Dictionary of Meaning
<<Back
Please select a letter:
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
W |
X |
Y |
Z |
0-9
Click here for Shopping
Red army
*** Shopping-Tip: Red army
{{otheruses}}
{{Soviet military}}
{{Armies of Russia}}
The short forms '''Red Army''' and '''RKKA''' refer to the '''Workers' and Peasants' Red Army''', (in
Russian language Russian: Рабоче-КреÑ?Ñ‚ÑŒÑ?нÑ?каÑ? КраÑ?наÑ? Ð?рмиÑ? - '''R'''aboche-'''K'''rest'yanskaya '''K'''rasnaya '''A'''rmiya), the armed forces first organized by the
Bolsheviks during the
Russian Civil War in
1918. This organization became the army of the
Soviet Union after the establishment of the
USSR in
1922. "
Red" refers to the blood shed by the
working class in its struggle against capitalism. Although the Red Army officially became the '''Soviet Army''' from
1946, people in the West commonly use the term ''Red Army'' to refer also to the Soviet military after that date, i.e., during the
Cold War.
Early history
Image:Red Army recruitment poster.jpg Russian Civil War.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|left|"Have you signed up as a volunteer?" Red Army recruiting poster of the [[Russian Civil War period.html" title="Meaning of left|"Have you signed up as a volunteer?" Red Army recruiting poster of the [[Russian Civil War">thumb|left|"Have you signed up as a volunteer?" Red Army recruiting poster of the [[Russian Civil War period">left|"Have you signed up as a volunteer?" Red Army recruiting poster of the [[Russian Civil War">thumb|left|"Have you signed up as a volunteer?" Red Army recruiting poster of the [[Russian Civil War period.
The
Council of People's Commissars set up the Red Army by decree on
January 15 1918 (
Old Style and New Style dates Old Style) (
January 28,
1918), basing it on the already-existing
Red Guards (Russia) Red Guard. The official '''Red Army Day''' of
February 23,
1918 marked the day of the first mass draft of the Red Army in
Petrograd and
Moscow, and of the first combat action against the occupying imperial
Germany German army. February 23 became an important national holiday in the
Soviet Union, later celebrated as "Soviet Army Day", and it continues as a day of celebration in
as of 2005 present-day Russia as
Defenders of the Motherland Day. Credit as the founder of the Red Army generally goes to
Leon Trotsky, the People's Commissar for War from
1918 to
1924.
At the beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia. Democratic elections selected the officers. However, a decree of
May 29,
1918 imposed obligatory military service for men of ages 18 to 40. To service the massive draft, the Bolsheviks formed regional '''military commissariats''' (военный комиÑ?Ñ?ариат, военкомат (voenkomat)), which
as of 2005 still exist in Russia in this function and under this name. (Note: do not confuse military commissariats with the institution of military
political commissars.)
After General
Aleksei Brusilov offered the Bolsheviks his professional services in 1920, they decided to permit conscription of former officers of the army of
Imperial Russia. The Bolshevik authorities set up a special commission under the chair of
Lev Glezarov (Лев Маркович Глезаров), and by August 1920 had drafted about 315,000 ex-officers. Most often they held the position of
military advisor (''voyenspets'': "военÑ?пец" for "военный Ñ?пециалиÑ?Ñ‚", i.e., "military specialist"). A number of prominent Soviet Army commanders had previously served as Imperial Russian generals. In fact, a number of former Imperial military men, notably a member of the
Revolutionary Military Council Supreme Military Council,
Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, had joined the Bolsheviks earlier.
The Bolshevik authorities assigned to every unit of the Red Army a
political commissar, or ''politruk'', who had the authority to override unit commanders' decisions if they ran counter to the principles of the
Communist Party. Although this sometimes resulted in inefficient command, the Party leadership considered political control over the military necessary, as the Army relied more and more on experienced officers from the pre-revolutionary
Tsarist period.
