THE
CHIEF CULPRIT: STALIN’S GRAND DESIGN
TO
START WORLD WAR II (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008, paperback.2013)
By
VIKTOR SUVOROV
Rev
by Hugh Murray
Many
works may be labeled “revisionist history,” and though many revise minor
details about minor characters and incidents, Suvorov’s does not fall into that
category. When you read his book, it
challenges your view of what you have been told about the history of the 20th
century. It is like reading Mark Lane’s
critique of the Warren Commission’s conclusions that Lee Oswald was the lone
gunman who assassinated Pres. John Kennedy in 1963. Until Lane’s and a few other books, most
Americans accepted the official version of events. After Lane, most Americans have been skeptical,
and not only about the murders in Dallas, but about many official government
explanations of events.
Much
of 20th century history revolves around the events of the two world
wars. WWI strained all the combatant
nations, but the Czarist Empire was the first to falter. A moderate revolution occurred, but Russia
remained in the war. With Germany’s
help, Lenin and other Bolsheviks were allowed to travel from neutral
Switzerland through Germany to Russia.
The Bolsheviks demanded “Peace” and “Land” for the peasants, and in
November the Reds successfully staged a coup.
Kerensky’s liberal democratic regime lacked defenders. Somehow Lenin was able to stall peace talks
while trying to solidify power, creating institutions which would consolidate
the Bolshevik dictatorship – the Cheka
(the secret, political police), and the Red Army, whose first chief was
the intellectual Leon Trotsky.
On
30 August 1918 a young woman shot Lenin, but he remained the dominant figure of
the regime. Not the only figure, however. In the civil wars against the “whites,” there
were conflicts among Communists on how best to fight and where to do so. The attempt of the Red Army to reconquer
Imperial Warsaw and Poland for the new Communist state failed (some state
Stalin withheld reserves at a crucial point from Tukhachevski, who was then
leading the Red assault on the West.
Poland, with French aid, remained free (until 1939).
In
the battle for Tsaritsyn, the industrial city on the Volga, 1919-20, Trotsky
thought it best to receive help against the whites from Czarist officers who
were willing to serve the Red Army.
Stalin disagreed. When Stalin
discovered these officers were all on a boat in the river, he had the boat
sunk, eliminating the Czarist officers. Trotsky,
founder of the Red Army, saw how his orders were already being flouted by
Stalin in 1920, but as the Reds won the battle, Stalin became the hero. In 1925 the city would be named for its hero
– Stalingrad. Later, Stalin would plan
the assault that would bring his homeland, Georgia, from independence back into
the Russian fold, by then, the Soviet fold.
Lenin
suffered a stroke on 25 May 1922, and Suvorov notes that Stalin already held
sufficient power that he could isolate the invalided Lenin. Stalin may not have yet grasped total power,
but he was already the strongest among equals, and his position grew even
stronger with the death of Lenin in January 1924.
Suvorov
contends that Stalin, like many other Bolsheviks, believed that the Communists
needed Germany and the West to join the Communist cause. Of course, he was not alone in this belief,
and in 1918-19 there were Communist uprisings in Germany and Hungary. While the Spartacist revolt of Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Berlin was quickly crushed shortly after New
Year’s 1919, Communists staged more successful revolts in Hungary and Bavaria. Bela Kun led the Red revolt in Hungary, and
he aimed for his army to defeat enemies in the countryside and link up with the
new Russian Bolshevik state. Similarly,
in winter-spring 1919 a Bavarian Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Munich, and
its leaders hoped to link with Hungary and Russia. But not all Bavarians were sympathetic to the
new soviet republic. Its leader, Kurt
Eisner, was quickly assassinated on 21 February 1919. A History Channel program showed a film of
those marching in the funeral procession on behalf of Eisner, the Jewish
Marxist who had led the new government.
One, a representative of his army soviet, was Adolf Hitler. (Suvorov does not mention this, but it lends
plausibility to Suvorov’s thesis concerning the November 1923 attempted coup in
Bavaria.) By spring’s end, the Bavarian
Soviet Republic was overturned, and Bavaria became one of the centers of reaction
in Weimar Germany.
