From its revolutionary inception in 1917 to its demise in 1991, the Red Army played a crucial role in all aspects of Soviet life. The Soviet Military Experience is the first general work to place the Soviet army into its true social, political and international contexts. Roger R. Reese explores the multifaceted history of the Soviet army, from its beginnings as a "people's army" founded by the Bolshevik Party to its latter-day image as the kind of elitist organization its founders had struggled to avoid. This timely account includes discussion of: the origins of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army; the Bolshevik regime's use of the military as a school of socialism; the Second World War and its repercussions; ethnic tensions within the army; and the effect of Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika.