How and when the Red Army became “stronger than ever” and other interesting details of the history of the Red Army. Age of glory: how the Red Army was created The first leader of the Red Army
The Red Army was created, as they say, from scratch. Despite this, she managed to become a formidable force and win the civil war. The key to success was the construction of the Red Army using the experience of the old, pre-revolutionary army.
On the ruins of the old army
By the beginning of 1918, Russia, having survived two revolutions, finally emerged from the First World War. Her army was a pitiful sight - the soldiers deserted en masse and headed for their native places. Since November 1917, the Armed Forces have not existed and de jure - after the Bolsheviks issued an order to dissolve the old army.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the former empire, a new war broke out - a civil one. In Moscow, battles with the junkers had just died down, in St. Petersburg - with the Cossacks of General Krasnov. Events grew like a snowball.
On the Don, Generals Alekseev and Kornilov formed the Volunteer Army, in the Orenburg steppes an anti-communist uprising of ataman Dutov unfolded, in the Kharkov region there were battles with the cadets of the Chuguev military school, in the Yekaterinoslav province - with detachments of the Central Rada of the self-proclaimed Ukrainian Republic.
Labor activists and revolutionary sailors
The external, old enemy did not sleep either: the Germans stepped up their offensive on the Eastern Front, capturing a number of territories of the former Russian Empire.
available Soviet government at that time there were only detachments of the Red Guard, created on the ground mainly from activists of the working environment and revolutionary-minded sailors.
In the initial period of general partisanship in the civil war, the Red Guards were the backbone of the Council of People's Commissars, but it gradually became clear that the draft principle should replace voluntariness.
This was clearly shown, for example, by the events in Kyiv in January 1918, where the uprising of the workers' detachments of the Red Guard against the authorities of the Central Rada was brutally suppressed by national units and officer detachments.
The first step towards the creation of the Red Army
On January 15, 1918, Lenin issued a decree on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. The document emphasized that access to its ranks is open to all citizens. Russian Republic not younger than 18 years old, ready "to give their strength, their lives to defend the conquered October Revolution and the power of the Soviets and socialism."
This was the first but half step towards the creation of an army. For the time being, it was proposed to join it voluntarily, and in this the Bolsheviks followed the path of Alekseev and Kornilov with their voluntary recruitment of the White Army. As a result, by the spring of 1918, there were no more than 200 thousand people in the ranks of the Red Army. And its combat effectiveness left much to be desired - most of the front-line soldiers rested from the horrors of the world war at home.
A powerful incentive to create a large army was given by enemies - 40,000 Czechoslovak Corps, which in the summer of the same year rebelled against Soviet power along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railway and overnight captured vast expanses of the country - from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok. In the south of the European part of Russia, Denikin's troops did not doze off, who, having recovered from the unsuccessful assault on Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), in June 1918 again launched an offensive against the Kuban and this time achieved their goal.
Fight not with slogans, but with skill
Under these conditions, one of the founders of the Red Army, the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Lev Trotsky, proposed moving to a more rigid model of building an army. According to the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars on July 29, 1918, military conscription was introduced in the country, which made it possible to bring the number of the Red Army to almost half a million people by mid-September.
Along with quantitative growth, the army was strengthened and qualitatively. The leadership of the country and the Red Army realized that slogans alone that the socialist fatherland was in danger would not win the war. We need experienced cadres, albeit not adhering to revolutionary rhetoric.
En masse, the so-called military experts, that is, officers and generals of the tsarist army, began to be called up to the Red Army. Their total number during civil wars s in the ranks of the Red Army numbered almost 50 thousand people.
The best of the best
Many then became the pride of the USSR, such as, for example, Colonel Boris Shaposhnikov, who became a marshal Soviet Union and Chief of the General Staff of the Army, including during the Great Patriotic War. Another head of the General Staff of the Red Army during the Second World War, Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky entered the Civil War as a staff captain.
Another effective measure to strengthen the middle command level was military schools and accelerated training courses for red commanders from among the soldiers, workers and peasants. In battles and battles, yesterday's non-commissioned officers and sergeants quickly grew to commanders of large formations. Suffice it to recall Vasily Chapaev, who became a division commander, or Semyon Budyonny, who led the 1st Cavalry Army.
Even earlier, the election of commanders was abolished, which had an extremely harmful effect on the level of combat effectiveness of units, turning them into anarchist spontaneous detachments. Now the commander was responsible for order and discipline, albeit on a par with the commissar.
Kamenev instead of Vatsetis
It is curious that a little later, whites also came to the draft army. In particular, the Volunteer Army in 1919 largely remained so only in name - the bitterness of the Civil War imperiously demanded that the opponents replenish their ranks by any means.
The first commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the RSFSR in the autumn of 1918 was appointed former Colonel Joakim Vatsetis (since January 1919 he simultaneously led the actions of the army of Soviet Latvia). After a series of defeats by the Red Army in the summer of 1919 in the European part of Russia, Vatsetis was replaced at his post by another tsarist colonel, Sergei Kamenev.
Under his leadership, things went much better for the Red Army. The armies of Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel were defeated. Yudenich's attack on Petrograd was repulsed, the Polish units were driven out of Ukraine and Belarus.
Territorial-militia principle
By the end of the Civil War, the total strength of the Red Army was over five million people. The red cavalry, initially numbering only three regiments, in the course of numerous battles grew to several armies, which operated on the widely stretched communications of countless fronts of the civil war, performing the role of shock troops.
The end of hostilities required a sharp reduction in the number of personnel. First of all, the war-exhausted economy of the country needed this. As a result, in 1920-1924. demobilization was carried out, which reduced the Red Army to half a million people.
Under the leadership of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Mikhail Frunze, most of the remaining troops were transferred to the territorial-militia principle of recruitment. It consisted in the fact that a small part of the Red Army soldiers and unit commanders were in permanent service, and the rest of the staff was called up for five years for training camps lasting up to a year.
Strengthening combat capability
Over time, the Frunze reform led to problems: the combat readiness of the territorial units was much lower than the regular ones.
The thirties, with the arrival of the Nazis in Germany and the Japanese attack on China, began to smell distinctly of gunpowder. As a result, the transfer of regiments, divisions and corps to a regular basis began in the USSR.
This took into account not only the experience of the First World War and the Civil War, but also participation in new conflicts, in particular, a clash with Chinese troops in 1929 on the CER and Japanese troops on Lake Khasan in 1938.
The total number of the Red Army increased, the troops were actively re-equipped. First of all, this concerned artillery and armored forces. New troops were created, for example, airborne. Mother infantry became more motorized.
Premonition of World War
Aviation, which previously carried out mainly reconnaissance missions, was now becoming a powerful force, increasing the proportion of bombers, attack aircraft and fighters in its ranks.
Soviet tankers and pilots tried their hand at local wars taking place far from the USSR - in Spain and China.
In order to increase the prestige of the military profession and the convenience of serving in 1935, personal military ranks were introduced for military personnel - from marshal to lieutenant.
The law on universal conscription of 1939, which expanded the composition of the Red Army and established longer terms of service, finally drew a line under the territorial-militia principle of manning the Red Army.
And there was a big war ahead.
In 1918, the Red Army was created in Russia, which, having won the civil war, became the strongest army in the world during World War II.
At first, the Red Army was a volunteer
On January 15, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, headed by Lenin, issued a decree on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army "from the most conscious and organized elements of the working classes", but at the same time it was proposed to join all citizens of the country who wish to "give their strength , his life to defend the conquered October Revolution and the power of the Soviets and socialism.
Decree on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. January 1918
Its core was formed during the February Revolution detachments of the Red Guard, 95% staffed by workers, almost half of whom were members of the Bolshevik Party. But for a war with a large, technically equipped army, the Red Guard was not suitable.
The Red Army, on the other hand, was created as an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as an army of workers and peasants, a foundation for replacing the standing army with nationwide weapons, which in the near future was to serve as support for the coming socialist revolution in Europe.
Therefore, each volunteer had to submit recommendations from military committees, party and other organizations supporting the Soviet government. And if they entered in whole groups, collective responsibility was required. The fighters of the Red Army were promised full state support and, moreover, they were paid 50 rubles a month, and from the middle of 1918, 150 rubles for singles and 250 rubles for families. Assistance was also promised to disabled members of their families who were dependents.
