Barbarossa without the Great Purge

[EasternRomanEmpire]

POD is Sergei Kirov not being assassinated, I know Stalin still could've purged everyone but just assume he doesn't.
The Red Army has officers however it still has some other issues such as outdated equipment.
I assume the Red Army would be able to conquer Finland ITTL.
Would Hitler still launch Operation Barbarossa?
Assuming that he would, how far would the Germans arrive ITTL?
How much shorter would WW2 be?
How far would the Soviets arrive in Europe after the war?

 

[CaptainCalvert]

If Hitler wants a war, he'll find an excuse, so it's a reasonable assumption that some form of Barbarossa will occur.

More numerous competent officers will not stop Barbarossa in its tracks but would likely slow progress a little and increase the German cost. That's bad for Germany as it leads to smaller encirclements with more escapes.

So at the end of 1941, the extent of German conquest is similar to OTL, but they have taken more casualties (maybe a 5 percent or so higher) and lost more equipment. Which doesn't sound too much but these losses will be concentrated in the mobile spearheads (panzer and motorised).

The Soviets will not only have a few hundred thousand extra troops that either never got encircled or escaped, but they will have a lot more officers available to train and lead newly formed units, so the quality of new units in 1942 will be much higher than OTL, but also, with an extra few hundred thousand troops available, the newer units can be trained for longer before being put into combat.

What does this mean for 1942? The quality difference will be smaller than OTL, and the numerical advantage will favour the soviets even more. The loss of equipment in the mobile units will slow the Germans. More than likely they'll still try something like OTL but from a worse position, with inferior resources and against stronger opposition.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

More numerous competent officers will not stop Barbarossa in its tracks but would likely slow progress a little and increase the German cost. That's bad for Germany as it leads to smaller encirclements with more escapes.

So at the end of 1941, the extent of German conquest is similar to OTL, but they have taken more casualties (maybe a 5 percent or so higher) and lost more equipment.

I guess the question is how much could an unpurged Red Army stall Barbarossa.

Is it at all possible for the initial offensive to end in a stalemate before Stalingrad is even reached?

 

[CaptainCalvert]

I guess the question is how much could an unpurged Red Army stall Barbarossa.

Is it at all possible for the initial offensive to end in a stalemate before Stalingrad is even reached?

I'm thinking 1941 will still look like an immense success to the German leadership, so they will more than likely try something like OTL plans for 1942. With fewer resources and tougher opposition, I'd think a more patchy (and more expensive) success than OTL. Stalingrad's strategic importance remains unchanged, so maybe the German army arrives a couple of weeks later and has a harder fight from the start. I suspect we'd still see 6th Army getting cut off, but with less of Stalingrad taken before it all goes horribly wrong.

Even so, I'd be surprised if there was a really big change from OTL until 1943 because logistics will still have a big influence on both sides' ability to prepare, attack and resupply and the soviet numbers will still take time to wear down the Germans. However, by 1943 the combination of higher German losses and better Soviet numbers and quality will likely result in a general soviet dominance - so militarily more like 1944 than OTL 1943 but with territory not much different overall.

 

[regnak]

Even as badly hurt as they were by the purges the Red Army could have destroyed AGC if Stalin had not gotten cocky and ordered a broader counteroffensive. Without the purges AGC is destroyed in 1941. The war ends at least a year early with far less damage to the USSR.

 

[dunHozzie]

The first days after the start of the war going different would have made a huge difference already e.g. If Stalin didnt freeze his troops. Let alone having people that actually have trained with their equipment and the deep operations tactics. If you add an airforce that isn't destroyed on the ground then you'd have a 1941 that won't get past Latvia, nor the Bug. If you also avoid the 1937 reinstatement of the Commissar... well... it would be unrecognisable. Added bonus: a lot of Soviet factories are now close to the front line without running the risk of destruction by anything other then air. Plus we don't have to train a complete army twice.

So while the Germans and their allies still outnumbered the forces of the USSR, given that it wasn't 3:1 or more as is often quoted as necessary I'd say the Nazis would highmark at the Bug, the Pripet Marshes and the Western Dvina.

It also will not incite as many Soviet citizens to join/be forced to join the Germans as Cossacks, Hiwi's and/or servants, which will have massive implications for them to sustain their war and industrial machines.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

If Hitler wants a war, he'll find an excuse, so it's a reasonable assumption that some form of Barbarossa will occur.

