ABSTRACT
The role of the Soviet army in decision making in over six decades since the October Revolution forms a fascinating strand in the history of Soviet politics. The nature of the October Revolution and civil war profoundly influenced the development of the political role of the Red Army. At the end of the civil war the Red Army emerged as a weak and vaguely legitimate force. Although armies in developing countries have traditionally played major political roles, the Red Army remained a passive and defensive political actor in the interwar period. The army did not manage to place a single career soldier on the Politburo in the period from 1921 to 1941. The Second World War markedly changed the very nature of the Red Army. Despite a massive technological transformation and tremendous increase in size, the state of the Red Army remained parlous and ill-defined by the end of the 1930s.