At the same time, the imperial Russian army was officially dissolved on January 29, 1918 by order of the revolutionary commander-in-chief, former ensign Nikolai Krylenko. "World. The war is over. Russia is no longer at war. End of the damned war. The army, with honor bearing three and a half years of suffering, waited for a well-deserved rest, ”the radiogram was sent out.
However, by this time only a few parts of the old army actually remained: the soldiers, who were utterly tired of sitting in the trenches, in the fall of 1917, having heard about the adoption of the decree on peace, decided that the war was over and began to go home,
At the same time, generals Mikhail Alekseev and in the south of Russia, on the same principle, created an officer army, which was also called the Volunteer Army.
Opponents of the Soviet government also thought that the armed confrontation would not last long. In Samara, the Socialist-Revolutionary People's Army of the Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly was recruited at the beginning for only three months of service.
The order in this army was reminiscent of the times: the chiefs had power only in the campaign and in battle, while the rest of the time the "Comrades' Disciplinary Court" operated.
It came to oddities - among the officers there were no people willing to command the Samara volunteers. It was proposed to cast lots. Then a modest-looking lieutenant colonel, who had recently arrived in Samara, stood up and said: “Since there are no people who want it, then temporarily, until a senior one is found, let me lead units against the Bolsheviks.”
It was Vladimir Kappel, later one of the best White Guard generals in Siberia.
After that, the core of the emerging army was no longer the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but regular officers who did not make their way to the south of Russia and settled on the Volga. And a few weeks later, mobilization was carried out among the civilian population, and a month later, among the local officers.
The military enlistment office system will celebrate its centenary in May
The influx of volunteers into the Red Army also began to dry up. Seeing this, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, by a special decree, introduced universal military training for the working people (vsevobuch) in the country. Every worker between the ages of 18 and 40 had to complete a military training course within 96 hours, be registered as liable for military service, and, at the first call of the Soviet government, join the Red Army.
But those wishing to join its ranks became less and less. Even the proclaimed shock week of the creation of the Red Army under the slogan "The socialist fatherland is in danger!" failed! from 17 to 23 February 1918. And the government, putting aside the slogan of "world revolution" for a while and raising the old-fashioned word "fatherland" to its shield, quickly moved on to the forced formation of an army.
On May 29, 1918, a "compulsory" (as it is written in the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee) recruitment of persons aged 18 to 40 years into the Red Army was announced, and a network of military commissariats was created to implement this decree. By the way, the system of military registration and enlistment offices turned out to be so perfect that it exists to this day.
The election of commanders was abolished, a system was introduced for appointing commanders from those who had military training or who had shown themselves well in battle. The 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted a resolution "On the construction of the Red Army", which spoke of the need for centralized control and revolutionary iron discipline in the troops.
The congress demanded that the Red Army be built using the experience of the old military, although it seemed to many that there was no place for former "gold chasers" in the army of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But Lenin insisted that it was impossible to build a regular army without military science, and that it could only be learned from military specialists.
The date of February 23 appeared by chance, but it was mythologized
No victories were won on this day in 1918 by the Red Army. Therefore, there are various versions of this. For example, that the date was set according to an appeal published on that day in the newspaper Pravda to the workers, soldiers and peasants to defend the Soviet Republic from German shock battalions, called in the appeal “German White Guards”.
February 23, 1918. A shot from a Soviet filmstrip showing a battle that never happened. “The timing of the celebration of the anniversary of the Red Army on February 23 is rather random and difficult to explain and does not coincide with historical dates,” Klim Voroshilov admitted in 1933
However, according to the ideological myth planted in the 1930s and 40s, on February 23, 1918, the first, barely formed detachments of the Red Army stopped the German offensive near Pskov and Narva. These allegedly "severe battles" became the baptism of fire of the Red Army.
In fact, after Trotsky actually thwarted the first attempt at peace negotiations with the Germans and announced that Soviet Russia was ending the war, demobilizing the army, but not signing peace, the Germans regarded this as an automatic “termination of the truce” and launched an offensive along the entire Eastern Front.
By the evening of February 23, 1918, they were 55 km from Pskov and more than 170 km from Narva. No fights on this day were recorded either in the German or in the Russian archives.
Pskov was occupied by the Germans on February 24. And on February 25, they stopped the offensive in this direction: on the night of February 24, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR accepted the German peace conditions and immediately informed the German government about this. On March 3, 1918, the Brest Treaty was signed.
Narva - the second city that for a long time figured as the place of the heroic victory of the Red Army - was taken by the Germans without a fight at all. The Red Navy Dybenko and the Hungarian internationalists Bela Kun, who were supposed to defend it, fearing encirclement, fled to Yamburg, and then further to Gatchina. Although after the entry into force of the Brest Treaty, the Germans (who had many problems of their own) themselves stopped on the Narva-Pskov line and did not make any attempts to pursue the enemy.
For several years, no memorable date was remembered at all - until January 27, 1922, when the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR ordered that February 23 be celebrated as the Day of the Red Army and Navy.
Klim Voroshilov himself in 1933, at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the Red Army, admitted: « By the way, the timing of the celebration of the anniversary of the Red Army on February 23 is rather random and difficult to explain and does not coincide with historical dates.
The statement about the “victory near Pskov and Narva” first appeared in an article published in Izvestia on February 16, 1938 under the heading “On the 20th anniversary of the Red Army and the Navy. Theses for propagandists. And in September of the same year, he was enshrined in the chapter “A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks” published in Pravda. At the same time, the “Short Course” edited by Stalin does not mention the January Leninist decree on the creation of the Red Army, issued in 1918, at all.
Later, in his order of February 23, 1942, Stalin explained what happened on that day 24 years ago: “The young detachments of the Red Army, who entered the war for the first time, utterly(emphasis mine - S.V.) defeated the German invaders near Pskov and Narva on February 23, 1918. That is why February 23, 1918 was declared the birthday of the Red Army.”
No one dared to object to this. It was this version that was included in school and university textbooks. And only on January 18, 2006, the State Duma of the Russian Federation decided to exclude from the official description of the holiday in the law the words "Day of the victory of the Red Army over the Kaiser troops of Germany (1918)".
The civil war in Russia largely repeated the American one.
At the beginning of the 1861-1865 US War, the North and South also recruited volunteers into their armies. Both began to mobilize only after a series of fierce battles, when it became clear that the war would last not a few months, but much longer. Johnny (as the opponents called the southerners) did it in April 1862, the Yankees (northerners) did it in July of the same year.
Don Troiani. An Illustrated History of the American Civil War. That civil war has many parallels with ours.
Mobilization into the Red Army was announced on May 29, 1918. By this time, Denikin's regiments had captured Yekaterinodar, the rebellion of the 40,000-strong Czechoslovak corps cut off the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia from the European part of the RSFSR, and the Entente troops occupied Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. Opponents of the Soviet Republic also switched to the mobilization principle when they realized that the volunteers did not make up for the losses.
The ideological attitudes of the opposing sides were also similar among Russians and Americans - whites, like southerners, advocated the preservation of "traditional values", while reds, like northerners, advocated active changes and universal equality.
At the same time, one of the parties to the conflict refused shoulder straps - in Russia they were not worn by the Red Army, in the USA - soldiers and officers of the Confederation opposing the federal government.
Tankers of a separate Tank Regiment of the Red Army against the background of their combat vehicles
Denikin's men, like the fighters of General Robert Edward Lee, despite the superiority of the enemy in manpower, for a long time inflicted defeat after defeat on the enemy, fighting in the Suvorov style - "not by numbers, but by skill." One of their main trump cards at first was the advantage in the cavalry.
However, the revolutionary forces learned quickly. And the preponderance in weapons and ammunition was initially on their side, since (again, by analogy with the United States) behind them were industrial centers with the largest arms factories and military depots. In Russia, under the control of the Bolsheviks were Moscow, Petrograd, Tula, Bryansk, Nizhny Novgorod.
Like the southerners, the Whites were supplied by Great Britain and France, but this assistance was clearly insufficient, which ultimately led to the strategic defeat of both Lee's Northern Virginia army and Denikin's AFSR.
There was another "argument" in favor of the Red Army: it was supported by part of the officer corps of the former tsarist army.
Tsarist officers fought for both whites and reds
The core of the Red Army was former officers, generals, military officials and military doctors, who, along with other categories of the population, began to be actively drafted into the Armed Forces of the RSFSR, although they belonged to the "hostile exploiting class."
