The Evening Star (June 3, 1946)
6,000,000 Russians reported under arms; 10,000,000 released
NUERNBERG (AP) – Although Russia has released more than 10,000,000 men from military service in the last 10 months, she still has approximately 6,000,000 under arms, according to the best information available to Allied military authorities.
One high Allied military source estimated the Red Army – which he described as the most powerful ground force in the world – now has a strength of about 4,500,000 men, while the air force, navy and NKVD (internal police) total 1,500,000 more.
This source declared that Russia was preparing to reduce her standing army to a long-range level of 3,000,000, but he pointed out that the Red Army is so constituted that it can expand rapidly in an emergency. It has offered special inducements to veteran non-commissioned officers to re-enlist and has thereby assured the basic coordination of the army despite large-scale demobilization.
Produce biggest tank
Russian factories, this authority said, now are producing the biggest tank in the world – the super-Stalin mounting a 131-millimeter gun. They also are producing jet-propelled planes and a Soviet version of the jeep.
The highest priority in Russia at the moment, however, he declared, is being given not to armament production but to atomic development.
Allied emissaries in Moscow do not doubt, this source said, that Russian scientists know the essentials of atom bomb manufacture, but they doubt that Soviet plants will be making a finished product before 1948 or later.
The Soviet high command has separated strategic planning from purely command functions. Marshal Alexander M. Vasilevsky, the top of the professional military hierarchy, heads the planning. Marshal Alexei Antonov is responsible for the combined command of the three services. Marshal Georgi Zhukov is in direct command of the Red Army.
No sign of marshals’ clique
There is no sign of a “marshals’ clique” in the upper crust of the Communist Party. Between army and nonarmy men, as such, there is no split. But divergencies are wide between civilian “nationalists” and “cooperationists.”
Maxim Litvinoff and Ivan Maisky, versed for years in Western diplomacy, were the most vocal “cooperationists,” pleading last year after the Potsdam conference for more confident relations with Washington, if not with London. Their voices have been muffled.
The “nationalists” are led by Foreign Minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov.
Anti-British propaganda is open in Russia. Anti-American propaganda is neither so sharp nor so continuous. But the vast outpouring of friendship that Americans felt when Moscow celebrated V-E Day a year ago has largely disappeared.
Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith’s appointment as American ambassador contained military implications that were not lost on the Soviet government to which he was accredited.
The first impression he created was considered favorable. When he handed his credentials to Nikolai Shvernik of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Gen. Smith eloquently declared that America had no hostile intentions toward her wartime ally and wanted to do everything possible to remove suspicion from their relations.
Only one Soviet general officer, however, attended the formal reception at the American Embassy on United States Army Day. All leading Soviet military figures had been invited.
The highest-ranking American officers in Moscow later on were absent at the May Day parade in Red Square.
If Russia moves aggressively, it is expected to be chiefly in the direction of the Persian Gulf, the informant said. There lie the biggest spoils in oil and strategic position. There the British and Americans seem as yet to have formulated no policy of common action. On the flank are Germany, the Balkans and Turkey – the flank is very sensitive.
It is within the possibilities of power politics for Russia, if cool and patient enough, to reach the Persian Gulf without an armed clash, the source said.