More numerous competent officers will not stop Barbarossa in its tracks but would likely slow progress a little and increase the German cost. That's bad for Germany as it leads to smaller encirclements with more escapes.

So at the end of 1941, the extent of German conquest is similar to OTL, but they have taken more casualties (maybe a 5 percent or so higher) and lost more equipment. Which doesn't sound too much but these losses will be concentrated in the mobile spearheads (panzer and motorised).

The Soviets will not only have a few hundred thousand extra troops that either never got encircled or escaped, but they will have a lot more officers available to train and lead newly formed units, so the quality of new units in 1942 will be much higher than OTL, but also, with an extra few hundred thousand troops available, the newer units can be trained for longer before being put into combat.

What does this mean for 1942? The quality difference will be smaller than OTL, and the numerical advantage will favour the soviets even more. The loss of equipment in the mobile units will slow the Germans. More than likely they'll still try something like OTL but from a worse position, with inferior resources and against stronger opposition.

I doubt the Germans would conquer as much as OTL, the Soviets would, as you said, have much less encirclements and losses meaning that they will have an easier time blocking the Germans, also Finland is not on Germany's side which means extra troops to halt the Germans.

Even as badly hurt as they were by the purges the Red Army could have destroyed AGC if Stalin had not gotten cocky and ordered a broader counteroffensive. Without the purges AGC is destroyed in 1941. The war ends at least a year early with far less damage to the USSR.

AGC?

 

[regnak]

Army Group Center

 

[LeonardWood6]

Well, I think even without the Great Purge, Germany would've gained around the same amount of territory as IRL.

The Wehrmacht had some advantages over the Red Army. And these advantages wouldn't go away simply because Stalin is a bit sane and doesn't kill everyone competent.

First was combat experience. The Wehrmacht that launched Barbarossa was a LOT more effective than that of the 1st September 1939. They had a very effective method for incorporating operational experience and had learned an enormous amount in their campaigns in Poland, France, the Balkans and North Africa.

They also had better communication. To fight well, you need the ability to coordinate your forces. The Wehrmacht had more and better radios and thanks to its operational experience a much better idea of how to use them than the Red Army.

The Germans also had air power. Even if we say that the VVS is not purged, they'd still have a hard time against the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe is a better trained and better equipped force, that is also battle hardened and experienced.

However, will the Germans suffer a lot more casualties? Oh 100% yes. And will the Red Army get almost entirely destroyed in 1941 and be forced to rebuild in 1942? Absolutely not. There will be smaller encirclements and more escapes if there are ones. More casualties means that the Germans run out of steam faster, and they have much less manpower to send elsewhere, which causes butterflies which could change the war. Like, perhaps fewer troops in North Africa, leading to a faster defeat? Or an earlier D-Day? Possibilities are endless.

 

[Cymraeg]

I know that it's unlikely that Mikhail Tukhachevsky could have survived to 1941 (Stalin never forgave him for daring to point out that it was Stalin's screwups in Poland in the Soviet-Polish war that led to disaster at the Battle of Warsaw) but it would have been fascinating to see a Red Army commanded by him, with operational freedom, meet the Heer head-on in 1941.

 

[Crueldwarf]

Basically, the answer is simple. Purges were entirely incidental to the outcome of Barbarossa. They barely affected it because the issues that the Red Army had and which were defining the performance difference between the Red Army and the Wermacht were not caused by the Great Purge.

The first days after the start of the war going different would have made a huge difference already e.g. If Stalin didnt freeze his troops. Let alone having people that actually have trained with their equipment and the deep operations tactics. If you add an airforce that isn't destroyed on the ground then you'd have a 1941 that won't get past Latvia, nor the Bug. If you also avoid the 1937 reinstatement of the Commissar... well... it would be unrecognisable.

Let's use this post (which is collection of classical misunderstandings about Barbarossa) as an example:

Firstly, Stalin didn't 'freeze' his troops. Neither before, nor immediately after the invasion. The stance was entirely pro-active with only reasonable set of limitations: do not open fire first and do not cross the border first. It is not 'freezing', it is entirely reasonable approach to avoid provocations that could lead to a fight that you really want to avoid.

Secondly, the lack of Purges will not change the training situation in the slightest. Because the whole military will still expand in size by a factor of five in less than five years. Even if there was some prior higher training standard before the Purges (but there was no such standard), it will be still diluted in the same way because you simply cannot train that many men that fast.

