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140-878: The Voronezh Military District was a formation of the Soviet Armed Forces , which existed in 1945–1946 and 1949–1960, respectively. District headquarters was in Voronezh . The District was formed on July 9, 1945, and incorporated the Voronezh Oblast , the Kursk Oblast , the Orel Oblast , and the Tambov Oblast . It was formed from the headquarters of the Orel Military District and the 6th Army . On 4 February 1946, it

280-524: A narodnik (revolutionary agrarian socialist populist ), he initially opposed Marxism but was won over by his future first wife, Aleksandra Sokolovskaya . That same year, he graduated from his high school with a first class honours. According to his relative, Valery Bronstein, his father had intended for Trotsky to become a mechanical engineer after leaving modern school. Trotsky briefly attended Odessa University studying engineering and mathematics . He dropped out in early 1897 to help organize

420-723: A Marxist and Leninist , his thought and writings inspired a school of Marxism known as Trotskyism . Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire , Trotsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898. He was arrested for revolutionary activities and exiled to Siberia , but in 1902 escaped to London, where he met Lenin and wrote for the party's newspaper Iskra . Trotsky sided with Julius Martov 's Mensheviks against Lenin's Bolsheviks after

560-657: A "unification" conference of social democratic factions in Vienna in August 1912 (a.k.a. "The August Bloc") and tried to re-unite the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks into one party. The attempt was generally unsuccessful. In Vienna, Trotsky continuously published articles in radical Russian and Ukrainian newspapers, such as Kievskaya Mysl, under a variety of pseudonyms, often using "Antid Oto", a name chosen at random from an Italian dictionary, with Trotsky joking that "wanted to inject

700-563: A German withdrawal, and a joint parade was held . Just three days earlier, however, the parties had a more damaging encounter near Lviv , when the German 137th Gebirgsjägerregimenter (mountain infantry regiment) attacked a Soviet reconnaissance detachment. ; After a few casualties on both sides, the parties negotiated, the German troops left the area, and the Red Army troops entered L'viv on 22 September. According to post-1991 Russian sources,

840-558: A Soviet-friendly communist government threatened by multinational, mainly Afghan, insurgent groups called the mujahideen. The insurgents received military training in neighboring Pakistan, China, and billions of dollars from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. Technically superior, the Soviets did not have enough troops to establish control over the countryside and to secure the border. This resulted from hesitancy in

980-527: A close working relationship with Alexander Parvus in 1904–07. During their split, Lenin referred to Trotsky as "Little Judas" ( Iudushka , based on the character from Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin 's novel The Golovlyov Family ), a "scoundrel" and a "swine". The unrest and agitation against the Russian government came to a head in Saint Petersburg on 3 January 1905 ( Julian Calendar ), when

1120-562: A compromise figure when elected as the head of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. He was a lawyer that stood above the political factions contained in the Soviet. However, since his election, he proved to be very popular with the workers in spite of the Bolsheviks' original opposition to him. Khrustalev-Nosar became famous in his position as spokesman for the Saint Petersburg Soviet. Indeed, to the outside world, Khrustalev-Nosar

1260-568: A conspiracy. This was later confirmed by Russian police records listing the number of known militant radicals found among the dead. Following the events of Bloody Sunday, Trotsky secretly returned to Russia in February 1905, by way of Kiev . At first he wrote leaflets for an underground printing press in Kiev, but soon moved to the capital, Saint Petersburg. There he worked with both Bolsheviks, such as Central Committee member Leonid Krasin , and

1400-526: A daughter in Russia. Suffering also from tuberculosis and depression , Zinaida committed suicide in 1933. Aleksandra disappeared in 1935 during the Great Purges under Stalin and was murdered by Soviet forces three years later. Until this point, Trotsky had used his birth name: Lev (Leon) Bronstein. He changed his surname to "Trotsky", the name he would use for the rest of his life. It is said he adopted

1540-585: A further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. Thus the grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. The majority of the losses were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). The German losses on the Eastern Front consisted of an estimated 3,604,800 KIA/MIA (most killed) and 3,576,300 captured (total 7,181,100). In the first part of the war, the Red Army fielded weaponry of mixed quality. It had excellent artillery, but it did not have enough trucks to manoeuvre and supply it; as

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1680-524: A million Afghan civilians were killed in addition to the rebels in the war. From 1985 to 1991, the new leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, attempted to reduce the strain the Army placed on economic demands. His government slowly reduced the size of the army. By 1989 Soviet troops were leaving their Warsaw Pact neighbors to fend for themselves. That same year Soviet forces left Afghanistan. By

1820-631: A petition against Morris' order. Back in Russia, after initial hesitation and facing pressure from the workers' and peasants' Soviets, the Russian foreign minister Pavel Milyukov was compelled to demand the release of Trotsky as a Russian citizen, and the British government freed him on 29 April 1917. He reached Russia on 17 May 1917. After his return, Trotsky substantially agreed with the Bolshevik position, but did not join them right away. Russian social democrats were split into at least six groups, and

1960-542: A quick campaign before the end of the war against England". Even before the issuing of the directive, the German General Staff had developed detailed plans for a Soviet campaign. On February 3, 1941, the final plan of Operation Barbarossa gained approval, and the attack was scheduled for the middle of May, 1941. However, the events in Greece and Yugoslavia necessitated a delay—to the second half of June. At

2100-439: A reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. From 1904 until 1917, Trotsky described himself as a "non-factional social democrat". He tried to reconcile different groups within the party, which resulted in many clashes with Lenin and other prominent party members. Trotsky later maintained that he had been wrong in opposing Lenin on the issue of the party. Trotsky began developing his theory of permanent revolution and developed

2240-471: A regional basis, with Soviet soldiers from Russia becoming part of the new Russian Army, while Soviet soldiers originating from Kazakhstan became part of the new Kazakh Army . In mid-March 1992, Yeltsin appointed himself as the new Russian Minister of Defence, marking a crucial step in the creation of the new Armed Forces of the Russian Federation , comprising the bulk of what was still left of

2380-531: A result the Wehrmacht (which rated it highly) captured much of it. Red Army T-34 tanks outclassed any other tanks the Germans had when they appeared in 1941, yet most of the Soviet armoured units were less advanced models; likewise, the same supply problem handicapped even the formations equipped with the most modern tanks. The Soviet Air Force initially performed poorly against the Germans. The quick advance of

2520-630: A second front for the Poles and forced them to abandon plans for defence in the Romanian bridgehead area, thus hastening the Polish defeat. The Soviet and German advance halted roughly at the Curzon Line . The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , which had included a secret protocol delimiting the "spheres of interest" of each party, set the scene for the remarkably smooth partition of Poland between Germany and

