With the coming to power of the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks in November 1917, the country's leadership, relying on K. Marx's thesis about replacing the regular army with general armament of the working people, began to actively liquidate the imperial army of Russia. On December 16, 1917, the Bolsheviks issued decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "On the Elective Principle and Organization of Power in the Army" and "On Equalization in the Rights of All Servicemen." To defend the gains of the revolution, under the leadership of professional revolutionaries, detachments of the Red Guard began to form, headed by the military revolutionary committee, which directly led the October coup, led by L.D. Trotsky.
On November 26, 1917, the "Committee for Military and Naval Affairs" was created to replace the old War Ministry, under the leadership of V.A. Antonova-Ovseenko, N.V. Krylenko and P.E. Dybenko. The "Committee for Military and Naval Affairs" was intended to form and direct armed detachments. The committee was expanded to 9 people on November 9 and transformed into the "Council of People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs", and in December 1917 it was renamed and became known as the Collegium of People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs (Narkomvoen), the head of the collegium was N. AND. Podvoisky.
The Collegium of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs was the leading military body of Soviet power; at the first stages of its activity, the collegium relied on the old War Ministry and on the old 
army. By order of the People's Commissar for Military Affairs, at the end of December 1917, in Petrograd, the Central Council for the Management of Armored Units of the RSFSR - Tsentrabron was formed. He was in charge of the armored units and armored trains of the Red Army. By July 1, 1918, the Central Armor formed 12 armored trains and 26 armored detachments. The old Russian army could not provide the defense of the Soviet state. It became necessary to demobilize the old army and create a new Soviet army.
At a meeting of the military organization under the Central Committee. RSDLP (b) December 26, 1917 it was decided, according to the installation of V.I. Lenin to create a new army of 300,000 people in a month and a half, the All-Russian Collegium for the Organization and Management of the Red Army was created. IN AND. Lenin set before this collegium the task of developing, in the shortest possible time, the principles of organizing and building a new army. The fundamental principles of army building developed by the board were approved by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which met from January 10 to 18, 1918. To defend the gains of the revolution, it was decided to create an army of the Soviet state and call it the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army.
On January 28, 1918, a decree was issued on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, and on February 11 - the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Fleet on a voluntary basis. The definition of "workers and peasants" emphasized its class character - the army of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the fact that it should be recruited only from the working people of town and country. The "Red Army" said that it was a revolutionary army.
For the formation of volunteer detachments of the Red Army, 10 million rubles were allocated. In mid-January 1918, 20 million rubles were allocated for the construction of the Red Army. As the leading apparatus of the Red Army was created, all departments of the old War Ministry were reorganized, reduced, or abolished.
In February 1918, the Council of People's Commissars appointed the leading five of the All-Russian Collegium, which issued its first organizational order on the appointment of responsible department commissars. German and Austrian troops, more than 50 divisions, breaking the truce, on February 18, 1918, launched an offensive in the entire strip from the Baltic to the Black Sea. On February 12, 1918, the offensive of Turkish troops began in Transcaucasia. The demoralized old army could not withstand the advancing and left its positions without a fight. Of the old Russian army, the only military units that retained military discipline were the regiments of Latvian riflemen, who went over to the side of Soviet power.
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In connection with the offensive of the German and Austrian troops, some of the generals of the tsarist army proposed to form detachments from the old army. But the Bolsheviks, fearing the action of these detachments against Soviet power, abandoned such formations. To recruit officers of the tsarist army, a new form of organization called the "veil" was created. A group of generals, led by M.D. Bonch-Bruevich, consisting of 12 people, on February 20, 1918, who arrived in Petrograd from Headquarters and formed the basis of the Supreme Military Council, began to attract officers to serve the Bolsheviks.
By mid-February 1918, the First Corps of the Red Army was created in Petrograd. The core of the corps was a special-purpose detachment, which consisted of Petrograd workers and soldiers in 3 companies of 200 people each. In the first two weeks of formation, the number of the corps was brought to 15,000 people. Part of the corps, about 10,000 people, was prepared and sent to the front near Pskov, Narva, Vitebsk and Orsha. By the beginning of March 1918, the corps consisted of 10 infantry battalions, a machine gun regiment, 2 cavalry regiments, an artillery brigade, a heavy artillery battalion, 2 armored divisions, 3 air squadrons, an aeronautical detachment, engineering, automobile, motorcycle units and a searchlight team. The corps was disbanded in May 1918; its personnel is directed to staffing the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rifle divisions, which were being formed in the Petrograd military district.
By the end of February, 20,000 volunteers had signed up in Moscow. The first test of the Red Army took place near Narva and Pskov, it entered into battle with the German troops and fought them back. February 23 was the birthday of the young Red Army.
When the army was being formed, there were no approved staffs. From detachments of volunteers, combat units were formed based on the capabilities and needs of their area. The detachments consisted of several dozen people from 10 to 10,000 and more people, the created battalions, companies and regiments were of various types. The number of the company was from 60 to 1600 people. The tactics of the troops were determined by the legacy of the tactics of the Russian army, the geographical, political and economic conditions of the area of hostilities, and also reflected the individual traits of their leaders, such as Frunze, Shchors,
, Kotovsky, and others. This organization excluded the possibility of centralized command and control of troops. A gradual transition from the volunteer principle to the construction of a regular army on the basis of universal conscription began.The Defense Committee was disbanded on March 4, 1918 and the Supreme Military Council (Air Force) was formed. One of the main founders of the Red Army was the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs L.D. Trotsky, who became on March 14, 1918, at the head of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs and 
Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. As a psychologist, he was engaged in the selection of personnel in order to know the state of affairs in the army, Trotsky created on March 24
Upon admission to the army, the fighters took an oath, approved on April 22 at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and each fighter took and signed the oath. On September 16, 1918, the first Soviet order, the Red Banner of the RSFSR, was established. The commanding staff consisted of former officers and non-commissioned officers who went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and commanders from the Bolsheviks, so in 1919 1,500,000 people were drafted, of which about 29,000 were former officers, but the combat strength of the army did not exceed 450,000 people. The bulk of the former officers who served in the Red Army were wartime officers, mainly warrant officers. The Bolsheviks had very few cavalry officers.