The
Bolshevik regime was fighting not only the “whites” of Russia, but the
anti-Communist intervention by nations like Japan and the US in eastern
Siberia, and by France in Poland, and the British around Archangel, and in the
Baltic, and by both in the Black Sea.
Because the leading capitalist nations were literally at war against the
Communists, the Reds took steps to counter and dispel the threat. So the Russian Communist government established
the Communist International, aiming to set up Communist parties in all nations
(both above ground, and secret underground parties all over the world). The Comintern would coordinate policy so all
were in step. The Comintern was meant to
fulfill the admonition of Marx in the Manifesto – “Workers, you have nothing to
lose but your chains. Workers of all
nations, unite!”
Suvorov
is right in showing how much the Communists spent in trying to promote
revolution in Germany. This was not
simply a decision of Stalin, but of many leaders at that time, including
Trotsky. What is interesting – though
not necessarily convincing – is Suvorov’s interpretation of the Communist
backed coup in Germany in 1923. The
Comintern sent many leaders to Germany to promote this revolutionary putsch, including
Bela Kun (in Red Russia after the failure of the Hungarian revolution.) The Comintern had decided that the German
revolution must appear to be indigenous, not simply following Moscow’s
orders. The Communists had even chosen
November 9, the anniversary of the Russian “October” Revolution (according to
the new calendar). But on the day
selected, there was no Communist uprising in Germany. However, there was an attempted putsch, and
even a military headquarters was seized by rebels under Ernst Roehm, but the
government’s military suppressed the rebellion and arrested the leader of the
putsch, Adolf Hitler. Suvorov maintains
the putsch was a joint operation between Nazis and Communists. With its failure and his arrest, Hitler
changed tactics. He decided he would henceforth
seek power, not by coup, but through the democratic process, using his skills
as orator and politician. In prison
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, and Suvorov
thinks it was read by Stalin, who approved the German’s determination to scrap
the Versailles Treaty and seek revenge against the French. Was there collaboration between Communists
and Nazis in the 1923 putsch? The German
orator who had marched in support of the fallen Bavarian Soviet Jewish leader
in 1919? Surely there was such
collaboration later during the Weimar era, but Suvorov’s theory of 1923 is
interesting speculation.
The
1920s continued with continuing failures to overthrow the Weimar Republic, and
general failure to expand world revolution.
Inside the USSR, Stalin strengthened his grip. To isolate some of his internal enemies, two
slogans competed, “International Revolution,” and “Socialism in One
Country.” While Trotsky was identified
with the former, Stalin , with the latter.
To survive as a socialist state in a hostile, capitalist world, Stalin
pushed for massive industrialization.
The compromises of the New Economic Plan were scrapped, and the Ukraine,
breadbasket of Europe, would now provision the foods for the 5-Year Plans – or
else. When most successful farmers were
reluctant to provide their crops to the government for low or no prices, they
were portrayed as greedy, rich, enemies of the people, enemies of
industrialization, etc. They were deemed
kulaks, and all their crops, their seeds, their farm animals confiscated. They were left to starve or freeze; many were
rounded up on freight trains and transported to Siberia with few
belongings. There they could starve or
freeze or both. There was even some
cannibalism. Farms were collectivized
under appropriate party-member leadership.
Up to 5 million Ukrainians died due to these murderous policies. This would evince an appropriate response by
the committed – “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” Up to 5 million non-eggs. On the bright side, Walter Duranty of the New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize in
1932 for his reporting on events in the USSR – there was some hunger, but no
starvation.
