The
Red Army is the name given to the Armed Forces of the
Soviet Union after the disintegration of the Tsarist forces in
1917. "
Red" referred to the shed blood of the working class. The
Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was created by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars in
1918.
Leon Trotsky, the Soviet Union's commissar for war from
1918 to
1924 is often regarded as its founder. By the end of
World War II the Red Army numbered over 11 million officers and enlisted soldiers. After its victory over
Nazi Germany the numbers were reduced to about 3 million.
In 1946 the word 'Red' was removed from the name of the Soviet armed forces.
See
Red Army Faction for the German terrorist group.
All Wikipedia text
is available under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
