Military History Visualized recently made a video on the impact that Stalin’s Purge
had on the Red Army in WW2, very good video, much shorter than this one, highly recommend
it as an introduction to this topic.
Today, we’re going to go more in-depth and take it to the next step.
It’s time to talk about the historiography - what different historians think about the
Purge.
Because, since the opening of the Soviet archives in the early 1990’s, historians have been
able to get a hold of new primary sources that challenge the old views of the impact
of the Purges.
The question we need to ask is this - did the Purge have a massive impact on the Red
Army’s ability to fight World War 2? Or not? And why?
In this video, we’re going to look at the Purge itself, see what the traditional view
of the Purge was, see what the post-opening of the Soviet archive view of the Purge is,
and then take a look at another factor you may not have considered.
Yes, the Red Army during Stalin’s Purge.
This is their story.
The Soviet Union had fought and won the Russian Civil War.
This impacted their policies going forwards, as their army at the time had been a peasant
and cavalry force, with commissars ensuring everyone remained loyal to the revolution.
The Civil War ends in 1922, with victory for the Soviets.
In the 1920’s and early 1930’s though, there were ‘Scares’ about a possible breakout
of war with the capitalist powers.
“We have fallen behind the advanced countries by fifty to a hundred years. We must close
that gap in ten years. Either we do this or we’ll be crushed.” Stalin 1931.
Stalin and the Bolshevik party were dragging the Soviet Union into the modern age.
The Five Year Plans see a rapid expansion of Soviet industry and agriculture, at the
expense of millions of lives.
It was during this time that Tukhachevsky takes command of the Red Army.
Tukhachevsky creates a modern warfare doctrine, a concept called “Deep Battle”, which
was quite similar to the German “Blitzkrieg” (and I use that term reluctantly because it
wasn’t called that).
As a result, Tukhachevsky envisions mass numbers of tanks and aircraft that would maneuver
around the battlefield, and therefore starts building up the army’s numbers of tanks
and aircraft.
He’s trying to turn the Red Army from the peasant and cavalry force it was during the
Civil War into a modern military machine.
In this process, Red Army’s commissars are removed, and in a lot of ways Tukhachevsky
succeeds in his reforms - building the largest tank force, and air force, in the world.
In 1941, the Soviets actually have more tanks than the rest of the world combined, and the
same could be said about the number of aircraft.
It’s worth noting though that the Red Army was still mainly a peasant-army even
in the 1930’s, and the other equipment besides tanks and aircraft, were seriously lacking.
For example, in 1941 at the Battle of Dubno, Soviet motorized infantry marched into battle
on foot, because they had no trucks.
In fact, the regular Rifle Divisions had more mobility because they were at least supplied
with horses and wagons to move their artillery and equipment.
But still, with the amount of tanks and aircraft, the Red Army wasn’t quite the same it had
been during the Civil War.
And the Red Army wasn’t just gathering equipment, it was also growing in riflemen - it was mobilizing
for war.
In fact, it was the speed of German rearmament, the creation of the Luftwaffe, Italian aggression
in Abyssinia, inaction by the League of Nations, the Spanish Civil War, and Hitler’s known
desire to expand eastward, that gave the Soviet Union reason to worry about the pace of German
rearmament and the unwillingness of the Western powers to react to that.
With the threat of attack, and in the midst of rearmament and a rapid expansion of the
size of the Red Army - that is when the Purges struck.
“What made Stalin’s terror different was not merely the scale of arrests and executions
- by 1939 there were, in recent estimates, approximately 3.5 million prisoners in the
various categories of camps - but the fact that this fearful and vindictive man turned
the terror on the very heart of the Soviet system, the Party and the armed forces, even
on the NKVD, itself the apparatus of terror.” Overy, Russia’s War P24
According to Robert Service, Stalin was definitely the man responsible for the Purge of the Red
Army.
He was concerned about a ‘fifth column’ emerging in the Soviet Union to support a
foreign power in the event of war.
This had happened in the Spanish Civil War when Franco gained followers in July of 1936,
and Stalin wanted to prevent this from happening in the USSR.
And he might have been concerned about the view that the rest of the world had on the
Red Army.
