OSPREY· MEN-AT-ARMS SERIES

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Text by ALBERT SEATON

Colour plates by MICHAEL ROFFE

Published in 1972 byOsprey Publishing Ltd, P.O, Box 25,707 Oxford Road, Reading, Berkshire«:> Copyright 1972 Osprey Publishing Ltd

This book is cop)·righted under the BerneConvention. All rights reseT\'ed. Aparl from anyfair dealing for Ihe purpose of private study,rest:arch, criticism or review, as penniued under theCopyright Act, 1956, no part of this publicationmay be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmilled in any form or by any means, elr:c.tronic,elr:c.trical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photo­cop)·ing, recording or otherwi5C:, without the priorpermission of thc copyright owner. Enquiries shouldbe addressed to the Publishers.

For the preparation of the detail of the colourplates in Ihis lext reliance has been placed on Sovietpublications, journals and the press, in particularon KraInQya Zt~Ja and the SOt'lti MIlitary Rniew.Further reading on the Red Army can be found inJohn Erickson's Sat'ret fligh Command: if military­political hiJlary, '9,8-194' (Macmillan; London196'2), covering the period up 101941 and AlbenSealon's The Russo-German War '94'-45 (Barker:London 197t). Both these books, however, arespecialized works and cover only the Red Army.The best work for the general reader coveringboth the Red and Soviet Armies is probablyMalcolm Mackintosh's Juggernaut: if history of theSoviel armedforcts (Seeker and Warburg: London'96,).

Printed in Creat Britain byJarrold & Sons Ltd, Norwich

1Jltrocluctio/l

Today, over halfof the intake ofconscripts into theSoviet Army arc Russian by birth. If onc adds tothis number the While Russians (Belorussians)and Little Russians (Ukrainians), both of themseparate races, then the Slav is by far the prepon~

derant element in the armed forces, outnumberingby about three to one the host of other nationalitiessuch as the European Finns, Lithuanians, Lettsand Estonians, and the many score of Asianpeoples. All Soviet citizens irrespective of race areliable for conscripted service, the only exceptions

Cadet. a1 .. T ••rtlt miUlary school, c. 18&0. (From V. S.Utt..u~r·. Th~ Ruui,," Huu4r;J. A. Allf!:D, London tl)66.)

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being on grounds of medical unfitness or ofpolitical unreliability. On call-up a large numberof the non-Russian recruits still have liule know­ledge of the Russian longue, and this has to bemade good at the oulSet of military service sinceall instruction and orders are given in Russian.Although national titles are sometimes used, oftenin conjunction with a baltle honour, there are ineffect no minority national formations in theSoviet Army since these have been heavily dilutedwith Russians and Ukrainians.

Military service, even in the Soviet Union, is aleveller and educator. The discharged soldierreturns to his Siberian taiga or Ural fishery fluentin both the Russian tongue and in the com­missars' political jargon. The process of Russian­ization, begun so long ago in the times of earlyMuscovy, continues apace, and the Soviet Armyhas much in common with the Imperial Army ofthe Tsars.

qlie CjSarist :HeritageFollowing the lead of the victorious Prussians,Imperial Russia abandoned in 1874 its large long­service standing army for which recruits wereselected by lot for twenty-five years with thecolours, in favour of general short-term conscrip­tion. Service was originally set at six years, but by1914 it had been redueed to three years forinfantry and artillery and four years for all otherarms. Conscripted recruits eame principally fromthe Slav nationals, Russians, Ukrainians, WhiteRussians and Poles, but included also natives ofthe Baltic States and certain parts of the LowerVolga and Caucasia. Finns from the Duchy ofFinland and the Asian and Siberia!} peoples, witha few exceptions, were not accepted for con­scripted military service.

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The 1914 order of battle contained only a hand­ful of minority national formations, a few brigadesof Lettish and Finnish Rifles and some Turkestanand Caucasian cavalry and infantry divisions. Thedeven divisions ofSibcrian Rifles consisted mostlyof Russian settlers. The great majority of theformations which made up the Imperial Armywere, in effect, Russian. Many Russian units, how­ever, had a subsidiary recruiting area in a non·Russian (that is to say, Ukrainian or Polish)territory. And so two nationalities might be foundin a single regiment, the non-Russian elementbeing limited in size to thirty per cent of the totalestablishment. For political reasons neither theRussians nor the minority subject races wereallowed to serve in their home areas.

Formerly the greater part of the officer corpscame from the hereditary nobility and was linkedwith intellectual and ruling circles. The 1874reforms, however, opened the officer's career to allclasses, the qualification for entry being nation·ality, education and ability, so that the socialorigin of the Tsarist officer in the period from 1880to 191,l became much more diverse. The guardsand cavalry of the line continued, admittedly, tobe officered by the wealthy, whether from noble,merchant or industrialist background, since theofficer's pay in these regiments could cover only asmall part of the necessary expenses. But officers ofthe main arms and technical corps came from themiddle and lower middle classes and some wereeven of serf origin. Ninety per cent of infantryofficers lived on their modest pay. As retirementages were high, promotion was slow.

Whether of noble or plebeian origin, wealthy orpoor, all officers had much in common, since longservice in the corps des pagis or the cadet andmilitary ]unktr schools established a pattern evenbefore commissioning. The strength of theseregimental officers lay in their insight into thementality of the Russian mu-t,hik soldier, fromwhom by long and close proximity, or by birth,they were not far removed. As a class the pro­fessional regular officers were loyal to the Tsar.

Although the 18]4. reforms made the officercorps more professional and created a strongtrained reserve of other ranks which could becalled back to the colours in time of war, theyraised other difficulties and problems. The new

officer society was very narrow in its outlook andwas cut off from the court, the professiolu andpolitical and intellectual circles, indeed from every­day life. The system of giving accelerated pro­motion to officers of the guard and general staff atthe expense of the line officer, and of permittingover·age and inefficient chair-borne officers toremain in the service had a depressing effect on thejunior and more energetic. Even fighting unitswere infected with the Russian bureaucracy of thetimes, so that officers became scribblers, spendinghours every day on a multitude of inconsequentialor unnecessary reports and returns. These de·ficiencies were brought to light during the heavydefeats in the Russo--Japanese War.

For this reason the military career was notpopular and by '910 the officer strength was morethan 5,000 short ofestablishment. Since all officersserved on long.service permanent commissionsthere was virtually no officer reserve. In time ofwar officer replacements had to be found by callingup ensigns of the reserve (praporshchik'J, formerjunior Ilon<ommissioned officer conscripts ",.jib

less than two years' service. The praporsh&hik hadno training or experience as an officer but hadearned an early discharge from the ranks merelyby virtue of having completed secondary educa·tion and becoming so-called 'officer material'.

Another weakness of the short-term conscriptarmy lay in the difficulty of recruiting a reliableand experienced corps of long-service non<om·missioned officers. There was no permanent cadreand despite every encouragement it proveddifficult to induce the conscript non.commissionedofficers to prolong their service. In consequencethe majority of the non-commissioned officers werefound by promotion from the intake of conscripts.

From '9'4 onwards casualties, particularly inthe infantry, were very heavy among regimentalofficers and senior non·commissioned officers.Many of tile replacement officers were praporshchikior officer candidates from the intelligentsia, manywith socialist revolutionary or egalitarian sym·pathies. Whereas the old type of regular officer,notwithstanding his many faults, was a simple soulwho maintained his own rough and ready peasantdiscipline by fist or cudgel, his replacement hatedmilitary life and was tOO lazy or too lacking incharacter to enforce orders or look after the welfare

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of the troops. And so after t9'4 there rapidlygrew a yawning gulf between officers and men.

Contemporary First World War sources havestressed that the Russian soldier required moreleading and driving than any other soldier inEurope. Well led, he was formidable; withoutleaders of quality, he was of little account. Thesoldiers, naturally enough, had the faults and thevirtues of their race. Centuries of Tartar domina­tion and Muscovite serfdom had robbed them ofinitiative; they were lazy by nature and would doIluthiug uulcss put to il, On the other hand, asthough in compensation, history and environmenthad left them hardy, stoical and with greatendurance. They were subject to sudden changesof mood for which they themselves could notaccount; they could be stolid or mercurial, good­humoured or grim. peaceable or aggressive,heroic or cowardly, kindly and generous or un­believably brutal and cruel.

Before t914 one recruit out of four had noknowledge whatever of the Russian language. Ofthe Russian recruits four out of five could not reador write; all orders had to be read aloud to lhem.

By German standards the 1914 Tsarist Armywas inadequately trained and indifferently led.And yet the Russian soldier was undoubtedlysuperior to any of the troops of the Austro­Hungarian Empire and the efficiency of theTsarist High Command compared fa"ourablywith that of the Habsburgs. The most reliable andprobably the most efficient troops of the RussianArmy were the artillery and the cavalry, and thesemaintained their morale and discipline long afterthe other arms were in a state ofdissolution. At theother end of the scale were the sappers and miners,recruited mainly from industrial workers, a corpswith a long record of disorder and mutiny in theyears between 1905 and '914.

The Tsanst Army entered the First World Warunprepared and poorly equipped. Sufficientmunitions and supplies were never produced forthe 15,500,000 men mobilized during the war;Imperial Russia had reserves of men but no rifles,horses but no saddles or sabres, and little ammuni­tion for the guns available. Only six million rifleswere manufactured against a requirement ofseventeen million; Britain, Japan and the UnitedStates could not make good lhe deficiency in time.

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Wave upon wave of Russian infantry attackedGerman positions with little or no artillerysupport, only to be driven back when just short oftheir objectives by the devastating weight of thedefensive fire of the enemy.

CJhe 1(eolutiotlBy 19'5 Russian losses had mounted to 2,300,000and, at n secret ministerial meeting held early thatsummer, General Polivanov, the Minister for War,described the situation in the gloomiest terms,placing his hopes 'on the immeasurable distances,the impassable roads, the deep mud and the graceof 5t kolas'. The heavy losses had diluted andlransformed bolh the commissioned and the non·commissioned officers' corps, and within lhe armya social revolution had already taken place. Yetthe fate of the Romanovs was to depend not on theconstancy of the army in the field but on the draftand training units and the rear installations in thearea of the capital. These rear units had one over­riding motive, that of avoiding front·line service.

Tsar Nicolas II, the last of the Romanovs, hadonce more ignored the advice of his ministerswhen in September '915 he had personally takenover the supreme command of the Russian forcesand the field command in the West. The fieldcommand or StQcka was located not in Petrogrador Moscow but in the Belorussian city of ~fogilev.In neither Magilev nor Petrograd it:self: was therea single trained and disciplined regiment with anyexperience of war, even of the Imperial Gum.

On 8 March '9'7 there began in Peuograd aseries of mass civil demonstrations" 'spar moff bya shortage of bread, protesting ag1imt the war,the government and the police. . Re'\"olu·tionary, Menshevik and anarcltiu tookadvantage of the situation and • weredeliberately singled out for ks,instead ofsupporting thechil . edpassive. On Monday t2 Muc:. :1 ofthe Volinsky Life Guard R :mander and, calling on IDn!

zhensky and Litovsky Guard Rc,.-':""''''''O it,mutinied. Petrograd "'-as ~ .-e::; hyand a few days later the Tsu >bc.~ol.

The period between the first March Revolutionand the Bolshevik November Revolution saw thedesertion or self-disbandment of most of the oldImperial Army. The reins of administration hadbeen taken up firstly by Lvov's ProvisionalGovernment and then by Kerensky's. although intruth both governments were accountable neitherto themselves nor to the people but to the self­appointed Petrograd Soviet of Workers' andSoldiers' Deputies, one of the chairmen of whichwas Leon Trotsky. The many Soviets whichsprang up all over the coumry would obey noorder from the Provisional Government unless thePetrograd Soviet was in agreement. By the sametoken the armed forces owed their allegiance notto Kerensky but to the Petrograd Soviet.

At this stage the revolution was still bloodlessbut a heady spirit of liberalism was in the air.This quickly spread to the troops. By MilitaryOrder No. I, published in htJfi/ia, the newspaperof the Petrograd Soviet, and by the' Declarationof the Rights of Soldiers' which followed it, thearmed forces were isolated from the parliamentaryDuma and the Staoka. the control of militaryoperations and warlike equipment being handedover to the soldiers' elected committees. Officerswere not to be issued with arms, and troops wereencouraged to refer complaints against officers tothe soldiers' committees. Saluting and standing toattention outside duty hours was stopped, and theaccepted modes of address such as 'Your Excel­lency' and 'Your Honour' when talking to higher­ranking officers were forbidden. The fanning of amistrust of all officers as a reactionary class, andthe removal of their authority over their men,equipment and arms, could lead only to the rapiddisintegration of the Russian Army. A deep rifthad already been driven between officers and therank and file, and agitators were already urging,sometimes in the crudest and most violent terms,the replacement ofofficers by commanders electedfrom the ranks. Desertion was rife, the numbersrunning to millions.

If it had not been for the Bolshevik NovemberRevolution and the Civil War which fcHowed, it isprobable that the old Russian Army would haveentirely disappeared. It was owing to Trotsky thatthe remnants were salvaged and the process ofdisintegration and demoralization reversed. The

new revolutionary Red Army owed its foundationsto the Imperial Army of the Tsar; it was, as Leninexpressed it, 'built out of the bricks of the old'.

pte 'Birthofthe~~rnZ)1

When the Bolsheviks se1'led power in Petrograd.they relied neither on the bulk of the mutinoussoldiery nor on the peasants. Instead they createda situation in which industry and governmentorgans were paralysed and the armed forces werebenevolently or apathetically passive. In the finaloutcome the coup d'etal rested on a few armeddetachments sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, usuallyforeign units such as the Lettish Rifles, someturbulent revolutionary naval detachments and ahard core of armed factory levies known as RedGuards.

