The Worker's and Peasant's Red Army was the armed forces of the Soviet Union from December 1922 to 1946, although it was founded in February 1918 during the Russian Civil War. Reaching 20,000,000 troops during World War II, it was made up of inexperienced conscripts that were pushed into combat by political commissars and the NKVD secret police. Its two major conflicts were the Russian Civil War of 1917-1921 and World War II (1939-1945).
Early Years[]
Leon Trotsky founded the Worker's and Peasant's Red Army in February 1918 after the Russian Revolution with the goal of forming a military for the Bolsheviks in the Russian Empire. Under Trotsky's command, the Red Army fought against the White Army royalist-led serfs in the Russian Civil War and defeated Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus, and many other former possessions of the Russian Empire that were granted independence by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. The Red Army was led by former czarist officers who trained peasants how to fight, and they employed cavalry into the 1920s. Like the White Army, they would force peasants to give up their grain and available men to join their side at gunpoint. However, the Red Army ensured the loyalty of its soldiers by holding their families hostage. The inspirational leadership of Trotsky and the experience of its commanding officers led to its victory in the civil war and the foundation of the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in December 1922, also known as the Soviet Union. Trotsky became a hero leader of Russia and after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1923, Trotsky became leader. However, Trotsky was overthrown shortly after.
The Red Army's leadership was purged by the new Premier Josef Stalin in 1938-39 in the Great Purge, with 90% of its officers killed or deported to gulags. Stalin wanted to ensure that not one general gained too much popularity, lest they have enough popular support to overthrow the cruel dictator. The Red Army advisers sent to Spain during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War were almost all killed in the purge, as well as those who fought in the Russian Civil War, people that served under Trotsky, and people who opposed Stalin's cruel leadership.
World War II[]
Prewar status[]
However, these purges were to show that the Soviet Union was becoming weaker rather than stronger. With many of the peasants dying of starvation from the government's stealing of grain, as well as the lack of talented officers, the Soviet Union proved to be a weakened state. In 1939, they allied with Nazi Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler and invaded Poland, one of the nations that gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1918. They occupied eastern Poland and added much of Poland's eastern cities to their provinces of Ukraine and Belorussia (Belarus), with Lwow (Lviv) being given to the Ukraine and the cities of Brest-Litovsk (Brest), Hrodna (Grodno), Wolkowysk (Vawkavysk), and many others being given to Belorussia. By 1940, they had also annexed the countries of Lithuania, Latvia, ane Estonia. Finland defeated the Soviet Red Army in the Winter War of winter 1939-40 with ski troops, winning the Battle of Suomussalmi, but the Soviets breached the Mannerheim Line and forced the Finns to cede the Karelian Isthmus to the Soviets.
Start of the war[]
Soviet troops advancing with their officer
The Soviet Union remained at peace from June 1940 to June 1941, when Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany planned Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Hitler planned to take over all of the lands of the Soviet Union for his lebensraum for Germanic people, while the Slavs would be forced to settle east of the line from Archangelsk to Astrakhan (east of the Caspian Sea, in Siberia and east). The Germans invaded on 21 June 1941 with millions of soldiers, and the 20,000,000 Soviet troops were forced back. Hundreds of thousands were killed and captured in the surprise attack, and the Germans reached Moscow by November 1941 with little opposition. However, the lack of winter equipment and a counterattack by Georgi Zhukov forced the Germans to retreat from Moscow in December-January 1942 in the Battle of Moscow, the turning point of the German invasion of Russia.
Soviet defense[]
13th Guards Rifle Division troops at Stalingrad, 1942
The Red Army soon found itself led by a certain group of quality commanders as they were defeated many times in 1942. Generals Georgi Zhukov, Vasily Chuikov, Ivan Konev, Konstantin Rokossovsky, Fyodor Tolbukhin, and Aleksandr Vasilevsky, among others, could be counted on to defeat the Axis forces of Nazi Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, and Spain. The Germans began a new offensive, Operation Blue, in the summer of 1942 and advanced into the Volgograd region of Russia. However, the Soviets under Zhukov and Chuikov defeated the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad and forced them to surrender on 28 February 1943. The battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of the war, as the Red Army reorganized and began its push against the Axis.
Soviet counterattacks[]
Soviet troops advancing in 1944
The victory at the battle of Kursk in July 1943 was a major victory for the Red Army's armored units, with the Russians defeating a German attack in Operation Citadel against the Kursk Salient. In late 1943, they began an offensive into the Ukraine and retook Kiev and Kharkov, and liberated almost all of the country. In January 1944, they encircled German forces in the Cherkassy Pocket, destroying German forces there. The Soviets further took lands during Operation Bagration in June-August, virtually exterminating Army Group Centre and taking over all of Belarus. The Baltics and Balkans fell under siege, and Romania and Bulgaria surrendered to join the Allies in September after the Red Army launched an offensive at Jassy-Kishinev and captured Ploesti. Soviet, Romanian, and Bulgarian troops pushed north into Yugoslavia and Hungary, as the Germans fled from Greece before the offensive reached the area. The Soviets took Budapest in early 1945, and by January, their army up north had liberated all of eastern Europe up to Warsaw in Poland (and the Courland Gap in Latvia).
Drive nto Poland[]
3rd Shock Army troops in the battle of Berlin, 1945
The final push came in April 1945. The Vistula-Oder Offensive forced the Germans to retreat back into Germany, as Warsaw fell after little fighting. The cities of Stettin, Poznan, and Konigsberg offered heavy resistance and fell only after months of siege, but the Soviets reached the outskirts of Berlin on 17 April 1945. Georgi Zhukov was allowed to have the honor of taking the city with his 1st Belorussian Front, while Ivan Konev was sent with Ukrainian troops to the south of the city to provide reinforcements for a push into the city if needed.
End of the war[]
With Berlin under siege, the Red Army was able to liberate Hungary and most of Czechoslovakia, where they were assisted by United States allied troops. Prague was besieged for months, following the fall of the German city of Vienna in Austria. Berlin was taken on 30 April 1945 when the Soviet flag was raised over the Reichstag parliament building of Germany, and on 2 May Berlin fell. On 7 May, Germany surrendered to the Allies, and Prague fell on 12 May. The Red Army met the Western Allies on the Elbe River, dividing Europe in two. Their allied forces reached up to Trieste in Italy, while taking over most of Austria, half of Germany, and all of the lands to the east. The Red Army also briefly invaded Manchukuo, held by the Imperial Japanese Army, in August of 1945, forcing Japan to surrender.
In the aftermath of World War II, the Red Army units remained in occupied Europe. They were disbanded in 1946 and replaced by the Soviet Army on Stalin's orders. Another purge occured, with Soviet troops that were held in German prisons being purged from the communist party or being killed.