Reading the posts about the performance of the Red army in the Winter war, one of the main causes of their failure was that the individual soldier was allowed little to no initiative compared to the Finns. It was also mentioned that by 1945, the soviet warmy was 'entirely different beast'. I assume that it means several of the problems had been sorted out. But when we get to the cold war, we again hear about how the individual soviet soldier was allowed little to no initiative. and was almost a drone carrting out the last orders he had received. Is this cold war propaganda from the west? Or did the lack of initiative carried through the world war ? Why did the soviet army go back to such a rigid command structure inspite of their experience in the winter war?
causes of their failure
Interesting how achieved objective is deemed "a failure" nowadays. Also note that in later days of Winter War line of defense was broken thru and it was Finland who sued for peace, not USSR.
Were no lesson at all extracted from initial disasters, Red Army would just bleed out dry before Mannerheim's Line. See [3] for analysis of RKKA top commander right after the war. Special meeting of RKKA top brass in December 23-31, 1940 was assembled to share experience and promote changes in tactics - see [4].
Late in campaign assault groups (they reappear later in WWII) were used and combined arms applied to storm fortified defensive positions with success. Sadly, those lessons were quickly forgotten and the wheel was reinvented yet again - see the pattern below.
Why did the soviet army go back to such a rigid command structure inspite of their experience in the winter war?
This is chronic problem of the Russian army. If you examine Russian Imperial Army performance, you'd see the same pattern:
In peacetime training is getting formalized more and more into rigid exercises, initiative slowly drained. Ability to execute an order to a letter is a must for career. Conformance to ideas of higher-ups required.
Very formal criteria used to evaluate performance of troops - like appearance, ability to march in neat formation, cleanliness of barracks etc. Creative, thinking COs tend to fail miserably in that time.
Less and less attention put toward real military training - like target shooting, marching quickly from point A to point B with all gear.
Tactical training time goes near zero. So individual soldiers are not presented with tactical tasks in real environment and not trained well to solve them. Even low-level COs (well, most of them) would employ just a set of tactical templates instead of critical thinking.
War starts. Initial performance not satisfactory, formal criteria do not matter anymore - so most creative low-level COs began to thrive and high-ranking COs start to listen to them and break rigid templates. Quite often veteran sergeants are "advising" fresh lieutenants and have no trouble in acting in their stead.
War ends. Most of veterans are discharged or promoted away from low-level. Daring field commanders don't fare well in cabinets. Formality creeps in. And so it begins again.
examples from Imperial Russia:
successful Italian and Swiss expedition of Suvorov, disaster of Austerlitz and then Napoleon invasion thwarted by unorthodox tactic and strategy (avoidance of "decisive battle", harassment of supply lines by small partisan bands, "shadowing"). Performance not uniformly brilliant across all troops and services, but good enough to defeat invasion.
successful Middle Asia campaigns, Russo-Turkish war in late 19th and bleak loss in Russo-Japanese war.
But when we get to the cold war, we again hear about how the individual soviet soldier was allowed little to no initiative.
This is not completely true. For example, during campaign in Afghanistan, several highly effective tactical structures were invented. Small, physically well-trained and agile recon groups, commonly known as SpetzNaz were able to interdict, stop and disperse much larger bands of opponents. Another example was combination of supporting heavy weaponry into bronegruppa (see [1,2]) and usage of MMG (motorized maneuver group = ММГ, мотомангруппа - see [3]) to control border area with limited amount of border guards (ПВ=погранвойска, border troops under command of KGB). Individual soldiers have a lot of initiative in those and were capable of playing several roles.
Insufficient training in making decisions in combat situation or taking initiative still was an issue. It was not only the issue of just "allowance", but of training, to know how and when to apply initiative.
Sources
Grau, Lester W. - The Bear Went Over the Mountain. Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1996.
(russian)Neshumov Yu. - Borders of Aghanistan. Author served in Afghanistan as top military adviser on border security. Describes involvement of KGB border troops in Aghfan war, analyzes control of USSR-Afghan border (success) and Pakistan-Iran-Afghan border (failure).
(russian) Protocols from meeting of top RKKA commanders, discussion of Winter war lessons