Meanwhile,
through the 1920s and early 30s, Germany, crippled by the Versailles Treaty had
a small professional army, smaller than that of most of its neighbors. To evade provisions of that treaty, German
pilots (Germany was not permitted to have an airforce) were allowed to train in
the USSR. Similarly, German military
leaders were permitted to hold maneuvers with tanks in the Soviet Union (again
Versailles denied Germans the right to have tanks.) Many general works of history explain this
simply as the mutual interest of the two leading rogue nations of that era. Suvorov places a different spin on the issue:
Stalin, harking back to Lenin: the way to expand Communism in the West was
through another major war. The best way
to promote a new war was to encourage Germany by stressing the injustice of
Versailles. Suvorov thinks Stalin read Mein Kampf and believed that the German
orator might start the war that the Communists judged necessary to spark world
revolution. Thus, Stalin permitted
German pilots and tankers and military maneuvers on Soviet soil. It was more than the common interest of 2 rogue
nations; one sought to destroy the Versailles Treaty; the other sought WWII. It was 2 nations with partial common
interests.
Strangely,
Suvorov paints a successful portrait of Stalin’s Soviet Union. Oh, perhaps 5 million starved (but they were
just kulaks), and ever more were engulfed in slavery (or death) in gulags, but
the Soviet Union advanced. Thanks to
their faith in the international communist movement, throughout the world,
Suvorov concludes: “In the 1920s Soviet
intelligence became the most powerful intelligence network in the world.”(p.
7) I suspect that the British
organizations, representing the Empire that controlled a quarter of the globe,
was still number one, but the idealism that the new communist movement
inspired, surely made the Soviet’s spy net one of the most far reaching.
With
the Great Depression beginning in 1929, the great nations of the West suffered
ever higher unemployment and economic collapse.
Although some Western corporations negotiated deals with the Soviets,
and the Fabian Socialists Beatrice and Sidney Webb wrote their glowing paean to
Soviet Civilization, and though Stalin had starved millions to industrialize
and build socialism in one country, what was being produced in that new
civilization? Soviet newspapers and
media continually printed congratulatory reports of increased production of
this and that. But consumer items seemed
as scarce as ever.
Suvorov
provides an answer in many chapters to Stalin’s industrialization – they were
producing everything for the military.
With the help of spies in the West in some cases; and in others by using
plans and blueprints of corporations doing business with the USSR, Soviet
scientists and engineers were told to use these as a basis and improve upon
them. In some cases, the Soviet
scientists and engineers had been arrested; they were given an ultimatum –
improve on these by a given date or else.
Back to the gulag? Worse? Or, if mission accomplished, “freedom” in the
Soviet society. Suvorov writes that by
the early 1930s the Soviets were already producing the best tanks in the world;
by the mid-30s, the best strategic bombers; the best howitzers, the best this
and that military hardware.
Suvorov
relates how Stalin vacillated on whether he should develop and mass produce the
heavy strategic bombers. A few models
were produced, and they could fly higher, with more bombs than any other bomber
of the era. Mass produced, it would
surely provide the USSR with a major advantage in case of war, destroying enemy
cities, bridges, infrastructure, and industrial targets. But did Stalin really want to destroy the
cities and facilities of the enemy?
Would it not be better to capture than to destroy them? And for this task a different kind of plane
was better suited – a plane to be used in a surprise attack, a lighter plane
with less weight for defense, one that would be stationed near the border with
the aim to destroy the enemy’s aircraft (preferably on the ground during the
surprise attack), and then aid the oncoming surprise attack of tanks and
infantry where possible, flying low shooting and bombing enemy military
targets. Suvorov compares the Soviet
planes developed for such a surprise attack with those developed independently
by the Japanese for their surprises of December 1941.
Suvorov
contends that the 1939 negotiations between the USSR and the West regarding
Poland were NOT inconsequential. In
those talks, in August the Soviets got one crucial piece of information from
the West – that Britain and France would go to war if Hitler invaded
Poland. With this assurance, Stalin then
seemingly reversed policy. He broke off
talks with the West, and quickly signed the non-aggression pact with Hitler. On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland,
and both Britain and France declared war.
But 2 weeks later, on 17 September when the Soviets invaded Poland from
the east as part of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the West did not declare war on the
Soviet Union. Only Hitler was condemned
as the aggressor.
