/kc/ - Krautchan

 >>/23578/
 >>/23579/
Well the SU spent almost 50 years to make innocent victim out of herself and today's Russia also cultivates that line of the argument (tho now voices can tell otherwise - I assume -, previously they couldn't). Enormous amount of literature presents the events as preparation for defence. So one has to read between the lines and see the data and re-evaluate them. I think Suvorov did that.
I also criticized his handling of the sources above somewhere. For a historian this is a side he/she can attack. But most (if not all) what he wrote is verifiable with research, tho some parts of it will be only available for those who take it seriously (such as professionals) or willing to put it much effort (and go to Russia and tries to look into archives which aren't necessarily available for the public). But this is the case with works of professional historians, frequently can't verify the things they say with online queries (be it duckduckgoing or getting a book from libgen or an older source from archive.org). I also should note, giving precise sources not necessarily mean correct presentation, said historians too on not one occasion refer to a source and write the opposite of it - or worse.

But let me put the summary differently:
One basic goal of communist is Taking Over the World. Of Course!
Stalin was a megalomaniac desired to Take Over the World. Of Course!
They had a doctrine with true attacking spirit.
They built up the army so it can carry out this attack.
They placed the units in a suitable positions to carry out this attack.
They had equipment designed to carry out this attack.
The personnel's training exercises prepared them to carry out this attack.
They prepared the sovietization of Europe.
Then these well known notorious liars say they just wanted to defend themselves - and we believe it because they said so.
I think the intention of Suvorov's book is something like this - I excluded the question of the supposed date of the attack - and he really has a point there.

That's been said naturally I'll reply and continue.

 >>/23600/
It's my wrong ball. I accidentally the left when I should the right.

Hello!

 >>/23579/
Thanks. When I dl'd the .rar there and try extract I get an error.
Couldn't find it in English on libgen. I wonder if it's ever published in Hungarian, will check.

 >>/23578/
They can always fall back to permanent revolution. Today we're helping the soc-dems. Tomorrow we'll change them to socialists, after that we'll dismiss them for communists.
They produced BTs right up to Barbarossa. Even made upgrades (on paper or irl I dunno).
Il-2 wasn't a bad plane tho - for example. It just wasn't a fighter. The lameness of weaponry is somewhat overplayed, and in case of Germany equipment the excellence is overestimated.

Here's the next point (I have to work more on the 10th):
9. Obsolescence - certain equipment and formations became obsolete with the start of Barbarossa due their offensive nature.
The previously mentioned BTs and airplanes were only good in a very particular situation. Barbarossa prevented to exploit their strength and showed their weakness. And this was the time when abandoned the development of the BTs and started to favour T-34 and heavier models.
Mechanized corps were disbanded because their use was to pierce through enemy lines during the first strike, and not holding a defensive line, holding the front together.
Political troops were also transformed into regular infantry units. On defense they weren't needed.

10. Only offensive plans were made.
For starters I have to mention the deep operation doctrine, I already told it's highly offensive nature.
They created plans but there were none defensive among them because when the Germans attacked they didn't just pull out and used the one which were made for this case. The Soviet high-command had to improvise and come up with new plans. And when they sent the first directives these still weren't defensive in nature but still offensive. Cautious, restrictive but offensive. Because this is what they could build upon so suddenly.
The original plans were sent out with the 5 May directive. It was ordered to wait for the signal and use the content of the envelope. However in a defensive war there is no need for waiting the instructions as the defense starts automatically. And it starts not from the highest ranks (not the high command notices first that the enemy attacks) but from the lowest (the soldiers on the field is alerted first by the projectiles flying towards him).
If there were defensive or counter-offensive plans the German attack couldn't have disrupted these (and the Soviet plans were disrupted, that's why they had to figure out new ones right at the moment) it would just put them in effect.

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 >>/23614/

I don't think this was even translated to English, at least I couldn't find it easily.

Although there are western critique of Suvorov too, from Glantz for example.

 >>/23623/
> They can always fall back to permanent revolution.

But permanent revolution is a trotskism, and Trotsky is the enemy of USSR. At least in late 30s.

