Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

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Globalization41
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Was the U.S.S.R. preparing to attack Germany?

#1186

Post by Globalization41 » 06 Dec 2013, 21:05

Also, the Red Army purges seemingly give circumstantial evidence that Stalin was not preparing to attack Germany in 1941. The Red Army was capable of steamrolling Japanese positions in East Asia, but decreased operational capability due to the purges caused it to stall against the fighting Finns. The pragmatic Stalin realized the Red Army had been weakened by the purges and did not want to fight Hitler in 1941. Stalin needed to stall the Germans through appeasement and hinting at joining the Axis or updating the spheres-of-influence agreement. ... Getting back to Attrition's question, the Red Army had plenty of equipment, but needed more. It was deployed too close to the Nazi-Soviet demarcation line of 1939. Even after the disillusionment of Finland's refusal to fold, Stalin still overestimated the Red Army's capability. Stalin would have been much better off deploying the main bulk of the Red Army further back, as had been originally suggested by the Generals he had purged in 1937. The Red Army was no match at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War to the German Army, which had just spent almost two years tuning up in Europe. ... Stalin had wanted to see the capitalist powers weaken themselves in a war of annihilation as happened in WWI, after which he could opportunistically expand the Soviet Union's defensive buffer regions. Instead, the Soviet Union paid by far the heaviest price of all the Allies, even put together, in defeating Germany. ... If Hitler had not attacked in 1941, Stalin would have prioritized improvements and upgrading of the Red Army, discretely at least until it became evident that attacking the Soviet Union would not be strategically feasible. Given an improving Red Army, Stalin would have become increasingly more difficult for Hitler to deal with. This was a permanent trait of Stalin. He exhibited that trait after Germany's surrender, which resulted in the Cold War. ... As for America's preparations for war, the U.S. only began compulsory military service in late 1940. By the time of Pearl Harbor, America's military capability was still essentially nil. It didn't really need a large Army anyway. The logistics of crossing the Pacific and Atlantic were too difficult to plant an invasion force on the American homeland. Besides, U.S. citizens were not banned from owning firearms. Any enemy forces would have been easily picked off to the last man. ... To prosecute WWII, America had to fabricate a military machine capable of deploying across the Pacific and Atlantic. Tojo provide the political support necessary for the U.S. crossing the Pacific by authorizing Japan's preemptive strike on Hawaii. Hitler's declaration of war allowed for the U.S. deployment to Europe. Efficient use of U.S. labor created the wealth necessary to prosecute WWII to its logical conclusion, defeat of the Axis, but Stalin filled the power vacuum in Eastern Europe and Mao filled the vacuum left by Tojo in China.

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Omeganian
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Re: Was the U.S.S.R. preparing to attack Germany?

#1187

Post by Omeganian » 06 Dec 2013, 21:47

Globalization41 wrote:Stalin needed to stall the Germans through appeasement and hinting at joining the Axis or updating the spheres-of-influence agreement.
Considering Hitler built his army in half the time Stalin did, delay would have brought advantage to Germany rather than the other way around.
Globalization41 wrote:the Red Army had plenty of equipment, but needed more.
You always need more. But you are yet to explain how the amounts present were insufficient.
Globalization41 wrote:The Red Army was no match at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War to the German Army, which had just spent almost two years tuning up in Europe.
A month in Poland, then a month in France, then... that's it. No other battles worth mentioning. How did you get two years?


Globalization41
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Re: Was the U.S.S.R. preparing to attack Germany?

#1188

Post by Globalization41 » 07 Dec 2013, 05:34

The Soviets had more troops available than Germany, but the purges had weakened the Red Army. The Soviet Union needed more time for improvement. ... German early victories showed the Red Army to be lacking in operational capability, strategic positioning, radios, ammunition, small arms, fighting spirit, and fuel. ... From September 1, 1939, to June 22, 1941 (almost two years), was a tune up for the German Army. Some of the tune up was actual engagement with hostile forces, some was practice, training, and manoeuvres.

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Re: Was the U.S.S.R. preparing to attack Germany?