Why
did the West declare war only on Germany?
Wasn’t the USSR equally at fault?
Equally an aggressor? Though
Suvorov does not state this, I suspect one reason the West treated Germany
differently was that Germany was viewed as a greater threat. The USSR was seen as weak, even unworthy of a
war declaration.
In
October 1939 after the division of Poland, the Soviets issued a demand on
Finland for an “exchange” of territory.
The Soviets would give the Finns a large area of wasteland, and in
return, the Finns would give the USSR the smaller, but essential area that
included most of the nation’s defenses, the Karelian Isthmus. The Finns rejected the swap. On 26 November 1939 the Soviets alleged that
7 artillery shells were shot into their territory from Finland, and the “Winter
War” began.
“The
whole world was shocked by the unbelievable weakness of the Red Army. The giant Soviet Union could not take care of
Finland whose population was… slightly more than 3.5 million. All around the world newspapers were filled
with… reports of the Soviet Union’s utter lack of readiness for any war, no
matter how small.”(140) Suvorov notes
that some of the media so shocked by the Soviet’s weakness, were Stalin’s
organs.(144)
“On
March 13, 1940 the war… ended. The war
lasted 105 days… The Soviet Union received the Karelian Isthmus… but Finland
kept its independence.”(140) In April
1940 Stalin made demands on 3 Baltic nations, and each surrendered without
firing a shot. In June 1940 the Soviets
marched into parts of Romania, again without opposition. After Finland, the West paid little attention
to these aggressions by the Soviets because at the same time – in the spring
and summer of 1940 – Hitler’s forces rolled through Denmark, Norway, Belgium,
the Netherlands, and finally, France.
Romania’s Northern Bukovina province seemed far less important in the
news of the West. But Stalin’s move in
Romania was a shock to Hitler, for suddenly Soviet forces were posing a mortal
threat to Germany’s chief source of oil.
The
traditional view is that Stalin mismanaged his Red Empire – starving its
citizens, and purging real or imagined dissidents. His efforts failed the Republic of Spain
against the Franco Falange. His troops
invaded Poland, but only after Hitler’s Wehrmacht had blitzed and conquered
Warsaw and the larger cities. The Red
Army merely mopped up in eastern Poland after the Germans had pulverized the Poles. Stalin’s attack on Finland was a fiasco, a
staggering giant against a tiny David.
Meanwhile,
Hitler conquered in a few months what had eluded the Kaiser for 4 years in WWI
– the Germans occupied Paris, and the new leader of France promised to
collaborate with Germany in making a Neuropa.
To Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler was the chief threat. Despite peace feelers from the Reich,
Churchill continued the war, even shelling the ships of his former ally,
France, killing over 1,000 French sailors in an unprovoked attack. Many in defeated France were so outraged by
the British attack, they wanted France to declare war on Britain.
Stalin’s
“peaceful” march into parts of Romania wakened Hitler to the threat to his
oil. When the Soviets took Bessarabia
and Northern Bukovina, Hitler realized he had a deadly threat at his back. Suvorov argues that the threat was even
greater than the oil, for the Reich was also dependent for high-grade iron ore
from northern Sweden, shipped from the port of Lulea, which had to sail along
the long Finish coast of the Gulf of Bothnia to the Baltic and then
Germany. The Winter War had left that
naval traffic vulnerable to possible Soviet naval and submarine attack.
Suvorov
asks why did not Stalin shove all the way to the Romanian oil fields in summer
1940. Or, after achieving the hard part
of defeating the Finns and breaching the Mannerheim Line, then shove into the
Baltic and halt the ore shipments from Sweden to Germany? Such actions would have deprived Germany of
essential military supplies. Had Stalin
seized those areas, which in the case of Romania would have been quite easy for
him to do, Hitler would have had to sue for peace with Britain. Without oil and good ore, Hitler’s war
machine would come to a halt. Suvorov’s
point is that Stalin did not want peace in Europe at that time. Keep Hitler supplied, keep the war fueled,
until Stalin was ready to make his play.
