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115-597: The Red Army 's East Prussian Operation commenced on 13 January 1945 with the objective of rolling up the substantial German defences in East Prussia and cutting off the provincial capital of Königsberg . The Soviet forces were opposed by the German Army Group Centre , including the Fourth Army , under the command of General Friedrich Hossbach . While the 3rd Belorussian Front initially met strong resistance,

230-487: A Kessel (pocket) with their backs to the Frisches Haff . Hossbach was relieved of command on 29 January, and was replaced by General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller . His three corps were given an order to cease their breakout attempt on 30 January. Along with some units of Second Army, they found themselves encircled in the area of Heiligenbeil and Braunsberg ; many of the civilians trapped with them attempted to escape across

345-594: A body "formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes." All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible. Its role being the defense "of the Soviet authority, the creation of a basis for the transformation of the standing army into a force deriving its strength from a nation in arms, and, furthermore, the creation of a basis for the support of the coming Socialist Revolution in Europe." Enlistment

460-487: A collective committee of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko , Pavel Dybenko , and Nikolai Krylenko . At the same time, Nikolay Dukhonin was acting as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief after Alexander Kerensky fled from Russia. On 12 November 1917 the Soviet government appointed Krylenko as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and because of an "accident" during the forceful displacement of the commander-in-chief, Dukhonin

575-550: A common border between Japanese controlled areas and the Soviet Far East and Mongolia . The Soviets and Japanese, including their respective client states of the Mongolian People's Republic and Manchukuo , disputed the boundaries and accused the other side of border violations. This resulted in a series of escalating border skirmishes and punitive expeditions , including the 1938 Battle of Lake Khasan , and culminated in

690-418: A further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. Thus the grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million men, including 7.7 million killed or missing in action and 2.6 million prisoners of war (POW) dead (out of 5.2 million total POWs), plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. Officials at

805-498: A hundred times as many tanks . The Red Army, however, had been hindered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge of 1937, reducing the army's morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of the fighting. With over 30,000 of its army officers executed or imprisoned, most of whom were from the highest ranks, the Red Army in 1939 had many inexperienced senior officers. Because of these factors, and high commitment and morale in

920-692: A joint effort by the garrison, and by the Großdeutschland Panzergrenadier Division . Though the German forces in East Prussia had no realistic hope of victory, and were severely short of manpower, ammunition, and fuel, they continued to offer strong resistance, inflicting extremely high casualties (584,788+) on the Red Army during the East Prussian Operation. Ad hoc battle groups were often bolstered by civilians press-ganged into

1035-450: A major reshuffling took place in the Soviet military administration. On 13 March 1918, the Soviet government accepted the official resignation of Krylenko and the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief was liquidated. On 14 March 1918, Leon Trotsky replaced Podvoisky as the Narkom of War Affairs. On 16 March 1918, Pavel Dybenko was relieved from the office of Narkom of Marine Affairs. On 8 May 1918,

1150-592: A parent front . 11th Guards Army The 11th Guards Army ( Russian : 11-я гвардейская армия ) was a field army of the Red Army , the Soviet Ground Forces , and the Russian Ground Forces , active from 1943 to 1997. For its prowess in battle, the second formation of the 16th Army was redesignated as the 11th Guards Army on 1 May 1943 in accordance with a Stavka directive of 16 April, under

1265-540: A stable nucleus. By 1925, this system provided 46 of the 77 infantry divisions and one of the eleven cavalry divisions. The remainder consisted of regular officers and enlisted personnel serving two-year terms. The territorial system was finally abolished, with all remaining formations converted to the other cadre divisions, in 1937–1938. The Soviet military received ample funding and was innovative in its technology. An American journalist wrote in 1941: Even in American terms

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1380-509: A surrender the following day although some Japanese units continued to fight for several more days. A proposed Soviet invasion of Hokkaido , the second largest Japanese island, was originally planned to be part of the territory to be taken but it was cancelled. Military administration after the October Revolution was taken over by the People's Commissariat of War and Marine affairs headed by

1495-468: A tank regiment, a motorized infantry regiment, as well as reconnaissance and artillery battalions. From this humble beginning, the Soviets would go on to create the first operational-level armored formations in history, the 11th and 45th Mechanized Corps , in 1932. These were tank-heavy formations with combat support forces included so they could survive while operating in enemy rear areas without support from

1610-579: The Volkssturm , and many East Prussian villages and towns had been turned into fortified strongpoints, in addition to the substantial fortifications centred on Heilsberg . The fighting was prolonged in order to keep open civilian escape routes, and because requests to evacuate the main body of the Fourth Army were refused by the German High Command . The Soviet attack, however, came tragically late for

