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Was the USSR readying an attack on Germany in June 1941?/Politics in Academia Tom Send a noteboard - 05/05/2017 08:02:58 PM

Recently, I’ve read quite a bit about the Second World War. I’ve been intrigued by the idea that is now called on Wikipedia the “Soviet Offensive Plans Controversy”, though there really isn’t much controversy in my opinion.

On December 11, 1941, Hitler in a speech to the Nazi Party claimed that from the start of Operation Barbarossa to December 1, German forces destroyed 17,332 Soviet military airplanes, 21,391 tanks, 32,541 pieces of artillery and captured as prisoners of war 3,806,865 Soviet soldiers. These numbers were contested by the Soviet government for decades as Nazi propaganda, but the military of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union now admits that losses in that period were roughly 20,500 tanks, 17,900 airplanes, 20,000 artillery pieces and roughly 4 million soldiers. These numbers are close enough that we can say there is consensus on the losses of the Red Army in the first months of the war. At the same time, anyone reading a history book from the 1970s, for example, would hear that these numbers were lies.

The tank and airplane numbers in particular are very telling. These losses exceed the total number of tanks and airplanes that Germany possessed at the time in its entire arsenal, and most of the losses occurred in the first weeks of the war (in the case of airplanes, most in the first day). This was because the airplanes were at airfields which were in most cases less than 10 minutes’ flying time from the border with Nazi Germany. Even if they were warned to put their planes in the air, the field would be bombed before more than a few planes made it off the ground. The same can be said about the tanks, which were grouped together in staging areas right next to the border.

What country would need that many tanks? The Soviet Union had more tanks (almost all of them near the border - about 85%) at that time than all other nations in the world put together. The numbers are close with respect to airplanes. And what country would station all that military hardware so close to its border where it risked destruction in a sneak attack like the one the Nazis launched on June 22, 1941?

The “official” explanation for all this is that Stalin trusted Hitler, that he was stupid and foolish and his generals were idiots because all the good ones had been shot. The failed war in Finland is shown as an example of this (despite the fact that Finland is terrible terrain for tank warfare, consisting of thick forests peppered with bogs, swamps and lakes). However, none of these explanations make sense. They especially do not make sense when one reads memoirs of the participants. Every Soviet general was expecting a war – just not one that started with a German invasion. The Germans knew they had to defeat the Western powers quickly because the Soviets would stab them in the back sooner or later. The consensus here is staggering as well.

Why would a country move some five million troops (almost the entirety of its armed forces) into the 20-30 kilometers closest to its border, move all of its military aviation to bases near the border, move millions of artillery shells to the border and store them in the open air, move tens of thousands of tanks to forward staging areas, remove the mines from the bridges leading into Nazi territory, dismantle their barbed wire and minefields and issue directives to troops not to give in to provocations from the other side? Does this sound like the behavior of a nation that trusts its neighbor?

No. Very clearly it sounds like the Soviets were preparing to attack Germany. The memoirs of countless generals and other Soviet soldiers are filled with the understanding that a war was coming. The actions of the Soviet army are consistent with planning an offensive operation. More to the fact, when General Pavlov, at risk to his own life (he was in fact shot a few months later), issued orders on June 22, 1941 sua sponte that troops under his control were allowed to fight, some of them went immediately on the offensive, seizing bridgeheads to allow for other troops to invade German territory, in what seemed to be well-rehearsed operations. With no follow up from other units, these failed attacks just led to encirclement and destruction.

Not only that, but Zhukov, the supposed "genius" (butcher) of the war (sending men into 4 frontal attacks in a row and leading to about 500,000 casualties, all without success, is the opposite of "genius" in my book), dithered in indecision for 12 hours on June 22 before issuing a crazed "all forces should start offensive operations". This was because the Soviets had no defensive plans.

Ah, some people who still try to preserve the myth that the Soviets weren’t preparing for an offense will say, but you see, the Soviet doctrine was about counterattacking into enemy territory. That's why they didn't have defensive plans and that's why everyone was at the border. It was Soviet military doctrine to fight wars on enemy territory.

Wonderful. I agree with those people - the Soviets were not planning to fight on Soviet territory. But it's not because their doctrine involved counterattacks. That doctrine would still keep defensive positions and involve having the main forces a reasonable distance from the border behind a screen of forces who would delay the enemy to allow the counterattacking forces time to mobilize and strike. The screening forces would absorb the initial blow and the main body would be ready to fight. That didn't happen.

What it looked like, from all available evidence, is that the Soviets were in the process of completing mobilization for a first strike against Nazi Germany. Certainly the Germans expected it and never trusted Stalin. If this were the case, though, it would also show Stalin didn't trust Hitler.