The summer of 1940 was too soon.
Let the European fascists and the Western imperialists continue to war
against and weaken each other.
Suvorov’s
thesis is that Stalin had built the Soviet Union into a major military power
and it was nearing the point of conquering – no “liberating” – all of Europe,
and perhaps the entire world. Yes,
Stalin had purged his military leadership in 1937, but Marshall Tukhachevski
was too ignorant to lead the Red Army into world dominance. He may have been excellent at terrorizing
dissidents, but more was now required.
True, the Soviets failed to save Republican Spain, but Germany and Italy
were much closer to the war, and the best the Soviets could do was impose
Communist discipline (and terror) on the anti-fascist forces.
In
1939 Japan and its “ally” Manchukuo had border skirmishes with the USSR and its
“ally” Mongolia. On 19 August 1939 (a
few days before the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact), Zhukov called Stalin
telling him everything was in place for a sneak attack on the Japanese. Suvorov writes, Zhukov reported “the main
goal had been reached,…, that the Japanese did not suspect an impending
attack. Stalin gave his final approval,
and Zhukov crushed the Japanese 6th Army. Zhukov conducted a brilliantly sudden, quick
and audacious operation. The lightening
speed defeat of the Japanese 6th Army was a prelude to WWII.’(109)
The
far eastern operation was not completed until 31 August 1939 with perhaps 75%
of Japanese ground forces killed in Zhukov’s surprise attack. In this undeclared war, 30, to 50,000 were
killed or wounded. This Asian operation
provided an excuse for the delay in the Soviet invasion of Poland until 17 September
1939 – sharing the spoils with Germany, which had already seized western
Poland. Most Westerners knew little of
the Mongolian operation and viewed the invasion of eastern Poland as either
cowardly, or preferable to full German conquest of Poland.
The
Winter War in Finland was the first opportunity for many Westerners to assess
Stalin’s Red Army. A nation of 170
million had trouble defeating a country of 3.5 million! Clearly, Stalin’s Empire was weak. Clearly, Hitler was correct when he predicted,
“All we have to do is kick the door open and the whole house will collapse.”
But
Suvorov contends they were all mistaken.
The Finish War, far from displaying Soviet weakness, demonstrated its
strength. Beginning in the 1920s the
Finns had been building defensive position in that isthmus, with traps, hidden
stores of foods and areas where Finns could get warm and rest. Using natural ponds, swamps, gullies,
anything to halt or slow an invader, Finns planned to pepper the area with
snipers who would sky to safety and warmth.
Suvorov argues that the Soviets attacked the area in late November, and
the Winter War was fought in the bitterest cold. No one starts an offensive in such
weather. But the Soviets, suffering many
casualties, pushed forward and in 3 months, had breached the Mannerheim
Line. Despite heavy losses, the Soviets
won the war, and forced the Finns to yield the isthmus. Stalin did abandon his original idea of
incorporating all of Finland into the USSR, however. Suvorov’s point is that the Winter War did
not show the weakness of the Red Army, but its strength. It could fulfill its mission even under the most
trying conditions.
Suvorov
contends that the Red Army had shown great strength in Mongolia and in Finland,
but Stalin did not want to reveal the true strength of his army. Neither he nor Japan, for different reasons, was
interested in publicizing the event in Mongolia-Manchukuo. And Communists sources belittled the Soviet
military efforts against Finland.
Suvorov maintains that this was disinformation to fool the West and Hitler
about the very powerful Red Army. And
the disinformation effort generally succeeded.
While Hitler
and the West interpreted the Finish war as proof of Soviet weakness, Suvorov argues that at the time some closer
to the war took a different view and recognized the Red Army strength. Soon after its conclusion, Stalin made demands
on Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and all allowed the Red Army to enter their
countries without firing a shot. They
were soon officially absorbed into the USSR.
Stalin then made demands for territories in Romania. Again, without firing a shot, Romania let the
Red Army into those areas.
