 The biggest mystery of World War II By Volodymyr SENCHENKO |
Was Stalin a master tactician? Or was he caught by surprise when the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union?
The cannons of World War II - the most horrible war in the history of mankind - have been silent for many years. Since the end of what we call "The Great Patriotic War" thousands of memoirs and reams of historical research have been written on this period. Yet debate still rages over the biggest mystery of the war: the question of how Joseph Stalin was surprised by the attack on the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany.
It has been well established through documentary evidence that Stalin was, in fact, well informed of the fact that Germany was poised to attack, as well as the planned time and date of the attack.
Given this knowledge, why did Stalin not react, resulting in the subsequent deaths of millions of soldiers and the defeat of the Red Army between 1941 and 1942. All the other tragedies that the war brought, including occupation and concentration camps, are related to the initial retreat of the Red Army.
Stalin's strange military behavior has been attributed by some to his belief that Germany would not attack the Soviet Union since a 1939 treaty forbade it. The proponents of this theory clearly don't know Stalin: He never trusted anyone.
Another theory has been put forward by Viktor Suvorov, a Ukrainian-born Soviet spy who worked for the Soviet GRU, a military intelligence agency, before defecting to Great Britain in 1978. Suvorov believed that Stalin was preparing to attack Hitler, but Hitler preempted. This theory fails to persuade those who lived in the period who know that the Red Army was ill-prepared for offensive battle at that time. The tanks were not suited for fast attacks, nor were the military aircraft. Nor had the Red Army been equipped with automatic weapons.
In addition, many of the Soviet soldiers had been born in Central Asia, and knew little or no Russian.
Given these drawbacks, the best that the Soviet army was prepared to was to repel attackers.
Soviet propaganda promised that the nation would defeat the enemy on its own territory, and with few casualties at that. But that was propaganda.
There were well-armed and capable Red Army regiments, but they were located in the Soviet Far East, watching Japan. These troops were relocated later to help defend Moscow, where they played a crucial role.
Psychologists who have created elaborate profiles of the two leaders provide another possible explanation for Stalin's excessive trust of Hitler. The researchers concluded that Stalin and Hitler psychologically resembled "a man and a woman," with Stalin in the role of the man and Hitler in the woman's role. Hitler, they determined, was the psychological embodiment of the weaker sex, and probably lacked a stable attitude toward Stalin. In the same way, Stalin was confident that Hitler, a woman-like type, wouldn't dare to misbehave. But Stalin was wrong, and the psychologists say that is why Stalin was shocked when Germany moved to attack the USSR.
After studying many of the materials of that time, including memoirs and scientific research papers, I am confident that those who were there in 1941 are the closest to knowing the truth.
In 1941, many people thought that Stalin was using a military technique developed by Aleksandr Kutuzov, a 19th century czarist military commander. Kutuzov believed in allowing an enemy deep on one's own territory in order to exhaust and destroy him during the harsh Russian winter. This theory gained credibility after the Nazis were defeated near Moscow.
But the fact that the war continued until 1945 damages this theory.
There were four main forces in World War II: Germany, England, the USSR and the United States. Stalin was the only leader who took all these forces into account and evaluated them correctly.
Germany didn't hide its intentions - world domination. England was trying to preserve its empire. The Soviet Union's strategy was not to allow a creation of one imperialist camp against it. How the war ended would largely depend on how the U.S. reacted.
Hitler didn't understand this at all. It seemed to him that victory over England and the USSR would guarantee Germany's domination in the world. Stalin understood very well the USA's role in a Europe exhausted by war. He knew that the U.S. would enter the war during the final stages.
America's leaders didn't hide this fact. Then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that the U.S. should take a wait-and-see approach, then help the side that was losing.
Stalin understood that he wouldn't be able to break those three forces - England, Germany and the United States. Stalin needed very much to make the U.S. an ally of the Soviet Union. This could have happened had the USSR experienced great defeats. The USSR's destruction wasn't in America's plans. Both countries had pretty good economic relations, and the Red Army's troops keeping an eye on Japan, which had already started acting aggressively in the Pacific, a zone of U.S. interests.
That is why, early on, Stalin wasn't complaining about the Red Army's losses. It also explains why Stalin didn't address the people during the first week of the Nazi attack on the USSR. For some reason, research into the defeat of the Red Army at the beginning of the war repeats Nikita Khruschev's view that Stalin was in despair during those first days.
Today, there may still be people who would never believe that Stalin set up the Soviet people. Stalin himself probably didn't expect that the first setbacks would result in catastrophe and the retreat of the Red Army, endangering the existence of the nation. Not everything went according to Stalin's plan. But eventually, only the USSR and the U.S. managed to fulfill their plans for the war - at a terrible price.
Even with the passage of half a century, it is important to dispassionately review the tactics and strategies of the war's main participants, to evaluate the historical meanings of the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition and its victory over fascism. After all, one might not find out the truth, but at least get closer to it.
|
Read also previous issue' articles:
The Herodotus of Ukrainian History
Ukrainians Want A Country That Respects Them
Ukraine's Brain Drain
Chauvinistic Smoke A Few Words on Russia
A walk on the underside
Re-inventing Production: Military Giants Discover Consumer Goods
|
| |
CONTACT US |
|
|
|