A lot of work was done from March to May 1918. Based on the experience of three years of the First World War, new field manuals were written for all types of troops and their combat interaction. A new mobilization scheme was created - the system of military commissariats. The Red Army was commanded by dozens of the best generals who had gone through two wars, and 100 thousand excellent military officers.
By the end of 1918, the organizational structure of the Red Army and its administrative apparatus were created. The Red Army strengthened all decisive sectors of the fronts with communists, in October 1918 there were 35,000 communists in the army, in 1919 - about 120,000, and in August 1920 - 300,000, half of all members of the RCP (b) of that time. In June 1919, all the republics that existed at that time - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia - entered into a military alliance. A unified military command was created, unified management of finance, industry, and transport.
By order of the RVSR 116 of January 16, 1919, insignia were introduced only for combat commanders - colored buttonholes, on collars, by type of service and commander's stripes on the left sleeve, above the cuff.
By the end of 1920, the Red Army numbered 5,000,000 people, but due to the lack of uniforms, weapons and equipment, the combat strength of the army did not exceed 700,000 people, 22 armies were formed, 174 divisions (of which 35 were cavalry), 61 air squadrons (300-400 aircraft) , artillery and armored units (subdivisions). During the war years, 6 military academies and more than 150 courses trained 60,000 commanders of all specialties from workers and peasants.
During the Civil War, about 20,000 officers died in the Red Army. 45,000 - 48,000 officers remained in service. Losses during the Civil War amounted to 800,000 killed, wounded and missing, 1,400,000 dead from serious illnesses.
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Today Russia celebrates Defender of the Fatherland Day. This holiday is timed to coincide with the creation of the Red Army. Its development was rapid, for several years the Red Army was able to become one of the most efficient armies in the world.
An army that shouldn't have been
Vladimir Lenin believed that in the country of the victorious proletariat, the need for a regular army would disappear. In 1917, he wrote the work "State and Revolution", where he advocated replacing the regular army with the general arming of the people. The arming of the people by the end of the First World War was indeed close to universal. True, not all the people were ready to defend the "gains of the revolution" with arms in hand.
At the first clashes with “cruel revolutionary reality,” the idea of the voluntary principle of recruiting into the Red Guard units proved to be completely unviable.
"The principle of voluntariness" as a factor in inciting civil war
The Red Guards, assembled in late 1917 and early 1918 from volunteers, quickly degenerated into semi-bandit or openly bandit formations. This is how one of the delegates to the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) recalls this period of the formation of the Red Army:
“... The best elements were knocked out, died, were captured, and thus the selection of the worst elements was created. These worst elements were joined by those who joined the volunteer army not to fight and die, but because they were left without occupation, because they were thrown into the street as a result of the catastrophic breakdown of the entire social order. Finally, just the half-rotten remnants of the old army went there ... ”.
It was the "bandit deviation" of the first Red Army detachments that provoked the growth of the civil war. Suffice it to recall the uprising of the Don Cossacks in April 1918, outraged by the "revolutionary" lawlessness.
The real birthday of the Red Army
Around the holiday on February 23, many copies broke and are breaking. His supporters say that it was on this day that the "revolutionary consciousness of the working masses" woke up, spurred on by the just published appeal of the Council of People's Commissars of February 21, "The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger", as well as the "Appeal of the Military Commander-in-Chief" Nikolai Krylenko, which ended with the words : “All to arms. All to defend the revolution. " In large cities of central Russia, primarily in Petrograd and Moscow, rallies were held, after which thousands of volunteers enrolled in the ranks of the Red Army. With their help, in March 1918, it was hardly possible to stop the advance of small German units approximately on the line of the modern Russian-Estonian border.
On January 15 (28), 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia issued a Decree on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (published on January 20 (February 2) 1918). However, it seems that April 22, 1918 can be considered the real birthday of the Red Army.
On this day, by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the procedure for filling positions in the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army," the election of the command staff was canceled. The commanders of individual units, brigades, divisions began to be appointed by the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, and the commanders of battalions, companies and platoons were recommended for positions by local military enlistment offices.
The Bolsheviks in the construction of the Red Army once again demonstrated the skillful use of "double standards". If, in order to destroy and demoralize the tsarist army, they strongly welcomed its "democratization", then the above-mentioned decree returned the Red Army to the "vertical of power", without which no combat-ready army in the world can exist.
From democracy to decimation
Leon Trotsky played an important role in the formation of the Red Army. It was he who set the course for building an army on traditional principles: one-man command, restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms of clothing and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on Khodynskoye Pole.
An important step was the fight against "military anarchism" in the first months of the existence of the Red Army. For example, executions for desertion were restored. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees had been reduced to nothing.
People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the Red commanders how to restore discipline. On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd regiment fled from the battlefield without permission, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation (execution of every tenth by lot) against the deserters. On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from the number of units of the 5th Army who had arbitrarily retreated.
With the filing of Trotsky, by a decree of July 29, all the country's population liable for military service between the ages of 18 and 40 was registered and military horse conscription was established. This made it possible to dramatically increase the size of the armed forces. In September 1918, about half a million people were already in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago.
