Viktor Suvorov

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Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun
Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun

Viktor Suvorov (Russian: Ви́ктор Суво́ров; is the pen name for Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun : Влади́мир Богда́нович Резу́н) (born April 20, 1947) in Ukraine, a Russian writer. He begun his service in the Soviet Army's 41st Guards Tank Division[1], and worked in Soviet military intelligence (GRU). He defected to the United Kingdom in 1978 where he worked as an intelligence analyst and lecturer. He made his name writing books about Soviet history, the Soviet Army, GRU, and Spetsnaz.

Suvorov's most provocative idea was that Stalin had planned to use Nazi Germany as a proxy (the “Icebreaker”) against the West. For this reason Stalin had provided significant material and political support to Adolf Hitler, and at the same time was preparing the Red Army to “liberate” the whole of Europe from Nazi occupation. Suvorov argued that Hitler had lost World War II from the very moment he attacked Poland, because not only was he going to war with the Allies, it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union would attack him from his rear at the most appropriate moment. This left Hitler with no other choice but to launch a preemptive strike on the Soviet Union while Stalin's forces had redeployed from a defensive to an offensive posture, providing Hitler with an important initial tactical advantage. But this was strategically hopeless since the Germans now had to fight on two fronts, a mistake Hitler himself had identified as Germany's undoing in the previous war. In the end therefore, Stalin was able to achieve some of his objectives by establishing Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, China, and North Korea. According to Suvorov, this made Stalin the primary winner of World War II.

Suvorov's ideas remain a matter of debate among historians. Most agree that Stalin made extensive preparations for the future war and that he exploited the military conflict in Europe to his advantage. However, it was debated that Stalin planned to attack the Nazi Germany during the summer of 1941 and that Operation Barbarossa was a preemptive strike by Hitler.[2]

Contents

[edit] Publications and ideas

Suvorov has written several books about his Soviet Army experiences and also joined the team led by the British General Sir John Hackett in writing the book The Third World War: The Untold Story[3] . Published in 1982, this book was the sequel to the 1978 original The Third World War[4], in which Hackett and his team had speculated about the possible course of a Soviet/NATO war in Germany.

Suvorov is best known for his books about Stalin's times written in a polemic, popular-science style. These books have been translated to more than 20 languages and hotly debated. The first work was Icebreaker. Suvorov used hundreds of Soviet-era memoirs and other publicly accessible sources, claiming that the actual reason behind the initial Soviet defeats in 1941 was Stalin's intention to strike Germany himself. Thus, according to Suvorov, Stalin had used Nazi Germany as an Icebreaker. Other books about World War II followed, and were based on fragments of officially written memoirs and Soviet documents. Suvorov's most significant thesis is that Stalin planned to ignite a war among "imperialist" countries and later "liberate" Europe.

Suvorov provides an extensive analysis of Stalin's preparation for war. Stalin, the leader of the Communist party of the USSR announced three phases that should lead to the final preparation for war: three Five Year Plan phases, with the first one focused on collectivization, the second focused on industrialization, and the third phase emphasized the militarization of the country.

According to Suvorov, all of the USSR's pre-war doctrine was based on Marxism-Leninism, which dictated that capitalism will be overthrown through Communist revolution. Suvorov documented that USSR's leader Joseph Stalin understood that capitalist societies wouldn't normally accept a vision of Leninism. Therefore, Suvorov argued, the USSR was using a patient approach to escalating tensions in Europe by providing a combination of economic and military support to Hitler. Further, according to Suvorov, Stalin's plan and vision was that Hitler's unpredictability and his violent reactionary ideas, described in the book Mein Kampf, made him a potential candidate to the role of "icebreaker" for Communist revolutions, by starting wars with European countries that would warrant the USSR joining World War II by attacking Nazi Germany and "liberating" and Sovietizing those European countries.