“Stalin’s suspicious mind may have been sufficiently aroused by the flimsy rumours
of army unreliability currently circulating abroad to take the story of the conspiracy
seriously.” Overy. Russia’s War. P26
Rumours of the army being unreliable may have been one of the reasons for the Purge, although
Tukhachevsky had clashed with Voroshilov, and had crossed Stalin over the issue of political
propaganda in the armed forces, which Tukhachevsky wanted to reduce.
Kliment Voroshilov the current People’s Commissar for Defence and the guy the KV tanks
were named after, played an active role in the Purges.
He had a personal grudge against Tukhachevsky, who favoured tanks over Voroshilov’s cavalry.
Voroshilov had been in 1st Cavalry Army in the Civil War, and in Poland in 1920.
Tukhachevsky’s days were numbered.
“The Soviet armed forces appeared to be the only major area of state to avoid the
terror, until on the morning of 11 June 1937 Voroshilov announced the sudden arrest of
the country’s top generals and the unearthing of a treacherous plot whose tentacles reached
out to Germany.” Overy. Russia’s War. P25-26
Tukhachevsky was accused of leading a plot to overthrow the state at the head of a German
invasion - which was completely false.
He was arrested, tortured until he revealed the names of other conspirators, his family
sent to the Gulags or died in captivity, and he was subsequently shot.
And once Tukhachevsky was Purged, the dominoes started falling.
Each victim dragged in friends and colleagues to try to end their own maltreatment, and
the list of names grew with every beating. (Overy. Russia’s War. P28)
Two Marshals are shot, and one died in captivity, out of a grand total of five Marshals in 1936.
The other two Marshals were Voroshilov himself and Budennii, which is no surprise as to why
they survived, after all, both were cavalrymen from the civil war days, and friends with
Stalin at this time.
But it only got worse the further down the ranks the purge went.
“A week later, on June 1 [1937], Stalin staged a remarkable two-week long conference
in which he sat with Voroshilov and Yezhov listening to soldiers who had been invited
to the Kremlin profess loyalty to Stalin and a forceful rejection of the conspirators.
Each of them was searched at the door for arms and then given a blue folder containing
details of the charges, drawn up by Vyshinsky as news of each fresh crime was rushed hot
from the interrogation room. As they read, some of them found their own names on the
list of accomplices. At intervals NKVD men would make their way through the crowd, taking
officers away with them. The following day another group of conspirators was detailed
on the testimony of the hapless victims of the day before.” Overy. Russia’s War.
P28
Of 474 brigade-level command positions in 1936 there had been 201 executions, fifteen
deaths in captivity and a single suicide.
Overall, 45 per cent of the senior officers and political officials of the army and navy
were executed or sacked
This included 720 out of the 837 commanders, from colonel to marshal, appointed under the
new table of ranks established in 1935.
Of eighty-five senior officers on the Military Council, seventy-one were dead by 1941 - and
seven of the nine that avoided the purges had served in the 1st Cavalry Army - coincidence?
Many were killed, imprisoned or forced to flee the country.
But not all.
Some would survive and be reinstated later.
And, in addition to the executions and sackings, the Purges also gave the politicians the chance
to send their cronies into the ranks of the army.
Political Commissars were reintroduced, and a dual-command was established, which meant,
in a climate of suspicion of the Great Purges, the commander of each unit now had to get
permission to issue orders.
Dual command would once more be introduced at regimental level and above on the 10th
of May 1937.
“As supporting materials noted, the military commissar, as equal to the commander, now
shared responsibility for not only ‘the political-moral state of a unit’, but also
for ensuring military discipline and for ‘combat, operational and mobilisational preparedness’,
‘the condition of weapons’ and day-[to-]day management of units.” Hill. The Red Army
and the Second World War.
“...[every] order [had] to be signed by the military commander, head of the headquarters
and one of the members of the military Soviet, even if orders were still given in the name
of the military commander.” Hill. The Red Army and the Second World War.
And this, amongst other things, has caused a historical debate.
The debate revolves around the impact that the Purges had on the Officer Corps’s experience
and talent, and it’s overall ability to fight when war broke out with Germany in 1941.
So let’s take a look at the historical debate and the impact that the Purges had, first
from the traditional point of view.
“There is certainly widespread acknowledgement in both memoirs and the secondary literature
that the Great Purges had a negative impact on Red Army capabilities and performance.”
