Did Stalin alwasy assume that Hitler would back stab him?

My niece (15) has been taught as a fact that Stalin never expected the pact with the Nazis to last.

My impression is that the motives and beliefs of "the man of steel" were less likely to be so clear cut. I believe, for instance, that the USSR was happily cooprerating economically with Hitler right up to June 21 1941.

Any thoughts
 
My niece (15) has been taught as a fact that Stalin never expected the pact with the Nazis to last.

My impression is that the motives and beliefs of "the man of steel" were less likely to be so clear cut. I believe, for instance, that the USSR was happily cooprerating economically with Hitler right up to June 21 1941.

Any thoughts

I think that, yeah, Stalin expected Hitler to attack him at some point, or to attack Hitler at some point. However, Stalin did NOT want that to happen when it did. Soviet war plans were geared towards 1942-43. Hitler's invasion occurred during an awkward phase of retooling the defences to include the annexed territories and Soviet preparations for either a counterattack or a preemptive strike.
 
My opinion is that Stalin, plainly, didn't want any war with the Nazis. He feared and grudgingly respected them - indeed they were mass murderers and exploiters on his own par, if not superior.

His idea was: sit out of the big war and wait for the moment to pick up the spoils of the losers, whoever they will be.
 
By all accounts, Stalin was one of the most paranoid world leaders of the twentieth century. I find it a little difficult to swallow the idea that a man who was terrified at the prospect of his fellow countrymen bringing down his rule enough to institute large-scale purges would uncritically trust a German dictator who came to power on a wave of anti-communist sentiment and whose economic policies were in opposition to Stalin's own. I'm also not entirely convinced that Stalin had a great deal of respect for Hitler, as a person, either, if only because just about the only thing they did have in common was a skill at persecuting and killing large numbers of people. As evil as both men were, I do tend to cling to the idea that their personal philosophies were a little more complex than simply inflicting indiscriminate mayhem on the world.

But I think Kaiser Kris is right on the money. Stalin assumed that Germany and the USSR would inevitably come into conflict, he just didn't realize it would happen as quickly as it did. And, honestly, he probably had a point. In 1939, it seemed extremely unlikely that the Nazis would have rolled through western Europe as quickly as they did. Even after the fall of France, Stalin probably assumed that a stable, well-balanced leader would have taken time to regroup and rebuild, giving the USSR a chance to prepare for attack. I mean, yeah, it retrospect it seems ridiculous to assign stability and balance to Adolf Hitler, but, well, hindsight is 20/20 and all....
 
His idea was: sit out of the big war and wait for the moment to pick up the spoils of the losers, whoever they will be.

Yep. Stalin foresaw that the Capitalist powers of Europe were eventually going to find themselves embroiled in another major war. His plan was to watch Europe destroy itself and then gobble up what was left over while any potential enemies were still too weak to resist. What he didn't gamble on was that Hitler would subdue France, drive Britain to the brink of defeat and then turn around and go after Russia.
 
Yep. Stalin foresaw that the Capitalist powers of Europe were eventually going to find themselves embroiled in another major war. His plan was to watch Europe destroy itself and then gobble up what was left over while any potential enemies were still too weak to resist. What he didn't gamble on was that Hitler would subdue France, drive Britain to the brink of defeat and then turn around and go after Russia.

Precisely. It's important to remember that virtually nobody anticipated the sheer totality of German victory against France in 1940, least of all most of the Germans themselves. It was quite reasonable to expect that by 1942 or 1943, the war between the Nazi Germans and Western Europe would still be going on.

However, Stalin made a stupid error in ignoring many, many signs of impending German invasion, including the actual testimony of captured German soldiers a few days before the invasion. He was caught completely blind and pretty much collapsed for a few days. If Montefiore is on the money in Court of the Red Tsar, Stalin damn near resigned out of pure shock.
 
Precisely. It's important to remember that virtually nobody anticipated the sheer totality of German victory against France in 1940, least of all most of the Germans themselves. It was quite reasonable to expect that by 1942 or 1943, the war between the Nazi Germans and Western Europe would still be going on.

However, Stalin made a stupid error in ignoring many, many signs of impending German invasion, including the actual testimony of captured German soldiers a few days before the invasion. He was caught completely blind and pretty much collapsed for a few days. If Montefiore is on the money in Court of the Red Tsar, Stalin damn near resigned out of pure shock.
in reality Stalin prepared for German invansion, but he thought, that Hitler would need any pretext for war: Soviet forces prepared for war-some armies from Siberia and Central russia were sended to the west border, there were BUS(Big training gathring) of reservists, but......
 
in reality Stalin prepared for German invansion, but he thought, that Hitler would need any pretext for war: Soviet forces prepared for war-some armies from Siberia and Central russia were sended to the west border, there were BUS(Big training gathring) of reservists, but......