If the USSR's goal was to ignite war, it was successful: Ribbentrop and Molotov signed the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The essence of this pact was in the secret protocols which divided Europe into zones of influence, and removed the Polish buffer between Germany and the USSR. Some countries that fell into the Soviet zone of influence, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, were occupied. The difference between these smaller nations, occupied and annexed by the USSR, and Poland initially attacked by Germany was that Poland had military assistance guarantees from Great Britain and France.

According to Suvorov, Hitler's intelligence identified USSR's preparations to attack Germany. Therefore, the Wehrmacht had drafted a preemptive war plan based on Hitler's orders as early as 1940. On June 22, 1941 Hitler launched an assault on the USSR.

Had Stalin's alleged invasion of Europe taken place, it would occur in July 1941, only a few weeks after the date on which the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union took place. As described in Suvorov's books, Stalin had made no major defensive preparations. On the contrary, the Stalin line fortifications through Belarus-Ukraine were dismantled, and the new Molotov line was all but finished by the time of Nazi invasion.

[edit] Criticism and support

[edit] The subject of a controversy

Main article: Soviet-German relations before 1941

It is commonly accepted that Stalin made extensive preparations for the future war and that he planned to exploit the military conflict between the "capitalist" countries to his advantage. In particular, Richard Pipes cited Stalin who said as early as in 1925 that

"Struggles, conflicts and wars among our enemies are...our great ally...and the greatest supporter of our government and our revolution" and "If a war does break out, we will not sit with folded arms - we will have to take the field, but we will be last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive load on the scale" [5]

Therefore, "from the early 1920s until 1933, the Soviet Union was engaged in secret collaboration with the German military to enable it to circumvent the provisions of the Versailles Treaty", which prohibited Germany's military production [5]. Moscow allowed the Germans to produce and test their weapons on Soviet territory, while some Red Army officers attended general-staff courses in Germany [5]. In 1932-1933, "Stalin helped Hitler come to power, by forbidding German Communists to make common cause with the Social Democrats against the Nazis in parliamentary elections" [5]. When concluding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, Stalin "clearly counted on the repetition of the 1914-1918 war of attrition, which would leave the "capitalist" countries so exhausted that the USSR could sweep into Europe virtually unopposed" [5] (see also Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939).

These views have been accepted and used by Suvorov. However, he went further. His original theory postulated that Stalin actually planned to attack Nazi Germany first during the summer of 1941, and that the Red Army had been already redeployed from a defensive to an offensive position. Suvorov justified his theory using numerous materials and arguments presented in his books Icebreaker, Day "M", Suicide, and Last Republic. However, both his theory and conclusions have been challenged by reputable military historians.

[edit] Criticism

Among the noted critics of Suvorov's work are Israeli historian Gabriel Gorodetsky, American military historian David Glantz, and Russian military historians Makhmut Gareev and Dmitri Volkogonov.

One criticism of Suvorov's work is that the Red Army was not ready for war. While it may be possible that Suvorov is correct in discerning Stalin's true plans and exposing the huge hardware potential of the Soviet military machine, he does not address many of the arguments regarding the systemic problems plaguing the Red Army, such as: poor leadership after the purges of 1938, poor logistics, poor training, and low morale. While Suvorov discussed some of these points in his later books, the dispute remains unsettled.

Antonov A-40 "flying tank"
Antonov A-40 "flying tank"

Much of Suvorov's thesis is based on circumstantial evidence: a typical Suvorov argument is that certain types of weapons were only suited for offensive warfare — or were believed to only be suited for offensive warfare by the Soviet military doctrine of the time (Suvorov takes care to emphasize this) — and that, if the Red Army had large numbers of such weapons, then this proves that the Red Army was preparing for an offensive[citation needed].

An example of Suvorov's arguments is when he points out that the Soviet Union was outfitting large numbers of paratroopers — preparing to field entire parachute armies, in fact — and that paratroopers are only suitable for offensive action, which the Soviet military doctrine of the time recognized. In like fashion, he cites the development of the KT/A-40 Antonov "flying tank" as evidence of Stalin's aggressive plans.

