The Soviet offensive plans controversy refers to the debate among historians on the question of whether Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 was planning to invade Germany prior to Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

.

Background

Immediately after the German invasion of the USSR

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 put forward a thesis that the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 made extensive preparations for an offensive war in Europe, thus justifying the German invasion as a pre-emptive strike

Pre-Emptive Strike

Pre-Emptive Strike is the first release by Five Finger Death Punch on July 10, 2007. It was only released as a digital download to the American iTunes Music Store. The live version of "The Devil's Own" was recorded at a performance in Las Vegas, Nevada....

. After war this view was brought forward by some Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 leaders, like Wilhelm Keitel

Wilhelm Keitel

Wilhelm Bodewin Gustav Keitel was a German field marshal . As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II...

.

Suvorov, "Icebreaker", and the 1980s

In the 1980s, this thesis was reiterated by Victor Suvorov, a former officer of the Soviet military intelligence

GRU

GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

 in his book "Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War

Icebreaker (Suvorov)

Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, by Viktor Suvorov is a 1987 documentary book, which alleges that World War II started as a result of Joseph Stalin's ploy to "liberate" the working class of Europe and eventually the whole world.-Suvorov's thesis:Suvorov challenges the widely-accepted...

" and several subsequent books. He argued that Soviet ground forces were extremely well organized, and were mobilizing en masse all along the German-Soviet border for a Soviet invasion of Europe slated for Sunday July 6, 1941, but they were totally unprepared for defensive operations on their own territory.

One of Suvorov's pieces of evidence favoring the theory of an impending Soviet attack was his claim regarding the maps and phrasebooks issued to Soviet troops. Military topographic maps, unlike other military supplies, are strictly local and cannot be used elsewhere than in the intended operational area. Suvorov claims Soviet units were issued with maps of Germany and German-occupied territory, and phrasebooks including questions about SA offices — SA offices 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 M.K. Kudryavtsev was not punished by Stalin, who was known for extreme punishments after failures to obey his orders. According to Suvorov, this demonstrates that General Kudryavtsev was obeying the orders of Stalin, who simply did not expect a German attack.

Another piece of evidence, according to Suvorov, was the extensive effort Stalin took to conceal general mobilization by manipulation with the laws setting the conscription age. That allowed Stalin to provide the explosive build up 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, and by changing the minimum age for joining the Red Army from 21 to 18, Stalin triggered a mechanism of explosive increase of the military strength of the Red Army.

This specific law on mobilization allowed the Red Army to increase its army of 1.871.600 million men in 1939 to 5.081.000 million men in the spring of 1941 under secrecy to avoid alarming the rest of the world. 18 million reservists were also drafted. The duration of service was 2 years. Thus, according to supporters of the Soviet Union Offensive Plans 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

The main Suvorov's points were:

• The Soviet Union was intrinsically unstable, as any other communist regime must be. It had to expand to survive. According to the permanent revolution theory
  Permanent Revolution
  Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical...
  
   the communist system must expand and occupy the entire world to survive. Otherwise, it will fail in a peaceful and/or military struggle with surrounding “capitalist” countries. Stalin and other Soviet leaders had always understood this. It was publicly declared by Stalin that "the ultimate victory of socialism... can only be achieved on an international scale". Therefore, Soviet leaders started preparations for a massive war of aggression. However, to mislead the West, they officially declared an adherence to a more peaceful theory of Socialism in One Country
  Socialism in One Country
  Socialism in One Country was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin in 1924, elaborated by Nikolai Bukharin in 1925 and finally adopted as state policy by Stalin...
  
  , according to which Socialism can win in a single country, without being immediately overthrown by hostile "capitalist" neighbors. This leading country would then help revolutionary movements in other countries. Either way, the Soviet pre-war doctrine was based on Marxism-Leninism
  Marxism-Leninism
  Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
  
   theory that capitalism
  Capitalism
  Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
  
   will be overthrown through Communist revolution
  Communist revolution
  A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...
  
  .

• The Soviet Union made extensive preparations for the future war of aggression during the 1920s and 30s. Suvorov provides an extensive analysis of Stalin's preparation for war. Stalin, the leader of the Communist party
  Communist party
  A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
  
   officially announced three phases that should lead to the final preparation for the war: three Five Year Plan phases, with the first one focused on collectivization, the second focused on industrialization, and the third phase emphasized the militarization of the country.

• Stalin escalated tensions in Europe by providing a combination of economic and military support to Hitler. (see Soviet-German relations before 1941). Stalin's plan and vision was that Hitler's predictability and his violent reactionary ideas made him a candidate to the role of "icebreaker
  Icebreaker
  An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels .For a ship to be considered an icebreaker, it requires three traits most...
  
  " for the Communist revolution. By starting wars with European countries, Hitler would warrant the USSR joining World War II by attacking Nazi Germany and "liberating" and Sovietizing all of Europe. It is generally accepted that "from the early 1920s until 1933, the Soviet Union was engaged in secret collaboration with the German military to enable it to circumvent the provisions of the Versailles Treaty", which prohibited Germany's military production. Moscow allowed the Germans to produce and test their weapons on Soviet territory, while some Red Army officers attended general-staff courses in Germany. In 1932–1933, "Stalin helped Hitler come to power, by forbidding German Communists to make common cause with the Social Democrats against the Nazis in parliamentary elections". When concluding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
  Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
  The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
  
   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" (see also Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939
  Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939
  This article covers a speech allegedly given by leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin on 19 August 1939 to members of the Politburo, wherein he supposedly described the strategy of the Soviet Union on the eve of World War II....
  
