• Russian: Вооружённые Силы Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, Vooruzhonnyye Sily Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik
• Ukrainian: Збройні Сили Союзу Радянських

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Origins
The Council of People's Commissars set up the Red Army by decree on January 15, 1918 (Old Style) (January 28, 1918), basing it on the already

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The Soviet Armed Forces were controlled by the Ministry of Defence.
At its head was the Minister of Defence, generally a full member of the Politburo(the Politburo, in turn, was

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Ranks and titles
The early Red Army never adopted the idea of a professional officer corps. It was seen as a "heritage of tsarism.". In particular, the Bolsheviks condemned the use of the word "officer" and used the word "commander"

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The Soviet Union established an indigenous arms industry as part of Stalin's industrialization program in the 1920s and 1930s. The five-round, stripper clip-fed, bolt-action Mosin–Nagantrifle remained the primary shoulder firearm of the Red Army through World War

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• Comparative military ranks of World War II
• List of military aircraft of the Soviet Union and the CIS

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The Communist Partyhad a number of mechanisms of control over the country's armed forces. First, starting from a certain rank, only a Party member could be a military commander, and was thus subject to Party discipline. Second, the top military leaders had been

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