No Barbarossa

Would SU invade Europe without Barbarossa

  • Yes

    Votes: 41 65.1%

  • No

    Votes: 22 34.9%
  • Total voters
    63
  • Poll closed .

nikkythegreat

I have been reading a few books stating that Operation Barbarossa was actually a pre emptive strike against the Soviet union.

So I would like to ask, if for some reason there was no Operation Barbarossa, would the Soviet Union have Invaded Nazi Occupied Europe?
 

I Blame Communism

Banned
nikkythegreat said:
I have been reading a few books stating that Operation Barbarossa was actually a pre emptive strike against the Soviet union.

So I would like to ask, if for some reason there was no Operation Barbarossa, would the Soviet Union have Invaded Nazi Occupied Europe?
Click to expand...

The phrase is usually used to argue that the Puir Wee Nazis acted in self-defence and never really wanted to exterminate Slavs and Jews, but it's quite likely that eventually - having built up and reformed his armed forces and extracted everything he could from Molotov-Ribbentrop - Stalin would at least have put his forced on readiness and cut off the flow off supplies to Germany.

Precisely when this happens, and whether he also launches an attack (if he feels confident in the Red Army, an attack to deny Ploesti to the Germans could cause a world of hurt), depend on what's happening with the ongoing Anglo-German war.

It certainly would not have been in 1941, however.
 

Susano

Banned
I Blame Communism said:
The phrase is usually used to argue that the Puir Wee Nazis acted in self-defence and never really wanted to exterminate Slavs and Jews,
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Wasnt the "Ice Breaker" theory put forwards by a Russian? Not saying that makes it any more credible, but it doesnt seem to me as if it automatically has to be Nazi apologist.
 

BlairWitch749

Banned
It's certainly possible; Poland, Finland the baltic states and Bessarbia showed Stalin had no problem conducting aggressive policy
 

LeX

Stalin probably would've attacked Hitler but he didn't have to the same way Hitler had to attack him (since Germany's strategy was centered on a victory over the USSR).
 

I Blame Communism

Banned
Susano said:
Wasnt the "Ice Breaker" theory put forwards by a Russian? Not saying that makes it any more credible, but it doesnt seem to me as if it automatically has to be Nazi apologist.
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There are Russians out there who make a career of criticising everything that's happened since 1917. Some of them fought for Hitler in auxiliary units, so yeah...

You're quite right, people advancing it sometimes hate communism more than they like Nazism. Amounts to the same. ;)
 

The Red

I Blame Communism said:
It certainly would not have been in 1941, however.
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Why not? As Meltyukhov points out the Germans had no defensive plan in 1941 and had the vast amount of Germany's available strength concentrated across the Soviet border. A victorious Soviet offensive would have ended the war before 1942. Presuming that the Germans have abandoned Barbarossa at the eleventh hour they will have taken a defensive position in the east by late 1941-early 1942 which will make it much harder for the Red Army to break them, especially in it's 1941 state.

Of course the Red Army will win the war eventually but whether Stalin sees it as beneficial or not is questionable.
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
Streuth the number of times this comes up!

Stalin made his land grabs because he thought they would be easy

Attacking Nazi Germany at its height was never an option

Beset Rearguards
Grey Wolf
 

Grimm Reaper

Stalin made his land grabs in 1939 because Hitler had agreed to them and the British and French could do nothing to stop him. Likewise in 1945 his gains at Yalta were agreed to by the only nations which might have stopped him.

This doesn't make Stalin a nice guy but does suggest a very cautious fellow who was not prone to taking excessive risks.

Also the disposition of the Soviet forces in June 1941, scattered the entire length of the border with every nation and inward for hundreds of miles does not suggest an army preparing for any kind of offensive.
 

altamiro

Banned
I voted yes - although I don't think that Stalin's goals would be as sweeping in 1941-43 as "invading Europe". I would assume that he would try to get the rest of Poland, possibly Slovakia, also to cut off oil flow from Ploesti and in general to weaken Germany as much as possible. If an invasion of Germany proper would be possible it would be a nice add-on. However, as noted in this thread several times, Stalin was not a gambler and invading Germany with Wehrmacht intact, and without a second front, would be an insane risk for the Red Army. The other way round would be an enormous risk as well - thus the disbelief that Hitler could actually pull it off.

Edit: everything I have read about Soviet policy in 1937-41 towards Nazi Germany seems to sugest that Stalin would see a conflict against Germany, though inevitable, as an competition for the sphere of influence, not a fight to the death - until he learned otherwise. The Soviet propaganda apparatus spew a lot of hot air that Stalin probably didn't believe himself, and one would assume he applied the same skepsis to the Nazi propaganda...
 
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Chris S

I Blame Communism said:
The phrase is usually used to argue that the Puir Wee Nazis acted in self-defence and never really wanted to exterminate Slavs and Jews, but it's quite likely that eventually - having built up and reformed his armed forces and extracted everything he could from Molotov-Ribbentrop - Stalin would at least have put his forced on readiness and cut off the flow off supplies to Germany.