  ).

Stalin always planned to exploit the military conflict between the "capitalist" countries to his advantage. He said as early as in 1925 that

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

• World War II was initiated by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany which became allies after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
  Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
  The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
  
  . The essence of this pact was in the secret protocols which divided Europe into zones of influence, and removed the Polish buffer between Germany and the USSR. Some countries that fell into the Soviet zone of influence, Estonia
  Estonia
  Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
  
  , Latvia
  Latvia
  Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
  
  , and Lithuania
  Lithuania
  Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
  
  , were occupied. The difference between these smaller nations, occupied and annexed by the USSR, and Poland initially attacked by Germany was that Poland had military assistance guarantees from Great Britain
  Great Britain
  Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
  
   and France
  France
  The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan 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
  Red Army
  The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
  
   had been already redeployed from a defensive to an offensive position. As described in Suvorov's books, Stalin had made no major defensive preparations. On the contrary, the Stalin line
  Stalin Line
  The Stalin Line was a line of fortifications along the western border of the Soviet Union. Work began on the system in the 1920s to protect the USSR against attacks from the West. The line was made up of concrete bunkers and gun emplacements, somewhat similar but less elaborate than the Maginot...
  
   fortifications through Belarus-Ukraine were dismantled, and the new Molotov line
  Molotov Line
  The so-called Molotov Line was a system of border fortifications built by the Soviet Union in the years 1940–1941 along its new western borders. These borders where the result of the Occupation of the Baltic States, Eastern Poland and Bessarabia in 1940....
  
   was all but finished by the time of Nazi invasion.

• Hitler's intelligence identified USSR's preparations to attack Germany. Therefore, the Wehrmacht had drafted a preemptive war
  Preemptive war
  A preemptive war is a war that is commenced in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending war before that threat materializes. It is a war which preemptively 'breaks the peace'. The term: 'preemptive war' is...
  
   plan based on Hitler's orders as early as mid-1940, soon after the Soviet annexations of Bessarabia
  Bessarabia
  Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
  
   and Northern Bukovina. On June 22, 1941 Hitler began an assault on the USSR.

Reactions and critiques

While most agree that Stalin made extensive preparations for an upcoming war and exploited the military conflict in Europe to his advantage, the assertions that Stalin planned to attack Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941, and that Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 was a preemptive strike by Hitler, are generally discounted.

In some countries, particularly in Russia, Germany and Israel, Suvorov's thesis has jumped the bounds of academic discourse and captured the imagination of the public. Among the noted critics of Suvorov's work are Israeli historian Gabriel Gorodetsky

Gabriel Gorodetsky

Gabriel Gorodetsky is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and the holder of the Rubin Chair for Russian Studies at Tel Aviv University. Prof. Gorodetsky studied History and Russian Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and went on to obtain his Ph.D degree under the supervision...

, American military historian David Glantz

David Glantz

David M. Glantz is an American military historian and the editor of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies....

, Russian military historians Makhmut Gareev

Makhmut Gareev

Makhmut Akhmetovich Gareyev is the Russian General of the Army, a historian, and a military scientist. Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Currently the president of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences...

 and Lev Bezymensky, and perhaps his most vehement Russian opponent Alexei Isayev, the author of Anti-Suvorov. Many other western scholars, such as Teddy J. Uldricks, Derek Watson, Hugh Ragsdale, Roger Reese, Stephen Blank, Robin Edmonds, agree that the major Suvorov's writings rest circumstantial evidences, or even on "virtually no evidentiary base"
According to Jonathan Haslam, Suvorov's claim that "Germany frustrated Stalin's war" "would be comical were it not taken so seriously". Late Soviet emigre historian Alexandr Nekrich (extremely critical of Stalin in other contexts) also rejected major Suvorov ideas as unsubstantiated and contrary to the broader Stalin's policy.

Nevertheless, studies of some historians, e.g. Russian military historian Mikhail Meltyukhov (“Stalin's Missed Chance

Stalin's Missed Chance

Stalin's Missed Chance is a study by Russian military historian Mikhail Ivanovich Meltyukhov, author of several books and articles on Soviet military history....

”) gave partial support to the claim that Soviet forces were concentrating in order to attack Germany. Other historians who support this thesis are Vladimir Nevezhin

Vladimir Nevezhin

Vladimir Nevezhin is a Russian historian , is working as a professor in Moscow, chief scientific collaborator at the Institute of Russian History and member of the editorial board of the journal Отечественная история .During the 1990s, he took part in the discussion and dispute...

, Boris Sokolov, Valeri Danilov

Valeri Danilov

Valeri Danilov is a Russian military historian and a retired officer . Danilov has Candidate of History Sciences degree and is a professor at the Academy of Military Science.In 1993, Yuri Gorkov and Valeri Danilov published a previously classified document, called Considerations to the...

, Joachim Hoffmann

Joachim Hoffmann

Joachim Hoffmann was a German historian and scientific director of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office.-Life:...

 and Mark Solonin

Mark Solonin

Mark Solonin is a bestselling Russian writer on the history of World War II.In the Soviet offensive plans controversy he belongs to the camp close to Victor Suvorov...

