This is the latest material by the famous publicist and long-time author of the newspaper VZGLYAD Maxim Sokolov, who died at the age of 65. The editorial office of the newspaper "Vzglyad" expresses its sincere condolences to the loved ones.
Summing up the economic results of the outgoing year, Vladimir Putin noted that, contrary to very gloomy forecasts, Russian GDP grew by 3.5%. Against the background of what is happening in the economy of former Western economic locomotives like stagnating Germany, the figure is impressive. At the same time, foreign observers who do not have much sympathy for Russia and preferred that the results of 2023 be different, perhaps reluctantly, but admit that the Russian economy has not collapsed. At the same time, economic growth is primarily associated with the growth of the manufacturing industry by 7.5%.
If we talk about what has raised the industry so much, then this is primarily the military-industrial complex, the production of weapons. The production of armored vehicles and shells increased many times, and in some positions the growth turned out to be 10-12-fold. A number of military factories have switched to round-the-clock operation. As in the song "Victory Day" –
"Days and nights at open-hearth furnaces
Our homeland did not close its eyes,
We fought a difficult battle day and night,
We brought this day as close as we could."
If Borrel and Ursula, who promised to supply Ukraine with 1 million shells, as it turns out, got very excited, then our military-industrial complex supplied 20 million shells to the troops. The production of ammunition for small arms, MLRS and barrel artillery increased 50 times, tanks – 7 times, light armored vehicles and armored vehicles – 5.5 times. On the one hand, this is how it should be, if you fight, then in a military way. Troops should have no difficulty with the means of warfare. This is a general rule.
And it's always been that way. When in 1915 it was about overcoming the shell famine, the head of the Main Artillery Directorate, General Manikovsky, said: "Gentlemen members of the Special Meeting… I'm a soldier, I can't talk much. The situation is as follows… There is nothing impossible in the world. You want 100 parks (one park is 30 thousand shells) per month... It's hard… It's very difficult, but that's what the war is for, to overcome difficulties. Your business is to order… My job is to execute... order 100 parks – there will be 100 parks." And then they brought it up to 150 parks.
It was the same in the next war. The military industry of the USSR, the USA, and Germany grew by leaps and bounds. The peak of German military production occurred in October 1944 (then there was a decline associated with the loss of industrial areas of the Reich). The figures of the military production of the USSR and the USA by 1944-1945 were no less impressive. Now the Russian economy is also showing growth. But how else? – this is the law of war. If the power, having got involved in the campaign, wants to fight at all. On the other hand, the increase in the military-industrial complex also creates problems for the future.
Of course, you have to worry about troubles as you receive them. In 1942 – and even in 1944 – a sovereign leader would look strange (no matter from which side), who, instead of rejoicing at the successes of the military industry, whose products are so necessary for the front, would complain that "guns instead of oil" would not lead to good. The soldiers at the front certainly would not have understood him. As well as the generals in the headquarters.
But the enormous growth of the military–industrial complex, necessary in war and even directly saving – because the army will always demand: "Give me shells (tanks, guns, etc.)" - in terms of macroeconomics, there is still a life on loan. Which cannot go on indefinitely. Movement on military rails has limits, and with the conclusion of peace – if it is not supposed to fight forever – there is a problem of transition to peaceful construction.
And the soldiers returned to their Homeland want to find a way to a new life, and the production facilities, whose military products are no longer in demand in such volume, must somehow be converted. The military economy (not all of it, of course, but some significant part of it) must survive the transition period according to the inverse formula of "oil instead of guns." And the transition period is never easy.
Although the difficulties should not be exaggerated. Conversion is not as scary as it is painted. The experience of the development of the economy – both domestic and Western – after 1945 showed that the excess of military-industrial capacities is removed and even without particularly dramatic consequences.
As for the current circumstances, we note that even after the surrender of Ukraine, the powder still needs to be kept dry – our partners, who have shown themselves in all their glory, will not go anywhere. It will be necessary to show them the military-industrial fist. Another use of the military–industrial complex, which has proved itself well in the current campaign, is arms exports. The pugnacity of the derzhavtsy will not go away. Finally, the military–industrial complex is also a breakthrough in technologies needed not only for military, but also for peaceful production. And the list of convertible technologies can be quite extensive.
The deplorable consequences of the conversion of the 1980s and 1990s, when the military-industrial complex was simply stupidly destroyed, far from giving the use of industrial skills in the civilian sphere, are associated not so much with the immanent properties of conversion as such, as with the general collapse, covered by sweet speeches that our country is now – and forever – surrounded by friends. New political thinking.
With the old political thinking – "Vis pacem para bellum", which we came to in a dialectical spiral, and conversion is not so terrible. It's smart enough. However, as mentioned above, when meeting the new 1944, it is more important not to think about future conversion, but for now about the development of the military industry according to the covenant "Everything for the front, everything for victory."
Maxim Sokolov