Editing Soviet Navy (section)

==Early history==

===Russian Civil War (1917–1922)===
[[File:aurora 1903.jpg|thumb|left|250px|{{Ship|Russian cruiser|Aurora||2}} was unofficially the first Soviet Navy vessel, after it [[mutiny|mutinied]] against the provisional democratic Russian government of [[Alexander Kerensky]] in the 1917 [[October Revolution]].]]

The Soviet Navy was based on a republican naval force formed from the remnants of the [[Imperial Russian Navy]], which had been almost completely destroyed in the two Revolutions of 1917 (February and October/November) during [[World War I]] (1914–1918), the following [[Russian Civil War]] (1917–1922), and the [[Kronstadt rebellion]] in 1921. During the revolutionary period, Russian sailors deserted their ships at will and generally neglected their duties. The officers were dispersed (some were killed by the [[Red Terror]], some joined the "[[White movement|White]]" (anti-communist) opposing armies, and others simply resigned) and most of the sailors walked off and left their ships. Work stopped in the shipyards, where uncompleted ships deteriorated rapidly.

The [[Black Sea Fleet]] fared no better than the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]]. The [[Bolshevik]] (Communist) revolution entirely disrupted its personnel, with mass murders of officers; the ships were allowed to decay to unserviceability. At the end of April 1918, [[German Empire|Imperial German]] troops moved along the [[Black Sea]] coast and entered [[Crimea]] and started to advance towards the [[Sevastopol]] naval base. The more effective ships were moved from Sevastopol to [[Novorossiysk]] where, after an ultimatum from Germany, they were scuttled by [[Vladimir Lenin]]'s order.

The ships remaining in Sevastopol were captured by the Germans and then, after the later [[Armistice of 11 November 1918]] on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] which ended the War, additional Russian ships were confiscated by the British. On 1&nbsp;April 1919, during the ensuing [[Russian Civil War]] when [[Red Army]] forces captured [[Crimea]], the British [[Royal Navy]] squadron had to withdraw, but before leaving they damaged all the remaining battleships and sank thirteen new submarines.

When the opposing [[Czar]]ist [[White Army]] captured Crimea in 1919, it rescued and reconditioned a few units. At the end of the civil war, [[Wrangel's fleet]], a White flotilla, moved south through the Black Sea, [[Dardanelles]] straits and the [[Aegean Sea]] to the [[Mediterranean Sea]] to [[Bizerta]] in French [[Tunisia]] on the [[North Africa]] coast, where it was interned.

The first ship of the revolutionary navy could be considered the rebellious Imperial Russian [[cruiser]] {{Ship|Russian cruiser|Aurora||2}}, built 1900, whose crew joined the communist Bolsheviks. Sailors of the Baltic fleet supplied the fighting force of the Bolsheviks led by [[Vladimir Lenin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]] during the [[October Revolution]] of November 1917 against the democratic provisional government of [[Alexander Kerensky]] established after the earlier first revolution of February against the [[Czar of Russia|Czar]]. Some imperial vessels continued to serve after the revolution, albeit with different names.

The Soviet Navy, established as the "'''Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet'''"{{efn|{{langx|ru|Рабоче-крестьянский Ккрасный флотРабо́че (РККФ)|Raboche-krest'yansky krasny flot (RKKF)}}}} by a 1918 [[Soviet Decrees|decree]] of the new [[Council of People's Commissars]], installed as a temporary Russian revolutionary government, was less than service-ready during the interwar years of 1918 to 1941.

As the country's attentions were largely directed internally, the Navy did not have much funding or training. An indicator of its reputation was that the Soviets were not invited to participate in negotiations for the [[Washington Naval Treaty]] of 1921–1922, which limited the size and capabilities of the most powerful navies – British,
American, Japanese, French, Italian. The greater part of the old fleet was sold by the Soviet government to post-war Germany for scrap.

In the [[Baltic Sea]] there remained only three much-neglected battleships, two cruisers, some ten destroyers, and a few submarines. Despite this state of affairs, the Baltic Fleet remained a significant naval formation, and the [[Black Sea]] Fleet also provided a basis for expansion. There also existed some thirty minor-waterways combat flotillas.

===Interwar period (1922–1941)===
During the 1930s, as the [[industrialization of the Soviet Union]] proceeded, plans were made to expand the Soviet Navy into one of the most powerful in the world. Approved by the Labour and Defence Council in 1926, the Naval Shipbuilding Program included plans to construct twelve submarines; the first six were to become known as the {{sclass|Dekabrist|submarine|4}}.<ref name="sbp1926">''Periods of Activities (1926–1941)'', [http://www.ckb-rubin.ru/eng/history/pred/1926_1941/index.htm Online (Accessed 5/24/2008)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080208232916/http://www.ckb-rubin.ru/eng/history/pred/1926_1941/index.htm |date=8 February 2008 }}, [http://www.ckb-rubin.ru/eng/ SOE CDB ME "Rubin"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070916152438/http://www.ckb-rubin.ru/eng/ |date=16 September 2007 }}, Russia, Saint-Petersburg</ref> Beginning 4&nbsp;November 1926, ''Technical Bureau Nº 4'' (formerly the Submarine Department, and still secret), under the leadership of [[Boris Mikhailovich Malinin|B.M. Malinin]], managed the submarine construction works at the [[Baltic Shipyard]].<ref name="sbp1926"/>

In subsequent years, 133 submarines were built to designs developed during Malinin's management. Additional developments included the formation of the Pacific Fleet in 1932 and the Northern Fleet in 1933.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hill |first=Alexander |year=2007 |title= The birth of the Soviet Northern Fleet 1937–42 |journal=The Journal of Slavic Military Studies |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=65–82 |doi=10.1080/13518040308430560 |s2cid=143506251 }}</ref> The forces were to be built around a core of powerful {{sclass|Sovetsky Soyuz|battleship|1}}s. This building program was only in its initial stages by the time the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion]] forced its suspension in 1941.

By the end of 1937, the biggest fleet was the [[Baltic Fleet]] based at Leningrad, with two battleships, one training cruiser, eight destroyers including one destroyer leader, five patrol ships, two [[minesweeper]]s, and some more old minesweepers.<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Jürgen Rohwer |author2=Mikhail Monakov |title=The Soviet Union's Ocean-Going Fleet, 1935–1956 |journal=The International History Review |volume=18|number=4|date=November 1996|page=848|jstor=40107569 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40107569}}</ref> The Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol included one battleship, three cruisers, one training cruiser, five destroyers, two patrol ships, and four minesweepers. The Northern Fleet operating from the shores of [[Kola Bay]] and [[Polyarny, Murmansk Oblast|Polyarny]] was made up of three destroyers and three patrol ships, while the Pacific Fleet had two destroyers, transferred east in 1936, and six patrol ships assembled in the Far East.

The Soviet Navy had some minor action in the [[Winter War]] against Finland in 1939–1940, on the Baltic Sea. It was limited mainly to cruisers and battleships fighting artillery duels with Finnish forts.{{citation needed|date=April 2014}}