112-490: A red star is an important ideological and religious symbol. Red Star may also refer to: Red star A red star , five-pointed and filled, is a symbol that has often historically been associated with communist ideology , particularly in combination with the hammer and sickle , but is also used as a purely socialist symbol in the 21st century. It has been widely used in flags , state emblems , monuments , ornaments , and logos . One interpretation sees
224-575: A New Year's tree , known as a yolka ( Russian : Ёлка ). These trees were often decorated with a red star, a practice that has continued in Russia since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. Following its adoption as an emblem of the Soviet Union, the red star became a symbol for communism around the world. Several Communist states subsequently adopted the red star symbol, often placing it on their respective flags and coats of arms – for example on
336-508: A West German militant group, used a red star paired with a Heckler & Koch MP5 in their highly recognizable insignia. In 1994, the red star was included in the flag of the armed revolutionary Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas , Mexico . A number of communist parties in Turkey utilize the red star. Likewise, a number of Kurdish revolutionary organizations connected to
448-605: A 5 point red star headband with gold or yellow background. The crescent moon and star was a symbol used by the Ottoman Empire . Various states with Ottoman history have thus adopted this symbol into their present-day flags. The red star was adopted as the symbol of the International Red Star Alliance , a Geneva international treaty signed in 1914 with the purpose of bringing about international cooperation on behalf of sick and wounded war animals , while securing
560-536: 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
672-550: 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
784-418: 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
896-498: 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
1008-450: 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,
1120-410: A parliamentary committee due to its conflict with freedoms guaranteed by the constitution of Estonia . The European Court of Human Rights has ruled, in a similar manner, against the laws that ban political symbols, which were deemed to be in clear opposition with basic human rights, such as freedom of speech, confirmed again in 2011 in case Fratanolo v. Hungary . The decision has been compared to
1232-638: A red star. This led to criticism from the Slovenian democratic parties without a communist history. Emblems and flags where the red stars displayed are not five-pointed are much rarer. These include the following: Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army , often shortened to the Red Army , was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union . The army
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#17328585691251344-530: A significance that does not originally relate to socialism. Among these, the most well-known include the current state flag of California (echoing the Californian red star flag of 1836) and the flag of New Zealand (designed in 1869, officially adopted in 1902). The flag of the District of Columbia (designed in 1921, adopted in 1938) recalls George Washington's coat of arms . DC Comics ' Wonder Woman also wears
1456-695: A similar way medical personal worn brassards with red crosses. Following the War, the American Red Star turned to focus on domestic issues, including care for animals during disasters. The organization waxed and waned over the decades, and as of 2016 exists as the American Humane Association 's Red Star Animal Emergency Services . The red star was used by the Texaco oil company in various forms from 1909 to 1981. Its overseas division Caltex also used
1568-540: 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
1680-509: 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
1792-742: A symbol of the Red Army was proposed by the Military Collegium for the organization of the Red Army and the creator of the Red Star emblem was the Bolshevik commander of the Petrograd Military District , Konstantin Eremeev . On the other hand, one account of the symbol's origin traces its roots to the Moscow troop garrison toward the end of World War I . At this time, many troops were fleeing from
1904-783: A yellow star on a red field. Examples of communes and villages in China named after the red star include Hongxing Village in Huilong Township, Hubei , China and Kizilto in Xinjiang (named Hongxing Commune during the Cultural Revolution ). Socialist countries in Africa also incorporated the red or gold stars into their heraldry. This practice was also adopted by countries that formed following anti-colonial national liberation struggles, which often involved Marxist organizations. By March 2010,
2016-481: 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 the losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). Of
2128-530: 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
2240-856: The Imperial Japanese Army ), the doctrine 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
2352-896: The Kurdistan Communities Union utilize the red star in their iconography. Those include the flags of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the battle flag pennants of the People's Defence Forces and Free Women's Units in Turkish Kurdistan , the People's Protection Units and Women's Protection Units in Syrian Kurdistan , and the Eastern Kurdistan Units and Women's Defense Forces in Iranian Kurdistan . The Iranian Islamist-Socialist militant opposition group
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#17328585691252464-620: The Mojahedin-e-Khalq uses the red star with the rifle, sickle and the map of Iran in the background. The Brazilian leftist Worker's Party uses a red star as its symbol with the party acronym ( Portuguese : Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT ) inside. Hugo Chávez and his supporters in Venezuela have used the red star in numerous symbols and logos, and have included it in the logo of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). It
2576-549: The Pahonia ; the Soviet-era heraldry was re-adopted in 1995, and continues to be used today with minor modifications in 2012 and 2020. In former Yugoslavia the red star served not only a communist symbol, but also as a more generic symbol of resistance against Fascism and the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia , as well as of opposition to its associated ethnic policies. Tito's partisans wore
2688-566: The Russian government readopted the Soviet red star (but now with a blue outline reflecting the three colors – white, blue and red – of the Russian flag) as a military insignia. The Russian Air Force used this star as a roundel up to 2013, when Russia re-instated the Soviet-era red star. As of 2014 the Armed Forces of Belarus still use the old Soviet red star. The coat of arms of Armed Forces of
2800-697: 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
2912-602: 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
3024-948: 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
