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After the end of the second world war official Soviet military spending decreased back to a level similar to that of the 1937, with expenditure stabilising around 18-20% of the total state budget in the years 1947-50. In the wake of the [[Korean War]] the budget saw moderate increases to 21.8% in 1951 and 23.9% in 1952.<ref name="Holzman 1953" /> This fell back to 19.9% (10.7bn rubles) in 1955, and in 1956, following a cut in the official strength of the Soviet armed forces of 2,140,000 men, the official level of expenditure fell by ~1 billion rubles to 9.7bn rubles, though by 1957 spending had increased back to its 1955 level and stayed at roughly the same amount (~9.4bn) through out the 1957-1960 period, resulting in armed forces of lower numerical strength than before 1955 but having more in the way of advanced weaponry, including [[nuclear weapon]]s.<ref name="Sosnovy 1964" />
After the end of the second world war official Soviet military spending decreased back to a level similar to that of the 1937, with expenditure stabilising around 18-20% of the total state budget in the years 1947-50. In the wake of the [[Korean War]] the budget saw moderate increases to 21.8% in 1951 and 23.9% in 1952.<ref name="Holzman 1953" /> This fell back to 19.9% (10.7bn rubles) in 1955, and in 1956, following a cut in the official strength of the Soviet armed forces of 2,140,000 men, the official level of expenditure fell by ~1 billion rubles to 9.7bn rubles, though by 1957 spending had increased back to its 1955 level and stayed at roughly the same amount (~9.4bn) through out the 1957-1960 period, resulting in armed forces of lower numerical strength than before 1955 but having more in the way of advanced weaponry, including [[nuclear weapon]]s.<ref name="Sosnovy 1964" />


Following the [[Berlin Crisis of 1961|1961 Berlin Crisis]] and subsequent increase in east-west tension, the official expenditure in rubles increased to a peak of 13.9bn rubles in 1963, though as a percentage of state expenditure this represented a fall (to 16.1% in 1963). Soviet publications represented this as a cut in expenditure, comparing it to the higher percentages of state expenditure related to defence in "imperialist" countries like the USA, where the military budget was ~77% of state expenditure (albeit from a budget that made up a much smaller amount of national GNP compared to Soviet state spending, which encompassed large parts of the economy which in the US would be in private hands).<ref name="Sosnovy 1964" /> After decreasing slightly in the years 1964-5, with the coming of the Brezhnev era official military spending increased to 17.7bn rubles in 1969 and stayed at the level of approximately 17-18bn rubles annually all the way to 1983, though western analysts believed the actual expenditure to be much higher than this as this sum was less than 3% of the USSR's GNP in 1980.<ref name="Harrison 2009" /><ref name="Dudkin & Vasilevsky 1987">{{cite journal |last1=Dudkin |first1=Lev |last2=Vasilevsky |first2=Anatol |title=THE SOVIET MILITARY BURDEN: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CURRENT RESEARCH |journal=Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics |date=June 1987 |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=41-61 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43295849 |access-date=5 November 2026}}</ref> This under-stating of the real burden was confirmed by a reported 1972 statement of Brezhnev before a closed audience that the cost of the military was "one out of three rubles" of the Soviet budget (i.e., 12.5% of Soviet GNP), a fact later confirmed by the testimony of an émigré who had worked for [[Gosplan]] and from a smuggled version of the Politburo's statistical handbook.<ref name="Seliktar 70-71" />
Following the [[Berlin Crisis of 1961|1961 Berlin Crisis]] and subsequent increase in east-west tension, the official expenditure in rubles increased to a peak of 13.9bn rubles in 1963, though as a percentage of state expenditure this represented a fall (to 16.1% in 1963). Soviet publications represented this as a cut in expenditure, comparing it to the higher percentages of state expenditure related to defence in "imperialist" countries like the USA, where the military budget was ~77% of state expenditure (albeit from a budget that made up a much smaller amount of national GNP compared to Soviet state spending, which encompassed large parts of the economy which in the US would be in private hands).<ref name="Sosnovy 1964" />
 