Suvorov has also been criticized being prone to exaggaration about the number and capabilities of Soviet forces and weapons. For example, he claims that the USSR planned to build 100,000 or more Su-2 attack aircraft in case of mobilization (actual number built: around 800), or that the Red Army had a million trained paratroopers in 1941, which is an absurdity on its face. These kinds of figures have been dismissed by most historians, especially when contrasted to reality of available fuel or transportation.[citation needed]

David M. Glantz disputes the argument that the Red Army was deployed in an offensive stance in 1941. Glantz shows that the Red Army was only in a state of partial mobilization in July 1941, from which neither effective defensive or offensive actions could be offered without considerable delay. Regarding Hitler's alleged pre-emptive intentions, Erickson has stated that “what really concerned Hitler was not Soviet aggression but Soviet concessions to Germany, which could frustrate his own grand design, depriving him of a pretext to attack.”[6]

Another criticism of Suvorov's position includes the claim that Stalin had never "encouraged" Hitler to start World War II, even though he agreed with Germany about the invasion of Poland in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which had to trigger a general European war because of the military assistance guarantees given to Poland by Great Britain and France. In his political works, Stalin was always firmly opposed to Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, implementation of which regarded worldwide war and other countries' usurpation as necessary (because practice showed that war, the ultimate devastation, could create revolutionary conditions that usually did not occur in any natural way). Stalin instead insisted on the theory of Socialism in One Country according to which Socialism can win in a single country, without being immediately overthrown by hostile "capitalist" neighbors. This leading country would then help revolutionary movements in other countries. According to Stalin, "The ultimate victory of socialism... can only be achieved in international scale" [7]

Conventional theory states that Stalin prepared the Soviet Army for a general war because he knew he would have to free Europe from Fascism, and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was nothing more than a way to delay the war with Nazism — to have time for such preparations as those that Suvorov discusses.

[edit] Middle positions

A middle position seems to be taken by the Israeli historian Martin van Creveld. In an interview in the April 11, 2005 edition of the German news magazine FOCUS, which is the second largest weekly magazine in Germany, he said: "I doubt that Stalin wanted to attack as early as autumn 1941, as some writers argue. But I have no doubt that sooner or later, if Germany would have been entangled in a war with Great Britain and the U.S., he would have taken what he wanted. Judging by the talks between Ribbentrop and Molotov in November 1940, this would have been Romania, Bulgaria, an access to the North Sea, the Dardanelles and probably those parts of Poland that were under German control at that time." Asked to what degree the leaders of the Wehrmacht needed to feel threatened by the Soviet military buildup, van Creveld replies "very much" and adds: "In 1941, the Red Army was the largest army in the world. Stalin may, as I said, not have planned to attack Germany in autumn 1941. But it would be hard to believe that he would not have taken the opportunity to stab the Reich in the back sometime."[4]

Some of Suvorov's critics argue that the suggestion that Stalin regarded war with Nazi Germany as inevitable is at odds with the undisputed fact that the attack by the Axis in 1941 took Stalin completely by surprise. On the other hand, the fact that Stalin was taken completely by surprise contradicts the claims of some writers, who assert that Stalin was paranoid about a possible foreign invasion and so had concentrated on defensive policies. The criticism was addressed in detail in Suvorov's book Suicide.

