Soviet Army

The Soviet Army[lower-alpha 1] or Soviet Ground Forces[lower-alpha 2][2] was the main land warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992.

This article is about the Soviet Army between 1946 and 1991. For the Soviet Army from 1918 to 1946, see Red Army.

Soviet Army
Советская армия
Emblem of the Soviet Army
Founded25 February 1946
Disbanded14 February 1992
Country
TypeArmy
RoleLand warfare
Size
  • 3,668,075 active (1991), peak 14,332,483 in 1945)
  • 4,129,506 reserve (1991), peak 17,383,291 in 1945
Nickname(s)"Red Army"
Motto(s)За нашу Советскую Родину!
Za nashu Sovetskuyu Rodinu!
"For our Soviet Motherland!"
ColorsRed and yellow
Equipment
  • About 55,000 tanks (1991)[1]
  • Over 70,000 armored personnel carriers[1]
  • 24,000 infantry fighting vehicles
  • 33,000 towed artillery pieces
  • 9,000 self-propelled howitzers
Engagements
Commanders
Notable
commanders		Georgy Zhukov

Until 25 February 1946, it was known as the Red Army.[3] In Russian, the term armiya (army) was often used to cover the Strategic Rocket Forces first in traditional Soviet order of precedence; the Ground Forces, second; the Air Defence Forces, third, the Air Forces, fourth, and the Soviet Navy, fifth, among the branches of the Soviet Armed Forces as a whole.[4]

After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under the command of the Commonwealth of Independent States until it was formally abolished on 14 February 1992. The Soviet Ground Forces were principally succeeded by the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation in Russian territory; beyond, many units and formations were taken over by the post-Soviet states; some were withdrawn to Russia, and some dissolved amid conflict, notably in the Caucasus.

After World War II

At the end of World War II the Red Army had over 500 rifle divisions and about a tenth that number of tank formations.[5] Their war experience gave the Soviets such faith in tank forces that the infantry force was cut significantly. A total of 130 rifle divisions were disbanded in the Groups of Forces in Eastern Europe in summer 1945, as well as 2nd Guards Airborne Division, and by the end of 1946, another 193 rifle divisions ceased to exist.[6] Five or more rifle divisions disbanded contributed to the formation of NKVD convoy divisions, some used for escorting Japanese prisoners of war. The Tank Corps of the late war period were converted to tank divisions, and from 1957 the rifle divisions were converted to motor rifle divisions (MRDs). MRDs had three motorized rifle regiments and a tank regiment, for a total of ten motor rifle battalions and six tank battalions; tank divisions had the proportions reversed.

The Land Forces Main Command was created for the first time in March 1946. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov became Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces in March 1946, but was quickly succeeded by Ivan Konev in July 1946.[7] By September 1946, the army decreased from 5 million soldiers to 2.7 million in the Soviet Union and from 2 million to 1.5 million in Europe.[8] Four years later the Main Command was disbanded, an organisational gap that "probably was associated in some manner with the Korean War".[9] The Main Command was reformed in 1955. On February 24, 1964, the Defense Council of the Soviet Union decided to disband the Ground Forces Main Command, with almost the same wording as in 1950 (the corresponding order of the USSR Minister of Defense on disbandment was signed on March 7, 1964). Its functions were transferred to the General Staff, while the chiefs of the combat arms and specialised forces came under the direct command of the Minister of Defence.[10] The Main Command was then recreated again in November 1967.[11] Army General Ivan Pavlovsky was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Ground Forces with effect from 5 November 1967.[7]

From 1945 to 1948, the Soviet Armed Forces were reduced from about 11.3 million to about 2.8 million men,[12] a demobilisation controlled first, by increasing the number of military districts to 33, then reduced to 21 in 1946.[13] The personnel strength of the Ground Forces was reduced from 9.8 million to 2.4 million.[14]

To establish and secure the USSR's eastern European geopolitical interests, Red Army troops who liberated eastern Europe from Nazi rule in 1945 remained in place to secure pro-Soviet régimes in Eastern Europe and to protect against attack from Europe. Elsewhere, they may have assisted the NKVD in suppressing anti-Soviet resistance in Western Ukraine (1941–1955) and the Forest Brothers in the three Baltic states.[15] Soviet troops, including the 39th Army, remained at Port Arthur and Dalian on the northeast Chinese coast until 1955. Control was then handed over to the new Chinese communist government.