In 1964 [[Nikita Khruschev]] advocated reducing the military budget in order to produce more consumer goods, how his calls to reduce the military budget contributed to his ouster in October of that year.<ref name="History.com 2009">{{cite web |title=Nikita Khrushchev dies |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/september-11/nikita-khrushchev-dies |website=History.com |access-date=8 November 2026 |date=13 November 2009}}</ref> After decreasing slightly in the years 1964-5, with the coming of the Brezhnev era official military spending increased to 17.7bn rubles in 1969 and stayed at the level of approximately 17-18bn rubles annually all the way to 1983, though western analysts believed the actual expenditure to be much higher than this as this sum was less than 3% of the USSR's GNP in 1980.<ref name="Harrison 2009" /><ref name="Dudkin & Vasilevsky 1987">{{cite journal |last1=Dudkin |first1=Lev |last2=Vasilevsky |first2=Anatol |title=THE SOVIET MILITARY BURDEN: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CURRENT RESEARCH |journal=Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics |date=June 1987 |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=41-61 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43295849 |access-date=5 November 2026}}</ref> This under-stating of the real burden was confirmed by a reported 1972 statement of Brezhnev before a closed audience that the cost of the military was "one out of three rubles" of the Soviet budget (i.e., 12.5% of Soviet GNP), a fact later confirmed by the testimony of an émigré who had worked for [[Gosplan]] and from a smuggled version of the Politburo's statistical handbook.<ref name="Seliktar 70-71" />


According to former Soviet officials the true extent of military spending in the 1980's had been disguised to influence the atmosphere around arms limitation negotiations.<ref name="Harrison 2009" />
According to former Soviet officials the true extent of military spending in the 1980's had been disguised to influence the atmosphere around arms limitation negotiations.<ref name="Harrison 2009" />

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The military budget of the Soviet Union was the portion of the military budget the portion of the overall budget of the USSR government that was allocated for the funding of the Soviet Armed Forces. This military budget financed employee salaries and training costs, the maintenance of equipment and facilities, support of operations, and development and procurement of weapons, equipment, and vehicles. Particularly during the Cold War the level of military spending of the USSR was a matter of dispute and research, since the USSR did not publish reliable figures for its military expenditure.[1] The burden of its military expenditure is believed to have been amongst factors contributing to the fall of the Soviet Union.[2][3][4]

History

1922 to 1945

In the mid-1920s the Soviet Union published figures for its military expenditure that were broken down into 9 groups including salaries, administrative expenses, clothing costs, technical supply, cultural and educational expenses, finance of defence industry and others. These 9 groups were further sub-divided such that figures were given for 79 individual entries. However, by the early 1930s only 2 groups of expenditure were presented, and by the early 1940s only a single line-item was given ascribed to the Soviet Department of Defence. As such, Soviet military spending was progressively obfuscated.[5]

Following the Soviet Union's joining of the League of Nations in 1930, the Soviet politburo decided to conceal the actual amount of military spending the USSR was engaged in. According to the research of R.W. Davies by 1932 two-thirds of military spending was disguised as spending for civilian purposes. However, with the increasing risk of war after the rise of the Nazis, official expenditure increased substantially.[6] For example, in 1934, military expenditure more than trebled from 1.65bn rubles to 5bn rubles. In 1940, the last full year before the Soviet Union was invaded in Operation Barbarossa, the official state budget was 4.7 billion rubles, or 32.6% of total Soviet state expenditure.[5]Template:Verify source

With the outbreak of war with Germany in 1941, the Soviet state funded the resulting greatly increased military expenditure through a mixture of tax-increases and deficit spending. Official defence spending peaked in nominal terms at 137.7bn rubles in 1944 before declining due to the need to invest in the economy, though as a percentage of state expenditure it peaked in the period 1942–1943 at ~59% as other expenditures were cut.[7]

