Given unprecedented access by the Soviet top brass to military facilities and personnel, the author spent two years traveling from Leningrad in the west to Vladivostok in the east, from the Arctic Circle in the far north to the deserts of Central Asia in the south. This book is an exercise in glasnost and a "landmark in East-West relations." All aspects of military life are covered, from the organ. of the forces to the morale of the officer corps, from the daily life of the ordinary conscript to the special operations of the elite paratroopers and Spetsnaz. Looks at issues of conscription, training, career progression, and the legacy of Afghanistan. 250 full-color photos.

In the years between the Russian Revolution of 1917 and World War II, the Soviet Army underwent dramatic changes in conscription, organization and effectiveness. The Russian Army in World War I had been lacking in leadership and drive, but was transformed by the Soviets into a force to be reckoned with, as evidenced by its crucial victory at Stalingrad. Enhanced by color plates, illustrations and photographs, this book traces the development of the Soviet Army from its Tsarist heritage, through the tumultuous years of the Red Army, to its full modernization in 1957.

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.

Osprey's survey of the Soviet Army during the Cold War period (1946-1991). For a young Soviet man in the 1980s, the chances were high that he would be obliged to serve for at least two years in the Soviet Armed Forces. At this time Soviet society was far more militarized than most other European countries; by the time they turned 18, most Soviet boys were far more familiar with military life than their Western European and American counterparts. Focusing on the daily experiences of a young recruit in the Soviet Army of the late 1980s, this book examines the history, organization, appearance and equipment of the Soviet forces, from pre-service indoctrination to uniforms and leadership.

Soviet Women in Combat explores the unprecedented historical phenomenon of Soviet young women's en masse volunteering for World War II combat in 1941 and writes it into the twentieth-century history of women, war, and violence. The book narrates a story about a cohort of Soviet young women who came to think about themselves as "women soldiers" in Stalinist Russia in the 1930s and who shared modern combat, its machines, and commanding positions with men on the Eastern front between 1941 and 1945. The author asks how a largely patriarchal society with traditional gender values such as Stalinist Russia in the 1930s managed to merge notions of violence and womanhood into a first conceivable and then realizable agenda for the cohort of young female volunteers and for its armed forces. Pursuing the question, Krylova's approach and research reveals a more complex conception of gender identities.

" Ilmars Salts is the author of ""A Stolen Childhood; Five Winters in Siberia."" The eldest son of Aleksandrs and Olga Salts, well-to-do land owners in southern Latvia, Ilmars was only 10 years old when, during the first Russian invasion of Latvia in 1941, the ""Saltes"" ancestral home was confiscated and the family -- father, mother, grandmother and three children -- were loaded onto a cattle train bound for Siberia. The inhumane work conditions, lack of food, and freezing cold killed his parents and grandmother and the orphaned children returned to Latvia in 1946. They were taken in by their mother's cousins. Ilmars had only 5 and a half years to finish his studies and begin work when, at age 21, he was drafted by the Soviet army, where he found himself assigned to a battalion of Soviet ""stepchildren"" that had little to do with the military. The author, a retired electrical engineer, is a widower, and the father of two grown daughters. He regained ownership of his family's home in 1996 and built a cottage for himself at the seaside. He feels it is his obligation to his parents and progeny to share this unvarnished story of what it means to lose your freedom, in the hope others will learn from it. (Gunna Dickson is a New York based writer and editor. Raised bilingual in the U.S., she has lived in Germany, France and Denmark, and traveled extensively. This is her third translation.) "

Describes the author's recruitment and training inside the Aquarium, headquarters of the GRU, the Soviet Union's top-secret military intelligence organization.