188 
council is unknown to me. However, if precedent is a reliable guide,” 
it presumably consists of senior military professionals (at least the 
Minister of Defense, the Chief of the General Staff and the head 
of the Warsaw Pact forces), the Chief of the Main Political Adminis- 
tration of the Soviet Army and Navy and senior representatives of 
the party and state administrations (Brezhnev at least and possibly 
others). In Stalin’s day (after 1941) and in Khrushchev’s day (probably 
after 1957), the Party vozhd’ chaired these councils and commands 
apparently on the strength of this position as Supreme High Com- 
mander, but with this post now presumably vacant, one might expect 
a reversion to the earlier tradition of ministerial chairmanship 
(Grechko). 4 
The distinction between the Higher Defense Council and the Higher 
or Main Military Council can perhaps be broadly illuminated by ex- 
amining Soviet discussions of the U.S. institutional setup. In the Soviet 
view, the ‘U.S. political and military leadership” is embodied in the 
‘‘National Security Council headed by the President,” which is the 
“higher military-political organ of government”’ and, as such, responsi- 
ble for formulating ‘“‘military policy and military doctrine” (also 
referred to as “political and military doctrine” and ‘‘military-political 
doctrine”’). On the other hand, “‘‘leadership of the U.S. armed forces” 
is carried out by “the Pentagon.’’ More specifically, “in peacetime” 
the Defense Department “‘directly leads the armed forces,” while ‘in 
wartime the Joint Chiefs of Staff... constitute the higher organ 
of strategic leadership of the armed forces.” ”® 
MILITARY DOCTRINE AND MILITARY SCIENCE 
In discussions of military affairs, Soviet commentators have two 
choices: they can speak in the framework of military doctrine or 
in the framework of military science. The major differences between 
the two lie in degree of authoritativeness, scope of subject-matter 
coverage and temporal focus. In treating the Gorshkov series—or any 
other Soviet military work—we have to keep these three areas of 
difference in mind. 
*> Petrov, Partiynoe stroitel’stvo v Sovetskoy Armii i Flote, 165, 306; ‘The Report of M. V. Frunze 
‘On the Results of Reorganizing the Red Army,” VIZ, No. 6, 1966, p. 69; Petrov, Stroitel’stvo poli- 
torganov, partiynikh i komsol’skikh organizatsii Armii i Flota, 531; Korablev and Loginov (eds), op. 
cit., 399-400; P. N. Pospelov (Chairman of Editorial Commission), Istoriya Velikoy Otechestvennoy 
voyny Sovetskogo Soyuza 1941-1945 (six vols., Moscow, 1960-65), I, 97, 489; Zakharov (ed.), 50 
let Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR, 199, 234, 256; Gen.-Maj. N. Pankratov and Col. A. Popov, “‘Inspirer 
and Organizer of the Soviet People’s Victory,” KVS, No. 9, 1975. 
26 Zemskov, op. cit.; Gen.-Maj. M. A. Mil’shteyn, Preface to the Russian Edition of Maxwell 
Taylor, Nenadezhnaya strategiya (Moscow, 1961), 6-7; N. S. Solodovnik, “Changes in U.S. Military 
Policy and Military Doctrine at the End of the Sixties and Beginning of the Seventies,” in V. M. 
Kulish, M. S. Solodovnik et al., Voennaya sila i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya (Moscow, 1972), 60; 
A.M. Dudin and Yu. N. Listvinov, “Contradictions of the New Stage of the Arms Race,” ibid., 105; 
Cols. V. Il. Ezhakov and S. T. Mazhorov in Strokov (ed.), op. cit., 498; Sokolovskiy, op. cit., 33; 
411-412; A. A. Gromyko, “Present Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy,” SShA, No. 4, 1972, tr. by Joint 
Publications Research Service, JPRS 55986, 15 May 72, p. 65; Speech of Comrade A. A. Grechko, 
XXIV s* ezd Kommunisticheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza, 30 Marta—9 Apreclya 1971 goda: 
stenograficheskiy otchet (Moscow, 1971), I, 347; Gen.-Maj. I. D. Dement’ev, “The Armed Forces of 
the Imperialist States,’ in Kozlov (compiler), Spravochnik ofitsera, 238. 
