The history of the Red Army and the lists of personnel until recently were quite classified information. In addition to legends about power, the armed forces of the Soviet Union learned all the joy of victory and the bitterness of defeat.
RKKA
The Decree on the creation of the Red Army was signed by V. I. Lenin in January 1918 after the formation of the political police of the Cheka. At that time, the lists of personnel of the military forces consisted of workers, soldiers and sailors who went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.
It was impossible to defeat all opponents with such forces, because the new army should protect the revolution. It was possible to join the army only with two class recommendations - workers and peasants. It was formed on a voluntary basis according to Marxist canons - lack of military discipline, discussion of orders, election of commanders. Lenin saw no need to create regular troops. Therefore, the people's militia came to replace the tsarist army.
The civil war only intensified at that time, and the need for trained troopswas just obvious.
In 1926, a book was published that contains a personal list of the personnel of the worker-peasant army. It contains information about the origin, date of birth and death.
Regular troops
But from the middle of 1918, universal military duty of workers from 18 to 40 years old and universal military training were introduced, the election of commanders was canceled, and the Red Army soldiers took the oath. Arms of the armed forces begin to form: infantry, artillery, cavalry, armored forces, consisting of 200 armored vehicles and two armored trains. The first Soviet design bureau of automatic weapons appears in the city of Kovrov.
The active creator of the regular troops of that time was L. Trotsky, who believed that professionals should deal with the war.
Battleship Potemkin
The Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Empire was armed with the famous battleship Potemkin. The list of personnel indicates the presence in the team of a huge number of Mensheviks, anarchists and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The uprising of the sailors took place during the first attempt at a revolution in Russia, but it ended in defeat. There were many reasons. These are the lists of personnel, which are simply overflowing with immigrants from Austria and Germany, and the lack of support from other ships of the Black Sea Fleet.
Features
In fact, there were no fundamental differences between the Red and the tsarist army. They were based on the reform activities of Milyukov from the secondhalf of the 19th century. The principle of dividing the country into military districts and the draft army has been preserved with some changes to this day.
Russia has always sought to have an army larger than it was able to support. And this trend can be traced throughout the history of the country. The lists of personnel of the Red Army were always inflated, but in practice, with the outbreak of hostilities, there was no one to fight.
Zhukov's reforms
The new chief of the general staff, G. K. Zhukov, writes in his memoirs how the army leadership demanded the creation of special mechanical corps from Stalin.
At this time, they begin to actively open military tank, artillery schools and other educational institutions to provide military personnel. 21 tank schools and a tank academy were opened in the USSR. The same forced training took place in the navy and artillery troops.
Panzer Troops
At the beginning of the Patriotic War, there were 1.5 million people in the tank troops. And the release of the tanks themselves also did not lag behind.
But without trained and mobile infantry, they were ineffective and did not allow the Red Army to conduct deep strategic operations, the need for which was caused by the German invasion.
Even the most professional cadres were helpless on the battlefield without infantry troops.
Ensigns and captains - the lower military strata of the tsarist army - could not form a new military idea. The cavalry, as a vestige, lasted until the end of World War II. A listirretrievable losses of personnel in the entire history of the Red Army is simply colossal.
First victories and defeats
The Finnish war showed the Germans the weaknesses of the Red Army, but it also taught the Soviet strategists something. In the summer of 1940, a whole list of orders appeared on the personnel of People's Commissar of Defense Semyon Timoshenko, who obliges the military to train only what is necessary during the war. The gradual rearmament of the army begins, new models of weapons and new powerful tanks are being created, the armor of which could not be penetrated by any gun of that time.
The loss of many positions of the Red Army in 1941 showed all the shortcomings, and the front line was gradually approaching Moscow. But the Wehrmacht failed to break through it.
The cold also played into the hands of the Soviet Union, and the Germans dressed in summer uniform did not tolerate them well. In the cold, their machine guns were also not quite combat-ready. In December 1941, the Red Army pushed the enemy back 300 km. This is how the capital was saved. The moral significance of this victory was enormous, and the Soviet command once again overestimated the offensive capabilities of the army, exhausted in battles, and the German forces were far from being exhausted.
In the spring of 1942, the advance of the Red Army stopped, and several major defeats in the south further aggravated the situation. These are the battles near Kharkov, and surrendered Kyiv, and the defense of Simferopol. Germany opened the way to the Caucasus, Kuban and Stalingrad. FamousStalin's order "Not a step back" further "cleaned up" the lists of personnel of the armed forces of the Soviet Union.