Image:LeninTrotskyAndRedArmy.jpg Lenin.html"_title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|[[Lenin,_
Leon Trotsky Trotsky and soldiers of the Red Army in
Petrograd .html" title="Meaning of right|250px|[[Lenin">thumb|right|250px|[[Lenin,
Leon Trotsky Trotsky and soldiers of the Red Army in
Petrograd ">right|250px|[[Lenin">thumb|right|250px|[[Lenin,
Leon Trotsky Trotsky and soldiers of the Red Army in
Petrograd
Officer Corps
Ranks and Titles
The early Red Army abandoned the institution of a professional
officer corps as a "heritage of tsarism" in the Revolution. In particular, the Bolsheviks condemned the word "
Officer_(armed_forces) officer" and used the word
commander instead. The Red Army abandoned
epaulettes and
Military rank ranks, using purely functional
titles such as "Division Commander", "Corps Commander", and similar titles. In
1924 it supplemented this system with "service categories", from K-1 (lowest) to K-14 (highest). The service categories essentially operated as ranks in disguise: they indicated of the experience and qualifications of a commander. The
insignia now denoted the category, not the position of a commander. However, one still had to use functional titles to address commanders, which could become as awkward as "comrade deputy head-of-staff of corps". If one did not know a commander's position, one used one of the possible positions - for example: "Regiment Commander" for K-9.
On
September 22,
1935 the Red Army abandoned service categories and introduced personal ranks. These ranks, however, used a unique mix of functional titles and traditional ranks. For example, the ranks included "
Lieutenant" and "Comdiv" (Комдив, Division Commander). Further complications ensued from the functional and categorical ranks for political officers (e.g., "Brigade Commissar", "Army Commissar 2nd Rank"), for technical corps (e.g., "Engineer 3rd Rank", "Division Engineer"), for administrative, medical and other non-combatant branches.
On
May 7,
1940 further modifications to the system took place. The ranks of "
General" or "
Admiral" replaced the senior functional ranks of Combrig, Comdiv, Comcor, Comandarm; the other senior functional ranks ("Division Commissar", "Division Engineer", etc) remained unaffected. On
November 2, 1940, the system underwent further modification with the abolition of functional ranks for
non-commissioned officer NCOs and the introduction of the
Podpolkovnik (sub-colonel) rank.
In early
1942 all the functional ranks in technical and administrative corps became regularised ranks (e.g., "Engineer Major", "Engineer Colonel", "Captain Intendant Service", etc.). On
October 9, 1942 the authorities abolished the system of military commissars, together with the commissar ranks. The functional ranks remained only in medical, veterinary and legislative corps.
In early
1943 a unification of the system saw the abolition of all the remaining functional ranks. The word "officer" became officially endorsed, together with the
epaulettes that superseded the previous rank
insignia. The ranks and insignia of 1943 did not change much until the last days of the USSR; the contemporary
Russian Army uses largely the same system. The old functional ranks of Combat (Battalion or Battery Commander), Combrig (Brigade Commander) and Comdiv (Division Commander) continue in informal use.
General Staff
On
September 22, 1935, the authorities renamed the RKKA Staff as the
General Staff, which essentially reincarned the General Staff of the
Russian Empire. Many of the former RKKA Staff officers had served as General Staff officers in the Russian Empire and became General Staff officers in the USSR. General Staff officers typically had extensive combat experience and solid academic training.
Military Education
During the
Russian Civil War Civil War the commander cadres received training at the
General Staff Academy of the RKKA (Ð?кадемиÑ? Генерального штаба РККÐ?), an alias of the Nicholas General Staff Academy (Ð?иколаевÑ?каÑ? академиÑ? Генерального штаба) of the Russian Empire. On
August 5,
1921 the Academy became the
Military Academy of the RKKA (ВоеннаÑ? академиÑ? РККÐ?), and in
1925 the
Mikhail Frunze Frunze (Ðœ.Ð’. Фрунзе) Military Academy of the RKKA. The senior and supreme commanders received training at the Higher Military Academic Courses (Ð’Ñ‹Ñ?шие военно-академичеÑ?кие курÑ?Ñ‹), renamed in 1925 as the Advanced Courses for Supreme Command (КурÑ?Ñ‹ уÑ?овершенÑ?твованиÑ? выÑ?шего начальÑ?твующего Ñ?оÑ?тава); in 1931, the establishment of an Operations Faculty at the Frunze Military Academy supplemented these courses.
