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“The large number of new conscripts were by and large untrained, and they lacked an experienced cadre of NCOs to hold them together. “

Here is another comparison of German and Soviet units in June 1941 (source: M.Solonin, Cask and the hoops):

In the German Army, “Regular officers in tank and motorized divisions made up 50% of command staff, and 35 down to 10% in infantry divisions... The rest were reservists, with their professional level much lower...” (189, p.72). It was only in Soviet propagandistic writings where the notorious “two-year experience of modern warfare” existed. Of the five tank divisions in the 1st Wehrmacht Tank Group:

- none of them participated in the Polish campaign;

- only two of them (the 9th and the 11th) participated in the invasion of France;

- the 14th td had one week of combat experience in Yugoslavia before the “Barbarossa”;

- the 13th and the 16th td (created in 1940 on the base of infantry divisions) had absolutely no combat experience by June 22, 1941.

The situation in the 4th, 8th and 15th Mechanized corps which counterattacked the 1 Panzer Group in June 1941 was much better.

Namely, the level of staffing of 15th Mechcorps’ divisions was 45-75% in junior command personnel, 50-87% in senior commanders, and the understaffing in command personnel was mainly due to the lack of political instructors and administrative staff. The so-called “big training session” helped to staff the 8th Mechcorps with personnel at 89% in June 1941 before the recall; its artillery regiments had 88% of the established amount of guns, the number of 45mm guns even exceeded the “regular level” (49 instead of 36).

‘According to the men who fought in them, the T-26 was a piece of junk’.

Who are these men you are refering to and what is your source?
“Piece of junk” as it was, the T-26 still fought with the Far East soviet forces in 1945. The Sixth Guards Tank Army had around 120 T-26 out of 1,000 tanks, they were involved in a far more difficult march over the Hingan Mountain Range in 1945 and, somehow, did not break down.
The T-26 served with the Finnish army until 1961.
In fact, the main characteristic of the T-26 was its reliability and ease to maintain.

“The armor was insufficient to stand up to 37mm AT guns, and the engine and transmissions were prone to breakdown.”

The armor of all the German tanks were also insufficient to stand up to the 45 mm Soviet antitank gun.
Why all these double standards? “Armor capable to stand up to enemy antitank guns” had been an exception during WW2, not the rule. In 1941, the German Army had NO tank capable to standing up to soviet antitank fire. Not a single one. For instance, during the 1944 and 1945 offensives, the Soviet T-34 were basically tanks with anti-bullet armor - they were not able to withstand german antitank weapons. Yet nobody considered them “coffins”. Ditto about the Shermans.
There is no such thing as perfect weaponry. Why a T-26 with 15-20 mm of armor is a “coffin”, but a Panzer II with 8-13 mm of armor isn’t?

“You might want to ask the Germans about that. The one thing they found out was that when the French forces were surrounded, they would throw in the towel. Soviet forces, when surrounded, fought hard. Even though the Germans captured millions of them in the summer and fall of 1941, they rarely threw in the towel at the first opportunity. It was only after hard fighting. “

The Soviet front reports tell otherwise. For instance, on 17 July 1941, a report by the NKVD representative on the South-Western Front indicated mass desertions and surrendering in the ranks. From July to September 1941, there were at least 4-5 orders signed by Stalin and the Soviet High Command confirming this was a general phenomenon.

“Most of the mass surrenders took place because a poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly led mass of soldiers with poor command and control were left in situations that had deteriorated to the point where they didn’t have much choice.”

Not true. The total numbers of prisoners taken in tha major pockets (when they didn’t have much choice) was about 2 millions. By the end of 1941, the Germans had 4 million prisoners. Where do the other 2 millions come from, if they were not captured in the encirclements and everybody wanted to fight for the Soviet Union?

