2 May, 21:23
There are countless hypotheses and theories, as well as scholarly and popular-scientific books, about the foreign and domestic policy of the USSR. According to some authors, it contributed to the outbreak of war in 1939, while others insist it did everything possible to avoid conflict. Each hypothesis and assertion has its adherents ready to insist that things happened exactly this way — or exactly the opposite.
There are countless hypotheses and theories, as well as scholarly and popular-scientific books, about the foreign and domestic policy of the USSR. According to some authors, it contributed to the outbreak of war in 1939, while others insist it did everything possible to avoid conflict. Each hypothesis and assertion has its adherents ready to insist that things happened exactly this way — or exactly the opposite.
Up until May 1965, "Victory Day" was practically not celebrated at all. And it’s understandable: at that time, nearly all frontline veterans were still alive — people who knew the true cost of this Victory and the actual reasons behind this great war.
For the same reasons, Stalin disliked remembering that war altogether, as he considered it his greatest defeat, and its consequences — a catastrophe.
So what secret was Stalin hiding? And why did he, having conquered more territory than Genghis Khan, consider himself the loser?
Two Victories
A small remark before we begin clearing out the Augean stables of history: it is necessary to surgically separate two wars:
World War II — which began on September 1, 1939, when the USSR (Russia) and Germany were allies;
The Great Patriotic War — which began on June 22, 1941, when Germany, having understood Stalin’s initiative, launched a preemptive strike against its former ally.
The date marking the end of World War II is September 2, 1945, while the day commonly recognized across the world as Victory over Nazism is May 8, 1945.
Russia, however — with its unique historical narrative — celebrates Victory Day on May 9, and Victory over Japan on September 3.
Why?
To once again conceal the fact that in World War II, Russia entered the conflict as an ally of Germany.
The Communist International – A Secular Version of the “Third Rome”
The Russian Empire was a state built on the ideological and religious doctrine of "Moscow — the Third Rome", according to which Moscow was destined to rule the world.
Nicholas II renounced this idea of global rule in 1915, and in 1917 he completely abdicated power. This was an unforgivable act, as it contradicted the official narrative of the Church about the divine chosenness of the Russian Tsar.
While Nicholas II hesitated, the ideologist of the Communist International, Vladimir Lenin, already knew what role he would play in history. That’s why, back in 1916, he wrote:
"World rule will come into the hands of the proletariat as a result of the second imperialist war!"
Lenin knew what he was talking about. He understood that the first world war would inevitably lead to a second, and he was ready to launch it as soon as the ideological coup within the country was complete.
Which is exactly what happened when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917.
The country underwent the ideological reboot it needed and immediately began a war against those who did not embrace the idea of Red imperialism.
The new Red government moved the Russian capital back to Moscow, and almost immediately unfurled the banner of the “Third Rome” — the banner of war for world domination.
"We are the party of the class marching to conquer the world,"
— wrote Mikhail Frunze.
"The USSR is the first decisive step toward creating the Worldwide Soviet Socialist Republic,"
— was written in the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR in 1922.
The Battle for Germany
The ruin and struggle for the legacy of the Russian Empire in 1918–1919 did not stop Lenin, who, instead of rebuilding Russia, poured enormous resources into igniting revolutions in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey.
Red Russia found the means to fuel the fire of world revolution with money, weapons, and propaganda literature.
In Petrograd, communist newspapers such as Die Weltrevolution and Die Rote Fahne were printed en masse and immediately sent to Germany.
Lenin wrote:
"Now only months separate us from victory over capitalism throughout the world!"
But Lenin miscalculated. His plan was exposed, and thanks to the cutoff of foreign proletariat funding, every single communist regime in Europe collapsed — none survived even a year.
However, the global fire ignited from the ruins of the Russian Empire could no longer be stopped.
In 1920, instead of building a peaceful proletarian state, the Bolsheviks launched an offensive on Berlin, considering Poland along the way a mere minor obstacle.
Yes, the perfect moment to seize Germany — in 1918 — had been missed.
But Lenin remained confident that the exhausted postwar Germany could still be conquered.
In his eyes, Germany was a barrel of gasoline, and all it lacked was a spark.
That’s why Lenin demanded from Tukhachevsky:
"Furious acceleration of the offensive against Poland!"
But…
In 1920, Poland remained an insurmountable barrier to the revolution.
The so-called "Miracle on the Vistula" saved Europe.
Interestingly, this "miracle" was made possible largely thanks to the participation of Ukrainian divisions — those that had previously been crushed both by Poland and Red Russia, but had survived.
Why was Lenin so desperate to reach Germany?