Of course all this just words, if Stalin had a chance to control, for example, UK via revolution, he'll sure would use it, be it trotskism or not. But then all discussions about ideology becoming futile.

> They produced BTs right up to Barbarossa. Even made upgrades (on paper or irl I dunno).
> Il-2 wasn't a bad plane tho - for example. It just wasn't a fighter. The lameness of weaponry is somewhat overplayed, and in case of Germany equipment the excellence is overestimated.

Il-2 was pretty good plane, considering cost, simplicity and effectiveness. But it wasn't really ready in early 41.

Considering BT - Suvorov overestimates offensive potential of these tanks. Wheeled movement was considered a solution to low tracks lifespan that was problem of tanks of that period, and wheels were good solution. Other solution was using a tank transporter (that is actually used even today for same reason), but Soviet industry couldn't made enough of them while country needs every piece of machinery (including civilian tractors for mass industrialization). Dilemma was having 1 tank and 1 transport vs having 2 tanks. USSR had shortage of tanks (considering size of country and strength of enemies), so 2-tanks way was chosen.

I'll link to Isaev here too: https://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmilitera.lib.ru%2Fresearch%2Fisaev_av1%2F06.html

 >>/23658/
> Suvorov overestimates offensive potential of these tanks
I don't think so. Their main use wasn't forcing a breakthrough, but after breakthrough when vulnerable targets had to be attacked behind the front lines and when connection with landed airborne units had to be established and secured.

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11. The impossibility of keeping this force together for a longer period of time.
This point is an argument for the supposed attack's date (in 1941, summer or autumn) as well.
The force the Soviet gathered on the west was huge. Most of manpower came from the agricultural sector, those who were employed in industry enjoyed protected status from conscription (instituted 1 September 1939). This means they deprived the agriculture of working hands while created more mouth to feed. And all this before the harvest of 1941. Feeding this amount of people, the Soviet Union cannot do. The agriculture itself was still in ruins. The production barely reached the level of 1916. So how they wanted to feed all these soldiers? They could take food somewhere else, from the rest of Europe.
Building up a fuckhueg army and keeping it together just to let it sit on it's ass is always a mistake. If they do nothing the morale will plummet. They get a bunch of idle hands, and idle hands are the devil's workshop. And these hands have weapons in them. Not a good idea. A force like this meant to be directed to a target and used.
When the FSE was set up and grouped to the west there weren't enough facilities to accommodate them. Many units were ordered to quickly erect some barracks. Then they were moved out of their temporary quarters to the frontier, where everyone got into tents. IN parallel with this the units of the SSE started to arrive but they weren't billeted in the barracks FSE left behind also were placed into tents.
Planning to leave this force idle during winter without food would have been a very bad idea. The only logical conclusion is that they were meant to be used during the summer or autumn of 1941.

12. They know the Germans will attack but they thought later.
It was an open secret the Germans wanted to attack at one point, it was part of the Nazi rhetoric. Lebensraum, evil communists, Jews and all that. But everyone knew the Germans can't win in a war of two fronts. One was opened in the west they couldn't leave it like that, it would mean the end of the Reich. Stalin knew that. Hitler did too. Also intelligence reports came the Germans wanted to finish Britain first. So the Stalin and co. believed they had to and need to end the war in the west before they turn on the SU.
One interesting thing, the GRU's observation on the Wehrmacht. The GRU constantly monitored the price of mutton and gathered every dirty cloth the German soldiers left behind. Why? To attacking the SU the German army would needed two things - calculated the Soviet military intelligence -: 1. sheepskin overcoats for the soldier's winter equipment; 2. oil that doesn't coagulate in the cold. Making millions of coats would need to butcher millions of sheep causing mutton prices to plummet, gathering oily rags is kinda self explanatory. So the GRU monitored this and while more and more German units were grouped to the border they reported the Germans weren't preparing for an attack because they weren't producing the material they would need to fight a war against the SU.

