Bolshevik love of novelty, eagerness to experiment and try new things (they invented parachute troops), their willingness to discard traditional methods, and their liking for youthful leadership all were advantages. The Red Army apparently was the only one to learn from the lessons of the German campaign in Poland--which were open for the instruction of the French, British, Dutch, Belgians, and every other country in Europe, but were ignored by all of them. Stalin’s purge of the Red Army wherein he executed or otherwise eliminated one-fourth of the senior officers was believed at the time to have done unmitigated harm, but besides the probability that it disposed of some real Fifth Columnists, it destroyed nearly all the older generals, and left the field for men under fifty. Voroshiloff and Budenny were vestigial exceptions. In this day of brand-new warfare youth has an advantage. We have to include here also the fact that the Russian is an excellent pilot. He has reckless courage, keen eyesight, abounding health, contempt for the enemy, and fanatical belief in his cause. The Russians have a word they like to apply to themselves, _Shirokaya Natura_, meaning broad-natured, lavish-tempered. That is a characteristic of all the good pilots I have ever known. It means they are ready to spend themselves, their lives, as readily as they spend their money. The R.A.F. has it, Udet has it, Goering has it, the American and Canadian pilots have it, and the Russians have it. I dare say Lindbergh must have had it once. There are millions of boys in Russia of pilot age. The fourth set of reasons for Russian resistance is based upon the immense benefit the Red Army won through the occupation of the Finnish Mannerheim line, the Baltic states, Eastern Poland, and Bessarabia during the time Hitler was busy conquering the rest of Europe. This action of Stalin’s was typical of the principle that the end justifies the means. If you believed in this principle and in the righteousness of the Soviet cause, you would now have to admit that the end did justify the means in this case, since the creation of this screen of territory enabled the Red Army to defeat the Blitz. The term Blitzkrieg, frequently misused, technically means the destruction of your enemy by action so swift that he is not able to mobilize, or bring up his forces to meet yours at the decisive point. The screen of occupied territory slowed up the Germans long enough for the Red Army to mobilize fully. Thereafter the great distances, the bad roads, the unfavorable weather, and the scorched-earth policy impeded the German advance, while Russian guerilla warfare proved more effective than anything of the kind the Germans had ever met.