2660-664: A state of war existed between them; the Germans had an extensive land border with the Soviet Union, but the latter remained neutral, adhering to a non-aggression pact and by numerous trade agreements . For Adolf Hitler , no dilemma ever existed in this situation. Drang nach Osten (German for "Drive towards the East") remained the order of the day. This culminated, on December 18, in the issuing of 'Directive No. 21 – Case Barbarossa ', which opened by saying "the German Armed Forces must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in

2800-661: A strike broke out at the Putilov Works in the city. This single strike grew into a general strike, and by 7 January 1905, there were 140,000 strikers in Saint Petersburg. On Sunday, 9 January 1905, Father Georgi Gapon knowingly led a procession of radicals mixed within larger groups of ordinary working citizens through the streets to the Winter Palace to supposedly beseech the Tsar for food and relief from

2940-518: A usurpation of his newspaper's name that in April 1913, he wrote a letter to Nikolay Chkheidze , a Menshevik leader, bitterly denouncing Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Though he quickly got over the disagreement, the message was intercepted by the Russian secret police , and a copy was put into their archives. Shortly after Lenin's death in 1924, the letter was found and publicized by Trotsky's opponents within

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3080-647: A very successful newspaper in the revolutionary atmosphere of Saint Petersburg in 1905. Just before Trotsky's return, the Mensheviks had independently come up with the same idea that Trotsky had: an elected non-party revolutionary organization representing the capital's workers, the first Soviet ("Council") of Workers. By the time of Trotsky's arrival, the Saint Petersburg Soviet was already functioning, headed by Khrustalyev-Nosar (Georgy Nosar, alias Pyotr Khrustalyov). Khrustalyev-Nosar had been

3220-693: The Admiral of the Fleet rank (which, from 1945 was already equivalent to Marshal) was later renamed Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union in 1955. In the 1960s however, it became a rank of its own when new regulations revived the Fleet Admiral rank in the Soviet Navy, thus becoming the naval equivalent to General of the Army. By 1972, the final transformation of military ranks began as the rank of Praporshchik ( Warrant officer ) ranks being added in

3360-674: The Caucasus but it often proved incapable of restoring peace and order. On April 9, 1989, the army, together with MVD units, massacred about 190 demonstrators in Tbilisi in Georgia. The next major crisis occurred in Azerbaijan , when the Soviet army forcibly entered Baku on January 19–20, 1990, removing the rebellious republic government and allegedly killing hundreds of civilians in the process. On January 13, 1991, Soviet forces stormed

3500-750: The Chief of the General Staff , who was responsible for operations and planning, and the First Deputy Minister of Defence for General Affairs, who was responsible for administration. From 1955 the Supreme Commander of the Warsaw Pact also held the title of First Deputy Minister of Defence. By the 1980s there was another eleven Deputy Minister of Defence; including the commanders-in-chief of the five service branches. In 1989,

3640-878: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Ministry of Defence . At its head was the Minister of Defence , generally a full member of the Politburo (the Politburo, in turn, was chaired by the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , generally the de facto leader of the Soviet Union ) and from 1934 onwards, a Marshal of the Soviet Union . Stalin was the last civilian/politician Minister of Defence; from 1947 onwards,

3780-656: The KGB Border Troops . The early Red Army never adopted the idea of a professional officer corps . It was seen as a "heritage of tsarism.". In particular, the Bolsheviks condemned the use of the word "officer" and used the word " commander " instead. The Red Army never adopted epaulettes and ranks , using purely functional titles such as "Division Commander", "Corps Commander", and similar titles. In 1924 it supplemented this system with "service categories", from K-1 (lowest) to K-14 (highest). The service categories essentially operated as ranks in disguise: they indicated

3920-867: The Kuril Islands and in northern Korea . Japan surrendered unconditionally on 2 September 1945. The Soviet Union only had Ground Forces, Air Forces, and the Navy in 1945. The two ministries ( Narkomats ), one supervising the Ground Forces and Air Forces, and the other directing the Navy , were combined into the Ministry of the Armed Forces in March 1946. A fourth service, the Troops of National Air Defence ,

4060-697: The Mensheviks , argued for a bigger and less disciplined party where people who assisted would also be seen as members. In a surprise development, Trotsky and most of the Iskra editors supported Martov and the Mensheviks, while Plekhanov supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks . During 1903 and 1904, many members changed sides in the factions. Trotsky left the Mensheviks in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to

4200-672: The People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (Defence Minister); he founded the Red Army and led it to victory in the Russian Civil War. He was an honorary president of the Third International . In 1922, Trotsky and Lenin formed an alliance against the growing Soviet bureaucracy ; Lenin proposed that Trotsky become his Deputy Chairman and preside over economic management , but he declined. Trotsky led

4340-551: The People's Commissar for War from 1918 to 1924. At the beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia. Democratic elections selected the officers. However, a decree of May 29, 1918, imposed obligatory military service for men of ages 18 to 40. To service the massive draft, the Bolsheviks formed regional Military commissariats (voenkomats), which still carry out this function in Russia. They should not be confused with military political commissars . Democratic election of officers

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4480-523: The Politburo , which allowed only a "limited contingent", averaging between 80,000 and 100,000 troops. Consequently, local insurgents could effectively employ hit-and-run tactics, using easy escape-routes and good supply-channels. This made the Soviet situation hopeless from the military point of view (short of using " scorched earth " tactics, which the Soviets did not practice except in World War II in their own territory). The understanding of this made

4620-563: The Red Terror and suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion , scholarship ranks Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army highly among historical figures, and he is credited for his major involvement with the military , economic , cultural and political development of the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein to David Leontyevich Bronstein (1847–1922) and Anna Lvovna (née Zhivotovskaya, 1850–1910) on 7 November 1879,

4760-501: The Russian Orthodox Church stopped, and priests revived the tradition of blessing arms before battle. The Communist Party abolished the institution of political commissars —although it soon restored them. The Red Army re-introduced military ranks and adopted many additional individual distinctions such as medals and orders. The concept of a Guard re-appeared: units which had shown exceptional heroism in combat gained

4900-808: The Southern Group of Forces in Hungary. In the Soviet Union itself, forces were divided by the 1950s among fifteen military districts, including the Moscow , Leningrad , and Baltic Military Districts . The trauma of the devastating German invasion of 1941 influenced the Soviet Cold War doctrine of fighting enemies on their own territory, or in a buffer zone under Soviet hegemony, but in any case preventing any war from reaching Soviet soil. In order to secure Soviet interests in Eastern Europe,

