Stalin's Mistakes In The Russian War

On December 1941, Germans forces marched close to Moscow. While Josef Stalin was preoccupied about inside loyalty, the Germans drew near the heart of the Soviet Union. Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler, had broken the Nazi Soviet non-aggression pact, which involved splitting Poland in half and not attacking each other. Stalin believed that while Germany was invading Britain they would not invade Russia, because Hitler had written about avoiding a two front war. Stalin carelessly believed that Hitler would abide by the pact. Decisions like these caused many losses. While Russia had a big army and air force, Stalin’s leadership hindered the country's military strength. One of Stalin’s many mistakes was purging the army before the war which hurt the Soviet army. “During 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 persons, of whom 681,692 were shot – an average of 1,000 executions a day.” His …show more content…
“Stalin ignored no fewer than eighty warnings of Hitler's intentions of Operation Barbarossa over eight month.” Stalin had plenty of time to prepare for the war with this warning. He had no excuses for not having weapons made or having the Red Army prepared to fight. Instead, he had them build a new line: “The Red Army had spent more time building fortification than training.” Building this new line took time out of training so when the Germans attacked they were not ready to fight. This can be Stalin’s own fault because he had them build the new line even though he knew that the Germans were going to attack. The Red Army instead could have been training and getting ready for an attack. If Stalin had over 80 warnings it would have made sense for him take a bit of precaution. “By the 10th of July the Soviet Union had already lost 4,800 tanks, 9,480 guns, and 1,777 planes.” The Red Army appeared as if they had been caught off guard. Really it was Stalin’s responsibility for not warning troops or to at least have planes hidden and protect