Stalin's Aggressive Plan in 1941

A well thought out post Seymour.

If I may nit pick a little.

The Red Army had in fact build defenses in Russia but after invading Poland, tore the old ones down and began construction of new a defensive line in Poland. I have also read that a large number of "visible" troops can in itself be a deterrent, especially when speaking about an enemy who has made his future plans for invading a nation public. There are also numerous reports of no Russian reconnaissance on German territory for the specific reason of not aggravating Hitler. Virtually all of the information of German movement and plans came from spies and the Allies.


As for the supplies needed for an offensive war.....
The Red Army troops stationed near the border lacked virtually all which you posted above. Many soldiers had little rations, no or the wrong caliber ammunition and no training for a attack. This is especially true with many artillery regiments which simply lacked the ammunition needed...

 

Thanks for response!

Well, tore old defensive lines down, I would like to ask why? They may prove useful later, do not You think? I guess, it is always better to be in some kind of bunker or fortification than on bare ground when artillery fires at you. I agree, that visible troops can be deterrent itself but if you post your troops as deterrent at borders, it would mean you think that attack of potential aggressor is possible. How can you than be surprised when such attack take place? Also, troops as deterrent would hardly be your only defensive preparation. You would for example evacuate industrial facilities from endangered areas. I do not know that such action happened in USSR before 22 June 1941. Other point of view, troops positioned very close to borders - especially when it comes to tank divisions - can actually be considered as threat for the potential aggressor, so they may serve as pretext for "preventive" war (This is meant generally, I do not consider German attack on USSR as preventive..). That would be quite counterproductive, do not You think? About supplies, I agree, that troops in first line had no ammo, artillery batteries were also without ammo, AA units could not fire at reconnaissance aircrafts penetrating border, etc. I believe intention of Soviet High Command was to not give Germans any pretext for war. But this does not mean that those supplies were not present at front lines, they were just stored in warehouses and trains. How would You explain that Germans secured truly massive supplies of both oil and ammo after their invasion which is well documented in memoirs of German soldiers and commanders? If You have sources that deny this, I am always eager to learn more and change my point of view on any historical event.

And by the way, I doubt that information gained from Allies, especially from UK were used in Soviet military and political calculations. Reason is simple, UK was imperialistic country in war with Germany from Soviet point of view. The best for the UK would be Soviet-German war, so informations given by diplomats of UK were absolutely ignored by Soviets as a lies. TASS repeatedly stated their good relations with Germany and also tries of "villains" to poison this relationship with fabricated arguments about German preparations for war with USSR. Lastly it happened on 13 June 1941, if my memory server well. I will check out my books and edit it in the morning, if necessary.

Sorry for my bad English..

 

Yes, this has been disputed and discussed between many. Some argue that these defenses were not all complete. Why waiste time and money? Defenses on the now new frontier had to built, labor and priority now went there. Why keep them when new and stronger defenses can be built so far away from Russian soil and backed by a new military force? The fact that Stalin was naive did not help.

From what I remember, virtually European countries had troops at their borders (numbers varying of course). Also, Russia is huge and her landscape isnt exactly on par with European nations. Other than railroad transporting troops and epuipment would become problematic as Russia only had 30,000 miles of paved road. Placing troops at the new borders would alleviate this problem and also keep order in the newly aquired territories; Russia did after all have reinforcements.

As for moving entire factories and cities to the east; thats an advantage that us arm chair generals possess having the luxury of 20 20 hindsight. The priority however, was to quickly re-equip and re-arm the armies. Such an action would only delay this enormous ambition.

Yes it could be considered that, however, not all tanks were at the borders directly. Also Russia's number of tanks and their positions really hasnt changed much in a decade? And no war. These tanks were also absolete and thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the Germans new this. The most probable reason however, might perhaps be the simplest one? These tanks were just involved in a military acquisition and it was only natural for them to be there, right along their new partners across the border.

Agreed.

No need to change your view point. The Germans had in fact captured large quantities of supply dumps. Considering that Russia was not at war at the time of Barbarossa, whats the point of supplying everyone with weapons when new ones were in the works and when trying to prevent a pretex for war? Supply dumps are also just that, they hold supplies. Later on in the war when the tides had turned Russia too was able to capture numerous German supply dumps with her swift actions. Bagration rings a bell.