By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.
Commissioners are the key to success
The sharp increase in the number of the Red Army led to the fact that an acute shortage of competent commanders trained in military affairs began to be felt.
Voluntarily in the ranks of the Red Army, according to various sources, from 2 to 8 thousand former "tsarist officers" entered.
This was clearly not enough. Therefore, in relation to the most suspicious from the point of view of the Bolsheviks, the social group also had to resort to the method of mobilization. However, they could not fully rely on the "military experts", as they began to call the officers of the Imperial Army. This is one of the reasons why the institution of commissars was introduced in the troops to keep an eye on the "former".
This step played almost a major role in the outcome of the Civil War. It was the commissars, who were all members of the RCP (b), who took over the political work both with the troops and with the population. Relying on a powerful propaganda apparatus, they lucidly explained to the soldiers why it was necessary to fight for Soviet power "to the last drop of workers 'and peasants' blood." At the same time, the clarification of the goals of the "whites", as an additional burden, fell on the officers, who had mainly a purely military education and were completely unprepared for such work. Therefore, not only ordinary White Guards, but also the officers themselves often did not have a clear idea of what they were fighting for.
The "Reds" defeated the "Whites" by numbers rather than skill. So, even in the most difficult period for the Bolsheviks at the end of summer - in the fall of 1919, when the fate of the first Soviet republic in the world hung in the balance, the number of the Red Army exceeded the total number of all white armies for that period, according to various sources, from 1.5 to 3 times.
The legendary red cavalry became one of the outstanding phenomena in the history of military art.
At first, a clear preponderance in the cavalry was for the Whites, for whom, as you know, the majority of the Cossacks played. In addition, the South and South-East of Russia (territories where horse breeding was traditionally developed) were cut off from the Bolsheviks. But gradually, from separate red cavalry regiments and horse detachments, a transition began to the formation of brigades, and then divisions. Thus, the small mounted partisan detachment of Semyon Budyonny, created in February 1918, grew within a year to the combined cavalry division of the Tsaritsyn Front, and then to the First Cavalry Army, which played an important, and, according to some historians, a decisive role in the defeat of Denikin's army ... During the Civil War, in some operations, the red cavalry accounted for up to half of the total number of the Red Army troops involved. Often, horse attacks were supported by powerful machine gun fire from carts.
The success of the hostilities of the Soviet cavalry during the Civil War was facilitated by the vastness of the theaters of operations, the stretching of the opposing armies on wide fronts, the presence of weakly covered or not at all occupied by the troops of the gaps, which were used by cavalry formations to reach the flanks of the enemy and carry out deep raids into its rear. Under these conditions, the cavalry could fully realize its combat properties and capabilities: mobility, surprise attacks, speed and decisiveness of actions.
Civil War pets
Georgy Zhukov, Ivan Konev, Alexander Vasilevsky, Konstantin Rokossovsky - they all began their military career with privates and junior officers during the First World War and the Civil War. It is thanks to the fact that they managed to prove themselves during the formative years of the Red Army that their career took off sharply.
The social lifts opened by the October Revolution significantly rejuvenated the composition of the Red Army's high command. During the Great Patriotic War, the average age of the Soviet generals was 43 years.
According to military historians, it was the youth of the Soviet generals and the experience they gained of non-standard solutions to combat missions that became one of the reasons for the USSR's victory over Nazi Germany.
near Narva 02/23/1918
With the coming to power of the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks in November 1917, the country's leadership, relying on K. Marx's thesis about replacing the regular army with general armament of the working people, began to actively liquidate the imperial army of Russia. On December 16, 1917, the Bolsheviks issued decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "On the Elective Principle and Organization of Power in the Army" and "On Equalization in the Rights of All Servicemen." To defend the gains of the revolution, under the leadership of professional revolutionaries, detachments of the Red Guard began to form, headed by the military revolutionary committee, which directly led the October armed uprising, led by L.D. Trotsky.
On November 26, 1917, the "Committee for Military and Naval Affairs" was created to replace the old War Ministry, under the leadership of V.A. Antonova-Ovseenko, N.V. Krylenko and P.E. Dybenko.
V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko N.V. Krylenko
Pavel Efimovich Dybenko
The "Committee for Military and Naval Affairs" was intended to form and direct armed detachments. The committee was expanded to 9 people on November 9 and transformed into the "Council of People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs", and in December 1917 it was renamed and became known as the Collegium of People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs (Narkomvoen), the head of the collegium was N. AND. Podvoisky.
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Nikolay Ilyich Podvoisky
The Collegium of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs was the leading military body of Soviet power; at the first stages of its activity, the collegium relied on the old War Ministry and the old army. By order of the People's Commissar for Military Affairs, at the end of December 1917, in Petrograd, the Central Council for the Management of Armored Units of the RSFSR - Tsentrabron was formed. He was in charge of the armored units and armored trains of the Red Army. By July 1, 1918, the Central Armor formed 12 armored trains and 26 armored detachments. The old Russian army could not provide the defense of the Soviet state. It became necessary to demobilize the old army and create a new Soviet army.
At a meeting of the military organization under the Central Committee. RSDLP (b) December 26, 1917 it was decided, according to the installation of V.I. Lenin to create a new army of 300,000 people in a month and a half, the All-Russian Collegium for the Organization and Management of the Red Army was created. IN AND. Lenin set before this collegium the task of developing, in the shortest possible time, the principles of organizing and building a new army. The fundamental principles of army building developed by the board were approved by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which met from January 10 to 18, 1918. To defend the gains of the revolution, it was decided to create an army of the Soviet state and call it the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army.
