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<P><FONT size=4>                                                  1939-1941 </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>                                              Dangerous Deceptions </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>          “Let them come, We are ready.” Stalin </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>     On the morrow of the signing of the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union, the notorious Nazi-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939, Stalin declared himself well pleased. He had not only outwitted Adolf Hitler, he had also deceived him for the time being. The Soviet Union could now dictate the fate of the Baltic states, Finland, Bessarabia and Bukowina, and immediate territorial gain was guaranteed when the Red army invaded Poland’s eastern provinces on 17 September 1939. With the prospect of further acquisitions, notably access the Baltic, substantially improving the Soviet Union’s strategic situation, Stalin could comfortably sit out the Second World War, finally exploiting the mutual exhaustion of the combatants while the Soviet Union remained unscathed and inviolate. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>    Deceit and delusion fed on each other. The Soviet Union “security circle” had apparently be squared. Contrived “neutralism” spared the Soviet Union the strain of general war. Secret territorial agreements enabled Stalin to recover Russia’s former strategic frontiers. Yet Stalin ‘s search for security led him inevitably toward territorial aggrandizement, steadily encroaching upon Germany’s sphere of influence. During the winter of 1939-1940, Stalin waged war on Finland to seal off the eastern Baltic. Soviet military performance was dismal, the cost 391,000 men killed, missing or wounded. The Red Army failed to pass rudimentary tests of military effectiveness. Marshal Kliment Vbroshilov might boast“Comrades, our army is invincible”, but this humiliation served only to encourage the Germany command and others to dismiss the Red Army as a serious force. </FONT></P>

<><FONT size=4>      Stalin’s delusion was abruptly shattered in June 1940 by the fall of France and the Wehrmacht’s triumph in western Europe. Stalin cursed the English and the French for succumbing so easily. Hitler would now inevitably and irrevocably turn east. Stalin’s frantic response was to launch the Red Army into the Baltic states in the north and Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in the south, exercising the rerritorial options concealed in the secret protocols in the 1939 Pact. </FONT></P>
<><FONT size=4>      aradoxically, the farther west and southwest Soviet frontiers were pushed, the more“security” appeared to diminish. Existing mobilization plans were rendered obsolete at a stroke. On the home front, industry went over to a virtual war footing. Strict controls were imposed on the Soviet work force and absenteeism was made punishable. The Red Army was subject to drastic disciplinary codes. The existing Soviet war plan dating back to 1938 was now hurriedly reviewed. Much to Stalin’s displeasure, this initial review repeated the findings of the 1938 plan, that any major German offensive would develop to the north of the Pripet marshes. Together with Defence Commissar Semen Timoshenko, Stalin demanded an immediate revision of this review in order to pursue his conviction that the main attack would develop from the southernwest, armed directly at Kiev and the Ukraine. Stalin argued that in order to sustain protracted war, Hitler needed Ukrainian grain and Donbas coal. Accordingly, at Stalin’s insistence, the new war plan assigned priority to the southwestern theatre. Here the Red Army proceeded to reinforce continuously and substantially, the origin of the ill-conceived, inappropriate deployments that were to take place on the eve of June 1941.</FONT></P>

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<P><FONT size=4>     On 12 November 1940, the Soviet Foreign Molotov met Hitler in Berlin. Molotov spurned German suggestions that the Soviet Union associate itself with Axis in the Tripartite Pact. Stalin was more concerned about German encroachments in the Balkans, demanding assurances, guaranties and concessions. Hitler was incensed at Stalin’s attitude, denouncing him as “a cold-blooded blackmailer”. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>     The Nazi-Soviet Pact was rapidly coming apart at the seams. Losing all interest in negotiation, one month and six days later, on 18 December 1940, Hitler issued Directive No. 21:“The German Armed Forces must be prepared to crush Russia in a quick campaign(Operation Barbarassa) even before the conclusion of war against England.” Hitler was bent on war, Stalin committed to avoiding it at all costs. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>    As early as January 1941, Soviet intelligence received information on Hitler’s intentions and German troop movements eastward. The Red Army set about reorganizing and rearing, unfortunately in haphazard fashion. Impressed by what the German Panzers had achieved in the west, Stalin abruptly ordered the reconstitution of disbanded tank and mechanized corps. The “class of 1940”, generals and admirals newly promoted by Stalin, were sent back to school. Secret strategic war games that took place in January 1941 tested the revised war plan. The primacy of the southwestern theatre was confirmed, but the idea of a German surprise attack never entered the planner’s heads. The obsession with a German strike into the Ukraine persisted. Frontier battles would last 10-15 days, by which time both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army would have concentrated and deployed. The Red Army would first defend, then launch its own retaliatory blow, carrying the war into enemy territory. As one senior Soviet commander observed much later, it was as if the Soviet Union was preparing for the war of 1914, not 1941.</FONT></P>