5040-519: The epaulettes that superseded the previous rank insignia. The ranks and insignia of 1943 did not change much until the last days of the USSR; the contemporary Russian Army uses largely the same system. The old functional ranks of Kombat (Battalion or Battery Commander), Kombrig (Brigade Commander) and Komdiv (Division Commander) continue in informal use. By the end of the Second World War,

5180-562: The "old guard" led by Plekhanov and the "new guard" led by Lenin and Martov. Plekhanov's supporters were older, and had spent the previous 20 years together in exile in Europe. Members of the new guard were in their early 30s and only recently emigrated from Russia. Lenin, who was trying to establish a permanent majority against Plekhanov within Iskra, expected Trotsky, then 23, to side with the new guard. In March 1903 Lenin wrote: I suggest to all

5320-684: The Army and Air Force for contract NCOs since the rank of Starshina (Sergeant Major) was from now on for conscripts. But in the Soviet Navy, it meant that the Naval rank of Midshipman became a rank for Naval warrant officers since the Navy created the new rank of Ship Chief Sergeant Major for its NCOs in naval service. The year of 1974 saw the rank insignia changed for Army Generals and Navy Fleet Admirals in their parade dress and working and combat dress uniforms. Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein (7 November [ O.S. 26 October] 1879 – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky ,

5460-408: The Army parallels the American Vietnam Syndrome trauma over their own unsuccessful war in Vietnam . Tactically, both sides concentrated on attacking supply lines, but Afghan mujahideen were well dug-in with tunnels and defensive positions, holding out against artillery and air attacks. The decade long war resulted in millions of Afghans fleeing their country, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. At least half

5600-415: The Axis cannot be underestimated. A generation of brilliant Soviet commanders (most notably Georgy Zhukov ) learned from the defeats, and Soviet victories in the Battle of Moscow , at Stalingrad , Kursk and later in Operation Bagration proved decisive in what became known to the Soviets as the Great Patriotic War . The Soviet government adopted a number of measures to improve the state and morale of

5740-408: The Bolsheviks. As chairman of the Petrograd Soviet , he played an important role in the October Revolution that overthrew the Provisional Government . In Lenin's first government , Trotsky was appointed as the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister) and led negotiations for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , by which Russia withdrew from World War I . From 1918 to 1925, he served as

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5880-442: The Commonwealth of Independent States . Steadily, the units stationed in Ukraine and some other breakaway republics swore loyalty to their new national governments, while a series of treaties between the newly independent states divided up the military's assets. Following dissolution of the Soviet Union , the Soviet Army dissolved and the USSR's successor states shared out its assets among themselves. The share out mostly occurred on

6020-421: The Communist Party to portray him as Lenin's enemy. The 1910s were a period of heightened tension within the RSDLP, leading to numerous frictions between Trotsky, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The most serious disagreement that Trotsky and the Mensheviks had with Lenin at the time was over the issue of "expropriations", i.e., armed robbery of banks and other companies by Bolshevik groups to procure money for

6160-493: The European social democratic parties, primarily the German party. As a war correspondent for the Kievskaya Mysl , Trotsky moved to France on 19 November 1914. In January 1915 in Paris, he began editing (at first with Martov, who soon resigned as the paper moved to the left) Nashe Slovo ("Our Word"), an internationalist socialist newspaper. He adopted the slogan of "peace without indemnities or annexations, peace without conquerors or conquered." Lenin advocated Russia's defeat in

6300-471: The Germans into the Soviet territory made reinforcement difficult, if not impossible, since much of the Soviet Union's military industry lay in the west of the country. After the end of the war in Europe, the Red Army attacked Japan and Manchukuo (Japan's puppet state in Manchuria ) on 9 August 1945, and in combination with Mongolian and Chinese Communist forces rapidly overwhelmed the outnumbered Kwantung Army . Soviet forces also attacked in Sakhalin , in

6440-447: The Kirov (Murmansk) Railway, a transit route for Soviet lend-lease equipment. The conflict stabilised with only minor skirmishes until the tide of the war turned against the Germans and the Soviet strategic Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive occurred in June 1944. The attack drove the Finns from most of the territories that they had gained during the war, but the Finnish Army halted the offensive in August 1944. Hostilities between Finland and

6580-433: The Marxist antidote into the legitimate newspapers". In September 1912, Kievskaya Mysl sent him to the Balkans as its war correspondent, where he covered the two Balkan Wars for the next year. While there, Trotsky chronicled the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian army against the Albanian civilian population. He became a close friend of Christian Rakovsky , later a leading Soviet politician and Trotsky's ally in

6720-431: The Minister of Defence was a serving general (though the last was an airman). Between 1934 and 1946, 1950 and 1953, a separate Ministry of the Navy existed and the Ministry of Defence was responsible only for land and air forces. In practice, the Navy Minister was a far more junior official and the Defence Ministry continued to dominate policymaking. Beneath the Minister of Defence were two First Deputy Ministers of Defence;

6860-446: The Mongolians over the river. The Soviet troops quartered there in accordance with the mutual defence protocol intervened and obliterated the detachment. Escalation of the conflict appeared imminent, and both sides spent June amassing forces. On July 1 the Japanese force numbered 38,000 troops. The combined Soviet-Mongol force had 12,500 troops. The Japanese crossed the river, but after a three-day battle their opponents threw them back over

7000-403: The Moscow Military District. Soviet Armed Forces According to the all-union military service law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Ground Forces , the Air Forces , the Navy , the State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the convoy guards . The OGPU was later made independent and amalgamated with the NKVD in 1934, and thus its Internal Troops were under

7140-431: The Party. These actions had been banned by the 5th Congress, but were continued by the Bolsheviks. In January 1912, the majority of the Bolshevik faction, led by Lenin, as well as a few defecting Mensheviks, held a conference in Prague and decided to break away from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , and formed a new party, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) . In response, Trotsky organized

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7280-472: The Red Army a political commissar, or politruk , who had the authority to override unit commanders' decisions if they ran counter to the principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Although this sometimes resulted in inefficient command, the Party leadership considered political control over the military necessary, as the Army relied more and more on experienced officers from the pre-revolutionary Tsarist period. The Polish–Soviet War represented

7420-554: The Red Army abandoned service categories and introduced personal ranks. These ranks, however, used a unique mix of functional titles and traditional ranks. For example, the ranks included " Lieutenant " and " Komdiv " (Комдив, Division Commander). Further complications ensued from the functional and categorical ranks for political officers (e.g., "Brigade Commissar", "Army Commissar 2nd Rank"), for technical corps (e.g., "Engineer 3rd Rank", "Division Engineer"), for administrative, medical and other non-combatant branches. The year before (1934),

