Viktor Suvorov

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Viktor Suvorov (Ви́ктор Суво́ров; real name Vladimir Rezun : Влади́мир Богда́нович Резу́н) (born April 20, 1947) is a Russian writer and historian. He served in the Soviet Army and worked in Soviet military intelligence (GRU). He escaped to the United Kingdom in 1978 where he worked as an intelligence analyst and lecturer. He made his name writing books about Russian History, the Soviet Army, GRU, and Spetsnaz.

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

Contents

[edit] Publications and ideas

Suvorov has written several books about his Soviet Army experiences and also joined the team led by the British General Sir John Hackett in writing the book The Third World War: The Untold Story[1] . Published in 1982, this book was the sequel to the 1978 original The Third World War[2], in which Hackett and his team had speculated about the possible course of a Soviet/NATO war in Germany.

However Suvorov is best known for books about Stalin's times in a polemic, popular-science style, an approach considered unacceptable by some professional historians. The first such work was Icebreaker. Suvorov used hundreds of Soviet-era memoir books and other publicly accessible sources, claiming that the actual reason behind initial Soviet defeats in 1941 was Stalin's intention to strike Germany himself. Thus, according to Suvorov, Stalin had used Hitler as an Icebreker. Other books followed about World War II, and were based on fragments of officially written memoirs and Soviet documents. Suvorov's most significant thesis is that Stalin wished to extend his Socialism in One Country thesis by igniting a war among "imperialist" countries and later "liberating" Europe.

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

Suvorov reminded the reader that all of the USSR's pre-war doctrine was based on Marxism-Leninism, which dictated that capitalism will be overthrown through communist revolution. Suvorov documented that USSR's leader Joseph Stalin understood that capitalist societies wouldn't normally accept a vision of Leninism. Therefore Suvorov demonstrated the USSR's patient approach to escalating tensions in Europe by providing a combination of economical and military support to Hitler. According to Stalin's plan and vision, Hitler's unpredictability and his revisionist ideas, described in his book Mein Kampf, made him a potential candidate to the role of "icebreaker" of communist revolution by starting wars with the European countries that would warrant the USSR to join World War II by assaulting Nazi Germany and "liberating", and sovietizing European countries.

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

Suvorov's theory postulates that after Germany occupied Poland, defeated Poland's ally France and started preparations to occupy the British Isles (Operation Seelöwe), Hitler's intelligence identified USSR's preparations of gigantic proportions to assault Germany.

In 1940 the Wehrmacht drafted a preemptive war plan and on June 22, 1941 launched an assault on USSR, preventing the USSR's strike against Eastern and Central Europe in July 1941. Had this planned invasion taken place, it would have fallen only two weeks after the date on which the actual Axis invasion of the Soviet Union took place. Suvorov claimed that Stalin had made no major defensive preparations. On the contrary, the so-called Stalin line (fortifications through Belarus-Ukraine) was dismantled, and the new Molotov line was all but finished till the time of Nazi invasion. As Suvorov tries to prove with his sources, the latter fortifications were actually built in unimportant places, which might show the lack of Soviet defensive intentions.

The idea about Stalin's preparations to strike prior to the Axis invasion was proposed earlier by dissident Pyotr Grigorenko. Suvorov evolved it in further detail and worked to substantiate it in his own books.

Suvorov's books have been hotly debated as they contradict the traditional theories about Soviet planning concerning the Second World War.

Suvorov's books may appear under slightly different titles depending upon the publisher; for example, Aquarium, published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton, subsequently appeared in the United States as Inside the Aquarium.

Suvorov's books and comments about the Russian Armed forces have been dismissed by most professional Western historians as a combination of hyperbole and made up facts. It has been proposed that Suvorov was under pressure to retain his status as a high-profile defector of some worth so he manufactured his claims and evidence. Many military historians are skeptical of Suvorov's works. One writer supportive of Suvorov’s thesis is Mikhail Meltyukhov in his book Stalin's Missed Chance [3]. Most of Meltyukhov's material comes from various Russian state archives. (For a review of the book see [2]).

