Plans VS Mistakes

It is undeniable that the modern world is shaped by past events, events that are often the result of the actions of a few significant figures. These figures range from explorers like Christopher Columbus to scientists like Isaac Newton and philosophers like John Locke, but the ones who have most profoundly influenced the modern world are political leaders, and they are often the most powerful. The actions and consequences of political leaders have been a major topic of discussion among historians: a particularly intriguing debate is whether the plans or the mistakes of the powerful have had greater impacts on the world. The answer is not so simple—plans and mistakes are impossible to completely separate as plans lead to mistakes, and mistakes lead to plans. Nevertheless, while the plans of the powerful often are the basis of historical events, it is the consequential mistakes they catalyze that leave an indelible impact on the course of history and the lives of individuals.

In order to better understand the argument, we must first answer the question: what makes an event or decision impactful? These events or decisions should cause a significant disruption in the political or economic landscape of a country or region, and they should also be remembered to this day as significant historical events. In this essay, I will analyze three case studies of historically significant political decisions: Stalin’s implementation of Five-Year Plans and political purges, Hitler’s decision to attack the Soviet Union, and the Bay of Pigs invasion. Assessing these events reveals that the mistakes of the powerful are more significant in history than their intended plans.

The Eastern Front during the Second World War serves as a compelling case study of how the mistakes of the powerful play a pivotal role in shaping the progress of warfare. Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Stalin’s two Five-Year Plans and his series of political purges significantly weakened the integrity of the Soviet Union. The Five Year Plans were economic initiatives to rapidly industrialize the USSR. Though the Five-Year Plan allowed the Soviet Union to keep up with the Western world by boosting its industrial production capacity, this increase in production came at the cost of the lives of millions. The collectivization of agriculture drastically decreased the food supply, starving millions, while Stalin’s crackdown on wealthy peasants—known as kulaks—led to as many as five million “disappearances” (“Revelations from the Russian Archives”).

In the dawn of the Second World War, a war in which armor and mechanized divisions were increasingly important on the battleground, Stalin’s political purges proved disastrous. They were detrimental to the military branch of the Soviet Union both in terms of administration and technological development. In Robert Forczyk’s detailed analysis of the early stages of the Eastern Front, he portrays in convincing detail the damages Stalin’s purges had on the administration of the Soviet military, with experienced officers being sent away and replaced by less experienced but more politically favorable alternatives (51). This resulted in cases where artillery commanders were put in positions to command mechanized units, which led to significant initial losses on the Soviet side. “Although the subsequent Stalinist purges of the Red Army are often cited as weakening the leadership cadre of the armed forces,” Forczyk notes, “it is less often noted that the purges specifically targeted the new mechanized units and the tank design bureau that supported them” (28). This resulted in issues in army development, in the allocation of resources, and in the production of new, quality mechanized units. A particularly illuminating example of Soviet mismanagement is how, despite being superior to German panzers on paper, new Soviet mechanized units often broke down due to their rushed production and poor quality. Forczyk also mentions how “[t]he purges continued from 1937 and extended for four years and continued even after the onset of Operation Barbarossa,” which signals Stalin’s detachment from his administration and his incompetence in dealing with such affairs (29).

Hitler was aware of Stalin’s weakened internal system, and he took advantage of it. Operation Barbarossa was the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in mid 1941 with the aim to sabotage the Soviet army and military capacity. Hitler’s victories in France and Poland were successful through his employment of blitzkrieg tactics, a method that was effectively able to “defeat… opponents in a series of short campaigns,” which became a widely feared style of warfare (“Blitzkrieg-Lightning War”). However, during Operation Barbarossa, Hitler underestimated the size of the Red Army, and his assumption that the campaign would be short and swift proved to be false. This mistake on Hitler’s part further proves that the mistakes of the powerful are more significant than the plans of the powerful. The distances that the Red Army was able to retreat to surprise the German high command, and the arrival of winter deteriorated German logistics and supply lines. Though the German army was able to capture large amounts of territory initially, it found it to be difficult to hold onto those territories as the operation transformed into a war of attrition that favored the defending Soviets.

Hitler and Stalin can both be considered as “powerful” figures, and their actions directly impacted the course and development of the war. Though Stalin’s plans laid the foundation for the Soviet Union’s prominent role in the 20th century, his mistakes became the defining characteristics of his regime. Those mistakes include both the poor administration that resulted in initial military defeats as well as the oppressive policies towards the Soviet population; Stalin holds responsibility for as many as 20 million deaths. Hitler’s underestimation of the size of the Red Army, his poor strategic planning, and his failure to consider various factors such as weather and logistics, meanwhile, gave the Soviets a chance to launch a counteroffensive that effectively pushed the Germans out of Soviet territory. As we can see, although Stalin and Hitler both proposed bold plans in response to their country’s political situation, it was the mistakes that sprouted from these plans that resulted in more profound impacts on the course of history.

Another case where the mistakes of the powerful leave a greater mark on history can be seen in John F. Kennedy’s ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion of Cuba in 1961. Kennedy’s goal was “the overthrow of (Fidel) Castro and the establishment of a non-communist government friendly to the United States” in Cuba (“Cuban Missile Crisis”). However, this invasion turned out to be a huge mistake as a result of “poor planning and execution by the CIA, which oversaw the operation,” as well as underestimation of “the strength of the Cuban military and the level of popular support for Fidel Castro's government” (Byrne). The small invasion force was quickly captured and defeated by Castro’s forces, humiliating the US internationally.

This embarrassment not only made the United States look bad in the public eye, but also undermined its position in the Cold War against the USSR. The Soviets deepened their alliance with Cuba, meaning that the Soviets could plant nuclear warheads closer to the United States’ border. The invasion also indirectly triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis the next year, which was “a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict” (U.S. Department of State). In the late 1950s, “Jupiters were deployed to Italy and Turkey as a forward strike capability” (“SM-78 Jupiter”), in an attempt to strengthen US forces around the USSR. After the Bay of Pigs invasion, in October of 1962, “an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba” (“Cuban Missile Crisis”), signaling the USSR’s involvement in Cuba after the failure of the JFK administration in controlling the region and threatening US mainland. This almost escalated to a full-blown nuclear war between the US and the USSR and was resolved through extensive and unnecessary effort from both sides.

If it was not for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis would not have occurred since Castro would not have been able to consolidate his power and support to the level he did after the backlash of the invasion. If the invasion were a success, then it could have removed Castro from power altogether, however, its impact wouldn’t be as well-known to the world since successes are often less pronounced in historical consciousness. Mistakes that almost lead to nuclear war, by contrast, tend to have a much deeper imprint on people’s memory. The Bay of Pigs invasion is thus another prime example of how the mistakes of the powerful are often more impactful than the original plans.

As the case studies demonstrate, the mistakes of the powerful become embedded in collective memory and historical consciousness. They often overshadow the significance of well-executed plans of those same powerful figures. If Stalin’s Five Year Plans and political purges had not weakened the country on the eve of the Nazi invasion, they would still be significant, yes, but also more forgettable. Likewise, if Operation Barbarossa were a success, it would only be known as one of many ‘good’ plans that allowed Germany to perform so well in the Second World War. Its failure made that one single mistake all the more memorable as it directly led to the downfall of Hitler and Germany. Finally, if the Bay of Pigs invasion were a success, it would only be known as one of the many victories that the United States had against the USSR during the Cold War that eventually led to the demise of communism. Therefore, we can conclude that the mistakes of the powerful are more likely to be impactful on the course of history.