1725-508: The 463rd Rocket Brigade , directly subordinated to army headquarters. As the size of Soviet forces was reduced towards the end of the Cold War, the 26th Division was downsized into the 5190th Guards Weapons and Equipment Storage Base in September 1989. When Soviet troops withdrew from Eastern Europe in 1991, the 18th Guards Motor Rifle Division returned to Gusev, after which the 5190th Guards Base

1840-519: The 5th , 18th , and 84th Guards , and the 108th and 217th Rifle Divisions , several artillery divisions, armoured units, and other support units. The army fought in Operation Kutuzov , during which it included the 8th, 16th, and 36th Guards Rifle Corps, the 5th Tank Corps , and the 108th Rifle Division. Beginning the offensive on 12 July as part of the Western Front, the army broke through

1955-809: The Cold War , the army's organization remained mostly unchanged. On 22 February 1968, it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Armed Forces. In August of that year, the 18th Guards Motor Rifle Division participated in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and upon its conclusion joined the Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia. Henceforth, the army included four divisions:

2070-626: The Eastern Front , it accounted for 75–80% of the casualties that the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war, and ultimately captured the German capital, Berlin . Up to 34 million soldiers served in the Red Army during World War II, 8 million of which were non-Slavic minorities. Officially, the Red Army lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) ( mostly captured ). The majority of

2185-518: The German Second Army , but found its path blocked by Soviet forces of the 48th Army to the east of the town. An attack beginning on the night of 26 January initially resulted in lead elements of the 28th Jäger Division breaking through to Elbing, where they linked up with the 7th Panzer Division ; however German forces were driven back during the next four days after the 48th Army had regrouped. Hossbach's units now found themselves pushed into

2300-530: The Gulag . During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army conscripted 29,574,900 men in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war. Of this total of 34,401,807 it lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) (most captured). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined the ranks in the subsequently liberated Soviet territory, and

2415-595: The Kaliningrad Oblast was reduced in status to become the 10th Guards Tank Brigade . The 11th Guards Army was disbanded on 1 February 1997 by being redesignated the Ground and Coastal Defence Forces of the Baltic Fleet . In June 1997 the 10th Guards Tank Brigade was renamed the 196th Guards Weapons and Equipment Storage Base. The storage base was disbanded itself in 2008. In 1998 the 2nd Independent Tank Brigade became

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2530-685: The Red Army , was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union . The army was established in January 1918 by Leon Trotsky to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War , especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army . In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of

2645-697: The Russian Constituent Assembly (5–6 January 1918) and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), removing Russia from the First World War. Freed from international obligations, the Red Army confronted an internecine war against a variety of opposing anti-Bolshevik forces, including the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno , the anti-White and anti-Red Green armies , efforts to restore

2760-742: The Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy ) was renamed the " Soviet Army " – which in turn became the Russian Army on 7 May 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II , and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan . During its operations on

2875-650: The Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 9 August 1945 (three days after the first atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the same day the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki , while also being exact three months after the surrender of Germany). It was the largest campaign of the Soviet–Japanese War , which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace following

2990-948: The United States . In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $ 11 billion in materials ($ 180 billion in the 2020 money value): over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans ); 14,015 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras , 2,908 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,400 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras ) and 1.75 million tons of food. Soviet soldiers committed mass rapes in occupied territories, especially in Germany . The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence. According to historian Antony Beevor , whose books were banned in 2015 from some Russian schools and colleges, NKVD (Soviet secret police) files have revealed that

3105-609: The Wehrmacht in combat. The Axis's numeric superiority rendered the combatants' divisional strength approximately equal. A generation of Soviet commanders (notably Georgy Zhukov ) learned from the defeats, and Soviet victories in the Battle of Moscow , at Stalingrad , Kursk and later in Operation Bagration proved decisive. In 1941, the Soviet government raised the bloodied Red Army's esprit de corps with propaganda stressing

3220-502: The Wehrmacht was especially harsh. Per a 1941 Stalin directive , Red Army officers and soldiers were to "fight to the last" rather than surrender; Stalin stated: "There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors". During and after World War II freed POWs went to special " filtration camps ". Of these, by 1944, more than 90% were cleared, and about 8% were arrested or condemned to serve in penal battalions . In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by

3335-578: The brigade and regimental levels. The commissars also had the task of spying on commanders for political incorrectness . In August 1918, Trotsky authorized General Mikhail Tukhachevsky to place blocking units behind politically unreliable Red Army units, to shoot anyone who retreated without permission. In 1942, during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) Joseph Stalin reintroduced the blocking policy and penal battalions with Order 227 . The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 occurred at

3450-532: The death penalty . Simultaneously, Trotsky carried out a mass recruitment of officers from the old Imperial Russian Army , who were employed as military advisors ( voenspetsy ). The Bolsheviks occasionally enforced the loyalty of such recruits by holding their families as hostages. As a result of this initiative, in 1918 75% of the officers were former tsarists . By mid-August 1920 the Red Army's former tsarist personnel included 48,000 officers, 10,300 administrators, and 214,000 non-commissioned officers . When

