The Soviet Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and the Red Army (, Вооружённые Силы Советского Союза), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922), the Soviet Union (1922–1991), and the Bolshevik Party from their beginnings in the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In May 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued decrees forming the Russian Armed Forces, which subsumed much of the Soviet Armed Forces. Much of the former Soviet Armed Forces in the other smaller Soviet republics gradually came under those republics' control. According to the all-union military service law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Ground Forces, the Air Forces, the Navy, the State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the convoy guards. The OGPU was later made independent and amalgamated with the NKVD in 1934, and thus its Internal Troops were under the joint management of the Defence and Interior Commissariats. In 1989, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the Ground Forces, Air Defence Forces, the Air Forces, and the Navy, listed in their official order of importance. Also armed organisations but not part of the Ministry of Defence in 1989 were the Internal Troops and Border Troops. Names Russian: , Ukrainian: , Belarusian: , Uzbek: , Kazakh: , Georgian: , Azerbaijani: , Lithuanian: Romanian: (Moldovan Cyrillic: Форцеле армате але Униунии Републичилор Сочиалисте Совиетиче) Latvian: Kyrgyz: , Tajik: , Armenian: , Turkmen: , Estonian: History Origins The Council of People's Commissars set up the Red Army by decree on January 15, 1918 (Old Style) (January 28, 1918), basing it on the already-existing Red Guard. The official Red Army Day of February 23, 1918, marked the day of the first mass draft of the Red Army in Petrograd and Moscow, and of the first combat action against the rapidly advancing Imperial German Army. February 23 became an important national holiday in the Soviet Union, later celebrated as "Soviet Army Day", and it continues as a day of celebration in Russia as Defenders of the Motherland Day. Credit as the founder of the Red Army generally goes to Leon Trotsky, the People's Commissar for War from 1918 to 1924. At the beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia. Democratic elections selected the officers. However, a decree of May 29, 1918, imposed obligatory