The answer can be found in the letter of Hendrik de Man (Edo Fimmen) to Zinoviev, dated October 19, 1923:
"The Red Army lacks the necessary new weapons, tanks, cannons, airplanes, to wage modern war beyond Russia’s borders.
And even if the Red Army were to deliver a victorious strike through Poland, it would arrive weakened and, above all, too late to assist the German revolution…"
— wrote one of the leaders of the Dutch and international left-wing social democracy, Edo Fimmen.
"A proletarian revolution in Germany would threaten not only the Treaty of Versailles but all capitalist states…
That is, if a global fire is to be ignited — it must be ignited from Germany, not any other European country…"
Thus, according to Lenin, the key to world domination lay in Germany.
Its power and geographic position made it the ideal springboard for further conquest of Europe.
The German Sword Was Forged in the USSR
On August 11, 1922, just four months after the Soviet delegation proposed general disarmament at the Genoa Conference, a temporary agreement was signed for cooperation between the Reichswehr and the Red Army.
The cooperation between the two countries took on many forms:
mutual familiarization with the condition and training methods of both armies through participation in maneuvers, field exercises, and academic courses;
joint chemical experiments;
the establishment of tank and aviation schools;
the dispatch of Soviet representatives to Germany — including those from the Air Force Directorate, the Scientific and Technical Committee, the Artillery Directorate, the Main Medical Directorate, and others — to study specific topics and observe the organization of various secret projects.
Thanks to this "close" military collaboration, by 1923, Germany again stood on the brink of revolution.
Massive funds were sent to Germany once again, and all communists fluent in German were mobilized:
"The German Commission of the Comintern, including Zinoviev, Bukharin, Stalin, Trotsky… and several German comrades, made a number of concrete decisions to directly assist the German comrades in seizing power."
What was sent to Germany were not just militants, but top-level leaders — including People's Commissar Schmidt, Central Committee member Radek, and many others.
But once again, the Bolsheviks failed: the 1923 revolution in Germany collapsed.
This time, it was internal problems within the USSR that prevented the German revolution from succeeding.
Lenin was already incapacitated, and Stalin had not yet consolidated full power.
Nevertheless, the Soviet Union continued to invest in the German military machine.
In 1924, a Reichswehr aviation school was established in Lipetsk, known as Facility “Lipetsk”, which operated for nearly a decade under the guise of the 4th squadron of the Red Air Fleet.
In 1926, Soviet and German personnel began building the "Kama" tank school in Kazan.
The most secretive Reichswehr facility in the USSR was the chemical warfare school “Tomka”, located in the Samara region, near the city of Volsk — into which the Germans invested nearly 1 million marks.
The “Third Rome” – The Spiritual Father of the “Third Reich”
The next chapter in the struggle for Germany began in 1927, when Stalin, having fully consolidated control over Russia, declared:
"It is impossible to defeat capitalism without first defeating social democracy."
Stalin began to fan the flames of war, demanding that the German communists under his control intensify their fight against the ruling social democrats (pacifists) in Germany:
"First, relentless struggle against social democracy on all fronts...
including exposure of bourgeois pacifism..."
— he declared, though the quote itself is dated 1928.
In effect, Stalin was openly calling for war.
And five years later, a party rose to power in Germany that, as if echoing Stalin, openly proclaimed its intention to start a great war.
That party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, led by Adolf Hitler.
A party that had spent 13 years unsuccessfully trying to seize power in Germany.
A party that — by an extraordinary coincidence — was born at the very moment when Lenin had announced his desire to spark revolution in Germany.
Surely it could not be a coincidence that Hitler’s party platform almost word for word mirrored the militant goals of communism:
the unleashing of a major war,
the exhaustion of Europe,
the weakening of its governments,
the creation of a revolutionary situation, and as a result — revolution.
As further evidence of this view, we can cite Stalin’s words from 1927, when, following Lenin, he declared the inevitability of a Second Imperialist War. But the role he envisioned for the USSR in that war was expressed differently:
"We will enter, but we will enter last, to throw onto the scales a weight that could tip the balance..."
It turns out that five years before Hitler came to power, Stalin already knew who would ignite the next war in Europe.
In other words, in 1927 Stalin was effectively hiring the Third Reich to serve as a battering ram against the gates of Europe.
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression treaty, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Exactly one week later, World War II began.
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
The United States, however, surprisingly declared neutrality.
Did Hitler suspect at the time how this war — started against the entire world — would end?
Did he understand that he couldn’t handle it alone?
Yes. Absolutely yes.
But Hitler was convinced that on September 1, Stalin would enter Poland alongside him.