7560-421: The Red Army force in Poland numbered 466,516. The Red Army troops faced little resistance, mainly due to the entanglement of the majority of the Polish forces in fighting Germans along the Western border, but partly due to an official order by the Polish Supreme Command not to engage in combat with the Soviet troops, and also partly because many Polish citizens in the Kresy region—Ukrainians and Belarusians—viewed

7700-448: The Red Army to switch a large number of its Far Eastern troops into the European Theatre in the desperate autumn of 1941. On September 17, 1939, the Red Army marched its troops into the eastern territories of Poland (now part of Belarus and Ukraine ), using the official pretext of coming to the aid of the Ukrainians and the Belarusians threatened by Germany, which had attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. The Soviet invasion opened

7840-426: The Russian government to some extent and wanted them to win the war, while Trotsky's ex-colleague Parvus, now a defencist, sided against Russia so strongly that he wanted Germany to win the war. In Switzerland, Trotsky briefly worked within the Swiss Socialist Party , prompting it to adopt an internationalist resolution. He wrote a book opposing the war, The War and the International, and the pro-war position taken by

7980-429: The Russian parliament) immediately after the events of August 1991 , the Army did not play a significant role in what some describe as coup d'état of old-guard communists. Commanders sent tanks into the streets of Moscow, but (according to all the commanders and soldiers) only with orders to ensure the safety of the people. It remains unclear why exactly the military forces entered the city, but they clearly did not have

8120-505: The Saint Petersburg Soviet Council of Workers Deputies, which was meeting at the Technological Institute in the city. Also attending were some 200,000 people crowded outside to hear the speeches—about half of all workers in Saint Petersburg. After his return, Trotsky and Parvus took over the newspaper Russian Gazette, increasing its circulation to 500,000. Trotsky also co-founded, together with Parvus and Julius Martov and other Mensheviks, "Nachalo" ("The Beginning"), which also proved to be

8260-471: The South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolayev. Trotsky's university colleague and a prominent engineer who served as the Technical Director of the Baltic Shipyard had noted that he displayed an exceptional gift for mathematics. Using the name "Lvov", he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets, and popularized socialist ideas among industrial workers and revolutionary students. In January 1898, more than 200 members of

8400-462: The Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Strategic Rocket Forces , the Ground Forces, Air Defence Forces , the Air Forces, and the Navy, listed in their official order of importance. The Rear services , "Tyl", had their own deputy minister of defence. In 1970 the troops of the All-Union National Civil Defence Forces were added. There were also a number of armed organisations beyond the Ministry of Defence; in 1989 these included Internal Troops and

8540-402: The Soviet Armed Forces dropped from around 11.3 million to approximately 2.8 million in 1948. In order to control this demobilisation process, the number of military districts was temporarily increased to thirty-three, dropping to twenty-one in 1946. The size of the Ground Forces during most of the Cold War remained between 4 million and 5 million, according to Western estimates. However, there

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8680-445: The Soviet Army moved in to quell anti-Soviet uprisings in the German Democratic Republic (1953), Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). As a result of the Sino-Soviet border conflict , a sixteenth military district was created in 1969, the Central Asian Military District, with headquarters at Alma-Ata . To improve capabilities for war at a theatre level, in the late 1970s and early 1980s four high commands were established, grouping

8820-435: The Soviet Communist Party. On 3 August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, in which Austria-Hungary fought against the Russian Empire, Trotsky was forced to flee Vienna for neutral Switzerland to avoid arrest as a Russian émigré . The outbreak of World War I caused a sudden realignment within the RSDLP and other European social democratic parties over the issues of war, revolution, pacifism and internationalism, redividing

8960-425: The Soviet Union dissolved and signed the document setting up the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Gorbachev finally resigned on December 25, 1991, and the following day the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body, dissolved itself, officially ending the Soviet Union's existence. For the next year and a half various attempts were made to keep the Soviet military in existence as the United Armed Forces of

9100-477: The Soviet Union: the Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia . However, the Finnish Army continued the offensive past the 1939 border during the conquest of East Karelia , including Petrozavodsk , and halted only around 30–32 km (19–20 mi) from the centre of Leningrad . It participated in besieging the city by cutting the northern supply routes and by digging in until 1944. In Lapland , joint German-Finnish forces failed to capture Murmansk or to cut

9240-436: The State Radio and Television Building and the television retranslation tower in Vilnius , Lithuania , both under opposition control, killing 14 people and injuring 700. This action was perceived by many as heavy-handed and achieved little. By mid-1991, the Soviet Union had reached a state of emergency. According to the official commission (the Soviet Academy of Sciences) appointed by the Supreme Soviet (the higher chamber of

9380-408: The Tsarist government and its foreign debts: The autocracy never enjoyed the confidence of the people and was never granted any authority by the people. We have therefore decided not to allow the repayment of such loans as have been made by the Tsarist government when openly engaged in a war with the entire people. The following day, on 3 December 1905, the Soviet was surrounded by troops loyal to

9520-405: The USSR ended with a ceasefire, which was called on 5 September 1944, formalised by the signing of the Moscow Armistice on 19 September 1944. By the autumn of 1940, Nazi Germany and its allies dominated most of the European continent. Only the United Kingdom (in the West) was actively challenging national socialist and fascist hegemony. Nazi Germany and Britain had no common land border, but

9660-409: The USSR. The defined Soviet sphere of interest matched the territory subsequently captured in the campaign. The Soviet and German troops met each other on a number of occasions. Most remarkably, on 22 September 1939, the German XIX Panzer Corps had occupied Brest-Litovsk, which lay within the Soviet sphere of interest. When the Soviet 29th Tank Brigade approached Brest-Litovsk, the commanders negotiated

9800-468: The United States supported loyal client régimes or rebel movements in Third World countries. During the Korean War , the Soviet Air Forces directly fought against United States and United Nations Command (UNC) forces. Two Soviet air divisions flying MiG-9 and MiG-15 fighter jets were sent against U.S. Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers and their U.S. and allied fighter escorts The Soviet Union invested heavily in nuclear capabilities, especially in

9940-463: The advancing troops as liberators. Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists rose against the Poles, and communist partisans organised local revolts, e.g. in Skidel , robbing and murdering Poles. Nonetheless, the Red Army sustained losses of 1,475 killed and missing and 2,383 wounded. The losses of the opposing Polish troops are estimated at 6,000–7,000. The Winter War began when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939, two months after

