Military Blunders: Stalin's Purges and related media

-Deep in the wastelands of Siberia are relics of one of the darkest periods in Russian history. Wire fences, watch towers, labor camp huts, testament to the suffering endured by millions of Soviet citizens during the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Stalin had millions of people arrested on trumped up charges. Leading figures suffered so-called show trials in which they were forced to admit their guilt. The vast majority of victims were executed or sent to labor camps where harsh conditions lowered their chances of survival. Stalin's purges of the 1930's were a blot on Russian history. He wished to remove threats to his power base, but the threats were largely figments of his imagination. Between 1936 to 1938, 36% of the Communist party's membership was purged. Stalin's long arm reached out to every level of Soviet society. No one dared protest for fear of retribution. His power was becoming absolute. Determined to bring every aspect of life under his control, Stalin now turned his malevolent gaze to the armed forces. They had escaped persecution and were at the time among the most modern in the world. Charged with being agents of foreign powers, three out of five marshals and fourteen out of sixteen army commanders were secretly tried and executed. Stalin's will work its way down to junior officers. Almost 1/2 the total office core was purged. The Red Army reverted to being an unyielding Marxist mass army. Its armored formations were broken up and incompetent officers were given accelerated promotions. As far as the armed forces were concerned, Stalin eventually realized his drastic purge had been an awful blunder. When they attacked Russia's small neighbor Finland at the end of November 1940, his forces initially suffered a bloody reverse. Stalin was forced to institute wholesale reorganization and reformation of the Soviet Armed Forces. The reforms were still incomplete when Germany invaded in June 1941. The Soviet's poor performance cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of their soldiers and enabled Hitler's armies to advance almost to the gates of Moscow before they were stopped by the Russian Winter. Stalin's lust for power caused his country untold suffering. The casualties suffered by the Soviet Armed Forces in 1941 as well as those inflicted by the Finns should be added to the 13 million deaths caused directly by Stalin's purges. Today the ghosts of those who perished continue to haunt the deserted Siberian Gulags. Their graves remain a memorial to Stalin's grievous blunder of initiating the purges, which almost brought the entire Soviet Union to its knees.

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