Stalin's Aggressive Plan in 1941

Even without Hitler the Soviet Union was hardly surrounded by friends and allies, and that's without even considering Stalin's desire to increase the size of the Soviet Union.

 

If it had not been for Hitler, the relations between the two countries might have very well continued to be blossom just aso they historically had after the great war.

 

That's certainly possible but that doesn't mean the the Soviet Union lacked potential enemies. While it had been 20 or so years troops from Britain, France, USA, and Japan had taken action against Red forces during and after WWI. Being able to deter any future such actions and grab any apparently "low hanging fruit" (such as Finland) would be sufficient to jsutify a strong military.

 

To me the most critical and valid information comes from the Soviet archives.
One of the main reasons why I use Glantz on this forum is one out of practicality.


Hello, Sloniksp
Thank you very much for referense about David Glantz. I've never heard of him and I want to get my own opinion about him. So, I have ordered several of his books in an online book-store today. I completely agree that the best source of knowledge are archival documents. Memory and propaganda often spoil memoir books. Modern writers use archival documents, but often choose them so as to confirm their own and other people's (paid) opinion.
Therefore, the best source - are archives. I use the books "1941, Documents." These books were published by the International Foundation "Democracy" in 1998. In addition, many declassified archival documents are published in the journals "Military and historical life." And yet, many military archives is on the site www.bdsa.ru
Also I create my own database of military documents (orders, logs of hostilities, intelligence reports and ets.) in order to be able to quickly find information about events at a particular time and place. I think that it would spend on a few years for me.
So, about this topic: Did Stalin aggressive plans in 1941? " I want to clarify the next:
The most important military documents of any state are:
1. Mobilization plan. It specifies in detail how, when and what kind of people to call in the army, how many parts will be form, and so on. In general, this plan existed in the USSR in 1941. Beside it, in each military district were sent instructions to prepare their local, more accurate plans. Time frame of instructions were different for each military district, but they were all in the interval June - early July 1941. As a result of the mobilization of the Red Army would be count 8.7 million people.
2. Strategic deployment plan. It identifies the location of potential enemy forces, their possible actions and our actions. This plan for the Red Army also was. It has been changing rapidly because the political situation is also changing. Tthe last version of this plane I quoted above.
So, plans were. And differ from the plans, such as the USA against Mexico, was: this plan was executed. Troops began moving into those places, as indicated in the plan. The most controversial issue - whether the plan called "aggressive"? Because it was in response to the accumulation of the German troops.
Another words: If Hitler had not invaded Russia on June 22, then Stalin would attack Germany first?
Sorry, I do not like the alternative history and prefer to explore the facts, which were real. But the question I would answer this way:
On the one hand, judging by the preparations of the Soviet Union this would be done. At least, USSR included Finland, Bulgaria, access to the Black Sea straits in its sphere of interest. But these areas have joined the "Covenant of the three" That clash was inevitable. On the other hand, Stalin (although he was a strong dictator) understood that there may be a great losses.
So, I think that he would put off further entry of the USSR into the war, as far as possible, preferring to join it after Hitler weakened. Or to join it, not as an aggressor, but as a "liberator." That is, first is attacked. It sort of what happened, with the only difference: being that the attack had happened earlier than expected.

 

David Glantz was the US army's chief historian for years. He was paid to read and write about the patriotic war and he knows it down to battalion level. He is a member of the Russian acadamy of scientists and has been in the archives of the Soviet army.

 

*** Editted for the following ***
Fortuneatly this bit appears to be wrong: Unfortunately Glantz is no longer with us.
That will teach me to post from memory. My appologies to all.

His knowledge of the Soviet side of WWII was indeed impressive, what critism I have seen of his writings usually revolved around the claim that he didn't make enough use of German documents to get both sides of the story but the German side has always been more accessable to English speakers. I unfortunatly haven't read much by him except for The Bear Went Over the Mountain which is online and details the Soviet experiance in Afghanistan. It was definitly worth reading. Even many who critise his works also recomend them (i.e. the critisms on the level of "it could have been done a little better" rather than "it's badly flawed".

 

??

 

Could have sworn I read that he died not long ago but can't find anything on it so PLS excuse this erronious posting.

 

I have seen some times ago a picture from him, and it was the picture of a very sick man .

 

I must say though I too saw a recent picture of him and thought he looked sick. So I got scarred when I read your post. Glad you were mistaken!

It happens

Cheers.

 

Look, obviously the war in the east was a war of racial conquest AND the intent to seize important raw materials needed for the expansion of the reich. USSR was onsidered a threat, since bth they and Germany were lead by conflicting ideologies. One may even term this campaign as a "holy war" of sorts, since the propaganda made up the idea of defending western civilizatio , etc. True, commuism was a threat because of its rapid adoption throughout the 20s and 30s, but hitler saw the USSR as weak after their debacle with Finland in 1939-40. The germans felt there might not be another opportunity to remove the future threat from the east after Stalin's paralytic purges of his military commanders. Russia did not have a modern army at the start of barbarossa, but developed one rapidly due to the urgent circumstance and neccessity of war.

 

More often than not those soviet records were not accurate at all! Every level was giving false information to the next level and so on. This was done to give the "information" the subordinates supposed their superiors wanted to hear and/or to avoid responsibility of real/imagined mistakes/shortcomings. The main objectives of the official records were to please the bosses - not to give accurate information.

When reading soviet records one must always take into the account who has done the records, to whom, when and why. Two very good examples of "accurate soviet records" are official soviet casualties of the Winter War and soviet fighter pilots' "victory records". Both of these "accurate official records" have very little to do with the real world.

 

All countries had issues with pilot victory claims.

 

I think in WW2 you can cut all aerial victories by 1/3 – ½ toget more realistic figures.

Sorry, I know this is off topic, but that’s what happens when we are not allowed to talk about “Stalin’s Aggressive Plan”.

 

"Stalin's aggressive plans in 1941" only are the usual Suvurov BS,and talking about it only is a waste of time

 

You will be very hard pressed convincing us that the Soviet Archves are filled with a bunch of lies.

 

The Finnish AF victory claims seem to be quite well on par with the estimated soviet losses. This is mainly due to the fact, that the vast majority of the fights happened over the Finnish skies. The downed soviet aircraft could be checked. Also no claimes were accepted without an other witness.

In the Winter War Finnish official claim figures were 218 soviet planes shot down, 314 downed by anti-aircraft defence and 100 were estimated to have been destroyd on the ground - total 632.

Nowadays Russia estimates (Rodina 12/1995) to have lost 6 downed aircraft per day - total 630! Pretty close to the Finnish numbers one could say. And if the Russian numbers do not include the losses on the ground then the Finnish claims are too small!