Did Stalin's leadership do more good or harm for his country during the Eastern Front
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I'll let other people answer in detail but if people like Trotsky or Bukharin had been in charge, aside from possibly killing less people en mass and not purging the Red Army I can't imagine what they might have done differently. Zhukov himself while competent was no genius.
When are we positing that Stalin stops leading the USSR? Does he die of a brain rumor the day before the invasion, or August 31, 1939? Is he overthrown by Molotov, Beria or someone else in the chaotic period immediately following the invasion? Does Trotsky beat him in the Party's various political squabbles in the 1920s? The answer kind of depends on when he ceases to be in charge.
This is a non-scientific question.
Starting from early 30-s, Stalin did many things which were very costly to the Soviet people and necessary for the preparation of the country for war. Such as industrialization of the country, reforming of agricultural sector (collectivization), militarization, etc. Could all this have been done in a better way? Most certainly, yes. Would it be done better in the absense of Stalin? Nobody knows, depends on the competence of the hypotetic Soviet leader.
Starting from early 30-s, Stalin did many things which were very costly to the Soviet people and necessary for the preparation of the country for war. Such as industrialization of the country, reforming of agricultural sector (collectivization), militarization, etc. Could all this have been done in a better way? Most certainly, yes. Would it be done better in the absense of Stalin? Nobody knows, depends on the competence of the hypotetic Soviet leader.
That's the invasion of Poland. I would use the signing of MRP and June 22, 1941 as turning points.
Most What if? questions are. Which is why historians don't entertain such questions (there's nothing to research).
Not really. You are talking about the 5 year plans for rapid industrialization at all costs (including famine).
Stalin's paranoid plot trials certainly did no good preparing the USSR for war, as it decimated the top military. The abolition of ranking officers was another such measure - which was quickly abandoned when war broke out. Placing the bulk of the armed forces along the Western borders (well in front of the abandoned Stalin Line, which remained unfinished because of it) didn't do much good either. All this cost the USSR the bulk of their European possessions West of Moscow in the first 6 months of the war - and it would take another 4 years to recuperate those, at the cost of probably dozens of millions of Russians (estimates vary).
It was only when Stalin realized that military tasks are best left to the military that the USSR started to push back the invasion. So in the end it's hard to think of anyone not doing a better job than Stalin. But, due to his own paranoid machinations, noone else was available, so the USSR was stuck with him.
I don't see how the industrialization of the Soviet Union that took place the way it did - as opposed to the potential level of industrialization that might have taken place less Stalin, or less gross human rights abuses, or whatever - was "necessary for the preparation of the country for war". Apart from cheap cracks about the Red Army that fought the battles of November and December 1941 not being the army that had been "prepared" for the war, historically speaking, the industrial output of Russia was not the serious problem. For instance, in the First World War, Russia produced adequate munitions, supplies, and so on, and in fact was the largest producer of war materiel in the conflict other than Britain and Germany. The tsarists' problem was their difficulty in getting materiel to the places it was needed: an infrastructure/organization problem mirrored in every other army around that time (think of the innumerable complaints of the so-called shell shortage), just slightly more severe for the Russians and exacerbated by the Great Retreat of 1915.
So if the manufacturing capacity of the territory that would eventually become the Soviet Union was adequate for the last war, why would the atrocities of the Stalin era 'need' to have been committed in order to speed up industrialization even further? Surely a period of more 'normal' ("replacement-level", he said with a smirk) growth would have done a reasonable job of sufficing to fill Soviet war orders.
So if the manufacturing capacity of the territory that would eventually become the Soviet Union was adequate for the last war, why would the atrocities of the Stalin era 'need' to have been committed in order to speed up industrialization even further? Surely a period of more 'normal' ("replacement-level", he said with a smirk) growth would have done a reasonable job of sufficing to fill Soviet war orders.
So are all historical questions. History is not a science.
Not only. Recovering after decade of wars and revolutions, civil war. Creating an up to date military industry, modern army which had a chance to withstand aggression of such scale. Many other things. As for famine, it's major reason was drought, further worsened by mistakes and incompetence of authorities on different levels.
The lack of competent officers in the Red Army in 1941 has much simpler reason - great increase of its manpower in the pre-war years. After June 1941, also because of military losses. Yes, there were not enough good officers for 6-million army in the USSR, and purges played some role in this fact, though this role is overstated.
