The 71st Guards Rifle Division was reformed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in March 1943, based on the 1st formation of the 23rd Rifle Division, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War.
As the 23rd it had fought in the Battle of Stalingrad and distinguished itself during Operation Ring in the 21st Army. It remained assigned to that Army when it was redesignated as the 6th Guards Army and remained under its command for most of the rest of the war. It moved north to the Kursk area joining Voronezh Front and played an important role in the defense of the south face of the salient as part of the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps during Operation Zitadelle. Following this victory it fought in the Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive in August and continued advancing toward the Dniepr River into the early autumn. With the rest of its Army it was transferred north to the 2nd Baltic Front where it took part in the later stages of the Battle of Nevel as well as the slow, grinding assaults towards Vitebsk during the winter. In the opening stages of Operation Bagration, now as part of 1st Baltic Front, the 71st Guards won a battle honor for the liberation of that city and soon entered the so-called "Baltic Gap" that had opened between Army Groups North and Center; its rifle regiments would all win the honorific "Polotsk" after helping to take that city. The division would remain in the Baltic states for the rest of its existence, advancing through Latvia and Lithuania eventually to the Baltic coast, assisting in the liberation of Riga and Klaipėda and then serving in the Kurland Group of Forces containing and attacking the German units isolated there right up to the final surrender. The division remained in the same area until it was disbanded in mid-1947.
Formation
The 23rd was redesignated as the 71st Guards on March 1, a month after the German surrender at Stalingrad, and officially received its Guards banner on April 12. Once the division completed its reorganization its order of battle was as follows: 210th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 89th Rifle Regiment) 213th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 117th Rifle Regiment) 219th Guards Rifle Regiment (from 225th Rifle Regiment) 151st Guards Artillery Regiment (from 211th Artillery Regiment) 76th Guards Antitank Battalion (from 106th Antitank Battalion) 72nd Guards Reconnaissance Company (from 88th Reconnaissance Company) 82nd Guards Sapper Battalion (from 131st Sapper Battalion) 102nd Guards Signal Battalion (from 45th Signal Battalion) (after December 25, 1944 102nd Guards Signal Company) 74th Guards Medical/Sanitation Battalion (from 61st Medical/Sanitation Battalion) 78th Guards Chemical Defense (Anti-gas) Company 75th Guards Motor Transport Company 656th Field Bakery 68th Guards Divisional Veterinary Hospital 60th Field Postal Station 158th Field Office of the State Bank Col. Ivan Prokofievich Sivakov, who had commanded the 23rd since December 11, 1942 remained in command; he would be promoted to the rank of major general on September 15. His chief of staff was Lt. Col. Pavel Ivanovich Lyubomudrov. The division inherited the Order of the Red Banner and the "Kharkov" honorific that the 23rd's predecessor, the 1st Ust-Medveditskaya Rifle Division, had earned during the Civil War, as well as the Order of Lenin the 23rd itself had received for its work on the construction of the Kharkov Tractor Works in 1932. In April, after the 71st Guards had recovered part of its strength from the Stalingrad fighting, it was noted that its personnel were roughly 50 percent Russian and 50 percent of various Asian nationalities, nearly all from the year groups 1903–1925.
Battle of Kursk
The 21st Army began moving north by rail to the middle part of the overall front before it was redesignated, along with much of the rest of Col. Gen. K. K. Rokossovsky's former Don Front, now Central Front. The STAVKA directed him, on March 7, to attack with his forces toward Oryol. In turn he sent orders to the Army commander, Lt. Gen. I. M. Chistyakov, to go over to the offensive on the morning of March 10 with his 51st, 52nd, 71st Guards and 375th Rifle Divisions. The attack was to begin on a line from Trosna to Chern, pass through the units of 13th Army, and continue in the direction of Oryol and Kromy, eventually reaching Rzhavets by March 13. In the event, due to the German counteroffensive that recaptured Kharkov, at 0200 hours on March 11 Chistyakov was ordered to move his Army by rail south to the region north of Belgorod where it came under command of Army Gen. N. F. Vatutin's Voronezh Front.