On January 15, 1918, a decree was issued on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, and on February 11 - the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Fleet on a voluntary basis. The definition of "workers and peasants" emphasized its class character - the army of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the fact that it should be recruited only from the working people of town and country. The "Red Army" said that it was a revolutionary army.
For the formation of volunteer detachments of the Red Army, 10 million rubles were allocated. In mid-January 1918, 20 million rubles were allocated for the construction of the Red Army. As the leading apparatus of the Red Army was created, all departments of the old War Ministry were reorganized, reduced, or abolished.
In February 1918, the Council of People's Commissars appointed the leading five of the All-Russian Collegium, which issued its first organizational order on the appointment of responsible department commissars. German and Austrian troops, more than 50 divisions, breaking the truce, on February 18, 1918, launched an offensive in the entire strip from the Baltic to the Black Sea. On February 12, 1918, the offensive of Turkish troops began in Transcaucasia. The demoralized old army could not withstand the advancing and left its positions without a fight. Of the old Russian army, the only military units that retained military discipline were the regiments of Latvian riflemen, who went over to the side of Soviet power.
In connection with the offensive of the German and Austrian troops, some of the generals of the tsarist army proposed to form detachments from the old army. But the Bolsheviks, fearing the action of these detachments against Soviet power, abandoned such formations. To recruit officers of the tsarist army, a new form of organization called the "veil" was created. A group of generals, led by M.D. Bonch-Bruevich, consisting of 12 people, on February 20, 1918, who arrived in Petrograd from Headquarters and formed the basis of the Supreme Military Council, began to attract officers to serve the Bolsheviks.
Mikhail Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich
By mid-February 1918, the First Corps of the Red Army was created in Petrograd. The core of the corps was a special-purpose detachment, which consisted of Petrograd workers and soldiers in 3 companies of 200 people each. In the first two weeks of formation, the number of the corps was brought to 15,000 people.
Part of the corps, about 10,000 people, was prepared and sent to the front near Pskov, Narva, Vitebsk and Orsha. By the beginning of March 1918, the corps consisted of 10 infantry battalions, a machine gun regiment, 2 cavalry regiments, an artillery brigade, a heavy artillery battalion, 2 armored divisions, 3 air squadrons, an aeronautical detachment, engineering, automobile, motorcycle units and a searchlight team. The corps was disbanded in May 1918; its personnel is directed to staffing the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rifle divisions, which were being formed in the Petrograd military district.
By the end of February, 20,000 volunteers had signed up in Moscow. The first test of the Red Army took place near Narva and Pskov, it entered into battle with the German troops and fought them back. February 23 was the birthday of the young Red Army.
When the army was being formed, there were no approved staffs. From detachments of volunteers, combat units were formed based on the capabilities and needs of their area. The detachments consisted of several dozen people from 10 to 10,000 and more people, the created battalions, companies and regiments were of various types. The number of the company was from 60 to 1600 people. The tactics of the troops were determined by the legacy of the tactics of the Russian army, the geographical, political and economic conditions of the area of hostilities, and also reflected the individual traits of their leaders, such as Frunze, Shchors, Chapaev, Kotovsky, Budyonny and others. This organization excluded the possibility of centralized command and control of troops. A gradual transition from the volunteer principle to the construction of a regular army on the basis of universal conscription began.
The Defense Committee was disbanded on March 4, 1918 and the Supreme Military Council (Air Force) was formed. One of the main founders of the Red Army was the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs L.D. Trotsky, who became on March 14, 1918, at the head of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs and chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. As a psychologist, he was engaged in the selection of personnel in order to know the state of affairs in the army, Trotsky created on March 24 .
the commissar's death
The Revolutionary Military Council decided to create cavalry as part of the Red Army. On March 25, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars approved the creation of new military districts. At a meeting in the Air Force on March 22, 1918, a project was discussed for organizing a Soviet rifle division, which was adopted by the main combat unit of the Red Army.
Upon admission to the army, the fighters took an oath, approved on April 22 at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and each fighter took and signed the oath.
Formula of a solemn promise
approved at the meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers, Soldiers, Peasants and Cossack Deputies on April 22, 1918
1. I, the son of the working people, a citizen of the Soviet Republic, assume the title of a soldier of the workers 'and peasants' army.
2. In the face of the working classes of Russia and the whole world, I undertake to bear this title with honor, conscientiously study military affairs and, like the apple of my eye, protect people's and military property from damage and plunder.
3. I undertake to strictly and unswervingly observe revolutionary discipline and unquestioningly carry out all orders of the commanders set by the authorities of the Workers 'and Peasants' Government.
4. I undertake to abstain myself and to restrain comrades from any actions that discredit and humiliate the dignity of a citizen of the Soviet Republic, and to direct all my actions and thoughts towards the great goal of liberating all working people.
5. I undertake, at the first call of the Workers 'and Peasants' Government, to defend the Soviet Republic from all dangers and attempts on the part of all its enemies, and in the struggle for the Russian Soviet Republic, for the cause of socialism and the brotherhood of peoples, not to spare either my forces or life itself ...
6. If, by malicious intent, I depart from this solemn promise of mine, then may universal contempt be my lot and may the stern hand of the revolutionary law punish me.
CEC Chairman Y. Sverdlov;
The first knight of the order was Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher.
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VC. Blucher
The commanding staff consisted of former officers and non-commissioned officers who went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and commanders from the Bolsheviks, so in 1919 1,500,000 people were drafted, of which about 29,000 were former officers, but the combat strength of the army did not exceed 450,000 people. The bulk of the former officers who served in the Red Army were wartime officers, mainly warrant officers. The Bolsheviks had very few cavalry officers.