Cold War

After the end of the second world war official Soviet military spending decreased back to a level similar to that of the 1937, with expenditure stabilising around 18-20% of the total state budget in the years 1947-50. In the wake of the Korean War the budget saw moderate increases to 21.8% in 1951 and 23.9% in 1952.[7] This fell back to 19.9% (10.7bn rubles) in 1955, and in 1956, following a cut in the official strength of the Soviet armed forces of 2,140,000 men, the official level of expenditure fell by ~1 billion rubles to 9.7bn rubles, though by 1957 spending had increased back to its 1955 level and stayed at roughly the same amount (~9.4bn) through out the 1957-1960 period, resulting in armed forces of lower numerical strength than before 1955 but having more in the way of advanced weaponry, including nuclear weapons.[5]

Following the 1961 Berlin Crisis and subsequent increase in east-west tension, the official expenditure in rubles increased to a peak of 13.9bn rubles in 1963, though as a percentage of state expenditure this represented a fall (to 16.1% in 1963). Soviet publications represented this as a cut in expenditure, comparing it to the higher percentages of state expenditure related to defence in "imperialist" countries like the USA, where the military budget was ~77% of state expenditure (albeit from a budget that made up a much smaller amount of national GNP compared to Soviet state spending, which encompassed large parts of the economy which in the US would be in private hands).[5]

In 1964 Nikita Khruschev advocated reducing the military budget in order to produce more consumer goods, how his calls to reduce the military budget contributed to his ouster in October of that year.[8] After decreasing slightly in the years 1964-5, with the coming of the Brezhnev era official military spending increased to 17.7bn rubles in 1969 and stayed at the level of approximately 17-18bn rubles annually all the way to 1983, though western analysts believed the actual expenditure to be much higher than this as this sum was less than 3% of the USSR's GNP in 1980.[6][9] This under-stating of the real burden was confirmed by a reported 1972 statement of Brezhnev before a closed audience that the cost of the military was "one out of three rubles" of the Soviet budget (i.e., 12.5% of Soviet GNP), a fact later confirmed by the testimony of an émigré who had worked for Gosplan and from a smuggled version of the Politburo's statistical handbook.[10]

According to former Soviet officials the true extent of military spending in the 1980's had been disguised to influence the atmosphere around arms limitation negotiations.[6]

The Gorbachev era

Following the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, a November 1986 party central committee resolution requested that more accurate figures for Soviet military expenditure be produced. However, publication of such a figure was resisted by Gosplan and Sergey Akhromeyev. This was because publishing a figure valued in rubles risked making the USSR look like a country that was not a credible rival of the USA, since the production cost of Soviet weaponry in rubles was low. In contrast publishing figures adjusted for purchasing-power would risk disclosing facts about the Soviet economy and the cheapness of Soviet weaponry that would risk sales of arms on the international market.[6]

In 1987, however, it was decided to declassify Soviet military expenditure within two or three year. In May 1989 a figure of 77.3bn rubles was finally published, or roughly 8.4% of Soviet GDP. This was, however, believed by many including Dmitri Steinberg, Soviet officials, and the CIA to still represent only a partial disclosure of the Soviet military budget.[6]

By 1988 both Gorbachev and Soviet defence minister Eduard Shevardnadze advocated cutting Soviet defence expenditure to ease Soviet economic problems, particularly due to the failure of Soviet economic reform.[11] Gorbachev believed that cutting military spending would result in large amounts of resources being available for the civilian economy, however, this was not achieved during his period in power before the Soviet Union collapsed following the 1991 August Coup.[12]

As a factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union

Whilst there is a general consensus that the burden of Soviet military spending was a contributory factor in the economic problems that caused the fall of the USSR, experts disagree about the extent to which it was a factor, and the extent to which that military spending was driven by competition with increased spending in the West.[13][4]

Supporters of the Reagan administration, particularly Peter Schweizer in the book Victory, have described the fall of the Soviet Union as having occurred under the strain of military spending necessitated by the Reagan administration's rapid increase in US defence spending.[14]

