PLEnlist

The Military History of the Soviet Union, 1917 to 1991

Soviet Union · 1917 to 1991 · Nation guide · ~12 min read · Updated October 2026

By

Black and white photograph of soldiers in long greatcoats and fur caps marching with rifles across a cobbled square, past crowds holding dark banners, with the towers of the State Historical Museum in Moscow behind them.

Bain News Service, Moscow, review of Red Army, glass negative, about 1918 to 1920 (Library of Congress, LCCN 2014713395), via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

At a glance

Period
Soviet Russia from November 1917; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from December 1922 to December 1991
Where
Eastern Europe, the Baltic, Finland, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia and Manchuria, Afghanistan
Army
The Red Army, founded in early 1918
Key battles
Warsaw (1920), Tolvajärvi (1939), Moscow (1941), Stalingrad (1942 to 1943), Kursk (1943), Berlin (1945)
End
Dissolved in December 1991; its fifteen republics became independent states
Quick answer

What is the military history of the Soviet Union?

It is the record of the wars fought by Soviet Russia from 1917 and by the USSR from 1922 to 1991: the Civil War, the 1920 war with Poland, the 1939 invasions of Poland and Finland, the war against Germany from Moscow and Stalingrad to Berlin, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 and Afghanistan.1

The Soviet Union lost more people in World War II than any other country. It also invaded its neighbors, from Poland and Finland in 1939 to Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan during the Cold War. This guide follows the Red Army era by era and gives the defeats, the crimes and the sacrifices the same weight. Start with our guides to the Soviet invasion of Poland (1939), the Battle of Moscow (1941), the Battle of Stalingrad (1942 to 1943), the Battle of Kursk (1943) and the Battle of Berlin (1945).

The Soviet Union was not Russia. It was a union of republics that stretched from Ukraine and Belarus to the Caucasus and Central Asia. Our hub on the military history of Russia covers the wars of the tsars before 1917, and our guides to the Eastern Front of World War II, the Polish-Soviet War and the invasion of Poland in 1939 tell those wars in more detail.

What was the Soviet Union?

The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in November 1917, but the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not formed until 1922. On 30 December 1922 delegates of four Soviet republics, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian federation, adopted the treaty that created it. At its peak the union had fifteen republics, and it was ruled by a single party, the Communist Party, until its last years.2

Its army grew out of the Civil War. Lenin ordered Leon Trotsky to build a Red Army in early 1918, and it began as a small force of volunteers from the cities of northern and central Russia. By the end of 1920 it had become a conscript army of about five million soldiers, most of them peasants.3

Political map of the Soviet Union in 1983: the huge Russian republic in yellow stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific, Kazakhstan in orange, the Central Asian, Caucasian and western republics in smaller colored areas, with internal borders and city names.
The Union and its republics as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency mapped them in 1983: Soviet Union Administrative Divisions, 1983 (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division). A note on the map records that the United States never recognized the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

How did the Red Army win the Russian Civil War?

From the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks, or Reds, fought the Whites, a diverse coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces. After World War I ended in November 1918, Britain, France, Japan, the United States and other powers sent troops to Russian ports and backed the White cause.4

Lacking trained leaders, Trotsky recruited former officers of the old imperial army and placed a political commissar beside each of them to watch their loyalty. Mass conscription filled the ranks. The Whites, who held much of Siberia and southern Russia, were routed in 1920.5

Black and white photograph of a man in a long belted greatcoat and peaked cap raising his fist as he speaks to a crowd of soldiers in tunics and caps; a printed caption at lower right reads Trotzky addressing the Red Guard.
Leon Trotsky, the Bolshevik commissar for war who built the Red Army, speaking to soldiers during the Civil War. Bain News Service glass negative, captioned Trotzky addressing “The Red Guard” (Library of Congress, LCCN 2014713454). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Polish-Soviet War and the Battle of Warsaw, 1920