This is arguably a mistake at all, much less Stalin's personal mistake.
Industrial potential and technology level of enemy was incomparable in 1914 and 1941. In the second case, the opponent was pretty much all continental Europe.
What happened to the industry of Russia in the period of 1913-1922 is also doesn't require special comments.
In 1920-s, Russia was still agrarian country, backwards in terms of industry and technology, devastated by numerous wars and revolutions.
It had no chance to withstand in such a war, without total industrialization and modernization, including, as you correctly mentioned, the country's infrastructure.
If by atrocities you mean political repressions, they were obviously not required for industrialization.
Other than that, industry being adequate for the previous war is not a guarantee that it will be adequate for the next one.
I really don't see how, allegedly adequate industrial potential of Russian Empire before WW1 (which was lost by Russia, BTW) automatically means that USSR didn't require large scale accelerated modernization in order to prepare for war against Nazi Germany.
Tahuti
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Wanna see it the other way around?Subordinating historical study to politics...
No, in the topic about USSR it's hardly possible.
The principle of 'never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetance' breaks down when dealing with the Holodomor: the way that Stalin organised industrialisation, collectivisation and his policies of refusing to provide relief, deporting people to famine-stricken areas and banning outmigration were all deliberately designed to engineer a famine in the Ukraine so as to remove the potential opposition to his rule from Ukranian nationalists and anti-Stalinists.
All other armies did fine, at least at the highest levels, when faced with mass increases in manpower: yes, the quality of junior officers inevitably deteriorated to some extent, but this was soon made up by operational experience. In Russia, the quality of officers at all levels dropped off precipitously.
All other armies did fine, at least at the highest levels, when faced with mass increases in manpower: yes, the quality of junior officers inevitably deteriorated to some extent, but this was soon made up by operational experience. In Russia, the quality of officers at all levels dropped off precipitously.
Popular position, but wrong and politically motivated.
The famine happened not only in Ukraine, but also in Kazakhstan and Povolzhye regions, and also in the West Ukraine, which was not under control of USSR.
The government was sending food aid to suffering regions - all the documents about the drought and actions of authorities are now available. It's just too tempting to explain everything by monstrous nature of communists.
Under attack of Wehrmacht in 1938-1944, no one army did fine. Except, to some extent, Soviet army.
About 4% of officers were purged in pre-war years, IIRC. And unlikely the most competent ones.
Many returned to the army when the war started.
You don't remember correctly. 35,000 officers were shot or imprisoned, including the executions of the commander of the Red Army and its 7 leading generals. Between 1938 and 1939, approximately half of the Army's officers and every single one of the Navy's admirals were shot or imprisoned.
The Soviets did atrociously in the early part of the war. I'm talking about the quality of officership rather than the general military performance, though: the British and Americans usually (with some very notably exceptions) had a leadership of roughly equal quality to that of the Germans and Japanese, while the Soviets were always behind the enemy in this field.
Stalin executed himself?
Where did you get this? These numbers are far beyond even Cold War time propaganda.
Just checked myself, the number of ~4% is correct.
At least they didn't collapse like French-British defense in 1940.
Only because they had more space into which the Germans could just keep rolling. Germany was stopped by the length of her supply lines and the Russian winter more than Soviet defence. Stalin himself retreated into his bunker and refused to talk to anyone for several days after the Germans invaded.
Half-encircled Moscow was nine hundred miles from the former Soviet border. That's one and a half times the distance from Land's End to John O'Groats.
This can be true.
Or not, there is no way to verify this.
That's just typical jealosity of "Western civilized" Europeans (How could those Eastern barbarians succeed where we failed?)
Correct!
He retreated to his cottage in Moscow suburbs, for a couple of days.
He had an emotional breakdown after first week of war, when he saw that defense is broken, Minsk fallen and the country, Lenin's heritage and his lifework is most likely doomed. At least, that's what he said (in somewhat stronger words) to Zhukov, according to his memoirs.
After that, he returned to work, to form the State Defence Committee and remained in half-encircled Moscow in November 1941.
Were they so incomparable?