April 2,
1936 saw the re-instatement of the General Staff Academy; it would become a principal school for the senior and supreme commanders of the Red Army, as well as a centre for advanced military studies.
Purges
The late 1930s saw the so-called "Purges of the Red Army cadres", occurring against the historical background of the
Great Purge. The Purges had the objective of cleansing the Red Army of the "politically unreliable element", mainly among the higher-ranking officers. This inevitably provided a convenient pretext for settling personal vendettas and eventually resulted in a
witch hunt. Some observers believe that the Purges weakened the Red Army considerably, but this remains a hotly debated subject. Many commentators overlook the fact that the Red Army grew significantly in numbers during the peak of the Purges. In 1937, the Red Army numbered around 1.3 million, and it grew to almost three times that number by June 1941. This necessitated quick promotion of junior officers, often despite their lack of experience or training, with obvious grave implications. In another important consideration, by the end of the Purges the pendulum swung back, restoring and promoting many of the purged officers.
Recently declassified data indicate that in 1937, during the culmination of the Purges, the Red Army had 114,300 officers, of whom 11,034 suffered repression and did not gain rehabilitation until 1940. Yet, in 1938, the Red Army had 179,000 officers (56% more compared to 1937), of whom a further 6,742 suffered repression and did not gain rehabilitation until 1940
In the highest echelons of the Red Army the Purges removed 3 of 5 marshals, 13 of 15 army generals, 8 of 9 admirals, 50 of 57 army corps generals, 154 out of 186 division generals, 16 of 16 army commissars, and 25 of 28 army corps commissars.
Doctrines and Weapons
The Soviet Union established an indigenous arms industry as part of
History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953)#Industrialization in practice Stalin's industrialization program in the 1920s and 1930s.
Notable Soviet tanks include the
T-34,
T-54 and T-55,
T-72. See also:
Tanks (1919-1939)#Soviet Union Tanks (1919-1939),
Tanks in World War II#Soviet Union Tanks in WWII.
Soviet experimentation with small-arms began during the Second World War. In 1945 the Red Army adopted the Siminov
SKS, a semi-automatic 7.62x39mm carbine. In 1947 production of the 7.62x39mm Kalashnikov
AK-47 assualt rifle began: planners envisaged troops using it in conjunction with the SKS, but it soon replaced the SKS completely. In 1978 the 5.45x39mm
AK-74 assault rifle replaced the AK-47: it utilized no less than 51% of the AK-47's parts. Designers put together the new weapon as a counterpart to the American 5.56x45mm cartridge used in the M-16 assault rifle, and it continues in use with the Russian army today.
Civil War
''Main article:
Russian Civil War''
Polish-Soviet War
Central Asia
Far East
Battle of Halhin Gol
In
1934,
Mongolia and the
USSR, recognising the threat from the mounting
Japan Japanese military presence in
Manchuria and
Inner Mongolia, agreed to co-operate in the field of defence. On
March 12,
1936, the co-operation increased with the ten-year Mongolian-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, which included a mutual defence protocol.
Image:Red Army flag.svg thumb|150px|left|Red Army flag
In May 1939, a
Mongolian cavalry unit clashed with
Manchukuoan cavalry in the disputed territory east of the
Halha River (also know in Russian as Халхин-Гол, Halhin Gol). There followed a clash with a
Japan Japanese Detachment (military) detachment, which drove the Mongolians over the river. The Soviet troops quartered there in accordance with the mutual defence protocol intervened and obliterated the detachment. Escalation of the
conflict appeared imminent, and both sides spent June amassing forces. On
July 1 the Japanese force numbered 38,000 troops. The combined Soviet-Mongol force had 12,500 troops. The Japanese crossed the river, but after a three-day battle their opponents threw them back over the river. The Japanese kept probing the Soviet defences throughout July, without success.