Lenin and Trotsky insisted on this. In 1919, at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), a heated discussion took place regarding the involvement of military specialists: according to the opposition, “bourgeois” military experts could not be appointed to command posts. But Lenin urged: “You, being connected with this partisanship with your experience ... do not want to understand that now the period is different. Now the regular army should be in the foreground, we must move to a regular army with military specialists. And convinced.
However, the decision itself was made earlier. As early as March 19, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars decided on the wide involvement of military experts in the Red Army, and on March 26, the Supreme Military Council issued an order to abolish the elective beginning in the army, which opened up access to the army for former generals and officers.
By the summer of 1918, several thousand officers voluntarily joined the Red Army. Among them were Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, Boris Shaposhnikov, Alexander Egorov, Dmitry Karbyshev, who later became famous Soviet military leaders.
The longer the civil war went on, the more numerous the Red Army became, the greater the need for experienced military personnel became. The principle of voluntariness no longer suited the Bolsheviks, and on June 29, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on mobilization former officers and officials.
Until the end of the civil war, 48.5 thousand officers and generals, as well as 10.3 thousand military officials and about 14 thousand military doctors were called up to the ranks of the Red Army. In addition, up to 14 thousand officers who served in the white and national armies were enrolled in the Red Army until 1921, including the future marshals of the Soviet Union Leonid Govorov and Ivan Bagramyan.
In 1918, military experts made up 75% of the command staff of the Red Army. And their total number in the Red Army, as a result, exceeded 72 thousand people, amounting to approximately 43% of the total officer corps of the tsarist army.
639 people (including 252 generals) served in various positions, including key ones, from among the officers of the General Staff, who at all times and in all armies are considered the military elite.
And the first commander in chief of all the Armed Forces of the RSFSR was the former General Staff Colonel Joachim Vatsetis. And then in this post he was replaced by the former General Staff Colonel Sergei Kamenev.
For comparison, during the years of the Civil War, about 100 thousand officers, generals and military specialists fought in the ranks of the anti-Bolshevik formations, primarily in the Volunteer Army. That is, approximately 57% of the total number of royal military personnel. Of these, officers of the General Staff - 750 people. More than in the Red Army, of course, but the difference is not so fundamental.
Trotsky introduced detachments and penal units to strengthen discipline
One of the founders of the Red Army is rightfully considered Lev Trotsky, who during the years of the Civil War was People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Chairman of the Supreme Military Council and head of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR.
Despite the fact that by the beginning of the bloody civil strife, there were no military academies behind Lev Davydovich's shoulders, he knew firsthand what the army and war were.
L. D. Trotsky in the Red Army in 1918
During the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913 (during which the Balkan Union - Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Romania - conquered almost all of its European territories from the Ottoman Empire), Trotsky, as a war correspondent for the liberal newspaper Kyiv Thought, was in the zone military operations and even wrote a number of articles that became serious information about what was happening for the inhabitants of many countries. And during the First World War, he, as a special correspondent for the same Kievskaya Thought, was on the Western Front.
In addition, it was under his direct leadership as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet that the Bolsheviks took power in Petrograd in October 1917 and repulsed General Krasnov's attempts to take the city by storm. The latter circumstance was subsequently noted even by his future worst enemy Stalin.
“It can be said with certainty that the Party owes the rapid transfer of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the skillful organization of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, first of all, and mainly to Comrade. Trotsky," he said.
On March 14, 1918, Trotsky received the post of People's Commissar for Military Affairs, on March 28 - Chairman of the Supreme Military Council, in April - People's Commissar for Naval Affairs, and on September 6 - Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR.
He consistently defends the widespread use of military experts in the Red Army, and to control them introduces a system of political commissars and ... hostages. Commissioned officers knew that their families would be shot if they went over to the enemy. Trotsky's order declared: "Let the defectors know that they are simultaneously betraying their own families: fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives and children."
Convinced that the army, built on the principles of universal equality and voluntariness, turned out to be unfit for combat, it was Trotsky who insisted on its reorganization, the restoration of mobilization, unity of command, insignia, uniform uniforms, military greetings and parades.
And of course, the energetic and active "demon of the revolution" set about strengthening revolutionary discipline, establishing it by the most severe methods.
With his submission, already on June 13, 1918, a decree was adopted on the restoration of the death penalty, which was abolished in March 1917. And already in June 1918, Rear Admiral Alexei Shchastny was executed, who saved Baltic Fleet from the Germans during the Ice Campaign in 1918. He pleaded not guilty, but was sentenced to death on the basis of the testimony of Trotsky, who stated in court that Shastny claimed to be a naval dictator.
Penal units (which at first were called "discredited units") first appeared in the Red Army not under Stalin in 1942, but in 1919 - by order of Trotsky. And the units that were officially called detachments - back in 1918.
On August 11, 1918, Trotsky signed the famous Order No. 18, in which it was written: “If any unit retreats without permission, the commissar of the unit will be shot first, the commander second.” And near Sviyazhsk, when the 2nd Petrograd Regiment arbitrarily retreated from the front line, after the battle all the fugitives were arrested, tried by a military tribunal, and the commander, commissar and part of the regiment's fighters were shot in front of the ranks.
As a result, in the first seven months of 1919 alone, one and a half million Red Army soldiers were detained, of which almost 100 thousand people were recognized as malicious deserters, and 55 thousand were sent to penal companies and battalions.
Despite all the draconian measures, soldiers, often forcibly mobilized, continued to desert at the first opportunity, and relatives hid the fugitives.
Therefore, in one of his next orders, Trotsky provided for severe punishments not only for deserters, but also for those who sheltered them. In particular, the order stated: "For harboring deserters, the guilty are to be shot ... Houses in which deserters will be discovered will be burned."
“You can't build an army without repression. You can’t lead masses of people to death without having the command of the death penalty in the arsenal, ”the People’s Commissar of the RSFSR claimed.
These measures made it possible to put an end to partisanship in the army ranks and, ultimately, to achieve a turning point in the war with the whites.
The Red Army could not become a factor in the world revolution
In the logic of the revolution, such a victory should have been a prelude to new revolutionary wars, and as a result, global changes. And it seemed that there was a real opportunity for the development of this scenario.
On April 25, 1920, the Polish army, equipped at the expense of France, invaded Soviet Ukraine and captured Kyiv on May 6.
Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity. The story of thousands and thousands of prisoners turned out to be tragic
On May 14, a successful counter-offensive of the troops of the Western Front under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky began, and on May 26, the South-Western Front, commanded by Alexander Yegorov. In mid-July, they approached the borders of Poland.
And then the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) set a new strategic task for the command of the Red Army: to enter the territory of Poland with battles, take its capital and create conditions for the declaration of Soviet power in the country. According to the statements of the party leaders themselves, this was an attempt to push the “red bayonet” deep into Europe and thereby “stir up the Western European proletariat”, push it to support the world revolution, one of the main hopes of the Bolsheviks in the early years of the existence of the RSFSR.
Tukhachevsky’s order to the troops of the Western Front No. 1423 of July 2, 1920 read: “The fate of the world revolution is being decided in the West. Through the corpse of White Pan Poland lies the path to the world conflagration. On bayonets we will bring happiness to working mankind!
It all ended in disaster. Already in August, the troops of the Western Front were utterly defeated near Warsaw and rolled back. Of the five armies, only the third survived, which managed to retreat, the rest were destroyed. More than 120 thousand Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner, another 40 thousand fighters ended up in East Prussia in internment camps. Up to half of them died from starvation, disease, torture and execution.
In October, the parties concluded a truce, and in March 1921, a peace treaty. According to its terms, a significant part of the lands in the west of Ukraine and Belarus with a population of 10 million people departed to Poland.
Internal factors also came into play. The White movement was defeated, but the peasantry entered into a desperate struggle, giving rise to their own insurrectionary movement. It was a protest against the policy of food requisition and the prohibition of free market trade. In addition, the impoverished country simply could not clothe and feed the more than five million Red Army.
From places to Moscow (along with news of peasant uprisings) there were alarming reports: discipline was falling, the Red Army soldiers were robbing the population due to the famine that had begun in the country and deteriorating supplies, and the commanders were gradually beginning to return the old order to the army, up to scuffle. The party and the top army authorities decided to correct the mistake and forbade the demobilization of the communists, but in response, what Trotsky called spiritual demobilization began: the Red Army began to leave the RCP (b) en masse.