Soviet Russia also fought the reborn Polish state. In April 1920 Polish and Ukrainian forces advanced on Kyiv and took it on 7 May. The Red Army struck back in July, crossed the Berezina and by early August was fighting along the Bug, on the road to Warsaw. The historian Norman Davies argues that Lenin saw Poland as the “Red Bridge” the revolution had to cross to reach Germany.6

In mid-August 1920 the Poles won the Battle of Warsaw, a decisive victory over the Red Army, and followed it with victories at Komarów and on the Niemen. The Treaty of Riga, signed on 18 March 1921 by Poland, Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine, ended the war. Our hub on the Polish-Soviet War tells it in full.7

The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, 1939 to 1941: the pact, Poland and Katyn

In the summer of 1939 the Red Army fought Japan on the Mongolian border. On 20 August Georgy Zhukov opened a double envelopment on the Khalkhin Gol river, encircled the Japanese and decisively defeated them; both sides agreed a ceasefire in September.8

In August 1939 the Soviet Union and Germany signed a nonaggression pact. Its secret protocol divided eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, and on 17 September the Red Army invaded Poland from the east and occupied eastern Poland. Our article on the Soviet invasion of Poland follows that campaign.9

The NKVD, the Soviet security police, held thousands of captured Polish officers, policemen and members of the intelligentsia in camps at Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobelsk. On 5 March 1940 the Soviet Politburo approved their execution. In April and May 1940 the NKVD shot them in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, in Kharkiv and in Kalinin (now Tver); the Polish History Museum counts 21,857 victims, the Institute of National Remembrance nearly 22,000.10

German troops found the graves at Katyn in April 1943, and Moscow blamed Germany for the killings for almost fifty years. On 13 April 1990 the Soviet government admitted that the NKVD had committed the crime, and Mikhail Gorbachev handed documents to Poland.11

Under the same protocol the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the summer of 1940 and took Bessarabia from Romania.12

Who won the Winter War with Finland?

On 30 November 1939 the Red Army invaded Finland after the Finns refused Soviet demands for most of the Karelian Isthmus north of Leningrad and a naval base on the Gulf of Finland. The League of Nations expelled the Soviet Union in December. In the first weeks the much smaller Finnish army destroyed whole Soviet divisions; at Tolvajärvi, north of Lake Ladoga, it drove back the Soviet 139th Division in one of its first clear victories.13

The Red Army reorganized and broke through the Mannerheim Line, and Finland accepted peace in Moscow in March 1940. The Soviet Union won and took about 11 percent of Finland's territory, including the Karelian Isthmus and Viipuri, but Finland kept its independence.14

The cost was very high. Robert Citino of the National WWII Museum gives modern estimates of 120,000 to 200,000 Soviet soldiers killed; the Encyclopedia of Russian History cites Soviet archives, opened in 1993, that record 127,000 killed or missing.15

The Great Patriotic War: Barbarossa, Moscow and Leningrad

Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, breaking the pact. More than three million German troops attacked, joined by Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, Slovak and Croatian forces. Stalin called the struggle the Great Patriotic War, and that is still its name in the former Soviet lands.16

Citino counts a Red Army of some 5.5 million men in June 1941; the Encyclopedia of Russian History gives 4.5 million for the whole armed forces. It was large but badly led. Stalin's purges of 1937 and 1938 had struck its officer corps, and the first months were a catastrophe. The encirclement at Kyiv in September alone cost more than 600,000 men. By December 1941 Soviet casualties stood at about four million by Citino's count, 4.5 million in the Encyclopedia of Russian History.17

The retreat brought Soviet crimes as well. As the Red Army fell back in June 1941, the NKVD murdered thousands of prisoners in the jails of the lands it had occupied since 1939, above all in western Ukraine, rather than let them fall into German hands.18

German policy aimed to starve tens of millions of Soviet civilians, and Soviet prisoners died in vast numbers. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum counts some 5.7 million Soviet soldiers taken prisoner, of whom 3.3 million were dead by the end of the war.19

In October the Germans launched Operation Typhoon to take the capital. They reached its outskirts, but in early December 1941 the Red Army, with Zhukov in command of the Western Front, launched a counteroffensive that drove them back. Read our guide to the Battle of Moscow.20

