Some key lessons that had been drawn from Spain were blatantly misguided. Kulik, for example, had concluded that the use of large mechanized tank units had turned out to be wrongheaded, for in Spain the infantry had not been able to keep pace with the tanks.272 He was hardly alone in this misreading, but with Tukhachevsky and others murdered, Kulik’s misread had gone largely uncontested, and Stalin had approved the Red Army’s dismantling of stand-alone mechanized tank units. Lessons from the border war with Japan were distilled by Zhukov, who was holed up in Ulan Bator. His long report labeled the incompetent commander he had relieved a “criminal” and underlined problems arising from poor battlefield communications and inadequate intelligence, but overall, he called the engagement “a victory which, in our view, should be carefully studied by all commanders.” This document was completed only in November 1939, not in time for the Winter War planning.273 But Zhukov and Stern had improvised back into existence stand-alone mechanized units and demonstrated, in practice, the devastating effectiveness of massive application of tanks and aircraft. Now, after Finland, these units would make a belated comeback. Nonetheless, in front of the full military during discussion of Finland in April 1940, Stalin belittled the brilliant 1939 victory in the border war with Japan.274
Development of military technology involves strategic decisions concerning manufacturing capabilities and spare parts availability, cost, ease of use and repair by soldiers, and, of course, effectiveness in combat, all decisions that take time to unfold. In the meantime, the enemy’s technology can improve.275 The consequences of mistakes can be immense. Kulik would soon block the placement of the advanced F-34 guns on the T-34 tank, which would be launched into mass production in fall 1940, largely because the superior gun was not his initiative.276
One hard Spanish lesson that the Soviets had learned was the squandering of their initial aviation advantage. The Soviets were winning the quantitative arms race with Nazi Germany, producing 4,270 airplanes in 1936 (to Germany’s 5,112), 6,039 in 1937 (to Germany’s 5,606), 7,727 in 1938 (to 5,235), and 10,362 in 1939 (to 8,295).277 But German quality had improved more significantly. Germany had opened a gap with its upgraded Heinkel bomber (He-111), which was capable of carrying 3,000 pounds of bombs, and its Messerschmitt fighter (Me-109), which had a range of 400 miles, a high rate of climb, a bulletproof fuel tank, and a top speed of 350 miles per hour, and had shown its deadliness at Guernica.278 The belated Soviet responses—Yak-1, Yak-7, MiG-3, and LaGG-3—finally appeared in 1940, but only in experimental production.
The despot summoned the thirty-six-year-old aviation commissar, Shakhurin, and his deputy, the thirty-three-year-old Yakovlev (the designer of the “Yak”), to the Little Corner, and they arrived in the middle of a large gathering. Without asking them to sit, Stalin began to read aloud from a letter written by an airplane designer who complained that he had a brilliant idea for a new killer plane but that the deputy commissar would not brook a rival and was blocking the innovative design, forcing the letter writer to appeal directly to “the Central Committee.” Silence ensued. Yakovlev responded that the designer had never actually approached him. (Shakhurin did not know anything about the proposed plane.) “Of course, he should first of all have spoken with both of you,” Stalin allowed. “Not speaking with you, and writing a complaint about you, is not the way. I don’t know about this proposal—maybe it’s a good airplane, maybe it’s a bad one—but the promised specs are alluring.” Stalin then asked how much it would cost. They answered, “8 to 9 million [rubles].” Stalin ordered it built, adding, “I ask you not to go after this designer for writing the letter. . . . For you it is unpleasant, probably, that such letters are written. But I am pleased. By the way, it is not the first letter.” As Yakovlev neared the exit to the Little Corner, Stalin called out. “Do not persecute the designer for writing the complaint; let him build the plane. We shall risk the millions; I shall take the sin on my soul.” The plane was duly built. It crashed on its maiden flight, taking with it one of the country’s best experimental pilots.279