Moscow, Nauka Publishing House. 1970. 462 pp. The print run is 11,000. Price 2 rubles. 18 kopecks.

Over the past 10 to 12 years, the role of V. I. Lenin in building the Armed Forces of the Soviet state and organizing its defense against external and internal counterrevolution has been widely covered in the military-historical literature. The well-known books of N. F. Kuzmin and D. M. Grinishin1 have recently been supplemented by the monograph of Doctor of Historical Sciences Professor Yu. I. Korableva. He wrote a number of works about the military activities of V. I. Lenin, chapters in the collective works "V. I. Lenin and the Soviet Armed Forces","50 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR". The new work by Yu. I. Korablev is the first special study of V. I. Lenin as an organizer of the Red Army. Drawing on the work of his predecessors, the author also introduces a lot of new things to Leninism in his book. His work is based on an extensive documentary base, which is based on the Complete Works of V. I. Lenin, where for the first time about 300 documents on military issues were published. The author draws on new documents from the funds of the Central Administration of the IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Central State Administration of the USSR, the Central State Administration of the USSR, little-known memoirs and other sources. The skilful combination of an analysis of Lenin's views on military issues and a demonstration of his enormous practical activity in implementing the party's military program and leading the construction of the Armed Forces of the Soviet State is the main scientific merit of the book under review.

The research is based on a thorough review of the literature on the military activities of V. I. Lenin and the characteristics of sources. The reader will find here an analysis of the state of study of V. I. Lenin's military heritage at all stages of the development of Soviet historiography, an assessment of the most important works, criticism of erroneous interpretations of Lenin's concept of the forms of military organization of the proletarian state, and exposure of bourgeois falsifications of the history of the Red Army.

Chronologically, the book covers the period from October 1917 to March 1919, including the Eighth Party Congress, which summed up the results of the construction of the regular Red Army and consolidated Lenin's principles of military construction. The author was able to fully reveal V. I. Lenin's everyday leadership in the creation of the Red Army and more fully explore a number of poorly understood issues of the initial stage of military construction compared to its predecessors. Among them, attention is drawn to the deep scientific development of the problem of continuity of the party's theory and policy on the military question in the pre-October period and after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The author convincingly proved that the Red Army was created not on a bare spot, as the Trotskyists claimed, who tried to separate Leninism from Marxism, but on the basis of Marxism and the experience of the party's military-combat work. The monograph comprehensively substantiates the conclusion that the further development of V. I. Lenin's theory of Marxism on questions of war and the army, his elaboration of the theory and tactics of armed insurrection, and the party's military program in the revolution marked the beginning of a new, Leninist stage in the development of Marxism's programmatic views on the military question as early as in the pre-October period. The author shows how the victorious proletariat , beginning for the first time in history the practical construction of a "new military organization of a new class"2, creatively used the legacy of K. Marx and F. Schulz. Engels, the lessons of the Paris Commune, the rich experience of the military and combat work of the Bolshevik Party in the three Russian revolutions. Showing the continuity of the party's views on military issues, the author at the same time emphasizes and reveals the difference in the party's military tasks before and after the seizure of power, when the proletariat was first able, using the apparatus of state power, its political, material and other support, to build a centralized regular military organization of a new type with critical use of bourgeois

1 N. F. Kuzmin, V. I. Lenin at the Head of the Defense of the Soviet Country, Moscow, 1958; D. M. Grinishin. Military activity of V. I. Lenin, Moscow, 1960.

2 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 295.

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sciences. The author correctly points out that these features and advantages of military construction under the dictatorship of the proletariat were not seen by the opponents of the regular army - the "left communists" and the left SRS, who continued to cling to partisan forms of organization and combat operations against the military forces of imperialism.

From the complex of military-theoretical problems that the party faced after October 25, 1917 and were elaborated in the works of V. I. Lenin, the author thoroughly examines: Lenin's teaching on ways and forms of reliable protection of the socialist Fatherland, the decisive importance and essence of the leadership of the Communist Party in military construction, the necessity and ways of breaking up the old army, the justification the theoretical foundations of the military organization of the victorious proletariat, the tasks and ways of turning the country into a single combat camp, the justification for the need to switch to a regular army and the principles of its creation, the problem of using bourgeois military specialists and training commanders from workers and peasants, V. I. Lenin's development of the principles of leadership of the Soviet Armed Forces, and others.

Based on a large documentary material, the book reveals the great importance of the brilliant creative thought of V. I. Lenin and Lenin's leadership in solving the most difficult problem of breaking up the old army. After a long search, Yu. I. Korablev found in the Central State Army Service a summary of the responses of representatives of fronts and armies-delegates to the all-Army congress on the demobilization of the old army - to the questions of Lenin's questionnaire on the state of front-line units and the ability of the active army to repel a possible German offensive. 3 From the analysis of this extremely interesting document and Lenin's assessments of the survey results, it is clear that Vladimir Ilyich attached great importance to a careful study of the views, moods and aspirations of the soldier masses in working out ways to break up the old army and create a Soviet military organization. Given these sentiments, V. I. Lenin did not agree with the proposals for the possibility of only partial demobilization of the old army and the reorganization of the remaining formations as the core of the new army; he also rejected leftist demands for the immediate disbanding of the entire army and the rejection of any use of former officers, generals and some links of the old military apparatus. "The most decisive dismantling of all undemocratic institutions in the army and its complete democratization, the isolation of the counter - revolutionary generals and officers, the maximum use of the revolutionary part of the old army and individual technical units of the military apparatus, the gradual dissolution of the old army and the simultaneous beginning of the creation of a new one," the author concludes, " such was the essence of Lenin's plan for 160).