Agreed as well. The Russian people would have benefited greatly had Stalin taken the warnings seriously. Remember Sorge?

PSH! Your doing fine!

 

Just saw on telly tonight that england and france were planning to help finland when the soviets invaded but it ended before it could be organised.
Had they made it wwii could have been a 3 way war between russia v france and england v germany.

 

Well, I guess that all those plans for help to Finland from France and England were as virtual as help of USSR to Czechoslovakia during Munich crisis. Simple logistics makes such help almost unachievable in both cases. Only way to send troops and supplies to Finland was through Sweden which actually happened, but not more than a few hundred volunteers and some guns. And in Czechoslovakia, USSR units would have to go through Poland (very bad Soviet-Polish relations), or Romania (German ally, it was before M-R pact, so Germans would surely not allowed this.) and/or Hungary (bad Hungarian-Czechoslovakian relations).

To Sloniksp:

Defensive lines in Eastern Poland - To be honest, I actually never heard about any such line that would be build between 1939 and 1941, except for fortifications build directly at border line, but those are "we-are-preparing-for-defense-do-you-see-it-Dolfi?" type and are useless in actual war - Germans could easily read their firing perimeters before invasion and than make their way through without much harm. So my question, can you post me some kind of source where I could fill gaps in my knowledge?

Troops at border - Yes, that is right, many European countries had troops at borders. That also goes for my Czechoslovakia for example, our army was mobilized during Munich crisis and positioned in our line of heavy fortifications (Some speculations rose up in past few years that we could actually be relatively successful in defending country against German attack because German forces were not as strong in 1938 as they were in 1939 after occupation of Czechoslovakia. We had quite modern weapon and heavy industry and Germans used it in their campaign through whole war. Ironically, main reason why we did not defend was fear of our General Staff about questionable neutrality of Poland in such conflict, we had lot of territorial disputes with Poland between WWI and WWII and also one tiny conflict, so nobody was sure what they will do if war with Germany broke out. But this is again that arm chair general view. Nice term, by the way.)
Almost forgot main point of this, our troops were at border because of possible German attack, same goes for French at Maginot line. But I believe that Soviets such attack did not expect, as I already stated in previous posts. This view is based mainly on Soviet intelligence documents that were already released. Sure, just my interpretation and anyone has right to disagree with it.

Soviet tanks - Question whether Soviet tanks were mainly obsolete or not is hard for me to answer because I have absolutely no knack for technical problems. But one of our military historians provided me with this information which I already stated before:
Number of Soviet tanks: 25 522 (22 431 serviceable) (Serviceable means their capable to fulfill their operational duties, is not that right?)
According to these numbers he concludes that "obsoleteness of Soviet tanks" is just a Soviet propaganda. And I would believe him in this matter because he is not just a historian but also Major in reserve with many years of service in armed forces. (Unfortunately, I cannot prove this with source in English, he posted those numbers on Czech forum so unless someone can speak Czech its just a hypothesis.)
Also, just my theory - I guess that Germans constructed their weapons mainly for Central European area(mild climate) and Soviets on the other hand for climate in their territory(huge temperature differences, tons of snow in winter and mud in autumn). I mean, German weaponry was very good in campaign in West and first part in Russia (when weather was still alright), but when autumn and winter came, Soviet weapons were much better (they were designed for their own country, right?). I think that it was especially German tank crews which had problems when temperature dropped below zero (If memory serves well, oil used in German tanks froze in motors? )
So, maybe huge defeats of Soviet forces in first part of war were not because of obsolete tanks but rather German tanks were more specialized for weather conditions in summer in Western part of USSR? But these are ideas of someone absolutely incompetent when it comes to technical problems..

Last paragraph about supplies - I am not capable to translate this sentence: "Considering that Russia was not at war at the time of Barbarossa, whats the point of supplying everyone with weapons when new ones were in the works and when trying to prevent a pretext for war?" , so for the time being I cannot answer it.

Promised TASS statement - Found it! But I do not have much time now for translation, so please wait for evening. [EDIT: Well, I was actually wrong. I do have statement of TASS but it is dated to 8 May 1941 and it actually speaks about Soviet and not German "war" preparations. Not sure if needed to be posted even so it is quite interesting, at least for me. ]

 

I believe that Churchill wanted to use the aid to Finland as an excuse to post troops in Norway to cut off Hitler's supply of iron ore.....which is what forced Hitler to invade Norway in the first place.

