AHC: better Soviet army during WWII, fewer executions for 'cowardice'

Gannt,

gotta say I usually find your posts really informative, but this time I'm really not understanding what you're trying to say. I totally agree with your last sentence, but how is relevant? I take it that a more experienced officer corps would be against mass executions as they don't really serve a purpose. Are you saying the source the OP cites is wrong?
 
Don't forget the POWs that survived Nazi Camps, when to Siberia after the War.
Surrendering was against the rules.
Actually there were many different aproaches. Some were returned to units, some were pressed to units without treatment. Some were sent to camps. To say all liberated Soviet POW were sent to camps in Siberia is crap.
 
Actually there were many different aproaches. Some were returned to units, some were pressed to units without treatment. Some were sent to camps. To say all liberated Soviet POW were sent to camps in Siberia is crap.

'There are no Soviet prisoners of war. The Soviet soldier fights on till death. If he chooses to become a prisoner, he is automatically excluded from the Russian community' --Uncle Joe

His Order 270
These shameful facts surrender our sworn enemy suggests that the Red Army, bravely and selflessly protect them from their vile invaders Soviet Motherland, there are unstable, cowardly, cowardly elements. And these cowardly elements are not only among the Red Army, but also among the commanding staff. As you know, some commanders and political workers by their behavior, not only at the front of the Red Army did not show a sample of courage, strength and love of country, and vice versa hide in crevices in the offices are busy, do not see and do not observe the field of battle, and when the first serious challenges to combat shrink from the enemy, tear off his insignia, a deserter from the battlefield.
Can I put up with the Red Army cowards, deserters to the enemy and surrendering him prisoner or such craven chiefs, who at the first hitch on the front tears off his insignia and desert in the rear? No you can not! If unleash these cowards and deserters, they lay the short time our army and destroy our country. Cowards and deserters must be destroyed.
Can we assume battalion commanders and commanders of regiments, who hide in crevices during the fight, do not see the battlefield, there was no progress on the field of battle and still think they regimental commanders and battalions? No you can not! This is not the commanders of regiments and battalions, and impostors.
If unleashed such impostors, they soon turn our army into a solid office. These impostors should immediately dismiss from office, to reduce the post, in the rank and file transfer, and if necessary shot on the spot, bringing to their place of bold and courageous people from the ranks of junior command personnel or of the soldiers.
I hereby order:
Commanders and political officers in combat tears off his insignia and deserters to the rear or surrendering to the enemy, considered malicious deserters whose families are subject to arrest as a family have violated the oath and betrayed their homeland deserters.


Require all higher commanders and commissars shot on the spot such deserters of command personnel.

Was encircled enemy units and formations selflessly fight to the last, to protect materiel as the apple of an eye, on his way to the rear of the enemy troops, defeating the fascist dogs.

Require each soldier, regardless of his or her position, require the superior, if part of it is in the environment, fight to the last, to make way for his own, and if such a boss or group of Red Army instead of organizing resistance to the enemy will choose to give up his prisoner, - Destroy them by all means, both ground and air, and the families who surrendered captured Soviet soldiers deny public assistance and help.
Oblige commanders and commissars divisions immediately shift from post commanders of battalions and regiments, hiding in crevices during the battle and those who fear direct its fight on the battlefield, to reduce their positions as impostors, translate the ranks, and when necessary to shoot them on the spot, bringing to their place of bold and courageous people of junior command personnel or from the ranks of the Red Army excelled.
The order read in all companies, squadrons, batteries, squadrons, teams and staffs.
Supreme High Command of Red Army Chairman of the National Defence -STALIN


After defeat of the Nazis, they were taken to new filtration camps, as well as existing Gulags like Kolyma.


They remained Enemies of the State til Khrushchev, if in Gulag or not
 
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Really?

I've seen estimates of German executions in the 10s of thousands, but in the 100s of thousands? Please supply some sources to back up your claim. Same for the Japanese.

As the 158,000 only covers until 1942. What about 1943-1945, or whenever Stalin decided to stop killing Russian soldiers for their perceived action(s) during the Great Patriotic War?

Not what I was saying. What I was saying is that it's possible that the Gernans and/or Japanese executed more of their own men in 1945 then the Soviets executed of their own men in 1945. Not that the Germans and/or Japanese executed more of their own men in 1945 then the Soviets executed in the entire war or even in 1941-42.

Now I added the qualifier "it's possible" to indicate that I was basing it off the respective countries general situations rather then firm statistical evidence. The 1944-45 period was when the Soviets had reached the peak in their military power and sophistication while the Germans and Japanese backs were against the wall and in desparate straights as the Soviets themselves had been in '41-'42.
 
Thanks to Bob the Barbarian and Obsessed Nuker for the data you guys provided!

