WHY DID THE SOVIET UNION WIN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR AGAINST GERMANY?

MILITARY STRENGTHS

• Collectivisation/industrialisation of first FYP 1928 developed industrial base and useful central mechanism for producing weapons quickly.
• High defence £££££ meant SU's arsenal was more heavily invested than most of EUR.
• Spending trebled after 1937
• By 1941 putting out 230 tanks and 700 aircraft per month
• Milit-experts consider Soviet T-34 tank was most effective tank of WWII

WEAKNESSES

• Not planned for a specific type of war, built forces to cope with all scenarios, kept changing priorities
• Killed Tukhachevsky in 1937 purges, who favoured German mobile warfare
• Sov equipment & training showed no coherency
• Stifled initative after purges removed 14 out of 16 top commanders (but purges overplayed by historians)
• Expansion in military units faster than people could fill them
• Military strategy in 1941 not tailored to a fast moving enemy
• Population not prepared for war on home turf
• 

GERMAN MISTAKES

• Assuming USSR was weak and collapse imminent, based on supposed weakness of post-purge army
• Assuming Blitzkrieg tactics would lead quick Germans to surround slow Red Army

STALIN'S LEADERSHIP

• Angliskaga provokatisga - Stalin's belief of "English provocation"
• Non-agression pact 1939/Molotov-Ribbentrop pact - Divided Europe - Poland - delivered Gy raw materials till 1941
• Blind faith in non-agression pact, left USSR powerless in June 1941
• Recent evidence that Stalin was active - meetings at dacha - GKO - Speech July 3rd 1941
• GKO circumvented bureaucracy - centralised power for quick, effective decisions - MOLOTOV, BERIA, VOROSHILOV, MALENKOV, STALIN
• Stavka created…