Is Soviet military dominance guaranteed?

trurle

Banned
The historical record provides zero evidence of that sort of internal chaos or even the possibility of it. Even those who were irritated with Stalin by things like the famines surrounding collectivization showed absolutely no inclination to take him down via force or to bring back Trotsky and accepted Stalin as the legitimate leader of the Soviet Union in his capacity as General-Secretary. They believed in the system that Stalin ran, even if they didn't necessarily believe in Stalin, and would not have done something that would have threatened it's destruction. They would not have sanctioned the Great Purge (before they became victims too it, of course) had they thought otherwise.
Of course we have zero evidence now. Politics by definition cannot be a science because neutral point of view cannot exist simultaneously with "experiment". In this particular case, people silly enough to provide evidence were killed. Some as far as in Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky#Assassination
No it wasn't? Even today, rail transport is a major feature of Russia and in 1941 it was even more so: 90 percent of Soviet cargo in 1941 went by rail transportation. Road transport constituted a mere 1.8 percent.
please, reference your numbers. These sounds really strange to absurd.
 
Of course we have zero evidence now.

So you basically admit to making baseless assertions. Got it.

please, reference your numbers. These sounds really strange to absurd.

David M Glantz's Stumbling Colossus. I don't see what's absurd about it. Railroads are naturally good at moving large cargo loads long distances efficiently, second only to merchant shipping. For a country as large and lacking in easily accessible waterways as Russia, it's natural that railroads would dominate it's cargo hauling industry.
 

Deleted member 1487

Except the trend by 1941 was already putting officers in positions based on merit rather then ideology and political connections. The German invasion accelerated this trend, but it was already there.
No military ever gets beyond the promotions for connections trap. In combat that is put aside, but in peace time it always remains and issue. The Soviets might have been reducing that problem in terms of promotions, but without a war it simply will remain a problem no matter what and the Soviet system might make it more of a problem, as politics and party connections will be an issue. That said the problem also existed in Nazi Germany, Britain, the US, etc. so it wasn't a Soviet problem, it is just a function of most human institutions.
 
No military ever gets beyond the promotions for connections trap. In combat that is put aside, but in peace time it always remains and issue. The Soviets might have been reducing that problem in terms of promotions, but without a war it simply will remain a problem no matter what and the Soviet system might make it more of a problem, as politics and party connections will be an issue. That said the problem also existed in Nazi Germany, Britain, the US, etc. so it wasn't a Soviet problem, it is just a function of most human institutions.

Oh, I'm well aware that military's (like many large organizations) tend to promote mediocrity as a rule and promote talent as some vaguely defined exception to the rule. But to posit that talent won't be promoted at all and that the Red Army will be stuck in it's 1941 state of expertise perpetually without a war is absurd. It was already happening without a war. The Soviets in '41 were well aware of their issues and making a maximum effort to fix them... they just didn't have time for any of their measures to work out before the Germans crashed down the gate.
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 1487

Oh, I'm well aware that military's (like many large organizations) tend to promote mediocrity as a rule and promote talent as some vaguely defined exception to the rule. But to posit that talent won't be promoted at all and that the Red Army will be stuck in it's 1941 state of expertise perpetually without a war is absurd. It was already happening without a war. The Soviets in '41 were well aware of their issues and making a maximum effort to fix them... they just didn't have time for any of their measures to work out before the Germans crashed down the gate.
Well the Red Army had nowhere to go but up, but the question is how far up could they go while Stalin is periodically going into a paranoid purge situation, stifling independent thought except among his favorites like Zhukov, and there is not a world war to draw relevant combat experience from and find out who are the actual good officers via performance. The US and British militaries had that problem too, Germany for some reason less so despite the political purges of the officer corps from 1932 on, but even guys that performed well in on context failed in others (Guderian).
I do really challenge how much practical impact the efforts that Soviets were making to fix their problems had on the problem. Stalin was still micromanaging too much, the military was rapidly changing, there were still some purging in 1941 before the Germans invaded (in fact it was the invasion that got Stalin to let officers out of Gulags to lead major units in combat). It is arguable that if WW2 never happens that the OTL catalysts pre-Barbarossa that created the changes you mention (the conflicts the Soviets fought prior to the invasion) wouldn't have created the OTL pre-Barbarossa reforms. So it is hard to say what would happen without WW2 or even just without Barbarossa or if Stalin lives longer in peace (thanks to less stress and drinking/smoking) and continues to use the secret police to centralize power in himself to the detriment of independent thought. In many ways it was external conflict that got him to stop micromanaging.
 
