Supported in a large part by evidence released after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this work follows the career of the Red Army from its birth in 1918 as the designated vanguard of world revolution to its affiliation in 1941 with 'the citadel of capitalism', the United States.
Effectiveness of leadership and military doctrine are particular concerns, and Joseph Stalin is the dominant personality. Germany is the enemy in 1918, ally in the 1920s, enemy again in 1933, ally again in 1939, and enemy once more in 1941. On the basis of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920, the Red Army bills itself as 'an army of a new type' but intervention in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, reveals widespread obsolescence in armament and equipment. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 gives Germany a free hand against Poland: but slack performance in an unopposed occupation of eastern Poland and bungled war with Finland in the winter of 1939-40 necessitate a sweeping military reformation. German invasion on 22 June 1941, brings on a catastrophe that by the year's end has consumed nearly the entire pre-invasion army. The United States entry into the war on 7 December 1941 and the Red Army's subsequent recovery raise the question: Who won the Second World War?
