The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution. Beginning in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in December 1991.
The Red Army is credited as being the decisive land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces deployed in the war, inflicting the vast majority of all German losses and ultimately capturing the German capital.
These amazing photos captured historical moments of Soviet soldiers during World War II.
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Recruits leaving for the front during mobilization, Moscow, 23rd June 1941 |
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Red Army in 1941 |
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Red Army soldiers examine war trophies captured in battles with invading Germans, Russia, September 19, 1941 |
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Soldiers carrying a wounded soldier, the Leningrad Front, 1941 |
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The Soviet army counter-attacks, Tarutino, Kaluga region, October 1941 |
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A soviet army medic bandages the hand of a wounded soldier in the ruins of a building during the First Battle of Voronezh, July 1942 |
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Leningrad, 1942 |
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Red Army soldier dragging a wounded comrade from the battlefield during the battle of Stalingrad, 1942 |
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Soviet troops approach Moscow with German prisoners on February 10, 1942 |
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Soviet soldiers advance through the rubble of Stalingrad, autumn of 1942 |
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Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of the Red October factory, Stalingrad, October 1942 |
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Standing in the backyard of an abandoned house in the outskirts of the besieged city of Leningrad, a rifleman of the Red Army aims and fires his machine gun at German positions on December 1942 |
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A boy reports about the location the germans, 1943 |
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A Soviet anti-tank gun crew advances towards the German positions under cover of a smoke screen, somewhere in Russia, July 23, 1943 |
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A Soviet soldier stands guard behind a captured German soldier, February 1943 |
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Red Army soldiers in camouflage gear on a snow-covered battlefield, somewhere along the German-Russian war front, as they advance against German positions on March 3, 1943 |
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Soviet soldiers find cover in piles of rubble from blasted buildings while engaging German forces in street fighting on the outskirts of Stalingrad, 1943 |
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Soviet soldiers line up along the roof of a house in Stalingrad, 1943 |
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Soviet soldiers celebrate the retaking of Sevastopol, 1944 |
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A Soviet machine gun crew crosses a river along the second Baltic front, January 1945 |
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Soviet soldiers lead house-to-house fighting in the outskirts of Konigsberg, East Prussia, Germany, April 1945 |
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Woman soldier traffic controller, Berlin, May 1, 1945 |
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Soviet officers and U.S. soldiers during a friendly meeting on the Elbe River in April of 1945 |