Lenin's views on the establishing of regulararmed forces within the communist state were byno means clear. At one time he appears to havefavoured a part-time armed militia and wasagainst a permanent standing army_ Before theMarch Revolution and during the short-livedperiod of the Kcrensky Government, his policytowards the military was in some respects parallelto that which he adopted towards industry. Leninprofessed to believe that capitalism must besmashed, if necessary by anarchy, before it could

Me"",be... 01 the Red ~y in Po....... 1920. (Hodtoll)

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Typical Red Anny 'ntJUtary SpedaUSIS', £onnulyT..risl officers, Poland, ICpo. (HultOQ)

be replaced by his own brand of socialism. And sohe appears to have given his support to the systemof soldiers' committees, probably because itdestroyed the authority of the military com­manders and broke down discipline. Without adisciplined military there could be no counter­revolution.

Lenin could not fail to learn the lesson ofKerensky's groosest error, namely, that of hisneglect to win the allegiance of a reliable anddisciplined body of troops. No sooner had theBolsheviks seized power than they formed theirown secret police, the Cheka, together with its ownsubordinate military detachments usually madetIp of Latvians, Serbs, Chinese 01' other foreignmercenaries indifferent to Russian politics andlargely impervious to White counter-propaganda.And so the caucus of the highly centralized policestate was already in being.

Although Lenin professedly advocated pacifismwhen Kerensky was i~ office, the reality of powereither revealed him in his true colours or forcedupon him a complete change of front; for, havingdone his utmost to discredit and sub\'en thelmperial Army, Lenin was soon obliged to repairthe damage and rebuild a regular armed forcepowerful enough to safeguard the new Bolshevik

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regime against counter-revolution and the steadyeastward advance of the troops of the CentralPowers. For the Kronstadt and Helsinki blue­jackets had been penetrated by anarchists andwere not amenable to discipline, whether Tsaristor Bolshevik, and the Petrograd Red Guards,although said to number about 20,000 at thistime, had only very limited military value.

At the time, the Bolshevik Tovember coup hadappeared to be the final straw in breaking upwhat remained of the Russian Army. Largenumbers of officers, alarmed at the bitter classhatred preached by the Bolsheviks and their allies,made their way either as armed bodies of men orindividually in disguise, to the south-east. to theterritories of the traditionally conservative DonCossacks, to form there the first of the WhiteArmies. Yet many of the formations of the oldRussian Army still in COntact with the German orAustro-Hungarian enemy kept their organizationand their cohesion in spite of their loweredeflicicncy and relatively poor morale. A propor­tion of the former officers still remained and theseformations, providing part of what was known asthe \Vcstern screens, were to form the core of thenew Red Army. Elsewhere many former Tsaristofficers, particularly those in the Ministries andthe larger headquarters, passed into the Bolshevikcommand organization without a break in theirservice. In this way part of the heritage of the oldarmy was transferred to the new.

Yet the new Red Army was not formallybrought into existence until the official decree ofJanuary 1918, nor was there any clear pattern initS establishment. Side by side with the regularfield formations providing the bulk of the screens,there was a mass induction of Red Guard mem­bers by the voluntary recruitment of industrialworkers on an extendable three months' engage­ment at a fixed rate of pay of 150 roubles a month.Although numbers of these must have includedidealist party-workers, the majority came from theunemployed, anxious to get a meal ticket, togetherwith a criminal minority. Elsewhere, outsidelI.'loscow and Petrograd, local soviets raised andpaid their own military formations and detach­mentS, recruiting them either from industrialworkers or from former military units. Themethods of command and administration varied

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Red Army cavalry in MOKOW, 11)21. (Hwtoa)

from place to place and the commanders wereeither elected or appointed arbitrarily by localcommittees. Many of the new military com­manders were Red Guard Bolsheviks or soldiersfrom the Tank and file.

Lenin was forced to come 10 tcrms with theCentral Powers at the Peace of Brest Lilovsk,signed in March 1918. This lost the Bolsheviks thewhole of the Ukraine and part of South-EastRussia in the area of ROslov-on·Don. GeneralKarnilav's While Volunteer Army, the rank andfile of which was made up largely of formerofficers, had begun to overrun the Kuban and theCaucasus. Finland, Poland and the Baltic Stateshad already seceded from Russia and a counter­revolutionary mOHfficnt in Siberia underAdmiral Kolchak, aided by a Czecho-Slovakcorps recruited from former prisoners of war,began to move steadily westwards along the axisof the Trans·Siberian railway. Japanese troops

were already in Vladivostok, and Britain, Franceand the United States, in an effort to bring Russiaback into the war against Germany, began to shipmaterial and military aid to the Whites in Odessa,the Caucasus, Siberia, Archangel and the BalticStates. The German military occupation authori­ties in lhe Ukraine, despite the fact lhallhe Empirewas now at peace with the new Soviet Stale, gavearms and moral support to their easlern neigh­bour, General Krasnov, lhe Araman of lhe DonCossacks, in his struggle to maintain his newly­found independence from Russia.

During the summer and early autumn of 1918it looked as if the new Soviet regime would beextinguished. The majority, some of them prob­ably the best, of the officers of the old RussianArmy had either been driven out, often into thearms of the Whites, or murdered. Although theReds were vastly superior to the Whiles in nllm·bers of men and material, their discipline and

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A Red ArzBy pan.d~ fa R"tov~••Do. iB IIpo. (NovosdPre.. Aae:acy)

leadership were poor; command by committee andrevolutionary fervour were not enough.

Lenin and Trotsky, however, were hard-headedrealists. The naval officer staffs who first came intocontact with Lenin as eady as December '917were surprised at his insistence on restoringdiscipline; the unquestioning acceptance of cen­tralized authority had always been Lenin's credQ.In March '918 Trotsky, the brilliant and im­petuous Ukrainian Jew, had left: his post asCommissar for Foreign Affairs to become Com­missar for War. Equipping himself with anarmoured train hauled by two locomotives andprovided with a radio centre, a library andmilitary headquarters, automobiles and a largemilitary escort, he set off on his lightning toursof the various fronts, rarely at rest, coveringthousands of miles in his travels.

Lenin had no clear military policy except in hisinsistence on a military discipline which waseventually to prove even more exacting than the

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Bolshevik political discipline. He would not admitdefeat and was prepared to pay a ruthless price forsuccess in the lives of others, though the costmight be reckoned in millions. Yet, despite hislack of military experience, he e10sely followed thedaY-lo-day conduct of the Civil War, threatening,chiding, often directly interfering with the detailsof tile high command. Trotsky, Oil the other hand,originally no better informed than Lenin inmilitary matters, was closer to the military staffsand the actual conduct of operations in the fidd,and thus soon amassed a fund of knowledge andacquired a certain expertise and 8air for strategyand for military training and organiz;ation. Ruth­less, vain and unfeeling, he was ot:\-cnheless ahighly educated or at least a quick-witted man,and had the knack of getting 00 ""ith the: formerofficer staffs still in Red Army sen.ice. whoseabilities he used to the full.

Both Lenin and Trotsky were of ooc: mind insuppressing all command by committee. They

(a) J911 tullJe bulre, all r&IlIu; (b) 19111:1ead­drtH badre, all ranka; (e) J919 dHvt bulru(Idll. rirl:ll) HTJeull-rnajor, repmuotalc.onunaadu, EroDe c:onunaDder; (d) I~ .IMVt'-dee- (left to rilbe) HTWe&oe.rnajor, rqimaualc.onunaDder, Eroot c.omAUUKle.r; (e) I~ bead­clra. aad (.e.rsltlUll'.) de.e.ve. rank '-die; <E)(Ie-fl) Aprill~ cap 1:Iadt;e.. (rfJ:l:le) )wy Itp:t. cap'-die

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soon sent the elected commanders packing. ButTrotsky went even further. He had little faith interritorial or part-time soldiers or in partisan orguerrilla bands as a substitute for a permanentregular army. Repeated defeats in the field con­vinced him that the new Red Army would not winthrough to victory wilhout the aid of professionalofficers and of non-commissioned officers. He wonLenin's reluctant support and on 29 May 1918 aresolution was agreed by the All.Russian Execu­tive Committee changing the voluntary recruit­ment of the armed forces to one of enforcedmobil ization of workers and poor peasants.Former officers and non-commissioned officers ofthe old army, although hardly within this mobili­zation category, were subjected to compulsorycall-up and, before lhe following November,23,000 former officers and officials, includingmilitary dOCIOrs, veterinary surgeons and pay­masters, and 110,000 former non-commissionedofficers already formed part of the new Red Army.

Trotsky, like Stalin. had a marked abiliry tomake good use of lhe instrument left by his pre­decessors and adapt it to his own needs. Althoughhe has been given the credil for introducing intothe Red Army the system of political commissars,what he did was to continue and extend theinnovations already introduced by Kerensky.Kerensky had b«:n so antagonistic to andsuspicious of the military that he had introducedinto the armed forces political commissars to act aswatchdogs on the generals and to serve as inter­mediaries between the commanders and thesoldiers' committees. Other communist-appointedcommissars were to be found in the Collegium forthe Organization of the Red Army in Petrograd asearly as December 1917.

Under Trotsky the appointment of all politicalcommissars was regulated from the centre andtheir role was to protect the new regime fromcounter-revolution by keeping a check on thereliability of the commanders. In this way thecommissar became the military commander'sshadow and exercised what ....'3$ in effect a dualcommand in that no military order of any conse­quence was valid unless it bore his counter­signature. At first, commissars were appointeddown to the level of divisions but eventually,before the end of the Civil War. they were to be

II

found in all major units. This commissar system,although originally intended as a temporarypolitical counterweight to the re-employedmilitary officer, was permanently retained as partof the organization of both the Red Army and theSoviet Army.

The early commissar was not necessarily acommunist party member. More often than not hewas an applicant considered suitable for the jobsimply on the strength of his proletarian back­ground and Bolshevik sympathies. His degree ofmilitary experience was of secondary importance,and many of the original appointments wert filledby ruffians in quest of power or loot. But, asTrotsky's fanatical and ruthless gTip took increas­ing hold, not even the commissars were safe, andnumbers were shot for the failure of their troops.Thus there came into being a new race of armypolitical workers, callous, ambitious party mem­bers, full of lireless energy, driven on by fear offailure and dread of consequent denunciation.

The commissar, then as now, was also respon­sible 'for the cultural enlightenment and thepolitical, as well as the general, education of thetroops'. He was expected to be the best informedman in his formation or unit. He could never hopeto ha\'e close ties with his subordinates and withthe men themseh'cs, without the presence in theranks of communist agitators, party memberswhose task it was to talk with the troops hour byhour and day by day, on parade gTound or in thebarrack room, spreading the directed line ofpropaganda and carefully noting each soldier'sreactions and views. Since the communist soldierwas trained as an agitator-spy, all informationpicked up was carefully retailed to the com­nllssar.

In 1918, however, Trotsky's insistence on closecontrol from the centre was bitterly opposed bymany of the regional soviets, some of whom werescandalized by h.is use of 'the Tsar's Ounkeys', theformer officers. Most of these had come back tothe army unwillingly, many of them only awaitingthe opportunity to desert to the Whites. But thealternative to scn.;ce was death or incarcerationin a concentration camp. and their families werealready held hostage for their loyalty. Trotskyseems to have treated the former officers on hisstaff, superficially at least, with tact and to have

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made good use of their talents; but elsewhere there.employed officer, particularly if returning tocommand or regimental appointments in thefield, was met with hostility and resentment alikefrom the elected soldier or party man whom hedisplaced and from the rank and file who regardedhim with suspicion as a bar to their own advance·men!. The commissar with whom the formerofficer was obliged to work most closely was in allprobability the same agitator who had done hisutmost to destroy the old Tsarist Army, one of theBolsheviks who were believed by many officers tobe in the pay of the Germans. Among the rankand file even the word 'officer' was anathema, sothat the re-employed and rankless officers becameknown as 'military specialists' or 'red com­manders',

CJheGivilWtrThe first threat to the new Bolshevik regime camein May 1918 from South-East Russia and theCaucasus. The rich, industrial, grain· and coal­producing area of the Ukraine had been lostto Russia by the signing of the treaty of BrestLitovsk, and the Politburo, now housed in the newcapital of Moscow, was forced to rely on the cornfrom the rich farming areas of the North Caucasus.General Kornilov's White Volunteer Army,though only 5,000 strong, had already begun theconquest of the Kuban. Further to the northKrasnov's Don Cossacks had ended their longflirtation with Moscow and were beginning lOpress northward into the Voronezh gulurniya(province) and eastward towards the Lower Volgain order to round off the Don Cossack territorieswhich, they fondly imagined, would remain anautonomous region independent of Russia.

The Volunteer Army had already broken therailway from Rostov and TsariU)"tl (later Stalin­grad) to ovorossisk on the Black Sea, and themovement of the Don Cossacks toWards tht LowerVolga threatened to cut the rail and river com·munications between the Nonh Ca'''''RJS and thecapital. Both Moscow and Peuosrad werealready on very scant rations and W'Cn 'l..irtuallywithout reserves of food.

*A 1920 standard bearers' party of B"'de.....,.·. 1 CavalryAnny. (Novosd Pre•• Aseacy)

At the beginning of June, Stalin, a compara­tively little-known member of the Politburo, wassent to Tsarilsyn to organize the food suppliesfrom the North Caucasus. From there he was toproceed to Novorossisk. Circumstances kept himat TsarilSyn where, at his own insistence, he wasmade the principal political commissar to both10 Army, which was holding the Tsaritsyn area,and Ihe North Caucasus Front, the headquartersof which was based on the same city. Virtuallydismissing General Snesarev, a former Cossackofficer commanding the North Caucasus Front,together with his commissar, Stalin was for severalmonths the de/octo front commander, although hiscommand was so scattered and his communica·tions so uncertain that his control did not extendfar beyond the territorial limits of to Army.

