[Koshkin]

It is easy to come to blaming others for something that is, to a high degree, one's own fault. Much of the losses sustained by the Soviets during the war were due to the pitiless practice of a forced sacrificing of soldiers' lives in trying to achieve military objectives. All sides were doing that, but nothing can be compared to the scale on which it was practiced by the Soviet military command.

[wbl]

And the alternative would be to have the line break. The Germans were within miles of all of of Moscow, besieged Leningrad for months, and we all know about Stalingrad and the attempt to cross the Volga. Losing would have unthinkable consequences, and the casualties were also due to German executions of POWs.

[ptaipale]

It was not always just desperately holding the line. There was definitely an aspect of actually exterminating unwanted elements by sending them to missions that couldn't be accomplished or which could only be accomplished through overwhelming losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat

[emp_zealoth]

Stalin also murdered a lot of competent officials/generals/officers (they were percieved a threat to his totalitarian power) so the military in big part was run by people who didn't know any better...doesn't excuse the massive losses ofc

[open_bear]

> "pitiless practice of a forced sacrificing of soldiers' lives"

Of course there were stupid commanders who wasted soldiers's lives, as there were very good commanders. You should look at the big picture:

1) Ratio of Wermacht - Red Army losses is somewhere around 1:1.3, only 30% more. 2) Germany had fully deployed and ready to attack army on the June, 22nd, while USSR was in the process of deployment: second and third line divisions were moving towards the border, stretched for 500-600 kilometers. 3) Wermacht was trained in doing blitzkriegs: Poland invasion, France invasion gave them a lot of experience, Red Army did not have a lot of experience in defending against such an attack (no one had). 4) Germany attacked without a warning, without a formal war declaration, and most of those 30% come from the first stage of the war. 5) Germany had its full industrial potential, together with Poland, Czechoslovakia and France working to provide tanks, guns, food and supplies, while USSR had 1/3 of its territory captured and 20+ million people under occupation for the first two years.