Soviet Sanity Options 1939-1941
- Thread starter Sarthak
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When the war started, the US Army had a luxury of getting really prepared at its own time table with a real equipment. In 1930s it was pretty much non-existent as a mass force. Then, a general level of a technical competence in the US had been immeasurably higher than in the SU where a car still was a rarity.
Well, of course having the better trained troops (and commanders) would be quite beneficial because coordination clearly was a major issue which was not adequately dealt with even by the summer of 1942.
But, as I said, where would you find enough of the competent personnel to provide an adequate training on pretty much all levels?
And the cutting edge stuff (besides suffering from the technological and design problems) had to be adequately served but, in a truly Soviet fashion, the attention had been paid to the number of final products while the spare parts were ignored. Then goes an issue of the competent service personnel, etc. During the war many of these issues had been resolved one way or another but this was quite costly.
Then goes the OTL timing: by the summer of 1941 the Red Army was in a process of a major rearmament with the Soviet industry trying to readjust itself to the new equipment (major retooling, change of the state orders, etc.) and this required time. Then goes an issue of the models suitable for the mass production.
For example, the sub machine guns had been mentioned. Officially, the first, PPD-34, was introduced in 1935 but it was technologically complicated. in 1934 only 44 were produced, in 1935 only 23; production picked up in 1937 with 1,291 produced, followed by 1,115 produced in 1938 and 1,700 produced in 1939. Mass production began in 1940, a year in which 81,118 PPDs were produced. Nevertheless, the PPD-40 was too labor- and resource-expensive to mass-produce economically. Shpagin created a prototype PPSh in September 1940. A few hundred weapons were produced in November 1941 and another 155,000 were made during the next five months. By spring 1942, the PPSh factories were producing roughly 3,000 units a day. Soviet production figures for 1942 indicate that almost 1.5 million units were produced.
Or semi-automatic rifle SVT-40. A lot of them had been produced before the war (and lost at the early stage) but then it proved to be too expensive to produce and, besides, it required more than a rudimentary training. So during the war their production was diminishing and they were mostly replaced by the cheap and easy to use PPSh and the old Mosin rifles.
So the “sanity option” would be try to avoid the war for the next few years trying to fix as many problems as possible.
An idea of killing Stalin is appealing on a “human level” but then what? Who out of the remaining scumbags would replace him and how exactly he would be better?
marathag
Banned
didn't have a choice, given how Congress cut funding. Didn't use fake tanks because they wanted to. The old WWI era tanks were not up to being used in Maneuvers, as even if they were in prime mechanical shape, cost too much to transport
marathag
Banned
Of that whole gang in that era, my Money would be on Molotov.
That guy dodged Fate, time and time again, that would have(and did) ended anybody else.
You started with the irrelevant example and then are explaining why this irrelevant example took place. 😜
The point remains that to fight a war the US created a brand new army out of a skeleton force and, before being sent abroad, that army got adequate training with the real weapons.
Molotov always was a “second man” with no demonstrated leadership qualities. Did not get on the top after Stalin’s death. Politburo included Andreev, Woroshilov, Zdhanov, Kaganovich, Kali in, Mikoyan, Molotov, Stalin, Khrushchev. Make your pick.
Well, if we're picking the next ruler of the Soviet Union based on luck, surely Anastas Mikoyan is the man? Who better than the man reputed to be so lucky he could walk between raindrops to lead the Soviets through WW2?
OK, I kid.
I am not sure how one could spend decades being entrusted with some of the top jobs in the Soviet government with no leadership qualities. What sources do you make that assessment on? And were they character attacks made during or after his expulsion by Khrushchev?
From what I have read about him, he seems to have been a capable organizer, had some truly dreadful ideas about agriculture (he thought Stalin's collectivization hadn't gone far enough and everything should be turned into state farms), had a few good ideas and had the outstanding qualities for leading the Soviets during WW2 of a) having been outside the Soviet Union and dealt with forrin people and b) being in one of the positions that a new leader might reasonably be chosen from if Stalin dies suddenly and a new boss has to be picked fast.
True. I am imagining such an alternate Soviet army would need a PoD at least in the early 30s, just to scale up the training and education infrastructure.
On the other hand, surely all the people in the armaments factories of OTL also needed to be trained. If the Soviets could train the technicians and managers and clerks to produce large numbers of aircraft, submachine guns and tanks for their army in OTL, is there really no possibility to train the NCOs and officers they need if they have a different focus (of course, I am sure the NCOs and officers will be of similar quality to the technicians, managers and clerks in their factories, which is to say, less than ideal)?