The notion that the Soviet Union was planning an attack found ample support in the books of Viktor Suvorov (the pseudonym for Vladimir Rezun, a former Soviet military intelligence officer who defected in the 1970s), the first of which were published in the 1980s. At present, he has now written 9 books on the topic, all of which draw on ample sources (many of them public). His supporters are growing and are now also printing several books based on new information that has been discovered in Soviet archives.

After the first book, established historians have relentlessly tried to destroy Suvorov’s credibility. The problem is that Suvorov’s thesis is backed up by countless military memoirs, open publications and (more tellingly) documents that have been declassified following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many things that Suvorov guessed at having existed were later proven to be true (such as the meeting of the Politburo on August 19, 1939 or the secret speech by Stalin on May 5, 1941 declaring that the Soviet Union was going to wage offensive war against its enemies). The established historians are mostly older writers who seem to be fighting for the legacy of their own, outdated books (cf. David Glantz).

In fact, virtually all of Suvorov’s allegations find support in primary sources. His opponents often use thoroughly discredited materials (like Zhukov’s memoirs, which have now been edited and “remastered” 13 times) or out-of-date information (official Soviet publications that intentionally printed incorrect information).

The opposition of older historians is understandable. First, as I said, they are defending the validity of previous works. Additionally, however, there is the standard academic response of criticism to anyone who comes out with a point of view differing from the academic’s own view. Finally, we also see the contempt of academics when someone with real-world experience but lacking a Ph.D. publishes in any field.

The theory has also encountered strong opposition in Russia because it further discredits the Soviet regime and exposes yet again the vicious, bloodthirsty Bolshevik Party as inhumane. Apologists of communism would rather admit to incompetence than inhumanity. Furthermore, in the eyes of some, the notion that Stalin was preparing an offensive war calls into question the propriety of the war crimes that the Soviets committed later in the war on German territory.

As a result, looking at “Soviet Offensive Plans Controversy” on Wikipedia shows a skewed set of assertions that can only be called “fake news” in the present day. It states that Suvorov’s claims are “generally discounted according to David M. Glantz”. How convenient that Glantz, taking it upon himself to speak for all of academia, has let us know that the claims are discredited. Reading further in the article, one can see that in fact, Glantz is the foremost opponent of the theory but that others have accepted it in whole or in part, and with new Soviet documents being declassified from time to time, the notion that Stalin was planning an invasion is gaining support, not losing it. Furthermore, looking at the “Chat” tab of the article, it is clear that there is a lot of pushback from people who don’t like the position of the editor for the page, who appears to be a supporter of Glantz.

The German version of the page is even worse, because it seeks to cast the current state of the debate as being even less valid by claiming “Diese These hatten Fachhistoriker in den 1960er Jahren entkräftet. 1985 wurde sie erneut publiziert ... Sie gilt als Hauptbestandteil des Geschichtsrevisionismus im deutschen Rechtsextremismus, der auf die Relativierung oder Leugnung der Kriegsschuld und Verbrechen NS-Deutschlands zielt.“ (These theses were discredited by professional historians in the 1960s … They serve as a principal part of historical revision and German right extremism, which seek to relativize or deny the war guilt and crimes of Nazi Germany.) Yes, that's right: support Viktor Suvorov and you're a Nazi.

However, these “professional historians” seem to be ignoring key documents that have been released and published. We now know, for example, that there was in fact a Politburo meeting on August 19, 1939, which agreed on a course of supporting Germany’s war against the West to then stab it in the back. We knew the meeting took place for decades because virtually every Soviet book discussing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact said that the day it was signed, there was no meeting of the Politburo. No one seems to have asked the question, but every single Soviet production told us there was no meeting and went out of its way to do so. As a result, when the stenogram from the meeting was found in the Soviet Communist Party’s archives in the 1990s, it wasn’t much of a surprise.

At this point, the choice is very simple: people can believe Marshals Rokossovsky, Konev and dozens of Soviet generals who published memoirs about the war, all affirming that they knew war was imminent and yet surprised that the Germans attacked the USSR, and not the other way around; and people can believe statements found in the German memoirs of Manstein, Guderian, Halder, and Henry Picker’s Tischgespräche (Hitler’s Table Talk is the English title). We can believe the notes of the interrogation of Soviet generals captured by the Germans (like General Vlasov, who confirmed that the Soviets were preparing an attack on Germany), and we can believe the documents released by the Russians in the 1990s when the archives were generally open.

Or we can say that all of those people lied. We can believe the Soviet official story, supported by Marshal Zhukov’s memoirs in any one of its 13 alternative variants (which of course contradict one another), we can believe the current official position of the Russian Army and we can believe David Glantz and company, who say that Stalin was stupid and trusted Hitler and the Red Army wasn’t planning an attack on Nazi Germany.

