The formation and development of the Russian military-technical cooperation system has a long history
The foundations of military-technical cooperation between our country and other states were laid over a hundred years ago. The beginning of this process was associated with the intensification of the foreign policy of the Russian Empire, its participation in a number of wars and the rapid growth of scientific and technological achievements in Europe and America.
Initially, Russia did not have a single state organization responsible for purchasing weapons abroad and delivering them to foreign states. Each of the departments - the Military and the Marine - carried them out through military agents (attachés), by the decision of the emperor, independently. At the same time, imports significantly prevailed over exports. So, in 1843, the War Department purchased 3500 of the first rifled rifles in Belgium, which entered service with the Black Sea Cossack army. The American firm Smith & Wesson has manufactured about 250,000 revolvers for Russia. A number of foreign rifles were purchased abroad and put into service: the Englishman Karle, the Czech Krnka and the American Berdan. However, even then the military-technical cooperation of Russia was invariably in the field of vision of the top officials of the state.
"Firstborns" - partners and supplies
Under Alexander II (1855–1881), communications began to develop actively in the field of purchases abroad of samples of artillery weapons, as well as technologies for their production. The most important partner of Russia was Germany and its main supplier - the firm of Alfred Krupp. In addition, contacts with England, the USA, France and Sweden developed.
In turn, the Russian Empire supplied small arms abroad, mainly to China. So, until 1862, Beijing received a donation of 10 thousand domestic guns, a battery of field guns and a large amount of ammunition and spare parts.
The active development of military-technical ties between the Russian Naval Department and foreign firms began with the emergence of steam and armored fleets and new types of weapons (mines, torpedoes). In 1861, a floating coastal defense battery was ordered in England for 19 million rubles, which in Russia received the name "Firstborn". Warships were ordered for construction in the USA, Germany, and in France - machines and equipment necessary for the manufacture of steam boilers. From 1878 to 1917, 95 ships and vessels of only American construction were included in the Russian navy.
Russia sought not only to adopt the advanced experience of shipbuilding from the leading maritime powers, but also to provide assistance through the Ministry of the Sea to foreign states. So, in March 1817, the King of Spain Ferdinand VII turned to the Russian Emperor Alexander I with a request to sell him a squadron of four 74-80-gun battleships and seven or eight frigates. On July 30 (August 11) of the same year, representatives of the two countries signed an Act on the sale of warships to Spain in Madrid. The amount of the transaction is within 685, 8–707, 2 thousand pounds sterling. After the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), the Russian Empire helped create the fleets of Romania and Bulgaria.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Russia bought new models of military equipment, weapons, cars and other military property in England, Germany, France, Italy, at the same time supplied domestic weapons to Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia, and China. Deliveries of small arms (rifles) amounted to tens of thousands, cartridges - in millions. There were also larger deliveries: in 1912-1913, Russia sent 14 aircraft to Bulgaria. Nevertheless, by 1917, 90 percent of the entire aircraft fleet was of foreign origin. French airplanes and flying boats were purchased - Voisin-Canard, Moran, Farman, Nieuport, Donne-Leveque, Tellier and FBA (in 1914-1915 they were produced under license in Russia), as well as the Italian Ansaldo aircraft and the American Curtiss.
Formation of the power vertical of military technical cooperation
In April 1917, the system of purchases and sales of weapons and military equipment acquired the highest directing body - the Interdepartmental Committee for Foreign Supply. In fact, it was the first separate structure with the rights of the final decision on all issues of overseas supply. The new committee includes representatives of the ministries of the army, navy, communications, industry and agriculture. The Main Directorate for Overseas Supply (Glavzagran) was created as the executive body of the committee. On May 20 (June 2), 1917, the decision on the establishment of Glavzagran and the regulations on it were approved by the Military Council.
In the next decade, a number of different structures were formed that were involved in varying degrees of military-technical cooperation. So, on June 1, 1918, the Central Directorate for the Supply of the Army was formed, in which it was envisaged to have a Committee for Foreign Supply. In March 1919, the committee was transformed into the General Directorate for Overseas Supply.
In 1924, a Special Department for Emergency Orders was created as part of the People's Commissariat for Foreign and Internal Trade (NKVT) to fulfill import orders of the Voenveda and other state institutions. All foreign exchange payments for the supplied and purchased military equipment were carried out through the foreign exchange settlement department of the Financial Planning Department of the Red Army. In November 1927, this department was renamed the Department of External Orders (OVZ), which was subordinate to the representative of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs at the People's Commissariat for Trade.
The improvement of the structure and quality of work of the Soviet foreign supply agencies proceeded as they accumulated experience in this difficult area. In order to exercise proper control on the part of the leadership of the young Soviet state, in July 1928, the post of the authorized People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR was established under the People's Commissariat for Foreign and Internal Trade. Thus, a kind of power vertical began to form in the field of military-technical cooperation.
On January 5, 1939, according to the decision of the Defense Committee under the USSR Council of People's Commissars, the OVZ was transferred from the People's Commissariat of Defense to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade under the name of the Special Department of the NKVT with a staff of 40 people. People's Commissars - K. Ye. Voroshilov (defense) and A. I. Mikoyan (foreign trade) on January 17 signed the act of transferring the department. In this document, it was first called the Engineering Department, and this name was stuck in the future. In September 1940, the functions and scope of the department's activities expanded even more when it was transferred to the execution of unfinished operations for the export of weapons and military-technical property to China, Turkey, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Iran and the Baltic countries.
