Soviet Union and World War 2
Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:22 am
Table of Contents
WORLD WAR 2 HISTORY WRITTEN FROM THE "GERMAN PERSPECTIVE" AND RED ARMY BATTLES CONCEALED FOR POLITICAL REASONS
LENDLEASE
ALLIES SENT THE SU ALMOST NOTHING IN EARLY STAGE OF WWII
SOVIET MILITARY BUDGET GREW DRASTICALLY TO CONFRONT HITLER
BRITISH AIDED HITLER
SOVIET UNION INVADED BY THE BIGGEST ARMY EVER
STALIN WAS ONLY SURPRISED AS TO THE EXACT TIME OF THE INVASION
SU INVADED BY MANY COUNTRIES IN WWII
CHURCHILL SUPPORTS SU AGAINST NAZIS
LINDBERGH SUPPORTS NAZIS AGAINST SU
MACARTHUR PROFUSELY PRAISES THE RED ARMY’S DEFENSE AND COUNTERATTACK
LEADERS COMPLIMENT THE RED ARMY
HITLER WAS NO FOOL
KREMLIN PREPARED FOR WAR FOR MANY YEARS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comrade Stalin In World War 2
STALIN WAS A GOOD WWII SUPREME COMMANDER
EACH ALLY TRIES TO GET THE OTHER TO DO THE HARD WORK
STALIN CONTENDS ALLIES WANT SU BLED WHITE AND THEY AVOID SECOND FRONT
STALIN KNEW NAZI ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN MAJOR LAND LOST AT FIRST
STALIN SHOWS COURAGE AND BRAVERY IN EARLY DAYS OF THE INVASION
STALIN FORESAW VICTORY AFTER NAZI ATTACK WHILE HIS ENEMIES FORESAW DEFEAT
STALIN SAVED ENGLAND FROM BEING ATTACKED BY THE NAZIS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RED ARMY INTELLIGENCE WAS READY FOR NAZI ATTACK
SU INTELLIGENCE REPORTS ON POTENTIAL NAZI ATTACK WERE INADEQUATE
STALIN SAW WORLD WAR II NAZI ATTACK COMING
STALIN DIRECTED THE DEFENSE OF MOSCOW IN WWII
ALLIED AID TO THE SU
STALIN MADE HARD MILITARY DECISIONS
WWII PRISONERS OF WAR WERE TREATED HUMANELY
EVERYTHING WAS DONE TO DELAY OR PREVENT WAR COMING
SU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN JUNE WAS THE BEST MONTH FOR AN ATTACK
LACK OF BEING SUFFICIENTLY READY FOR NAZI ATTACK WAS NOT DECISIVE
STALIN WAS PREPARED FOR THE ATTACK WHEN IT CAME
MOLOTOV DENIES ASKING GERMANS WHY SU DESERVED TO BE ATTACKED
STALIN DID NOT FALL APART AFTER THE ATTACK BUT WAS VERY DEPRESSED
THE MAIN ISSUE AT POTSDAM WAS REPARATIONS
STALIN AND MOLOTOV SAID FRANCE SHOULD GET ITS LAND FROM US-BRIT AREA
STALIN SHOULD NOT HAVE RETIRED AFTER THE WAR
STALIN ABANDONED HIS PLAN TO HAVE HITLER KILLED
NAZIS VIEWED SOVIET DEFENSES AS WEAK
PAVLOV WAS INCOMPETENT
STALIN REFUSES TO SIGN A SEPARATE PEACE WITH THE NAZIS
VLASOV WAS EXECUTED AS A TRAITOR
BRITISH AND US PLANES GET IN FIGHTS OVER SOVIET AIRSPACE
STALIN PREDICTED THE FASCIST ATTACK 10 YEARS EARLIER
WAR IS THE ONLY RECOURSE FOR HITLER
STALIN DISTRUSTS REPORTS OF GERMAN AGGRESSIVE ACTS
Ukrainian Fascists
BANDERA’S GUERRILLAS KILL THOSE WORKING FOR THE GOVERNMENT
FASCISTS WERE REJECTED BY THE UKRAINIANS
"UKRAINIAN-NATIONALISM IS A FORM OF FASCISM
FIRST RECORDED OUN MEMBER SAYING "SLAVA UKRAINI" WAS WITH A NAZI SALUTE
OUN-B COLLABORATION WITH NAZIS
OUN FUNDED BY FOREIGN POWERS - MURDER AND SPYING FOR OTHER COUNTRIES MAIN SOURCE OF INCOME
WORLD WAR 2 HISTORY WRITTEN FROM THE "GERMAN PERSPECTIVE" AND RED ARMY BATTLES CONCEALED FOR POLITICAL REASONS
When the first edition of this book was published in 1995, the authors grate- fully benefited from the modest first wave of archival materials released by the Russian Federation, which increased our knowledge of the war twofold and enabled us to add substantial Russian context and detail to what had previously been a largely German perspective on the war. Thanks to those initial releases, the book’s first edition restored a modicum of truth and accuracy to the Soviet side of the war by identifying battles forgotten or concealed for political reasons and by adding more candid detail to the description of bat- tles already well known. Likewise, a clearer understanding of what the Red Army actually achieved tempered the obvious German bias so evident in the historiography on the war during the Cold War years. However, despite those beneficial releases, yawning gaps still existed in the historical record of the war in 1995, the most vexing of which was the paucity of accurate numbers quantifying the scope and ferocity of the struggle. Now, most of those gaps have been filled, and the missing numbers are becoming readily available.
David M Glantz, Clash of Titans, 2015, p. xi
ALLIES SENT THE SU ALMOST NOTHING IN EARLY STAGE OF WWII
…Hopkins said, “Inevitably not everything the Roosevelt administration has done has pleased Moscow. But we’ve got things straightened out now, surely? We’ve supplied you with warplanes and trucks and ships, and quite a bit of food, too.
It would have been tactless to argue with him; but the truth was that during the first year after Hitler’s attack, at the worst time for the Soviet Union, the U.S.A. sent us practically nothing. Only later, when it was clear that the USSR could stand its ground, and on its own, did the deliveries gradually begin to flow.
Gromyko, Andrei. Memoirs. New York: Doubleday, c1989. p. 43
[Footnote]: A few words must be said here to explain the material aspects of the Russian superiority. Throughout the war Russia was confronted with German Armies roughly twice as numerous and strong as those that had defeated her in the First World War. The Russian achievement was made possible primarily by the rapid industrialization of the eastern provinces, much of which took place in the course of the war on a basis prepared in peace. The industrial output of the provinces that escaped German occupation was normally about 40 percent of the total Soviet output. It was doubled between 1942 and 1945. The production of the armament factories in the East went up by 500-600 per cent. On the average, 30,000 tanks and fighting vehicles and nearly 40,000 planes were turned out every year between 1943 and 1945–almost none of these had been manufactured in Russia in the First World War. The annual output of artillery guns was now 120,000, compared with less than 4000 in 1914-17. The Russian army was supplied with nearly 450,000 home-produced machine-guns annually–only about 9000 had been produced under the Tsar. Five million rifles and Tommy guns, five times as many as in the First World War, were produced every year.
The Red Army fought its way from the Volga to the Elbe mainly with home-produced weapons. The weapons which the western powers supplied were a useful and in some cases a vital addition. But the lorries which carried the Russian divisions into Germany were mostly of American, Canadian, and British make–more than 400,000 lorries were supplied to Russia under Lend-Lease. So were most of the boots in which the infantry proper slogged its way to Berlin, through the mud and snow and sand of the eastern European plain. Much of the army’s clothing and of its tinned food were supplied under Lend-Lease. One might sum up broadly that the fire-power of the Red Army was home produced, whereas the element of its mobility was largely imported.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 512
What role did the military and economic assistance of our Allies play in 1941 and 1942? Great exaggerations are widely current in Western literature.
Assistance in accordance with the Lend-Lease Act widely publicized by the Allies was coming to our country in much smaller quantities than promised. There can be no denial that the supplies of gun-powder, high octane petrol, some grades of steel, motor vehicles, and food-stuffs were of certain help. But their proportion was insignificant against the overall requirements of our country within the framework of the agreed volume of supplies. As regards tanks and aircraft supplied to us by the British and American Governments, let us be frank: they were not popular with our tank-men and pilots especially the tanks which worked on petrol and burned like tender.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 391-392
SOVIET MILITARY BUDGET GREW DRASTICALLY TO CONFRONT HITLER
Probably the best indication to the layman of the Red Army’s growth since the rise of Hitler is the fact the money allotted to it in the Soviet budget grew nearly 40 fold. From 1.5 billion rubles in 1933 it grew to 57 billion in 1940.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 95
Of course he [Stalin] and his entourage always kept in mind the possibility of war with the capitalist countries, and in the late 30s this meant specifically Germany and Japan. Preparations for such a war were made by creating a modern defense industry, military aviation, an up-to-date navy, civil-defense training for the whole population, and so on. In 1939-1941 the army increased by 2.5 times, many troops and supplies were transferred to the western districts, war production increased, and the number of military schools grew. Especially after the war with Finland, a great deal of work was done toward retraining the Army. The development of new weapons was speeded up. More than a 100,000 men were put to work on the fortification of the new western borders. Airfields were modernized, ordnance depots and ammunition dumps set up, and military exercises for troops and commanders carried out.
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 735
Zhukov also wrote:
“The period between 1939 and the middle of 1941 was marked on the whole by trans-formations that within two or three years would have given the Soviet people a brilliant army.”
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 736
In 1940, the Soviet government spent 56 billion rubles on defense, more than twice as much as in 1938, and over 25 percent of all industrial investment. As a result, the defense industry developed at three times the rate of all other industries. During the time between the signing of the pact and the Nazi invasion, the value of the Soviet Union’s material resources was nearly doubled, an impressive achievement, even allowing for the low starting figure.
Read, Anthony and David Fisher. The Deadly Embrace. New York: Norton, 1988, p. 482
BRITISH AIDED HITLER
British diplomacy granted to Hitler Germany everything that it had refused for more than a decade to the German republic: the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Nazi — terrorized plebiscite in the Saar, German rearmament and naval expansion…. British finance, which had strangled the struggling German democracy with demands for impossible war reparations, supported Hitler’s regime with heavy investments and loans. It was no secret to any intelligent world citizen that the British Tories made these concessions to Hitler because they saw in him their “strong–arm gangster” who would eventually fight the Soviets, which important sections of British finance capital have always seen as their greatest foe.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 147
If any doubt remained as to the motives of the British and French foreign offices, it was removed at the Munich conference. Munich — with its cynical sell out of Czechoslovakia — was the trump card of the Tory ruling cllass in its game of driving Germany toward the east. The British Prime Minister chamberlain posed as “appeasing” Hitler, while actually egging him on. Chamberlain suggested that the Sudetenland might be given to Hitler before anyone in Germany had dared to express such a desire.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 148
Almost as soon as the Nazi troops marched into the Czech territory, it was discovered that representatives of London finance had agreed with German industrialists some weeks earlier about the financing of the great Enterprises thus seized.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 149
SOVIET UNION INVADED BY THE BIGGEST ARMY EVER
Already almost all the nations of Europe had gone down like ninepins.
The decision of Hitler…to turn eastward after the conquest of Europe, will probably go on permanent record as the greatest blunder in military history….
Two hundred and sixty divisions from Germany and her allies, Romania, Italy, Hungary, Spain, and Finland, swept eastward. There is nothing in the history of warfare with which to make comparison of the striking power of these forces against a single country.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 220
One hundred seventy-nine German divisions, 22 Rumanian divisions, 14 Finnish divisions, 13 Hungarian divisions, 10 Italian divisions, one Slovak division, and one Spanish division [Totaling 240 divisions-Editor], a total of well over 3 million troops, the best armed and most experienced in the world, attacked along a 2000 mile front, aiming their spearhead directly at Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad.
Franklin, Bruce, Ed. The Essential Stalin; Major Theoretical Writings. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972, p. 31
On 25 April 1941 the German army contained 296 divisions overall with about 40 further divisions in the process of formation.
Medvedev, Roy & Zhores. The Unknown Stalin. NY, NY: Overlook Press, 2004, p. 233
STALIN WAS ONLY SURPRISED AS TO THE EXACT TIME OF THE INVASION
Was Stalin taken by surprise with the turn of events? In the broader sense, no. All his actions from the day Hitler rose to power provide a complete proof of this. But there still remained in the situation an element of surprise in the sense that it was not possible to know the precise moment at which the blow would fall.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 221
German attacks on Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland had indeed been preceded by open claims and loud threats. Stalin apparently thought that Hitler would act according to precedent. Because he did not see the usual danger signals he refused to admit the imminent danger.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 455
Stalin received the correct information that “Barbarossa” would start on June 22 for instance – but he was also given other dates ranging from April 6 right through May and up to June 15 – and as each one proved wrong, it became less likely that he would accept the true version for what it was. Werner Wachter, a senior official at the Propaganda Ministry, later explained Goebbels’s technique in admirably simple language. The preparations for “Barbarossa,” he said, were accompanied by so many rumors, “all of which were equally credible, that in the end there wasn’t a bugger left who had any idea of what was really going on.”
Certainly, that comment seems to have been true for Stalin and his intelligence chiefs as the hour for the attack drew steadily closer.
Read, Anthony and David Fisher. The Deadly Embrace. New York: Norton, 1988, p. 600
SU INVADED BY MANY COUNTRIES IN WWII
The assault was launched not by Germany but by all of fascist Europe.
By every rational calculation of war potential, the Soviet Union was doomed to swift and complete defeat, regardless of what British or American policy might be. Defeat would’ve meant not only the enslavement of the Soviet peoples but the ultimate conquest of Britain and China and the reduction of America to helplessness before the unchallenged masters of Eurasia and Africa.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 419
Franco whose fascist “Blue Legion” was fighting the Red Army.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 455
CHURCHILL SUPPORTS SU AGAINST NAZIS
Churchill said, “at four o’clock this morning Hitler attacked and invaded Russia…. No one has been a more consistent opponent of communism than I have for the last 25 years. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding…. Any man or state who fights against nazism will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe.”
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 422
An “off the record” story illustrates Churchill’s attitude. One of his friends said, “Winston, how can you support the Bolsheviks, you who led British intervention against Lenin and once admitted that you had spent 100 million British pounds to aid the ‘White’ armies of Kolchak and Denikin?”
The premier replied curtly, “If seven devils rose from hell to fight against that man Hitler, I’d shake them all by the hand and give each a bottle of brandy and a box of my best cigars.”
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 264
In June 22, 1941, Churchill had said: ‘No one has been a more persistent opponent of communism than I have been for the last 25 years. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it, but all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding.’
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 505
LINDBERGH SUPPORTS NAZIS AGAINST SU
Lindbergh said, I would a hundred times rather see my country ally herself with England, or even with Germany with all her faults, than with the cruelty, the Godlessness and the barbarism that exists in Soviet Russia.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 424
MACARTHUR PROFUSELY PRAISES THE RED ARMY’S DEFENSE AND COUNTERATTACK
Douglas MacArthur’s anniversary tribute of February 23, 1942: “The hopes of civilization rest on the worthy banners of the courageous Russian army. During my lifetime I have participated in a number of wars and have witnessed others, as well as studying in great detail campaigns of outstanding leaders of the past. In none have I observed such effective resistance to the heaviest blows of a hitherto undefeated enemy, followed by a smashing counter attack which is driving the enemy back to his own land. The scale and grandeur of the effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history.”
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 432
[As the Red Army fought the Wehrmacht in early 1942 MacArthur sent the following telegram to the Soviet leadership].
“The world situation at the present time indicates that the hopes of civilization rest on the worthy banners of the courageous Russian army. During my lifetime I have participated in a number of wars and have witnessed others, as well as studying in great detail the campaigns of outstanding leaders of the past. In none have I observed such effective resistance to the heaviest blows of a hitherto undefeated enemy, followed by a smashing counterattack which is driving the enemy back to his own land. The scale and grandeur of this effort marks it as the greatest military achievement in all history.”
Sherwood, Robert E. Roosevelt and Hopkins. New York: Harper, 1948, p. 497
LEADERS COMPLIMENT THE RED ARMY
It is the Russian army said Churchill on August second 1944 that has done the main work of tearing the guts out of the German Army.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 493
The German Generals’ impressions of the Red Army were interesting, and often illuminating. The best appreciation in a concise form came from General Kleist: “The [Soviet] men were first-rate fighters from the start, and we owed our success simply to superior training. They became first-rate soldiers with experience. They fought most toughly, had amazing endurance, and could carry on without most of the things other armies regarded as necessities. The Staff were quick to learn from their early defeats, and soon became highly efficient.”
I asked German General Rundstedt what he considered were the strong and weak points of the Red Army, as he found it in 1941. His reply was: “The Russian heavy tanks were a surprise in quality and reliability from the outset. But the Russians proved to have less artillery than had been expected, and their air force did not offer serious opposition in that first campaign.”
Talking more specifically of the Russian weapons Kleist said: “Their equipment was very good even in 1941, especially the tanks. Their artillery was excellent, and also most of the infantry weapons–their rifles were more modern than ours, and had a more rapid rate of fire. Their T-34 tank was the finest in the world.” In my talks with Manteuffel, he emphasized that the Russians maintained their advantage in tank design and that in the “Stalin” tank, which appeared in 1944, they had what he considered the best tank that was seen in battle, anywhere, up to the end of the war.
Hart, Liddell. The German Generals Talk. New York: W. T. Morrow, 1948, p. 220-221
As regards the general characteristics of the Russian soldier, Dittmar gave me an illuminating sidelight when I asked him what he considered was the Russians’ chief asset. “I would put first, what might be called the soulless indifference of the troops–it was something more than fatalism. They were not quite so insensitive when things went badly for them, but normally it was difficult to make any impression on them in the way that would happen with troops of other nations. During my period of command on the Finnish front there was only one instance where Russian troops actually surrendered to my own.
Dittmar added: “On Hitler’s specific orders, an attempt was later made in the German Army to inculcate the same mental attitude that prevailed in the Red Army. We tried to copy the Russians in this respect, while the Russians copied us, more successfully, in tactics.
