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  1. AHC: optimize Soviet performance in WW2

    Regarding the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, one under-discussed consequence is the USSR's state of quasi-mobilization on the economy. Increased defense expenditures and conscription into the Red Army led to extreme hidden inflation '38-41 in the non-defense sector, much of the costs of which...

  2. Death of Stalin in Fall 1945

    The struggle to balance between investment in heavy industry and light industry/infrastructure/agriculture is, I would say, the most persistent problem in the second half of the 40s. Stalin overwhelmingly favored the former, and it created serious challenges even for favored enterprises. Take...

  3. Death of Stalin in Fall 1945

    Zhdanov was in Leningrad until his return to Moscow in November '45. I think his ability to operate independently of Stalin was limited, as do Khlevniuk and Gorlizki: I think Zhdanov can retain control of the Leningrad party organization, and this would be an impressive power base that he...

  4. Death of Stalin in Fall 1945

    What does non-Stalinist reconstruction look like? Removing the foundation of Stalin’s system - mass labor coercion - means that the basic strategy of forcibly moving contingents of indentured and unfree labor around to priority “heavy” industries (coal, metallurgy, defense, etc) is DOA...

  5. Barbarossa without the Great Purge

    I don't think that was ever on the agenda. The senior leaders of the Red Army were communists, if not necessarily Stalinists, and owed their reputations and careers to the Party and Stalin's patronage. Stalin's over-reliance on repression obscures the fact that, like Hitler, he had a keen...

  6. Barbarossa without the Great Purge

    Avoiding the Kirov assassination and Terror in the Party also opens the door to a much larger membership base. An understated aspect of the Red Army’s rapid growth was the dilution of Party membership in its ranks, declining from 24% in 1932 to 13% on the eve of war. During the war, it...

  7. Barbarossa without the Great Purge

    Funny enough, I ran into a couple examples recently of rifle units botching their deployment from march columns in ‘44! You also had the problem of political officers transferred to regular officer positions starting in Fall’42, which introduced a lot of uneven quality in the ‘43 Red Army. The...

  8. Barbarossa without the Great Purge

    As others already correctly noted, poor junior leadership is still an enormous issue for the Red Army. Even without the Terror this can’t be fixed given the rapid ‘39-41 expansion. At the same time, the Red Army made do with inadequate and poorly trained junior leaders until the end of the...

  9. Barbarossa without the Great Purge

    Instructions on how to command higher HQs (Corps, Armies, Fronts, etc.) and service manuals for HQ departments (Operations does this, procurement does that) were entirely absent. The memoirs of contemporaries confirm the complete absence of “how to” instructions for higher HQs and the General...

  10. Barbarossa without the Great Purge

    In terms of doctrine, the Terror paralyzed efforts to update manuals and other instructions until it was over (with aftershocks continuing for years). Many pieces drafted or published by repressed individuals were withdrawn from circulation or limited to a narrow circle of leaders. Timoshenko...

  11. Barbarossa without the Great Purge

    Zhukov commented in a 1944 memo that: A much deeper pool of high-ranking, educated officers would be very beneficial. The Terror was also disastrous for military education, especially higher military education. Many skilled and experienced instructors were lost, and the remainder were quite...

  12. Death of Stalin in Fall 1945

    Another interesting facet of the postwar era is the rapid growth of the Party just as ideological standards/education were significantly relaxed. The Party dropped from 3.8 million members in ‘41 before declining to 2.7 million in ‘42, then climbing again to per 6 million by the end of the war...

  13. Death of Stalin in Fall 1945

    I imagine Molotov will be Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, as he was up until May ‘41. Malenkov could do the job, but will likely be responsible for running the Central Committee Secretariat. He was heavily involved in this body in the first half of ‘41. Beria could too, but...

  14. Death of Stalin in Fall 1945

    Re-upping with some additional thoughts. In 1947-48 you had a string of electoral revolts by the Party aktiv against regional first secretaries and other local leaders, led by district Party leaders. The vast majority of regional leaders hadn’t stood for election since before the war and had...

  15. What if Stalin only purged Trotskyites and didn't let mass psychosis/tattling set in?

    Hagenloh does a good job connecting wider trends in Soviet policing to the launch of the mass operations in Summer '37: Stalin's Police, page 242. Removing Yezhov from the equation helps. Yezhov was a career Party functionary, not a Chekist. He was brought into the post by Stalin as a...

  16. What if Stalin only purged Trotskyites and didn't let mass psychosis/tattling set in?

    Studies on wartime Terror in '41-42 have placed it closer in scale to '37-38, though still smaller. 160k executions by courts/military tribunals, 30k by the NKVD Special Meeting, and at least 10k killed in the Summer ‘41 prison massacres. The last statistic is a significant understatement, as it...

  17. What if Stalin only purged Trotskyites and didn't let mass psychosis/tattling set in?

    Largely disagree on these points, the Terror was very much Stalin's personal initiative. The idea that the Terror was "demanded" by Party leaders is most prominently endorsed by Getty, a well-regarded historian who I nevertheless think misses the forest for the trees. He combines two points: 1...

  18. What are the implications of Soviet communism collapsing during or immediately after WWII?

    On this note, it's important to refer to the note of Deputy Prosecutor of the USSR G.N. Safonov to Stalin from '46 proposing to abolish the infamous '40 law on labor discipline and absenteeism. Citing the extreme disruptiveness of the law - over 15% of the workforce at some factories convicted -...

  19. What are the implications of Soviet communism collapsing during or immediately after WWII?

    The potential political rowdiness in the Party might be comparable to 20s. Even with Stalin providing party First Secretaries in the regions with overwhelming support, Khlevniuk/Gorlizki found 46 attempted “electoral uprisings” against regional leaders. Local leadership had been able to...

  20. What are the implications of Soviet communism collapsing during or immediately after WWII?

    Yeah even OTL Atlee/Churchill were not fans of export controls directed at the USSR, because rebuilding trade with Eastern Europe would be a big economic boon! With an Eastern European Marshal Plan - Mikoyan and Molotov cared far more about getting dollars than enforcing economic subservience -...
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