. Offensive interpretation of Stalin's prewar planning is also supported by Sovietologist Robert C. Tucker

Robert C. Tucker

Robert Charles Tucker was an American political scientist.Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he was a Sovietologist at Princeton University. He served as an attaché at the American Embassy in Moscow from 1944–1953. He received his PhD degree from Harvard University in 1958; his doctoral dissertation...

 and Pavel Bobylev. Moreover, it is argued by Hoffmann

Joachim Hoffmann

Joachim Hoffmann was a German historian and scientific director of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office.-Life:...

 that the actual Soviet troop concentrations were near the border, just like fuel depots and airfields. All of this is claimed to be unsuitable for defensive operations.

Strength of the opposing forces on the
Soviet Western border. June 22, 1941

	Germany and Allies	Soviet Union	Ratio
Divisions	166	190	1 : 1.1
Personnel	4,306,800	3,289,851	1.3 : 1
Guns and mortars	42,601	59,787	1 : 1.4
Tanks (incl assault gun Assault gun An assault gun is a gun or howitzer mounted on a motor vehicle or armored chassis, designed for use in the direct fire role in support of infantry when attacking other infantry or fortified positions.... s)	4,171	15,687	1 : 3.8
Aircraft	4,389	11, 537	1 : 2.6

Source: Mikhail Meltyukhov “Stalin's Missed Chance

Stalin's Missed Chance

Stalin's Missed Chance is a study by Russian military historian Mikhail Ivanovich Meltyukhov, author of several books and articles on Soviet military history....

” table 47,

Supporters of Soviet offensive plans theory also refer to some recently discovered facts, e.g. publication of Zhukov's

Georgy Zhukov

Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...

 proposal of May 15, 1941, which called for a Soviet strike against Germany. This document suggested secret mobilization

Mobilization

Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. The word mobilization was first used, in a military context, in order to describe the preparation of the Prussian army during the 1850s and 1860s. Mobilization theories and techniques have continuously changed...

 and deploying Red Army troops next to the western border, under the cover of training. However, Robin Edmonds argued that RKKA's planning staff would not have been doing its job well if it had not considered a potential possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Wehrmacht, whereas Teddy J. Uldricks pointed out that there is no documentary evidence that this Zhukov's proposal was accepted by Stalin. Another piece of evidence is a recently discovered Stalin's speech on the 5 May 1941 when he revealed his mind to graduating military cadets. He proclaimed: "A good defense signifies the need to attack. Attack is the best form of defense... We must now conduct a peaceful, defensive policy with attack. Yes, defense with attack. We must now re-teach our army and commanders. Educate them in the spirit of attack". However, according to Michael Jabara Carley, this speech could be equally interpreted as a deliberate attempt to discourage the Germans from launching the war.

Other Russian historians, Iu. Gor'kov, A.S. Orlov, Iu. A. Polyakov, Dmitri Volkogonov

Dmitri Volkogonov

Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov was a Russian historian and officer.-Biography:...

 analyzed newly available evidence to demonstrate that Soviet forces were certainly not ready for the attack.

According to Meltyukhov, the January 1941 strategic war games on 'Northern' and 'Southern' variants (conducted respectively on January 2–6 and Jan. 8-11 1941, as also depicted in articles by Pavel Bobylev) did indeed assume that the forces of the 'East' (i.e. USSR) at first had to repel an assault by the 'West' (i.e. Germany), no concrete actions on how this could take place were covered. Instead, the war games concentrated on the Soviet 'counterattack'. As the attack of the forces of the 'East' was more successful in the Southern variant, this area was chosen as the main direction of Soviet forces.

Criticism

Among the noted critics of Suvorov's work are Israeli historian Gabriel Gorodetsky

Gabriel Gorodetsky

Gabriel Gorodetsky is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and the holder of the Rubin Chair for Russian Studies at Tel Aviv University. Prof. Gorodetsky studied History and Russian Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and went on to obtain his Ph.D degree under the supervision...

, American military historian David Glantz

David Glantz

David M. Glantz is an American military historian and the editor of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies....

, and Russian military historians Makhmut Gareev

Makhmut Gareev

Makhmut Akhmetovich Gareyev is the Russian General of the Army, a historian, and a military scientist. Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Currently the president of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences...

, Lev Bezymensky and Dmitri Volkogonov

Dmitri Volkogonov

Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov was a Russian historian and officer.-Biography:...

. Many other western scholars, such as Teddy J. Uldricks, Derek Watson, Hugh Ragsdale, Roger Reese, Stephen Blank, Robin Edmonds, agree that the major Suvorov's weakness is "that the author does not reveal his sources" (Ingmar Oldberg) Cynthia A. Roberts is even more categorical, claiming that Suvorov's writings are based on "virtually no evidentiary base".

The most controversial Suvorov's thesis is that the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 made extensive preparations for an offensive war in Europe, but it was totally unprepared for defensive operations on its own territory. Thereby Suvorov essentially reiterates the argument put forward by Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 in 1941. According to Jonathan Haslam, Suvorov's claim that "Germany frustrated Stalin's war" "would be comical were it not taken so seriously".

