Question by Bad Knee: Would Stalin have attacked Germany eventually as Hitler had said?
Do you think the Russians would of eventually attacked Germany as Hitler had always ranted about, and even used it as his excuse to attack them, first. I know when he invaded Stalin apparently passed out in shock, so I doubt it would have been near, though I still wonder if maybe Hitler had a point on this one. Is this there any historical evidence to suggest either way. Thanks for your time.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Davy
Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact to the relief of Stalin. He knew his country wasn’t ready for a full-scale war and liked the idea of Germany ignoring Russia. That is why the attack on Russia came with such a surprise, and the Germans almost won that front before Russia even woke up. They would have never thought that Hitler would betray them.
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xenonme says
Stalin's top ranks were eliminated during his purges, leaving his army weak. They could not even defeat the Finns. In my view Stalin would have never attempted such a move.
Michael says
I can think of several reasons for Stalin NOT do consider attacking Germany for a long time:
USSR had huge benefits from the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Lots of territory-Baltic states, eastern Poland, lots of much needed goods.
Weakness of soviet military. Stalins purges wiped out many of the best of the officers.
Very hard to motivate the Red Army with it's many nationalities for an agressive war.
Busy with building up infrastructure in the vast, undeveloped areas in Ursal/Siberia
Threat from Japan. Japan was very active in Manchuria, there was major clashes between USSR and Japan, even if war was undecleared.
But, as already said, jury is very still out on this one, as many archives remain closed.
Slava T says
The problem is that ALL documents of the prewar Soviet General Staff are still classified. Marshall Zhukov (the head of the General Staff at that time) was conspicuously silent about that in his memoirs published in the USSR in the beg. of 1970s.
Nevertheless there are a lot of strange indirect evidences in favour of Stalin's hectic preparation for the OFFENSIVE war.
Hitler's blow happened at the very moment in summer 1941 when the Soviet army was on march to their positions in the west of the country.
Anyway I refer you to some books by Viktor Suvorov, the former Soviet spy (military intelligence), defector and military analyst. Although you have to consider his writing with a pinch of salt he presents overwhelming list of evidencies in support of theory of Stalin's aggressive intentions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov
Upd. Just to put in my tuppence worth on the discussion about some arguments against theory on “Stalin’s offensive war”:
1)Argument no. 1 – “Stalin was not ready for the war from technical point of view”.
a)Wrong. If you compare Hitler’s and Stalin’s forces BEFORE the war you’ll realise that Stalin had twice or three times more tanks, cannons and aircraft than Hitler. The majority of all those unmanned stuff was moved to the border and was lost during the German advancement in the end of June 1941.
2) Argument 2. “Stalin purged the Soviet brass that is why his army was weak”.
a) Obviously Stalin did not think so as neither Hitler who famously envied Stalin for that kind of bloodletting;
b) If you look at the list of the purged high-ranking Soviet officers you’ll notice that their military experience was limited by the cavalry charges during the Russian civil war. The purges allowed high vertical mobility for talented young officers.
c) Moreover, no doubt there was some dissatisfaction with Stalin among the Soviet military in the end of 1930s. Stalin preventively rooted out ANY possibility of the “fifth column”. Remember about assassination attempts in the Hitler’s case?
3) Argument no.3 – “The Soviet military was so weak that it could not defeat the Finns”
a) Wrong. The Soviet military broke through the most sophisticated defence line (The Mannerheim Line). They lost hundreds of thousands without any complains, any grudges. They broke though it in the winter, in the snow, in the forest and swamps. They broke it where it was impossible to get heavy weapons to. They broke through it and then Stalin decided that it was not politically correct time yet to go further.
b) The USSR got ALL territories it had wanted from Finland before the war.
Laurence says
Only after Japan had shown its hand by attacking the US instead of the USSR. And only when he was either sure of winning or had ceased to trust Hitler's intentions and had come to feel he needed to get his blow in first.