So, the total strength at end of 1942 was 10,096,794 effectives + 826,288 in hospital = 10,923,082.
Total irrecoverable losses for the war were about 15,000,000, of which about 66% were suffered during 1941-42. That makes about about 9,900,000 irrecoverable losses during those two years.

Adding the irrecoverable losses 1941-42, to the 1942 end strength, should give us roughly the total number serving during those two years: 20,823,082.

Divide by 157,593 (the total allegedly shot for cowardice during those years).

We get one soldier shot for cowardice per every 132 soldiers serving.

Now, I know that's not a firm figure by any means, but I'd suppose that it is at least in the ballpark.

So, if the quoted number of shootings is roughly correct, it seems fair to say that most Soviet soldiers would've either personally known, or at least known of (a "friend of a friend" type thing) at least one soldier who had been shot for cowardice.

That's an astonishingly high level of coercion.
The thing you have to remember though that for the average Soviet soldier, directives like Order 227 were seen as a positive thing. Morale was low, the army was in a constant state of disorganization due to constant action.

The average soldier did not look at these directives as "I need to fear the political officers more than the enemy." Politruks were supposed to lead by example, and few soldiers will think of themselves as a coward. Rather, they'd look on order 227 more like "Those deserters will get what's coming to them."

Veterans had seen what panic in the face of the enemy did to units. Recruits had heard of the horror stories. It was seen as something necessary to maintain discipline

As others stated, the enforcement of edicts like 227 and 270 were all over the place. In many cases blocking detachments were never used for their intended purpose; front or army commanders used their mandated blocking units as a sort of operational reserve, and committed them into direct action against the enemy.

It was brutal and awful, but it's a mistake to take such a condescending view that Soviet soldiers were only fighting because they were forced to. The awful truth was the scale of the fighting, and how drastic the stakes were (defeat meant literal annihilation), to the average Red Army man, the brutality seemed like a rational response.
 
Jello,
I don't think the average soldier fought only, or even primary, due to fear of being shot. I simply pointed out that the system was high coercive (very likely more coercive than needed).

As for how the average soldier viewed the executions... it depends. If execution is only reserved for the grossest forms of cowardice, then they'll be viewed as just and necessary.
But if many soldiers are shot for fairly commonplace things -- straggling during a confused action, fleeing to cover during an obviously failed assault, etc, then it'll be viewed differently, since very many guys will be thinking "But they shot that man for doing something that is natural and reasonable, which even I might have done".
 
There is no doubt that both genuine patriotism on the one hand and coercion on the other were both extremely important in motivating the people who made up the Soviet war effort. Disentangling the two is invariably going to be a difficult job, assuming it is even possible, that I leave to the professional historians. Suffice to say that in a better Red Army performance scenario, we can expect the number of people who are executed for whatever real or perceived failing will be less then OTL.
 
'There are no Soviet prisoners of war. The Soviet soldier fights on till death. If he chooses to become a prisoner, he is automatically excluded from the Russian community' --Uncle Joe
And still there were exceptions. I was just doing some research on Battle for Dargov Pass. There was story of Soviet soldier captured by Germans and later liberated. He was neither sent to Siberia neither punished. After treatment send back to his unit.
 
And still there were exceptions. I was just doing some research on Battle for Dargov Pass. There was story of Soviet soldier captured by Germans and later liberated. He was neither sent to Siberia neither punished. After treatment send back to his unit.
His story actually typical. While Stalin's treatment of POWs was deplorable, the majority were quietly filtered back into the Red Army after liberation, because the practical manpower demands superseded the punishing of "cowards".

The widescale non-enforcement of order 227 and order 270 tells us a lot about how much power Stalin had lost over the party, military and even the state security apparatus.
 
The widescale non-enforcement of order 227 and order 270 tells us a lot about how much power Stalin had lost over the party, military and even the state security apparatus.

I'd say it more illustrates the amount of latitude Stalin permitted in the interpretation of his orders is geater then popular belief. Stalin's grip on power hardly appears to have slipped during the war.
 
On the other side of the coin, Stalin was not prepared for the Nazi invasion. He first ordered Russian military units not to fight back, hoping that it was all a mistake and German commanders were acting on their own. This order was maybe for (?)four hours. And then, Stalin broke down for like (?)two days withdrawing to some villa.

This was the guy who was supposed to be such a tough motha. He broke down when his country needed him the most.

It was a golden opportunity for a military coup. I'd go as far as saying a coup was more likely than not. We just happen to be living in the universe where one didn't happen. Yes, even though many of the most promising officers had already been murdered in purges, and even though many of the rest were scared shitless and had learned long ago to keep their heads down.
 
Not sure where original number of 157 thousands originated. May be real of course. I could find only a report to Beria on 10 October 1941.