Suvorov reluctantly reveals his sources, and much of his thesis is based on circumstantial evidence

Circumstantial evidence

Circumstantial evidence is evidence in which an inference is required to connect it to a conclusion of fact, like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime...

. Thus, one of Suvorov arguments is that certain types of weapons were mostly suited for offensive warfare and that the Red Army had large numbers of such weapons. For example, he pointed out that the Soviet Union was outfitting large numbers of paratroopers — preparing to field entire parachute armies, in fact — and that paratroopers are only suitable for offensive action, which the Soviet military doctrine of the time recognized. Suvorov's critics say that paratroopers were used in defensive actions and that Soviet paratroopers were poorly trained and armed. In like fashion, Suvorov cites the development of the KT/A-40 Antonov "flying tank" as evidence of Stalin's aggressive plans, while his critics say that development of this tank was started only in December 1941.

David M. Glantz disputes the argument that the Red Army was deployed in an offensive stance in 1941. Glantz demonstrated that the Red Army was only in a state of partial mobilization in July 1941, from which neither effective defensive or offensive actions could be offered without considerable delay.

Middle positions

In a 1987 article in the Historische Zeitschrift journal, the German historian Klaus Hildebrand

Klaus Hildebrand

Klaus Hildebrand is a German conservative historian whose area of expertise is 19th-20th century German political and military history.- Biography :...

 argued that both Hitler and Stalin separately were planning to attack each other in 1941. In Hildebrand’s opinion, the news of Red Army concentrations near the border led to Hitler engaging in a Flucht nach vorn ("flight forward"-i.e. responding to a danger by charging on rather than retreating). Hildebrand wrote "Independently, the National Socialist program of conquest met the equally far-reaching war-aims program which Stalin had drawn up in 1940 at the latest". Hildebrand's views could be considered as a median viewpoint in the preventive war debate.

A middle position seems to be taken by the Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i historian Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld

Martin Levi van Creveld is an Israeli military historian and theorist.Van Creveld was born in the Netherlands in the city of Rotterdam, and has lived in Israel since shortly after his birth. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has...

. In an interview in the April 11, 2005 edition of the German news magazine FOCUS

Focus (magazine)

Magazines with the name Focus include:* Focus , a German weekly news magazine* Focus , a Christian religion magazine published in the United States...

, which is the second largest weekly magazine in Germany, he said: "I doubt that Stalin wanted to attack as early as autumn 1941, as some writers argue. But I have no doubt that sooner or later, if Germany would have been entangled in a war with Great Britain and the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, he would have taken what he wanted. Judging by the talks between Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...

 and Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...

 in November 1940, this would have been Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, an access to the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

, the Dardanelles

Dardanelles

The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...

 and probably those parts of Poland that were under German control at that time." Asked to what degree the leaders of the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 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."

Support

While some Western researchers (two exceptions being Albert L. Weeks and R. C. Raack ) ignored Suvorov's thesis, he has gathered some support among Russian professional historians, starting in the 1990s. Support for Suvorov's claim that Stalin had been preparing a strike against Hitler in 1941 began to emerge as some archive materials were declassified. Authors supporting the Stalin 1941 assault thesis are Valeri Danilov

Valeri Danilov

Valeri Danilov is a Russian military historian and a retired officer . Danilov has Candidate of History Sciences degree and is a professor at the Academy of Military Science.In 1993, Yuri Gorkov and Valeri Danilov published a previously classified document, called Considerations to the...

, V.A. Nevezhin, Constantine Pleshakov, Mark Solonin

Mark Solonin

Mark Solonin is a bestselling Russian writer on the history of World War II.In the Soviet offensive plans controversy he belongs to the camp close to Victor Suvorov...

  and Boris Sokolov. As the latter has noted, the absence of documents with the precise date of the planned Soviet invasion can't be an argument in favor of the claim that this invasion was not planned at all. Although the USSR attacked Finland, no documents found to date which would indicate November 26, 1939 as the previously assumed date for beginning of the provocations or November 30 as the date of the planned Soviet assault.

The existence of the plan was supported by Edvard Radzinsky

Edvard Radzinsky

Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky is a Russian playwright, writer, TV personality, and film screenwriter. He is also known as an author of several books on history which were characterized as "folk history" by journalists and academic historians.-Biography:Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky was born...

 who noted that a document about the Soviet surprise attack on Nazi Germany was actually found and preserved in the Military-Memorial Center of the Soviet General Staff. That was a draft drawn up by Georgy Zhukov

Georgy Zhukov

Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...

, dated May 15, 1941, and signed by Aleksandr Vasilevsky

Aleksandr Vasilevsky

Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky was a Russian career officer in the Red Army, promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943. He was the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces and Deputy Minister of Defense during World War II, as well as Minister of Defense from 1949 to 1953...

 and Nikolai Vatutin

Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin

Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin was a Soviet military commander during World War II.-Before World War II:Vatutin was born in Chepuhino village near Valuiky in Voronezh Governorate , into a Russian peasant family. Commissioned in 1920 to the Red Army, he fought against the Ukrainian peasant partisans...

. The document stated:
The plan drafted by the Soviet command included a secret mobilization of the Soviet forces at the Western frontier. The objective of the offensive operation was to cut Germany off its allies, and especially Romania with its oil required for Germany to wage war. The document about attack on Germany and Romania was also noted by Dmitri Volkogonov

Dmitri Volkogonov

Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov was a Russian historian and officer.-Biography:...

 who however did not consider it as a final proof of the Soviet intentions.