On August 20
Georgy Zhukov opened a major
offensive with heavy air
attack and three hours of
artillery bombardment, after which three
infantry Division (military) divisions and five
armoured brigades, supported by a
Fighter aircraft fighter regiment and masses of artillery (57 thousand troops in total), stormed the 75,000 Japanese force deeply entrenched in the area. On
August 23 the entire Japanese force found itself encircled, and on
August 31 largely destroyed. Artillery and air attacks wiped out those Japanese who refused to surrender.
Japan requested a
cease-fire, and the conflict concluded with an agreement between the USSR, Mongolia and Japan signed on
September 15 in
Moscow.
In the conflict, the Red Army losses were 9,703 KIA and MIA and 15,952 wounded. The Japanese lost 25 thousand KIA; the grand total was 61 thousand killed, missing, wounded and taken prisoner.
Shortly after the cease-fire, the Japanese negotiated access to the battlefields to collect their dead. Finding thousands upon thousands of dead bodies came as a further shock to the already shaken morale of the Japanese soldiers. The scale of the defeat probably became a major factor in discouraging a Japanese attack on the USSR during
World War II, which allowed the Red Army to switch a large number of its
Far Eastern troops into the
European Theatre in the desperate fall (autumn) of
1941.
World War II
The Scope of the War
As the name implies,
World War II involved many countries and geographies. It involved many different conflicts, which may or may not be considered part of the War, depending on the perception and, alas, prejudice of the examiner. However, it is commonly accepted that World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and ended on August 15, 1945, when Japan surrendered. Consequently, all major military conflicts within this period may be regarded as episodes of the War. This method of analysis is especially significant for the European theatre, where any “independent� use of military force within this period would offset the balance of power and most directly affect the War.
The Polish Campaign
''Main article:
Polish September Campaign''
At the end of World War I, Poland emerged as an independent state. Shortly after, Poland occupied parts of Ukraine and Byelorussia, in an attempt to create a state “
Mi%C4%99dzymorze from sea to sea�. In the
Polish-Soviet War that followed, most of thus occupied territory was liberated, but parts of it remained under Polish rule.
On
September 17,
1939 the Red Army marched its troops into Poland, using the official pretext of coming ''to the aid of the Ukrainians and the Byelorussians threatened by Germany'', which had attacked Poland on
September 1,
1939. The Soviet advance halted roughly at the
Curzon Line, thus completing the liberation of the lands previously annexed by Poland. The Soviet troops established contact with the German troops, which culminated in a joint military parade held in
Brest-Litovsk on
23 September, 1939.
The
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which included a secret protocol delimiting the “spheres of interest� of each party, seems to have set the scene for the remarkably smooth partition of Poland between Germany and the USSR. The defined Soviet sphere of interest matched the territory subsequently liberated in the campaign. The territory became part of the
Ukrainian and the
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics, and remains part of Ukraine and Byelorussia as of
2006.
According to ''Soviet casualties and combat losses in the twentieth century'' edited by Colonel-General Krivosheev, (ISBN 1-85367-280-7) the Red Army force in Poland numbered 466,516. The Red Army troops faced little resistance, partly due to an official order by the Polish Supreme Command not to engage in combat with the Soviet troops, and partly because many former Polish subjects viewed the advancing troops as liberators, welcoming them with flowers and “
bread and salt�. Nonetheless the Red Army sustained losses of 1,475 killed and missing and 2,383 wounded (Ibid.). The losses of the opposing Polish troops remain unknown; the Red Army reported that it had "disarmed" 452,536 men (Ibid.) but this figure probably included a large number not enrolled as regular
Polish Army servicemen. The Polish
Wielka Encyklopedia PWN PWN encyclopaedia gives the number of approximately 240,000 prisoners taken by the Red Army. The Soviet Union did not consider such prisoners as POWs, but as interned persons. This action saved many Polish Jews from the Nazis, though German authorities killed many of them later after the
Operation Barbarossa German invasion of the USSR began in June 1941.
