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>>/22161/ You are right, strategic plans and operational plans are different. Would be right to assume some plans never existed only in Stalin's head as mostly he was the state himself, like Louis XIV just in another color, and the will of the state and people. Suvorov in Chapter 19 writes about "red envelopes" which were waited at the army HQs in a safe for opening, containing instructions needed to be carried out when the order arrived. In the next chapter he writes about a thing he calls 5th May directives which seems to be the same as the red envelopes. He doesn't make the equation explicitly tho, this is my conclusion. Nevertheless in relation to the envelopes he says the order to open them never came but some commanders still did it as the Germans began the attack and looked for instructions they could use. They found none, what they read, it was useless. We only know this - he says - and the actual contents are still unknown. About the 5th May directives he writes the commanders were ordered to wait for further instruction because something extraordinary turn will come in the future and only read then. He speculates about it's contents, why couldn't be a defense order, or several orders for different scenarios, and why it had to be an offensive set of instructions. I read Zhukov memoirs too (or most of it I don't remember now exactly), my grandparents have it. In my possession I have Kamanin's летчики и космонавты (in Hun. ofc) which I also read. The first half that is, and a little from the cosmonaut part. What I can clearly recall - as it felt odd - that both books sounded exactly the same, as if one person wrote it. Maybe the translation and the military jargon do that, maybe these were written along certain expectations how they should sound, but I pretty much can imagine about the Soviet regime and propaganda machine that it ordered these books to be written and were written by shadow-writers using the same schematics. Nevertheless as you mentioned Zhukov's memoirs represents the "official" post-Stalin position, which frankly the same as the previous one in this topic, the Soviet Union can't be an aggressor. E.g. it took them 50 years and the collapse of the SU to admit Katyn Kurwa. So basically Zhukov in his book invents excuses why the Red Army was unable to stop the Germans until Moscow. Suvorov says about the "Molotov line" that it had dual purpose. One, they were offensive fortifications, basically strong points which can be held by small force and can offer fire support in the very first step of the attack. Two, as they were built right on the border, in the open where everyone could see it, they were a show for the Germans to mislead them into thinking that the Soviet prepares for defense. This intention is failed - he says - as the Germans did the same thing on their side (and what the Germans prepared for? an offense). Suvorov also mentions that back in 39 in the East, Zhukov did the exact same thing, the difference was that the Japans were misled successfully.