Thirdly, Purges or lack of them will have quite literally zero effect on the availability of airfields in the Western military districts nor it should change the modernization schedule of the the Air Force. So you will still have the same amount of units with double allocation of equipment (old and new) on the same limited sets of airfields.

Fourthly, Red Army of first half of 1941 was under unitary command. Commissars had no power over military decisions. So 1937 decisions are quite literally irrelevant in that regard. Dual command system will only be re-introduced after Germany invades and Red Army suffer its first sets of defeats. And what can be surprising for a lot of people: it probably did more good than harm in the end. Because competence differential between commissars and field commanders was not obvious and often was skewed in the other direction.

 

[Band in China]

Fourthly, Red Army of first half of 1941 was under unitary command. Commissars had no power over military decisions. So 1937 decisions are quite literally irrelevant in that regard. Dual command system will only be re-introduced after Germany invades and Red Army suffer its first sets of defeats. And what can be surprising for a lot of people: it probably did more good than harm in the end. Because competence differential between commissars and field commanders was not obvious and often was skewed in the other direction.

Unity of command is a fundamental principle of warfare, reintroducing a dual command system is dumb regardless of the competence. Local initative was a key strength of the Whermacht, something suppressed when Soviet commanders are too afraid to disagree on pain of death to their families.

That bring said, it's not directly related to the purge outside of the precedence and culture it has set

 

[regnak]

Basically, the answer is simple. Purges were entirely incidental to the outcome of Barbarossa. They barely affected it because the issues that the Red Army had and which were defining the performance difference between the Red Army and the Wermacht were not caused by the Great Purge.


Let's use this post (which is collection of classical misunderstandings about Barbarossa) as an example:

Firstly, Stalin didn't 'freeze' his troops. Neither before, nor immediately after the invasion. The stance was entirely pro-active with only reasonable set of limitations: do not open fire first and do not cross the border first. It is not 'freezing', it is entirely reasonable approach to avoid provocations that could lead to a fight that you really want to avoid.

Secondly, the lack of Purges will not change the training situation in the slightest. Because the whole military will still expand in size by a factor of five in less than five years. Even if there was some prior higher training standard before the Purges (but there was no such standard), it will be still diluted in the same way because you simply cannot train that many men that fast.

Thirdly, Purges or lack of them will have quite literally zero effect on the availability of airfields in the Western military districts nor it should change the modernization schedule of the the Air Force. So you will still have the same amount of units with double allocation of equipment (old and new) on the same limited sets of airfields.

Fourthly, Red Army of first half of 1941 was under unitary command. Commissars had no power over military decisions. So 1937 decisions are quite literally irrelevant in that regard. Dual command system will only be re-introduced after Germany invades and Red Army suffer its first sets of defeats. And what can be surprising for a lot of people: it probably did more good than harm in the end. Because competence differential between commissars and field commanders was not obvious and often was skewed in the other direction.

The new officers were way out of their depth. One example from When Titans Clashed was that they did not choose the best terrain to set up defensive positions. Many officers were too green to know how so just looked in field manuals. Lack of such basic knowledge is only the beginning of the problems they had.

 

[dunHozzie]

Basically, the answer is simple. Purges were entirely incidental to the outcome of Barbarossa. They barely affected it because the issues that the Red Army had and which were defining the performance difference between the Red Army and the Wermacht were not caused by the Great Purge.


Let's use this post (which is collection of classical misunderstandings about Barbarossa) as an example:

Interesting, where can I read more? Because as you say, those are quite common understandings (which doesn't mean they are right or wrong of itself).

Firstly, Stalin didn't 'freeze' his troops. Neither before, nor immediately after the invasion. The stance was entirely pro-active with only reasonable set of limitations: do not open fire first and do not cross the border first. It is not 'freezing', it is entirely reasonable approach to avoid provocations that could lead to a fight that you really want to avoid.

If it was only that, sure. However in my apparently flawed understanding I was also talking about the confused mess he left behind by disappearing for a time and the total freeze of local initiative because of the mental impact of the purges.

Secondly, the lack of Purges will not change the training situation in the slightest. Because the whole military will still expand in size by a factor of five in less than five years. Even if there was some prior higher training standard before the Purges (but there was no such standard), it will be still diluted in the same way because you simply cannot train that many men that fast.

So according to the flawed source Wiki, between 3.7 - 7.7% of the Red Army was purged. With about 30% of that later being allowed to return. That is still a huge number, plus a relative high number were at the top. Sure it's no replacement for proper training, but having those people there means others can learn from them and additionally, it will also mean not about one in twelve people you know will have been purged (again the mental aspect).

