In the interwar period, Red Army commanders headed by Tukhachevskii developed a new doctrine of mobile warfare and 'deep operations'. The military requirements of armaments and industrial production in the event of war was a central parameter in Stalinist industrialization. Based on recently opened Russian archives, the book analyzes military dimensions of Soviet long-term economic and military reconstruction plans from the mid-1920s until 1941. It presents a new framework for estimating the Soviet war-economic preparations, drastically underestimated by contemporaries.

LENNART SAMUELSON acquired his academic training at the University of Stockholm where he was Lecturer in Economic History. He received his Ph.D. in economic history at the Stockholm School of Economics. He is Assistant Professor to the Institute for Research in Economic History and holds a research post at the National Defence College, Stockholm.

List of Tables Glossary of Russian Terms Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction Visions of Future War Organising for Modern Total War, 1921-1928 Launching the First Five-Year Plan Changing Military Requirements, 1931-1932 New Threat Assessments and War Plans, 1933-1936 Plans for Red Army Expansion, 1933-1937 Terror and War-Economic Planning, 1937-1941 Conclusion Appendices Notes Sources and Literature Index