At the beginning of World War II, the number of the Engineering Department increased, as a result of which the department was transformed into the Engineering Department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign and Internal Trade (IU NKVT). All military-technical cargo received under Lend-Lease was delivered to the country through the PS. To understand the scale of cargo turnover, suffice it to say that during the war years, almost 19 thousand aircraft, about 600 ships of various classes and 11 thousand tanks, about 500 thousand cars and six thousand armored vehicles, about 650 self-propelled guns and three thousand marching repair shops, 12 thousand guns, bombs and mortars, as well as a large number of small arms. And the Engineering Department coped with such a colossal volume of supplies.
Post-war cooperation
In the period 1945-1946, the Engineering Directorate provided assistance with weapons, equipment, foodstuffs and other types of supplies to partisan and liberation detachments in Europe, and provided military-technical equipment for their military units, which were formed on the territory of the USSR. Also, weapons and military equipment were transferred to create national people's armies in Poland, Albania, Romania, Yugoslavia and other countries.
Beginning in 1947, the export of military equipment increased, which turned out to be excessive for the declining Armed Forces of the USSR. In addition, the NKVT IU was entrusted with carrying out lend-lease settlements and participating in ensuring the supply of reparations and the import of captured military equipment. With the participation of specialists from the Engineering Department in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, the construction of factories for the production of weapons and military equipment and their components was organized. The volume of work was constantly increasing.
By 1953, the number of employees of the NKVT correctional institution ceased to correspond to the volume of work assigned to them. In addition, there was not enough clarity in the implementation of the export of weapons, since along with the Engineering Department of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, these issues were also dealt with by the 9th Directorate of the War Ministry, the 10th Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Army and the 10th Division of the Naval General Staff, which, under conditions the existence of the Ministry of the Navy (1950-1953) acted quite independently. The absence of a single parent organization gave rise to additional difficulties and delayed the resolution of issues related to the consideration of requests from foreign states. The creation of such an organization in April 1953 at the level of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers was initiated by Mao Zedong's complaint to Stalin about the lack of promptness in meeting the PRC's requests.
On May 8, 1953, decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 6749 was signed, according to which the Main Engineering Directorate was formed as part of the Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade of the USSR (in 1955, the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Foreign Economic Relations was formed, to which the SMI was transferred), which concentrated in itself all the functions for the implementation of military-technical cooperation of the Soviet Union with foreign states.
Initially, the SMI had only 238 employees, including 160 officers seconded to it and 78 employees. With a permanent increase in the number of staff as the volume and tasks grew, the SMI functioned until the beginning of the 90s.
Starting cooperation with only twelve countries of people's democracies, by 1990 the SMI brought this number to 51.
By the end of the 60s, a large amount of military equipment was supplied to foreign countries through the SMI, which needed maintenance and repair. In this regard, foreign states began to create a number of military facilities - airfields, naval bases, command and control centers, military educational institutions, centers for combat and military-technical training, repair bases, as well as enterprises for the production of defense products. Until 1968, this type of foreign economic activity was carried out by the SEI GKES in cooperation with special units of the all-Union associations "Prommashexport" and "Technoexport". The division of financial and material capabilities between these three divisions of the GKES, the scattering of qualified military engineering personnel and the lack of proper coordination of the efforts of the divisions created noticeable difficulties in the work. Therefore, by a government decree of April 8, 1968, the Main Technical Directorate (GTU) was created and from September 1 of the same year. The basis for the creation of the GTU was the 5th department of the SMI, which had experience in this area. Thus, in addition to the SMI, the GKES has a second independent department dealing with the problems of military-technical cooperation with foreign states.
Reorganization of the MTC system
The constantly growing volume of exports required further improvement of the military-technical cooperation management system. In January 1988, on the basis of the liquidated Ministries of Foreign Trade and the USSR State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations (MFER) was established. The State Institution of Foreign Economic Relations and the State Technical Inspectorate entered the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, and at the end of the same year, on the basis of the order of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the third independent central administration of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations was separated from the State Institute of Foreign Economic Relations - the Main Directorate for Cooperation and Cooperation (GUSK).
The creation of the new ministry and administration was a consequence of the implementation of the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers "On measures to improve military-technical cooperation with foreign countries", adopted at the end of March 1987. In this document, the attention of all responsible ministries and departments was especially focused on the quality of military products supplied for export and their technical maintenance.
The GUSK of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations of the USSR was entrusted with the tasks of transferring licenses for the production of weapons and military equipment to the states - participants of the Warsaw Pact, for organizing and ensuring production in countries, for assisting ministries and departments of the USSR in organizing R&D in the field of weapons and military equipment development, as well as for the import of military products. appointments for the needs of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
The reorganization of the military-technical cooperation system bore fruit: according to SIPRI, in 1985-1989, the volume of Soviet exports of military equipment amounted to $ 16-22 billion and exceeded the volume of exports of similar products of the United States ($ 10-13 billion).
However, by the beginning of the 90s, well-known destructive changes took place in our country (and in Eastern Europe - somewhat earlier). The Soviet Union collapsed. The disruption of production ties between domestic enterprises and related enterprises that remained outside Russia created certain difficulties in organizing production and mutual supplies between the CIS countries. The introduction of national currencies led to a violation of the unified system of financial settlements. There were no quotes for these currencies and no payment agreements. The principles of settlements with these countries differed significantly from those that were previously applied in relations with the former participants of the Warsaw Pact. In the CIS countries, the organizations implementing military technical cooperation were not identified, the necessary regulatory framework and work skills were lacking. By the end of the 90s, the need to reform the existing system of military-technical cooperation became obvious.
