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Icebreaker (non-fiction book)

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Icebreaker
Original titleTemplate:Lang-ru

Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? (Russian title: Ledokol, Ледокол) is a military history book by the Russian non-fiction author Viktor Suvorov, first published in the 1980s when he was living in the United Kingdom after defecting. Suvorov argued that Stalin planned a conquest of Europe for many years and was preparing to launch a surprise attack of Nazi Germany at the end of summer of 1941 to begin that plan. He says that Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike by Hitler, which the Nazi leader had argued. Since the 1990s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this theory has received some support among historians in some post-Soviet and Central European states, but Western scholars have criticized his conclusions for lack of evidence and documentation.

Content

Suvorov first wrote about the theory in a short 1985 article.[1] He expanded on it in his book Icebreaker and in subsequent books, ending with the 2008 monograph, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’l's Grand Design to Start World War II.[2] He says that in 1930s, Stalin was planning a conquest of Europe, had been working toward this objective for many years, and directed his military to plan for it.[3]

Suvorov argues that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was engineered by Stalin to provoke Hitler to start a conflict with Western powers,[4] which would have led to mutual exhaustion of "capitalist powers". Then, Stalin planned to seize an opportune moment to attack Germany from the east, overrun Europe, and establish Soviet control.[4] Suvorov considers Operation Barbarossa to have been a pre-emptive strike by Hitler,[5] an act of self-defence in an attempt to prevent imminent Red Army assault.[6]

He argued that Soviet ground forces were well-organized and mobilized en masse along the German–Soviet frontier for a Soviet invasion of Europe slated for Sunday, July 6, 1941, but they were unprepared to defend their own territory.

He claimed that maps and phrasebooks issued to Soviet troops supported that theory. Military topographic maps, unlike other military supplies, are strictly local and cannot be used elsewhere than in the intended operational area. Suvorov claims that Soviet units were issued with maps of Germany and German-occupied territory and phrasebooks including questions about SA offices, which were found only in German territory proper. In contrast, maps of Soviet territory were scarce. Notably, after the German attack, the officer responsible for maps, Lieutenant General MK Kudryavtsev, was not punished by Stalin, who was known for extreme punishments after failures to obey his orders. According to Suvorov, that demonstrates that Kudryavtsev was obeying the orders of Stalin, who simply did not expect a German attack.[7]

Suvorov offers as another piece of evidence the extensive effort Stalin took to conceal general mobilization by manipulating the laws setting the conscription age. That allowed Stalin to provide the expansive buildup of the Red Army. Since there was no universal military draft in the Soviet Union until 1939, by enacting the universal military draft on 1 September 1939 (the date that World War II had begun) and by changing the minimum age for joining the Red Army from 21 to 18, Stalin triggered a mechanism to achieve a dramatic increase in the military strength of the Red Army.

This specific law on mobilization allowed the Red Army to increase its army of 1,871,600 men in 1939 to 5,081,000 in the spring of 1941 under secrecy to avoid alarming the rest of the world.[8] Also, 18,000,000 reservists were drafted[citation needed] for a duration of service of 2 years. Thus, according to supporters of that theory, the Red Army had to enter a war by 1 September 1941, or the drafted soldiers would have to be released from service.

Points

Suvorov's main points include the following:

