Balanced treatment of suvorov's claim that Stalin was going to attack Germany first

[John Kettler]

This is a terrific, well-reasoned discussion of the views of various historical camps (pro, con and neutral) on Suvorov's counter to the standard accounts claim that Stalin planned to attack Germany, but that Hitler beat him to the punch. I hadn't looked into this since months ago when someone posted a withering blast against Suvorov and his position, but it now appears

archival evidence has emerged not only not disproving his claim, but actively supporting it, featuring some "Russian nobody" named Zhukov and his rather damning set of military recommendations. Recall, this is the guy who handed the Japanese their heads at Khalkin Gol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov

This will not only make quite a nice read for Eastern Front buffs, global strategists and the like, but would seem to offer all kinds of interesting new CMBB scenario and op possibilities.

While I'm glad ICEBREAKER and THE CHIEF CULPRIT at least got published in English (will need to grab and read both), at the same time I'm frustrated that so much of the rest of the printed debate's in Russian only, which I can't read.

Regards,

John Kettler

P.S.

Am astounded there's actually a picture of this guy in the Wiki, seeing as how he was sentenced to death in absentia in the U.S.S.R., said sentence executable anywhere, any time.

[JasonC]

It is nonsense, it originates in Hitler's claims justifying the attack publically when the invasion was announced. Private correspondance with Mussolini shows this was nonsense and the real reason was strategic, not pre-emptive.

Stalin was completely surprised, they thought they had a deal and that Germany was going to stick to dismembering the British empire while Russia sat it out. That is why they were continuing to deliver their pact raw materials to Germany until literally the night before the invasion, with trains crossing the frontier to give stuff to the Germans after the bombers had already crossed into Russian airspace.

Did the Russian military plan for all possibilities? Of course, that is what military planning staffs do for a living. But the political leadership makes such decisions - recommendations aren't decisions - and the Russian political leadership discounted all the attack talk - quite accurate - as a British plot to separate them from the Germans to drag them into the war, to die for the English capitalists. And Stalin wasn't buying it.

Everything since has been the Russian "it is all Stalin's fault!" version of the "it's all Hitler's fault!" sport the German generals engaged in right after the war - just delayed by communism still being in power. It is revisionist nonsense. Russia was caught flat footed by a calculated outright aggression.

They weren't expecting it for the simplest of reasons - it was an irrational blunder of world-historical proportions, and lost Germany the war. They thought the Germans would be saner and smarter than that, having given them a sweetheart of a deal for a one front war.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Hi John

I think that you need to draw a destinction between Survorov's claim that the USSR planned an aggressive war against Nazi Germany and Zhukov's claim that plans were made for a spoiling attack just before Barbarossa. It was standard Soviet thinking that the best form of defence was attack and that an initial enemy advance would be met by a counter attack that would drive the enemy back onto their soil and that the principal battles would take place on enemy territory. A spoiling attack of this nature in June 1941 was well within the Soviet General Staff's remit. This tactical attack would still fit in with Stalin's strategy of waiting a few years before war with Germany.

cheers

[Stalins Organ]

If it's supposed to show somethign rational in Suvarov's position it fails miserably.

the quote from Koivisto:

The forces mobilized in the Soviet Union were not positioned for defensive, but for offensive aims.

is quite breathtaking in its simplistic duplicity - the Soviets were still BUILDING defensive positions when the war broke out!

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

I know that Hitler had Russia in his crosshairs long before German forces crossed the Bug, being well aware of both the Lebensraum concept and Hitler's views of the racial worth of the Slavs.

Der Alte Fritz,

That is an excellent point, to which I'd reply that Suvorov in his English works published before ICEBREAKER makes it abundantly clear that the Russians had decided the best place to fight a war was on the other guy's turf and had postured themselves accordingly. The country was reeling from the combined effects of WW I, the Revolution, the Russian Civil War, etc., and was in no shape to fight another war on the already shattered home field.

The Soviet political and military doctrine of the period was unabashedly expansionist and envisioned Soviet global domination. That said, the Russian bear ran into all sorts of problems which forced it to curb its predations. Revolutions proved easier to discuss in theory than to implement in reality.

Stalin's Organist,

That may be true, but I've read the defensive wasn't even being taught at the time, which, to me at least, seems significant. This is an issue that was hot right up until the then Soviet Union collapsed, with the CAFE bugaboos being forward deployed tanks, artillery, missiles, deep strike aircraft, MRLs and tactical bridging units and equipment. If you're postured defensively, you don't need all that stuff "in the shop window," as the Brits so beautifully put it.

I think, too, the point Suvorov raises about those huge parachute formations is well taken. Paratroops are offensive weapons par excellence, and any other use is a desperation measure brought about by lack of ability to gain air superiority, inadequate lift, and/or some form of acute military need, as when we raced the 101st Airborne into Bastogne by truck. Make no mistake, Tukhachevsky et al. were advancing an offensive doctrine based on deep strike. That's what all those paratroopers and fancy associated toys were for.

I'm well aware that the Russians were, for example, forbidden by Stalin from attacking Ju-86 recce aircraft overflying Russia days before Barbarossa, that Stalin refused to believe the priceless info Richard Sorge obtained, that the Russians were punctilious (at Stalin's insistence) in continuing the wheat deliveries to Germany right until the shooting started, that mobilization was forbidden by him and that, per his personal telegrapher, he was on the verge of abandoning Moscow as the Panzers closed in and several times put out peace feelers to Hitler, just as I'm aware he was in a deep funk right after the invasion began, as was splendidly depicted by Robert Duvall in HBO's "Stalin." Since you mention the Russians were building defensive positions when the war broke out, please describe location, type, armament, etc. I know the Stalin Line had long been under construction, only to be abandoned when Russia expanded westward, and I see that the Wiki, without saying it explicitly, essentially confirms what I've been telling you: Russian doctrinal rejection of defense in depth was because of an offensive strategy. If you defend in depth, you are by definition not on the offensive and are thus violating doctrine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_Line

Here are some surviving Stalin Line (originally built to keep at bay Russia's hereditary enemy, Poland) defenses in the Western Military District, now Belarus.

http://svsm.org/gallery/StalinLine

By contrast, the later Molotov Line was a joke, as detailed in the Wiki. If it had been all that important to Stalin, it would've been much further along.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov_Line

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/weapons/lines1941.htm

In the case of Lithuania, not one casemate was operational when the war began, not one!

http://ginklai.net/tunelis/fortification/molotov/index.en.html

To me, a linear defense, backed by a force with thousands of forward deployed aircraft and tanks, as seen by the subsequent shattering by the Germans of the former on the ground and the envelopment of the latter, is a credible defense against a border incursion and that's about it. The Germans stunningly demonstrated its vulnerability as soon as the war began, piercing it at will in all but a few places, such as Brest-Litovsk, already heavily fortified from earlier times.