Except Stalin had a very different plan.
One that Hitler did not foresee.
In August 1939, Stalin invited British and French delegations to Moscow, stating that he no longer trusted Hitler, who had become dangerously unpredictable.
He secured from Britain and France a promise that they would immediately go to war with Germany if it invaded Poland.
Having received these guarantees from the Western powers, what did Stalin do?
He entered negotiations with Hitler, convincing him that he must attack Poland, and that Britain and France had agreed not to intervene.
Hitler, having no reason to doubt Stalin, agreed — and on August 23, 1939, signed the Secret Additional Protocol, which divided Poland into two zones.
The military commands of both countries coordinated actions that were to begin simultaneously.
But…
On the morning of September 1, the punctual Germans were already engaged in heavy fighting against Polish forces, while the Red Army hadn’t moved at all.
Stalin never intended to invade Poland on September 1 — he had set Hitler up.
Only when Hitler’s forces had almost reached the USSR’s borders, and after intense urging from the Western allies, did Stalin finally cross into Poland — and without firing a single shot at German troops — "halted" their advance, conveniently and precisely along the pre-agreed partition line.
As a result of Stalin’s maneuvering:
Hitler became the sole aggressor responsible for starting World War II;
Stalin, despite being Hitler’s ally, was now seen by the world as a peacekeeper;
Britain and France were at war with Germany on all fronts.
Let us recall what Lenin wrote in 1916:
"World rule will come into the hands of the proletariat as a result of the second imperialist war!"
And what Stalin wrote in 1927:
"We will enter, but we will enter last, to throw onto the scales a weight that could tip the balance..."
It could be said that the fate of Germany was sealed at that moment — because only Germany knew of Stalin’s expansionist plans, and after September 1939, no one treated Germany as a legitimate negotiating party.
Stalin’s Failed Blitzkrieg
"Beginning in October 1939, the General Staff of the Red Army began planning combat operations against Germany..."
— writes retired colonel and candidate of historical sciences Valery Danilov.
Stalin was preparing, slowly but surely, for Hitler to exhaust his enemies, and — as in the case of Poland — the USSR would “liberate” Europe from its former ally, quietly occupying the entire continent and adding another thirty republics to the Soviet Union.
The liberation war was planned for late 1941.
How did Stalin prepare for war?
To ensure enough time for full readiness, on September 1, 1939, the USSR adopted a universal military conscription law.
Stalin clearly understood that the war with Poland was not a localized conflict, but rather the beginning of World War II, or, as he preferred to call it, an imperialist war. Therefore, preparation had to be serious.
In April 1940, work began on a mobilization plan, which was formally approved by the Soviet government on February 12, 1941.
Stalin began moving armies to the USSR’s new western borders.
A total of:
8 front-level commands and
29 army-level commands
were to be deployed — a military force exceeding the size of any army in the world.
After mobilization, the Soviet Armed Forces were to reach 9 million troops, including:
106,000+ artillery pieces and mortars
37,800 tanks
22,200 combat aircraft
10,700 armored vehicles
91,000 tractors
595,000 trucks and motor vehicles
According to the MP-41 Plan, the Red Army’s deployment was to proceed in waves over the course of a month.
By summer 1941, there were already 4 to 5 million Soviet soldiers concentrated in the border zone.
That number would rise to 6 million after mobilization, with the full mobilized Red Army reaching 9 million.
"Out of the Red Army's 303 total divisions, 247 (81.5%) were designated for the war with Germany.
After mobilization, they would comprise more than 6 million troops,
62,000 artillery pieces and mortars,
14,200 tanks,
and 9,900 aircraft."
— writes military historian Mikhail Meltyukhov.
Did the Germans know about Stalin’s plan?
Yes.
Hitler had studied his “ally” well and started preparing a rescue plan.
A mad plan, but the only one possible under the circumstances.
"Beginning in February 1941, the Wehrmacht began its concentration and deployment along the Soviet border…
Between February and June 21, a total of 89 divisions were transferred to the East.
By June 18, the bulk of the Luftwaffe had completed its deployment in a 200-kilometer-wide strip along the border.
Of the Wehrmacht’s 209 total divisions, 155 (74.5%) were designated for the war against the USSR, numbering 4 million men,
43,800 artillery pieces and mortars,
4,200 tanks and assault guns,
and 3,900 aircraft.
Additionally, Germany’s allies deployed 37 divisions with
715,000 men,
5,500 artillery pieces and mortars,
262 tanks, and
937 aircraft."
— Meltyukhov continues.**
Did Stalin know about these troop movements?
Did he suspect Hitler’s plan?
