The Russians at Sea; A History of the Russian Navy

New York, NY: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. Presumed First U. S. Edition, First printing [Advance reading copy/review slip laid in]. Hardcover. Good. 254, [2] pages. Cover has some wear and soiling. Spine printing faded. This book is a historical survey of the Russian Navy, from 1703 through 1965. Includes Maps, Introduction, Acknowledgments and Index. Chapters include Into the Baltic (1703-1725), Into the Black Sea (1695-1738, The Battle for the Baltic (1725-1761), The First Russian Armada (1796-1774), Wars on Two Fronts: The Black Sea and the Baltic (1787-1791); War against--and for--Napoleon, Part 1: The Baltic (1795-1814); Wars against--and for--Napoleon;, Part 2: The Mediterranean (1798-1808); Navarino (1827); The Crimean War (1853-1856); The First Torpedo War (1876-1877); Course for Port Arthur (1904); Course for Vladivostock (1905); Tsushima (1905); "The Old Corruptive Influences" (1905-1914); The Baltic and the Black Sea (1914-1917); The Revolution (1917-1921); Launching the Red Fleet (1921-1941); Second World War (1941-1945), The Past Twenty Years (1945-1965). The Imperial Russian Navy was the navy of the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. It was formally established in 1696 and lasted until being dissolved during the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a smaller force that had existed prior to Tsar Peter the Great's founding of the modern Russian Navy during the Second Azov campaign. It was expanded in the second half of the 18th century and by the early part of the 19th century, it reached its peak strength, behind only the British and French fleets in terms of size.

Officers were drawn from the aristocracy of the Empire, who belonged to the state Russian Orthodox Church. Young aristocrats began to be trained for leadership at a national naval school. From 1818 on, only officers of the Imperial Russian Navy were appointed to the position of Chief Manager of the Russian-American Company, which was based in Russian America (present-day Alaska) for colonization and fur trade development. After the navy was initially staffed by paid foreign sailors, the government began to recruit native-born sailors as conscripts, drafted as were men to serve in the army. Service in the navy was lifelong.

The Russian Navy then went into a period of decline, due to the empire's slow technical and economic development in the first half of the 19th century. It had a revival in the latter part of the century during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, but most of its Pacific Fleet along with the Baltic Fleet which was sent to the Far East and was destroyed in the humiliating Russo-Japanese War of 1904.

The navy had mixed experiences during the First World War, with the Germans generally gaining the upper hand in the Baltic Sea, while the Russians took control of the Black Sea. The Russian Revolution marked the end of the Imperial Navy; its officers had mostly aligned with the emperor, and the sailors split to fight on either side. The surviving ships were taken over by the Soviet Navy when it was established in 1918 after the Revolution.

The Soviet Navy (lit. 'Military Maritime Fleet of the USSR', VMF) was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy was a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with the opposing superpower, the United States, during the cold war period between the two countries. The influence of the Soviet Navy played a large role in the events involving the Cold War (1945-1991), as the majority of conflicts centered with the American-led alliance in the Western Europe or power projection to maintain its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

The Soviet Navy's organizational structure was divided into four major fleets: the Northern, Pacific, Black Sea, and Baltic Fleets, which were under the separate command was the Leningrad Naval Base. In addition, Soviet Navy had the smaller fleet, Caspian Flotilla, operated in the Caspian Sea and followed by larger fleet, 5th Squadron, in the Middle East. The Soviet Navy was much larger Navy since its component also included the Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry, and the Coastal Artillery.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation inherited the largest part of the Soviet Navy and reformed it into the Russian Navy, with smaller parts becoming the basis for navies of the newly independent post-Soviet states.