Mikhail Frunze
Encyclopedia
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was a Bolshevik
leader during and just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917
.
, then a small Imperial Russian
garrison town in the Kyrgyz
part of Turkestan
, to a Moldovan
medical practitioner (originally from the Kherson Governorate
) and his Russian
wife. He began his studies at Verniy
(present name Almaty), and in 1904 he attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University
.
At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Party Labour Party
in London
(1903), during the ideological split between Vladimir Lenin
and Julius Martov
, the two main party leaders, over party tactics (Martov argued for a large party of activists, whilst Lenin wanted a small group of professional revolutionaries
with a large fringe group of sympathisers), Frunze sided with Lenin's majority, the so called Bolsheviks (opposed to Martov's minority, the Mensheviks).
Two years after the Second Congress, Frunze was an important leader in the 1905 Revolution
, at the head of striking textile
workers in Shuya
and Ivanovo
. Following the disastrous end of the movement, Frunze was arrested in 1907 and sentenced to death
, spending several months on death row
awaiting his execution. but he was later reprieved and his sentence was commuted to life at hard labour
. After ten years in Siberia
n prisons, Frunze escaped to Chita, where he became editor of the Bolshevik weekly newspaper called Vostochnoe Obozrenie.
During the February Revolution
, Frunze was head of the Minsk
civilian militia
before being elected president of the Byelorussian
Soviet
. He later went to Moscow
, and led an armed force of workers to aid in the struggle for control of the city.
After the October takeover, in 1918, Frunze became Military Commissar
for the Voznesensk
Province. During the early days of the Russian Civil War
, he was appointed as head of the Southern Army Group. After Frunze defeated Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak
and the White Army
in Omsk
, Leon Trotsky
(the head of the Red Army
) gave total command of the Eastern Front to him. Frunze went on to rid his native Turkestan of Basmachi insurgents
and White troops. He captured Khiva
in February and Bukhara
in September.
In November 1920, Frunze retook the Crimea
and managed to push White general Pyotr Wrangel and his troops out of Russia. He also led, as commander of the southern front, the destruction of Nestor Makhno
's anarchist
movement in Ukraine
and the nationalist movement of Symon Petliura.
In 1921, he was elected to the Central Committee
of the Russian Bolshevik Party
, on June 2, 1924 became candidate member of the Politburo
and in January, 1925, became the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council
. Frunze's support of Grigory Zinoviev
brought him into conflict with Joseph Stalin
, one of Zinoviev's chief opponents, with whom they had previously been on amiable terms, owing to the respect that Stalin studiously displayed at that period towards his fellow "old guard" revolutionary and former prisoner.
Frunze was suffering from a chronic ulceration, and although it had been suggested to him many times that he undergo surgery, he tended to favor more conservative treatment approaches. After an especially severe episode in 1925, Frunze was hospitalized. Stalin and Anastas Mikoyan
both came to visit him, and impressed on him the need for an operation.
Not long before his death, Frunze wrote to his wife: "At present I am feeling absolutely healthy, and it seems ridiculous to even think of, and even more-so to undergo an operation. Nevertheless, both party representatives are requiring it."
Frunze died of chloroform
poisoning during his surgery on 31 October 1925; the operation was considered very simple and routine even by the medical standards of the time. It has therefore been speculated that Stalin, or some other potential rivals, arranged his death, but there is no hard evidence to support this. However, Frunze had been administered a chloroform dose that many times exceeded the dose normally applied to induce narcosis
.
Frunze was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
. All four doctors who had operated on him (Martynov, Grekov, Rozanov and Get'e) died one by one in 1934.
, Kyrgyzstan
, was renamed Frunze in his honour. It reverted back to its former name in 1991; nevertheless, Frunze himself is still commemorated in the city: a street and a museum in the centre of the city are named after him. The museum contains the cottage in which he grew up, fully intact inside a larger modern structure.
