Stalin's Ocean-going Fleet

Stalin's Ocean-going Fleet PDF Author: Mikhail Monakov
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136321985
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A study of the development of strategic concepts in Stalin's Navy, in the context of his foreign/defence policy, using original archival documents translated from the Russian.

Stalin's Ocean-going Fleet

Stalin's Ocean-going Fleet PDF Author: Mikhail Monakov
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136321985
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A study of the development of strategic concepts in Stalin's Navy, in the context of his foreign/defence policy, using original archival documents translated from the Russian.

Stalin's Ocean-going Fleet: Soviet

Stalin's Ocean-going Fleet: Soviet PDF Author: Jurgen Rohwer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351547844
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
In this work, two senior naval historians analyze the discussions held in leading Soviet political, military, and naval circles concerning naval strategy and the decisions taken for warship-building programmes. They describe the reconstitution of the fleet under difficult conditions from the end of the Civil War up to the mid-1920s, leading to a change from classical naval strategy to a Jeune ecole model in the first two Five-Year Plans, including efforts to obtain foreign assistance in the design of warships and submarines. Their aim is to explain the reasons for the sudden change in 1935 to begin building a big ocean-going fleet. After a period of co-operation with Germany from 1939-41, the plans came to a halt when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in 1941. Finally, this work covers the reopening of the naval planning processes in 1944 and 1945 and the discussions of the naval leadership with Stalin, the party and government officials about the direction of the new building programmes as the Cold War began.

Stalin's Ocean-Going Fleet: Soviet

Stalin's Ocean-Going Fleet: Soviet PDF Author: Jurgen Rohwer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138157279
Category : Naval strategy
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
This book provides insights into Soviet naval's developments, strategic, operational, institutional, and intellectual, during the turbulent crises and conflicts of the late 1930s. It reveals the processes of ship development and design within the context of evolving naval doctrine.

China Goes to Sea

China Goes to Sea PDF Author: Andrew S. Erickson
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 161251152X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
In modern history, China has been primarily a land power, dominating smaller states along its massive continental flanks. But China’s turn toward the sea is now very much a reality, as evident in its stunning rise in global shipbuilding markets, its vast and expanding merchant marine, the wide offshore reach of its energy and minerals exploration companies, its growing fishing fleet, and indeed its increasingly modern navy. Yet, for all these achievements, there is still profound skepticism regarding China’s potential as a genuine maritime power. Beijing must still import the most vital subcomponents for its shipyards, maritime governance remains severely bureaucratically challenged, and the navy evinces, at least as of yet, little enthusiasm for significant blue water power projection capabilities. This volume provides a truly comprehensive assessment of prospects for China’s maritime development by situating these important geostrategic phenomena within a larger world historical context. China is hardly the only land power in history to attempt transformation by fostering sea power. Many continental powers have elected or been impelled to transform themselves into significant maritime powers in order to safeguard their strategic position or advance their interests. We examine cases of attempted transformation from the Persian Empire to the Soviet Union, and determine the reasons for their success or failure. Too many works on China view the nation in isolation. Of course, China’s history and culture are to some extent exceptional, but building intellectual fences actually hinders the effort to understand China’s current development trajectory. Without underestimating the enduring pull of China’s past as it relates to threats to the country’s internal stability and its landward borders, this comparative study provides reason to believe that China has turned the corner on a genuine maritime transformation. If that proves indeed to be the case, it would be a remarkable if not singular event in the history of the last two millennia.

Raising the Red Banner

Raising the Red Banner PDF Author: Vladimir Yakubov
Publisher: Spellmount, Limited Publishers
ISBN: 9781862274501
Category : Warships
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the extraordinary story of the foundation of what would become the major threat to the West during the Cold War--built by the Bolsheviks from nothing. There are more than 200 photographs, most previously unpublished. It includes all classes of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and other surface vessels, with full specifications including builders, tonnage, speed, and armament. There is no other book available for the naval enthusiast on this subject, because the information was buried--despite the fact that, for example, the Soviet Union had more submarines than the Germans and the Americans put together at the start of World War II. This is a truly unique volume on a neglected area of military history. At the revolution, the Tsar's navy, such as it was, was obsolete and scattered, much of it never to return home. From a standing start a huge fleet was built by the Bolsheviks, who were obliged to deal with the West: engines from Italy, warship plans and gun turrets from Germany (in exchange for 3.5 million tons of food and material as late as February 1940). Stalin himself took a deadly, keen interest, insisting for example that at the last moment the boilers on a new Soviet destroyer class were repositioned. It was done! The pictorial content alone of Raising the Red Banner is of immense interest to naval enthusiasts and students of WWII.

Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism

Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism PDF Author: James Ryan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350122939
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
This thought-provoking collection of essays analyses the complex, multi-faceted, and even contradictory nature of Stalinism and its representations. Stalinism was an extraordinarily repressive and violent political model, and yet it was led by ideologues committed to a vision of socialism and international harmony. The essays in this volume stress the complex, multi-faceted, and often contradictory nature of Stalin, Stalinism, and Stalinist-style leadership, and. explore the complex picture that emerges. Broadly speaking, three important areas of debate are examined, united by a focus on political leadership: * The key controversies surrounding Stalin's leadership role * A reconsideration of Stalin and the Cold War * New perspectives on the cult of personality Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism is a crucial volume for all students and scholars of Stalin's Russia and Cold War Europe.

Stalin

Stalin PDF Author: Stephen Kotkin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143132156
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1249

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Book Description
“Monumental.” —The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world’s largest peasant economy into “socialist modernity,” otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became. Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa. The wholesale collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. But Stalin did not flinch. By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters. Stalin, however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of young strivers like himself. Stalin’s obsessions drove him to execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership, diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading lights in culture. While Stalin revived a great power, building a formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies. The quest for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain would not unfold as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision, as the world hung in the balance. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin’s seat of power. It is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship, and in the art of biography.

Maritime Strategy and Sea Denial

Maritime Strategy and Sea Denial PDF Author: Milan Vego
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351047701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This book focuses on the theory and practice of maritime strategy and operations by the weaker powers at sea. Illustrated by examples from naval and military history, the book explains and analyzes the strategies of the weaker side at sea in both peacetime and wartime; in defense versus offense; the main prerequisites for disputing control of the sea; and the conceptual framework of disputing control of the sea. It also explains and analyzes in some detail the main methods of disputing sea control – avoiding/seeking decisive encounters, weakening enemy naval forces over time, counter-containment of enemy naval forces, destroying the enemy’s military-economic potential at sea, attacks on the enemy coast, defense of the coast, defense/capturing important positions/basing areas, and defense/capturing of a choke point. A majority of the world’s navies are currently of small or medium-size. In the case of a war with a much stronger opponent, they would be strategically on the defensive, and their main objective then would be to dispute control of the sea by a stronger side at sea. This book provides a practical guide to such a strategy. This book would be of much interest to students of naval power, maritime security, strategic studies and military/naval history.

The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Navy in the Baltic 1921-1941

The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Navy in the Baltic 1921-1941 PDF Author: Gunnar Åselius
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135769605
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This book, based on extensive work in Russian archives, investigates how strategy, organisational rivalry and cultural factors came to shape naval developments in the Soviet Union, up to the invasion of 1941. Focussing on the Baltic Fleet, the author shows how the perceived balance of power in northern Europe came to have a major influence on Soviet naval policy during the 1920s and 1930s. The operational environment of a narrow inland-sea like the Baltic would have required a joint approach to military planning, but the Soviet navy's weak position among the armed services made such an approach hard to attain. The Soviet regime also struggled against the cultural heritage of the tsarist navy and the book describes how this was overcome. In a special Appendix dedicated to the purges of 1937-38, surviving party records from the Baltic Fleet Intelligence Section are used to illustrate the mechanisms of the Great Terror at local level.

Stalin's Slave Ships

Stalin's Slave Ships PDF Author: Martin J. Bollinger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313052026
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Between 1932 and 1953, a fleet of ordinary cargo ships was pressed into extraordinary service. The fleet's task was to relocate approximately one-million forced laborers to the Soviet Gulag in Kolyma, located along the Arctic Circle in far northeastern Siberia. The Kolyma Gulag, the most infamous in the Soviet Union, was accessible only by sea, and the fleet became the lifeblood of the entire operation. As one of the largest seaborne movements of people in history, this transport took a devastating toll on human lives. Bollinger presents the often-horrific stories of the Gulag fleet and its passengers and reveals the unwitting role of the United States government in the operation. U.S. shipyards built most of the Gulag fleet, and the U.S. government sold many of the ships used in the transport directly to an agent of the Soviet Union. The United States also overhauled and repaired many ships in the Gulag fleet free of charge at the midpoint of their Gulag careers. In some cases, free ships provided to the Soviet Union under the Lend Lease military assistance program were diverted into Gulag transport duties. How much did Washington know about the deadly duty of these ships? How many prisoners made the voyage? How many never made it out alive? Bollinger details this tragic tale using firsthand testimony from those involved in the operation and materials from both American and Russian archives.