I had to urgently look for a solution to the peasant question (punitive measures in combination with the NEP, the new economic policy). And in parallel - the reduction of the Red Army and the preparation of military reform. Trotsky, chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, wrote: “In December 1920, an era of widespread demobilization and reduction in the size of the army, compression and restructuring of its entire apparatus opened. This period lasted from January 1921 to January 1923, the army and navy were reduced during this time from 5,300,000 to 610,000 souls.
Finally, in March 1924, the decisive stage of the military reform began. On April 1, 1924, Frunze was appointed chief and commissar of the Red Army Headquarters. Tukhachevsky and Shaposhnikov became his assistants. The limit of the constant number of the Red Army was set at 562 thousand people, not counting the variable (assigned) composition.
For all branches of the ground forces, a single two-year service life was determined, for the air fleet - 3 years and navy- 4 years. The call to active service was held once a year, in the fall, and the draft age was raised to 21.
The next stage of the radical restructuring of the Red Army began in 1934 and continued until 1941, taking into account the experience of military operations at Khalkhin Gol and the Finnish War. The Revolutionary Military Council was disbanded, the headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council was renamed the General Staff, and the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs turned into the People's Commissariat of Defense. The idea of an imminent "world revolution" was no longer remembered.
Stalin ended the Red Army after the victory over Germany and Japan
This happened on February 25, 1946, when his order was published on the transformation of the Red Army into the Soviet one.
Officially, this was explained by the fact that during the years of the Great Patriotic War the Soviet system withstood the most serious test, its positions should be further strengthened, and the new name of the army should clearly emphasize the path of socialism chosen by the country.
In fact, back in 1935, Stalin took a course towards curtailing revolutionary traditions in the Red Army, introducing personal military ranks, including returning the “White Guard” names - in the form of “lieutenant”, “senior lieutenant”, “captain”, “ colonel”, and since 1940 - general and admiral ranks. The rank of “lieutenant colonel” appeared later than all.
In 1937, the turn came to many prominent figures of the Red Army, who made a rapid military career during the years of the civil war. During the Great Terror, they were accused by the NKVD of counter-revolutionary activities and shot. Among them are marshals Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Alexander Yegorov, commanders of the 1st rank Iona Yakir and Ieronim Uborevich, commander Vitaly Primakov, commander Dmitry Schmidt and many others.
The repressions also concerned military experts from the regular officers of the tsarist army: they were thoroughly “cleaned out” back in 1929-1931, and many were “cleaned up” in 1937-1938. However, not all. The lieutenant colonel of the tsarist army Shaposhnikov (in 1941-1942 - the head of the Soviet General Staff) and the former staff captain Alexander Vasilevsky who replaced him in this post will also participate in the Great Patriotic War.
Finally, the "Law on General Conscription" in 1939 legally formalized the creation of a mass draft army. The term of active military service was 3 years in the ground forces and the Air Force, and 5 years in the Navy. The draft age is set from 19 years old, and for those who graduated from high school - from 18 years old.
Commanders and soldiers of the Red Army in 1930 ...
And by 1940, the Red Army gradually lost the definition of "worker-peasant", turning even in official documents simply into the Red Army.
In January 1943, Stalin introduced epaulets, pre-revolutionary tunics with a standing collar, as well as the treatment “soldiers” and officers” - that is, the attributes of the old, tsarist army. The institute of commissars was abolished, and political workers turned into political officers.
Many of the military greeted the innovation with approval, although some did not like it. So, Semyon Budyonny objected to the new tunics, and Georgy Zhukov opposed the shoulder straps.
In a word, after it became clear that an imminent "world revolution" would not work, and the world was entering a phase of a new, extremely complex systemic confrontation, Stalin set a course for a new image of the country as a whole. The Soviet Union, having won the Second World War, turned into a world superpower that needed symbols corresponding to its new status, to reunite the connection between the centuries-old experience of the Russian army and modernity.
... And here is a group portrait of the fighters of the reconnaissance platoon of the 63rd Guards Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade. 1945 Compare the photo with the one from the 1930s. A visual "portrait" of the reform of the Red Army
It is no coincidence that during the Great Patriotic War the legendary civil heroes in official rhetoric were seriously pressed not only by the "royal commanders" Suvorov and Kutuzov, but also by the "exploiting princes" Dmitry Donskoy and Alexander Nevsky.
This process of revision of military history was reflected in literature, art, and history books, and in a comprehensive change in the perception of the White movement and the experience of the First World War. The rethinking did not end with the collapse of the USSR, it continues to this day, giving rise to sharp disputes and disagreements.
The strategic victory in World War II led to a new position for the Soviet Union in the world system. And this explains many processes - from the renaming of people's commissariats into ministries, to the replacement of the national anthem from the "Internationale" to the "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" with the words of Sergei Mikhalkov and El-Registan, first performed on the night of January 1, 1944. An anthem, which (with a modified text, but the same musical basis) is the official anthem of modern Russia.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are the heirs of not only the Red Army, but also the pre-revolutionary army of Russia
The post-war Soviet army was seriously different from the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army of 1918-1943. And she kept changing. Long before the collapse of the USSR and the formation of the modern Russian Armed Forces, the search for the necessary balance between pre-revolutionary traditions and the experience of the bloody 20th century took place.
As a result, for example, in the Brezhnev era, few people remembered that the word "officer" was once a swear word. And in our time, officers and soldiers are not embarrassed by the presence of military priests among them.
However, there is also an extremely important lesson, which would be a huge omission to forget. This is, first of all, the perception of our army as a truly popular one, with an extremely high level of public confidence in it. And, secondly, the absence of caste: a rigid division between soldiers and officers, which was characteristic (with the exception of some episodes) for the tsarist army. Which outwardly is still expressed in the appeal “comrade (sergeant, lieutenant, captain, general)”.
For 100 years domestic army has passed a difficult path from a radical and atheistic force called to participate in the world revolution, to returning to the idea of protecting their fatherland and all the inhabitants of Russia, regardless of their property status and religion, at near and far frontiers. Although the strategic nuclear forces and aerospace forces give these new tasks the same global scale.
On the screen saver, a photo fragment: Commanders and soldiers of the Red Army in 1930
The Japanese name for Japan Nihon (日本) is made up of two parts, ni (日) and hon (本), both of which are Sinic. The first word (日) in modern Chinese is pronounced rì and means, as in Japanese, "sun" (transmitted in writing by its ideogram). The second word (本) in modern Chinese is pronounced bӗn. Its original meaning is "root", and the ideogram that conveys it is the tree ideogram mù (木) with a dash added below to indicate the root. From the meaning "root" the meaning "origin" developed, and it was in this meaning that it entered the name of Japan Nihon (日本) - "origin of the sun" > "land of the rising sun" (modern Chinese rì bӗn). In ancient Chinese, the word bӗn (本) also had the meaning of "scroll, book". In modern Chinese it has been superseded in this sense by the word shū (書), but remains in it as a counter for books. The Chinese word bӗn (本) was borrowed into Japanese both in the meaning of "root, origin" and in the meaning of "scroll, book", and in the form hon (本) means book in modern Japanese. The same Chinese word bӗn (本) in the meaning of "scroll, book" was also borrowed into the ancient Turkic language, where, after adding the Turkic suffix -ig to it, it acquired the form *küjnig. The Turks brought this word to Europe, where it from the language of the Danubian Turkic-speaking Bulgars in the form of a book got into the language of the Slavic-speaking Bulgarians and spread through Church Slavonic to other Slavic languages, including Russian.
Thus, Russian word book and the Japanese word hon "book" have a common root of Chinese origin, and the same root is included as the second component in the Japanese name for Japan Nihon.
I hope everything is clear?)))
In 1918 - 1922 and the Ground Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922 - 1946. After the war, it was the largest army in Europe.
History
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Governing bodies
The supreme governing body of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army was the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (since the formation of the USSR - the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR). The leadership and management of the army was concentrated in the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, in the special All-Russian Collegium created under it, since 1923 the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR, since 1937 the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. In 1919-1934, the Revolutionary Military Council carried out direct command of the troops. In 1934, to replace it, the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR was formed.
