After the Soviet Union prevailed in WW II and Stalin’s leadership was more solidified than ever, the ever-paranoid Stalin was still so suspicious and fearful of his famous generals, that the best of them, Marshal Zhukov, engaged in the battles for Leningrad, Moscow, and then Berlin, was eventually sorta “exiled” to a command near the Mon…
After the Soviet Union prevailed in WW II and Stalin’s leadership was more solidified than ever, the ever-paranoid Stalin was still so suspicious and fearful of his famous generals, that the best of them, Marshal Zhukov, engaged in the battles for Leningrad, Moscow, and then Berlin, was eventually sorta “exiled” to a command near the Mongolian border. I don’t see any Russian commanders, who have not distinguished themselves in the current Ukraine war despite heavy advantages in men and material, threatening Putin’s leadership via any sort of popularity among the Russian masses (except of course for the Wagner Group whose tentative threat to Putin has been eliminated).
I’ve always been curious of why dreadful Stalin’s Soviet Union armies performed so much better than the Tsar’s armies in WW I. They faced Hitler’s Wehrmacht for 2 1/2 years essentially by themselves (ignoring the Mediterranean campaigns and Lend-Lease) in comparison to the four-year western front in WW I. I read an estimate that 83% of Wehrmacht casualties were sustained on the eastern front of WW II. But the Red Army was absolutely callous about casualties; the NKVD would have machine gun emplacements behind Red Army lines to mow down retreating Red Army soldiers. Hitler believed that Operation Barbarossa would send “the whole rotten structure collapsing.” Why did they fight? Nazi atrocities? Defense of home and hearth?
After the Soviet Union prevailed in WW II and Stalin’s leadership was more solidified than ever, the ever-paranoid Stalin was still so suspicious and fearful of his famous generals, that the best of them, Marshal Zhukov, engaged in the battles for Leningrad, Moscow, and then Berlin, was eventually sorta “exiled” to a command near the Mongolian border. I don’t see any Russian commanders, who have not distinguished themselves in the current Ukraine war despite heavy advantages in men and material, threatening Putin’s leadership via any sort of popularity among the Russian masses (except of course for the Wagner Group whose tentative threat to Putin has been eliminated).
I’ve always been curious of why dreadful Stalin’s Soviet Union armies performed so much better than the Tsar’s armies in WW I. They faced Hitler’s Wehrmacht for 2 1/2 years essentially by themselves (ignoring the Mediterranean campaigns and Lend-Lease) in comparison to the four-year western front in WW I. I read an estimate that 83% of Wehrmacht casualties were sustained on the eastern front of WW II. But the Red Army was absolutely callous about casualties; the NKVD would have machine gun emplacements behind Red Army lines to mow down retreating Red Army soldiers. Hitler believed that Operation Barbarossa would send “the whole rotten structure collapsing.” Why did they fight? Nazi atrocities? Defense of home and hearth?