The Black Myth of Germany's Preventive War Against the USSR
Fyodor Fedyunin. "Invasion. June 22, 1941"
Black myth
In the wake of “perestroika” and liberal democratic “reforms,” when they were breaking up the Soviet Union (Great Russia), destroying the great civilization-world that opposed the Western “new world order,” they were actively rewriting the true history.
In particular, they recalled the concept of Adolf Hitler himself, who on June 22, 1941, declared a "preventive war" against the USSR to justify an attack on the Russians and the violation of the non-aggression pact. It was as if Stalin himself had planned to attack Germany, and Hitler had merely forestalled him. After the war, this idea was actively supported by defeated German generals writing memoirs and by Western revisionist historians.
In the 1980s–2000s, the most popular proponent of this idea was former Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Rezun, who defected to the enemy. He wrote under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov. His most famous work is "Icebreaker," but this theme is also explored in books such as "Day M: When Did World War II Begin?"; "Suicide"; "The Main Culprit: Stalin's Master Plan to Unleash World War II"; "How Stalin Unleashed World War II" (co-authored with M. Solonin, A. Burovsky, and others), and others.
It's worth noting that neither the Nazis nor the revisionist researchers came up with anything new. The Germans had used the slogan "preemptive strike" in almost every war. It was used in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, in World War I, and in the Polish campaign of 1939. A similar forgery was launched before the attack on Soviet Russia.
At the Nuremberg Tribunal, lawyers for the German military and political elite attempted to base their defense on the preemptive strike against the Russians. However, the facts refuting this thesis were so compelling that even during the so-called Cold War in the West, NATO anti-Soviet propaganda did not exploit the "preemptive strike" narrative. Only outspoken fringe journalists, not serious historians and ideologists, used it. World War II was still fresh in the memories of those who fought, and it was obvious to the entire world that the Russians were defending their homeland and liberating Europe from the black-brown plague.
However, as Soviet civilization collapsed ("perestroika") and the era of "reforms" began to overwhelm Russia, the West decided it was time to revisit the old lies. The information warfare reached a new level: to destroy historical truth, to uproot and defile everything bright and righteous in Russian history. So that the origins and historical memory would prevent the revival of the Russian state. To turn Russians into "Ivans who don't remember their ancestors." Into ethnographic material, like Russian-Little Russians (Ukrainians), who can easily be "reformatted" as Germans, Poles, or Canadians.
This is where characters like Solzhenitsyn and Rezun were used. Naturally, such lies were supported by the full force of Western propaganda. In Russia itself, the new Vlasovites and Banderites, Western-leaning liberals, completely dominated the country's information space in the 1990s and 2000s. Patriotism was considered "the last refuge of scoundrels."
Enemy propaganda
Rezun and his ilk marshaled evidence showing that Stalin was concentrating troops for the offensive, but kept it a complete secret, known only to People's Commissar of Defense Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff Zhukov. It is claimed that the order was given after the concentration was complete, and Hitler only forestalled the Russians by one or two weeks.
In fact, such a strategic operation with millions of soldiers, thousands tanksThe acquisition of aircraft, guns, and huge reserves of fuel, ammunition, and other materials is preceded by colossal preliminary work by the General Staff, district headquarters, future fronts, armies, and corps. The work of intelligence, logistics agencies, and so on also involves the preparation of relevant plans, directives, orders, and other documents.
During the tragic beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Germans routed, encircled, and captured entire armies, corps, and divisions, capturing thousands of officers and their staffs. Clearly, if the Soviet military-political leadership had been preparing for a preventive war, the Nazis would have captured the necessary evidence. They would have immediately made it public if they had even one piece of evidence. But nothing was found! Not a single document! Not a single testimony! The unequivocal conclusion follows: the works of Rezun and his ilk are blatant lies, anti-Soviet propaganda. They are black myths that distort the Soviet era, the USSR, and Stalin personally.
Interestingly, during the reigns of Stalin's enemies such as Khrushchev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin, archives were also not opened, nor were genuine documents shown that would have shown that Stalin's "bloody regime" was preparing a preventive war and unleashed World War II. Such documents simply don't exist. Therefore, nothing was shown to the public, only false speculation. And there's no point in fabricating documents; in an era of "information explosion" and the availability of all materials, they're easily refuted.