Will close with what appears (having not read ICEBREAKER yet) to be a precis of Suvorov's key points. Can anyone who's read the book confirm or deny this? If the data are true as given, and are not "cooked" or "spun," then we do indeed appear to have a powerful series of evidences in support of Suvorov's hotly debated claim regarding what Stalin was planning to do and why. Note that the article explicitly backs my thought model regarding defenses for the new Russian border. No one with defense on his mind would do even half the things listed, but someone getting ready to attack would.

"Fourteen Days that Saved the World"

http://stumbleinn.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5588

Just so we're clear, I'm simply presenting an article that turned up on a Google search.

Even so, if the Ivanov quote is correct, it's most revealing. At the time of the following article, at least, Paul Ballard was in serious legal hot water, as evidenced in this long radio interview discussing his and other cases in the much broader context of civil liberties, freedom of expression, and the history of the revisionist movement in history.

http://debatt.sol.no/node/7306161

Regards,

John Kettler

[76mm]

Dear John:

It is no secret that Soviet military doctrine consistently emphasized the offensive, both pre-world war II and thereafter. That doesn't mean that Stalin had any intention to launch a pre-emptive attack against the germans, only that such an attack would have been compatible with their doctrine. as others in this thread have stated, just because the military planned for such an attack doesn't mean that the politicians were about to order it. Isn't that pretty simple?

[Tero]

By JasonC

It is nonsense, it originates in Hitler's claims justifying the attack publically when the invasion was announced. Private correspondance with Mussolini shows this was nonsense and the real reason was strategic, not pre-emptive.

That however goes to Hitlers motives, not Stalins. It is ridiculous to think Stalins motives can be extrapolated from Hitlers private correspondence.

Stalin was completely surprised, they thought they had a deal and that Germany was going to stick to dismembering the British empire while Russia sat it out. That is why they were continuing to deliver their pact raw materials to Germany until literally the night before the invasion, with trains crossing the frontier to give stuff to the Germans after the bombers had already crossed into Russian airspace.

True. However, Stalin did not sever diplomatic relation with the Western Allies even when he made the pact with Germany. He was playing both sides of the table for time knowing that he who joins the war last is on the winning side. I trust he was aware the British and the French did not want USSR on the German side. Stalins plan backfired when Stalin came close to winding up in war with the Western Allies over Finland. The failure of the Red Army during Winter War meant that it became obvious (and painfully so to Stalin) the Red Army was in no shape to fight a mobile war the way Germans had envisioned it.

Did the Russian military plan for all possibilities? Of course, that is what military planning staffs do for a living. But the political leadership makes such decisions - recommendations aren't decisions - and the Russian political leadership discounted all the attack talk - quite accurate - as a British plot to separate them from the Germans to drag them into the war, to die for the English capitalists. And Stalin wasn't buying it.

British plans to separate them from the Germans ? AFAIK they planned an expedition to take the Swedish iron ore mines (er... help Finland) and they planned to bomb the Soviet Far Eastern oil fields.

Russia was caught flat footed by a calculated outright aggression. They weren't expecting it for the simplest of reasons - it was an irrational blunder of world-historical proportions, and lost Germany the war.

Surprised, yes. Flatfooted, no. The attack was no surprise, the timing was. The Red Army were in the middle of post-Winter War reshuffle.

The German decision to attack when they did was not entirely irrational. Foolhardy, extremely ambitious and totally arrogant, yes. Hitler must have realised any delay in his master plan would have meant the Red Army would have been reorganized and re-equipped if he turned East too late. He had seen the Red Army throw away a middle sized countrys army worth of men and materiel over what was essentially a secondary objective. The apparent weaknesses of the Red Army had to be exploited before it could recover and learn from its mistakes.

Stalin must have known his army was at its most vulnerable during the reshuffle. The reason why the Red Army was not deployed in a defensive posture is obvious IMO: Stalin (and STAVKA) knew conventional fixed linear defences did not work against the Germans after what they had seen in Poland and the Western Europe. To them adhering to their standard strategy was the best way to counter the imminent threat. All their available cadre had been trained to fight that way. Having them prepare to fight the way they were trained was their best option. They had the space to trade for time and they had the reserves to sacrifice the troops for the greater good. Hence the plans to cross over to German held territory as per their strategy were surely drawn even if the army was not really up to the task in real world terms.

They weren't expecting it for the simplest of reasons - it was an irrational blunder of world-historical proportions, and lost Germany the war. They thought the Germans would be saner and smarter than that, having given them a sweetheart of a deal for a one front war.

Lets not forget Stalin would have lost little sleep when the decadent West was bleeding itself white fighting amongst themselves. He then would only have to beat the victorious army and the entire depleated West would fall in his lap. The simplest way to conquer the West was to beat the nearest enemy which would have been Germany which would have overpowered the rest of the West with the generous help form the USSR.

[Stalins Organ]

By contrast, the later Molotov Line was a joke, as detailed in the Wiki. If it had been all that important to Stalin, it would've been much further along.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov_Line

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaw.../lines1941.htm

In the case of Lithuania, not one casemate was operational when the war began, not one!

Um...yeah...well that would be because they were still under construction you ..you...you....grr...forum rules prohibit me....

Of course Lithuania is NOT typical - it was only occupied in June of 1940 - 9 months after the eastern areas of Poland. I don't know what hte timeline was for construction of the line, but every other fortified area had at least a couple of dozen bunkers completed by Barbarossa - Lithuania was the only area where there were none.

Of the "line" as a whole (of course it was not a line at all....) there were 575 operational bunkers of about 800 built, with 4900 more still under construction.

which is a considerable investment in defences, and not "a joke" at all.....and you'd have realised that if you'd even bothered to read all the wiki article rather than cherry picking 1 minor point without regard to possible reasons why it might have been the case!!

But hey - don't let the facts get in the way of your carefully constructed and willfully ignorant conspiracy theory....if you did then it would fail on both points after all, and we can't have that!!

[John Kettler]

Stalin's Organist,

I did read the whole article and waded through a great deal of material in addition to that, but my principal point stands. If it had been important to Stalin to complete those casemates and get them operational, then it would've been done. Many casemates were finished in Lithuania, but none was made operational. Not only wasn't building the Molotov Line rushed, but if we're to believe Suvorov's statements, as presented by Ballard, such other defenses as were already in place were systematically removed in order to facilitate offensive operations. This isn't how I'd organize a defense, this isn't how the U.S. commanders of the time defended, nor anyone else, and it isn't even what we saw the Russians do during the German drive on Moscow. In fact, this is the antithesis. Why is that so hard to grasp? If Stalin wanted something done, he issued the orders, and that was that.

From this, it logically follows that had he wanted serious border defenses in place, they would've appeared like toadstools after a spring rain. If there wasn't time for concrete, we would've seen loads of mines, barbed wire, pilings, and field fortifications for troops, MGs, ATRs, ATGs, mortars and artillery. Even horses! I have the field regulations. And did I mention antitank ditches? We don't. Instead, the mines in high traffic areas are lifted, and the barbed wire's cleared away too. What's wrong with this picture? Plenty! If the info's right, Stalin made it look like he was fortifying his new border, while systematically denuding it in those places from which he intended to launch offensive operations, and through which he needed to move large quantities of men, equipment and supplies without impediment.