“But you might want to take a look at the casualties suffered by the Germans; in the first 10 weeks of Operation Barbarossa, they suffered 440,000 casualties, of which 94,000 were killed. Two hundred German officers were being lost every day. These figures are from Halder’s War Diary, and he knew that the casualty rate, far higher than anticipated, was unsustainable. Somebody must have been fighting in the Red Army. “

Even a collapsing army is capable of inflicting serious casualties on the enemies.
You just said that the “French, when surrounded, would throw in the towel”. In 6 weeks of combat in France, Germany suffered 160,000+ casualties. Basically, that means a casualty rate of 27,000 men per week.
The casualty rate during Barbarossa was 44,000 men per week. Considering that
1) the French put up only token resistance in the last 2 weeks, as they ceased to be an effective fighting force;
2)the Red Army had far more men and weapons that the Allied armies of 1940,
the comparison is actually in favor of the French and their allies. Based on casualty figures, the “surrendering” French fought better than the Soviets did.
Sorry, my original point stands.

“In some of your arguments, you have ignored cause and effect. “

This doesn’t change the fact that your original statement, that the Red Army needed to modernize its equipment, was and is factually wrong.
In 1941, the Red Army had a significant qualitative advantage in weapons over Germany. The data of the weapon system is easily available, so, sorry, it’s not up to debate. Even the soviet/russian historiography abandoned this idea (after they were exposed post-1991) and shifted to arguments which are harder to measure like “capabilities” or “logistics”.

“But the main thing instead of quibbling over trees is to look at the forest. The Red Army was clearly not prepared or ready for war in 1941 due to a number of structural deficiencies. Only a part of the deficiencies existed in their weapons systems.”

The main fault with this kind of argument is that there never is any comparison. By making such kind of statements about the Red Army and ignoring the Wehrmacht, it creates the impression that the Germans had everything spiffed up.
If the sky is the bar, then NO army is EVER prepared for war.
Look for instance at Germany:

Germany, demilitarized under the Versailles Treaty conditions, entered the year 1935 with 10 infantry divisions. In the field drills the tanks were indicated by cardboard dummies. In the summer of 1939 the Wehrmacht already had 51 divisions (including 5 tank and 4 mechanized), by the spring of 1940 the Wehrmacht formed 156 divisions, by June1 of 1941, 208. A dazzling headcount increase forced to put “under arms” totally unschooled draftees.
Wehrmacht’s tank divisions were formed on the base of the infantry groupings, and it was possible to man their command with no more than 50% of cadre officers. Of course, for the Wehrmacht 50% was a high index taking into account that the infantry divisions formed in the second half of the 1940’s and later had no more that 35% cadre officers.
Germany began the war with 5 tank divisions, by the spring of 1940 their number grew to 10, by the end of 1940 10 more tank divisions were formed. How many “years” did the commanders commanded these divisions? What kind of the “combat experience” could have the tank divisions formed after the completion of the campaign at the Western front? Out of the 17 tank divisions deployed in June of 1941at the USSR border only three divisions (1-st tank division, 3-rd tank division, 4-th tank division) participated in the Polish and French campaigns). Seven tank divisions (12-th tank division, 13-th tank division, 16-th tank division, 17-th tank division, 18-th tank division, 19-th tank division, 20-th tank division) did not even have the experience of the two-week long war in the Balkans, and 22 June became for them the first day of their combat actions as a tank grouping. (Source: Mark Solonin)

And since we’re speaking about logistics: The German panzer and motorized forced did not possess adequate maintenance capacity for a long campaign. The mechanical complexity of the tanks and APCs, coupled with numerous models with mutually incompatible parts, confounded the German supply and maintenance system. Worse still, earlier campaigns had depleted stocks of repair parts and trained maintenance personnel was also in short supply. (Source: Glantz, Siege of Leningrad).

“Your premise violates henkster’s law on several matters. The fact was that the alliance between the USSR, France and Britain didn’t take place exactly because the French and British were not serious about either making an alliance with the USSR or shedding their own blood to stop Hitler.”

If all was about France and England “not being serious”, then why was Stalin putting conditions which were unacceptabe to the former? Access to Polish territory was not the only one. Previously, the Soviets asked that a prospective alliance treaty between them and UK/France to England should include the theory of “indirect aggression”. Under it, it was required that the governments of eastern European countries which received guarantees from UK/France should allow the Red Army on their territory even absent a direct military threat from Germany. Basically, UK and France were required to recognize a Soviet right for armed intervention in the internal affairs of its neighbours.

“A proposal that pre-dated any overtures to Germany”

This is again false. On exactly the same day, 17 April 1939, the Merekalov-Weiszacker meeting occurred.

