CH: Stalin ISN'T an idiot with Military Affairs

Basically, make it where Stalin actually is competent with military strategy. How does one do this? I don't know, but it is a challenge after all. Bonus points if this makes him a better leader over all.
 
Stalin wanted John Wayne assasinated because he was anti communist and according to one website "Despite being a grumpy little man, Stalin was also the man behind the most wicked practical joke ever played. Being a very private man he gave the order that no person should enter his bed chambers on pain of death. Later, while in his chambers he decided to test whether his guards had listened to this instruction. Pretending to scream in pain he called for the guards stationed outside the door. Fearing that their leader was in trouble the guards burst into the room. Stalin had them executed for failing to follow his standing orders. This little prank soon backfired, however, when Stalin suffered a seizure while alone in his bedroom. The guards were too afraid to enter, finding him hours later laid in a puddle of stale urine. He died three days later."

I dont think there is anyway to make Stalin a good leader after that...
 
While Stalin had little military ability he did seem to learn from the mistakes he made in the run up to Barbarossa and in it's opening months and after this he generally left the generals to get on with achieving the objectives he set them, if they failed they got shot but if they succeeded theylived but with Stalin getting all the credit. Also unlike Hitler he didn't try and micromanage the entire army.
 
I agree that while Stalin wasn't a strategic genius, he wasn't an idiot either. He was paranoid and got rid of some strong military figures, but when it came to strategy during war, he trusted his generals (Or at least appeared to). He even helped by promoting competition to capture Berlin, which probably led to a quicker victory.
 
True, but he also did an officer purge and did MANY idiotic strategic things in the start of the war.

Later on... yes, he could learn from his mistakes, but still...
 
True, but he also did an officer purge

So?

The Soviet army before the purges wasn't exactly a pillar of excellence. On the other hand after WWII, it had become one of the top two militaries in the entire world.

and did MANY idiotic strategic things in the start of the war.

Not really. He ignored the advice that the Germans were going to attack, but what exactly would have been different if he had prepared? The Red Army was still poorly trained, and Barbarossa ran on a lot of luck right at the beginning that honestly it doesn't take much to make it go far worse for the Germans, Stalin being more competent isn't required.
 
Under any other circumstance why wouldn't he respond?

Additionally, while the Soviet Army may not have been a pillar of excellence, it was starting to improve... before Stalin trashed the thing with the purge and made them start from scratch.

As for after WW2, they did in fact. Just in time for large conventional armies to be made pointless by nuclear weapons.
 

CalBear

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Basically, make it where Stalin actually is competent with military strategy. How does one do this? I don't know, but it is a challenge after all. Bonus points if this makes him a better leader over all.

Where do you get your historical beliefs? Between this, the Strategic Bombing thread and the fixation on Operation Vegetation...

Stalin was a politician. As politicians go, he actually learned fairly well (unlike Hitler who was still insisting on "Hold every inch" until a pistol round did the human race a favor), as can be seen in the later manner he managed the War, when he mainly listened to his senior commanders, even if he also made sure they were in constant competition with each other. He also managed to quite thoroughly pick the pockets of two of the most savvy politicians of the 20th Century and had a HUGE impact on the Western Allied strategic choices throughout the war.

His refusal to consider retreat early in the war isn't all that far from this statement:

There must at this stage be no thought of saving the troops or sparing the population. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs. The 18th Division has a chance to make its name in history. Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops.

What bloody lunatic came up with that one? Winston Churchill, during the end game on Singapore. The difference is that Churchill was talking and had no intention of dragging the families of Percival and his staff off to the Tower for a date with a Tokarev if he was disobeyed. Stalin (and Hitler) tended to do that sort of thing.

Stalin was a paranoid sociopath (who, as an aside, deserve to roast slowly in Hell of all eternity for his manifold vile deeds). He was not stupid.
 
Okay, find a way to make him not like that, perhaps intervene when he's a kid.

Stalin is killed in the accident that crippled his arm. Since he is dead, he can't be an idiot in military affairs. The end.

Also, isn't this like your tenth "Let's make the Soviet Union less horrible a place" thread?
 
Not exactly.

As for Churchill... wow.:eek: Okay, I IMMEDIATELY take back this thread and apologize for wasting everyone's time.
 
No, this was just a... really badly thought out thread, and I apologize for making it. Really REALLY bad idea.
 
Have him be conscripted in the Russo-Japanese War, after the war he may study tactic. He may even be tutored by Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Ivan Konev, Georgy Zhuko and so on
 
Whatever Stalin was, an idiot was not one of them.

There is a very interesting book: "Stalin's War: Through the eyes of his commanders" by Albert Axell (ISBN 1-85409-402-5).