One of views was expressed by Mikhail Meltyukhov in his study Stalin's Missed Chance

Stalin's Missed Chance

Stalin's Missed Chance is a study by Russian military historian Mikhail Ivanovich Meltyukhov, author of several books and articles on Soviet military history....

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

In Stalin's War of Extermination, Joachim Hoffmann

Joachim Hoffmann

Joachim Hoffmann was a German historian and scientific director of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office.-Life:...

 made extensive use of interrogations of Soviet prisoners of war, ranging in rank from general to private, conducted by their German captors during the war. The book is also based on open-source, unclassified literature and recently declassified materials. Based on this material, Hoffmann argues that the Soviet Union was making final preparations for its own attack when the Wehrmacht struck. He also remarked that Zhukov's plan of May 15, 1941 had long been known and analyzed. Danilov and Heinz Magenheimer examined this plan and other documents which might indicate Soviet preparations for an attack in the early 1990s in the Austrian military journal (Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift, nos. 5 and 6, 1991; no. 1, 1993; and no. 1, 1994). Both researchers came to the conclusion that Zhukov's plan of May 15, 1941 reflected Stalin's May 5, 1941 speech heralding the birth of the new offensive Red Army.

In 2006, a collection of articles (entitled The Truth of Viktor Suvorov) by various historians who share some views with Suvorov was published. It was followed by sequels; six as of September 2010. In a 2009 essay entitled "Don’t Blame Hitler Alone For World War II", journalist Eric Margolis

Eric Margolis

Eric S. Margolis is an American-born journalist and writer. For 27 years, ending in 2010, he was a contributing editor to the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers, writing mainly about the Middle East, South Asia and Islam. He contributes to the Huffington Post and appears frequently on Canadian...

 endorsed Suvorov's assertion that Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 was a "preventive war" forced on Hitler by alleged impending Soviet attack, and that it is wrong to give Hitler "total blame" for World War II.

Several politicians have also made claims similar to Suvorov's. On August 20, 2004, historian and former Prime Minister of Estonia

Prime Minister of Estonia

The Prime Minister of Estonia is the head of government of the Republic of Estonia. The prime minister is nominated by the President after appropriate consultations with the parliamentary factions and confirmed by the Parliament. In case of disagreement, the Parliament can reject the President's...

 Mart Laar

Mart Laar

Mart Laar is an Estonian statesman, historian and a founding member of the Foundation for the Investigation of Communist Crimes. He was the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002, and is the leader of the conservative party Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica...

 published an article in The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

 titled When Will Russia Say 'Sorry'?. In this article he said: "The new evidence shows that by encouraging Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 to start World War II, Stalin hoped to simultaneously ignite a world-wide revolution

World revolution

World revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class...

 and conquer all of Europe". Another former statesman to share his views of a purported Soviet aggression plan is Mauno Koivisto

Mauno Koivisto

Mauno Henrik Koivisto is a Finnish politician who served as the ninth President of Finland from 1982 to 1994. He also served as Prime Minister 1968–1970 and 1979–1982...

, 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."

Political implications of the debate

Although the debate concerns the events of more than a half-a-century-old history, it can indirectly affect contemporary public sentiments about the true nature of the best known and much praised historical collaboration between the Democratic and Communist regimes. Preserving the officially accepted model of the Second World War (that Hitler was the sole initiator of the war, that Stalin tried to avoid the war, and that the collaboration of the leading Western democracies with Stalin's authoritarian regime was justified by the events of the time) is arguably more acceptable for most of the world's historians and general public, both Western and Eastern. On the contrary, the new historical model of the Second World War (that Stalin was the active supporter of Hitler's aggressive plans for the world war, that Stalin was planning to use the World War to his own advantage to further spreading of the communist ideology, and most importantly, that Stalin manipulated both Hitler and Western leaders to his own advantage) might upset both professional historians and people's sentiments in both Western and Eastern countries.

See also

• Operation Barbarossa
  Operation Barbarossa
  Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
  
  
• Eastern Front (World War II)
  Eastern Front (World War II)
  The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
  
  
• Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
• German–Soviet Axis talks
  German–Soviet Axis talks
  In October and November 1940, German–Soviet Axis talks occurred concerning the Soviet Union's potential entry as a fourth Axis Power. The negotiations included a two day Berlin conference between Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von...
  
  
• Molotov Line
  Molotov Line
  The so-called Molotov Line was a system of border fortifications built by the Soviet Union in the years 1940–1941 along its new western borders. These borders where the result of the Occupation of the Baltic States, Eastern Poland and Bessarabia in 1940....
  
   – An incomplete Soviet defense line at the start of Operation Barbarossa
• Stalin Line
  Stalin Line
  The Stalin Line was a line of fortifications along the western border of the Soviet Union. Work began on the system in the 1920s to protect the USSR against attacks from the West. The line was made up of concrete bunkers and gun emplacements, somewhat similar but less elaborate than the Maginot...
  
   – Soviet defense line that was abandoned before Operation Barbarossa
• Mark Solonin
  Mark Solonin
  Mark Solonin is a bestselling Russian writer on the history of World War II.In the Soviet offensive plans controversy he belongs to the camp close to Victor Suvorov...
  
