Stalin perged the army, leaving it with poor leadership.
Probably a good thing long term, it meant soviet government and armed forces would stay more stable going forward. The motive was centralization of the command structure. And it needed unity in the face of the German attack. The reorganization did come at a bad time, messing with the Finnish campaign but it was won regardless.
Hence Russia was severely out performed in terms of tactics and strategy in comparison with German military.
So were France/Britain...
NOBODY knew how to deal with Blitzkrieg at the outset of the war. By 1942-43 it was over for German tactics, soviets had adapted. They were the first to adapt on an operational scale and Barbarossa is precisely where blitzkrieg was made obsolete. Since France, Germans relied on splitting their main offensive force, punching through the front line with an armoured spearhead while going around the two flanks to hit from behind. The soviets would employ mobile defense in depth, simply moving their front line back as their flanks converged on the spearhead, and destroy it from two sides as it advanced against an ever retreating defensive line. Then they would turn to face the flanking portions of the German offensive which were comprised of much lighter armour and infantry not capable of penetrating their lines and thus attrition ensued, tying up axis manpower and equipment.
Stalin put forth crazy Communist reforms prior to the war, messing up the economy. Industrialization was happening in Russia at earnest prior to Communist arrival. In my view communist only hampered industrialization instead of letting it develop like it should have had.
The command economy saved the soviet union, it made mass production of war materiel possible in times of economic devastation wrought by Barbarossa. It allowed factories to be moved and reassembled overnight.
Prior to Barbarossa Stalin religiously refused to mobilized the military, even though there had been credible information that invasion is forth coming.
Prior to the German invasion Soviet forces were stationed in an offensive posture-preparing for an eventual invasion of Germany, i.e they were in the process of mobilizing for an offensive. Which contributed to them being overrun-they were caught with their pants down as they lacked defensive fortifications or fortifications to fall back to-they never intended to be on the defensive so soon if at all.
Hitler on the other hand made blunders of starting Barbarossa to late. Then diverging troops to Caucasus campaign
Axis threw everything it had available at the height of Barbarossa at Moscow-and failed. This is where Blitzkrieg shifted into a war of attrition, something Germany could not win.
The priority then changed to securing oil to keep the panzer divisions alive, so the effort shifted south-east. Moscow would have made an operationally useless prize. Russians would have just burned it down before giving it up like they did when nappy showed up for his ill fated visit.