If you know any good sources in either English or Russian that shed some light on this area that can be obtained in the Anglosphere, I would be most grateful to hear of them.
fasquardon
IIRC, Lenin called him as "Stone Ass" (and blamed for "shameful bureaucratism") and Bazanov (Бажанов, you can look for his memoirs, quite revealing) described him as, being a head of the Party secretariat, a technical organizer of the system that Stalin used to get to power. The guy was an accomplished bureaucrat and he was seemingly cultivating this image as a survival trait. Starting from 1930 he was a Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (formally, head of the government) but, just as was the case with Kalinin, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, aka, formal head of the state, this position meant little in the terms of independent activities. Being a capable organizer would not be enough if you are all the time organizing what you are ordered to organize.
Of course, as a head of a government, formally, he would be the most eligible candidate (Kalinin being just a figurehead) but Zdhanov was a very strong figure who hold quit a few important positions, including, from 1938 Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR and a head of a Propaganda Department of the Central Committee and from 1940 membership in the Military Council of the Red Army.
Khruschev was, until 1938, the 1st Party Secretary of both Moscow region and Moscow itself and in 1938 was made the 1st Secretary in Ukraine and full Politburo member in 1939. A purely Party figure with no management experience but most probably with a lot of the Party clientele in Moscow and, which would be a plus, reputation of an easy to manipulate clown. In the case of the internal fight for the top position may look like a suitable compromise figure.
As at least theoretical possibility, if Stalin is dead by 1939, Woroshilov (who is not yet compromised by a Finnish War) may become a very serious competitor if somebody explained to him how to take power: he had plenty of the loyalists in the Army (members of the former 1st Cavalry Army had been holding a lot of the critical positions). Incompetent in pretty much everything (except encyclopedic knowledge of operetta, as was recorded by Schadenko) but a widely promoted figure, much better known (and more "charismatic") than any other Politburo member.
Last but not least Beria - only a candidate to Politburo but a People Commissar of the Internal Affairs and a head of the Soviet espionage system. Actually, during the war Beria was in charge of many areas of the Soviet military effort controlling all areas of the military production, transport, coal, chemical and oil industries, etc. Proved to be quite capable organizer (in his own way).
I'm not seriously considering Andreev, Kaganovich and Mikoyan.
So, Stalin was bad but how any of them would be noticeably better in organizing a war effort?
Of course. At least in the engineering/design areas the Soviets had been somewhere in the middle of a learning curve (my impression) by 1941 and the same goes for the production area. But in the production re-adjustments had been probably more difficult because they required adoption of the new specifications, retooling, etc. So the main trend during the war was design and production of the simple models of weaponry, easy to produce and easy to learn. As PPSh - stamped parts and extreme ease of assembly/disassembly in the field conditions. But by 1941 they were not there, yet. The same goes for the centralized planning: in the spring of 1941 the munition plants still had been producing the shells for the tanks that were in a process of being decommissioned.
They eventually did train the troops during the war when a lot of a ..er,. "practical experience" had been available. Of course, this was extremely costly way but an approach "we'll not look for the cost" had been romanticized even decades after the war. The same goes for the technicians both on the plants and at the front: the equipment was working and reasonably well-served. Flaws in a design cost extra lives but this was not considered a major problem as long as the weapons were reasonably effective (upgrade of T-34 gun had been forced by the German new designs).
Couple sources which could be interesting (sorry, I have only these two links saved):
"Порядок в танковых войсках? Куда пропали танки Сталина" Андрей Уланов Дмитрий Владимирович Шеин https://flibusta.is/b/493044
"Механизированные корпуса РККА в бою: История автобронетанковых войск Красной Армии в 1940-1941 годах" Евгений Федорович Дриг https://flibusta.is/b/531534/read
McPherson
Banned
Khrushchev and Mikoyan certainly, because though evil, they were not maniacs and they actually had demonstrated ability and leadership skills IN THE WAR in OTL (Hindsight 2020 assessment.). Maybe Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev, since he knew Soviet labor and logistics in the 1930s and seemed to have some practical common sense. Shoot the rest of them, including Molotov. MOO.
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Let’s say that we retain Stalinism in a Mikoyanian form. There isn’t the buffer of fraternal states and atomic capacity to allow for Mikoyans preferred labour motivation strategies. There isn’t a consumer industrial capacity. So it’ll be blood and cheap vodka and patriotism. And destabilising Stalin faction aligned younger party members will cost you any gains you get from competence and a willingness to sortition military leadership by competence.
It’s not good.
It’s not good.
I think one of the most important things is not to skimp on training and exercises. OTL the Soviet officers feared being shot as saboteurs for training accidents, and were very risk averse in training as a result. If we can see something akin to the U.S. Army's Louisiana maneuvers to get rid of low performing officers, that would be great. Combat aside, even a mobilization/movement exercise would be incredibly valuable: in 1941, so many mechanized corps lost their tanks by breakdown before even getting to the battlefield.
Even better, realistic, non-scripted exercises in the Reichswehr model + training of lower level officers to take over responsibilities above current rank would be enormously beneficial. For all the Wehrmacht did wrong, they had a much better rate of competent leadership up to army/corps level than many of their adversaries (good operational skill. strategy, not so much). So much of the Red Army's suffering in 1941 was caused by poor leadership at all levels, and lower level officers being promoted way past competence due to purges. Practice, practice, practice.