The only real improvement Germany possessed in 1941 compared to 1914 was that it had occupied northern France and theoretically had the resources of that country upon which to draw. In both wars, Germany or its allies controlled effectively all of Central Europe, a large portion of Eastern Europe, and the majority of the Balkans. Germany had to deal with innumerable 'distractions' in both wars, and created some entirely new ones for the Great Patriotic War (like the Holocaust). I'm not so sure that there was that big of a difference in the situations.
On the other hand, it's very true that the massive improvements in Russian industry that eventuated during the war years took a very serious hit during the Civil War. One might reasonably pin that on 'the Bolsheviks' too, but, of course, not really on Stalin in particular. I suppose he can hardly be blamed for the actions of the entire Party (or its enemies) at a point when he wasn't that important of a leader. Still, this self-inflicted wound didn't necessarily require more wrongs to make a 'right'.
You keep asserting that these steps were necessary, otherwise the Soviet Union would have been defeated (?) by the Nazis. But I don't see a whole lot of concrete reasons to believe that. What was Stalin's value over replacement leader vis-a-vis the rate of Soviet industrialization?
And besides, if Stalin initiated these steps long before the Nazis came to power in Germany, why should we even attribute their ultimate effect, assuming it was as you said, to him? These hell for leather industrialization and repression efforts were carried out initially with no real imminent threat. The fact that a threat eventually arose to justify them can hardly be laid at Stalin's doorstep, can it?
The Russians lost the First World War for reasons that had nothing to do with industrial production. They caught a few bad breaks in the opening engagements, blundered into a bit of operational and strategic mismanagement, got stuck on the wrong side of one of the most innovative and genial offensives in military history, had to deal with almost comical amounts of infighting among the bureaucracy and the military leadership, and then had that little revolution thing that completely crippled their chances.red_elk said:
Ever since Norman Stone in the 1970s, the trope has been that the tsarist empire did produce enough materiel to fuel its armies. As mentioned earlier, nobody in the entire war made more except for Britain and Germany, and those two countries, apart from being industrial colossi, also had to outfit and arm the armies of other countries; Russia did not. Stone and other since him, e.g. Hew Strachan, have argued that misallocation and corruption were at the heart of the tsarist state's problems with materiel, insofar as they existed. This is not new historiography. This isn't even controversial historiography. (Never mind the controversy Stone, in particular, is apt to generate around his political stances and his pronunciamentos on, say, the Armenian genocide; his work on the Eastern Front is not seen as ideologically tainted, and rightly so.)
Now, granted, the fact that Russia possessed adequate industrial production for the First World War does not mean that, given "natural" or "replacement-level" rates of industrialization for the Stalin years, it would also possess adequate industrial production for the Second World War. But I'm not really saying that it would, for definite. I'm saying that the fact that it possessed that production casts doubts on the averred necessity of Stalin's industrialization as compared with some other industrialization. You claimed that this industrialization as it occurred was necessary: these reasons are why I think that you require more proof than simple assertion.
Bringing up the Holodomor or Katyn in a thread with red_elk is like bringing up Fort Pillow on Stormfront: it produces responses ranging from outright denial to claims that the whole thing was justified even if it did happen which, "clearly", it didn't.
innonimatu
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In the absence of a Stalin there is no knowing whether the USSR would have fallen into another civil war, or an earlier war with western powers (to be followed probably by defeat and civil war). That seems to have been one of the motives for all his purges, or at least they were interpreted/excused by contemporary observers on this logic. The "it was necessary for industrialization" is a much later fabrication put forward after Khrushchev denounced stalinism but still had to find some justification for all the suffering associated with those years. In the 30s the motives given for purges and repression were always pretty openly stated: defeat any possible "internal enemies". Even if the "evidence" of ongoing conspiracies by those targets of the purges was fabricated - Stalin was doing what he saw as "pre-emptive" purges against anyone who might possibly threaten his government's control over the country.
But whatever the usefulness of early centralization (not industrialization) for the later war effort (and all countries in both world wars turned to centralization and planification during the war), in the events after the break of the world war there is little doubt that Stalin did a series of tremendous mistakes because of his belief that the germans wouldn't attack before defeating the british. His breakdown upon the news of the attack are evidence of exactly that. For a short period even the consummate politician who had defeated every opponent in the bloody game for control of the USSR failed to hide that he blamed himself for the disaster, and he should know!