Hart, Liddell. The German Generals Talk. New York: W. Morrow, 1948, p. 223-224
Blumentritt stated, “It was in this war, however, that we first learnt to realize what ‘ Russia’ really means. The opening battle in June, 1941, revealed to us for the first time the new Soviet Army. Our casualties were up to 50 percent. The 0GPU and a women’s battalion defended the old citadel at Brest-Litovsk for a week, fighting to the last, in spite of bombardment with our heaviest guns and from the air. Our troops soon learnt to know what fighting the Russians meant. The Fuhrer and most of our highest chiefs didn’t know. That caused a lot of trouble.
“The Red Army of 1941-45 was far harder than the Tsar’s Army, for they were fighting fanatically for an idea. That increased their doggedness, and in turn made our own troops hard, for in the East the maxim held good–‘You or I.’
Hart, Liddell. The German Generals Talk. New York: W. Morrow, 1948, p. 225
During the month of July 1941 the course of contemporary history was to be decided. Under the staggering blows of the Wehrmacht, already drawing upon the human and economic potential of the whole of Europe, the Red Army constantly retreated. The whole structure of the Soviet edifice was shaken by the terrible blows. A few fissures were showing in the western part of the country, where defections were taking place. However, despite the defeats, the heavy losses, and the withdrawal from thousands of miles of the front–despite the overwhelming effect on the country’s economy, as a whole the young State–and it was not 30 years old–was standing firm. Like certain metals, whose molecular structure becomes closer, and whose coefficient of resistance increases under the vibrations of a violent hammering, Soviet Russia was forging itself. There was no weakening of the military command or the government of the country; the industrial reorganization continued. Contrary to the enemy’s expectation, instead of sinking into anarchy the peoples of the USSR remained united under a central authority. They persevered in the organized effort which enabled the USSR to sustain a modern, technical war, and without interruption to increase its military potential.
Delbars, Yves. The Real Stalin. London, Allen & Unwin, 1951, p. 301
HITLER WAS NO FOOL
Because whether you like him or not, Hitler is far from a fool and never made a mistake until June 22, 1941.
Duranty, Walter. The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, p. 181
Hitler wasn’t a fool. On the contrary, he was a capable man.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 361
KREMLIN PREPARED FOR WAR FOR MANY YEARS
I know, as I said before, that the Kremlin has been preparing for this war for full seven years; that it has starved its people of consumer goods in order to equip the red army and build new munition and armament plants.
Duranty, Walter. The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, p. 215
CHUEV: For the day of the attack, for the hour of the attack–that’s what we weren’t prepared for.
MOLOTOV: 0h, but no one could have been ready for the hour of the attack, even God itself! We’d been expecting the attack and we had a main goal–not to give Hitler a pretext for it. He would have said, “Soviet troops are assembling at the border. They are forcing me to take action!”
Of course that was a slip up, a shortcoming. And of course there were other slip-ups. You just try to find a way to avoid mistakes on such a question. But if you focus on them, it casts a shadow on the main point, on what decided the matter. Stalin was still irreplaceable. I am a critic of Stalin; on certain questions I did not agree with him, and I think he made some major, fundamental mistakes. But no one talks about these mistakes; instead they keep criticizing things on which Stalin was right….
In essence we were largely ready for war. The five-year plans, the industrial capacity we had created–that’s what helped us to endure, otherwise we wouldn’t have won out. The growth of our military industry in the years before the war could not have been greater!
The people went through a colossal strain before the war.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 25
MOLOTOV: We even abolished the seven-hour working day two years before the war! We abolished the right of workers to move from one enterprise to another in search of better conditions, even though many of them lived poorly and were looking for better places to live…. We built no apartment houses, but there was great construction of factories, the creation of new army units armed with tanks, aircraft….
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 26
Stalin thus stimulated production in Soviet industry and agriculture because he was the first of world statesman to perceive that sooner or later Hitler’s Nazi Germany would make a bid for world dominion. Stalin saw that from the outset, from 1935, when Chamberlain, and Bonnet in France, and even the United States, had small idea of Hitler’s wild ambition. From then onwards Stalin swung Russia towards what I might call “preparedness,” in the American sense. Deliberately he reduced the production of consumer goods, which the Russian people so greatly needed, in favor of factories to produce the material of war, and located those factories in areas east of Moscow, far from hostile attack, in the Urals and mid-Siberia and along the east Siberian coast.
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 175
Russian factories and collective farms worked furiously in the fall and winter of 1940-41, aware that the breathing-space which Stalin’s agreement with Hitler had won for them in 1939 was nearly at an end. At this critical moment the Soviet state gained strength from its arbitrary system of centralization. It was able to drive its workers and peasants to the limit of their effort because the idea of greater reward for greater service had been adopted, because they had the incentive of personal profit in addition to the no less powerful incentive of patriotic service. By this time they all knew, the whole Soviet Union knew, that Germany was their enemy and that a clash with Germany could not long be averted.
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 259
The scheme of evacuation had been carefully prepared, not only of people, animals, and foodstuffs from the countryside, but of machines, even whole factories, from the towns and cities. At Christmas, 1941, the Germans boasted that they had occupied the territory in which one-half of the heavy industry of the USSR was situated…. But Goebbels omitted to state how much machinery and tools were moved eastwards from the factories of the Donetz Basin, the Ukraine, White Russia, and Leningrad by the workers who had handled them, and how much more which could not be moved was deliberately demolished, like the great Dnieper dam and power stations, by the men and women who had built them.
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 266
The record shows that the tribute was deserved. Had Stalin not won the fight for industrialization and defeated the Trotskyists and Bukharinites, the USSR would have become a Nazi province. Had he not had the foresight to build a metallurgical industry in the Urals, the Red Armies could not have been supplied with arms. Had he not industrialized the economy and introduced mechanized farming, he would have had neither a base for producing arms nor a mass of soldiers trained in the operation of machinery. Had he not signed a nonaggression treaty with Germany, the USSR might have been attacked 22 months sooner. Had he not moved the Soviet armies into Poland, the German attack would have begun even closer to Moscow. Had he not subdued General Mannerheim’s Finland, Leningrad would have fallen. Had he not ordered the transfer of 1,400 factories from the west to the east, the most massive movement of its kind in history, Russian industry would have received a possibly fatal blow. Had he not built up the army and equipped it with modern arms, it would have been destroyed on the frontiers.
He did not, of course, do these things alone. They were Party decisions and Party actions, and behind the Party throughout was the power, courage, and intelligence of the working class. But Stalin stood at all times as the central, individual directing force, his magnificent courage and calm foresight inspiring the whole nation. When some panic began in Moscow in October 1941 he handled it firmly.
Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 107
… our Red Army, Red Navy, Red Air Fleet and the Chemical and Air Defense Society must be increased and strengthened to the utmost. The whole of our people must be kept in a state of mobilization and preparedness in the face of the danger of military attack, so that no “accident” and no tricks on the part of our external enemies may take us by surprise….
Stalin, Joseph. Stalin’s Kampf. New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, c1940, p. 163
For years [this was stated in 1937], the Russian leaders have based all their actions on the belief that they will soon be involved in war. They apparently started to build up a larger gold reserve in order to strengthen their military position.
Littlepage, John D. In Search of Soviet Gold. New York: Harcourt, Brace, c1938, p. 271
The 18th Party Conference of February 1941 was devoted almost entirely to defense matters…. Stalin proposed that in 1941 industrial output should increase by 17-18 percent. That did not seem unrealistic. In 1940, for instance, defense output had increased by 27 percent compared to 1939…. The people knew a war was coming and that they would have to perform the impossible. By the time of Hitler’s invasion, 2700 airplanes of a new type and 4300 tanks, nearly half of them a new model, had been built.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 374
A month before the German attack, Stalin, speaking to a close circle, said, ‘The conflict is inevitable, perhaps in May next year.’ By the early summer of 1941, acknowledging the explosiveness of the situation, he approved the premature release of military cadets, and young officers and political workers were posted, mostly without leave, straight to units which were below full strength. After much hesitation, Stalin also decided to call up about 800,000 reservists, bringing up to strength 21 divisions in the frontier military districts….
On 19 June 1941 troops were ordered to begin camouflaging aerodromes, transport depots, bases and fuel dumps, and to disperse aircraft around airfields. The order came hopelessly late, and even then Stalin was reluctant in case ‘all these measures provoke the German forces’.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 393
Despite all his miscalculations, Stalin was not unprepared to meet the emergency. He had solidly armed his country and reorganized its military forces. His practical mind had not been wedded to any one-sided strategic dogma. He had not lulled the Red Army into a false sense of security behind any Russian variety of the Maginot Line, that static defense system that had been the undoing of the French army in 1940. He could rely on Russia’s vast spaces and severe climate. No body of men could now dispute his leadership. He had achieved absolute unity of command, the dream of the modern strategist.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 461
What conclusions, then, follow from the facts sighted? How is one to assess what was done before the war, what we intended to do in the near future and what we did not have time to do or were unable to do in strengthening our country’s defensive capacity? How is one to make that appraisal today after everything has been gone through, critically interpreting the past and at the same time putting oneself once more on the threshold of the Great Patriotic War?
I have thought long over this and here is the conclusion to which I came.
It seems to me that the country’s defense was managed correctly in its basic and principal features and orientations. For many years everything possible or almost everything was done in the economic and social aspects. As to the period between 1939 and the middle of 1941, the people and Party exerted particular effort to strengthen defense.
… The fact that in spite of enormous difficulties and losses during the four years of the war, Soviet industry turned out a colossal amount of armaments –almost 490,000 guns and mortars, over 102,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, over 137,000 military aircraft–shows that the foundations of the economy from the military, the defense standpoint, were laid correctly and firmly.
Following once more in my mind’s eye the development of the Soviet Armed Forces all the way from the days of the Civil War, I should say that here too we followed the right road in the main. There was constant improvement along the right lines in Soviet military doctrine, the principles of educating and training the troops, the weapons of the army and navy, the training of commanding cadres and the structure and organization of the armed forces. The morale and fighting spirit of the troops and their political consciousness and maturity were always exceptionally high.
Of course, if it were possible to go over the whole road once more there are some things it would be better not to do. But today I cannot name a single major trend in the development of our armed forces that should have been abolished, abandoned, and disclaimed. The period between 1939 and the middle of 1941 was marked on the whole by transformations which in two or three years would have given the Soviet people a brilliant army, perhaps the best in the world.
During the period the dangerous military situation was developing we army leaders probably did not do enough to convince Stalin that war with Germany was inevitable in the very near future and that the urgent measures provided for in the operational and mobilization plans must be implemented.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 226
Other elements of the Soviet military effort were less affected by the purges. The training schools increased their intake of new officer trainees. The technological threshold still moved slowly forward. The system of fortifications begun in the 1920s along the whole western frontier–the Stalin Line–continued to be constructed and extended. Most important of all, the modernization and expansion of the Soviet heavy industrial base continued, and with it the large proportion allocated to military production. Without the economic transformation, the Red Army would have been a feeble force in 1941, relying on a vast base of peasant manpower. The industrial changes of the 1930s provided the planners, the scientists, engineers, and skilled labor necessary to cope with the demands of total mobilization made after the German invasion in 1941. Whatever the weaknesses exposed by the modernization drive, it is inconceivable that the Soviet Union could have withstood the German attack without it.
Overy, R. J. Russia’s War: Blood Upon the Snow. New York: TV Books, c1997, p. 51
Of course considerable preparations were made. For over a decade priority had been given to heavy industry, and the Soviet armed forces had first call on it. The Red Army was enlarged by two and a half times between 1939 and 1941, war production was increased, troops and supplies transferred to the west, a 100,000 men put to work on the fortifications.
Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 705
In his speech in the Reichstag on 7 March 1936 Hitler said: Nor do we doubt that Herriott. of France reported his information truly. Now, according to this information it is established in the first place that the Russian Army has a peace strength of 1,350,000 men, and secondly, that its war strength and reserves amount to 17,500,000 men. Thirdly, we are informed that it has the largest tank force in the world, and, fourthly that it has the largest air force in the world. This most powerful military factor has been described as excellent in regard to mobility and leadership and ready for action at any time.
HITLER’S SPEECHES by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1290
What confirmed me in my decision to attack [the Soviet Union] without delay was the information brought by a German mission lately returned from Russia, that a single Russian factory was producing by itself more tanks that all our factories together.
Hitler, Adolph. Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944. Trans. by Cameron & Stevens. New York: Enigma Books, 2000, p. 182
The more we see of conditions in Russia, the more thankful we must be that we struck in time. In another 10 years there would have sprung up in Russia a mass of industrial centers, inaccessible to attack, which would have produced armaments on an inexhaustible scale, while the rest of Europe would have degenerated into a defenseless plaything of Soviet policy.
Hitler, Adolph. Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944. Trans. by Cameron & Stevens. New York: Enigma Books, 2000, p. 586
The legend of the might of Germany’s mechanized army, backed by a highly industrialized society and run with ruthless Teutonic efficiency, has been with us for so long that it is difficult to realize how poor were the German preparations for the Russian campaign. The German army invaded Russia with 3,200 tanks and the monthly output of 80 to 100 was too low even to make good the wastage. Although this rate later went up rapidly, it did not reach its peak until August 1944, when it was already too late, and even then was only a quarter of the Russian output. The Germans had sufficient fuel for only a fraction of their transport to be motorized. The rest was moved by horses! The average German infantry division had about 1,500 horse-drawn vehicles and only about 600 motor-drawn ones, compared with some 3,000 in a British or American infantry division. The German soldier had no winter clothing, and had to make do by wearing large cotton combat overalls over his uniform and stuffing the spaces in between with crumpled newspapers or, since newsprint was scarce, with German propaganda leaflets.
The Russians, on the other hand, began the war with 20,000 tanks, more than were possessed by the rest of the world put together, and they produced no fewer than 100,000 during the war. They, too, used horses, but their motorized transport was adapted for winter conditions, their winter uniforms were white and, being quilted, provided excellent protection against the cold, and they possessed an adaptability to the environment that the Germans lacked. “Give a Russian an axe and a knife and in a few hours he will do anything, run up a sledge, a stretcher, a little igloo… make a stove out of a couple of old oil cans,” a German medical officer wrote. “Our men just stand about miserably burning precious petrol to keep warm.”
Knightley, Phillip. The First Casualty. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, p. 252
It would be unfair to accuse Stalin of neglecting the country’s defense. In 1940 new regulations lengthened the working day and week. By 1941 the army was more than double the size it had been in 1939. In a number of cases capable people were put in charge of vital departments.
Ulam, Adam. Stalin; the Man and his Era. New York: Viking Press, 1973, p. 531
It seems to me that the country’s defense was managed correctly as regards its basic and principal features and orientations. For many years, everything or almost everything possible was done in the economic and social fields. As to the period from 1939 to the middle of 1941, the people and the Party applied special efforts to strengthen the country’s defenses….
Of course, if it were possible to go over that whole road once again, there are some things it would have been better not to do and some things that would have to be straightened out. But today I cannot name a single major trend in the development of our armed forces that should have been written off, jettisoned, or repealed. The period between 1939 and the middle of 1941 was marked on the whole by transformations which gave the Soviet Union a brilliant army, and that readied it well for defense.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 270
Soviet economic might was so successfully dedicated to the war effort that in the last six months of 1942 it reached a level of production which the Germans attained only across the entire year. The numbers were remarkable. In that half-year the USSR acquired 15,000 aircraft and 13,000 tanks.
Service, Robert. Stalin. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2005, p. 421
At least four marshals–and many generals–deny Stalin’s alleged failure to prepare for the German invasion. In June 1941 Marshal Bagramyan says a ‘titanic’ effort had been made to prepare for the coming war. Marshal Vasilevsky points to a ‘whole number of very important measures’ taken to counter the menace of aggression. Marshal Zhukov goes farther, saying, ‘every effort’ and ‘every means’ was used to bolster the country’s defenses between 1939 and 1941. Marshal Rokossovsky says that the non-aggression pact with Hitler ‘gave us the time we needed so much to build up our defenses’….
Stalin’s generals are virtually unanimous in pointing to Russia’s accelerated pre-war industrial and military growth as the sine qua non for victory over Nazi Germany. This build-up started between the two world wars when the West had in effect quarantined the Soviet state.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 189
Djilas, a Yugoslav writer and activist who met Stalin several times during the war, says that, prior to the Nazi-Soviet War, Stalin spared nothing to achieve military preparedness; and the speed with which he carried out the transformation of the top army command in the midst of the war confirmed Stalin’s adaptability and willingness to open careers to men of talent. Djilas an uncompromising critic of Stalin, says that the sweeping military purges had less effect than is commonly believed.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 190
STALIN WAS A GOOD WWII SUPREME COMMANDER
Stalin as supreme commander of the Russian forces in the Second World War would be a theme for a special work. His great gift of military organization showed itself here again. Without any question, streams of energy proceeded from him throughout the war, and that energy halted the Germans before Leningrad and Moscow. They had to seek the road to victory in another direction– toward the Volga. Strategically they fell into exactly the same situation as the counter-revolutionary generals of the civil war. As then, Stalingrad had once more to become the battlefield on which the outcome of the war would be decided. Stalin had already won one victory there, at the outset of his career; once already he had prevented the enemy from crossing the Volga. The strategic problem was familiar to him. For the second time in his life he achieved his strategic triumphs on the same spot.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 365
“Hitler fooled us,” he [Stalin] said, in a calm but somewhat harsh voice. “I didn’t think he was going to attack now.”
He was silent. The launch still floated beside us, and Captain Karazov still stood at attention.
“We did all we could to avoid war,” Stalin said. “We did all we could to avoid the ruin it causes. But now we no longer have any choice. We have to accept the battle, for life or for death; and we can only win if the whole people rises as one man against the Germans.”
Svanidze, Budu. My Uncle, Joseph Stalin. New York: Putnam, c1953, p. 169
After dinner, before taking his leave, Rokossovsky shook my uncle’s hand, and said, “You have thanked us for what we did. Let me say that without your constant support, the victory would have been impossible. I will never forget the phone call you put through to me at my command post that night in November when the Germans were entering Istra and threatening to encircle Moscow. After I put down the phone, I ordered an attack and our troops re-occupied Istra.”
