Stalin 'invade Europe'?

Thus explaining the Berlin Crisis and Korean War, right? Or Stalin's strong opposition to the Nazis and Japan before Munich?

For that matter, I would argue the USSR's response to Germany was hardening in late 1940, and early 1941, as well.

I believe this should be amended to "Stalin appeased the Western powers if it suited him" because ultimately Stalin was an extremely careful leader who would take an opportunity if he felt he had one (i.e. making the US pay the piper at wartime conferences when it came to Soviet interests) but otherwise realized that belligerent Soviet expansionism of the Red Dawn school of thought ran a strong possibility of getting the Soviet Union into a war it was very likely to lose.

Ultimately Stalin realized that the West could hate him all it wanted but once it came to the point where they were uniting against the Soviet Union then it was a problem. This is why the Soviets never undertook a policy of blitzing across Europe until it was actually attacked and got a blank check because the Soviet Union and the Western Allies had a common foe in the Axis.
 
"War with Germany is inevitable. If comrade Molotov can manage to postpone the war for two or three months that will be our good fortune, but you yourselves must go off and take measures to raise the combat readiness of our forces."-Stalin, in May of 1941.

That speech was at most a ploy by Stalin to motivate some officers. His actions before the war speak much louder than his words.
 
That speech was at most a ploy by Stalin to motivate some officers. His actions before the war speak much louder than his words.

Which ones? The decision to rapidly increase the USSR's military budget? Heck, you can actually trace Soviet rearmament pretty closely to Hitler's rise to power.
 
Stalin did act "aggressive" before & after WWII.
But his favorite strategy was low level pressure:

  • support communist parties abroad
  • encourage the to pursue an confrontation strategy
  • start coups & uprisings when there is a chance (and sometimes even when there is none)
  • use econmic pressure an military intimidation to finnlandize neighbouring countries
Not impossible, that this might spark a war (especially assuming the USSR would become keener while it's military strenght rises) but Stalin was not aiming for that.
 
"War with Germany is inevitable. If comrade Molotov can manage to postpone the war for two or three months that will be our good fortune, but you yourselves must go off and take measures to raise the combat readiness of our forces."-Stalin, in May of 1941.

That speech is an acknowledgement of Nazi Germany's political ideological motive too destroy the Soviet Union. Stalin regarded war with Nazi Germany as inevitable and something that would be better off as later rather then sooner and would rather be attacked then be goaded into attacking.

In the OP, Nazi Germany does not exist so there is no reason for Stalin too take such a view.
 
And so some limited conflicts are not, IMO, out of the question. Especially if Europe is not a shiny happy family, but rather a mess of disctatorships, illiberal democracies, etc. that are jostling.

Then one incident leads to worse relations, which leads to escelation, which leads to...

Well, having mentioned the Crimean War I'm in no position to ignore the possibilities for war inherent in human folly and inept communication! ;) You're certainly right, but as you said this is quite different from the USSR embarking on some premeditated policy of invading everywhere in order to address problems quite different from its actual problems and because somebody needs to be the Big Bad, which appeared to me to be what the OP was talking about.

No it certainly was not. The USSR sent shipments of raw goods to Germany up until hours before Barbarossa. Stalin refused to believe Germany would attack partly because he was sure that his continued appeasement would be enough to sedate it.

Working on the assumption that a negative went AWOL somewhere, anyway:

Why would giving weapons to the Germans discourage them from attacking? Because, of course, they were supposed to use the weapons against us. When, in the aftermath of the disaster in France that not even the Germans had expected, it actually looked as though Germany might win, supplies apparently began to fall off the lorries.

But even if neither side is getting nearer to decisive victory, it's not as though Britain and Germany will just fight forever. One would think that Stalin must have at least an outline sketched of what he was going to do in a few years when his military buildup had progressed further. And there's plenty of evidence that he thought a fight with Germany, possibly not started by him, was coming sooner or later.
 
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Laurentia

Banned
Stalin might have been an evil motherfucker, but he was certainly not a stupid one. Even he realized he would not be able to beat the Allied Nations of Europe standing against him.
 
might happen if Leon Trotsky[ replaed Stalin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky
"Left Communists, led by Nikolai Bukharin, continued to believe that there could be no peace between a Soviet republic and a capitalist country and that only a revolutionary war leading to a pan-European Soviet republic would bring a durable peace."

as far I know Trotsky believed if the revolution did not spead quickly the economically more efficient capitalist countries would out compete the soviet union in the long run and commiunist would fail.
 