But whatever the usefulness of early centralization (not industrialization) for the later war effort (and all countries in both world wars turned to centralization and planification during the war), in the events after the break of the world war there is little doubt that Stalin did a series of tremendous mistakes because of his belief that the germans wouldn't attack before defeating the british. His breakdown upon the news of the attack are evidence of exactly that. For a short period even the consummate politician who had defeated every opponent in the bloody game for control of the USSR failed to hide that he blamed himself for the disaster, and he should know!
First thing is the second front, which existed in WW1 but did not in 1941-1943.
The second is the size and importance of the Eastern European territories, lost by the RE after WW1 and Brest-Litovsk treaty.
The third one is military tactics which changed dramatically - from trench warfare of WW1 to blitzcrieg with armored spearheads in WW2. Which diminished Russian advantage in having big territory, and worsened the effect of its disadvantage in infrastructure.
You certainly can draw some parallels between two wars, but I don't see how any plausible predictions can be done in such a different situations.
You seem to put the blame on the atrocities of Civil War mostly on the Reds, which is arguable statement per se, but it's not very much important here. The goal was not to make wrongs right, but to fix them, to avoid even worse wrongs.
Yes, modernization was required and the importance of it was vital. I think it should be even more obvious for us now, because we know what kind of war happened in 1941, what was at the stake and what odds were to lose it. As for someone who you called "replacement leader", I don't know how competent he would be in achieving the same goals and winning the war. And I don't feel it sensible to analyze possible achievements of some generic average Soviet leader in 1930-s, OTOH achievements of Stalin's government in industrial output are known and pretty impressive.
When you lead a first socialist state in the world and everybody else see you as a Red Menace, you don't need a crystal ball to predict that you may require a big army soon.
Industrialization and modernization with the rate as they occurred were necessary, because USSR barely survived even with the industrial potential, technology and infrastructure condition and help of the Allies, which it had by 1941. If our hypothetical replacement leader, doing "some other industrialization" could prepare the country better than Stalin, obviously it would be a better alternative for the USSR, outweighing the importance of mustaches and tobacco pipe.
That's another important aspect, the political repressions. As far as I know, nobody claims they were necessary for industrialization, that would be pretty strange statement.
Not quite correct. The alleged Stalin's belief that the Germans would'n attack is exactly a myth of Khruschev era. Starting from April-May 1941, the Soviets knew that Hitler will attack in Summer, hidden mobilization was declared in USSR. Exact day of attack was unfortunately unknown until a few days before it actually happened. And "breakdown" happened not immediately after attack and lasted not weeks, as Khruschev claimed, but on 29-30 of June.
Not quite: at the time a famine was occurring in the Ukraine, the USSR was actually exporting grain to pay for its industrialization program.
Really? You might want to check some actual sources on that.
Seeing as the greater part of those frontier forces got eliminated in the first few days of the war, I rest my case.
red_elk said:
I'm not sure where you checked, but since a lot of Soviet archives have been opened it is verifiable that your 4% number is a huge underestimate. But, let's for arguments sake, assume for a moment even that low figure is correct. Then after the first few months of the Axis offensive, the remaining officer would be further reduced by 50%, since the Red Army lost about half of its existing forces (including the commanding officers, such as there were) during that offensive.
But consider this:
So your 4% would be on the lower side of estimates. However, as you can see in the first paragraph, top ranking officers (i.e commanding officers) were hit hardest - and many were sumply executed, so 'reinstatement' would not really be an option for those.
red_elk said:
Actually, by 1941, the Axis faced three fronts: the ongoing airwar with Britain, the North African front and the Eastern front. (To even begin Operation Barbarossa, Germany had to withdraw a considerbale amount of its airforce from the West to the East.)
red_elk said:
In the 1930s the USSR gained recognition by several capitalist states. If your hypothesis that the whole industrialization had as its goal rearmament is correct, that makes the 1930s army purges nonsensical (and utterly counterproductive). In fact, until the Nazi frontline along its Western borders, the USSR did not face any serious threat to its existence. Such conflicts as there were, were decided in the USSR's favour (border conflicts with Japan, Winter War with Finland). Directly prior to WW II there had been diplomatic negotiations with all European powers, before Stalin setled on the Ribbentrop pact with Nazi Germany.
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