3565-536: The final assault on Königsberg , The Red Army quickly moved to cut communication between the Kessel and Königsberg, their troops reaching the coastline about 5 miles from the city on 15 March. A crossing of the Frisching River was forced in a night attack on the night of 17–18 March, further rolling up German defences of the Kessel from the east. Clearer weather from 18 March allowed an intensive aerial bombardment of

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3680-407: The triumphantly advancing enemy. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies. We have no power to stay the enemy; only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction." The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) can be divided into three periods: At the start of the civil war, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments . The civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved

3795-673: The "Second Soviet-Finnish War") which was a conflict fought by Finland and Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. In accordance with the Soviet-Nazi Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, after the Nazi invasion on 1 September 1939. On 30 November, the Red Army also attacked Finland, in the Winter War of 1939–1940. By autumn 1940, after conquering its portion of Poland, Nazi Germany shared an extensive border with

3910-527: The 1932–1939 Soviet–Japanese border conflicts . The Red Army, with support from Mongolian forces, overwhelmed the Japanese Kwantung Army and local Chinese forces supporting them. The Soviets advanced on the continent into the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo , Mengjiang (the northeast section of present-day Inner Mongolia which was part of another puppet state) and via an amphibious operation

4025-521: The 1936 Provisional Field Regulations (PU-36). The Great Purge of 1937–1939 and the 1941 Red Army Purge removed many leading officers from the Red Army, including Tukhachevsky himself and many of his followers, and the doctrine was abandoned. Thus, at the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 and in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 ( major border conflicts with the Imperial Japanese Army ), the doctrine

4140-420: The 1st (based at Kaliningrad) and 26th (Gusev) Guards Motor Rifle, and the 40th Guards ( Sovetsk ) and 1st (Kaliningrad) Tank. The tank divisions were maintained at a higher strength then the motor rifle divisions, and the 1st Guards Motor Rifle was maintained at a reduced strength with virtually no artillery and few armored vehicles. On 28 August 1988, the rocket battalions of the army's divisions were used to form

4255-411: The 36th Corps was disbanded during the year, and in the winter and spring the 31st Guards Rifle Division of the 16th Corps and the 18th Guards Rifle Division of the 36th Corps became the 29th and 30th Guards Mechanized Divisions, respectively. In June 1946, the 8th Guards was transferred to the Soviet airborne and relocated to Polotsk , and its 11th and 83rd Guards Rifle Divisions were disbanded. From

4370-400: The 71st, which became the 119th. The 28th Guards Mechanized Division became the 40th Guards Tank Division. During the late 1950s the army's corps were disbanded, along with the 5th and 16th Guards Motor Rifle Divisions. In November 1964, the 30th Guards became the 18th Guards, and the 119th became the 265th, although the latter had by then transferred to the Soviet Far East . For the rest of

4485-614: The All-Russian Chief Headquarters was created, headed by Nikolai Stogov and later Alexander Svechin . On 2 September 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) was established as the main military administration under Leon Trotsky, the Narkom of War Affairs. On 6 September 1918 alongside the chief headquarters, the Field Headquarters of RMC was created, initially headed by Nikolai Rattel . On

4600-602: The Army. The Council of People's Commissars appointed itself the supreme head of the Red Army, delegating command and administration of the army to the Commissariat for Military Affairs and the Special All-Russian College within this commissariat. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy. Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko , commissar for

4715-563: The Baltic Front (the 2nd Baltic from 20 October) on 15 October, and on 18 November was transferred to the 1st Baltic Front . Bagramyan was promoted and briefly replaced by Major General Alexander Ksenofontov in November, and then Lieutenant General Kuzma Galitsky (promoted to colonel general on 28 June 1944), who commanded the army for the rest of the war. The army was withdrawn to the Reserve of

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4830-618: The Bolshevik Revolution took place there were few machines in Russia. Marx said Communism must come in a highly industrialized society. The Bolsheviks identified their dreams of socialist happiness with machines which would multiply production and reduce hours of labour until everyone would have everything he needed and would work only as much as he wished. Somehow this has not come about, but the Russians still worship machines, and this helped make

4945-721: The Dungan Cavalry Regiment commanded by the Dungan Magaza Masanchi . It also co-operated with armed Bolshevik Party-oriented volunteer units, the Forces of Special Purpose from 1919 to 1925. The slogan "exhortation, organization, and reprisals" expressed the discipline and motivation which helped ensure the Red Army's tactical and strategic success. On campaign, the attached Cheka special punitive brigades conducted summary field court-martial and executions of deserters and slackers. Under Commissar Yan Karlovich Berzin ,