Was he worried?
He knew. But he was not worried.
He mocked intelligence reports suggesting Hitler might betray him and turn weapons eastward.
Why?
Because any military strategist will tell you that given the balance of forces, Germany did not have the upper hand.
Stalin found Hitler’s efforts laughable — to him, Hitler’s fate, like that of Europe, was already sealed.
Was Stalin Preparing for Defense?
The theory that Stalin was preparing for a defensive war is regularly pushed by various propaganda outlets.
It sounds good — but it doesn't hold up against the facts.
Tell me this:
Why would a defensive Red Army need five airborne corps and nineteen mountain rifle divisions?
Where exactly would defensive forces be air-dropped?
And, by a curious coincidence, all mountain rifle divisions of the Red Army were concentrated near the Romanian border.
Historian and retired colonel Valery Danilov explains:
"The Barbarossa plan was no secret to Stalin. As early as December 28, 1940 — just ten days after its approval — the Soviet intelligence services had its main provisions.
Nor were the Wehrmacht’s ongoing force buildups along the western Soviet border a secret.
In the last prewar intelligence summary (dated June 5), it was stated:
'As of June 1, the total number of German troops on our western border with Germany and Romania is 120–122 divisions.'"
So: knowing Germany's intentions, the Soviet High Command did not order its forces to:
build fortifications,
dig anti-tank trenches,
construct bunkers or defensive lines,
or even prepare for positional warfare.
No defensive preparations whatsoever were made.
This means that the real purpose of concentrating such an enormous volume of military personnel and hardware near the German border could only be one thing — and it had nothing to do with defense.
The Last and Decisive Battle
To understand why 80% of the Red Army was stationed on the German border, we must examine the document titled:
"Considerations on the Plan for the Strategic Deployment of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union in the Event of War with Germany and Its Allies."
This document was drafted by Major General A.M. Vasilevsky, deputy chief of the General Staff’s Operations Directorate.
It was reviewed and corrected by Lieutenant General N.F. Vatutin, first deputy chief of the General Staff.
The report was addressed to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Joseph Stalin, and completed between May 7 and 15, 1941.
In the preamble, it clearly stated:
"To strike the German army at the moment when it is still in the process of deploying and has not yet had time to organize a front and inter-service cooperation."
The document included:
a strategic deployment plan for Soviet forces in Europe,
an operational war plan against Germany,
troop deployment schemes on maps,
force correlation charts,
three maps showing Soviet airbase locations in the West.
Now, such planning documents exist in many countries prepared to repel aggression.
But this one is completely unique, because — unlike any other defensive plan — the USSR was not preparing for defense.
In 1941, the Red Army had received a clear directive: to go on the offensive.
Even more striking — the document included an ideological justification for Soviet aggression against its (then) ally, Germany:
"Some interpret just and unjust wars as follows:
If a country is the first to attack another and wages an offensive war, such a war is deemed unjust.
From this, it is wrongly concluded that the Red Army should wage only defensive wars — while ignoring the basic truth that ANY WAR WAGED BY THE SOVIET UNION IS A JUST WAR.
Given that Germany currently keeps its army mobilized with its rear services deployed, it has the capability to preempt us and strike unexpectedly.
To prevent this and to destroy the German army, I believe we must in no case allow the initiative to pass to the German command.
We must preempt the enemy’s deployment and strike while the German army is still mobilizing, before it has had time to organize its front and combat coordination."
According to the plan, the main strike by the Southwestern Front would cut Germany off from its allies — Italy, Romania, Hungary — and from its vital fuel artery: Romanian oil, which powered the entire Wehrmacht.
It was a simple but brilliant strategy.
Even Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the OKW (Wehrmacht High Command), acknowledged that a Soviet strike on Germany in 1941:
"Would have placed us in an exceptionally critical strategic and economic position."
The idea that Stalin intended to attack was not spontaneous.
It is confirmed by a secret Politburo resolution from February 19, 1941, titled:
"On the Deployment of Fronts Based on Military Districts."
That order was issued three weeks after Georgy Zhukov became Chief of the General Staff, and four months before the outbreak of war.
In May 1941, Zhukov began implementing the plan.
By then, 939 train echelons had delivered troops and equipment to the western border.
An additional 801,000 reservists had been mobilized under the guise of “training exercises.”
From June 14 to 19, telegrams from Zhukov instructed the military councils of border districts to move their front headquarters into forward field positions by June 22–23.
And on June 19, a secret order converted all border military districts into fronts — a procedure that, by military convention, is done only days before actual offensive operations.
