Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

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

#1381

Post by ljadw » 27 Mar 2015, 21:59

steverodgers801 wrote:He did disappear for about 10 days, but whether it was a deliberate ploy or actual loss of nerve is unsure. He did let Molotov make the first public speech formally announcing war to the Soviets.
He did not :his appointments diary proves the opposite (and it is confirmed by Alexander Hill)

22 june : 29 visitors

23 june : 21 visitors

24 june : 20 visitors

25 june : 29 visitors

26 june : 28 visitors

27 june : 30 visitors

28 june : 21 visitors

About the Molotov speech : already before the war,Stalin seldom made public speeches on the radio,and it wa the same during the war .

The whole story of the disappearance and break down of Stalin was an invention by Nikita K. and the military during the destalinisation period when there was a strugle on live and death with the Stalinists .

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

#1382

Post by wm » 27 Mar 2015, 22:17

Stalin was mediocre, but he compensated for lack of ability through hard work, not always successfully. Only a mediocre politician would create Stalinism.


steverodgers801
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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1383

Post by steverodgers801 » 28 Mar 2015, 01:09

I said he disappeared, he didn't show up to Moscow, but yes he had visitors. Even though he didn't give a lot of speaches he was always in the public eye.

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

#1384

Post by Omeganian » 28 Mar 2015, 06:05

He was working very hard for about a week. Then he realized that his attacks weren't working and had a breakdown.

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

#1385

Post by ljadw » 28 Mar 2015, 08:07

steverodgers801 wrote:I said he disappeared, he didn't show up to Moscow, but yes he had visitors. Even though he didn't give a lot of speaches he was always in the public eye.
If he disappeared AFTER 22 june,this implies that he "appeared" publicly BEFORE 22 june,which is not so :Stalin was not the man to appear in public,to make speeches,to travel outside Moscow.

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1386

Post by steverodgers801 » 28 Mar 2015, 19:44

There were still the press shots and such showing him doing this or that. He actually spent a lot of time out of Moscow.

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Appleknocker27
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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1387

Post by Appleknocker27 » 31 Mar 2015, 00:35

ljadw wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote:
According to Khruschev and Molotov, Stalin had a nervous break down and secluded himself for about a week after the invasion started. Only after that did he show the will to fight and that took some sessions with his generals for him to build his nerve.
.
This has been proved to be not correct .There was no nervous break down and Stalin was working from the first day of the war .
Until you provide a link to a credible source it is not proven incorrect.

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Appleknocker27
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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1388

Post by Appleknocker27 » 31 Mar 2015, 00:38

ljadw wrote:
steverodgers801 wrote:I said he disappeared, he didn't show up to Moscow, but yes he had visitors. Even though he didn't give a lot of speaches he was always in the public eye.
If he disappeared AFTER 22 june,this implies that he "appeared" publicly BEFORE 22 june,which is not so :Stalin was not the man to appear in public,to make speeches,to travel outside Moscow.
Stop the BS..... The Axis invaded the USSR and that in and of itself REQUIRES a public appearance of some sort in any country to address the population. Its called leadership.

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1389

Post by ljadw » 31 Mar 2015, 08:17

Appleknocker27 wrote:
ljadw wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote:
According to Khruschev and Molotov, Stalin had a nervous break down and secluded himself for about a week after the invasion started. Only after that did he show the will to fight and that took some sessions with his generals for him to build his nerve.
.
This has been proved to be not correct .There was no nervous break down and Stalin was working from the first day of the war .
Until you provide a link to a credible source it is not proven incorrect.
Alexander Hil :The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945 P 46

Appointment diary Second World War 39-45 De Bello

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

#1390

Post by ljadw » 31 Mar 2015, 08:26

Appleknocker27 wrote:
ljadw wrote:
steverodgers801 wrote:I said he disappeared, he didn't show up to Moscow, but yes he had visitors. Even though he didn't give a lot of speaches he was always in the public eye.
If he disappeared AFTER 22 june,this implies that he "appeared" publicly BEFORE 22 june,which is not so :Stalin was not the man to appear in public,to make speeches,to travel outside Moscow.
Stop the BS..... The Axis invaded the USSR and that in and of itself REQUIRES a public appearance of some sort in any country to address the population. Its called leadership.