In Tsaritsyn Stalin became closely acquaintedwith a number of military commanders whom hesubsequently selected for the highest ranks in theRed Army; these included Voroshilov, the Com­mander of 10 Army, an old Bolshevik without

military experience, Shchadenko, the commissar,and Budenny, a cavalry sergeant·major whowas second·in.command of I (Socialist) CavalryRegiment. Motivated by ambition and jealousy,Stalin secretly supported and intrigued with whatwas to become known as Voroshilov's Tsaritsynopposition to Trotsky's reforms and organizationalmethods. Trotsky's usc of the former officerspecialists was a measure which came underspecial attack, Stalin laking it lipan himself tohavc the Cheka secret pol icc arrest the officers asthey arrived from Moscow. This widened lhe rift,not merely betwecn Stalin and Trotsky, but moreparticularly between Stalin and those senior RedArmy officers who were of the TroLSky school.When Stalin eventually came to power, nearly allof them paid the extreme penalty.

Although many years later Voroshilov, whenStalin's Commissar for Defence, extolled Stalin'smilitary ability and the part played by theTsaritsyn defenden during the Civil War, in realitythe only threat to the revolution in the area of the

13

Lower Volga came from the probes of the DonCossack cavalry. In one of these thrusts GeneralMamontov actually penetrated to the outskirts ofthe city. But the Cossacks had always lackedstaying power and they disliked being separatedfrom their own territories and the support ofinfantry. Their discipline was too loose and theirmounted training somewhat too specialized toturn them into regular fighting men.

Stalin's main contribution to the fighting wasprobably in supply, transport and equipmentmatters, for which he had some ability, and in therepressive police measures which, together withhis Cheka colleague Dzerzhinsky, he took againstboth the military and the civil organizations.

Much more bitter fighting took place further tothe south in the Kuban and the Caucasus wherethe White Volunteer Army, since Kornilov'sdeath under the command of Denikin, togetherwith the Kuban Cossacks waged a bloody waragainst Red Guards and irregulars, estimated tohave a strength of 100,000-200,000 men. ThereRussian committed against Russian, brotheragainst brother, father against son, every kind ofbrutal and bestial atrocity. Whole populations oftowns and villages were often butchered.

Further to the north in Siberia, AdmiralKolchak relied heavily on the support given himby the disciplined and trained Czecho·Slovakcorps, but his relationship with the Czech com·manders was bedevilled by politics, intrigue andpetty jealousies. By the end of 1918 he had becomedictator in the east, and had raised large WhiteRussian forces by the conscription of formerofficers and other ranks back into the service. Atfirst he achieved some striking successes, taking thegreat city of Perm, 700 miles east of Moscow, onChristmas Day; it appeared that he might join upwith the counter-revolutionary forces near Arch·angel. But Kolchak was to fail because he lackedthe determination and cold-blooded ruthlessnessof his Red opponents and had no experience ofhandling troops in the field. His choice of sub·ordinates was unfortunate and, even with suffi.cient armament and stores at his disposal, he wasunable to overcome the problems of administra.tion, movement and supply. His troops wenthungry and unsupported.

Moreover, like the other White generals,

14

Kolchak lacked popular appeal. To the Russianpeasant and worker he represented the olddiscredited order of Tsardom. The Bolsheviks,on the other hand, enjoyed some popularity,even though limited and short.lived, among theworkers and peasants because of their goldenpromises of redistributed land and workers'participation in the profits of industry. Eventhe non-Russian minorities had been promisedautonomy.

But the population was for the most part tiredand apathetic, and heartily sick of shortages andwar. With the exception of the fanatical com·munists and the die·hard officer loyalists, men hadto be dragooned into both the Red and the Whiteservices, and the figures for desertions on bothsides ran into millions. Sometimes the men took tothe woods and became bandits; but more usuallythey simply threw their weapons away and madeoff home. Both sides came to realize that prisoners,rather than being put to death or kept in captivity,could more profitably be offered the choiceof death or enlistment with their captors. Theirnew recruils, however, were usually unreliablematerial; units frequently changed sides takingtheir arms wilh them, and then, liking their newconditions of service no better than the old,changed back again. Yet even in this problem ofloyalty lhe Reds had an advantage over theWhites in that the communists were better fitted,both by mentality and training and by their partyand Cheka police organization, to keep a closercheck on their military subordinates and a morerepressive hand on their troops.

Numbers of Red commanders distinguishedthemselves in the fighting against Kolchak 011 theeastern front. Stalin was there on the northernflank for about three weeks after the fall of Perm,but his role was restricted to that for which he wassuited, a Cheka purge of unsuccessful and unluckymilitary commanders and civil functionaries.Frunze, an old Bolshevik and revolutionaryassassin and later Commissar for War, com­manded the right flank with some success. But thepredominant role was played by Trotsky and histwo principal military advisers, firstly Vatsetis, aLettish color· of the old Imperial Army, and thenS. S. Kamenev. a former colonel of the GeneralStaff who was the military specialist commander

Trot.ky, Kall.ala, Fr\UlZ~, Bu.de_y aDd Clan Zetlda 08

the .taad ill Red Squ.a... duriDJ: th~ "Ieb"'tlo~or th~ 7thAD.a..I"~,...ryor th~ BoI.h~vfkRevolution. (HuJloa)

of the east front and later, after July 1918, thetitular Red Army Commander-in-Chief.

With the withdrawal of the Czechs, Kolchak'sforces began slowly to disintegrate, and in thefollowing year he himself was caught and shot bythe Reds.

The next heavy blow made against the &1­sheviks came from the Baltic shore where a formerImperial general by the name ofYudenich, withEstonian military and financial support, collecteda White Russian force hardly stronger than anarmy corps and in the autumn of 1919 advancedeastward towards Narva and Petrograd. Hissuccess was immediate and within weeks Whitecavalry had reached the outskirts of the formercapital. Trotsky was sent by the Politburo toorganize the Red defences, and reinforcementswere rushed by rail from the Moscow area.

At the time, the world confidently expectedPetrograd to fall within a matter of days. ButYudenich failed in his mission for two simplereasons. Firstly, a subordinate neglected to cut thePelTograd-Moscow railway along which Redtroop trains were racing into the city; andsecondly, because Yudenich's communicationswere broken by the demolition ofviaducts, and hewas unable to overcome the weU-nigh insuperableproblem of supplying his own troops_ With theonset of winter his men were "lear starvation and a

few weeks later his troops fell back rapidly intoEstonia.

The efforts of the White generals had hithertobeen largely unco-ordinated, succeeding oneanother rather than concerted. The first campaignhad been the operations of Komilov's andDenikin's Volunteer Army in the far-away Kubanand Caucasus and Krasnov's thrusts on the LowerVolga. Then had followed Kolchak's movementwestward towards Moscow. Only when Kolchakwas in retreat in the east did Yudenich attackfrom the north-west. Yet Yudenich's offensive wasmounted at the same time as that of Denikinfrom the south.

It was at the time of Yudenich's thrust onPetrograd that the Soviet State appeared to be indanger of obliteration. Denikin, no longer theCommander of the Volunteer Army but now theCommander-in-Chief in South Russia, controlledMai-Maev~ky's Volunteer Army, Sidorin's DonCossacks and Wrangel's Caucasian Army. Deni­kin had begun to advance in May 1919 from theCaucasus and the Don Cossack territory tothe north of Rostov into Central Russia and theUkraine. For the Ukraine had been reoccupied bythe Reds after the withdrawal of the Auuro­German troops in the previous No,-ember, andwas torn by warring factions and armed banditry.

Denikin was fighting against odds; he was

15

greatly outnumbered by Bolshevik troops and hadbeen unable to bring the Poles in on his side. Hewas, however, relatively well provided withBritish equipment and he numbered among hiscommanders the best leaders in any of theRussian armies, Red or White. His failure was onenot of resources or of supply, but of strategy. Hisprincipal and probably correct aim was to takeMoscow. But he dispersed his troops in a greatJBo-degrees are, ordered them on to objectives asfar apart as Odessa and Kiev to the west andTsaritsyn and Saratov to the cast. His subsequentsuccess was admittcdly remarkable in that byOctober of that year, very much at about thesame time as Yudenich was nearing Petrograd,White troops had overrun almost thc whole of theUkraine and had moved into Central Russia,taking Kursk, Voronezh and Ore!, liltle morethan 200 miles from the capita!; in lhe east,Sidorill and Wrangel had taken Tsaritsyn andwere on the road to Saratov. The troops of theBolshevik South Front had simply melted away.

But Denikin's command had already beenfatally over-extended and dispersed and nowcovered a frontage of about 1,600 miles. Winterwas approaching and the presence of bandits,partisans and armed Ukrainian nationalists madethe areas to his rear insecure.

The Soviet military commander of the SouthFront, a former officer by name of Gittis, wasreplaced firstly by Egorev and lhen, some weekslater, by Egorov. Stalin was transferred from theWest to the South Front as political commissarwhere he was joined temporarily by Trotsky.From about this time dated the bitter controversyas to whether Denikin should be counter-attackedfrom the area of the Lower Volga in the east orfrom the north in the area of Voronezh and thencesouthward down the Donets Basin. The laltercourse proved the successful one and the credit forit was claimed by both Trotsky and Stalin.

Much of Denikin's success had been due to hisuse of raiding cavalry columns under the Cossackgenerals Mamontov and Shkuro, deep in the RedArmy rear. Budenny's cavalry corps, reorganizedas 1 Cavalry Army, was transferred from theVolga to the area of Voronezh in order to engagethe White raiders. The Reds took their tacticsfrom the pattern of the Whites and penetrated

16

between the Volunteer Army and the DonCossacks. By lhe end of October 1919, 1 CavalryArmy, which included in its columns the futurecavalry leaders Timoshenko and Zhukov, hadtaken Voronezh and was moving rapidly south­ward towards Rostov-on-Don, hoping lo envelopSidorin and Wrangel in the Don bend and on theLower Volga between Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan.To escape being cut ofJ~ Dcnikin began his longretreat to the Crimea anet the North Caucasus;amid cruel scenes of violence and disorder theWhites were driven out of the Caucasus, but heldon temporaril)' to the area of the Crimea. Denikillgave up his command to Wrangel. The last of theWhites were now doomed.

Pie %so-'PolishWtrIn 1914 Poland had long been partitioned be­tween German)', Austro-I-Iungary and Russia,Eastern Poland being a province of the RussianEmpire. Following the Russian Revolution andthe collapse of the Central Powers, the new PolishRepublic had come into being.

A fervently nationalist Poland, bitterly anti­Russian rather than anti-Bolshevik, had no wishto see a strong Russia on its eastern frontier since itregarded this as a threal to its own existence.Pilsudski, Poland's leader, trusted Denikin asliltle as he did Lenin, and in '919 he had ignoredDenikin's overtures for a joint Russo-Polish cam­paign against the Bolsheviks. Meanwhile, how­ever, he was, through intermediaries, in secretcorrespondence with Trotsky. Pilsudski took nonOlice of Moscow's efforts to secure an armistice;he did not want peace. Nor, for the moment, didhe want war; so he contented himself with await­ing the outcome of the Red/White struggle. In thelong term he hoped to secure for Poland the WhiteRussian and Ukrainian territories once held bythe powerful eighteenth·century Kingdom ofPoland. At the same time, he probably hoped todetach from Russia the remainder of the Ukraineand Caucasia, and make them into puppet statesdependent for their existence on an alliance withPoland.

Meanwhile skirmishing and border fighting

Fnuu.e, tbe COnuni....r (or War, al a lipS la'~OQ.

(Noyolt.J Pn"1I AIItDCY)

pnsmg lour armies and a cavalry corps, hadalready begun his own offensive in the north in thefirst week in July. The Poles were in full retreat.Vi Ina, Minsk and Brest Litovsk were taken, andthe West Front began to close on Warsaw. Itappeared as if Poland itself were about to be over­run.

Yet the Red Army, standing on the threshold ofvictory, was decisively defeated. As many con­temporary photographs show, a large proportionof the Soviet fighting men were little more thancivilians hurriedly equipped with rines. Units wereapt to disintegrate at the first serious check, andthere was a very high rate ofdesertion. Overmuchreliance had been placed on the revolutionaryspirit of the Polish proletariat, but these. insteadof going over to the Reds, resisted the Bolshevikswith all their might, fighting, sometimes in theSoviet rear, with shot·guns and hunting rines. AFrench mjlilary mission had already arrived inWarsaw to assist the Polish High Command, andwhen the Poles counter-attacked, the Red Armytroops began to give wa~f.

continued between the Poles and the Red Arm)'and by 19'9 Polish troops had already establishedthemselves in Belorussia and Galicia as far east asVilna, Minsk and Lw6w.

In April '920,3 Polish Army suddenly attackedin great strength into the Ukraine. Advancingrapidly eastward, it reached the Dnieper andseized Kiev, the capital, in the first week in May.The invasion caused a wave of indignation andnational fervour among the Russian people andlargc numbers of volunteers, irrespectivc of claMor political belief, offered their services to the RedArmy. Once more there was a frantic reorganiza·tion ofthe Soviet High Command. Troops alreadydeployed against Wrangel were withdrawn fromthe South Ukraine. Gittis was removed from thecommand of the \Vest Front, making wa}' for aformer lieutenanl of the I mperial Guards namedTukhache\'sky, an ambilious and energetic ),oungofficer, commissioned onl)' in '914, who hadspent lhree years in German captivity before •returning to Russia and joining the BolshevikParty. Stalin, as political commissar, rejoined theold south (ront, now redesignated Ihe South-WestFront, and still under the leadership of themilitary specialist Egorav. Blldenny's 1 CavalryArmy, with Voroshilov as ils political commissar,was ordered back from the Caucasus to Ihe areaof the middle Dnieper. arriving there at the endor May.