The Village of Frunze (2 minutes from the airport on the way into the capital) also bears his name.
The Frunze Military Academy, one of the most respected in the former Soviet Union
, was also named in his honour.
The Soviet 2nd Rifle Division
was also in the past known as 2nd Belarusian Red Banner Rifle Division in the name of M.V. Frunze.
A Moscow Metro
station was named Frunzenskaya in his honour, and a stone carving of his likeness stands at one end of the station. Shuya
is home to a memorial museum dedicated to Frunze. Streets in many Russian cities are named after him.
Also, after his death, the first name for boys Frunzik (roughly "Little Frunze") became quite popular in Caucasia and Soviet Turkestan, the most famous name-bearer probably being Frunzik Mkrtchyan.
The Russian battleship Poltava
was renamed Frunze in his honour in January 1926.
's story "The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon" was based on Frunze's death. His death also forms the central element of the first two chapters of Vasily Aksyonov
's novel Generations of Winter
.
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
leader during and just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
.
Life and Political Activity
Frunze was born in BishkekBishkek
Bishkek , formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan.Bishkek is also the administrative centre of Chuy Province which surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the province but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan.The name is thought to...
, then a small Imperial Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
garrison town in the Kyrgyz
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
part of Turkestan
Turkestan
Turkestan, spelled also as Turkistan, literally means "Land of the Turks".The term Turkestan is of Persian origin and has never been in use to denote a single nation. It was first used by Persian geographers to describe the place of Turkish peoples...
, to a Moldovan
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
medical practitioner (originally from the Kherson Governorate
Kherson Governorate
The Kherson Governorate or Government of Kherson was a guberniya, or administrative territorial unit, in the Southern Ukrainian region, between the Dnieper and Dniester Rivers, of the Russian Empire. It was one of three governorates created in 1802 when the Novorossiya guberniya was abolished...
) and his Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
wife. He began his studies at Verniy
Almaty
Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...
(present name Almaty), and in 1904 he attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University
Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University
Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University is a major Russian technical university situated in Saint Petersburg. Previously it was known as the Peter the Great Polytechnical Institute and Kalinin Polytechnical Institute .-Imperial Russia:...
.
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(1903), during the ideological split between Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
and Julius Martov
Julius Martov
Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Constantinople in 1873...
, the two main party leaders, over party tactics (Martov argued for a large party of activists, whilst Lenin wanted a small group of professional revolutionaries
Professional revolutionaries
The concept of professional revolutionaries, alternatively called cadre, is in origin a Leninist concept used to describe a body of devoted communists who spend the majority of their free time organizing their party toward a mass revolutionary party capable of leading a workers' revolution...
with a large fringe group of sympathisers), Frunze sided with Lenin's majority, the so called Bolsheviks (opposed to Martov's minority, the Mensheviks).
Two years after the Second Congress, Frunze was an important leader in the 1905 Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1905
The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
, at the head of striking textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
workers in Shuya
Shuya
Shuya is the third largest town in Ivanovo Oblast, Russia; located on the Teza River. Population: -History:The first record of Shuya is dated by 1393. Since 1403, the area was held by a branch of the House of Suzdal, which got their name "Shuysky" after the town. In 1539, the town was sacked by...
and Ivanovo
Ivanovo
Ivanovo is a city and the administrative center of Ivanovo Oblast, Russia. Population: Ivanovo has traditionally been called the textile capital of Russia. Since most textile workers are women, it has also been known as the "City of Brides"...
. Following the disastrous end of the movement, Frunze was arrested in 1907 and sentenced to death
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
, spending several months on death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
awaiting his execution. but he was later reprieved and his sentence was commuted to life at hard labour
Penal labour
Penal labour is a form of unfree labour in which prisoners perform work, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence which involve penal labour include penal servitude and imprisonment with hard labour...
. After ten years in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n prisons, Frunze escaped to Chita, where he became editor of the Bolshevik weekly newspaper called Vostochnoe Obozrenie.
