64 
preparedness of the Soviet Armed Forces, and generated the need 
for urgent measures to correct the situation. The 1937 program was 
sharply curtailed and the construction of large surface ships stopped. 
However, reallocated capacities and resources did not affect either 
the submarine or small surface combatant construction. Considering 
the condition of the Soviet economy before World War II, the variety 
of ships and particularly submarines, built and under construction 
at the beginning of the war was substantial and negates the notion 
that the Soviet leadership neglected the navy. 
The employment of the Soviet Navy during the war was neither 
brilliant nor disastrous. The land war threatened the existence of 
the Soviet Union as a state. The composition of the enemy forces 
neither created conditions for the application of classical tenets of 
naval warfare nor was the Soviet Navy ready for it or was there 
any need for it. On the other hand, the employment of Soviet naval 
forces, particularly during the initial period of war, was often marked 
by not very imaginative tactics and was handicapped by the lack 
of forces a considerable portion of which were involved in the land 
struggle. The war revealed a number of serious mistakes made in 
the process of naval development. The Northern Fleet was the 
weakest, and its reinforcement was slow. The Soviet Navy had no 
amphibious ships and the formation of naval infantry was delayed. 
The Soviet Navy was lagging behind in the development of influence 
mines and the means to combat them. The antiaircraft defense of 
the Soviet ships was inadequate due to an insufficient number of 
automated and multipurpose guns. The top echelon of the Soviet 
naval command, eliminated during the 1937-38 Stalin purges, was 
replaced by young officers who did not have chance to gain ex- 
perience. Moreover, the atmosphere of terror had to produce suppres- 
sion of initiative and fear of bold action, resulting in a reluctance 
to commit important fleet units to combat. This reluctance was par- 
ticularly evident in the Black Sea Fleet. 
After the war ended, the Soviet Union wasted no time in resuming 
naval construction, despite the considerable destruction to the econo- 
my inflicted by the war. At first, ship designs of the prewar and 
late 1940 periods were built in considerable number, repeating the 
practice of the second half of the 1930’s. The orientation of Soviet 
naval theory and practice in both the prewar period and the first 
postwar decade was clearly defensive, although a considerable number 
of submarines and relatively well developed naval aviation provided 
the Soviet Navy with a limited offensive capability in the peripheral 
waters. Political, and particularly economic, realities for all practical 
purposes prevented the Soviet Navy from obtaining any other capabili- 
ties. Even geography, although improved as a result of World War 
II, has continued to be unfavorable, and the centuries-old problem 
of the Straits remained. With the exception of an unnecessarily large 
number of conventional cruisers and destroyers built up to the mid- 
1950’s, the remaining naval forces developed within the means of 
the Soviet Union did correspond to the role assigned to the Soviet 
Navy. 
For a few years after Stalin’s death, overwhelmed by the victories 
of World War II and particularly by the consequent development 
of nuclear weaponry and missilery, some influential Soviet military 
