We do not know what plans were on the drawing board for the Soviet military or to what extent they were realized. There is nevertheless sufficient evidence to conclude that Stalin was aiming for a serious military buildup. According to official figures, the army, which had been reduced to 2.9 million soldiers by 1949, had reached 5.8 million by 1953.101 Investment in the military and naval ministries, as well as production of military arms and hardware, grew by 60 percent in 1951 and 40 percent in 1952. As a comparison, government investment in the non-military sectors of the Soviet economy grew by 6 percent in 1951 and 7 percent in 1952.102
Development of nuclear weaponry and delivery systems remained the highest-priority and most expensive military program. In addition to the nuclear project, significant resources were dedicated to rocket technology, jet-propelled aviation, and an air defense system for Moscow.103 During the final months of his life, Stalin showed his determination to outpace his rivals in the arms race. In February 1953 he approved major programs in aviation and naval ship construction. The first provided for the creation of 106 bomber divisions by the end of 1955, up from 32 as of 1953. In order to outfit new divisions, the plan was to build 10,300 planes during 1953–1955 and increase the air and naval forces by 290,000 people. The second program allocated huge resources to the construction of heavy and medium cruisers before 1959. Soviet military bases were established in the Far Eastern regions of Kamchatka and Chukotka, close to the maritime boundary with the United States.104
Did this buildup mean that Stalin was planning to launch a preemptive strike and unleash a new world war? There is no evidence to support this line of speculation. It is important to note that the massive arms buildup programs were planned to take place over several years. Historians of Soviet foreign policy also note Stalin’s caution and pragmatism in the international arena. During the postwar years he behaved toward the West approximately as he had toward Nazi Germany before the war. He preferred behind-the-scenes maneuvering over direct confrontation. This approach had been on display in the Korean War. While encouraging its continuation, Stalin had consistently avoided direct conflict with the Americans. He had intentionally dragged out the signing of an armistice, seeing the war as a way to let others get their hands dirty weakening the United States. In a private conversation with the Chinese leader Zhou Enlai a few months before his death, Stalin frankly and cynically explained: “This war is causing the Americans a lot of headaches. The North Koreans have lost nothing, except for the casualties they took during this war.… You have to have self-control, patience. Of course you have to understand the Koreans—they’ve taken a lot of casualties, but you have to explain to them that this is something big. You have to have patience, you have to have great self-control.”105
It took Stalin’s death to free the Koreans from the obligation of taking casualties to further another country’s interests. His heirs pursued a policy of relaxing international tensions and reducing the burden of the arms race. By July 1953 a decision was made to conclude a truce in Korea. Stalin’s death brought an end to the USSR’s ruinous military buildup, including the creation of armadas of bombers. The country could not endure the strains of the arms race and demanded the reforms that Stalin had refused to give it.
Military spending was not the only reason for a ballooning government budget during Stalin’s final years. There is copious evidence of the vozhd’s passion for large-scale, expensive projects toward the end of his life. These projects were often cast by official propaganda as “the Stalinist building of communism.” They included huge hydroelectric power plants, canals, and rail lines into the nation’s inaccessible polar reaches. To strengthen communication with newly acquired Far Eastern territories, a ferry crossing and a 13.6-kilometer underwater tunnel to the island of Sakhalin were planned, along with a rail line connecting the tunnel with the country’s train network. As was usually the case with Stalinism, behind the appealing propagandistic façade lurked an unsavory reality: communism was largely being built on the backs of prisoners.106
Exorbitant spending on infrastructure once again plunged the Soviet economy into financial crisis. The chaotic proliferation of projects led to losses on uncompleted construction, which later had to be finished at far greater cost than initially projected. In 1951 and 1952 this extravagance reached its limit. Construction projects fell behind schedule and the launch of new ones was delayed. The picture was completed by stagnation in agriculture and consumer spending—the sectors that funded heavy industry. Undaunted, Stalin devised a plan for a new surge of capital investment in 1953.107 At the end of his life he stubbornly repeated the mistakes of the First Five-Year Plan’s forced industrialization.
As far as can be determined from available documents, this unfolding crisis was not seriously discussed at the upper echelons of power. Until the very end Stalin demanded the expansion of heavy industry and military buildup at any cost. As in the past, he agreed to limited concessions and policy adjustments only when problems grew so severe that his hand was forced. Clearly unwilling to acknowledge the systemic crisis, he reluctantly addressed only its most obvious manifestations.
As often happened, the first signs of approaching calamity came from the most disadvantaged sector of the Soviet economy: agriculture. The Soviet countryside bore the brunt of unbalanced economic policies and of the new obligations and taxes that supported growing government expenditures. Under the inefficient kolkhoz system, agriculture was stagnant and incapable of feeding the country. The livestock situation was particularly bad. Even official Soviet statistics showed that there were no more head of cattle in the country in early 1953 than there had been in 1939, and that number was one-third less what it had been in 1928. The number of pigs in 1953 was the same as in 1928.108 The numerous complaints sent to Moscow from across the country painted a desperate picture. Some of these cries for help reached Stalin.
Among the letters received in October and November 1952 and selected to be shown to Stalin were a few complaints from various parts of the USSR about the hardships suffered on collective farms.109 A veterinarian from the Orekhovo-Zuevo District of Moscow Oblast, N. I. Kholodov, called for incentives for work by kolkhozniks, who were essentially forced to labor for no pay. Kholodov wrote:
According to our press, we have tremendous achievements in agriculture.… Let us take a look at how matters stand in reality. The rye was poorly harvested, poorly because there is colossal waste in the harvesting process.… The potatoes have been harvested somehow, but what kind of a harvest is this? They were dug up by workers mobilized from plants and factories who were drawing 50% of their salaries for this period, and they do not try to gather all the potatoes because they do not have an interest in this; they try to finish up as quickly as possible and gather only what is on top.…
Now let us look at animal husbandry. Even talking about it is embarrassing: annual yield of milk from year to year does not exceed 1,200–1,400 liters per forage-fed cow. This is ridiculous—it’s what you get from your average goat.110