10080-535: The area. On August 23 the entire Japanese force found itself encircled, and on August 31 largely destroyed. Artillery and air attacks wiped out those Japanese who refused to surrender. Japan requested a cease-fire , and the conflict concluded with an agreement between the USSR, Mongolia and Japan signed on September 15 in Moscow. In the conflict, the Red Army losses were 9,703 killed in action (KIA) and missing in action (MIA) and 15,952 wounded. The Japanese lost 25,000 KIA;

10220-717: The armed organizations as collectively one of the strongest such forces in world history . The relative advancement and development of the government's militaries was a key part of the history of the USSR . In the context of the Cold War , an academic study by the rival U.S. Department of Defense in 1984 found that the Soviets maintained a notable reach across the world and particularly inside Europe . The analysis explicitly concluded that "Soviet armies have always been massive" while "they are also highly modernized, well-equipped, and have great firepower... [as well as] mobility", which meant that "manpower and materiel combined make

10360-474: The army. Equally important was a general tactical superiority of the German army, which was conducting the kind of warfare that it had been combat-testing and fine-tuning for two years. The hasty pre-war growth and over-promotion of the Red Army cadres as well as the removal of experienced officers caused by the Purges offset the balance even more favourably for the Germans. Finally, the sheer numeric superiority of

10500-515: The authorities abolished the system of military commissars, together with the commissar ranks. The functional ranks remained only in medical, veterinary and legislative corps. By then the Naval rank of Midshipman was revived in the Soviet Navy as an NCO rank, a role lasting until the 1970s. In early 1943 a unification of the system saw the abolition of all the remaining functional ranks. The word "officer" became officially endorsed, together with

10640-553: The authorities acquitted the tank crew of all charges. Nobody issued orders to shoot at anyone. Following the coup attempt of August 1991, the leadership of the Soviet Union retained practically no authority over the component republics. Nearly every Soviet Republic declared its intention to secede and began passing laws defying the Supreme Soviet. On December 8, 1991, the Presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine declared

10780-561: The congress discussed the position of the Jewish Bund , which had co-founded the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898 but wanted to remain autonomous within the party. Shortly afterwards, the pro-Iskra delegates unexpectedly split into two factions. The split was initially over an organisational issue. Lenin and his supporters, the Bolsheviks, argued for a smaller but highly organized party where only party members would be seen as members, while Martov and his supporters,

10920-559: The day of the first mass draft of the Red Army in Petrograd and Moscow and the first combat action against the rapidly advancing Imperial German Army . February 23 became an important national holiday in the Soviet Union, later celebrated as "Soviet Army Day", and it continues as a celebration day in present-day Russia as Defenders of the Motherland Day . Credit as the founder of the Red Army generally goes to Leon Trotsky ,

11060-499: The end of 1990, the entire Eastern Bloc had collapsed in the wake of democratic revolutions. As a result, Soviet citizens quickly began to turn against the Soviet government as well. As the Soviet Union moved towards disintegration, the reduced military was rendered feeble and ineffective and could no longer prop up the ailing Soviet government. The military got involved in trying to suppress conflicts and unrest in Central Asia and

11200-506: The entire Soviet Air Force on the ground, the loss of major equipment, tanks, artillery, and major Soviet defeats as German forces trapped hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers in vast pockets. Soviet forces suffered heavy damage in the field as a result of poor levels of preparedness, which was primarily caused by a reluctant, half-hearted and ultimately belated decision by the Soviet Government and High Command to mobilize

11340-510: The evening of 24 September, the workers at 50 other printing shops in Moscow were also on strike. On 2 October 1905, the typesetters in printing shops in Saint Petersburg decided to strike in support of the Moscow strikers. On 7 October 1905, the railway workers of the Moscow–Kazan Railway went out on strike. Amid the resulting confusion, Trotsky returned from Finland to Saint Petersburg on 15 October 1905. On that day, Trotsky spoke before

11480-418: The experience and qualifications of a commander. The insignia now denoted the category, not the position of a commander. However, one still had to use functional titles to address commanders, which could become as awkward as "comrade deputy head-of-staff of corps". If one did not know a commander's position, one used one of the possible positions—for example: "Regiment Commander" for K-9. On September 22, 1935,

11620-519: The field of defence. On March 12, 1936, the co-operation increased with the ten-year Mongolian-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, which included a mutual defence protocol. In May 1939, a Mongolian cavalry unit clashed with Manchukuoan cavalry in the disputed territory east of the Halha River (also known in Russian as Халхин-Гол, Halhin Gol). There followed a clash with a Japanese detachment , which drove

11760-591: The fifth child of a wealthy Jewish family in Yanovka, Kherson governorate , Russian Empire (now Bereslavka , Ukraine). His father, David Leontyevich, had lived in Poltava and later moved to Bereslavka, as it had a large Jewish community. Trotsky's younger sister, Olga , who also grew up to be a Bolshevik and a Soviet politician, married the prominent Bolshevik Lev Kamenev . Some authors, notably Robert Service , have claimed that Trotsky's childhood first name

11900-525: The first foreign campaign of the Red Army. The Soviet counter-offensive following the 1920 Polish invasion of Ukraine at first met with success, but Polish forces halted it at the disastrous (for the Soviets) Battle of Warsaw (1920) . In 1934, Mongolia and the USSR, recognising the threat from the mounting Japanese military presence in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia , agreed to co-operate in

12040-732: The first of the Moscow show trials , and in 1940, was assassinated at his home in Mexico City by Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader . Written out of Soviet history under Stalin, Trotsky was one of the few of Stalin's rivals who was never politically rehabilitated by later leaders. In the West, Trotsky emerged as a hero of the anti-Stalinist left for his defense of a more democratic , internationalist form of socialism against Stalinist totalitarianism , and for his intellectual contributions to Marxism. While some of his wartime actions have proved controversial, such as his ideological defence of

12180-484: The goal of overthrowing Gorbachev (absent on the Black Sea coast at the time) or the government. The coup failed primarily because the participants did not take any decisive action, and after several days of their inaction the coup simply stopped. Only one confrontation took place between civilians and the tank crews during the coup, which led to the deaths of three civilians. Although the victims became proclaimed heroes,

12320-619: The government and the deputies were arrested. Trotsky and other Soviet leaders were tried in 1906 on charges of supporting an armed rebellion. On 4 October 1906 he was convicted and sentenced to internal exile to Siberia. While en route to exile in Obdorsk , Siberia, in January 1907, Trotsky escaped at Berezov and once again made his way to London. He attended the 5th Congress of the RSDLP . In October, he moved to Vienna , Austria-Hungary. For

