Which of the accused were guilty though? The ones who were tried or the ones who tried them, or the ones who tried the jury? You realise how ridiculous it is that somehow the overwhelming majority of delegates, central committee members and army officers, people who often fought for the establishment of the Soviet state at great risk to their lives were all plotting all this time to destroy that same state?

And again I'm not regurgitating Nazi propaganda, I was merely following your argument to its logical conclusion. I don't think that the Soviets were predominantly using human wave tactics, even though some use of the grunts was imho wasteful at some points I understand the delicate balance between the safety of the men and the need for a speedy advance and the necessity to prioritize the latter now and again, what I'm saying is that the awful losses, the almost complete routing of Red forces at the beginning of the war are undeniable and at the same time were preventable if the Army remained competent, which was severely undermined by the purges (see Voroshilov's complaint after the Winter War). There would have been no need for the outdated war of attrition if the Red Army were poised to strike first just before Hitler could amass all his troops at the border. But such thinking was discredited because the people who created the theoretical underpinnings of Deep Battle and were training to put it into practice were murdered and became the unmentionable.