Accuracy of official statistics and alternative estimates

According to Russian academic Ksenia Gonchar writing in 1994, it was a consensus of experts studying Soviet military expenditure that "official figures are notoriously inadequate and need re-estimation", since it did not include many things that would reasonably be included in a figure for defence spending. According to Gonchar, during the 1980's it was doubted whether even the Soviet leadership themselves knew the actual figure, particularly when Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze produced figures for military spending that differed to those officially published.[4] Writing in 1964, when the officially-published Soviet defence expenditure was scheduled to be 13.3bn, analyst Timothy Sosnovy of the Ukrainian Free University in Munich calculated that when indirect expenditure on the defence industry, strategic material reserves, scientific research for military purposes, pensions for veterans, and extra-budget/secret expenditure were included as well as the 13.3bn figure for official spending directly on the military, the figure was 31.9bn rubles.[5]

However, attempts at re-estimation of the Soviet military budget, particularly attempts to produce dollar-figure estimates to compare it to the military expenditure of other countries, faced significant problems. This was partly because dollar-figure estimate of Soviet military spending represented what Soviet weapons, forces and military activities would cost if developed, purchased and operated in the United States. As such they did not represent the true burden of expenditure on the Soviet economy.[9]

"Building block" versus "residual" estimates

One method of estimation favoured by the US Central Intelligence Agency used a so-called "building block" (AKA "direct costing", known officially as Strategic Cost Analysis Model, or SCAM)[10] method of estimation whereby the value of individual components/artefacts used by the Soviet military was either obtained from official sources or estimated, and the total cost of all these items summed. The CIA twice made substantial revisions to their estimates, the first time in 1975 where the estimates nearly doubled due to what was believed to be a previous under-stating of the price of Soviet equipment and size of Soviet forces (and thus cost of maintaining them), and the second time in 1983 the CIA produced a downward revision of roughly 2-4% due to lower Soviet economic growth.[9]

This method of calculations was criticised by analysts including Steven Rosefielde as understating the speed of growth of Soviet military expenditure due to false assumptions and failing to account for increases in price of Soviet military equipment due to their increasingly advanced nature.[9] Rosenfielde accused the CIA of practising "false science" to minimise the degree of militarisation of the Soviet economy and even of using statistics manipulated by Soviet counterintelligence.[15]

In contrast, Franklyn D. Holzman criticised the CIA's method of estimation as being, in his view, flawed due to their assumption of equivalence between US and Soviet military equipment when US military equipment and personnel was of a higher quality (and hence cost).[16] Holzman focused particularly on the "index number problem", where, in his view, the CIA lacked prices in rubles for specific items and so instead valued them in dollars and then converted them based on the price of items whose price was known in rubles, which he believed tended to lead to an overstatement of Soviet military spending.[9] Holzman charged the CIA with doing this to legitimise the increased military spending of Ronald Reagan's administration.[15]

Another method, favour by most other analysts, used the so-called "residual" method whereby Soviet official statistics were used, with parts of civilian expenditure that were believed to be linked to the Soviet military (military R&D, military pensions, spending on the KGB and other quasi-military organs on the state etc.) are reallocated as military expenditure. The above calculation by Sosnovy is an early example of such a calculation, though later ones were produced by analysts including Rosefielde and Holzman. Whilst not suffering from the "index number problem", according to Donald F. Burton, a CIA Soviet analyst, the residual method had the downside of a wide range of error due to problems in determining which civilian expenditure to reallocate, and relied excessively on inaccurate Soviet figures.[9]

Writing in 1996, Robert M. Gates admitted that CIA estimates of Soviet expenditure had "understated the full cost of the Soviet military". As a result, Gates believe they had failed to properly estimate the burden of military spending on the Soviet Union.[15]