Hill. The Red Army and the Second World War.
Historians, especially those before the opening of the Soviet archives in the early 1990’s,
believed that the Purges had a detrimental impact on the Red Army’s Officer Corps,
which was one of the reasons the Red Army performed so poorly in the first years of
the Second World War.
There were two main aspects to this -
The first being the loss of experience of the Officer Corps, and the second being the
loss of morale that accompanied it.
Both meant that the Red Army entered the Great Patriotic War with an officer corps that was
incapable of dealing with a modern war.
Let’s look at both of these aspects in detail. First, the loss of experience.
“Perhaps the most obvious impact to start with is the significance of the loss of those
killed from the point of view of losing their skills and knowledge, and particularly where
replacements were often not as capable or experienced.” Hill. The Red Army and the
Second World War.
It stands to reason that with so many experienced officers killed or imprisoned, that this was
the most significant impact of the purges on the Red Army.
Worse, Red Army educational institutions struggled to keep pace with the educational requirements
of a growing army, even before the purges.
In March 1938 the Frunze Military Academy had only 106 teaching staff out 167 positions.
15 of these had already been stated for removal.
61 were under investigation.
And 18 more were being considered for removal.
By May 1939, there were only 358 teaching staff out of 544 positions at the Frunze Military
Academy.
And there was only 2 professors out of 40 potential positions.
There were 19 associate professors out of 105 positions.
And 9 assistant staff out of 75 positions.
This dire lack of teaching staff, notably affected the new officers coming in to replace
the old, with many only getting 2 years of education where the older generations had
previously got 3 to 4 years worth of education.
In addition to experience and skill loss, the Red Army ‘officer corps’ during the
purges had suffered a major blow to its collective prestige and authority, as well as its morale.
“It perhaps also seems intuitive that fear amongst command cadres looking not to draw
negative attention on themselves in a climate where many failures would be interpreted as
‘wrecking’ would limit the extent to which they would have been willing to show initiative.”
Hill. The Red Army and the Second World War.
And, not only were the officers reluctant to show initiative, they were also hamstrung
by commissars, who would question their motives, their orders, and limit their actions.
Obviously it’s hard to measure the morale impact of the Purges had on the Red Army,
but the traditional narrative makes it clear that it was severe.
So from the traditional narrative then, it does seem like there’s a good case that
says the Purges had a massive detrimental impact on the effectiveness of the Officer
Corps, in terms of Morale, Skill and Experience.
However, with the opening of the Soviet archives in the early 1990’s, a different story soon
emerged - quite literally the same year or the year after, once historians got their
hands on the actual numbers and statistics.
This new narrative calls into doubt the impact the Purges had on the Red Army officer corps.
Before the publication of the new figures, historians guessed that between 25% and 50%
of the Red Army officer corps was purged. Reese. P199
But as this table shows, that was not the case.
From 1936 to 1938 a total of 41,218 were purged.
Of the 34,301 officers sacked, 11,596 were reinstated by May of 1940.
And we know that those discharged were not all killed because officers continued to be
reinstated after May of 1940.
In reality, 30% of army officers arrested or discharged between 1937 and 1939 were reinstated.
(Reese. P210)
The reason for the earlier high estimates was because of low estimates of the size of
the officer corps.
Now we have the numbers, the picture is a bit different, and those purged were actually
a lot less than previously thought.
As the traditional view states, there was a loss of experience and skill as a result
of the Red Army Purge.
But what type of experience was lost?
Civil War experience?
Leading armies of peasants and cavalry isn’t the type of experience needed in modern war.
What was needed now was people who could operate radios, respond quickly to the changing tactical
environment, and co-ordinate tank, artillery and air attacks.
Basically, the type of officers being removed were people who couldn’t do that.
“Many of those purged after 1937 were men who had little military education and had
achieved office on the grounds of their civil war experience. By the late 1930s there were
thousands of younger officers, some of them trained in the military academies, ready to
take their place. By 1941 over 100,000 officers were entering the Soviet armed forces each
year. The purges certainly removed some men of talent at the top of the military establishment,
but it is questionable whether the aggregate effect was to make the average performance
of the officer corps much worse than it had been beforehand, or to make the tank and air
war any less capable of realization.” Overy. Russia’s War. P32
It is doubtful then whether the Purge actually reduced the experience and skill of the officer
corps.
