Poslednyaya Respublika
(“The Last Republic”), by Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun). Moscow: TKO ACT,
1996. 470 pages. Hardcover. Photographs.
Reviewed by Daniel W. Michaels
For several years now, a former Soviet military
intelligence officer named Vladimir Rezun has provoked heated discussion in
Russia for his startling view that Hitler attacked Soviet Russia in June 1941
just as Stalin was preparing to overwhelm Germany and western Europe as part of
a well-planned operation to “liberate” all of Europe by bringing it under
Communist rule.
Writing under the pen name of
Viktor Suvorov, Rezun has developed this thesis in three books. Icebreaker
(which has been published in an English-language edition) and Dni M (“M Day”)
were reviewed in the Nov.-Dec. 1997 Journal. The third book, reviewed here, is
a 470-page work, “The Last Republic: Why the Soviet Union Lost the Second World
War,” published in Russian in Moscow in 1996.
Suvorov presents a mass of
evidence to show that when Hitler launched his “Operation Barbarossa” attack
against Soviet Russia on June 22, 1941, German forces were able to inflict
enormous losses against the Soviets precisely because the Red troops were much better
prepared for war – but for an aggressive war that was scheduled for early July –
not the defensive war forced on them by Hitler’s preemptive strike.
In Icebreaker, Suvorov details
the deployment of Soviet forces in June 1941, describing just how Stalin
amassed vast numbers of troops and stores of weapons along the European
frontier, not to defend the Soviet homeland but in preparation for a westward
attack and decisive battles on enemy territory.
Thus, when German forces
struck, the bulk of Red ground and air forces were concentrated along the
Soviet western borders facing contiguous European countries, especially the
German Reich and Romania, in final readiness for an assault on Europe.
In his second book on the
origins of the war, “M Day” (for “Mobilization Day”), Suvorov details how,
between late 1939 and the summer of 1941, Stalin methodically and
systematically built up the best armed, most powerful military force in the
world – actually the world’s first superpower – for his planned conquest of Europe.
Suvorov explains how Stalin’s drastic conversion of the country’s economy for
war actually made war inevitable. [Image: By mid-June 1941, enormous Red Army
forces were concentrated on the western Soviet border, poised for a devastating
attack against Europe. This diagram appeared in the English-language edition of
the German wartime illustrated magazine Signal.]
A Global Soviet Union
In “The Last Republic,”
Suvorov adds to the evidence presented in his two earlier books to strengthen
his argument that Stalin was preparing for an aggressive war, in particular
emphasizing the ideological motivation for the Soviet leader’s actions. The title
refers to the unlucky country that would be incorporated as the “final
republic” into the globe-encompassing “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,”
thereby completing the world proletarian revolution.
As Suvorov explains, this plan
was entirely consistent with Marxist-Leninist doctrine, as well as with Lenin’s
policies in the earlier years of the Soviet regime. The Russian historian
argues convincingly that it was not Leon Trotsky (Bronstein), but rather
Stalin, his less flamboyant rival, who was really the faithful disciple of
Lenin in promoting world Communist revolution. Trotsky insisted on his doctrine
of “permanent revolution,” whereby the young Soviet state would help foment
home-grown workers’ uprisings and revolution in the capitalist countries.
Stalin instead wanted the
Soviet regime to take advantage of occasional “armistices” in the global
struggle to consolidate Red military strength for the right moment when larger
and better armed Soviet forces would strike into central and western Europe,
adding new Soviet republics as this overwhelming force rolled across the
continent. After the successful consolidation and Sovietization of all of
Europe, the expanded USSR would be poised to impose Soviet power over the
entire globe.
As Suvorov shows, Stalin
realized quite well that, given a free choice, the people of the advanced
Western countries would never voluntarily choose Communism. It would therefore
have to be imposed by force. His bold plan, Stalin further decided, could be
realized only through a world war.
