Red Army

This article is about the armed forces of the Soviet Union. See Red Army Faction for the German and Japanese Red Army for the Japanese terrorist group and People's Liberation Army for the Chinese Red Army.

The Red Army is the name given to the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union after the disintegration of the Tsarist forces in 1917. "Red" referred to the shed blood of the working class. The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Raboche-Kriestianskaya Krasnaya Armia) was created by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars on February 23, 1918 from the already-existing Red Guard. This date was an important national holiday in the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky, the Soviet Union's commissar for war from 1918 to 1924 is often regarded as its founder. At the beginning it was a voluntary formation, without ranks and insignia. At the very beginning the officers were democratically elected. Later the obligatory military service was introduced and every unit was assigned Political Commissar, or politruk.

The institute of professional officers, abandoned as a "heritage of tsarism", was restored in 1935. During the Great Purges of 1937-1939 and later nearly all higher officers were repressed.

At the moment of the Nazi Germany assault on the USSR the Red Army numbered around 1.5 mln. During the World War II, the Red Army drafted between 15 and 20 million officers and soldiers, of which 7-10 mln were killed. After its victory over Germany the numbers were reduced to approximately 5 million, then reached about 3 million at the end of the Cold War.

In 1946 the word 'Red' was removed from the name of the Soviet armed forces.

After the WWII units of the Soviet Army stationed in all countries- satellites of the Soviet Union. They were gradually moved out during 1991-1993.

While the soldiers of Red Army earned the glory of the victory over the Nazist Germany, unfortunately this glory is outweighed by it being an instrument of the politics of the Soviet Union. The German book of Kowalczuk - Wolle The Red Star over Germany without excessive hatred presents 49 years of the Soviet Army stationed in GDR. The 256 pages of the book cover it all: from 49,000 perished in prison camps of the Soviet zone to the 18 Russian soldiers who refused to shoot unarmed Germans.

Like almost any other army, the Red Army (and its successor, the Soviet Army, still known as Red Army) is charged with atrocities during the Russian Civil War, during the WWII, as well as during its actions against the countries dissident to the politics of Josef Stalin (Hungary, Czechoslovakia).

Literature

• Silesian Inferno, War Crimes of the Red Army on its March into Silesia in 1945 , Karl F. Grau, The Landpost Press,Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 1992
• Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk und Stefan Wolle: Roter Stern über Deutschland. Berlin, Ch. Links Verlag 2001 ISBN 3-86153-246-8

Related articles

• Military of Russia
• List of military aircraft of the Soviet Union and the CIS

Referenced By