Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Volume III

861.246/3: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley) to the Secretary of State

Moscow, January 22, 1943—5 p.m.
[Received January 24—11:26 p.m.]

49. The reinstitution of shoulder insignia in the Red army (Kuibyshev’s 34, January 9, 1 p.m., to the Department⁸) has been the subject of a certain amount of editorial comment in the Soviet press and it is believed that a summary of some of this may be of interest to the Department. It has also occasioned considerable discussion among foreign observers here so that a brief statement of our views in this connection may also be pertinent.

[Here follows report of the editorial comment by the Soviet press on the reinstitution of shoulder insignia in the Red army.]

The main direct significance of the new institution is believed to lie in the fact that it is a further step toward increasing and consolidating the efficiency, morale and prestige of the Red army. Since the outbreak of the Soviet-German hostilities more and more has been written in the Soviet press to compare and link together the heroic resistance to aggression which has been offered by the Red forces with past glories of the Russian armies. It is interesting to note that not only armies of earlier centuries but also soldiers of the last world war are included in the latter category.

In our view the reestablishment of shoulder insignia reflects the desire to revivify the continuity of military tradition in order that the Red army may share fully therein. It is a mark of Stalin’s confidence in the Red army and also may be regarded as constituting an earned reward. In some foreign quarters the question has been raised whether the step may be interpreted as a victory of the army over the party. It is our belief that this is not and could not by any means be the case under existing circumstances. It is possible, however, that among orthodox or old line revolutionaries in the party the move would be unwelcome. The predominant element, interested primarily in improving efficiency methods throughout all walks of Soviet life, would unquestionably endorse it and has evidently done so.

Apart from its immediate military significance, this further indication of the tendency toward crystallizing the distinction between the ordinary soldier and the officer is scarcely in consonance with one of the fundamental principles of party ideology. There would, of course, be insufficient warrant for affirming that we have thus been presented with special evidence of modification in this principle, but the tendency herein described, which has to some extent been paralleled by a similar trend in the industrial field, may not be without general meaning rather broader in scope than simply the providing of more definitive insignia for all army ranks.

Standley

[Ambassador Standley and the British Counselor and Chargé in the Soviet Union, Herbert Lacy Baggallay, saw Premier Stalin on the night of January 26–27, to present to him a joint message from President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill describing the decisions reached by them at their conference at Casablanca. The records of the Casablanca Conference are scheduled for publication in a subsequent volume of Foreign Relations. The remainder of this interview is described in William H. Standley and Arthur A. Ageton, Admiral Ambassador to Russia (Chicago, 1955), pages 327–328.]

8. Not printed; it reported “Volzhskaya Kommuna of January 8 published detailed regulations introducing and defining shoulder strap insignia for the Red army, which apparently are to be quite elaborate.” (861.246/2)

   On January 3, Pravda had reported that the People’s Commissariat of Defense had petitioned Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, President (Chairman) of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union, for the institution of shoulder insignia for the Red army. By ukaz of January 6, the Presidium granted the petition. The Commissariat of Defense, in its order No. 25 of January 15, prescribed the introduction of the new insignia and alterations in the uniforms of the Red army.

   Another ukaz of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, published in Pravda on February 16, established the use of shoulder insignia for the Navy, and the Volzhskaya Kommuna of Kuibyshev on the following day announced the order of the Commissar of the Navy, Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsov, directing all naval personnel to transfer to the wearing of shoulder insignia between February 18 and 25.