A critical piece of evidence
in this regard is his speech of August 19, 1939, recently uncovered in Soviet
archives (quoted in part in the Nov.-Dec. 1997 Journal, pp. 32-33). In it,
Lenin’s heir states:
The
experience of the last 20 years has shown that in peacetime the Communist
movement is never strong enough to seize power. The dictatorship of such a
party will only become possible as the result of a major war …
Later on,
all the countries who had accepted protection from resurgent Germany would also
become our allies. We shall have a wide field to develop the world revolution.
Furthermore, and as Soviet
theoreticians had always insisted, Communism could never peacefully coexist
over the long run with other socio-political systems. Accordingly, Communist
rule inevitably would have to be imposed throughout the world. So integral was
this goal of “world revolution” to the nature and development of the “first
workers’ state” that it was a cardinal feature of the Soviet agenda even before
Hitler and his National Socialist movement came to power in Germany in 1933.
Stalin elected to strike at a
time and place of his choosing. To this end, Soviet development of the most
advanced offensive weapons systems, primarily tanks, aircraft, and airborne
forces, had already begun in the early 1930s. To ensure the success of his bold
undertaking, in late 1939 Stalin ordered the build up a powerful war machine
that would be superior in quantity and quality to all possible opposing forces.
His first secret order for the total military-industrial mobilization of the
country was issued in August 1939. A second total mobilization order, this one
for military mobilization, would be issued on the day the war was to begin.
Disappointment
The German “Barbarossa” attack
shattered Stalin’s well-laid plan to “liberate” all of Europe. In this sense,
Suvorov contends, Stalin “lost” the Second World War. The Soviet premier could
regard “merely” defeating Germany and conquering eastern and central Europe
only as a disappointment.
According to Suvorov, Stalin
revealed his disappointment over the war’s outcome in several ways. First, he
had Marshal Georgi Zhukov, not himself, the supreme commander, lead the victory
parade in 1945. Second, no official May 9 victory parade was even authorized
until after Stalin’s death. Third, Stalin never wore any of the medals he was
awarded after the end of the Second World War. Fourth, once, in a depressed
mood, he expressed to members of his close circle his desire to retire now that
the war was over. Fifth, and perhaps most telling, Stalin abandoned work on the
long-planned Palace of Soviets.
An Unfinished Monument
The enormous Palace of
Soviets, approved by the Soviet government in the early 1930s, was to be 1,250
feet tall, surmounted with a statue of Lenin 300 feet in height – taller than
New York’s Empire State Building. It was to be built on the site of the former
Cathedral of Christ the Savior. On Stalin’s order, this magnificent symbol of
old Russia was blown up in 1931 – an act whereby the nation’s Communist rulers
symbolically erased the soul of old Russia to make room for the centerpiece of
the world USSR.
All the world’s “socialist
republics,” including the “last republic,” would ultimately be represented in
the Palace. The main hall of this secular shrine was to be inscribed with the
oath that Stalin had delivered in quasi-religious cadences at Lenin’s burial.
It included the words: “When he left us, Comrade Lenin bequeathed to us the
responsibility to strengthen and expand the Union of Socialist Republics. We
vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that we shall honorably carry out this, your sacred
commandment.”
However, only the bowl-shaped
foundation for this grandiose monument was ever completed, and during the
1990s, after the collapse the USSR, the Christ the Savior Cathedral was
painstakingly rebuilt on the site.
The Official View
For decades the official
version of the 1941-1945 German-Soviet conflict, supported by establishment
historians in both Russia and the West, has been something like this:
Hitler
launched a surprise “Blitzkrieg” attack against the woefully unprepared Soviet
Union, fooling its leader, the unsuspecting and trusting Stalin. The German
Führer was driven by lust for “living space” and natural resources in the
primitive East, and by his long-simmering determination to smash “Jewish
Communism” once and for all. In this treacherous attack, which was an important
part of Hitler’s mad drive for “world conquest,” the “Nazi” or “fascist”
aggressors initially overwhelmed all resistance with their preponderance of
modern tanks and aircraft.
