WI no Russian purges

Stalin's purges killed over fifteen thousand military officers, many of them extremely capable men. It has a massive effect on the adoption of Soviet Deep Strike doctrine a la Rokossovsky. With these men still in place and allowed to carry out appropriate strategy, it is doubtful that the Germans would take half the land they did in OTL.
 
Many competent aircraft designers and engineers were also purged - meaning that Soviet Aircraft Development would be more advanced in 1941 than OTL
 

Cook

Banned
Stalin's purges killed over fifteen thousand military officers, many of them extremely capable men.

The figure is actually closer to 35,000.

What if Stalin does not purge the army before the war with germany would it make the war less longer?

When the Germans attacked, no divisional commander in the western military districts of the Soviet Union had ever actually commanded their division (or any division for that matter; all having been recently promoted, some hadn't commanded anything larger than a battalion) in operations or even in a divisional sized army exercise. None of them were prepared to respond to the German attacks without instructions from Moscow (which in many cases never arrived, either because Moscow was overwhelmed by requests from instructions or because of the highly successful German in depth sabotage actions against telegraph lines); as a consequence, while initial Soviet resistance was fierce, it was also static and uncoordinated and in the first thirteen days of the war the Wehrmacht were able to reach halfway to Moscow.

If, instead of the purges, the Red Army had gone into June 1941 still with its skilled commanders, the Wehrmacht probably would have struggled to get past Minsk. But then, with their commanders in tact and free from disastrous meddling from the Kremlin, they would have been able to overrun Finland in 1940; Hitler and the Wehrmacht Generals wouldn't have considered the Soviet Union to be an open door and wouldn't have attacked in 1941.
 
The figure is actually closer to 35,000.



When the Germans attacked, no divisional commander in the western military districts of the Soviet Union had ever actually commanded their division (or any division for that matter; all having been recently promoted, some hadn't commanded anything larger than a battalion) in operations or even in a divisional sized army exercise. None of them were prepared to respond to the German attacks without instructions from Moscow (which in many cases never arrived, either because Moscow was overwhelmed by requests from instructions or because of the highly successful German in depth sabotage actions against telegraph lines); as a consequence, while initial Soviet resistance was fierce, it was also static and uncoordinated and in the first thirteen days of the war the Wehrmacht were able to reach halfway to Moscow.

If, instead of the purges, the Red Army had gone into June 1941 still with its skilled commanders, the Wehrmacht probably would have struggled to get past Minsk. But then, with their commanders in tact and free from disastrous meddling from the Kremlin, they would have been able to overrun Finland in 1940; Hitler and the Wehrmacht Generals wouldn't have considered the Soviet Union to be an open door and wouldn't have attacked in 1941.
Pretty much this. A lack of purges has a lot of butterflies, including a much better performance against the Finns. It seems doubtful that Hitler would have been quite so gung-ho as to attack the Soviet Union if he had just watched them roll over Finland like it wasn't even there. That said, some interesting thoughts would be how well the non-purged commanders would follow Stalin and if they would push for an invasion of Germany as early as possible specifically to prevent something like what happened IOTL.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
If someone like Budyenny, Pavlov, or Voroshilov were to slip in the ranks of the guilty, there would be no real loss. Instead, the core of the Red Army's junior officer corps, officers both good and bad, capable and incapable, were killed for lulz.

Killing a few incompetent officers is one thing. Wiping out your army's command structure is another entirely.

Avoiding the stupidity of the purges would require that Stalin was either : a) a human being with feelings who wouldn't decide to kill innocent officers for lulz (hahahahahahhaha) or b) militarily competent and therefore would punish the stupid (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

You need a less paranoid dictator, in short.
 
If someone like Budyenny, Pavlov, or Voroshilov were to slip in the ranks of the guilty, there would be no real loss. Instead, the core of the Red Army's junior officer corps, officers both good and bad, capable and incapable, were killed for lulz.

Killing a few incompetent officers is one thing. Wiping out your army's command structure is another entirely.

Avoiding the stupidity of the purges would require that Stalin was either : a) a human being with feelings who wouldn't decide to kill innocent officers for lulz (hahahahahahhaha) or b) militarily competent and therefore would punish the stupid (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

You need a less paranoid dictator, in short.
To fix the situation, all we need is for Stalin to not be Stalin. Easy!
 
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