Have any of you read about the Suvorov thesis?

[Jacob]

Was the Soviet threat to Germany and Europe real, or was it just Nazi propaganda? To this day, history textbooks say nothing about it. But it has entered the scholarly debate, thanks to the books of Vladimir Rezun, a former Soviet military intelligence officer who defected to the West in 1978, and wrote two groundbreaking books under the pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov: first in 1988, Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, and in 2010, after new Russian archives had become accessible, The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. I first learned about Suvorov from Ron Unz's 2018 article "When Stalin almost conquered Europe," and I have since read what I could on the subject, starting with articles on Mark Weber's indispensable site http://www.ihr.org/ , including his own (reposted on unz.com).

Suvorov's thesis can be summed up as follows: on June 22, 1941, Stalin was about to launch a massive offensive on Germany and her allies, within days or weeks. Preparations had started in 1939, just after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and had accelerated at the end of 1940, with the first divisions deployed to the new expanded Soviet borders, opposite the German Reich and Romania, in February 1941. On May 5, Stalin announced to an audience of two thousand military academy graduates flanked by generals and party luminaries that the time had come to "switch from the defensive to the offensive." Days later, he had a special directive sent to all command posts to "be prepared on a signal from General Headquarters to launch lightning strikes to rout the enemy, move military operations to his territory and seize key objectives."[6] New armies were being raised in all the districts, with mobilization now reaching 5.7 million, a gigantic army impossible to sustain for long in peacetime. Close to one million parachutists—troops useful only for invasion—had been trained. Hundreds of aerodromes were built near the Western border. From June 13, an incessant movement of night trains transported thousands of tanks, millions of soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition and fuel to the border.

According to Suvorov, if Hitler had not attacked first, the gigantic military power that Stalin had accumulated on the border would have enabled him to reach Berlin without major difficulty and then, in the context of the war, to take control of the continent. Only Hitler's decision to preempt Stalin's offensive deprived him of these resources by piercing and disrupting his lines and destroying or seizing about 65% of all his weaponry, some of it still in trains.

https://www.unz.com/article/barbarossa-suvorovs-revisionism-goes-mainstream/

[Insanis]

I have.

It is difficult to know exactly what was planned, but the Great Purge severely reduced the effectiveness of the Red Army, and Stalin needed time to prepare. I think it is a given he would attack when he was ready, but exactly when that would be is hard to determine.

The state of the Red Army at the start of the war probably wouldn't have been as effective as it was later. It had major organizational, manpower, and equipment troubles. Plus, maintaining power was a concern. Committing to an offensive might cause a breakdown (I just thought of this). Also, their armor doctrine was not developed and they didn't have enough either at that time.

Had they invaded first, they might have fallen apart: giving up and surrendering or switching sides (to live in the clearly more prosperous nations), or been utterly destroyed, as the overstretched supply lines of the Nazis wouldn't limit the Wehrmacht like it did when they invaded, and they'd be fighting fresh and with a clear commitment to defend themselves on a much smaller front.

[james03]

Thanks for the article.  Two aspects about Hitler that historians tip toe around:

1.  He is the reason Israel exists.  He even worked out a plan that kept the pre-government (Irgun?) supplied.  They had friendly relations with him.

2.  He saved Europe from eventual Russian invasion.  A huge army and forward airforce bases were up at the front.  Stalin lost millions of men very quickly and a lot of supplies.

I'm no Hitler fan boy, and the end result of WWII turned out pretty good.  Commies and Nazis slaughtered each other such that the Soviets were in no condition to invade afterwards.  WWII was mostly the war between Russia and Germany and between the US/Austrailia and Japan.  The later Allied invasion in the West was significant, and the German attack on Kursk was interrupted by D-day when Hitler pulled out some of his armored divisions and sent them West.

Another interesting piece of history was that prior to WWII, Japan (Germany's ally) and Russia signed a peace treaty.  The US shipped in massive amounts of supplies to the Soviets and the Japanese didn't interfere.  That one was odd.  I'm wondering if the shipping was done via Soviet ships.  Anyhow the Japs let all of those cargo ships through unmolested.

[drummerboy]

  I tend to believe Stalin intended to invade.  There is no other reason to have such massive amounts of material and manpower so close to the border.  If Stalin believe Hitler would keep the non-aggression pact, then why have such forces merely for defense?  Furthermore, what reason does anyone have to believe the Soviets abandoned their dream of spreading the revolution to all of Europe?  One rapid, irresistible thrust of the Red Army would be all it takes (at least on paper...).

[Insanis]

One rapid, irresistible thrust of the Red Army would be all it takes (at least on paper...).

If I remember correctly, it was still believed that they merely had to inspire people to rise up in other nations, and the workers would do the rest.

[andy]

I have read almost all books of Victor Suvorov (or rather Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun). A very talented author both fiction and non fiction.

Did Hitler per-empted Bolsheviks strike and got them totally off guard? I personally doubt it.

[Heinrich]

That the nascent Soviet Union wasn't wontly willing to attack is erroneous thinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War_in_1920

[Jacob]

I was considering this generally in the shower the other day and it occurred to me...

If Stalin and the Sovs were preparing an attack while the Germans had their attention elsewhere, I wonder why they didn't attack when German started to look east, but got sidetracked in Yugoslavia.  I think that operation would have clued Stalin in that Hitler and the Germans had given up on the idea of invading Britain.

[drummerboy]

One rapid, irresistible thrust of the Red Army would be all it takes (at least on paper...).

If I remember correctly, it was still believed that they merely had to inspire people to rise up in other nations, and the workers would do the rest.

Which the Red Army would support. or vice versa, a Soviet invasion would be the signal for the workers to rise up.

[drummerboy]

I was considering this generally in the shower the other day and it occurred to me...

If Stalin and the Sovs were preparing an attack while the Germans had their attention elsewhere, I wonder why they didn't attack when German started to look east, but got sidetracked in Yugoslavia.  I think that operation would have clued Stalin in that Hitler and the Germans had given up on the idea of invading Britain.

Perhaps they were letting the Germans do the "cleaning up" of resistance (such as the Red Army waiting while the Germans finished off the Polish Resistance during the Warsaw Uprising); but also (as later did indeed happen) they could appear as the liberators when they booted the Germans.

[andy]

The goal of modern wars is to kill as many people as possible. Vide WWI where tens of thousands soldiers were send to the machine gun fire daily without a second thought. From that perspective, creating an illusion of Bolsheviks getting ready for an offensive war and completely unprepared to defend themselves, caught a by surprise is really helping to achieve an overarching goal known only to a few masterminds

[Jacob]

The goal of modern wars is to kill as many people as possible. Vide WWI where tens of thousands soldiers were send to the machine gun fire daily without a second thought. From that perspective, creating an illusion of Bolsheviks getting ready for an offensive war and completely unprepared to defend themselves, caught a by surprise is really helping to achieve an overarching goal known only to a few masterminds

You disagree then with the thesis and the evidence behind it?

[andy]

The goal of modern wars is to kill as many people as possible. Vide WWI where tens of thousands soldiers were send to the machine gun fire daily without a second thought. From that perspective, creating an illusion of Bolsheviks getting ready for an offensive war and completely unprepared to defend themselves, caught a by surprise is really helping to achieve an overarching goal known only to a few masterminds

You disagree then with the thesis and the evidence behind it?

It is not that I disagree but that I believe there was one  (or more) layer of truth on top of it.