Within the Soviet Union, the troops and formations of the Ground Forces were divided among the military districts. There were 32 of them in 1945. Sixteen districts remained from the mid-1970s to the end of the USSR (see table). Yet, the greatest Soviet Army concentration was in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, which suppressed the anti-Soviet Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. East European Groups of Forces were the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, and the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary, which put down the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. In 1958, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Romania. The Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia was established after Warsaw Pact intervention against the Prague Spring of 1968. In 1969, in the far east of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Soviet border conflict (1969) prompted establishment of a 16th military district, the Central Asian Military District, at Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan.[13]

Cold War
US tanks and Soviet tanks at Checkpoint Charlie, October 1961

From 1947–1989, Western intelligence agencies estimated that the Soviet Ground Forces' strength remained c. 2.8 million to c. 5.3 million men.[12] In 1989 the Ground Forces had two million men.[16] To maintain those numbers, Soviet law required a three-year military service obligation from every able man of military age, until 1967, when the Ground Forces reduced it to a two-year draft obligation.[17] By the 1970s, the change to a two-year system seems to have created the hazing practice known as dedovshchina, "rule of the grandfathers", which destroyed the status of most NCOs.[18] Instead the Soviet system relied very heavily on junior officers.[19] Soviet Armed Forces life could be "grim and dangerous": a Western researcher talking to former Soviet officers was told, in effect that this was because they did not "value human life".[20]

By the middle of the 1980s, the Ground Forces contained about 210 divisions. About three-quarters were motor rifle divisions and the remainder tank divisions.[21] There were also a large number of artillery divisions, separate artillery brigades, engineer formations, and other combat support formations. However, only relatively few formations were fully war ready. By 1983, Soviet divisions were divided into either "Ready" or "Not Ready" categories, each with three subcategories.[22] The internal military districts usually contained only one or two fully Ready divisions, with the remainder lower strength formations. The Soviet system anticipated a war preparation period which would bring the strength of the Ground Forces up to about three million.[23]

Soviet planning for most of the Cold War period would have seen Armies of four to five divisions operating in Fronts made up of around four armies (and roughly equivalent to Western Army Groups). On 8 February 1979, the first of the new High Commands, for the Far East, was created at Ulan-Ude in Buryatia under Army General Vasily Petrov.[24][25] In September 1984, three more were established to control multi-Front operations in Europe (the Western and South-Western Strategic Directions) and at Baku to supervise three southern military districts.[26] Western analysts expected these new headquarters to control multiple Fronts in time of war, and usually a Soviet Navy Fleet.

From the 1950s to the 1980s the branches ("rods") of the Ground Forces included the Motor Rifle Troops; the Soviet Airborne Forces, from April 1956 to March 1964; Air Assault Troops (Airborne Assault Formations of the Ground Forces of the USSR, from 1968 to August 1990); the Tank Troops; the Rocket Forces and Artillery (Ракетные войска и артиллерия СССР, from 1961); Army Aviation (see ru:Армейская авиация Российской Федерации), until December 1990; Signals Troops; the Engineer Troops; the Air Defence Troops of the Ground Forces; the Chemical Troops; and the Rear of the Ground Forces.[27]

In 1955, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact with its Eastern European socialist allies, solifying military coordination between Soviet forces and their socialist counterparts. The Ground Forces created and directed the Eastern European armies in its image for the remainder of the Cold War, shaping them for a potential confrontation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, General Secretary of the Communist Party, reduced the Ground Forces to build up the Strategic Rocket Forces, emphasizing the armed forces' nuclear capabilities. He removed Marshal Georgy Zhukov from the Politburo in 1957 for opposing these reductions in the Ground Forces.[28] Nonetheless, Soviet forces possessed too few theater-level nuclear weapons to fulfill war-plan requirements until the mid-1980s.[29] The General Staff maintained plans to invade Western Europe whose massive scale was only made publicly available after German researchers gained access to files of the East German National People's Army following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[30][31]

Korean War

The Red Army advanced into northern Korea in 1945 after the end of World War II, with the intention of aiding in the process of rebuilding the country.[32] Marshals Kirill Meretskov and Terentii Shtykov explained to Joseph Stalin the necessity of Soviet help in building infrastructure and industry in northern Korea.[33] Additionally, the Soviets aided in the creation of the North Korean People's Army and Korean People's Air Force. The Soviets believed it would be strategic to the Soviet Union to support Korea's growth directly. When northern Korea eventually wished to invade South Korea in 1950, Kim Il Sung traveled to Moscow to gain approval from Stalin. It was granted with full support, leading to the full-scale invasion of South Korea on June 25.[34]

Soviet-Afghan War

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up its puppet government, provoking a 10-year Afghan mujahideen guerrilla resistance.[35] Between 850,000 and 1.5 million civilians were killed[36][37] and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.

Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the pro-Soviet Nur Mohammad Taraki government took power in a 1978 coup and initiated a series of radical modernization reforms throughout the country.[38] Vigorously suppressing any opposition from among the traditional Muslim Afghans, the government arrested thousands and executed as many as 27,000 political prisoners. By April 1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion and by December the government had lost control of territory outside of the cities.[39] In response to Afghan government requests, the Soviet government under leader Leonid Brezhnev first sent covert troops to advise and support the Afghan government, but, on December 24, 1979, began the first deployment of the 40th Army.[40] Arriving in the capital Kabul on December 27, they staged a coup,[41] killing the president Hafizullah Amin, and installing a rival socialist Babrak Karmal, who was viewed as more moderate and fit to lead the nation.[39]

While the Soviet government initially hoped to secure Afghanistan's towns and road networks, stabilize the communist regime, and withdraw from the region within the span of one year, they experienced major difficulties in the region, due to rough terrain and fierce guerrilla resistance. Soviet presence would reach near 115,000 troops by the mid-1980s, and the complications of the war increased, causing a high amount of military, economic, and political cost.[42] After Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev realized the economic, diplomatic, and human toll the war was placing on the Soviet Union, he announced the withdrawal of six regiment of troops (about 7,000 men) on 28 July 1986.[43] In January 1988 Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze announced that it was hoped that "1988 would be the last year of the Soviet troops stay"; the forces pulled out in the bitter winter cold of January–February 1989.

Military costs

The cost for the military due to the war is estimated to have been roughly 15 billion rubles in 1989. The combat casualties estimates at 30,000–35,000. During 1984–1985, more than 300 aircraft were lost, and thus a significant military cost of the war is attributed to air operations. Since the first year, the government spend roughly 2.5–3.0% of the yearly military budget on funding the war in Afghanistan, increasing steadily in cost until its peak in 1986.[44]

The Soviet Army also suffered from deep losses in morale and public approval due to the conflict and its failure. Many injured and disabled veterans of the war returned to the Soviet Union facing public scrutiny and difficulty re-entering civilian society, creating a new social group known as "Afgantsy". These men would become influential in popular culture and politics of the time.[45]

Military districts

The extent military districts in 1990 were:[46]

Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Soviet Armed Forces
Components
Ranks of the Soviet Military
History of the Soviet Military
A Russian soldier of the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division in Moscow, January 1992, a few weeks after the dissolution of the USSR. He is wearing the Soviet winter Afghanka uniform.

From 1985 to 1991, General Secretary Gorbachev attempted to reduce the strain the Soviet Armed Forces placed on the USSR's economy.

Gorbachev slowly reduced the size of the Armed Forces, including through a unilateral force reduction announcement of 500,000 in December 1988.[47] A total of 50,000 personnel were to come from Eastern Europe, the forces in Mongolia (totaling five divisions and 75,000 troops) were to be reduced, but the remainder was to come from units inside the Soviet Union. There were major problems encountered in trying to organise the return of 500,000 personnel into civilian life, including where the returned soldiers were to live, housing, jobs, and training assistance. Then the developing withdrawals from Czechoslovakia and Hungary and the changes implicit in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty began to create more disruption. The withdrawals became extremely chaotic; there was significant hardship for officers and their families, and "large numbers of weapons and vast stocks of equipment simply disappeared through theft, misappropriation and the black market."[48]

In February 1989, Defence Minister Dmitri Yazov outlined five major planned changes in Izvestiya, the Soviet official newspaper of record.[49] First, the combined arms formations, divisions and armies, would be reorganised, and as a result division numbers would be reduced almost by half; second, tank regiments would be removed from all the motor rifle (mechanised infantry) divisions in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, and tank divisions would also lose a tank regiment; air assault and river crossing units would be removed from both Eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia; fourth, defensive systems and units would rise in number under the new divisional organisation; and finally the troop level in the European part of the USSR would drop by 200,000, and by 60,000 in the southern part of the country. A number of motor-rifle formations would be converted into machine gun and artillery forces intended for defensive purposes only. Three-quarters of the troops in Mongolia would be withdrawn and disbanded, including all the air force units there.