5060-507: The Eastern Front consisted of an estimated 3,604,800 KIA/MIA within the 1937 borders plus 900,000 ethnic Germans and Austrians outside the 1937 border (included in these numbers are men listed as missing in action or unaccounted for after the war) and 3,576,300 men reported captured (total 8,081,100); the losses of the German satellites on the Eastern Front approximated 668,163 KIA/MIA and 799,982 captured (total 1,468,145). Of these 9,549,245,

5175-567: The Finnish forces, Finland was able to resist the Soviet invasion for much longer than the Soviets expected. Finnish forces inflicted stunning losses on the Red Army for the first three months of the war while suffering very few losses themselves. Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty . Finland ceded 9% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to

5290-460: The Fourth Army at the time of the Kessel' s collapse: Nearly all German units would have been at well below divisional strength even at the start of the East Prussian Operation; also some additional units involved (such as the 299th Infantry Division and 18th Panzergrenadier Division ) were destroyed, disbanded or completely evacuated before the Kessel collapsed. Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army , often shortened to

5405-415: The Fourth Army continued to resist around Pillau, and latterly on the Frische Nehrung, until May. The 4th Army's archives were buried in a forest near the town of Heiligenbeil (now known as Mamonovo , Russia ), in an area still littered with debris from the final battles. The following Soviet units were involved in completing the encirclement of the Kessel : German records list the following units with

5520-411: The Fourth Army's positions. With most communications cut, German forces remaining in the pocket were now faced with either death or being taken prisoner. Some 'elite' units, such as the Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier Division 2 Hermann Göring and the 24th Panzer Division , were evacuated by sea, but others were gradually cut off in a series of small pockets on the coast, in some cases actually digging into

5635-473: The German cruisers Admiral Scheer and Lützow firing across the Haff from the Baltic sea into the Frauenburg end of the pocket. Frauenburg itself was taken on February 9, in fierce fighting involving elements of the 170th Infantry Division . During one Soviet attack the 3rd Belorussian Front 's commander, General Ivan Chernyakhovsky , was killed by a shell splinter near Mehlsack . His successor, Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky , having effectively contained

5750-399: The Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway , and successfully installed a pro-Soviet regime in Xinjiang . The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts , also known as the "Soviet–Japanese Border War" or the first "Soviet–Japanese War", was a series of minor and major conflicts fought between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan from 1932 to 1939. Japan's expansion into Northeast China created

5865-418: The NKVD. Further, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated POWs, and other displaced persons , which processed more than 4,000,000 people. By 1946, 80% civilians and 20% of POWs were freed, 5% of civilians, and 43% of POWs were re-drafted, 10% of civilians and 22% of POWs were sent to labor battalions, and 2% of civilians and 15% of the POWs (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total) were transferred to

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5980-460: The Red Army finally achieving a Soviet-Mongolian victory over Japan and Manchukuo at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in September 1939. The Soviet Union and Japan agreed to a ceasefire. Later the two sides signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, which resolved the dispute and returned the borders to status quo ante bellum . The Winter War ( Finnish : talvisota , Swedish : finska vinterkriget , Russian: Зи́мняя война́ )

6095-481: The Red Army numbered some 6.5 million men, many of whom the Army had difficulty supporting, around 581,000 in the two operational fronts, western and southwestern. Around 2.5 million men and women were mobilized in the interior as part of reserve armies. The XI Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP (b)) adopted a resolution on the strengthening of the Red Army. It decided to establish strictly organized military, educational and economic conditions in

6210-464: The Red Army the most highly mechanized in the world, except perhaps the German Army now. Like Americans, the Russians admire size, bigness, large numbers. They took pride in building a vast army of tanks, some of them the largest in the world, armored cars, airplanes, motorized guns, and every variety of mechanical weapons. Under Stalin's campaign for mechanization, the army formed its first mechanized unit in 1930. The 1st Mechanized Brigade consisted of

6325-404: The Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations and assistance with farm work. Some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army; men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away, they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages. In some cases, the money they earned would go towards tanks for

6440-474: The Red Army with an initial Red Guard organization and a core soldiery of Red Guard militiamen and the Cheka secret police. Conscription began in June 1918, and opposition to it was violently suppressed. To control the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Red Army soldiery, the Cheka operated special punitive brigades which suppressed anti-communists , deserters , and " enemies of the state ". The Red Army used special regiments for ethnic minorities, such as

6555-483: The Red Army's defeat of Pyotr Wrangel in the south in 1920 allowed the foundation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1922. Historian John Erickson sees 1 February 1924, when Mikhail Frunze became head of the Red Army staff, as marking the ascent of the general staff , which came to dominate Soviet military planning and operations. By 1 October 1924 the Red Army's strength had diminished to 530,000. The list of Soviet divisions 1917–1945 details

