Twenty trillion rubles. To put it mildly, the amount is rather big. Almost immediately after the announcement of plans for the development of the defense industry, voices sounded, asserting that it was impossible to give so much money to the military and industrial workers. They say that the USSR had already allocated huge sums for defense needs, but it collapsed anyway. And then the old conclusion is drawn, stating that it was military spending that killed the Union. Sometimes they even say that if modern Russia finances its defense industry in the same way as the USSR, then it will face the same fate. Frankly speaking, there is no optimism. But let's try to figure out what's what.
For the first time, statements about the dangers of high defense spending were spoken during Perestroika. Then, at first, in conversations, the figure of 19% of the gross national product arose, then in M. Gorbachev's speeches it grew to 20%, and as a result, due to the "efforts" of the first deputy chief of the General Staff V. Lobov, 30% appeared, which entered use. A little later, A. Sobchak added fuel to the fire, declaring that the defense industry "milked" as much as two-thirds of the entire national economy. By this time, talk about "a third of the budget" had become an axiom for some part of the population and the political elite. True, then some of the then top officials of the state admitted that all these figures were ambiguous and contradictory. So, for example, E. Gaidar in his book "The Fall of the Empire" suggested that high interest rates arose due to problems with the consolidation of different budget items. Another version, which no longer belongs to Gaidar, says: 30% is a product of the unwillingness of the country's leadership to delve into details.
A word to statistics
What really happened? Take 1985, for example. The figures are based on the work of V. Shlykov “What ruined the Soviet Union? General Staff and Economy . The GNP of the USSR this year amounted to 776 billion rubles, and the official defense budget - 19.1 billion. Thus, military spending for the 85th year is less than 2.5% of the domestic national product. Let's remember this figure and see what the CIA wrote about Soviet military spending. Their report for the 85th year has an estimate of 6-8%. The large figure can be explained in two ways: firstly, American intelligence officers did not have access to Soviet documents of the corresponding level and could only roughly estimate the expenses of the USSR, and secondly, if we take into account purchasing power parity, then the share of the defense budget will be somewhere in the region of 5-6%. At the same time, one more thing must not be forgotten. Since the mid-1970s, the CIA was forced to check and double-check its estimates - then it turned out that the guys from Langley, using the testimony of a Soviet defector, almost doubled their estimate of the size of the Soviet defense budget. It got to the point that a group of senators demanded to disperse the Office, because due to the inflated estimates of the enemy's economy, it was necessary to increase funding for its own military.
Thus, in two independent sources there are approximately the same numbers, and the disagreements between them are quite understandable. The volume of expenses seems to have been sorted out. Now let us consider another thesis that appeared during Perestroika and again entered circulation: because of the production of military products, the civilian sector of industry suffered. Here we must remember one simple truth, which says that the defense complex is always the leader of progress and "pulls" all other industries with it. In 2010, President D. Medvedev said that our defense industry should become the main “generator of innovations,” and not only the military itself. It should be noted that the country's leadership has already had such thoughts - this was the notorious conversion of the 1980s. The idea, which was not bad in general, then did not lead to the planned result. The most popular explanation for the failure concerns the ill-conceivedness of this "reform." It turned out that the defense industry can make equipment for purely civilian industries or household appliances no worse than foreign firms, but due to the imprisonment of enterprises for another sphere of the national economy, the price of peaceful products turned out to be unattractive. In addition, according to many analysts, the civil sector of the Soviet economy had low efficiency: planning with mistakes, strange logistics, etc. So, given the relatively small defense spending, it was necessary to optimize the "peaceful" economy. What did the country's leadership do? It began to plug holes in the civilian sector at the expense of the defense industry. This was especially pronounced in the mid-90s, when the Ministry of Defense received less than half of the required amounts, which affected not only the army itself, but also the enterprises that received less money for the products manufactured. Enterprises had a growing debt to suppliers, wages were not paid, etc. All the same V. Shlykov, known for his dislike of the Soviet system, compares the 80s and 90s, coming to the conclusion that only after the collapse of the USSR there was a choice "oil or cannon", and before him there was both.
A bit of history
The defense industry that "destroyed the USSR" had a well-developed and well-coordinated structure by the 1980s. General management was carried out by four organizations:
- Department of the defense industry of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Coordinated the entire industry. I must say, the Department did it efficiently, and the methods are still legendary. In particular, the phrase of I. Serbin, who headed this organization for 23 years, is widely known: “Can't you? Party tickets on the table! Perhaps the words of the leader, nicknamed Ivan the Terrible, sounded cruel, but the organization coped with its responsibilities.
- Gosplan. His task was to coordinate defense spending with the rest of the government spending and maintain a kind of balance between them.
- Ministry of Defence. Determined the general directions of development of the defense industry.
- Commission on military-industrial issues under the Council of Ministers. If I may say so, the "executive branch" of the industry. The Commission included representatives of all defense ministries, employees of various research institutes, design bureaus, acceptance departments, etc.
Gosplan was the first to drop out of the "defense four". Above, they decided that the market would do everything, but the planned economy did not justify itself. Then nine separate defense ministries merged into one. Then they will be transformed more than once. After the changes in the first half of the 90s, defense issues began to be resolved not together, but in a more confusing way. The relevant departments of the Ministry of Defense sent documents regarding purchases or orders to the defense department of the Ministry of Finance. Further, the financiers with the representatives of the Government linked the requirements of the military with the budget, after which everything was approved by the Prime Minister and the President. A slightly more complex circuit than before, but the problems were not due to its structure. The country did not have the required amount of money, which led to disastrous consequences.
In 2003, in addition to the existing departments of the Ministry of Defense in charge of procurement, the State Committee for Defense Orders was created. A year later, it was reorganized into the Federal Service, but it still did not carry out actual work on orders. But the organization monitored orders and pricing, which added more work to the military prosecutor's office. In 2006, Rosoboronzakaz was finally made a supervisory organization. At the same time, the Federal Agency for the Procurement of Arms (Rosoboronpostavka) was created under the government. It was planned that the Military-Industrial Commission, revived in 1999, would plan the strategy of orders, Rosoboronpostavka would implement it, and Rosoboronzakaz would control it. True, this system, for a number of reasons, almost did not work in the first few years.
Who is to blame and what to do?
Now, perhaps, we can return to talking about the danger of an increase in defense spending. Based on the foregoing, this can be answered with three theses:
1. Our country does not have a catastrophic experience associated with spending on the defense complex - contrary to popular belief, this sector of the economy is to blame for the collapse of the USSR, if only indirectly.
2. The reduction in funding for the military-industrial complex is not a direct prerequisite for improving the overall quality of life in the country.
3. Management efficiency has a much greater impact on the economy than the share of spending on the industry. In this regard, there is some reason for optimism: several contracts, which were supposed to be concluded in 2011, were signed only at the end of autumn. The Ministry of Defense attributed this to problems with pricing and an unwillingness to pay more than certain jobs are worth.
In general, the work of the military-industrial complex, and all other spheres of the economy and production, is influenced not only and not so much by the amount of funding. An equally important component of managing an industry (an enterprise or even an entire country) is the efficiency and optimization of the system itself. And the creation of such a thing is not easy and not quick. However, if the state wants to have a combat-ready army and a normal defense industry complex, it is simply obliged to rebuild and adjust this system.