The Finnish Campaign
See
Winter War
The Great Patriotic War, 1941 - 1945
By the fall of 1940, a new world order had emerged. Most of the
European continent was dominated by the
Third Reich and its allies. Its reign could only be challenged by
Britain, in the West, and by the
Soviet Union, in the East. The Third Reich and Britain had no common
land border, but they were at the
state of war; the land border with the Soviet Union was enormous, but the latter was neutral, bound by a
non-aggression pact and numerous
trade agreements.
For
Hitler, the
dilemma never existed.
Drang nach Osten was the order of the day. This culminated, on
December 18, in the ‘
Directive No. 21 – Case
Operation Barbarossa Barbarossa’, which opened by saying “the German
Armed Forces must be prepared to crush
Soviet Russia in a quick campaign before the end of the war against
England�. Before the directive was issued, the German
General Staff had developed detailed plans of the campaign. On
February 3,
1941, the final plan of Operation Barbarossa was approved, and the attack scheduled at the middle of May. However, the events in
Greece and
Yugoslavia necessitated a delay — to the second half of June.
At the time of the
Nazi Germany Nazi assault on the
Soviet Union USSR in June
1941, the Red Army had 303 divisions and 22 brigades (4.8 million troops), of which 166 divisions and 9 brigades (2.9 million troops) were in the western military districts. Their Axis opponents had at the
Eastern Front 181 divisions and 18 brigades (5.5 million troops). The first weeks of the War saw the annihilation of virtually the entire
Soviet Air Force on the ground, as well as major equipment, tanks, artillery, and major Soviet defeats as German forces trapped hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers in vast pockets.
Soviet forces suffered heavy damage in the field as a result of poor levels of preparedness, which was primarily caused by a reluctant, half-hearted and ultimately belated decision by the Soviet Government and High Command to mobilize the army. Equally important was a general tactical superiority of the German army, which was conducting the kind of warfare that it had been combat-testing and fine-tuning for two years. The hasty pre-war growth and over-promotion of the Red Army cadres as well as the removal of experienced officers caused by the
Great Purge Purges offset the balance even more favourably for the Germans. Finally, the sheer numeric superiority of the Axis cannot be underestimated.
A generation of brilliant commanders (most notably
Zhukov) learned from the defeats, and Soviet victories in the
Battle of Moscow, at
Stalingrad,
Kursk and later in
Operation Bagration proved decisive in what became known to the Soviets as the
Great Patriotic War.
The Soviet government adopted a number of measures to improve the state and morale of the retreating Red Army in 1941. Soviet propaganda turned away from political notions of
class struggle, and instead invoked the deeper-rooted patriotic feelings of the population, embracing pre-revolutionary Russian history. Propagandists proclaimed the War against the German aggressors as the "
Great Patriotic War", in allusion to the
Patriotic War of 1812 against
Napoleon I of France Napoleon. References to ancient Russian military heroes such as
Alexander Nevski and
Mikhail Kutuzov appeared. Repressions against the
Russian Orthodox Church stopped, and priests revived the tradition of blessing arms before battle. The Communist Party abolished the institution of
political commissars — although it soon restored them. The Red Army re-introduced military ranks and adopted many additional individual distinctions such as medals and orders. The concept of a
Russian Guards Guard re-appeared: units which had shown exceptional heroism in combat gained the names of "Guards Regiment", "Guards Army", etc.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army drafted a staggering 29,574,900 in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war. Of these it lost 6,329,600 KIA and 4,559,000 MIA (most captured). Of these 11,444,100, however, 939,700 re-joined the ranks in the subsequently-liberated Soviet territory, and a further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. Thus the grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. The majority of the losses comprised ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). See Г. Ф. Кривошеев, "РоÑ?Ñ?иÑ? и СССРв войнах XX века: потери вооруженных Ñ?ил. СтатиÑ?тичеÑ?кое иÑ?Ñ?ледование" (G. F. Krivosheev, "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century: losses of the Armed Forces. A Statistical Study", in Russian).
The German losses on the Eastern Front comprised an estimated 3,604,800 KIA/MIA (most killed) and 3,576,300 captured (total 7,181,100); the losses of the German satellites on the Eastern Front approximated 668,163 KIA/MIA and 799,982 captured (total 1,468,145). Of these 8,649,300, the Soviets released 3,572,600 from captivity after the war, thus the grand total of the Axis losses came to an estimated 5,076,700.
