Book excerpt: By 1920 the Red Army of Russia fielded an overwhelming array of armored cars, armored trains and tank detachments. These armored units played an important part in consolidating the newly won Bolshevik empire in the early 1920s; as a consequence of the fact that railways were the strategic arteries that essentially controlled Russia, armored trains have never played such a significant role in military history as they did in the Russian Civil War. This title details the management, construction, repair, personnel, training and combat of the Red Army's armored units on all fronts, including such famous vehicles as Trotsky's armored train.