Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780700610372)

From 1926 to 1933, a vast transformation swept through the Soviet Union, a massive militarization of society that was as powerful and far-reaching as the Revolution itself. In Hammer and Rifle, David Stone chronicles this transformation and shows why it is so central to our understanding of Stalin's emergence and consolidation of power.

While collectivization dramatically altered rural Russia and Stalin ruthlessly secured his control over the state apparatus, a military-industrial revolution remade the USSR into an immensely powerful war machine. As Stone reveals, the militarization of the Soviet economy--marked by a rapidly expanding defense industry, increasing centralized control, and growing military influence over economic policies--was an essential element in Stalin's strong-armed revolution from above.

Spurred by the Bolsheviks' unrelenting suspicions of other nations, the Soviet state embraced rearmament and military preparedness as its guarantee for national survival. Soviet military thinkers, Stone shows, pushed for a ruthlessly centralized economy--one requiring total integration of state and society--as the necessary means for achieving victory in future wars. The result was an ever upwardly spiraling defense budget and increasing military domination of civilian society.

Stone demonstrates how this domination emerged, evolved, and entrenched itself. But he also suggests that this military-industrial revolution, theoretically designed to protect the Soviet Union's national security, instead nearly destroyed it at the beginning of World War II. The rigid and inflexible economy that resulted ultimately undermined the Soviet state itself, destroying from within much of what it had tried to defend.

Based on unprecedented use of new archival sources, Stone's study also provides a cautionary tale about civil-military relations in an increasingly dangerous world. As such, it should appeal to readers well beyond those interested in Russian and Soviet history.

Author: David R. Stone
ISBN-10: 0700610375
ISBN-13: 9780700610372
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Language: English
Published: 09/19/2000
Pages: 296
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.31lbs
Size: 9.27h x 6.33w x 1.07d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/07/2000 pg. 86
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2000 pg. 190
Choice 03/01/2001 pg. 1325
Publishers Weekly 08/04/2000