In the conditions of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, on June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command was formed (from July 10, 1941 - the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, from August 8, 1941 - the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command). From February 25, 1946 until the collapse of the USSR, the armed forces were controlled by the USSR Ministry of Defense.
Organizational structure
Detachments and squads - armed detachments and squads of sailors, soldiers and workers, in Russia in 1917 - supporters (not necessarily members) of leftist parties - Social Democrats (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Mezhraiontsy), Socialist-Revolutionaries and Anarchists, as well as detachments of the Red Partisans became the basis of the Red Army detachments.
Initially, the main unit of the formation of the Red Army, on a voluntary basis, was a separate detachment, which was a military unit with an independent economy. At the head of the detachment was a Council consisting of a military leader and two military commissars. He had a small headquarters and an inspectorate.
With the accumulation of experience and after the involvement of military experts in the ranks of the Red Army, the formation of full-fledged units, units, formations (brigade, division, corps), institutions and institutions began.
The organization of the Red Army was in accordance with its class character and the military requirements of the early 20th century. The combined arms units of the Red Army were built as follows:
- the rifle corps consisted of two to four divisions | divisions;
- division - from three rifle regiments, an artillery regiment (artillery regiment) and technical units;
- regiment - from three battalions, an artillery battalion and technical units;
- division - from three rifle regiments, an artillery regiment (artillery regiment) and technical units;
- cavalry corps - two cavalry divisions;
- cavalry division - four to six regiments, artillery, armored units (armored units), technical units.
The technical equipment of the military formations of the Red Army with fire weapons (machine guns, guns, infantry artillery) and military equipment was basically at the level of modern advanced armed forces of that time. It should be noted that the introduction of technology introduced changes in the organization of the Red Army, which were expressed in the growth of technical units, in the appearance of special motorized and mechanized units and in the strengthening of technical cells in rifle troops and cavalry. A feature of the organization of the Red Army was that it reflected its openly class character. In the military organisms of the Red Army (in subdivisions, units and formations) there were political bodies (political departments (political departments), political units (political units)), conducting political and educational work in close cooperation with the command (commander and commissar of the unit) and ensuring the political growth of the Red Army and their activity in combat training.
For the duration of the war, the active army (that is, those troops of the Red Army who conduct military operations or provide them) is divided into fronts. The fronts are divided into armies, which include military formations: rifle and cavalry corps, rifle and cavalry divisions, tank, aviation brigades and individual units (artillery, aviation, engineering and others).
Composition
Rifle troops
Rifle troops are the main branch of the armed forces, which constitute the backbone of the Red Army. The largest rifle unit in the 1920s was the rifle regiment. The rifle regiment consisted of rifle battalions, regimental artillery, small units - communications, sappers and others - and the headquarters of the regiment. The rifle battalion consisted of rifle and machine gun companies, battalion artillery and battalion headquarters. Rifle company - from rifle and machine-gun platoons. Rifle platoon - from branches. Branch - the smallest organizational unit of the rifle troops. It was armed with rifles, light machine guns, hand grenades and a grenade launcher.
Artillery
The largest unit of artillery was an artillery regiment. It consisted of artillery battalions and regimental headquarters. The artillery battalion consisted of batteries and division control. Battery - from platoons. There are 4 guns in a platoon.
Breakthrough Artillery Corps (1943 - 1945) - a formation (corps) of the Red Army artillery in the armed forces of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. The breakthrough artillery corps were part of the reserve artillery of the Supreme High Command.
Cavalry
The basic unit of the cavalry is the cavalry regiment. The regiment consists of saber and machine-gun squadrons, regimental artillery, technical units and headquarters. Saber and machine-gun squadrons consist of platoons. The platoon is divided into sections. The Soviet cavalry began to form simultaneously with the creation of the Red Army in 1918. Of the disbanded old Russian army, only three cavalry regiments entered the Red Army. In the formation of cavalry for the Red Army, a number of difficulties were encountered: the main areas that supplied cavalrymen and riding horses to the army (Ukraine, the South and South-East of Russia) were occupied by the White Guards and occupied by the armies of foreign states; lacked experienced commanders, weapons and equipment. Therefore, the main organizational units in the cavalry were originally hundreds, squadrons, detachments and regiments. From individual cavalry regiments and cavalry detachments, the transition soon began to the formation of brigades, and then divisions. So, from a small equestrian partisan detachment S. M. Budyonny, created in February 1918, in the autumn of the same year, during the battles for Tsaritsyn, the 1st Don Cavalry Brigade was formed, and then the consolidated cavalry division of the Tsaritsyn Front.
Especially vigorous measures to create cavalry were taken in the summer of 1919 to oppose Denikin's army. To deprive the latter of the advantage in the cavalry, cavalry formations larger than the division were needed. In June - September 1919, the first two cavalry corps were created; by the end of 1919, the number of Soviet and opposing cavalry was equal. The fighting in 1918-1919 showed that the Soviet cavalry formations were a powerful strike force capable of solving important operational tasks both independently and in cooperation with rifle formations. The most important stage in the construction of the Soviet cavalry was the creation in November 1919 of the First Cavalry Army, and in July 1920 of the Second Cavalry Army. Cavalry formations and associations played an important role in operations against the armies of Denikin and Kolchak in late 1919 - early 1920, Wrangel and the army of Poland in 1920.
During the Civil War, in some operations, the Soviet cavalry accounted for up to 50% of the infantry. The main method of action for subunits, units and formations of the cavalry was an offensive in equestrian formation (horse attack), supported by powerful machine gun fire from carts. When the conditions of the terrain and the stubborn resistance of the enemy limited the actions of the cavalry in mounted formation, they fought in dismounted combat formations. The Soviet command during the years of the Civil War was able to successfully resolve the issues of using large masses of cavalry to perform operational tasks. The creation of the world's first mobile formations - cavalry armies - was an outstanding achievement of military art. Cavalry armies were the main means of strategic maneuver and the development of success, they were used massively in decisive directions against those enemy forces that at this stage posed the greatest danger.
Red cavalry on the attack
The success of the fighting of the Soviet cavalry during the years of the Civil War was facilitated by the vastness of the theaters of operations, the stretching of enemy armies on broad fronts, the presence of gaps that were poorly covered or not at all occupied by troops, which were used by cavalry formations to reach the enemy’s flanks and carry out deep raids in his rear. Under these conditions, the cavalry could fully realize its combat properties and capabilities - mobility, surprise strikes, speed and decisiveness of action.
After the Civil War, the cavalry in the Red Army continued to be a rather numerous branch of the armed forces. In the 1920s, it was divided into strategic (cavalry divisions and corps) and military (subdivisions and units that were part of rifle formations). In the 1930s, mechanized (later tank) and artillery regiments, anti-aircraft weapons were introduced into the cavalry divisions; new combat regulations were developed for the cavalry.
As a mobile branch of the military, the strategic cavalry was intended for the development of a breakthrough and could be used by decision of the front command.
Cavalry units and subunits took an active part in the hostilities of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War. In particular, in the battle for Moscow, the cavalry corps under the command of L. M. Dovator valiantly proved himself. However, as the war progressed, it became more and more obvious that the future lay in new modern types of weapons, so by the end of the war, most of the cavalry units were disbanded. At the end of the Great Patriotic War, the cavalry as a branch of service finally ceased to exist.
armored forces
Tanks produced by the KhPZ named after the Comintern - the largest tank factory in the USSR
In the 1920s, the production of its own tanks began in the USSR, and with it the foundations of the concept of combat use of troops were laid. In 1927, in the Combat Manual of the Infantry, special attention was paid to the combat use of tanks and their interaction with infantry units. So, for example, in the second part of this document it is written that the most important conditions for success are:
- the sudden appearance of tanks as part of the attacking infantry, their simultaneous and massive use over a wide area in order to disperse enemy artillery and other anti-armor weapons;
- separation of tanks in depth while creating a reserve of them, which allows you to develop an attack to a greater depth;
- close interaction of tanks with infantry, which secures the points they occupy.
The issues of use were most fully disclosed in the "Temporary Instructions for the Combat Use of Tanks", issued in 1928. It provided for two forms of participation of tank units in battle:
- for direct infantry support;
- as a forward echelon operating out of fire and visual communication with it.
The armored forces consisted of tank units and formations and units armed with armored vehicles. The main tactical unit is the tank battalion. It consists of tank companies. A tank company consists of tank platoons. The composition of the tank platoon - up to 5 tanks. An armored car company consists of platoons; platoon - from 3-5 armored vehicles.