 

well whatever about helping finland it never panned out.

About polish defensive lines,i know the plan against germany was to hold out long enough for the british and french to attack germany from the west,something the polish didnt know wasnt going to happen,
To top it off instead of getting help from the west they were invaded by the soviets in the east.

There were six forts around warsaw fort Bem,fort Wolski,fort szczesliwicki,fort mokotowski,fort dobrowski,fort czerniakowski as well as a citidel inside warsaw itself.

 

Is there more people who have doubts about Stalin's plans for the WWII, and how the whole thing evolved according to his own wishes and desires rather than those in London, Paris, or Berlin?
I think that those who still have doubts should re-read this whole threat only to find the answer in there. The disbelievers respond with, often enough, "silly questions" which underline their lack of knowledge about the issue, their lack of knowledge of Viktor Suvorov's works (and not only The Icebreaker), and on the other hand those who support Suvorov's theory and almost always answer with in-depth facts and lengthy explanations (which should have been provided in middle or high school). And for all of you who have doubts about Suvorov's point of view: Read his books FIRST, and then criticize him or his point of view. I can assure you that most of the so called western respected historians have not done that yet, and that is why they have failed to disprove any of Suvorov's claims, in over 35 books and unknown number of articles for the past 25 years!
Their 3 main points of argument are:
1.Suvorov is a traitor;
2.Suvorov is not a professional historian;
3.They present false statements in their works, which they claim Suvorov wrote, and then they go about disproving them, since they cannot argue against any of the statements he did make in his books!

For all of you who think Suvorov's theory is bunch of lies, I have a very easy solution for you: just read his books, I can promise you that you will enjoy them million times more than reading any of the crap published by names such as Gorodestkey, Glantz, Reese etc. and as an extra bonus, you WILL learn something about the Second World War, about the Red Army, and about Communism as such! Then you can come back here and say, well I read them, and it's bunch of crap! I would bet however, that you won't do that, as you will actually enjoy them and understand and most of all learn from them!
Good luck and enjoy the experience!

 

I have read both Icebreaker and Day M, I am not convinced. He does remain popular with the David Irving and Stormfront crowd however. That in itself is enough to make me dis-believing of his veracity.

 

there are another 10 books you should have read, but I guess that you live in the West and they were never published there. It is a petty, and a lack of basic right to information and the right to choose freely. Perhaps one day they will be allowed to be published in English, French and German again. I certainlly hope so for your sake.

 

Actually after reading those two, I never searched out any of his other fiction, and fiction it is. Or at the best "faction" based on circumstantial evidence as he intrepreted it.

He does write in an interesting and convincing style, it is also "easy reading" in the positive sense, a page turner in the venacular. He takes you into a world where you believe you are becoming privy to "secrets" suppressed by the powers that be.

Erich von Däniken has this ability as well, but even after reading his works I failed to be convinced that the earth was first settled by alien beings in UFOs, or that they aided the Egyptians in building the great pyramids. Easy to read though.

Long after I had read Icebreaker, but just before I found Day M in 2001 I had read this critism of the man.

See:

Несостоявшийся историк - THE RUSSIAN BATTLEFIELD

The fact that his work is touted by the pro-Nazis and can be found on the IHR site complete and unabridged also harms rather than boosts his credibilty in my eyes. Any one who wished to "put lipstick on the pig" by lessening Hitler and Nazsim is less than desireable in my eyes as a serious historian or anything other than a man making a buck selling contraversity.

Sorry, won't buy the position for those and other reasons. And even if they are published I probably won't bother to either read them for free on the IHR site (where they might appear). I also won't fall for any Erich von Däniken or Charles Berlitz opinions either.

 

After reading through the postings, well not every single word - some posters contributions were very lengthy.

I surprised at the vehmence - of some of the comments, it's as if the very idea that it could be true is so 'blasphermous' that the person concerned is some heretic that deserves to be burnt at the stake!!
Any interesting additions, to the debate that don't fit in with the orthodox viewpoint are immediately shot down.
Some posts, I've noticed trumpet the fact about 'facts' 'I no for a fact' type of thing, rather than IMO or even IMHO.