[edit] Criticism and Support

[edit] Criticism

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

One criticism of Suvorov's work is that he did not complete his analysis of the disastrous beginning of the war. While it may be possible that Suvorov is correct in discerning Stalin's true plans and exposing the huge hardware potential of the Soviet military machine, he unreasonably dismisses the traditional arguments about problems plaguing the Red Army — Among these: poor leadership after the purges of 1938 and low morale. While Suvorov attempted to address these points in his later books, the dispute remains unsettled.

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

An example of Suvorov's arguments is his citation of the development of the KT/A-40 Antonov "flying tank" as evidence of Stalin's aggressive plans. Critics suggest that much of this type of evidence is not convincing, or can be explained in terms other than those of Suvorov.

Military historian David Glantz disputed the argument that the Red Army was deployed in an offensive stance in 1941. Glantz work demonstrates that the Red Army was in a state of partial mobilization in July 1941 from which neither effective defensive nor offensive action could be offered without considerable delay. Regarding Hitler's alleged pre-emptive intentions, Erickson has claimed that “what really concerned Hitler was not Soviet aggression but Soviet concessions to Germany, which could frustrate his own grand design, depriving him of a pretext to attack.”[4]

Another criticism of Suvorov's position includes the claim that there is no evidence that Stalin ever "encouraged" Hitler to start WWII. In his political works, Stalin was always firmly opposed to Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, implementation of which regarded worldwide war and other countries' usurpation as necessary (because practice showed that war, the ultimate devastation, could create revolutionary conditions that usually did not occur in any natural way). Stalin instead insisted on the policy of Socialism in One Country which promoted separation and peaceful standalone development of socialism in a selected country, while waiting for two-stage revolutions that would lead other countries to socialism. Conventional theory states that Stalin prepared the Soviet Army for international war because he knew he would have to free Europe of Fascism, and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was nothing more than the way to suspend the war with Nazism - exactly for the purpose to have time for preparations that Suvorov's researches exposed. However, it is Suvorov's contention[5] that the Communist system inherently demands both outward claims of peaceful intent, and the secret but nevertheless inescapable long-term imperative of the conversion of capitalist states to Communism lest those living under Communism draw unfavourable comparison. Under this theory, whether Hitler would ever have attacked the Soviet Union or not is irrelevant; the mere existence of a non-Communist state is by definition complete justification for aggression. Suvorov cites Soviet attitudes towards Romania as an example of this; although the Ceauşescu regime maintained an aggressively independent stance towards the Soviet Union for many years, no invasion took place such as were launched against Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968; because, Suvorov claims, no Soviet citizen envied the Romanians.

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

Suvorov's critics argue that the suggestion that Stalin regarded war with Nazi Germany as inevitable sits oddly with the undisputed fact that the attack by Nazi Germany in 1941 took Stalin completely by surprise. On the other hand, the fact that Stalin was taken completely by surprise doesn't suit the established history either, as it is often claimed that Stalin was paranoical about a possible foreign invasion and had concentrated on defensive policies. The criticism was addressed in detail in Suvorov's book Suicide.

[edit] Support

While most of the Western researchers (the exception being Albert L. Weeks[6][3]) reject or simply ignore Suvorov's thesis, he has gathered some support among Russian professional historians. Throughout the 1990s, a debate was carried out among the Russian historians. Support for Suvorov's claim that Stalin had been preparing a strike against Hitler in 1941 began to emerge, as some archive materials were declassified. Authors to support assault thesis are V.D.Danilov[7], V.A.Nevezhin[8], Constantine Pleshakov and B.V. Sokolov[9]. As the latter has noted, the absence of documents with the precise date of the planned Soviet invasion can't be an argument in favor of the claim that this invasion was not planned at all. Although the USSR attacked Finland, there are no documents found, which would indicate November 26, 1939 as the previously assumed date for beginning of the provocations or November 30 as the date of the planned Soviet assault.[4]