The chapters devoted to revealing the role of V. I. Lenin as the direct leader of all the work of the party and the state to create the Red Army are read with the greatest interest. They describe in detail the intense search for the best forms of military defense of the Soviet state, the organization of V. I. Lenin's repulse to the invasion of German imperialism, the Leninist leadership is characterized by the historical transition from volunteerism to a mass regular army, the process of creating command and political cadres, military management, and the organization of material and technical support for the army in conditions of devastation and economic blockade. All these issues have already been widely covered in the literature. But here, too, the author managed to find a lot of new documents and materials that made it possible to more fully, accurately and deeply reveal well-known plots, especially in terms of showing the military organizational activities of V. I. Lenin. It is necessary to mention such a previously unknown document as " The provisions developed by the meeting of the Board of Military Affairs with com. Lenin, Dybenko and Stalin " from December 21-22, 1917. The "regulations" provided for the organization of volunteer units from the Red Guards and soldiers to be sent to the front, cementing them with sailors from ships devoted to the revolution, allocating leadership personnel from soldiers ' committees for the newly formed army, political and educational tasks, introducing universal labor service "to supply food, things and fodder to the army", increasing salaries and rations to soldiers "participating in the socialist war" and other measures (pp. 179-180). The author reasonably considers this document to be an action plan-

3 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, pp. 179-180, 472.

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a project to create a socialist army on a voluntary basis. V. I. Lenin's initiative to create the Supreme Military Council and involve M. D. Bonch-Bruevich and other generals from the former headquarters of the old Army in its work is indicated by the statement of the Supreme Commander - in-Chief and People's Commissar for Military Affairs N. V. Krylenko to V. I. Lenin of March 6, 1918 (pp. 234-235).. Lenin's well-known position that the construction of the Red Army was carried out in the spirit of general Soviet construction, on the basis of class relations between the proletariat and the peasantry, is revealed in the book when studying specific problems of military policy. Lenin's military activities are considered by the author against the background of domestic and international events, in organic connection with the entire domestic and foreign policy of the party and the Soviet state.

Using extensive documentary and memoir material to reveal the enormous role of V. I. Lenin in solving the fundamental problems of military construction, the author shows him as the leader of the party and the Soviet state, who acted in inseparable connection and together with the Central Committee of the Party, his associates, the Soviet government and the military department. The book convincingly and vividly describes the principles and style of Lenin's military leadership, in particular the strict observance of the principle of collectivity in the development and resolution of military policy issues. All this should be said because in some popular works and articles about V. I. Lenin, one sometimes notices, on the one hand, a certain separation of V. I. Lenin's activities from the Central Committee of the Party, the Council of People's Commissars and the Revolutionary Military Council, and on the other, it shows the enormous and decisive role of V. I. Lenin in the creation of the Red Army and the leadership of its armed struggle sometimes it is replaced by a description of activities in the field of military construction.

Of great scientific and practical interest is the author's generalization of Lenin's ideas and provisions on the leadership of the Communist Party in military construction as the main condition for its success (pp. 337-342). Lenin saw the party leadership as a source of strength and invincibility for the Soviet Armed Forces. He was proud to say that the party had created an army, which was now led by a vanguard of experienced Communists .4
Covering the activities of the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet Government to strengthen party and state leadership in military construction, the author shows how in the summer and autumn of 1918, under the direct leadership of V. I. Lenin, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic was created-a collective body of the highest military administration, the Main Command of the Red Army, revolutionary military councils and political departments of fronts and armies, the institute of military commissars was strengthened. army party organizations were being built. The monograph vividly describes V. I. Lenin's daily concern for the replenishment of the active army by communists and the best workers, for the promotion of hardened communists and military specialists devoted to the people to leadership positions in it.

It is clear from the materials of the book that thanks to the implementation of Lenin's principles of military construction and leadership of the Armed Forces, the Communist Party covered all aspects of military construction and combat activities of the army and navy. V. I. Lenin established an unshakable rule that all major issues of military construction should be resolved on the basis of instructions from the Central Committee of the party. On his proposal, the Central Committee of the RCP(b) adopted on December 25, 1918, a resolution "On the policy of the Military Department", which stated that "the policy of the military department, as well as all other departments and institutions, is conducted on the exact basis of general directives given by the party in the person of its Central Committee and under its direct control"5 .

In general, Yu. I. Korablev's book significantly advances the research of problems of V. I. Lenin's theoretical and organizational activity. However, the monograph also has some disadvantages. While recognizing the author's legitimate and useful desire to reveal more deeply the theoretical and historical roots of the Soviet military organization, we can also note his excessive fascination with its "prehistory" (the second and partly third chapters of the book). When considering the military-theoretical heritage of Karl Marx, F. Engels and others.

4 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 40, p. 183.

5 "CPSU on the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union", Moscow, 1988, p. 35.

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V. I. Lenin it would be desirable to give a clearer definition of such concepts as" military issues"," military construction"," military organization"," armed forces", since in the literature there is a broad and narrow interpretation of these concepts and their different interpretations. Showing the evolution of V. I. Lenin's views on the character and forms of military organization of the victorious proletariat (from the idea of militia in the pre-October period to the recognition of the need for a regular army after the victory of the revolution) should have been more closely linked to the question of the nature of Soviet power and the forms of its formation in the concrete conditions of the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia. V. I. Lenin had this decisive circumstance in mind when he emphasized the correspondence and unity of the foundations of Soviet and military construction .6
With a broad coverage of the problem, a number of important issues did not find proper scientific development in the book. These include: the national moment in Soviet military construction (covered only in connection with the Decree on the creation of the Red Army); vsevobuch and militia construction; military - strategic leadership of V. I. Lenin in 1918; the international significance of the principles of military construction developed by him.

6 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 40, pp. 76-77.

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