I realize that the supporters of the traditional view will say that the Germans also had a reason to falsify evidence. All things being equal, however, I find that they were oddly honest. They kept meticulous records of the Holocaust even though it came back to haunt them that they did so. They also uncovered the massacre of 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn. Look at what the Soviets did then - they said the Nazis lied and blamed everything on them (or tried to). However, the Nazis may have been evil but they didn't lie about Katyn. I doubt they lied about what General Vlasov said either.

Obviously, I’m not saying that the Red Army would have won easily had it attacked; only that it was indeed planning such an attack. Evidence points to July 6, 1941 as the planned date of the attack. Even if that’s not true, Occam’s Razor, when applied to this matter, is generally on the side of Suvorov and dozens of younger historians who have analyzed the subject without a prior bias (one might even say without a prior confessional commitment given the religious fervor with which the older historians are defending their sinecures).

By looking more into this, however, I see once again how easily manipulated academia is by political concerns and how extremely valid, well-reasoned and supported theories are shoved aside out of considerations that have nothing to do with exploring the truth of the matter. I have also seen how historians who are coming out in greater numbers to challenge the 1960s paradigm are tarred and feathered with epithets (the label “Nazi” has been applied to so many people at this point that you’d think it was the most popular political party in the world by now).

I’m certainly not a scientist, but seeing what is being done, and having read enough primary sources to draw my own conclusions, I see what has been done to a host of historians. I therefore find it not hard at all to believe that other "scientific" discussions with political consequences are likewise being shut down by threats and bullying. Is there universal consensus on climate change and projections as to what will happen in the future? Did psychiatrists freely decide to reclassify gender identity disorder as just another part of normal sexuality in 2013? I don’t know. I realize that because homosexuality was defined as a “disorder” until at least the early 1990s psychiatrists have been on the defensive with respect to sexual disorders. I also know that temperatures today are warmer than in the 1980s.

At the same time, I see even in books that support the notion of global warming statements about world temperatures before the Little Ice Age indicating that they were higher than they are today. If Norway was able to support viniculture then temperatures were pretty warm. As an aside, does anyone know if Norway produces wine now? Also, I wonder and worry if the transgender label isn’t being used to win victim status, or being overapplied to people who are just genuinely confused or have actual disorders.

The point is that there’s probably never a point where academia stops being political unless it’s investigating something totally new (like figuring out the grammar of the Eblaite language or excavating a new tomb in Egypt).

I also understand that it's useless wasting time on nutjobs who come out of the woodwork (just type in "anunnaki" in Google and see the craziness begin). However, I'm getting much more skeptical about information in general, and not just news.

Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.

ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius

Ummaka qinnassa nīk!

*MySmiley*
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Was the USSR readying an attack on Germany in June 1941?/Politics in Academia - 05/05/2017 08:02:58 PM 730 Views
Churchill was correct - 06/05/2017 01:43:16 AM 391 Views
Good post Tom..very interesting. I too find myself more and more skeptical of information these days *NM* - 06/05/2017 04:42:55 AM 226 Views
yes. exactly. *NM* - 09/05/2017 09:23:06 PM 180 Views
Agreed on both points - 06/05/2017 03:37:26 PM 507 Views
Suvorov thought the Soviet main attack would be in the far north and south - 06/05/2017 07:06:16 PM 406 Views
Re: Suvorov thought the Soviet main attack would be in the far north and south - 07/05/2017 06:55:41 PM 499 Views
You are right on all accounts - 08/05/2017 04:48:50 PM 394 Views
Interesting post. It seems like a surprisingly big thing to have such controversies about... - 07/05/2017 11:17:27 AM 453 Views
I disagree on the global warming "solution" - 16/05/2017 05:19:08 AM 346 Views
I see what you mean on the 'religious fit' part, yes. - 16/05/2017 06:33:40 PM 351 Views
It doesn't make sense to rein in CO2 emissions, though - 17/05/2017 04:06:07 AM 435 Views
Was it Bjorn Lomborg? - 16/05/2017 06:56:43 PM 345 Views
I've read a little bit on this subject too. - 07/05/2017 03:24:44 PM 417 Views
Interesting read and topic - Questions - 07/05/2017 06:29:08 PM 381 Views
Re: Interesting read and topic - Questions - 07/05/2017 08:48:59 PM 428 Views
^ What he said *NM* - 16/05/2017 05:19:53 AM 194 Views
Phh! That's a relatively minor issue - 08/05/2017 03:26:55 AM 490 Views
It's long past time to start looking at that period rationally - 16/05/2017 05:28:36 AM 305 Views
To a large extent I agree - 17/05/2017 02:36:20 AM 459 Views

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