L'Armée rouge
1 - Les Guerres civiles 2 - La Guerre patriotique 3 - La Victoire annexée
Alain de Sédouy
1999 - 52 min - Betacam SP - Noir & Blanc - France

A nation's power is usually measured by adding its economic and military potential. In the case of the former Soviet Union, it rested above all on its military tool and the threat that it represented.
As soon as it was created, in 1918, the Red Army distinguished itself radically from all others. It was not only the army of a nation but also of a party-state. It was first an army of civil wars on the scale of the former Russian empire, then of the world. It was finally an army of total war, where violence and cruelty were limitless.
But it was also a heroic army in which the suffering and sacrifice endured by the soldiers in order to conquer Nazi Germany – 9 million dead, 18 million wounded – raised it to the rank of a myth. Recounting this period of its history, which begins in 1918 and ends in 1945, is another way to tackle the history of a utopia of the century : Communism.