The Red Road to Victory: Soviet Combat Training 1917-1945

Abstract

This thesis provides a comprehensive account of early Soviet combat training and its associated attitudes from 1917 to 1945. From its inception in 1918 and throughout the evolution of Soviet military doctrine and practice, the Red Army paid insufficient attention to existing and growing deficiencies in military training. Due to a combination of Bolshevik ideology, leftover Imperial Russian influences, and unique historical circumstances, Soviet leaders – both deliberately and accidentally – embraced a military culture based on amateurism and dilettantism. The military leadership’s systemic oversights regarding combat training and military professionalism undermined the tactical combat capacity of the Soviet Armed Forces in the short and long term. While Joseph Stalin’s dictatorial policies had a negative impact on combat training during the 1930s, they merely exacerbated an existing crisis that began with the formation of the Soviet state in 1917. Despite periodic efforts to remedy this problem, military reformists largely failed to overcome the formidable institutional forces that continue to advance a harmful military culture on combat training to the present day. This study also provides valuable historical context to a similar crisis in combat training faced by the Russian Armed Forces during their ongoing invasion of Ukraine in 2022.