  • The Soviet Union was intrinsically unstable. It had to expand to survive. According to Suvorov's interpretation of the permanent revolution theory, the communist system had to expand and occupy the entire world to survive. Otherwise, the system would fail in a peaceful and/or military struggle with surrounding "capitalist" countries. Stalin and other Soviet leaders opposed that and high-ranking officials who supported "permanent revolution" were purged from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Stalin publicly declared that "the ultimate victory of socialism... can only be achieved on an international scale".[9] Under that theory, Soviet leaders therefore started preparations for a large-scale war of aggression. They officially declared an adherence to the theory of "Socialism in One Country" according to which socialism can win in a single country, without being immediately overthrown by hostile capitalist neighbors. The leading country would then help revolutionary movements in other countries. Either way, the Soviet prewar doctrine was based on the Marxism-Leninism theory that capitalism will be overthrown through communist revolution.
  • The Soviet Union made extensive preparations for a future war of aggression in the 1920s and the 1930s. Suvorov provides an extensive analysis of Stalin's preparations for war. According to Suvorov, there were supposed to be three Five-Year Plan phases to prepare the Soviet Union for war. The first focused on collectivization, the second on industrialisation, and the third on the militarization of the country.
  • Stalin escalated tensions in Europe by providing a combination of economic and military support to Weimar Germany and later to Nazi Germany (see Germany–Soviet Union relations before 1941). After World War I, the Entente attempted to impose severe restrictions on Weimar Germany to prevent it from rearming and again becoming a significant military threat. During "the early 1920s until 1933, the Soviet Union was engaged in secret collaboration with the German military to enable it to circumvent the provisions of the Versailles Treaty", which limited Germany's military production.[10] Moscow allowed the Germans to produce and test their weapons on Soviet territory, and some Red Army officers attended general-staff courses in Germany.[10] The basis for that collaboration was the Treaty of Rapallo, signed between the two nations in 1922 and subsequent diplomatic interactions. The collaboration ended when the anticommunist Nazis took power in 1933. However, in 1932 and 1933, "Stalin helped Hitler come to power by forbidding German Communists to make common cause with the Social Democrats against the Nazis in parliamentary elections".[10] Suvorov claims that Stalin's plan and vision was that Hitler's predictability and his violent reactionary ideas made him a candidate for the role of "icebreaker" for the communist revolution. By starting wars with European countries, Hitler would validate the Soviet entry into World War II by attacking Nazi Germany and "liberating" and Sovietizing all of Europe. When he concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, Stalin "clearly counted on the repetition of the 1914–1918 war of attrition, which would leave the "capitalist" countries so exhausted that the USSR could sweep into Europe virtually unopposed"[10] (see also Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939).
  • According to Suvorov and others, Stalin always planned to exploit military conflict between the capitalist countries to his advantage. He said as early as 1925, "Struggles, conflicts and wars among our enemies are... our great ally... and the greatest supporter of our government and our revolution" and "If a war does break out, we will not sit with folded arms – we will have to take the field, but we will be last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive load on the scale".[10]
  • World War II was initiated by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, which became co-belligerents after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The essence of the pact was in the secret protocols, which divided Europe into spheres of influence and removed the Polish buffer between Germany and the Soviet Union. Some countries that fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, Estonia and Latvia, were occupied. The difference between the smaller nations, occupied and annexed by the Soviets, and Poland, which was initially attacked by Germany, was that Poland had military assistance guarantees from Great Britain and France.
  • Stalin planned to attack Nazi Germany from the rear in July 1941, only a few weeks after the date on which the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union took place. According to Suvorov, the Red Army had already redeployed from a defensive to an offensive stance. Suvorov also states that Stalin had made no major defensive preparations.
  • Hitler's intelligence identified the Soviet preparations to attack Germany. Therefore, the Wehrmacht had drafted a pre-emptive war plan based on Hitler's orders as early as mid-1940, soon after the Soviet annexations of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. On June 22, 1941, the Axis began an assault on the Soviet Union.

The book is based on an analysis of Soviet military investments, diplomatic maneuvers, Politburo speeches and other circumstantial evidences.[4]

Reception

Icebreaker and subsequent books by Suvorov had sparkled what is currently known as "Suvorov's debates".[11] Suvorov's concept had not survived scrutiny,[12] and only few authors now take the main Suvorov's thesis about prewar Soviet plans for Europe conquest[3] (another extreme view, expressed by Carley, is that the Soviets had no aggressive plans at all[13]). It is currently believed that whereas the war against "capitalist powers" was seen as potentially inevitable by Soviet leadership and the Soviet Union was making some preparations for war, the Soviet pursuit for collective security system in Europe, or "Litvinov's line", was sincere in late 1930s, and the event that marked active Soviet war preparations was the rapid collapse of the Anglo-French alliance in 1940.[3]

"Suvorov's debates"

The Suvorov's thesis has been strongly criticised by many scholars.[5] The book is seen as an "anti-Soviet tract" in Western countries[14] and is generally discredited.[15][16]

Most historians believe that Stalin was seeking to avoid war in 1941, as he believed that his military was not ready to fight the German forces.[17]

Many historians have written in response to Suvorov's views, Gabriel Gorodetsky and David Glantz authored books debunking his claims.[18][19][20] Suvorov received some support from Valeri Danilov, Joachim Hoffmann, Mikhail Meltyukhov and Vladimir Nevezhin.[21][5]

Glantz argues that Soviet Union simply was not ready for the war in summer 1941[22] Robin Edmonds said that "the Red Army planning staff would not have been doing its job if it had not devoted some time between 1939 and 1941 to the possibility, at some future date, of a pre-emptive strike against Wehrmacht".[23] David Brandenberger said that recently-published pre-1941 German analysis of Soviet military readiness came to conclusion that Soviet preparations were assessed to be "defensive" by German intelligence.[24]

Public reception

The book was enthusiastically accepted by a fraction of a German society that hoped to reintroduce Hitler as a legitimate part of the patriotic historical discourse.[25] In post-Soviet Russia, whose collapse of communist ideology coincided with the wave of criticism of Stalin's rule, the Icebreaker thesis about Stalin's responsibility for World War II outbreak and about Soviet plans for world conquest found a considerable support in many of society who wanted to disassociate themselves with the uncomfortable past.[25]

