responsible for organising purges including the cats in massacre in which NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN polish officers were killed during world war ii after the soviets invaded poland he oversaw the gulags the concentration camp system inside of the union and even oversaw the soviet efforts to make the atom bomb but from october NUMBER_TOKEN to february NUMBER_TOKEN the nkvd under berry's command carried out a new purge that hit the red army especially during the midst of operation barbarossa and whilst they were fighting the second world war the red army had never been in a good state of affairs soldiers were rather ill disciplined many suffered from alcoholism and their excessive shortages of equipment and weapons at the time in world war ii the soldiers were also poorly trained and the quality of leaders and officers at the time following the great purge was not ideal after the purge many officers who had no formal military education had risen at young ages into positions of power and the red army itself tripled in size in four years it had risen from NUMBER_TOKEN million soldiers to in NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN million despite the growth it was in a poor state when operation barbarossa was launched they suffered heavy losses however berry had began his campaign of terror against the red army before in october NUMBER_TOKEN he started a new purge aimed first to hit the people's commissar act of ammunition the people's aviation industry and the people's commissar act of armaments these industries that made weapons ammunitions and supplies vital to a war effort and the army were hit very heavily berry would drag into interrogation the hype officials involved in these industries and bodies interrogate them and torture them brutally until they confessed guilt that they were involved in treason against stalin the nkvd also got these men to testify against others and they were arrested and executed on charges of sabotage spying and anti-soviet activity this led to an issue inside of these industries which would be integral to the wall the air force was also targeted in NUMBER_TOKEN as an inquiry found a high accident rate in the air force which led to many arrests and executions the head of the air force was even executed in this in may of NUMBER_TOKEN the german ju-NUMBER_TOKEN also landed in moscow and had been undetected and this was seen by stalin and beria as disgraceful and there was a huge number of arrests linked to the air force the most senior figures were arrested interrogated tortured and then shot by barriers men he believed there must have been a conspiracy to allow the aircraft to land in moscow but following the invasion of the soviet union further arrest and executions continued initially when the germans invaded they overwhelmed the red army's forces on the ground and in the air and this caused havoc amongst the military's high command they did not understand the severity of the catastrophe for the soviet military and those forces based at the border the initial stages of barbarossa were a complete disaster for the red army with very high losses and casualties and the nkvd and barrier sought to purge to punish during the early stages of the battles he executed scores of commanders who were blamed for the failings of the red army all were killed in the same way mostly by firing squad or by simply being shot these executions did not help the
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