Stalin's Ocean-Going Fleet

In this book a German and a Russian naval historian analyse the discussions in the leading Soviet political, military, and naval circles concerning naval strategy and the decisions taken for the warship-building programmes. Starting with the situation at the end of the Civil War, they describe the reconstitution of the fleet during the difficult economic conditions up to the mid-1920s, with the consequence of a change from the 'classical' naval strategy to a ‘jeune école' model in the first two Five-Year Plans from 1926/28 to 1935, including the efforts to obtain foreign assistance in the design of warships and submarines. Their key objective is to explain the reasons for the sudden change in 1935 and 1936 to start building a big ocean-going fleet with heavy battleships, battle-cruisers, a few aircraft carriers, cruisers, and numerous destroyers and submarines, as well as smaller vessels and auxiliaries, surpassing most of the naval programs of all other navies in the late 1930s. They describe the many changes in the programmes against the background of the threats Stalin must have perceived from international developments and his fear of internal ‘enemies of the people', leading to the great purges, which also affected the navy heavily. The last part of the book is concerned with 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. Appendices with exact building dates of the Soviet warships and submarines from 1922 to 1956 add to the value of this book.