The Great Purge destroyed military and naval expertise

The Great Purge removed much of the Soviet senior command and carried the destruction into lower ranks and commanders' families. Three of the first five Soviet marshals were executed, along with thirteen of fifteen army commanders and eight of nine admirals, effectively wiping out the navy's high command. Mikhail Tukhachevsky's case shows how professional ability and an independent reputation could appear threatening in a revolutionary dictatorship. The NKVD seized him while he was supposedly travelling to a new command and tortured him into signing a confession, concealing the arrest because soldiers might resist. His ideas had to be recovered indirectly after his death, delaying military adaptation while officials avoided crediting a condemned man. The comparison with the officer generation lost at Tsushima shows the cumulative damage caused when a state repeatedly eliminates its own expertise.