6670-411: The Red Army's strength was 401 divisions. The Soviet forces were apparently unprepared despite numerous warnings from a variety of sources. They suffered much damage in the field because of mediocre officers, partial mobilization, and an incomplete reorganization. The hasty pre-war forces expansion and the over-promotion of inexperienced officers (owing to the purging of experienced officers) favored

6785-473: The Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. The majority of the losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). As many as 8 million of the 34 million mobilized were non-Slavic minority soldiers, and around 45 divisions formed from national minorities served from 1941 to 1943. The German losses on

6900-418: The Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote: "There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, and that is to create a people's militia and to fuse it with the army (the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the entire people)." At

7015-402: The Samland Group of Forces of the 3rd Belarusian Front. The 11th Guards fought in the taking of the city in early April, ending the Battle of Königsberg . During the Samland Offensive , the army captured Pillau on 25 April and completed the defeat of the German forces in Samland on the Frische Nehrung . It also fought in the Bryansk , Gorodok , and Gumbinnen Offensives . In July 1945,

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7130-518: The Soviet Union made Red Army logistical support difficult because many depots (and most of the USSR's industrial manufacturing base) lay in the country's invaded western areas, obliging their re-establishment east of the Ural Mountains. Lend-Lease trucks and jeeps from the United States began appearing in large numbers in 1942. Until then, the Red Army was often required to improvise or go without weapons, vehicles, and other equipment. The 1941 decision to physically move their manufacturing capacity east of

7245-415: The Soviet Union. Soviet losses on the front were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. The Soviet forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Finland but did receive territory in Karelia , Petsamo , and Salla . The Finns retained their sovereignty and improved their international reputation, which bolstered their morale in the Continuation War (also known as

7360-436: The Soviet defence budget was large. In 1940 it was the equivalent of $ 11,000,000,000, and represented one-third of the national expenditure. Measure this against the fact that the infinitely richer United States will approximate the expenditure of that much yearly only in 1942 after two years of its greatest defence effort. Most of the money spent on the Red Army and Air Force went for machines of war. Twenty-three years ago when

7475-439: The Soviets released 3,572,600 from captivity after the war, thus the grand total of the Axis losses came to an estimated 5,976,645. Regarding POWs, both sides captured large numbers and had many die in captivity – one recent British figure says 3.6 of 6 million Soviet POWs died in German camps, while 300,000 of 3 million German POWs died in Soviet hands. In 1941, the rapid progress of the initial German air and land attacks into

7590-413: The Supreme High Command on 22 April 1944 and returned to the front as part of the 3rd Belorussian Front on 27 May. During the Minsk and Vilnius Offensives of Operation Bagration , the army, in conjunction with other units, took Orsha , Borisov , Molodechno , Alytus , and crossed the Neman . During October, the army broke through the German defenses on the approaches to East Prussia and reached

7705-431: The USSR, with whom it remained neutrally bound by their non-aggression pact and trade agreements . Another consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , carried out by the Southern Front in June–July 1940 and Soviet occupation of the Baltic states . These conquests also added to the border the Soviet Union shared with Nazi-controlled areas. For Adolf Hitler ,

7820-422: The Ural Mountains kept the main Soviet support system out of German reach. In the later stages of the war, the Red Army fielded some excellent weaponry, especially artillery and tanks. The Red Army's heavy KV-1 and medium T-34 tanks outclassed most Wehrmacht armor, but in 1941 most Soviet tank units used older and inferior models. The Red Army was financially and materially assisted in its wartime effort by

7935-417: The army between 1950 and 1954. In the summer of 1956, the 10th Rifle Corps arrived from the Ural Military District ; the 26th Guards Rifle Division and 71st Mechanized Division (from Ivanovo ) were subordinated to it. In the spring of 1957, all of the army's Guards Rifle Divisions and the 30th Guards and 71st Mechanized Divisions were redesignated as motor rifle divisions, retaining their numbers except for

8050-468: The army headquarters was used to form the headquarters of the Special Military District . On 26 February 1946, the headquarters of the district was redesignated the headquarters of the army, part of the Baltic Military District . When reformed, the army consisted of the same corps it ended the war with – the 8th Guards at Chernyakhovsk , the 16th Guards at Kaliningrad , and the 36th Guards at Gusev (later Chernyakhovsk). The 84th Guards Rifle Division of

8165-504: The army. However, it was recognized that an army of 1,600,000 would be burdensome. By the end of 1922, after the Congress, the Party Central Committee decided to reduce the Red Army to 800,000. This reduction necessitated the reorganization of the Red Army's structure. The supreme military unit became corps of two or three divisions. Divisions consisted of three regiments. Brigades as independent units were abolished. The formation of departments' rifle corps began. After four years of warfare,

8280-570: The beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia. Democratic elections selected the officers. However, a decree on 29 May 1918 imposed obligatory military service for men of ages 18 to 40. To service the massive draft, the Bolsheviks formed regional military commissariats ( voyennyy komissariat , abbr. voyenkomat ), which as of 2023 still exist in Russia in this function and under this name. Military commissariats, however, should not be confused with

