2000 dust cover image

Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933 is a historical account of the Soviet military's role and impact on the Soviet Union economy during the first five year plan. It also covers events immediately prior to this period. This book was written by David R. Stone and published by the University Press of Kansas in September, 2000.[1][2][3][4][5]

About the book

A substantial assortment of evidentiary resources were assembled by the author to support his view of the Soviet Union's speedy transformation into a "garrison state" under Stalin’s imperatives. This emphasis of modernizing and building the military continued after Stalin's death. The book is sparse on factual inaccuracies "despite the plethora of statistical and other information."[1] According to the The English Historical Review this work is "based on declassified archival sources...[and] Stone's focus is on planning, finance and equipment. [Hence,] we hear little about the experiences of the common soldiery."[2]

Reviews

The reviews are generally mixed.

Richard Harrison, writing for the journal Parameters says, "As regards its main thesis, Hammer and Rifle is a fine example of scholarly detective work in the often labyrinthine world of the Russian archives in order to produce a valuable study of the prewar Soviet military-industrial complex."[1]

According to John Keep, writing for The English Historical Review, Stone..."expertly dissect[s] the struggles at lower levels of decision-making." And this book "...helps us form a clearer picture of what was really at issue behind the propaganda façade of `socialist construction'..."

Alex G. Marshall, contributing to Europe-Asia Studies, says: this book is a "...vaguely unsatisfactory work that needs to be supplemented by reading other recent material on the same area. For understanding the true influence of [Mikhail] Tukhachevsky in this whole process, for example, the...work of Lennart Samuelson is infinitely superior."[3]

Further reading

  • Whitewood, Peter (2015). "The Purge of the Red Army and the Soviet Mass Operations, 1937–38" (PDF). The Slavonic and East European Review. 93 (2): 286–314. doi:10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.93.2.0286. JSTOR 10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.93.2.0286.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Harrison, Richard W. (Summer 2001). "Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933". Parameters. U.S. Army War College. 31 (2): 152. Gale Academic OneFile.
  2. 1 2 Keep, J. (2002). Hammer and Rifle: the Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933. (Shorter Notices). The English Historical Review, 117(472), 747+. Gale Academic OneFile
  3. 1 2 Marshall, Alex G. (2002). "Reviewed work: Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933, David R. Stone; Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution, Amir Weiner". Europe-Asia Studies. 54 (1): 159–161. JSTOR 826228.
  4. ↑ Uhler, Walter C. (2001). "Reviewed work: Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933, David R. Stone". The Journal of Military History. 65 (1): 217. doi:10.2307/2677474. JSTOR 2677474.
  5. ↑ Mawdsley, Evan (2001). "Reviewed work: Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933, David R. Stone". The Slavonic and East European Review. 79 (4): 763–765. doi:10.1353/see.2001.0088. JSTOR 4213350. S2CID 259817728.
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