Soviet military doctrine stresses the principle of offensive action. Prior to the recent war, this tendency was so pronounced that defensive doctrine was inadequately instilled in the army, and it was necessary to teach and partially to recreate defensive doctrine during an extremely costly retreat. The Marxian idea of world revolution of the exploited proletariat caused the early Bolshevik leaders to be unduly optimistic in their expectations of other revolutions paralleling their own in the period immediately following the October Revolution. Soviet military regulations consistently declare that “Offensive combat is the basic aspect of actions by Red Army.” Soviet military doctrine explicitly designates infantry offensive as being basic, supplemented by a closely coordinated use of all other types of troops. The criterion for determining offense or defense as being strategy for any given situation is a calculation of the relation of forces between the opponents. The consummation of this strategy of active defense is the transition to a mighty counteroffensive.