[Decky]

And if you want to use Vlasov as your example, then it just proves the purges didn't 'work' - there were still nascent traitors like Vlasov around, right?

There was only him actually, show me another high ranking red army traitor? The purges got all bar one, a pretty good record.

[Smilin' Dave]

29% of Soviet military personnel had a higher education before the repressions. After them, the number became 38%. By 1941, the number had risen to 52%. Note that for the decade before the repressions, the number had remained stagnant at around 20-30%.

When the was a shortage of adults with technical education etc. during the five year plans, they opened night schools for them etc. When the school system in general was seen to be deficient, it was improved. When someone in the Politburo was given a job to look into a problem in a sector they knew nothing about, they went off and studied.

You're telling me that when the Soviet officer corps wasn't sufficiently educated, the solution wasn't a crash program to deal with it or similar, but to have them arrested on what appear to be false charges and then executed or imprisoned?

There was only him actually, show me another high ranking red army traitor?

Vlasov was simply the most high profile defector
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Meandrov - a colonel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Bunyachenko - another colonel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semyon_Trofimovich_Bychkov - I'm guessing this guy started as a Captain in the Red Army, then was made a Major by the Germans. Won a 'Hero of the Soviet Union' award, so he wasn't exactly a joke.

And these were just the people I could find on Wikipedia in a few minutes.

The purges got all bar one, a pretty good record.

I suppose when Vlasov was awarded an Order of the Red Banner and an Order of Lenin, that was all part of a clever plan by the Soviet authorities? Or perhaps Vlasov's role in the defence of Moscow in 1941 was all part of an elaborate conspiracy to defeat the Red Army?

[Americanroyalty]

"Who's going to remember these riffraff in twenty years time?" - Joseph Stalin

Unfortunately those "riffraff" where the best and brightest of the Soviet military. This left the Soviet Union open for the devastating german Blitzkrieg in WW2. Stalin was basically a crude gangster-type who was able to modernize the country, but his thuggish paranoia kept him from being a truly great leader.

[KlassWar]

Vlasov defected in 1941 when his army was surrounded and most likely out of opportunism, fear of what would be done to him if he went back or resentment at being sent on what was essentially a death ride in the first place. This is a far cry from the supposed conspiracy that I supposed to be convinced existed in the 1930s.

Ain't an excuse. Whatever happened to 'I regret that I have but one life to give for socialism?'

[Smilin' Dave]

Ain't an excuse. Whatever happened to 'I regret that I have but one life to give for socialism?'

You miss the point. The point isn't that Vlasov was justified*, but that justifying the purges on the basis of Vlasov is incorrect. Vlasov's defection was the result of the pressures and opportunism of the moment, they weren't the result of some simmering conspiracy from the 1930s that legitimises all the other Soviet officers jailed and executed.

*For the record I think he wasn't

[Andropov]

The state of the Red Army before the purge was atrocious, with a huge amount of incompetent, lazy, and drunkard officers and a military elite divided by petty personal rivalries. Testimonies and archival data confirm this.

[Potemkin]

Vlasov's defection was the result of the pressures and opportunism of the moment, they weren't the result of some simmering conspiracy from the 1930s that legitimises all the other Soviet officers jailed and executed.

When Stalin was informed of Vlasov's defection, he turned to Molotov and asked gloomily, "How did we miss him in 1937?"

[ThereBeDragons]

What does the typical purge survivor even look like in comparison to the typical purged officer?

To me it sounds like rats and opportunists are the ones who survive. That's how it was during the Chinese ideological purges, at any rate. The ones who sold out their comrades and asked "how high" when Mao said "jump" are the ones who survived to clean up afterwards. The people whose number goal was self-preservation lived. All the ideologues perished.

[Smilin' Dave]

The state of the Red Army before the purge was atrocious, with a huge amount of incompetent, lazy, and drunkard officers and a military elite divided by petty personal rivalries. Testimonies and archival data confirm this.

It can also be confirmed that this was the case after the purges. Kulik for example was not known for his meritocratic approach. Budyonny was quite the drinker as I recall. Nobody could mistake Voroshilov for competant. Yet all survied and/or prospered as a result of the purges.

Also how do you reconcile this view of the pre-purge Red Army being a shambles full of idiots and clowns, when Red Army doctrine in the interwar and WWII period was essentially forged by officers who got purged?

And again, if there were problems, there were other ways to fix them that didn't involve gutting the officer corps. I think it's important to reinforce this point, as some day you might find yourself in a management position, and I don't want you to think a failure to meet the month's sales target justifies killing half the staff.

When Stalin was informed of Vlasov's defection, he turned to Molotov and asked gloomily, "How did we miss him in 1937?"

I really hope you're not trying to impress upon me that Stalin was the fount of all knowledge here.

[Travesty]

Also how do you reconcile this view of the pre-purge Red Army being a shambles full of idiots and clowns, when Red Army doctrine in the interwar and WWII period was essentially forged by officers who got purged?

You mean like the doctrine of deep operations of Tukhachevsky? He was a good general but he was also uncontrollable. I think he means that the officer corps was staffed with people with civil war experience with little use in world war 2, and the Field Marshalls where too independent from Stalin

[Smilin' Dave]

I think he means that the officer corps was staffed with people with civil war experience with little use in world war 2

Oh, like Zhukov? Got his start in the 1st Cavalry Army you know. Perhaps someone would like to tell me what a useless relic of past wars he was?

Kulik, a very real and dangerous buffoon, was promoted entirely based on Stalin's experiences with him during the Civil War.

the Field Marshalls where too independent from Stalin

This is a problem from Stalin's perspective, but it doesn't provide even a vague objective justification for the purges.

[Travesty]

Oh sure Rokossovsky was also purged for example and was in a cell when the war started, I was playing devil's advocate there.