See also

References

  1. ^ Suvorov , V. [pseud.] (1985) "Who was planning to attack whom in June 1941, Hitler or Stalin?", in Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, 130 (2): 50 – 55.
  2. ^ Suvorov, V.[pseud.] (2008) The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. Annapolis, MD : Naval Institute Press.
  3. ^ a b c Alexander Hill. "Soviet Planning for War, 1928 – June 1941", in Zeiler, Thomas W., DuBois, Daniel M., eds. Companion to World War Two, 1. World War, 1939–1945. ISBN 978-1-4051-9681-9, 2013, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. p. 93
  4. ^ a b c Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War. Soviet Russia in the Second World War. Vintage Books. p. 100-104. ISBN 978-0-375-72471-8.
  5. ^ a b c Uldricks, Teddy (Autumn 1999). "The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?". Slavic Review. 58 (3): 628–634. doi:10.2307/2697571. JSTOR 2697571.
  6. ^ Teddy J. Uldricks, "Icebreaker Redux: The Debate on Stalin's Role in World War II Continues", in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Volume 11, Number 3, Summer 2010 (New Series), pp. 649–660 (Review). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/kri.0.0177
  7. ^ Suvorov, Viktor. The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008.
  8. ^ V. Suvorov, The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War 2 Naval Institute Press (2008)
  9. ^ Pravda, February 14, 1938, cited from V. Suvorov Last Republic (Последняя республика), ACT, 1997, ISBN 5-12-000367-2, pages 75–76
  10. ^ a b c d e Richard Pipes Communism: A History (2001) ISBN 0-8129-6864-6, pages 74–75.
  11. ^ Alexander Hill, The Icebreaker Controversy and Soviet Intentions in 1941: The Plan for the Strategic Deployment of Soviet Forces of 15 May and Other Key Documents. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 21(1), 113–128, (2008), Routledge, doi = 10.1080/13518040801894258, stable URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/13518040801894258.
  12. ^ Imlay, T.C., Strategies, Commands, and Tactics, 1939–1941. in Zeiler, Thomas W., DuBois, Daniel M., eds. Companion to World War Two. 1. World War, 1939–1945. ISBN 978-1-4051-9681-9, 2013, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. p. 429.
  13. ^ Michael Jabara Carley, End of the 'Low, Dishonest Decade': Failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance in 1939. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (1993), pp. 303–341. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/152863
  14. ^ Roberts, Cynthia (1995). "Planning for War: The Red Army and the Catastrophe of 1941". Europe-Asia Studies. 47 (8): 1326. doi:10.1080/09668139508412322.
  15. ^ Hugh Ragsdale. The Munich Crisis and the Issue of Red Army Transit across Romania. The Russian Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 614-617: Viktor Suvorov, Icebreaker.- Who Started the Second World War?"
  16. ^ Jonathan Haslam. Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia 1941: A Failure of Reasons of State? International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–), Vol. 76, No.1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 133–139:", Jonathan Haslam. Soviet-German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out. The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 69, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 785–797
  17. ^ Bar-Joseph, Uri; Levy, Jack S. (Fall 2009). "Conscious Action and Intelligence Failure". Political Science Quarterly. 124 (3): 476–477. doi:10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00656.x.
  18. ^ Evan Mawdsley. Crossing the Rubicon: Soviet Plans for Offensive War in 1940–1941. The International History Review, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Dec., 2003), pp. 818–865. Stable URL: [1]
  19. ^ A. L. Weeks, Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939–41 (Lanham, 2002), pp. 2–3.
  20. ^ Glantz, David M., Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of War, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998, ISBN 0-7006-0879-6 p. 4.
  21. ^ Bar-Joseph, Uri; Levy, Jack S. (Fall 2009). "Conscious Action and Intelligence Failure". Political Science Quarterly. 124 (3): 476. doi:10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00656.x.
  22. ^ Author(s): David M. Glantz. Reviewed work(s): "Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?" by Viktor Suvorov. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 263–264 Published by: Society for Military History
  23. ^ Robin Edmonds. Reviewed work(s): Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? by Viktor Suvorov. Source: International Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 4, Seventieth Anniversary Issue (Oct., 1990), p. 812
  24. ^ David Brandenberger. Reviewed work(s):Sekrety Gitlera na Stole u Stalina: Razvedka i Kontrrazvedka o Podgotovke Germanskoi Agressii Protiv SSSR, Mart-Iyun' 1941 g. Dokumenty iz Tsentral'nogo Arkhiva FSB. Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Jun., 1997), pp. 748–749
  25. ^ a b Jonathan Haslam. Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia 1941: A Failure of Reasons of State? International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–), Vol. 76, No.1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 133–139. Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2626201

Further reading

  • Ernst Topitsch. Stalin's War A Radical New Theory of The Origins Of The Second World War (Gunter Olzog Verlag GmbH, 1985; English language translation by Arthur Taylor, 1987) ISBN 0-312-00989-5
  • Suvorov, Viktor. Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? (Viking Press/Hamish Hamilton; 1990) ISBN 0-241-12622-3
  • Glantz, David. Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War. University Press of Kansas (May 1998), ISBN 0-7006-0879-6
  • Gorodetsky, Gabriel. Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia. Yale University Press (2001) ISBN 0300084595
  • Suvorov, Viktor. The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. Potomac Books (July 20, 2007) ISBN 1-59797-114-6
  • Short, Neil The Stalin and Molotov Lines: Soviet Western Defences 1928–41. Osprey Publishing; (September 23, 2008) ISBN 1846031923
  • (in Russian) "Posledniy Mif" (The Last Myth). Vladimir Sinelnikov and Igor Shevtsov. "KLOTO". 1999. Film.
  • Uldricks, Teddy (Autumn 1999). "The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?". Slavic Review. 58 (3): 630. doi:10.2307/2697571. JSTOR 2697571. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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