The Soviets Break the Ice -
The Soviet Union follows through on what Zhukov and later Meltyukhov proposed they should have done, launched a pre-emptive strike against the Third Reich. Hitler considered that a Soviet invasion was inevitable, but he did not expect it to happen in the very near future. German troops were diverted to activities of secondary importance, and the beginning of Operation Barbarossa was postponed. At 3.30 am Moscow time on 6July 1941, tens of thousands of Soviet guns shatter the silence, announcing to the world that the great 'liberation' campaign of the Red Army has begun. The Red Army's artillery is superior both in quality and quantity to any in the world. There are vast reserves of ammunition stockpiled on the Soviet frontiers. The rate of Soviet artillery fire swiftly increases until it becomes an infernal thunder roaring along the thousands of kilometres of front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The first artillery salvo coincides to the minute with the arrival of a thousand Soviet aircraft flying across the state
frontier. The German airfields have been extremely badly sited right on the border, and the German pilots do not have the time to get their aircraft airborne. There is a great number of aircraft assembled on the German airfields. They are standing wing-tip to wing-tip, and when one burns the fire spreads to the others like a fire in a matchbox.
The main events of the war are not taking place in either Poland or Germany. In the first hour of war,operating along with the air arm of the 9th Army and the Black Sea Fleet, the 4th Soviet Air Corps delivers a heavy shock strike at the Ploesti oilfields, turning them into a sea of fire. Bombing raids on Ploesti continue round the clock. The glow from the oil fires is visible at night for many kilometres, while by day columns of black smoke hide the horizon. The 3rd Airborne Assault Corps has landed in the hills to the north of Ploesti. Operating in small elusive groups, it is destroying everything connected with the production, transportation and the refining of oil. Lieutenant-General Batov's 9th Special Rifle Corps has landed in the port of Constanza and to the south of it. Its objectives are the same: pipelines, oil storage tanks, and refineries. The most powerful of all Soviet armies, the 9th, has burst out onto the Romanian plains.
Avoiding becoming involved in protracted battles with scattered enemy groups, the Soviet troops drive forward. The frontier bridges in Brest-Litovsk have been captured by Colonel Starinov's saboteurs. The Soviet saboteurs are astonished that the German bridges have not even been mined. How can one possibly explain such a scandalous degree of unreadiness for war? The suddenness of the attack has a stunning effect, bringing a whole chain of catastrophes in its wake,each one of which, in its turn, brings on others. The destruction of the air force on the ground renders thetroops vulnerable from the air, and since they have neither trenches nor ditches in the frontier area, they are compelled to withdraw. Withdrawal means that thousands of tons of ammunition and fuel are abandoned at the border. Withdrawal means that airfields are left behind, and the enemy immediately destroys the remaining aircraft there. Withdrawal without ammunition and fuel means inescapable destruction. Withdrawal means that the command has lost control. The command does not know what is happening with the troops and is therefore unable to take any expedient decisions, while the troops are given no orders at all, or they are given orders which are completely out of keeping with the situation which has come about.
At the same time, Soviet saboteurs, who crossed the frontiers with time in hand, are active everywhere on the lines of communication. They either cut the communication lines, or plug into them and transmit false signals and orders to the enemy troops. The enemy's operations become separate, unco-ordinated battles. The German commanders ask Berlin what they should do. It is a serious question, because the Wehrmacht has not prepared itself for defence. What do we do? Advance? Operate in accordance with the pre-war Barbarossa plan?Without air supremacy?
The 3rd Soviet Army delivers a surprise strike at Suwalki. The 8th Army from the Baltic Military District goes to meet it. From the very beginning there are blood-letting engagements with great losses in Soviet troops. But they have one advantage: the Soviet troops have the latest KV tank, the armour of which the German anti-tank guns cannot penetrate. The Soviet Air Force rages overhead. The 5th Airborne Assault Corps has landed behind the German forces. The Soviet 8th, nth, and 3rd Armies have become bogged down in long drawn out bloody battles with the extra-high-power German forces in East Prussia, but behind this titanic battle, the extra-high-power Soviet loth Army, having broken through the almost nonexistent defences, drives on to the Baltic Sea, thereby cutting off three German armies, two tank groups and Hitler's command post from the rest of the German troops.
The Soviet loth Army has not been able to break out to the Baltic Sea. It has suffered fearful losses. The Soviet 3rd and 8th Armies have been completely wiped out and their heavy KV tanks destroyed by German anti-aircraft guns. The Soviet 5th, 6th and 26th Armies have lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, having been stopped on the approaches to Cracow and Lublin. At this moment, the Soviet High Command throws the Second Strategic Echelon into the battle. The difference is that the Wehrmacht has only one echelon and
insignificant reserves, while the Red Army had two strategic echelons and three N K V D armies behind them. In addition, mobilization was declared in the Soviet Union as soon as the war began. This had given the Soviet High Command five million reservists in the first week of the war. These will replace Soviet losses, and over the months which follow will be formed into more than three hundred new divisions who will enable the war to continue.
Despite fighting effectively and causing huge Soviet casualties, the Germans are shattered by this relentless onslaught. Without air superiority and without a steady supply of oil they have no means to effectively counterattack and are drawn further and further back into the Reich. A desperate Hitler offers an alliance to the British, an offer which is swiftly rejected. Germany is out of luck and out of time to prepare new armies. By December 1941, the Red Flag flies above Berlin.
Post-war Europe is one less damaged than in 1945 but is still war ravaged and poverty ridden. The Americans have little concern, they have a war to win in the Pacific. the British are in terrible debt themselves, and they have colonies to defend. The great cities of Europe fall under an Iron Curtain as they embrace their new saviour, Joesph Stalin. The war in Japan finally ends in 1943 after a Soviet offensive into Manchuria the year before turns the tide. With peace established in the Pacific and Europe, Roosevelt declines to run for the fourth term, to the panic of the DNC, who go on to see Harry Hopkins lose a close fight to Robert Taft. America is back in isolation, and recovery is still to be found. Britain, looking for new partners, establishes new economic ties under Prime Minister Attlee's Labour government, who are more focused on domestic reform than fighting the Soviets abroad.
As the old European empires recede the gospel of Marx and Lenin spreads throughout Africa, Asia and South America. Britain finds herself increasingly Finlandised, and the US becomes increasingly insular and authoritarian as civil rights becomes one bloody riot after another. The Soviets are in Havana as well after all, and the US doesn't yet have a bomb to push them out. Premier Kruschev celebrates two decades of rapid economic growth by putting Yuri Gargarin on the moon in 1971, a great success for the famous Von Braun and Korolev partnership. More and more, peoples in the capitalist nations begin to wonder if maybe liberal democracy isn't the best way to ensure prosperity. By the year 2012 the contest is still very much on, but the future looks far brighter for one side than the other, although the Soviets worry that their Arab brethern may be becoming a tad too uncooperative over their oil pricing. Some sort of intervention may have to be necessary...