Svanidze, Budu. My Uncle, Joseph Stalin. New York: Putnam, c1953, p. 179
Stalin knew there was no hope of bringing the war to an early end but he had to bolster the morale of his people. The second battle of Moscow had begun, and Soviet Intelligence reported that the Fuehrer had given his Generals a fortnight in which to take the city.
Soon the Germans took Khimky, the small port on the Moscow-Volga-Canal, four miles from Moscow, and connected by trolley-bus to the city, and at this point Stalin personally took command of the defense operations. He urged the Soviet troops at all costs, to hold out for a few days to enable reinforcements, maneuvering their positions, to complete their reconcentration. To give his Generals and troops new strength, Stalin applied the right psychology, and frequently telephoned the field headquarters of his different Generals.
“Hello, here is Stalin, make your report,” he would say. After listening to their reports, he would urge encouragingly: “Hold out. We shall be coming to your assistance in three to four hours time. You will have your reinforcements”!
And the over-tired defenders of Moscow, near to collapse, held-out, and the Soviet counter-offensive was opened.
Then came a communique Signed by Marshals Timoshenko and Zhukov which announced the “crushing defeat of the Wehrmacht before Moscow.”
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 144
In all, the State Committee for Defense adopted some 10,000 resolutions on military and economic matters during the war. Those resolutions were carried out accurately and with enthusiasm….
Stalin himself was strong-willed and no coward. It was only once I saw him somewhat depressed. That was at the dawn of June 22, 1941, when his belief that the war could be avoided, was shattered.
After June 22, 1941, and throughout the war Stalin firmly governed the country, led the armed struggle and international affairs together with the Central Committee and the Soviet Government.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 268
I can only repeat that Stalin devoted a good deal of attention to problems of armament and material. He frequently met with chief aircraft, artillery, and tank designers whom he would question in great detail about the progress achieved in designing the various types of equipment in our country and abroad. To give him his due, it must be said that he was fairly well versed in the characteristics of the basic types of armament.
Is it true that Stalin really was an outstanding military thinker, a major contributor to the development of the Armed Forces and an expert in tactical and strategic principles?
From the military standpoint I have studied Stalin most thoroughly, for I entered the war together with him and together with him I ended it.
Stalin mastered the technique of the organization of front operations and operations by groups of fronts and guided them with skill, thoroughly understanding complicated strategic questions. He displayed his ability as Commander-in-Chief beginning with Stalingrad.
In guiding the armed struggle as a whole, Stalin was assisted by his natural intelligence and profound intuition. He had a knack of grasping the main link in the strategic situation so as to organize opposition to the enemy and conduct a major offensive operation. He was certainly a worthy Supreme Commander.
Here Stalin’s merit lies in the fact that he correctly appraised the advice offered by the military experts and then in summarized form–in instructions, directives, and regulations–immediately circulated them among the troops for practical guidance.
As regards the material and technical organization of operations, the build-up of strategic reserves, the organization of production of material and troop supplies, Stalin did prove himself to be an outstanding organizer. And it would be unfair if we, the Soviet people, failed to pay tribute to him for it.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 284-285
The Second Front dawdled, but Stalin pressed unfalteringly ahead. He risked the utter ruin of socialism in order to smash the dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini. After Stalingrad the Western World did not know whether to weep or applaud. The cost of victory to the Soviet Union was frightful. To this day the outside world has no dream of the hurt, the loss and the sacrifices. For his calm, stern leadership here, if nowhere else, arises the deep worship of Stalin by the people of all the Russias.
Statement by W.E.B DuBois regarding COMRADE STALIN on March 16, 1953
The modern Stalin was instantly recognizable. Harriman, who saw a great deal of Stalin during the war as Roosevelt’s emissary and then ambassador, was deeply impressed by him: “his high intelligence, that fantastic grasp of detail, his shrewdness… I found him better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic and Churchill… the most effective of the war leaders.”… At Tehran the British Chief of the General Staff, General Brooke, thought that Stalin’s grasp of strategy was the fruit of “a military brain of the highest caliber.” At Tehran Stalin did not, in Brooke’s view, put a foot wrong.
Overy, R. J. Russia’s War: Blood Upon the Snow. New York: TV Books, c1997, p. 348
For his part, Harriman rated Stalin ‘better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill, in some ways the most effective of the war leaders’.
McNeal, Robert, Stalin: Man and Ruler. New York: New York University Press, 1988, p. 252
Stalin possessed, all western observers in the Hitler war agreed, excellent strategic judgment.
Snow, Charles Percy. Variety of Men. New York: Scribner, 1966, p. 258
He [Stalin] spent whole days, and often nights as well, at headquarters. Zhukov wrote: “In discussion he made a powerful impression…. His ability to summarize an idea precisely, his native intelligence, is unusual memory…. his staggering capacity for work, his ability to grasp the essential point instantly, enabled him to study and digest quantities of material which would have been too much for any ordinary person…. I can say without hesitation that he was master of the basic principles of the organization of front-line operations and the deployment of front-line forces…. He controlled them completely and had a good understanding of major strategic problems. He was a worthy Supreme Commander.”
Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin. New York: Doubleday, c1996, p. 486
He [Stalin] was never a general let alone a military genius but, according to Zhukov, who knew better than anyone, this “outstanding organizer…displayed his ability as Supremo starting with Stalingrad.” He “mastered the technique of organizing for operations…and guided them with skill, thoroughly understanding complicated strategic questions,” always displaying his “natural intelligence…professional intuition” and a “tenacious memory.” He was “many-sided and gifted” but had “no knowledge of all the details.” Mikoyan was probably right when he summed up in his practical way that Stalin “knew as much about military matters as a statesman should–but no more.”
Montefiore, Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 439
Like most people with whom I associated, I connected the turnabout in the course of the war with Stalin, and stories of him as a human being encouraged the magnification of his charisma. Therefore, though I had begun the war with doubts about the “wisdom” of Stalin’s leadership, I ended it believing that we had been very lucky, that without Stalin’s genius, victory would have taken much longer to achieve and would have entailed far greater losses, had it come at all.
Grigorenko, Petro G. Memoirs. New York: Norton, c1982, p. 139
Could Russia have won without Stalin? Was Stalin indispensable to the Soviet war effort? An expert on Russia, Dr. Bialer, has written: ‘It seems doubtful that the Soviet system could have survived an extraordinary internal shock, such as the disappearance of Stalin, while at the same time facing the unprecedented external bowl of the German invasion.’
Another expert, America’s wartime Ambassador to Moscow, Harriman, says: ‘We became convinced that, regardless of Stalin’s awful brutality and his reign of terror, he was a great war leader.’ (Replying to a question I [the author] put to him on his visit to Moscow in May 1975, Harriman called Stalin ‘one of the most effective war leaders in history’.) Harriman is categorical: ‘Without Stalin, they never would have held.’
Giving full support to Harriman, but going a step further is Joseph McCabe, who has been described by eminent historians as ‘one of our deeper thinkers’ and ‘one of the most learned men’ of the 20th century. McCabe has recorded that when Hitler’s armies fell upon Russia in 1941 Stalin became the West’s leader in the gravest crisis through which the world has passed since the fall of Rome.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 195
And Stalin, as a commander-in-chief, had no equal either among our allies or among our enemies. To the present moment [1982] , Europe is the way Stalin left it. Even now the knots tied in the Far and Middle East remained untied.
Grigorenko, Petro G. Memoirs. New York: Norton, c1982, p. 212
The criticism of Stalin as a military leader in Khrushchev’s report at the closed session of the 20th Party Congress is on the level of small-town gossip. The one serious criticism of Stalin it contained was that he did not call a halt to the operation near Kharkhov when a threat to our flanks arose, and this criticism misses the point. In the case of Kharkhov, Stalin acted as the serious military leader. During the moment of crisis, persistence was what was most required. Stalin’s conduct, his unwillingness to come to the telephone, was geared toward calming his nervous subordinates, and it underlined the fact that he was convinced of the operation’s success. Khrushchev acted like a child. He was frightened by the prospect of being encircled and he failed, along with his commander, to provide any protection for his threatened flanks….
(Such is the truth. I can and I do hate Stalin with all the fibers of my soul.)
Grigorenko, Petro G. Memoirs. New York: Norton, c1982, p. 212
Stalin was convinced that in the war against the Soviet Union the Nazis would first try to seize the Ukraine and the Donets Coal Basin in order to deprive the country of its most important economic regions and lay hands on the Ukraine grain, Donets coal and, later, Caucasian oil. During the discussion of the operational plan in the spring of 1941, Stalin said: “Nazi Germany will not be able to wage a major lengthy war without those vital resources.”
…Stalin was the greatest authority for all of us, and it never occurred to anybody to question his opinion and assessment of the situation. Yet his conjecture as to the main strike of the Nazi invader proved incorrect.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 250
During the war, Stalin had five official posts. He was Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee, Chairman of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars, Chairman of the State Defense Committee, and People’s Commissar for Defense. He worked on a tight schedule, 15 to 16 hours a day.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 349
Stalin made a great personal contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany and its allies. His prestige was exceedingly high, and his appointment as Supreme Commander was wholeheartedly acclaimed by the people and the troops.
Mikhail Sholokhov was quite right in saying in an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda during the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Victory that “it is wrong to belittle Stalin, to make him look a fool. First, it is dishonest, and second, it is bad for the country, for the Soviet people. And not because victors are never judged, but above all because such ‘denouncements’ are contrary to the truth.”
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 363
I am often asked whether Stalin was really an outstanding military thinker and a major contributor to the development of the armed forces, whether he was really an expert in tactical and strategic principles.
I can say that Stalin was conversant with the basic principles of organizing operations of Fronts and groups of Fronts, and that he supervised them knowledgeably. Certainly, he was familiar with major strategic principles. Stalin’s ability as Supreme Commander was especially marked after the Battle of Stalingrad.
The widespread tale that the Supreme Commander studied the situation and adopted decisions when toying with a globe is untrue. Nor did he pour over tactical maps. He did not need to. But he had a good eye when dealing with operational situation maps.
Stalin owed this to his natural intelligence, his experience as a political leader, his intuition and broad knowledge. He could find the main link in a strategic situation which he seized upon in organizing actions against the enemy, and thus assured the success of the offensive operation. It is beyond question that he was a splendid Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
Stalin is said to have offered fundamental innovations in military science–elaborating methods of artillery offensives, of winning air supremacy, of encircling the enemy, splitting surrounded groups into parts and wiping them out one by one, etc.
This is untrue. These paramount aspects of warcraft were mastered in battles with the enemy. They were the fruit of deep reflections and summed up the experience of a large number of military leaders and troop commanders.
The credit that is due here to Stalin is for assimilating the advice of military experts in his stride, filling it out and elaborating upon it in a summarized form–in instructions, directives, and recommendations which were immediately circulated as guides among the troops.
Besides, in the matter of backing operations, building up strategic reserves, organizing arms production and, in general, the production of everything needed in the war, the Supreme Commander proved himself an outstanding organizer. And it would be most unfair if we failed to pay tribute to him for this.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 367-368
I would like additionally to say a few words about Stalin as Supreme High Commander. I would hope that my service position during the war, my constant, almost daily contact with Stalin and, finally, my participation in sessions of the Politburo and the State Defense Committee which examined all the fundamental issues concerning the war, give me the right to say a few words on this topic. In doing so I shall not discuss his Party, political and state activity in wartime, inasmuch as I do not consider myself sufficiently competent to do so….
Was it right for Stalin to be in charge of the Supreme High Command? After all he was not a professional military man?
There can be no doubt that it was right.
At that terribly difficult time the best solution, bearing in mind the enormous Leninist experience from the Civil War period, was to combine in one person the functions of Party, state, economic and military leadership. We had only one way ou___”t: to turn the country immediately into a military camp, to make the rear and the front an integral whole, to harness all our efforts to the task of defeating the Nazi invaders. And when Stalin as Party General Secretary, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and Chairman of the State Defense Committee also became the Supreme High Commander and the People’s Defense Commissar, there opened up more favorable opportunities for a successful fight for victory.
This combining of Party, state. and military leadership functions in the figure of Stalin did not mean that he alone decided every issue during the war….
It is my profound conviction that Stalin, especially in the latter part of the war, was the strongest and most remarkable figure of the strategic command. He successfully supervised the fronts and all the war efforts of the country on the basis of the Party line and he was able to have considerable influence on the leading political and military figures of the Allies in the war. It was interesting to work with him, but at the same time extremely taxing, particularly in the initial period of the war. He has remained in my memory as a stern and resolute war leader, but not without a certain personal charm….
Stalin possessed not only an immense natural intelligence,but also amazingly wide knowledge. I was able to observe his ability to think analytically during these sessions of the Party Politburo, the State Defense Committee and during my permanent work in the GHQ. He would attentively listen to speakers, unhurriedly pacing up and down with hunched shoulders, sometimes asking questions and making comments. And when the discussion was over he would formulate his conclusions precisely and sum things up. His conclusions would be brief, but profound in content .
I have already noted that during the first few months of the war Stalin’s inadequate operational and strategic training was apparent. He rarely asked the advice of the General Staff officers or front commanders. Even the top Operations Department men in the General Staff were not always invited to work on the most important GHQ operations directives. At that time decisions were normally taken by him alone and not always with complete success….
The big turning point for Stalin as Supreme High Commander came in September 1942 when the situation became very grave and there was a special need for flexible and skilled leadership in regard to military operations. It was at that time that he began to change his attitude to the General Staff personnel and front commanders, being obliged constantly to rely on the collective experience of his generals. “Why the devil didn’t you say so!
From then on, before he took a decision on any important war issue, Stalin would take advice and discuss it together with his deputy, the top General Staff personnel, heads of chief departments of the People’s Defense Commissariat and front commanders, as well as people’s commissars in charge of the defense industry….
The process of Stalin’s growth as a general came to maturity. I have already written that in the first few months of the war he sometimes tended to use Soviet troops in a direct frontal attack on the enemy. After the Stalingrad and especially the Kursk battles he rose to the heights of strategic leadership. From then on Stalin would think in terms of modern warfare, had a good grasp of all questions relating to the preparation for and execution of operations. He would now demand that military action be carried out in a creative way, with full account of military science, so that all actions were decisive and flexible, designed to split up and encircle the enemy. In his military thinking he markedly displayed a tendency to concentrate men and material, to diversified deployment of all possible ways of commencing operations and their conduct. Stalin began to show an excellent grasp of military strategy, which came fairly easily to him since he was a past master at the art of political strategy, and of operational art as well….
I think that Stalin displayed all the basic qualities of a Soviet general during the strategic offensive of the Soviet Armed Forces. He skillfully supervised actions of the Fronts .
Stalin paid a great deal of attention to creating an efficient style of work in the GHQ. If we look at the style from autumn 1942, we see it as distinguished by reliance on collective experience in drawing up operational and strategic plans, a high degree of exactingness, resourcefulness, constant contact with the troops, and a precise knowledge of the situation at the Fronts….
Stalin as Supreme High Commander was extremely exacting to all and sundry; a quality that was justified, especially in wartime. He never forgave carelessness in work or failure to finish the job properly, even if this happened with a highly indispensable worker without a previous blemish on his record….
As Supreme High Commander, Stalin was in most cases extremely demanding but just. His directives and commands showed front commanders their mistakes and shortcomings, taught them how to deal with all manner of military operations skillfully….
I deliberately leave untouched the expressions used by Stalin so as to give the reader the usual flavor of Stalin’s talk. He normally spoke succinctly, pithily, and bluntly….
Vasilevskii, Aleksandr M. A Lifelong Cause. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981, p. 447-451
It would be quite wrong, however, to look at Stalin from only one point of view. I have to say that he was an extremely difficult man to deal with, liable to fly off the handle and unpredictable. It was hard to get on with him and he took a long time to get used to .
If Stalin was ever unhappy about something, and the war, especially at the beginning, certainly gave plenty of causes, he could give a dressing down unjustly. However, he changed noticeably during the war. He began to be more restrained and calm in his attitude to us officers of the General Staff and main departments of the People’s Defense Commissariat and front commanders, even when something was going wrong at the front. It became much easier to deal with him. It is clear that the war, its twists and turns, failures and successes had an effect on Stalin’s character….
Joseph Stalin has certainly gone down in military history. His undoubted service is that it was under his direct guidance as Supreme High Commander that the Soviet Armed Forces withstood the defensive campaigns and carried out all the offensive operations so splendidly. Yet he, to the best of my judgment, never spoke of his own contribution. At any rate, I never happened to hear him do so. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union and rank of Generalissimus were awarded to him by written representation to the Party Central Committee Politburo from front commanders. In fact, he had fewer military orders than did the commanders of fronts and armies. He told people plainly and honestly about the miscalculations made during the war when he spoke at a reception in the Kremlin in honor of Red Army commanders on 24 May 1945: .
Vasilevskii, Aleksandr M. A Lifelong Cause. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981, p. 452
This nationalist revival and Stalin’s strong leadership, were extremely significant in the eventual victory of Russia over Germany.
Richardson, Rosamond. Stalin’s Shadow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, p. 163
“The only really military man in the family was my father,” says Svetlana. “He really had this talent. He really liked it, and the best performance he gave in his life was as organizer of the Red Army during the Second World War. He did what he was born for.”
…The fact that our country managed to get through the war was to Stalin’s huge merit. And then the economy was restored, and atomic weaponry was created, which to this day has maintained the peace.
Richardson, Rosamond. Stalin’s Shadow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, p. 170
According to Zhukov, Stalin ‘mastered questions of the organization of front operations [there being about a dozen large sectors, or “fronts”, at any given moment] and groups of fronts’, a point sustained by chief-of-staff Vasilevsky. Lest this be dismissed as mere post-Khrushchev propaganda aimed at rehabilitating Stalin’s image as a war leader, consider that General Alan Brooke, who encountered Stalin in 1943, judged him ‘a military brain of the very highest order’. And Brooke was arguably the keenest British military mind of the war, a professional who held in contempt politicians who dabbled in strategy, and also the one western general whom Stalin accused to his face of being unfriendly to Russia.
McNeal, Robert, Stalin: Man and Ruler. New York: New York University Press, 1988, p. 242
After British Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke met Stalin he commented: ‘Never once in any of his statements did Stalin make any strategic error, nor did he ever fail to appreciate all the implications of a situation with a quick and unerring eye.’
