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The Soviet Army on Parade 1946-1991

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The Soviet Army on Parade 1946-1991 is author James Kinnear’s sequel to the widely acclaimed The Red Army on Parade 1917-1945.

To date, Canfora’s most ambitious project, the second in a three-volume series, describes the tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery and rocket systems paraded by the Soviet Army on Red Square from 1946 until the last Soviet-era parade in November 1990. From massed tank displays of the immediate post-war parades to the introduction of strategic rocket systems during the ‘Khrushchev’ years, all the weapons displayed on Red Square during the Cold War are described in detail.

The background military history of the Soviet Union during the Cold War years and the philosophy involved in the weapon developments are also related, building the overall picture of Soviet parades as a projection of Soviet military might.

Tasty Tidbits

Since the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation have demonstrated their latest tanks and military vehicles on Red Square for Russian domestic and foreign consumption.
The annual May and November military parades were in 1946 joined by a ‘Tankman’s Day’ parade, celebrating the day Red Army forces crossed into Axis territory in 1944.
Soviet tanks such as the T-54 had their Red Square public debut almost a decade after they entered service, while some rocket systems, although often displayed, never entered service.
One of the best locations in Moscow to watch the parade was the former US Embassy building. The parades moved past it before moving onto Red Square, while the British Embassy overlooked the return route.
The start of the May 1960 parade was delayed while Khrushchev decided whether or not to order the shooting down of an American U-2A USAF/CIA reconnaissance aircraft flying over Siberia.

About the Author

James Kinnear was born in 1959. He has researched Russian military hardware since his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1973. He has since written hundreds of articles on Soviet and Russian military technology.