export of counterrevolution to the HPR and the GDR. The working people of these countries were therefore able to implement revolutionary transformations even before they had created armies of the new type.

p True, in Hungary the formation of the Republic’s army was begun in 1945, that is, while the democratic revolution was still in progress. But, before 1947 it could not be 263 considered as being fully an army of the new type. The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, who had the majority in Parliament and in the government, took over the Ministry of Defence and appointed a large number of reactionary officers to commanding positions. These officers did everything in their power to stop the Communists from carrying on political and educational work in the army, wanted to make the army a counter-revolutionary force.

p After the reactionary parties in the country and the government had been defeated, the Communists, relying on the decisive support by the rank-and-file and democratic officers, introduced and directed the reforms aimed at restructuring the army into an army of the socialist type.

p The National People’s Army was formed in the German Democratic Republic in 1956, when the building of socialist society was already in full swing. Therefore, this army was from the very beginning a socialist one as regards its functions, social composition, the principles underlying the political leadership and ideological education of the personnel. Prior to the formation of the National People’s Army the function of the defence of the German Democratic Republic against imperialist aggressors was fulfilled by the Soviet Union and its Armed Forces, and also by other European socialist states and their armies.

p The youngest of the armies of the socialist countries are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. Their predecessors were the revolutionary workers’ and peasants’ guerilla detachments fighting the pro-American dictatorial regime of Batista.

p The triumph of the anti-imperialist general democratic revolution in Cuba made it possible to launch socialist reforms in the country. As a result of these reforms, the revolutionary democratic army became an army of the socialist revolution. The constant threat from US imperialism and the numerous provocations of internal counter- revolutionaries made it necessary to set up armed detachments at enterprises, state farms and in co-operatives—a people’s militia, which, alongside with the Revolutionary Armed Forces, vigilantly protects the gains of the Cuban people.

p The formation of socialist armies in the People’s Democracies was completed after the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship. Of decisive importance were the 264 substantial changes in the principles of the development of the armed forces, the training and education of the personnel, and also of the troop control, which were the result of a number of measures carried out at the initiative and under the leadership of the Communist and Workers’ Parties. These measures consisted in the following:

p 1) the placing of the Ministries of Defence under the leadership of the Communist Parties; the purge of the officer corps from elements hostile to socialist reforms; the appointment to commanding posts in large and small units of officers from among workers, peasants and the people’s intelligentsia;

p 2) the transformation of the national front bodies for cultural and educational work into Party-political bodies;

p 3) the permission by legislation for organisations of the Communist and Workers’ Parties to carry on their activities in large and small units; the definition of their rights and duties in the struggle for the political cohesion of the personnel, for raising the combat readiness of the armed forces, for educating the soldiers in the spirit of the defence of the socialist revolutions in the socialist countries, in the spirit of the Marxist-Leninist ideology;

p 4) the granting of greater authority to the political workers, the assignment to them of rights and duties equal to those of the commanders in dealing with problems affecting the life, combat training and political education in large and small units;

5) the drafting and introduction of new laws on the armed forces, of regulations and manuals, corresponding to the principles of the development, education and discipline in armies of the new type, to the military science of the socialist state.

Development of the Armies of the Socialist States Today

p The course of the socialist construction in the People’s Democracies has wrought major changes in their armed forces.

p Proceeding from the Leninist principle that all military development in a socialist state should be based on the leadership of the armed forces by the Communist Party, the fraternal Parties in the socialist countries have introduced a number of important measures. In all socialist states, including those in which there are several parties, the 265 Communist and Workers’ Parties are effecting the undivided leadership and control over the armed forces. The role and influence of the Party organisations in the armies of the socialist countries have risen considerably and Party- political work has been improved.

p The intensification of the Party leadership in the socialist armies takes into account the specific features of the armed forces and of the country’s development. For example, in the Hungarian People’s Army, the Party leadership is carried out not by political bodies, but by elected Party committees. These and other specific features are explained by differences in the level of the theoretical training and experience of the commanders and political workers, and by the prevailing traditions in the organisation of Partypolitical work.

p A crucial factor in the development of the socialist armies is the replacement of officers who formerly served in the bourgeois armies by well-trained officers from among workers, peasants and the people’s intelligentsia. Thus, in the National People’s Army of the GDR nine-tenths of the officers were in the past workers and peasants, one-tenth— members of the people’s intelligentsia. Most of the officers are members of the Marxist-Leninist Party. In the Bulgarian People’s Army 85 per cent of the officers are members of the Bulgarian Communist Party, while in the Polish Army 75 per cent of the officers are members of the Polish United Workers’ Party. The following figures illustrate the level of the military and technical training of the officer corps: in the pre-war Polish Army only 5 per cent of the officers had a higher military education, in the present Polish Army 25 per cent of the officers have a higher education.

