What Stalin Knew (3 page)

current Russian studies. Linked to this theory is the charge that because

Soviet intelligence could not discover the exact date of the German attack,

Stalin was unable to know precisely when to launch his preemptive strike.

The documents examined in this book establish beyond any reason-

able doubt that the Soviet services were highly alert to this threat. (For a

chronology of agent reporting, see appendix 4.) Both foreign intelligence

and counterintelligence elements exploited the full range of sources, hu-

man and technical, available to them. Admittedly, they did not have pen-

etrations of Hitler’s personal staff or the highest levels of the German high

command. Neither, insofar as we know, did they have in the immediate

prewar period the level of signals intelligence achieved by the British. Still,

their coverage of German military preparations for the June 1941 invasion

was impressive by any standard. Nor can we accept the argument ad-

vanced by several publications that it was primarily German deception

that made it difficult for the Soviet services to analyze available informa-

tion, screen out the deception material, and provide the results to the

Soviet politico-military leadership. Of course, those defending the intel-

ligence services have argued that they had no analytical capability at the

time. That is certainly not true of Soviet military intelligence, which had

an analytical unit and carried the main burden of interpreting the ac-

tivities of German forces in the Soviet border area. As for the Foreign

Intelligence Service of State Security (NKVD/NKGB), the practice of de-

INTRODUCTION

xix

ception, or ‘‘active measures,’’ had been a major part of its doctrine and

operations since its founding. Surely, it should not have been beyond the

capabilities of this service to discern the main outlines of the German

deception campaign.

It would not be the first time, of course, that intelligence services felt

obliged to serve up intelligence estimates that conformed to the plans and

policies of political leaders. Nor is the failure by political leaders to take

action based on warnings from intelligence unprecedented. These peren-

nial problems affect many societies but tend to be more prevalent in de-

mocracies, where popular attitudes can inhibit a leader’s freedom of ac-

tion. The unwillingness of Conservative governments in England during

the 1930s to appreciate the danger of the German threat is one example.

Closer to hand are the failures of the Bush administration in America with

respect to Iraq. While the intelligence community produced intelligence

on weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be wrong, previous

administrations apparently ignored a variety of indicators of al-Qu’aida’s

intention to conduct a major attack on U.S. domestic targets.

One cannot, however, equate the Soviet situation in 1941 with that of

other governments in other times. For one thing, the dimensions of the

threat were considerably greater. Fresh from their victories in France in

June 1940, the Germans amassed along the Soviet border with occupied

Poland large forces of combat-hardened veterans. They possessed weap-

ons and the combined arms tactics to exploit them that threatened not

only the Red Army units facing them but the very survival of the Soviet

regime itself. Also, the extent of intelligence available to the Soviet leader-

ship on the specifics of this threat was precise and detailed, yet Stalin

rejected it and refused to permit his military to take necessary actions to

respond lest they ‘‘provoke’’ the Germans. The results in terms of human

losses were catastrophic, exceeding those suffered by any other nation

during the Second World War.

On June 21, 1941, the troops of Germany and its allies were poised at

the Soviet border in full combat readiness. They faced Soviet troops not

fully deployed and by no means combat ready. In Soviet and foreign histo-

riography, their lack of preparedness is normally attributed to Stalin’s pro-

crastination. The motives for this procrastination are still the subject of

quarrels both in the former USSR and abroad. Some historians contend

that he had rational reasons. He strongly believed, for one, that Hitler, who

had just succeeded in dominating Western Europe, was much too clever

to believe he could conquer Russia, where others before him had failed.

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INTRODUCTION

Indeed, Stalin’s actions in June 1941 demonstrate that he had been con-

vinced by Hitler and German deception that German troops had been

deployed to occupied Poland solely to evade British bombing and observa-

tion. He was also persuaded that Hitler still intended to invade the British

Isles, an action that would certainly delay any attack on the Soviet Union

but might, if German forces were hurled back in defeat, open the way for

Stalin to Western Europe. These all turned out to be delusional concepts.

Others might argue that Stalin’s procrastination, his insistence that his

military take no actions that might provoke Hitler or his generals to invade

the USSR, derived from his awareness that the Red Army was not ready to

face the Wehrmacht. But it was Stalin himself and the system he created

that brought about this situation. His purges of the officer corps, animated

by the threat he feared the military posed to his power, his refusal to act

against persistent Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance, the delays in complet-

ing construction of fortified areas, the inability of the economy (including

the collective farms) to provide the Red Army with essential transport, all

stemmed from a system in which one man, ever fearful of threats to his

personal power, was able to subordinate the needs of the nation to his

irrational delusions. The result was historical catastrophe.

Though bearing ultimate responsibility, Stalin could not have acted

alone any more than he could have singlehandedly carried out the purges.

Stalin had many willing accomplices in the party, the state, the military,

and the intelligence and security services. In the climate of fear and subser-

vience he had created, massive errors of commission and omission were

inevitable, particularly on the part of the intelligence services. Awareness

of German preparations to invade so pervaded Moscow that even Stalin’s

most sycophantic collaborators in these services found it difficult to choke

off the constant flow of intelligence reporting.