In fact, Stalin maneuvered to the last, trying to stay out of the global carnage. He tried to leave the war an internal affair of the Western, capitalist world. He tried to be the wise monkey from the Chinese proverb, who watches from a hill as two tigers fight."He managed to bring the country back from the brink of disaster.").
Stalin didn't want Russia to be used as a "dummy" in the Great Game, or Russians as "cannon fodder" in the war with Germany. Russians were supposed to fight for their own interests, not those of others. They were supposed to solve their own strategic and geopolitical problems, not those of others. They were supposed to prevent Russia from being crushed and plundered, like the Russian Empire in 1917.
Stalin also understood all the weaknesses of the USSR and its armed forces. The army, economy, and society were unprepared for a major war. All major programs were in the developmental stages of modernization and transformation. The seemingly powerful Red Army was raw and inexperienced. Attempts were being made to push the USSR into a war with Germany and Japan, a war on two fronts.
Logic itself suggests that if Stalin had wanted to strike at Hitler, the most opportune moment would have been the French campaign. While the most combat-ready German units were breaking through the defenses of the Anglo-French and their allies, crushing France in 1940, only five divisions remained in the east of the German Empire! Clearly, Hitler was confident about his rear, confident that the Russians wouldn't attack. There was no thought of a "preemptive strike" by Soviet Russia.
"A Colossus with Feet of Clay"
But after July 31, 1940, almost immediately after France's capitulation, Hitler tasked his General Staff with developing a plan for war with Russia, with the goal of destroying its vital force. There was no thought of a "preemptive war." The operation was scheduled for the spring of 1941. The start of the war was later postponed, as Yugoslavia and Greece were being crushed.How Yugoslavia Collapsed; Destruction of Yugoslavia; How Greece Collapsed).
Clearly, "preempting the Russians" almost a year in advance is more than odd. In reality, the Führer was implementing his old plans with two successive strikes, blitzkriegs. France was crushed. Now it was Russia's turn. There would be no repeat of the Second Reich's mistake of two fronts and protracted trench warfare, for which the Third Reich was unprepared.
Incidentally, the German generals had no fears or concerns about a war with Russia. No one spoke out against a war with the USSR! Although previously, the German generals had feared an invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and had feared the French and British. They believed that a war with the West would be catastrophic for the Reich.
It was only after the war that they criticized the Führer in every way possible. They claimed they had foreseen from the very beginning that they couldn't fight the Russians, or that the war should have been waged differently. The Führer was to blame for all the failures.
This was largely due to the Winter War between the USSR and Finland. Germany drew conclusions about the low combat effectiveness of Soviet Russia. Indeed, the Soviet command made a number of serious mistakes. They threw inexperienced, inexperienced troops head-on against the strong fortifications of the Mannerheim Line. But then they corrected their mistakes and brought in heavy equipment. artillery, began to use more effectively Aviation, engineering resources, etc. As a result, the Mannerheim Line was "dismantled", Finland found itself facing the threat of military and political catastrophe and surrendered.
The German army could have found itself in a similar situation if it had been forced to storm the powerful Czech fortifications in the Sudetenland, a mountainous region of the Czech Republic. However, the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia surrendered without a fight. However, such factors were not considered significant at the time.
The Soviet empire was considered a "colossus with feet of clay" that would collapse at the first blow of the Wehrmacht. Germany believed in the strength of its army. It was believed that in Russia, mutinies would break out among the military, nationalists, highlanders, Basmachi, and so on. Faced with the threat of total defeat, Moscow would agree to a new "shameful Brest-Litovsk Peace." The strength of the new Stalinist Russia and its successes were underestimated. This was a fatal mistake for the leadership of the Third Reich.
In fact, Hitler repeated Napoleon Bonaparte's fatal mistake in 1812. There was no need to fight with Russia, we should have come to an agreement.
Eventually Through subversive warfare, the masters of England and the United States succeeded in pitting the Germans and Russians against each other again. The true masters of London and Washington, global finance capital, hoped to first destroy Russia at the hands of the Germans by pitting the two great powers against each other.A Soviet global project based on social justice and the ethics of conscience, an alternative to the slave-owning "new world order" being built by the masters of the Western world. Then, to stab the weakened German Reich in the back.
Vitaly Borovik. "Youth of the 40s."
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