During the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
, Frunze was head of the Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
civilian militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
before being elected president of the Byelorussian
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
Soviet
Soviet (council)
Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
. He later went to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, and led an armed force of workers to aid in the struggle for control of the city.
After the October takeover, in 1918, Frunze became Military Commissar
Political commissar
The political commissar is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military...
for the Voznesensk
Voznesensk
Voznesensk is a city in the Mykolaiv Oblast of Ukraine and a center of Voznesenskyi Raion . As of 2001, the city's population is 42,634....
Province. During the early days of the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, he was appointed as head of the Southern Army Group. After Frunze defeated Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak
Aleksandr Kolchak
Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak was a Russian naval commander, polar explorer and later - Supreme ruler . Supreme ruler of Russia , was recognized in this position by all the heads of the White movement, "De jure" - Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, "De facto" - Entente States...
and the White Army
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
in Omsk
Omsk
-History:The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes...
, Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
(the head of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
) gave total command of the Eastern Front to him. Frunze went on to rid his native Turkestan of Basmachi insurgents
Basmachi Revolt
The Basmachi movement or Basmachi Revolt was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim, largely Turkic peoples of Central Asia....
and White troops. He captured Khiva
Khiva
Khiva is a city of approximately 50,000 people located in Xorazm Province, Uzbekistan. It is the former capital of Khwarezmia and the Khanate of Khiva...
in February and Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...
in September.
In November 1920, Frunze retook the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
and managed to push White general Pyotr Wrangel and his troops out of Russia. He also led, as commander of the southern front, the destruction of Nestor Makhno
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....
's anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
movement in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and the nationalist movement of Symon Petliura.
In 1921, he was elected to the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
of the Russian Bolshevik Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, on June 2, 1924 became candidate member of the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
and in January, 1925, became the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council
Revolutionary Military Council
Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic or Revvoyensoviet Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic or Revvoyensoviet Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic or Revvoyensoviet (Революционный Военный Совет, Revolyutsionny Voyenny Sovyet; Реввоенсовет, Revvoyensovyet; also...
. Frunze's support of Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
brought him into conflict with Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, one of Zinoviev's chief opponents, with whom they had previously been on amiable terms, owing to the respect that Stalin studiously displayed at that period towards his fellow "old guard" revolutionary and former prisoner.
Death
Frunze had been noted among communist leaders as possessing a very creative and almost unorthodox view on matters of implementation and policy. He gained the respect and admiration of his comrades thanks to his fearless and successful pursuit of complicated military objectives and his endurance during the period when the communist party was outlawed. He had been considered as a potential successor to Lenin, due to his strength in both theoretical and practical matters of advancing the Communist party agenda, and his seeming lack of personal ambition separate from the party.Frunze was suffering from a chronic ulceration, and although it had been suggested to him many times that he undergo surgery, he tended to favor more conservative treatment approaches. After an especially severe episode in 1925, Frunze was hospitalized. Stalin and Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was an Armenian Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman during the rules of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev....
both came to visit him, and impressed on him the need for an operation.
Not long before his death, Frunze wrote to his wife: "At present I am feeling absolutely healthy, and it seems ridiculous to even think of, and even more-so to undergo an operation. Nevertheless, both party representatives are requiring it."
Frunze died of chloroform
Chloroform
Chloroform is an organic compound with formula CHCl3. It is one of the four chloromethanes. The colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid is a trihalomethane, and is considered somewhat hazardous...
poisoning during his surgery on 31 October 1925; the operation was considered very simple and routine even by the medical standards of the time. It has therefore been speculated that Stalin, or some other potential rivals, arranged his death, but there is no hard evidence to support this. However, Frunze had been administered a chloroform dose that many times exceeded the dose normally applied to induce narcosis
Narcosis
Narcosis may refer to:* Narcosis, the unconsciousness induced by a narcotic drug* Nitrogen narcosis, an effect of diving deep with nitrogen* Hydrogen narcosis, an effect of diving deep with hydrogenIn music:* Narcosis , an English metal band...