Suvorov
argues that Stalin could by then have easily had his armies continue to the oil
fields of Romania or, having defeated the Finns in the isthmus, could have
taken more of Finland and threatened Germany’s ore supply. Stalin halted his armies not because he
sought peace, but because he wanted Hitler to remain supplied, to remain in war
against Britain, and thus weaken the forces of both London and Berlin.
When
Stalin’s troops rolled into Romania in summer 1940, Hitler became acutely aware
of the threat at his back, and at that time began planning of what in December
would be called Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR. Hitler assumed that this would be another
blitzkrieg, but “blitzkrieg is a tank war.”(240) “By June 1941, Hitler had in his invading
army 3,332 tanks, all of them light and all of the obsolete – not a single
heavy tank… Stalin, on the other hand, had 23,925 tanks, including the best
models in the world… “(240) And the Soviet tanks were better, heavier,
better armed, better armored, and yet more maneuverable! Their engines were far more powerful. Indeed, in many areas of military hardware,
the Soviet weapons outclassed those of the Germans and their allies.
Well,
how then does one explain the swift and overwhelming victories by the Axis over
the Soviets beginning on 22 June 1941?
Normally, the defense has a natural advantage, and if its weapons were
superior, then the invader should make little or no headway. But that is not what happened. The Axis offensive was soon on the roads to
Leningrad, to Moscow, and through the Ukraine.
The reality of the sneak attack by the Germans seems to prove Suvorov’s
thesis wrong. Put another way, if Suvorov
is correct, how is the overwhelming Axis success in the summer of 1941
explicable?
Suvorov’s
explanation is twofold: 1) Stalin was certain that Hitler would not attack
during the summer of 1941, and 2) Stalin was in the process of positioning his troops
for a sneak attack of his own against the Axis powers that very summer. In a review, I cannot repeat all of Suvorov’s
arguments, which are well made, but I will discuss a few.
Stalin
invested in paratroops and planes to transport them, and also in gliders for
the same reason. These were to be
stationed at the front, and to be used in aggressive war. They would not be flown in heavy bombers but
from light planes or gliders in a sneak attack.
Their objective was not to destroy targets but to capture them, and hold
them until the advancing infantry and tanks arrived. All of this was for a sneak attack on the
Axis. The light planes, after delivering
paratroops and bombing enemy aircraft on the ground, could return, and fly
again in support of the infantry’s invasion, flying low and hitting enemy
targets. Stalin had invested in large
quantities of parachutes and gliders, and many were delivered to the fronts in
the spring of 1941. In reality, there is
an expiration date on gliders. Gliders,
made of wood, would not be able to withstand the Russian winter. They were meant to be used in the summer of
1941 – when Stalin planned to open his sneak attack on the Axis.
Along
with the famous Mannerheim Line, and the Maginot Line, the Soviets developed a
defensive line too, the Stalin Line. But
following the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Stalin began dismantling
those defensive barriers. Furthermore,
for defensive operations near a border, the defending nation would normally
have protocols to blow up bridges, destroy roads and rail tracks, destroy
anything that would delay the advancing aggressor. But Stalin was undoing his defenses. Worse, Stalin, in absorbing Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, part of Finland, part of Romania, had eliminated buffer states and
buffer zones between his nation and the Axis.
Were there buffers states, in case of a German attack, the Soviets would
have some time to prepare to defend their territory. With an absence of buffer states, an Axis
sneak attack might give the Soviets no time to prepare. Of course, if Stalin were preparing his own
sneak attack on the Axis, a lack of buffer states would mean the Axis would
have no time to prepare a defense against the invading Red Army.