This view, which was affirmed
by the Allied judges at the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal, is still widely
accepted in both Russia and the United States. In Russia today, most of the
general public (and not merely those who are nostalgic for the old Soviet
regime), accepts this “politically correct” line. For one thing, it “explains”
the Soviet Union’s enormous World War II losses in men and materiel.
Doomed from the Start
Contrary to the official view
that the Soviet Union was not prepared for war in June 1941, in fact, Suvorov
stresses, it was the Germans who were not really prepared. Germany’s hastily
drawn up “Operation Barbarossa” plan, which called for a “Blitzkrieg” victory
in four or five months by numerically inferior forces advancing in three broad
military thrusts, was doomed from the outset.
Moreover, Suvorov goes on to
note, Germany lacked the raw materials (including petroleum) essential in
sustaining a drawn out war of such dimensions.
Another reason for Germany’s
lack of preparedness, Suvorov contends, was that her military leaders seriously
under-estimated the performance of Soviet forces in the Winter War against
Finland, 1939-40. They fought, it must be stressed, under extremely severe
winter conditions – temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius and snow depths of
several feet – against the well-designed reinforced concrete fortifications and
underground facilities of Finland’s “Mannerheim Line.” In spite of that, it is
often forgotten, the Red Army did, after all, force the Finns into a
humiliating armistice.
It is always a mistake, Suvorov
emphasizes, to underestimate your enemy. But Hitler made this critical
miscalculation. In 1943, after the tide of war had shifted against Germany, he
admitted his mistaken evaluation of Soviet forces two years earlier.
Tank Disparity Compared
To prove that it was Stalin,
and not Hitler, who was really prepared for war, Suvorov compares German and
Soviet weaponry in mid-1941, especially with respect to the all-important
offensive weapons systems – tanks and airborne forces. It is a generally accepted
axiom in military science that attacking forces should have a numerical
superiority of three to one over the defenders. Yet, as Suvorov explains, when
the Germans struck on the morning of June 22, 1941, they attacked with a total
of 3,350 tanks, while the Soviet defenders had a total of 24,000 tanks – that
is, Stalin had seven times more tanks than Hitler, or 21 times more tanks than
would have been considered sufficient for an adequate defense. Moreover,
Suvorov stresses, the Soviet tanks were superior in all technical respects,
including firepower, range, and armor plating.
As it was, Soviet development
of heavy tank production had already begun in the early 1930s. For example, as
early as 1933 the Soviets were already turning out in series production, and
distributing to their forces, the T-35 model, a 45-ton heavy tank with three
cannons, six machine guns, and 30-mm armor plating. By contrast, the Germans
began development and production of a comparable 45-ton tank only after the war
had begun in mid-1941.
By 1939 the Soviets had
already added three heavy tank models to their inventory. Moreover, the Soviets
designed their tanks with wider tracks, and to operate with diesel engines
(which were less flammable than those using conventional carburetor mix fuels).
Furthermore, Soviet tanks were built with both the engine and the drive in the
rear, thereby improving general efficiency and operator viewing. German tanks
had a less efficient arrangement, with the engine in the rear and the drive in
the forward area.
When the conflict began in
June 1941, Suvorov shows, Germany had no heavy tanks at all, only 309 medium
tanks, and just 2,668 light, inferior tanks. For their part, the Soviets at the
outbreak of the war had at their disposal tanks that were not only heavier but
of higher quality.
In this regard, Suvorov cites
the recollection of German tank general Heinz Guderian, who wrote in his memoir
Panzer Leader (1952/1996, p. 143):
In the
spring of 1941, Hitler had specifically ordered that a Russian military
commission be shown over our tank schools and factories; in this order he had
insisted that nothing be concealed from them. The Russian officers in question
firmly refused to believe that the Panzer IV was in fact our heaviest tank.