A comparison of the losses demonstrates the cruel treatment of the Soviet POWs by the Nazis. Most of the Axis POWs were released from captivity after the war, but the fate of the Soviet POWs differed markedly. Nazi troops who captured Red Army soldiers frequently shot them in the field or shipped them to
concentration camps and executed them as a part of
the Holocaust. Hitler's notorious
commissar order Commissar Order implicated all the German armed forces in the policy of war crimes.
As the Red Army entered German territory, it exacted often brutal revenge for German atrocities on the German population, including plunder, rape, and murder of civilians. While such activities were officially prohibited by the laws of the Red Army, they were nonetheless tolerated by the leadership. At the same time, allegations that such behaviour was actively encouraged by officials have been shown to be incorrect.
Image:Poster russian.jpg thumb|200px|US-Government poster showing a friendly Russian soldier.
In the first part of the war, the Red Army fielded weaponry of mixed quality. It had excellent artillery, but it did not have enough trucks to manoeuvre and supply it; as a result the Wehrmacht (which rated it highly) captured much of it. Red Army
T-34 tanks outclassed any other tanks in the world, yet most of the Soviet armoured units had hopelessly outdated models; likewise, the same supply problem handicapped even the formations equipped with the most modern tanks. The Soviet Air Force initially performed poorly against the Germans. The quick advance of the Germans into the Soviet territory made re-inforcement difficult, if not impossible, since much of the Soviet Union's military industry lay in the west of the country. Until the Soviet authorities re-established the industry in the East, the Red Army had to rely on improvised weapons and partly on British and American supplies. For example, it employed
Sherman tanks (ca. 4100),
Valentine Tanks (ca. 3700),
M3A1 Stuart (ca. 1700),
M17 MGMC (ca. 1000),
Bren Carrier bren carriers (more than 2500),
Matilda IIA (ca. 1100) as well as
M3A3 Lee and
M3A5 Grant tanks, even though none of these matched the
T-34 or
KV-1. On the other hand, the red aviation received several thousand modern planes that were on par or better than the Soviet aircraft; these included various models of
P-39 Airacobra fighters (almost 5000),
Hawker Hurricane (3000),
A-20 Boston A-20 Havoc medium bombers (3000),
P63 KingCobra (ca. 2400),
P40 TomaHawk and
P40 KittyHawk (2130),
Supermarine Spitfire (ca. 1350). Finally, the Red Army received no less than 9600 pieces of various anti-tank and anti-air guns, as well as millions of tonnes of ammunition, personal weapons and other pieces of war equipment. Aluminium and aviation-grade fuel re-vitalized its aviation more readily than aircraft. Food supplies offered a welcome addition to the front rations, and so on.
The Manchurian Campaign
As a postscript to the war in Europe, the Red Army attacked Japan and
Manchukuo, Japan's
puppet state in
Manchuria, on
9 August 1945 (
Operation August Storm) and in combination with Mongolian and Chinese Communist forces rapidly overwhelmed the outnumbered
Kwantung Army. Soviet forces also attacked in
Sakhalin, in the
Kuril Islands and in northern
Korea. Japan surrendered unconditionally on
2 September 1945.
Aftermath
After World War II the Soviet Army had the most powerful land army in history. It had more tanks or artillery than all other countries taken together. The British
Chiefs of Staff Committee rejected as militarily unfeasible a proposed British plan (
Operation Unthinkable) to destroy Stalin's government and drive the Red Army out of Europe.
The Cold War
image:sovconcript.jpg conscription right|thumb|Soviet army [[conscription|conscript hat
insignia..html" title="Meaning of conscript.html" title="Meaning of right|thumb|Soviet army [[conscription|conscript">right|thumb|Soviet army [[conscription|conscript hat
insignia.">conscript.html" title="Meaning of right|thumb|Soviet army [[conscription|conscript">right|thumb|Soviet army [[conscription|conscript hat
insignia.