Why
did the Axis do so well against the Soviets in June 1941? Stalin was certain Hitler would not attack at
that time. (Why Stalin was so certain is
described in a fascinating chapter in Suvorov’s thought-provoking book.) Stalin continued to prepare for his own
preemptive strike against the Axis. Masses
of Red Army men were in transit. If they
had arrived at the front, the weapons may have been on the rails, not yet
unloaded. Masses of Soviet men and
materiel were collecting at the front in June, but they were in the process of
moving here and there, getting ready for their forthcoming push westward. When the Germans attacked first, the Soviets
were dumbfounded. They were preparing an
offensive and had almost nothing for defensive operations. The result was disaster for the Soviets. Millions of Red Army prisoners taken, huge
supplies of food, of oil, of ammunition, of everything needed by the military,
captured by the enemy. As the year went
on, the German army would be using more of the confiscated Soviet supplies to
advance into Soviet territory. So the
Suvorov answer to the big question is – the Soviets were in the process of
preparing for a massive aggressive war against the Axis, and in a short time would
have been superbly prepared. But in June
1941, the Soviets were prepared neither for aggressive war, nor especially NOT
for defensive war.
Suppose
Hitler had delayed his surprise attack on the Soviets. Suppose also that in July 1941 Stalin had finally
gotten his men and materiel in position and unleashed his own surprise attack
against the Axis. Stalin’s massive numbers
of troops, paratroops, gliders, light airplanes, tanks, howitzers, etc. in a
sneak attack against the Axis probably would have caught the Axis off guard too. And the Red Army was better equipped and
larger than the military of the Axis.
Suvorov thinks in such an attack, the Red Army would have taken Warsaw,
Koenigsberg, Dresden, Berlin, and since the French had already been defeated,
Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Bordeaux, Marseilles. The Red Army probably would have quickly
conquered all of Axis Europe. Stalin
would not just be honored as the conqueror of Europe, he would be hailed as the
“liberator” of Europe. In other words,
just as the weaker Axis, with a massive sneak attack, while the Soviets were in
transition, could make enormous gains for several months in 1941, so a Soviet
surprise attack against the Axis in July 1941 would have made even more massive
gains, because the Soviets were stronger than the Axis. Stalin would have conquered all of
continental Europe, to the Pyrenees.
And
how would Churchill have reacted? The
Red Army swarming across all Europe?
Suvorov writes that among the weapons the Soviets had developed were
amphibious tanks. Though these were
probably meant for small streams and ponds, might they have also been used to
cross the English Channel? Suvorov does
write that Stalin had the dream of liberating the working class of the world
through the Red Army. How close was he
to fulfilling that dream? Did Hitler,
with his own surprise attack, save Europe, and the world, from Red tyranny? One can see how the implications of Suvorov’s
thesis are deemed unacceptable in establishment academic circles in the
West. And Hollywood is unlikely to make
a film based on his thesis.
At
times Suvorov portrays Stalin as a gangster, at others as a man trying to
liberate the world for the working class.
Was Stalin simply a 20th century embodiment of Marxism? In Marxist theory mankind begins in primitive
communism; progresses to a slave-based society, thence to feudalism, to
capitalism, and finally to socialism (communism). But Suvorov described the Soviet Union as a
state in which the secret police had power from its brutal birth, and in which
Stalin (and the other communist leaders) were willing to sacrifice the
breadbasket of Europe and starve millions, burying agriculture under
bureaucratic collectivization, to build the factories. And what did those factories produce? Not consumer goods As the USSR consolidated from the 1920s and
30s, it relied ever more on slave power – the Gulags to fulfill the goals of
growth in the 5-Year Plans. In time,
Hitler’s Reich also would depend upon slavery
to keep its economy going during the war.
The
20th century witnessed the return of slavery in the Communist Soviet
Union and in the National Socialist Reich.
The American Communist historian and spokesman, Herbert Aptheker, once
described socialism as like being in the military. “All your basic needs are supplied. You get a little more spending money
depending on your rank.” Of course, what
he did not say – “Those in the military must follow orders. And if they do not?” Is that not the essential of socialism? If they do not?