The Armed Forces were extensively involved in the 19–21 August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Gorbachev.[50] Commanders despatched tanks into Moscow, yet the coup failed. On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine formally dissolved the USSR, and then constituted the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Soviet President Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991; the next day, the Supreme Soviet dissolved itself, officially dissolving the USSR on 26 December 1991. During the next 18 months, inter-republican political efforts to transform the Army of the Soviet Union into the CIS Armed Forces failed; eventually, the forces stationed in the republics formally became the militaries of the respective republican governments.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Ground Forces dissolved and the fifteen Soviet successor states divided their assets among themselves. The divide mostly occurred along a regional basis, with Soviet soldiers from Russia becoming part of the new Russian Ground Forces, while Soviet soldiers originating from Kazakhstan became part of the new Kazakh Armed Forces. As a result, the bulk of the Soviet Ground Forces, including most of the Scud and Scaleboard surface-to-surface missile (SSM) forces, became incorporated in the Russian Ground Forces. 1992 estimates showed five SSM brigades with 96 missile vehicles in Belarus and 12 SSM brigades with 204 missile vehicles in Ukraine, compared to 24 SSM brigades with over 900 missile vehicles under Russian Ground Forces' control, some in other former Soviet republics.[51] By the end of 1992, most remnants of the Soviet Army in former Soviet Republics had disbanded or dispersed. Forces garrisoned in Eastern Europe (including the Baltic states) gradually returned home between 1992 and 1994. This list of Soviet Army divisions sketches some of the fates of the individual parts of the Ground Forces.

In mid-March 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed himself as the new Russian minister of defence, marking a crucial step in the creation of the new Russian Armed Forces, comprising the bulk of what was left of the Soviet Armed Forces. The last vestiges of the old Soviet command structure were finally dissolved in June 1993, when the paper Commonwealth of Independent States Military Headquarters was reorganized as a staff for facilitating CIS military cooperation.[52]

In the next few years, the former Soviet Ground Forces withdrew from central and Eastern Europe (including the Baltic states), as well as from the newly independent post-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. Now-Russian Ground Forces remained in Tajikistan, Georgia and Transnistria (in Moldova).

Post-dissolution influence

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a considerable number of weapons were transferred to the national forces of emerging states on the periphery of the former Soviet Union, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan.[53] Similarly, weapons and other military equipment were also left behind in the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.[53] Some of these items were sold on the black market or through weapons merchants, whereof, in turn, some ended up in terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda.[53] A 1999 book argued that the greatest opportunity for terrorist organizations to procure weapons was in the former Soviet Union.[54]

In 2007, the World Bank estimated that out of the 500 million total firearms available worldwide, 100 million were of the Kalashnikov family, and 75 million were AKMs.[55] However, only about 5 million of these were manufactured in the former USSR.[56]

Equipment
A U.S. assessment of the seven most important items of Soviet combat equipment in 1981
Soviet Army T-72A tanks during the 1983 October Revolution celebration in Moscow
Further information: List of equipment of the Soviet Ground Forces and list of tanks of the Soviet Union

In 1990 and 1991, the Soviet Ground Forces were estimated to possess the following equipment. The 1991 estimates are drawn from the IISS Military Balance and follow the Conventional Forces in Europe data exchange which revealed figures of November 1990.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in 1992 that the USSR had previously had over 20,000 tanks, 30,000 armoured combat vehicles, at least 13,000 artillery pieces, and just under 1,500 helicopters.[58]

Commanders-in-Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces
Soviet Army conscript's military service book.#1, Place of birth,#2 Nationality (i.e. ethnicity), #3 Party affiliation (i.e. the year of joining the CPSU), #4 Year of entering the Komsomol, #5 Education, #6 Main specialty, #7 Marital status. (Document number and the name are removed)
Main article: Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces

See also

Notes
  1. Russian: Советская армия, tr. Sovetskaya armiya
  2. Russian: Советские сухопутные войска, tr. Sovetskiye sukhoputnye voyska