[edit] Support

While many Western researchers (the exception being Albert L. Weeks [8]) ignored Suvorov's thesis [9], he has gathered some support among Russian professional historians, starting in the 1990s. Support for Suvorov's claim that Stalin had been preparing a strike against Hitler in 1941 began to emerge as some archive materials were declassified. Authors supporting the Stalin 1941 assault thesis are V.D.Danilov[10], V.A.Nevezhin[11], Constantine Pleshakov and B.V. Sokolov[12]. As the latter has noted, the absence of documents with the precise date of the planned Soviet invasion can't be an argument in favor of the claim that this invasion was not planned at all. Although the USSR attacked Finland, no documents found to date which would indicate November 26, 1939 as the previously assumed date for beginning of the provocations or November 30 as the date of the planned Soviet assault.[5]

A noteworthy result of the discussion that followed, is Mikhail Meltyukhov's study Stalin's Missed Chance [13]. The author states that the idea for striking Germany arose long before May 1941, and was the very basis of Soviet military planning from 1940 to 1941. Providing additional support for this thesis is that no significant defense plans have been found [14]. In his argument, Meltyukhov covers five different versions of the assault plan (“Considerations on the Strategical Deployment of Soviet Troops in Case of War with Germany and its Allies” (Russian original)), the first version of which was developed soon after the outbreak of World War II. The last version was to be completed by May 1, 1941 [15]. Even the deployment of troops was chosen in the South, which would have been more beneficial in case of a Soviet assault [16].

In Stalin's War of Extermination, Joachim Hoffmann makes extensive use of interrogations of Soviet prisoners of war, ranging in rank from general to private, conducted by their German captors during the war. The book is also based on open-source, unclassified literature and recently declassified materials. Based on this material, Hoffmann argues that the Soviet Union was making final preparations for its own attack when the Wehrmacht struck. He also remarks that Zhukov's plan of May 15, 1941 has long been known and analyzed. Colonel Valeri Danilov and Dr. Heinz Magenheimer examined this plan and other documents which might indicate Soviet preparations for an attack almost ten years ago in an Austrian military journal (Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift, nos. 5 and 6, 1991; no. 1, 1993; and no. 1, 1994). Both researchers concluded that Zhukov's plan of May 15, 1941, reflected Stalin's May 5, 1941 speech heralding the birth of the new offensive Red Army.

In 2006, a collection of articles (entitled The Truth of Viktor Suvorov) by various historians who share some views with Suvorov was published.[17] It was followed by two more books, called The Truth of Viktor Suvorov 2 and 3

Several politicians have also made claims similar to Suvorov's. On August 20, 2004, historian and former Prime Minister of Estonia Mart Laar published an article in The Wall Street Journal titled When Will Russia Say 'Sorry'?. In this article he said: The new evidence shows that by encouraging Hitler to start World War II, Stalin hoped to simultaneously ignite a world-wide revolution and conquer all of Europe. Another former statesman to share his views of a purported Soviet aggression plan is Mauno Koivisto, who wrote: It seems to be clear the Soviet Union was not ready for defense in the summer of 1941, but it was rather preparing for an assault....The forces mobilized in the Soviet Union were not positioned for defensive, but for offensive aims. Koivisto concludes: Hitler's invasion forces didn't outnumber [the Soviets], but were rather outnumbered themselves. The Soviets were unable to organize defenses. The troops were provided with maps that covered territories outside the Soviet Union. [18]