To mark the final step in the transformation from a revolutionary militia to a regular army of a sovereign state, the Red Army gained the official name of the "Soviet Army" in
1946.
The numbers of the Soviet Army dropped from around 13 million to approximately 5 million. The size of the Army throughout the
Cold War remained between 3 million and 5 million, according to Western estimates. Soviet law required all able-bodied males of age to serve a minimum of 2 years. As a result, the Soviet Army remained the largest active army in the world from 1945 to 1991. Soviet Army units which had liberated the countries of Eastern Europe from German rule remained in some of them to secure the régimes in what became
satellite states of the Soviet Union and to deter and to fend off
NATO forces. The greatest Soviet military presence based itself in
East Germany, in the
Western Group of the Armed Forces.
The trauma of the devastating German invasion of 1941 influenced the Soviet cold-war military doctrine of fighting enemies on their own territory, or in a buffer zone under Soviet hegemony, but in any case preventing any war from reaching Soviet soil. In order to secure Soviet interests in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Army moved in to quell anti-Soviet uprisings in the
German Democratic Republic (1953),
Hungary (1956) and
Czechoslovakia (1968).
Confrontation with the US and NATO during the Cold War mainly took the form of threatened mutual deterrence with
nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union invested heavily in the Army's nuclear capacity, especially in the production of ballistic missiles and of nuclear submarines to deliver them. Open hostilities took the form of wars by proxy, with the Soviet Union and the US supporting loyal client régimes or rebel movements in
Third World countries.
Image:Redarmydayposter.jpeg.jpeg thumb|230px|left|"You were born under the red banner in the stormy year of 1918", a poster produced in the 1970s for the annual Red Army Day holiday.
=The limited contingent in Afghanistan
=
In
1979, however, the Soviet Army
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan intervened in a civil war raging in
Afghanistan. The Soviet Army came to back a Soviet-friendly secular government threatened by Muslim fundamentalist guerillas equipped and financed by the United States. Technically superior, the Soviets did not have enough troops to establish control over the countryside and to secure the border. This resulted from hesitancy in the
Politburo, which allowed only a "limited contingent", averaging between 80,000 and 100,000 troops. Consequently, local insurgents could effectively employ hit-and-run tactics, using easy escape-routes and good supply-channels. This made the Soviet situation hopeless from the military point of view (short of using "
scorched earth" tactics, which the Soviets did not practise except in World War II in their own territory). The understanding of this made the war highly unpopular within the Army. With the coming of
glasnost, Soviet media started to report heavy losses, which made the war very unpopular in the USSR in general, even though actual losses remained modest, averaging 1670 per year. The war also became a sensitive issue internationally, which finally led
Mikhail Gorbachev Gorbachev to withdraw the Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The "Afghan Syndrome" suffered by the Army parallels the American
Vietnam Syndrome trauma over their own lost war in
Vietnam.
Eventually, the enormous cost of maintaining a 5-million-man peacetime army, as well as of waging a 9-year war in Afghanistan, would prove a major factor contributing to the decay of the Soviet economy and the Soviet Union as a whole.
The end of the Soviet Union
From around 1985 to 1990, the new leader of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to reduce the strain the Army placed on economic demands. His government slowly reduced the size of the army. By 1989 Soviet troops had completely left their
Warsaw Pact neighbors to fend for themselves. That same year, the war in Afghanistan ended and all remaining Soviet troops returned to the Soviet Union. By the end of 1990, the entire Eastern Bloc had collapsed in the wake of democratic revolutions. As a result, Soviet citizens quickly began to turn against the Communist government as well. In March 1990, nationalism in Lithuania caused the republic to declare its independence. A series of out-lying republics would also declare their independence that year. Gorbachev reacted in limited fashion, declining to turn the Army against the citizenry, and a crisis developed. By mid-1991, the Soviet union had reached a state of emergency.