T-34 in winter camouflage
For the first time, tank brigades began to be created in 1935 as separate tank brigades of the reserve of the High Command. In 1940, tank divisions were formed on their basis, which became part of the mechanized corps.
Mechanized troops, troops consisting of motorized rifle (mechanized), tank, artillery and other units and subunits. The concept "M. AT." appeared in various armies by the early 1930s. In 1929, the USSR created central administration mechanization and motorization of the Red Army and the first experimental mechanized regiment was formed, deployed in 1930 in the first mechanized brigade as part of tank, artillery, reconnaissance regiments and support units. The brigade had 110 MS-1 tanks and 27 guns and was intended to study issues of operational-tactical use and the most profitable organizational forms mechanized connections. In 1932, on the basis of this brigade, the world's first mechanized corps was created - an independent operational unit, which included two mechanized and one rifle and machine gun brigades, a separate anti-aircraft artillery division and numbering over 500 tanks and 200 vehicles. By the beginning of 1936 there were 4 mechanized corps, 6 separate brigades, and 15 regiments in cavalry divisions. In 1937, the Central Directorate of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army was renamed the Armored Directorate of the Red Army, and in December 1942, the Directorate of the Commander of Armored and Mechanized Forces was formed. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, armored and mechanized troops became the main strike force of the Red Army.
Air Force
Aviation in the Soviet Armed Forces began to form in 1918. Organizationally, it consisted of separate aviation detachments that were part of the district Air Fleet Directorates, which in September 1918 were reorganized into front-line and army field aviation and aeronautics directorates at the headquarters of the fronts and combined arms armies. In June 1920, the field administrations were reorganized into the headquarters of the air fleets with direct subordination to the commanders of the fronts and armies. After the Civil War of 1917-1923, the air forces of the fronts became part of the military districts. In 1924, the aviation squadrons of the Air Force of the military districts were consolidated into homogeneous aviation squadrons (18-43 aircraft each), which were transformed into aviation brigades in the late 1920s. In 1938-1939, the aviation of the military districts was transferred from a brigade to a regimental and divisional organization. The main tactical unit was an aviation regiment (60-63 aircraft). Aviation of the Red Army was based on the main property of aviation - the ability to deliver fast and powerful air strikes to the enemy over long distances that are not available to other branches of the military. The combat means of aviation were aircraft armed with high-explosive, fragmentation and incendiary bombs, cannons and machine guns. Aviation possessed, at that time, a high flight speed (400-500 or more kilometers per hour), the ability to easily overcome the enemy’s battle front and penetrate deep into his rear. Combat aviation was used to destroy manpower and technical means of the enemy; for the destruction of his aviation and the destruction of important objects: railway junctions, military industry enterprises, communication centers, roads, etc. Reconnaissance aviation had as its purpose the conduct of aerial reconnaissance behind enemy lines. Auxiliary aviation was used to correct artillery fire, to communicate and monitor the battlefield, to transport the sick and wounded in need of urgent medical care to the rear (air ambulance), and for the urgent transportation of military cargo (transport aviation). In addition, aviation was used to transport troops, weapons and other means of combat over long distances. The basic unit of aviation was the aviation regiment (air regiment). The regiment consisted of aviation squadrons (air squadrons). Air squadron - from links.
"Glory to Stalin!" (Victory Parade 1945)
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the aviation of the military districts consisted of separate bomber, fighter, mixed (assault) aviation divisions and separate reconnaissance aviation regiments. In the autumn of 1942, the aviation regiments of all branches of aviation had 32 aircraft each, in the summer of 1943 the number of aircraft in the assault and fighter aviation regiments was increased to 40 aircraft.
Engineering Troops
The divisions were supposed to have an engineering battalion, in rifle brigades - a sapper company. In 1919, special engineering units were formed. The engineering troops were led by the inspector of engineers at the Field Headquarters of the Republic (1918-1921 - A.P. Shoshin), the chiefs of engineers of fronts, armies and divisions. In 1921, the leadership of the troops was entrusted to the Main Military Engineering Directorate. By 1929, full-time engineering units were available in all military branches. After the start of the Great Patriotic War in October 1941, the post of chief of the Engineering Troops was established. During the war, engineering troops built fortifications, created barriers, mined the terrain, ensured the maneuver of troops, made passages in enemy minefields, ensured the overcoming of his engineering barriers, forcing water barriers, participated in the assault on fortifications, cities, etc.
Chemical troops
In the Red Army, chemical troops began to take shape at the end of 1918. November 13, 1918, by order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic No. 220, the Chemical Service of the Red Army was created. By the end of the 1920s, all rifle and cavalry divisions and brigades had chemical units. In 1923, anti-gas teams were introduced into the states of rifle regiments. By the end of the 1920s, all rifle and cavalry divisions and brigades had chemical units. During the Great Patriotic War, the chemical forces included: technical brigades (for setting up smoke and masking large objects), brigades, battalions and companies of chemical protection, flamethrower battalions and companies, bases, warehouses, etc. During the hostilities, they maintained high readiness anti-chemical protection of parts and connections in case of use by the enemy chemical weapons, destroyed the enemy with the help of flamethrowers and carried out smoke camouflage of troops, continuously conducted reconnaissance in order to reveal the preparation of the enemy for a chemical attack and timely warning of their troops, participated in ensuring the constant readiness of military units, formations and associations to perform combat missions in the conditions of the possible use of chemical weapons by the enemy weapons, destroyed enemy manpower and equipment with flamethrower and incendiary means, and camouflaged their troops and rear facilities with smoke.
Signal Corps
The first units and communications units in the Red Army were formed in 1918. On October 20, 1919, the Communications Troops were created as independent special troops. In 1941, the post of chief of the Communications Troops was introduced.
Automobile Troops
As part of the Logistics of the Armed Forces of the USSR. In the Soviet Armed Forces appeared during the Civil War. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, they consisted of subdivisions and units. In the Republic of Afghanistan, military motorists were assigned a decisive role in providing OKSVA with all types of materiel. Automobile units and subunits transported goods not only for the troops, but also for the civilian population of the country.
Railway Troops
In 1926, the servicemen of the Separate Corps of the Railway Troops of the Red Army began to carry out topographic reconnaissance of the future BAM route. 1st Guards Naval Artillery Railroad Brigade (converted from 101st Naval Artillery Railroad Brigade) KBF. The title "Guards" was awarded on January 22, 1944. 11th Guards separate railway artillery battery of the KBF. The title "Guards" was awarded on September 15, 1945. There were four railway buildings: two BAMs were built and two in Tyumen, roads were laid to each tower, bridges were erected.
Road Troops
As part of the Logistics of the Armed Forces of the USSR. In the Soviet Armed Forces appeared during the Civil War. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, they consisted of subdivisions and units.
By the middle of 1943, the road troops consisted of: 294 separate road battalions, 22 military highway directorates (VAD) with 110 road commandant sections (DKU), 7 military road departments (VDU) with 40 road detachments (DO), 194 horse transport companies, repair bases, bases for the production of bridge and road structures, educational and other institutions.
Labor army
Military formations (associations) in the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic in 1920-22, temporarily used for restoration work National economy during the Civil War. Each labor army consisted of ordinary rifle formations, cavalry, artillery and other units engaged in labor activities and at the same time retaining the ability to quickly transition to a state of combat readiness. In total, 8 labor armies were formed; in military-administrative terms, they were subordinate to the RVSR, and in economic and labor terms - to the Council of Labor and Defense. The forerunner of military construction units (military construction teams).
Personnel
Each Red Army unit was assigned a political commissar, or political commissar, with the authority to cancel the orders of the unit commander. This was necessary, since no one could know which side the former tsarist officer would take in the next battle. When enough new command cadres had been brought up by 1925, control was loosened.
population
- April 1918 - 196,000
- September 1918 - 196,000
- September 1919 - 3,000,000
- Autumn 1920 - 5,500,000
- January 1925 - 562,000
- March 1932 - 604,300
- January 1937 - 1,518,090
- February 1939 - 1,910,477
- September 1939 - 5,289,400
- June 1940 - 4,055,479
- June 1941 - 5,080,977
- July 1941 - 10,380,000
- Summer 1942 - 11,000,000 people.