In fact, it may have actually helped increase it.
The officers coming into the Red Army were better educated than those removed, and were
better suited to fighting a modern war.
We mentioned Budennii before - ex-Civil War officer.
He was in charge of two fronts in the Ukraine in 1941, and got beat hard.
He lost several battles during Operation Barbarossa, losing hundreds of thousands of men in some
of the largest encirclements in history, and got himself dismissed from his post.
Again, the officers coming into the Red Army were better educated than those removed, and
were better suited to fighting a modern war.
Of course, there is another aspect to this - the rapid expansion of the Red Army.
In 1935-6 the strength of the Red Army was 930,000.
On the 29th of November 1937 the mobilisation plan for 1938-9 set the peacetime strength
of the Red Army at 1,495,310 men -
A dramatic increase!
The Red Army would grow to 1,565,020 in February 1939.
And there was a longer range aim for 1940 of a mobilised strength of a staggering 7,068,900.
Rapid expansion meant that, as mentioned earlier, new officers were only receiving two years
of education where they had previously received 3-4 years.
Bearing in mind they couldn't receive 3-4 years because that would put them in the war - but never mind!
If there was an impact on the officer corps’ skill and experience, then the rapid increase
of the Red Army was probably a bigger factor in this than the execution of officers.
“The army had severe weaknesses both before and after the purges. What made the situation
difficult for the army authorities after 1938 was the vast expansion of the Red Army - 161
new divisions were activated between January 1939 and May 1941 - which required more officers
than the training establishments could hope to supply, despite vastly expanded training
schemes. In 1941 75 per cent of all officers had been in office for less than a year, not
because of the purges but because of the creation of many new military units. By then 80 per
cent of those officers purged in 1938 had been reinstated.” Overy. Russia’s War.
P30
Just to point out that 161 divisions is actually larger than the entire German army on the
Eastern Front at the beginning of the war, which had 151 divisions.
Red Army divisions may have been smaller than their German equivalent, but this was still
a huge expansion.
But it is doubtful that the expansion actually impacted the quality of the new officers coming
into the army.
“... attempts were made to fill vacant positions with promotees from ‘NCO’ ranks.” Hill.
The Red Army and the Second World War.
These long service junior commanders (NCOs) were encouraged to take short courses lasting
from the 15th of September 1937 to 15 January 1938 that could make them junior lieutenants
(officers).
It is implied that the quality of the officer at the end of such a short course would be
bad.
However, according to the current British Army website, under the section “How long
is officer training?” there is a section that states -
“The course takes place at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and lasts 44 weeks [3.6
years] for Regular officers, or three weeks for Reservists. People with certain experience
or qualifications may be eligible for the fast-track Professionally Qualified Officers’
(PQO) course, which lasts ten weeks. “After this initial training, you will go
on a second course to learn specific skills related to your first appointment. The length
of this course varies depending on the type of role you will be doing.”
A similar recruitment process is detailed on the current United States website -
“It depends on which path you choose. If you choose to become an Officer through the
Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) or the U.S. Military Academy at West Point,
you will become an Officer after completing four years of college. Through Officer Candidate
School (OCS), you are commissioned as an Army Second Lieutenant upon completion of the 12-week
course, but you still must have earned a four-year degree from an accredited university.”
Now, both of these say you must have other qualifications or experience to enter the
10 or 12 week courses, but if these modern armies can potentially train officers in a
matter of weeks, it stands to reason that the Red Army in the late 1930’s and early
40’s could train its officers in two years.
And the training the Red Army officer received wasn’t all propaganda, as you’d think
during or after the Purges.
“According to the respondent, during the first half of the first year mornings were
spent doing physical training, and the afternoons mathematics, Russian and German - the former
geared to artillery computation and the latter to ‘military terms, German commands and
tactics’. During the second half of the first year he began to receive instruction
on artillery. After two hours of free time in the early evening and then supper, there
was ‘an hour and a half which was devoted to study, theory, languages, but most of all
to the political questions’... After summer manoeuvres, the second year was spent on ‘practice
to insure that all we had learned could be done automatically and we learned how to command’.”
Hill. The Red Army and the Second World War.