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 165
Like many Russian generals, Krivoshein respected Stalin as Commander-in-Chief, calling him a ‘worthy commander’. He said that he agreed with British Field Marshal Alanbrooke’s estimate of Stalin as a man with a ‘military brain of the finest order’. But Krivoshein added a proviso. ‘Stalin’, he said, ‘had very good assistants in the armed forces, and they managed to tell him which way was the right way. But Stalin was able to use his formidable strength to manage military affairs and achieve victory–which was no small achievement.’
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 55
Author: Admiral, how do you assess Stalin’s role in the war?
Admiral Gorshkov: Stalin’s good point was that he could choose very talented military leaders. Stalin was of course also an outstanding political, state and military leader. This is not only my opinion, but that of Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook and many other prominent foreign personalities. Stalin had a broad understanding of military matters. And he was able to find solutions and make decisions in the most difficult situations.
Author: So, you would say that Stalin was the Supreme Commander not just in name?
Gorshkov: Yes.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 124
Author: Actually, many persons in the West do not give Stalin credit for his role in the defeat of Hitler’s Germany; and there are books by experts, and an encyclopedia or two, that say that Stalin ‘interfered’ with his commanders in the field….
Admiral Gorshkov and General Pavlovsky: That is not correct.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 124
At the conclusion of his memoirs, Marshal Vasilevsky asks: ‘Was it right for Stalin to be in charge of the Supreme High Command? After all, he was not a professional military man.’ And Vasilevsky’s answer: ‘There can be no doubt that it was right.’
…The stocky Marshal, who had frequent, almost daily contact with Stalin throughout the war, held some of the highest posts in the Armed Forces: Chief of Operations of the General Staff; Chief of the General Staff; Deputy Defense Minister. In the summer of 1945 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East in the war against Japan….
Looking back on the war Vasilevsky mentions ‘Stalin’s growth as a general’, although he does not fail to mention miscalculations by the Supreme Commander in the early months of the invasion. He points out that after a year or two Stalin ‘successfully supervised the Fronts and all the war efforts of the country’.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 180
When Marshal Konev was asked his impression of Stalin by the Yugoslav writer and political activist, Djilas (the year was 1944), he replied: ‘Stalin is universally gifted. He was brilliantly able to see the war as a whole, and this made possible his successful direction.’
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 181
A perusal of memoirs, speeches and articles leads one to conclude that there is virtual consensus among Russia’s wartime generals and admirals that Stalin was a military leader of extraordinary insight, that he was an exceptional Commander-in-Chief. This is apparent in the recollections of many Marshals, including Meretskov, Vasilevsky, and Bagramyan. According to these men there was nothing synthetic about Stalin’s name as Marshal and Generalissimo.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 181
In his book, Reminiscences and Reflections, Zhukov sums up his views about Stalin:
‘I am often asked whether Stalin was really an outstanding military thinker and a major contributor to the development of the armed forces, whether he was really an expert in tactical and strategic principles. I can say that Stalin was conversant with the basic principles of organizing the operations of Fronts and groups of Fronts, and that he supervised them knowledgeably. Certainly he was familiar with major strategic principles. His ability as Supreme Commander was especially marked after the Battle of Stalingrad.’ He adds that Stalin had ‘rich intuition and ability to find the main point in a strategic situation’, which is high praise indeed from a soldier of Zhukov’s stature.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 182
EACH ALLY TRIES TO GET THE OTHER TO DO THE HARD WORK
The situation of the Soviet Union after the outbreak of war was perfectly clear. The relations between allies in a coalition war show certain fixed characteristics. Each ally tries more or less to carry on the war at the cost of the other allies.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 366
STALIN CONTENDS ALLIES WANT SU BLED WHITE AND THEY AVOID SECOND FRONT
Stalin became convinced that the Anglo-Saxon Powers were pursuing a policy of prolonging the war, so that not only should Germany be brought low, but the Soviet Union should be so bled white that after the war it would be a weak country. This Stalin repeatedly and plainly declared, and again and again he pressed for the creation of the ‘Second Front’. It was this front above all that began to poison the relations between the allies.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 367
Until the middle of 1944 this question [the second front] occupied center-stage in his [Stalin] diplomatic efforts. True, as the wind of victory filled his sails, he became less insistent, and indeed the front in western Europe was only opened when it had become obvious that the Soviet Union was capable of destroying Nazi Germany on her own.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 485
Stalin’s tactics, of rudeness punctuated by warmth, were sometimes counter-productive. But his general strategy was sound…. And though Churchill at least was alienated by Stalin’s offensive attitude, even he was still susceptible to the feeling that Stalin had a genuine grievance while the Soviet Union was bearing the brunt of the war.
Conquest, Robert. Stalin: Breaker of Nations. New York, New York: Viking, 1991, p. 253
According to Eisenhower, they could not open a second front in 1942-43 allegedly because they were unprepared for such a large-scale combined strategic operation. That was certainly far from the truth, for they could have opened a second front in 1943. They deliberately waited till our troops would inflict greater damage on Germany’s military force.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 681
Stalin made it painfully clear that the Soviet government took no interest in the TORCH operation [code-name for the North African landings]. He spoke caustically of the failure of the Western Allies to deliver the promised supplies to the Soviet Union. He spoke of the tremendous sacrifices that were being made to hold 280 German divisions on the Eastern Front.
Sherwood, Robert E. Roosevelt and Hopkins. New York: Harper, 1948, p. 620
Roosevelt, whose judgment of affairs was objective, and who was not unfavorably prejudiced against the Soviet leader, nor against the Russians as a whole, recognized the reasonable nature of Stalin’s demands [for a second front]. But he replied that the British operations against Rommel in Africa already constituted, in a certain measure, a second front, and they were holding up the crack German formations. Stalin did not accept this explanation, which seemed to him a mere excuse or evasion. Rommel’s African Corps consisted of two armored divisions and one division of light infantry. Such a front was not a center of fixation; it was merely a slight diversion.
Delbars, Yves. The Real Stalin. London, Allen & Unwin, 1951, p. 323
The plan for an assault across the Channel was finally agreed upon with the British in April 1942, but even after that Churchill repeatedly attempted to persuade Roosevelt to undertake a landing across the Mediterranean. According to Eisenhower, they could not open a second front in 1942-1943 allegedly because they were not prepared for this major combined strategic operation. That was certainly far from the truth. They could have opened a second front in 1943, but they wittingly did not hurry to do so, waiting for our troops to inflict greater damage on Germany’s armed forces, and, consequently, to become more exhausted.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 2, Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 457
STALIN FELT STALINGRAD VICTORY MEANT SU COULD WIN ALONE
In particular, the battle of Stalingrad had brought the decisive turning-point in the whole world war. From that moment on the German armies streamed homewards. The second front in Europe came only after the Battle of Stalingrad. It was natural for Stalin to think that the allies had landed in Europe only because of his victory, in order to forestall him, and that he could have been victorious alone, without the second front. From that moment he was convinced that the Soviet Union alone had conquered the strongest military Power in all history, the Third Reich, and without really effective aid from the Allies, who now were merely reaping the fruit of that victory.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 369
STALIN KNEW NAZI ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN MAJOR LAND LOST AT FIRST
Stalin and the Soviet general staff were aware that the first shock of the Nazi attack would certainly result in considerable territorial loss.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin; Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 121
STALIN SHOWS COURAGE AND BRAVERY IN EARLY DAYS OF THE INVASION
Stalin stayed in Moscow. On November 7, 1941, while German guns roared in the suburbs and Hitler announced Moscow already taken, Stalin reviewed the troops in Red Square.
Strong, Anna Louise. The Stalin Era. New York: Mainstream, 1956, p. 98
In his memoirs, Khrushchev portrays Stalin’s panic and confusion in the first days of the war and later. I saw no such behavior. Stalin did not isolate himself in his dacha until June 30th, 1941. The Kremlin diary shows he was regularly receiving visitors and monitoring the deteriorating situation. From the very beginning of the war, Stalin received Beria & Merkulov [cohead of the Soviet security service] in the Kremlin two or three times a day. They usually returned to NKVD headquarters late at night, or sometimes called in their orders directly from the Kremlin. It appeared to me that the administrative mechanism of command and control was functioning without interruption. In fact, Eitingon and I maintained a deep belief in our ultimate victory because of the calm, clear, businesslike issuance of these orders.
On Nov. 6, 1941, I received an invitation to attend the October Revolution anniversary gathering in the Mayakovsky subway station. Traditionally, these celebrations were held in the Bolshoi Theatre, but this time, for security reasons, it was arranged on the subway platform.
… Stalin spoke for about 30 minutes. I was deeply moved, because his confidence and self-assurance symbolized our ability to resist the Germans.
Sudoplatov, Pavel. Special Tasks. Boston: Little, Brown, c1993, p. 134
This excerpt from Izvestia, #6, 1990 confirms Sudoplatov’s contention that Stalin, contrary to Khrushchev’s claims in his memoirs, was not immobilized by panic after the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941, but rather received a steady stream of visitors at his Kremlin study.
Sudoplatov, Pavel. Special Tasks. Boston: Little, Brown, c1993, p. 433
It is worth recording Dimitrov’s attitude toward Stalin. He, too, spoke of him with admiration and respect, but without any conspicuous flattery or reverence….
He recounted: “When the Germans were outside Moscow, a general uncertainty and confusion ensued. The Soviet government had withdrawn to Kuibyshev. But Stalin remained in Moscow. I was with him at the time, in the Kremlin. They were taking out archives from the Kremlin. I proposed to Stalin that the Comintern direct a proclamation to the German soldiers. He agreed, though he felt no good would come of it. Soon after, I too had to leave Moscow. Stalin did not leave; he was determined to defend it. And at that most dramatic moment he held a parade in Red Square on the anniversary of the October Revolution. The divisions before him were leaving for the front. One cannot express how great a moral significance was exerted when the people learned that Stalin was sitting in Moscow and when they heard his words. It restored their faith and raised their confidence, and it was worth more than a good-sized army.”
Djilas, Milovan. Conversations with Stalin. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962, p. 37
Moscow was bombed by German aviation. Panic began to seize the city’s population. The Nazis were only 80 kilometres away. Part of the administration was evacuated. But Stalin decided to remain in Moscow. The battles became more and more fierce and, in early November, the Nazi offensive was stopped. After consulting with Zhukov, Stalin took the decision to organize the traditional November 7 military parade on Red Square. It was a formidable challenge to the Nazi troops camped at the gates of Moscow. Stalin made a speech, which was broadcast to the entire country.
Martens, Ludo. Another View of Stalin. Antwerp, Belgium: EPO, Lange Pastoorstraat 25-27 2600, p. 247 [p. 224 on the NET]
[In September 1941] The situation at the front is bad…. If it becomes necessary to abandon Moscow we can’t be sure that [the leadership will stand firm–implied]…. In the Instantsia they are not quite sure either that [Stalin will stand firm–implied]…. Stalin stands for war to the end…. While with others…Brest-Litovsk is in the air.
Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich. Notes for a Journal. New York: Morrow, 1955, p. 307
We must get the peasant going and instill in him the hatred of the enemy…. What a brilliant order of Stalin’s to the Army…. “A fighter should not die without leaving the corpse of a German interventionist by his side. Kill him with a machine-gun, or rifle, a bayonet…. If you’re wounded, sink your teeth into his throat and strangle him as you would a wild beast”.
Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich. Notes for a Journal. New York: Morrow, 1955, p. 309
The main blow was aimed directly at the capital, Moscow, whose outskirts were reached by late fall. Almost all the government offices had been evacuated to the east. But Stalin remained in the capital, where he assumed personal command of the war. On Dec. 2, 1941, the Nazis were stopped in the suburbs of Moscow. In December 6, Stalin ordered the first major counterattack to occur in World War II.
Franklin, Bruce, Ed. The Essential Stalin; Major Theoretical Writings. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972, p. 31
As to Stalin’s nerves, or lack of them, his generals make no criticisms. Rather, Marshal Zhukov told a war correspondent that Stalin had ‘nerves of steel’. The correspondent, author Ehrenburg, wrote that the Marshal repeated these words to him several times when they met at a command post near the front line early in the war.
Even General Vlasov who had a great grievance against Stalin and, therefore, cause for resentment, told the Germans upon his capture that Stalin had strong nerves. Speaking to Dr. Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, he said that in the autumn of 1941, when the city of Moscow was threatened by advancing German armies, every one in the Kremlin had lost his nerve but only Stalin insisted on continued resistance to the German invaders.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 168
This is what Kraskyn, Stalin’s confidant and the Press Department’s senior war correspondent, wrote regarding the outbreak of the German-Russo war:
… “Stalin remained at Sochi until the end of the month. The direct telephone line which connected his villa with the Kremlin was in constant use with Molotov at the other end. Stalin never showed bad temper, remained calm, and determined.”
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 139
The Wehrmacht’s first offensive was launched against Moscow for Hitler well knew the city had always been a symbol to the Russians, and that if his troops could conquer this political and spiritual center, it would be a milestone on the road to the defeat of the Soviet Union.
Stalin realized this too. He attended all meetings of the Committee of the Defense of the City, and addressed his people regularly, but despite superhuman efforts by the Red fighting forces and the Soviet population, the Nazi armies advanced inexorably towards Moscow. Stalin was forced to order the evacuation of women and children from the Red capital. He issued an Order of the Day, declaring that Moscow would be defended to the last, and at the same time, a state of siege was proclaimed.
The next day, the Soviet Government and Diplomatic Corps established themselves in Kuibyshev in the middle Volga. Certain Government Departments had been transferred to Kazan and Sverdlovsk. Stalin, Molotov, and other members of the ” Inner Circle,” remained in Moscow.
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 143
Stalin was affable and had the common touch. He showed courage, particularly during the war. During the war, he preferred to work at the dacha rather than in the Kremlin, even though there were no air-raid shelters at the dacha. During an air attack, he would sometimes watch the planes from the roof of the building. According to Rybin, Stalin did not panic in mid-October 1941 when German forward units had reached the suburbs of Moscow. While Beria gave orders to senior party officials for the evacuation of Moscow on the evening of October 15 and although Malenkov and Kaganovich also recommended the move to Kuibyshev, Stalin, in a Kremlin meeting on Oct. 16, announced that he had decided to stay in Moscow.
Laqueur, Walter. Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations. New York: Scribner’s, c1990, p. 148
There were riots in Moscow at the time, and shops were pillaged. According to Rybin, Stalin deliberately showed himself in various parts of the city and talked to people to give a boost to morale. Molotov was sent for three days to Kuibyshev to supervise the transfer of the foreign ministry, but he also confirmed in conversation with Rybin that Stalin had no intention of leaving the capital…. When information was received that an unexploded mine or shell had landed not far from the dacha, Stalin joined the search party–yet another demonstration of personal courage.
…On a visit to Oryol in 1946, he walked the streets accompanied by hundreds of citizens. When they thanked him for having defeated the Germans, he replied modestly: “The people defeated the Germans, not I.”
Laqueur, Walter. Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations. New York: Scribner’s, c1990, p. 149
I am often asked about Stalin’s role in the battle Moscow.
Stalin was in Moscow, in control of the troops and weapons, preparing the enemy’s defeat. He must be given credit for the enormous work in organizing necessary strategic, material, and technical resources which he did as head of the State Committee for Defense with the help of the executive staff of the People’s Commissariats. With strictness and exactingness Stalin achieved the near-impossible.
When I am asked what event in the war impressed me most, I always say: the Battle of Moscow.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 361
For a long time now, there are stories, lies, outright falsifications that the war scared Stalin out of his wits. In view of these lies, let me tell of an incident. On May 5, at a meeting in the Kremlin, one of the scared officers said that the Central Committee armored train is ready and hidden. Stalin really let him have it:…
What kind of nonsense! What kind of safety armored train, when the enemy is inside the borders of the Soviet Union!
You can draw your own conclusion from this statement….
At the beginning of the war with the German attack on the USSR, this news was conveyed to Stalin by Marshall Zhukov. Already at 3 a.m., Stalin came into his office at the Kremlin. After that came in Zhukov and Timoshenko. Stalin regularly walked on the streets of Moscow, even during the flights of German aircraft. But he understood that people must see him amongst themselves, that the leader is with them, that he is in the capital of Moscow, and is heading its defense. Even more effective, he visited command posts on Gorky Street, Zemlianov Valley, Smolensky Square. For the sentries and army personnel, this had a tremendous effect.
Sometimes at the beginning of the war, at about 4 o’clock in the morning, Stalin was on Kaluzhki Square. Underneath, you could hear the crunch of broken glass. Around us, there were wooden homes, ambulances were racing to and fro, taking the dead and tending the wounded civilians and soldiers, right in Moscow. We were surrounded by crying women with children in their arms. Looking at them with tears in his eyes, Stalin told Vlasik:
We must evacuate the children deep into the interior of the country.
All of them stared to ask as to when will the Red Army stop the German Fascists! Stalin tried to console them with these well-known words:
There will be, there will be a holiday and dancing on this street of ours!
After being bombed by German planes, we went into Gorky Street. A woman with a flashlight came up to Stalin and scolded him:
Is it permissible for you to wander on the street, comrade Stalin, during such dangerous times? An enemy could easily drop a bomb on you!
Stalin only opened up his arms. Of course, the lady was correct. He was with us near Kubinka when over 400 planes were in the air, bombing while our fighters tried to shoot them down. After successfully repulsing the enemy, Stalin asked for the names of our pilots who did such an outstanding job. He met Victor Talakhin who did an outstanding job of shooting down German planes.
The enemy knew exactly where Stalin had his Dacha. Stalin risked his life together with all of us. Stalin always looked at the tremendous dogfights over the Dacha, when the Germans desperately tried to kill Stalin and his entourage, knowing in advance that they were there. They dropped bombs near the Dacha, some exploded, others did not, and we had to diffuse them, knowing full well that if they went off, everyone around the perimeter of the Dacha would be killed.
