Military Industry Overview
The Soviet scientific and technological establishment consisted of a variety of organizations engaged in the research, development, and production of new products or processes. In general, each organization specialized in one phase of the process and in one sector of industry.
Many types of organizations were involved. Western specialists placed them in three broad categories: research institutions, design organizations, and production facilities. The research organizations are the heart of Russian military research and development. They take new weapons and military matériel projects from concept to prototype, then hand them off to the production enterprises. Production enterprises do prototype construction, production runs, and modifications.
In the first category, the most numerous organizations were the scientific research institutes (nauchno-issledovatel'skie instituty-- NIIs), which focused on scientific research, both basic and applied. Each NII was headed by an appointed director, who oversaw a staff of researchers and technical personnel. Another type of research institution, the research laboratory (laboratoriia), operated independently or as a component of a larger NII or a production plant.
- GSPI: state special-purpose design institute
- NII: scientific research institute
- NIP: scientific research polygon
- TsNII: central scientific research institute
The second category, design organizations, included design bureaus (konstruktorskie biuro--KBs) and technological institutes (tekhnologicheskie instituty). Each of these encompassed a range of facilities with such titles as special design bureau (spetsial'noe konstruktorskoe biuro--SKB), central design bureau (tsentral'noe konstruktorskoe biuro), and project design and technology bureau (proektnokonstruktorskoe i tekhnologicheskoe biuro). Design bureaus planned new products and machines, although some also conducted research. Technological institutes had responsibility for designing new processes, installations, and machinery.
- KB: design bureau
- NPO: scientific production association
- NPP: scientific production enterprise
- OKB: experimental design bureau
- SKB: special-purpose design bureau
- TsKB: central design bureau
The third category included production facilities that manufactured the new product or applied the process developed by the research and design facilities. The output and testing of industrial prototypes, industrial innovation processes, or smallbatch production prior to the stage of mass production occurred in experimental production or pilot plants (various Russian designations, e.g., opytnye zavody, opytnye stantsii). These functioned independently or were attached to production facilities, research institutions, or design organizations.
In addition to their categorization according to the research, development, and production phase in which they were most involved, these facilities were characterized according to their organizational affiliation: industrial ministries, university and higher education, or the Academy of Sciences system.
Industrial ministries controlled the majority of science and technology organizations, including all types of research institutions, design organizations, and production facilities. The precise number of facilities in 1989 was not available because the Soviet press had stopped publishing such statistics about a decade earlier. Western specialists, however, reported that in 1973 there were 944 independent design organizations, and in 1974 there were 2,137 industrial NIIs. The number of production facilities undoubtedly exceeded both those figures.
Industrial science and technology organizations tended to concentrate on one broad area, such as communications equipment, machine tools, or automobiles. They were directly subordinate to the industrial ministry responsible for that sector. Science and technology work in ministries was directed by scientific-technical councils within the ministries; the councils comprised the ministry's leading scientists and engineers.
By 1987 an estimated 450 research and development organizations were working exclusively on military projects. Among top-priority projects were a multiministerial laser program, generation of radio-frequency energy, and particle-beam research--all applicable to future battlefield weapons. In addition, about fifty major weapons design bureaus and thousands of plants were making military items exclusively. Such plants had first priority in resource allocation to ensure that production goals were met. Most defense plants were in the European part of the Soviet Union, were well dispersed, and had duplicate backup plants. Some major aircraft plants were beyond the Urals, in Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Tashkent, Komsomol'sk-na-Amure, and Ulan-Ude.