Without doubt, sufficient intelligence was available to Stalin on Ger-

man preparations to invade the USSR. Had it been properly evaluated and

disseminated, defensive measures could have been undertaken that might

have either dissuaded Hitler or blunted the attack when it came.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

AMTORG: Soviet trade company in New York City

AVP RF: Soviet Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation

CC: Central Committee of the Communist Party

Cheka: Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabo-

tage. Founded 1918. Precursor of other state security organizations: GPU,

OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB, and KGB

ENIGMA: German encryption machine

FSB: Federal Security Service

GKO: State Defense Committee, 1941–45

GPU: State Political Directorate, 1923–34

GRU: Chief Intelligence Directorate (Military Intelligence)

GTU: Chief Transport Directorate, NKVD

GUGB: Chief Directorate for State Security, NKVD

GULAG: Chief Directorate of Prison Camps

GUPV: Chief Directorate of Border Troops

JIC: British Joint Intelligence Committee

MGB: Ministry of State Security

MI-5: British Counterintelligence Organization

MI-6: British Secret Intelligence Service

Narkom: Acronym for People’s Commissar

NKGB: People’s Commissariat for State Security

NKID: People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs

NKO: People’s Commissariat for Defense

NKPS: People’s Commissariat of Transport Routes

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ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

NKVD: People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs

OKW: High Command of the German Armed Forces

OUN: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

PVO: National Air Defense

RF: Russian Federation

RGVA: Russian State Military Archive

RKKA: Workers and Peasants Red Army

RU: Military Intelligence Directorate

RU GS KA: Intelligence Directorate, General Staff, Red Army

SIS: British Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6)

SMD: Special Military District

SNK: Council of People’s Commissars

Stavka: Highest organ of strategic leadership of the Soviet armed forces during

World War II

SVR: Russian Foreign Intelligence Service

ULTRA: Code word for British decryption of German codes

VENONA: Declassified messages obtained by Anglo-American decryption of

Soviet codes

VKP(b): All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

VNOS: Soviet air observation, warning, and communications service

What Stali n Kn ew

∞

C H A P T E R

Stalin versus Hitler

Background

The year 1945 saw the end of the most destructive

war in the history of mankind. Among the nations that suffered the great-

est human and physical losses were Germany and Soviet Russia. It was a

decision made final in August 1939 by the German and Soviet leaders that

rendered this catastrophic war inevitable. Why was that decision made?

How did the German leader, Adolf Hitler, and his Soviet counterpart, Josef

Stalin, view the world at that time?

Both Germany and Soviet Russia were losers in World War I. After a

relatively brief but important period of diplomatic, military, and economic

cooperation during the 1920s, the two nations followed different paths of

development in the 1930s. Stalin achieved total control of the ruling Com-

munist Party and embarked on a wholesale transformation of the rural

economy, eliminating a rising group of independent peasants and forcing

others onto collective farms. This policy eventually enabled the state to

control agricultural output, but it also produced massive famine in which

millions died. Concurrently, Stalin began a gigantic industrialization pro-

gram that greatly expanded existing industries (most of which had been

expropriated following the 1917 revolution) and created vast new indus-

trial centers. The pace and intensity of this effort were unprecedented but

made necessary, in Stalin’s view, by the ‘‘capitalist encirclement’’ of Soviet

Russia.

Stalin saw criticism of any aspect of his agricultural and industrial

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STALIN VERSUS HITLER

policies as an attack on his leadership of the party, and he responded by

instituting widespread purges of those he termed ‘‘the opposition.’’ The

arrest, imprisonment, or execution of many thousands of the nation’s most

talented people would in time be felt throughout the party, government,

and economy, but most severely in the armed forces. Apart from the prob-

lems caused by the loss of experienced cadres, the purges resulted in an

atmosphere of fear and suspicion that paralyzed many of the survivors,

making them incapable or unwilling to work effectively or creatively.

Abroad, Stalin saw his socialist regime surrounded by capitalist states

that had been hostile to Soviet Russia since the Revolution of 1917. To the

west were Great Britain, France, and their client states such as Czechoslo-

vakia, Romania, and Poland, all of which were in some degree anti-Soviet.

Japanese aggression, notably in Manchuria and North China, figured as

the main threat in the Far East. When Hitler and his National Socialist

Party came to power via the ballot box in Germany, Stalin understood his

election as a natural evolution from democratic capitalism to fascism that

would hasten the development of a revolutionary situation. He therefore

forbade the German Communists, a formidable, well-organized party, to

make common cause with the German Socialist Party, then the largest

party of the left, against the Nazis and their storm troopers. The result of

this decision was the destruction of both parties and the consolidation of

Hitler’s power as Führer.

While Stalin was preoccupied with his purges, Hitler set about elimi-

nating the restraints on Germany imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. In

October 1933 Germany seceded from the League of Nations. In January

1935, following a plebiscite, it reincorporated the Saar, a German province

that had been placed under a League of Nations mandate after World

War I. On March 16, 1935, in defiance of the treaty, Hitler reintroduced

compulsory military service and created an air force. A year later he re-

militarized the Rhineland. The former Allies protested but took no other

action.

In June 1935 Germany signed a naval agreement with Great Britain

that greatly relaxed the Versailles Treaty’s limitations on German naval