They said repeatedly that we must be hiding our newest models from them, and
complained that we were not carrying out Hitler’s order to show them
everything. The military commission was so insistent on this point that
eventually our manufacturers and Ordnance Office officials concluded: “It seems
that the Russians must already possess better and heavier tanks than we do.” It
was at the end of July 1941 that the T34 tank appeared on the front and the
riddle of the new Russian model was solved.
Suvorov cites another revealing
fact from Robert Goralski’s World War II Almanac (1982, p. 164). On June 24,
1941 – just two days after the outbreak of the German-Soviet war:
The Russians
introduced their giant Klim Voroshilov tanks into action near Raseiniai
[Lithuania]. Models weighing 43 and 52 tons surprised the Germans, who found
the KVs nearly unstoppable. One of these Russian tanks took 70 direct hits, but
none penetrated its armor.
In short, Germany took on the
Soviet colossus with tanks that were too light, too few in number, and inferior
in performance and fire power. And this disparity continued as the war
progressed. In 1942 alone, Soviet factories produced 2,553 heavy tanks, while
the Germans produced just 89. Even at the end of the war, the best-quality tank
in combat was the Soviet IS (“Iosef Stalin”) model.
Suvorov sarcastically urges
establishment military historians to study a book on Soviet tanks by Igor P.
Shmelev, published in 1993 by, of all things, the Hobby Book Publishing Company
in Moscow. The work of an honest amateur military analyst such as Shmelev, one
who is sincerely interested in and loves his hobby and the truth, says Suvorov,
is often superior to that of a paid government employee.
Airborne Forces Disparity
Even more lopsided was the
Soviet superiority in airborne forces. Before the war, Soviet DB-3f and SB
bombers as well as the TB-1 and TB-3 bombers (of which Stalin had about a
thousand had been modified to carry airborne troops as well as bomb loads. By mid-1941
the Soviet military had trained hundreds of thousands of paratroopers (Suvorov
says almost a million) for the planned attack against Germany and the West.
These airborne troops were to be deployed and dropped behind enemy lines in
several waves, each wave consisting of five airborne assault corps (VDKs), each
corps consisting of 10,419 men, staff and service personnel, an artillery
division, and a separate tank battalion (50 tanks). Suvorov lists the
commanding officers and home bases of the first two waves or ten corps. The
second and third wave corps included troops who spoke French and Spanish.
Because the German attack
prevented these highly trained troops from being used as originally planned,
Stalin converted them to “guards divisions,” which he used as reserves and
“fire brigades” in emergency situations, much as Hitler often deployed Waffen
SS forces.
Maps and Phrase Books
In support of his main thesis,
Suvorov cites additional data that were not mentioned in his two earlier works
on this subject. First, on the eve of the outbreak of the 1941 war Soviet
forces had been provided topographical maps only of frontier and European
areas; they were not issued maps to defend Soviet territory or cities, because
the war was not to be fought in the homeland. The head of the Military
Topographic Service at the time, and therefore responsible for military map
distribution, Major General M. K. Kudryavtsev, was not punished or even
dismissed for failing to provide maps of the homeland, but went on to enjoy a
lengthy and successful military career. Likewise, the chief of the General
Staff, General Zhukov, was never held responsible for the debacle of the first
months of the war. None of the top military commanders could be held
accountable, Suvorov points out, because they had all followed Stalin’s orders
to the letter.
Second, in early June 1941 the
Soviet armed forces began receiving thousands of copies of a Russian-German
phrase book, with sections dedicated to such offensive military operations as
seizing railroad stations, orienting parachutists, and so forth, and such
useful expressions as “Stop transmitting or I’ll shoot.” This phrase book was
produced in great numbers by the military printing houses in both Leningrad and
Moscow. However, they never reached the troops on the front lines, and are said
to have been destroyed in the opening phase of the war.
