>>/50149/
> Whenever Russia does something stupid, the spin is they did it intentionally
Soviet propaganda wasn't like that at all when explaining away the defeats that followed Barbarossa.
They said nothing about the massive Red Army groupings on the western frontier, they just kept it quiet. They overstated Germany's preparations for war in the interwar period, and hugely downplayed the Soviet military buildup. According to them the SU did peaceful building activity in those years. They painted a picture of the peaceful Soviet Union which correctly kept itself to the terms of the M-R Pact. The SU was attacked treacherously by surprise by the Germans.
Post-Stalin times they piled the responsibility on Stalin. They said he had all the information but he mistook everything with German provocation, which they made to provoke the SU attacking first. He did moved some of the industry to the East, and couple of units from the Japanese border to the west but he did not take the whole thing seriously as he should have. He also "dismissed" without a reason many officers during 1937-38.
They also stressed that everyone expected the SU to fall very quick (they gladly quoted boasts like "we will win in 14 days" and such), only the soviet people's heroism saved the day.
They claimed the Germans had advantage both in quantity and the quality of the armaments. But in manpower and experience too, claiming they already had two years of fighting behind them (while the soviet soldiers were busy with peaceful building work...).
They said many country attacked the SU, while the SU had to defend herself alone.
They shut the fuck up about their own forces. They never said how many divisions they had on the front, or how many troops, tanks, artillery pieces, airplanes. But they gladly told stories about "four divisions of Moscovite communists who bravely marched out to defend Moscow" and other bs (when Germans arrived to Moscow, not at the start of the Barbarossa).