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 (short for the official name, Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, Russian Raboche-Kriestianskaya Krasnaya Armia) is the name originally given to the armed forces organized by the Bolsheviks to prosecute their cause during the Russian Civil War. This organization became the army of the Soviet Union from its establishment in 1921. "Red" refers to the shed blood of the working class.
The Red Army 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 People's Commissar for War from 1918 to 1924, is generally regarded as its founder.
At the beginning, the Red Army was a voluntary formation, without ranks and insignia. At the very beginning the officers were democratically elected. Later, obligatory military service was introduced, and every unit was assigned a political commissar, or politruk, who was given the authority to override officers' decisions which were in opposition to the principles of the Communist Party.
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 senior officers were executed or sent to gulags as potential threats to Stalin's authority.
World War II
At the time of the Nazi Germany assault on the USSR, the Red Army numbered around 1.5 million. During World War II, the Red Army drafted between 15 and 20 million officers and soldiers, of which 7-10 million 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. The soldiers of Red Army earned the glory of victory over Nazi Germany, and were instrumental to the Nazis' defeat during the war.
Like almost any other army, the Red Army (and its successor, the Soviet Army, still known as the Red Army sometimes) was charged with atrocities during the Russian Civil War, during WWII, as well as during its actions against the countries in disagreement with the politics of Josef Stalin (Hungary and Czechoslovakia). It must be noted that the White Army also committed equally brutal atrocities during the Russian Civil War, and that the Nazis executed the captured Red Army prisoners who were not shot outright in concentration camps as a part of the Holocaust.
The Cold War
In 1946 the word 'Red' was removed from the name of the Soviet armed forces. After WWII, units of the Soviet Army were stationed in all satellite countries of the Soviet Union, and were in many cases instrumental in maintaining Communist control. They were gradually moved out from 1991 to 1993.
The Soviets
Literature
- The German book of Kowalczuk - Wolle 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.
- 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