Reform, Foreign Technology, and Leadership in the Russian Imperial and Soviet Navies, 1881–1941
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REFORM, FOREIGN TECHNOLOGY, AND LEADERSHIP IN THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET NAVIES, 1881–1941 by TONY EUGENE DEMCHAK B.A., University of Dayton, 2005 M.A., University of Illinois, 2007 AN ABSTRACT OF A DISSERTATION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History College of Arts and Sciences KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2016 Abstract This dissertation examines the shifting patterns of naval reform and the implementation of foreign technology in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union from Alexander III’s ascension to the Imperial throne in 1881 up to the outset of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. During this period, neither the Russian Imperial Fleet nor the Red Navy had a coherent, overall strategic plan. Instead, the expansion and modernization of the fleet was left largely to the whims of the ruler or his chosen representative. The Russian Imperial period, prior to the Russo-Japanese War, was characterized by the overbearing influence of General Admiral Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, who haphazardly directed acquisition efforts and systematically opposed efforts to deal with the potential threat that Japan posed. The Russo-Japanese War and subsequent downfall of the Grand Duke forced Emperor Nicholas II to assert his own opinions, which vacillated between a coastal defense navy and a powerful battleship-centered navy superior to the one at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. In the Soviet era, the dominant trend was benign neglect, as the Red Navy enjoyed relative autonomy for most of the 1920s, even as the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921 ended the Red Navy’s independence from the Red Army. M. V. Frunze, the People’s Commissar of the Army of Navy for eighteen months in 1925 and 1926, shifted the navy from the vaguely Mahanian theoretical traditions of the past to a modern, proletarian vision of a navy devoted to joint actions with the army and a fleet composed mainly of submarines and light surface vessels. As in the Imperial period, these were general guidelines rather than an all- encompassing policy. The pattern of benign neglect was shattered only in 1935, when Stalin unilaterally imposed his own designs for a mighty offensive fleet on the Soviet military, a plan that was only interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. REFORM, FOREIGN TECHNOLOGY, AND LEADERSHIP IN THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET NAVIES, 1881–1941 by TONY EUGENE DEMCHAK B.A., University of Dayton, 2005 M.A., University of Illinois, 2007 A DISSERTATION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History College of Arts and Sciences KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2016 Approved by: Co-Major Professor David R. Stone Approved by: Co-Major Professor Michael A. Krysko Copyright TONY EUGENE DEMCHAK 2016 Abstract This dissertation examines the shifting patterns of naval reform and the implementation of foreign technology in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union from Alexander III’s ascension to the Imperial throne in 1881 up to the outset of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. During this period, neither the Russian Imperial Fleet nor the Red Navy had a coherent, overall strategic plan. Instead, the expansion and modernization of the fleet was left largely to the whims of the ruler or his chosen representative. The Russian Imperial period, prior to the Russo-Japanese War, was characterized by the overbearing influence of General Admiral Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, who haphazardly directed acquisition efforts and systematically opposed efforts to deal with the potential threat that Japan posed. The Russo-Japanese War and subsequent downfall of the Grand Duke forced Emperor Nicholas II to assert his own opinions, which vacillated between a coastal defense navy and a powerful battleship-centered navy superior to the one at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. In the Soviet era, the dominant trend was benign neglect, as the Red Navy enjoyed relative autonomy for most of the 1920s, even as the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921 ended the Red Navy’s independence from the Red Army. M. V. Frunze, the People’s Commissar of the Army of Navy for eighteen months in 1925 and 1926, shifted the navy from the vaguely Mahanian theoretical traditions of the past to a modern, proletarian vision of a navy devoted to joint actions with the army and a fleet composed mainly of submarines and light surface vessels. As in the Imperial period, these were general guidelines rather than an all- encompassing policy. The pattern of benign neglect was shattered only in 1935, when Stalin unilaterally imposed his own designs for a mighty offensive fleet on the Soviet military, a plan that was only interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Table of Contents List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... x A note on transliteration and archival sources .............................................................................. xii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... xiv Dedication ................................................................................................................................... xvii Introduction ................................................................................................................................ xviii Chapter 1 - The construction and destruction of Russia’s first modern fleet: 1881–1905 ............. 1 Alexander III and Alexei Alexandrovich .................................................................................... 1 Nicholas II and the Imperial Fleet prior to the Russo-Japanese War ....................................... 16 The 1898 supplement and foreign technology prior to the war ................................................ 28 The Russo-Japanese War and foreign technology .................................................................... 45 Chapter 2 - Experimentation and missed opportunities: 1905–1911 ............................................ 66 Perceptions of defeat and prescriptions for reconstruction ....................................................... 69 Birilev and the first steps towards a new navy ......................................................................... 96 Dikov, the Duma, and the “small shipbuilding program” ...................................................... 112 Voevodskii, the Naval General Staff, and foreign technology ............................................... 138 Chapter 3 - I. K. Grigorovich and World War I, 1911–1918 ...................................................... 153 Grigorovich as Deputy Naval Minister ................................................................................... 156 Grigorovich as Naval Minister and the fleet prior to World War I ........................................ 162 The Naval Ministry and World War I at sea ........................................................................... 186 Pre-war strategy in the Baltic Sea ....................................................................................... 192 Pre-war strategy in the Black Sea ....................................................................................... 201 The war at sea and supplementing the Russian navy .......................................................... 213 Chapter 4 - The Soviet navy under Lenin and Stalin, 1918–1929 .............................................. 238 The Red Navy and the Russian Civil War .............................................................................. 241 The Kronstadt Rebellion and the traditionalists ..................................................................... 250 vi The transition from Lenin to Stalin and the rise of the modernists ........................................ 267 Voroshilov, Muklevich, and the development of a new shipbuilding program ..................... 276 The Soviet Navy and the first Five Year Plan ........................................................................ 289 Chapter 5 - The restoration of an independent fleet, 1929–1941 ............................................... 297 The Orlov commission and relations with the German navy ................................................. 300 The rise of Orlov and the end of the traditionalists ................................................................ 314 Orlov as Chief of the UVMS and the Second Five-Year Plan ............................................... 324 Stalin and the navy .................................................................................................................. 348 The Great Terror and the reform of the navy .......................................................................... 367 Kuznetsov as NKVMF in the years before World War II ...................................................... 375 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 390 Appendix: Heads of the Imperial and Soviet Navies to 1946 ..................................................... 395 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................................