Gradenko 

Why do you think Gradenko is a competent leader?  I've played the Soviet campaign, so I've seen his track record: in the Mission 1 intro, he tries to hide his failure to kill all civilians in an unnamed village with poison gas by blaming the discrepancy in numbers on "inaccurate intelligence" (even though it was his number that was "approximate"); then in the Mission 3 intro, it's revealed that he had failed to prevent the Allies from destroying the "Sevrinsk" chemical plant (of which he's not even aware, as shown by his affirmative reply to Stalin's question re. the security arrangements at chemical facilities), and allowed Einstein to escape.  Hardly a "competent" leader! 24.5.122.13