Rybin, Aleksei. Next to Stalin: Notes of a Bodyguard. Toronto: Northstar Compass Journal, 1996, p. 28-30
WORLD WAR 2 HISTORY WRITTEN FROM THE "GERMAN PERSPECTIVE" AND RED ARMY BATTLES CONCEALED FOR POLITICAL REASONS
LENDLEASE
ALLIES SENT THE SU ALMOST NOTHING IN EARLY STAGE OF WWII
SOVIET MILITARY BUDGET GREW DRASTICALLY TO CONFRONT HITLER
BRITISH AIDED HITLER
SOVIET UNION INVADED BY THE BIGGEST ARMY EVER
STALIN WAS ONLY SURPRISED AS TO THE EXACT TIME OF THE INVASION
SU INVADED BY MANY COUNTRIES IN WWII
CHURCHILL SUPPORTS SU AGAINST NAZIS
LINDBERGH SUPPORTS NAZIS AGAINST SU
MACARTHUR PROFUSELY PRAISES THE RED ARMY’S DEFENSE AND COUNTERATTACK
LEADERS COMPLIMENT THE RED ARMY
HITLER WAS NO FOOL
KREMLIN PREPARED FOR WAR FOR MANY YEARS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comrade Stalin In World War 2
STALIN WAS A GOOD WWII SUPREME COMMANDER
EACH ALLY TRIES TO GET THE OTHER TO DO THE HARD WORK
STALIN CONTENDS ALLIES WANT SU BLED WHITE AND THEY AVOID SECOND FRONT
STALIN KNEW NAZI ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN MAJOR LAND LOST AT FIRST
STALIN SHOWS COURAGE AND BRAVERY IN EARLY DAYS OF THE INVASION
STALIN FORESAW VICTORY AFTER NAZI ATTACK WHILE HIS ENEMIES FORESAW DEFEAT
STALIN SAVED ENGLAND FROM BEING ATTACKED BY THE NAZIS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RED ARMY INTELLIGENCE WAS READY FOR NAZI ATTACK
SU INTELLIGENCE REPORTS ON POTENTIAL NAZI ATTACK WERE INADEQUATE
STALIN SAW WORLD WAR II NAZI ATTACK COMING
STALIN DIRECTED THE DEFENSE OF MOSCOW IN WWII
ALLIED AID TO THE SU
STALIN MADE HARD MILITARY DECISIONS
WWII PRISONERS OF WAR WERE TREATED HUMANELY
EVERYTHING WAS DONE TO DELAY OR PREVENT WAR COMING
SU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN JUNE WAS THE BEST MONTH FOR AN ATTACK
LACK OF BEING SUFFICIENTLY READY FOR NAZI ATTACK WAS NOT DECISIVE
STALIN WAS PREPARED FOR THE ATTACK WHEN IT CAME
MOLOTOV DENIES ASKING GERMANS WHY SU DESERVED TO BE ATTACKED
STALIN DID NOT FALL APART AFTER THE ATTACK BUT WAS VERY DEPRESSED
THE MAIN ISSUE AT POTSDAM WAS REPARATIONS
STALIN AND MOLOTOV SAID FRANCE SHOULD GET ITS LAND FROM US-BRIT AREA
STALIN SHOULD NOT HAVE RETIRED AFTER THE WAR
STALIN ABANDONED HIS PLAN TO HAVE HITLER KILLED
NAZIS VIEWED SOVIET DEFENSES AS WEAK
PAVLOV WAS INCOMPETENT
STALIN REFUSES TO SIGN A SEPARATE PEACE WITH THE NAZIS
VLASOV WAS EXECUTED AS A TRAITOR
BRITISH AND US PLANES GET IN FIGHTS OVER SOVIET AIRSPACE
STALIN PREDICTED THE FASCIST ATTACK 10 YEARS EARLIER
WAR IS THE ONLY RECOURSE FOR HITLER
STALIN DISTRUSTS REPORTS OF GERMAN AGGRESSIVE ACTS
Ukrainian Fascists
BANDERA’S GUERRILLAS KILL THOSE WORKING FOR THE GOVERNMENT
FASCISTS WERE REJECTED BY THE UKRAINIANS
"UKRAINIAN-NATIONALISM IS A FORM OF FASCISM
FIRST RECORDED OUN MEMBER SAYING "SLAVA UKRAINI" WAS WITH A NAZI SALUTE
OUN-B COLLABORATION WITH NAZIS
OUN FUNDED BY FOREIGN POWERS - MURDER AND SPYING FOR OTHER COUNTRIES MAIN SOURCE OF INCOME
WORLD WAR 2 HISTORY WRITTEN FROM THE "GERMAN PERSPECTIVE" AND RED ARMY BATTLES CONCEALED FOR POLITICAL REASONS
When the first edition of this book was published in 1995, the authors grate- fully benefited from the modest first wave of archival materials released by the Russian Federation, which increased our knowledge of the war twofold and enabled us to add substantial Russian context and detail to what had previously been a largely German perspective on the war. Thanks to those initial releases, the book’s first edition restored a modicum of truth and accuracy to the Soviet side of the war by identifying battles forgotten or concealed for political reasons and by adding more candid detail to the description of bat- tles already well known. Likewise, a clearer understanding of what the Red Army actually achieved tempered the obvious German bias so evident in the historiography on the war during the Cold War years. However, despite those beneficial releases, yawning gaps still existed in the historical record of the war in 1995, the most vexing of which was the paucity of accurate numbers quantifying the scope and ferocity of the struggle. Now, most of those gaps have been filled, and the missing numbers are becoming readily available.
David M Glantz, Clash of Titans, 2015, p. xi
ALLIES SENT THE SU ALMOST NOTHING IN EARLY STAGE OF WWII
…Hopkins said, “Inevitably not everything the Roosevelt administration has done has pleased Moscow. But we’ve got things straightened out now, surely? We’ve supplied you with warplanes and trucks and ships, and quite a bit of food, too.
It would have been tactless to argue with him; but the truth was that during the first year after Hitler’s attack, at the worst time for the Soviet Union, the U.S.A. sent us practically nothing. Only later, when it was clear that the USSR could stand its ground, and on its own, did the deliveries gradually begin to flow.
Gromyko, Andrei. Memoirs. New York: Doubleday, c1989. p. 43
[Footnote]: A few words must be said here to explain the material aspects of the Russian superiority. Throughout the war Russia was confronted with German Armies roughly twice as numerous and strong as those that had defeated her in the First World War. The Russian achievement was made possible primarily by the rapid industrialization of the eastern provinces, much of which took place in the course of the war on a basis prepared in peace. The industrial output of the provinces that escaped German occupation was normally about 40 percent of the total Soviet output. It was doubled between 1942 and 1945. The production of the armament factories in the East went up by 500-600 per cent. On the average, 30,000 tanks and fighting vehicles and nearly 40,000 planes were turned out every year between 1943 and 1945–almost none of these had been manufactured in Russia in the First World War. The annual output of artillery guns was now 120,000, compared with less than 4000 in 1914-17. The Russian army was supplied with nearly 450,000 home-produced machine-guns annually–only about 9000 had been produced under the Tsar. Five million rifles and Tommy guns, five times as many as in the First World War, were produced every year.
The Red Army fought its way from the Volga to the Elbe mainly with home-produced weapons. The weapons which the western powers supplied were a useful and in some cases a vital addition. But the lorries which carried the Russian divisions into Germany were mostly of American, Canadian, and British make–more than 400,000 lorries were supplied to Russia under Lend-Lease. So were most of the boots in which the infantry proper slogged its way to Berlin, through the mud and snow and sand of the eastern European plain. Much of the army’s clothing and of its tinned food were supplied under Lend-Lease. One might sum up broadly that the fire-power of the Red Army was home produced, whereas the element of its mobility was largely imported.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 512
What role did the military and economic assistance of our Allies play in 1941 and 1942? Great exaggerations are widely current in Western literature.
Assistance in accordance with the Lend-Lease Act widely publicized by the Allies was coming to our country in much smaller quantities than promised. There can be no denial that the supplies of gun-powder, high octane petrol, some grades of steel, motor vehicles, and food-stuffs were of certain help. But their proportion was insignificant against the overall requirements of our country within the framework of the agreed volume of supplies. As regards tanks and aircraft supplied to us by the British and American Governments, let us be frank: they were not popular with our tank-men and pilots especially the tanks which worked on petrol and burned like tender.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 391-392
SOVIET MILITARY BUDGET GREW DRASTICALLY TO CONFRONT HITLER
Probably the best indication to the layman of the Red Army’s growth since the rise of Hitler is the fact the money allotted to it in the Soviet budget grew nearly 40 fold. From 1.5 billion rubles in 1933 it grew to 57 billion in 1940.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 95
Of course he [Stalin] and his entourage always kept in mind the possibility of war with the capitalist countries, and in the late 30s this meant specifically Germany and Japan. Preparations for such a war were made by creating a modern defense industry, military aviation, an up-to-date navy, civil-defense training for the whole population, and so on. In 1939-1941 the army increased by 2.5 times, many troops and supplies were transferred to the western districts, war production increased, and the number of military schools grew. Especially after the war with Finland, a great deal of work was done toward retraining the Army. The development of new weapons was speeded up. More than a 100,000 men were put to work on the fortification of the new western borders. Airfields were modernized, ordnance depots and ammunition dumps set up, and military exercises for troops and commanders carried out.
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 735
Zhukov also wrote:
“The period between 1939 and the middle of 1941 was marked on the whole by trans-formations that within two or three years would have given the Soviet people a brilliant army.”
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 736
In 1940, the Soviet government spent 56 billion rubles on defense, more than twice as much as in 1938, and over 25 percent of all industrial investment. As a result, the defense industry developed at three times the rate of all other industries. During the time between the signing of the pact and the Nazi invasion, the value of the Soviet Union’s material resources was nearly doubled, an impressive achievement, even allowing for the low starting figure.
Read, Anthony and David Fisher. The Deadly Embrace. New York: Norton, 1988, p. 482
BRITISH AIDED HITLER
British diplomacy granted to Hitler Germany everything that it had refused for more than a decade to the German republic: the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Nazi — terrorized plebiscite in the Saar, German rearmament and naval expansion…. British finance, which had strangled the struggling German democracy with demands for impossible war reparations, supported Hitler’s regime with heavy investments and loans. It was no secret to any intelligent world citizen that the British Tories made these concessions to Hitler because they saw in him their “strong–arm gangster” who would eventually fight the Soviets, which important sections of British finance capital have always seen as their greatest foe.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 147
If any doubt remained as to the motives of the British and French foreign offices, it was removed at the Munich conference. Munich — with its cynical sell out of Czechoslovakia — was the trump card of the Tory ruling cllass in its game of driving Germany toward the east. The British Prime Minister chamberlain posed as “appeasing” Hitler, while actually egging him on. Chamberlain suggested that the Sudetenland might be given to Hitler before anyone in Germany had dared to express such a desire.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 148
Almost as soon as the Nazi troops marched into the Czech territory, it was discovered that representatives of London finance had agreed with German industrialists some weeks earlier about the financing of the great Enterprises thus seized.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 149
SOVIET UNION INVADED BY THE BIGGEST ARMY EVER
Already almost all the nations of Europe had gone down like ninepins.
The decision of Hitler…to turn eastward after the conquest of Europe, will probably go on permanent record as the greatest blunder in military history….
Two hundred and sixty divisions from Germany and her allies, Romania, Italy, Hungary, Spain, and Finland, swept eastward. There is nothing in the history of warfare with which to make comparison of the striking power of these forces against a single country.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 220
One hundred seventy-nine German divisions, 22 Rumanian divisions, 14 Finnish divisions, 13 Hungarian divisions, 10 Italian divisions, one Slovak division, and one Spanish division [Totaling 240 divisions-Editor], a total of well over 3 million troops, the best armed and most experienced in the world, attacked along a 2000 mile front, aiming their spearhead directly at Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad.
Franklin, Bruce, Ed. The Essential Stalin; Major Theoretical Writings. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972, p. 31
On 25 April 1941 the German army contained 296 divisions overall with about 40 further divisions in the process of formation.
Medvedev, Roy & Zhores. The Unknown Stalin. NY, NY: Overlook Press, 2004, p. 233
STALIN WAS ONLY SURPRISED AS TO THE EXACT TIME OF THE INVASION
Was Stalin taken by surprise with the turn of events? In the broader sense, no. All his actions from the day Hitler rose to power provide a complete proof of this. But there still remained in the situation an element of surprise in the sense that it was not possible to know the precise moment at which the blow would fall.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 221
German attacks on Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland had indeed been preceded by open claims and loud threats. Stalin apparently thought that Hitler would act according to precedent. Because he did not see the usual danger signals he refused to admit the imminent danger.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 455
Stalin received the correct information that “Barbarossa” would start on June 22 for instance – but he was also given other dates ranging from April 6 right through May and up to June 15 – and as each one proved wrong, it became less likely that he would accept the true version for what it was. Werner Wachter, a senior official at the Propaganda Ministry, later explained Goebbels’s technique in admirably simple language. The preparations for “Barbarossa,” he said, were accompanied by so many rumors, “all of which were equally credible, that in the end there wasn’t a bugger left who had any idea of what was really going on.”
Certainly, that comment seems to have been true for Stalin and his intelligence chiefs as the hour for the attack drew steadily closer.
Read, Anthony and David Fisher. The Deadly Embrace. New York: Norton, 1988, p. 600
SU INVADED BY MANY COUNTRIES IN WWII
The assault was launched not by Germany but by all of fascist Europe.
By every rational calculation of war potential, the Soviet Union was doomed to swift and complete defeat, regardless of what British or American policy might be. Defeat would’ve meant not only the enslavement of the Soviet peoples but the ultimate conquest of Britain and China and the reduction of America to helplessness before the unchallenged masters of Eurasia and Africa.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 419
Franco whose fascist “Blue Legion” was fighting the Red Army.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 455
CHURCHILL SUPPORTS SU AGAINST NAZIS
Churchill said, “at four o’clock this morning Hitler attacked and invaded Russia…. No one has been a more consistent opponent of communism than I have for the last 25 years. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding…. Any man or state who fights against nazism will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe.”
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 422
An “off the record” story illustrates Churchill’s attitude. One of his friends said, “Winston, how can you support the Bolsheviks, you who led British intervention against Lenin and once admitted that you had spent 100 million British pounds to aid the ‘White’ armies of Kolchak and Denikin?”
The premier replied curtly, “If seven devils rose from hell to fight against that man Hitler, I’d shake them all by the hand and give each a bottle of brandy and a box of my best cigars.”
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 264
In June 22, 1941, Churchill had said: ‘No one has been a more persistent opponent of communism than I have been for the last 25 years. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it, but all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding.’
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 505
LINDBERGH SUPPORTS NAZIS AGAINST SU
Lindbergh said, I would a hundred times rather see my country ally herself with England, or even with Germany with all her faults, than with the cruelty, the Godlessness and the barbarism that exists in Soviet Russia.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 424
MACARTHUR PROFUSELY PRAISES THE RED ARMY’S DEFENSE AND COUNTERATTACK
Douglas MacArthur’s anniversary tribute of February 23, 1942: “The hopes of civilization rest on the worthy banners of the courageous Russian army. During my lifetime I have participated in a number of wars and have witnessed others, as well as studying in great detail campaigns of outstanding leaders of the past. In none have I observed such effective resistance to the heaviest blows of a hitherto undefeated enemy, followed by a smashing counter attack which is driving the enemy back to his own land. The scale and grandeur of the effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history.”
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 432
[As the Red Army fought the Wehrmacht in early 1942 MacArthur sent the following telegram to the Soviet leadership].
“The world situation at the present time indicates that the hopes of civilization rest on the worthy banners of the courageous Russian army. During my lifetime I have participated in a number of wars and have witnessed others, as well as studying in great detail the campaigns of outstanding leaders of the past. In none have I observed such effective resistance to the heaviest blows of a hitherto undefeated enemy, followed by a smashing counterattack which is driving the enemy back to his own land. The scale and grandeur of this effort marks it as the greatest military achievement in all history.”
Sherwood, Robert E. Roosevelt and Hopkins. New York: Harper, 1948, p. 497
LEADERS COMPLIMENT THE RED ARMY
It is the Russian army said Churchill on August second 1944 that has done the main work of tearing the guts out of the German Army.
Schuman, Frederick L. Soviet Politics. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946, p. 493
The German Generals’ impressions of the Red Army were interesting, and often illuminating. The best appreciation in a concise form came from General Kleist: “The [Soviet] men were first-rate fighters from the start, and we owed our success simply to superior training. They became first-rate soldiers with experience. They fought most toughly, had amazing endurance, and could carry on without most of the things other armies regarded as necessities. The Staff were quick to learn from their early defeats, and soon became highly efficient.”
I asked German General Rundstedt what he considered were the strong and weak points of the Red Army, as he found it in 1941. His reply was: “The Russian heavy tanks were a surprise in quality and reliability from the outset. But the Russians proved to have less artillery than had been expected, and their air force did not offer serious opposition in that first campaign.”
Talking more specifically of the Russian weapons Kleist said: “Their equipment was very good even in 1941, especially the tanks. Their artillery was excellent, and also most of the infantry weapons–their rifles were more modern than ours, and had a more rapid rate of fire. Their T-34 tank was the finest in the world.” In my talks with Manteuffel, he emphasized that the Russians maintained their advantage in tank design and that in the “Stalin” tank, which appeared in 1944, they had what he considered the best tank that was seen in battle, anywhere, up to the end of the war.
Hart, Liddell. The German Generals Talk. New York: W. T. Morrow, 1948, p. 220-221
As regards the general characteristics of the Russian soldier, Dittmar gave me an illuminating sidelight when I asked him what he considered was the Russians’ chief asset. “I would put first, what might be called the soulless indifference of the troops–it was something more than fatalism. They were not quite so insensitive when things went badly for them, but normally it was difficult to make any impression on them in the way that would happen with troops of other nations. During my period of command on the Finnish front there was only one instance where Russian troops actually surrendered to my own.
Dittmar added: “On Hitler’s specific orders, an attempt was later made in the German Army to inculcate the same mental attitude that prevailed in the Red Army. We tried to copy the Russians in this respect, while the Russians copied us, more successfully, in tactics.