#1189

Post by Omeganian » 07 Dec 2013, 07:45

Globalization41 wrote:The Soviets had more troops available than Germany, but the purges had weakened the Red Army. The Soviet Union needed more time for improvement.
The Army had time to rebuild. Statistically, the level of the commanders was higher than before the purge. The morals might have been lower, but see next paragraph.
German early victories showed the Red Army to be lacking in operational capability, strategic positioning, radios, ammunition, small arms, fighting spirit, and fuel.
Only fighting spirit. The rest, if you look carefully, was on a very good level, just wasn't used in full. The fighting spirit... well, it's very hard to determine in peace time, so, at the very least, its relevance is limited when we're discussing pre-war plans.
Globalization41 wrote:From September 1, 1939, to June 22, 1941 (almost two years), was a tune up for the German Army. Some of the tune up was actual engagement with hostile forces, some was practice, training, and manoeuvres.
And how is that different from what the Red Army had?

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Re: Was the U.S.S.R. preparing to attack Germany?

#1190

Post by Globalization41 » 07 Dec 2013, 20:12

The Red Army had four years to rebuild after the purges. It far outclassed the Baltic States, but not the Germans. ... The Red Army strategy before the purges was to pre-position in-depth supply dumps, fall back, allow the enemy to overextend himself, and counterattack. Stalin's strategy, before the German invasion, was to move the bulk of his assets to forward locations along the demarcation line, leaving his forces vulnerable to large-scale encirclement actions. ... "[The Red Army lacked] Only fighting spirit. The rest [the lack of operational capability, strategic positioning, radios, ammunition, small arms, and fuel], if you look carefully, was on a very good level, just wasn't used in full." Ok, then that would qualify as lack of operational capability, strategic positioning, and logistics. ... German Army training and military professionalism surpassed that of the Red Army. Otherwise the Soviet Union would have won the war in 1941.

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Re: Was the U.S.S.R. preparing to attack Germany?

#1191

Post by Omeganian » 10 Dec 2013, 10:35

Globalization41 wrote:The Red Army had four years to rebuild after the purges.
As I said, there is still a lot of argument how much these purges hurt and where.
It far outclassed the Baltic States, but not the Germans.
Depends on what you compare.
The Red Army strategy before the purges was to pre-position in-depth supply dumps, fall back, allow the enemy to overextend himself, and counterattack. Stalin's strategy, before the German invasion, was to move the bulk of his assets to forward locations along the demarcation line, leaving his forces vulnerable to large-scale encirclement actions. ... "
Well, the December conference showed a serious tendency for pure offense, so it would make sense to shift the forces.
German Army training and military professionalism surpassed that of the Red Army. Otherwise the Soviet Union would have won the war in 1941.
Where the Soviet commanders managed to get things together, the Germans ran into serious trouble even in 1941. Don't overestimate the Wehrmacht, they had plenty of green recruits everywhere.

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1192

Post by smpr » 22 Feb 2015, 13:06

This will make interesting watching for the topic.
This is Viktor Suvorov's book presentation at the United States Naval Academy on October 7, 2009.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n3p40_M...
In his recent book "The Chief Culprit" the bestselling author Viktor Suvorov probes newly released Soviet documents and reevaluates existing material to analyze Stalin's strategic design to conquer Europe and the reasons behind his controversial support for Nazi Germany.

He argues that Stalin was caught just days before launching his own assault into Central Europe. Thus the Red Army's offensive posture rendered it uniquely vulnerable to German attack.

A former Soviet army intelligence officer (true name Vladimir Rezun), the author explains that Stalin's strategy leading up to World War II grew from Vladimir Lenin's belief that if World War I did not ignite the worldwide Communist revolution, then a second world war would be needed to achieve it. Stalin saw Nazi Germany as the power that would fight and weaken capitalist countries so that Soviet armies could then sweep across Europe. Suvorov reveals how Stalin conspired with German leaders to bypass the Versailles Treaty, which forbade German rearmament, and secretly trained German engineers and officers and provided bases and factories for war. He also calls attention to the 1939 nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany that allowed Hitler to proceed with his plans to invade Poland, fomenting war in Europe.

Suvorov debunks the theory that Stalin was duped by Hitler and that the Soviet Union was a victim of Nazi aggression. Instead, he makes the case that Stalin neither feared Hitler nor mistakenly trusted him. Suvorov maintains that after Germany occupied Poland, defeated France, and started to prepare for an invasion of Great Britain, Hitler's intelligence services detected the Soviet Union's preparations for a major war against Germany. This detection, he argues, led to Germany's preemptive war plan and the launch of an invasion of the USSR. Stalin emerges from the pages of this book as a genius consumed by the vision of a worldwide Communist revolution at any cost--a leader who wooed Hitler and Germany in his own effort to conquer the world. In contradicting traditional theories about Soviet planning, the book is certain to provoke debate among historians throughout the world.

