by James Millar
Soon after the success of the first Sputniks, Korolev began work on an orbital spacecraft that
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SPACE PROGRAM
A Soyuz-TM rocket sitting on its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 2, 2000. © REUTERS NEWMEDIA INC./CORBIS. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
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could be used both to conduct reconnaissance missions and to serve as a vehicle for the first human space flight missions. The spacecraft was called Vostok when it was used to carry a human into space. The first human was lifted into space in Vostok 1 atop a modified R-7 rocket on April 12, 1961, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The passenger, Yuri Gagarin, was a twenty-seven-year-old Russian test pilot.
There were five additional one-person Vostok missions. In August 1961, Gherman Titov at age twenty-five (still the youngest person ever to fly in space) completed seventeen orbits of Earth in Vostok 2. He became ill during the flight, an incident that caused a one-year delay while Soviet physicians investigated the possibility that humans could not survive for extended times in space. In August 1962, two Vostoks, 3 and 4, were orbited at the same time and came within four miles of one another. This dual mission was repeated in June 1963; aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft was Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space.
As U.S. plans for missions carrying more than one astronaut became known, the Soviet Union worked to maintain its lead in the space race by modifying the Vostok spacecraft to carry as many as three persons. The redesigned spacecraft was known as Voskhod. There were two Voskhod missions. On the second mission in March 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first human to carry out a spacewalk.
Korolev began work in 1962 on a second-generation spacecraft, called Soyuz, holding as many as three people in an orbital crew compartment, with a separate module for reentry back to Earth. The first launch of Soyuz, with a single cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, aboard, took place on April 23, 1967. The spacecraft suffered a number of problems, and Komarov became the first person to perish during a space flight. The accident dealt a major blow to Soviet hopes of orbiting or landing on the moon before the United States.
After the problems with the Soyuz design were remedied, various models of the spacecraft served the Soviet, and then Russian, program of human space flight for more than thirty years. At the start of the twenty-first century, an updated version of Soyuz was being used as the crew rescue vehicle- the lifeboat-for the early phase of construction and occupancy of the International Space Station.
While committing the United States in 1961 to winning the moon race, President John F. Kennedy
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also made several attempts to convince the Soviet leadership that a cooperative lunar landing program would be a better alternative. But no positive reply came from the Soviet Union, which continued to debate the wisdom of undertaking a lunar program. Meanwhile, separate design bureaus headed by Korolev and Vladimir Chelomei competed fiercely for a lunar mission assignment. In August 1964, Korolev received the lunar landing assignment. The very large rocket that Korolev designed for the lunar landing effort was called the N1.
Indecision, inefficiencies, inadequate budgets, and personal and organizational rivalries in the Soviet system posed major obstacles to success in the race to the moon. To this was added the unexpected death of the charismatic leader and organizer Korolev, at age fifty-nine, on January 14, 1966.
The Soviet lunar landing program went forward fitfully after 1964. The missions were intended to employ the N1 launch vehicle and a variation of the Soyuz spacecraft, designated L3, that included a lunar landing module designed for one cosmonaut. Although an L3 spacecraft was constructed, the N1 rocket was never successfully launched. After four failed attempts between 1969 and 1972, the N1 program was cancelled in May 1974, thus ending Soviet hopes for human missions to the moon. On July 20, 1969, U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped from Apollo II Lunar Module onto the surface of the moon.
By 1969, the USSR began to shift its emphasis in human space flight to the development of Earth-orbiting stations in which cosmonaut crews could carry out observations and experiments on missions that lasted weeks or months. The first Soviet space station, called Salyut 1, was launched April 19, 1971. Its initial crew spent twenty-three days aboard the station carrying out scientific studies but perished when their Soyuz spacecraft depres-surized during reentry. The Soviet Union successfully orbited five more Salyut stations through the mid-1980s. Two of these stations had a military reconnaissance mission, and three were devoted to scientific studies. The Soviet Union also launched guest cosmonauts from allied countries for short stays aboard Salyuts 6 and 7.
The Soviet Union followed its Salyut station series with the February 20, 1986, launch of the Mr space station. In 1994-1995, Valery Polyakov spent 438 continuous days aboard the station. More than one hundred people from twelve countries visited
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SPANISH CIVIL WAR
Mir, including seven American astronauts between 1995 and 1998. The station, which was initially scheduled to operate for only five years, supported human habitation until mid-2000, before making a controlled atmosphere reentry on March 23, 2001.
The Soviet Union in the 1980s developed a large space launch vehicle, called Energiya, and a reusable space plane similar to the U.S. space shuttle, called Buran. However, the Soviet Union could no longer afford an expensive space program. Energiya was launched only twice, in 1987.
