Hypothetical: would the USSR have done better against Germany without Stalin?

[lord of the mark]

Stalins achievement was NOT being particulary efficient in how he built projects (ISTR that there was plenty of waste)

It was his ability to mobilize the capital to do so. Russia was a primarily agricultural society. Unlike, say 18th century Britain, the bulk of wealth was not in the hands of an aristocracy, but, thanks to late Czarist and early Soviet era land reform, in the hands of the wealthier segment of the peasantry. They had no particular desire or incentive to invest in heavy industry. Had Russia been democratic and capitalist, there would likely have been higher living standards for the peasantry, more production of consumer goods for this expanding market, and investment by the peasants in improving agriculture and in the industries making the consumer goods. Which would have been just jim dandy, until the day Guderian the Panzers arrived. Its not clear that ANY regime short of Stalinism could have redistributed wealth and income away from the peasants sufficiently to build industry fast enough.

Of course I still think that a democratic capitalist Russia would have been far stronger diplomatically, so it might never have come to Panzers across the border.

[Alexander's Horse]

I think Trotsky would have done better as a wartime leader - he won the civil war against all the odds.

Tukachevsky also made his reputation in the civil war but his best remembered as one of the pioneers of modern warfare. Zhukov was his student.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Hurricane


Have you read "A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia" by Alexander N. Yakolev? I highy recommend it; written by a Russian that was part of the top communist machinery. He if anybody should know what he is talking about.

Oh boy, did you say A.N. Yakovlev?



This motherf*cker was the CHEIF OF SOVIET PROPAGANDA MINESTERY, the member of Politburo and the central cometee of Communist party of SU, while he was in leadership of USSR, he was praising Soviets and communist party. Under democrats he became a cheif of democrat's propaganda and started to curse Soviets and Communist party.
He is quite a hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker. Do you know his hickname here? Certanly no. His nickname is Russian Hebels. He is a lier, an author of BS claims about 120 millions of Stalin's victims and the same sh!t.
Somehow I'm not surprised that you took your knowledge from that kind of sources.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Serb
.

2) Stalin was not an alcoholic, alcoholics usally don't live long and don't have bright mind to make really desicive desicions.

You're wrong. I'm a medical doctor. I've had plenty of alcoholic patients who lived up into their 70s.

3) He wasn't paranoid as well.

You're wrong. This much is pretty clear. He saw conspiracies against him that weren't there. People seen talking together quietly were assumed to be plotting aginst him.

Maybe Malenkov wasn't the name I was looking for. After Lenin's death there was another rising Communist leader who was a contender for the top political posts whom Stalin had killed. I can't think of his name.

[ErikM]

Kamenev? Zinov'ev? Bukharin? Rykov?
Malenkov never was paricularly influential.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I think Trotsky would have done better as a wartime leader - he won the civil war against all the odds.

Tukachevsky also made his reputation in the civil war...

Sure his f*ck-ups during Polish intervention made him quite a reputation.
Can you name a single battle he won?

...but his best remembered as one of the pioneers of modern warfare.

His best remembered as traitor who betrayed his country, was head of military coup and who worked for Germans.
And if you are refering to him being a tank proponent. Just look what kind of tanks he ordered for red Army. He did not understand the nature of future warfare. He did not understant the importance of communication. Soviet tanks didn't have radios mostly. Soviet airforce had less radio equipment than Soviet CIVIL aviation. In Soviet tanks commander did not command the battle, he had to load the main gun and fire from machine gun. He simply had no time to command the battle. This is a Tukhachevsky's invention. He is responsible for disasters of first months of war, because he ordered to build this armada of absolutely useless tanks and planes, because he did not understand the nature of incoming warfare. He had enough time to train his pet mouse, his mouse could do a lot of tricks, even could dance, but he had no time to learn and to observe foreign experience. He was just an incompetent, uneducated ensign who by luck, dirty tricks and treachery recieved a feildmarshal's stars.
F*ck him.

Zhukov was his student.

Sorry AH, but this is plain BS.

[Serb]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Serb, thank you for the note. Bear with me. It may be that our two cultures define alchoholic differently. I have seen numerous citiations that Stalin consumed a fair amount of Vodka, multiple times a month. He was not a "drunk", as in letting the alchohol disable him. But people who drink routinely, with many drinks up to a substantial portion of a bottle in one sitting, are considered alcholic. Note I did not consider it delibilitating per se, but it evidently did not help his dispostion nor do anything good for those whose death warrants he was signing. Many bright minds have had problems with alchohol, and with the right ancestry you will not necessarily get cirrohsis of the liver as long as it isn't constant.