Egorov's initial successes were due in no smallpart to the mobility of 1 Cavalry Army. Althoughthis force numbered little more than 16,000 menit was boldly handled by Budenny; some successwas due also to Timoshenko's 6 Cavalry Division.By lhe second week in June the cavalry, togetherwith 12 Soviet Army, had staned to outnank theenemy and it looked as if 3 Polish Army would besurrounded in the area o(Kie\·. The Poles fell backquickly, howe\'er, to escape the encirclement andEgorav's South-West Front took up the pursuitwestwards into Galicia.

Tukhachcvsky was originally separated fromEgorov by the almost impenetrable belt of thePripet Marshes, running nearly 300 miles fromwest to east and '50 miles from nonh to south. Butthe marshland gave way to firm and open countryas the two Soviet fran IS entered Poland. Tukha­chevsky, with a force of over 100,000 men, com-

17

Tukhachevsky had hardly three years' militaryexperience of any sort and his deploymentfollowed some half-learned school copy-booktheme. His troops stood on the Vistula im­mediately east of the Polish capital and he hadsuccessfully contri\'ed to em'elop Warsaw from thenorth and north-west by extending forward hisright shoulder. On this flank also he had deployedGai's cavalry corps. But he had no uncommittedreserve and his own left flank, which had fonnerlyenjoyed the protection of the Pripet ~farshes, wasopen and \·ulnerable.

S. S. Kamenev, the military specialist Com­mander-in·Chief, in a directive issued in the firstweek in August, was said to have ordered Tukha­chevsky's \Vest Front 011 LO \Varsaw. Egorov'sSouth·\Vcst Front was ordered to move troopsnorth·westward to close on Tukhachevsky'sexposed len flank. It was later argued thatKamellev's directive to the South·West Frontordering 1 Cavalry Army and 12 Army away fromLw6w and on to Warsaw was not clear. This mayhave been so. Certain it is that Stalin, Budennyand Voroshilov deliberatdy chose to misunder­stand it, for even as late as the third week inAugust they were still resisting any orders whichmoved the cavalry anny away from the Lw6waxis. When they did move it was already too late.The Poles had em'eloped Tukhache\'Sky's opensouthern flank and began to roll up the West Frontfrom south to north. Hemmed in to the north byGerman East Prussian territory, the Red Armymen either passed over the fromier to be internedtn masst or took to their heels eastward in anattcmpt to escape the encircling pincer. BySeptember all the Russian forces were in retreatand the Poles, following up, reoccupied most ofBelorussia and Galicia.

Hostilities ended with the signing of the Treatyof Riga in October 1920. The Red Army hadcome out of the Polish War with little credit andits relatively poor showing was one of the facto.swhich caused it to be much underestimated inWestern Europe in the period between the twoWorld 'Wars.

18

CjtJe Cllfloft/leGivi/Wtr

While the Russo-Polish War was being fought,\'·rangel had attempted to take advantage of thesituation by breaking out of the Crimea back intothe former territorics of the Don and KubanCossacks. At first he had some success but, afterthe signing of the Treaty ofRiga, Red Army troopsbegan to arrivc from the western theatre. TheSouth Front, commanded by Frunze, began a lateOctobcr counter-offensivc which drove the Whitesback into the Crimcan Peninsula. During Novem­ber 1920 II final offensive was made into theCrimea across lhe shallow salt marshes of the LazySea and the remnants of Wrangel's force weredestroyed. Only the fortunate escaped with theirfamilies by ship from the terrible vengeance of thecommissar and the Cheka.

A few months later Blukher, one of the success­ful Red commanders in the Crimea, undertookthe reduction of the last counter-re\'olutionaryforce in the Far East Maritime Provinces wherethe White General Semenov, a brigand andpuppet of IheJapancse, held the railway betweenKhabarovsk and Vladi\'ostok. It was not, howe\'er,until the end of 1922, after the evacuation of theJapanese, that Scmenov's forces were finallydriven over the border into Manchuria.

'U'VI'U'VtllJl'ill'ithollt (O/fir/ewe

The Red Army at the end of the Civil War was amass of partially trained, poorly equipped and ill­disciplined conscripts whose only wish was to gohome. Its muster rolls numbered sC\'eral million,but the desertion rate was vcry high and thebureaucratic army syslem so inefficient andcumbersome that the order ofbaltJe ne\'er totalledmore than about sc\'enty divisions..Many of theseformations were dh'isions only in name, ha\'ing

strengths no greater than those of the establish­ment of regiments. Like the Whites, they wereaccomplished looters, ha\,ing lived off the country­side for SO long that the peasants and townspeoplehad been reduced to starvation.

Once more the communist leaders could notmake up their minds what son of defence forcesthey wamed. The Red Army in '922 containedthe old and the new: Tsarist generals of thedoctrinaire kind, senior commanders who wereformerly young officers or non-commissionedofficers, together with others, often bardy literate,who had come from factory floor or field; oldBolsheviks and fanatical communists, formerWhite officers, some foreign-trained, others therecent output from Red military schools. Theequipmenl varied from the modern to the longobsolete, and was of Russian, Japanese, UnitedSlates and British pattern. A few favoured astanding army, but mOSI wanted a militia or looseguerrilla-t>'pe force under temporary or electedcommanders.

Trotsky, possibly influenced by his militaryspecialist ad\'isers, wanted a return to an orthodoxand regular army backed lip by territorial reserveformations which in peacetime were to exist in acadre forlll. But he was opposed by both theyounger group of officer specialists such asTukhachevsky and Uborevich, and, moreimportant, by Frunze and other older rC\'olu­tionarics with a military interest. The 'TsaritsynGroup', led by Voroshilo\' and Budenny, wereTrotsky's enemies, and when, after Lenin's death,Stalin used L. B. Kamenev and Zinoviev, his twocolleagues in the governing triumviratc, to isolateTrotsky politically, the days of the Jewish Com­missar for 'Var were numbered. In '924 Sklyansky,the Deputy Commissar for War and Trotsky'slrusled aide, was replaced by Frunze. Antono\,­Ovseenko, another ofTrouky's close collaboratOrs,was replaced as chief commissar by talin'snominee Bubno\', fonnerly of , Cavalry Army.Slalin's henchman Voroshilov took over thecommand of the troops in the capital and togetherwith Bubnov and Budenny was appointed to theRevolutionary !\'Iililary Council. .

Trotsky was now unprotected and in January1925 was forced to hand over his post to Frunze.Tukhache\'sky and Shaposhnikov, a former

A onajor of tanlo. or artiU",ry talkin. (0 la.D.k crew. on. 191'ma.n<e..vrH In. the Betoru••lan MIUlary Diatricl, probab ypa..t of a cavalry}mechao:Uzed dlvl.ion. (Novo.d Pre.a" ...ncy)

colonel of the Imperial General Staff, wereappointcd as Frunzc's deputies and S. S. Kamenev,until recently the Commander-in-Chief, becamechief of the inspectorate. That year Frunze diedunexpectedly. His death was certainly convenientto Stalin, for Voroshilov became the Commissarfor War, a post he was to hold until '94-°, andfrom '928 onwards Shaposhnikov was chicfofthenewly redesignated General Staff.

Yel the opposilion to Trotsky was based onpersonal and ideological grounds rather than onmilitary logic; Trotsky's successors left the RedArmy very much as they found it.

In the 19205 the Soviet defence forces werereslricted to a ceiling of 562,000 men organizedilllo thirty-one regular rifle divisions, ten regularcavalry divisions, and forty·six territorial reservecadre divisions. There was neithcr lhe money norlhe equipmenl for more. The officer in panicularoccupied a very depressed position; officer ranks,as such, were nOt in uSt:, the very word 'officer'slill being forbidden. Poorly paid, the officer

19

messed with the rank and file and was expected toremo\'e his commander's insignia when not onduty. The 1924-5 experiment of returning to theprinciple ofone-man command in the event cameto nothing, and real authority remained with thecommissar.

Germany and the Soviet Union, both friendlessin a very hostile world, were drawn together.Both distrusted a Poland reinforced by theFranco-Polish Entente. Thus, from 1921 therecame about a fairly close collaboration betweenthe Red and German Armies and betweenMoscow and the German armament industry. Inexchange for training facilities in the SovietUnion, the Germans provided information, equip­ment and instructors, and the Red Army, like theImperial Russian Army before it, began to take ona very heavy German bias in its organization,methods and terminology.

From 1927 onwards the Soviet Union professedto believe that it was once again threatened withforeign inten'ention and war. Its relationship withthe West, particularly with Britain, was bad. Thecommunist missions had been evicted fromNationalist China and the Chinese border clashesinvolving Blukher's Far East Forces were tobecome more numerous. Stalin intended at al1costs to concentrate on the expansion of heavyindustry and the re-equipment of his forces; and sothe first of the Five Year Plans was born, aimed atestablishing the Soviet nion among the foremostof the world's industrial powers. A large part ofthe new or redeployed industry was sited in thearea of the Urals nearly 1,000 miles to the east ofMoscow, outside the reach of the foreign inter­ventionists. Soviet agriculture, at that timerelatively inefficient, was later to be collectivizedunder state control in order to increase production,to redirect the surplus labour force into thefactories and finally 10 break down the conser­vatism of a peas.'lntry which was continuallyholding the nation to ransom by withholding itsfood supplies. This at least is how Stalin and theSoviet planners saw the problem. Their solutionbrought confiscations and deportations with massstarvation to the Ukraine and the North Caucasus.The Red Army was used to quell the riots whichfollowed.

The early 1930S saw the gradual re-equipping

20

and mechanization of the Red Army and itssteady increase in size. Tukhachevsky had becomeInspector of Armaments and Egorev had replacedShapnoshnikov as Chief of General Staff. InGermany Hitler ",as in power and Europe was ina state of political turmoil. By 1934 all collabora­tion with Germany had been stopped. The RedArmy now slood at nearly one million men andthe Soviet Government began to take an evencloser and more urgent interest in strengtheningthe morale and efficiency of its armed forces. Thatyear the Commissariat of the Army and Navy wasrenamed the Commissariat of Defence and, in aneflort to improve the morale and status of themilitary commanders, political commissars (exceptwhere they were members of the military councilsof higher formations) were made subordinate tothe military specialists. By '935, in which year theRed Army had increased to 1,300,000 men,officers' ranks were reintroduced, except that theRed Army still had no generals, general officersbeing designatcd as 'brigade, division, corps orarmy commanders'. For the very word 'general',likc lhal of 'officer', was still anathema to the oldBolsheviks. The officers' pay and conditions weregreatly improved, and all but junior officers weregranted immunity from civil arrest unless thearrest should be approved by the Commissar forDefence. This was the restoration of a dignityenjoyed by the officer in Tsarist times, but in theSoviet State it was meaningless. as subsequentpurges were to show. Five Marshals of the Soviet

nion were created during 1935: Voroshilov,Budenny, Tukhachevsky, Egorovand Blukher.

:Mcanwhile Ihe mechanization and re-equip­ment of the armed forces were continued, and theleaders of the Red Army, uncertain of themselvesand their military thinking, were urgently seekingcontact with, and even reassurance from, militarycircles in Germany and France.

Cj/ie great 'PurgesTrotsky had been banished some years before, butStalin still appeared intent upon ridding himselfnot only of those who at one time had been closeto Trotsky and Lenin but of any who might be

in a position to challenge or undermine his ownauthority. To these were added those who in thepast had done anything to incur his jeaJousy ordispleasure. Yet the great purges, which probablydestroyed millions of Soviet and foreign citizens,involved for the most part people in all walks oflife of whose existence he was totally ignorant.

From the very earliest days Stalin's fortunes hadrested in some degree on the influence he had overthe Cheka secret police organization, renamed theOGPU in 1922, and then in 1934 the NKVO. Soin 1936 Stalin, by now supreme dictator, in­structed the NKVD to undertake its widespreadinvestigation into the state of the Soviet Union;shortly afterwards he decided that much of theNK YO should be liquidated. Arrests followedinvestigations, with torture and execution ordeportation, the NKVD being policeman, warder,judge and executioner, apparently accountable tono one but Stalin. Investigations led to confessionsand denunciations, most of them false and in·tended only to protect the victim's family; and sothe purge spread like wildfire and became theterror which Stalin probably intended it to be.

The first of the public trials opened in 1936, andTukhachevsky was named, as ifin an aside, in oneof the confessions. Almost immediately Red Armyleaders began to be arrested by the I\KVD. Anysenior leader who had criticized or crossed Stalinin earlier years was doomed, together with anywho had been on friendly terms with the so-called

Opposition clements. Man}' commanders werearrested for no apparent reason. Tukhachevskywas executed and, of the eight members of themilitary tribunal who condemned him, six were tofollow him to the death chamber. Only Budennyand Shaposhnikov survived. The other two of thefive Marshals, Egorov and Blukher, were doneaway with. Thirteen army commanders and over400 corps, divisional and brigade commanderswere arrested and disappeared. Yet it is significantthat the small Tsaritsyn Group and thoseassociated with Budenny's 1 Cavalry Army in theCivil War were, with a few exceptions, retained intheir posts.

Another reaction associated with the purge ofthe Red Army was the restoration of the politicalcommissar to his pre-1934 position of equalitywith the military commander. Once more he couldveto all orders.

World opinion of the power and effectiveness ofthe Red Army was not high. Not unnaturally, theprestige of the Soviet armed forces suffered furtheras a result of the purges. It was argued that theloss of so many of its high-ranking commandersmust inevitably lead to a break in continuity anda gra\'e loss in combat efficiency. Nor could theforeign policy or the political proposals of adictator who appeared determined on slaughter­ing his own armed forces be taken seriously.

