I just watched a Soviet film called Gosudarstvennaya Granitsa (State Borders) which showed various events in the evolution of the Soviet Border Patrol, and in t

I just watched a Soviet film called Gosudarstvennaya Granitsa (State Borders) which showed various events in the evolution of the Soviet Border Patrol, and in the 5th film, about a few days around the invasion. In it they showed border guards doing a lot of dumb things including being woefully unprepared. So even the Soviets acknowledged that there was a lot of military incompetence around the German invasion. Later on, they got a lot more serious about competence in their military forces, and won the war while the victorious Germans, gloating about overcoming their enemy and having captured such an astounding amount of territory, let down their guard and paid the price.