Soviet Armed Forces

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Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Вооружённые Силы Союза Советских Социалистических Республик Vooruzhonnyye Sily Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik
The Soviet flag was also being used as the Banner of the USSR Armed Forces
Founded	23 February 1918; 106 years ago (1918-02-23) (as the Red Army) 25 February 1946; 78 years ago (1946-02-25) (as the Soviet Armed Forces)
Disbanded	26 December 1991; 32 years ago (1991-12-26) (Soviet Union dissolved) 24 December 1993; 30 years ago (1993-12-24)[1] (United Armed Forces disbanded)
Service branches	Soviet Army Soviet Air Forces Soviet Air Defence Forces Strategic Rocket Forces Soviet Navy[2]
Headquarters	Ministry of Defence, Khamovniki District, Moscow, RSFSR
Leadership
General Secretary	Joseph Stalin (1922–1953) Mikhail Gorbachev (1985–1991)
Minister of Defence	Nikolai Podvoisky (1917–1918) Yevgeny Shaposhnikov (1991–1993)
Chief of the General Staff	Pavel Lebedev (1921–1924) Viktor Samsonov (1991–1992)
Personnel
Military age	18–35
Conscription	2 years (Army & Air Force) 3 years (Navy)
Available for military service	92,345,764 (1991), age 18–35
Active personnel	4,900,000 (1985)
Reserve personnel	12,750,000
Expenditures
Budget	US$128 billion (official, 1988)[3] US$200-300 billion (CIA, Pentagon estimate, 1988)[4]
Percent of GDP	4.9% (official, 1988) 7.7–11.5% (CIA, Pentagon estimate, 1988)
Related articles
History	Military history of the Soviet Union
Ranks	Military ranks of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Armed Forces,^[a] also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union,^[b] the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922) and the Soviet Union (1922–1991) from their beginnings in the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In May 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued decrees forming the Russian Armed Forces, which subsumed much of the Soviet Armed Forces. Multiple sections of the former Soviet Armed Forces in the other, smaller Soviet republics gradually came under those republics' control.

According to the all-union military service law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Ground Forces, the Air Forces, the Navy, the State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the convoy guards.^[5] The OGPU was later made independent and amalgamated with the NKVD in 1934, and thus its Internal Troops were under the joint management of the Defence and Interior Commissariats. In 1989, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the Ground Forces, the Air Defence Forces, the Air Forces, and the Navy, listed in their official order of importance.^[2]

In the USSR, general conscription applied, which meant that all able-bodied males aged eighteen and older were drafted into the armed forces.^[6] International observers regarded the armed organizations as collectively one of the strongest such forces in world history.^[7] The relative advancement and development of the government's militaries was a key part of the history of the USSR.

In the context of the Cold War, an academic study by the rival U.S. Department of Defense in 1984 found that the Soviets maintained a notable reach across the world and particularly inside Europe. The analysis explicitly concluded that "Soviet armies have always been massive" while "they are also highly modernized, well-equipped, and have great firepower... [as well as] mobility", which meant that "manpower and materiel combined make the present Soviet ground forces a very formidable land army." Although Soviet military strategy in general merited comment, "the ground forces constituted the largest of the five Soviet military services" as of the date the research ended.^[7]

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