In 1937 Shaposhnikov returned to the post ofChief of General Staff and the foHowing year the

21

control of the Soviet Navy was separated fromthat of Ihe Red Army and put under its ownDefence Commissariat. The Red Air Force, how­ever, remained as an integral part of the RedArmy.

<Sovief t:XPfIllSiolli.'i11lflllr!fllf C]ttrfflfolWtr

In 1938 border fighting had broken out betweenthe Japanese and troops of Blukher's Far EastFront in the area of Lake Khasan ncar Vladi­\·ostok. In August of that year Blukher had beenpurged, in spite of the fact that his troops hadbeen not unsuccessful. TIle Far East Front wasbroken up into two separate armies, one underKonev and the other under Shtem, who, shortlyafterwards, was arrested in his turn. More fightingflared up, this time to the weSI of Manchuria in thearea of Khalkhin·Gol. There Zhukov, a formerTsariSI C3\!3Iry junior non-commissioned officerbut by now an army commander, had been sentto lhe area to take command ofoperations. Fight­ing continued intermiltently until September

1939·The outbreak of war that mOlllh between

Germany on the one side and Greal Brilain andFrance on the other brought to a head a numberof outstanding militaT)' and political problems inthe Soviet Union.

In September 1939 it was announced thathenceforth the Red Army would be recruitedfrom national servicemen who would be takeninto lhe forces irm/m:tive of their social origin.Previously, particularly in the btc 'twenties andearly 'thirties, recruits from a noble or middle­class background were discriminaled against inthat they were drafted into unarmed labour unitswhere conditions ofservice were often particularlyharsh. National sen ice had been set at only twoyears, although non-commissioned omceT'S had toserve for three, and the strength of the armedforces stood at just over two million men. ThaiSeptember, however, the conscription age waslowered from twenty-one to nineteen years so thaia further two annual intakes each of abOUI

22

II. lank eomonander eornmu.n1eadnA' by Oal. I.n 1937. a.Iandard proeedure even .... tiJ lale In Ibe Seeond WorldWar. The tank ea_ot be posldvely Ideotlfied bu' wa.probahly a T:z8

1,400,000 men became eligible for se:::rvice. Theircall-up over the next two years had the effect ofincreasing Soviet armed slrength, actually withthe colours, to nearly five million men.

By the terms of the Sttret protocol signed byMolotov, the Soviet Commissar for ForeignAffairs, and \'011 Ribbemrop, the German ForeignMinister, in Moscow on Ihe night of 23 August1939, the Balkans, Finland and the Baltic Stateswere declared to be within lhe sphere of intereslof lhe Soviet Union. Poland was to be parlitionedbelween Germany and the USSR, the SovietUnion claiming lhose::: areas to lhe east where thepopulation were of krainian or White Russianstock. On 17 September 1939 the Red Armyinvaded Poland, the troops being deplo)'ed in twoarmy groups or fronts, the Belorussian Frontunder Kovalev, and the Ukrainian Front under aBessarabian krainian, a former cavalry soldierof 1 Ca\'alry Army, by lhe name of Timoshenko.By lhen, howe\'cr, the Polish forces had alreadybeen defeated by lhc Germans.

Immediately afterwards the Soviet Union,taking advantage of a situation in which Britishand French warships were excluded from theBaltic, demanded and was granted naval andmilitary bases in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.A similar demand made on Finland and aproposal for an exchange of territory was rcjectedby Helsinki. This led to the Russo-Finnish WinterWar.

qtie'R.!!:,fso!J0illlislt"WiJlfer"/ltftr

The Soviet offensive against Finland was launchedby Leningrad Military District under the com­mand of Mcretskov, a former factory worker andpolitical commissar who had distinguished himselfby his service with the large Soviet contingent inRepublican Spain. His force, consisting of abouttwemy.live divisions with numerous tanks, hadan ovcrwhelming advantage in numbers andmaterial over the Finnish troops deplo)'ed againstit. The Red Air Force had an almost complete airsuperiority.

The Red Army offensive was made not only inthe south from the area of Leningrad and LakeLadoga but also from Ukhta across the centralwaist of Finland and in the far north nearPetsamo. The Finnish trOOpS, although few innumber and with little artillery or armouredsupport, were better trained and far belter ledthan the Red enemy. The short hours of daylightand the heavily forested areas restricted observa·tion and robbed the Red Army of the benefit of itsair, artillery and armoured support. The weatherwas unusually bitter and the Soviet columns,making liule progress, suffered defeat and some·times annihilation at the hands of almost in·signjlicant numbers of Finns. The very poor show­ing of the Red Arm)' troops did not go unnoticedin Berlin.

At the end of December the So\>let High Com·mand was reorganized in an attempt to remedywhat threatened to be a disastrous situation.Meretskov went to a lower appointment, to anarmy. A new North·\Vest Front was set up to

control operations and Timoshenko was given theoverall command. More troops were moved upuntil the Red forces on the Finnish borderstotallcd over a million.

After a period of reorganization and retrainingthe new Soviet offensivc reopened in earlyFebruary with hea\'Y and well co-ordinatedartillery support. After a month of heavy battJesthe exhausted Finns, numbering as a nation nomore than four million, were forced to sue for anarmistice.

The early Red Army defeats in Finland werewidely misinterpreted abroad. The rigouTS ofterrain and climate were not properly understood,nor their effect on Ukrainian troops, many ofwhom were unt..miliar with forest or mountain.Red Army field leadership, imprisoned by its ownnarrow experience in lhe Civil War, was ad·milledly poor. But very few foreigners were awareof the excellence of the training and the very highfighting qualities and morale of the Finnishsoldier. Operating in his own dark forests,mountains and swamps, he was much superior tolhe Russian and also, as subsequent events wercto prove. to the German soldier.

Yet in Moscow the lessons were not lost. Aninvestigation was carried out into the course andthe failures of the war and a number of importantreforms were introduced. Voroshilov lost toTimoshcnko the appointment of Commissar forDefence, which he had held for fifteen years with·out great distinction. A newer, stricter disciplinarycode was introduced. An attempt Wa5 made to im­prove the status, and presumably the morale, of the

Youthful Red Army m"'.. from th'" Ba.Wr R"'pubUc, ODC'"th", turhory of tbe Orenb...... Co...cl<•. AhhO\1lh these_Idiu. Ilre DOf Cosocks they ...e wearial Cos cl<'fypecap. &ad cloaks. They Ilre Ilnned with the PPSh to....dc.(Imperial War M...eoun)

23

senior Red Army and Navy commanders by restor­ing the Tsarist ranks ofgeneral and admiral. Therewas a further amelioration in the pay and condi­tions of commanders in the higher ranks and thepolitical commissar was demoted once more to asubordinate position vis-a-tis the military comman­der. Timoshenko, together with Shaposhnikov, stillChief of General Staff, and Kulik, an old revolu­tionary-cum-artillery officer and former memberof the Tsaritsyn Group, a nonentity who was afavourite of Stalin, were all promoted to the rankofMarshal of the Soviet Union to fill the vacanciesleft by the dead TukhacheYsky, Egorov andBlukher.

The aftermath of the Russo-Finnish War was areorganization of higher-ranking officers whichbrought them into the posts they were to hold atthe outbreak of lhe war with Germany. Meretskovreplaced Shaposhnikov, who was in declininghealth, as Chief of General Staff. Vatutin becamethe Deputy ChiefofGeneral Staffand Golikov thehead of the GRU, the military intelligencedirectorate. Zhukov followed Timoshenko as theCommander of Kiev ~llilitary District. Twoofficers who had distinguished themselves in theFinnish War, Kirponos and Pavlov, were rapidlyadvanced, Kirpollos to the command of Lenin­grad Military Dislrict, and Pavlov to the WestMilitary District in Belorussia. And, since Merets­koy proved unsatisfactory to Stalin as Chief ofGeneral Staff, he was replaced only a few monthsafterwards, in Februa~' 1941, by Zhukov whogave up his post in the kraine to Kirponos. Someof these officers were to achieve fame and fortune;others met their death either on the field of battleor in the NKVD death cellar.

C]/Je PialofcStreJlgtl/­pille /94/

Hitler, the German National Socialist dictator,had always inlended to destroy the Soviet Unionas a political state and immediately after thevictory over France he had given orders for thepreparation of war against the USSR. Just overthree million German troops were allocated to the

24

A a:>oIor-eyde banalion., probably .,u",m.a 1941

eastern front, a ground force of '40 divisions.Germany's allies, Finland, Romania and Hun­gary, furnished the equivalent of another fortydivisions. The invasion force was supported byjust over 2,000 first-line combat aircraft andincluded 3,500 tanks.

The preparations for the coming war could notbe concealed from Moscow. Stalin, however,dismissed the reports as British and Germanprovocation, or as part of the polilical war ofnerves. Yet he did take some elementary pre­cautions when he sanctioned a limited caH-up ofreservists in January and April of 1941. By thatJune, the Red Army stood at a total of 303divisions of which about $t:venty were reservedivisions still in the process of mobilizing. Abouttwenty divisions were deployed against the Finnsand 150 divisions stood ncar the borders in ,vestand south-west European Russia; the remainderof the forces were in the Far East, along theTurkish border or in the interior.

The real strength of the Red Army lay in theindustrial capacity of the Soviet Union and the

3

1 ArDlY Com.ntander of Second~ c. 19262 Marshal of the Soviet Union, c. 19363 lJeutenant-General of Inlantry, c. 1941

MICHAEL AOffE A

B

1 Trooper of Cavalry, SunllnerHome Service Unifonn,c. 1938

2 Private of Infantry, WinterField Service UnHorm, c. 1937

3 Private of Infantry, SununerField Service UnHonn, c. 1937

MICHAEl ROffE

1 Major of ArIDoured Troops, HOIDe S~rvlce

UnifOrn1o, c. 1941:I Private of Infantry, Ski Troops Winter Field

Service UniIorID, Co 19423 Colon~l of th~ Red Air Force, HOIDe Service

UnifOnD., c. 1941

3

c

D

I Sergeant of Armoured Troops, Parade Dress, c. 19452. Infantry Machine.Gunnu, Winter Field Service Un!.·

fonn, c. 19433 Anny General in Parade Dress, c. 1944

MICHAEL ROffE

1 Warrant Officer or Infantry,Sununt:r Field Service Order,c. 1953

2 Tank Conunander Officer orSergeant, Field Service Un!.Conn, c. 1953

3 Ueutenant orArdllery, Sum­Iller Field Service Order,c.1955

E

F

1 Colonel of Infantry, ParadeDress, c. 1956

2 Private of Infantry, WinterField Service Order, c. 1959

3 Private of Infantry, TropicalField Service Unifor:m., C.IC)60

MICHAEllIOFFE

MICHAEl AOFF£

1 Captain. of Engineers, Parade Uniform, c. 1(}60

2 Senior Sergeant (Extended Service) of Infantry, ParadeUniform, c. 1961

3 Lance-Corporal (Efreitor) of Infantry, Parade Unifonn,C.I(}61

G

H

:I Corporal (Junior Sergeant) of In..fantry, Sununer Battle Order,c. :196:1

2 Private of Infantry in SununerFull Marching Order, :I¢:I

3 CereDlonial Guard, c. :1967

great stockpile of armament prepared in the yearsimmediately before the war. In 1941, according towhat Stalin told Roosevelt's envoy, Harry Hop­kins, the Red Army held 24,000 tanks and 7,000combat planes, and the USSR had a productioncapacity of 12,000 tanks and 2 t ,000 aircraft ayear. Much of Soviet industry had already beenmoved eastward to the Urals and beyond. BothHitler and German intelligence failed to appre­ciate not only the newly-found industrial andeconomic strength of the Soviet Union but alsothe extent of the scientific and technologicaladvances already made in so backward a country.

It was true, of course, that the Red Armywas to pay the price for over·production. Theaircraft and most of the tanks were of obsolete orobsolescent pattern, for the Russian mentality,obsessed with numbers, consigned nothing to thescrap-heap. The Germans did this for them. But anew Soviet equipment series had already beenaccepted for service and was shortly to go intomass production and this included the KV andT 34 tanks, until 1943 the best in the world, andYak 3 and Mig 3 fighters and the S/ormouik II 2

ground-attack fighter-bomber.Despite the many indications of war, the in­

vasion, when it came,on '2'2 June 1941, took theSoviet High Command by surprise. Much of theRed Air Force was destroyed on the ground.Pavlov's West Front of fifty divisions coveringBelorussia and the approaches to Moscow wasvirtually destroyed by encircling panzer columnsin little more than a week. Pavlov and his staffwere immediately arrested, transported to Moscowand shot by Stalin's orders. In the Ukraine,Kirponos was more successful in keeping histroops together and he resisted more strongly, butthe Soviet losses were heavy as he feU back to­wards the Dnieper. In the area of the Baltic,German troops reached the Leningrad area afteronly a month or so of fighting.