In the north, German troops cut off Leningrad on 8 September 1941. The siege lasted until 27 January 1944, 872 days. The National WWII Museum puts the dead at about 1.5 million soldiers and civilians; the Encyclopedia of Russian History says close to two million Soviet citizens died in the city or on the nearby fronts.21

Stalingrad, Kursk and Bagration: how the Red Army turned the war

In the summer of 1942 Germany struck south toward the oil fields of the Caucasus, and its Sixth Army under Friedrich Paulus was sent to take Stalingrad on the Volga. By late August it had broken through to the city.22

Meanwhile Zhukov and Aleksandr Vasilevsky planned a double encirclement, Operation Uranus. It opened on 19 November 1942, and within days more than 300,000 German and Romanian troops were trapped. On 2 February 1943 the last of the encircled troops surrendered, and the historian Ian Johnson calls Stalingrad the turning point of World War II in Europe. See our guides to the Battle of Stalingrad and Operation Uranus.23

In July 1943 Germany attacked the salient at Kursk in Operation Citadel. The offensive failed against deep Soviet defenses, and Soviet counteroffensives followed through August. Kursk was the last great German offensive in the east; our article on Prokhorovka looks at its most famous tank clash.24

In late June 1944 the Red Army opened Operation Bagration in Belarus. In a few weeks it destroyed German Army Group Centre, and by August it had reached the Vistula and the outskirts of Warsaw. On 17 July tens of thousands of German prisoners were marched through the streets of Moscow. The Imperial War Museums put German losses at about 450,000 killed, wounded or captured; Jeff Rutherford, interviewed by the National WWII Museum, gives about 390,000 in nine weeks.25

Berlin and Manchuria, 1945

On 16 April 1945 the Red Army opened the Berlin offensive. Zhukov's and Ivan Konev's fronts encircled the city by 25 April. Many of its defenders were old men and boys of the Volkssturm militia, and on 2 May the garrison surrendered. About 80,000 Red Army soldiers died in the battle, and Zhukov accepted Germany's surrender in Berlin on 8 May. Our guides to the Seelow Heights and the Battle of Berlin tell the story.26

The victory came with mass crimes against civilians. Rape and sexual violence by Soviet soldiers were widespread in Berlin and in the rest of Soviet-occupied Germany.27

Black and white photograph of three leaders seated side by side on a patio, Churchill in a greatcoat, Roosevelt in a dark cape and Stalin in a marshal's uniform, with British, American and Soviet officers standing behind them under stone arches.
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference in the Crimea, February 1945, where the Allies planned the defeat of Germany. U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph (U.S. National Archives, 111-SC-260486). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In August 1945, three months after the war in Europe ended, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. A Soviet offensive overran Manchuria in a short campaign that ended with Japan's surrender in September.28

How many Soviet people died in World War II?

No country lost more people in World War II. Estimates differ: the Gale Encyclopedia of World History gives about twenty million, nearly an eighth of the population, while Keith Huxen of the National WWII Museum writes that reputable historians generally put the toll at 23 to 27 million.29

The Soviet Union did not fight alone. Under Lend-Lease the United States sent it more than 11 billion dollars of goods, including more than 400,000 trucks and jeeps. Soviet and later Russian accounts long played down this aid.30

Why did the Soviet Union invade Hungary and Czechoslovakia?

After 1945 Soviet forces were stationed across eastern Europe, and in 1955 the Soviet Union and seven communist states formed the Warsaw Pact. The alliance also served to keep the satellite regimes under Moscow's control.31

In Hungary a student protest on 23 October 1956 grew into a national rising. Imre Nagy returned to power, called for free elections and on 1 November announced that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact. On 4 November Soviet forces attacked Budapest in strength and crushed the Hungarian Revolution; thousands of Hungarians were killed, and some 200,000 fled to the West. A new government under János Kádár, backed by Moscow, took power.32

In Czechoslovakia the reforms of Alexander Dubček, the Prague Spring, alarmed Moscow and its allies. On the night of 20 to 21 August 1968 Soviet troops, with smaller forces from Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Bulgaria, invaded the country. Dubček was forced out in April 1969, and the claim that Moscow could intervene wherever communist rule was threatened became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.33

Why did the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan?