[Comments about present day politics were removed]

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1193

Post by Knouterer » 23 Feb 2015, 12:25

I don't know if the point has been brought up before, but if there had been any actual preparations for a Soviet attack, there would have been some physical evidence of that: fuel and ammunition dumps, new roads and railroads near the border, documents such as maps and military orders, etc.

And if the Germans had found any such physical evidence during their advance, however slight, their propaganda machine would undoubtedly have made full use of it (as they did with Katyn for example).

But they didn't, which leads me to believe there was no such evidence and ergo no preparations.
"The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it." Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

michael mills
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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1194

Post by michael mills » 23 Feb 2015, 14:16

But they didn't, which leads me to believe there was no such evidence and ergo no preparations.
On the contrary, they did.

There was a large-scale program of interrogating captured Red Army officers on their knowledge of preparations for an offensive, and the information gained thereby disseminated among the German military and civilian leadership.

The overall picture emerging from the interrogations was of preparations, both material and moral, for an offensive in the near future, the exact date of which the captured officers did not know, having not been given that information, but which most of them assumed, based on the stage reached by the preparations they knew of, to be August-September of 1941.

In addition to the intelligence gained from the interrogations of captured Red Army officers, physical information was found, such as a large number of maps of the region lying to the west of the Soviet frontier, fuel and ammunition dumps, new airfields built close to the border with large numbers of aircraft stationed on them, concentrations of armour in the Lwow salient, consistent with the Timoshenko-Zhukov plan for a first strike through the southern part of German-occupied Poland.

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Attrition
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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1195

Post by Attrition » 23 Feb 2015, 19:05

Wouldn't the Red Army have done that in case the Munich Crisis turned into a war? I wouldn't trust German reports of claims made by Red Army prisoners, without provenance.

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1196

Post by wm » 23 Feb 2015, 22:44

In 1938 the Red Army was in a middle of its Great Purge, and most likely wasn't capable of such a large scale attack.

But, in the paranoid Stalinist Russia officers (and in fact anyone) weren't told anything in advance, especially about such a sensitive operation - till the last possible moment.

And we shouldn't forget the expensive, hastily built Molotov Line which had no offensive capabilities at all. Its main role was to stop the aggressor allowing the main forces to counterattack as fast as possible. To counterattack fast those forces had to be concentrated close to the border.

In fact the Stalinist 1938 blockbuster movie If War Comes Tomorrow shows exactly this type of thinking. A German-like aggressor attacks, they are stopped at the border, the Red Army counterattacks and destroys the German-like aggressor, a revolution erupts in its capital, the end.

Another argument against - one of the main beneficiaries of such a war would be Great Britain, but Stalin didn't ask Churchill for any compensation for his troubles. He wouldn't forget to ask.

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1197

Post by Art » 23 Feb 2015, 23:11

Attrition wrote:Wouldn't the Red Army have done that in case the Munich Crisis turned into a war?
In certain scenarios - yes, they could advance to Poland.

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1198

Post by steverodgers801 » 24 Feb 2015, 01:04

A key factor is that the BT series of tanks were no longer in production and the T-34 had only started. Apx 30% of the Soviet tank force was out of service due to a lack of spare parts. The Soviet tank forces were also in a period of major reorganization and many were not capable of defending much less attacking. The forces in the south received first priority and were thus in better shape, but still barely held on against the Germans despite having superior numbers

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1199

Post by michael mills » 24 Feb 2015, 02:51

In 1938 the Red Army was in a middle of its Great Purge, and most likely wasn't capable of such a large scale attack.

That is not really relevant to the period between 1939 and 1941.

After Beria replaced Ezhov at the end of 1938, he halted the purge of the Red Army officer corps, and began reinstating large numbers of the officers who had been dismissed or imprisoned. By 1941, the Red Army had its full complement of officers, consisting of the great majority of officers who had never been purged, plus reinstated officers, plus new officers who had been promoted and were often more efficient than those who had been purged.

The effect of the 1937 purge of the Red Army officer corps has been grossly exaggerated. By 1941 the officer corps was fully operational.
But, in the paranoid Stalinist Russia officers (and in fact anyone) weren't told anything in advance, especially about such a sensitive operation - till the last possible moment.
Precisely. That is the reason why the advancing German forces did not capture any detailed plans for a Red Army offensive against German-occupied Poland, even though such plans had been prepared ever since 1940. Most probably the first-strike plan prepared by Timoshenko and Zhukov in May 1941 had been seen only by Stalin and the most senior Red Army commanders.