It's strange. I never, never in my life read that Stalin drank vodka, esp. in such quantities. He was a Georgian and as all Georgians loved good wine.

Also, if Khruschev fed the west this false history, where is a non-Russian speaking historian type going to find translated documents that show this was false. It's the nasty problem in studying Soviet History - whose history and when did the party write it.

First he have to learn Russian, then come to Russia and spend years in archives diging, diging and diging for facts, then analyzing, analizing and analyzing them to find truth.

Reference the BT, yes I know it was not the T-60 or the T-70, two vehicles designed as scout tanks or tankettes. However, given it's speed and capability it would have made an excellent scout tank. The heavy tank break out concept, with the cavalry tank break out, was NOT that far removed from a Blitzkreig. Imagine instead of the few T-34's and KV-1's as part of a spearhead with the BT-5/7's as the breakout vehicles. Compared to the AFV's the Nazis used in France quite successfully (Pzkw 1 (machine guns) - II (20mm canon) - III and Czech 38t (37mm canon) - IV (short 75mm field gun), it wouldn't have been that different.

It would have been that different considering what kind of tanks Tukhachevsky ordered for red army. I'm going from my rough memory.
1) T-35 a famous child of Red Marshal. A copy of British "Independent"- complete sh!t, absolute sh!t, supreme sh!t. Five turrens, 7 crew members, slow as turtle, unreliable as hell, couldn't climb a 15 degree surface, couldn't cross a pile of mud. Had a 50 mm of front armor and much less armor elsewhere. Can be stopped by any German gun.How commander could efficiently command this tank in battle, if he had to correct fire from 3 guns and five MG, while loading one of the guns and fireing from his command MG is a mystery for me.
Thanks God he build only about 50 such ugly mosters. But he had plans to create even bigger and uglier tank, much heavier, much slower, but with even more turrets, guns, MG and crew members.
Russian tankisty nicknamed T-35 "bratskaya mogila na semeryh"= joint grave for seven. In first two months of war all of them were lost, 80% due technical breakdowns, those monsters simply couldn't reach the battleshield to engage the battle. And don't tell me that this kind of sh!t happened with all new tanks, including German Tigers and Panthers. T-35 was in army for 8 years, if its bugs weren't fixed, it means it wasn't possible to fix them.
So how do you imagine a breakthrough of Soviet armor forces? Remind you it had only 50 T-35 (not a problem for German AT artillery) and several thousands of fast BT with "paper" armor (whose armor could be penatrated by AP rounds of German rifles, note: not by AT-rifles, but by AP rounds of usuall German infantry rifles)?
2) Now German tanks:
Even light Czech's t-38 front armor was a problem for Soviet 45mm AT gun (main and only anti-tank gun in Red Army). The front armor of T-III and T-IV, Soviet 45mm AT gun could penatrate only from extremly short distances. In accordance with statistics at first year of war, for one destroyed German tank, Soviets lost 4 anti-tank guns. This is the main difference. German tanks were well armored. Tukhachevsky's tanks were slightly armored, even heavy, "breakthrought" T-35 wasn't a problem for German artillery. BT and T-26 with their 7-13mm armor (the bulk of Soviet armor forces in 1941) was a complete joke. Before the war Soviets created a 57mm anti-tank gun, wich could penatrate up to 100mm armor and thus could be efficiently used against any German tanks, but your beloved "bright mind" Tukhachevsky and his minions, buried this project and Soviets had to make those guns later when the war was already go on.

However, the Red Army at the time did not the flexibility in doctrine/lower command initiative to make that kind of tactical doctrine work. Plus the lack of radios really cramps any mobile doctrine. In fact the Soviet armed forces never quite put these together except on a special forces level, look at Afghanistan half a century later. You need both to be truly successful - hardware and doctrine. The Nazis showed that doctrine and organization can get you further than hardware at times.