In December 1979, after a coup brought Hafizullah Amin to power in Kabul, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to secure a friendly communist government on the Soviet border. They killed Amin and installed Babrak Karmal.34

The war became a decade of counterinsurgency against the mujahideen, guerrillas who declared a holy war against the occupation. The Soviet army could not bring its strength in armor and artillery to bear in the mountains, and the conflict turned into ten years of grinding insurgency. Mikhail Gorbachev announced the withdrawal in 1988, and the last Soviet soldiers crossed the border on 15 February 1989.35

About 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed, the figure given by the Columbia Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Russian History. More than a million Afghans died, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia and the estimates reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and about five million fled abroad as refugees.36

How did the Soviet Union end?

Gorbachev's reforms loosened Moscow's grip on eastern Europe, where communist rule collapsed in 1989, and the Soviet republics began to assert their sovereignty. In August 1991 hard-line communists attempted a coup against him. It failed, but it left him gravely weakened.37

In early December the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus formed the Commonwealth of Independent States. On 25 December 1991 Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time. Its fifteen republics became independent states.38

Color photograph of a young Soviet marine in a camouflage uniform and padded tank helmet leaning on a green amphibious light tank with a long gun barrel, under a clear blue sky.
A Soviet naval infantryman beside his PT-76 amphibious tank at Sevastopol, 4 August 1989, during a goodwill visit by two U.S. Navy warships, two years before the Union dissolved. Photograph by PH2 Mark Kettenhofen, U.S. Navy. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Famous Soviet military commanders

Georgy Zhukov defeated the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol, defended Moscow in 1941, helped plan the Stalingrad counteroffensive, took Berlin and accepted Germany's surrender in 1945. Read our profile of Georgy Zhukov.39

Aleksandr Vasilevsky planned Operation Uranus with Zhukov. Ivan Konev led the 1st Ukrainian Front into Berlin, and Konstantin Rokossovsky, who distinguished himself in the defense of Moscow, joined the final attack on the city. Leon Trotsky, the commissar for war, built the Red Army that won the Civil War.40

Major Soviet battles, era by era

Every battle we have written up in which Soviet Russia or the Soviet Union fought, from the war with Poland in 1920 to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, grouped by era.

World War II 1939 to 1945 · 19

  1. 1939
    Soviet invasion of Poland, 1939Soviet Union vs Poland

    On 17 September 1939, with Poland still fighting Germany, the Red Army crossed the eastern border under the secret Nazi-Soviet protocol. The invasion, the resistance and the cost.

  2. 1939
    Battle of Tolvajärvi, 1939Finland vs Soviet Union

    On 12 December 1939 Finland's Detachment P attacked a Soviet rifle division at Tolvajärvi just as it was about to attack, and broke it: Finland's first big win of the Winter War.

  3. 1941
    The Siege of Leningrad, 1941 to 1944Soviet Union vs Germany and Finland

    872 days, the 125-gram ration, the Road of Life and Tanya Savicheva's diary.

  4. 1941
    The Battle of Moscow, 1941USSR vs Nazi Germany

    The first great defeat of the Wehrmacht, in the snow.

  5. 1941
    Siege of Odessa, 1941Romania (4th Army), with German support vs Soviet Union (Coastal Army, Black Sea Fleet)

    From August to October 1941 Soviet troops held Odessa, cut off by land and supplied by sea, against Romania's 4th Army, then slipped away by ship.

  6. 1942
    Barvenkovo-Lozovaya offensive, 1942Soviet Union vs Germany

    In January 1942 the Red Army broke through on the Donets near Izyum and drove toward the Dnieper, but the Germans held the shoulders and the gain became the Izyum bulge.

  7. 1942
    The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942-1943USSR vs Germany and allies

    Five months of street fighting on the Volga, a surprise encirclement, and the surrender that turned the whole war in the East.