Absent WWII the Soviet Union would have been a major power, but not as powerful as OTL and the Red Army not "juggernaut". Putting aside the "how important was LL" argument, the Soviets got several boosts from WWII (long term). The LL radios, radar, etc gave Soviet electronics a big boost. The interned B-29s led to the first Soviet strategic bomber, which was a part for part copy with very few exceptions. During the war, the fact that the USA and the USSR were allies meant that Soviet spies in the USA (and UK) were working without much effort being made to find them, the concern was AXIS spying. Captured German scientists and technicians, as well as submarines, aircraft (jets), etc also contributed to advances in Soviet technology and in particular military technology.

Equally important is the strategic depth that the WP gave the USSR. If you have the Baltic states remain independent, then the Kaliningrad complex does not exist, and Leningrad is the only naval base on the Baltic and it is way at the eastern end. The Red Army bordering on Poland,Slovakia, and Romania is much less worrisome to Europe than the Red Army along the OTL NATO/WP boundary. Of course those bordering the USSR will always be nervous, but still it is a different situation than OTL. IMHO a lot of the concern about the Red Army during the Cold War was the issue of the distance from the WP border to the English Channel - and the concern the USSR could get to the ocean before NATO could get it together to stop them.

Given the actions of Stalin after OTLs WWII in terms of purges, right up until his death, there is no reason to believe that purges in the Soviet military would continue, whether or not on the same scale as the ones in the 1930s is hard to say. If purges 1941-1954 were greater without WWII, which is entirely reasonable to assume, then the Soviet military, and specifically the Red Army, would be less effective than OTL.
 
Well the Red Army had nowhere to go but up, but the question is how far up could they go while Stalin is periodically going into a paranoid purge situation, stifling independent thought except among his favorites like Zhukov, and there is not a world war to draw relevant combat experience from and find out who are the actual good officers via performance. The US and British militaries had that problem too,

Eh, even without a global world war, there are some natural processes on-going that would improve the Red Army and everyone else. The purges were on a constant downward slope after 1938 and improvements in education and such were making themselves felt throughout the 1940s even with WW2 throwing. The talented officers were also still being promoted as part of the standard peacetime promotion process as well, with all of the big names (even excluding Zhukov) during the war already occupying a minimum of regimental command (Katukov, Rotmistrov, and a whole slew of others) and a maximum of military district command (Konev). All this was happening in the British and American officer corps too, just at a much slower pace then during the war.

Germany for some reason less so despite the political purges of the officer corps from 1932 on, but even guys that performed well in on context failed in others (Guderian).

Germany had the advantage of a fascist government that put it's army through a whole series of major operations (Austria and Czechoslovakia) and a relatively easy fights (Poland) that sorted out a lot of those problems before they had their first real test in 1940. Had none of those happened, the Germans would have probably stabilized in experience at a relatively lower level and roughly at about the same as the Anglo-French-American-Soviet potential maximum.

The artificially low military prior to the revocation of Versaille also had an impact. The extremely low number (100,000) and turn-over (personnel were allowed to serve for decades) gave the Germans an extremely experienced cadre to build their army around. In fact, the loss of a large portion of that cadre during Barbarossa was a major factor for the subsequent decline in quality over the next few years.

Putting aside the "how important was LL" argument, the Soviets got several boosts from WWII (long term). The LL radios, radar, etc gave Soviet electronics a big boost.

OTOH, the destruction wrought by the German invasion gave Soviet electronics a big blow. Many of the technical-electronic industries and personnel were relatively low on the evacuation priority list and thus were destroyed by the invasion, with many talented electricians drafted and destroyed. Many technological and equipment developments were severely postponed or even outright never saw fruition. You can find examples of this in automotive, aircraft, and elsewhere as well.

Put bluntly, for almost every manner in which you can find the war helping the USSR you can find another in the same category that set it back just as badly... occasionally even worse.
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 1487

Germany had the advantage of a fascist government that put it's army through a whole series of major operations (Austria and Czechoslovakia) and a relatively easy fights (Poland) that sorted out a lot of those problems before they had their first real test in 1940. Had none of those happened, the Germans would have probably stabilized in experience at a relatively lower level and roughly at about the same as the Anglo-French-American-Soviet potential maximum.
So did the Soviets (Poland, Mongolia, Finland, Baltic states, Romania), but that didn't help them much, if anything it made them less ready. The major changes Germany was able to make in 9 months after the Polish campaign were pretty major, while the Soviets decreased their readiness in the 15 months after Finland. There were clashes already in the Far East prior to 1939 and while that helped the Soviets evolve their armor and aircraft designs, that did nothing for their abilities of their military. You could blame that on the Purges, time frame, and mass expansion, plus lack of mobilization, but the major 'reform' of 1940 was to create a 'chinese copy' of a German Panzer corps of 1940 without any of the necessary logistics support. Meanwhile the Germans evolved past that structure and created something more similar to a 1940 Soviet motorized division, which the Soviets disbanded to create 1940 MC on the German model.
 
Top