1st Edition

The Soviet Military Experience A History of the Soviet Army, 1917-1991

By Roger R. Reese Copyright 2000
    220 Pages
    by Routledge

    220 Pages
    by Routledge

    The Soviet Military Experience is the first general work to place the Soviet army into its true social, political and international contexts.
    It focuses on the Bolshevik Party's intention to create an army of a new type, whose aim was both to defend the people and propagate Marxist ideals to the rest of the world. It includes discussion of the:
    * origins of the Workers and Peasant's Red Army
    * effects of the Civil War
    * Bolshevik regime's use of the military as a school of socialism
    * effects of collectivization and rapid industrialisation of the 1920s and 1930s
    * Second World War and its profound repercussions
    * ethnic tensions within the army
    * effect of Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika

    Acknowledgements, List of abbreviations, List of Russian words and phrases, Map, Introduction, 1. The birth of the Red Army, 2. The Civil War, and Polish–Soviet War, 1917–21, 3. The Red Army between the wars, 1922–39, 4. PUR and the Army: the political side of military service, 5. The Red Army and the Second World War, 1939–45, 6. The cold war years, 1946–91, 7. The war in Afghanistan and the Gorbachev era, 1979–91, Conclusion, Notes, Select bibliography, Index

    Biography

    Reese, Roger R.

    'Roger Reese has written a multi-faceted and well-considered study of the development of the Soviet armed forces.' - SEER

    'This is a valuable and lively intorduction to an important subject.' - War in History