Hart, Liddell. The German Generals Talk. New York: W. Morrow, 1948, p. 223-224
Blumentritt stated, “It was in this war, however, that we first learnt to realize what ‘ Russia’ really means. The opening battle in June, 1941, revealed to us for the first time the new Soviet Army. Our casualties were up to 50 percent. The 0GPU and a women’s battalion defended the old citadel at Brest-Litovsk for a week, fighting to the last, in spite of bombardment with our heaviest guns and from the air. Our troops soon learnt to know what fighting the Russians meant. The Fuhrer and most of our highest chiefs didn’t know. That caused a lot of trouble.
“The Red Army of 1941-45 was far harder than the Tsar’s Army, for they were fighting fanatically for an idea. That increased their doggedness, and in turn made our own troops hard, for in the East the maxim held good–‘You or I.’
Hart, Liddell. The German Generals Talk. New York: W. Morrow, 1948, p. 225
During the month of July 1941 the course of contemporary history was to be decided. Under the staggering blows of the Wehrmacht, already drawing upon the human and economic potential of the whole of Europe, the Red Army constantly retreated. The whole structure of the Soviet edifice was shaken by the terrible blows. A few fissures were showing in the western part of the country, where defections were taking place. However, despite the defeats, the heavy losses, and the withdrawal from thousands of miles of the front–despite the overwhelming effect on the country’s economy, as a whole the young State–and it was not 30 years old–was standing firm. Like certain metals, whose molecular structure becomes closer, and whose coefficient of resistance increases under the vibrations of a violent hammering, Soviet Russia was forging itself. There was no weakening of the military command or the government of the country; the industrial reorganization continued. Contrary to the enemy’s expectation, instead of sinking into anarchy the peoples of the USSR remained united under a central authority. They persevered in the organized effort which enabled the USSR to sustain a modern, technical war, and without interruption to increase its military potential.
Delbars, Yves. The Real Stalin. London, Allen & Unwin, 1951, p. 301
HITLER WAS NO FOOL
Because whether you like him or not, Hitler is far from a fool and never made a mistake until June 22, 1941.
Duranty, Walter. The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, p. 181
Hitler wasn’t a fool. On the contrary, he was a capable man.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 361
KREMLIN PREPARED FOR WAR FOR MANY YEARS
I know, as I said before, that the Kremlin has been preparing for this war for full seven years; that it has starved its people of consumer goods in order to equip the red army and build new munition and armament plants.
Duranty, Walter. The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, p. 215
CHUEV: For the day of the attack, for the hour of the attack–that’s what we weren’t prepared for.
MOLOTOV: 0h, but no one could have been ready for the hour of the attack, even God itself! We’d been expecting the attack and we had a main goal–not to give Hitler a pretext for it. He would have said, “Soviet troops are assembling at the border. They are forcing me to take action!”
Of course that was a slip up, a shortcoming. And of course there were other slip-ups. You just try to find a way to avoid mistakes on such a question. But if you focus on them, it casts a shadow on the main point, on what decided the matter. Stalin was still irreplaceable. I am a critic of Stalin; on certain questions I did not agree with him, and I think he made some major, fundamental mistakes. But no one talks about these mistakes; instead they keep criticizing things on which Stalin was right….
In essence we were largely ready for war. The five-year plans, the industrial capacity we had created–that’s what helped us to endure, otherwise we wouldn’t have won out. The growth of our military industry in the years before the war could not have been greater!
The people went through a colossal strain before the war.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 25
MOLOTOV: We even abolished the seven-hour working day two years before the war! We abolished the right of workers to move from one enterprise to another in search of better conditions, even though many of them lived poorly and were looking for better places to live…. We built no apartment houses, but there was great construction of factories, the creation of new army units armed with tanks, aircraft….
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 26
Stalin thus stimulated production in Soviet industry and agriculture because he was the first of world statesman to perceive that sooner or later Hitler’s Nazi Germany would make a bid for world dominion. Stalin saw that from the outset, from 1935, when Chamberlain, and Bonnet in France, and even the United States, had small idea of Hitler’s wild ambition. From then onwards Stalin swung Russia towards what I might call “preparedness,” in the American sense. Deliberately he reduced the production of consumer goods, which the Russian people so greatly needed, in favor of factories to produce the material of war, and located those factories in areas east of Moscow, far from hostile attack, in the Urals and mid-Siberia and along the east Siberian coast.
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 175
Russian factories and collective farms worked furiously in the fall and winter of 1940-41, aware that the breathing-space which Stalin’s agreement with Hitler had won for them in 1939 was nearly at an end. At this critical moment the Soviet state gained strength from its arbitrary system of centralization. It was able to drive its workers and peasants to the limit of their effort because the idea of greater reward for greater service had been adopted, because they had the incentive of personal profit in addition to the no less powerful incentive of patriotic service. By this time they all knew, the whole Soviet Union knew, that Germany was their enemy and that a clash with Germany could not long be averted.
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 259
The scheme of evacuation had been carefully prepared, not only of people, animals, and foodstuffs from the countryside, but of machines, even whole factories, from the towns and cities. At Christmas, 1941, the Germans boasted that they had occupied the territory in which one-half of the heavy industry of the USSR was situated…. But Goebbels omitted to state how much machinery and tools were moved eastwards from the factories of the Donetz Basin, the Ukraine, White Russia, and Leningrad by the workers who had handled them, and how much more which could not be moved was deliberately demolished, like the great Dnieper dam and power stations, by the men and women who had built them.
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 266
The record shows that the tribute was deserved. Had Stalin not won the fight for industrialization and defeated the Trotskyists and Bukharinites, the USSR would have become a Nazi province. Had he not had the foresight to build a metallurgical industry in the Urals, the Red Armies could not have been supplied with arms. Had he not industrialized the economy and introduced mechanized farming, he would have had neither a base for producing arms nor a mass of soldiers trained in the operation of machinery. Had he not signed a nonaggression treaty with Germany, the USSR might have been attacked 22 months sooner. Had he not moved the Soviet armies into Poland, the German attack would have begun even closer to Moscow. Had he not subdued General Mannerheim’s Finland, Leningrad would have fallen. Had he not ordered the transfer of 1,400 factories from the west to the east, the most massive movement of its kind in history, Russian industry would have received a possibly fatal blow. Had he not built up the army and equipped it with modern arms, it would have been destroyed on the frontiers.
He did not, of course, do these things alone. They were Party decisions and Party actions, and behind the Party throughout was the power, courage, and intelligence of the working class. But Stalin stood at all times as the central, individual directing force, his magnificent courage and calm foresight inspiring the whole nation. When some panic began in Moscow in October 1941 he handled it firmly.
Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 107
… our Red Army, Red Navy, Red Air Fleet and the Chemical and Air Defense Society must be increased and strengthened to the utmost. The whole of our people must be kept in a state of mobilization and preparedness in the face of the danger of military attack, so that no “accident” and no tricks on the part of our external enemies may take us by surprise….
Stalin, Joseph. Stalin’s Kampf. New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, c1940, p. 163
For years [this was stated in 1937], the Russian leaders have based all their actions on the belief that they will soon be involved in war. They apparently started to build up a larger gold reserve in order to strengthen their military position.
Littlepage, John D. In Search of Soviet Gold. New York: Harcourt, Brace, c1938, p. 271
The 18th Party Conference of February 1941 was devoted almost entirely to defense matters…. Stalin proposed that in 1941 industrial output should increase by 17-18 percent. That did not seem unrealistic. In 1940, for instance, defense output had increased by 27 percent compared to 1939…. The people knew a war was coming and that they would have to perform the impossible. By the time of Hitler’s invasion, 2700 airplanes of a new type and 4300 tanks, nearly half of them a new model, had been built.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 374
A month before the German attack, Stalin, speaking to a close circle, said, ‘The conflict is inevitable, perhaps in May next year.’ By the early summer of 1941, acknowledging the explosiveness of the situation, he approved the premature release of military cadets, and young officers and political workers were posted, mostly without leave, straight to units which were below full strength. After much hesitation, Stalin also decided to call up about 800,000 reservists, bringing up to strength 21 divisions in the frontier military districts….
On 19 June 1941 troops were ordered to begin camouflaging aerodromes, transport depots, bases and fuel dumps, and to disperse aircraft around airfields. The order came hopelessly late, and even then Stalin was reluctant in case ‘all these measures provoke the German forces’.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 393
Despite all his miscalculations, Stalin was not unprepared to meet the emergency. He had solidly armed his country and reorganized its military forces. His practical mind had not been wedded to any one-sided strategic dogma. He had not lulled the Red Army into a false sense of security behind any Russian variety of the Maginot Line, that static defense system that had been the undoing of the French army in 1940. He could rely on Russia’s vast spaces and severe climate. No body of men could now dispute his leadership. He had achieved absolute unity of command, the dream of the modern strategist.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 461
What conclusions, then, follow from the facts sighted? How is one to assess what was done before the war, what we intended to do in the near future and what we did not have time to do or were unable to do in strengthening our country’s defensive capacity? How is one to make that appraisal today after everything has been gone through, critically interpreting the past and at the same time putting oneself once more on the threshold of the Great Patriotic War?
I have thought long over this and here is the conclusion to which I came.
It seems to me that the country’s defense was managed correctly in its basic and principal features and orientations. For many years everything possible or almost everything was done in the economic and social aspects. As to the period between 1939 and the middle of 1941, the people and Party exerted particular effort to strengthen defense.
… The fact that in spite of enormous difficulties and losses during the four years of the war, Soviet industry turned out a colossal amount of armaments –almost 490,000 guns and mortars, over 102,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, over 137,000 military aircraft–shows that the foundations of the economy from the military, the defense standpoint, were laid correctly and firmly.
Following once more in my mind’s eye the development of the Soviet Armed Forces all the way from the days of the Civil War, I should say that here too we followed the right road in the main. There was constant improvement along the right lines in Soviet military doctrine, the principles of educating and training the troops, the weapons of the army and navy, the training of commanding cadres and the structure and organization of the armed forces. The morale and fighting spirit of the troops and their political consciousness and maturity were always exceptionally high.
Of course, if it were possible to go over the whole road once more there are some things it would be better not to do. But today I cannot name a single major trend in the development of our armed forces that should have been abolished, abandoned, and disclaimed. The period between 1939 and the middle of 1941 was marked on the whole by transformations which in two or three years would have given the Soviet people a brilliant army, perhaps the best in the world.
During the period the dangerous military situation was developing we army leaders probably did not do enough to convince Stalin that war with Germany was inevitable in the very near future and that the urgent measures provided for in the operational and mobilization plans must be implemented.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 226
Other elements of the Soviet military effort were less affected by the purges. The training schools increased their intake of new officer trainees. The technological threshold still moved slowly forward. The system of fortifications begun in the 1920s along the whole western frontier–the Stalin Line–continued to be constructed and extended. Most important of all, the modernization and expansion of the Soviet heavy industrial base continued, and with it the large proportion allocated to military production. Without the economic transformation, the Red Army would have been a feeble force in 1941, relying on a vast base of peasant manpower. The industrial changes of the 1930s provided the planners, the scientists, engineers, and skilled labor necessary to cope with the demands of total mobilization made after the German invasion in 1941. Whatever the weaknesses exposed by the modernization drive, it is inconceivable that the Soviet Union could have withstood the German attack without it.
Overy, R. J. Russia’s War: Blood Upon the Snow. New York: TV Books, c1997, p. 51
Of course considerable preparations were made. For over a decade priority had been given to heavy industry, and the Soviet armed forces had first call on it. The Red Army was enlarged by two and a half times between 1939 and 1941, war production was increased, troops and supplies transferred to the west, a 100,000 men put to work on the fortifications.
Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 705
In his speech in the Reichstag on 7 March 1936 Hitler said: Nor do we doubt that Herriott. of France reported his information truly. Now, according to this information it is established in the first place that the Russian Army has a peace strength of 1,350,000 men, and secondly, that its war strength and reserves amount to 17,500,000 men. Thirdly, we are informed that it has the largest tank force in the world, and, fourthly that it has the largest air force in the world. This most powerful military factor has been described as excellent in regard to mobility and leadership and ready for action at any time.
HITLER’S SPEECHES by Norman Baynes, 1942, VOLUME 2, Page 1290
What confirmed me in my decision to attack [the Soviet Union] without delay was the information brought by a German mission lately returned from Russia, that a single Russian factory was producing by itself more tanks that all our factories together.
Hitler, Adolph. Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944. Trans. by Cameron & Stevens. New York: Enigma Books, 2000, p. 182
The more we see of conditions in Russia, the more thankful we must be that we struck in time. In another 10 years there would have sprung up in Russia a mass of industrial centers, inaccessible to attack, which would have produced armaments on an inexhaustible scale, while the rest of Europe would have degenerated into a defenseless plaything of Soviet policy.
Hitler, Adolph. Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944. Trans. by Cameron & Stevens. New York: Enigma Books, 2000, p. 586
The legend of the might of Germany’s mechanized army, backed by a highly industrialized society and run with ruthless Teutonic efficiency, has been with us for so long that it is difficult to realize how poor were the German preparations for the Russian campaign. The German army invaded Russia with 3,200 tanks and the monthly output of 80 to 100 was too low even to make good the wastage. Although this rate later went up rapidly, it did not reach its peak until August 1944, when it was already too late, and even then was only a quarter of the Russian output. The Germans had sufficient fuel for only a fraction of their transport to be motorized. The rest was moved by horses! The average German infantry division had about 1,500 horse-drawn vehicles and only about 600 motor-drawn ones, compared with some 3,000 in a British or American infantry division. The German soldier had no winter clothing, and had to make do by wearing large cotton combat overalls over his uniform and stuffing the spaces in between with crumpled newspapers or, since newsprint was scarce, with German propaganda leaflets.
The Russians, on the other hand, began the war with 20,000 tanks, more than were possessed by the rest of the world put together, and they produced no fewer than 100,000 during the war. They, too, used horses, but their motorized transport was adapted for winter conditions, their winter uniforms were white and, being quilted, provided excellent protection against the cold, and they possessed an adaptability to the environment that the Germans lacked. “Give a Russian an axe and a knife and in a few hours he will do anything, run up a sledge, a stretcher, a little igloo… make a stove out of a couple of old oil cans,” a German medical officer wrote. “Our men just stand about miserably burning precious petrol to keep warm.”
Knightley, Phillip. The First Casualty. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, p. 252
It would be unfair to accuse Stalin of neglecting the country’s defense. In 1940 new regulations lengthened the working day and week. By 1941 the army was more than double the size it had been in 1939. In a number of cases capable people were put in charge of vital departments.
Ulam, Adam. Stalin; the Man and his Era. New York: Viking Press, 1973, p. 531
It seems to me that the country’s defense was managed correctly as regards its basic and principal features and orientations. For many years, everything or almost everything possible was done in the economic and social fields. As to the period from 1939 to the middle of 1941, the people and the Party applied special efforts to strengthen the country’s defenses….
Of course, if it were possible to go over that whole road once again, there are some things it would have been better not to do and some things that would have to be straightened out. But today I cannot name a single major trend in the development of our armed forces that should have been written off, jettisoned, or repealed. The period between 1939 and the middle of 1941 was marked on the whole by transformations which gave the Soviet Union a brilliant army, and that readied it well for defense.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 270
Soviet economic might was so successfully dedicated to the war effort that in the last six months of 1942 it reached a level of production which the Germans attained only across the entire year. The numbers were remarkable. In that half-year the USSR acquired 15,000 aircraft and 13,000 tanks.
Service, Robert. Stalin. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2005, p. 421
At least four marshals–and many generals–deny Stalin’s alleged failure to prepare for the German invasion. In June 1941 Marshal Bagramyan says a ‘titanic’ effort had been made to prepare for the coming war. Marshal Vasilevsky points to a ‘whole number of very important measures’ taken to counter the menace of aggression. Marshal Zhukov goes farther, saying, ‘every effort’ and ‘every means’ was used to bolster the country’s defenses between 1939 and 1941. Marshal Rokossovsky says that the non-aggression pact with Hitler ‘gave us the time we needed so much to build up our defenses’….
Stalin’s generals are virtually unanimous in pointing to Russia’s accelerated pre-war industrial and military growth as the sine qua non for victory over Nazi Germany. This build-up started between the two world wars when the West had in effect quarantined the Soviet state.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 189
Djilas, a Yugoslav writer and activist who met Stalin several times during the war, says that, prior to the Nazi-Soviet War, Stalin spared nothing to achieve military preparedness; and the speed with which he carried out the transformation of the top army command in the midst of the war confirmed Stalin’s adaptability and willingness to open careers to men of talent. Djilas an uncompromising critic of Stalin, says that the sweeping military purges had less effect than is commonly believed.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 190
STALIN WAS A GOOD WWII SUPREME COMMANDER
Stalin as supreme commander of the Russian forces in the Second World War would be a theme for a special work. His great gift of military organization showed itself here again. Without any question, streams of energy proceeded from him throughout the war, and that energy halted the Germans before Leningrad and Moscow. They had to seek the road to victory in another direction– toward the Volga. Strategically they fell into exactly the same situation as the counter-revolutionary generals of the civil war. As then, Stalingrad had once more to become the battlefield on which the outcome of the war would be decided. Stalin had already won one victory there, at the outset of his career; once already he had prevented the enemy from crossing the Volga. The strategic problem was familiar to him. For the second time in his life he achieved his strategic triumphs on the same spot.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 365
“Hitler fooled us,” he [Stalin] said, in a calm but somewhat harsh voice. “I didn’t think he was going to attack now.”
He was silent. The launch still floated beside us, and Captain Karazov still stood at attention.
“We did all we could to avoid war,” Stalin said. “We did all we could to avoid the ruin it causes. But now we no longer have any choice. We have to accept the battle, for life or for death; and we can only win if the whole people rises as one man against the Germans.”
Svanidze, Budu. My Uncle, Joseph Stalin. New York: Putnam, c1953, p. 169
After dinner, before taking his leave, Rokossovsky shook my uncle’s hand, and said, “You have thanked us for what we did. Let me say that without your constant support, the victory would have been impossible. I will never forget the phone call you put through to me at my command post that night in November when the Germans were entering Istra and threatening to encircle Moscow. After I put down the phone, I ordered an attack and our troops re-occupied Istra.”
Svanidze, Budu. My Uncle, Joseph Stalin. New York: Putnam, c1953, p. 179
Stalin knew there was no hope of bringing the war to an early end but he had to bolster the morale of his people. The second battle of Moscow had begun, and Soviet Intelligence reported that the Fuehrer had given his Generals a fortnight in which to take the city.