But for my part - I think it quite likely that Stalin planned a war in 1942. In the meantime, he tried to get whatever he could out of Hitler by peaceful means - just like Hitler did with the Anglo-French. While Hitler, wanted Russia to go south to threaten British possesions e.g. India, Stalin was more interested in:
1) Finland was to be regarded as belonging within the Soviet sphere of influence.
2) An agreement was to be made concerning the future of Poland.
3) Soviet interests in Rumania and Bularia must be recognised.
4) Soviet interests in the Dardanelles must also be acknowledged.

Whilst the Russians had access to German military equipement - they refused to believe that the Pzw IV was German's latest tank. The German Ordinance officials concluded 'It seems that the Russians must already possess better and heavier tanks than we do'.

Stalin knew that time was running out, with the no reply to the Molotov requirements, and later overflights of Russia by German aircraft, he didn't want to provoke Hitler before he was ready - hence the race was on ......
Can I prove my opinions ... no. But can anyone really prove he didn't intend to ..... no!
It's just opinion.

 

When I read this post, I thought, did you actually read those 2 books? The alien book you most probably did read, but Suvorov's, you did not. Because if you did you would not indulge into criticizing him as some UFO style author who claimed whatever. And after reading the link you posetd, I am fully convinced that you did not read neither Icebreaker nor M Day, and most probably spent your time reading his critics if that at all. This is the whole problem, that Suvorov's critics relay on the fact that their readers have not read Suvorov, which in the western world is a common phenomenon for the simple reason that his books were not published after the Icebreaker in English, and after Day M in German. And instead of asking yourself a question, of why are his books NOT published in the land of freedom of speech and democracy, where the devil's himself book Min Kampf has been published, you prefer to go into silly apologetic about where Suvorov's books appear, and what this supposedly means!
Well, I have to disappoint you, for his books are quite anti-NAZI as they are anti-Communist, and simply because the man is trying to tell the world what Stalin was planing to do, and why Hitler did some of the things he did, this in no way claims or suggests that Suvorov is in any way supporting any NAZI movement. But of course, one has to READ the books first in order to find this out, instead of to read the critics of those who are the real NAZI supporters and their "professional historical" crap full of deep desires of how Hitler and his glorious army almost took over Moscow, and almost won the war, if it wasn't for the damn cold Russian winter... these are the real NAZI's who still cannot sleep at night, for their glorious fuhrer and his army full of arien dummkopfs, failed to take over the Russians, only because of the terribly cold winter... because the stupid Ivans and their effort, a well known fact according to their fuhrer, don't count for anything since they were Slavs (or if you prefer a more recent "academic" opinion read Roger Reese's books they will "prove" to you how stupid and incapable the Russian Ivans were, especially compared to the highly sophisticated German Jurgens!). But since no one reads this crap, no one is actually protesting! And NAZI's like that are today the most famous professional historians, who do not even do the effort to read their own colleague's and friend's books before they write a favorable (although completely contrary to what the book actually says) review, so they can promote and sell their crap, go to conferences, and get funding for their openly NAZI propaganda! This is the real level of the professional academics today and for the past half a century, unfortunately.
And it only goes unnoticed because people do not read! Why would you do the effort to read 300 or 400 pages when someone has supposedly done it and has conveniently written a 1 or 2 page review for you? Well, you should read them, because the review might have been written by someone who DID NOT read the book he/she is actually reviewing! And let me tell you that this is the case most of the times, and if you sit down to read the books in question you will be amazed how misrepresenting the reviews actually are.
Last but not least, think about it: why are UFO and Conspiracy theory books published all the time and sold on sale at each bookshop in the western world, but Suvorov's anti-NAZI and anti-Communist books ARE NOT EVEN PUBLISHED? While Hitler's book was and is published?
think about it... but better, read, read, and again, read!


And about the world in which Suvorov takes the reader: he takes the reader in the real world, with clear and logic explanations, which are such simply because the man is an experet, and knows his stuff, not to mention that he himself was a tanker and an ex-officer in this same army, which already makes him hell of a lot better expert than Gorodetsky, Glantz or Reese can ever even dream to become! Suvorov's explanations are easy to understand, for they were actually explained rather than a mix of quotes, citations and footnotes, and the author's 3-year old equivalent suppositions of them, obviously demonstrating that he has no clue what he is talking about, so he is just talking crap, in quotes of course with footnotes, so that it looks academically sound!
For anyone who wants to know anything about the WWII, I can only suggest, read Suvorov, try to find him translated, compare with what you have read already and then, only then make up your mind! Anything else is fooling one's self!
peace!

