This book describes the creation of a new economy in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1945. The Red Army defeated the Germans in World War II with equipment produced by that economy and not with masses of untrained men as has been often argued. The Soviet weapons were produced in factories designed and built under the direction of American engineers in the 1930s. Also, the Weimar Republic played a part in the creation of the Red Army by providing aviation and tank training schools and technical assistance to the developing armaments industry. Dunn argues that if France had been invaded by the Allies in 1943 rather than in 1944, the post-war world would have been less advantageous to the Soviet Union.

This book traces the development of the Russian Army in reaction to the rise of Hitler. Caught by surprise in 1941, the Red Army had achieved superiority over the Germans by 1943, and had no real need for Western military assistance. The Russians, as this book establishes, won because they had better organization and equipment--i.e., a better and more effective army. By delaying the second front, the Allies gave Stalin the opportunity to enslave Eastern Europe.

In a definitive new account of the Soviet Union at war, Alexander Hill charts the development, successes and failures of the Red Army from the industrialisation of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s through to the end of the Great Patriotic War in May 1945. Setting military strategy and operations within a broader context that includes national mobilisation on a staggering scale, the book presents a comprehensive account of the origins and course of the war from the perspective of this key Allied power. Drawing on the latest archival research and a wealth of eyewitness testimony, Hill portrays the Red Army at war from the perspective of senior leaders and men and women at the front line to reveal how the Red Army triumphed over the forces of Nazi Germany and her allies on the Eastern Front, and why it did so at such great cost.

"When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the German Army annihilated a substantial part of the Red Army. Yet the Soviets rebounded to successfully defend Moscow in late 1941, defeat the Germans at Stalingrad in 1942 and Kursk in 1943, and deliver the deathblow in Belarus in 1944 ... Walter Dunn examines these four pivotal battles and explains how the Red Army lost a third of its prewar strength, regrouped, and beat one of the most highly trained and experienced armies in the world"--Page 4 of cover.

In the interwar period, Red Army commanders headed by Tukhachevskii developed a new doctrine of mobile warfare and 'deep operations'. The military requirements of armaments and industrial production in the event of war was a central parameter in Stalinist industrialization. Based on recently opened Russian archives, the book analyzes military dimensions of Soviet long-term economic and military reconstruction plans from the mid-1920s until 1941. It presents a new framework for estimating the Soviet war-economic preparations, drastically underestimated by contemporaries.

This volume provides an introduction to the history of the Soviet armed forces from 1917 to 1991. The authors highlight the many facets of the Cold War, including the rise of the Soviet Navy after the Great Patriotic War and the collapse of the Soviet Union which marks its twentieth anniversary in 2011.