Soon the Germans took Khimky, the small port on the Moscow-Volga-Canal, four miles from Moscow, and connected by trolley-bus to the city, and at this point Stalin personally took command of the defense operations. He urged the Soviet troops at all costs, to hold out for a few days to enable reinforcements, maneuvering their positions, to complete their reconcentration. To give his Generals and troops new strength, Stalin applied the right psychology, and frequently telephoned the field headquarters of his different Generals.
“Hello, here is Stalin, make your report,” he would say. After listening to their reports, he would urge encouragingly: “Hold out. We shall be coming to your assistance in three to four hours time. You will have your reinforcements”!
And the over-tired defenders of Moscow, near to collapse, held-out, and the Soviet counter-offensive was opened.
Then came a communique Signed by Marshals Timoshenko and Zhukov which announced the “crushing defeat of the Wehrmacht before Moscow.”
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 144
In all, the State Committee for Defense adopted some 10,000 resolutions on military and economic matters during the war. Those resolutions were carried out accurately and with enthusiasm….
Stalin himself was strong-willed and no coward. It was only once I saw him somewhat depressed. That was at the dawn of June 22, 1941, when his belief that the war could be avoided, was shattered.
After June 22, 1941, and throughout the war Stalin firmly governed the country, led the armed struggle and international affairs together with the Central Committee and the Soviet Government.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 268
I can only repeat that Stalin devoted a good deal of attention to problems of armament and material. He frequently met with chief aircraft, artillery, and tank designers whom he would question in great detail about the progress achieved in designing the various types of equipment in our country and abroad. To give him his due, it must be said that he was fairly well versed in the characteristics of the basic types of armament.
Is it true that Stalin really was an outstanding military thinker, a major contributor to the development of the Armed Forces and an expert in tactical and strategic principles?
From the military standpoint I have studied Stalin most thoroughly, for I entered the war together with him and together with him I ended it.
Stalin mastered the technique of the organization of front operations and operations by groups of fronts and guided them with skill, thoroughly understanding complicated strategic questions. He displayed his ability as Commander-in-Chief beginning with Stalingrad.
In guiding the armed struggle as a whole, Stalin was assisted by his natural intelligence and profound intuition. He had a knack of grasping the main link in the strategic situation so as to organize opposition to the enemy and conduct a major offensive operation. He was certainly a worthy Supreme Commander.
Here Stalin’s merit lies in the fact that he correctly appraised the advice offered by the military experts and then in summarized form–in instructions, directives, and regulations–immediately circulated them among the troops for practical guidance.
As regards the material and technical organization of operations, the build-up of strategic reserves, the organization of production of material and troop supplies, Stalin did prove himself to be an outstanding organizer. And it would be unfair if we, the Soviet people, failed to pay tribute to him for it.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 284-285
The Second Front dawdled, but Stalin pressed unfalteringly ahead. He risked the utter ruin of socialism in order to smash the dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini. After Stalingrad the Western World did not know whether to weep or applaud. The cost of victory to the Soviet Union was frightful. To this day the outside world has no dream of the hurt, the loss and the sacrifices. For his calm, stern leadership here, if nowhere else, arises the deep worship of Stalin by the people of all the Russias.
Statement by W.E.B DuBois regarding COMRADE STALIN on March 16, 1953
The modern Stalin was instantly recognizable. Harriman, who saw a great deal of Stalin during the war as Roosevelt’s emissary and then ambassador, was deeply impressed by him: “his high intelligence, that fantastic grasp of detail, his shrewdness… I found him better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic and Churchill… the most effective of the war leaders.”… At Tehran the British Chief of the General Staff, General Brooke, thought that Stalin’s grasp of strategy was the fruit of “a military brain of the highest caliber.” At Tehran Stalin did not, in Brooke’s view, put a foot wrong.
Overy, R. J. Russia’s War: Blood Upon the Snow. New York: TV Books, c1997, p. 348
For his part, Harriman rated Stalin ‘better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill, in some ways the most effective of the war leaders’.
McNeal, Robert, Stalin: Man and Ruler. New York: New York University Press, 1988, p. 252
Stalin possessed, all western observers in the Hitler war agreed, excellent strategic judgment.
Snow, Charles Percy. Variety of Men. New York: Scribner, 1966, p. 258
He [Stalin] spent whole days, and often nights as well, at headquarters. Zhukov wrote: “In discussion he made a powerful impression…. His ability to summarize an idea precisely, his native intelligence, is unusual memory…. his staggering capacity for work, his ability to grasp the essential point instantly, enabled him to study and digest quantities of material which would have been too much for any ordinary person…. I can say without hesitation that he was master of the basic principles of the organization of front-line operations and the deployment of front-line forces…. He controlled them completely and had a good understanding of major strategic problems. He was a worthy Supreme Commander.”
Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin. New York: Doubleday, c1996, p. 486
He [Stalin] was never a general let alone a military genius but, according to Zhukov, who knew better than anyone, this “outstanding organizer…displayed his ability as Supremo starting with Stalingrad.” He “mastered the technique of organizing for operations…and guided them with skill, thoroughly understanding complicated strategic questions,” always displaying his “natural intelligence…professional intuition” and a “tenacious memory.” He was “many-sided and gifted” but had “no knowledge of all the details.” Mikoyan was probably right when he summed up in his practical way that Stalin “knew as much about military matters as a statesman should–but no more.”
Montefiore, Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 439
Like most people with whom I associated, I connected the turnabout in the course of the war with Stalin, and stories of him as a human being encouraged the magnification of his charisma. Therefore, though I had begun the war with doubts about the “wisdom” of Stalin’s leadership, I ended it believing that we had been very lucky, that without Stalin’s genius, victory would have taken much longer to achieve and would have entailed far greater losses, had it come at all.
Grigorenko, Petro G. Memoirs. New York: Norton, c1982, p. 139
Could Russia have won without Stalin? Was Stalin indispensable to the Soviet war effort? An expert on Russia, Dr. Bialer, has written: ‘It seems doubtful that the Soviet system could have survived an extraordinary internal shock, such as the disappearance of Stalin, while at the same time facing the unprecedented external bowl of the German invasion.’
Another expert, America’s wartime Ambassador to Moscow, Harriman, says: ‘We became convinced that, regardless of Stalin’s awful brutality and his reign of terror, he was a great war leader.’ (Replying to a question I [the author] put to him on his visit to Moscow in May 1975, Harriman called Stalin ‘one of the most effective war leaders in history’.) Harriman is categorical: ‘Without Stalin, they never would have held.’
Giving full support to Harriman, but going a step further is Joseph McCabe, who has been described by eminent historians as ‘one of our deeper thinkers’ and ‘one of the most learned men’ of the 20th century. McCabe has recorded that when Hitler’s armies fell upon Russia in 1941 Stalin became the West’s leader in the gravest crisis through which the world has passed since the fall of Rome.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 195
And Stalin, as a commander-in-chief, had no equal either among our allies or among our enemies. To the present moment [1982] , Europe is the way Stalin left it. Even now the knots tied in the Far and Middle East remained untied.
Grigorenko, Petro G. Memoirs. New York: Norton, c1982, p. 212
The criticism of Stalin as a military leader in Khrushchev’s report at the closed session of the 20th Party Congress is on the level of small-town gossip. The one serious criticism of Stalin it contained was that he did not call a halt to the operation near Kharkhov when a threat to our flanks arose, and this criticism misses the point. In the case of Kharkhov, Stalin acted as the serious military leader. During the moment of crisis, persistence was what was most required. Stalin’s conduct, his unwillingness to come to the telephone, was geared toward calming his nervous subordinates, and it underlined the fact that he was convinced of the operation’s success. Khrushchev acted like a child. He was frightened by the prospect of being encircled and he failed, along with his commander, to provide any protection for his threatened flanks….
(Such is the truth. I can and I do hate Stalin with all the fibers of my soul.)
Grigorenko, Petro G. Memoirs. New York: Norton, c1982, p. 212
Stalin was convinced that in the war against the Soviet Union the Nazis would first try to seize the Ukraine and the Donets Coal Basin in order to deprive the country of its most important economic regions and lay hands on the Ukraine grain, Donets coal and, later, Caucasian oil. During the discussion of the operational plan in the spring of 1941, Stalin said: “Nazi Germany will not be able to wage a major lengthy war without those vital resources.”
…Stalin was the greatest authority for all of us, and it never occurred to anybody to question his opinion and assessment of the situation. Yet his conjecture as to the main strike of the Nazi invader proved incorrect.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 250
During the war, Stalin had five official posts. He was Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee, Chairman of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars, Chairman of the State Defense Committee, and People’s Commissar for Defense. He worked on a tight schedule, 15 to 16 hours a day.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 349
Stalin made a great personal contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany and its allies. His prestige was exceedingly high, and his appointment as Supreme Commander was wholeheartedly acclaimed by the people and the troops.
Mikhail Sholokhov was quite right in saying in an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda during the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Victory that “it is wrong to belittle Stalin, to make him look a fool. First, it is dishonest, and second, it is bad for the country, for the Soviet people. And not because victors are never judged, but above all because such ‘denouncements’ are contrary to the truth.”
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 363
I am often asked whether Stalin was really an outstanding military thinker and a major contributor to the development of the armed forces, whether he was really an expert in tactical and strategic principles.
I can say that Stalin was conversant with the basic principles of organizing operations of Fronts and groups of Fronts, and that he supervised them knowledgeably. Certainly, he was familiar with major strategic principles. Stalin’s ability as Supreme Commander was especially marked after the Battle of Stalingrad.
The widespread tale that the Supreme Commander studied the situation and adopted decisions when toying with a globe is untrue. Nor did he pour over tactical maps. He did not need to. But he had a good eye when dealing with operational situation maps.
Stalin owed this to his natural intelligence, his experience as a political leader, his intuition and broad knowledge. He could find the main link in a strategic situation which he seized upon in organizing actions against the enemy, and thus assured the success of the offensive operation. It is beyond question that he was a splendid Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
Stalin is said to have offered fundamental innovations in military science–elaborating methods of artillery offensives, of winning air supremacy, of encircling the enemy, splitting surrounded groups into parts and wiping them out one by one, etc.
This is untrue. These paramount aspects of warcraft were mastered in battles with the enemy. They were the fruit of deep reflections and summed up the experience of a large number of military leaders and troop commanders.
The credit that is due here to Stalin is for assimilating the advice of military experts in his stride, filling it out and elaborating upon it in a summarized form–in instructions, directives, and recommendations which were immediately circulated as guides among the troops.
Besides, in the matter of backing operations, building up strategic reserves, organizing arms production and, in general, the production of everything needed in the war, the Supreme Commander proved himself an outstanding organizer. And it would be most unfair if we failed to pay tribute to him for this.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 367-368
I would like additionally to say a few words about Stalin as Supreme High Commander. I would hope that my service position during the war, my constant, almost daily contact with Stalin and, finally, my participation in sessions of the Politburo and the State Defense Committee which examined all the fundamental issues concerning the war, give me the right to say a few words on this topic. In doing so I shall not discuss his Party, political and state activity in wartime, inasmuch as I do not consider myself sufficiently competent to do so….
Was it right for Stalin to be in charge of the Supreme High Command? After all he was not a professional military man?
There can be no doubt that it was right.
At that terribly difficult time the best solution, bearing in mind the enormous Leninist experience from the Civil War period, was to combine in one person the functions of Party, state, economic and military leadership. We had only one way ou___”t: to turn the country immediately into a military camp, to make the rear and the front an integral whole, to harness all our efforts to the task of defeating the Nazi invaders. And when Stalin as Party General Secretary, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and Chairman of the State Defense Committee also became the Supreme High Commander and the People’s Defense Commissar, there opened up more favorable opportunities for a successful fight for victory.
This combining of Party, state. and military leadership functions in the figure of Stalin did not mean that he alone decided every issue during the war….
It is my profound conviction that Stalin, especially in the latter part of the war, was the strongest and most remarkable figure of the strategic command. He successfully supervised the fronts and all the war efforts of the country on the basis of the Party line and he was able to have considerable influence on the leading political and military figures of the Allies in the war. It was interesting to work with him, but at the same time extremely taxing, particularly in the initial period of the war. He has remained in my memory as a stern and resolute war leader, but not without a certain personal charm….
Stalin possessed not only an immense natural intelligence,but also amazingly wide knowledge. I was able to observe his ability to think analytically during these sessions of the Party Politburo, the State Defense Committee and during my permanent work in the GHQ. He would attentively listen to speakers, unhurriedly pacing up and down with hunched shoulders, sometimes asking questions and making comments. And when the discussion was over he would formulate his conclusions precisely and sum things up. His conclusions would be brief, but profound in content .
I have already noted that during the first few months of the war Stalin’s inadequate operational and strategic training was apparent. He rarely asked the advice of the General Staff officers or front commanders. Even the top Operations Department men in the General Staff were not always invited to work on the most important GHQ operations directives. At that time decisions were normally taken by him alone and not always with complete success….
The big turning point for Stalin as Supreme High Commander came in September 1942 when the situation became very grave and there was a special need for flexible and skilled leadership in regard to military operations. It was at that time that he began to change his attitude to the General Staff personnel and front commanders, being obliged constantly to rely on the collective experience of his generals. “Why the devil didn’t you say so!
From then on, before he took a decision on any important war issue, Stalin would take advice and discuss it together with his deputy, the top General Staff personnel, heads of chief departments of the People’s Defense Commissariat and front commanders, as well as people’s commissars in charge of the defense industry….
The process of Stalin’s growth as a general came to maturity. I have already written that in the first few months of the war he sometimes tended to use Soviet troops in a direct frontal attack on the enemy. After the Stalingrad and especially the Kursk battles he rose to the heights of strategic leadership. From then on Stalin would think in terms of modern warfare, had a good grasp of all questions relating to the preparation for and execution of operations. He would now demand that military action be carried out in a creative way, with full account of military science, so that all actions were decisive and flexible, designed to split up and encircle the enemy. In his military thinking he markedly displayed a tendency to concentrate men and material, to diversified deployment of all possible ways of commencing operations and their conduct. Stalin began to show an excellent grasp of military strategy, which came fairly easily to him since he was a past master at the art of political strategy, and of operational art as well….
I think that Stalin displayed all the basic qualities of a Soviet general during the strategic offensive of the Soviet Armed Forces. He skillfully supervised actions of the Fronts .
Stalin paid a great deal of attention to creating an efficient style of work in the GHQ. If we look at the style from autumn 1942, we see it as distinguished by reliance on collective experience in drawing up operational and strategic plans, a high degree of exactingness, resourcefulness, constant contact with the troops, and a precise knowledge of the situation at the Fronts….
Stalin as Supreme High Commander was extremely exacting to all and sundry; a quality that was justified, especially in wartime. He never forgave carelessness in work or failure to finish the job properly, even if this happened with a highly indispensable worker without a previous blemish on his record….
As Supreme High Commander, Stalin was in most cases extremely demanding but just. His directives and commands showed front commanders their mistakes and shortcomings, taught them how to deal with all manner of military operations skillfully….
I deliberately leave untouched the expressions used by Stalin so as to give the reader the usual flavor of Stalin’s talk. He normally spoke succinctly, pithily, and bluntly….
Vasilevskii, Aleksandr M. A Lifelong Cause. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981, p. 447-451
It would be quite wrong, however, to look at Stalin from only one point of view. I have to say that he was an extremely difficult man to deal with, liable to fly off the handle and unpredictable. It was hard to get on with him and he took a long time to get used to .
If Stalin was ever unhappy about something, and the war, especially at the beginning, certainly gave plenty of causes, he could give a dressing down unjustly. However, he changed noticeably during the war. He began to be more restrained and calm in his attitude to us officers of the General Staff and main departments of the People’s Defense Commissariat and front commanders, even when something was going wrong at the front. It became much easier to deal with him. It is clear that the war, its twists and turns, failures and successes had an effect on Stalin’s character….
Joseph Stalin has certainly gone down in military history. His undoubted service is that it was under his direct guidance as Supreme High Commander that the Soviet Armed Forces withstood the defensive campaigns and carried out all the offensive operations so splendidly. Yet he, to the best of my judgment, never spoke of his own contribution. At any rate, I never happened to hear him do so. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union and rank of Generalissimus were awarded to him by written representation to the Party Central Committee Politburo from front commanders. In fact, he had fewer military orders than did the commanders of fronts and armies. He told people plainly and honestly about the miscalculations made during the war when he spoke at a reception in the Kremlin in honor of Red Army commanders on 24 May 1945: .
Vasilevskii, Aleksandr M. A Lifelong Cause. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981, p. 452
This nationalist revival and Stalin’s strong leadership, were extremely significant in the eventual victory of Russia over Germany.
Richardson, Rosamond. Stalin’s Shadow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, p. 163
“The only really military man in the family was my father,” says Svetlana. “He really had this talent. He really liked it, and the best performance he gave in his life was as organizer of the Red Army during the Second World War. He did what he was born for.”
…The fact that our country managed to get through the war was to Stalin’s huge merit. And then the economy was restored, and atomic weaponry was created, which to this day has maintained the peace.
Richardson, Rosamond. Stalin’s Shadow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, p. 170
According to Zhukov, Stalin ‘mastered questions of the organization of front operations [there being about a dozen large sectors, or “fronts”, at any given moment] and groups of fronts’, a point sustained by chief-of-staff Vasilevsky. Lest this be dismissed as mere post-Khrushchev propaganda aimed at rehabilitating Stalin’s image as a war leader, consider that General Alan Brooke, who encountered Stalin in 1943, judged him ‘a military brain of the very highest order’. And Brooke was arguably the keenest British military mind of the war, a professional who held in contempt politicians who dabbled in strategy, and also the one western general whom Stalin accused to his face of being unfriendly to Russia.
McNeal, Robert, Stalin: Man and Ruler. New York: New York University Press, 1988, p. 242
After British Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke met Stalin he commented: ‘Never once in any of his statements did Stalin make any strategic error, nor did he ever fail to appreciate all the implications of a situation with a quick and unerring eye.’