12460-425: The government. According to Gapon himself, he led the people into a Palace Guard already on the defensive due to the crowd instigating violence against them. They eventually fired on the demonstration, resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of violent radicals, peaceful demonstrators and police caught within the melee. Although Sunday, 9 January 1905, became known as Bloody Sunday , Gapon's own biography points to

12600-496: The grand total was 61,000 killed, missing, wounded and taken prisoner. Shortly after the cease-fire, the Japanese negotiated access to the battlefields to collect their dead. Finding thousands upon thousands of dead bodies came as a further shock to the already shaken morale of the Japanese soldiers. The scale of the defeat probably became a major factor in discouraging a Japanese attack on the USSR during World War II, which allowed

12740-687: The invasion of Poland by Germany that started World War II. Because the attack was judged as illegal, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on 14 December. The war ended on 13 March 1940. The Continuation War was the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II. On 25 June 1941 the Soviet Union conducted an air raid on Finnish cities, prompting Finland to declare war and to allow German troops stationed in Finland to begin an offensive. By September 1941, Finland had regained its post–Winter War concessions to

12880-770: The joint management of the Defence and Interior Commissariats. In 1989, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Strategic Rocket Forces , the Ground Forces, the Air Defence Forces , the Air Forces, and the Navy, listed in their official order of importance. In the USSR, general conscription applied, which meant that all able-bodied males aged eighteen and older were drafted into the armed forces. International observers regarded

13020-788: The local Russian language socialist newspaper, Novy Mir , and the Yiddish-language daily, Der Forverts ("Forward"), in translation. He also made speeches to Russian émigrés. Trotsky was living in New York City when the February Revolution of 1917 led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . He left New York on 27 March 1917, but his ship, the SS Kristianiafjord , was intercepted by British naval officials in Canada at Halifax, Nova Scotia . He

13160-506: The local Menshevik committee, which he pushed in a more radical direction. The latter, however, were betrayed by a secret police agent in May, and Trotsky had to flee to rural Finland . There he worked on fleshing out his theory of permanent revolution. On 19 September 1905, the typesetters at the Ivan Sytin 's printing house in Moscow went out on strike for shorter hours and higher pay. By

13300-626: The meantime, after a period of secret police repression and internal confusion that followed the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, Iskra succeeded in convening the party's Second Congress in London in August 1903. Trotsky and other Iskra editors attended. The first congress went as planned, with Iskra supporters handily defeating the few "economist" delegates. Then

13440-439: The members of the editorial board that they co-opt 'Pero' as a member of the board on the same basis as other members. [...] We very much need a seventh member, both as a convenience in voting (six being an even number) and as an addition to our forces. 'Pero' has been contributing to every issue for several months now; he works, in general, most energetically for the Iskra; he gives lectures (in which he has been very successful). In

13580-540: The middle line proposed by Trotsky. At first opposed, in the end Lenin voted for Trotsky's resolution to avoid a split among anti-war socialists. In September 1916, Trotsky was deported from France to Spain for his anti-war activities. Spanish authorities did not want him and deported him to the United States on 25 December 1916. He arrived in New York City on 13 January 1917. He stayed for over two months at 1522 Vyse Avenue in The Bronx . In New York he wrote articles for

13720-738: The military districts, groups of forces, and fleets. The Far Eastern High Command was established first, followed by the Western and South-Western High Commands towards Europe, and the Southern High Command at Baku, oriented toward the Middle East. Confrontation with the US and NATO during the Cold War mainly took the form of threatened mutual deterrence with nuclear weapons . But a number of proxy wars took place. The Soviet Union and

13860-710: The military. The last vestiges of the old Soviet command structure were finally dissolved in June 1993. In the next few years, the former Soviet forces withdrew from central and Eastern Europe (including the Baltic states ), as well as from the newly independent post-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan , Georgia (partially), Moldova (partially), Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan . In 2020, Russian forces remained in Abkhazia , Armenia , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , South Ossetia , Tajikistan and Transnistria . While in many places

14000-489: The name Lev . North has compared the speculation on Trotsky's given name to the undue emphasis given to his having a Jewish surname. The language spoken at home was not Yiddish but a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian , known as Surzhyk . Although Trotsky spoke French, English, and German to a good standard, he said in his autobiography My Life that he was never fluent in any language but Russian. Raymond Molinier wrote that Trotsky spoke French fluently. When Trotsky

14140-500: The name of a jailer of the Odessa prison in which he had earlier been held. This became his primary revolutionary pseudonym. After escape from Siberia, Trotsky moved to London, joining Georgi Plekhanov , Vladimir Lenin, Julius Martov , and other editors of Iskra . Under the pen name Pero ("quill" or "pen"), Trotsky soon became one of the paper's leading writers. Unknown to Trotsky, the six editors of Iskra were evenly split between

14280-459: The names of "Guards Regiment", "Guards Army", etc. During the German–Soviet War , the Red Army drafted a staggering 29,574,900 in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war. Of these it lost 6,329,600 KIA, 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 MIA (most captured). Of these 11,444,100, however, 939,700 re-joined the ranks in the subsequently re-took Soviet territory, and

14420-500: The newly formed Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was held. From then on Trotsky identified as a member of the party. While imprisoned in Moscow, in the summer of 1899, Trotsky married Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (1872–1938), a fellow Marxist. The ceremony was performed by a Jewish chaplain. In 1900, he was sentenced to four years exile in Siberia . Because of their marriage, Trotsky and his wife were allowed to be exiled to

14560-584: The newspaper throughout 1909. A majority of Bolsheviks controlled the Central Committee in 1910. Lenin agreed to the financing of "Pravda", but required a Bolshevik to be appointed as co-editor of the paper. When various Bolshevik and Menshevik factions tried to re-unite at the January 1910 RSDLP Central Committee meeting in Paris over Lenin's objections, Trotsky's Pravda was made a party-financed 'central organ'. Lev Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law,

14700-682: The next seven years, he often took part in the activities of the Austrian Social Democratic Party and, occasionally, of the German Social Democratic Party . In Vienna, Trotsky became close to Adolph Joffe , his friend for the next 20 years, who introduced him to psychoanalysis . In October 1908 he was asked to join the editorial staff of Pravda ("Truth"), a bi-weekly, Russian-language social democratic paper for Russian workers, which he co-edited with Adolph Joffe and Matvey Skobelev . It