- January 1945 - 11,365,000
- February 1946 5,300,000
Conscription and military service
The Red Army go on the attack
Since 1918, the service has been voluntary (built on a volunteer basis). But the self-consciousness of the population was not yet high enough, and on June 12, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the first decree on the conscription of workers and peasants of the Volga, Ural and West Siberian military districts. Following this decree, a number of additional decrees and orders for conscription into the armed forces were issued. On August 27, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the first decree on the drafting of military sailors into the Red Fleet. The Red Army was a militia (from Latin militia - an army), created on the basis of a territorial-militia system. Military units in peacetime consisted of an accounting apparatus and a small number of command personnel; most of it and the rank and file, assigned to military units on a territorial basis, underwent military training by the method of non-military training and at short-term training camps. The system was based on military commissariats located throughout the Soviet Union. During the conscription campaign, young people were distributed on the basis of the quotas of the General Staff for the types of troops and services. After the distribution of conscripts, officers were taken from the units and sent to the course of a young soldier. There was a very small stratum of professional sergeants; most of the sergeants were conscripts who had passed training course to prepare them for the positions of junior commanders.
The term of service in the army for infantry and artillery is 1 year, for cavalry, horse artillery and technical troops - 2 years, for the air fleet - 3 years, for the navy - 4 years.
military training
The system of military education in the Red Army is traditionally divided into three levels. The main one is the system of higher military education, which is a developed network of higher military schools. Their students are called cadets. The term of study is 4-5 years, graduates receive the title of "lieutenant", which corresponds to the position of "platoon commander".
If in peacetime the training program in schools corresponds to obtaining higher education, in wartime it is reduced to secondary special education, the training period is sharply reduced, and short-term command courses lasting six months are organized.
One of the features of military education in the USSR was the system of military academies. Students in them receive a higher military education. This is in contrast to Western countries, where academies usually train junior officers.
The military academies of the Red Army have gone through a number of reorganizations and redeployments, and are divided into different types of troops (Military Academy of Logistics and Transport, Military Medical Academy, Military Academy of Communications, Academy of Strategic Missile Forces, etc.). After 1991, the factually incorrect point of view was propagated that a number of military academies were directly inherited by the Red Army from the tsarist army.
Reserve officers
As in any other army in the world, the system for training reserve officers was organized in the Red Army. Its main goal is to create a large reserve of officers in case of general mobilization in wartime. The general trend of all the armies of the world during the 20th century has been a steady increase among officers in the percentage of people with higher education. In the post-war Soviet Army, this figure was actually brought up to 100%.
In keeping with this trend, the Soviet Army considers virtually any civilian with a college degree as a potential wartime reserve officer. For their education, a network of military departments has been deployed at civilian universities, the training program in them corresponds to a higher military school.
Such a system was used for the first time in the world, in Soviet Russia, adopted by the United States, where a significant part of the officers are trained in non-military training courses for reserve officers, and in officer candidate schools.
Armament and military equipment
The development of the Red Army reflected the general development trends military equipment in the world. These include, for example, the formation of tank troops and the air force, the mechanization of the infantry and its transformation into motorized rifle troops, the disbandment of the cavalry, the appearance on the scene of nuclear weapons.
The role of the cavalry
A. Warsaw. Cavalry advance
First World War, in which Russia took an active part, differed sharply in nature and scale from all previous wars. A continuous multi-kilometer front line, and a protracted "trench war" made the widespread use of cavalry practically impossible. However, the Civil War was very different in nature from the First World War.
Its features included excessive stretching and fuzziness of front lines, which made possible the widespread use of cavalry in combat. The specifics of the civil war include the combat use of "carts", most actively used by the troops of Nestor Makhno.
The general trend of the interwar period was the mechanization of troops, and the rejection of horse traction in favor of cars, the development of tank troops. Nevertheless, the need for the complete disbandment of the cavalry was not obvious to most countries of the world. In the USSR, some commanders who grew up during the Civil War spoke in favor of preserving and further developing the cavalry.
In 1941, the Red Army had 13 cavalry divisions deployed up to 34. The final disbandment of the cavalry took place in the mid-50s. The command of the US Army issued an order to mechanize the cavalry in 1942, the existence of the cavalry in Germany ceased along with its defeat in 1945.
Armored trains
Soviet armored train
Armored trains were widely used in many wars long before the Russian Civil War. In particular, they were used by British troops to guard vital rail communications during the Anglo-Boer Wars. They were used during the American Civil War, etc. In Russia, the “boom of armored trains” fell on the Civil War. This was due to its specifics, such as the virtual absence of clear front lines, and the sharp struggle for railways, as the main means for the rapid transfer of troops, ammunition, and bread.
Part of the armored trains were inherited by the Red Army from the tsarist army, while mass production of new, many times superior to the old, armored trains was launched. In addition, until 1919, the mass production of "surrogate" armored trains, assembled from improvised materials from ordinary passenger cars, in the absence of any drawings, continued; such an armored train had the worst security, but could be assembled in just a day.
By the end of the Civil War, the Central Council of Armored Units (Tsentrobron) was in charge of 122 full-fledged armored trains, the number of which by 1928 was reduced to 34.
During the interwar period, the technology for the production of armored trains was constantly improved. Many new armored trains were built, and air defense railway batteries were deployed. Armored train units played an important role in the Great Patriotic War, primarily in the protection of railway communications of the operational rear.
At the same time, the rapid development of tank troops and military aviation during the Second World War sharply reduced the importance of armored trains. By the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of February 4, 1958, the further development of railway artillery systems was stopped.
The rich experience gained in the field of armored trains allowed the USSR to add to its nuclear triad also rail-based nuclear forces - military railway missile systems (BZHRK) equipped with RS-22 missiles (in NATO terminology SS-24 "Scalpel"). Their advantages include the possibility of avoiding an impact due to the use of a developed network of railways, and the extreme difficulty of tracking from satellites. One of the main demands of the United States in the 80s was the complete disbandment of the BZHRK as part of a general reduction in nuclear weapons. The United States itself has no analogues of the BZHRK.
Warrior rituals
Revolutionary Red Banner
Each separate combat unit of the Red Army has its own revolutionary Red Banner, handed over to it by the Soviet government. The revolutionary Red Banner is the emblem of the unit, expresses the internal adhesion of its fighters, united by their constant readiness to act at the first demand of the Soviet government to defend the gains of the revolution and the interests of the working people.
The revolutionary Red Banner is in the unit and accompanies it everywhere in its marching-combat and peaceful life. The banner is awarded to the unit for the entire time of its existence. Orders of the Red Banner awarded to individual units are attached to the revolutionary Red Banners of these units.
Military units and formations that have proven their exceptional devotion to the Motherland and have shown outstanding courage in battles with the enemies of the socialist fatherland or have shown high successes in combat and political training in peacetime are awarded the "Honorary Revolutionary Red Banner". The "Honorary Revolutionary Red Banner" is a high revolutionary award for the merits of a military unit or formation. It reminds the servicemen of the ardent love of the party of Lenin-Stalin and the Soviet government for the Red Army, of the exceptional achievements of the entire personnel of the unit. This banner serves as a call to improve the quality and pace of combat training and constant readiness to defend the interests of the socialist fatherland.
For each unit or formation of the Red Army, its Revolutionary Red Banner is sacred. It serves as the main symbol of the unit, and the embodiment of its military glory. In the event of the loss of the Revolutionary Red Banner, the military unit is subject to disbandment, and those directly responsible for such disgrace are subject to trial. A separate guard post is established to protect the Revolutionary Red Banner. Each soldier, passing by the banner, is obliged to give him a military salute. On especially solemn occasions, the troops carry out the ritual of the solemn removal of the Revolutionary Red Banner. To be included in the banner group directly conducting the ritual is considered a great honor, which is awarded only to the most worthy military personnel.
military oath
Mandatory for recruits in any army in the world is to bring them to the oath. In the Red Army, this ritual is usually performed a month after the call, after completing the course of a young soldier. Before being sworn in, soldiers are forbidden to be trusted with weapons; there are a number of other restrictions. On the day of the oath, the soldier receives weapons for the first time; he breaks down, approaches the commander of his unit, and reads out a solemn oath to the formation. The oath is traditionally considered an important holiday, and is accompanied by the solemn removal of the Battle Banner.