Stalin might have been an evil motherfucker, but he was certainly not a stupid one. Even he realized he would not be able to beat the Allied Nations of Europe standing against him.

Pretty much, once the Soviets shore up their hegemony over anywhere that could serve as a corridor to an invasion of the Soviet Union and satisfied their old claims (Baltics, Finland, etc.), they were going to confront the West no more than they had to.
 
Why would he do this, how's he going to build an army that would do this, and who would be so foolish as to let him just waltz right in and do this? The Soviets, even if they build up their Deep Operations concept uninterrupted aren't going to simply overrun all of Europe without any resistance whatsoever. Admittedly they'd overrun a great deal of it were this to somehow inexplicably happen by ASBs mind-controlling Stalin into continuing Soviet military development from 1937 onward as nobody else would be any too able to stop them, certainly Germany would not be.

Then Moscow gets turned into green glass, war's over.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
might happen if Leon Trotsky[ replaed Stalin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky
"Left Communists, led by Nikolai Bukharin, continued to believe that there could be no peace between a Soviet republic and a capitalist country and that only a revolutionary war leading to a pan-European Soviet republic would bring a durable peace."

as far I know Trotsky believed if the revolution did not spead quickly the economically more efficient capitalist countries would out compete the soviet union in the long run and commiunist would fail.
You know Bukharin and Trotsky were ideologically quite far from each other, and Bukharin was definitely a right communist. (And Trotsky was a good general, but a bad politician, I doubt he'd be a good leader, or even survive a decade as the USSR boss).
 
First, Hello forum !

Hey Guys, Let's say that Nazi Germany never comes into being, or it does but Hitler dies along the way prior to the Second Great War [...] Will Stalin eventually decide to 'invade Europe'? In other words start attacking nations and the Europeans threatening and declaring war?


Well, the kind of Germany Stalin would have to deal with if Hitler dies before or after the emergence of the Nazi state makes a big difference to any answer, assuming here that Nazism could exist without its figurehead.

I guess you mean a greatly weakened Germany, a kind of tame Weimar Republic that somehow managed to negotiate the trials of the 20's and 30's. In which case, the rationale for Stalin ( ever the cautious gambler ) to aquire a buffer zone to his west would be somewhat removed, and he could well be perfectly content to maintain the status quo as it is; who now, in the eyes of the great powers, could he be reasonably protecting the Soviet Union's frontier from ?

If however the Nazi state survived in some post-Hitler form, we can assume it would be a far less powerful yet volatile force without their charismatic kingpin, hence able to be portrayed as a potential threat to international security - whether it was or not. In such a case, Stalin might make tentative offers of 'protection' to his neighbours.

Stalin was ever-mindful of the West's stance and preparedness for war; I honestly think Stalin was one of the least expansionist of leaders of the period, until the late 30's that is.
 
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yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
First, Hello forum !




Well, the kind of Germany Stalin would have to deal with if Hitler dies before or after the emergence of the Nazi state makes a big difference to any answer, assuming here that Nazism could exist without its figurehead.

I guess you mean a greatly weakened Germany, a kind of tame Weimar Republic that somehow managed to negotiate the trials of the 20's and 30's. In which case, the rationale for Stalin ( ever the cautious gambler ) to aquire a buffer zone to his west would be somewhat removed, and he could well be perfectly content to maintain the status quo as it is; who now, in the eyes of the great powers, could he be reasonably protecting the Soviet Union's frontier from ?

If however the Nazi state survived in some post-Hitler form, we can assume it would be a far less powerful yet volatile force without their charismatic kingpin, hence able to be portrayed as a potential threat to international security - whether it was or not. In such a case, Stalin might make tentative offers of 'protection' to his neighbours.

Stalin was ever-mindful of the West's stance and preparedness for war; I honestly think Stalin was one of the least expansionist of leaders of the period, until the late 30's that is.

With Hitler dyiyng before the Nazi takeover we could also see Germany becoming a Conservative Dictatorship under the Junkers.
 
Well, having mentioned the Crimean War I'm in no position to ignore the possibilities for war inherent in human folly and inept communication! ;) You're certainly right, but as you said this is quite different from the USSR embarking on some premeditated policy of invading everywhere in order to address problems quite different from its actual problems and because somebody needs to be the Big Bad, which appeared to me to be what the OP was talking about.

That's certainly true. But I just want to highlight that Stalin was a complex figure, who did different things at different times. He put pressure where he thought it was cheap and would pay off; he backed off and appeased when he thought it would be beneficial; and he was willing to risk a major crisis when necessary. Nor was he flawless, and I would argue that towards the end he was certainly losing it...
 
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