14840-528: The party into defeatists and defencists. Within the RSDLP, Lenin, Trotsky and Martov advocated various internationalist anti-war positions that saw defeat for your own country's ruling class imperialists as the "lesser evil" in the war, while they opposed all imperialists in the imperialist war. These anti-war believers were known as "defeatists". Those who supported one side over the other in the war were known as "defencists". Plekhanov and many other defencist social democrats (both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) supported

14980-408: The party should focus on helping industrial workers improve their lot and were less concerned with changing the government. They believed that societal reforms would grow out of the worker's struggle for higher pay and better working conditions. Others argued that overthrowing the monarchy was more important and that a well-organized and disciplined revolutionary party was essential. The latter position

15120-829: The party's Left Opposition , which opposed the concessions of the New Economic Policy . After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky was the most prominent critic of Joseph Stalin , but was outmaneuvered by him and lost his positions: he was expelled from the Politburo in 1926 and the party in 1927, internally exiled to Alma Ata in 1928, and deported in 1929. He lived in Turkey, France, and Norway before settling in Mexico in 1937. In exile, Trotsky wrote polemically against Stalinism , supporting proletarian internationalism against Stalin's theory of " socialism in one country ". Trotsky's theory of " permanent revolution " posited that

15260-409: The party's 1903 schism, but declared himself non-factional in 1904. During the failed 1905 Revolution, Trotsky returned to Russia and was elected chairman of the Saint Petersburg Soviet . He was again exiled to Siberia, but escaped in 1907 and spent time in London, Vienna, Switzerland, Paris, and New York. After the February Revolution of 1917 overthrew the tsar , Trotsky returned to Russia and joined

15400-568: The political and 'military-technical' sides of military doctrine, while from the Soviet point of view, Westerners ignored the political side. According to Harriet F Scott and William Scott, the political parts of Soviet military doctrine best explained the international moves that the Soviet Union undertook during the Cold War. In 1979, however, the Soviet Army intervened in a civil war raging in Afghanistan . The Soviet Army came to back

15540-521: The position of military advisor ( voyenspets : "военспец" an abbreviation of "военный специалист", i.e., " military specialist "). A number of prominent Red Army commanders had previously served as Imperial Russian generals. In fact, a number of former Imperial military men, notably a member of the Supreme Military Council , Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich , had joined the Bolsheviks earlier. The Bolshevik authorities assigned to every unit of

15680-472: The present Soviet ground forces a very formidable land army." Although Soviet military strategy in general merited comment, "the ground forces constituted the largest of the five Soviet military services" as of the date the research ended. The Council of People's Commissars set up the Red Army by decree on January 15, 1918 ( Old Style ) (January 28, 1918), basing it on the already-existing Red Guard . The official Red Army Day of February 23, 1918, marked

15820-468: The production of ballistic missiles and of nuclear submarines to deliver them. The Soviet meaning of military doctrine was much different from U.S. military usage of the term. Soviet Minister of Defence Marshal Andrei Grechko defined it in 1975 as 'a system of views on the nature of war and methods of waging it, and on the preparation of the country and army for war, officially adopted in a given state and its armed forces.' Soviet theorists emphasised both

15960-609: The retreating Red Army in 1941. Soviet propaganda turned away from political notions of class struggle , and instead invoked the deeper-rooted patriotic feelings of the population, embracing Tsarist Russian history. Propagandists proclaimed the War against the German aggressors as the "Great Patriotic War", in allusion to the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon . References to ancient Russian military heroes such as Alexander Nevski and Mikhail Kutuzov appeared. Repressions against

16100-629: The revival of personal ranks began with the Marshal of the Soviet Union rank bestowed upon 5 Army Commanders. There were further modifications to the system. 1937 saw the Junior Lieutenant and Junior Military Technician ranks being added. On May 7, 1940, the ranks of " General " or " Admiral " replaced the senior functional ranks of Kombrig , Komdiv, Komkor , Komandarm ; the other senior functional ranks ("Division Commissar", "Division Engineer", etc.) remained unaffected. On November 2, 1940,

16240-428: The river. The Japanese kept probing the Soviet defences throughout July, without success. On August 20 Georgy Zhukov opened a major offensive with heavy air attack and three hours of artillery bombardment , after which three infantry divisions and five armoured brigades , supported by a fighter regiment and masses of artillery (57,000 troops in total), stormed the 75,000 Japanese force deeply entrenched in

16380-813: The régimes in what became satellite states of the Soviet Union and to deter and to fend off pro-independence resistance and later NATO forces. The greatest Soviet military presence was in East Germany , in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany , but there were also smaller forces elsewhere, including the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, the Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia , and

16520-698: The same location in Siberia: Ust-Kut and the Verkholensk in the Baikal Lake region. They had two daughters, Zinaida (1901–1933) and Nina (1902–1928), born in Siberia. In Siberia, Trotsky studied philosophy. He became aware of the differences within the party, which had been decimated by arrests in 1898 and 1899. Some social democrats known in Leninist phraseology as " economists " argued

16660-520: The section of articles and notes on the events of the day, he will not only be very useful, but absolutely necessary. Unquestionably a man of rare abilities, he has conviction and energy, and he will go much farther. Because of Plekhanov's opposition, Trotsky did not become a full member of the board. But participated in its meetings in an advisory capacity, which earned him Plekhanov's enmity. In late 1902, Trotsky met Natalia Sedova (1882–1962), who soon became his companion. They married in 1903, and she

16800-547: The socialist revolution could only survive if spread to advanced capitalist countries. In The Revolution Betrayed (1936), Trotsky argued that the Soviet Union had become a " degenerated workers' state " due to its isolation, and called for an end to Stalin's dictatorship. He founded the Fourth International in 1938 as an alternative to the Comintern . In 1936, Trotsky was sentenced to death in absentia at

16940-530: The system underwent further modification with the abolition of functional ranks for non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and the introduction of the Podpolkovnik ( Lieutenant Colonel ) rank. In early 1942 all the functional ranks in technical and administrative corps became regularised ranks (e.g., "Engineer Major", "Engineer Colonel", "Captain of the Intendant Service", etc.). On October 9, 1942,

17080-515: The time of the Nazi assault on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Red Army had 303 divisions and 22 brigades (4.8 million troops), including 166 divisions and 9 brigades (2.9 million troops) stationed in the western military districts. Their Axis opponents deployed on the Eastern Front 181 divisions and 18 brigades (3.8 million troops). The first weeks of the war saw the annihilation of virtually