Lifting of mines and obstacle removal constitute prime intelligence indicators that a force under surveillance is getting ready to go on the offensive, as are the forward deployment of artillery and the placing of large numbers of aircraft on forward airfields. Or did I imagine the Luftwaffe destroyed the Red Air Force wholesale on the ground in the first hours of Barbarossa, with planes lined up in neat rows and not in revetments?

I can tell I've struck a nerve here, but try not to have an aneurysm because the topic's so upsetting and contrary to your beliefs. It is the evidence that concerns us. I suspect we'd learn much from the relevant German unit war diaries, but I don't have them

handy. Still, there's Google!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa

Oh, look! The Wiki not only confirms what I've been trying to tell you, but amplifies it, including the devastating morsel that the maps issued to the forward troops were for....wait for it ....German territory! No maps of Russia were provided. IN INSIDE THE SOVIET ARMY, published way before ICEBREAKER, Suvorov had commented on what a terrible time the German had getting maps of Russia once the invasion began and how this hurt their artillery effectiveness. Hard to capture usable maps when the foe wasn't issued any! Note, too, that some of the most painful blows to your counterargument are delivered by a Russian historian, using Russian archival evidence.

Russian aircraft were massed in huge numbers (what you do in an offensive) on permanent fields and improvised, and the fuel depots were...forward! This is why the Luftwaffe was able to wreak such havoc, so fast. That Russian air assets were forward and exposed is confirmed in this paper.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/SVA.htm

Referring to my previous "shop window" argument, a defending force doesn't posture itself that way, and it certainly doesn't put all that effort into building new forward airfields and hiding them. This combination of ground defense removal, forward staging of aircraft and fuel and keeping of huge mechanized forces right at the border zone paints an unmistakable picture of a force gearing up for large scale offensive operations. That, clearly, is what Stalin planned, and that's what's being debated.

I don't care what Hitler did or didn't plan, for that's not the issue. The issue, put legally, was whether Stalin exhibited mens rea regarding his own offensive plans, and his force disposition multiply convicts him. That Hitler got there first with his own carefully honed strike is interesting, but it isn't material. Did it preempt Stalin? Yes! It was also, though, a convenient political "cover" for the long planned Nazi move against Communist Russia and the "inferior peoples" of the east, exactly as described in MEIN KAMPF.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Der Alte Fritz]

Hi John

There is a lot in what you say. But you have to prove that Stalin planned to launch an aggressive war against Germany during the period of the Non-Aggression Treaty.

The position of fortifications being dismantled, troops moving forward, forward airfields, etc is not proof because of the division of Poland. The forces of the USSR had their fixed defences prior to 1939. In 1939 the whole Red Army moved forward and started from scratch on Polish territory. They adopted a mobile, attacking form of defence, maybe even a spoiling attack.

But none of this adds up to aggressive war in 1939-1941 because of the purges, the fiasco in Finland (and in Poland!) and all the personal conversations of Stalin that show he did everything to avoid war before 1943.

Sorry John, I am with David Glantz on this one and he has more archival material on the Red Army than most people.

[John Kettler]

Der Alte Fritz,

Er, not quite. My understanding is that Suvorov's claim is that Stalin planned to attack Hitler, but that Hitler attacked first. Nothing I saw talked about whether this did or didn't involve breach of the Non-Aggression Pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, merely that Stalin planned all along to attack Hitler; that Stalin was not, as the standard accounts tell us, treacherously attacked by his erstwhile diplomatic partner, but instead was stabbed before he could slip in the poisoned poniard himself.

Mind, none of this is to say I care for either one. Rather, my loyalty is to the truth, as best it can be determined. The sum total of the evidence I've seen to date indicates to me that, however much we may wish to disbelieve it and be unwilling to accept it, Suvorov is right. Stalin was planning to attack Hitler while Hitler was bogged down elsewhere, little dreaming Stalin and the Soviet Union constituted the target!

Summing up, two loathsome murderous beasts determined to have at each other, but one misread his foe and nearly got his throat ripped out in consequence. That's what the evidence supports, methinks. It's clear from the Barbarossa Wiki that I'm not the only one and that there's archival evidence in support of these "heretical" views.

For grins and giggles, I looked up the Wiki on Stalin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Two points there are pertinent. The first is that even this page reports Suvorov's assertion is still being debated. Fair enough. Even more intriguing is the statement from Fedor von Bock's diary that the Abwehr expected a Russian attack against German forces in Poland in 1942. Poor von Bock's name was botched in the Wiki as "von Boch,

(yes, a little word play here!), but it's this guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedor_von_Boch

I did some more digging and hit paydirt, albeit in a politically hot location. The material presented is blockbuster, and the writer has, shall we say, appropriate credentials from which to comment. Further, he cites the Nuremberg IMT transcripts, post Suvorov scholarly works, interviews with captured Russian officers revealing that seven weeks before Barbarossa, Stalin said he was ready to attack in two months, and much else!

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n3p40_Michaels.html

(excerpt from above item; Fair Use)

"On May 5, 1941, just seven weeks before the German attack, Stalin delivered another important speech, this one at a ceremonial banquet in the Kremlin to graduates of the Frunze Military Academy. Also attending were the members of Stalin's "inner circle," including Molotov and Beria.

During the war, von Thadden relates, the Germans reconstructed the text of this speech based on recollections of captured Soviet officers who had attended the banquet.

As von Thadden notes, a number of historians have predictably denied its authenticity, rejecting it as a product of German propaganda disinformation. However, several years ago Russian historian Lev Bezymensky found the text of a portion of the speech, which had been edited for anticipated publication, in Kremlin archives. He published this text in a 1992 issue of the scholarly journal Osteuropa.

In this speech, Stalin stressed that the recent peaceful policy of the Soviet state had played out its role. (With this policy, the Soviet Union had greatly extended its borders westward in 1939 and 1940, absorbing some 30 million people.) Now, Stalin bluntly announced, it was time to prepare for war against Germany, a conflict that would begin soon. He cited the tremendous buildup of Soviet military power, both in quantity and quality, during the last few years. The recent German "occupation" of Bulgaria, and the transfer of German troops to Finland, he went on, are "grounds for war against Germany."

Stalin said:

Our war plan is ready ... We can begin the war with Germany within the next two months ... There is a peace treaty with Germany, but this is only a deception, or rather a curtain, behind which we can openly work ...

The peaceful policy secured peace for our country ... Now, however, with our reorganized army, which is technologically well prepared for modern warfare, now that we are strong, we must now go from defense to attack.

In fully defending our country, we are obliged to act offensively. We most move from defense to a military policy of offensive action. We must reorganize our propaganda, agitation, and our press in an offensive spirit. The Red Army is a modern army, and a modern army is an offensive army.