 

:deadhorse:

This thread is getting redundant.

 

The only things I can accuse Suvorov of doing is not writing about history in the dry way, like 90% of all historians do. The other is having that Russian “Our is the Best” syndrome.
He makes me think about history in a new way.
We have to remember that Soviets historian jobs were to change history, to make it more in with Party line. Any History student in USSR, who wanted to know or talk about real history of WW2, was given a good talking to. He was lucky, if that’s all he got. People were dismissed from universities, MVD started files on them. In some cases drugs were planted in their dorm rooms, so they could be locked up for a long time.
The whole thing about calling him a Traitor is misleading. Cannot blame the man for realizing that “Sh*t Stinks”, and trying to tell the rest of the world about it.

 

Hello Punkara,

I own Icebreaker and my version is in Russian. After reading this novel I could only find one use for it, unfortunately the paper was too rough. It now stands collecting dust on my bookshelf.

There is a difference between a story teller and a historian it is for this reason that Vladimir Rezun isnt taken seriously in the academic community and using him for any sort of historical reference has become a sign of ignorence.

HERNYA.

 

Hello Hernya,
I am glad you have this book, now go on and read it, and please do yourself a favor and try to check Suvorov's claims against the sources and see for yourself if the man is wrong in any of his claims! The reason I speak so confidently, is because after reading the Icebreaker in 1993 and later all his books published hitherto, I spent a lot of time and effort to double check his claims, including many cold days in the archives in Moscow (before Mr Putin narrowed the access). Not a single document goes against his historiography! Unlike the professional historians, he does not take a piece of paper (some letter from the British ambassador, for example) and based on it creates his/her version of the history which many times sounds so absurd even to the uninterested reader, simply because the professionals believe that by using a specific "academically accepted" protocol of writing means that what they write is therefore true or that it makes sense! Well, it is not and it does not make sense! This is precisely why, neither you nor anyone else can criticize Suvorov on any other basis but methodology, and when this does not work, they go into antisemitism and other such absurdities etc.
Why don't they quote him? Simple, because if they do, they will help his academic popularity, which in case you did not know, is measured by something called the "H score" or "H-index", which basically ranks the academics by how many times they have been quoted! It is a business, the academic world, nothing more than that, and unfortunately it is full of expert impostors, who keep on writing their non-sense, simply because after building a career and their names on publishing crap, they simply could not have written another one in which they would begin by, "Dear readers, I have been bullshitting for the past 30 years, but now that I have found the truth, here it is!"
By now I am more convinced that the hard core professionals did and do what they do not because they care about the so called political complications if Suvorov's theory was accepted, but simply to save their own careers and jobs from Harvard to Cambridge, and thanks God they are getting old, and soon to be replaced by others, whom I am sure will not go on claiming the same, simply because they have read not only Suvorov, but the enormous information published ever since the collapse of the USSR, which directly demolishes the professional's publications, and at the same time simply supports and adds to Suvorov's tale of events. Also, perhaps you might have missed that, slowly but surely, the Cold War mentality in the West is also changing, and just like with Holocaust in the mid and late 1960's when it started to become a hot issue, today is the beginning of the end of the crimes committed by the communists and the reasons behind them, and let me assure you that this process has already started (check out the fairly recent documentary film called The Soviet Story).
So my point is, the old guard of western professionals who built their careers in the Cold War munching from the Khrushchev's internal revolution, all the way through Yeltsin and now Medvedev, will have to retire, and their unquestioned academic status will have to change, as it does not correspond to the official line of the International community!
My point is, while you sit in the beautiful state of Montana (do you still have no speed limit until mid day?) wondering about the quality of the paper of Suvorov's groundbreaking book, I suggest you brush it from the dust, and re-read it, carefully, and put to question each of his claims, double check his sources etc. You would be surprised that the only bad quality is in fact the paper this brilliant and simple work was printed on!
Peace!

 

“What is History but a fable agreed upon?”- how have Napoleon could known about David Glantz, Roger Reese and every other historian who regurgitate Soviet propaganda and call it historical research?

 

Hahaha, very good point! Too bad many people still believe that their academic positions speak for their works!

 

I can see where this is going and Im waisting my time here. Hope u have better luck than the rest of the academic community in locating his sources.