NO : it is not : this is a Western 2015 notion : while Stalin did a speech on the radio in july 1941,this was one of the very few speeches he did during the war .Stalin was not Churchill who was regularly talking (he loved talking) in the Commons and on the radio and excelled in "bon mots",this was not the Soviet custom:Stalin was not a talker but a writer,besides,giving the small number of radios in the SU and the difference of time between a western city as Moscow and Siberia,the impact of a speech by Stalin would not be very great .Already before the war,Stalin seldom was talking on the radio .

Hitler also was talking less and less on the radio .

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

#1391

Post by ljadw » 31 Mar 2015, 09:13

Speeches of Hitler in 1941

30 january : commemoration of the assumption of power

24 february : commemoration of the foundation of the party

16 march

6 april

4 may : end of the Balkans campaign

3 october : start of the Winterhulp campaign

11 december : DOW on the US

NO speech on 22 june .

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1392

Post by ljadw » 31 Mar 2015, 10:32

Public speeches by Stalin

1936 : 1 (in november)

1937 : 3 (february,march,december)

1938 : 1 (may)

1939 : 1 (18th Party Congress )

1940 : O

Source : did Stalin fall in prostration ?

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1393

Post by Sid Guttridge » 31 Mar 2015, 11:48

Perhaps Stalin's hold was so vice-like through naked intimidation that he didn't need to court the public in the way Hitler still did to bolster his own legitimacy with his public? Hitler always depended to a great degree on the tacit consent or acquiesence of the German population at large, though he was never so confident that this was monolithic that he dared consult them through open elections.

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

#1394

Post by Attrition » 31 Mar 2015, 15:16

Sid Guttridge wrote:Perhaps Stalin's hold was so vice-like through naked intimidation that he didn't need to court the public in the way Hitler still did to bolster his own legitimacy with his public? Hitler always depended to a great degree on the tacit consent or acquiesence of the German population at large, though he was never so confident that this was monolithic that he dared consult them through open elections.

Sid
I think that's a generic description of politics, not anything peculiar to the Hitler and Stalin regimes. If they cared about public opinion they wouldn't have been terrorists, just the same as the French, British and American boss classes.

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

#1395

Post by wm » 23 Apr 2015, 21:15

The situation, as they knew it, didn't warrant emergency measures like Stalin's personal speech/appeal. He was too important asset to be wasted like that, It was a war but not a calamity - yet. The unprecedented extent of the defeat wasn't known so Molotov was sufficient for that task. Especially that he spoke for not for himself but for the Soviet Government and Stalin:
Citizens of the Soviet Union! The Soviet Government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following announcement
- one might say, indirectly it was a Stalin's announcement anyway.

In contrast to Hitler's naked dictatorship, the USSR was a collectivist dictatorship, even the demi-god Stalin didn't ruled directly but through the Government, Politburo, committees, Congresses, troikas. To all appearances, the decisions were made collectively, and Stalin was serious about appearances. It was his decisions and his successes, but mistakes were collective. All those contemporary if HE only knew writings show this. Always the others were guilty he was at best kept in the dark about their transgressions.

And this was the second reason, as written by Dimitrov and I think in Molotov Remembers - among the uncertainties of the first days he didn't want to commit himself, his authority to some mistake, false information, some irresponsible nonsense - for this Molotov was perfect.
So the silence was nothing but business as usual, nothing out of ordinary there. It was nothing unusual that Molotov spoke for the Government and for Stalin.

Stalin's speeches were good and powerful, he spoke in intimate terms - but the impression would wear thin, loose its attractiveness if overused.
Compare Molotov's bureaucratic:
The Government appeals to you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks ever closer around our glorious Bolshevik Party and our Soviet Government.
Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.

to Stalin's:
Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Men of our army and navy! I am addressing you, my friends!
A grave danger hangs over our country.
The enemy is cruel and implacable. He is out to seize our lands, watered with our sweat, to seize our grain and oil secured by our labor. He is out to restore the rule of landlords, to restore Tsarism, to destroy national culture and the national state existence of the Russians, Ukrainians, Byelo-Russians, Lithuanians, Letts, Esthonians, Uzbeks, Tatars, Moldavians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaidzhanians and the other free people of the Soviet Union, to Germanize them, to convert them into the slaves of German princes and barons.
Thus the issue is one of life or death for the Soviet State, for the peoples of the USSR; the issue is whether the peoples of the Soviet Union shall remain free or fall into slavery.

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