The motto of a peaceful policy of the Soviet government is now out of date, and has been overtaken by events ... A new era in the development of the Soviet state has begun, the era of the expansion of its borders, not, as before, through a peaceful policy, but rather by force of arms. Our country has available all the necessary conditions for this.

The successes of the German army are due to the fact that it has not encountered an equally strong opponent. Some Soviet commanders have falsely overestimated the successes of the German army ...

Therefore, I propose a toast to the new era that has dawned in the development of our socialist fatherland. Long live the active offensive policy of the Soviet state!

In the face of all the new evidence that has become available in recent years, von Thadden contends here, obviously it will be necessary to reexamine the long-standing official interpretation of the war."

To make sure I wasn't being had, I then spot checked the von Thadden book's existence, confirmed that here,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalins-Falle-wollte-den-Krieg/dp/3920722418

Even with my crummy German skills, I can tell the man was quite the student of history, for I can make out substantial title chunks of the sadly German only books he wrote.

http://tinyurl.com/5gozmh

Apparently, some of the new historical evidence got picked up in another politically hot site, with even more revelations emerging in the process. I found the comments by Russian major general Grigorenko on what the stupendous force build up in the Western Special Military District meant, the withering dismissal of Glantz's claims that Stalin never saw a European invasion war plan prepared by Zhukov and addressed specifically to Stalin (who had a death wish that big?) and the virtual closure of the state archives to be particularly telling. ISTR, too, that the records from 1940 and 1941 are completely off limits.

http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/stalwarplans.html

(From above article: Fair Use)

"This saber rattling by the Soviets was a rare public manifestation of the Soviet military presence in the western zone. In general, the Soviet media denied rumors of troop concentrations along the frontier. The defense committee had been secretly transferring combat divisions there since the summer of 1940. In April 1941, the Ural and Siberian military districts were ordered to release more formations. On May 13, an additional 28 divisions, nine corps headquarters and four army headquarters were relocated from the Russian interior. By June, according to recent Russian archival estimates, the Soviet armed forces had deployed 2.7 million men near the western frontier; the equivalent of 177 divisions.18

This enormous fighting force was allocated 10,394 tanks, over 1,300 of which were the formidable types KV and T-34. The army was supported by nearly 44,000 field guns and mortars. Over 8,000 combat aircraft occupied forward airdromes. The western military districts established command posts close to the frontier. Army staffs and front administrative personnel were ordered transferred there in mid-June.

One hundred Soviet divisions were positioned in eastern Poland alone. A high proportion of armored and mechanized formations deployed near Bialystok and Lvov, behind geographic bulges protruding westward along the German-Soviet demarcation line. In a 1972 book, Marshal Ivan Bagramyan, in 1941 a colonel in the Red Army, commented on the troop disposition around Lvov: "We regarded it a favorable assembly area in case we had to initiate widespread offensive operations. It was no accident that two of our full strength, most combat ready mechanized corps, the Fourth and the Eighth, were concentrated there."19

As for the Bialystok area, the Soviet Maj. Gen. Pyotr Grigorenko later offered this perspective:

More than half the troops of the Western Special Military District were stationed around Bialystok and to the west, therefore in territory extending like a wedge deeply into that of the probable enemy. A troop arrangement of this kind would only have been justifiable... if these troops had been earmarked to launch a surprise attack. Otherwise, half of them would have been surrounded in a moment.20

The philosophy of the Red Army was attack oriented. The chief of staff, Georgi Zhukov, described the training at the Soviet general staff academy:

Participants in the course were instructed that wars are no longer declared; the aggressor strives far more to insure all the advantages of a surprise attack... The strategy of warfare is above all anchored in the correct thesis that the aggressor can only be beaten through offensive operations. Other variables of battle, such as counterthrusts, fighting to cover retreats and operations in case of encirclement, were, with few individual exceptions, only touched upon."

In case you think that's a fluke, consider what's said later in this same article.

"On May 5, Stalin and assorted Soviet dignitaries attended commencement at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow. During the following banquet, he proposed several toasts and talked volubly. An abridged transcript of Stalin's remarks that day, from Soviet archives, was ultimately published by the Russian historian Lev Besyemski in the March 1992 issue of the periodical Osteuropa.

Stalin lauded the modernization of the Red Army. He rebuffed Gen. Michail Chosin, the director of the Frunze academy, for proposing a toast to the USSR's peaceful foreign policy. The dictator substituted these words:

Now that we have become strong, one must go from defense over to the attack. To accomplish the defense of our country we are obliged to take the offensive.... We must reform our instruction, our propaganda, agitation, our press to pervade an attack spirit. The Red Army is a modern army, and a modern army is an offensive army.23

The Russian archives have never released the uncensored text of Stalin's commencement speech. The deleted portions may be revealed, however, by the testimony of four Soviet officers who attended the graduation ceremony. Captured by the Germans, Maj. Ivan Yevstifeyev, Maj. Pissmeny, Maj. Gen. Andrei Naumov and Maj. Gen. Vassili Malyshkin had no contact during captivity, but their recollections of Stalin's remarks are practically identical.

The witnesses testified that Stalin had described the German army's "occupation" of Bulgaria and transfer of troops to Finland as "reasons for a war against Germany."24 Discussing the preparedness of the Red Army, Stalin heralded its intended employment:

For us, the war plans are ready... In the course of the next two months we can begin the struggle against Germany. It may surprise you that I'm telling you our war plans, but it has to be. We must take this step for our protection and take revenge for Bulgaria and Finland. There is a peace treaty with Germany, but that's just an illusion, a curtain behind which we can work.25

That same May 5, the military propaganda section received guidelines for "the tasks of political propaganda for the Red Army in the immediate future." The outline stated that "members of the Red Army must be prepared for a justifiable, offensive war." It further stipulated, "the present perception among many Red Army soldiers, commanders and political cadres that the German army... must be destroyed."26

"Justifiable, offensive war." Nope. No intention to attack there!

Ten days later, Stalin dictated a personal directive for the Red Amy:

The present international situation, which is filled with unforeseeable possibilities, demands revolutionary decisiveness and constant readiness to launch a crushing advance upon the enemy... The soldiers are to be schooled in the spirit of an active hatred of the enemy and to aspire to take up the struggle against him, to be ready to defend our fatherland on the territory of the enemy and deal him a mortal blow.

Historian Walter Post's trenchant comment:

"The rapid progress of the German deployment and the reports piling up about the Germans' intention to attack in the latter half of June confronted the Soviet command with the problem of either changing the entire war plan to the strategic defensive, or advancing its own timetable for attack... A strategic defense would have required a total revision of the troop disposition, which because of the poor rail network could not be carried out in a short time.... The Soviet command had at this late hour no other choice but to maintain poise, camouflage its own deploying of forces as much as possible and hope for enough time to complete the concentration of its troops and attack according to plan.30"

From here

Post, Walter, Unternehmen Barbarossa, Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn: Mittler, 1996

Here's some background on Pyotr Grigorenko, who I knew of already from my threat analyst days. He was forced into a mental institution for making waves the regime didn't like. Grigorenko, it turns out, was also advocating the evidence for Stalin's plans to attack BEFORE Suvorov.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Grigorenko

His book reviewed here.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1861963

The measure of the man.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/6726

And from this spooky pub, we see that Lev Bezymensky writes serious books and knows how to dig for info.

http://www.milnet.com/cia/csi-bulletin.html

Because, it seems, he was a spook, with a very interesting souvenir set!