All the signs seemed to show that the SovietUnion was about to undergo a fresh Stalin purgeand terror. There was a wave of arrests of un­successful and unlucky Red Army commanders bythe NKVD. Many of the field divisions haddisintegrated at the first impact of battle, andNKVD detachments policed the roads to the rear,arresting officers and commissars and rounding up

CE!!l~ ~•

I!a~

Iu.." I~b

\:0 .... , (J ~•

~• • Bd

~1914 t..Jc &ad r-t_c coUar bad,n: (a) (I~rl)lroat com.maacler, (rl,b.I) repm.aatalc:om.n:l&llder; (b) (Iefl) compaay c:oaunaade.r,(rt,bc) ae.I'J__c_major. 1935 N.Il.Ie collar,r-I_C collar, aad .leeve bad,n; (e) armycom.n>.a.ader or nt raak4 (d) co.". c:o-.ader

the stragglers. Stalin himself assumed the posts ofChairman of the Defence Committee (the GKO)and Chairman of the Committee of the HighCommand, to which he gave the Tsarist designa­tion of S/avlca. Shortly afterwards the dictatorassumed the function of Supreme Commander-in­Chief. Since he appeared to believe that the RedArmy failures were due in part to the weakeningof the authority of the political commissar he oncemore reversed the decisions taken after theFinnish War and restored the commissar to aposition of parity with the military commander.So once again, as in Trotsky's day, all militaryorders were invalid unless signed by the politicalcommissar.

0}1Oscow /94/SmolensK, on the direct road to Moscow and only200 miles from the Kremlin, had fallen to theGermans on 17 July. Agitated and frightened,

25

Sla1hI.'. 'Y_rit.yo Group' all of whom were 10 reachhilh I"II.Il.II iD. Ihe Red Army: Voro.hiJov, BudVUlY aDdShchad<eako. (Hwtoa)

Stalin sent the Red Army's most energetic anddistinguished soldier, Marshal Timoshenko, totake over the field command in front of Moscow.Voroshilov was sent to Leningrad and Budenny toKiev. But Hitler had meanwhile turned his mainthrust away from the Moscow axis and down tothe south in the Ukraine. There in early Septem­ber Kirponos's South-West Front in the area ofKiev was almost destroyed with the loss of about600,000 prisoners. Timoshenko, hurriedly dis·patched from one trouble spot to another, wassent south, to replace Budenny in overall com­mand in the Ukraine. Konev temporarily tookover the West Front. Leningrad was in mortaldanger and Zhukov was sent there to replaceVoroshilov.

By the beginning of October the Germanforces had moved once more to the north andconcentrated on the Moscow highway in the areaof Smolensk. Hitler intended to advance rapidlyeastward and occupy all territory west of a linefrom Archangel to Astrakhan, several hundredmiles to the east of Moscow, before the onset ofwinter. The initial assault was highly successful,

26

destroying most of Konev's reconstituted Westfront between Smolensk and Vyazma, andcapturing 670,000 Red Army prisoners in the firstfouneen days of the offensive.

Yet, although this was not realized either inMoscow or Berlin, the German Army had alreadyshot its bolt and was shortly to be faced withfailure and retreat. The infantry in particular hadbeen thinned by casualties and had insufficientstrength for its task in terms of extended frontagesand distances. There was a scant margin ofequipment reserves, and the supply system, basedmainly on inefficiently operated and ret rackedrailway Jines supplemented by motor and horsetransport, failed to keep pace with the ever­extending lines of communication. Before the startof the war the fighting value of the Red Army hadbeen lightly regarded in Berlin, but the Germantroops had been surprised, not at the fightingefficiency of the Red soldier, which was still low,but at his stamina and obstinacy and at theingenuity ofhis more senior leaders. But in the lastresort what was to defeat the German 194'autumn offensives was the onset of the heavy

seasonal rains, the floods and the great seas ofknee-deep, even waist-deep, mud which broughtall tracked and wheeled movement to a halt. Themud broke up the very few roads there were, andstopped everything except air supply, while theLuftwaffe air transport force was quite inadequatein size to maintain even a small part of theGerman ground forces.

As conditions worsened for the bogged-downGerman troops, the Red Army appeared to takeheart and daily to become stronger and bolder.After the Vyazma disaster, Zhukov had beenrecalled from Leningrad to take over the WestFront and there began a period of frantic re­organization and movement of reinforcementformations from the Far East Maritime Provincesto meet the renewal of the German offensivewhich, as the Kremlin knew, must come as soonas the November frosts had hardened the groundagam.

Hitler's final 194' offensive was ncar-disastrousto the German troops. In bitter cold, withoutwinter clothing or equipment or any reserves oftroops or ammunition, the three German armygroups in the east attacked eastward towardsTikhvin and Finland, Moscow and the Caucasus.The Red Army defenders, unlike the Tsaristforces or their fathers in the White or Red Guardsduring the Civil \Var, were tolerably well clothedand armed despite the pre\'ious summer'senormous losses in equipment. By the first week inDecember the German troops had come to a finalhalt in Tikhvin, in the Moscow outskirts hardly

A eonunJ...... (aoee the ,tal' aad lu..n>.nJ.er-aDd-alcll.ledevice _ the lefe IIHYe) of the Red Air Force nadlacScall.n', order of the day (nua P,ao4a. Date probably• MlY·~

Red Air Forc:e officer ~re""'l l.a froliC of ... :£R 11 med.l1Ullbomber, pro'-bly l.a I~. (Imperial War Mu_um)

twenty miles from the Kremlin, and in Rostov, thegateway to the Caucasus. A week later they werepulling back with the Red Army in pursuit. ArmyGroup Centre, to the west of Moscow, in constantdanger of encirclement and destruction, retreatedover the next three months nearly 200 miles to thewcst. Not before the beginning of April was theGerman line stabilized.

The Red Army had successfully withstood oneyear of war and, at great cost to itself, hadinflicted a serious check on the WthnnQcht.German losses in the east in this first year of wartotalled nearly 300,000 dead and missing and800,000 wounded. In addition the bitter winterweather and the effects ofexposure without properclothing had caused the admission of nearly half amillion sick to hospital; of these, the 228,000frostbite cases were likely to result in prolonged,or permanent, absence from dut),. The Red Armylosses for the first year of war have never beenadmitted but were probably in the region of sixmillion; the Germans held over three million RedArmy men prisoners.

By 1942 Hitler had lost interest in taking Moscowor advancing to the Archangel-Astrakhan line.Instead he decided to occuP)' the industrial areaof the Doneu Basin in the East Ukraine and securefor Germany the rich deposits of oil in theCaucasus. To this master strategic plan the FUhrer

27

" ."l1Ior U"ut,,-.t or ca ry La th" hom" "...nee tuAlc,_riD, hU b ...c". cro ed. m. ho...." I••nam,,_ lUld notP"Ih&JD.hlued. Date I~. (Imperial War Munwn)

began to add subsidiary tasks, an advance to theTurkish frontier, the capture of the Black Seanaval ports and the cutting of the Volga river andrail traffic in the area of Tsaritsyn, renamedStalingrad since 1925.

Meanwhile Stalin and Timoshenko had beenpreparing their own major summer offensive; bychance they had chosen exactly the same sector onwhich the initial German attack was to fall. TheRed Army completed its preparations first; inMay 1942 the South and South·West Frolltsstrucka massive blow in the area to the south·east ofKharkov. The Red Army had a considerableinitial success. But the German counter-offensivecaught them unawares, and within a week theSouth-West Front had beendecisivelydefeated witha loss of 200,000 prisoners. Subsequent operationsdeveloped into a rapid pursuit which took theGermans 400 miles to the cast, to the Volga andStalingrad and to the summit of the Caucasus.

Yet, by the autumn of '942, the city of Stalin­grad had still not been completely cleared, for theRed Army enemy hung on tenaciously to part ofthe western bank. The Volga river traffic hadadmittedly been stopped up, but little oil hadbeen captured in the Caucasus, as the oil fieldshad been handed over to the fire-raisers. Yet fromthe Soviet side the situation appeared very grave.

After the summer defeats Timoshenko had losthis command. He was to continue to hold activeappointments but his star was already on thewane. Budenny and Voroshilov had been dis­credited as field commanders and had now been

28

relegated to training or organizing inspectorates.Shaposhnikov had finally, in midsummer 1942,resigned his post of Chief of General Staff toVasile\'Sky, a comparatively unknown generalstaffofficer. Zhukov, still with the West Front. hadbeen appointed Deputy Supreme Commanderand detached to the Stalingrad area. The frontcommanders in the Volga-Don area were all newmen, most of them from the cavalry, Vatutin,Rokossovsky, ~'Ilalinovsky and Eremenko. Withthem was Stalin's henchman, commissar Khrush­chev, forging a new and second Tsaritsyn Group,a clique bound by personal associations andloyalties to Khrushchev, to whom some of themwere to owe their high appointments after Stalin'sdeath.

At Hitler's order the German troops of 6 Army,impervious to mounting casualties, continuedtheir fanatical attacks on the burnt-out shell ofStalingrad, Commanded, even bullied, by Stalin,Eremenko's Red Army men held doggedly on tothe narrow rubble-strewn strip of the Volga rightbank. But the German defeat came not in theruins of Stalingrad but far to the rear on the rightDon flank, which was hdd by Romanian, Italianand Hungarian troops. For while Eremenko heldthe Germans on the Volga, Vatutin and Rokos­so\'sky mounted a November joint offensh'esouthward across the Don, aimed at linking upwith Eremenko's left flank. The German allieseQuid nOt hold and only four days after the attackPaulus's 6 German Army and part of 4 PanzerArmy had been encircled at Stalingrad.

Paulus might have broken out, but the Germandictator ordered that he remain. No German

Paraoud.u about to tak" off. Not" th" .ecoDd O".tparachu1". (Novosd Pft.. "'''Dey)

reserves were available to mount an immediaterelief operation and by the time that they hadbeen assembled they themselves were in danger ofencirclement by further Soviet offensives mountedhigher up the Oon. By 2 February 1943 the wholeof the Stalingrad enclave had been overrunby Rokossovsky's troops, and 6 Army, made upof over twenty German divisions, had beendestroyed. Between 200,000 and 300,000 Germantroops were permanently lost.

This was the first great victory of the war wonby the Red Army and its most significant aspectwas the ability with which the Soviet High Com­mand and the more senior field commandershandled the large tank and mechanized forces.Much cavalry remained, however, for largenumbers of Red cavalry divisions forming part ofthe mobile troops took part in the offensive andwere to continue in being until the end of the war.In the German Army, on the other hand, the onlycavalry division in the entire order of battle hadalready been converted to a panzer division.

Now came a full return to the Imperial Armyof the Tsars. The rank designation of 'officer' wasintroduced. New officer uniforms appeared withbraid and shoulder-board epaulettcs, the newrank insignia being so close to that of the 1914Russian Army that if any of the former generalsmurdered by the Bolsheviks could have beenrestored to life and rank, they would have feltthoroughly at home. The wheel had turned fullcircle.

There \vas a general relaxation of politicaltension and the military commanders of forma­tions and units, lower than those of the army,became solely responsible for their own actionsjlhe political commissars were once more sub­ordinate to the military.

fiom Victory toVictoryAfter Stalingrad the Red Army never lost a majorbattle; the WthrmD,ht never won a lasting success.The German troops fell back rapidly from theCaucasus into the Ukraine. Hitler's obdurateinsistence on rigidly holding ground gave the Redenemy the tactical and strategic initiative. The

A coloael weariD, tile 1943 .bow.du-boo-..... aad the Orderof the Red er. SLa~ tllls is in blsck and wbhe hi. armC&IlDOI be Id d6ed. (Imperial War MIl"'u.m)

dispersal of German troops over Western Europe,Scandinavia, the Mediterranean and the wholeof the thousand-mile-Iong eastern front renderedboth troops and resources insufficient for the taskin hand. Meanwhile Soviet armament productioncontinued to rise, the '944 figures totalling 29,000tanks and 32,000 aircraft of all types.

In July 1943 the German Fuhrer mounted hislast major offensive in the east at the battle ofKursk, aimed at enveloping Rokossovsky's andVatutin's fronts. The offensive was a bloody andcostly failure; the Germans made no furtherattempt to regain the strategic initiative.

Throughout the remainder of 1943 and untilthe middle of 1944 fierce fighting continued aboutLeningrad and the Belorussian borderlands. Butthe main German defeats were in the forcedevacuation of the Ukraine; the battles at Cherkasy­Korsun and the Crimea caused heavy Germanlosses. By June 1944 the Russians were on the

29

A compari_a bcfWftIl ....e raIlk u..traIa of thelm.perial Rudaa AnDy In J94 aDd the ReelAnny Ja 1943- (Toplldt) Ueateaaat-seQenJ ofthe Imperial Anny, thr« .Uver ,tars OD

rn-_a plplDc with dOllble-.h_ded ....140 ODb..... buuon, baclot:ro!;UId &II of lold lactJ (rilht)Ueute-.nt1e:aen.l of LIoe Red Anny, two aU""r.tan willa plpl.aa aDd baekanl1md of the 1914colour hut with live ba... orplpla,l.atead ofau.; &.ad tlae 11...... buuoa carrie. _laam~Lhdevtee. (Below: Idt) The 1914 ,crJn.rIC of e-rclWa.try baa the double _.1" button, tloree0nul.l"e ban aD La olIve_khaki badl,rolUld,_d• border ar'I'Ma plpln,; (tilbt) the 1943 butto.i •• fiv".pobned .tar, tbe .epanl.te M ... are"lan1 .pintt .. khak.I bac:k,round, and theplpiDJ J. maleru..

Romanian border. That month, shortly after theAnglo-Americans had landed in Normandy,Zhukov and Vasilevsky, co-ordinating operationsin Belorussia, East Poland and Galicia, and bythen both Marshals of the Soviet Union, gainedone of the greatest victories of the war whenthey enveloped and almost completely destroyedBusch'!> Army Group Centre, twenty-eightdivisions strong, where the German losses totallednearly 300,000 men. In the far north near Lenin­grad another newly promoted Marshal, Govorov,once a White Guard officer, attacked both into theBaltic and into Finland, forcing the Finns out ofthe war.