To continue its human space flight efforts, Russia in 1993 joined the United States and fourteen other countries in the International Space Station program, the largest ever cooperative technological project. Two Russian cosmonauts were members of the first crew to live aboard the station, arriving in November 2000, and it is intended that at least one cosmonaut will be aboard the station on a permanent basis. Russian hardware plays an important role in the orbiting laboratory. Russia’s role was increased when the U.S. space plane Challenger burned up on entry in February 2003. The Soyuz “lifeboat” became the only way in or out until regular U.S. flights were resumed.
In addition, the Soviet Union has carried out a comprehensive program of unmanned space science and application missions for both civilian and national security purposes. Spacecraft were sent to Venus and Mars. Other spacecraft provided intelligence information, early warning of missile attack, and navigation and positioning data, and were used for weather forecasting and telecommunications.
In contrast to the United States, the Soviet Union had no space agency. Various design bureaus had influence within the Soviet system, but rivalry among them posed an obstacle to a coherent Soviet space program. The Politburo and the Council of Ministers made policy decisions. After 1965, the government’s Ministry of General Machine Building managed all Soviet space and missile programs; the Ministry of Defense also shaped space efforts. A separate military branch, the Strategic Missile Forces, was in charge of space launchers and strategic missiles. Various institutes of the Soviet Academy of Sciences proposed and managed scientific missions.
After the dissolution of the USSR, Russia created a civilian organization for space activities, the Russian Space Agency, formed in February 1992. It quickly took on increasing responsibility for the management of nonmilitary space activities and, as an added charge, aviation efforts. It later was renamed the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. See also: GAGARIN, YURI ALEXEYEVICH; INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION; MIR SPACE STATION; SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY; SPUTNIK; TSIOLKOVSKY, KON-STANTIN EDUARDOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dickson, Paul. (2001). Sputnik: The Shock of the Century. New York: Walker. Hall, Rex, and Shayler, David J. (2001). The Rocket Men: Vostok and Voshkod, the First Soviet Manned Spaceflights. New York: Springer Verlag. Harvey, Brian. (2001). Russia in Space: the Failed Frontier? New York: Springer Verlag. Oberg, James. (1981). Red Star in Orbit
. New York: Random House. Russian Aviation and Space Agency web site. (2002). «http://www.rosaviakosmos.ru/english/eindex .htm». Siddiqi, Asif. (2000). Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
JOHN M. LOGSDON
SPANISH CIVIL WAR
In July 1936, after months of unrest and politically motivated assassinations, a junta of nationalist generals, including Francisco Franco, led an uprising against the Spanish Republic. When Franco had difficulty transporting his forces from Africa to Spain, he appealed for aid from Germany and Italy. Hitler and Mussolini were only too happy to oblige. The Republicans also asked for help from the Western powers and the Soviet Union. Britain, France, and the United States decided to adopt a strict policy of nonintervention, but Josef Stalin began secretly supplying the Republic with the weapons it needed to survive.
Soviet aid, however, came with a price. Stalin provided thousands of Red Army, NKVD, and GRU (secret police) officers who often furthered his aims while acting as advisers for the Republicans. Meanwhile the Spanish government shipped its vast gold reserves to Moscow, where the Soviets deducted the cost of armaments for the war, at exorbitant prices, from the bullion. Yet without Soviet tanks and
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airplanes it is certain that the Republic would have fallen much more quickly than it did.
Stalin and the Stalinist Spanish Communist Party wanted a say over the political future of Spain. From the start of the war, the Soviets pushed the Republicans to eliminate anyone who did not follow the party line. This hunt for Trotskyists was tolerated by the Republican governments in order to retain the favor of their only great power supporter. Most Spanish leaders, however, were able to resist Soviet attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of their country, and steered their own course during the war.
The Soviet Union and the Comintern also took a direct hand in combat. The European Left sent more than 30,000 enthusiastic volunteers to fight for the Republicans, some of whom came to Spain to support a revolution, on the model of the Soviet Union, while others wanted only to defend democracy. A large number of the commanders for these International Brigades were regular Red Army officers, although their origins were disguised and never acknowledged by the Soviet Union. The Internationals, and armaments sent by the Soviets, were critical for the Republicans’ successful defense of Madrid in December 1936. The Republican cause also benefited from Soviet and International participation in other engagements, including the battle of Jarama in February 1937 and the defeat of Italian troops at Guadalajara in March 1937, while Soviet tank operators and pilots were of crucial importance throughout the war.
Of the Soviet soldiers who saw action in the Spanish arena, dozens were recalled to Moscow and executed during the military purges of 1937-1939. At the same time others, such as Konstantin Rokossovsky, Ivan Konev, Alexander Rodimtsev, and Nikolai Kuznetsov, had brilliant careers during World War II and after.
In the end, Soviet aid could not alter the outcome of the war. As the international climate worsened, Stalin decided to withdraw support for the Spanish government in 1938 and by the end of the year could only offer his condolences as the Republic faced utter defeat. See also: COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alpert, Michael. (1994). A New International History of the Spanish Civil War. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.