17220-479: The time required children to be given religious education "in the faith of their parents". Odessa was then a bustling cosmopolitan port city, very unlike the typical Russian city of the time. This environment contributed to the development of the young man's international outlook. Trotsky became involved in revolutionary activities in 1896 after moving to the harbor town of Nikolayev on the Black Sea . At first

17360-468: The union, including Trotsky, were arrested. He was held for the next two years in prison awaiting trial, first in Nikolayev, then Kherson , then Odessa, and finally in Moscow. In the Moscow prison, he came into contact with other revolutionaries, heard about Lenin and read Lenin's book, The Development of Capitalism in Russia . Two months into his imprisonment, on 1–3 March 1898, the first Congress of

17500-617: The war and demanded a complete break with the Second International . Trotsky attended the Zimmerwald Conference of anti-war socialists in September 1915 and advocated a middle course between those who, like Martov, would stay within the Second International at any cost and those who, like Lenin, would break with the Second International and form a Third International . The conference adopted

17640-438: The war highly unpopular within the Army. With the coming of glasnost , Soviet media started to report heavy losses, which made the war very unpopular in the USSR in general, even though actual losses remained modest, averaging 1670 per year. The war also became a sensitive issue internationally, which finally led General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to withdraw the Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The " Afghan Syndrome " suffered by

17780-644: The withdrawal and division took place without any problems, the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet remained in the Crimea , Ukraine, with the fleet division and a Russian leasehold for fleet facilities in Crimea finally achieved in 1997. The Baltic states ( Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania ) became successful members of NATO since 2004. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine maintain cooperation with NATO as well. The Soviet Armed Forces were controlled by

17920-420: Was Yiddish Leiba . The American Trotskyist David North said that this was an assumption based on Trotsky's Jewish birth, but, contrary to Service's claims, there is no documentary evidence to support his using a Yiddish name, when that language was not spoken by his family. Both North and political historian Walter Laqueur wrote that Trotsky's childhood name was Lyova , a standard Russian diminutive of

18060-550: Was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He was a central figure in the 1905 Revolution , October Revolution , Russian Civil War , and establishment of the Soviet Union . Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were widely considered the two most prominent Soviet figures, and Trotsky was " de facto " second-in-command during the early years of the Russian Soviet Republic . Ideologically

18200-524: Was a large-scale reduction in force size in 1953–56; 1.1 million personnel were released from the armed forces. Two military districts were disestablished in 1956. Soviet law required all able-bodied males of age to serve a minimum of two years. As a result, the Soviet Ground Forces remained the largest active army in the world from 1945 to 1991. Soviet units which had taken over the countries of Eastern Europe from German rule remained to secure

18340-428: Was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August 1910. Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations. Trotsky continued publishing Pravda for another two years until it finally folded in April 1912. The Bolsheviks started a new workers-oriented newspaper in Saint Petersburg on 22 April 1912 and also called it Pravda . Trotsky was so upset by what he saw as

18480-589: Was also abolished by decree, while separate quarters for officers, special forms of address, saluting, and higher pay were all reinstated. After General Aleksei Brusilov offered the Bolsheviks his professional services in 1920, they decided to permit the conscription of former officers of the Imperial Russian Army . The Bolshevik authorities set up a special commission under the chair of Lev Glezarov (Лев Маркович Глезаров), and by August 1920 had drafted about 315,000 ex-officers. Most often they held

18620-625: Was detained for a month at Amherst Internment Camp in Nova Scotia . While imprisoned in the camp, Trotsky established an increasing friendship with the workers and sailors amongst his fellow inmates, describing his month at the camp as "one continual mass meeting". Trotsky's speeches and agitation incurred the wrath of German officer inmates who complained to the British camp commander, Colonel Morris, about Trotsky's "anti-patriotic" attitude. Morris then forbade Trotsky to make any more public speeches, leading to 530 prisoners protesting and signing

18760-571: Was eight, his father sent him to Odessa to be educated. He was enrolled in a Lutheran German-language school (School of the Lutheran St. Pauls Cathedral, of Black Sea Germans , which admitted students of other faiths and backgrounds, ) which became Russified during his years in Odessa as a result of the Imperial government's policy of Russification . Trotsky and his wife Natalia later registered their children as Lutheran, since Austrian law at

18900-634: Was expressed by the London-based newspaper Iskra ( The Spark ), founded in 1900. Trotsky quickly sided with the Iskra position and began writing for the paper. In the summer of 1902, at the urging of his wife, Aleksandra, Trotsky escaped from Siberia hidden in hay. Aleksandra later escaped with their daughters. Both daughters married, and Zinaida had children, but the daughters died before their parents. Nina Nevelson died from tuberculosis in 1928, cared for in her last months by her older sister. Zinaida Volkova followed her father into exile in Berlin , taking her son by her second marriage but leaving behind

19040-401: Was formed in 1948. The Ministry was briefly divided into two again from 1950 to 1953, but then was amalgamated again as the Ministry of Defence . Six years later the Strategic Rocket Forces were formed. The Soviet Airborne Forces , were also active by this time as a Reserve of the Supreme High Command . Also falling within the Soviet Armed Forces were the Tyl, or Rear Services . Men within

19180-469: Was included into the Moscow Military District . It was formed for the second time on May 28, 1949. It included the former area of the district, and since January 1954 the newly formed Lipetsk, Belgorod and Balashov areas. In 1955, the district included the 11th Guards Rifle Corps , and the 3rd Guards , 68th and 87th Guards Rifle Divisions , and the 75th Mechanised Division. It was disbanded on 18 August 1960 and its territory and troops incorporated within

19320-447: Was smuggled into Russia. The paper appeared very irregularly; only five issues were published in its first year. Avoiding factional politics, the paper proved popular with Russian industrial workers. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks split multiple times after the failure of the 1905–1907 revolution. Money was very scarce for the publication of Pravda . Trotsky approached the Russian Central Committee to seek financial backing for

19460-400: Was the embodiment of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. Trotsky joined the Soviet under the name "Yanovsky" (after the village he was born in, Yanovka) and was elected vice-chairman. He did much of the actual work at the Soviet and, after Khrustalev-Nosar's arrest on 26 November 1905, was elected its chairman. On 2 December, the Soviet issued a proclamation which included the following statement about

19600-501: Was with him until his death. They had two children together, Lev Sedov (1906–1938) and Sergei Sedov (1908–1937), both of whom would predecease their parents. Regarding his sons' surnames, Trotsky later explained that after the 1917 revolution: In order not to oblige my sons to change their name, I, for "citizenship" requirements, took on the name of my wife. Trotsky never used the name "Sedov" either privately or publicly. Natalia Sedova sometimes signed her name "Sedova-Trotskaya". In

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