VERY POWERFUL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4560, 15 April 1942, Page 6

VERY POWERFUL

MACHINES IN MODERN WAR NO SECRET ABOUT RED ARMY’S STRENGTH TREMENDOUS MANPOWER AVAILABLE WTiat is the secret of this Red Army which the world said would be smashed in a few weeks or months when the German panzer divisions swept into Russia in June, 1941 ? How has this army of peasants and

industrial workers been able to push back the Germans on a front from the Arctic to the Black Sea after months of the bloodiest battles the world has known ? The Red Army's strength is based on the Soviet’s natural resources, her tremendous manpower reserves, her modern industrial system, her high morale. But the real secret of the Red Army is that it was planned on the truth so tragically obvious to-day that machines are more powerful than men. Only two nations—Germany and Russia—learnt this embryonic lesson of the last war. France; which did not learn it, has lost its independence. We are inclined to forget that there is nothing miraculous, unexplainable,

or unexpected in the rise of the Red Army. On one hand, the men who formed and- built it were realists,, not sentimental traditionalists. FAST MOVING AND RUTHLESS They saw that the future war would be a machine war, fast moving, ruthless, with the tank and plane playing the biggest roles. Voroshilov knew what he was talking about when, in 1930, he told the Party Congress:— “The basis for the arming of our country lies in the accelerated development of our economic system, in the increase of metallurgical production, chemical industries, cars, tractors, and our engineering industries.” Soviet leaders and people buckled down to the first Five-year Plan, placed Russia among the world’s big industrial Powers. By 1938 she was first in Europe in production of oil, aeroplanes, lorries, tractors, locomotives and railway rolling stock. Second in production of steel and pig iron, aluminium, lead, nickel and coke. . The magnitude of Soviet industrialisation has been recognised for years, but the Red Army has been under-estimated by most military experts and political leaders since its formation by Leon Trotsky after the Russian Revolution. Yet from 1930 Russia’s army ‘has lived through a period of permanent technical revolution, its leaders learning all the answers to the latest military problems. NETWORK OF TRAINING SCHOOLS Experts say that since the first Five-year Plan the Red Army changed into a new type of army every two years. Its first real spring cleaning occurred between 1924 and 1928, when it was entirely reorganised, its training schedules intensified, and new methods adopted. Modern field service regulations were introduced, and a network of military training schools and academies set up. By 1933 the Red Army was a new army—highly mechanised, equipped with heavy and light artillery, antiaircraft and anti-tank guns. It had enormous numbers of tanks of the most modern types, and was

considered almost equal to the

French army—then the finest in Europe. With the advent of Hitler, the Soviet military budget jumped nearly five times. And in 1935 the standing army was increased from 562,000 to 900,000, and about half the soldiers were technical specialists. The air force then had between 4000 and 5000 first-line planes and the army 10,000 tanks. Far-sighted military experts said the Red Army had achieved world leadership—and could maintain it. But most of them were laughed at. From 1935 to 1938 the Soviet spent about a quarter of its total budget on the Red Army. In 1940 expenditure was a third of the budget. In this period standing army personnel jumped to 1,300,000, tank strength to between 15,000 and 20,000 and air power to about 10,000. THIRTEEN MILLION RESERVES By 1939, when the Soviet had formed a tough shock army on its western frontier, the Red Army was numerically superior to all other armies’ and propably equal in technical resources and war preparedness to the German Army. When Germany invaded Russia the Red Army« could call on about 13,000,000 trained reserves, excluding technically trained men—an almost inexhaustible supply. Red Army training has been described as exhaustively efficient. Before the war infantry were expected to march 40 miles a day; there were airmen who had flown 600,000 miles in 7000 flights; tank divers who stayed 2500 hours at their controls; tanks which had travelled 4000 miles, tanks which travelled 600 miles at a time without mechanical defects, tanks which travelled 300 miles through water. The Red Army is a military machine, school, and political organisation in one. No other army in the world pays greater attention to the education of its men. It has innumerable schools and more than 2000 libraries, and every soldier must have some general knowledge of modern and classical literature. Max Werner “Military Strength of the Powers”) says: “Complete political reliability and high morale, together with powerful economic backing and modern technique, are the main factors of Red Army strength.” Stalin evidently thought the same when, on the anniversary of Red Army Day after eight months of retreat, counter-attack, slow advance in sub-zero weather, and terrific losses in men and machines—he said:—

“We never doubted that the enemy would be halted and eventually routed. The time has arrived for the Red Army to take the offensive. The initiative is in our hands.”