In the south, Timoshenko had been gtven

Because the Soviet Union had political andterritorial pretensions in the Far East, Stalin wasanxious to be in at the kill when the Japanese

qtlefircast

another strategic command controlling the twofronts which invaded Romania in August 1944.The Romanians had in fact already sought peace.The reconstituted 6 German Army insideRomania was enveloped and encircled, and about180,000 men disappeared. Within a matter ofweeks Red Army troops had crossed the Romanianborders into Hungary and part of Yugoslavia.

By the beginning of J945 Anglo-Americanforces were on the Rhine while the Red Armylined the Vistula in Poland. German troops hadbeen driven out of the Baltic States and weredefending East Prussia.

The last two major operations of the war on theeastem front involved the fighting across Polandfrom the Vistula to the Oder and then, after apause for build-up and reorganization, the finaloffensive from the Oder, across Mecklenburg,Brandenburg and Saxony, to the Elbe, where ajunction was made with Anglo-American troops.For this final phase of the war Vasilevsky, havinggiven up his post as Chief of General Staff toAntonov, took the overall command of operationsto reduce East Prussia, where German troops heldout with biuer fanaticism. Zhukov was in com­mand of the froOl to the west of Berlin. Zhukov'sI Belorussian and Konev's I Ukrainian Frontsincluded ten armies, of which two were tank, andwhich jointly numbered 163 divisions, 6,400tanks, 4,700 aircraft and 2,200,000 men. Aboutthe same number of men were involved in theOder operation.

So ended what was probably the greatest warin the long history of Germany and Russia.German losses on the eastcm front from June 1941to April 1945 numbered ',001,000 dead, 3,966,000wounded and ',288,000 missing, in all just oversix million. The Red Army casualties have neverbeen given but, including the known six millionprisoners, probably amounted in all to aboutfourteen million men.

30

A 45 mm aIld-taDk ia acdoa, probably ia 194). Note theqailted dotlalq of the crew. (bzaperiaJ War M_)

Empire was destroyed. Yet in fact the nitedStates no longer needed Soviet help in overcomingJapan and regarded Soviet participation withsome mistrust.

As soon as the war against Germany had beenended, Red Army formations were moved to theFar East until the build·up there totalled abouteighty divisions of 1,600,000 men with a very largetank component. Vasilevsky was appointed to theoverall command, the three new fronts (the Trans­baikal and J and 2 Far East Fronts) being com­manded by Malinovsky, Meretskov and Purkaev,another veteran of the fighting against theGermans.

By then, however, the Japanese had already putout feelers for peace. On 6 and 9 August 1945 thetwo atomic bombs were dropped from UnitedStates aircraft on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; theRed Army troops, bringing forward their in·vasion date, cro~ the Manchurian frontier. Thecampaign, such as it was, lasted only five daysduring which there was much movement but onlylimited fighting, and on 14 August the Japanesesurrendered unconditionally to all the allies.

qtie eJOViefU1m2J'In March 1946 Stalin, who had delved intoTsarist history to provide for himself the militaryrank of Gtn"a/issimo, handed over his post asCommissar for Defence to Bulganin, a trustedparty member and henchman who had servedthroughout the war as a political commissar withthe Red Army and was said, at the time of theCivil War, to have been a Chekisl. The name,'The Red Army', was abolished at about this timeand replaced by the new title of 'The SovietArmy'.

The High Command remained little altered.Vasilevsky returned to his old post as Chief ofGeneral Staff, henceforth known as the GeneralStaff of the Soviet Army and Tavy, and Antonovslipped down to become once more his deputy. Anew post had been created, the Chiefof the SovietGround Forces, held first by Zhukov until byStalin's order he was relegated to obscurity, and

31

then by Konev. Marshal Sokolovsky. a formerfront commander and chief of staff. commandedthe Soviet troops in Germany .....hile Rokossovsky.....as Commander-in-Chief in Poland. Three yearslater. ho.....ever. in 1949. Stalin reorganized theHigh Command once more. The Soviet Navy,which had been controlled from the Ministry ofDefence since 1941, was hived off yet again andseparate Ministries of War and of the Navy cameinto being. replacing the Ministry of Defence.Bulganin loS( his appointment and Vasilevskyreturned to Moscow to become Chief of GeneralStaff.

At the beginning of 1953. with the so-calleddiscovery of the doctors' plot, there was reason tobelieve that another great purge was pending inthe Soviet Union. Even Molotov, Mikoyan andVoroshilov were said to be in danger of their lives.Within the month Stalin was dead.

r:/Ie:Yr(odem r:/IrmyIn the interval between the Fim and the SecondWorld Wars Stalin and his principal militaryleaders. Voroshilov, Budenny and Tukhachevsky,had been obsessed with their military experiencesand what they chose to call the lessons oflhe CivilWar. For none of them had seen any real fightingagainst the Central Powers. After 1945 Stalin and

his military staffs lived and relived the battles ofthe Second World War. and for many yearsappeared to disregard the possible effect of atomicor nuclear weapons on the development of armedforces. Meanwhile every effort was made com­pletely to mechanize the armed forces, for thegreater part of the Red Army in 1945 had stillrelied on horse-drawn transport and guns. Themass production of new tanks, armoured carriersand radio was also given great priority, so that bythe mid-'fifties the Soviet Army began to take onthe new image of a heavily armoured andmotorized force. In the event, almost by accidentrather than far-sighted design. the Soviet Unionhad developed ground forces suitable for bothnuclear and non-nuclear war.

In 1953 the USSR fired a nuclear device and,four yurs later, its first intercontinental ballisticmissile. Shortly after t957 the first tactical andfield strategic missiles began to appear with theground forces.

Following Stalin's death the Ministry ofDefence, again under Bulganin, replaced theMinistries ofWar and of the avy, with Vasilevskyas the First Deputy and Zhukov as the SecondDeputy and Commander of the Ground Forces.Govorov, an artillery officer, remained as Com­mander of the Air Defences. Two years later thecollective leadership began to break up, Khrush­chev emerging as the dominant figure with Bul·ganin as the titular Premier. Zhukov became

Red Anay caval.,.. Dear Kursk ale 1943. (lmperial WarM~)

32

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Minister for Defence. Khrushchev's secondTsaritsyn Group then came to the fore. MarshalMalinovsky became the Commander of theGround Forces and Eremenko, Bagramyan.Chuikov, Grechko and others who had beenclosely associated with Khrushchev on the Volgaand the Don and in the Ukraine were rapidlypromoted to Marshal's rank. Before the end of1956, however, Khmshchev had begun to find thearrogant and loud-mouthed Zhukov both aninconvenience and an embarrassment. particularlyas he may have relied on Zhukov's support duringhis struggle for power. Zhukov was removed fromall his offices, being replaced as Minister of De­fence by Malinovsky. Grechko became tht Chiefof the Ground Forces.

By 1957 the Soviet Army had become com­pletely modernized, backed by a strong fighter.bomber, ground-attack, air transport and heli­copter force. It was still a conscript army, therecruit being called up at the age of nineteen andserving for three years before being discharged tothe reserve. Marriage allowance was not normally

Ardllery 1__ brfaclq ap Hmbers loa.ded witham.o:allAidoa"- Addle..,., Co 194J.(lmpnUI War Maaeam)

admissible and a private soldier's pay was about30 roubles or £3 a month (compared with amajor's pay of£'200 and a major-general's ofover£400 a month). A soldier's life was no morepopular in the Soviet Army than it was in theTsarist Army and it proved difficult, and some­times impossible, to induce trained soldiers toextend their ~rvice, in spite of the very attracti\"emonetary awards and a greatly inAated rate ofpayfor extended servicemen. The pattern of military

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33

A J_eC Sallit::ll taDk la 1"5. me ",",o.e powerful Red Ann)'taDk of the _ ... (Imperial Wa.. MUHuzn)

conscription in J957 was in fact little differentfrom that in Tsarist days before the First WorldWar. There was virtually no reserve of officers,except the elderly who had been retired onaccount of age, and there was no corps of long·service non-commissioned officers..

In some respects the Russian soldier hadchanged little since Tsarist days. He was cheerfuland hardy, yet at the same time, unless kept to hisduty, lethargic and apathetic. Propaganda andthe presence of secret informers had made him, jfanything, even more suspicious than his grand·father. He lived in fear of the communist regime,yet was sufficiently credulous to believe what ittold him. He was still prone to rapid changes ofmood. In many respects still very primitive, hehad a flair for improvisation; he was different fromthe earlier generation in that he often had con­siderable mechanical aptitude and could usuallyread and write Russian. Many of the recruits hadan advanced education.

The military command system, introduced byTrotsky as a temporary measure and bitterly

34

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attacked by Stalin at the time, had apparentlystood the test of the years, for it remained in '957very much as Trotsky and Lenin had designed it.In addition the Soviet Army, in common with allthe armed forces, contained as part of its perma­nent organization organs of the secret police,known before the war as the NKVD and subse­quently as the KGB. The commissar was aprofessional commissioned military officer withadditional and specialized political training; hewore the military uniform and rank badges of thearm to which he was accredited, and his trueidentity was seen only by the stitched red star andhammer-and-sickle emblem on his sleeve. TheNKVD/KGB policeman, on the other hand, worethe uniform and insignia of any arm he pleased.

The year 1957 left the Soviet Army and theother armed forces in a state of continued re­organization. For the Soviet Union was in thethroes offorming a fifth arm, the Strategic RocketForces, separate from the air, air defence, ground,and naval forces. The actual peacetime size of theSoviet Army at this time has been generally

Red AnDy ial_try D.~ IOhuc,bere 1945••uppol'ted by aSU 76 JJV(a 76_ (1UI OD a T,o dl....u}.(lmperial W.rMa_)

assumed by western commentators to be about 175divisions, with a war reserve potential of perhapsdouble this figure. The same commentators nowbelieve that the introduction of the StrategicRocket Forces together with the difficulty inmanning the increasingly complex modern equip­ment may have resulted in a substantial reductionin the peace strength of the ground forces belowthis figure.

UnifOrmsUntil about 1940, the uniforms of the Red Armywere among the simplest in the world and, exceptfor the very few orders and medals awarded by theSoviet government, bore no decoration or colourexcept for that of the red star, the badges of rankand the colour patches of the arm ofservice. In theattempt to emphasize the break with the oldTsarist regime, the wearing of swords, shoulder.boards and gold and silver braid was condemned

as relics of reactionary imperialism. The oldpattern swords soon reappeared, however, and by'924 few of the old revolutionaries on the salutingbase in Red Square did not feel out of placewithout one.

The new rank designations and badges wereadmittedly much different from those of pre·wardays. Yet the new revolutionary army soon beganto take on many of the aspects and customs of theold. Most of the equipment dated before 1914.The infantryman carried the greatcoat slung overthe left shoulder or strapped round the pack;bayonet scabbards were dispensed with and thebayonet was always carried fixed to the rifle. Thecavalryman always slung the carbine over the leftshoulder; Cossacks, when re-formed in 1936,continued, as in Tsarist days, to wear the rifle overthe right. The Cossacks took the colours of theirold Hosts, scarlet for the Don, crimson for theKuban, and light blue for the Terek. Officers'ranks were eventually reintroduced. From October1935 onwards there was a movement away fromthe previous policy of providing the soldier with a

35

-It. Red Army Conunaad Ift'up 10 Budapest 1956 __d.wicbed betweftl two APe. DR IS:L It. colo",,,,1 or ardlJery.d......o;:es ~1-u.,ly 00 me pbotos...pber, dn.wU.s 1:I.itI

uniform with the minimum of regard for orna­mental effect; now a close fitting jacket and slackswere approved for officers and extended service­men for both walking-out and evening wear. By'941 this second uniform was being produced indifferent colours and varying designs for differentarms, blue for the air force and dark grey for thearmoured and mechanized troops. Rank badgeswere altered once more.

At the beginning of 1943 a new pattern ofuniform was introduced, based on that used inTsarist times. The word 'officer' was taken backinto use; the broad shoulder-boards in gold andsilver were worn once more, those for general

36

pl'IOI a. be do.... IJO. Bebind hUn .. coloDel of tau .roop.J••houdar. The officer OD .he f.r lef. i •• tank ..,.-.a. TheolheNl .ppesr '0 be laf_trpaltD. (HuJ'OD)

officers and non-commissioned officers being soclose to those of a generation before that theuninformed observer could hardly tell the differ­ence. Uniforms, for officers and extended service·men, became more colourful.

This trend continued after the Second WorldWar. In 1955 and '959 there were further changeswhich introduced a new range of uniforms andmodernized the design of the older patterns. Asthe new were added to the old, the Soviet Armybegan to appear in a wide variety of dress whichhas made identification and categorization a veryintricate task. This process has continued into the'sixties and the 'seventies.

C]/ie 'PlatesAI Army Commanda ofSecond Rank, c. 1926This commander, who in 1926 was nOl entitled tocall himself either general or officer, had in factthe rank equivalent to that of the lauer-daycolonel-general. He wears the plain Red Armydoth shako with side flaps which can be let downto cover the cars and the back of the neck, and hisgreatcoat is of a rough, soldier pauern almost likea heavy blanket in texture. This has no buttonsbut is secured with lines ofhooks so that additionalunderclothing can be worn in winter. The fourrhomboids on the collar patch are the onlyinsignia of rank. The Order of the Red Banner isworn on the left breast without a ribbon. Thesword is of particular interest since it is of TsariSlpattern, the red stitching on the scabbard possiblyindicating that it is of Cossack origin from the oldCaucasian Line Host. More interesting still is thefact that the scabbard is being worn back to front.A photograph taken two years before in RedSquare showed that hardly any tWO senior officersdressed alike, some apparently having their beltson upside down.

A2 Marshal of the Sovid UniM, e. 1936This was the first of the general officer ranks to betaken into use. The star has appeared as aninsignia of rank, together with gold braid andsleeve chevrons. Decorations are no longer wornon the greatcoat, but the main difference fromplate AI is in the quality of the senior officer'sclothing.