3136-609: 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
3248-502: 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
3360-578: 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
3472-532: 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
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3584-737: The flag of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Separatist and socialist movements also sometimes adopted the red star, as on the Estelada flag in the Catalan countries . The red star became a common element of the flags and heraldry of socialist states in the Eastern Bloc , appearing in heraldry for virtually all of the countries, and on the flags of Bulgaria , Hungary , Romania , and Albania . From 1991 to 1995, Belarus dropped its Soviet-style emblem in favor of an emblem featuring
3696-422: The hammer and sickle are regarded as occupation symbols as well as symbols of totalitarianism and state terror by several countries that were formerly either members of or occupied by the Soviet Union . Accordingly, Latvia , Lithuania , Hungary and Ukraine have banned the symbol among others deemed to be symbols of totalitarian political ideologies and the Soviet Union or its republics. In Poland ,
3808-434: The intelligentsia . In Soviet heraldry, the red star symbolized the Red Army and military service, as opposed to the hammer and sickle, which symbolized peaceful labour. Some former Warsaw Pact nations have passed laws banning it, seeing as it represents a totalitarian ideology. The red star has also been used in a non-communist context and before the emergence of this movement, in symbols of countries and states since
3920-509: The legislation concerning the symbols of Nazism , which continue to be banned in several European Union member states, including Germany and France . There have been calls for an EU-wide ban on both Soviet and Nazi symbols, notably by politicians from Lithuania, Estonia, the Czech Republic , Hungary and Slovakia . The European Commissioner for Justice, Franco Frattini , felt it "might not be appropriate" to include communist symbols in
4032-407: 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
4144-627: 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
4256-463: The 1929 Field Regulations and became codified in 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
4368-527: 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
4480-572: The 19th century. It appears for example on the flags of New Zealand and the U.S. state of California . The red star has also been used as logo by private agencies and corporations, such as the oil giant Texaco and beer multinational Heineken . The star's origins as a symbol of communist mass movements dates from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War , but the precise first use remains unknown. The red star as
4592-499: 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 the Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists
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4704-614: 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
4816-602: 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
4928-532: The Austrian and German fronts, joining the local Moscow garrison upon their arrival in the city. To distinguish the Moscow troops from the influx of retreating front-liners, officers gave out tin stars to the Moscow garrison soldiers to wear on their hats. When those troops joined the Red Army and the Bolsheviks they painted their tin stars red, the color of socialism, thus creating the original red star. The red star
5040-618: 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
5152-543: 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 ,
5264-451: 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,
5376-408: 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
5488-405: 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 a body "formed from
5600-399: 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
5712-418: 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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#17328585691255824-402: The Parliament passed in 2009 a ban that referred generally to "fascist, communist or other totalitarian symbols", while not specifying any of them. Following a constitutional complaint, it has been abolished by the Constitutional Tribunal as contrary to articles in the Constitution of Poland guaranteeing the freedom of speech . A similar law was considered in Estonia , but eventually failed in
5936-460: 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 )
6048-481: 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
6160-404: 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
6272-474: 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
6384-483: 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
6496-411: 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
6608-405: The Republic of Kazakhstan includes a modified version of the Soviet red star. Transnistria and the Luhansk People's Republic are proto-states located in Eastern Europe . Due to their historical association with the Soviet Union, they have adopted socialist imagery – including the red star – into their flags and heraldry. Several sporting clubs from countries ruled by communist parties used
6720-473: 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
6832-423: The Soviet Union established the Order of the Red Star and awarded its insignia to Red Army and Soviet Navy personnel for "exceptional service in the cause of the defense of the Soviet Union in both war and peace". The Soviet and Russian Federation military newspaper bore and bears the name Red Star ( Russian : Krasnaya Zvezda ). During the 1930s, Soviet publications encouraged the practice of decorating
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#17328585691256944-518: 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
7056-415: 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
7168-436: 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
7280-439: 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
7392-431: 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 ,
7504-422: 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
7616-504: 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,
7728-517: 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
7840-414: 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
7952-509: 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
8064-420: 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
8176-475: 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
8288-480: The communist red star. Red stars were included in the symbolism of many shipowners , such as Puget Sound Navigation Co. (1898-1927), Bombay Steam Navigation Co (since the 19th century), London & Overseas Freighters (1948-1997) and Columbia Transportation Division of the Oglebay Norton Corporation . The two companies were independently named Red Star Line in the 19th century. The red star and
8400-526: The context of discussions on xenophobia and anti-Semitism. In 2003, Hungarian politician Attila Vajnai was arrested, handcuffed and fined for wearing a red star on his lapel during a demonstration. He appealed his sentence to the European Court of Human Rights , which decided that the ban was a violation of the freedom of expression, calling the Hungarian ban "indiscriminate" and "too broad". In Slovenia ,
