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Despite the ominous portents, many experts dispute the notion that under Andropov the military significantly gained power as an institution. They hold that the armed services have been, and will continue to be, a faithful servant of the party. The Soviet Union, says University of Edinburgh Political Science Professor John Erickson, has "a neutralized military Establishment in a militarized state." A Soviet analyst explains the phenomenon differently: "What many Westerners do not understand is that in our system the military truly does take orders from the party. They are like a fire brigade. They are called out when there is a fire and then go back to the fire station. They know their place. Their role has always been a subordinate one."
When the Red Army was organized, party leaders were careful to assign political commissars to carry on propaganda work among the rank and file, a system that is still in effect today. The chain of command in the Soviet military ensures that the Communist Party is in charge. Explains Uri Ra'anan of the Fletcher School of Tufts University: "Soviet military doctrine is not made by military people. It is made by the Defense Council, which is overwhelmingly run by the party leadership."
The all pervasive role of the military in Soviet life ultimately has little to do with the ebb and flow of Kremlin politics and intraparty squabbling. Protecting the homeland has been an obsession of Russian leaders throughout the centuries, as they contended with Mongol hordes from the East and Teutonic knights from the West. That overriding concern will not change with a new man in power. Says a West European diplomat in Moscow: "If Ustinov says to the Politburo, 'Comrades, I cannot guarantee the security of the state unless the military gets X, Y, Z,' he gets X, Y, Z. Security takes precedence over everything."
The current preoccupation with national survival began with the Nazi surprise attack on June 22, 1941, a date that flickers like an eternal flame in the memory of all Soviets. At a time when faith in the official ideology is faltering, continuing calls from the Communist leadership to remember the suffering of the war years are aimed at forging a patriotic link with the nation. Ustinov used the theme to express Soviet concern with new threats to national survival in his Victory Day address last May: "The experience of World War II convincingly shows us that to prevent [war's] outbreak one has to have united, coordinated offensive action by all the peace-loving forces."
Soviet strategists talk of the need to avert nuclear war but they are still prepared to fight one, if necessary. Unlike the U.S., the Soviet Union has an extensive paramilitary civil defense system that employs 100,000 people. Many foreign analysts think such a program indicates Moscow believes it can survive a nuclear war. But Soviet citizens pessimistically refer to the organization by its acronym, GROB, which means coffin in Russian. No amount of security seems to affect the psychology of insecurity. After a local official in the republic of Georgia had a briefing for party activists to explain the Andropov attack on Reagan policies, he was approached by women on the verge of tears who wanted to know if there was going to be a war.