Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабоче-крестьянская Красная армия; РККА or Raboche-krest'yanskaya Krasnaya armiya; RKKA) started out as the Soviet Russia's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.
The "Red Army" refers to the traditional colour of the communist movement. On 25 February 1946, the Red Army was renamed the Soviet Army (Советская Армия, Sovetskaya Armiya).
The Red Army is widely credited with being the decisive force in the Allied victory in the European Theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it engaged and defeated about 80% of the total German armed forces (Wehrmacht and Waffen SS) deployed in the war.
Read more about Red Army: Origins, Organization, Personnel, Weapons and Equipment
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or army:
“‘But where can we draw water,’
Said Pearse to Connolly,
‘When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
There’s nothing but our own red blood
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“That’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)