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10PEDAGOGY
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WORKERS' AND PEASANTS' RED ARMY MILITARY REFORM OF 1923-1928 YEARS FOR EDUCATION OF MILITARY SPECIALISTS
Tychyna I. V.
Ukraine, Zhytomyr, Zhytomyr Military Institute named after S. P. Korolyov
Abstract. The article deals with the striking changes in military organization of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in 1923-1928 years. The most important measures of those period such as: the introduction of territorial militia system together with the regular Red Army; creating national units; organizational restructuring and strengthening management of the Armed Forces; improving the structure and operation of the military system; change of units and formations organizational structure; military personnel system reorganization; development and implementation of new regulations in the army and other measures are disclosed.
It is determined the drawbacks of military specialists training of that period. Despite the existence of sufficient military schools, they did not provide the required number of specialists because of such reasons: most of teachers and staff didn't have practical experience of war; poor logistics; no methods of education and so on. The article depicts the directions of military education reorganization of the studied period.
Therefore, it is analyzed the historical experience of military reform of 1923-1928 and its importance for the education and training of prospective military specialists.
Keywords: the Red Army, military reform, cadet, military school, military specialists, reorganization, territorial militia system.
Nowadays an interest grows around military education and its military-educational past and a question arises before us how to teach a real military specialist. The processes in the Armed Forces of Ukraine which are taking place today are very similar to the changes inherent in military formation during their creation and development in the Soviet Union during 1923-1928 years. The decisions which were made during the period of military reform affected the further development of the Armed Forces and military education.
The creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (Red Army) had two periods of its construction:
I period (1918-1920) was the creation, growth and fight against internal and external enemies of the revolution;
II period lasted until 1924 - the postwar demobilization, reorganization and transition to peacetime [1].
The most important step in the development of the Armed Forces was the period from 1923 till 1928 when the military and political leadership steps were made to reconstruct the Red Army. On the 4 February, 1924 subcommittee was established to create a plan of reform. The plan was to address the following important issues: strengthening of command and control military system, consolidation of education and training in the army.
The reform of the 20s hold measures of entire radical reorganization of military system. The most important of these were: the introduction of territorial militia system together with the regular Red Army; creation of national units; organizational restructuring and strengthening of the Armed Forces; improving the structure and operation of military system; change of units and formations organizational structure; restructuring of the military personnel system; unity of command input; development and implementation of new regulations in the army and others.
In difficult times of interwar building, the country was unable to maintain five million army, so in 1921 the gradual demobilization of the Armed Forces began. Demobilization was carried out in three stages:
• Stage I (December 1920 - December 1921) the Red Army was reduced from 5.6 million to 1.6 million;
• Stage II (May - October 1922) the number of army is reduced up to 800,000;
• Stage III (January - February 1923) the total number of the Armed Forces was increased to 600 000 people, that was more than 10 times.
Dramatically reducing the size of the army, the Soviet leadership tried to improve the quality and strength of it. One of the key levers of the army as raising combat readiness was to preserve and consolidate the party nucleus [1].
One of the most important steps of military reform was a transition to a mixed system of recruitment. It was forced and necessitated transformation:
a) to ensure all worthy preparation of all conscripts for military service [2];
b) to have the appropriate number of military units.
"We know the way out - said M.V. Frunze - it is in conjunction of the regular army and militia system. The formation of territorial militia units allows us to increase the number of people who serve in the ranks of our army ... This system allows to be in service without discontinuing work. We don't have another way in accordance to these conditions and strength of our personnel "[3].
On August 8, 1923 the Central Election Commission and the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree "The organization of territorial units and providing of the workers' military training ", according to this document strict procedures of organizing territorial units and serve in them were placed [4].
It was supposed that the formation of the territorial units consists of personnel (permanent staff), who are on military service in the regular army. In the nonpermanent staff those military who fit the acceptance must undergo a three-month military training for civilians. Those who are accepted to nonpermanent personnel of the territorial units must obey the rules of service [5].
The formation of territorial militia units was under way. In April 1926, 49 infantry divisions, 3 infantry regiment and 1 armored regiment became territorial. There were 98,081 people of regular personnel and 563,853 people of nonpermanent personnel [6].