During
the American Civil War a draft was imposed, but in the North one could pay to
have someone else take your place. With
war’s end, the draft ended. Later in the
19th century, as more and more European nations joined the arms
race, with military drafts, one of America’s selling points was that there was
no draft in America. There were cartoons
in newspapers stressing this nation was free, and free of the draft. One of the appeals to potential European
immigrants who might face years in European armies, was precisely that America
had no draft. Other nations had the
draft; Americans were free. When America
entered WWI in 1917, that changed, for the draft was reintroduced. Some pacifists went to court calling the law
illegal. It was involuntary servitude,
slavery. The US courts rejected that
argument and the draft lasted through the war.
To
what extent is a society based upon gulags and a huge military a “free”
society? Stalin’s USSR had slaves
(prison labor) in the gulags, and it also had many of its people in the armed
services. What % free? Slave?
And if you disobey and order? If
a socialist society is like the military, is it a free society?
Suvorov
writes that Stalin’s drive for world domination was shattered in June 1941 when
Hitler’s first-strike attack came before Stalin’s planned first-strike
attack. Hitler’s surprise crushed
Stalin’s plans to “liberate” Europe and the world. But did Stalin really abandon his dream? On 10 April 1943 in Oakland, California, the
FBI wiretapped a conversation between Steve Nelson and a Soviet embassy
official. The Soviet gave money to
Nelson, an underground Communist, and told him to place reliable Americans
(Soviet agents) as workers in positions in the new Manhattan Project, the
American organized effort to design and build atomic bombs. This occurred less than 2 years after the
Axis invasion of the USSR. Stalin
already knew of the American project to build a nuclear bomb, and is using his
spies in the American Communist movement to help deliver the secrets to the
USSR. Had Stalin abandoned his dream of
world domination? On this, I question
Suvorov.
Suvorov
writes an interesting chapter on Trotsky.
In the 1920s, as Stalin’s star rose, Trotsky’s fell. The History Channel showed a film of Trotsky
exiled to Soviet Asia. He and several
others are crossing a wooden bridge, and the narrator notes that one man has a
pistol in his pocket and is basically directing Trotsky across the bridge. In the Soviet Union many friends, followers,
and suspected followers of Trotsky were purged, gulaged, or executed. Trotsky was isolated. Surely, Stalin could have had him executed,
but did not. Suvorov has some intriguing
speculations. Trotsky was then exiled
out of the USSR, Turkey, Scandinavia, France, Mexico. Suvorov makes no mention of one aspect of
Trotsky’s history that might have hastened the seal on his fate. After the Hitler-Stalin Pact and the outbreak
of war in Europe, the Communist Party in the US lost about 25% of its members
and considerable influence. Communists
were denouncing attempts to get the US involved in the European “imperialist”
war, and like a leader of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, were now
vehemently shouting against Franklin Demagogue Roosevelt. Democrat Rep. Martin Dies, headed the House
Un-American Activities Committee, and it invited Trotsky to testify before it
about Communism. Since Trotsky was in
Mexico, he could appear before HUAC in Austin, Texas. There seems to be different versions as to
why his appearance was delayed – but had Trotsky testified before HUAC, he
would not have said anything good about Stalin.
Before he could finalize any trip to the US, Trotsky was assassinated in
Mexico by a Stalinist agent.
There
are disturbing questions that rise from Suvorov’s excellent book. Could it be argued that Hitler saved Western
Europe from the Red Army? More, could it
be argued that Hitler’s surprise attack saved the world from Soviet
domination? Perhaps it is because of
these disturbing implications that many Western academics prefer to ignore or
dismiss Suvorov. Suvorov’s book title indicates
that Stalin is “The Chief Culprit.” On
one level, Suvorov might be right; but both Hitler and Stalin were monsters,
murderers on such a mass scale, that neither is the chief monster, or rather
both deserve to share that title.
Another
disturbing thought after reading this book: not only could Stalin, if his
surprise attack of July 1941 have swept through Germany, Hungary, all the way
to Marseilles and Bordeaux, Stalin then could have dominated all of Europe,
much of Asia, and prepared for world domination? That question is a hypothetical one about the
past. Today, could a closed, or
semi-closed society, build its military superiority and stage a surprise attack
upon its peaceful neighbors and achieve world domination tomorrow?