A lot of work was done from March to May 1918. Based on the experience of three years of the First World War, new field manuals were written for all types of troops and their combat interaction. A new mobilization scheme was created - the system of military commissariats. The Red Army was commanded by dozens of the best generals who had gone through two wars, and 100 thousand excellent military officers.
By the end of 1918, the organizational structure of the Red Army and its administrative apparatus were created. The Red Army strengthened all decisive sectors of the fronts with communists, in October 1918 there were 35,000 communists in the army, in 1919 - about 120,000, and in August 1920 - 300,000, half of all members of the RCP (b) of that time. In June 1919, all the republics that existed at that time - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia - entered into a military alliance. A unified military command was created, unified management of finance, industry, and transport.
By order of the RVSR 116 of January 16, 1919, insignia were introduced only for combat commanders - colored buttonholes, on collars, by type of service and commander's stripes on the left sleeve, above the cuff.
By the end of 1920, the Red Army numbered 5,000,000 people, but due to the lack of uniforms, weapons and equipment, the combat strength of the army did not exceed 700,000 people, 22 armies were formed, 174 divisions (of which 35 were cavalry), 61 air squadrons (300-400 aircraft) , artillery and armored units (subdivisions). During the war years, 6 military academies and more than 150 courses trained 60,000 commanders of all specialties from workers and peasants.
During the Civil War, about 20,000 officers died in the Red Army. 45,000 - 48,000 officers remained in service. Losses during the Civil War amounted to 800,000 killed, wounded and missing, 1,400,000 dead from serious illnesses.
red army badge
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The Red Army was created, as they say, from scratch. Despite this, she managed to become a formidable force and win the civil war. The key to success was the construction of the Red Army using the experience of the old, pre-revolutionary army.
On the wreckage of an old army
By the beginning of 1918, Russia, having experienced two revolutions, finally withdrew from the First World War. Her army was a pitiful sight - the soldiers deserted en masse and headed for their homes. Since November 1917, the Armed Forces did not exist even de jure - after the Bolsheviks issued an order to disband the old army.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the former empire, a new war flared up - a civil war. In Moscow, battles with the cadets had just died down, in St. Petersburg - with the Cossacks of General Krasnov. Events grew like a snowball.
On the Don, generals Alekseev and Kornilov formed the Volunteer Army, an anti-communist uprising of Ataman Dutov unfolded in the Orenburg steppes, in the Kharkov region, battles were fought with the cadets of the Chuguev military school, in the Yekaterinoslav province - with detachments of the Central Rada of the self-proclaimed Ukrainian Republic.
Labor activists and revolutionary sailors
The external, old enemy was not asleep either: the Germans intensified their offensive on the Eastern Front, capturing a number of territories of the former Russian Empire.
At the disposal of the Soviet government at that time there were only Red Guards detachments, created locally mainly from activists of the working environment and revolutionary-minded sailors.
In the initial period of the general guerrilla in the civil war, the Red Guards were the mainstay of the Council of People's Commissars, but it gradually became clear that the conscription principle should replace voluntariness.
This was clearly shown, for example, by the events in Kiev in January 1918, where the uprising of the workers' detachments of the Red Guard against the government of the Central Rada was brutally suppressed by national units and officer detachments.
The first step towards the creation of the Red Army
On January 15, 1918, Lenin issued a decree establishing the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. The document emphasized that access to its ranks is open to all citizens of the Russian Republic at least 18 years old, who are ready "to give their strength, their lives to defend the conquered October Revolution and the power of Soviets and socialism."
This was the first, but half, step towards building an army. For the time being, it was proposed to join it voluntarily, and in this the Bolsheviks followed the path of Alekseev and Kornilov with their voluntary recruitment of the White Army. As a result, by the spring of 1918 in the ranks of the Red Army there were no more than 200 thousand people. And its combat effectiveness left much to be desired - most of the front-line soldiers took a rest from the horrors of the world war at home.
A powerful incentive to create a large army was given by the enemies - the 40-thousandth Czechoslovak corps, which in the summer of the same year rebelled against Soviet power along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railway and overnight seized vast expanses of the country - from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok. In the south of the European part of Russia, the Denikinites were not asleep, who, having recovered from the unsuccessful assault on Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), in June 1918 again launched an offensive on the Kuban and this time reached their goal.
Fight not with slogans, but with skill
Under these conditions, one of the founders of the Red Army, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Lev Trotsky, proposed moving to a more rigid model of building an army. According to the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars on July 29, 1918, a military conscription was introduced in the country, which made it possible to bring the number of the Red Army to almost half a million people by mid-September.
Along with the quantitative growth, the army was strengthened and qualitatively. The leadership of the country and the Red Army realized that just the slogans that the socialist fatherland was in danger would not win the war. We need experienced cadres, even if they do not adhere to revolutionary rhetoric.
The so-called military experts, that is, officers and generals of the tsarist army, began to be drafted into the Red Army en masse. Their total number during the Civil War in the ranks of the Red Army numbered almost 50 thousand people.
The best of the best
Many later became the pride of the USSR, such as Colonel Boris Shaposhnikov, who became Marshal of the Soviet Union and Chief of the General Staff of the Army, including during the Great Patriotic War. Another head of the General Staff of the Red Army during World War II, Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky, entered the Civil War as a staff captain.
Another effective measure to strengthen the middle command echelon was military schools and accelerated training courses for red commanders from among the soldiers, workers and peasants. In battles and battles, yesterday's non-commissioned officers and sergeant-major quickly rose to the level of commanders of large formations. Suffice it to recall Vasily Chapaev, who became the division commander, or Semyon Budyonny, who led the 1st Cavalry Army.
