In an Order of the Day, dated July 28, 1945, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin stated:
The Soviet People wish to see their fleet grow still stronger and more powerful. Our people are constructing new battleships and bases for the fleet.
The tasks of the fleet are: unceasing preparation; improvement of naval personnel; mastery of the fighting experience of the Patriotic War; the raising of naval culture, discipline, and organization to a still higher level in its ranks.
The significance of this statement cannot be over-estimated, for it meant, simply, that Russia, for centuries a great power on land, had now turned to build up its military power on the sea.
Russia’s situation in relation to naval power is a peculiar one. Although its land area is gigantic, its coastline suitable for navigation is extremely small. Furthermore, the majority of this limited navigable coast line is not on the open ocean, but on three almost completely enclosed bodies of water— the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Japan. The few remaining usable ports are on the shores of the Artie Ocean, and climatic conditions make most of these impassable except during a few months of the year. The sea-lanes from Baltic and the Black Sea to the other areas cannot be used in wartime if, as has usually been the case for hundreds of years, their entrances are held by enemy or neutral powers. This means that, instead of one fleet, the Soviet Navy must be divided into four, each capable of performing its task independently. This is the problem that Russians are attempting to-overcome now: the construction of four modern fleets, each intended to give Russia naval superiority in its operating area.
Russia has tried to solve the problem before; she has never succeeded. The modern Russian Navy dates from the reign of Peter the Great, though rulers of individual states had small squadrons of warships prior to this time. Peter I felt that Russia, to become a great power, had to be strong on the sea, and he studied at first hand the naval construction and development of a number of European nations before starting work on his own fleet. He and his successors never were quite able, however, to build up their country into a first-rate sea power. One hundred and eighty years after Peter’s death, Russia’s last hopes for naval supremacy were dashed by the guns of a smaller but more efficient Japanese squadron in Tsushima Straits.
The Russians have never forgotten that battle, for it symbolized all the defects of their Naval organization. The Russian forces engaged had been forced to make the incredibly long voyage around from the Baltic, constantly hampered by failure of equipment and the ineptness of personnel. They were completely outfought tactically by a numerically smaller force, and the survivors fled from the scene of action in complete disorganization. Their ships showed a profusion of technical defects. The main trouble lay, however, in the fact that it is no simple task to take a people primarily bound to the land, with little inclination or need to turn to the sea, and make them into the highly skilled technicians necessary to staff a modern fleet. Russia failed in this task prior to the Russo- Japanese war. She has not yet completely succeeded.
There was comparatively little naval construction in Russia after the Russo-Japanese war—in a Russia where the undercurrent of forthcoming revolution was flowing ever faster. A trend, however, was started, a trend which had its roots in Peter I’s study of foreign shipyards. Russia began to have its ships designed abroad. This is extremely important to Russian naval development, for the Russian-designed vessels used in the Russo-Japanese War suffered from a number of basic technical defects, especially in the matter of protection, and the Russians did not have the facilities or the skill to remedy these in their own new construction. They turned, therefore, to the established shipbuilding firms of Italy and France for plans for their new ships. The new vessels began coming off the ways in 1911. They included four battleships, Italian-designed, with many features that were five years in advance of contemporary construction in other countries. There was a group of French-planned destroyers which ranked high among the torpedo craft of the world. Russia now had the ships—but it did her little good.
The part played by the Imperial Russian Navy in World War I was completely insignificant. It aided but slightly in the first massive Russian drives, and when the Russians were forced to retreat by the armies of Von Mackensen, it did little to support them. When the smoldering hatred for the aristocracy of the Russian people broke out into a revolution, it was the final blow. .The Imperial Navy, the Navy of Old Russia, ceased to exist.
The Russian Navy lived on, however. For the new Soviet government, once it was established, undertook the task of building a new fleet organization, to fit in with its plan of making Russia a great military power once again. The Soviets had a base in the remnants of the Czarist Navy to build on. They inherited the four Italian-designed battleships, which they renamed Marat, Pariskaya-Kommuna, Oktiabrskaya—Revolutia, and Mihail Frunze. They got some smaller craft. And they had the incomplete hulls of a fairly large number of cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliaries, which had rusted on the ways since the revolution.
