Before Barbarossa: Leadership Lessons from December 1940

Pictured: Hero of the Soviet Union, Guards Colonel General Chuikov congratulates Guards Captain V.A. Belyaev on being awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. In the center is Guards Major General Yakov Doronin, a member of the military council of several armies of the 8th Guards Army from January -- May 1944. Doronin was mentioned in Chuikov’s memoir titled Stalingrad Guards Go West.

In the final days of 1940, the senior leadership of the Red Army gathered in Moscow to confront a pressing question: Was the Soviet military truly ready for modern war? The meeting, held from 23-31 December, brought together commanders, political officers, and senior officials to evaluate the state of combat training and organizational reform. Among the speakers was Corps Commissar Yakov Doronin, a member of the Military Council of the Transcaucasian Military District, whose remarks offered a candid assessment of both progress and persistent weaknesses within the Red Army.

Doronin reported that reforms directed by the People’s Commissariat of Defense were beginning to reshape political work within some units. Political officers were being pushed to move away from paperwork and bureaucratic directives and instead engage directly with soldiers. Where this shift occurred, the results were noticeable. Units such as the 6th Tank Division, the 24th Cavalry Division, and the 26th Air Division demonstrated improvements in discipline, morale, and training performance. In these formations, communists and Komsomol members often led the ranks of top-performing soldiers, reinforcing the Soviet belief that ideological commitment and combat readiness were closely linked.

Yet Doronin made it clear that such successes were not yet widespread. In many units, the restructuring of political work remained superficial. Too many political officers still sat in offices writing reports rather than working among the troops. In some cases, Red Army soldiers barely knew the officers responsible for their political education. Doronin recounted one striking example: a deputy regimental commander admitted he rarely visited subordinate units because he was overwhelmed with paperwork—an admission that revealed the persistence of bureaucratic habits the reforms were meant to eliminate.

Pictured: Major-General Yakov Doronin (date unknown). After his service during the Great Patriotic War, he continued political work in the Kiev Military District and

in the USSR Ministry of Defense.

These shortcomings had real consequences. Certain divisions struggled with poor combat readiness, weak discipline, and ineffective leadership. Doronin also highlighted a troubling disconnect between political education and military performance. Some units achieved high marks in political instruction while performing poorly in combat training, suggesting that political work had become detached from its intended purpose—strengthening the army’s ability to fight. The issue of discipline further underscored the challenges facing the Red Army. Doronin acknowledged that the Disciplinary Regulations had not been properly explained to many soldiers, leading to misunderstandings and isolated incidents of abuse. Weak enforcement and insufficient leadership compounded these problems.

Despite these concerns, Doronin emphasized ongoing efforts to improve training, particularly through individual soldier instruction conducted in training camps throughout the district. This system, he argued, was already helping to introduce greater organization and military professionalism within units.

Doronin ended his remarks with a reminder of the stakes involved. The Transcaucasian Military District was a border district, responsible for defending Soviet territory in the event of war. For that reason, incremental improvements were not enough. Combat training had to reach the highest possible standards so that Soviet forces could defeat any enemy with minimal loss of life.

Promotional evaluation of Col. Matvey Vainrub to the rank of Major General, 2 March 1944. Marked "SECRET", the document is a recommendation for promotion of Col. Matvey Vainrub to the rank of Major General, Tank Forces. Chuikov's signature is at the bottom in blue pencil. The evaluation is co-signed by Member of the Military Council, Maj. Gen. Doronin, whose signature is to the right of Chuikov's in red pencil

Looking back today, Doronin’s speech captures a Red Army still in the midst of reform—struggling to overcome bureaucratic inertia while trying to build a modern fighting force. Within months, the German invasion would test the effectiveness of these efforts under the harshest possible conditions.

One theme stands out clearly from Doronin’s remarks: leadership cannot exist on paper alone. Reports, directives, and organizational charts meant little unless leaders were physically present with their soldiers—teaching, guiding, and building trust within their units. This lesson would become a defining characteristic of some of the Red Army’s most effective wartime commanders. Leaders such as Marshal Chuikov understood that real leadership required constant presence among the troops. For Chuikov, command was not confined to a desk. True leadership meant being present in the trenches, standing among the soldiers who bore the weight of the mission. In that sense, Doronin’s critique in December 1940 anticipated a leadership principle that the coming war would prove again and again: the closer a leader stands to the people he leads, the stronger the army becomes.