[Does so]

"...Stalin in his purges of the Soviet Army had, literally, executed many of the competent officers and left the Army in shambles. It was after the initial set back, that Stalin recognized his mistake and corrected it..."

Back in 1968, I was reading an account of a Wehrmacht General at the Eastern Front (Guderian, perhaps), who gave accounts of failed Soviet attacks. He wrote, upon every failure, "The Soviet General was called back to Moscow and shot".

[GreyFriar]

That is true, Stalin did not react to failure by his generals very well.