What Stalin Knew (2 page)

Litsakh. This work by Vyacheslav M. Lure and Valery Ya. Kochik, while

also nonofficial, contains the names of over 1,000 military intelligence

officers and, wonder of wonders, includes an index. There are, however, no

archival references supporting its data.

The other references to intelligence reports and various documents in

my book were taken from the Russian and foreign books and periodicals

cited in the end notes. Virtually all these sources suffer from the same

lack of archival documentation. It is thus nearly impossible to prove or

disprove statements in these sources, which are cited by some and con-

demned as false by others. A good example is the series of articles by Ovidy

Gorchakov entitled ‘‘Nakanune ili Tragedia Kassandry: Povest v Dokumen-

takh’’ in issues 6 and 7 of the periodical
Gorizont
(1988). Gorchakov pre-

sents a series of reports from NKGB agents on various foreign embassies. I

checked these reports with a recently retired major general of state se-

curity, who claimed there was no record of the agents’ code names, ex-

pressed doubts about Gorchakov’s veracity, and added that in any case,

because of losses suffered in the purges, the NKGB would have been inca-

pable of handling agents on that scale. Possibly, but a review of chapter 8,

‘‘Organs of State Security in the Prewar Period (1939–June 1941)’’ in
Is-

toria Sovietskikh Organov Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
(History of So-

viet Organs of State Security), a top-secret document published in 1997

under the editorship of then KGB chairman Viktor M. Chebrikov for use as

a textbook in KGB schools, shows that the NKGB’s Second (Counterintelli-

gence) Directorate was indeed capable of running very sophisticated agent

and technical operations against foreign personnel and installations in

Moscow. A recent article describes a very complex technical operation

against the residence of the senior German military attaché involving tun-

neling from a neighboring house. Completed in April 1941, this operation

provided excellent insights into German embassy attitudes and actions

during the last two months before the invasion.

My only direct archival access was at the Russian State Military Ar-

chive (RGVA), where I was able to review the military personnel file of

xiv

SOURCES

Ivan I. Proskurov. The testimonials from military superiors and political

officers revealed Proskurov to have been a dedicated pilot and devoted

Communist. As for the Central Archive of the Defense Ministry (TsA MO

RF), I was unable to gain access to it, nor was I able to obtain answers to an

extensive series of questions I had prepared on military intelligence issues

discussed in unclassified publications.

I knew access to the Central Archive of the SVR, successor to the First

Chief Directorate (foreign intelligence of the KGB), would be impossible so

I prepared a similar set of questions, again based on items from the SVR

archive and published in
1941 god.
For these I also included the official

archival references and submitted them to the SVR Public Affairs Bureau in

October 2002. In May 2003 I was advised that the SVR would not release

even those documents that had appeared in
1941 god.
To all intents and pur-

poses they had been reclassified. Furthermore, the SVR would not release

archival documents relating to questions on events or incidents derived

from unclassified articles or from the SVR’s own unclassified publications.

The first issue of the
Bulletin
of the Cold War International History

Project (1992), contains this sentence: ‘‘For Cold War historians, frustrated

for decades by the secrecy enshrouding the Soviet archives, the long wait

appears to be ending.’’ Over ten years later, this researcher found that

for his topic, the intelligence available to Stalin on German intentions in

1940–41, there was absolutely no access to the prewar archives of the

Soviet intelligence and security services. It was evident that this lack of

access reflected deliberate policy decisions by the present Russian leader-

ship to ensure that these services, and these services alone, would be able

to use their archival material in interpreting the past.

Introduction

Stalin’s Absolute Control,

Misconceptions, and

Disastrous Decisions

On June 17, 1941, Stalin received a report signed

by Pavel M. Fitin, chief of NKGB Foreign Intelligence, asserting that ‘‘all

preparations by Germany for an armed attack on the Soviet Union have

been completed, and the blow can be expected at any time.’’ The source

was an intelligence officer in Hermann Göring’s Air Ministry. In the margin

of the report, Stalin scrawled this note to Fitin’s chief, the people’s com-

missar for state security, Vsevolod N. Merkulov: ‘‘Comrade Merkulov, you

can send your ‘source’ from the headquarters of German aviation to his

fucking mother. This is not a ‘source’ but a
dezinformator.
’ Five days after

Stalin expressed these sentiments, the German onslaught broke, bringing

with it a war that would result in the deaths of twenty million Soviet

citizens.

The scale of this catastrophe was such that the Russian people have

still not been able to come to grips with that period. Their need for closure

is so great that agonizing debates continue in Russia up to this day, focus-

ing primarily on Stalin’s role. Before examining Stalin’s actions in the

years leading up to the war, however, it is essential to understand that

Stalin was in total control. Unchallenged by any serious opposition, he had

become the center of all decision making, the source of foreign and domes-

tic policies, the supreme ‘‘Boss’’ who would tolerate no dissent. Stalin,

already first secretary of the Central Committee, VKP(b), became chair-

man of the Council of People’s Commissars on May 5, 1941. Many Western

xvi

INTRODUCTION

observers assumed that the new position was necessary to enable Stalin to

play a stronger role in negotiations with Germany. In reality the change

created only the impression of a consolidation of power. As first secretary

of the party, Stalin alone already dominated the Politburo and the Central

Committee.