“France and Britain didn’t take place exactly because the French and British were not serious about either making an alliance with the USSR or shedding their own blood to stop Hitler.”

The statement is downright absurd, because it was not their choice to make.
It was possible for England to do this in WW2 because they were separated from Germany by the channel and Hitler had limited means to get at them.
After D-Day occurred, Germany made the main effort in the West, deploying their best panzer forces in that theater, even at the expense of weakening the Eastern Front during Bagration and Vistula-Oder offensive.
In 1939, France did not have that option.

“Again, had the British and French been serious about pursuing an alliance with Stalin, all they had to do was say “We accept” to Litvinov’s offer.”

That’s a very naive interpretation. They DID accept the Soviet offer, but in august, not in April. If they accepted the first one, the events would have unfolded the same way as they did later: Stalin would have put conditions which the Allies could not accept and that was the end of it.

“The real reasons there was no Anglo-French alliance with the Soviet Union was that the British were the British, the French were the French, and the Poles were the Poles.”

This statement is mind-boggling. The fact that Stalin pursued a similar annexionist policy as Hitler, which created an impossible dilemma for the Allies, probably had nothing to do with it, right?

If you believe in patterns, this is exactly what Stalin did against Japan.
Look how the Soviet/Japan relations unfolded and then compare them with Germany and try to think what might have followed.

Vs Japan: a period of bad relations until 1939; then Japan starts moving towards a conflict with the Western powers; Stalin signs a non-agression pact with Japan in April 1941; then Japan attacks Pearl Harbor fights an exhausting war against US and Britain; then, when Japan was about to lose, Stalin attacks in Manchuria and install communist regimes in the Far East.

Now look at Germany: a period of bad relations until 1939; then, when Germany starts moving towards a conflict with the Western Powers, Stalin signs a non-agression pact with Germany; then Germany starts fighting an exhausting war against the Western Powers...
If we follow the pattern seen in the relationship with Japan, what was next?

And, btw, France fell quickly, thus the Wehrmacht was spared a bloodbath comparable to WW1, but the naval war in the Atlantic was no joke.
A naval war might be less bloody, but it consumes tremendous amounts of resources. Japan, after all, was defeated at sea. Let’s look at a single example what the Atlantic Battle meant for Germany: a Type VII Uboat cost as much as 35 Panther tanks. During the crucial years of the war against Soviet Union, Germany had about 200 Uboats at sea hunting British and American ships. If they did not have to built Uboats, the Germans could have increased the size of their tank forces by several thousand units during the key battles of Moscow, Stalingrad or Kursk. Just saying.
While it caused less casualties than the Eastern front, the war at sea and in the air against UK (and US) caused huge damage to the German economy, something which the Soviets never wanted to admit, with their constant complaints about “no second front” and how they were left to “fight alone” by the “nefarious capitalist vampires”.

I wish to add a fourth point, which I forgot to mention:

4. “But he was willing to consider opposing Hitler in an alliance with Britain and France, and engaged in some negotiations with an Anglo-French military mission. The problem was that the British and French were not serious about cutting a deal with the USSR, nor were they serious about fighting Hitler. It became quite apparent to Stalin that the Anglo-French strategy was to defeat Hitler by sitting out the war behind the Maginot Line and let the USSR defeat Germany at the cost of copious amounts of Russian blood. Stalin had no interest in this.”

I strongly disagree with this. Actually, I am of the opinion that Stalin never intended to join a French-British coalition (at least not in the initial stage of the war) and a careful analysis of how the negotiations unfolded clearly proves this. In fact, I would say that the Moscow talks were used only to scare Hitler into signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, because Stalin simply set them up to fail. Here are some things to consider:

1. First and foremost, France and England didn’t require the Soviet Union to fight Germany. They requested only for the soviets to maintain a benevolent neutrality in case Poland was attacked. That meant: not to undertake anything against Poland while she was fighting Germany, to allow passage for allied shipments to Poland and to accept to sell Poland weapons if she wanted to buy. That was it. It was the Soviet Union who came with the proposal for an active soviet participation in the war - when Voroshilov told the French and British that the Soviet Union wanted to deploy 2-4 million troops against Germany, with all the necessary equipment.
So, if Stalin did not trust England and France and thought they were not serious about fighting Hitler, why all this additional bravado, which nobody asked for?

