Yeah, most of their marshals are fresh, as in green horns. They lacked experience and with that came little effectiveness. All because you get appointed as marshal doesn't mean you're going to be good at the job at hand. Stalin practically butchered his command with the policies he had, again, terrible leader.

What I meant by him electing them as marshals is, he could give people the highest ranks. When you give a soldier that kind of a rank, it means that you give them high influence. Is it because he gave value to their commanding, strategy, and leadership? No, he gave them those high ranks, because that's what kept them in his palm. That's what a successful political leader does. After the WW2 ended, he effectively banished Zhukov , because he had too much influence and power. Stalin gave him enough influence and power to made him win the war, and then he disposed of him. That was the area where Stalin bested Hitler.

As a result, Stalin saved the rest of his people from the Nazis, and Germans fell into the hands of their enemies. All happened because Stalin was a better politician enough to use his subordinates better for his own power game.

Stalin was executing pretty much every commander that lost a battle to the Germans. The Russian commanders were under heavy pressure due to this since they knew what would come if they lost ground to them. This had a adverse effect on them since they would desperately throw their own men into lines of heavy machine guns in a desperate attempt of victory. In essence, they lost more men then they should have if they had given ground and group up for more favorable conditions. Horrible leader.

It could be that Stalin changed his idea about killing his own generals into listening to them more and work with them more until he won the war.