  8. 1942
    Operation Uranus, 1942Soviet Union vs Germany and Romania

    On 19 November 1942 the Red Army struck the Romanian armies on both flanks of Stalingrad. Four days later the German Sixth Army was encircled.

  9. 1943
    The Battle of Kursk, 1943USSR vs Germany (Operation Citadel)

    Hitler's doomed 1943 gamble and the greatest tank battle of the war, told scene by scene.

  10. 1943
    Battle of Prokhorovka, 1943Soviet Union vs Germany

    On 12 July 1943 the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army attacked the II SS Panzer Corps at Prokhorovka. What really happened and why the legend grew.

  11. 1943
    Operation Kutuzov, 1943Soviet Union vs Germany

    On 12 July 1943, at the height of Kursk, the Red Army attacked the German bulge around Orel. Five weeks later it had taken Orel and pushed the Germans back.

  12. 1943
    Donbas offensive, July 1943Soviet Union vs Germany

    In July 1943 the Red Army attacked on the Mius and at Izyum. It gained little and was thrown back, but the attack pulled German panzers south from Kursk.

  13. 1943
    Smolensk operation, 1943Soviet Union vs Germany

    From August to October 1943 two Soviet fronts ground through the forest defenses of Army Group Center and retook Smolensk on 25 September.

  14. 1944
    Leningrad-Novgorod offensive, 1944Soviet Union vs Germany

    On 14 January 1944 two Soviet fronts struck from Oranienbaum, Leningrad and Novgorod. Within two weeks the German ring was broken and the 872-day siege was over.

  15. 1944
    Crimean offensive, 1944Soviet Union vs Germany and Romania

    In April and May 1944 the Red Army broke into the Crimea, drove the German 17th Army into Sevastopol and took the city in three days of assault.

  16. 1945
    Operation Konrad III, 1945Germany and Hungary vs Soviet Union

    On 18 January 1945 German panzers struck from Lake Balaton to relieve encircled Budapest. They reached the Danube in 27 hours and retook Székesfehérvár, but stalled about 25 km short of the city.

  17. 1945
    The Battle of Berlin, 1945USSR vs Nazi Germany

    The ferocious final battle for Hitler's capital in 1945, told scene by scene.

  18. 1945
    Battle of the Seelow Heights, 1945Soviet Union and Poland vs Germany

    On 16 April 1945 Zhukov's armies attacked the Seelow Heights, the last ridge before Berlin. Searchlights blinded the wrong side, and the breakthrough took four bloody days.

  19. 1945
    Battle of Halbe, 1945Soviet Union vs Germany

    In late April 1945 the encircled German Ninth Army and thousands of refugees tried to break out through Halbe, south of Berlin. About 40,000 died; 25,000 soldiers reached the Elbe.

Since 1945 1

  1. 1956
    Hungarian Revolution of 1956Hungarian revolutionaries (and the Nagy government from 28 October) vs Soviet Union and Hungarian state security (ÁVH)

    How a student march on 23 October 1956 became a national revolt, why the Soviets invaded Hungary on 4 November, and how many died in the fighting.

Other 4

  1. 1920
    The Battle of Zadwórze, 1920Poland vs Soviet Russia

    Young Lwów volunteers stood in the path of Budyonny's cavalry.

  2. 1920
    Battle of Warsaw, 1920Poland vs Soviet Russia

    How Poland shattered the advancing Red Army at the gates of Warsaw in 1920, the Miracle on the Vistula.

  3. 1920
    The Battle of Komarów, 1920Poland vs Soviet Russia

    Polish uhlans broke Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army.

  4. 1920
    Battle of the Niemen, 1920Second Polish Republic vs Soviet Russia

    In September 1920 Piłsudski's armies broke Tukhachevsky's new front on the Niemen at Grodno and Lida, taking tens of thousands of prisoners and ending the war.

