Abstract

Stalin's "revolution from above," which began in 1929, was the consequence of a complex train of events that extended at least as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, the whole structure of war and strategy was transformed along modern lines. With the restructuring of strategy the capacity of a nation to wage war extended beyond strictly military means to embrace also the economy and society of the state. This new understanding of war and strategy was slow to emerge in the West. Writers in the Soviet Union, however, were among the first to recognize the true significance of the strategic revolution that had taken place. ;By the early 1920s Soviet military theorists like M. V. Frunze, A. A. Svechin, M. N. Tukhachevsky, V. K. Triandafillov and B. M. Shaposhnikov began to elaborate a new theory of strategy and the waging of war. This new theory would lead to the establishment of the Soviet warfare state, defined as the harnessing of the social, military and economic resources of the Soviet Union in a condition of continuous preparation for war. Stalin would use this new theory of war as the theoretical framework for his revolution from above: the massive industrialization and collectivization drive that began in 1929. ;Fundamentally, this dissertation argues that Stalin's revolution from above was a consequence of strategic considerations carefully considered in light of the new paradigm of total war. Furthermore, ideological factors were largely subordinate to the strategic realities that confronted Stalin and the Soviet Union beginning in the middle of the 1920s. Ideology played a role in rationalizing decisions that had already taken place for strategic reasons. ;This dissertation is further significant in its first-time examination of key theoretical writings and new archival material made available for the first time in the West