Aid from the ‘Neutral’ United States
As Suvorov notes, the United
States had been supplying Soviet Russia with military hardware since the late
1930s. He cites Antony C. Sutton’s study, National Suicide (Arlington House,
1973), which reports that in 1938 President Roosevelt entered into a secret
agreement with the USSR to exchange military information. For American public
consumption, though, Roosevelt announced the imposition of a “moral embargo” on
Soviet Russia.
In the months prior to
America’s formal entry into war (December 1941), Atlantic naval vessels of the
ostensibly neutral United States were already at war against German naval
forces. (See Mr. Roosevelt’s Navy: The Private War of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet,
1939-1942 by Patrick Abbazia [Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975]). And two
days after the “Barbarossa” strike, Roosevelt announced US aid to Soviet Russia
in its war for survival against the Axis. Thus, at the outbreak of the
“Barbarossa” attack, Hitler wrote in a letter to Mussolini: “At this point it
makes no difference whether America officially enters the war or not, it is
already supporting our enemies in full measure with mass deliveries of war
materials.”
Similarly, Winston Churchill
was doing everything in his power during the months prior to June 1941 – when
British forces were suffering one military defeat after another – to bring both
the United States and the Soviet Union into the war on Britain’s side. In
truth, the “Big Three” anti-Hitler coalition (Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill) was
effectively in place even before Germany attacked Russia, and was a major
reason why Hitler felt compelled to strike against Soviet Russia, and to
declare war on the United States five months later. (See Hitler’s speech of
December 11, 1941, published in the Winter 1988-89 Journal, pp. 394-396,
402-412.)
The reasons for Franklin
Roosevelt’s support for Stalin are difficult to pin down. President Roosevelt
himself once explained to William Bullitt, his first ambassador to Soviet
Russia: “I think that if I give him [Stalin] everything I possibly can, and ask
nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything,
and will work with me for a world of peace and democracy.” (Cited in: Robert
Nisbet, Roosevelt and Stalin: The Failed Courtship [1989], p. 6.) Perhaps the
most accurate (and kindest) explanation for Roosevelt’s attitude is a profound
ignorance, self-deception or naiveté. In the considered view of George Kennan,
historian and former high-ranking US diplomat, in foreign policy Roosevelt was
“a very superficial man, ignorant, dilettantish, with a severely limited
intellectual horizon.”
A Desperate Gamble
Suvorov admits to being
fascinated with Stalin, calling him “an animal, a wild, bloody monster, but a
genius of all times and peoples.” He commanded the greatest military power in
the Second World War, the force that more than any other defeated Germany.
Especially in the final years of the conflict, he dominated the Allied military
alliance. He must have regarded Roosevelt and Churchill contemptuously as
useful idiots.
In early 1941 everyone assumed
that because Germany was still militarily engaged against Britain in north Africa,
in the Mediterranean, and in the Atlantic, Hitler would never permit
entanglement in a second front in the East. (Mindful of the disastrous
experience of the First World War, he had warned in Mein Kampf of the mortal
danger of a two front war.) It was precisely because he was confident that
Stalin assumed Hitler would not open a second front, contends Suvorov, that the
German leader felt free to launch “Barbarossa.” This attack, insists Suvorov,
was an enormous and desperate gamble. But threatened by superior Soviet forces
poised to overwhelm Germany and Europe, Hitler had little choice but to launch
this preventive strike.
But it was too little, too
late. In spite of the advantage of striking first, it was the Soviets who
finally prevailed. In the spring of 1945, Red army troops succeeded in raising
the red banner over the Reichstag building in Berlin. It was due only to the
immense sacrifices of German and other Axis forces that Soviet troops did not
similarly succeed in raising the Red flag over Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen,
Rome, Stockholm, and, perhaps, London.
Soviet
troops hoist the red hammer-and-sickle flag over the Reichstag in Berlin, an
act that symbolized the Soviet subjugation of eastern and central Europe. The
Battle of Berlin climaxed the titanic struggle of German and Soviet forces that
began on June 22, 1941. On the afternoon of April 30, 1945, as Soviet troops
were storming the Reichstag building, Hitler committed suicide in his nearby
bunker headquarters.