A noteworthy result of the discussion that followed, is Mikhail Meltyukhov's study Stalin's Missed Chance. The author states that the idea to strike Germany arose long before May of 1941 and was the very basis of Soviet military planning from 1940 to 1941. Contary to popular opinion, no significant defense plans have been found (Meltyukhov 2000:375). In his argumentation, Meltyukhov covers five different versions of the assault plan (“Considerations on the Strategical Deployment of Soviet Troops in Case of War with Germany and its Allies” (Russian original)), the first version of which was developed soon after the outbreak of World War II. The last version was to be completed by May 1, 1941 (Meltyukhov 2000:370-372). Even the deployment of troops was chosen in South, which would have been more beneficial in case of Soviet assault (Meltyukhov 2000:381).

Suvorov's theories agree with some statements of the former Prime Minister of Estonia Mart Laar. On August 20, 2004 he published an article in Wall Street Journal titled When Will Russia Say 'Sorry'?. In this article he said: The new evidence shows that by encouraging Hitler to start World War II, Stalin hoped to simultaneously ignite a world-wide revolution and conquer all of Europe. Another former statesman to share views of Soviet aggression plan is Mauno Koivisto, who wrote: It seems to be clear the Soviet Union was not ready for defense in the summer of 1941, but it was rather preparing for an assault... The forces mobilized in the Soviet Union were not positioned for defensive but for offensive aims. Koivisto concludes: Hitler's invasion forces didn't outnumber [the Soviets], but were rather outnumbered themselves. The Soviets were unable to organize defenses. The troops were provided with maps that covered territories outside the Soviet Union. [10]

In Stalin's War of Extermination Joachim Hoffmann makes extensive use of interrogations of Soviet prisoners of war, ranging in rank from general to private, conducted by their German captors during the war. These interviews, combined with the traditional exploitation of open-source, unclassified literature and recently declassified materials, irrefutably dispel the myth of a peace-loving Soviet Union led by a trusting, pacific Joseph Stalin. Hoffmann's research confirms conclusively that the Soviet Union was making final preparations for its own attack when the Wehrmacht struck. Hoffmann makes manifestly clear that the Zhukov's plan of May 15, 1941 has long been known and analyzed. Colonel Valeri Danilov and Dr. Heinz Magenheimer examined this plan and other documents that indicate Soviet preparations for attack almost ten years ago in an Austrian military journal (Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift, nos. 5 and 6, 1991; no. 1, 1993; and no. 1, 1994). Both researchers concluded that the Zhukov plan of May 15, 1941, reflected Stalin's May 5, 1941 speech heralding the birth of the new offensive Red Army.

In 2006, a collection of articles (entitled The Truth of Viktor Suvorov) by various historians, who share some views with Suvorov, was published.[11]

