ABSTRACT

The new Red Army disposing of its mechanised brigades, motorised troops, modernised artillery and expanding chemical warfare arm, existed under the old Frunze system of a small cadre force and territorial reserves. In all, the Frunze scheme had served the Red Army well during a troubled period. The time for a complete overhaul of the military establishment was ripe, that the Red Army was bursting out the seams which had been stitched up. L. Trotsky observed that 1935 was for the Red Army 'a kind of twofold State revolution'; it involved both the position of the command staff and the further advance to a large standing army, resulting in the eclipse of the militia system. The real revolution was the progressive normalisation of the Soviet military establishment, which resulted in the Red Army being brought into line with other European armies, conventionalised to a point where militarism seemed to be triumphant over Socialism.