186 
Historically, the Soviet national political and military leadership has 
been embodied in a “single military-policy organ” (literally “‘military- 
political organ’’) and this is presumably why it is alternatively referred 
to as the ‘“‘state military-policy leadership.’ '? Since these military- 
policy organs have traditionally been responsible for “‘leadership of 
national defense (oborona strany) and the armed forces,’’ 4 they have 
been consistently designated as ‘“‘defense’”’ councils or committees—the 
Council for Worker-Peasant Defense of 1918-20, the Council for 
Labor and Defense of 1920-37, the Defense Committee of 1937-41, 
the State Defense Committee of 1941-45, and today presumably the 
Defense Committee '° or Higher Defense Council, said to be composed 
of Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgornyy, Ustinov, and Grechko,'® in other 
words, the Party General Secretary, the premier, the head of state, 
the Central Committee secretary in charge of military-technical affairs, 
and the representative of the war department. This composition is 
in line with tradition as far as the war department is concerned. 
Historically the national or state political and military leadership has 
consisted, at most, of a single working representative from the armed 
forces and he has not always been a professional soldier (e.g., Trot- 
skiy).'7 The military leadership of the state, in fact, seems to be 
nothing more than a state political leadership engaged with high- 
level military problems.'8 
‘SA. Grechko, “The Triumph of Leninist Ideas on the Defense of the Socialist Fatherland,” Kom- 
munist Vooruzhennykh Sil (hereafter cited as KVS), No. 20, 1967, p. 37; A. A. Grechko, Vooruz- 
hennye Sily Sovetskogo gosudarstva (Moscow, 1974), 32-35, 81; N. N. Azovtsev, V. I. Lenin i Sovet- 
skaya voennaya nauka (Moscow, 1971), 118; Sokolovskiy, op. cit., 414-426; Col. N. M. Grechanyuk 
in Adm. S. E. Zakharov (ed.), Istoriya voenno-morskogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1969), 142; S. V. Lipit- 
skiy in Strokov (ed.), op. cit., 246, 281; Col. B. Zverev, ‘The Importance of Lenin's Ideas on the 
Defense of Socialism,’’ Morskoy sbornik (hereafter referred to as MS), No. 4, 1975, p. 10; Gen.-Maj. 
V. Zemskov, ‘An Important Factor for Victory in War,’ KZ, 5 Jan 1967. 
“A. A. Grechko (Chairman of the Editorial Commission), Istoriya vtoroy mirovoy voyny 
1939-1945 (Six vols., Moscow, 1973-), I, 237; AZovtsev, op. cit., 111, 252; N. Azovtsev, “V. I. 
Lenin at the Head of Soviet State Defense,” VIZ, No. 4, 1960, p. 22; N. I. Shatagin and I. P. 
Prusanov, Sovetskaya Armiya—armiya novogo tipa (Moscow, 1957), 33; Sokolovskiy, op. cit., 420, 
421, Bol’shaya Sovetskaya entsiklopediya (2nd ed.), XXXIX, 479 and (3rd ed.), VII, 171; Col. I. I. 
Vlasov, V. I. Lenin i stroitel’stvo Sovetskoy Armii (Moscow, 1958), 181; K. E. Voroshilov, Stat’i i 
rechi (Moscow, 1937), 196; Lt.-Col. Yu. I. Korablev and Col. M. I. Loginov (eds.), KPSS i 
stroitel’stvo Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR, 1918-iyun’ 1941 (Moscow, 1959), 242; M. V. Zakharov (ed.), 
50 let Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR (Moscow, 1968), 198-199, 211, 234, 569; K. U. Chernenko and N. 
I. Savinkin (compilers), KPSS o Vooruzhennykh Silakh Sovetskogo Soyuza: dokumenty 1917-1968 
(Moscow, 1969), 277; Gen.-Maj. N. Pankratov and Capt. Ist Rank V. Konovalov, “Imperialism—the 
Guilty Party in Unleashing the Second World War,” VIZ, No. 10, 1974, p. 104; Krasil’nikov and 
Yakovlev, op. cit., 66. See also the articles by Cols. Yu. I. Korablev and V. A. Matsulenko in Gen.- 
Col. A. S. Zheltov (ed.), V. I. Lenin i Sovetskie Vooruzhennye Sily, 139, 435. 
Statement of David E. Mark in Joint Economic Committee, Congress of U.S., The Military 
Budget and National Economic Priorities, Part 3 (Wash., GPO, 1969), 956. 
'®Raymond L. Garthoff, “SALT and the Soviet Military,” Problems of Communism, XXIV, No. 1 
(Jan.-Feb), 1975, p. 29. It has been reported that Krushchev made the decision to withdraw Soviet 
offensive weapons from Cuba in 1962 in consultation apparently with a small group of col- 
leagues—Mikoyan, Kosygin, Suslov, Brezhnev, Kozlov—constituting a “‘Soviet National Security 
Council." Thus we would have the Party First Secretary and his two main deputies (Khrushchev, 
Kozlov, Suslov), the Premier and his two first deputies (Krushchev, Mikoyan, Kosygin) and the 
Chairman of the Supreme Sovict Presidium (Brezhnev). The absence of a representative from the 
war department is conspicuous. Cf. Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, Staffing 
Procedures and Problems in the Soviet Union (Wash., GPO, 1968), 25. 
V.K. Vysotskiy, A. S. Georgievskiy et al., Tyl Sovetskoy Armii (Moscow, 1968), 9,111; Zak- 
harov (ed.), 50 let Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR, 56-57, 199, 456; Hans Jonas, “The Organization of 
Economic Life™ in Gerhard Debbert (ed.), Soviet Economics (London, 1933), 27; Chernenko and 
Savinkin (compilers), op.cit.; 277; Gen of the Army A. Epishev, “The Leninist Party—Organizer of 
Victory in the Great Patriotic War,”’ Kommunist, No. 2, 1975, 167; Gen. of the Army A. Khrulev, 
“Stabilization of the Strategic Rear in the Great Patriotic War,’ VIZ, No. 6, 1961, pp. 66, 67; 
Bol’shaya Sovetskaya entsiklopediya (2nd ed.) V, 23, VI, 260, VII, 163, IX, 130, XIX, 283, XXVI, 
146, XXVII, 431, XXVIII, 154, XXXIX, 477. 
'*M. V. Zakharov, O nauchnom podkhoda k rukovodstvu voyskami (Moscow, 1967), 23; Col. A. 
A. Strokov in A. S. Zheltov (ed.), op. cit., 205; S. V. Lipitskiy in Strokov (ed.), op. cit., 246; Azovt- 
sev, V. I. Lenin i Sovetskaya voennaya nauka, 112, 188, 340. 