2. Assuming that France/England intended only to blockade Germany and sit behind the Maginot line, why does that translate into “copious amounts of Russian blood”? Soviet Union also had its own fortifications, the Stalin line, so what prevented the Soviets from doing exactly the same thing? Prolonging the war was, after all, in the interest of the Allies, because they had access to international markets. Germany didn’t. If the Allies sat behind their defensive lines, the Germany was basically compelled to try breaking the deadlock, because dragging it on meant food and fuel shortages in Germany.
Hitler might have tried to attack the Soviet Union, but he also might have tried to attack France. The chances were 50-50.
Soviet Union had no obligation to defend Poland, but England/France had. Thus it had no obligations to get out of its fortifications and rush to Poland’s help. But France/England had and, for this, they were more likely to be attacked first.

3. When Voroshilov made his proposal, he had one condition: Soviet Union must receive “corridors” through Poland so it could get to Germany. Both this request and the way it was made shows that the negotiations were a sham. Here is why:
- first and foremost, Voroshilov put this request to the French and British delegations, not to the Polish government; a Polish representative wasn’t even invited to the talks. The French and British simply did not have the authority to accept such a request and the fact it was made without consulting the Poles was a diplomatic insult, which made rejection very likely.
- assuming that the Poles somehow accepted, what exactly would have been these “corridors”? Well, basically, it would have meant the occupation of Poland by the Red Army, because you can’t cram 2-4 million troops into some narrow “corridors”.
- Stalin absolutely did not need those “corridors” if he was serious about fighting Germany. There were only 2 possible scenario: either the Polish Army stops the Wehrmacht on his own, in which case the Soviet Union does not need to fight at all, or the Wehrmacht wins and overthrows the Polish government, in which case the Soviets do not need Polish consent anymore.

And, btw, if Stalin took issue with France wanting to stay behind the Maginot line, then why exactly did he want to push the Red Army into Poland (and straight into the advacing Wehrmacht), especially if he was not wanted there?
If that is Stalin thought about the motives of France/England, then he should have let the Red Army stay behind its own Maginot line, no?

There is an anecdotical story I’ve once read in an article on a Russian site which claims that, when Ribbentrop’s visit was arranged, Stalin sent Voroshilov a note which said “Klim! Stop farce. Signed: Koba”.
The story might not be true, but this is exactly what the Moscow talks were from the perspective of the Kremlin.

Hello, new user here, but long time reader of Homer’s articles.
Regarding Henkster’s take on Stalin’s motives, I would have some observations regarding some of the points expressed:

1. “In the equipment area, Soviet industry was just beginning to turn out some fine new weapons systems to equip the army, such as the T-34 tank, but in 1939, those systems were still in the development stage. Even by 1941 the Red Army was mainly equipped with obsolescent and poorly maintained weapons. “

This is not true. In fact, the Red Army had better equipment than the Wehrmacht, both in 1939 and 1941.
For instance, the bulk of the Red Army tank forces consisted of T-26 and BT tanks.
In 1939, the Wehrmacht were equipped mostly with Panzer I and II tanks. The first had only machine guns, the second had a 20 mm gun. For comparison, the soviet tanks had 45 mm guns, which were capable of destroying any German tanks from 1 km with ease.
By 1941, the Germans were fielding improved Panzer III and IV, but half of their tank park still consisted of the older models. And the soviets were improving as well, with the new T-34 and KV.

The whole “obsolete and poorly maintained” weapons seems to be a myth concocted by the post WW-2 soviet historiography to explain the 1941 defeat in a way which was not very embarrassing for the soviet power.
Because analysis of documentary evidence (which surfaced after 1991) indicate that the real problem of the Red Army in 1941 was the resentments of large masses of troops against the soviet power, which led to a massive collapse of morale and will to fight, in the context of the deterioration of the soviet command and control system in the summer of 1941.
Obviously, such a thing does not fit with the narrative of the Great Patriotic War, which insisted that all the soviet people fought to a man for the soviet regime, hence why the soviet government tried to obfuscate it after the war.

