Mangudai Ah, well, Europe will become a very dangerous place very soon, but I will not tell you any more. And I was wondering how said shithole got its name.
Feburary 1936 saw massive military movements all over the western Soviet Union. The first and second Echolons of the Red Army's Western Military District were moving up into their initial positions on the Polish border. Stalin ordered the Red Army to be ready for War within the next 4 months. Tuchajevskij was privately doubting the Red Armys ability to be ready for war within the next year, let alone four months. He made the mistake of mentoining this to Stalin. Stalin did not say anything at that moment, but Tuchajevskij was not exactly surprised when several men from the NKVD knocked on his door on March 2nd.
The officers purge beheaded the Red Army at a critical moment. The 'dissapearance' of the higher Officer Corps led to the undue promotion of many junior officers that were simply unable to fulfill their duties in the manner required. However many good Officers like G.K. Zhukov and Koniev were spared, partly because they keot their mouths shut, partly because Stalin forgot or ignored them. This would later come back to haunt the dictator, but for the moment he was content that he had sucessfully cleansed the Red Army of Trotzkist elemnts. He therfore concentrated on the preparations for war. The Red Army, Air Force and Navy were woefully outdated when compared with western Armys, despite their nominal size. The Red Fleet was in the worst shape. The Black Sea Squadron, which was boxed in by the turkish could be ignored, the Battlehip Pariskaija Lommuna albeit overaged could handle everything in the Black Sea anyways.
The Baltic Fleet was a different matter. Here the Battleships would face several reasonably large Navies, and maybe even the new Bismarck Class BB's the Germans were working on. Stalin however was no friend of the Navy, and therefore concentrated on the Army and the Air Force. (AN: I will build a Navy, but only after certain techs have been researched, and that is still a bit off.)
The Red Army was currently phasing out Great War eara equipment, replacing it with newer Armaments.
The Red Air Force, which had been yearning for modern Planes recieved the I-16 as a stopgap measure until more modern planes became avaible.
The Soviet Union was obviously gearing up for war. The World, knowing that something was brewing knew that but could not do anything without war, and no one wanted to challenge the Soviet Juggernaut just yet. In late may STAVKA announced to Stalin that both echolons were in place, strung out between the Latvian border in the north and the Black Sea in the south. That the Red Army had almost no avaiable reserves and that the front would be uncomfortably thin at some points concerned many in STAVKA, but no one had the courage to tell Stalin, as Tuchajevskijs fate was still fresh in the minds.
STAVKA also realized that this plan was ambitious at least, but once again no one dared to cross Stalin in any way. Meanwhile the dissident faction in the Red Army that had suffered in the Purge but was still functioning with such officers like Zhukov and Blücher in it was growing more and more discontent, but for the moment did not dare to take action as a majority of the officers still stood behind the man in the Kremlin. So the opposition met and decided to stay in the background for the time beeing.
Meanwhile Stalin was fishing for an acceptable Casus Belli, and in June 1936 he had found one by claming Bessarabia and other Romanian territories that that country had seized after the Great War. The Romanians, bolstered by their alliance with Poland and at least Moral support from the west refused.