8395-527: The border of the latter, then advanced into the German border defenses, and advanced 70 kilometers after expanding the breakthrough to 75 kilometers. During the East Prussian Offensive of 1945, the army entered battle from the second echelon, defeated the German troops around Insterburg , reached the Frisches Haff , and besieged Königsberg from the south. The army was transferred to the 1st Baltic Front on 13 February and on 25 February became part of

8510-472: The brigades took hostages from the villages of deserters to compel their surrender; one in ten of those returning was executed. The same tactic also suppressed peasant rebellions in areas controlled by the Red Army, the biggest of these being the Tambov Rebellion . The Soviets enforced the loyalty of the various political, ethnic, and national groups in the Red Army through political commissars attached at

8625-712: The circumstance was no dilemma, because the Drang nach Osten ("Drive towards the East") policy secretly remained in force, culminating on 18 December 1940 with Directive No. 21, Operation Barbarossa , approved on 3 February 1941, and scheduled for mid-May 1941. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army's ground forces had 303 divisions and 22 separate brigades (5.5 million soldiers) including 166 divisions and brigades (2.6 million) garrisoned in

8740-420: The civil war ended in 1922, ex-tsarists constituted 83% of the Red Army's divisional and corps commanders. In 1919, 612 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures. According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of

8855-596: The coast, in particular in the harbour of Pillau, the Kriegsmarine managed to evacuate tens of thousands of civilians over the Baltic sea, and encouraged fierce resistance on land, since every delay to the Red Army meant the rescue of additional old people, women and children. Attempts by the Red Army to break through the German perimeter early in February were fought back, with the Fourth Army receiving heavy artillery support from

8970-401: The coastal embankments or beaches. POW reports suggested that many German units were now seriously understrength, with the 50th Infantry Division , for example, able to field only a single incomplete regiment. The Soviets finally took Braunsberg on 20 March. Heiligenbeil, covering the small port of Rosenberg, was attacked with phosphorus bombs on 22 March and successfully stormed on 25 March,

9085-452: The command of Lieutenant General Ivan Bagramyan , who was promoted to colonel general on 27 August. The army included the 8th and 16th Guards Rifle Corps and one rifle division directly controlled by the army headquarters. On 1 June 1943 the 11th Guards Army consisted of the 8th Guards Rifle Corps ( 11th , 26th and 83rd Guards Rifle Divisions ), 16th Guards Rifle Corps ( 1st , 16th & 31st Guards , and 169th Rifle Divisions ), and

9200-721: The defeated Provisional Government, monarchists, but mainly the White Movement of several different anti-socialist military confederations. "Red Army Day", 23 February 1918, has a two-fold historical significance: it was the first day of conscription (in Petrograd and Moscow), and the first day of combat against the occupying Imperial German Army . The Red Army controlled by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic also against independence movements, invading and annexing newly independent states of

9315-532: The defense of Motherland and nation, employing historic exemplars of Russian courage and bravery against foreign aggressors. The anti-Nazi Great Patriotic War was conflated with the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon , and historical Russian military heroes, such as Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Kutuzov , appeared. Repression of the Russian Orthodox Church temporarily ceased, and priests revived

9430-499: The depth of the enemy's ground forces, inducing catastrophic defensive failure. The deep-battle doctrine relies upon aviation and armor advances with the expectation that maneuver warfare offers quick, efficient, and decisive victory. Marshal Tukhachevsky said that aerial warfare must be "employed against targets beyond the range of infantry , artillery , and other arms. For maximum tactical effect aircraft should be employed en masse , concentrated in time and space, against targets of

9545-410: The end of 1946 to 1956, the 11th Guards Army included the 16th Guards Rifle Corps with the 1st and 16th Guards Rifle Divisions, and the 28th Guards Mechanized Division , the 36th Guards Rifle Corps with the 5th and 26th Guards Rifle Divisions, and the 30th Guards Mechanized Division, and the independent 1st Tank Division (the former tank corps of the same number). Colonel General Pavel Batov commanded

9660-512: The fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as people's commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars. At a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked: "We have no army. The demoralized soldiers are fleeing, panic-stricken, as soon as they see a German helmet appear on the horizon, abandoning their artillery, convoys and all war material to

9775-561: The formations of the Red Army in that time. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, Soviet military theoreticians – led by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky – developed the deep operation doctrine, a direct consequence of their experiences in the Polish–Soviet War and in the Russian Civil War. To achieve victory, deep operations envisage simultaneous corps - and army-size unit maneuvers of simultaneous parallel attacks throughout