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1186066402246

I think, therefore, that I've done at least a decent job of cross checking a stack of claims made on the controversial sites; that I've verified that the spot checked sources are real, the books exist, and that the parties named are in a position to credibly be able to say the things attributed to them.

Regards,

John Kettler

[mkenny]

You do realise you are using a very well know ultra right/Denier site. The IHR is hardly a credible source and going from memory here (I really can't be bothered lookinhg into it again) I think the Kremlin 'Archive document' is a report made about the original German fake report that was published in a Swiss(?) newspaper. If so then the evidence is circular. The fake speech is placed in a newspaper, The Kremlin write a report about the fake article and thus the fake article is authentic because it is mentioned in the Kremlin Archives!

[Stalins Organ]

Kettler your bland assetion that "if Stalin wanted something done then he issued the orders and it was done" is just so much baloney. Stalin did not expect things to happen overnight - certainly he expected them to happen if he ordered them, but 1 year to shift some serious defences a hundred or more miles forwards is actualy a pretty good achievement.

Your dismissal of it is pretty lame.

The Russians were certainly demolishing fortifications - the Stalin Line which was now hundreds of miles from the frontier - and what were they doing with the guns - they were shipping them to the new forts on the frontier.

You seem to assume that the Russians would be in some sort of hurry as if they were expecting a German attack....well ...um.....what part of Barbarossa as a surprise attack are you ahving trouble with??!! :/

Yes there are various things that Suvarov says that imply this or that......if we choose to accept them. But they can only be accepted by either uncritical reading or refusal to countenance the possible alternatives.

suvarov's thesis is interesting, and there is some evidence that can be seen as pointing to its correctness.......but there's vastly more evidence that points to an altogether different conclusion that also has the advantage of being more believable.

Did Stalin intend to attack Germany? Almost certainly.

Was he preparing to attack in 1941? Just as certainly not, and not 1 skerrick of real evidence supports a conclusion otherwise.

Any attack on Germany by the USSR wasn't going to happen until at least late 1942 - which was when the current reorganisation and re-equipment of hte Red Army was supposed to finish.

2 full strength Mechanised Corps in Eastern Poland? that's only 7% of the total nubmer of mechanised corps in the Red army (they numbered up to 30!) - and the rest were mainly woefully understrength. You'd think if they were preparing to attack they'd have done better than that!

[Tero]

By Stalin's Organist

You seem to assume that the Russians would be in some sort of hurry as if they were expecting a German attack....well ...um.....what part of Barbarossa as a surprise attack are you ahving trouble with??!! :/

Seems to me you are forgetting that after Winter War the giants feet were covered with clay. And the failings, shortcomings and troubles in the Red Army were apparent to all who had even the rudimentary understanding of military basics. The German army had shown in Poland and West how things were done. The Red Army had shown that they had troubles with the basics. Stalin was most certainly in a hurry to transform his armed forces. Stalin would have been a fool not to expect and fear for a pre-emptive strike from his closest "ally" when his forces were at its most vulnerable. His "ally" had openly declared his hostile intentions and plans a few decades earlier. IMO his adamant and frantic attempts to appease Hitler with deliveries which were made in full and on schedule are clear indication of his fears and expectations.

Any attack on Germany by the USSR wasn't going to happen until at least late 1942 - which was when the current reorganisation and re-equipment of hte Red Army was supposed to finish.

Agreed. That does not however discredit Suvorovs claim Stalin was planning and preparing to attack Germany in 1941 (planning and preparing that is, not actually attacking).

2 full strength Mechanised Corps in Eastern Poland? that's only 7% of the total nubmer of mechanised corps in the Red army (they numbered up to 30!) - and the rest were mainly woefully understrength. You'd think if they were preparing to attack they'd have done better than that!

You just said the Red Army would have been ready to attack no earlier than late 1942. Check out the loss rates of the Red Army tank forces here. Nearly 50% of the losses reported were due to mechanical failure. IMO that shows that no, they could not have done better than that in 1941. Stalin was most certainly aware of these statistics and being no dummy he knew what that meant in operational terms. That does not however mean he was not planning and preparing for an attack against Germany while his army was getting geared and retrained up.

[John Kettler]

mkenny,

I'm well aware of the controversial nature of the sites, which is precisely why I did all the legwork I reported doing. I wanted to make sure the article authors involved not only weren't making up book titles, but if the books were real, were, in fact, accurately reporting what they were saying.

Major General Grigorenko was a Russian military engineer, who served in the East and the West, was wounded in battle, was decorated and rose to become a division commander by War's end. As you can see from this essay on the "oh so controversial" (irony mode on) MIT website, even though he was stuck in Manchuria when the war began, he made it his business to find out how the Red Army could be walloped the way it was in the early days, in the process uncovering a pack of official lies told the Russian people and the associated military-political order trail. Later, former Major General Grigorenko also wrote an in-depth critique of the capstone U.S. Army FM 100-5 Operations from the Soviet perspective. After the war, from his position as an instructor at the prestigious Frunze Academy, he would've had legitimate access to a wealth of classified material on Russian military plans and operations, certainly to include the speech Stalin gave at the Academy less than two months before the war, not to mention the various orders regarding disposition of units, actions permitted and forbidden, etc. You should understand that much of Soviet military insight into the likely nature of future wars was gleaned by what today we'd call data mining the enormous mass of military material generated by the Red Army's actions before and during the Great Patriotic War. I've read shelves of such military distillations on troop densities, expected casualties, the value of surprise in combat, etc. For a sampling, read any book in the Soviet Military Thought Series. These were translations of what the Soviet officer corps was reading at the time.

While what you say about the Kremlin archive document may be true (don't know myself one way or the other), there appears to be a substantial body of evidence, to include that supplied by Russian scholars from their own archives, attesting to the soundness of Suvorov's core conclusions, particularly in light of the force dispositions employed. Seems pretty telling to me when the invading general remark about the immense quantities of war materiel they found in the Russian forward area just across the frontier in the early days of the invasion.

Oh, do I get a gold star for citing something from THE JERUSALEM POST? Seems only fair if you're going to chastise me for using the controversial sites!

Stalin's Organist,

Stalin had mastery of the country and certainly could've had substantive defenses in place in very short order. Look what was done before Moscow with the first snows already fallen and the Panzers practically on the Kremlin's porch.