Even earlier, the election of commanders was abolished, which had an extremely harmful effect on the level of combat capability of units, turning them into anarchist spontaneous detachments. Now the commander was responsible for order and discipline, albeit on a par with the commissar.
Kamenev instead of Vatsetis
It is curious that a little later the whites also came to the conscription army. In particular, the Volunteer Army in 1919 largely remained so in name only - the fierceness of the Civil War imperiously demanded that opponents replenish their ranks by any means.
Former Colonel Joachim Vatsetis was appointed the first commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the RSFSR in the fall of 1918 (since January 1919, he simultaneously led the actions of the army of Soviet Latvia). After a series of defeats by the Red Army in the summer of 1919 in the European part of Russia, Vatsetis was replaced at his post by another tsarist colonel, Sergei Kamenev.
Under his leadership, things went much better for the Red Army. The armies of Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel were defeated. The attack of Yudenich on Petrograd was repulsed, the Polish units were driven out of the Ukraine and Belarus.
Territorial-militia principle
By the end of the Civil War, the total strength of the Red Army was over five million. The Red Cavalry, initially numbering only three regiments, in the course of numerous battles has grown to several armies, which operated on the widely stretched communications of countless fronts of the civil war, performing the role of shock troops.
The end of hostilities required a sharp reduction in the number of personnel. This, above all, was needed by the war-depleted economy of the country. As a result, in 1920-1924. demobilization was carried out, which reduced the Red Army to half a million people.
Under the leadership of the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Mikhail Frunze, most of the remaining troops were transferred to the territorial-militia principle of manning. It consisted in the fact that a small part of the Red Army and unit commanders were on permanent service, and the rest of the composition was called up for five years for training up to a year.
Strengthening combat capability
Over time, Frunze's reform led to problems: the combat readiness of the territorial units was much lower than the regular ones.
The thirties, with the arrival of the Nazis in Germany and the Japanese attack on China, began to smell distinctly of gunpowder. As a result, the transfer of regiments, divisions and corps to a regular basis began in the USSR.
At the same time, not only the experience of the First World War and the Civil War was taken into account, but also participation in new conflicts, in particular, the clash with Chinese troops in 1929 at the Chinese Eastern Railway and Japanese at Lake Khasan in 1938.
The total number of the Red Army increased, the troops were actively rearmed. This primarily concerned artillery and armored forces. New troops were created, for example, airborne troops. Mother infantry became more motorized.
Premonition of world war
Aviation, which previously performed mainly reconnaissance missions, was now becoming a powerful force, increasing the proportion of bombers, attack aircraft and fighters in its ranks.
Soviet tank crews and pilots tried their hand at local wars far from the USSR - in Spain and China.
In order to increase the prestige of the military profession and the convenience of serving in 1935, the career military was introduced to personal military ranks - from marshal to lieutenant.
Finally, the line under the territorial-militia principle of manning the Red Army was drawn by the law on universal conscription of 1939, which expanded the composition of the Red Army and established longer terms of service.
And there was a big war ahead.
Initially, the Soviet Red Army, whose creation took place against the backdrop of the outbreak of the civil war, had utopian features. The Bolsheviks believed that under a socialist system, the army should be built on a voluntary basis. This project was in line with Marxist ideology. Such an army was opposed to the regular armies of Western countries. According to the theoretical doctrine, there could only be "general arming of the people" in society.
Creation of the Red Army
The first steps of the Bolsheviks indicated that they really wanted to abandon the old tsarist system. On December 16, 1917, a decree was adopted abolishing officer ranks. The commanders were now elected by their own subordinates. According to the party's plan, on the day the Red Army was created, the new army was to become truly democratic. Time has shown that these plans could not survive the trials of the bloody era.
The Bolsheviks managed to seize power in Petrograd with the help of a small Red Guard and separate revolutionary detachments of sailors and soldiers. The provisional government was paralyzed, which obscenely facilitated the task of Lenin and his supporters. But outside the capital remained a huge country, most of which was not at all happy with the party of radicals, whose leaders had arrived in Russia in a sealed carriage from enemy Germany.
By the beginning of a full-scale civil war, the Bolshevik armed forces were characterized by poor military training and a lack of centralized effective management. Those who served in the Red Guard were guided by revolutionary chaos and their own political convictions, which could change at any moment. The position of the just proclaimed Soviet power was more than precarious. She needed a fundamentally new Red Army. The creation of the armed forces became a matter of life and death for the people who were sitting in Smolny.
What difficulties did the Bolsheviks face? The party could not form its own army on the previous apparatus. The best cadres of the period of the monarchy and the Provisional Government hardly wanted to cooperate with the left radicals. The second problem was that Russia had been waging a war against Germany and its allies for several years. The soldiers were tired - they were demoralized. In order to replenish the ranks of the Red Army, its founders had to come up with a popular incentive that would become a good reason to take up arms again.
The Bolsheviks did not have to go far for this. They made the principle of class struggle the main driving force of their army. With the coming to power, the RSDLP (b) issued many decrees. According to the slogans, the peasants received land, and the workers - factories. Now they had to defend these gains of the revolution. Hatred of the old system (landowners, capitalists, etc.) was the foundation on which the Red Army was based. The creation of the Red Army took place on January 28, 1918. On this day, the new government, represented by the Council of People's Commissars, adopted a corresponding decree.