p Enormous changes have taken place also in the composition of the non-commissioned officers and privates. A large part of the young people joining the army have a secondary or incomplete secondary education. The political awareness of the non-commissioned officers and privates has also grown substantially.

p The commanders in the armed forces of the socialist countries rely on the collective wisdom and authority of the Party organisations, on their ability to mobilise and direct the energy of the soldiers. While there are certain differences in the forms of organisation and in the methods 266 of leadership in the various armed forces, they all have the following in common—the social and ideological unity of the personnel, the unity of military-theoretical views, the leading and guiding role of the Marxist-Leninist Parties.

p Much attention is given to strengthening the links between the army and the people. Although these links take different forms, the most important among them are the participation of the soldiers in socialist construction and the participation of the working people in the strengthening of the country’s defences. When off-duty, soldiers help the working people in the factories and in the agricultural producer co-operatives to develop the socialist economy. In turn the working people actively promote the improvement of the armed forces. Detachments of the people’s militia have been set up in Czechoslovakia, of workers’ militia in Hungary, of armed workers in the GDR, and people’s volunteer corps in some other countries.

p A regularity in the development of socialist armies is the consolidation of their mutual links within the framework of the socialist community.

p As we noted above, an irreversible process of erosion is at work in the imperialist blocs; the contradictions between the countries participating in .those blocs deepen and intensify, and the working masses struggle against the participation in imperialist blocs of all kinds, against all forms of subordination to the US diktat in those blocs.

p Conversely, in the Warsaw Treaty countries the further consolidation of the socio-political unity of the working class, the co-operated peasantry and the people’s intelligentsia on the basis of the full victory of socialist relations of production, the extension of economic co-operation, of the international socialist division of labour and the cooperation of production, form the objective factors promoting the development of the socio-political and economic basis for the military co-operation between the peoples and the armed forces of the socialist states. The community of political aims and ideology, faithfulness to the MarxistLeninist teaching and to proletarian internationalism, and the improvement of the organisational forms for the consolidation of the unity of the fraternal Parties, states, peoples and armies are the subjective factors for the further strengthening of the Warsaw Treaty.

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p In the face of the growing aggressive actions by the imperialist forces the mechanism of the Warsaw Treaty is growing stronger. The armies of the Warsaw Treaty countries are equipped with the most up-to-date weapons. In field training, in the air and at sea, co-operation practice between the armed forces of the allied states is developed, the power of modern weapons is tested and the fraternity of the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact countries is strengthened. Very important in this respect were the joint exercises October Storm in the GDR, the Vltava exercises in Czechoslovakia, the Rodopy exercises in Bulgaria and others.

p The consolidation of the unity and military might of the Warsaw Treaty is important not only for the joint defence of the gains of the socialist countries. The powerful defensive weapons of these states, which are forged by the collective efforts of the peoples of the socialist community, are at the same time weapons of freedom for those waging an armed struggle against imperialism, are a bulwark of peace for those fighting to avert a new world war.

p Relations of equality, sovereignty and the independence of the socialist states and their armies are the prerequisite for genuine collectivity in the joint discussion of all essential issues. Collective discussions help to work out the most effective decisions, to prevent mistakes and promote a better mutual understanding between the state and military leaders of the Warsaw Treaty member-countries.

p The education of the soldiers of the fraternal armies in the spirit of the indestructible ideological and military collaboration with the Soviet Armed Forces is indissolubly linked with the mastery and creative use of the advanced experience of the Soviet Army and the principles of Soviet military science, on which the development of the military science of all the other socialist states is based. In turn Soviet servicemen study the experience in combat training and political education gained by the fraternal armies carefully and deeply, and take into account their achievements in the development of military theory and practice.

The experience in the development of the armies of the socialist countries clearly shows that the essential distinctions in the principles, forms and methods of this development, which were more or less pronounced at the beginning of the organisation of the armies of the new type, are now 268 losing their importance and are disappearing; and that common regularities are asserting themselves ever more strongly, regularities stemming from the socialist nature of the social system, the social, political and ideological unity of the peoples in the socialist community.