Precisely when this happens, and whether he also launches an attack (if he feels confident in the Red Army, an attack to deny Ploesti to the Germans could cause a world of hurt), depend on what's happening with the ongoing Anglo-German war.

It certainly would not have been in 1941, however.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

It's only a pre-emptive strike if the Nazis knew for certain that the USSR was going to attack and nothing in any of the main documents/communications amongst the Nazi officials even hints at this. The Nazis used the theory for propaganda purposes, but if it really was a pre-emptive strike there should be something amongst the vast trove of Nazi documents that shows that German intelligence had picked up evidence of Soviets preparations for a strike either in the form of some speeches by Stalin or due to actual plans proposed and put forward for Stalin's approval.

Meltyukhov contends that both the Nazis and the Soviets had prepared plans to attack each other without solid knowledge of the other side's plans to do so (however Stalin subsequently was warned of the impending attack but this would have been after the Soviets own plans had been drawn up).

In any case the pre-emptive strike theory doesn't square with Hitler's long-stated aims of an empire for "lebensraum" in the east at the expense of Russia (written about openly in his 1925 book Mein Kampf). For the pre-emptive strike theory to really work we would then need evidence that Hitler knew of Soviet intentions to attack Germany from before he began writing Mein Kampf in prison in 1923 and that subsequently his idea of attack Russia was in response to this and an attempt to pre-empt it.

If anything Suvorov has the idea backwards, because it is easier to argue that Stalin's plans to attack Germany were in response to Hitler's anti-communism/anti-bolshevism, racist hatred of the Slavs and asiatic people as "untermenschen" and his open statement of taking land at the expense of Russia from 1925. After all it is not like Stalin or the rest of the Soviet political and military leadership wouldn't have been able to obtain a copy of a book published in 1925-1926 and which was even more widely distributed after Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Provided they knew German or had it translated, once they read the relevant sections it should have been clear to them what Hitler wanted (at least in 1925 and up until any negotiations involving the division of Europe into spheres of influence).
 

clendor

According to some books I have read, the Red Army was totally unprepared in 1941. In fact, Stalin blamed anyone who brought inteligence of the coming attack in delivering disinformation. Stalin knew that the Red Army was far weaker compared to the whermarcht (Am I spelling it right?), so he wanted to give Hitler no excuse for attack. Hitler finally decided that Barbarossa has enough popular support for not having an excuse, and the rest is history.
Well, if no barbarossa (A S B. It was Hitler's plan right from the beginning) Stalin would maybe invade europe, but only when the Red Army would be ready and officerised. That, according to the soviet plans, would be in 1943-4.
But, now I am thinking for myself, what promises Stalin would be able to take from the allies before such attack? The Cold War would look far different.
 

fort-capuzzo

Banned
clendor said:
According to some books I have read, the Red Army was totally unprepared in 1941. In fact, Stalin blamed anyone who brought inteligence of the coming attack in delivering disinformation. Stalin knew that the Red Army was far weaker compared to the whermarcht (Am I spelling it right?), so he wanted to give Hitler no excuse for attack. Hitler finally decided that Barbarossa has enough popular support for not having an excuse, and the rest is history.
Well, if no barbarossa (A S B. It was Hitler's plan right from the beginning) Stalin would maybe invade europe, but only when the Red Army would be ready and officerised. That, according to the soviet plans, would be in 1943-4.
But, now I am thinking for myself, what promises Stalin would be able to take from the allies before such attack? The Cold War would look far different.
Click to expand...

Stalin wanted the Soviet armed forces ready by 1942.
The Soviet armed forces expected to be ready by 1943.
So it could come either year.
One important factor would be on what the German armed forces were doing elsewhere.
Of course for no Barbarossa they would have to be an alternate strategy for Hitler.
Most realistic way of achieving this would be based on Fuhrer Directive 18 which would peruse more of Mediterranean strategy but would require Franco to enter the war.
 

Grimm Reaper

Anaxagoras, sure, try to absolve Syracuse University of so many foul deeds...;)


fort-capuzzo, any evidence you would like to show that Stalin would have launched an attack in 1942 or 1943, as opposed to his being frantic to correct the obvious flaws in the Red Army displayed in Finland?
 

fort-capuzzo

Banned
Grimm Reaper said:
Anaxagoras, sure, try to absolve Syracuse University of so many foul deeds...;)


fort-capuzzo, any evidence you would like to show that Stalin would have launched an attack in 1942 or 1943, as opposed to his being frantic to correct the obvious flaws in the Red Army displayed in Finland?
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I said he wanted it to be ready for attack.
In my opinion any move against Germany would depend on German weakness elsewhere as I said.
 

LeX

Anaxagoras said:
No, I don't think Syracuse University would invade Europe. The USSR may do so, but not SU.
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Actually, I'm going to nitpick and point out that nobody in this thread has used the acronym "SU" to refer to the USSR.

Also: Stalin's preferred overall plan was to watch the Allies and Axis fight each other for awhile while he stockpiled his own forces, so while he would probably make a move against Germany at some point (late 1942 or early 43), it would be after the latter was already embroiled in an engagement against the West, and like said before, most likely Stalin had a limited conflict in mind.
 
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