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 165
Like many Russian generals, Krivoshein respected Stalin as Commander-in-Chief, calling him a ‘worthy commander’. He said that he agreed with British Field Marshal Alanbrooke’s estimate of Stalin as a man with a ‘military brain of the finest order’. But Krivoshein added a proviso. ‘Stalin’, he said, ‘had very good assistants in the armed forces, and they managed to tell him which way was the right way. But Stalin was able to use his formidable strength to manage military affairs and achieve victory–which was no small achievement.’
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 55
Author: Admiral, how do you assess Stalin’s role in the war?
Admiral Gorshkov: Stalin’s good point was that he could choose very talented military leaders. Stalin was of course also an outstanding political, state and military leader. This is not only my opinion, but that of Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook and many other prominent foreign personalities. Stalin had a broad understanding of military matters. And he was able to find solutions and make decisions in the most difficult situations.
Author: So, you would say that Stalin was the Supreme Commander not just in name?
Gorshkov: Yes.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 124
Author: Actually, many persons in the West do not give Stalin credit for his role in the defeat of Hitler’s Germany; and there are books by experts, and an encyclopedia or two, that say that Stalin ‘interfered’ with his commanders in the field….
Admiral Gorshkov and General Pavlovsky: That is not correct.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 124
At the conclusion of his memoirs, Marshal Vasilevsky asks: ‘Was it right for Stalin to be in charge of the Supreme High Command? After all, he was not a professional military man.’ And Vasilevsky’s answer: ‘There can be no doubt that it was right.’
…The stocky Marshal, who had frequent, almost daily contact with Stalin throughout the war, held some of the highest posts in the Armed Forces: Chief of Operations of the General Staff; Chief of the General Staff; Deputy Defense Minister. In the summer of 1945 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East in the war against Japan….
Looking back on the war Vasilevsky mentions ‘Stalin’s growth as a general’, although he does not fail to mention miscalculations by the Supreme Commander in the early months of the invasion. He points out that after a year or two Stalin ‘successfully supervised the Fronts and all the war efforts of the country’.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 180
When Marshal Konev was asked his impression of Stalin by the Yugoslav writer and political activist, Djilas (the year was 1944), he replied: ‘Stalin is universally gifted. He was brilliantly able to see the war as a whole, and this made possible his successful direction.’
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 181
A perusal of memoirs, speeches and articles leads one to conclude that there is virtual consensus among Russia’s wartime generals and admirals that Stalin was a military leader of extraordinary insight, that he was an exceptional Commander-in-Chief. This is apparent in the recollections of many Marshals, including Meretskov, Vasilevsky, and Bagramyan. According to these men there was nothing synthetic about Stalin’s name as Marshal and Generalissimo.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 181
In his book, Reminiscences and Reflections, Zhukov sums up his views about Stalin:
‘I am often asked whether Stalin was really an outstanding military thinker and a major contributor to the development of the armed forces, whether he was really an expert in tactical and strategic principles. I can say that Stalin was conversant with the basic principles of organizing the operations of Fronts and groups of Fronts, and that he supervised them knowledgeably. Certainly he was familiar with major strategic principles. His ability as Supreme Commander was especially marked after the Battle of Stalingrad.’ He adds that Stalin had ‘rich intuition and ability to find the main point in a strategic situation’, which is high praise indeed from a soldier of Zhukov’s stature.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 182
EACH ALLY TRIES TO GET THE OTHER TO DO THE HARD WORK
The situation of the Soviet Union after the outbreak of war was perfectly clear. The relations between allies in a coalition war show certain fixed characteristics. Each ally tries more or less to carry on the war at the cost of the other allies.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 366
STALIN CONTENDS ALLIES WANT SU BLED WHITE AND THEY AVOID SECOND FRONT
Stalin became convinced that the Anglo-Saxon Powers were pursuing a policy of prolonging the war, so that not only should Germany be brought low, but the Soviet Union should be so bled white that after the war it would be a weak country. This Stalin repeatedly and plainly declared, and again and again he pressed for the creation of the ‘Second Front’. It was this front above all that began to poison the relations between the allies.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 367
Until the middle of 1944 this question [the second front] occupied center-stage in his [Stalin] diplomatic efforts. True, as the wind of victory filled his sails, he became less insistent, and indeed the front in western Europe was only opened when it had become obvious that the Soviet Union was capable of destroying Nazi Germany on her own.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 485
Stalin’s tactics, of rudeness punctuated by warmth, were sometimes counter-productive. But his general strategy was sound…. And though Churchill at least was alienated by Stalin’s offensive attitude, even he was still susceptible to the feeling that Stalin had a genuine grievance while the Soviet Union was bearing the brunt of the war.
Conquest, Robert. Stalin: Breaker of Nations. New York, New York: Viking, 1991, p. 253
According to Eisenhower, they could not open a second front in 1942-43 allegedly because they were unprepared for such a large-scale combined strategic operation. That was certainly far from the truth, for they could have opened a second front in 1943. They deliberately waited till our troops would inflict greater damage on Germany’s military force.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 681
Stalin made it painfully clear that the Soviet government took no interest in the TORCH operation [code-name for the North African landings]. He spoke caustically of the failure of the Western Allies to deliver the promised supplies to the Soviet Union. He spoke of the tremendous sacrifices that were being made to hold 280 German divisions on the Eastern Front.
Sherwood, Robert E. Roosevelt and Hopkins. New York: Harper, 1948, p. 620
Roosevelt, whose judgment of affairs was objective, and who was not unfavorably prejudiced against the Soviet leader, nor against the Russians as a whole, recognized the reasonable nature of Stalin’s demands [for a second front]. But he replied that the British operations against Rommel in Africa already constituted, in a certain measure, a second front, and they were holding up the crack German formations. Stalin did not accept this explanation, which seemed to him a mere excuse or evasion. Rommel’s African Corps consisted of two armored divisions and one division of light infantry. Such a front was not a center of fixation; it was merely a slight diversion.
Delbars, Yves. The Real Stalin. London, Allen & Unwin, 1951, p. 323
The plan for an assault across the Channel was finally agreed upon with the British in April 1942, but even after that Churchill repeatedly attempted to persuade Roosevelt to undertake a landing across the Mediterranean. According to Eisenhower, they could not open a second front in 1942-1943 allegedly because they were not prepared for this major combined strategic operation. That was certainly far from the truth. They could have opened a second front in 1943, but they wittingly did not hurry to do so, waiting for our troops to inflict greater damage on Germany’s armed forces, and, consequently, to become more exhausted.
Zhukov, Georgi. Reminiscences and Reflections Vol. 2, Moscow: Progress Pub., c1985, p. 457
STALIN FELT STALINGRAD VICTORY MEANT SU COULD WIN ALONE
In particular, the battle of Stalingrad had brought the decisive turning-point in the whole world war. From that moment on the German armies streamed homewards. The second front in Europe came only after the Battle of Stalingrad. It was natural for Stalin to think that the allies had landed in Europe only because of his victory, in order to forestall him, and that he could have been victorious alone, without the second front. From that moment he was convinced that the Soviet Union alone had conquered the strongest military Power in all history, the Third Reich, and without really effective aid from the Allies, who now were merely reaping the fruit of that victory.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 369
STALIN KNEW NAZI ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN MAJOR LAND LOST AT FIRST
Stalin and the Soviet general staff were aware that the first shock of the Nazi attack would certainly result in considerable territorial loss.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin; Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 121
STALIN SHOWS COURAGE AND BRAVERY IN EARLY DAYS OF THE INVASION
Stalin stayed in Moscow. On November 7, 1941, while German guns roared in the suburbs and Hitler announced Moscow already taken, Stalin reviewed the troops in Red Square.
Strong, Anna Louise. The Stalin Era. New York: Mainstream, 1956, p. 98
In his memoirs, Khrushchev portrays Stalin’s panic and confusion in the first days of the war and later. I saw no such behavior. Stalin did not isolate himself in his dacha until June 30th, 1941. The Kremlin diary shows he was regularly receiving visitors and monitoring the deteriorating situation. From the very beginning of the war, Stalin received Beria & Merkulov [cohead of the Soviet security service] in the Kremlin two or three times a day. They usually returned to NKVD headquarters late at night, or sometimes called in their orders directly from the Kremlin. It appeared to me that the administrative mechanism of command and control was functioning without interruption. In fact, Eitingon and I maintained a deep belief in our ultimate victory because of the calm, clear, businesslike issuance of these orders.
On Nov. 6, 1941, I received an invitation to attend the October Revolution anniversary gathering in the Mayakovsky subway station. Traditionally, these celebrations were held in the Bolshoi Theatre, but this time, for security reasons, it was arranged on the subway platform.
… Stalin spoke for about 30 minutes. I was deeply moved, because his confidence and self-assurance symbolized our ability to resist the Germans.
Sudoplatov, Pavel. Special Tasks. Boston: Little, Brown, c1993, p. 134
This excerpt from Izvestia, #6, 1990 confirms Sudoplatov’s contention that Stalin, contrary to Khrushchev’s claims in his memoirs, was not immobilized by panic after the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941, but rather received a steady stream of visitors at his Kremlin study.
Sudoplatov, Pavel. Special Tasks. Boston: Little, Brown, c1993, p. 433
It is worth recording Dimitrov’s attitude toward Stalin. He, too, spoke of him with admiration and respect, but without any conspicuous flattery or reverence….
He recounted: “When the Germans were outside Moscow, a general uncertainty and confusion ensued. The Soviet government had withdrawn to Kuibyshev. But Stalin remained in Moscow. I was with him at the time, in the Kremlin. They were taking out archives from the Kremlin. I proposed to Stalin that the Comintern direct a proclamation to the German soldiers. He agreed, though he felt no good would come of it. Soon after, I too had to leave Moscow. Stalin did not leave; he was determined to defend it. And at that most dramatic moment he held a parade in Red Square on the anniversary of the October Revolution. The divisions before him were leaving for the front. One cannot express how great a moral significance was exerted when the people learned that Stalin was sitting in Moscow and when they heard his words. It restored their faith and raised their confidence, and it was worth more than a good-sized army.”
Djilas, Milovan. Conversations with Stalin. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962, p. 37
Moscow was bombed by German aviation. Panic began to seize the city’s population. The Nazis were only 80 kilometres away. Part of the administration was evacuated. But Stalin decided to remain in Moscow. The battles became more and more fierce and, in early November, the Nazi offensive was stopped. After consulting with Zhukov, Stalin took the decision to organize the traditional November 7 military parade on Red Square. It was a formidable challenge to the Nazi troops camped at the gates of Moscow. Stalin made a speech, which was broadcast to the entire country.
Martens, Ludo. Another View of Stalin. Antwerp, Belgium: EPO, Lange Pastoorstraat 25-27 2600, p. 247 [p. 224 on the NET]
[In September 1941] The situation at the front is bad…. If it becomes necessary to abandon Moscow we can’t be sure that [the leadership will stand firm–implied]…. In the Instantsia they are not quite sure either that [Stalin will stand firm–implied]…. Stalin stands for war to the end…. While with others…Brest-Litovsk is in the air.
Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich. Notes for a Journal. New York: Morrow, 1955, p. 307
We must get the peasant going and instill in him the hatred of the enemy…. What a brilliant order of Stalin’s to the Army…. “A fighter should not die without leaving the corpse of a German interventionist by his side. Kill him with a machine-gun, or rifle, a bayonet…. If you’re wounded, sink your teeth into his throat and strangle him as you would a wild beast”.
Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich. Notes for a Journal. New York: Morrow, 1955, p. 309
The main blow was aimed directly at the capital, Moscow, whose outskirts were reached by late fall. Almost all the government offices had been evacuated to the east. But Stalin remained in the capital, where he assumed personal command of the war. On Dec. 2, 1941, the Nazis were stopped in the suburbs of Moscow. In December 6, Stalin ordered the first major counterattack to occur in World War II.
Franklin, Bruce, Ed. The Essential Stalin; Major Theoretical Writings. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972, p. 31
As to Stalin’s nerves, or lack of them, his generals make no criticisms. Rather, Marshal Zhukov told a war correspondent that Stalin had ‘nerves of steel’. The correspondent, author Ehrenburg, wrote that the Marshal repeated these words to him several times when they met at a command post near the front line early in the war.
Even General Vlasov who had a great grievance against Stalin and, therefore, cause for resentment, told the Germans upon his capture that Stalin had strong nerves. Speaking to Dr. Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, he said that in the autumn of 1941, when the city of Moscow was threatened by advancing German armies, every one in the Kremlin had lost his nerve but only Stalin insisted on continued resistance to the German invaders.
Axell, Albert. Stalin’s War: Through the Eyes of His Commanders. London, Arms and Armour Press. 1997, p. 168
This is what Kraskyn, Stalin’s confidant and the Press Department’s senior war correspondent, wrote regarding the outbreak of the German-Russo war:
… “Stalin remained at Sochi until the end of the month. The direct telephone line which connected his villa with the Kremlin was in constant use with Molotov at the other end. Stalin never showed bad temper, remained calm, and determined.”
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 139
The Wehrmacht’s first offensive was launched against Moscow for Hitler well knew the city had always been a symbol to the Russians, and that if his troops could conquer this political and spiritual center, it would be a milestone on the road to the defeat of the Soviet Union.
Stalin realized this too. He attended all meetings of the Committee of the Defense of the City, and addressed his people regularly, but despite superhuman efforts by the Red fighting forces and the Soviet population, the Nazi armies advanced inexorably towards Moscow. Stalin was forced to order the evacuation of women and children from the Red capital. He issued an Order of the Day, declaring that Moscow would be defended to the last, and at the same time, a state of siege was proclaimed.
The next day, the Soviet Government and Diplomatic Corps established themselves in Kuibyshev in the middle Volga. Certain Government Departments had been transferred to Kazan and Sverdlovsk. Stalin, Molotov, and other members of the ” Inner Circle,” remained in Moscow.
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 143
Stalin was affable and had the common touch. He showed courage, particularly during the war. During the war, he preferred to work at the dacha rather than in the Kremlin, even though there were no air-raid shelters at the dacha. During an air attack, he would sometimes watch the planes from the roof of the building. According to Rybin, Stalin did not panic in mid-October 1941 when German forward units had reached the suburbs of Moscow. While Beria gave orders to senior party officials for the evacuation of Moscow on the evening of October 15 and although Malenkov and Kaganovich also recommended the move to Kuibyshev, Stalin, in a Kremlin meeting on Oct. 16, announced that he had decided to stay in Moscow.
Laqueur, Walter. Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations. New York: Scribner’s, c1990, p. 148
There were riots in Moscow at the time, and shops were pillaged. According to Rybin, Stalin deliberately showed himself in various parts of the city and talked to people to give a boost to morale. Molotov was sent for three days to Kuibyshev to supervise the transfer of the foreign ministry, but he also confirmed in conversation with Rybin that Stalin had no intention of leaving the capital…. When information was received that an unexploded mine or shell had landed not far from the dacha, Stalin joined the search party–yet another demonstration of personal courage.
…On a visit to Oryol in 1946, he walked the streets accompanied by hundreds of citizens. When they thanked him for having defeated the Germans, he replied modestly: “The people defeated the Germans, not I.”
Laqueur, Walter. Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations. New York: Scribner’s, c1990, p. 149
I am often asked about Stalin’s role in the battle Moscow.
Stalin was in Moscow, in control of the troops and weapons, preparing the enemy’s defeat. He must be given credit for the enormous work in organizing necessary strategic, material, and technical resources which he did as head of the State Committee for Defense with the help of the executive staff of the People’s Commissariats. With strictness and exactingness Stalin achieved the near-impossible.
When I am asked what event in the war impressed me most, I always say: the Battle of Moscow.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 361
For a long time now, there are stories, lies, outright falsifications that the war scared Stalin out of his wits. In view of these lies, let me tell of an incident. On May 5, at a meeting in the Kremlin, one of the scared officers said that the Central Committee armored train is ready and hidden. Stalin really let him have it:…
What kind of nonsense! What kind of safety armored train, when the enemy is inside the borders of the Soviet Union!
You can draw your own conclusion from this statement….
At the beginning of the war with the German attack on the USSR, this news was conveyed to Stalin by Marshall Zhukov. Already at 3 a.m., Stalin came into his office at the Kremlin. After that came in Zhukov and Timoshenko. Stalin regularly walked on the streets of Moscow, even during the flights of German aircraft. But he understood that people must see him amongst themselves, that the leader is with them, that he is in the capital of Moscow, and is heading its defense. Even more effective, he visited command posts on Gorky Street, Zemlianov Valley, Smolensky Square. For the sentries and army personnel, this had a tremendous effect.
Sometimes at the beginning of the war, at about 4 o’clock in the morning, Stalin was on Kaluzhki Square. Underneath, you could hear the crunch of broken glass. Around us, there were wooden homes, ambulances were racing to and fro, taking the dead and tending the wounded civilians and soldiers, right in Moscow. We were surrounded by crying women with children in their arms. Looking at them with tears in his eyes, Stalin told Vlasik:
We must evacuate the children deep into the interior of the country.
All of them stared to ask as to when will the Red Army stop the German Fascists! Stalin tried to console them with these well-known words:
There will be, there will be a holiday and dancing on this street of ours!
After being bombed by German planes, we went into Gorky Street. A woman with a flashlight came up to Stalin and scolded him:
Is it permissible for you to wander on the street, comrade Stalin, during such dangerous times? An enemy could easily drop a bomb on you!
Stalin only opened up his arms. Of course, the lady was correct. He was with us near Kubinka when over 400 planes were in the air, bombing while our fighters tried to shoot them down. After successfully repulsing the enemy, Stalin asked for the names of our pilots who did such an outstanding job. He met Victor Talakhin who did an outstanding job of shooting down German planes.
The enemy knew exactly where Stalin had his Dacha. Stalin risked his life together with all of us. Stalin always looked at the tremendous dogfights over the Dacha, when the Germans desperately tried to kill Stalin and his entourage, knowing in advance that they were there. They dropped bombs near the Dacha, some exploded, others did not, and we had to diffuse them, knowing full well that if they went off, everyone around the perimeter of the Dacha would be killed.
Rybin, Aleksei. Next to Stalin: Notes of a Bodyguard. Toronto: Northstar Compass Journal, 1996, p. 28-30