Stalin made preparations, but I think they were aimed towards the war beginning in 1942 or 43, rather than when it happened. He missed, or ignored, or denied (or some combination of them) some important cues closer to the start of Barbarossa itself.
 
Stalin made preparations, but I think they were aimed towards the war beginning in 1942 or 43, rather than when it happened. He missed, or ignored, or denied (or some combination of them) some important cues closer to the start of Barbarossa itself.
1. Some armies were sended to border in march-mai 1941
2. term of german invansion-first April, than mai, that June-so he thought it was disinformation.
 
If Stalin trusted Hitler so much then why did Stalin's government work for years to create to system of Collective Security between the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain to stop Hitler's aggression. The Soviet Union offered aid to both Czechoslovakia and Poland. The Soviets made a deal with Hitler because they believed that Britain and France were not serious about negotiating a military alliance with the Soviet Union and intended to either allows Hitler to attack the Soviet Union or even join in the attack since they had both Britain and France had sent troops to fight the Russian Communists during the Russian Civil War. I've read that Stalin thought the German soldiers were provoceteurs and that Germany wanted the Soviets to send more troops toward the border so that the Nazis could claim that the Soviets were going to attack them. Stalin also suspected that Churchill was trying to trick the Soviet Union into getting involved in the war since Britain needed an ally. The United States did no better then the Soviet Union in predicting a suprise attack on their country.
 

burmafrd

Banned
I think most of those in the intelligence business back then were not surprised that Hitler attacked Russia, its that they did not expect it for another year. they all thought that Hitler needed more time to get the German army ready for such a huge war (and they were right- an extra year would have made a huge difference in the German army). Of course an extra year would have made a big difference in the Red Army as well- so odds are that they would have canceled each other out in regards to performance increase, and its also likely you would not have had the horrendous mistakes and surrenders of 1941 on the part of a better trained and led Red Army of 1942.
 
Stalin absolutely didn't trust Hitler and fully expected the pact would be broken eventually. Nevertheless Barbarossa did catch Stalin by surprise. He was expecting an attack eventually, but not in 1941, he was sure that Hitler wouldn't start a war with the USSR while the war in the west was still going on. He was sure Hitler would not be so foolish as to start a two-front war unnecessarily. He was caught by surprise not because of trust, but because he ascribed too much rationality to Hitler, he assumed Hitler was the same sort of careful calculator he was.

question is, if he knew he would eventually be staded in the back, then why did he make the alliance in the first place?
To buy time. He needed more time to strengthen the USSR's defenses, his plan was to let the western powers cripple each other in a war he thought would last several years, and to do whatever was necessary to keep his country out of the war until 1942 when the the Red Army would be much stronger and fortifications would be built along the USSR's newly extended western borders.

On this subject I would recommend the book Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw. Chapter 6: Stalin Decides He Knows Best, deals with Stalins reasoning during this time and why he was sure the Nazi's wouldn't attack in 1941, it was not due to trust of Hitler.
 

burmafrd

Banned
It did not help that the intelligence office that told Stalin that Hitler was about to attack was ordered shot by Stalin. that would tend to make other intelligence officers a little bit cautious about putting out bad news.
 
I think Stalin expected that, but then, because he believed that Germany is too busy wasting the French, he thought that he would not be attacked by the Reich.

Turns out that this is not the case.
 
Well, the man had something bordering a nervous breakdown when Barbarossa started. Just froze up and did nothing for a few days. It's a lot of the reason those days went so smoothly for the Germans.

I'd argue from that that he certainly didn't expect any such attack, at least not any time soon. If anything, he'd underestimated his own country's capabilities and likely believed that the Germans would abide by their promises as much because he wanted to believe it as because they were still facing the British.
 
short answer: As most of the other posters have noted Stalin didn't think that an agreement between a fascist/arch-capitalist system like Germany and the USSR had any real longevity. He also wanted to see the "west" bleed itself out while the USSR got stronger so when the bloodletting stopped they could waltz in/see Communist revolutions. In fact, because of Stalin's desire to see this scenario he was INCREDIBLY paranoid about the USA & GB fighting the war in such a way as to maximize USSR pain.

Stalin's agreement with Germany in 1939 was strictly a way to acquire a buffer zone (eastern Poland & the Baltic states) around the USSR plus a desire to "regain" territory which had been part of Russia before 1917.

The fiasco at the start of the German invasion highlights a problem in countries ruled by absolute & ruthless dictators. Analysts, diplomats, intelligence specialists etc who present an analysis that disagrees with "fearless leader's" opinions &/or prejudices has a career ending event. Stalin, Hitler, Saddam & others are just a few who ended up the creek because of this.
 
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