[RightOnline]

"The Soviets lost over 900,000 offiers, more than twice as many as we did in total!"

True, and in no way do I say this to belittle the incredible sacrifices of the Russian people during The Great War, but HUGE numbers of those dead can be directly attributed to Stalin's shocking hubris and incompetence. That is a fact.

[Restorer]

>>HUGE numbers of those dead can be directly attributed to Stalin's shocking hubris and incompetence. That is a fact.

Absolutely. Among other things, in the year or two before the war, he executed almost every Soviet officer of field grade. Great idea just before going into battle against the blitzkrieg!

Supposedly he did this because he was convinced by a German secret agent that his officers were planning a coup against him (and possibly they were).

There is good documentation that he was planning to double-cross Hitler and attack him in a couple of years, but of course Hitler beat him to the punch. Stalin wasn't used to being the one who got double-crossed!