This is yet another factor in Gorbachev’s struggle with a restive military leadership. Western analysts believe that a showdown looms between Gorbachev and hardliners who want to preserve the country’s military-industrial base. As the White House prepared for the Moscow summit, officials faced the question: does the military still stand with Gorbachev?
A pure military coup is only a remote possibility. More likely is a “constitutional” coup in which commanders join with right-wing civilian factions (such as the KGB) to force Gorbachev out. Civilian conversion, the conservatives argue, is compounding the country’s growing vulnerability and gutting the only sector of its economy producing world-class technology. Evidence of the nascent coalition surfaced last week in the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya. A letter signed by two top generals and several nationalist writers called for a “national patriotic front” to save the homeland. “There’s a real counterattack to Gorbachev taking shape,” says an administration analyst.
The Bush administration has been laboring to convince the Soviet military that the cold war is really over. Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered that message on his visit to Moscow last week. But his counterparts believe the West is poised to exploit Soviet weakness ruthlessly. Gen. Mikhail Moiseyev, chief of the Soviet General Staff, claimed earlier this month that Pentagon spending was growing (it’s expected to shrink 20 percent by 1995). “They can’t believe we are not going to take advantage of our victory just as they would in our shoes,” a top NATO Soviet intelligence analyst said.
For the military, civilian conversion is only the latest humiliation. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the disintegration of the Communist Party and the wretched performance of Soviet weaponry in the gulf war have all fueled a deep despair. The country’s economic free fall has also forced larger budget cuts than publicly acknowledged. NEWSWEEK has learned that Soviet generals recently sketched a stunning picture of military collapse for U.S. intermediaries. In 1989, the Soviet Army had 115 divisions west of the Urals. While the upcoming agreement on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) will allow them as many as 57 divisions, they are likely to deploy no more than 20. Top Soviet generals have told the United States that by 1995, total Soviet troop strength is likely to fall from 4.2 million to under 2 million. Facing near decimation, the Soviet military is determined to retain the ability to rearm.
The generals aren’t the only ones unhappy with conversion. Many individual plant managers are receptive, but bureaucrats in the powerful Military Industrial Commission that directs defense production aren’t. Together with military leaders, they seem to be effectively sabotaging the changeover. The military says as many as 550 plants will be converted by 1995, but the United States is skeptical. “They’re cooking the books,” says one U.S. source. Gorbachev will continue his quest to replace guns with butter. He has no choice. How successful he is-and how forceful his foes become-could decide the fate of the Soviet Union.