References
  1. International Institute for Strategic Studies 1991, p. 37.
  2. Thomas, Nigel (20 January 2013). World War II Soviet Armed Forces (3): 1944–45. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-635-6.
  3. Established by decree on 15 (28) January 1918 "to protect the population, territorial integrity and civil liberties in the territory of the Soviet state."
  4. Suvorov 1982, p. 51.
  5. Urban 1985.
  6. Feskov et al 2013, pp. 146, 147.
  7. Feskov et al 2013, p. 119.
  8. P. Leffler, Melvyn (1 March 1985). "Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War: The United States, Turkey, and NATO, 1945–1952". The Journal of American History. Oxford University Press. 71 (4): 811. doi:10.2307/1888505. JSTOR 1888505.
  9. Scott & Scott 1979, p. 142.
  10. Kormiltsev, Nikolai (2005). "The main command of the Ground Forces: history and modernity". Military History. No. 7. pp. 3–8.
  11. Tsouras 1994, pp. 121, 172.
  12. Odom 1998, p. 39.
  13. Scott & Scott 1979, p. 176.
  14. Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – Land Forces, Agency Voeninform of the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation (2007) p. 14
  15. Feskov et al 2013, p. 99.
  16. Zickel & Keefe 1991, p. 705.
  17. Scott & Scott 1979, p. 305.
  18. Odom 1998, pp. 47–48, 286–289.
  19. Odom 1998, pp. 290–291.
  20. Odom 1998, p. 48.
  21. Orr 2003, p. 1.
  22. Defense Intelligence Agency (6 September 1983). "Warsaw Pact: Division Categorization DIA IAPPR 102-83". United States: Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
  23. International Institute for Strategic Studies 1987, p. 34.
  24. Feskov et al 2013, p. 90.
  25. Holm, Michael (1 January 2015). "High Command of the Far East". Soviet Armed Forces 1945-1991: Organisation and Order of Battle. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  26. Feskov et al 2013, pp. 91–93.
  27. Feskov et al 2004, p. 21.
  28. Suvorov 1982, p. 36.
  29. Odom 1998, p. 69.
  30. Odom 1998, p. 72–80.
  31. Parallel History Project, and the documentation on the associated Polish exercise, Seven Days to the River Rhine, 1979. See also Heuser, Beatrice, "Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 1970s and 1980s: Findings in the East German Archives", Comparative Strategy, October–December 1993, pp. 437–457
  32. Armstrong, Charles K. (2003). The North Korean revolution, 1945-1950. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-6880-3. OCLC 605327300.
  33. "Cable No. 121973, Meretskov and Shytkov to Cde. Stalin". Retrieved 20 April 2023 – via Wilson Center Digital Archive.
  34. "Ciphered Telegram No. 9849, Gromyko to the Soviet Ambassador, Pyongyang". Retrieved 20 April 2023 – via Wilson Center Digital Archive.
  35. Ro'i, Yaacov (2022). The bleeding wound: the Soviet war and the collapse of the Soviet system. Stanford, California. ISBN 978-1-5036-2874-8. OCLC 1258040790.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  36. Khalidi, Noor Ahmad (1991). "Afghanistan: Demographic Consequences of War: 1978–1987" (PDF). Central Asian Survey. 10 (3): 101–126. doi:10.1080/02634939108400750. PMID 12317412.
  37. Sliwinski, Marek (1995). Le génocide Khmer Rouge: une analyse démographique [The Khmer Rouge genocide: A demographic analysis] (in French). L'Harmattan. pp. 42–43, 48. ISBN 978-2-7384-3525-5.
  38. Bennett, Andrew (1999). "A bitter harvest: Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its effects on Afghan political movements" (PDF). Penn State University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 June 2007. Retrieved 4 February 2007.
  39. Kepel, Gilles (2002). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. I.B.Tauris. p. 138. ISBN 9781845112578. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
  40. "Timeline: Soviet war in Afghanistan". BBC News. 17 February 2009. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
  41. "How Soviet troops stormed Kabul palace". BBC News. 27 December 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  42. "Afghan guerrillas' fierce resistance stalemates Soviets and puppet regime". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
  43. Schofield, Carey (1993). The Russian elite: inside Spetsnaz and the airborne forces. London: Greenhill. ISBN 1-85367-155-X. OCLC 28798156.
  44. "The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan" (PDF). United States: Central Intelligence Agency.
  45. Konovalov, Valerii. "Afghan Veterans in Siberia". Radio Liberty Report on the USSR. 1 (#21).
  46. Schofield 1991, pp. 236–237.
  47. Odom 1998, pp. 273–278.
  48. Odom 1998, p. 278.
  49. Odom 1998, p. 161.
  50. Odom 1998, pp. 305–346.
  51. International Institute for Strategic Studies 1992, pp. 72, 86, 96.
  52. Matlock 1995.
  53. Hamm 2011.
  54. Lee, Rensselaer (1999) Smuggling Armageddon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union and Europe. New York: St. Martin's Press, cited in Hamm, Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups, 2011, p8.
  55. Killicoat, Phillip (April 2007). "Post-Conflict Transitions Working Paper No. 10.: Weaponomics: The Global Market for Assault Rifles" (PDF). World Bank. Oxford University. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 July 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2010.
  56. Valerii N. Shilin; Charlie Cutshaw (1 March 2000). Legends and reality of the AK: a behind-the-scenes look at the history, design, and impact of the Kalashnikov family of weapons. Paladin Press. ISBN 978-1-58160-069-8
  57. Zickel & Keefe 1991, p. 708.
  58. SIPRI (December 1992). "Post Cold War Security in and for Europe" (PDF). Retrieved 25 August 2020.

Bibliography

Further reading
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