Re: Stalin purges of his officers

On Aug 4, 11:06 am, Tero Mustalahti <termu...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Greg Schuler wrote:
The conflicting views of modern
warfare (Zhukov's vision of fast moving hard hitting armor formations
versus the Spanish Civil War experience of armor supporting the
infantry) and the relatively small number of modern weapons and the
limited amount of training and experience with the modern weapons
played as much a role in the complete unpreparedness in 1941.

Training certainly was a major issue, but the alleged small number of
modern weapons is largely a myth. Surely the Soviets did not have as
much truly modern tanks or artillery as the Germans, but they had lots
of WW1 artillery, which was in many cases was modernized in the 1930s
and they had a lot of tanks, which in general were not hopelessly
inferior from a purely technical point of view.

The numbers of modern weapons available to the RKKA in 1941 paled in
comparison to what they needed to be fully equipped. Shaposhnikov had
not received the go ahead to implement his re-armament plan until 1939
and the arguments over the opertional direction of the RKKA had yet to
be fully codified before the Winter War or some might argue before
June 1941. What semi-modern equipment the RKKA possessed was fading
rapidly into obselence. The T-26 and BT series were adequate against
the Kwantung Army and useful in a 1939 or 1940 war, but even by 1941,
their capabilities were stretched. The same can be said for the air
units. Artillery might be the one area that the RKKA possessed a clear
cut advantage in terms of firepower and relative modernity, but the
command and control and fire control was abyssmal.

Development of modern weapons was underway and limited (though large
by western standards) numbers of modern equipment had reached actual
units.

The failures in 1941 were not technological but systemic: the Soviet
logistics and maintenance broke down in the German pressure and large
numbers of artillery and tanks had to abandoned since there was no way
to keep them running or moving them. They also had major problems
keeping their tanks and AT guns supplied with actually functioning armor
piercing ammunition; once again a manufacturing and logistical failure.
In many cases AT guns and tanks were issued with only a couple of AP
rounds, many of which turned out to be defective (excessive heat
treatment) as well.

True. However, this had little to do with the purge as previously
mentioned by the OP. This had to do with the massive rearmament that
focused on the actual weapon rather than the logistic trail needed to
support the weapon in combat - a trait that was and can be argued was
never fully rectified by the Soviets or Russians. Many RKKA soldiers'
first encoutner with their equipment was mere moments (days or perhaps
even hours) before actual combat. Given the rapid pace of the collapse
of the front, many soldiers abandoned perfectly functioning equipment,
as well as equipment that had broken down but was repairable. This
behavior is not purge-related.

The Soviets also had major problems with their artillery system.
Communications relied on land lines and field telephone wires were in
short supply. Use of artillery often required permission from a high
level and without functioning communications the permissions were very
difficult to obtain. Indirect artillery could only be called by
specialized FOs, not enough of them were trained and many were lost
during the first months of the war. This lead to the well known Soviet
practice to use light and even medium artillery pieces up to 122 mm and
in some cases even 152 mm in direct fire mode, which could be very
effective, but also put the artillery units at a risk of being overrun.
Many of the problems with the artillery system were never corrected,
even if the lend-lease communications equipment made the problems less
serious and the numbers of trained FOs were increasing.

Agreed - but again, this was not due to the purge of the office corps,
in my observation, and to the question of the OP.

"Suvorov" overstates his case, but the immediate imapct of the purge
was passing by 1940. What remained was the immense paranoia and fear
experienced through the ranks and the heavy-handed oversight of the
almost universally unqualified commisars at the command level.

If it was passing, it certainly did not show during the Winter War of
1939-1940. Soviet commanders almost universally lacked initiative and
text books tactics were employed repetitively in a WW1 manner despite
their obvious failure against a numerically and technologically weaker
enemy.

The Winter War was fought by an unprepared army. Again, the RKKA was
in the process of assimilating the operational and tactical knowledge
gained in Spain and Mongolia. The RKKA's performance in Finland was
hampered by units that had not trained together or on their weapons
fighting in conditions that did not suit the preferred tactical or
operational approach. Stalin pushed the war on his army, an army that
barely managed to field coherent units in Poland.

The fear of being shot or sent to the Gulag remained until, well,
always. However, the impact of the large decapitation of the RKKA had
begun to fade as the remaining officer corps had started to fill the
depleted ranks. The problem was that the commissars and other state
security organs stifled the necessary military oversight and led
commanders to obey all orders without question. That was the lasting
impact of the purge, moreso than the loss of life.

What I don't know, and don't necessarily wish to start the discussion
here, is would the performance of the RKKA have been any better if the
purge victims remained? If the dual-command system was implemented and
enforced in the Winter War, I doubt any of the purged officers would
have fared better. It was not until the Germans had completely smashed
the RKKA and the country seemed close to ruin that Stalin acquiesed to
Timoshenko and Zhukov and allowed greater military control of
operations. The logistical and systemic issues you correctly note in
your post remain, however, and would rightly hamper any operations
conducted. Even Zhukov's smashing success in the Far East was fraught
with logistical difficulties and large casualties despite his use of
fast-moving flanking movements against a Kwantung Army force that
lacked adequate AT and artillery capabilities.

Once the war started, a large number of purge victims left alive were
repatriated back to the ranks and many served with distinction through
the war.

Unfortunately only some of them survived. General officers were often
executed outright and many others had already perished in the GULAG.

Certainly the numbers alive in the penal systems were in the
thousands, which comapred to the number or outright victims, makes it
a very small percentage. Most officers were killed immediately, but
those that remained alive in the penal system were allowed to serve
after June 1941.

Tero P. Mustalahti

.

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