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Military Self-Sufficiency and Weapons Technology in Muscovite Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Thomas Esper
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Extract

A state's power, indeed its very survival, is closely related to the adequacy of its military organization to meet foreign policy needs. Not only is this adequacy dependent upon manpower and other economic resources, plus efficiency, training, and morale factors; it is also greatly affected by weapons technology.

Alexander Gerschenkron has noted that the requirements of external war compelled Russia to seek the most advanced military techniques even though it lacked a comparable level of economic and technological development. Russia's attempts to meet these needs deeply involved the government in the country's economic development, with the result, Gerschenkron argues, that this development was “peculiarly jerky,” because the government's intervention in the economy fluctuated according to military exigencies. During periods of great military need the government would place heavy burdens on the population; then, when the emergency passed, the government would relax its intervention in the economy, leaving the country disorganized and exhausted.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1969 , pp. 185 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1969

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References

I wish to express my gratitude to the American Philosophical Society and to the Russian Research Center of Harvard University for their assistance in the completion of this paper.

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84. Ibid., pp. 195-96. The reason new units accounted for 67 percent in 1687 but 79 percent in the early 1660s is that many strel'tsy and Cossacks are reckoned in the computation for 1687. Together they accounted for over 23 percent of the forces on that campaign.

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