Timeline of Soviet military history

  1. 1918
    Lenin and Trotsky found the Red Army; the Civil War begins.41
  2. 1920
    Polish victory at Warsaw; the Whites are routed.42
  3. 1921
    18 March: Treaty of Riga ends the Polish-Soviet War.43
  4. 1922
    30 December: the USSR is founded.44
  5. 1939
    August: Khalkhin Gol and the pact with Germany; 17 September: invasion of Poland; 30 November: invasion of Finland.45
  6. 1940
    Katyn massacre; Winter War ends in March; the Baltic states are annexed.46
  7. 1941
    22 June: Germany invades; December: counteroffensive at Moscow.47
  8. 1942 to 1943
    Stalingrad; the Sixth Army surrenders on 2 February 1943.48
  9. 1943
    July to August: Kursk.49
  10. 1944
    27 January: the siege of Leningrad ends; June: Operation Bagration.50
  11. 1945
    May: Berlin falls; August: invasion of Manchuria.51
  12. 1956
    4 November: Soviet forces crush the Hungarian Revolution.52
  13. 1968
    20 to 21 August: invasion of Czechoslovakia.53
  14. 1979 to 1989
    War in Afghanistan.54
  15. 1991
    August coup; 25 December: Gorbachev resigns and the USSR ends.55

Memory and further reading

The war against Germany is still remembered in the former Soviet lands as the Great Patriotic War. For decades the official story played down Western aid and denied the crime of Katyn, whose files Moscow only opened in 1990, and the debate about Lend-Lease continues.56

For the other sides of these wars, see our hubs on the military history of Poland, the military history of Germany and the military history of Japan, and our ranking of the greatest battles of the Eastern Front.

Notes

A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.

