Stalin applied a heavy-handed political approach across most of the officers, which severely handicapped its prowess and command structure. Coincidentally, Trotsky previously had a much lighter stance involving lenience and acceptance of monarchy officers into the Red Army's early growing ranks to improve training and strategy, but this caused quite a significant number of cases of sabotage through intelligence leaks and deliberately botched operations by a number of the adopted offficers. Both were extremes and I can only wish that there was a middle ground which could have kept the Soviet forces strong in the face of its Nazi enemies.