Troop movements continued right up to the outbreak of war, with the planned full deployment to be completed by July 10, 1941.
But Hitler, ironically, turned out to be a better disciple of Stalin’s Byzantine-style treachery…
The Treacherous Strike in the Back
No one pays much attention to it, but the fact remains:
Stalin was planning to attack Germany between July 4 and July 10, 1941, while expecting that German forces would be engaged in a massive landing operation against Britain, including a full-scale invasion of the British Isles.
This intention was made explicitly clear to the Soviet front commanders:
"Headquarters of military districts (fronts) and subordinate army and corps HQs must be ready by July 1, 1941, to carry out offensive operations, having completed the relevant command-staff exercises.
No other activities are to be conducted without special orders."
Historian Andrei Bondarenko notes:
"Doesn’t this secret document explain why Stalin insisted so stubbornly that the military leadership — Defense Commissar Timoshenko and Chief of General Staff Zhukov — do everything possible not to provoke the Germans into launching premature hostilities in the East, while they were still supposedly preparing for an amphibious assault on Britain?"
Indeed.
Stalin fell for disinformation suggesting that Germany would invade Britain between July 4 and 10.
He planned to strike Hitler in the back at exactly that moment, justifying the move as "assisting the British."
Soviet officials had already prepared draft government statements claiming that the USSR could no longer passively watch the crimes of Nazism in Europe.
But the Germans outmaneuvered Stalin.
And, perhaps most astonishingly — they informed him in advance, in true Germanic, almost knightly fashion.
During the night of June 22, 1941, Soviet Ambassador to Germany Vladimir Dekanozov was summoned to the Foreign Ministry by Joachim von Ribbentrop.
His interpreter, Erich Sommer, became the man through whom Germany formally declared war on the USSR in Russian.
A memorandum of the German government was read aloud, citing numerous:
border incidents,
violations of airspace and ground boundaries,
and suspicious Soviet military activity.
To this day, it’s unclear why the Soviet government hid this fact, instead promoting the myth that Germany attacked without declaring war.
Most likely, it was a propaganda tactic — to paint Germany as a treacherous aggressor and depict the USSR as a peace-loving victim.
Even after the war had begun, Stalin refused to believe that Hitler had attacked.
According to Zhukov’s memoirs, Reminiscences and Reflections, the Chief of General Staff informed Stalin of the German invasion at 4 a.m. on June 22, 1941.
Zhukov recalls that the stunned leader gave no immediate reaction — he simply breathed heavily into the phone.
After an agonizing pause, Stalin merely instructed Zhukov and Defense Commissar Timoshenko to come to the Kremlin for a meeting.
And so, on June 22, 1941, Hitler — in a desperate bid to save himself — shattered Stalin’s dream of world domination, and with it, the ideological project of Moscow as the “Third Rome.”
Why Stalin Did Not Celebrate Victory Day
The myths of “treacherous attack”, horror stories of cannibalistic fascists, tales of “total extermination of all non-Aryan peoples”, and other examples of Kremlin anti-German propaganda became the foundation of Stalin’s policy of revenge — revenge for the simple fact that the apprentice outperformed the master.
This program of chauvinist hysteria had already been used in Russia during World War I, so it’s no surprise that the Kremlin deployed it again.
Let’s be honest: Stalin was saved from annihilation in the fall and winter of 1941 only thanks to Lend-Lease and the U.S. embargo on Japan, which enabled him to regroup near Moscow and hold the front.
Later, enormous injections of economic aid allowed Stalin to go on the offensive and finally realize his predecessors’ dream: to enter Europe.
But he felt no joy in this.
Stalin had planned to conquer all of Europe in a single, decisive strike in 1941, wiping out not only Hitler but all the governments of Europe.
But because that plan had been thwarted, all he ended up with were miserable crumbs.
The Allies liberated two-thirds of Europe, while Stalin managed to install puppet regimes in just one-third.
And even that wasn’t the worst part.
Fifteen years of preparation — down the drain.
Perfect conditions.
The ideal arsonist of a global imperialist war.
The perfect excuse to seize Europe. And...
Stalin knew that he would never again be able to build such an army, nor would he find another “just cause” that could be used to provoke the world’s great powers into war with one another.
The end of World War II marked the end of all his hopes and ambitions.
Stalin never saw the defeat of Germany as a cause for celebration.
He remained in a deep depression for years afterward — understandably so.
Hitler had ruined the most brilliant plan ever conceived to enslave Europe, and ultimately, the entire world.
“To sixteen coats of arms, others will be added…”
— remained just a line from a forgotten Soviet song.
The worldwide revolutionary fire went out before it could even fully ignite.