The first big job of the Soviet Navy was to complete the unfinished holdovers from the Imperial Navy. This task kept Soviet shipbuilders occupied until 1929. Three cruisers were commissioned, the Profintern, Chervonaya Ukraina, and Krasni Kavkaz. All slow and bad sea boats, the former two were of obsolescent design, while the latter was modified to mount a main battery of four 7.1-inch guns in single turrets, certainly a remarkable armament for an 8,000 ton cruiser. A large number of 1914-1917 destroyers were also finished, and these vessels, too, showed their age.
Nineteen Hundred Twenty-Nine brought the second stage in Soviet Naval development. The Russians started a program of new construction, to come under the Soviet “Five Year Plans.” It is significant that the first vessels to be built under the new program were submarines. Russia had seen the great effectiveness of the German undersea forces in the First World War, and furthermore realized that submarines should be a most efficient weapon in the restricted waters of Russian Naval operations. The new submarines were generally of two types: mass- produced vessels of the Malodki type, small (215 tons surface displacement) short ranged ships with but two 18-inch torpedo tubes; and a group of considerably larger vessels, which run about 800-1000 tons surface displacement. The submarines, contrary to usual Soviet practice, were native-designed, though the larger units almost duplicated contemporary British submarine construction.
Nineteen .Hundred Thirty-Four saw the building of the first major surface units of the new Soviet fleet. These vessels were the 15 heavy destroyers of the Leningrad, class. Their construction divided almost equally between Baltic and Black Sea Yards, they were frank imitations of the French Le Fantasque class “Contretorpilleurs,” which they resemble in size, armament, and general appearance. They were to prove useful ships for general fleet work, but they were lacking in anti-aircraft protection for ships of their size. Following the Leningrads, the Russians turned again to Italy, to the good small and medium ship firm of Otero-Terni-Orlando. They ordered plans for another series of destroyers, the 35 Stremitelni class. These ships were smaller than the Leningrads, and typically Italian—fast, lightly built, with a trunked stack and squatty superstructure. They mounted four 5.1-inch guns, one less than their predecessors, and were well suited for the limited waters they were to work in. The majority of the Stremitelnis were built in Baltic and Black Sea yards, but notably, a number were constructed at Vladivostok, Russia was looking eastward.
The new Soviet naval program included two other classes of major war-vessels, the torpedo-cruiser Tashkent, and the medium cruisers of the Kirov class. Tashkent is an interesting ship, not because of any remarkable features of design, but because she gave the Italians valuable data on their new cruiser construction at Russian expense. The ship received extensive trials before Otero-Terni- Orlando delivered her to the Russians, and the Italians then embodied their experience in the design of the new Regolo class torpedo- cruisers, which they laid down in 1939. It is small wonder that the two types are recognitionally almost identical.
The Kirovs were the largest vessels yet built by the Soviets. Ansaldo-designed, these vessels embodied most of the features that had been built into the Condoitieri group Italian light cruisers. They mounted nine 7.1-inch guns, a fair armament for an 8,800 ton cruiser, the peculiar caliber being dictated by a desire for standardization with army weapons. This attempt for inter-changability of ammunition is invariably false economy in the long run, however, the result generally being a considerably undergunned warship. The Kirovs had Italian- built machinery, and the limited fuel capacity that was becoming standard Russian practice.
The first four vessels of this class, Kirov, Maxim Gorki, Molotov, and Vorishilov, were completed before Russia’s entry into the war, though the latter two did not receive their full armament until much later. Kaganovilch, the fifth unit of this class, was completed at Nikolaev in 1942.