A3 Lieutenant-General of Infantry, e. 1941By 1941 the collar rank badges for all generalofficers carried stars instead of rhomboids, thebackground colour of the collar patch for ranks ofcolond-general and below differing according toarm, crimson for infantry, blue for cavalry, lightblue for air force and black for artillery andarmour. The uniform, well cut and ofgood qualitycloth, was the foruunnerofthat to ap~ar in '943as a general issue for all officers. Rank can be

distinguished both by the collar patch and thesleeve chevron. This officer's decorations, readfrom the top and from left to right, show him to bea deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, andto have been awarded the Order of Lenin, theOrder of the Red Banner and the Red Star, andthe Medal for Twenty Years' Service in the RedArmy.

Bl Trooper ofCavalry, SumTnh Home Service Uniform,c.19j!JIn 1938 the Soviet Union had the largest cavalryforce in the world. and, together with the artillery,it was probably the best disciplined and trainedarm of the Red Army. The cavalryman no longercarried the Tsarist lance but was armcd with theM 20 7,62 mm Masin Nagan carbine, which wasa shorter version of lhe 91/30 riAe, and, like theTsarist cavalry, carried a bayonet as well as theTsarist (or the later universal pattern 27) sabre.When fighling dismounted, he llsually left thesword on the saddle. Some soldiers, whose dUliesrequired it, were armed with the Nagan re\,olverrather than the carbine. The French-pattern steelhelmet was very common at about this time.Horse furniture consisted of leather Tsaristdragoon saddles, numnahs and webbing girths,sometimes leather surcingles, and the doublebridle Pelham port-mouth bits similar to thoseused by British cavalry. Rifles were always slungover the left shoulder to distinguish cavalry fromCossacks.

82 Private of infantry, Winter Field Service Uniform,e. /937This typical conscript on the march is equippedwith the 91/30 Mosin Nagan rifle (see also plateBI). His right and left ammunition pouches do notmatch and he has removed his water-bottle fromthe hooks at the back ofhis belt, thrusting the coverflap through his waistband. A respirator is slungover his right shoulder. One of the features of theRed Army at this time (as of the old ImperialAnny) was lack of uniformity of pattern ofequipment and dress, even within the same unit.Several patterns of steel helmet existed, but thetype shown here later became the standard type.

37

83 PrilJ(J/~ of Infantry, Slimmer Fi~1d S~ruic~ Uniform,c. '937Except for his forage-cap (pilolka) , this infantryprivate is hardly to be distinguished from a soldierin Tsarist times. The pullover tunic (gimnasttrka)was used before the First World War and the beltand equipment are of Tsarist pattern, togetherwith the method of carrying Ihe rolled greatcoateither strapped to the pack or thrown across theleft shoulder. The ammunition pouches are, how­ever, ofSoviet pattern although these also are verysimilar to those used in 1914. The rifle is of the'299 inch 1891 pattern (mounted type) with a boltaction and five·round magazine, which in '930was mass-produced as Ihe Masin Nagan M 91/30taking the 7·62 mm round. It is four feet long, fivefeet five inches long with the bayonet fixed, and iseffective up to about 600 yards. The bayonet wasnormally carried fixed and not in a scabbard. Thesteel helmet was not a general issue even in war­lime.

C, Major ofArmoured Troops, Home Service Uniform,(. '941Whereas crimson (later magenta) has alwaysdistinguished infantry from other arms, Ihe airforce have worn light blue; the cavalry, blue;artillery and engineers, black; and armouredtroops, black velvet; this latter colour beingassociated with grey. Rank can be read off fromthe collar patches and cuff chevrons.

C2 Priuale of Infanlry, Ski Troops Winler FieldService U"iform, c. 1912Ski troops were used to good effect against theGerman winler retreat before Moscow, forharassing and long-range penetration, carryinglittle equipment and relying on the local popula­tion to provide food and shelter. An entrenchingtool, however. is carried by this soldier, togetherwith a haversack and a M 40 Tokarev gas­operated self-loading rifle.

C3 Colonel of th~ Red Air Force, Honu StTuiceUniform, c. '941The Red Air Force is a component of the RedArmy and did not exist as a separate independentarm. In the field it wore khaki uniform with thelight-blue facings on the arm of service patches.

38

This particular home service uniform, except 10

the colour ohhe material, is the same as that wornby the armoured troops (plate CI). The onlydecoration. the Order of the Red Star, worn bythis colonel in '941 on the left breast, was laterto be worn on the right breast.

Dl Sergeant ofArmoured Troops, Parad~ Dress, c. 1945This sergeant is carrying the 7.62 mm M 40Degtyarev LMG used both by infantry andarmoured fighting vehicles. It is a gas-operatedair-cooled weapon with a folding bipod and aneffective range of perhaps 800 yards. It is fittedwith a .50·round drum magazine. The soldier'smedals include, on the right breast, a SecondClass Order of the Fatherland War, and on hisleft, the Order of Glory Class Three, the Medal forVictory over Germany and the Berlin Medal.

D2 infantry Machine-Gunner, Winter Field ServiceUniform, c. 1943During the Second World War the field serviceuniform consisted of a wide variety of clothing,depending on what was available. In the coldestofweather the more fortunate had quilted clothingand felt boots. But some, like this machine-gunnerphotographed at the time of Stalingrad, wereprovided only with essentials: a 7.62 mm PPSh.M 194' sub-machine-gun without bayonet withthe 7o-round drum magazine; a fur cap oflamb's-wool with let-down ear flaps; a greatcoat;ankle boots and puttees, possibly of English origin;a tic-up knapsack which serves as pack and a messand cooking tin. His machine-gun, which he andhis number two will drag into action, is an oldpattern Maxim M 10 7·62 mm water-cooled andrecoil-operated, fired from the wheeled carriageand trail It has an effective range of about 2,000

yards.

D3 Army General in Parad~ Dress, c. '944This particular pattern drCS!5 in olive-khaki waslater to appear in dark blue. It is designed verymuch on Tsarist lines with the old Imperialshoulder-boards in gold lace. The wearer, who likemany of his rank is in his early fortit5, is wearingthe scarlet ribbon and insignia of the Gold Star,this indicating that he is a Hero of the SovietUnion and a holder of the Order of Lenin; his

medal ribbons show thal he also holds the Orderof Suvorov Second Class, the Order of BogdanKhmelnitsky First Class and the Order of the RedStar.

E/ Wa"ant Officer oj InJantry, Summer Field ServiceOrder c. /953When full marching order was not carried thegreatcoat was slung across the left shoulder. Thesoldier who, as indicated by his long-service medal,now worn on the right breast, has already servedtwenty years in the Red Army, is armed with theM 44 7.62 mm carbine with a ~rmanendy

attached folding bayonet.

£2 Tank Commander Officer or Sergeant, Field ServiceUniform, c. 1953Since '941 tank crews could be recognized easilyby their dark clothing and distinctive tank helmetwhich is padded and fur-lined, with protectiveribs for the top of the head. In the 'fifties radioearpieces and a throat-speaker were being incor­porated into the design. Tank crews wore a dark­brown or black leather jacket, sometimes withloose overall trousers, or alternatively a set ofblack button-up overalls similar, except for thecolour, to those worn by Soviet parachute troops.

£3 Lieutenant of Artillery, Summer Field Seruice Order,c. /955This officer is in an observation post waiting toaccompany attacking infantry on to their objective.He controls the supporting fire of his own batteryand other artillery that might be linked in withthe radio net, through the man-pack radio stationwhich he carries on his back. He usually has asingle earpiece and a microphone receiver on aface frame. His pistol might he a 7·6 mm M 33,looking very much like a United States ServiceColt, or possibly a 9 mm Makarov blowbackautomatic. The officer is wearing the khaki­backed field service shoulder-boards.

Fl Colonel of InJantry, Parade Dress, c. /956By 1956 there was a proliferation of new uniforms.This steel-grey uniform is for field and juniorofficers, whereas generals wore a very similaruniform in dark blue. The dress as worn here is for

evemng wear or for informal occasions. Forparades, orders and medals are worn along theleft lapel, instead of the medal ribbons, togetherwith a gold and white silk belt to which is attachedan ornamental dagger or dirk.

F2 Private of InJantry, Winter Field Service Order, c.1959A new pattern of pack, brace and harness hascome into use and the greatcoats are now darkgrey instead of khaki. The rifle is the self-loading7·62 mm Simonov with a folding bayonet ~rma­nendy attached to the rifle.

F3 Private oj Infantry, Tropical Field Servia Uniform,c. [5)60This soldier is equipped with the Simonov rifle(bayonet folded) and is in light tropical orderwearing the desert camouflage suit with hood. Thesuit can be tucked into the boot!:. The distinctivecap is worn in summer by troops in Central Asia.

G[ Captain. oj En.gineers, Parade Uniform, c. [g{ioBlack has for long been the basic arms colour fortechnical troops. The field engineers and sappers,whose arm of service badge was a crossed-axesdevice, appear to have been absorbed into ageneral engineer corps which includes bridging,construction, works and electrical units. The newarm of service badge is an amalgam of a circular­saw blade, bulldozers, axes, anchors and electricallightning.

G2 Senior Sergeant (Extended Service) oj bifantry,Parade Uniform, c. /g61

The Red Army and lhe Soviet Army, like thelmperial Tsarist Army before them, have had nocorps of regular warrant and non-commissionedofficers and have relied on extended-service con­scripts to fill these appointments. As in Tsaristtimes there is difficulty in persuading conscriptsto extend their service in spite of financial andother encouragements. The 1959 Dress Regula­tions provided the extended-service soldier withanother inducement in the form of a parade dressvery much like that of an officer. The issue of thisuniform was later to be extended to othercategories.

39

G3 LancNorjNrra/ (Efrtilor) of Infantry, ParadeUniform. c. 1961This Eftnlor, or private first class, is wearing theissue uniform for conscripts. Sometimes additionalcoloured gorget patches are worn on the collar ofthe tunic. His fully automatic machine-carbine(sub-machinc-gun) is the Kalashnikov, originallya copy of the German 7'92 mm machine pistol 43which it much resembles in design. The Sovietweapon fires 7.62 mm standard rimless ammuni­tion and has good range and stopping power. Ithas been produced in several varieties of pattern.It can be fitted with a bayonet.

HI Corporal (Junior Strgeanl) of Infantry, SummerBaUlt Order, c. IgfilThe traditional Tsarist gimnaslirka is still in usetogether with khaki field shoulder-boards ofa typewhich first appeared in 1914 and were used againduring the Second World War. The rank badgesare in roo and not gold or claret. The equipment,which is pardy of leather and pardy of plastic-

40

covered webbing, is of a new pattern. The soldieris armed with the Kalashnikov fully automaticmachine-carbine.

H2 Privatt of Infantry in Summrr Full MarchingOrder, 1961The mainstay of the infantry section is tneSimonov-rifle-armed private, loaded with respi­rator, water-bottle, entrenching tool, paek ar.dfolded greatcoal, ammunition pouches andgrenad~holders.

H3 CerttrWnial Guard, c. 1¢7This soldier on ceremonial guard duty in thecapital is wearing a uniform which would notnormally be found in ordinary units. The fur capwith its let-down ear-flaps is of excellent quality.The stylish and well-cut greatcoat is shown by the1959 Regulations to be one of officers' pattern asis the gilt belt. The silk scarf is another unusualaddition.

Men-at-Arms Series

Each title in this series gives a brief history ofa famous fighting unit, with a fulldescription of its dress and accoutrements, illustrated with eight colour platesand many drawings and photographs. Collectors of militaria, war-garners, andhistorians will find no other series of books which describe the dress of each unitso comprehensively. The series will range widely in time and terrain, with aspecial effort to include some of the lesser-known armies from other lands.About twelve titles will be published each year.

TITLES ALREADY PUBUSHED

THE STONEWALL BRIGADE John SelbyTHE BLACK WATCH Charles GrantFRENCH FOREIGN LEGION Martin WindrowFOOT GRENADIERS OF THE IMPERIAL

GUARD Charles GrolltTHE IRON BRIGADE John s<lbyCHASSEURS OF THE GUARD Pettr roungWAFFEN 58 Martin WindrowTHE COLDSTREAM GUARDS Charles CrontU.S. CAVALRY John SelbyTHE ARAB LEGION Pettr roungROYAL SCOTS GREYS Charles Grant

CQNNAUGHT RANGERS Aloll ShepperdARGYLL AND SUTHERLAND HIGH­

LANDERS William McElwee

30TH PUNJABIS James LawfordGEORGE WASHINGTON'S ARMY

Peter YoungTHE BUFFS Gregory BlaxlondLUFTWAFFE AIRBORNE AND FIELD

UNITS Martin WindrowTHE SOVIET ARMY Albert SeatonU.S. MARINE CORPS John SelbyTHE COSSACKS Albert Seaton

FUTURE TITLES INCLUDE

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR ARMIESPeltr roung

RUSSIAN ARMY OF 1812 Albert SeatonMONTCALM'S ARMY Martin WindrowWELLINGTON'S PENINSULAR ARMY

James Lawford

BLUCHER'S ARMY Peter YoungTHE PANZER DIVISIONS Martin WindrowJAPANESE ARMY OF WORLD WAR II

Philip WarnerTHE ROYAL ARTILLERY W. r. CormanTHE KING'S REGIMENT Alan Shepperd

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ALBERT SEATON (Retd.) is the author ofmany books on Russian military history; his The'Russo-Gemzan War 1941-45 isprobably the only complete and authoritative account published in the freeworld, and has appeared in London, New York and Frankfurt. Among hisrecentlv Dublished works is The Battle for Moscow; Stalin as Military Commander

is at present engaged on the writing of

SBN 85045 1132