have. The army purges also contributed to the Germans winning almost all the opening engagements as the red Army had very few able Generals and officers. Others might point out to the lack of material and equipment. All of these things were done for very specific reasons, Stalin weighed the gains and losses before acting and ultimately made some vary hard but mostly sound decisions. Stalin did not give the deserter any credit because he believed that Hitler would not be foolish enough to attack the Soviet Union when Britain was still fighting and the Battle for Africa waged on as well indeed no one else thought that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union either. Stalin did not send masses of troops and equipment to the border because he thought that he could still negotiate and that Hitler would not risk a two front war. He did this because he knew that the border fortification would not be ready for another six months. The army purges were done to limit the militaries opposition against him so he could have greater control over the military. Stalin and many other truly did believe that the military was corrupt and compromised. As to the lack of equipment, Stalin had instituted a massive military industry at the beginning of the war and up-to-date equipment was starting to be delivered to the front. The movement of the war industry east contributed to the lack of material but proved to be the saving grace of the army in the end. At the end the Soviet war industries were producing some of the best equipment in the world.In the end I do believe that through Stalin's leadership the Soviet Union was saved. Had it been under the leadership of the intended Communist bureaucracy it would have surely fallen. As we have seen in our country even simple matters can take forever to go into effect or get started under a bureaucracy. In that highly volatile and dangerous time period only an iron fisted rule could bring about change fast enough to due...
