92 
while candidate members declined from twelve to five, the latter is 
the byproduct of both upgradings to full membership and the deaths 
of four semiretired marshals since the previous party congress. From 
1971, the armed services had a total of 20 full (1.e., voting) members 
of the Central Committee; 15 of these were ground force officers, 
the other four branches and the MPA having only one apiece. Since 
1961 the ground forces have steadily increased their share of full 
members on the Central Committee, the largest jump being in 1971. 
In contrast, the navy had two full members in 1961, but dropped 
back to one in 1966, and remained there in 1971. 
GORSHKOV’S PERSONAL STANDING 
Gorshkov’s reputation in the West derives entirely from his position 
as Commander-in-Chief during a period in which the Soviet Navy 
has achieved high visibility as the result of the decision to shift to 
forward deployment. But there is in fact little evidence to support 
the notion that skillful political maneuvering by Gorshkov is responsi- 
ble for what is assumed to be the Soviet Navy’s favorable institutional 
position. To give him the credit for the present size, shape and deploy- 
ment of the Soviet Navy is to ignore the fact that throughout Gorsh- 
kov’s incumbency, the Soviet Union has been faced with a substantial 
and growing capabilities-threat of nuclear attack from distant sea 
areas—a threat which has been of direct concern to the higher politi- 
cal leadership. One could as well suggest that it is the man with 
the paddle who provides motive power to a canoe being borne down 
the rapids. It is not even clear that Gorshkov has been very successful 
in using his paddle to steer with. 
Until his recent series of articles, there were few indications that 
Gorshkov was a long-standing advocate of far-flung, balanced fleets; 
one could argue the reverse. Twenty years ago, he was brought to 
Moscow by Khrushchev to implement decisions which were primarily 
designed to release resources to the civilian economy. If they had 
been carried through they would have resulted in a task-specific, 
defensively oriented navy, more firmly tied to home waters than at 
any time in its history. The 1957-58 decisions (which were prompted 
by Western technological advances), would have partly broken these 
ties, to end up with an unbalanced fleet, depending wholly on sub- 
marines and aircraft for distant operations. 
While it can be argued that these particular procurement decisions 
derived directly from the political leadership, no such defense can 
be offered where combat capabilities and operational readiness were 
concerned. Yet the shift to forward deployment seems to have come 
as an unwelcome surprise to the Soviet Navy, which was operationally 
ill-prepared for the move. As late as 1963, 7 years after he had 
taken over as Commander-in-Chief, Gorshkov had to lecture the fleet 
on the need to get to sea and stay there, so as to develop an 
ocean-going all-weather capability.** Gorshkov has subsequently 
referred to the need to ‘‘meet the qualitatively new requirements” 
which involved the ‘“‘organic restructuring of the navy and the reorien- 
tation of traditional naval’ policy’’.*4 This is hardly the picture of 
a navy straining at the political leash. 
«Krasnaya Zvezda”, 5 February 1963. 
*41bid., 11 February 1968. 