References

  1. ↑ Holzman, Franklyn D. (Spring 1982). "Soviet Military Spending: Assessing the Numbers Game". International Security 6 (4): 78–101. doi:10.2307/2538679. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538679. Retrieved on 5 November 2026. 
  2. ↑ Ellman, Michael; Kontorovich, Vladimir (14 June 2023). The Disintegration of the Soviet Economic System. Taylor & Francis. p. 43. ISBN 9781000881769. https://books.google.com/books?id=BZS4EAAAQBAJ. Retrieved on 5 November 2026. ""From this perspective, the economic drain of the enormous military budget and an overcommitted external empire had both contributed to economic decline"" 
  3. ↑ Ellman, Michael; Kontorovich, Vladimir (14 June 2023). The Disintegration of the Soviet Economic System. Taylor & Francis. p. 118. ISBN 9781000881769. https://books.google.com/books?id=BZS4EAAAQBAJ. Retrieved on 5 November 2026. ""The large and growing (up to an including 1988) defence expenditures were a serious burden on the economy, and one of the factors contributing to its financial disequilibrium"" 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Gonchar, Ksenia (May 1994). "Review: Military Spending in the USSR: A Reconsideration". Journal of Peace Research 31 (2): 222. doi:10.1177/0022343394031002009. https://www.jstor.org/stable/425034. Retrieved on 5 November 2026. ""Common to the works reviewed is the overwhelming consensus that both the scale of Soviet defence expenditures and their cost for the economy (under the pressure of the decline in extensive-growth opportunities) overburdened Soviet society and contributed to further political changes; or, as Nelson (p. 59) has argued, 'military commitments have "helped" to make bad economic systems perform worse"". 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Sosnovy, Timothy (April 1964). "The Soviet Military Budget". Foreign Affairs 42 (3): 487–494. doi:10.2307/20029705. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20029705. Retrieved on 5 November 2026. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Harrison, Mark (21 January 2009). "A No-Longer-Useful Lie". Hoover Digest. https://www.hoover.org/research/no-longer-useful-lie. Retrieved on 6 November 2026. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Holzman, F.D. (September 1953). "The Soviet Budget, 1928-1952". National Tax Journal 6 (3): 238. doi:10.1086/NTJ41789963. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41789963. Retrieved on 5 November 2026. 
  8. ↑ "Nikita Khrushchev dies". 13 November 2009. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/september-11/nikita-khrushchev-dies. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Dudkin, Lev; Vasilevsky, Anatol (June 1987). "THE SOVIET MILITARY BURDEN: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CURRENT RESEARCH". Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics 28 (1): 41-61. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43295849. Retrieved on 5 November 2026. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Seliktar, Ofira (20 May 2015). Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures: Why So Few Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Taylor & Francis. pp. 70-71. ISBN 9781317462446. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Politics_Paradigms_and_Intelligence_Fail/VJxzCQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22DOnald+F.+Burton%22&pg=PA109&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved on 6 November 2026. 
  11. ↑ Evangelista, Matthew (2018). Unarmed Forces The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War. Cornell University Press. p. 255. ISBN 9781501724008. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Unarmed_Forces/zpRlDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Gorbachev+cut+military+spending&pg=PA255&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved on 6 November 2026. 
  12. ↑ Morewood, Steven. "Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism". https://www.historytoday.com/archive/gorbachev-and-collapse-communism. 
  13. ↑ Graebner, Norman A.; Dean Burns, Richard; Siracusa, Joseph M. (2008). Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev : revisiting the end of the Cold War. Praeger Security International. pp. 142-143. ISBN 9780313352416. https://archive.org/details/reaganbushgorbac0000grae/page/142/mode/2up?q=%22defense+spending%22. Retrieved on 6 November 2026. 
  14. ↑ Wallander, Celeste A. (Fall 2003). "Western Policy and the Demise of the Soviet Union". Journal of Cold War Studies 5 (4): 140-141. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26925340. Retrieved on 7 November 2026. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Seliktar, Ofira (20 May 2015). Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures: Why So Few Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Taylor & Francis. p. 109. ISBN 9781317462446. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Politics_Paradigms_and_Intelligence_Fail/VJxzCQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22DOnald+F.+Burton%22&pg=PA109&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved on 6 November 2026. 
  16. ↑ Holzman, Franklyn D. (1980). "Is There a Soviet-U.S. Military Spending Gap?". Challenge 23 (4): 3-9. doi:10.1080/05775132.1980.11470627. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/05775132.1980.11470627. Retrieved on 6 November 2026. 

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