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Books by Viktor Suvorov

[edit] Books and articles by other authors

[edit] Pro

  • Dębski, Sławomir. Między Berlinem a Moskwą: Stosunki niemiecko-sowieckie 1939–1941. Warsaw: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2003 (ISBN 83-918046-2-3).
  • Edwards, James B. Hitler: Stalin's Stooge. San Diego, CA: Aventine Press, 2004 (ISBN 978-1593301446, paperback).
  • Hoffmann, Joachim. Stalin's War of Extermination. Capshaw, AL: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2001 (ISBN 0-9679856-8-4).
  • Maser, Werner Der Wortbruch. Hitler, Stalin und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Olzog, München 1994. ISBN 3-7892-8260-X
  • Maser, Werner Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin, Olzog, München 2004. ISBN 3-7892-8134-4
  • Pleshakov, Constantine. Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War Two on the Eastern Front. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005 (ISBN 0-618-36701-2).
    • Reviewed by Ron Laurenzo in The Washington Times, May 22, 2005.
    • Reviewed by Robert Citino in World War II, Vol. 21, Issue 1. (2006), pp. 76–77.
  • Raack, R.C. "Did Stalin Plan a Drang Nach Westen?", World Affairs. Vol. 155, Issue 4. (Summer 1992), pp. 13–21.
  • Raack, R.C. "Preventive Wars?" [Review Essay of Pietrow-Ennker, Bianka, ed. Präventivkrieg? Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion. 3d ed. Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-596-14497-3; Mel'tiukhov, Mikhail. Upushchennyi shans Stalina: Sovetskii Soiuz i bor'ba za Evropu 1939–1941. Moscow: Veche, 2000. ISBN 5-7838-1196-3; Magenheimer, Heinz. Entscheidungskampf 1941: Sowjetische Kriegsvorbereitungen. Aufmarsch. Zusammenstoss. Bielefeld: Osning Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-9806268-1-4] The Russian Review, 2004, Vol. 63, Issue 1, pp. 134–137.
  • Raack, R.C. [Review of] Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941–1945 by Joachim Hoffmann, Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Summer, 1996), pp. 493–494.
  • Raack, R.C. "Stalin's Role in the Coming of World War II: Opening the Closet Door on a Key Chapter of Recent History", World Affairs. Vol. 158, Issue 4, 1996, pp. 198–211.
  • Raack, R.C. "Stalin's Role in the Coming of World War II: The International Debate Goes On", World Affairs. Vol. 159, Issue 2, 1996, pp. 47–54.
  • Raack, R.C. Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938–1945: The Origins of the Cold War. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. (ISBN 0-8047-2415-6).
  • Raack, R.C. "Stalin's Plans for World War Two Told by a High Comintern Source", The Historical Journal, Vol. 38, No. 4. (Dec., 1995), pp. 1031–1036.
  • Raack, R.C. "[Review:] Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941–1945", Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Summer, 1996), pp. 493–494.
  • Raack, R.C. "[Review:] Unternehmen Barbarossa: Deutsche und Sowjetische Angriffspläne 1940/41 by Walter Post; Die sowjetische Besatzungsmacht und das politishe System der SBZ by Stefan Creuzberger", Slavic Review, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Sring, 1998), pp. 212–214.
  • Raack, R.C. "Breakers on the Stalin Wave: Review Essay [of Murphy, David E. What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005 (ISBN 0-300-10780-3); Pleshakov, Constantine. Stalin’s Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 2005 (ISBN 0-618-36701-2)]", The Russian Review, Vol. 65, No. 3. (2006), pp. 512–515.
  • Topitsch, Ernst. Stalin's War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987 (ISBN 0-312-00989-5).
  • Weeks, Albert L. Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939–1941. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002 (hardcover; ISBN 0-7425-2191-5); 2003 (paperback, ISBN 0-7425-2192-3).