  
• Stalin's Missed Chance
  Stalin's Missed Chance
  Stalin's Missed Chance is a study by Russian military historian Mikhail Ivanovich Meltyukhov, author of several books and articles on Soviet military history....
  
  
• Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939
  Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939
  This article covers a speech allegedly given by leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin on 19 August 1939 to members of the Politburo, wherein he supposedly described the strategy of the Soviet Union on the eve of World War II....
  
  

Books by Viktor Suvorov

• The series about the outbreak of the Nazi-Soviet War
  • Icebreaker
    Icebreaker (Suvorov)
    Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, by Viktor Suvorov is a 1987 documentary book, which alleges that World War II started as a result of Joseph Stalin's ploy to "liberate" the working class of Europe and eventually the whole world.-Suvorov's thesis:Suvorov challenges the widely-accepted...
    
      1990, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, ISBN 0-241-12622-3
  • Day "M" 
  • Suicide
    Suicide (Suvorov)
    Suicide is a book by Viktor Suvorov about German preparations for the war with the Soviet Union.Suvorov argues that the German army was ill-prepared, Germany's leaders were unsophisticated , and that attacking Russia was suicidal for Germany , and he suggests an explanation why Hitler nevertheless...
    
    . For what reason Hitler attacked the Soviet Union? , Moscow, ACT, 2000, ISBN 5-17-003119-X
  • Last Republic, ACT, 1997, ISBN 5-12-000367-2.
  • The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008 (hardcover, ISBN 978-1-59114-838-8).
• Aquarium
  Aquarium (Suvorov)
  Aquarium is a partly autobiographical description by Viktor Suvorov of the GRU . The account starts in 1969, when Suvorov, as an ordinary tank company commander, is recruited into intelligence analysis by an up-and-coming Lieutenant Colonel...
  
   , 1985, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, ISBN 0-241-11545-0
• Inside the Soviet Army, 1982, Macmillan Publishing Co.
• The Liberators
  The Liberators (Suvorov)
  The Liberators by Viktor Suvorov is a partly autobiographical description of life in the Soviet Army during the 1960s and 1970s...
  
  , 1981, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, ISBN 0-241-10675-3
• Shadow of Victory , questions the image of Georgy Zhukov
  Georgy Zhukov
  Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...
  
  . The first book of trilogy with the same name.
• I Take My Words Back , questions the image of Georgy Zhukov. The second book of "Shadow of Victory" trilogy.
• Cleansing . Why did Stalin behead his army?, Moscow, 2002, ISBN 5-17-009254-7
• Inside Soviet Military Intelligence, 1984, ISBN 0-02-615510-9
• Spetsnaz, 1987, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, ISBN 0-241-11961-8

Books that support Soviet offensive plans existence

• 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
      The Russian Review
      The Russian Review is a major independent peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary academic journal devoted to the history, literature, culture, fine arts, cinema, society, and politics of the Russian Federation, former Soviet Union and former Russian Empire. The journal was established in 1941 and is...
      
      , 2004, Vol. 63, Issue 4, pp. 718–719.
• Edwards, James B. Hitler: Stalin's Stooge. San Diego, CA: Aventine Press
  Aventine Press
  Aventine Press is a publishing house created in 2002. It is headquartered in San Diego, California. The company's clients are independent authors.-External links:* * Includes info and resources for print on demand services....
  
  , 2004 (ISBN 978-1593301446, paperback).
• Hoffmann, Joachim. Stalin's War of Extermination. Capshaw, AL: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2001 (ISBN 0-9679856-8-4).
• Maser, Werner Der Wortbruch. Hitler, Stalin und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Olzog, München 1994. ISBN 3-7892-8260-X
  • Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin, Olzog, München 2004. ISBN 3-7892-8134-4
• Pleshakov, Constantine. Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War Two on the Eastern Front. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005 (ISBN 0-618-36701-2).
  • • Reviewed by Ron Laurenzo in The Washington Times, May 22, 2005.
    • Reviewed by Robert Citino in World War II, Vol. 21, Issue 1. (2006), pp. 76–77.
• Raack, R.C. "Did Stalin Plan a Drang Nach Westen?", World Affairs. Vol. 155, Issue 4. (Summer 1992), pp. 13–21.
  • Preventive Wars?" [Review Essay of Pietrow-Ennker, Bianka, ed. Präventivkrieg? Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion. 3d ed. Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-596-14497-3; Mel'tiukhov, Mikhail. Upushchennyi shans Stalina: Sovetskii Soiuz i bor'ba za Evropu 1939–1941. Moscow: Veche, 2000. ISBN 5-7838-1196-3; Magenheimer, Heinz. Entscheidungskampf 1941: Sowjetische Kriegsvorbereitungen. Aufmarsch. Zusammenstoss. Bielefeld: Osning Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-9806268-1-4] The Russian Review
    The Russian Review
    The Russian Review is a major independent peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary academic journal devoted to the history, literature, culture, fine arts, cinema, society, and politics of the Russian Federation, former Soviet Union and former Russian Empire. The journal was established in 1941 and is...
    