Stalin’s power derived only in part from his formal position and in

larger part from the universal fear that without warning, at Stalin’s behest,

citizens might find themselves in the clutches of Beria and his inquisitors.

Everyone, from people’s commissars to senior generals to the lowest-level

functionaries knew that either execution or a lengthy term in the GULAG

could befall them at any time. Exploiting their fear, Stalin was able to

advance his anomalous views on foreign policy, military strategy, weapons

development, and so forth, usually unopposed by professionals. His insis-

tence on adopting his crony Marshal Grigory I. Kulik’s suggestion that the

107 mm field piece, used in the 1917–19 Russian civil war, should be

adapted for use in tanks as of early 1941 is but one example. His refusal to

permit Soviet air defense forces to halt massive German air reconnais-

sance on the eve of the invasion is another.

This climate of abject fear, reinforced by the complete secrecy in which

Stalin and his minions worked, kept even the best Soviet generals and

managers off balance as the confrontation with Germany drew near. In his

dealings with those around him and with foreign emissaries, Stalin was

the ultimate conspirator, a master at playing the role of either the genial

leader or the tough negotiator. Stalin adhered to Leninist formulations and

to party jargon in dealing with his own people or the Executive Committee

of the Comintern. Some Western historians have said that Stalin was not a

revolutionary but a statesman whose goal was to advance his country’s

national interests. They overlook the fact that while Stalin could moderate

his revolutionary rhetoric, he remained a believer in the Communist cause

who would use revolutionary tactics to achieve his objectives whenever

circumstances were appropriate.

As early as 1937 the terror against party officials suspected of opposi-

tion to Stalin extended to the Red Army. Purportedly needed to avoid cre-

ation of a fifth column in the event of war, Stalin’s actions not only resulted

in the loss of senior commanders such as Marshal Mikhail N. Tukhachev-

sky but also depleted the ranks of the officer corps at all levels. Thousands

of officers with combat experience and higher education were executed,

sent to the GULAG, or discharged from the service. These actions did not

end in 1938–39 but continued right up to the early days of the German

INTRODUCTION

xvii

invasion. The arrests and executions in this later phase were directed in

great measure at officials of the aviation industry and the Red Army air

forces’ technical specialists, who were made scapegoats for the failure of

the Stalinist system to develop an effective air arm.

The other group under attack in May–June 1941 were veterans of the

Spanish civil war. Former advisers to the republican government, they

were brought back to Moscow ostensibly to replace officers purged earlier

and many of them had advanced to senior rank in the Red Army, yet they

displayed an independence of spirit that Stalin could not tolerate. These

highly decorated veterans were tortured and executed without trial at Sta-

lin’s insistence, depriving the Soviet forces of the only cadres with actual

experience in fighting the Germans.

Stalin’s decision to conclude the nonaggression pact with Germany,

with its secret protocols, enabled the USSR to expand its western borders

at the expense of a defeated Poland and to lay the groundwork for incor-

poration of the Baltic States into the USSR and the acquisition of territory

in Romania. But this expansion came at a high cost. Instead of being

improved, the Soviet Union’s defensive posture was severely undermined.

The Soviets acquired virulently hostile populations who provided the Ger-

man intelligence services with ready recruits for sabotage operations on

the eve of the invasion. From the military point of view, these operations

played havoc with Soviet communications and transportation. The field

fortifications along the former border, vital to the Red Army’s forward

force posture, were dismantled and a new fortified line along the new

frontier was never completed. In the wrangling over this issue, Stalin in-

sisted on keeping the first echelons close to the new border despite the lack

of defensive structures, a fatal misjudgment. He refused to consider the

defensive strategy urged on him by men like Marshal Shaposhnikov, who

strongly believed Soviet defenses should take advantage of the fortifica-

tions along the pre-1939 border, thereby providing defense in depth. Stalin

would not, it was said, concede any part of these new lands to an invader

because of his pride in his conquest of the new territories in the West. His

chief military advisers were unable to change his mind. Was pride Stalin’s

only reason for rejecting this ‘‘defense in depth’’ strategy?

There are other possible explanations, not only for his rejection of

defense in depth but for the decision to enter into the nonaggression pact.

One factor was Stalin’s firm conviction, evidenced by the 1938 Sudeten

crisis, that neither France nor England, as capitalist states, would ever

cooperate with Communist Russia in maintaining peace in Central and

xviii

INTRODUCTION

Eastern Europe. Stalin was convinced they would rather connive to ensure

that Hitler would turn eastward, leaving Western Europe untouched, even

going so far as to join Hitler in an attack on the USSR. Again, Stalin was

wrong in his assessment, and once England had declared war on Germany

and Churchill had joined the Chamberlain government, there was little

possibility of such fears being realized. Stalin knew only that Churchill

had staunchly opposed communism as a system beginning in the 1920s,

and he expected that Churchill would willingly accept a German invasion

of the USSR. He appeared to have little awareness of the tenacity with

which Churchill, describing Hitler as a major threat to British interests,

tried to persuade successive Conservative governments to improve En-

gland’s defenses during the 1930s. Stalin’s lack of awareness of the com-

plexities of Western politics and his naive acceptance of Marxist dogma

explains much about his erratic foreign affairs performance in the years

leading up to the German invasion.

The theory that Stalin’s plans for a preventive attack on Germany ex-

plain his passivity in the face of the German buildup remains alive in