.
Frunze was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves on Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930...
. All four doctors who had operated on him (Martynov, Grekov, Rozanov and Get'e) died one by one in 1934.
Legacy
In 1926, the city of BishkekBishkek
Bishkek , formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan.Bishkek is also the administrative centre of Chuy Province which surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the province but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan.The name is thought to...
, Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
, was renamed Frunze in his honour. It reverted back to its former name in 1991; nevertheless, Frunze himself is still commemorated in the city: a street and a museum in the centre of the city are named after him. The museum contains the cottage in which he grew up, fully intact inside a larger modern structure.
The Village of Frunze (2 minutes from the airport on the way into the capital) also bears his name.
The Frunze Military Academy, one of the most respected in the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, was also named in his honour.
The Soviet 2nd Rifle Division
Soviet 2nd Rifle Division
Symbol?2nd Rifle DivisionFormed24 September 1919Demobilised28 January 1946The Soviet 2nd Rifle Division was an rifle division that served during The Great Patriotic War. Originally formed in 1919 from the 1st Ryazansk Rifle Division, the division was twice destroyed and reformed during the war...
was also in the past known as 2nd Belarusian Red Banner Rifle Division in the name of M.V. Frunze.
A Moscow Metro
Moscow Metro
The Moscow Metro is a rapid transit system serving Moscow and the neighbouring town of Krasnogorsk. Opened in 1935 with one line and 13 stations, it was the first underground railway system in the Soviet Union. As of 2011, the Moscow Metro has 182 stations and its route length is . The system is...
station was named Frunzenskaya in his honour, and a stone carving of his likeness stands at one end of the station. Shuya
Shuya
Shuya is the third largest town in Ivanovo Oblast, Russia; located on the Teza River. Population: -History:The first record of Shuya is dated by 1393. Since 1403, the area was held by a branch of the House of Suzdal, which got their name "Shuysky" after the town. In 1539, the town was sacked by...
is home to a memorial museum dedicated to Frunze. Streets in many Russian cities are named after him.
Also, after his death, the first name for boys Frunzik (roughly "Little Frunze") became quite popular in Caucasia and Soviet Turkestan, the most famous name-bearer probably being Frunzik Mkrtchyan.
The Russian battleship Poltava
Russian battleship Poltava (1911)
Poltava was the second of the s of the Imperial Russian Navy built before World War I. The Ganguts were the first class of Russian dreadnoughts. She was named after the Russian victory over Charles XII of Sweden in the Battle of Poltava in 1709. She was completed during the winter of 1914–15, but...
was renamed Frunze in his honour in January 1926.
Literary Depictions
Boris PilnyakBoris Pilnyak
Boris Pilnyak was a Russian author. Born Boris Andreyevich Vogau in Mozhaysk, he was a major supporter of anti-urbanism and a critic of mechanized society. These views often brought him into disfavor with Communist critics...
's story "The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon" was based on Frunze's death. His death also forms the central element of the first two chapters of Vasily Aksyonov
Vasily Aksyonov
Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He is known in the West as the author of The Burn and Generations of Winter , a family saga depicting three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953.-Early life:Vasily Aksyonov was...
's novel Generations of Winter
Generations of Winter
Generations of Winter is a novel by Russian writer Vasily Aksyonov.Many critics have praised Generations of Winter as a new Doctor Zhivago large-scale Russian novel, which tells the story of a Russian family Gradov struggling to survive in the Stalinist era.As the Wall Street Journal has put it:...
.
Quotes
- "All that we do, every action, should correspond to the highest ideals of the Revolution."
- "The Red ArmyRed ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
was created by the workers and peasants and is led by the will of the working classWorking classWorking class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
. That will is being carried out by the united Communist Party."