<P><FONT size=4>     General Georgii Zhukov’s updated war plan submitted in mid March 1941 simply restated these ideas against the background of intensified German military traffic eastward reported by Soviet intelligence. The Wehrmacht dug deeper into the Balkans, entrenching itself in Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria, closing in on Russia. In April 1941, Hitler invaded Yugoslavia and swept into Greece. Stalin flinched but barely reacted, confining himself merely to a futile, tardy gesture toward Yugoslavia. He was warned that Germany intended to attack, the target now Russia, the timing June. The effect of this and other warnings seemed only to stiffen Stalin’s determination to avoid war with Germany, come what may. Deliberate signals were sent, confirming adherence to the 1939 Pact. Stalin even used the signing of the Neutrality Pact with Japan on 13 April to affirm friendship with Germany “in any event.”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>    In may 1941, evidence of war intensified. Soviet agents in Germany confirmed German military preparations but added a fatal qualification that war would be preceded by a German ultimatum. This only encouraged Stalin’s policy of appeasement, though on 5 may he acknowledged a danger period lasting until mid-summer. Thereafter, war might be deferred to 1942. The same day, the dam burst. The strategy of war-avoidance suffered a shattering blow. Red Army military intelligence reported, accurately, the concentration of 103-107 German divisions, including 12 Panzer divisions, aimed at the Soviet Union. The execution of the long-manifest threat seemed imminent.</FONT></P>

<P><FONT size=4>     The moment of truth had arrived for the Soviet General Staff. The Red Army must either launch a Soviet version of the Blitzkrieg or implement general mobilization. General Zhukov’s plan of 15 May1941 proposed using 152 Soviet divisions to destroy 100 German divisions. Stalin dismissed this a recipe for disaster, forbidding either an offensive or mobilization. Hobbled by Stalin, the Red Army could attack nor defend. But fresh phantoms had come to haunt the Soviet leader. On 10 May 1941, RudolfHess, Hitler’s deputy, made his extraordinary flight to Scotland. The upshot was to deflect Stalin’s attention form the German threat and fix it upon a possible British anti-Soviet conspiracy. Precious British warnings about the consequences of settling with Germany he now interpreted as a sinister threat. Did Hess’s arrival signal an Anglo----German deal to give Germany a free hand in the east, or yet another British manoeuvre to embroil him in war? Deliberate succeeded in confirming Stalin’s worst fears of a conspiracy.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>     The political strategy of “war-avoidance” and the military’s approach to “creeping up on war” played havoc with Soviet defence preparations. Zigzag propaganda alternately reassured and unnerved the population, and confused the army. Mobilization planning—MP-41-proceeded only in fits and starts. By June 1941,revised plans remained incomplete and timetables slipped disastrously. Plans at military district were unfinished and no plan existed to bring all forces to full readiness. The General Staff “plan for the defence of the state frontiers” outlined deployments but lacked specific operational orders. The organization of war and that initial enemy eperations would involve only limited forces, giving the Red Army time to cover mobilization. Conscious that general mobilization had triggered war in 1914, Stalin not only ruled out mobilization but also withheld authorization to increase unit readiness lest this “provocation” provided Germany with a pretext to strike. His only concession was to agree to “covert mobilization” by calling up reservists in the quise of summer manoeuvres.</FONT></P>