An hour and a half of “political questions” out of almost a full day of training - That
doesn’t sound too bad.
So the new Red Army officers were getting the training they needed.
As Richard Overy points out -
“The destruction of the cadres of young officers around the reformer Tukhachevsky
is usually taken as evidence that the Soviet Union took a giant leap backward in military
effectiveness and levels of military preparedness. This is a superficial conclusion. Plausible
though it seems, the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet military position in the late
1930s were not simply the result of the purges.” Overy. Russia’s War. P32
Perhaps then, there was another reason for the ineffectiveness of the Red Army officer
corps during the early years of the Great Patriotic War that, while related to the Purges,
wasn’t because of the arrests and executions.
“The most debilitating effect of the purges was the sharp change they signalled in the
balance of power between the military and the politicians. After a decade of attempts
by the military to win greater independence from political control, the purges brought
back close political supervision and intervention.” Overy. Russia’s War. P32
It wasn’t so much the loss of experience and skill that had the greatest impact on
the Soviet Red Army, it was, perhaps, the stifling of independence, constraint of action,
and collapse of unity of command that lead to the poor performance of the officer corps.
In August of 1937 the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army was placed under the care
of Lev Mekhlis, the editor of Pravda.
He was not a soldier, he was an idiot, who thought he knew more about war than the soldiers.
He made sure that political officers played a substantial military role, just as they
had done in during the civil war.
Imagine if the United States put Alex Jones in charge of the military.
It wouldn’t go down well.
That is effectively what the Soviet Union did in 1937, except instead of a far-right
lunatic, they put a far-left lunatic in charge instead.
“The result was the triumph of military illiteracy over military science, of political
conformity over military initiative. It has been estimated that 73 per cent of the political
officers had had no military training, yet they were placed even in small military units,
down to the level of platoon and company. This stifling of military independence left
commanders demoralized and excessively cautious, since anything judged by the political officers
to be an infringement of the Party line carried the risk of the Lubyanka, not just for the
commander concerned but for his wife and family. Officers were inclined to stick by the rule
book. Any talk of ‘deep operations’, or massed tank attack, with its echoes of Tukhachevsky,
was by association deemed to be counter-revolutionary.” Overy. Russia’s War. P32-33
This was perhaps the most striking element of the Purge, and did more than anything else
to hurt the officer corps.
And, while the constraint place on the officer corps was bad, the morale impact could have
gone either way.
The lower ranks actually accepted the purges, believing them justified in rooting out the
“Fascist-Trotskyist group in the army”, and actually called for the death penalty
for the guilty. Reese. P204-205
It also didn’t put people off from joining the party, in fact party membership increased
dramatically.
So, according to this view, Commissars had a greater impact on the Red Army than the
execution or dismissal of Red Army officers during the Purge.
Either way though, the Purge did leave an impression on foreign powers that the Red
Army didn’t shake off.
“The purges profoundly affected the perception of Soviet strength abroad, and contributed
to the judgement of most German commanders that the Red Army could be beaten.” Overy.
Russia’s War. Overy. Russia’s War. P30
The Purges may have lead to overconfidence in the German army.
This may have been one of the reasons why the German generals were eager to go to war
in 1941, and why they thought they could knock the Red Army out of the war in a matter of
weeks.
If this is the case, then the Purge of the Red Army, may have actually contributed to
the defeat of the Wehrmacht during the Great Patriotic War - the complete opposite to what
the traditional narrative says the Purges did.
But, there is something else that needs to be considered, that perhaps some haven’t
considered - the Purges in other countries.
We’ve looked at both the traditional view of the Purges, and the modern view of the
Purges.
But one thing not normally mentioned, that really should be, is the Purges related to
what was going on in other armies at the time.
The Purge in the Red Army has parallels with other similar “purges” in other armies
at the time.
While no where near as bloody as the Stalinist Purge, other nations, including the United
States had their own version of the purges.
In addition, the expansion of the Red Army cannot be solely used as an excuse for Red
Army ineffectiveness - as other armies were also rapidly expanding.
Let’s start with Germany.
In 1935, the German Wehrmacht had 100,000 men.
Of this, there were only 4,000 officers, with 450 of them being veterinary or medical personnel,
and another 500 would be transferred to the Luftwaffe.