Thirdly, Purges or lack of them will have quite literally zero effect on the availability of airfields in the Western military districts nor it should change the modernization schedule of the the Air Force. So you will still have the same amount of units with double allocation of equipment (old and new) on the same limited sets of airfields.

It doesn't, nor does it necesasarily impact the availability of spare parts (both for land and air force) directly. But it might have more experienced people setting up more patrols, less production outage because key people were purged, more support & moral of the people because between the famines and this I'm pretty sure the effect was massive on the willingness to see the Nazis as a better alternative

Fourthly, Red Army of first half of 1941 was under unitary command. Commissars had no power over military decisions. So 1937 decisions are quite literally irrelevant in that regard. Dual command system will only be re-introduced after Germany invades and Red Army suffer its first sets of defeats. And what can be surprising for a lot of people: it probably did more good than harm in the end. Because competence differential between commissars and field commanders was not obvious and often was skewed in the other direction.

Ehh OK, it's wiki again but:

On 10 May 1937, the role of political commissar was reinstated in the Red Army, and Military Councils were set up. These derived from the political purges in the Soviet armed forces. Again, in August 1940, the office of political commissars was abolished, yet the Military Councils continued throughout the German-Soviet War (1941–1945), and after. Below army level, the edinonachalie (single-command) system was restored. In July 1941, consequent to the Red Army's defeats at the war's start, the position of political commissar reappeared. The commissars had an influential role as "second commanders" within the military units during this time. Their rank and insignia generally paralleled those of officers. Because this proved ineffective, General Konev asked Stalin to subordinate the political officer to commanding officers: the commissars' work was re-focused to morale-related functions.

If that is true, it's plenty of time to disrupt things.

I lead teams myself, all this mess has a huge impact on effectiveness.

 

[RedSword12]

The first days after the start of the war going different would have made a huge difference already e.g. If Stalin didnt freeze his troops. Let alone having people that actually have trained with their equipment and the deep operations tactics. If you add an airforce that isn't destroyed on the ground then you'd have a 1941 that won't get past Latvia, nor the Bug. If you also avoid the 1937 reinstatement of the Commissar... well... it would be unrecognisable. Added bonus: a lot of Soviet factories are now close to the front line without running the risk of destruction by anything other then air. Plus we don't have to train a complete army twice.

So while the Germans and their allies still outnumbered the forces of the USSR, given that it wasn't 3:1 or more as is often quoted as necessary I'd say the Nazis would highmark at the Bug, the Pripet Marshes and the Western Dvina.

It also will not incite as many Soviet citizens to join/be forced to join the Germans as Cossacks, Hiwi's and/or servants, which will have massive implications for them to sustain their war and industrial machines.

Nah. The Red Army suffered as it did because of fundamental problems across the board most of which had been there from the start, even before the Great Purge. And many officers who were purged weren't necessarily that competent.

Even as badly hurt as they were by the purges the Red Army could have destroyed AGC if Stalin had not gotten cocky and ordered a broader counteroffensive. Without the purges AGC is destroyed in 1941. The war ends at least a year early with far less damage to the USSR.

Army Group Center survived because the Red Army as a whole was still learning, and what was left of the German Army was still very capable of defending itself. Stavka was still too optimistic, and this wasn't just Stalin. Overoptimism was still a major problem in Soviet command, even among the more capable generals. It's worth noting the dismal failure of Operation Mars, and that had been planned by Soviet commanders generally regarded as the competent ones... Or take, for example, the Second Battle of Kharkov, where significantly degraded German forces outnumbered more than two to one easily defeated an overconfident Soviet assault, inflicting almost 300,000 losses. The Soviet leadership in this case, again, were competent soldiers. The problems of incompetence, overoptimism, and political control were rooted in the Red Army as an institution, and removing the Great Purge does not take these things away.

I know that it's unlikely that Mikhail Tukhachevsky could have survived to 1941 (Stalin never forgave him for daring to point out that it was Stalin's screwups in Poland in the Soviet-Polish war that led to disaster at the Battle of Warsaw) but it would have been fascinating to see a Red Army commanded by him, with operational freedom, meet the Heer head-on in 1941.

That's a fantasy. Military autonomy was a toxic idea in the anti-Bonapartist climate of that time's USSR. Civilian leadership, namely the Party, would always have the last word. And why would Stalin trust the Red Army more for containing more of his perceived adversaries?

