Workers' and Peasants' Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian SFSR from 1918 to 1922 and the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1946.

History

Five-Year Plans

The People's Commissar of Defense, Kliment Voroshilov, ended control of political commissars over army leadership in May 1927. In 1930, the army had substantial kulak influence, and 10% of its officers had served in the Tsarist army before the revolution.

From 1933 to 1940, the Red Army's budget grew from 1.5 billion rubles to 57 billion in preparation for an invasion by Nazi Germany, which eventually came on 22 June 1941. The size of the army increased by 150% between 1939 and 1941.

From 1930 to 1938, annual production of tanks rose from 740 to 2,271 and planes rose from 860 to 5,500. Defense industry production rose by an additional 39% from 1938 to 1940. Production of T-34 tanks began in 1940, and 1,851 were already complete by the beginning of the German invasion.

Purges

In 1936, the government of Czechoslovakia discovered a pro-German conspiracy in the Red Army and notified Stalin. The pro-German elements of the army were purged and the political commissar system of the Civil War was reintroduced. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and several commanders were executed in May 1937 for planning to assassinate Stalin.

Great Patriotic War

The Soviet Union produced 16,000 airplanes in 1941, the majority of them after the invasion had begun. In 1942, the Soviet Union produced 23,000 tanks, 25,000 airplanes, and 34,000 heavy guns.

The Nazis refused to feed Soviet prisoners of war and killed at least 3,289,000 of them, often using poison gas or lethal injection.

General Andrei Vlasov became a Nazi collaborator in 1942 after Germany captured him. He formed the Russian Liberation Army to fight against the Soviet Union.