The Debate Sharpens
In spite of resistance from
“establishment” historians (who in Russia are often former Communists), support
for Suvorov’s “preventive strike” thesis has been growing both in Russia and in
western Europe. Among those who sympathize with Suvorov’s views are younger
Russian historians such as Yuri L. Dyakov, Tatyana S. Bushuyeva, and I. V.
Pavlova. (See the Nov.-Dec. 1997 Journal, pp. 32-34.)
With regard to 20th-century
history, American historians are generally more close-minded than their counterparts
in Europe or Russia. But even in the United States there have been a few voices
of support for the “preventive war” thesis – which is all the more noteworthy
considering that Suvorov’s books on World War II, with the exception of
Icebreaker, have not been available in English. (One such voice is that of
historian Russell Stolfi, a professor of Modern European History at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. See the review of his book
Hitler’s Panzers East in the Nov.-Dec. 1995 Journal.) Not all the response to
Suvorov’s work has been positive, though. It has also prompted criticism and
renewed affirmations of the decades-old orthodox view. Among the most prominent
new defenders of the orthodox “line” are historians Gabriel Gorodetsky of Tel
Aviv University, and John Ericson of Edinburgh University.
Rejecting all arguments that
might justify Germany’s attack, Gorodetsky in particular castigates and
ridicules Suvorov’s works, most notably in a book titled, appropriately, “The Icebreaker
Myth.” In effect, Gorodetsky (and Ericson) attribute Soviet war losses to the
supposed unpreparedness of the Red Army for war. “It is absurd,” Gorodetsky
writes, “to claim that Stalin would ever entertain any idea of attacking
Germany, as some German historians now like to suggest, in order, by means of a
surprise attack, to upset Germany’s planned preventive strike.”
Not surprisingly, Gorodetsky
has been praised by Kremlin authorities and Russian military leaders. Germany’s
“establishment” similarly embraces the Israeli historian. At German taxpayers
expense, he has worked and taught at Germany’s semi-official Military History
Research Office (MGFA), which in April 1991 published Gorodetsky’s Zwei Wege
nach Moskau (“Two Paths to Moscow”).
In the “Last Republic,”
Suvorov responds to Gorodetsky and other critics of his first two books on
Second World War history. He is particularly scathing in his criticisms of
Gorodetsky’s work, especially “The Icebreaker Myth.”
Some Criticisms
Suvorov writes caustically,
sarcastically, and with great bitterness. But if he is essentially correct, as
this reviewer believes, he – and we – have a perfect right to be bitter for
having been misled and misinformed for decades.
Although Suvorov deserves our
gratitude for his important dissection of historical legend, his work is not
without defects. For one thing, his praise of the achievements of the Soviet
military industrial complex, and the quality of Soviet weaponry and military
equipment, is exaggerated, perhaps even panegyric. He fails to acknowledge the
Western origins of much of Soviet weaponry and hardware. Soviet engineers
developed a knack for successfully modifying, simplifying and, often,
improving, Western models and designs. For example, the rugged diesel engine
used in Soviet tanks was based on a German BMW aircraft diesel.
One criticism that cannot in
fairness be made of Suvorov is a lack of patriotism. Mindful that the first
victims of Communism were the Russians, he rightly draws a sharp distinction between
the Russian people and the Communist regime that ruled them. He writes not only
with the skill of an able historian, but with reverence for the millions of
Russians whose lives were wasted in the insane plans of Lenin and Stalin for
“world revolution.”
Journal of Historical Review
17, no. 4 (July-August 1998), 30-37. Daniel W. Michaels is a Columbia
University graduate (Phi Beta Kappa, 1954), a Fulbright exchange student to
Germany (1957), and recently retired from the US Department of Defense after 40
years of service. Also see (off-site) the National Vanguard’s review of
Icebreaker and Hitler’s Reichstag speech of December 11, 1941.
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