On the 16th of March 1936, Hitler announced the expansion of the Wehrmacht to 36 divisions,
which would require 19,224 officers for the 350,000 men.
“These included the immediate granting of commissions to 1,500 non-commissioned officers....”
Enduring the Whirlwind P53
This was the same as what was happening in the Red Army.
On the 1st of September 1939, the German Army grew to 3,706,104 men, with 105,394 officers.
Enduring the Whirlwind P62
By 1941, it grew to 7,309,000 men, and while I don’t have the precise number of officers,
it stands to reason that the officer corps must have been approaching 200,000 officers
by this point. Enduring the Whirlwind P99
The German officer corps in 1941 had grown by a factor of 50 in six years from 1935.
Surely, if the Red Army officer corps had suffered from its expansion, the Wehrmacht
would have suffered from its expansion too.
And it wasn’t about inexperience either.
While the Germans had fought in Poland, France, the Low Countries, Scandinavia and the Balkans,
the Red Army had battle experience as well.
Poland 1939. Finland 1939-40. Baltic Republics 1940.
But even further back.
Khalkhin Gol 1939. Lake Khasan 1938
The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939.
The Chinese Eastern Railway 1929.
And of course, the Russian Civil War.
And let’s not forget, both Germany and Russia had fought in WW1, and many of their men and
officers had experienced from that war.
So, in reality, the Red Army should have had similar amounts of experience, even with the
expansion.
And Hitler often sacked or executed his commanders throughout the war - again, just like the
Red Army.
Yet for some reason Hitler and Stalin are often called mad for doing this.
However, the people calling Hitler mad were the generals getting sacked - and in reality,
they often needed to be.
Let’s quickly take a quick look at one German general complaining about being sacked.
Guderian had wanted to advance on Moscow in 1941, leaving a million Soviet Red Army troops
on Army Group Centre’s southern flank in the Ukraine. P200
When Hitler disagrees with Guderian, saying the economic necessity of gaining the Ukraine
was more important than Moscow, Guderian then says “all those present nodded in agreement
with every sentence that Hitler uttered, while I was left alone with my point of view.”
“In view of the OKW’s unanimous opposition to my remarks, I avoided all further arguments
on that occasion”. P200
He was alone in his viewpoint, and as subsequent historians like David Glantz have pointed
out, it would have been a disaster to have left the Red Army on the flank of Army Group
Centre. P200
And yet, according to these passages, Guderian was right, and Hitler was definitely in the
wrong, and even had a cult following where no one could disagree with him.
No, the generals were in agreement, and Guderian was in the wrong.
And this is just one example.
As Manstein admits in his book, the war by 1944 had changed and he was no longer needed,
and was replaced by a newer general more suited to the type of combat being fought in the
East: Model.
But he doesn’t say Hitler was wrong to do it.
Sackings were, in fact, part and parcel of the process of military command during this
era, for all nations, not just the Red Army.
Now, you could argue that sackings during the war is a bit different to sackings prior
to the war, when you’re building up a nation’s army.
But again, the Soviet Union wasn’t the only one.
The United States was brutal in its sacking policies during its mobilization process.
“It is not mentioned much nowadays that for the United States, World War II began
with a series of dismissals across the top ranks of the military. Less than two weeks
after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Adm. Husband Kinnel and Army Lt. Gen.
Walter Short were jettisoned from their posts atop the American military establishment in
the Pacific, along with Maj. Gen. Frederick Martin, Short’s air commander.” Ricks,
T. The Generals
“One-third of the Navy’s submarine captains were relieved during the first year of the
war.” Ricks, T. The Generals
“The officer presiding over this dynamic and ruthless system of personnel management
was Gen. George C. Marshall, who back in Washington was winnowing the ranks of the Army, forcing
dozens of generals into retirement because he believed they were too old and lacking
in energy to lead soldiers in combat.” Ricks, T. The Generals
The United States had 175,000 regulars in September of 1939.
175,000.
And it wasn’t as though they had the facility to turn it into the 8.3 million it would become
in 1945.
Quite clearly, the officer corps would need to expand rapidly, just like the German army
and just like the Soviet Red Army.
“Testifying before the Senate Military Affairs Committee on July 12, 1940, Marshall warned
the senators that “we do not have the trained officers and men - the instructors to spare;
also we do not have the necessary matériel.” ” Unger. George Marshall : A Biography.