2. “But he was willing to consider opposing Hitler in an alliance with Britain and France, and engaged in some negotiations with an Anglo-French military mission. The problem was that the British and French were not serious about cutting a deal with the USSR, nor were they serious about fighting Hitler. It became quite apparent to Stalin that the Anglo-French strategy was to defeat Hitler by sitting out the war behind the Maginot Line and let the USSR defeat Germany at the cost of copious amounts of Russian blood. Stalin had no interest in this.”

This is based on the premise that Hitler would have started the war anyway if he was confronted by an alliance of UK, France and Soviet Union.
The thing is, it does not matter whether England and France were serious in their intent to fight Germany. If such a alliance was concluded, it is perfectly possible the war would not have taken place at all.
Even if Hitler was reckless enough to start it, the Soviet Union risked little. Modern war requires tremendous amounts of raw materials, which, at the time, Germany did not have. For instance, tanks and aircraft do not run with holy spirit. They need gasoline. And Germany had big problems with its supply of petroleum. If England blockaded them, there were three main sources left for Germany: Soviet Union itself, Romania and domestic synthetic oil. In 1939, Romania was hostile to Germany and unlikely to supply it with oil. The synthetic oil production was not enough. For instance, after the loss of the Romanian oil in august 1944, Germany was incapable to conduct any large scale offensive operation.
If Germany started the war in 1939 against UK, France and Soviet Union, there would have been no blitzkrieg (not enough oil for big advances by mechanized formations). The best Germany could have hoped for was a sitzkrieg... which would have meant slow suffocation for the German economy.
That’s why in 1939 Germany was desperate to reach an agreement with Soviet Union (all over august, Ribbentrop literally bombarded Schulenburg with messages insisting that he must arrange an urgent meeting with Molotov).
Without Soviet support, Germany simply could not have fought. The campaign against Soviet Union became possible only after Germany secured the whole of Europe - and, even in such circumstances, it still ended badly for Germany.

3. “By 1942, or certainly by 1943, Stalin believed the balance of power would shift away from Germany and toward the USSR. The Red Army expansion and modernization would be complete, it would be a large, well-equipped, well trained and competently led force and would no longer be vulnerable to Germany.”

This is another myth of the Soviet historiography: “we needed to gain time!” It is based on nothing.
First of all, what exactly means “the Red Army expansion and modernization would be complete”?
Let’s look at what would this imply for the tank forces alone, which formed the backbone of maneuver warfare. In 1941, the Red Army had 29 mechanized corps. Theoretically, one such corps should have had 1,000 tanks and only several were close to that number. Also, at the beginning of the war, the Red Army had 2,000 T-34 and KVs. In order to “modernize” all the 29 mechanized corps, the Soviet needed 27,000 additional T-34 and KVs. The Soviet Union produced 2,800 T-34 in 1941, 12,000 in 1942 and 15,000 in 1943. This process would have taken until the summer of 1943, at the very least. But, by that time, the old T-34/76 which were produced from 1940 onwards would have become obsolete as well! In the summer of 1943, as a result of the German upgrades, the Soviets were starting to design new models as well, which will result in the T-34/85 and IS-2.
And, besides, on what basis should anyone assume that while the Red Army “expanded and modernized”, the German army would have done nothing?
In fact, in the summer of 1943, the quality of the Soviet tank forces was (relatively speaking) at the lowest point during the war! That’s because while the soviets were still using the old T-34/76, the German started to deploy the new Tigers and Panthers and had significantly upgraded their Panzer III and IV.
In fact, Soviet Union had a significant qualitative advantage in 1941 over the German Army, because in the Soviet Union the rearmament started in the late 20’s, while Germany followed suit only from 1935. Thus, the soviets had a head-start, but slowly the Germans recovered and by summer 1943 they were evenly matched.
For instance, in 1941, the Wehrmacht was equipped, in the antitank role, with the hapless 37 mm gun, while in the latter stages of the war they had deployed new 50 mm and 75 mm PAK guns, in addition to the infamous 88. Basically, by 1944 and 1945, a hot from a 75 mm Pak 40 meant a certain kill even for the improved T-34/85.