However, field-rank Red Army officers could tell from the activities that they were involved in in the spring and early summer of 1941 that they were being prepared for an offensive. That is why the rumour spread throughout the units massed on the western frontier that the offensive would be launched in the August-September period.
And we shouldn't forget the expensive, hastily built Molotov Line which had no offensive capabilities at all. Its main role was to stop the aggressor allowing the main forces to counterattack as fast as possible. To counterattack fast those forces had to be concentrated close to the border.
All the Red Army plans for an offensive into German-occupied Poland, except the Timoshenko-Zhukov pre-emptive strike plan on May 1941, presumed an initial German attack that would be immediately repulsed, and followed by a massive Red Army counter-attack.

However, a strange thing about those plans is that while they go into great detail about the development of the counter-attack into German-occupied Poland, they say nothing at all about how the initial German attack would be repelled, ie there were no plans for defence in depth, withdrawal to prepared positions, the sort of thing that would be found in any real defensive plan. Instead, the plans simply say that the German attack would be stopped.

The lack of any detail about defensive operations strongly suggests that all the plans of 1940 and 1941 were really offensive plans only, and the description of them as being a counter-attack against an initial German attack that had been stopped by some mysterious means served a propaganda purpose only.

For example, when the Red Army invaded Finland at the end of 1939, the Soviet Government announced that the invasion was a counter-attack against an initial Finnish attack on Soviet territory. That claimed Finnish attack was of course a fiction.

It is likely therefore that if the Red army had managed to launch the first strike envisaged in the Timoshenko-Zhukov plan of May 1941, then it would have been accompanied by an announcement that it was actually a counter-attack.
In fact the Stalinist 1938 blockbuster movie If War Comes Tomorrow shows exactly this type of thinking. A German-like aggressor attacks, they are stopped at the border, the Red Army counterattacks and destroys the German-like aggressor, a revolution erupts in its capital, the end.
That film was obviously propaganda designed to prepare the Soviet public for a war against Germany. The self-image of the Soviet Union as a peace-loving state precluded it from proclaiming openly that it would launch a first-strike against the "Fascist" enemy, so the propaganda had to present the coming war as a counter-attack against that enemy.
Another argument against - one of the main beneficiaries of such a war would be Great Britain, but Stalin didn't ask Churchill for any compensation for his troubles. He wouldn't forget to ask.
That is hardly a sustainable argument. Stalin was very secretive, and would not have revealed his plans to anyone, let alone Britain, which he regarded as an enemy.

In any case, Stalin did not need to ask Britain for anything. The British armed forces had been defeated in 1940, and what was left of them was confined to its island fortress, with no ability to intervene on the Continent.

Accordingly, Stalin's most likely calculation was that if he had the opportunity to launch an offensive at some time after the completion of the Red Army's build-up, timed for early 1942, Britain would still be on the defensive, unable to intervene, and he would be able to take anything he wanted after the German forces in Poland had been destroyed.

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1200

Post by michael mills » 24 Feb 2015, 03:06


A key factor is that the BT series of tanks were no longer in production and the T-34 had only started. Apx 30% of the Soviet tank force was out of service due to a lack of spare parts. The Soviet tank forces were also in a period of major reorganization and many were not capable of defending much less attacking. The forces in the south received first priority and were thus in better shape, but still barely held on against the Germans despite having superior numbers
That may have been the case at the time of the German invasion, in June 1941.

However, it needs to be borne in mind that the Red Army re-equipment program was scheduled to be completed in early 1942, at which time the Soviet armoured and air forces would be substantially equipped with tanks and aircraft technologically superior to anything the Wehrmacht possessed at the time of its invasion.

If Germany had not invaded in 1941, the Red Army would have achieved superiority over the Wehrmacht by 1942, or at the very latest by 1943, and would have been fully capable of launching a successful offensive into German-held territory. The initial success of the German invasion of 1941 was due solely to the fact that Hitler had been able to complete his preparations for an attack before Stalin had completed his.

For Stalin's plans for war, and for the technological superiority of the new Soviet weaponry that was being produced in 1941 and with which the re-equipping of the Red Army had commenced, I recommend this book by Professor Lennart Samuelson:

"Plans For Stalin's War Machine: Tukhachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 1925-1941", published by St Martin's Press, New York, 2000.

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