From the Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow

Mozhaisk defense line (13 October – 30 October)

By October 13, 1941, the Wehrmacht had arrived at the Mozhaisk defense line, a hastily constructed double set of fortifications protecting Moscow from the west and stretching from Kalinin towards Volokolamsk and Kaluga. However, despite recent reinforcements, the combined strength of the Soviet armies manning the line (the 5th, 16th, 43rd and 49th armies) barely reached 90,000 men, hardly sufficient to stem the German advance.[38][39] In light of the situation, Zhukov decided to concentrate his forces at four critical points: Volokolamsk, Mozhaisk, Maloyaroslavets and Kaluga. The entire Soviet Western Front, almost completely destroyed after its encirclement near Vyazma, was being recreated from scratch.[40]

Moscow itself was transformed into a fortress. According to Zhukov, 250,000 women and teenagers worked, building trenches and anti-tank moats around Moscow, moving almost three million cubic meters of earth with no mechanical help. Moscow's factories were hastily transformed into military complexes: the automobile factory was turned into a submachine gun armory, a clock factory was manufacturing mine detonators, the chocolate factory was producing food for the front, and automobile repair stations were repairing damaged tanks and vehicles.[41] However, the situation was very dangerous, as the Soviet capital was still within reach of German panzers. Additionally, Moscow was now a target of massive air raids, although these caused only limited damage because of extensive anti-aircraft defenses and effective civilian fire brigades."

That was what the Russians were able to do after much of the Red Army was shattered and in disarray, amid inclement weather. Are you even going to dare to suggest less was possible in the sunny warm months preceding Barbarossa? Ridiculous!

Barbarossa wasn't a surprise, except that Stalin made it so. Any number of accounts clearly indicate enormous German troop concentrations were known, both by the Russians and in nearby capitals, the Ju-86 recon overflights were no secret, Sorge gave an accurate rendering of the invasion time frame, etc. From the Barbarossa Wiki

"In the spring of 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services made regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. However, Stalin chose to ignore these warnings. Although acknowledging the possibility of an attack in general and making significant preparations, he decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler. He had fielded officers who were likely indeed to tell him only what he wanted to hear, so that he believed that the position of the Soviet Union in early 1941 was much stronger than it actually was[citation needed]. He also had an ill-founded confidence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had been signed just two years before. Last, he also suspected the British of trying to spread false rumours in order to trigger a war between Germany and the USSR.[32][33] Consequently, the Soviet border troops were not put on full alert and were sometimes even forbidden to fire back without permission when attacked — though a partial alert was implemented on April 10 — they were simply not ready when the German attack came. This may be the source of the argument cited below by Viktor Suvorov. I've presented the reconstructed speech of Stalin himself (obtained BTW via four independent interviews, at various times and widely separated places, with captured Russian generals who were present at the speech."

From the World War II Media Database we have (Fair Use)

"The invasion was pushed back five weeks to June 22. Almost everyone knew it was coming except the Red Army soldiers about to meet the onslaught. Josef Stalin was warned by his intelligence services. The buildup of German forces on the Soviet line in Poland was obvious, and even the British warned Stalin, but he stubbornly refused his commanders permission to prepare defenses."

From Answers.xxx Russian History Encyclopedia (Operation Barbarossa) (Fair Use)

"In spite of the unmistakable signs of a military build-up along the border, German reconnaissance flights over the western Soviet Union, and warnings from sources as diverse as communist spies and the British government, the Soviet government refused to mobilize for war."

Thus the handwriting was not only on the wall, but was duplicated in Braille in case the reader was blind!

Then there's Zhukov's plan for offensive warfare on German soil, etc. Stalin's speech said he was going to attack in two months, IOW, about a week after the Germans launched Barbarossa. That's not 1942, not even close. Yes, that would've screwed up the re-equipment plans, but then, Hitler did the same thing to Raeder, whose navy wasn't supposed to fight until 1943 according to the official plan. Oops!

Let's recap. Research by Russian historians in their own archives supports Suvorov's argument. Grigorenko's own research revealed what happened and why and paved the way for Suvorov's work, and Grigorenko, I would argue, by virtue of rank and experience had much better informational access than did Suvorov, who was only a major at the time of his defection to the West. Research by German historians confirms Grigorenko, the Russian research and Suvorov. On top of that we have Stalin's reconstructed speech and four witnesses thereto, Zhukov's invasion plan from May of 1941, and that oh so embarrassing cherry on the top--the actual Russian massive forward deployed force dispositions. Had all that stuff not been in the shop window, the titanic encirclements that very nearly destroyed the Red Army would simply not have been possible, likewise the wholesale destruction visited on the Red Air Force.

Regards,

John Kettler

[undead reindeer cavalry]

The German decision to attack when they did was not entirely irrational. Foolhardy, extremely ambitious and totally arrogant, yes.

it was not only not-entirely-irrational, it was rational and sound. it's pretty much the only real option for Germans.

it's considered extremely ambitious or totally arrogant only in hindsight. back then even US General Staff calculated that Germany would defeat USSR in 10 weeks.

Hitler must have realised any delay in his master plan would have meant the Red Army would have been reorganized and re-equipped if he turned East too late.

Hitler's master plan was to fight naval and aerial war against the US. to do that he needed the resources located in USSR.

The apparent weaknesses of the Red Army had to be exploited before it could recover and learn from its mistakes.

the temporary weakness of the Western Allies had to be exploited now, because calculations showed that US would take direct part in European operations in two years.

[mkenny]

I am not really concerned about what people 'think' happened. The bits that concerned me :

I did some more digging and hit paydirt, albeit in a politically hot location....

The material presented is blockbuster, and the writer has, shall we say, appropriate credentials from which to comment.........

As von Thadden notes, a number of historians have predictably denied its authenticity, rejecting it as a product of German propaganda disinformation. However, several years ago Russian historian Lev Bezymensky found the text of a portion of the speech, which had been edited for anticipated publication, in Kremlin archives. He published this text in a 1992 issue of the scholarly journal Osteuropa.............

The report is simply an account of the original German disinformation article

It is not a copy of said speech. I understand why IHR would wish us to think otherwise. It may be many things but it 'aint 'paydirt'. A simple Google would have revealed this and it should have been mentioned. There is no smoking gun here and everything from IHR should be checked out before being used as proof of anything.

[Joachim]

mkenny,

I'm well aware of the controversial nature of the sites, which is precisely why I did all the legwork I reported doing. I wanted to make sure the article authors involved not only weren't making up book titles, but if the books were real, were, in fact, accurately reporting what they were saying.

Von Thadden... that von Thadden that is the founder of the post-war NPD?

Stalin had mastery of the country and certainly could've had substantive defenses in place in very short order. Look what was done before Moscow with the first snows already fallen and the Panzers practically on the Kremlin's porch.

...

That was what the Russians were able to do after much of the Red Army was shattered and in disarray, amid inclement weather. Are you even going to dare to suggest less was possible in the sunny warm months preceding Barbarossa? Ridiculous!

a) Germany declared total war in '43 and the maximium in the war production is 1944 - with the allies at the doorsteps and massive air raids.