[edit] Contra

  • Acton, Edward. "Understanding Stalin’s Catastrophe: [Review Article]", Journal of Contemporary History, 2001, Vol. 36(3), pp. 531–540.
  • Carley, Michael Jabara. "Soviet Foreign Policy in the West, 1936–1941: A Review Article", Europe–Asia Studies, Vol. 56, No. 7. (2004), pp. 1081–1100. [Review of Silvio Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936–1941. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2002 and Albert L. Weeks, Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941. Oxford and Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.]
  • Erickson, John. "Barbarossa June 1941: Who Attacked Whom?" History Today, July 2001, Vol. 51, Issue 7, pp. 11–17. online text
  • Edmonds, Robin. "[Review: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?", International Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 4. (Oct., 1990), p. 812.
  • Glantz, David M. Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998 (ISBN 0-7006-0879-6).
    • Reviewed by David R. Costello in The Journal of Military History, Vol. 63, No. 1. (Jan., 1999), pp. 207–208.
    • Reviewed by Roger Reese in Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 1. (Spring, 2000), p. 227.
  • Glantz, David M. "[Review: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?", The Journal of Military History, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Apr., 1991), pp. 263–264.
  • Gorodetsky, Gabriel. Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1999 (ISBN 0-300-07792-0).
    • Reviewed by David R. Costello in The Journal of Military History, Vol. 64, No. 2. (Apr., 1999), pp. 580–582.
    • Reviewed by Stephen Blank in The Russian Review, 2000, Vol. 59, Issue 2, pp. 310–311.
    • Reviewed by Hugh Ragsdale in Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 2. (Summer, 2000), pp. 466–467.
    • Reviewed by Evan Mawdsley in Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3. (May, 2000), pp. 579–580.
  • Harms, Karl. "The Military Doctrine of the Red Army on the Eve of the Great Patriotic War: Myths and Facts", Military Thought, Vol. 13, No. 03. (2004), pp. 227–237.
  • Haslam, Jonathan. "Soviet–German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out [Reivew Article]", The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 69, No. 4. (Dec., 1997), pp. 785–797.
  • Humpert, David M. "Viktor Suvorov and Operation Barbarossa: Tukhachevskii Revisited." The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 18, Issue 1. (2005), pp. 59–74.
  • Lukacs, John. June 1941: Hitler and Stalin. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-300-11437-0).
  • McDermott, Kevin. Stalin: Revolutionary in an Era of War (European History in Perspective). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-333-71121-1; paperback, ISBN 0-333-71122-X).
  • Murphy, David E. What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2005 (ISBN 0-300-10780-3).
    • Reviewed by Robert Conquest at The American Historical Review, Vol. 111, No. 2. (2006), p. 591.
    • Reviewed by Raymond W. Leonard in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 37, No. 1. (2006), pp. 128–129.
  • Neilson, Keith. "Stalin's Moustache: The Soviet Union and the Coming of War: [Review Article]", Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 12, No. 2. (2001), pp. 197–208.
  • Roberts, Cynthia A. "Planning for War: The Red Army and the Catastrophe of 1941", Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 47, No. 8. (Dec., 1995), pp. 1293–1326.
  • Rotundo, Louis. "Stalin and the Outbreak of War in 1941", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 24, No. 2, Studies on War. (Apr., 1989), pp. 277–299.
  • Gerd R. Ueberschär, Lev A. Bezymenskij (Hrsg.): Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion 1941. Die Kontroverse um die Präventivkriegsthese Wissenschaftliche Buchgemeinschaft, Darmstadt 1998
  • Uldricks, Teddy J. "The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?" The Slavic Review, 1999, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 626–643.

[edit] Neutral, cautious approach

  • Keep, John L.H.; Litvin, Alter L. Stalinism: Russian and Western Views at the Turn of the Millennium (Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions). New York: Routledge, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 0-415-35108-1); 2005 (paperback, ISBN 0-415-35109-X). See chapter 5, "Foreign policy".