The text of the oath was as follows:
I, a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, joining the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, take an oath and solemnly swear to be an honest, brave, disciplined, vigilant fighter, strictly keep military and state secrets, implicitly comply with all military regulations and orders of commanders, commissars and chiefs.
I swear to conscientiously study military affairs, to protect military property in every possible way, and to my last breath to be devoted to my people, my Soviet Motherland and the workers' and peasants' government.
I am always ready, on the orders of the Workers 'and Peasants' Government, to defend my Motherland - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and, as a soldier of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, I swear to defend it courageously, skillfully, with dignity and honor, not sparing my blood and life itself to achieve complete victory over the enemy.
If, by malicious intent, I violate this solemn oath of mine, then let me suffer the severe punishment of Soviet law, the general hatred and contempt of the working people.
Military salute
When moving in the ranks, the military salute is performed as follows: the leader puts his hand to the headdress, and the ranks press their hands at the seams, all together moving to the drill step and turning their heads as they pass by the met authorities. When passing towards units or other military personnel, it is enough for the guides to perform a military greeting.
At a meeting, the junior in rank is obliged to be the first to greet the elder; if they belong to different categories of military personnel (soldier - officer, junior officer - senior officer), a senior in rank may perceive the failure to perform a military greeting at a meeting as an insult.
In the absence of a headgear, a military greeting is given by turning the head and adopting a combat position (hands at the seams, the body is straightened).
The Red Army was created, as they say, from scratch. Despite this, she managed to become a formidable force and win the civil war. The key to success was the construction of the Red Army using the experience of the old, pre-revolutionary army.
On the ruins of the old army
By the beginning of 1918, Russia, having survived two revolutions, finally emerged from the First World War. Her army was a pitiful sight - the soldiers deserted en masse and headed for their native places. Since November 1917, the Armed Forces have not existed and de jure - after the Bolsheviks issued an order to dissolve the old army.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the former empire, a new war broke out - a civil one. In Moscow, battles with the junkers had just died down, in St. Petersburg - with the Cossacks of General Krasnov. Events grew like a snowball.
On the Don, Generals Alekseev and Kornilov formed the Volunteer Army, in the Orenburg steppes an anti-communist uprising of ataman Dutov unfolded, in the Kharkov region there were battles with the cadets of the Chuguev military school, in the Yekaterinoslav province - with detachments of the Central Rada of the self-proclaimed Ukrainian Republic.
Labor activists and revolutionary sailors
The external, old enemy did not sleep either: the Germans stepped up their offensive on the Eastern Front, capturing a number of territories of the former Russian Empire.
At the disposal of the Soviet government at that time were only Red Guard detachments, created on the ground mainly from activists of the working environment and revolutionary-minded sailors.
In the initial period of general partisanship in the civil war, the Red Guards were the backbone of the Council of People's Commissars, but it gradually became clear that the draft principle should replace voluntariness.
This was clearly shown, for example, by the events in Kyiv in January 1918, where the uprising of the workers' detachments of the Red Guard against the authorities of the Central Rada was brutally suppressed by national units and officer detachments.
The first step towards the creation of the Red Army
On January 15, 1918, Lenin issued a decree on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. The document emphasized that access to its ranks is open to all citizens of the Russian Republic at least 18 years old who are ready "to give their strength, their lives to defend the conquered October Revolution and the power of the Soviets and socialism."
This was the first but half step towards the creation of an army. For the time being, it was proposed to join it voluntarily, and in this the Bolsheviks followed the path of Alekseev and Kornilov with their voluntary recruitment of the White Army. As a result, by the spring of 1918, there were no more than 200 thousand people in the ranks of the Red Army. And its combat effectiveness left much to be desired - most of the front-line soldiers rested from the horrors of the world war at home.
A powerful incentive to create a large army was given by the enemies - the 40,000-strong Czechoslovak corps, which in the summer of that year rebelled against Soviet power along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railway and overnight captured vast expanses of the country - from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok. In the south of the European part of Russia, Denikin's troops did not doze off, who, having recovered from the unsuccessful assault on Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), in June 1918 again launched an offensive against the Kuban and this time achieved their goal.
Fight not with slogans, but with skill
Under these conditions, one of the founders of the Red Army, the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Lev Trotsky, proposed moving to a more rigid model of building an army. According to the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars on July 29, 1918, military conscription was introduced in the country, which made it possible to bring the number of the Red Army to almost half a million people by mid-September.
Along with quantitative growth, the army was strengthened and qualitatively. The leadership of the country and the Red Army realized that slogans alone that the socialist fatherland was in danger would not win the war. We need experienced cadres, albeit not adhering to revolutionary rhetoric.
En masse, the so-called military experts, that is, officers and generals of the tsarist army, began to be called up to the Red Army. Their total number during the Civil War in the ranks of the Red Army numbered almost 50 thousand people.
The best of the best
Many then became the pride of the USSR, such as, for example, Colonel Boris Shaposhnikov, who became Marshal of the Soviet Union and Chief of the General Staff of the Army, including during the Great Patriotic War. Another head of the General Staff of the Red Army during the Second World War, Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky entered the Civil War as a staff captain.
Another effective measure to strengthen the middle command level was military schools and accelerated training courses for red commanders from among the soldiers, workers and peasants. In battles and battles, yesterday's non-commissioned officers and sergeants quickly grew to commanders of large formations. Suffice it to recall Vasily Chapaev, who became a division commander, or Semyon Budyonny, who led the 1st Cavalry Army.
Even earlier, the election of commanders was abolished, which had an extremely harmful effect on the level of combat effectiveness of units, turning them into anarchist spontaneous detachments. Now the commander was responsible for order and discipline, albeit on a par with the commissar.
Kamenev instead of Vatsetis
It is curious that a little later, whites also came to the draft army. In particular, the Volunteer Army in 1919 largely remained so only in name - the bitterness of the Civil War imperiously demanded that the opponents replenish their ranks by any means.
The first commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the RSFSR in the autumn of 1918 was appointed former Colonel Joakim Vatsetis (since January 1919 he simultaneously led the actions of the army of Soviet Latvia). After a series of defeats by the Red Army in the summer of 1919 in the European part of Russia, Vatsetis was replaced at his post by another tsarist colonel, Sergei Kamenev.
Under his leadership, things went much better for the Red Army. The armies of Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel were defeated. Yudenich's attack on Petrograd was repulsed, the Polish units were driven out of Ukraine and Belarus.
Territorial-militia principle
By the end of the Civil War, the total strength of the Red Army was over five million people. The red cavalry, initially numbering only three regiments, in the course of numerous battles grew to several armies, which operated on the widely stretched communications of countless fronts of the civil war, performing the role of shock troops.
The end of hostilities required a sharp reduction in the number of personnel. First of all, the war-exhausted economy of the country needed this. As a result, in 1920-1924. demobilization was carried out, which reduced the Red Army to half a million people.
Under the leadership of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Mikhail Frunze, most of the remaining troops were transferred to the territorial-militia principle of recruitment. It consisted in the fact that a small part of the Red Army soldiers and unit commanders were in permanent service, and the rest of the staff was called up for five years for training camps lasting up to a year.
Strengthening combat capability
Over time, the Frunze reform led to problems: the combat readiness of the territorial units was much lower than the regular ones.
The thirties, with the arrival of the Nazis in Germany and the Japanese attack on China, began to smell distinctly of gunpowder. As a result, the transfer of regiments, divisions and corps to a regular basis began in the USSR.
This took into account not only the experience of the First World War and the Civil War, but also participation in new conflicts, in particular, a clash with Chinese troops in 1929 on the CER and Japanese troops on Lake Khasan in 1938.
The total number of the Red Army increased, the troops were actively re-equipped. First of all, this concerned artillery and armored forces. New troops were created, for example, airborne. Mother infantry became more motorized.
Premonition of World War
Aviation, which previously carried out mainly reconnaissance missions, was now becoming a powerful force, increasing the proportion of bombers, attack aircraft and fighters in its ranks.
Soviet tankers and pilots tried their hand at local wars taking place far from the USSR - in Spain and China.
In order to increase the prestige of the military profession and the convenience of serving in 1935, personal military ranks were introduced for military personnel - from marshal to lieutenant.
The law on universal conscription of 1939, which expanded the composition of the Red Army and established longer terms of service, finally drew a line under the territorial-militia principle of manning the Red Army.
And there was a big war ahead.