Red army - challenges and reform

Question 1

Reform - reasons

Answer 1

many reluctant to fight, joined up to get army rations
The Red Guards were irregular detachments, motley-clothed and armed, poorly disciplined and very heavy-drinking
defeats to Czech in May and June 1918

Question 2

Reform - service of ex-tsarist officers

Answer 2

Order Number 228
pay differentials based on rank
compulsory saluting
special badges and uniforms
29 July 1918
22,000 ex-tsarist officers recruited by end of 1918
75,000 in the course of civil war
by the end, 3/4s of senior commanders in RA were drawn from tsarist officer corps

Question 3

Reform - conscription

Answer 3

began June 1918
forced
of the 275,000 peasant recruits anticipated from the first call-up in June, only 40,000 actually appeared
120,000 workers and peasants forcibly conscripted to defend Moscow in November 1919

Question 4

Reform - lessons

Answer 4

Compulsory lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic were introduced for all ranks from as early as April 1918.
. By the end of 1920, there were 3,000 Red Army schools, with over two million books.

Question 5

Challenge - desertions

Answer 5

By 1920, 77 per cent the enlisted ranks were peasants
fluctuated with seasons
4 million deserted by 1920
In the central agricultural regions the weekly rate of desertion was up to ten times higher in summer than in winter.

Question 6

Challenege - lack of supplies/training

Answer 6

RA gre to 5 million - economy unable to keep up (1920)
. For every active Red on the battlefield there were eight others who for lack of training, clothing, health or ammunition could not be deployed
in 1920, when 30 per cent of the Red Army — that is, over a million men — contracted typhus.