World War 2 and Manpower

[1 Star General]

Thank you for those references - the first one on automobile allocation was really interesting. However, they very much reinforce my point. None of them describe a state of massive waste within the pre-war Soviet economy. The only one that demonstrates actual comparative inefficiency, Employment concentration and resource allocation: one-company towns in Russia, describes the Russian economy in the 21st century. The 3rd paper, Why does the Soviet economy appear to be allocatively efficient? is one of the papers I looked at when describing the Soviet economy as efficient at static allocative measures. The economic weakness of the Soviet planned economy arises from poor marginal returns and slow technological adaptation rather than allocative inefficiency - leading to a progressive loss of comparative efficiency when compared with the West. This is not a problem in the early period of the Soviet economy due to the newness of the soviet infrastructure.

I really fail to see how they do in fact reinforce your point. The one about one-company towns indeed describes modern Russia, but I assumed it's gonna be clear to you that this phenomenon is a legacy of the Soviet era (and indeed in large part of the Stalinist Gulag), and all the major conclusions can be applied to USSR. The one about automobile distribution arguably does not show a lot of waste (in the literal sense of material rotting on the side of a rail track, as opposed to opportunity costs obviously coming to mind), mostly inefficient chaotical distribution, but the only reason for that is that it's dealing with a highly desired, status laden, high end industrial product. Nevertheless, the mechanisms described show how completely twisted were the incentives the system forced on the petitioners, weird pathology created in the distribution networks (good example were bribed railway employees not letting transports through or redirecting them) and very importantly, how corrupt client-patron networks intercepted large degree of control over actual distribution. Now, if one applies these mechanisms to analyzing the allocation of less prized items, let's say coal, you can imagine the level of waste it did generate. This phenomenon is acutely described in many works published in post-communist states, for example there's an excellent piece published by University of A. Mickiewicz in Poland in 2012, called 'Waste in the PPR'. The amount of wasted mineral resources, machinery, construction materials and energy that it traces, all based on archival materials - mostly internal distribution reports that were considered state secret until 1989, is just staggering. I'm providing a link for you realizing that you most probably can't read it, but who knows...

http://www.brenk.pl/fakultety/patologie/Marnotrawstwo.pdf

When it comes to the 3rd paper, the only factor I see there that contributed to 'efficiency at static allocative measures' was time. 'Technological stagnation gives planners and firms a long time to adjust inputs...'. This in no way supports the thesis of efficiency of initial allocations, and if applied together with mechanisms of resource allocation talked above, will paint a rather grim picture.

The first paper, The Wheels of A Command Economy: Allocating Soviet Vehicles actually shows how the Soviet economy managed a severe resource shortage during the critical period of the 1920s and 30s. Whilst the chaos of the allocation systems was not ideal, it likely worked better for the needs of the Soviet state than a price allocation model would have, as it allowed both rapid redeployment of resources during crisis and prevented extremely limited production from being to syphoned off to private display consumption. Again, long term this is not a good thing, but for the pre-war period it is critical in allowing the Soviet economy to produce the nearly miraculous production figures of the war.

To reiterate my point, I am not arguing that Soviet economy was stable and sustainable in the long term or that I was an effective way to run a country, but rather that it allowed the construction of an economy that was remarkably resilient and extraordinarily productive during the war. If you insist on viewing the Soviet economy as inefficient and broken from the beginning then the Soviet performance during the war is indeed inexplicable.

As far as war time is concerned I think we're roughly in agreement. Let me quote myself from previous post:

the totalitarian command over the economy enjoyed by Stalin helped in this particular instance, but it was rather through ability of cental power to overcome the naturally ensuing chaos, than through inherent advantages in maximizing output - as you seem to suggest.

But, I'd still stand by my point that the inherent tendency of the Soviet system to squander resources would not get any better during war time and I remain in astonishment this whole thing did not just collapse on itself in 1941-42. As stated before, I guess the answer must lie somewhere in the totality and and ruthlessness of the regime, mixed with genuine patriotism and sacrifice of the ordinary Russians.

 

[thedarkendstar]

Sooo I was wondering about the specific manpower and industrial situations of all nations involved you know nations other than Germany and the soviets I feel this thread sort of became "why didn't the germans make more stuff"

 

[viale]

Sooo I was wondering about the specific manpower and industrial situations of all nations involved you know nations other than Germany and the soviets I feel this thread sort of became "why didn't the germans make more stuff"

Welcome to the history forum. Thread titles are really just helpfull reminders on where we started and how far we've come

 

[1 Star General]

Sooo I was wondering about the specific manpower and industrial situations of all nations involved you know nations other than Germany and the soviets I feel this thread sort of became "why didn't the germans make more stuff"

Sorry for partially kidnapping the thread I could give you the rough outline of the situation of Poland in 1939 (especially in the context of Hitler's desire to draw it to his side), if you're interested. Not a major combatant though I for one thing would love to see somebody elaborating on the French situation, particularily military-industrial side of things

 

[fr-rein]

There is a big, big underestimation of Stalin's intent to enter the World War.