Also the reforms focused on improving the combat element of the army, namely to equip it by modern means of warfare, to use more sustainable methods of recruitment, to create the best organizational structure of troops, to improve warfare techniques and methods. Unfortunately the military reform didn't rearm the Armed forces, because of low material basis of the Soviet Union.
The expenses were reduced on maintaining the army. At the same time fighting capability and combat readiness were maintained at a high level and it was achieved mainly by reducing expenditures on social and domestic needs of military personnel.
During the reform the attention was paid on national peculiarities of regions. The education of military subjects in national units was in their native language. Also they were taught executive commands in Russian. The knowledge of Russian language was obligatory for commanders [7].
The program of national building also decided that in regions where the population was on service before the revolution to create the national divisions, and where the citizens were not liable for call-up, it was decided to create military schools and small subdivisions, and then on their basis the national units and formations were formed.
In 1926 infantry and cavalry national divisions and regiments were created in Ukraine, Belarus and other national republics. As a results in 1925 there were founded 18 national military schools, in addition, the measures were taken to increase the non-Russian nationalities representatives in other military schools. On 1 October, 1923 23.7% of cadets of this category studied there, and in 1925 there were almost 34% of them [8].
At that time, military specialists were prepared by the following types of military schools as: academies (in Russia), high schools, postgraduate courses and schools of normal type.
Despite the existence of sufficient military schools, they didn't provide the required number of specialists according to the following reasons:
- the majority of military schools and courses were staffed by teachers and instructors who didn't have practical experience (didn't participate in the Civil War);
- because of many different types of institutions, as well as poor logistics, and command and teaching staff were not prepared sufficiently [9];
- teaching was theoretical mainly, it differed from practice of troops and from experience of the Civil War;
- teaching of many subjects dominated at the educational process, there were no formed methods of learning, and the requirements to graduators' knowledge were single;
- the number of trained officers in nonpermanent units exceeded the needs, but there was a lack of command personnel of technical specialties (aviation, communications and etc.).
- it was necessary to reform the political, ideological and educational work with cadets and students due to new historical conditions.
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Thus, the reorganization of military personnel training was decided to carry out in accordance to the following directions:
- to form a complete and consistent system;
- the number of military schools must meet the real needs of the army;
- to change the programs and teaching methods and to improve the quality of education;
- to strengthen and upgrade the command and teaching staff.
Military education was divided into two main types during the reform: secondary (after the end of normal military school) and higher (after the graduation from an academy). Accordingly there were three types of schools:
- normal military training school with the period of 3-4 years of education;
- postgraduate courses for officers and higher military training school for 1 year period;
- military training academies for a period of 3-5 years of education.
Analyzing the transformation of military personnel training, Voroshylov said at a grand meeting by reason of graduation of Red commanders on Sept. 10, 1926: "We can already say with pride that this is a huge and difficult task to create a command staff who is worthy to lead our Red Army and this have already been solved on 75%. From 48 thousand of Red commanders we have more than 34 thousand who graduated from our normal schools or short-term courses "[10].
Thus, the reformed system of training allowed the army to provide the necessary number of command staff that met the requirements of that time. Based on the made research of the military reform of 1923-1928 such conclusions may be done:
1. In the given period it was introduced a mixed system of recruitment, which combines regular army and territorial militia system. The gained experience showed that the system did not provide the proper level of combat and political training of troops, their cohesion and a strong military discipline.
2. It was reorganized and reduced the central military staff that allowed to improve government system.
3. The size of the army was stabilized, the firm and regulated system of manning the armed forces and military service was set.
4. The entire system of training was changed, curricula were revised, teaching methods were improved.
REFERENCES
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8. Zharkov V. V. The Value of the National Military Units in the Development Of the Soviet Armed Forces in 30s of the 20th Century / V. V. Zharkov / Yaroslavl Pedagogical Bulletin: Scientific Journal / ch. ed. V. V. Afanasyev. - Ed .: YAGPU, Yaroslavl, 2005. - № 3. - 145 p. - Pp. 65-69.
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