The Red Army (; RKKA (Workers'–Peasants' Red Army)) started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary militia during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.

The "Red Army" name refers to the traditional colour of the workers' movement. This represents, symbolically, the blood shed by the working class in its struggle against capitalism, and the belief that all people are equal. On 25 February 1946 (when Soviet national symbols replaced revolutionary national symbols), the Red Army was renamed the Soviet Army (Советская Армия, Sovetskaya Armiya).

The Red Army is widely credited with being the decisive force in winning World War II, having engaged and defeated about 80% of the German armed forces, the Wehrmacht

History

Russian Civil War

(Leon Trotsky) slaying the counter-revolutionary white dragon (derived from the Moscow Coat of Arms), 1918.]] The Russian Civil War (1917–23) occurred in two periods. The first period: October 1917–November 1918, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the First World War (1914–18) Armistice, developed from the Bolshevik government's November 1917 nationalization of traditional Cossack lands. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledin's Volunteer Army in the River Don region. Also aggravating Russian internal politics was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918). This allowed direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, in which twelve foreign countries armed anti-Bolshevik militias. Combat was a series of small-unit actions among the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen and others. The second period: January–November 1919, featured the White armies' successful advances, from the south, under Gen. Anton Denikin, from the east, under Gen. Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak, and from the northwest, under Gen. Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, that defeated the Red Army on each front. Trotsky reformed and counterattacked; the Red Army repulsed Gen. Kolchak's army in June, and the armies of Gen. Denikin and Gen. Yudenich in October. Trotsky founded the Red Army with an initial Red Guard organization, and a core soldiery of Red Guard militiamen and Chekist secret policemen; At war's end in 1922, ex-Tsarists constituted 83 per cent of the Red Army's divisional and corps commanders.

Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland ceded 11% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to the Soviet Union. The Soviet forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Finland but did gain sufficient territory along Lake Ladoga to provide a buffer for Leningrad. The Finns, however, retained their sovereignty and improved their international reputation.

The Great Patriotic War

, 1945]] In accordance with the Nazi–Soviet Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 24 August 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, after the Nazi invasion on 1 September 1939. On 30 November, the Red Army also attacked Finland, in the Winter War of 1939–40. By autumn 1940, after conquering its portion of Poland, the Third Reich shared an extensive border with USSR, with whom it remained neutrally-bound by their non-aggression pact and trade agreements. Another consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, carried out by the Southern Front in June–July 1940. This conquest also added to the border the Soviet Union shared with Nazi-controlled areas. For Hitler, the circumstance was no dilemma, because The hasty pre-war forces expansion and the over-promotion of inexperienced officers (owing to the purging of experienced officers) favored the Wehrmacht in combat.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army conscripted 29,574,900 men in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war. Of this total of 34,401,807 it lost 6,329,600 KIA, 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 MIA (most captured). Of these 11,444,100, however, 939,700 rejoined 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. However, as many as 8 million of the 34 million mobilized were non-Slavic minority soldiers, and around 45 divisions formed from national minorities served from 1941 to 1943.

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.

The Marshal of the Soviet Union (Маршал Советского Союза) rank was introduced on the September 22, 1935. On May 7, 1940 further modifications to rationalise the ranks system were made on the proposal by Marshal Voroshilov: the ranks of "General" and "Admiral" replaced the senior functional ranks of Combrig, Comdiv, Comcor, Comandarm in the RKKA and Flagman 1st rank etc. in the Red Navy; the other senior functional ranks ("Division Commissar", "Division Engineer", etc.) remained unaffected. The Arm or Service distinctions remained (e.g. General of Cavalry, Marshal of Armoured Troops). Most historians believe that the purges significantly impaired the combat capabilities of the Red Army. However, the extent of the consequential damage attributable to them is still debated. Recently declassified data indicate that in 1937, at the height of the Purges, the Red Army had 114,300 officers, of whom 11,034 were dismissed. In 1938, the Red Army had 179,000 officers, 56% more than in 1937, of whom a further 6,742 were sacked. 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. Junior officers were appointed to fill the ranks of the senior leadership, many of whom lacked broad experience. This action in turn resulted in many openings at the lower level of the officer corps, which were filled by new graduates from the service academies. In 1937, the entire junior class of one academy was graduated a year early to fill vacancies in the Red Army. Hamstrung by inexperience and fear of reprisals, many of these new officers failed to impress the large numbers of incoming draftees to the ranks; complaints of insubordination rose to the top of offenses punished in 1941, and may have exacerbated instances of Red Army soldiers deserting their units during the initial phases of the German offensive of that year.

By 1940, Stalin began to relent, restoring approximately one-third of previously dismissed officers to duty. However, the effect of the purges would soon manifest itself in the Winter War of 1940, where Red Army forces generally performed poorly against the much smaller Finnish Army.

