Red Army

The Red Army was the national army of the Soviet Union from 1918-1991. It was formed during the Russian Civil War in 1918 from Bolshevik Red Guards by communist theorist Leon Trotsky. At first, the army had no military ranks, and was a voluntary group. By 1922, the Red Army became the official army of the Soviet Union, and would serve the country until 1991, when the Soviet Union would collapse.

Russian Civil War
The Red Army fought against the Russian White Army from 1918-1922. The White Army (consisting of anti-communists, anti-bolsheviks, liberals, nationalists, monarchists, and conservatists) opposed the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution and wanted to stop them. Eventually, the Bolsheviks won the war and the Soviet Union was formed.

World War II
In 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, beginning the Winter War. Before the attack, the Red Army had suffered from Stalin's great purge, depleting the ranks of the Soviet military of experienced officers. During the Winter War, the Soviets suffered many losses, due to the guerilla and forest warfare tactics utilized by the Finnish Army. In the end, the Soviets did break the Finnish defense lines in Karelia. The Finnish Army was defeated but Great Britain and France forced the Soviet Union to stop the attack and agree to a peace treaty with the Finnish (Moscow Peace Treaty). War between Finland and the Soviet Union would resume in late June of 1941 when Finland attacked the USSR alongside Nazi Germany. Finland feared that the Soviet Union would attack their country again and allied with Germany, as part of a defensive war. The Finnish front from 1941-1944 is sometimes known as the Continuation War. The two countries would sign an armistice ending hostilities and force the Finns to pursue German forces out of northern Finland for the remainder of the Second World War.

The Red Army fought against Axis forces in 1941-1945. A combined force of German, Italian, Romanian, and other armies attacked the Soviet Union as a part of Operation Barbarossa (the Invasion of the Soviet Union). At first, the Red Army suffered heavy losses from 1941-1942. The Cobra Unit, a multi-national special forces unit, was formed in 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad. The tide of the Eastern Front turned in 1943, when the German Army was defeated in at Stalingrad. From 1944 to 1945, the Red Army pushed Axis forces across Soviet territory and Eastern Europe, all the way back to Germany. By the end of the war in Europe on May 8 1945, the Soviets had occupied most of Eastern Europe including the Axis nations of Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Shortly after the atomic bomings on Japan, the Red Army launched an invasion of Japanese held Manchuria and Korea. After World War II, many communist reigimes were propped up across Soviet occupied Eastern Europe. It also paved the way for Communist governments in China and the Korean peninsula Over 10 million Red Army soldiers died in this war.

The Cold War
The Red Army acted in many Eastern European countries. During the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Red Army created many nukes to rival the U.S. However, they also bluffed the number of functional nukes they possessed, leading to the Missile Gap. During the era, the Red Army invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968 to put down anti-Soviet movements.

In August 1964, Naked Snake encountered the GRU forces of the Red Army during his infiltrations into Tselinoyarsk. During this time, the Red Army was also undergoing an internal squabble in regards to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's authority. After the San Hieronymo Peninsula was taken over by the CIA's FOX unit, in 1970, former members of the Army served under FOX's commander, Gene. During this event, Snake, now known as Big Boss, recruited members of the Red Army as allies in order to stop Gene and the other members of FOX. Several soviet soldiers also accompanied the KGB agent Vladimir Aleksandrovich Zadornov to Nicaragua to take over the U.S. missile base located there. They were eventually defeated by the Militaires Sans Frontieres and the FSLN, and the survivors were likewise recruited into MSF.

In 1979, alarmed at what the percieved to be a growing American influence in the Middle East, the Red Army invaded Afghanistan prop up the communist government there. However, due to the enormous costs of their military operations, as well as America supplying the Mujahadeen with weapons to defend themselves, the Red Army started a phased withdrawal in 1985 that lasted to 1989, when all of the Soviets were withdrawn. Revolver Ocelot was known to have fought in the Soviet-Afghanistan War where he perfected his torture tecniques.

End of the Red Army
The Red Army played a role in the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Red Army dissolved. The remnants of the Army were absorbed into the armed forces of the successor states of the USSR. The majority went to the new Russian Federation. As a result of the Red Army's fall, several of the soldiers were also out of a job, so some either went into the mercenary business, such as Red Blaster and Shotmaker, or formed their own military groups in an attempt to restore Russia to its former glory, such as Colonel Sergei Gurlukovich. Some also ended up forming or otherwise joining crime syndicates, such as the Russian mafia.

Notable members

 * Boris Volgin
 * Colonel Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin
 * Colonel Sergei Gurlukovich
 * Colonel Skowronski
 * Major Ocelot
 * Major Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov
 * Private First Class Jonathan
 * Vladimir Aleksandrovich Zadornov
 * Red Blaster
 * Shotmaker