9890-566: The former Russian Empire. This included three military campaigns against the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic , in January–February 1918, January–February 1919, and May–October 1920. Conquered nations were subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union. In June 1918, Leon Trotsky abolished workers' control over the Red Army, replacing the election of officers with traditional army hierarchies and criminalizing dissent with

10005-541: The frozen Haff to the Frische Nehrung and thence to Pillau or Danzig , reinforced paths marked by lamps having been constructed across the ice by Fourth Army's engineers. As the Nazis had effectively forbidden evacuation of East Prussia's civil population, when the Red Army attacked on 12 January 1945 civilians began a mass flight west to the Baltic sea coast. Many people were killed by Soviet troops, and by severe frost. At

10120-456: The highest tactical importance." "To the Red army, Stalin has dealt a fearful blow. As a result of the latest judicial frameup, it has fallen several cubits in stature. The interests of the Soviet defense have been sacrificed in the interests of the self-preservation of the ruling clique." Red Army deep operations found their first formal expression in the 1929 Field Regulations and became codified in

10235-593: The hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million. While the Soviets considered the surrender of Germany to be the end of the "Great Patriotic War", at the earlier Yalta Conference the Soviet Union agreed to enter the Pacific Theater portion of World War II within three months of the end of the war in Europe . This promise was reaffirmed at the Potsdam Conference held in July 1945. The Red Army began

10350-426: The institution of military political commissars . In the mid-1920s, the territorial principle of manning the Red Army was introduced. In each region, able-bodied men were called up for a limited period of active duty in territorial units, which constituted about half the army's strength, each year, for five years. The first call-up period was for three months, with one month a year thereafter. A regular cadre provided

10465-417: The leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it. It was often rear echelon units who committed the rapes. According to professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, "4,148 Red Army officers and many privates were punished for committing atrocities". The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in

10580-423: The life of any soldier and (almost any) officer of the unit to which he was attached. In 1942, Stalin established the penal battalions composed of gulag inmates, Soviet PoWs, disgraced soldiers, and deserters, for hazardous front-line duty as tramplers clearing Nazi minefields, et cetera. Given the dangers, the maximum sentence was three months. Likewise, the Soviet treatment of Red Army personnel captured by

10695-440: The losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined the ranks in liberated Soviet territory, and a further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. The official grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million. Officials at

10810-469: The main and reserve defensive lines of the German forces by the end of the first day. It advanced 70 kilometers by 19 July, threatening the line of communications of the German forces around Oryol . The 11th Guards Army transferred to the Bryansk Front on 30 July and continued the offensive to the south and southwest, contributing to the defeat of the German troops south of Oryol. The army became part of

10925-628: The northern portion of Korea . Other Red Army operations included the Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin , which was the Japanese portion of Sakhalin Island (and Russia had lost to Japan in 1905 in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War ), and the invasion of the Kuril Islands . Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan on 15 August. The commanding general of the Kwantung Army ordered

11040-413: The outnumbered German forces soon began to suffer serious ammunition shortages. Colonel-General Georg-Hans Reinhardt , commander of Army Group Centre, warned of the seriousness of the situation as early as 19 January, but was not permitted to make a phased withdrawal. To save his units from encirclement, Hossbach started to pull the Fourth Army back to the west in direct contravention of orders, abandoning

11155-412: The prepared defences around Lötzen on 23 January. By this time, Rokossovsky 's 2nd Belorussian Front had already broken through on Hossbach's right; the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army headed for the Baltic coast, cutting off most of East Prussia. Through a series of forced marches in atrocious winter weather, and accompanied by thousands of civilians, the Fourth Army moved towards Elbing , still held by

11270-477: The rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted amnesty weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000–132,000 deserters to the army. In September 1918, the Bolshevik militias consolidated under

11385-628: The remaining inmates of the Heiligenbeil concentration camp , along with other camps in the area. Even as Hossbach's forces were attempting to break out of East Prussia, the prisoners were driven to the coast at Palmnicken and ordered to commit suicide by marching into the Baltic Sea. The pocket was finally crushed in an operation lasting from 13 March – 29 March, officially known as the Braunsberg Offensive Operation , in preparation for

11500-558: The remaining troops as numbering 10 million. While the Imperial Russian Army was being taken apart, "it became apparent that the rag-tag Red Guard units and elements of the imperial army who had gone over the side of the Bolsheviks were quite inadequate to the task of defending the new government against external foes." Therefore, the Council of People's Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918. They envisioned

11615-584: The remains of the Army Group, concentrated on assembling reinforcements over the next month. Under the supervision of Major-General Karl Henke , the Germans continued to attempt resupply and evacuations of wounded along the Frische Nehrung, often at night to avoid air attack. A long, narrow corridor through to the besieged garrison of Königsberg was also maintained against the attacks of the 11th Guards Army through