Manpower

The Ground Forces were manned through conscription for a term of service, based on the All-union service laws of 1925 and 1939 in the first decades of the Soviet Union. According to 1949 service law service terms were 3 years in the ground forces (and 4 years in the navy). The final 1967 military service law reduced the term of service from three to two years (3 years in the navy). A bi-annual draft in May and November was intruced then, also, replacing the annual draft in fall. This system was administered through the thousands of military commissariats (военный комиссариат, военкомат (voyenkomat)) located throughout the Soviet Union. Between January and May of every year, every young Soviet male citizen was required to report to the local voyenkomat for assessment for military service, following a summons based on lists from every school and employer in the area. The voyenkomat worked to quotas sent out by a department of the General Staff, listing how young men are required by each service and branch of the Armed Forces. The new conscripts were then picked up by an officer from their future unit and usually sent by train across the country. On arrival, they would begin the Young Soldiers' course, and become part of the system of senior rule, known as dedovshchina, literally "rule by the grandfathers." There were only a very small number of professional non-commissioned officers (NCOs), as most NCOs were conscripts sent on short courses to prepare them for squad or crew leaders and platoon sergeants' positions. These conscript NCOs were supplemented by praporshchik warrant officers, positions created in the 1960s to support the increased variety of skills required for modern weapons.

Weapons and equipment

The Soviet Union expanded its indigenous arms industry as part of Stalin's industrialization program in the 1920s and 1930s.

Notable Soviet tanks include the T-34, T-54 and T-55, T-62, T-64, T-72, and T-80, as well as post-Soviet variants of the T-72 and T-80 such as the T-90 and T-84. Small arms used during the Second World War included, for example, the Mosin-Nagant Rifle, which was also used as a sniper rifle and the PPSh sub-machine gun. But, throughout the late 1950s to the 1970s, the primary infantry weapon was the AKM (derived from the AK-47), followed by the AK-74, as well as a number of general purpose and heavy machine guns.

War crimes

at Seitajärvi in Finnish Lapland 1942.]] 1943 exhumation. Photo by International Red Cross delegation.]] The Red Army often gave support to the NKVD, which had as one of its functions the implementation of political repressions. The main function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union, which was accomplished by large scale political repressions against "class enemies". As an internal security force and prison guard contingent of the GULag, the Internal Troops played a role in both political repressions as well as war crimes during the periods of military hostilities throughout the Soviet history. Particularly, they were responsible for maintaining the regime in the GULAG, and for conducting the mass deportations and forced resettlement of several ethnic groups that the Soviet regime presumed to be hostile to its policies and likely to collaborate with the enemy (Chechens, Crimean Tatars, or Koreans for example).

During World War II, a series of mass executions were committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Eastern Europe, primarily Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union as the Red Army withdrew after the German invasion in 1941 (see Operation Barbarossa). The overall death toll is estimated at around 100,000. There were numerous allegations of war crimes committed by Soviet armed forces, especially against captured Luftwaffe airmen during the initial phase of the war. NKVD Internal Troops were engaged alongside Red Army forces in combat, and NKVD units were used for rear area security, functioning as blocking units. In territory that was occupied, the NKVD carried out mass arrests, deportations, and executions. The targets included the members of non-Communist resistance movements such as the UPA in Ukraine, former Waffen-SS soldiers and "Forest Brethren" in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and Polish Armia Krajowa. The NKVD also summarily executed many Polish military officer prisoners in 1939–41.

Soviet Destruction battalions were given wide mandate by the Soviet authorities to summarily execute any suspicious person. Thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children were killed, while dozens of villages, schools and public buildings were burned to the ground.

After the final repulse of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Soviet troops entered Germany, Romania, and Hungary in late 1944. Red Army soldiers often executed surrendering or captured German soldiers. There were large number of accounts of war crimes by Soviet armed forces — plunder, the murder of civilians, and rape. In both Soviet and current Russian history books on the "Great Patriotic War" these war crimes are rarely mentioned.

War crimes by Soviet armed forces against civilians and prisoners of war in the territories occupied by the USSR between 1939 and 1941 — (Western Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Bessarabia in Romania) — and further war crimes in 1944–45 have been present in the consciousness of these countries ever since. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, a more systematic, locally-controlled discussion of these events has taken place. This is also true of the territories occupied by Soviet forces in Manchuria and the Kuril Islands after the Soviet Union refused to renew its neutrality pact with Japan in August 1945.

Notes

References

Carrere D'Encausse, Helene. The End of the Soviet Empire: The Triumph of the Nations, Basic Books, 1992, ISBN 0-465-09818-5

Erickson, John. The Soviet High Command - A Military-Political History 1918–41, MacMillan, London, 1962,

Glantz, David, Colossus Reborn, University Press of Kansas, ISBN 9780700613533

Glantz, David. Stumbling Colossus, University Press of Kansas, ISBN 9780700608799

House, Jonathan M. (1984). Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027–6900: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College,

Isby, David C. Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army, Jane's Publishing Company, 1988, ISBN 9780710603524

Odom, William E. The Collapse of the Soviet Military, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1998, ISBN 9780300074697

Schofield, Carey . Inside the Soviet Army, Headline Book Publishing, 1991, ISBN 9780747204183

Scott and Scott. The Armed Forces of the USSR, Westview Press, Boulder, Co., 1979, ISBN 9780891582762

Zaloga, Steven J.; Grandsen, James. Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two, London: Arms and Armour Press, 1984, ISBN 0-85368-606-8.

Category:Soviet Army Category:Soviet phraseology Category:Military units and formations established in 1918 Category:Disbanded armies

Russian Red is the pseudonym of Lourdes Hernández (Madrid, 1986), indie and folk singer-songwriter.

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