The 57th Rifle Division () was an infantry division of the Red Army and the Soviet Army.
The division was originally formed in late 1920 as the 24th Rifle Division of the Internal Service Troops (VNUS) in the closing stages of the Russian Civil War. It was transferred to the Red Army in early 1921 as the 57th Rifle Division. The division served in the Urals as a territorial division during the 1920s and early 1930s. Transferred to the Transbaikal in 1932, it fought in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in mid-1939 and was reorganized as the 57th Motor Rifle Division in 1940. Having spent much of World War II on garrison duty in the Mongolian People's Republic, the division participated in the August 1945 Soviet invasion of Manchuria, but did not see combat. It was converted into a rifle division again in 1946, before being reduced to the 55th Separate Rifle Regiment in early 1947.
Russian Civil War and Interwar period
The 24th Rifle Division of the Internal Service Troops (VNUS) was formed in accordance with an order of the Ural Military District VNUS on 25 October 1920 from VNUS units deployed in Vyatka, Yekaterinburg, and Perm Governorates. It was subordinated to the Ural Military District VNUS, and included the 69th, 70th, and 71st VNUS Brigades. Between February and April 1921, separate units of the division fought in the suppression of the West Siberian revolt, a series of anti-Soviet peasant uprisings in the area of Tyumen, Ishim, and Petropavlovsk.
Following the transfer of VNUS troops to the Red Army on 4 March, the division was redesignated as the 57th Rifle Division of Field Troops by an 18 March order of the Ural Military District. This subordinated it to the Ural Military District. On 30 November, the division became the 57th Yekaterinburg Rifle Division. The division included the 112th, 113th and 114th Rifle Regiments, which were later renumbered as the 169th, 170th, and 171st. In June 1922, the division transferred to the West Siberian Military District when the Ural Military District was disbanded. Between 1922 and August 1923 the 57th was commanded by Ivan Onufriyev. It became part of the Volga Military District in February 1923. On 12 June 1924, its Yekaterinburg honorific was replaced by the Ural honorific. Between 1924 and March 1932, the division was a reduced strength territorial division. It was commanded by Nikolay Uvarov between October 1924 and 1928, Viktor Dobrovolsky between July 1928 and July 1930, and by Yevgeny Danenberg from February 1931 to August 1935. In June 1931, the division provided a cadre for the formation of the 85th Rifle Division.
In early March 1932, the division was transferred to the Soviet Far East and became part of the Transbaikal Group of Forces, part of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army. A cadre from the 169th Regiment was left behind to form the replacement 82nd Territorial Rifle Division. It was stationed at Olovyannaya, except for the 170th Regiment at Sretensk. In June 1935, the Transbaikal Group of Forces was split from the army to become the Transbaikal Military District. In the late 1930s, its regiments were renumbered in an attempt to confuse foreign intelligence: the 169th Perm became the 80th, the 170th Sverdlovsk the 127th, the 171st Chelyabinsk the 293rd, and the 57th Ural Artillery the 105th. Komdiv Vyacheslav Tsvetayev took command of the division in February 1937. He was arrested in July 1938 during the Great Purge, charged with "counter-revolutionary activities" after the wounding of eleven soldiers by the explosion of an artillery shell during the division's 1938 May Day parade. In August, Colonel Ivan Galanin took command of the division.