Did Stalin plan to steamroll Europe in 1941?

[Oleander Ardens]

This is a bit of a spinoff from the Hitler-topic above, especially Kraxis comment. It poses the question if Stalin planned an attack on the western front, which is a hotly debated one, especially since the book "Icebreaker" came out. Very understandable as many fear this could somehow justify the german attack of the Sovietunion or even allow the Nazis to be somehow remembered as the ones who save Europe from the red wave.
IMHO Hitler long planned to attack Stalin, so nor an agressive nor a peaceful Sovietunion would have changed much, but anyway what our your opinions relative this delicate topic?

Cheers
OA

[econ21]

This topic is news to me - anyone care to summarise the argument of "Icebreaker"? I'd understood Stalin to have been completely surprised by Barbarossa and unwilling to believe Hitler's aggression. That doesn't quite fit with someone who was planning similar action of his own. Add to that the Red Army's very limited capabilities, having lost much of its officer corps to the purges, and a "steamroller" plan does not seem very plausible. I've always regarded Stalin and his successors as essentially defensive in posture, despite their large arms spending.

[HopAlongBunny]

Unlikely,

Gutting the army through purges seems to be a less than optimal way to prepare a steamroller.

[Oleander Ardens]

Well I will try to do so, although the book lives mostly from the sheer number of details...

- the training of a huge number of paratroopers, vastly more than all other countries togheter
- the destruction of defenselines and the construction of roads through them
- the development of a tank able to throw of it's chains -> very unpractible on russian territory, but perfect for the western roadsystem
- the use of standard motors instead of diesel ones, even if the latter were superior -> all fuelstations in western Europe were only prepared for the first type of fuel
- the dissolution of "partisan"-units, trained for the guerillia warfare
- the construction of frontlines and artillery positions very similar to the german ones
- the concentration of the troops directly near the frontline -> only suited for offensive warfare
- the construction of light attack bombers similar to the Stuka
- the preperation of a russian-german booklet very similar to the one used by the germans in Russia, containing many question for german civilists

and so on...

I've read it some time ago, and was highly sceptical. But even I hated to do so I had to admit that it all seemingly makes sense. In any case here seems to be a more or less sensible article about it. I have also read the sole answer to it and it couldn't dismiss the points per se IMHO
You understand why this thesis is dangerous when you see how many neo-nazi sites rejoice, I really hurts one to even think that the book might be right...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl..._18342993/pg_1


Passages like the following are quite stunning:

"First of all, we report the results of an important recent article by another Soviet military-historical writer, V. I. Semidetko. He came to a conclusion about Soviet military behavior in early summer 1941 that he appears hardly to have expected when he began his research on "Results of the Battle in White Russia."

Semidetko was in all likelihood wholly unaware of Suvorov's work when he wrote. Yet he concluded, writing in the Soviet magazine Military-Historical Journal (Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal), in 1989, after research on the early months of the Soviet-German war in newly opened Soviet military archives, that the reason the German army had so easily sliced eastward through the Red army on the central, White Russian front in June 1941 (where both armies, attack and defense, were of approximately equal strength) was that the latter was in an attack position.(14) This is, of course, the very discovery central to the argument Suvorov made several years earlier to explain that same military debacle. The Red army, Suvorov then said, was positioning itself to attack west, hence wholly out of its defensive positions. Because of the Kremlin's longstanding doctrinal emphasis on assault, those positions had, in any event, long been neglected. The Red army was, therefore, totally vulnerable before the onrushing Germans who, anticipating Stalin's attack, attacked first."

@Appleton: The Fins, polish and baltic people surly don't remember Stalin as a peaceful dictator and neither do the millions of his own people who died thanks to him, like the ones in the great famin in the Ukraine when they Stalin exported their crops for foreign money...

This however doesn't shed a good light on the author of the "Icebreaker":

http://www.tau.ac.il/taunews/96winter/russia.html

Cheers
OA

[nokhor]

it was my impression of the events that it wasn't that the red army was in a defensive position, it was more like in a strategic marching column position and thats why it was vulnerable to attack. the whole point for stalin to take over eastern poland and eastern romania was so that he could push the soviet defensive works further from russian territory, and closer to the threat [nazi germany]

its just that, like everyone else, the soviets were surprised by the rapid nazi defeat of britain and france and instead of having years to transfer the defensive border to the new western boundaries of the soviet empire, the red army found itself [strategically speaking] caught between the old defenses they had abolished and the new defenses they were building up but were far from complete.

[DemonArchangel]

I think Nazi Germany did more to win the cold war than anything America did.
The Germans essentially hamstringed the Russian economy and labor force, thus preventing the Russians from winning an economic/military arms race with the U.S in the long run.

[Red Harvest]

the whole point for stalin to take over eastern poland and eastern romania was so that he could push the soviet defensive works further from russian territory, and closer to the threat [nazi germany]

its just that, like everyone else, the soviets were surprised by the rapid nazi defeat of britain and france and instead of having years to transfer the defensive border to the new western boundaries of the soviet empire, the red army found itself [strategically speaking] caught between the old defenses they had abolished and the new defenses they were building up but were far from complete.

This has been the interpretation I've seen as well. Stalin had his forces positioned farther forward because of the annexation of other states as result of his agreement with Hitler. I don't get the impression that Stalin was a great military mind--resolute, utterly ruthless, and insightful at times, but Barbarossa caught him with his pants around his ankles. If memory serves early in Barbarossa Stalin did not want to cede territory even when his armies were being flanked and risking encirclement. Combining this with holding out in places like Stalingrad later on indicates an unwillingess to cede any ground, even if necessary at times. So I doubt he believed that defense in depth within traditional Russian territory was the key. I suspect that he believed having armies so far forward would serve as a deterrent, as well as keeping the war out of Russia should it come. And Stalin had to prepare for war eventually, because he must have known that the Nazis would inevitably turn towards the large land mass next to them.

Between the officers purges and the lack of adequate comminications, the Russian forces were an ideal target for a German blitzkrieg strike. Stalin probably thought his massive air force (roughly 9,000 aircraft available for their Western Front) would help prevent such a strike, or at least provide some cover and slow any invader down, but the Luftwaffe destroyed much of the VVS strength in a few weeks (1,200 on day one.)