Created by Trotsky in 1918 during the total war, the Red Army abandoned its egalitarian and democratic ideals to repress civil revolts. Stalin, worried about the power of the army, launched a purge of officers, the beginning of the "Great Terror" of 1937-38.
The Red Army was a shadow of its former self when Germany invaded the USSR in 1941. It took all the energy of General Zhukov, Resistance and the Allies to overcome the Nazis. On its way to Berlin, the Red Army discovered the extermination camps. Germany surrendered on May 2, 1945.