  1. Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Paweł Libera, “The Polish-Soviet War of 1920”; U.S. Department of State, “The Collapse of the Soviet Union”. ↩
  2. Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”; Peter Roudik, “Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union”. ↩
  3. Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Orlando Figes, “The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920”. ↩
  4. Encyclopedia.com, “Civil War of 1917-1922”; Orlando Figes, “The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920”. ↩
  5. Encyclopedia.com, “Civil War of 1917-1922”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Orlando Figes, “The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920”. ↩
  6. Paweł Libera, “The Polish-Soviet War of 1920”; Norman Davies, “The Battle of Warsaw, one hundred years on”. ↩
  7. Paweł Libera, “The Polish-Soviet War of 1920”; Norman Davies, “The Battle of Warsaw, one hundred years on”; European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, “Signing of the Treaty of Riga”. ↩
  8. Encyclopedia.com, “Zhukov, Georgy (1896-1974)”; EBSCO Research Starters, “Battle of Khalkin-Gol”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”. ↩
  9. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “German-Soviet Pact”; U.S. National Archives, “Records Relating to the Katyn Forest Massacre at the National Archives”; Institute of National Remembrance, “The Katyn Massacre”. ↩
  10. Institute of National Remembrance, “The Katyn Massacre”; Polish History Museum, “The Katyn Massacre”; U.S. National Archives, “Records Relating to the Katyn Forest Massacre at the National Archives”. ↩
  11. Polish History Museum, “The Katyn Massacre”; Brian Crozier, “Remembering Katyn”; U.S. National Archives, “Records Relating to the Katyn Forest Massacre at the National Archives”. ↩
  12. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “German-Soviet Pact”; Robert Citino, “White Death”. ↩
  13. Robert Citino, “White Death”; Encyclopedia.com, “Soviet-Finnish War”; WFYI Public Media, Fire and Ice. ↩
  14. Robert Citino, “White Death”; Encyclopedia.com, “Soviet-Finnish War”. ↩
  15. Robert Citino, “White Death”; Encyclopedia.com, “Soviet-Finnish War”. ↩
  16. Robert Citino, “Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front”; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; John Curatola, “Lend-Lease to the Eastern Front”. ↩
  17. Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Robert Citino, “Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front”; Robert Citino, “White Death”. ↩
  18. Jennifer Popowycz, “The 1941 NKVD Prison Massacres in Western Ukraine”; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Soviet Secret Police massacre in Lvov”. ↩
  19. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941”; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Nazi Persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War”; The National WWII Museum, “Immeasurable Brutality, the Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945”. ↩
  20. Encyclopedia.com, “Moscow, Battle of”; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941”; Robert Citino, “Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front”; Ian Johnson, Origins. ↩
  21. Keith Huxen, “History Through the Viewfinder (the siege of Leningrad)”; Encyclopedia.com, “Leningrad, Siege of”. ↩
  22. Ian Johnson, Origins; Imperial War Museums, “What You Need To Know About The Battle Of Stalingrad”; Encyclopedia.com, “Stalingrad, Battle of”. ↩
  23. Ian Johnson, Origins; Encyclopedia.com, “Stalingrad, Battle of”; Imperial War Museums, “What You Need To Know About The Battle Of Stalingrad”. ↩
  24. Encyclopedia.com, “Kursk, Battle of”; Ian Johnson, Origins. ↩
  25. Imperial War Museums, “Operation Bagration”; Encyclopedia.com, “Bagration Operation”; The National WWII Museum, “Immeasurable Brutality, the Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945”. ↩
  26. Imperial War Museums, “Battle of Berlin”; Keith Huxen, “Remembering the Battle of Berlin”; Encyclopedia.com, “Zhukov, Georgy (1896-1974)”. ↩
  27. Imperial War Museums, “Battle of Berlin”; Keith Huxen, “Remembering the Battle of Berlin”; NPR, “Silence Broken On Red Army Rapes In Germany”. ↩
  28. The National WWII Museum, “The Fate of Japanese POWs in Soviet Captivity”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”. ↩
  29. Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”; Keith Huxen, “History Through the Viewfinder (Soviet losses)”. ↩
  30. John Curatola, “Lend-Lease to the Eastern Front”; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany?”. ↩
  31. EBSCO Research Starters, “Warsaw Pact”; Encyclopedia.com, “Warsaw Treaty Organization”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”. ↩
  32. U.S. Department of State, “Hungary, 1956”; Malcolm Byrne, “The 1956 Hungarian Revolution”; EBSCO Research Starters, “Soviets Crush Hungarian Uprising”; A. Ross Johnson, “Looking Back at the Cold War”; EBSCO Research Starters, “Warsaw Pact”. ↩
  33. U.S. Department of State, “Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968”; Encyclopedia.com, “Prague Spring”; A. Ross Johnson, “Looking Back at the Cold War”. ↩
  34. U.S. Department of State, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978-1980”; Encyclopedia.com (, The Columbia Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. ↩
  35. U.S. Department of State, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978-1980”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Encyclopedia.com (, The Columbia Encyclopedia; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “Twenty Years After Pullout, Soviet-Afghan Conflict Still Haunts”. ↩
  36. Encyclopedia.com (, The Columbia Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “Twenty Years After Pullout, Soviet-Afghan Conflict Still Haunts”. ↩
  37. U.S. Department of State, “The Collapse of the Soviet Union”; Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”. ↩
  38. U.S. Department of State, “The Collapse of the Soviet Union”; Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. ↩
  39. Encyclopedia.com, “Zhukov, Georgy (1896-1974)”; Ian Johnson, Origins; Imperial War Museums, “Battle of Berlin”. ↩
  40. Ian Johnson, Origins; Encyclopedia.com, “Stalingrad, Battle of”; Imperial War Museums, “Battle of Berlin”; Encyclopedia.com, “Zhukov, Georgy (1896-1974)”; Encyclopedia.com, “Moscow, Battle of”; Encyclopedia.com, “Civil War of 1917-1922”. ↩
  41. Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Orlando Figes, “The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920”. ↩
  42. Norman Davies, “The Battle of Warsaw, one hundred years on”; Encyclopedia.com, “Civil War of 1917-1922”. ↩
  43. Paweł Libera, “The Polish-Soviet War of 1920”; European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, “Signing of the Treaty of Riga”. ↩
  44. Peter Roudik, “Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union”; Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. ↩
  45. Encyclopedia.com, “Zhukov, Georgy (1896-1974)”; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “German-Soviet Pact”; Robert Citino, “White Death”. ↩
  46. Institute of National Remembrance, “The Katyn Massacre”; Encyclopedia.com, “Soviet-Finnish War”; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “German-Soviet Pact”. ↩
  47. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941”; Encyclopedia.com, “Moscow, Battle of”. ↩
  48. Ian Johnson, Origins; Encyclopedia.com, “Stalingrad, Battle of”. ↩
  49. Encyclopedia.com, “Kursk, Battle of”; Ian Johnson, Origins. ↩
  50. Keith Huxen, “History Through the Viewfinder (the siege of Leningrad)”; Imperial War Museums, “Operation Bagration”. ↩
  51. Imperial War Museums, “Battle of Berlin”; The National WWII Museum, “The Fate of Japanese POWs in Soviet Captivity”. ↩
  52. U.S. Department of State, “Hungary, 1956”; Malcolm Byrne, “The 1956 Hungarian Revolution”. ↩
  53. U.S. Department of State, “Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968”; Encyclopedia.com, “Prague Spring”. ↩
  54. U.S. Department of State, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978-1980”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”. ↩
  55. U.S. Department of State, “The Collapse of the Soviet Union”; Encyclopedia.com, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. ↩
  56. John Curatola, “Lend-Lease to the Eastern Front”; Encyclopedia.com, “Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet”; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany?”; Brian Crozier, “Remembering Katyn”. ↩

