Planning for war: The red army and the catastrophe of 1941

Unlike Stalin, the USSR's top military officials expected and attempted to prepare for Nazi invasion, but underestimated the striking power of the German army. The vulnerability of Soviet forces in forward positions was increased by the disconnection between political strategy and military operational doctrine, and had been perilously weakened by military purges since 1937. Using previously untapped archival records identifies misconceptions in the Red Army's core planning assumptions, including underestimating the impact of blitzkrieg in the teeth of recent evidence in the West, and overestimating Red Army strength. The roots of the failure to comprehend the initial period of war lay in the organisational ideology of the Red Army which emerged in the 1920s, leading to an offensive bias in military strategy. This view challenges traditional explanations of the disaster of 1941 that focus on Stalin and totalitarianism.