K.E. 보로쉴로프와 적군(赤軍) 기병대: 기술결정론 (Technical Determinism)에 대한 반론 (K.E. Voroshilov and the Red Army’s Cavalry: An Argument against Technical Determinism)

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초록

There seemed no place for the cavalrymen on the technological battlefield after the First World War. Many historians have been too ready to accept that cavalrymen in the interwar period were opposed to innovations because of their innate conservatism, the stubborn commitment to horse and its outmoded adherence to their organization. Even until now, almost all historians have written that the mechanization, one of the most important military innovations between the World Wars, was retarded due to the conservative cavalrymen who were unable to adapt to the technological realities of modern wars and unwilling to concede their own obsolescence.
This is also the underlying assumption that has dominated the literatures on the Soviet mechanization program and the Red Cavalry. In the case of the Red Army, the alleged culprit was K.E. Voroshilov (1881-1969), the man chosen by I.V. Stalin to serve as Peoples’ Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs from 1925 to 1934 and Commissar for Defence from 1934 to 1940.
Many previous accounts have viewed the Red Army’s cavalry (or Red Cavalry) commanders just as the group of military-ignorant technophobes, Stalin’s fanatical loyal and reactionary cronies, furthermore, and the principal factor of the early military disaster of the Soviet-German War. Many commentators have criticized the pernicious role of the veteran cavalry commanders who dominated the Red Army for much of the interwar period and whose influence was accentuated by the purge of 1936-1938. According to them, the purge was a plot against the innovators around M.N. Tukhachevskii by the cavalry commanders in the political aids of Stalin, by means of which Voroshilov aimed to preserve his leadership and safeguard the cavalry’s parochial organizational security in the Red Army as well as to wipeout anything mechanization.
This article aims to reassess some key charges against Voroshilov and to try to inquire into the Red Cavalry’s responses to new technological situation after the Russian Civil War. It will be argued that Voroshilov’s cavalry bias was a kind of myth of the Soviet historians writing in the era of De-Stalinization, a convenient way to contain as much as possible the blame for the military purge and the Red Army’s poor showing in 1941. Admitting that it was easy to find evidence of frankly reactionary cavalry commanders such as S.M. Budennyi (1883-1973), however, Voroshilov believed that the heyday of cavalry was gone, but that mechanization and armored vehicles were not just inevitable but welcome to increase the tactical and strategic role of the Red Cavalry.

영어초록

There seemed no place for the cavalrymen on the technological battlefield after the First World War. Many historians have been too ready to accept that cavalrymen in the interwar period were opposed to innovations because of their innate conservatism, the stubborn commitment to horse and its outmoded adherence to their organization. Even until now, almost all historians have written that the mechanization, one of the most important military innovations between the World Wars, was retarded due to the conservative cavalrymen who were unable to adapt to the technological realities of modern wars and unwilling to concede their own obsolescence.
This is also the underlying assumption that has dominated the literatures on the Soviet mechanization program and the Red Cavalry. In the case of the Red Army, the alleged culprit was K.E. Voroshilov (1881-1969), the man chosen by I.V. Stalin to serve as Peoples’ Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs from 1925 to 1934 and Commissar for Defence from 1934 to 1940.
Many previous accounts have viewed the Red Army’s cavalry (or Red Cavalry) commanders just as the group of military-ignorant technophobes, Stalin’s fanatical loyal and reactionary cronies, furthermore, and the principal factor of the early military disaster of the Soviet-German War. Many commentators have criticized the pernicious role of the veteran cavalry commanders who dominated the Red Army for much of the interwar period and whose influence was accentuated by the purge of 1936-1938. According to them, the purge was a plot against the innovators around M.N. Tukhachevskii by the cavalry commanders in the political aids of Stalin, by means of which Voroshilov aimed to preserve his leadership and safeguard the cavalry’s parochial organizational security in the Red Army as well as to wipeout anything mechanization.
This article aims to reassess some key charges against Voroshilov and to try to inquire into the Red Cavalry’s responses to new technological situation after the Russian Civil War. It will be argued that Voroshilov’s cavalry bias was a kind of myth of the Soviet historians writing in the era of De-Stalinization, a convenient way to contain as much as possible the blame for the military purge and the Red Army’s poor showing in 1941. Admitting that it was easy to find evidence of frankly reactionary cavalry commanders such as S.M. Budennyi (1883-1973), however, Voroshilov believed that the heyday of cavalry was gone, but that mechanization and armored vehicles were not just inevitable but welcome to increase the tactical and strategic role of the Red Cavalry.

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