The lack of radios was another "glorious achievments of brightest mind in Red Army" Because he did not understand the importance of it. Sure who cares about radios when we have hordes of purly armored tanks and gonna fight without reserves? That's how this "bright mind" thought.
As for doctrines, I must surprise you. Soviets had much more complicated, developed and advanced doctrine, than Hitler's blitzkreig. It was called a theory of deep operation. It was created in early 30's by Soviet strategist Triandafilov (btw, the enemy number 1 of "bright mind" Tukhachevsky). It was part of Red Army's regulations of 1936. The first classic example when Soviets used this doctrine was Zhukov's success vs. Japanese Imperial Army at Khalkin-Gol in 1939. The later examples are almost any offensive operations of Red Army since 1943.
As for Afghanistan, let's see:
a) Soviets acted in mountins that is considered as the most difficult terrain for offensive operations and most favorable terrain for defense.
b) This war was a classical guerelia warfare, not conventional warfare vs. regular army.
Now compare the results:
c) Soviets controlled most part of the country for about a ten years, leaved Aghanistan because of change of political situation at home and change of foreign policy of USSR (thanks to Garbachev's betrayal). When they gone, they left a pro-Soviet government here. During whole war Soviet army lost lost less than 14 500 soldiers KIA.
d) Americans for about a ten years were hunting for Vietcongs in Vietnam, leaved when their casuality rate reached an unacceptable level. Lost the war, because when they gone, commie government was established in Vietnam. During whole war they lost about 60 000 soldiers KIA.

So who had the worse doctrines?

[Zylka]

Sure

[Kuciwalker]

Re: Hypothetical: would the USSR have done better against Germany without Stalin?

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Some blamed the staggering early losses of the USSR in WWII on Stalin, particularly on his purges. Others attributed eventual victory on Stalin's superhuman will, arguing that the USSR would have lost without the man.

What do you think?

What did his "superhuman will" have to do with it? Was there any particular alternative?

[Zylka]

[Serb]

Originally posted by Whoha
Nice diary from the ambassador, but I'd have put this part in bold "The buildings and equipment in most of the cases are the most modern available. The best companies mostly from USA, but also from Germany, France and England were invited on competive base to design them.

When you have to invent, design, and build everything yourself, of course its going to take a little longer.

And? Stalin certanly bought technologies from the west. What's wrong with that? Nobody gave him knowledge for nothing, he paid $$$ for this. It was just a buissness.

[DinoDoc]

Considering the fact that the German knocked the Russians out of WWI with less troops than they were commiting at the outset of the Russian invasion and that Stalin had been butchering his officer core, it's hard to imagine them doing worse.

[Serb]

Originally posted by ErikM

Alternatively, we can dismiss his works as a commie propaganda. Or do we just accept anything that states that Soviets were monsters as true (regardless of the souurce) and deny everything else as a biased account.

Exactly.

Somehow, I suspected he will bring fairy tales of this old fart as evidence.

Hey Hurricane, here is your idol 20 or so years ago, now he is walking ruin. Here it comes the Mr. "I was young and needed work, that's why I was the Soviet Hebels, but now I'm anti-Soviet Hebels, because well... you know... I have to eat something.".
Mr. A.N. Yakovlev.

[Serb]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Considering the fact that the German knocked the Russians out of WWI with less troops than they were commiting at the outset of the Russian invasion and that Stalin had been butchering his officer core, it's hard to imagine them doing worse.

Purges in Red Army of 1937-1938, strenghtened the Red Army, not the other way around.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

alcoholics usally don't live long

Explain Yelsin then

This is exactly what I meant. Yealtzin in his 50+ was a complete ruin. He couldn't say a couple of words without cause a deep counfusion to public. Some of his absolutely dumb statements shoked people. Thanks to his alcoholism, his IQ droped to 20 or so (not that it was ever higher then 40. After all, when he was a pupil, he spent an additional year in school, because he couldn't manage a final exam. I can tell you for sure, that in Russia, you have to be a really, supid, lazy, dumb mofo, to stay at school for an additional year).
Now read some memoirs of other great leaders who knew Stalin. The memoirs of Churchill, Roosvelt, Truman and others are full of admiration of Stalin. They really admire his iron will, personality, intellect, erudition, etc.
I can't imagine any of modern leaders saying something alike about the alcoholic and dumbass Yeltzin.
Damn, even Stalin's enemy number 1- Adolf Hitler, despite he wanted to kill Stalin, still admired him. Do you need some of Ribentrop's meories when he says about his talk with Hitler in the middle of the war about Stalin?

He wasn't paranoid as well.

Yes, they really were all out to get him .

Who?