was stalin ever going to be a threat to germany?

[obersalzberg51]

was stalin or russia ever going to be a threat to germany? he clearly had mainland europe in his sights and although i cant ever remember reading proof that stalin was forming plans to invade germany before the doomed german invasion of russia, he would have been stupid to ignore the booty germany would have provided russia in material and scientific knowledge and countless other resources. was hitlers barbarossa the product of paranoia or genuine intelligence? thank you

[Sid Guttridge]

In so far as he was a genuine ideologue, Stalin was an Internationalist Communist and had a multinational organization, the Communist International (Comintern), designed to promote the rise of Communism across the globe. I would suggest that he was no more nor less a threat to Germany than to any other country, except in so far as Germany was closer than most. Indeed, Stalin was not an immediate neighbour of Hitler until Hitler concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with him and they carved up Poland, the Baltic States and Moldavia between them in late 1939.

Stalin disolved the Comintern in 1941, when it became apparent that it was an obstacle to acquiring allies.

Cheers,

Sid.

[wenty]

I don't think Stalin would have been an immediate threat to Germany. He'd seen the Nazis take over a huge portion of Europe, and even when the invasion of Russia finally came, they made it a long way across the country before weather more than anything halted their progress and eventually pushed them back.

I doubt that the alliance could have lasted forever but I also don't think that Stalin would have made any near future moves if Germany hadn't acted first in 1941.

Cheers,
Adam.

[stg 44]

I think by 1945 Stalin would be ready to 'liberate' Europe. His military would be ready for it and much larger than the Axis.

[Jabberwocky]

Being ready to do something and actually be willing and able to carry it out are two completely different things though.

Its one thing to opportunisticially pick of isolated or weakend near neighbours and turn them into buffer states - Russia has a centuries long history of this. Its a wholly different exercise to invade a country that is on rough parity economically and militarily and possibly risk antagonising the other European great powers as well.

I don't think Stalin was enough of a gambler or externally focused enough to risk such an enterprise. The lessons of the 1939/1940 Winter War would still have been pretty fresh in the Soviet establishment.

[Marcus]

We have several other threads on this topic, for example http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=4566, so this one is locked.

/Marcus