The Red Army

In 1918, at the time of the First World War and the Russian Civil War, Leon Trotsky founded the Red Army. It was not only used externally, but soon also against the Soviet people to put down unrest – a betrayal of its ideals of equality and democracy. Concerned about the great power of the army, Stalin initiated purges in 1937 and 1938, which killed numerous officers and generals. Weakened by the Great Terror, the Red Army was only a shadow of itself when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It took the combined forces of General Zhukov and his troops, the partisan movement and the Allies to defeat the Nazis. The Red Army liberated several concentration camps on their way to Berlin. The German Reich surrendered on May 8, 1945.