Marshal was scathing of the current officer corps.
“The present general officers of the line are for the most part too old to command troops
in battle under the terrific pressure of modern war,” - Marshall, October 1939, to a journalist.
“Most of them have their minds set in outmoded patterns, and can’t change to meet the new
conditions they may face if we become involved in the war that’s started in Europe.”
- Marshall, October 1939, to a journalist.
This was the same problem the Red Army faced at the time.
For the United States, in the summer and fall of 1941, 31 colonels, 117 lieutenant colonels,
31 majors, and 16 captains were forced into retirement or discharged.
269 National Guard and Army Reserve officers were also let go.
Marshall estimated that he forced out at least 600 officers before the United States entered
World War II.
But this, in combination of the rapid expansion of the army, didn’t have a detrimental impact
on the performance of the United States officer corps during the war.
Again, similar circumstances to what the Red Army went through.
What Marshall wanted - just like the Red Army - was new officers who could cope with modern
war.
He wanted people who were able to adapt and who weren’t set in their ways.
“I was accused right away by the service papers of getting rid of all the brains of
the army,” he said. “... most of our senior officers on such duty are deadwood and should
be eliminated from the service as rapidly as possible.” Marshal.
Just 11 of the 42 generals who commanded a division, a corps, or an army at the Louisiana
Maneuvers in August and September 1941 would go on to command in combat.
Only one of the prewar Army’s senior generals would be given top command in World War II
- Walter Krueger.
Well after the war, Eisenhower said that those removals had been key steps to victory in
World War II.
“He got them out of the war, and I think as a whole he was right.” Eisenhower.
“I was the youngest of the people that he pushed up into very high places,” - Eisenhower
And other similar parallels with the Red Army occurred.
There’s an example that’s given of a Red Army officer who’s fresh out of training
who reports to his new unit to find that every other officer has been sacked and he’s in
charge of the unit - a position that’s three ranks higher than what he should have led.
Yet, the United States had done similar things.
“At one point Marshall, irked by the erratic quality of staff work in the Army Air Force
and wanting to reward talent and maturity when he saw it, promoted a major directly
to brigadier general, skipping altogether the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel.”
Ricks, T. The Generals
What Marshall wanted was younger officers who could lead the United States military
through a modern war, and the nature of the force changed rapidly - just like the Red
Army.
“... while sometimes mistaken and occasionally brutal to individual officers, the Marshall
system generally achieved its goal of producing military effectiveness. To understand how,
the best place to begin is with Dwight D, Eisenhower, who just a year before the start
of World War II was still a lieutenant colonel, not even in command of a regiment, let alone
the armies of millions he could oversee a few years later.” Ricks, T. The Generals
The point is this, if other countries can do it, why can’t the Soviet Union?
Granted, the Soviet Purge was substantially more bloody, and larger, but it’s doubtful
that the Purge lead to the loss of talent and experience.
If anything, it got rid of the old out-of-date officers, brought in the young fresh officers,
and prepared the Red Army Officer Corps more than anything else for the modern war it was
about to fight.
What was more important was that the new officers coming into command, didn’t really have
command.
Commissars - those not actually trained in war - took the stage and undermined the efforts
of the Red Army officers.
Every order, had to be counter-signed by them, every move, questioned.
There was no unity of command, and politics dictated war policy.
And it is perhaps no coincidence that just weeks after the commissars themselves saw
a limitation in power, unshackling the officer corps, that the Red Army won its first major
offensive victory of the war - Operation Uranus and the encirclement and destruction of the
Sixth Army at Stalingrad.
According to the traditional view, the Purge
had a substantial negative impact on the Red Army.
But according to more recent historians, the purge of officers during 1937 and 1938 may
not have had as negative an impact as scholars previously assumed.
The debate still rages.
But what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
A big thank you goes to my Patreons for making this video possible!
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For anyone interested in George C Marshall’s policies on sacking United States generals
prior to and during the war, I highly recommend this video by Thomas Ricks, entitled “Why
our Generals Were More Successful in World War II”
He’s also the author of “The Generals: American Military Command From World War II
to Today” so definitely give it a watch.
Go, click!
And don’t forget to watch my other videos.
Thanks for watching, bye for now.