However, will the Germans suffer a lot more casualties? Oh 100% yes. And will the Red Army get almost entirely destroyed in 1941 and be forced to rebuild in 1942? Absolutely not. There will be smaller encirclements and more escapes if there are ones. More casualties means that the Germans run out of steam faster, and they have much less manpower to send elsewhere, which causes butterflies which could change the war. Like, perhaps fewer troops in North Africa, leading to a faster defeat? Or an earlier D-Day? Possibilities are endless.

I find it highly unlikely that Stalin would permit retreats in time. Mind you, Mikhail Kirponos, a very capable and well-regarded leader entrusted with command of the best Red Army formations, was not given permission to extricate himself until his forces were destroyed in the biggest encirclement of the war.

 

[Crueldwarf]

Unity of command is a fundamental principle of warfare, reintroducing a dual command system is dumb regardless of the competence. Local initative was a key strength of the Whermacht, something suppressed when Soviet commanders are too afraid to disagree on pain of death to their families.

It is again something of a centerpiece of mythology about Red Army. Soviet commanders had plenty of local initiative and freedom and they were rather fond of utilizing it for good and ill. Which was entire purpose behind system of the commissars - to keep that initiative in check. Not that it helped much. It required truly monumental achievement (in a very negative meaning of the word) for a Soviet commander to get before a firing squad.

The new officers were way out of their depth. One example from When Titans Clashed was that they did not choose the best terrain to set up defensive positions. Many officers were too green to know how so just looked in field manuals. Lack of such basic knowledge is only the beginning of the problems they had.

Purges were essentially random. They weren't performed on the criteria of experience or competence. And of course the elephant in the room here is that old crop of commanders was in no way more experienced or practiced than a new one. Red Army never fought a real war through its entire existence prior to WW2. Civil War was a giant skirmish in comparison that did preciously little to prepare Red Army leadership to a truly industrial scale of warfare. Which is aptly demonstrated by very varied performance of officer cadre with Civil War experience that do not indicate that older generation of the officers were on average anymore competent than a new one. Arguably, it is the opposite. A new younger generation had less trouble with adapting and accumulating actual experience.

If it was only that, sure. However in my apparently flawed understanding I was also talking about the confused mess he left behind by disappearing for a time and the total freeze of local initiative because of the mental impact of the purges.

Stalin didn't disappear anywhere. He continued to work through the first week on the invasion without leave. He indeed left the Kremlin during June 29 and didn't come back until late June 30, but people were aware where he was and were meeting with him in his country home. And I seriously doubt that you can really blame the guy for trying to manage his workload under such conditions.

And of course there was no 'freeze' of local initiative of any kind. Orders were given and were executed with a lot of flexibility of interpretation by front and below level of command. That flexibility bitten some of them in the ass later. The problem was not in Stalin's giving or not giving orders. Problem was that Soviet pre-war preparations were entirely inadequate against the scale and rapidness of German attack. So command structure began to unravel very quickly and ability of Stalin to influence any of that (for good or ill) was minimal.

So according to the flawed source Wiki, between 3.7 - 7.7% of the Red Army was purged. With about 30% of that later being allowed to return. That is still a huge number, plus a relative high number were at the top. Sure it's no replacement for proper training, but having those people there means others can learn from them and additionally, it will also mean not about one in twelve people you know will have been purged (again the mental aspect).

By June 1941 the Red Army was short for about one hundred thousand officers of the rank of Junior Lieutenant and higher. Just to fill out their existing organizational structure for the wartime order of battle. The Purges did have an effect on that number but it was not significant and was mostly in the disruption of the training process during and after the Purges that costed the Soviets maybe several thousand of young officers who were unable to go through their training in that period.

Effect on the higher level is even less clear. Not only because purged crop of high officers had very variable track record in terms of their ability. but simply because of the sheer scale of Red Army expansion. Most of them were already way over-promoted for their level of practical experience in command they had. Expansion in number of divisional, corps and army level commands in 1939-41 simply drowned out the losses of the officers of that rank to the Purges.

Purges or not, you will still have people who were captains or even lieutenants two years ago commanding divisions in 1941. There was no avoiding that.