It's not only about the industrialization, building weaponry paid by blood of soviet nations, breaking any possible oppossition or dissidents, pacts with Nazis to impose totalitarian regimes on the rest of the world. It's pretty discussed and I see no need to repeat it in details.

No, I want to address an issue of a manpower in particular and the conscription strategy.

Prior to 1939 the conscription was way more lax: it was only after 21, it wasn't aimed to recruit massive armies and it wasn't imposed as harshly. 2 years of service.
However, in 1939 Stalin changed the conscription laws:

• The conscription age was reduced - from 18 years, meaning that in 1939 the Red Army gained a big bunch of recruits in one-time spike (perhaps to set off WWI and Civil War losses, but it was still done purposely)
• Prolonged service times for pilots, sailors and officers
• Due to more lax conscription before, a lot of recruits were left from the previous conscription ages, allowing to prepare Red Army in size

As a result, standing Red Army grew from 1.8 million people to 5.4 at the outbreak of Barbarossa. Before any mobilization 3% of people were already serving as conscripts in Red Army at the start of war and the main recruitments happened after Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and start of invasion in Poland. Noticeably, changes to conscription were prepared just in time for Autumn draft.

Not to mention that in 1930s they simply changed army organization and centralized it. One of particular things they did was destroying all "national" armies in Red Army that were territorial - even if their impact wasn't that big, they went ahead to fully centralize military command.

So here lies one of very underplayed Soviet trump cards - they didn't need to do mobilization as massive as one would imagine a "peaceful" nation to be, instead they were already defacto mobilized partially. It's also why population from western part of USSR didn't make that big hit on the Soviet manpower pool - it was already quite drafted in 1939-1941 as a conscious effort to increase size of Red Army.

Because of that even rapid capture of Belarus, Ukraine and Western parts of Russia didn't deprive USSR from that much population it could bring to arms as they conscripted as much prime soldiers as they could before the war. Given the fact that USSR had some time to evacuate and mobilize would-be occupied parts, they were not truly deprived of manpower during first years.

What later did hit USSR is that the losses were rather large and in 1941 campaign a lot of the standing conscript Army was defeated, inflicting great losses on the best manpower. The atrocities induced by war, Nazi crimes and Soviet tactics of scorched earth meant that they inflicted massive damages on civilian population and economy. The "reconquered" manpower pool wasn't that good: Soviets doubted loyalty of population and even communist partisans and there was a massive task to rebuild some infrastructure there to support the population itself and the attacking Red Army. And in some places (Baltics, western Ukraine) there were literal insurrections and partisan war against Red Army with population supporting resistance.

However many arguments can be made about the evils of Stalin- and they are many and they are legitimate- the claim that the Stalinist economy was a failure is demonstrably false

It's a bit of hard matter...
While Stalin had indeed made a very cold and calculated efforts on building the stalinist economy, WWII brought it to the wreck essentially and highlighted the real issues of Soviet industry - lack of civilian goods that could supply state and army, lack of utility goods (lack of radios in particular were a reason for laughably massive losses of tanks in 1941 and the battle of Brody, which USSR later on refused to name biggest tank battle for political concerns), lack of service and supply for it (again, reason why a lot of tanks didn't make it), lack of infrastructure (that made it both much harder for wehrmacht... but also meant that getting Moscow destroyed railroad infrastructure of USSR), etc.

It was a very disbalanced economy that was very poorly attuned to the realities of logistics, supplies and reviewing real needs on the armies. It's no secret that Allies help to USSR helped greatly to mitigate that issue in the most critical time and prevented starvation (that was looming over USSR in 1942), lack of equipment, lack of aircraft fuel, etc. It helped to save many lives for USSR and make the counterattack less painful, adding to Soviet capacity to defeat Nazism.

If Stalin's economy would be standing without landlease it would simply crack because of the willed intent to concentrate resources on certain tasks. Starvation would be imminent in army, with unforeseen consequences. With logistical issues some existing supplies may have not arrived in time. With a lack of simple radios another catastrophes like Brody battle would happen (as the lack of communication invested greatly into soviet armies being surrounded and defeated). It wouldn't be that it was a bad economy, but such disbalance would just snap the effectiveness dramatically at one point and create unforeseen problems.

