When and Why Do Autocrats Purge Militaries?

Some purges of the military take place within a more general crackdown against political and other elites, as in Stalinist Russia during the Great Terror, or Xi Jinping’s current shakeups of the PLA under the guise of anti-corruption campaigns. Others prepare large-scale mobilizations, as when Adolf Hitler purged the German armed forces a year before the invasion of Poland, or they come before an escalation of an ongoing conflict, as in Stalin’s 1941 purges.

When an established leader feels vulnerable, he might purge the military as part of “coup-proofing.” Officials can become scapegoats for a war going badly, as with Vladimir Putin’s 2024 purges of senior defense officials. Sometimes leaders can micro-manage military policy (as Putin has done intermittently since the start of the war), and this is a sign of weakness and insecurity.