11730-668: The same day the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was created, and initially assigned to Jukums Vācietis (and from July 1919 to Sergey Kamenev ). The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces existed until April 1924, the end of Russian Civil War . In November 1923, after the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Russian Narkom of War Affairs was transformed into the Soviet Narkom of War and Marine Affairs. At

11845-569: The same time as the general Soviet move into the areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany in the aftermath of World War I . This merged into the 1919–1921 Polish–Soviet War , in which the Red Army invaded Poland, reaching the central part of the country in 1920, but then suffered a resounding defeat in Warsaw , which put an end to the war. During the Polish Campaign

11960-670: The supreme command of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic ( Russian : Революционный Военный Совет , romanized :  Revolyutsionny Voyenny Sovyet (Revvoyensoviet) ). The first chairman was Trotsky, and the first commander-in-chief was Jukums Vācietis of the Latvian Riflemen ; in July 1919 he was replaced by Sergey Kamenev . Soon afterwards Trotsky established the GRU (military intelligence) to provide political and military intelligence to Red Army commanders. Trotsky founded

12075-618: The time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. Approximately 23% (about 19 million) of the male population of the Russian Empire were mobilized; however, most of them were not equipped with any weapons and had support roles such as maintaining the lines of communication and the base areas. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters, 1.8 million dead, 5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners. He estimated

12190-539: The town suffering almost complete destruction. Rosenberg itself was taken on 26 March, with the remnants of the Fourth Army falling back on the Kahlholzer Haken peninsula , where the perimeter was defended by troops from the Panzerkorps "Großdeutschland" and the 28th Jäger Division. The last evacuations took place on the morning of 29 March from Kahlholz and Balga , where a remnant of the 562nd Volksgrenadier Division

12305-619: The tradition of blessing arms before battle. To encourage the initiative of Red Army commanders, the CPSU temporarily abolished political commissars , reintroduced formal military ranks and decorations, and introduced the Guards unit concept. Exceptionally heroic or high-performing units earned the Guards title (for example 1st Guards Special Rifle Corps , 6th Guards Tank Army ), an elite designation denoting superior training, materiel, and pay. Punishment also

12420-671: The western military districts. The Axis forces deployed on the Eastern Front consisted of 181 divisions and 18 brigades (3 million soldiers). Three Fronts, the Northwestern , Western , and Southwestern conducted the defense of the western borders of the USSR. In the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War (as it is known in Russia), the Wehrmacht defeated many Red Army units. The Red Army lost millions of men as prisoners and lost much of its pre-war matériel. Stalin increased mobilization, and by 1 August 1941, despite 46 divisions lost in combat,

12535-482: Was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland . It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland . The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union on 14 December 1939. The Soviet forces led by Semyon Timoshenko had three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and

12650-467: Was conditional upon "guarantees being given by a military or civil committee functioning within the territory of the Soviet Power, or by party or trade union committees or, in extreme cases, by two persons belonging to one of the above organizations." In the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a "collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary." Because

12765-495: Was destroyed forming a rearguard (its commander, Helmuth Hufenbach , receiving a posthumous promotion to Major-General ). Soviet sources claimed 93,000 enemy dead and 46,448 taken prisoner during the operation; German sources claim that many troops in the Kessel were successfully evacuated to the Frische Nehrung. Given the chaos prevailing at this stage of the war, it is unlikely that accurate figures will ever be determined, many soldiers having simply disappeared. Further elements of

12880-482: Was disbanded, and the 11th Guards Rocket Brigade arrived in Chernyakhovsk. By early 1991, the 11th Guards Army included 620 tanks, 753 BMPs and BTRs , 239 guns, mortars, and Multiple rocket launchers , 71 attack helicopters, and 38 transport helicopters. In September 1993 the 1st Tank Division was reduced into the 2nd Independent Tank Brigade. On 19 November 1993 the 40th Guards Tank Division at Sovetsk in

12995-540: Was killed on 20 November 1917. Nikolai Podvoisky was appointed as the Narkom of War Affairs, leaving Dybenko in charge of the Narkom of Marine Affairs and Ovseyenko – the expeditionary forces to the Southern Russia on 28 November 1917. The Bolsheviks also sent out their own representatives to replace front commanders of the Russian Imperial Army . After the signing of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918,

13110-751: Was not used. Only in the Second World War did deep operations come into play. The Red Army was involved in armed conflicts in the Republic of China during the Sino-Soviet conflict (1929) , the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang (1934), when it was assisted by White Russian forces, and the Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937) in Northwestern China . The Red Army achieved its objectives; it maintained effective control over

13225-402: Was used; slackers, malingerers, those avoiding combat with self-inflicted wounds cowards, thieves, and deserters were disciplined with beatings, demotions, undesirable/dangerous duties, and summary execution by NKVD punitive detachments. At the same time, the osobist (NKVD military counter-intelligence officers) became a key Red Army figure with the power to condemn to death and to spare

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