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Howson, Gerald. (1998). Arms for Spain: The Untold Story of the Spanish Civil War. London: J. Murray. Radosh, Ronald, and Habeck, Mary R., eds. (2001). Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Thomas, Hugh. (1977). The Spanish Civil War. New York: Harper and Row.
MARY R. HABECK
SPECIAL PURPOSE FORCES
The twentieth century saw a great upsurge in the interest in and use of military special forces, both in war and for peacekeeping, antiterrorist, and other missions. The Soviets were ardent advocates of such forces, and created many, tasked with a large and varied array of missions. This reflected three main considerations. First of all, small, highly motivated and well-trained units were vital to carry out operations beyond the capabilities of the USSR’s mass conscript army, which demanded speed, precision, or finesse. Secondly, the Soviets approached warfare in an intensely political way, seeing the aim as being not necessarily to win on the battlefield, but to destroy the enemy’s will and ability to fight in the first place. Special forces could play a key role in this. Thirdly, the Soviets regarded their armed forces also as integrated elements of their apparatus of rule, and specialized forces emerged to meet particular needs that had less to do with war-fighting but political control. The post-Soviet regime has upheld this tradition. Indeed, the proportion of special purpose units within the Russian military actually increased, not least because at a time when the majority of the armed forces were virtually unusable, at least these elements retained the discipline, training, and morale to fight.
Special forces of a fashion had existed during the civil war (1918-1921), including the elite Latvian Rifles who guarded Vladimir Lenin, but these units tended to be essentially ad hoc elements of Bolshevik militants and Cossack horsemen. They subsequently either dissolved or were incorporated into the Red Army or police, losing their identity and ?lan in the process. The true genesis of Soviet special purpose forces took place in 1930, when the USSR became only the second nation in history to experiment with a military parachute drop. Excited by the possibilities, the Soviet high command immediately began training paratroop units: The first battalions were formed a year later.
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SPERANSKY, MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH
This was the genesis of the Air Assault Troops, this also led to the rise of true special purpose forces. After all, while the paratroopers and other formations such as the Naval Infantry (marines) were a cut above the regular conscript infantry, they could hardly be considered “special forces” in the modern sense of the term. As the army began raising its paratroop forces, so too smaller, more specialized units began to be created within them, given the name Special Designation forces (Spet-sialnogo naznacheniya, Spetsnaz for short). Elite units were also formed by the NKVD, the political police force (which had a sizable parallel army of paramilitaries), that instead called its forces Osnaz, for Osobennogo naznachneniya, or Specialized Designation. During World War II, these forces would see extensive action. Army and navy reconnaissance commandos penetrated German lines and, along with NKVD Osnaz saboteurs and infiltrators, organized partisan units, targeted collaborators and attacked supply routes.
This duality continued after the war and into the post-Soviet era. The armed forces maintain substantial Spetsnaz forces under the overall command of the GRU, military intelligence. Their main roles are to operate behind enemy lines gathering intelligence and launching surprise attacks on strategic assets such as headquarters and nuclear weapons. There are eight brigades of regular Spetsnaz and four of Naval Spetsnaz. However, most of these ostensibly elite units are still largely manned by conscripts, albeit the pick of the draft. There is thus an elite within the elite, largely made up of professional soldiers. Generally a single company within each brigade is kept at this standard, as well as a company in each of the paratroop divisions. These elements include athletes and linguists trained to pass themselves off as nationals of target nations and are genuinely comparable to such units as the U.S. Green Berets or British SAS.
Meanwhile, the security apparatus also retains its own smaller Osnaz elements. The KGB created several specialized teams, including Alfa (an anti-terrorist strike force), Zenit and Vympel (trained for secret missions abroad), and Kaskad (a covert intelligence team). All served during the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989), and all survived the end of the USSR and the dismemberment of the KGB, being attached to new, Russian security agencies. The same
is true of the Osnaz elements within the Interior Troops and the security arm of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as the Border Troops. Indeed, it has become almost a mark of institutional
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prestige to have such units, so they have also been joined by such new units as the Justice Ministry’s Fakel commando team (which specializes in breaking prison sieges). Thus, if anything, special purpose forces are becoming even more important in the post-Soviet era. See also: MILITARY INTELLIGENCE; STATE SECURITY, ORGANS OF
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Galeotti, Mark. (1992). “Special and Intervention Forces of the Former Soviet Union.” Jane’s Intelligence Review 4:438-440. Schofield, Carey. (1993). The Russian Elite. London: Greenhill. Strekhnin, Yuri. (1996). Commandos from the Sea. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. Suvorov, Viktor. (1987). Spetsnaz. London: Hamish Hamilton. Zaloga, Steven. (1995). Inside the Blue Berets. Novato, CA: Presidio.
MARK GALEOTTI
SPERANSKY, MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH
(1772-1839), Russian statesman, one-time adviser to Tsar Alexander I.
Mikhail Speransky attempted during the years 1807-1811 to influence the Russian monarch in the direction of instituting major political reform in Russia’s government. Only a few of his carefully drafted plans ever saw the light of day.
