LogFAQs > #974504458

Jordan_AS posted...

It kept him in power although it severely degraded the military might of the Soviet Union ahead of World War II.

this. his paranoid military purges eliminated the effective officers that the original communist purges didn't. pre ww2 soviet union should have been a military behemoth, but the usual problems with russian purges and corruption made it highly incompetent along with putin not believing any of his spies or officials that the nazis were planning an invasion. it almost turned out disastrous if not for the fact that hitler was a moron who underestimated how difficult it would be to have supply lines stretched that thin over vast areas and how the russians could just move production and giant populations as areas fell. the russians got it together after about a year of getting annihilated, but that was a combination of nazi incompetence and stalin finally listening to his generals