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Books by Viktor Suvorov

[edit] Books and articles by other authors

[edit] Pro or partially pro

  • The Attack on the Soviet Union (Germany and the Second World War, Volume IV) by Horst Boog, Jürgen Förster, Joachim Hoffmann, Ewald Osers, Louise Wilmott, Dean S. McMurray (Editors), Ernst Klink (Translator), Rolf-Dieter Müller (Translator), Gerd R. Ueberschär (Translator). New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 1999 (ISBN 0-19-822886-4).
  • Dębski, Sławomir. Między Berlinem a Moskwą: Stosunki niemiecko-sowieckie 1939–1941. Warsaw: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2003 (ISBN 83-918046-2-3).
    • Reviewed by R.C. Raack in The Russian Review, 2004, Vol. 63, Issue 4, pp. 718–719.
  • Hoffmann, Joachim. Stalin's War of Extermination. Capshaw, AL: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2001 (ISBN 0-9679856-8-4).
  • Maser, Werner Der Wortbruch. Hitler, Stalin und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Olzog, München 1994. ISBN 3-7892-8260-X
  • Maser, Werner Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin, Olzog, München 2004. ISBN 3789281344
  • Pleshakov, Constantine. Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War Two on the Eastern Front. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005 (ISBN 0-618-36701-2).
  • Raack, R.C. "Did Stalin Plan a Drang Nach Westen?", World Affairs. Vol. 155, Issue 4. (Summer 1992), pp. 13–21.
  • Raack, R.C. "Preventive Wars?" [Review Essay of Pietrow-Ennker, Bianka, ed. Präventivkrieg? Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion. 3d ed. Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-596-14497-3; Mel'tiukhov, Mikhail. Upushchennyi shans Stalina: Sovetskii Soiuz i bor'ba za Evropu 1939–1941. Moscow: Veche, 2000. ISBN 5-7838-1196-3; Magenheimer, Heinz. Entscheidungskampf 1941: Sowjetische Kriegsvorbereitungen. Aufmarsch. Zusammenstoss. Bielefeld: Osning Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-9806286-1-4] The Russian Review, 2004, Vol. 63, Issue 1, pp. 134–137.
  • Raack, R.C. [Review of] Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941-1945 by Joachim Hoffmann, Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Summer, 1996), pp. 493–494.
  • Raack, R.C. "Stalin's Role in the Coming of World War II: Opening the Closet Door on a Key Chapter of Recent History", World Affairs. Vol. 158, Issue 4, 1996, pp. 198–211.
  • Raack, R.C. Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938–1945: The Origins of the Cold War. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. (ISBN 0-8047-2415-6).
  • Raack, R.C. "Stalin's Plans for World War Two Told by a High Comintern Source", The Historical Journal, Vol. 38, No. 4. (Dec., 1995), pp. 1031–1036.
  • Raack, R.C. "[Review:] Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941–1945", Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Summer, 1996), pp. 493–494.
  • Raack, R.C. "[Review:] Unternehmen Barbarossa: Deutsche und Sowjetische Angriffspläne 1940/41 by Walter Post; Die sowjetische Besatzungsmacht und das politishe System der SBZ by Stefan Creuzberger", Slavic Review, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Sring, 1998), pp. 212–214.
  • Topitsch, Ernst. Stalin's War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987 (ISBN 0-312-00989-5).
  • Weeks, Albert L. Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939–1941. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002 (hardcover; ISBN 0-7425-2191-5); 2003 (paperback, ISBN 0-7425-2192-3).
  • Ziemke, Earl F. The Red Army, 1918–1941: From Vanguard of World Revolution to America's Ally. London; New York: Frank Cass, 2004 (ISBN 0-7146-5551-1).

[edit] Contra

  • Acton, Edward. "Understanding Stalin’s Catastrophe: [Review Article]", Journal of Contemporary History, 2001, Vol. 36(3), pp. 531–540.
  • Erickson, John. "Barbarossa June 1941: Who Attacked Whom?" History Today, July 2001, Vol. 51, Issue 7, pp. 11–17. online text
  • Edmonds, Robin. "[Review: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?", International Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 4. (Oct., 1990), p. 812.
  • Glantz, David M. Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998 (ISBN 0-7006-0879-6).
    • Reviewed by David R. Costello in The Journal of Military History, Vol. 63, No. 1. (Jan., 1999), pp. 207–208.
    • Reviewed by Roger Reese in Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 1. (Spring, 2000), p. 227.
  • Glantz, David M. "[Review: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?", The Journal of Military History, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Apr., 1991), pp. 263–264.
  • Gorodetsky, Gabriel. Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1999 (ISBN 0-300-07793-0).
    • Reviewed by David R. Costello in The Journal of Military History, Vol. 64, No. 2. (Apr., 1999), pp. 580–582.
    • Reviewed by Stephen Blank in The Russian Review, 2000, Vol. 59, Issue 2, pp. 310–311.
    • Reviewed by Hugh Ragsdale in Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 2. (Summer, 2000), pp. 466–467.
    • Reviewed by Evan Mawdsley in Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3. (May, 2000), pp. 579–580.
  • Lukacs, John. June 1941: Hitler and Stalin. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-300-11437-0).
  • Murphy, David E. What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2005 (ISBN 0-300-10780-3).
  • Roberts, Cynthia A. "Planning for War: The Red Army and the Catastrophe of 1941", Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 47, No. 8. (Dec., 1995), pp. 1293–1326.
  • Rotundo, Louis. "Stalin and the Outbreak of War in 1941", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 24, No. 2, Studies on War. (Apr., 1989), pp. 277–299.
  • Gerd R. Ueberschär, Lev A. Bezymenskij (Hrsg.): Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion 1941. Die Kontroverse um die Präventivkriegsthese Wissenschaftliche Buchgemeinschaft, Darmstadt 1998 (der Band enthält alle wichtigen Dokumente)