First successes
Vsevobuch was also established. This system was intended for general military training of residents of the RSFSR, and then the USSR. Vsevobuch appeared on April 22, 1918, after the decision on its creation was made at the VII Congress of the RCP (b) in March. The Bolsheviks hoped that the new system would help them quickly replenish the ranks of the Red Army.
The formation of the armed detachments was carried out directly by the councils at the local level. In addition, for this purpose were established at first, they enjoyed considerable independence from the central government. Who consisted of the then Red Army? The creation of this armed structure entailed an influx of a wide variety of personnel. These were people who served in the old tsarist army, peasant militias, soldiers and sailors from among the Red Guards. The heterogeneity of the composition negatively affected the combat readiness of this army. In addition, the detachments often acted inconsistently due to the election of commanders, collective and rally management.
Despite all the flaws, the Red Army in the first months of the civil war was able to achieve important successes, which became the guarantee of its future unconditional victory. The Bolsheviks managed to keep Moscow and Yekaterinodar. Local uprisings were suppressed due to a noticeable numerical advantage, as well as broad popular support. Populist decrees of the Soviet government (especially in 1917-1918) did their job.
Trotsky at the head of the army
It was this man who stood at the origins of the October Revolution in Petrograd. The revolutionary led the seizure of city communications and the Winter Palace from Smolny, where the Bolshevik headquarters was located. At the first stage of the Civil War, the figure of Trotsky was in no way inferior to the figure of Vladimir Lenin in terms of the scale and importance of decisions made. Therefore, it is not surprising that Lev Davidovich was elected People's Commissar for Military Affairs. His organizational talent in all its glory manifested itself precisely in this post. The very first two people's commissars stood at the origins of the creation of the Red Army.
Tsarist officers in the Red Army
In theory, the Bolsheviks saw their army as meeting strict class requirements. However, the lack of experience of the majority of workers and peasants could be the reason for the defeat of the party. Therefore, the history of the creation of the Red Army took another turn, when Trotsky proposed to staff its ranks with former tsarist officers. These professionals had considerable experience. All of them went through the First World War, and some remembered the Russo-Japanese War. Many of them were noblemen by birth.
On the day the Red Army was created, the Bolsheviks proclaimed that it would be cleared of landowners and other enemies of the proletariat. However, practical necessity gradually corrected the course of the Soviet regime. In the face of danger, she was flexible enough in her decisions. Lenin was much more a pragmatist than a dogmatist. Therefore, he agreed to a compromise on the issue with the tsarist officers.
The presence of a "counter-revolutionary contingent" in the Red Army has long been a headache for the Bolsheviks. Former tsarist officers have revolted more than once. One of these was the rebellion led by Mikhail Muravyov in July 1918. This Left Socialist-Revolutionary and former Tsarist officer was appointed by the Bolsheviks as commander of the Eastern Front when the two parties were still forming a single coalition. He tried to seize power in Simbirsk, which at that time was located next to the theater of operations. The mutiny was suppressed by Joseph Vareikis and Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The uprisings in the Red Army, as a rule, occurred due to the harsh repressive measures of the command.
The appearance of the commissioners
Actually, the date of the creation of the Red Army is not the only important mark on the calendar for the history of the formation of Soviet power in the vastness of the former Russian Empire. Since the composition of the armed forces gradually became more and more heterogeneous, and the propaganda of the opponents became stronger, the Council of People's Commissars decided to establish the post of military commissars. They were supposed to carry out party propaganda among the soldiers and old specialists. The commissars made it possible to smooth out the contradictions in the rank-and-file, motley in political views. Having received significant powers, these party representatives not only educated and educated the Red Army soldiers, but also informed the top about the unreliability of individuals, discontent, etc.
Thus, the Bolsheviks instilled a dual power in the military units. There were commanders on one side, and commissars on the other. The history of the creation of the Red Army would have been completely different if not for their appearance. In an emergency, the commissar could become the sole leader, leaving the commander in the background. To control divisions and larger formations, military councils were created. Each such body included one commander and two commissars. Only the most ideologically hardened Bolsheviks became them (as a rule, people who joined the party before the revolution). With the increase in the army, and hence the commissars, the authorities had to create a new educational infrastructure necessary for the operational training of propagandists and agitators.
Propaganda
In May 1918, the All-Russian General Headquarters was established, and in September - the Revolutionary Military Council. These dates and the date of the creation of the Red Army became key for the spread and strengthening of the power of the Bolsheviks. Immediately after the October Revolution, the party set out to radicalize the situation in the country. After the unsuccessful elections for the RSDLP (b), this institution (necessary to determine the Russian future on an elective basis) was dispersed. Now the opponents of the Bolsheviks were left without legal tools to defend their position. The white movement quickly emerged in different regions of the country. It was only possible to fight it by military means - it was for this that the creation of the Red Army was needed.
Photos of defenders of the communist future began to be published in a huge heap of propaganda newspapers. The Bolsheviks initially tried to secure an influx of recruits with the help of catchy slogans: "The socialist fatherland is in danger!" and so on. These measures gave an effect, but it was not sufficient. By April, the size of the army had increased to 200 thousand people, but this would not have been enough to subjugate the entire territory of the former Russian Empire to the party. Do not forget that Lenin dreamed of a world revolution. Russia for him was only the initial springboard for the offensive of the international proletariat. To strengthen propaganda in the RKKA, the Political Directorate was established.
In the year of the creation of the Red Army, they entered it not only for ideological reasons. In a country exhausted by a long war with the Germans, a shortage of food has long been felt. The risk of hunger was especially acute in cities. In such desperate conditions, the poor sought to be in the service at any cost (regular rations were guaranteed there).
