  Astonishing black-and-white photos have surfaced showing naked recruits undergoing medical exams before joining Joseph Stalin's Red Army
  In one snap, a naked man stands before a table of officers as they inspect him for any abnormalities - as a terrifying bust of Stalin glares over them all
  The year is 1930 and the man has been drafted into the Red Army to fight for the USSR
  Next to Stalin's unsightly head a poster reads: "The most important basis of our army is that it is the army of liberation of the Working and the Peasants, it is the army of October Revolution, the army of the dictatorship of the proletariat
"  The chilling images of young Russian men being medically examined were taken after they had been conscripted to fight for the Red Army
   The pictures show nervous-looking men being eyeballed by officers and nurses to check their physical condition
  In military registration and enlistment offices, doctors and nurses can be seen carrying out medical tests such as weighing, measuring and listening for a heartbeat
    as the Soviet top brass built their Red Army, officially known as the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, pejoratively referred to as the Red Horde
  During World War II, the Red Army was perhaps the most decisive land force for the Allies that consisted of Britain, France and the US
  It was the Red Army that accounted for a whopping 80 per cent of casualties suffered to the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, and it was they who ultimately captured the Nazi German capital, Berlin
    Not to mention their invasion of Manchuria which contributed heavily to the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan
  The Red Army was officially formed on January 28, 1918, and condition of entry was "the support of the coming Socialist Revolution in Europe"
  Those early Soviet forces mainly consisted of peasants.   The families of those who served were guaranteed rations and assistance with farm work
  Because of this, recruitment centres were flooded with men and women trying to join up
  However, when the Soviet Union was formed they were at war with their enemies immediately so on the 23rd February 1918 they began drafting recruits
   It was christened Red Army Day and it is still a national holiday in Russia, now known as Defender of the Fatherland Day
  , however not without its problems.  After Stalin rose to power in the 1920s he began purging officers leaving them hamstrung with inexperienced leaders
   In 1937, just two years before the start of the Second World War, Stalin dismissed over 11,000 officers and many other high-ranking army chiefs who he thought were enemies
  In 1946, the word "red" was removed from the name of the army, marking the end of an an era
  Stalin saw the Soviet Union through World War II and its post-war reconstruction and famine, and the beginnings of the Cold War
   After years of failing health, he died in March 1953 due to a cerebral haemorrhage
  His death is shrouded in mystery more than 60 years on.  There are still claims he may have been murdered, and possibly even poisoned with warfarin, a rat poison, in a bid to avert a war with the US
  It is estimated that the World War II fatalities of the Soviet Union was 27 million civilians and armed service members
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