[edit] Neutral, cautious approach

  • Keep, John L.H.; Litvin, Alter L. Stalinism: Russian and Western Views at the Turn of the Millennium (Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions). New York: Routledge, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 0415351081); 2005 (paperback, ISBN 041535109X).
    • Mainly chapter 5, "Foreign policy"

[edit] Other

  • Ericson, Edward E., III. "Karl Schnurre and the Evolution of Nazi–Soviet Relations, 1936–1941", German Studies Review, Vol. 21, No. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 263–283.
  • Förster, Jürgen; Mawdsley, Evan. "Hitler and Stalin in Perspective: Secret Speeches on the Eve of Barbarossa", War in History, , Vol. 11, Issue 1. (2004), pp. 61–103.
  • Haslam, Jonathan. "Soviet–German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out [Reivew Article]", The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 69, No. 4. (Dec., 1997), pp. 785–797.
  • Haslam, Jonathan. "Stalin and the German Invasion of Russian 1941: A Failure of Reasons of State?", International Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Jan., 2000), pp. 133–139.
  • Humpert, David M. "Viktor Suvorov and Operation Barbarossa: Tukhachevskii Revisited." Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2005, 18, pp. 59–74.
  • Koch, H.W. "Operation Barbarossa—The Current State of the Debate", The Historical Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), pp. 377–390.
  • Roberts, Geoffrey. "On Soviet–German Relations: The Debate Continues [A Review Article]", Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 8. (Dec., 1998), pp. 1471–1475.
  • Uldricks, Teddy J. "The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?" The Slavic Review, 1999, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 626–643.
  • Vasquez, John A. "The Causes of the Second World War in Europe: A New Scientific Explanation", International Political Science Review, Vol. 17, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp. 161–178.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Third World War: The Untold Story ISBN 0-283-98863-0
  2. ^ The Third World War ISBN 0-425-04477-7
  3. ^ Мельтюхов М.И. Упущенный шанс Сталина. (electronic version of the book)
  4. ^ Barbarossa June 1941: Who Attacked Whom? by John Erickson [1]
  5. ^ Inside the Soviet Army, 1982, Macmillan Publishing Co.
  6. ^ Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941 ISBN 0-7425-2191-5
  7. ^ Данилов.В.Д. Сталинская стратегия начала войны: планы и реальность -- Другая война. 1939-1945 гг; or Danilоv V. Hat der Generalsstab der Roten Armee einen Praventiveschlag gegen Deutschland vorbereitet? // Österreichische Militarische Zeitschrift. 1993. №1. S. 41-51
  8. ^ Невежин В.А. Синдром наступательной войны. Советская пропаганда в преддверии "священных боев", 1939-1941 гг. М., 1997; Речь Сталина 5 мая 1941 года и апология наступательной войны online text
  9. ^ Соколов Б.В. Неизвестный Жуков: портрет без ретуши в зеркале эпохи. (online text); Соколов Б.В. Правда о Великой Отечественной войне (Сборник статей). — СПб.: Алетейя, 1999 (online text)
  10. ^ Koivisto, M. Venäjän idea, Helsinki. Tammi. 2001
  11. ^ Хмельницкий, Дмитрий (сост.). Правда Виктора Суворова. Переписывая историю Второй Мировой. Москва: Яуза, 2006 (ISBN 5-87849-214-8); some of the articles are here:

[edit] External links

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