Ideology and the Rise of the Red Army, 1921–1929

Abstract

The end of the Civil War (1918–21) did not mark an end to the Bol sheviks’ continuing struggle over how best to construct the proper army for a proletarian state. Only the forms of that debate changed. The same disputes over how best to organize the Red Army, what role Communism and Communists should play within it, and the extent to which Marxism and the experience of the revolution should alter military thought all began during the Civil War and persisted through the first years of the Soviet state.