The Soviet Union is very big. Creating defensive works at the whole border thru thinly populated country is a pretty huge task. Creating defensive works in front of Moscow would mean that on a 250km frontline (it's shorter) the 250.000 women and teenagers would each cover a front of 1m (or less) of defensive works. And we are talking of people accustomed to the climate. Now try to build the same defensive works along the whole front. And you need additional shelter for all these people working in the middle of nowhere first. Plus you have to motivate them doing overtime. While they are digging, your economy is lagging. Instead of building factories (for war!) you build trenches. But you want to gear up towards full production. Spirng '41 there are 2 possibilities: Short-term or long-term investment. In late '41 it was absolutely clear that the attack was in and you needed something short term - if it wasn't too late anyway.

c) France built a superb defensive works. What happened to the Maginot line? So why build the same thing but bigger? At least 20 times longer but only 3 times the population, much less time - and again: no housing, no logistics, no motivation.

Maybe Stalin just hoped he would get enough time to prepare for a war, replace his purged officer cadre and then strike. Gambling that Hitler was building defensive lines or just fearing an attack - cause that guy did not invest as much in his military-industrial complex as Stalin did. The Brits warn you about the upcoming threat - but your own spies tell you the German economy is business as usual. While you are convinced that to wage a big war "it's the economy, stupid". You can build more tanks per month than the Germans! And they are better! So why fear them? Just make sure the Western allies do not ally with the Germans and your production figures will win.

Gruß

Joachim

[Stalins Organ]

You just said the Red Army would have been ready to attack no earlier than late 1942. Check out the loss rates of the Red Army tank forces here. Nearly 50% of the losses reported were due to mechanical failure. IMO that shows that no, they could not have done better than that in 1941.

I didn't say they could have done better in in 1941, I said if they weer preparing to attack they should have done better - as in had more up-to-strength mech corps close to the frontier instead of just 7% - you dont' plan an attack with a very small fraction of your tanks near the frontier - you plan an attack with huge numbers of tanks there!

Stalin was most certainly aware of these statistics

says who? with the purges jsut finished who as going to tell him that his armoured corps was a paper tiger?

That does not however mean he was not planning and preparing for an attack against Germany while his army was getting geared and retrained up.

Of course not - some time later in 42 or maybe 43. But certrainly not in 41, which is what Suvarov claims.

also the fact that the soviet Army was attack oriented was not unusual for those days - 1939 and 40 had convinced pretty much everyone that attack was the correct doctrine, and defence was only there as an ancillary to attack - the US and UK had similar doctrines.

1939 and 40 had also confirmed to the Red Army that their doctrine of the offensive was perfectly correct.

Rather than continuing to list all the errors on the thesis I think that this review is a perfectly good antidote.

[John Kettler]

Joachim,

Let's, for the sake of argument, assume you're Stalin. You've just taken over a big chunk of Russia's hereditary enemy, Poland, after dividing it with that wolf Hitler. That's the good news. The bad news is that said wolf is now on your doorstep and has shown himself an accomplished killer. In the normal course of things, you wire in your frontier, sow mines and such, likely to both keep the newly conquered in and to keep intruders out. You also need to build a new permanent system of fortifications, the line named for you having been overtaken by events. Now you have all this work going on the Molotov Line (which he'll be happy to rename in your honor once complete), with some of the casemates finished.

If you're really serious about defending, rather than attacking, do you now go in and tear out your defensive wire and lift your mines in precisely the high traffic areas through which Zhukov's planned offensive against your erstwhile partner Hitler must move? Of course not! And you'd shoot anyone who recommended such a course of action were you truly on the defensive.

If you're really serious about defending, do you not have your troops working day and night (with suitable incentives and punishments) to get as many casemates as possible operational, even if it has to be done under blackout conditions? Likewise, do you not mine and block every identifiable high speed route into the country, knowing full well that most of the German force is horsedrawn and that what motor transport there is is basically roadbound? Of course you do!

I don't have a "going" map handy, but there are only so many axes of advance that allow the movement of large mechanized formations while staying close enough to a major road or rail to allow proper supply. And trust me when I tell you the Russians are geniuses when it comes to identifying this kind of detail. Their tactical maps routinely have stuff on them ours don't. Here's an example.

A Soviet plan for invading Iran came to light a decade or so ago. It had been written back when Carter held office and had the most incredible detail, to include manning and morale of every single border post, armament, ammo holdings, precise limits of fire, etc. Do you really believe Stalin wouldn't have that and more for his own territory? Yet what he'd need to suss out the likely main German axes of advance would be trivial by comparison.

I don't buy the argument that the entire Russian people labored to build defenses around Moscow, which is what your postulation regarding the manpower and production impact of fortifying the, in your view, entire Polish frontier necessarily implies in that case. Rather, the historical accounts were clear that those on the outskirts and the Muscovites themselves did the digging, and it certainly didn't stop war production, either, as the Wiki makes abundantly clear. If anything, the fear of imminent attack brought forth production miracles.

Stalin, the man who shipped millions east to the frozen wasteland of Siberia, could just as easily caused the teeming zeks to play mole on the Polish frontier, and in very short order, working in fantastic weather, would've had defenses stout enough to make the German General Staff gag. And that's without bringing in the Red Army on a crash basis. Since I lack decent maps, it's hard to say what would've been needed, but I have zero doubts the Russians could've set up formidable defense in record time.

mkenny,

I may have my Russians confused, but I believe the Lev Bezymensky you cite is the same spook who discovered Hitler secretly collected and listened to Tchaikovsky; the same one who said he was present at Hitler's autopsy. Given his part therefore in cornering and destroying the monster that was Hitler, what possible pro German ax could he have in disclosing his fearsomely damaging to Stalin archival delvings? Surely you're not asserting he secretly loved Hitler and falsified evidence to damage Stalin?

Stalin's Organist,

The link's going to take some time to digest, but I can say that the writer is using weasel words regarding Russia's offensive plan. Everything I've read about Zhukov's plan said it was for fighting on the German side of Poland, no ifs, ands or buts. I agree with some of the treadhead stuff, but the writer is on quicksand regarding his Me-109 armament list. 40% of the Me-109s in Barbarossa were Me-109Es (Green, WARPLANES OF THE THIRD REICH, p. 553), thus had only 2 x 20mm cannon and 2 x 7.92mm MG. Early Me-109Fs (op. cit. p.556) had only 1 x 20mm cannon and 2 x 7.92mm MG.

By contrast, there were multiple versions of the I-16 carrying not only heavy gun armament, heavier by one MG than the Me-109E had, but also rockets. Here's the armament breakdown by model.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/ww2htmls/polii16.html

From what I can tell, neither party in this argument did a good job on tactical-technical characteristics.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Stalin's Organist,

If Suvorov was indeed as slapdash and maybe even deceitful in presenting evidence as the article you cited indicates, and I haven't read his book, that indeed enters into assessing his argument. I read the whole piece and think Harms scored some telling points--provided he's not cooking evidence. I should also note for the record that the man is a former colonel in the East German Army, holds a Doctorate in Military Science, and is writing in what I believe to be Voyennaya Mysl (Military Thought), the once classified journal of the Russian General Staff. This is not exactly an unbiased source, nor is the writer. Putin assumed power on New Year's Day 2000, and this article appeared four years later. Thus, this article appeared after Putin had time to consolidate his hold over the military, and he himself's not exactly a Stalin decrier.