    , 2004, Vol. 63, Issue 1, pp. 134–137.
  • "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.
  • "Stalin's Role in the Coming of World War II: The International Debate Goes On", World Affairs. Vol. 159, Issue 2, 1996, pp. 47–54.
  • 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).
  • "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.
  • "Breakers on the Stalin Wave: Review Essay [of Murphy, David E. What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005 (ISBN 0-300-10780-3); Pleshakov, Constantine. Stalin’s Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 2005 (ISBN 0-618-36701-2)]", The Russian Review
    The Russian Review
    The Russian Review is a major independent peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary academic journal devoted to the history, literature, culture, fine arts, cinema, society, and politics of the Russian Federation, former Soviet Union and former Russian Empire. The journal was established in 1941 and is...
    
    , Vol. 65, No. 3. (2006), pp. 512–515.
• Solonin Mark «22 июня, или когда началась Великая Отечественная война?» — Moscow: «Яуза», «Эксмо». 2007. ISBN 5-699-15196-6
  • «23 июня: „День М“» — Moscow: «Яуза», «Эксмо». 2007 ISBN 978-5-699-22304-6
  • «25 июня. Глупость или агрессия?» — Moscow: «Яуза», «Эксмо». 2008. ISBN 978-5-699-25300-5
• 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).
  • • Reviewed critically by Alexander Dallin in The New York Times, November 15, 1987.
• 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).

Books that oppose existence of Soviet offensive plans

• Acton, Edward. "Understanding Stalin’s Catastrophe: [Review Article]", Journal of Contemporary History, 2001, Vol. 36(3), pp. 531–540.
• Carley, Michael Jabara. "Soviet Foreign Policy in the West, 1936–1941: A Review Article", Europe–Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies is an academic peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year by Routledge on behalf of the Institute of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow, and continuing the journal Soviet Studies , which was renamed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union...
  
  , Vol. 56, No. 7. (2004), pp. 1081–1100. [Review of Silvio Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936–1941. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2002 and Albert L. Weeks, Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939–1941. Oxford and Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.]
• Erickson, John. "Barbarossa June 1941: Who Attacked Whom?" History Today, July 2001, Vol. 51, Issue 7, pp. 11–17. online text
• Edmonds, Robin. "[Review: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?", International Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 4. (Oct., 1990), p. 812.
• Glantz, David M. Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998 (ISBN 0-7006-0879-6).
  • Reviewed by David R. Costello in The Journal of Military History, Vol. 63, No. 1. (Jan., 1999), pp. 207–208.
  • Reviewed by Roger Reese in Slavic Review
    Slavic Review
    Slavic Review is a leading international peer-reviewed academic journal publishing scholarly studies and book reviews in all disciplines concerned with Russia, Central Eurasia, and Eastern and Central Europe...
    
    , Vol. 59, No. 1. (Spring, 2000), p. 227.
• Glantz, David M. "[Review: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?", The Journal of Military History, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Apr., 1991), pp. 263–264.
• Gorodetsky, Gabriel. Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1999 (ISBN 0-300-07792-0).
  • Reviewed by David R. Costello in The Journal of Military History, Vol. 64, No. 2. (Apr., 1999), pp. 580–582.
  • Reviewed by Stephen Blank in The Russian Review
    The Russian Review
    The Russian Review is a major independent peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary academic journal devoted to the history, literature, culture, fine arts, cinema, society, and politics of the Russian Federation, former Soviet Union and former Russian Empire. The journal was established in 1941 and is...
    
    , 2000, Vol. 59, Issue 2, pp. 310–311.
  • Reviewed by Hugh Ragsdale in Slavic Review
    Slavic Review
    Slavic Review is a leading international peer-reviewed academic journal publishing scholarly studies and book reviews in all disciplines concerned with Russia, Central Eurasia, and Eastern and Central Europe...
    
    , Vol. 59, No. 2. (Summer, 2000), pp. 466–467.
  • Reviewed by Evan Mawdsley in Europe-Asia Studies
    Europe-Asia Studies
    Europe-Asia Studies is an academic peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year by Routledge on behalf of the Institute of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow, and continuing the journal Soviet Studies , which was renamed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union...
    
    , Vol. 52, No. 3. (May, 2000), pp. 579–580.
• Harms, Karl. "The Military Doctrine of the Red Army on the Eve of the Great Patriotic War: Myths and Facts", Military Thought, Vol. 13, No. 03. (2004), pp. 227–237.
• Haslam, Jonathan. "Soviet–German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out [Review Article]", The Journal of Modern History
  The Journal of Modern History
  The Journal of Modern History is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering European intellectual, political, and cultural history, published by the University of Chicago Press in cooperation with the Modern European History Section of the American Historical Association...
  
  , Vol. 69, No. 4. (Dec., 1997), pp. 785–797.
• Humpert, David M. "Viktor Suvorov and Operation Barbarossa: Tukhachevskii Revisited." The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 18, Issue 1. (2005), pp. 59–74.
• Lukacs, John
  John Lukacs
  John Adalbert Lukacs is a Hungarian-born American historian who has written more than thirty books, including Five Days in London, May 1940 and A New Republic...
  
