Also, the Purge of the Armed Forces went a long way toward helping the German success in Operation Barbarossa. Although some of the higher level commanders were an old guard for whom modern warfare would have been baffling, the real negative effects were down at the divisional and regimental ranks. Officers were being promoted above their levels of experience and competence. Also, because of a fear of doing something wrong, they would not exercise any initiative. He wound up with an officer corps that wouldn’t pee if their pants were on fire without a written order.
This was exacerbated by a simultaneous rapid expansion of the armed forces. For most of the 1930s, the Red Army maintained a stable force structure of about 1.5 million men. Knowing that war was inevitable, Stalin ordered the Red Army expanded to 5 million men. That meant fewer officers to command more units. Instead of being promoted one or two levels over their ability, Soviet officers were being promoted two or three levels. Further, there were not enough trained officers to adequately fill the important staff billets.
Add to this that the large forces were not well trained or equipped and lacked the logistical support structure necessary for a modern army. Their equipment, particulary tanks, was old and obsolete. Only a few of the new T-34s had been delivered at the time of the German invastion. Also, the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in 1939 deployed the Red Army forward away from their existing fortified regions on the previous border, and into a new country where they had no installations, and the local populace was less than thrilled to have them there.
It was all a recipe for disaster, which is what happened. There was one benefit from the rapid expansion, though. Under Chief of Staff Boris Shaposhnikov, the army created administrative machinery geared towards quickly mobilizing and inducting large numbers of men. This machinery allowed the USSR to conjure up new armies faster than the Germans could destroy them. They may have been poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly led, but they were willing to fight and die, and the Germans had to deal with them.
In the end, that’s probably what saved the USSR, despite the disadvantages they had under Stalin’s policies.
“but they were willing to fight and die,”
They would die whether they fought or not.
Add to this the Political Officers assigned to every command that had more authority than the military commanders. Those generals were afraid to make mistakes such as withdrawing a few miles to a better defensive position because the Political Officer would order an attack that usually ended in disaster for the soldiers and the commander who was blamed for the debacle. When this was done on a “Front” (Army Group) level, the Red Army would lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers in one battle because the party apparachiks blindly attached to party doctrine interfered with sound military strategy.
It was all a recipe for disaster, which is what happened. There was one benefit from the rapid expansion, though. Under Chief of Staff Boris Shaposhnikov, the army created administrative machinery geared towards quickly mobilizing and inducting large numbers of men. This machinery allowed the USSR to conjure up new armies faster than the Germans could destroy them. They may have been poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly led, but they were willing to fight and die, and the Germans had to deal with them.
In the end, that’s probably what saved the USSR, despite the disadvantages they had under Stalin’s policies.
Exactly correct. Stalin was one of the worst disasters ever to befall Russia and its empire. A sucessful conquest by the NAZIs would have been worse, but that is the best you can say.
There's an argument to be made that Stalin was building toward a 1942 invasion of Germany and had plenty of tanks and planes, just more oriented toward offense than defense.
Stalin had 6000 tanks running on rubber tires with amphibious capability. Useless on the fields of Russia as few paved roads, but great for the German autobahn and an advance into France. They had to be abandoned when Germany attacked.