As for Harms, the only thing I've found on him so far is the article you cited.

Regards,

John Kettler

[undead reindeer cavalry]

a) Germany declared total war in '43 and the maximium in the war production is 1944 - with the allies at the doorsteps and massive air raids.

the declaration was done in the 1930ies before WW2 had even begun. the 1943 speech is just propaganda for the masses -- just like the "armaments miracle".

Instead of building factories (for war!) you build trenches. But you want to gear up towards full production. Spirng '41 there are 2 possibilities: Short-term or long-term investment.

Soviets had already built their factories years ago. Red Army tank fleet is as large in 1935 as it is in 1945.

c) France built a superb defensive works. What happened to the Maginot line?

that's more to the point.

Gambling that Hitler was building defensive lines or just fearing an attack - cause that guy did not invest as much in his military-industrial complex as Stalin did.

actually Germans invested more in military-industrial complex than Soviets. Germans just had to build their mass production industry from zero, where as Soviets had already built their massive factories. German economy, like the whole society, was horribly outdated and they knew it. Germans admired Ford-type mass production lines but had nothing like it. they even considered total demotorization of the whole society. Germans are making huge investements in industrial capacity still in 1942 -- that's where the "armaments miracle" of 1944 comes from -- investments in creating industrial capacity in previous years.

[Joachim]

"Total war" in the 30s did not include women in the workforce. There was still much civilian production during the early war years. Whereas Stalin had consequently shifted towards industrialization (accepting famine due to lack of farm workers) Hitler hadn't. He wasted several years. He built highways with manual labor (following the plans of his predecessors) instead of using that workforce to build factories - and then build the highways with tracked vehicles.

The number of Soviet tanks remains constant but the loss rates rise dramatically. From somewhere near zero in '35 to 10k+ in '41. So the production rises to make up for the losses.

In '41 most tanks were light - in late '42 the T34 is the dominant type. So additional industrial capacity in "tons of steel" is needed - and those factories aren't there in '40. Lend-lease factories built during the war make up for the factory losses in the conquered parts of the Soviet Union.

The main point regarding the economy was: Stalin wanted to increase production. If the Germans started to invest more, he had to match those investments. Lagging in the arms race (read: military industry race) means losing the war. Half a year to build a defensive line means losing half a year in that race - and (forced) industrialization is not a linear process, but rather exponential during that stage.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

"Total war" in the 30s did not include women in the workforce. There was still much civilian production during the early war years. Whereas Stalin had consequently shifted towards industrialization (accepting famine due to lack of farm workers) Hitler hadn't. He wasted several years. He built highways with manual labor (following the plans of his predecessors) instead of using that workforce to build factories - and then build the highways with tracked vehicles.

percentually there were more German females in the workforce already before the war than there ever was in UK during the whole war.

Germany had strong food rationing as there was a serious threat of famine.

there is no meaningful shift of workforce from civilian production to military production thru the war years. the shift takes place already during the 1930ies, when Germany mobilizes war economy. what comes to industrial production directly related to military production, Germany had a higher percentage than USSR (as much as it matters, since the difference between civilian and military production is purely artificial in war economy).

autobahns were just propaganda for the masses. the workforce working on autobahns was insignificant, and contrary to propaganda had little effect on unemployment since most of the work was done by slave labour. as already said, Germany considered total demotorization of the society (IIRC in 1940), meaning that all motor vehicles would be nationalized, but the plan was judged to be unpractical.

The number of Soviet tanks remains constant but the loss rates rise dramatically. From somewhere near zero in '35 to 10k+ in '41. So the production rises to make up for the losses.

In '41 most tanks were light - in late '42 the T34 is the dominant type. So additional industrial capacity in "tons of steel" is needed - and those factories aren't there in '40. Lend-lease factories built during the war make up for the factory losses in the conquered parts of the Soviet Union.

T-34 was built in factories that had made something else previously. eg. KhPz, which started the mass production of T-34 in 1940, had previously produced BT-series tanks. STZ, which started mass production in early 1941, had previously built half of all the tractors in USSR. KSF at Gorky locomotives etc.

factories producing T-34s that were threatened by Germans were relocated and combined at Urals.

Germans were still investing heavily in creating industrial capacity in 1942. Soviets had created the industrial capacity already a decade earlier.

[Joachim]

percentually there were more German females in the workforce already before the war than there ever was in UK during the whole war.

Germany had strong food rationing as there was a serious threat of famine.

During the war. SU had it before the war.

autobahns were just propaganda for the masses. the workforce working on autobahns was insignificant, and contrary to propaganda had little effect on unemployment since most of the work was done by slave labour. as already said, Germany considered total demotorization of the society (IIRC in 1940), meaning that all motor vehicles would be nationalized, but the plan was judged to be unpractical.

No huge slave labor before 1940. Autobahnen were built immediately after Hitler took over (well... actually the Cologne-Bonn highway was built before that and was demoted so Hitler built the first Autobahn ). Work was done by a workforce ("Reichsarbeitsdienst") drafted similarly to the army - 6 month for every man, usually before service in the army. Start of draft is 1935. Young women were drafted after the war started.

Slave laborers consisted of

a) Jews

POWs

c) foreigners pressed into service

re and c):

obviously not before the start of war.

re a)

most Jews were from the occupied territories, first big anti-Jewish act was the Reichskristallnacht (9th/10th Nov '38) - looting of Jewish shops, burning synagogues. Concentration camps are there to intimidate political opponents before that.

Germans were still investing heavily in creating industrial capacity in 1942. Soviets had created the industrial capacity already a decade earlier.

That is one part of what I said - the Soviets started earlier.

Now spring '41 you can send lots of workers to create a static defense or continue to improve your economy. The former means losing your edge. Given the fate of the Maginot line and the size of the country it won't help much anyway. Trying to keep their advantage seems much better. You know the German tanks in '35 - and you know your new model. They have Blitzkrieg, but you have a tank that is years ahead of the Western allies. You can produce lots of them soon. Your army is bigger. Your country has strategic depth. Quantity has a quality of its own. That's defense enough. You know your army ain't the best. But you don't think it is as bad as it really is. Next thing is you better send armed workers to build these defenses - no need to have an unarmed force that might face an attack. So if it is necessary to dig there, then it is better to let the army do it or put the workers into the army.

The defenses in front of Moscow are built when strategic depth has reached a critical point - you can't relocate Moscow and the workforce there during Winter. There is not enough housing east of it. The facts dramatically change upon which the decision is based to dig or to improve the industry.

So both decisions make sense given the situation leading to them.