  . June 1941: Hitler and Stalin. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-300-11437-0).
• McDermott, Kevin. Stalin: Revolutionary in an Era of War (European History in Perspective). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-333-71121-1; paperback, ISBN 0-333-71122-X).
• Murphy, David E. What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2005 (ISBN 0-300-10780-3).
  • Reviewed by Robert Conquest at The American Historical Review, Vol. 111, No. 2. (2006), p. 591.
  • Reviewed by Raymond W. Leonard in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 37, No. 1. (2006), pp. 128–129.
• Neilson, Keith. "Stalin's Moustache: The Soviet Union and the Coming of War: [Review Article]", Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 12, No. 2. (2001), pp. 197–208.
• Roberts, Cynthia A. "Planning for War: The Red Army and the Catastrophe of 1941", Europe-Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies is an academic peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year by Routledge on behalf of the Institute of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow, and continuing the journal Soviet Studies , which was renamed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union...
  
  , Vol. 47, No. 8. (Dec., 1995), pp. 1293–1326.
• Rotundo, Louis. "Stalin and the Outbreak of War in 1941", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 24, No. 2, Studies on War. (Apr., 1989), pp. 277–299.
• Gerd R. Ueberschär, Lev A. Bezymenskij (Hrsg.): Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion 1941. Die Kontroverse um die Präventivkriegsthese Wissenschaftliche Buchgemeinschaft, Darmstadt 1998
• Uldricks, Teddy J. "The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?" The Slavic Review, 1999, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 626–643.

Neutral, cautious approach

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

Other

• The Attack on the Soviet Union (Germany and the Second World War, Volume IV) by Horst Boog, Jürgen Förster, Joachim Hoffmann, Ewald Osers, Louise Wilmott, Dean S. McMurray (Editors), Ernst Klink (Translator), Rolf-Dieter Müller (Translator), Gerd R. Ueberschär (Translator). New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 1999 (ISBN 0-19-822886-4).
• Carley, Michael Jabara. "Soviet Foreign Policy in the West, 1936–1941: A Review Article", Europe-Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies is an academic peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year by Routledge on behalf of the Institute of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow, and continuing the journal Soviet Studies , which was renamed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union...
  
  , Vol. 56, No. 7. (2004), pp. 1081–1100.
• Drabkin, Ia.S. "'Hitler’s War' or 'Stalin’s War'?", Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, Vol. 40, No. 5. (2002), pp. 5–30.
• Ericson, Edward E., III. "Karl Schnurre and the Evolution of Nazi–Soviet Relations, 1936–1941", German Studies Review, Vol. 21, No. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 263–283.
• Förster, Jürgen; Mawdsley, Evan. "Hitler and Stalin in Perspective: Secret Speeches on the Eve of Barbarossa", War in History, Vol. 11, Issue 1. (2004), pp. 61–103.
• Haslam, Jonathan. "Stalin and the German Invasion of Russian 1941: A Failure of Reasons of State?", International Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Jan., 2000), pp. 133–139.
• Koch, H.W. "Operation Barbarossa—The Current State of the Debate", The Historical Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), pp. 377–390.
• Litvin, Alter L. Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia: A View from Within, translated and edited by John L.H. Keep. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001 (hardcover, ISBN 0-333-76487-0).
• Melyukhov M.I. (2000) Упущенный шанс Сталина. Советский Союз и борьба за Европу: 1939–1941 (electronic version of the book) For a review of the book, see http://www.russiamonitor.org/en/main.asp?menu_id=7_489), Moscow, Вече
• Roberts, Geoffrey. "On Soviet–German Relations: The Debate Continues [A Review Article]", Europe-Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies
  Europe-Asia Studies is an academic peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year by Routledge on behalf of the Institute of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow, and continuing the journal Soviet Studies , which was renamed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union...
  
  , Vol. 50, No. 8. (Dec., 1998), pp. 1471–1475.
• Vasquez, John A. "The Causes of the Second World War in Europe: A New Scientific Explanation", International Political Science Review, Vol. 17, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp. 161–178.
• Ziemke, Earl F. The Red Army, 1918–1941: From Vanguard of World Revolution to America's Ally. London; New York: Frank Cass, 2004 (ISBN 0-7146-5551-1).

External links

Operation Barbarossa Original reports and pictures from The Times Relationship between the campaigns in the Balkans and the invasion of Russia and associated timeline on a US Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 website Multimedia map—Covers the invasion of Russia including Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa—Detailed analysis of the operation by author Bevin Alexander. Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Current Intelligence. The Soviet History of World War II, 28 October 1959. June 22 (The Cask and the Hoops) by Mark Solonin

Mark Solonin

Mark Solonin is a bestselling Russian writer on the history of World War II.In the Soviet offensive plans controversy he belongs to the camp close to Victor Suvorov...

 Criticism of Rezun's Ledokol in Russian Journal Military Thought Raack, R.C. "Stalin's Role in the Coming of World War II" at Vincent Ferraro's web site (published in World Affairs (1996) vol. 158, no. 4 Did Stalin deliver his alleged speech of 19 August 1939? by Carl O. Nordling Criticism of the Preventive War Theory by Wigbert Benz Andreea Tudorica, Ovidiu Ciutescu, Corina Andriuta, "Giurgiuleşti, piedică în calea lui Stalin", Jurnalul Naţional

Jurnalul National

Jurnalul Naţional is a Romanian newspaper, part of the Intact media group led by Dan Voiculescu, which also includes the popular TV station Antena 1....

, June 26, 2007. Иоахим Гофман. "Сталинская истребительная война".