Nineteen Hundred Forty-Two was a fateful year for the Russians. For, after years of appeasing the Germans to gain time to prepare for the war that appeared inevitable, they were caught still unprepared, and the German mechanized legions were driving ever deeper into Russia. The Russians fought back desperately, but it took them almost two years to stop the force of the German armies and begin the long, slow drive that finally was to free all of the U.S.S.R. And, as in the First World War, they employed their Navy with meager success. There were no technical troubles—the newer Soviet vessels were as good or better than their enemies. The trouble was still due to the situation that had dogged the Russians for centuries—a primarily land power attempting to extend its strength to the sea.
The Navy which Russia employed in World War II was not an independent force, as are the British and U. S. Navies. It was, rather, closely tied to the military, an excellent example of a “unified” command. In practice it worked out that the Navy was subservient to the military, and it was almost invariably employed in direct support of land operations; not “combined operations” in our sense of the phrase, but operations in which the ships operated as a direct adjunct to the land forces, instead of as a compliment to them. This is not bad in itself, but a Russian Navy, a Navy freed from the complete control of the land forces, could have been an extremely powerful weapon, especially as it would be almost unopposed in its two major operating areas, the Baltic and the Black Sea. It could have smashed German coastwise communications, could have effectively stopped the flow of material from the Scandinavian countries to Germany —^material that was extremely important to German industry—and could have taken a great deal of pressure off the American and British Navies, which were fighting the twin menace of the German submarine force and a surprisingly strong German surface fleet. It did not accomplish one of these tasks. The record of the Soviet Navy speaks for itself. The largest surface warships the Russians can claim as sunk by their naval forces were two heavy destroyers, the Z-35 and Z-36. Furthermore, these two ships were not sunk by direct action but by being mined, and there is more than reasonable doubt as to whether the mines were Russian at all. The Germans lost five medium-sized torpedo boats through Russian action, all mined in either the Finnish Gulf or the Baltic. They lost exactly one minor surface warship to direct attack of Soviet forces. This was the 1100 ton destroyer T-22, sunk by Russian planes in the Finnish Gulf, August 18, 1944. Even this one vessel was not sent to the bottom by Russian naval forces; the aircraft were units of the Red Air Force. (Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that the Russians have no Naval Air Force to speak of—another result of their “unified” command). The Russian Navy fought well in its limited tasks—bombardment, amphibious landings, evacuation, and shore support—but it was constantly tied down by its position as an arm of the military.
The Russians know this, now, as is shown by Premier Stalin’s statement. His Order of the Day keynoted a new Soviet policy, in which their fleet is to be enormously strengthened and taken from under the jurisdiction of the military. The young (44 years old) officer who commanded the Russian Naval Forces during the war, Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov, is being retained in his position, but his powers are being considerably broadened. The Russians have already made considerable progress in these directions.
At the time of this writing, the Russian Navy ranks fourth in world naval power, behind the United States, Britain, and France. At her present rate of construction she will soon outstrip the latter country. Her fleet is a fairly well balanced one, much of it modern.
The largest vessels in the present Soviet fleet are three battleships, the Archangelsk, Oktiabrskya Revolutia, and Sevastopol. (Mihail Frunze was scrapped in the early 30’s, Pariskaya-Kommuna was renamed). Archangelsk is the former British Royal Sovereign, turned over to Russia in early 1944, an old ship, but still useful. Oktiabrskya Revolutia and Sevastopol are the old Italian ships built for the Czar prior to the First World War, long overdue for scrapping. But the former was partially reconstructed during the late war, and fitted with a large number of the early type single 20 mm. and twin 40 mm. light AA., lend-leased from the United States, giving it good AA. protection, and the latter was also refitted. A third sister, Marat, was caught by German bombers while lying alongside the breakwater at Kronstadt, and although not sunk, was so severely damaged that she could not be effectively salvaged. The Russians were building a new 35,000 ton battleship prior to the war, resembling the Italian Italia class vessels in many respects, but work was ceased in 1941, and in all probability she will never be built.
