STATE OF THE RED NAVAL FLEET IN 1921 – 1922

Abstract

Based on archival documents, the article characterizes the state of the Soviet navy in the early 1920s. It is shown that Soviet Russia withdrew from the Civil War almost without the navy. Red naval fleet in the early 1920s. did not represent any real force, and could not withstand the navies of potential adversaries, among whom were such formidable ocean powers of the time as Great Britain and Japan. The maritime borders of the Republic on the Black Sea and on the Arctic Ocean were practically defenseless. The situation with the protection of the Baltic borders was not much better: the remnants of the Russian Baltic fleet outnumbered the remnants of the German fleet, and even more so the light naval forces of the newly independent states, but if the British fleet appeared in the Baltic, they would be powerless. In the Far East, the Reds’ naval forces were insignificant in comparison with the enormous power of the Japanese fleet. In the RSFSR in 1921 – 1922. much has been said about the need to rebuild the fleet. However, the devastation in which the country survived a long-term war was not allowed to start solving this problem.

Keywords

• baltic fleet
• black sea fleet
• amur flotilla
• possible opponents
• coastal batteries