8512-721: 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
8624-532: 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
8736-499: 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
8848-622: 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 the Eastern Front , it accounted for 75–80% of the casualties that the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war, and ultimately captured
8960-478: The five points as representing the five fingers of the worker's hand, as well as the five populated continents (counting the Americas as one). A lesser-known suggestion is that in communist symbolism , the five points on the star were intended to represent the five social groups that would lead Russia to communism: the youth , the military, the industrial labourers , the agricultural workers or peasantry and
9072-512: 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
9184-561: 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
9296-566: 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
9408-453: 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." Trotsky on the Red Army purges of 1937. Red Army deep operations found their first formal expression in
9520-643: 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
9632-426: 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
9744-417: 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
9856-423: 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
9968-507: 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 the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. While
10080-500: 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 the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. Approximately 23% (about 19 million) of
10192-680: The neutral status of the personnel engaged in such work. Besides the International Alliance, national Red Star societies were also established. Regarding animal relief, the International Red Star Alliance had an analogous role of that of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement . To identify their neutral status, white brassards with red stars were worn by military veterinary personnel in World War I in
10304-628: 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
10416-477: 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
10528-585: The red star for the national insignia for U.S. aircraft on the aircraft of the Signal Corps' 1st Aero Squadron during the Pancho Villa Expedition to apprehend the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa . The symbol became one of the most prominent of the Soviet Union , adorning nearly all official buildings, awards and insignia. Sometimes the hammer and sickle appeared inside or below the star. In 1930
10640-882: The red star as a symbol and named themselves after it, such as the Serbian club Red Star Belgrade ( Serbian : Црвена звезда / Crvena zvezda ), the East German Roter Stern Leipzig , the Angolan Estrela Vermelha do Huambo , the Estrela Vermelha from Beira, Mozambique or the Czechoslovak Rudá Hvězda Brno . Some sports teams from non-communist countries used it, such as French Red Star from Paris, Swiss club FC Red Star Zürich , English Seaham Red Star F.C. , and even an American women's soccer club ( Chicago Red Stars —though in that case
10752-423: The red star as an identification symbol during World War II. As communist movements spread across Asia, some entities used a red star, while others used a yellow star (often on a red field) with the same symbolism. The Far Eastern Republic of 1920 to 1922 used a yellow star on its military uniforms, and the flag of the People's Republic of China has five yellow stars on a red field. The flag of Vietnam also has
10864-466: The red star until 1996. Red Star Yeast was produced for a century in Milwaukee, Baltimore, and Oakland before its subsumption as a brand by Lesaffre . A brand of Erguotou , a type of Baijiu , was named " Hongxing " ( Chinese : 红星 ; lit. 'Red Star') in 1949 to celebrate the founding of the People's Republic of China . North Korea 's Red Star operating system takes its name from
10976-468: The red star was historically associated with the resistance movement that fought against fascist occupation in World War II, but was also later a state symbol of Yugoslavia during the dictatorship of Josip Broz Tito . On 21 March 2011, Slovenia issued a two-euro commemorative coin to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Franc Rozman , a partisan commander, featuring a large star that represented
11088-668: 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
11200-569: 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
11312-515: The star is based on the flag of Chicago and not on the communist logo). The American soccer clubs Sacramento Republic FC and D.C. United also use red stars in their logos, referencing the flags of California and the District of Columbia respectively. The German rowing club Pirnaer Ruderverein 1872 began (and continues) to use red star since the 19th century. In 1970, the Red Army Faction ,
11424-403: The star represented one of the five traditional continents. On hearing that, Trotsky specified that soldiers of the Red Army should wear a similar red star. Regardless of the star's exact origin, it was incorporated into the Red Army 's uniforms and heraldry as early as 1918. Shortly before the founding of the Soviet Union, in mid-March 1916 the U.S. Army Signal Corps ' aviation section used
11536-670: 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
11648-619: 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
11760-671: 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,
11872-482: 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
11984-660: Was also used throughout 2007 as a symbol of the "5 Engines of the Bolivarian Socialist Revolution ". It is also used by the militant South African shack -dweller's movement Abahlali baseMjondolo . Like in Latin America and Africa, several European socialist parties continue to use a star as a part of their logos. The red star is also featured prominently in the independence flags of various separatist movements in Spain . Some red stars adopted in emblems and flags have
12096-467: 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
12208-708: 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 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
12320-540: 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,
12432-479: Was used in communist media as early as in 1908 with the publication of the novel Red Star by Bolshevik revolutionary Alexander Bogdanov , which describes a technologically advanced communist civilization on Mars. Another claimed origin for the red star relates to an alleged encounter between Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Krylenko . Krylenko, an Esperantist , wore a green-star lapel badge; Trotsky inquired as to its meaning and received an explanation that each arm of
12544-402: 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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