But it might have more experienced people setting up more patrols, less production outage because key people were purged, more support & moral of the people because between the famines and this I'm pretty sure the effect was massive on the willingness to see the Nazis as a better alternative

These people already had all their orders to disperse the aircraft, to camouflage the airfields and so on. In fact such orders were given on the regular basis for two years by the time of German invasion. Degree of compliance to these orders was let's say again very varied. Which was obviously (it is sarcasm) demonstrated how well cowed into submission the Red Army was. Or maybe it is just a demonstration of how short on everything these people were and that higher echelons of leadership understood that and so didn't try to force the issue.

As for willingness to resist the Nazis. There is a neat fact: Soviet resistance was the strongest in the June-August period of 1941 when no one really had a clue about Nazi intentions. It is during the autumn when things became much more clear when Soviet resistance began to falter and overall performance decreased. Basically, the Germans were lost more men in July 1941 than they lost in any other month of the war (against Soviets or anyone else) before final months of Stalingrad.

So the theory that Purges somehow affected willingness of the Soviet military to fight the Nazis is not supported by anything solid really. By all the metrics Soviets were fighting the hardest when they should be at their weakest according to that theory.

If that is true, it's plenty of time to disrupt things.

But again, it had preciously little to do with immediate Soviet response to Barbarossa. Red Army was under unitary command during that time.

 

[dunHozzie]

But again, it had preciously little to do with immediate Soviet response to Barbarossa. Red Army was under unitary command during that time.

I can be swayed to research a lot of your arguments, because they sound sensible. This however I disagree with a lot. Even if they got to the unitary command by that time, the impact of these changes back and forth will have had a big impact on the whole organisation. I've seen it time and time again the the many reorganisations I was part of through the years, the effects linger for years. Especially with relatively untrained staff (to your other points, which again sound logical). Sure stability won't be a magical ASB level fix, but especially with all the other changes around it this would have a noticeable impact.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

I might be in the minority here but I do wonder if, without The Great Purge and the downright terror in the command structure it created, if the Red Army would've actually cracked under the insane military gains made at the outset of Barbarossa. I mean cracked in the sense of causing enough riffs where low to mid level commanders (the ones that served in the Russian civil war) felt empowered to disobey orders from Moscow. What effect that would have is interesting to postulate, but likely a better outcome for the Soviets if it did not result in a wartime coup against the Politburo

 

[ivanotter]

Maybe the pre-purge generals would have been too steeped in 'old' doctrines?

The new breed of communist generals might just have had a better handle on the new way of doing a war.

if we look at the absolute heroes of USSR generals, the best part were not of military upbringing. Most born to peasant families.

Zhukov, Chuikov, Tolbukhin, Konev, Rokossovsky etc are good examples.

Maybe Zhukov understood one simple thing: it was all about raw material. And one thing USSR had plenty of were humans.
... and the above generals got results. Wonder how well a more traditional pre-purge general would have done things?

 

[Crueldwarf]

... and the above generals got results. Wonder how well a more traditional pre-purge general would have done things?

Pre-Purge generals for the most part were of the same breed (so to speak) as the post-Purge ones. As I said previously, Purges were essentially random as they propagated around personal connections of people with very little dependence on their backgrounds, biographies and competencies. So proletarian Civil War hero was about the same chance to be offed in the basement as a former Tsarist officer who switched sides in time.

I disagree with a lot. Even if they got to the unitary command by that time, the impact of these changes back and forth will have had a big impact on the whole organisation.

Yet again, this thing about commissars and dual command system is mostly fictional and based around fairy tales essentially. Practically, it never actually mattered much even when commissars had the formal authority to override command decisions. Simply because it rarely ever happened. This thing from the popular imagination of commissar screaming at the officer in charge and threatening him with a handgun to force some alternative decision or order is mostly fictional thing.

Wartime documents mostly show that commissars during the war functioned as second in command and mostly took over if the formal commander was killed or incapacitated. And when you actually encounter episodes like described above it is higher-ranking officer threatening lower-ranking officer simply because these people almost always had the practical authority and weight of the system behind them while commissars rarely had that as they were outsiders and had very limited resources under their direct control. Remember, vast majority of commissars and political officers never had even a single NKVD goon (or anything like that) with them. Every single armed person around them was military and so they have very limited ability of being unreasonable in field conditions even if they wanted to because if they forced a conflict with the commanding officer of the unit they would loose it immediately if this commander had any authority and respect of the men under his command. And if commanding officer had neither authority nor respect, then it is exactly why commissars existed in the first place, no?

Basically it is extension of myth about barrier troops and what they were actually doing. 'Enemy of the Gates' famous scene most likely never happened at any point in the war because shooting your own troops that way was suicidal for people involved on multiple levels.