There were 657 364 total stopped by blocking detachments since the start of the war.
From them
arrested for various reasons 25 878
shot 10 201 including 3321 publicly as an example.

As for freed POWs most, about 90 per cent were sent to front lines. Others either arrested or again sent to front lines but in punishment batallions. Freed officers were more likely arrested ore demoted then common soldiers.

Saying that, being POW or simply living on occupied territory was legally stigmatized after war even if a person never was arrested.
 
On the other side of the coin, Stalin was not prepared for the Nazi invasion. He first ordered Russian military units not to fight back, hoping that it was all a mistake and German commanders were acting on their own. This order was maybe for (?)four hours. And then, Stalin broke down for like (?)two days withdrawing to some villa.


Yes, when Molotov visited him in his house, Stalin raised his hands after seeing Molotov thinking he was going to be arrested
 
Don't forget the POWs that survived Nazi Camps, when to Siberia after the War.
Surrendering was against the rules.


And 'sent back to to the Front' frequently meant in a punishment battalion,
where they would be cannon fodder.
Examples are clearing minefields by walking across them.
Another would be the Sturmovik rear gunner.

Doesn't sound too bad, till you realize that the Guy in Back didn't have the armor protection that the Pilot had.

People are still quoting Rezunisms. Amazing.

Yes, bruv, this totally happened. People spent vital aerodiesel, aluminium, rolled steel, copper wire, wheel rubber to build an ENTIRE WARPLANE with a very expensive engine, with one specific and probably intentional defect designed to kill people in penal units in the least efficient way possible, along with presumably the pilot/s who were not complicit in the cowardly crimes of the man so elaborately executed but died anyway when the sturmovik got shot down after the rear gunner was dead and couldn't drive the fighter planes off. I mean, what's half a year more that it takes to train a pilot in a total war for survival?

If your information comes from Rezun, please don't post, for everyone's sanity. It should be like a bare minimum starting point to any discussion on this subject.
 
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If your information comes from Rezun, please don't post, for everyone's sanity. It should be like a bare minimum starting point to any discussion on this subject.

After the War, the Il-10 GiB did get armor protection.

Were the volunteers for the Gunner position?
Sure.

What when there were none?

You get manpower from elsewhere.
 
https://books.google.com/books?id=S5...one"&f=false

" . . . During this period, on the Stalingrad front alone 140 men were shot by blocking units, while for the whole of 1941 and 1942, for 'panic-mongering, cowardice and unauthorized abandonment of the field of battle', no fewer than 157,593 men — a full sixteen divisions — were sentenced to death by HQ army tribunals.[69] . . . "

Hmmm...

"sentenced to death" is not the same as the penalty actually executed. the US Army sentenced many to death for desertion 1942-45, but only executed one death sentence for desertion. I suspect a large portion of the 157, 593, or whatever number you choose to use, were not actually shot or hanged. they probablly survived the war in a penal unit.
 
On the other side of the coin, Stalin was not prepared for the Nazi invasion. He first ordered Russian military units not to fight back, hoping that it was all a mistake and German commanders were acting on their own. This order was maybe for (?)four hours. And then, Stalin broke down for like (?)two days withdrawing to some villa.

This was the guy who was supposed to be such a tough motha. He broke down when his country needed him the most.

It was a golden opportunity for a military coup. I'd go as far as saying a coup was more likely than not. We just happen to be living in the universe where one didn't happen. Yes, even though many of the most promising officers had already been murdered in purges, and even though many of the rest were scared shitless and had learned long ago to keep their heads down.

Yes, when Molotov visited him in his house, Stalin raised his hands after seeing Molotov thinking he was going to be arrested

The incident which you are referring to actually supports my point about the degree of power Stalin wielded: while Stalin was gone in his Dacha from his nervous breakdown, not a single Soviet official appears to have thought of trying to get rid of him. Instead, they went and begged for him to come back, proposing the creation of a position that would give him even more legal power then he already had.

Even Molotov and Malenkov's accounts of Stalin possibly thinking the politburo had come to arrest him when they came were adding clearly speaking with hindsight. But the idea of tossing Stalin out at the time quite literally appears to have been unthinkable.

To contrast, when Hitler in 1945 when had his own nervous breakdown (the one portrayed in the infamous Downfall scene) and made a statement that possibly sounded like he was giving up power if one squinted, his subordinates were all over trying to grab it until he clarified for them that he wasn't giving any of it up until he was dead.

"sentenced to death" is not the same as the penalty actually being executed. the US Army sentenced many to death for desertion 1942-45, but only executed one death sentence for desertion.

We do have a lot of eyewitness accounts of executions being conducted. Including at least one case of a firing squad having to shoot the same guy twice after he managed to stumble back to his companies CP from where had been shot the first time.
 
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