Introduction of universal conscription
Although the creation of the Red Army began in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars in January 1918, the accelerated pace of organizing the new armed forces began in May, when the Czechoslovak Corps revolted. These soldiers, captured during the First World War, sided with the white movement and opposed the Bolsheviks. In a paralyzed and fragmented country, a relatively small 40,000-strong corps became the most combat-ready and professional army.
Lenin and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee were agitated by the news of the uprising. The Bolsheviks decided to stay ahead of the curve. On May 29, 1918, a decree was issued, according to which forced recruitment into the army was introduced. It took the form of mobilization. In domestic politics, the Soviet government adopted the course of war communism. The peasants were not only deprived of their crops, which went to the state, but also en massed in the troops. Party mobilizations to the front became commonplace. By the end of the Civil War, half of the members of the RSDLP (b) ended up in the army. At the same time, almost all Bolsheviks became commissars and political workers.
In the summer, Trotsky initiated the history of the creation of the Red Army, in short, crossed another important milestone. On July 29, 1918, all men suitable for health, who were between 18 and 40 years old, were registered. Even representatives of the enemy bourgeois class (former merchants, industrialists, etc.) were included in the rear militia. Such drastic measures have borne fruit. The creation of the Red Army by September 1918 made it possible to send more than 450 thousand people to the front (about 100 thousand more remained in the rear forces).
Trotsky, like Lenin, temporarily brushed aside Marxist ideology in order to increase the fighting efficiency of the armed forces. It was he who, as People's Commissar, initiated important reforms and transformations at the front. The death penalty was reinstated in the army for desertion and non-observance of orders. The insignia, uniform form, the sole authority of leadership and many other signs of the tsarist time returned. On May 1, 1918, the first parade of the Red Army took place on the Khodynskoye field in Moscow. The Vsevobuch system started working at full capacity.
In September, Trotsky headed the newly formed Revolutionary War Council. This state body became the top of the administrative pyramid that led the army. Trotsky's right hand was Joachim Vatsetis. He was the first under Soviet rule to receive the post of commander-in-chief. In the same autumn, the fronts were formed - South, East and North. Each of them had its own headquarters. The first month of the creation of the Red Army was a time of uncertainty - the Bolsheviks were torn between ideology and practice. Now the course towards pragmatism has become the main one, and the Red Army began to take the forms that turned out to be its foundation over the next decades.
War communism
Without a doubt, the reasons for the creation of the Red Army were to defend the Bolshevik regime. At first, she controlled a very small part of European Russia. At the same time, the RSFSR was under pressure from opponents from all sides. After the Brest Peace Treaty was signed with Imperial Germany, the Entente forces invaded Russia. The intervention was minor (it only covered the north of the country). The European powers supported the whites mainly with the supply of weapons and money. For the Red Army, the attack by the French and British was only an additional reason for the consolidation and strengthening of propaganda in the rank and file. Now the creation of the Red Army could be briefly and intelligibly explained by the defense of Russia against foreign invasion. Such slogans allowed an increase in the influx of recruits.
At the same time, throughout the Civil War, there was a problem of supplying the armed forces with all kinds of resources. The economy was paralyzed, strikes often broke out in factories, and hunger became the norm in the countryside. It was against this background that the Soviet government began to pursue a policy of war communism.
Its essence was simple. The economy became radically centralized. The state completely took over the distribution of resources in the country. Industrial enterprises were nationalized immediately after the October Revolution. Now the Bolsheviks had to squeeze all the juice out of the village. Food appropriation, harvest taxes, individual terror of peasants who did not want to share their grain with the state - all this was used in order to feed and finance the Red Army.
Fighting desertion
Trotsky personally went to the front in order to control the execution of his orders. On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk, when the battles for Kazan were going on nearby. In a stubborn battle, one of the Red Army regiments wavered and fled. Then Trotsky publicly shot every tenth soldier in this formation. Such a massacre, more like a ritual, resembled the ancient Roman tradition - decimation.
By the decision of the People's Commissar, they began to shoot not only deserters, but also simulators who asked for leave from the front due to an imaginary illness. The apogee of the fight against the fugitives was the creation of foreign detachments. During offensives, specially selected soldiers stood up behind the main army, who shot cowards right in the course of the battle. Thus, with the help of draconian measures and incredible brutality, the Red Army became exemplary disciplined. The Bolsheviks had the courage and pragmatic cynicism to do what the commanders of Trotsky, who did not disdain by any methods to spread Soviet power, soon began to be called the "demon of revolution".
Unification of the armed forces
The appearance of the Red Army men also gradually changed. At first, the Red Army did not provide for a uniform uniform. The soldiers, as a rule, donned their old military uniforms or civilian clothes. Due to the huge influx of peasants, shod in bast shoes, there are much more than those shod in their usual boots. This anarchy lasted until the end of the unification of the armed forces.
At the beginning of 1919, according to the decision of the Revolutionary Military Council, sleeve insignia were introduced. At the same time, the Red Army men received their own headdress, which became popularly known as Budenovka. Gymnastics and overcoats got colored valves. The red star sewn onto the headdress has become a recognizable symbol.
The introduction of some of the characteristics of the former army into the Red Army led to the formation of an opposition faction in the party. Its members advocated the rejection of an ideological compromise. Lenin and Trotsky, joining forces, in March 1919 at the VIII Congress were able to defend their course.
The fragmentation of the white movement, the powerful propaganda of the Bolsheviks, their decisiveness in carrying out repressions to rally their own ranks and many other circumstances led to the fact that Soviet power was established on the territory of almost the entire former Russian Empire, except Poland and Finland. The Red Army won the Civil War. At the final stage of the conflict, its number was already 5.5 million.