Sources

Frequently asked questions

When did the Soviet Union exist?

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was founded on 30 December 1922 by four Soviet republics and was dissolved in December 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and its fifteen republics became independent states. Before 1922 the Bolshevik state, created in November 1917, is usually called Soviet Russia.

Did the Soviet Union invade Poland in 1939?

Yes. In August 1939 the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a pact whose secret protocol divided eastern Europe between them. Germany attacked Poland on 1 September, and on 17 September 1939 the Red Army invaded from the east and occupied eastern Poland.

What was the Katyn massacre?

It was the mass execution of Polish prisoners by the Soviet NKVD in April and May 1940, approved by the Politburo on 5 March 1940. About 22,000 officers, policemen and others were shot at Katyn, Kharkiv and Kalinin. Moscow blamed Germany until 13 April 1990, when it admitted the crime.

How many Soviet people died in World War II?

Estimates range from about 20 million, the figure in the Gale Encyclopedia of World History, to 27 million. Keith Huxen of the National WWII Museum writes that reputable historians generally put the toll at 23 to 27 million, civilians and soldiers together. No country lost more people in the war.

What was the turning point of the war on the Eastern Front?

The historian Ian Johnson calls Stalingrad the turning point of World War II in Europe. In November 1942 the Red Army encircled more than 300,000 German and Romanian troops, who surrendered in February 1943. In July 1943 the last great German offensive in the east failed at Kursk, and the Red Army kept advancing.

Who won the Winter War?

The Soviet Union won. After invading Finland on 30 November 1939 it suffered heavy defeats, then broke the Mannerheim Line, and in March 1940 Finland ceded about 11 percent of its territory, including the Karelian Isthmus and Viipuri. Finland kept its independence, and Soviet losses were very heavy.

Why did the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan?

In December 1979 Soviet troops entered Afghanistan to keep a friendly communist government in power on the Soviet border. They killed the leader Hafizullah Amin and installed Babrak Karmal. The war against the mujahideen lasted almost ten years and cost about 15,000 Soviet lives before the withdrawal of February 1989.

Battle honors of your homeland

The turning points of history

Marathon, Gaugamela, Cannae, Constantinople, Waterloo, Stalingrad: the days the world changed course.

The Battle of Marathon, 490 BCThe Battle of Gaugamela, 331 BCThe Battle of Cannae, 216 BCThe Fall of Constantinople, 1453The Battle of Waterloo, 1815The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942-1943

Based on your country, which we do not store · why? ·

From Tolvajärvi to Berlin, scene by scene

Echoes of Battle brings the great battles of history to life, scene by scene on the real map. Enlist below and we will send word to your inbox the day it launches.

Or supply the campaign on Ko-fi ›