Even better, realistic, non-scripted exercises in the Reichswehr model + training of lower level officers to take over responsibilities above current rank would be enormously beneficial. For all the Wehrmacht did wrong, they had a much better rate of competent leadership up to army/corps level than many of their adversaries (good operational skill. strategy, not so much). So much of the Red Army's suffering in 1941 was caused by poor leadership at all levels, and lower level officers being promoted way past competence due to purges. Practice, practice, practice.
Who does the shooting? Who decides who does the shooting? Who decides who's a yes man? How many millions of yes men need to be shot?
McPherson
Banned
Presumably after Step 1, the process for Step 2 is rather Leninist in application; so that it is the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the competent members of the Politburo who decide, who is on the proscription list, as was done with Beria and his supporters when Stalin died? Then it would fall to whatever the Committee of State Security is called at the time? Incidentally, what millions? A few hundreds of the very worst would be purged, at most, since the regime still has to somehow function despite the numerous alleged crimes those 'millions' (10s of thousands in actuality?) committed in its name for Stalin.
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While probably a little tongue in cheek, a political figure in the Soviet system seeking to hold formal power that was intrinsically opposed to the "clan" of Stalin would need to remove his boyars and cliques from the institutions of power through some means or others (if one was operating as a continuation of the Stalin clan, step can be skipped). As J. Arch Getty's "Practicing Stalinism: Bolsheviks, Boyars, and the Persistence of Tradition" shows us, patron-client relationships were (and are) deeply embedded in Russian political structures and any aspiring leader of the USSR following @McPherson's Step1 would ultimately need to address Step2 and replace the political clans from the 'Stalinschina' with an alternative set of patrons. Otherwise, the challenger would quickly become politically paralyzed and be overthrown. The Great Terror can in parts be seen as Stalin's attempt to break the political clan system and replace it with institutions supremely loyal to the system itself (which just so happened to be interchangeable with ol' Dzhugashvili himself..), but in doing so only really managed to build a much bigger clan replete with the cult of personality to end all cults of personality.
Any such replacement would need to remove these big patrons (not necessarily anything nearly as sweeping as the Terror) and clear the way for their own handpicked set of talented young Party members, born again Old Bolsheviks (unlikely), coat tail hangers sensing blood in the water, last hour converts, etc.
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The New Regime will be distinctly fascist internally and pro-fascist internatonally. The new elite will need a new bloodbath to purify itself from the evils of Stalinism.
I don't think any sufficiently "fascist" movements even existed in the wider Russian context of the time (including émigré communities), let alone within the USSR itself. A 'New Regime' would in all likelihood be a continuation of the 'Revolutionary Machiavellism' strand of Lenin and Stalin, just with a different jefe on top. A complete paradigm shift in Russian politics and overthrow in favor of "The New Regime" (meaning outside the Communist system), however unlikely that really was, is probably outside the realm of discussion for Soviet Sanitary Options in the 1930's anyway.
For Russian Fascism as a separate discussion though, the only real opportunity for a movement like that was among the Cossacks and the younger officers class active in the White Armies of Denikin and Kolchak who saw that the hopeless reactionarism of their fathers was too anachronistic to win the war against the Bolshevik, and were as you say "purified in the bloodbath against the evils of Bolshevism" through their experiences in the Civil War. I stumbled across some comments made by Peter Kenez in his paper "The Ideology of the White Movement" that discusses Russian Fascism which I saved in my notes:
However, the officers who joined the movement in the beginning of 1918 and continued to play a dominant role in it until its final defeat, were young, profoundly embittered by their recent experiences in the Revolution and drawn to radical solutions. Especially after Alekseev's death in the autumn of 1918, Denikin was constantly under attack from the right; his followers wanted him to pursue reactionary policies. In April 1920 Denikin had to go into exile and his successor, General Wrangel, was a candidate of the right. To be sure, Denikin lost out in the power struggle largely because his armies had suffered defeats; nevertheless it is clear that his position had been greatly weakened by political disagreements. If we judge by the sentiments of the majority of the officers, and on the basis of the policies which the peasants actually experienced at the hands of the Volunteer Army, we should consider the White movement a reactionary phenomenon. The majority of the peasantry was right to distrust the promises and public statements of the Whites."
...also the rabid anti-semitism
If the Whites had won the Civil War (I have my own thoughts on the likelihood of that succeeding though), I could certainly see a vengeful and embittered young officer class, backed up by Cossack support, forming parties and fraternal organizations that could lead to a movement on the fringes of classified fascism. Sort of like the pseudo-fascism/proto-fascism of Franco and the Falange Española de las JONS, that is largely a reactionary movement with elements of fascism and the aesthetics of fascism mixed in. That's outside the scope of this discussion, but would make an interesting timeline or discussion thread in my opinion.
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