In short, Stalin's economy... wasn't that good and it wasn't truly prepared or organized to follow the total war unlike German economy or how US organized their war effort. It was really unfit to meet extremes.

 

[1 Star General]

So here lies one of very underplayed Soviet trump cards

Pity we don't have any reliable statistical data, but I think you've hit a very important point here. That's also a very good rebuttal to the 'Germany had a numerical advantage in 1942' claim I seem to be hearing a lot recently, popularity of which I attribute to TIK announcing it in his videos. It's been bothering me for a while and I think your argument kind of pins down exactly why.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Pity we don't have any reliable statistical data, but I think you've hit a very important point here. That's also a very good rebuttal to the 'Germany had a numerical advantage in 1942' claim I seem to be hearing a lot recently, popularity of which I attribute to TIK announcing it in his videos. It's been bothering me for a while and I think your argument kind of pins down exactly why.

Very much this

The Germans fudged numbers, the Russians fudged numbers.

Pick a set of numbers and have at it to prove whatever point you want to make.

 

[fr-rein]

Pity we don't have any reliable statistical data, but I think you've hit a very important point here.

There are probably sources on it. I have some generalizations only at hand but in short:

• 1932: Red Army size half a million(!), both due to still pacifist nature of USSR, no conflicts yet, focus on industrialization and the territorial militia kind of army organization introduced in 1920s
• 1938/9: size of standing army that changed organization system and went through Great Purge increased to 1.8 millions (notice that it was first purged and then increased)
• 1940 about 3.2 millions
• 1941: with amassed mass conscriptions in 1939-1940 it was 5.4 million people

It can be argued that it was somewhat fudged or that Soviet divisions were not fully complected and etc, but it just gives the magnitude of Soviet war effort preparation that didn't rise overnight.

Some history of Red Army books should have exact numbers and details, I am just not really a fan of Soviet history and can't give you exact material in English that could have a good insight on numbers. Usually materials focus on Great Purge and discussion about the military doctrines...

I may look it up later.

 

[1 Star General]

There are probably sources on it. I have some generalizations only at hand but in short:

• 1932: Red Army size half a million(!), both due to still pacifist nature of USSR, no conflicts yet, focus on industrialization and the territorial militia kind of army organization introduced in 1920s
• 1938/9: size of standing army that changed organization system and went through Great Purge increased to 1.8 millions (notice that it was first purged and then increased)
• 1940 about 3.2 millions
• 1941: with amassed mass conscriptions in 1939-1940 it was 5.4 million people

It can be argued that it was somewhat fudged or that Soviet divisions were not fully complected and etc, but it just gives the magnitude of Soviet war effort preparation that didn't rise overnight.

Some history of Red Army books should have exact numbers and details, I am just not really a fan of Soviet history and can't give you exact material in English that could have a good insight on numbers. Usually materials focus on Great Purge and discussion about the military doctrines...

I may look it up later.

Thanks for the outline. I was mostly referring to the degree of completion of the 'best manpower pool' draft in the Western part of the Union, part that got under German occupation. That's a very specific set of data, that would probably be possible to calculate using Soviet archives, but I've never seen such regional draft distribution statistics published anywhere.

both due to still pacifist nature of USSR

 

[fr-rein]

I was mostly referring to the degree of completion of the 'best manpower pool' draft in the Western part of the Union, part that got under German occupation. That's a very specific set of data, that would probably be possible to calculate using Soviet archives, but I've never seen such regional draft distribution statistics published anywhere.

What I meant was that a lot of young people in would-be occupied regions were conscripted and mobilized before occupation. So USSR drafted prime set for conscription (18-25 yo young people) before it was denied by occupation.

Hence why even rapid occupation of USSR didn't affect the manpower as much as it should have (reducing it by 40-50%): expanded conscription meant that Soviets needed to mobilize less people at the decisive early stage. And it was one thing Germans underestimated.

Later on we see that exact lack of manpower from Soviet side.

 

[Kupr]

Today were debates between popular Russian historians:

They said interesting info about manpower in WWII:

USSR mobilized 34 mln men.
USSR lost in Red Army - 10.9 mln. men
Total Soviet losses (including civilians) - 25-27 mln. men (from ZAGS).

Germany mobilized 17.89 mln. men.
German army lost from 4.44 to 5.96 mln. men (Problem with Volkshturm).
German prisoners of war - 4.1 mln. men

Germany and their allies (whitout Japan) mobilized 26.89 mln. men
German army and their european allies lost from 6.18 to 7.70 mln. men
German and their european allies prisoners of war - 6.69 mln. men