It is not the battleships that are important in new Russian Naval construction, however. For the Russians, taking into consideration the many new developments in warfare such as the atomic bomb, guided missies, and super-sonic aircraft, have apparently decided that future fleets should consist of a large number of smaller vessels—fast, easily dispersed. Their new construction program consists almost entirely of cruisers and smaller vessels. Four of the Kirovs, probably the nameship, along with the Molotov, Vorishilov, and Kaganovitch, survived the Second World War, but since V-E Day the Russians have added three more units of this class to their fleet, one built in the Black Sea and two, named, possibly, Vladivostok and Kalinin, in the Far East. The class has been fitted with modern fire-control and radar gear, much of the material lend-leased from this country. The Soviets also have three old light cruisers left, including one ship, Murmansk, the former U.S.S. Milwaukee, which was transferred from the U. S. Navy. This vessel, along with Krasni Kavkaz and Chervonaya Ukraina (Krasni Krim, ex-Profintern, was sunk in 1943) is much too old for effective use, and will probably be soon scrapped or converted into an auxiliary. Less than 10 of the Leningrad class heavy destroyers survive, but the Stremitelni class now includes about 50 vessels, many of which were completed since the War’s end. The majority of the new Stremitelnis were built at Vladivostok. The Russians received a number of the old American “four-piper” destroyers from Britain during the war, but they are too battered from the use the British gave them for any disposition except scrapping. They will find much more useful the dozen or so Artigliere (II) and older class destroyers, good anti-submarine boats which they took from the Italians in early 1946. The Russians also received a good number of frigates and large escort craft from the United States on Lend-Lease.
This is approximately all we know about the composition of the Soviet fleet today. We know much less about their plans for future construction. The Russians are preserving wartime restrictions on any information concerning their naval forces. We can only speculate on their intentions with regards to the future of their fleet. Stray bits of information occasionally leak out; we know now of the existence of large shipyards in the Far East which are engaged entirely in warship construction, we have seen the interest the Soviets have shown in recent U. S. Naval Auxiliary vessels, but in general the future plans of the Soviet Navy are a well-guarded secret.
There are a few things we can guess at. One is the fact that the Russians will start building aircraft carriers for the first time in their naval history. (There was supposed to be a light Russian carrier commissioned just prior to the war, but her existence was never proven.) The Russians are greatly expanding their Pacific fleet, and though carriers are of little use in closed waters like the Black Sea or Baltic, their effectiveness in the Pacific has been adequately demonstrated. It is reasonable to assume that the new Soviet vessels building in the Far East include a number of carriers, probably similar to the large number of light fleet carriers Britain has constructed in recent years. We can safely guess, too, that the Russians are doing intensive research in two fields that interest the U. S. Navy greatly at the present time— the application of guided missies as armament for ships, and the future improvement of the submarine as a possible capital ship in the Atomic age. Only time will show us how much progress they will make in these and related subjects.
There is one thing we cannot guess at— the purpose of the Russians in enormously expanding their fleet at a time when other nations are reconverting to peace. It is a basic question; its answer would be the key to the future intentions of Soviet Russia. We cannot answer it ourselves. The Russian people must answer it, if there can be any mutual understanding between the peoples of the world. And the Russian people may answer it yet. For in the whole unsolved equation of Soviet intentions, there is one constant factor—the Russian people. Oppressed and starved for centuries, it is improbable that they, with Peace their greatest desire, would be led by their leaders into a war of aggression. A powerful Russian Navy can be one of two things: a force for aggression, or an implement for world peace. Given their choice, the Russian people would want to make it that, a force for Peace. We fervently hope they attain their goal.
(Author's note.—Since the writing of this article some new information on the composition of the Soviet Navy has been released. In addition to the Baltic Kirovs, the 6000 ton light cruiser Admiral Makarov (ex-German Nurnberg) is in service. This vessel was turned over to Russia under the terms of the Potsdam agreement, along with 10 of the fine ex-German Narvik and Elbing class destroyers, and approximately a dozen of the Type VII—C and Type XXI U-Boats. The construction of a 40,000 ton battleship, Sovietski Soyus, has been mentioned, but her existence is doubtful. Also by Allied agreement, Archangelsk and Murmansk are to be returned to their respective countries, and replaced by equivalent Italian units.)