[edit] Other

  • The Attack on the Soviet Union (Germany and the Second World War, Volume IV) by Horst Boog, Jürgen Förster, Joachim Hoffmann, Ewald Osers, Louise Wilmott, Dean S. McMurray (Editors), Ernst Klink (Translator), Rolf-Dieter Müller (Translator), Gerd R. Ueberschär (Translator). New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 1999 (ISBN 0-19-822886-4).
  • Carley, Michael Jabara. "Soviet Foreign Policy in the West, 1936–1941: A Review Article", Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 56, No. 7. (2004), pp. 1081–1100.
  • Drabkin, Ia.S. "'Hitler’s War' or 'Stalin’s War'?", Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, Vol. 40, No. 5. (2002), pp. 5–30.
  • Ericson, Edward E., III. "Karl Schnurre and the Evolution of Nazi–Soviet Relations, 1936–1941", German Studies Review, Vol. 21, No. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 263–283.
  • Förster, Jürgen; Mawdsley, Evan. "Hitler and Stalin in Perspective: Secret Speeches on the Eve of Barbarossa", War in History, Vol. 11, Issue 1. (2004), pp. 61–103.
  • Haslam, Jonathan. "Stalin and the German Invasion of Russian 1941: A Failure of Reasons of State?", International Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Jan., 2000), pp. 133–139.
  • Isby, D.C., Ten million bayonets: inside the armies of the Soviet Union, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1988
  • Koch, H.W. "Operation Barbarossa—The Current State of the Debate", The Historical Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), pp. 377–390.
  • Litvin, Alter L. Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia: A View from Within, translated and edited by John L.H. Keep. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001 (hardcover, ISBN 0-333-76487-0).
  • Roberts, Geoffrey. "On Soviet–German Relations: The Debate Continues [A Review Article]", Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 8. (Dec., 1998), pp. 1471–1475.
  • Vasquez, John A. "The Causes of the Second World War in Europe: A New Scientific Explanation", International Political Science Review, Vol. 17, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp. 161–178.
  • Ziemke, Earl F. The Red Army, 1918–1941: From Vanguard of World Revolution to America's Ally. London; New York: Frank Cass, 2004 (ISBN 0-7146-5551-1).

[edit] References

  1. ^ p.15, Isby
  2. ^ Glantz, David M., Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of War, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
  3. ^ The Third World War: The Untold Story ISBN 0-283-98863-0
  4. ^ The Third World War ISBN 0-425-04477-7
  5. ^ a b c d e Richard Pipes Communism: A History (2001) ISBN 0-812-96864-6, pages 74-75.
  6. ^ Barbarossa June 1941: Who Attacked Whom? by John Erickson [1]
  7. ^ Pravda, February 14, 1938, cited from V. Suvorov Last Republic (Последняя республика), ACT, 1997, ISBN 5-12-000367-4, pages 75-76
  8. ^ Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939–1941 ISBN 0-7425-2191-5 [2]
  9. ^ (e.g., according to Raack, arguments in favor of the thesis “have not so far been systematically reported in, for example, the Journal of Slavic Military Studies. Indeed, one searches in vain in North America for a broad discussion of the issues of Soviet war planning” R. C. Raack [Review of] Unternehmen Barbarossa: Deutsche und Sowjetische Angriffsplane 1940/41 by Walter Post Die sowjetische Besatzungsmacht und das politische System der SBZ by Stefan Creuzberger Slavic Review. Vol. 57, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 213
  10. ^ Данилов.В.Д. Сталинская стратегия начала войны: планы и реальность—Другая война. 1939–1945 гг; or Danilоv V. "Hat der Generalsstab der Roten Armee einen Praventiveschlag gegen Deutschland vorbereitet?" Österreichische Militarische Zeitschrift. 1993. №1. S. 41–51
  11. ^ Невежин В.А. Синдром наступательной войны. Советская пропаганда в преддверии "священных боев", 1939–1941 гг. М., 1997; Речь Сталина 5 мая 1941 года и апология наступательной войны http://sscadm.nsu.ru/deps/hum/kirillov/ref-liter/nevezhin-95.html online text Archive copy at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
  12. ^ Соколов Б.В. Неизвестный Жуков: портрет без ретуши в зеркале эпохи. (online text); Соколов Б.В. Правда о Великой Отечественной войне (Сборник статей). — СПб.: Алетейя, 1999 (online text)
  13. ^ Мельтюхов М.И. Упущенный шанс Сталина. (electronic version of the book) For a review of the book, see [3])
  14. ^ Meltyukhov 2000:375
  15. ^ Meltyukhov 2000:370–372
  16. ^ Meltyukhov 2000:381
  17. ^ Хмельницкий, Дмитрий (сост.). Правда Виктора Суворова. Переписывая историю Второй Мировой. Москва: Яуза, 2006 (ISBN 5-87849-214-8); some of the articles are here:
  18. ^ Koivisto, M. Venäjän idea, Helsinki. Tammi. 2001

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