In essence, the commanders applaud Stalin for a few things, the most important was his ability to look at problems in a strategic setting. Although he got down to details, he never lost sight of the important business: winning the war, politically and military.

Zhukov (who might have been a bit intimidated sometimes), actaully praise their working relationship, not easy, but a give-and-take.

The book also looks at the "blunders":

1) The purges
Stalin inherited a lot of Tsarists and Trotsky's influence was still strong. If Stalin wanted to be in the driving seat, perhaps that was the solution? One of the commanders thinks so.

2) German pact
Gave him another handful of months, although he had expected until 1942.
He knew very well that it could not last.

3) Barbarossa "successes"
If you are prepared to sacrifice millions of soldiers (because you have enough) and laid waste the best part of the industrialised parts of the country, because you know Germany will run our of resources, well, you have a winner.

It was the same as the RN in WWI: Win by default. Stalin and his commanders knew that Gremany, even if conquering European Russia past Moscow and Leningrad, they would run out of steam. I don't think anybody will dispute that Germany could have achieved a tactical advantage, but defeating Russia would be another thing.

Stalin worked his commanders far better than anybody else. It was after all not only Zhukov, but the whole leadership.

Stalin identified that Leningrad was key and hurled Zhukov at the problem. Later Zhukov got onto Stalingrad, but there were other commanders as well.

Also bear in mind that nobody had really commanded army groups consisting of millions of soldiers (except Gremany's Model, etc, etc).

US/UK commanders had no experience in these major operations and (apparantly) got shocked when they saw the immense armies of the Eastern front.

Alanbrooke, although immensely competent, did not manage even a small portion of what Stalin did.

To see Stalin's actions in a different light, imagine if Alanbrooke was the "Stalin" in Soviet? How would he have managed the war?

Imagine Gen Marshall as the leader of the Soviet forces (with the same powers as Stalin of course)? Eisenhover? Monty?

Even better: Churchill?

So, maybe Stalin was not an "idiot"?

Just some notes,

Ivan
 
Yeah as others have pointed out, Stalin was many things, a complicated man, a ruthless dictator, he got none of it being an idiot.

1. I've noticed for a while now that you consider Stalin's purges of the Red Army to be the height of idiocy, though you have repeatedly been taken to task for it by myself and others here on the site. While the purges did kill some genuinely skilled people like Tukhachevsky, you can't neglect the fact that the Red Army was swollen with people who were politically untrustworthy, Stalin's choice comes down to securing his power base that would eventually allow him to be the undisputed director of the entire Soviet war effort later on down the line by purging everyone of a questionable allegiance in the Red Army (and that's a lot when you factor in how many officers participated in exchange programs with Germany, had loyalties to Stalin's rivals, or some combination of the two) or leaving the officer corps around and quite possibly making the military a bastion of resistance to Stalin's rule... generally when the people with the biggest guns don't support a ruler it's bad for stability.

This is not to say that no mistakes were made in the purges or in their aftermath. Budyonny should never have gotten his thirty cavalry divisions, someone should have listened to Tukhachevsky, and Voroshilov should never have been let anywhere near the planning table for the Winter War (keep in mind that initially horrendous Soviet performances turned right around when Timoshenko was put in charge).

So in short, purges =/= 100% unjustified and bad.

2. Barbarossa preparations, Ivan got this one better than I did but I'll touch on it briefly for the sake of posterity:

A. Stalin knew probably better than anyone that Hitler's word wasn't worth... to use a Calbearism, the ink it was printed on let alone the paper. Only blustering dolts like Molotov wanted the Soviet Union to actually join or make any kind of long-term rapprochement with the Axis, Stalin knew better, but signed the treaty to keep Germany off of the USSR's back as well as to facilitate Soviet territorial goals, the Soviets wouldn't have had a head-start in Poland without the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and wouldn't have been able to pull something like the annexation of the Baltic States either.

B. Sorge had made a bad guess on Barbarossa's start date, the Soviets were ready for an attack on the 19th but stood down by the time of the real attack on the 21st, Stalin had less reason to suspect that the attack on the 21st was genuine. In any case, he also believed that a preliminary mobilization was part of a ploy to make him the aggressor by Hitler... not at all an unreasonable fear: Stalin mobilizes, Hitler declares war citing that the Bolsheviks plan to overrun Europe, and Stalin would have been playing right into his hands.

3. He knew how to listen to his generals when the time was right, this was a skill that escaped most if not all of his Axis enemies, and to a lesser degree some of his allies, or rather, Allies. People like Zhukov and Timoshenko deserve every bit of their reputation as some of the best generals of Russian/Soviet history and as some of the best WWII generals. At the end of the day, Stalin was their boss, could have had either of them executed for recommending something he didn't personally support, or just never listened to them the way Hitler tended to do as the war went on, but he didn't, that says a lot.
 
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