119 
by the end of the war “superiority among surface forces had com- 
pletely shifted to aircraft carriers.” (72/11/32/6: 108/1/2) And toward 
the end of that chapter, when he mentions that ‘‘each of the great 
owers strove to insure decisive superiority for their navies”’ 
(72/11/34/4: 109/2/1), he does not take the opportunity to denigrate 
the U.S. Navy’s emphasis on attack carriers. Perhaps of greater interest 
is his reference to carriers in the chapter discussing the role of navies 
in peacetime. He points out that whereas in the past the naval threat 
was limited to the range of guns, “warships today carry nuclear mis- 
siles and aircraft, whose range can cover the entire territory of foreign 
states.” (72/12/16/4: 115/1/4) This comes in a paragraph extolling 
navies’ unique capability to project power ashore in distant waters. 
None of this is very conclusive. Possibly more significant is one 
of the ‘‘Leninist Principles of Soviet Military Science” which Gorshkov 
chooses to highlight in chapter IX, quoting Lenin’s own words. 
(Lenin) sharply criticized a scornful attitude toward evaluating 
the forces and capabilities of the enemy, and alway demanded 
a study of the enemy and his strong and weak points. “‘Everyone 
agrees that the conduct of an army which does not train itself 
to master all forms of weaponry, and all means and devices of 
combat which an adversary has or could have, is foolish or even 
criminal.”’ On a theoretical plane, this principle, which is of real 
import even today, determined the proper extent of our borrowing 
in military science, which takes the form of our using individual 
elements and achievements of bourgeois military art. (72/6/12/7: 
55/2/1) 
The aircraft carrier is the only type of weapon system which the 
U.S. Navy possesses and the Soviet Navy lacks. If we allow that 
Gorshkov is in fact referring to carriers, then he is using Lenin’s 
principles to say three things. (1) Don’t underrate the capabilities 
of U.S. attack carriers. (2) Since the United States has attack carriers, 
Lenin’s dictum requires the Soviet Union to have them as well. (3) 
Do not be deterred by the fact that the use of carriers derives from 
Western military art and has so far been rejected by Soviet military 
art; Lenin’s dictum provides justification for appropriating successful 
elements of bourgeois military art. It also happens to be one which 
is very rarely quoted. 
If we are right in concluding that Gorshkov is arguing for a better 
balanced fleet in order to enable a more assertive use of naval power 
in peacetime (among other things), then it would be logical for him 
to advocate the acquisition of proper aircraft carriers as opposed 
to (or as well as), antisubmarine cruisers which have a V/STOL capa- 
bility. Carriers are the general-purpose warship par excellence and 
have an unrivaled capability for operating in a hostile maritime en- 
vironment and projecting military force against targets ashore. 
OPERATIONAL CONCEPTS 
In his review of the interwar years, Gorshkov explicitly identifies 
two opposing schools of naval thought. A misguided, defensively 
oriented, narrowly defined strategy, which emphasized the defensive 
use of submarines. And a correctly perceived, offensively oriented 
outward-looking strategy—which was not however adopted. 
