21 Facts About Red Army

Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

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.

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.

Free from international war, the Red Army confronted an internecine war against a variety of opposing anti-Bolshevik forces, including the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, the "Black Army" led by Nestor Makhno, the anti-White and anti-Red Green armies, efforts to restore the defeated Provisional Government, monarchists, but mainly the White Movement of several different anti-socialist military confederations.

Red Army fought against national independence movements in the territory of the former Russian Empire, including three military campaigns against the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, in January–February 1918, January–February 1919, and May–October 1920.

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In June 1918, Trotsky abolished workers' control over the Red Army, replacing the election of officers with traditional army hierarchies and criminalizing dissent with the death penalty.

Red Army used special regiments for ethnic minorities, such as the Dungan Cavalry Regiment commanded by the Dungan Magaza Masanchi.

The Red Army co-operated with armed Bolshevik Party-oriented volunteer units, the ????? ??????? ?????????? – ??? from 1919 to 1925.

Red Army controlled by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic invaded and annexed non-Russian lands helping to create the Soviet Union.

Red Army was involved in armed conflicts in the Republic of China during the Sino-Soviet conflict, the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang, when it was assisted by White Russian forces, and the Xinjiang rebellion in Northwest China.

The Red Army achieved its objectives; it maintained effective control over the Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway, and successfully installed a pro-Soviet regime in Xinjiang.

The Red Army 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.

The Red Army lost millions of men as prisoners and lost much of its pre-war materiel.

Likewise, the Soviet treatment of Red Army personnel captured by the Wehrmacht was especially harsh.

Until then the Red Army was often required to improvise or go without weapons, vehicles, and other equipment.

Red Army began the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 9 August 1945 .

The commanding general of the Kwantung Army ordered a surrender the following day although some Japanese units continued to fight for several more days.

At the beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia.

Early Red Army abandoned the institution of a professional officer corps as a "heritage of tsarism" in the course of the Revolution.

The Red Army abandoned epaulettes and ranks, using purely functional titles such as "Division Commander", "Corps Commander" and similar titles.

On 22 September 1935 the Red Army abandoned service categories and introduced personal ranks.