According to the official commission (the Academy of Soviet Scientists) appointed by the Supreme
Soviet (the higher chamber of the Russian parliament) immediately after the
Soviet coup attempt of 1991 events of August 1991, the Army did not play a significant role in what some describe as
coup d'état of old-guard communists. Commanders sent tanks into the streets of
Moscow, but (according to all the commanders and soldiers) only with orders to ensure the safety of the people. It remains unclear why exactly the military forces were summoned into the city, but they clearly did not have the goal of overthrowing
Gorbachev (absent on the Black Sea coast at the time) or the government. The coup failed primarily because the participants didn't take any decisive action, and after several days of their inaction the coup simply stopped. Only one confrontation took place between civilians and the tank crews during the coup, which led to the deaths of three civilians. Although the victims became proclaimed heroes, the tank crew was acquitted of all charges. Nobody issued orders to shoot at anyone.
Following the coup attempt of August 1991, the leadership of the Soviet Union retained practically no authority over the component republics. Nearly every Soviet Republic declared its intention to secede and began passing laws defying the Supreme Soviet. On
December 8,
1991, the Presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine declared the Soviet Union dissolved and signed the document setting up the
Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev finally resigned on
December 25, 1991, and the following day the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body, dissolved itself, officially ending the Soviet Union's existence. After the following
collapse of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Army dissolved and the USSR's
successor states divided its assets among themselves. The divide mostly occurred along a regional basis, with Soviet soldiers from Russia becoming part of the new Russian Army, while Soviet soldiers originating from Kazakhstan might become part of the new Kazakh Army. As a result, the bulk of the Soviet Army, including most of the
nuclear missile forces, became incorporated in the
Military of Russia Army of the Russian Federation. By the end of 1992, most remnants of the Soviet Army in former Soviet Republics had disbanded. Military forces garrisoned in Eastern Europe (including the
Baltic states) gradually returned home between 1991 and 1994.
Further reading
* ''Roter Stern über Deutschland'', Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk und Stefan Wolle, Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2001, ISBN 3-86153-246-8. This German book, ''The
Red Star over Germany'', without excessive hatred, presents 49 years of the Soviet Army stationed in
East Germany. The 256 pages of the book cover it all: from 49,000 who perished in prison camps of the Soviet zone, to the 18 Russian soldiers who refused to shoot unarmed Germans.
* ''The Warsaw Pact: Arms, Doctrine and Strategy'', Lewis, William J.; Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis; 1982. ISBN 0-07-031746-1. This book presents an overview of all the Warsaw Pact armed forces as well as a section on Soviet strategy, a model land campaign the Soviet Union could have conducted against
NATO, a section on vehicles, weapons and aircraft, and a full-color section on the uniforms, badges and rank-insignia of all Warsaw Pact nations.
See also
{{commons|Category:Red Army}}
*
Russian military ranks
*
Comparative military ranks of World War II
*
Great Patriotic War
*
Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
*
Leon Trotsky
*
List of military aircraft of the Soviet Union and the CIS
*
Marshal of the Soviet Union
*
Military history of the Soviet Union
*
Military of Russia
*
Russian Civil War
*
Soviet Navy
*
Warsaw Pact
*
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
*
Red Army Choir
External links
-
Sovietarmy.com
Category:Military of the Soviet Union
Category:Soviet Army
Category:Soviet phraseology
bg:Червена армиÑ?
cs:Rudá armáda
da:Den Røde Hær
de:Rote Armee
es:Ejército Rojo
eo:RuÄ?a Armeo
fa:ارتش سرخ
fr:Armée rouge
ko:붉� 군대
io:Red-Armeo
it:Armata Rossa
he:הצב×? ×”×?דו×?
lt:Raudonoji armija
nl:Rode Leger
ja:赤�
no:Den røde armé
nn:Den raude arméen
pl:Armia Czerwona
pt:Exército Vermelho
ro:Armata RoÅŸie
ru:Рабоче-креÑ?Ñ‚ÑŒÑ?нÑ?каÑ? КраÑ?наÑ? армиÑ?
sl:RdeÄ?a armada
sr:Црвена армија
fi:Puna-armeija
sv:Röda armén
uk:Червона арміÑ?
zh:��红军
see
Red Army
*** Shopping-Tip: Red army