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 >>/23658/
> Glantz
For now I only found this:
"The Myth of Stalin’s Preventative War:
On 15 May 1941, General G, K. Zhukov, then Chief of the Red Army General Staff, sent Stalin a proposal for a preventative offensive against German forces concentrating in Eastern Poland. Although Defense Commissar S. K. Timoshenko initialed the proposal, there is no evidence either that Stalin saw it or acted upon it. The proposal and other fragmentary evidence provides the basis for recent claims that Stalin indeed intended to conduct a preventative war against Germany beginning in July 1941 and that Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa preempted Stalin’s intended actions.
Current evidence refutes that assertion. As subsequent events and archival evidence proves, the Red Army was in no condition to wage war in the summer of 1941 either offensively or, as the actual course of combat indicated, defensively."
In: The Soviet-German War, 1941-1945 - Myths and Realities p.23.
Since he's specialized in the Red Army he has tons of books and publications. True without much diligence but will continue my searches.

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13. "Warnings" (of Churchill and Sorge's) were useless.
It is customary to say the Soviet could prepare for the German attack because they got warnings from an outside source, Churchill and from a talented spy Sorge who worked in Japan.
In reality for Stalin Churchill was both a ruthless enemy of communism and a man in big trouble. A man who wants his enemy to fight elsewhere, preferably with someone who they hate both so he can profit from their struggle. Also Churchill's warning wasn't a warning at all. While they corresponded quite a bit there is one specific letter what is usually sold as warning. This letter however says: the Germans wanted to regroup three panzer divisions from Romania to Poland but for the Yugoslav situation they changed their minds. Which translates to: "the road towards Berlin wasn't secured, pls Stalin attack now, with sugar on top pls".
Sorge on the other hand was basically a traitor. On two level. On one hand during a purge all his coworkers and bosses were shot or shoved into gulag camps but first they secured signed confessions of them where they told Sorge (and each other) is the enemy of the Soviet union. Second Sorge was called back to "vacation" (to purge him too) but he denied the "offer". So as a traitor they didn't believe him in the first place. He also sent two warnings. The first said the Germans will attack but after they done with England. The second (a little before Barbarossa) says the Germans will attack. At that moment the two reports cancelled each others, also they didn't give a crap about him, so his warnings were disregarded.

14. Motivation - the ideology behind the planned offense, the world revolution, long term planning.
Not sure what to write here because this is a good sum of things. But.
Marx and Engels predicted long wars which will reshape the world and then Lenin said the great imperialist war will bring the world revolution with itself. But that failed so they said a second great imperialist war will do that so they started working toward that goal. They built up the war machine while they supported communist movements and conflicts in the west. Well, I think that is all.

So basically that's about Suvorov. I'll look into this  >>/23579/ book but I'm not promising anything I'm little fed up with WWII right now. Tomorrow 15th March, national holiday, I'm planning something related to post as always.

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 >>/23676/
> 11. The impossibility of keeping this force together for a longer period of time.

You are overestimating effect of army numbers on Soviet economy. Agricultural economy in late 30s was pretty much ok (for USSR) and there were plenty of manpower available even with large army. War proved that reserves were pretty big, and even after first mobilizations country was still relatively ok. Only after all mobilizations and loss of main agricultural regions USSR started to get problems, but even they were solved. Considering industry - USSR could restart everything after evacuation and power only grew in time, especially in late war periods.

> Many units were ordered to quickly erect some barracks. Then they were moved out of their temporary quarters to the frontier, where everyone got into tents. IN parallel with this the units of the SSE started to arrive but they weren't billeted in the barracks FSE left behind also were placed into tents.

That just common Soviet mismanagement. Mismanagement is a trait of commies anyway. For example, nuclear sub fleet suffered supply problems even in 80s. Ports at North Sea didn't had proper power, so subs often stayed with working reactors and their lifetime was seriously shortened. And this happened in 80s, not in 40s.

> 12. They know the Germans will attack but they thought later.
> So the GRU monitored this and while more and more German units were grouped to the border they reported the Germans weren't preparing for an attack because they weren't producing the material they would need to fight a war against the SU.

There were plenty of reports about forces movement, and movement of Soviet forces in early 1941 was and reaction to this. But yes, high government didn't believe that Germany would attack.

 >>/23757/
> You are overestimating
I'm not. That's what the Icebreaker says.
> That just common Soviet mismanagement
It sounds like a systematic thing.
> There were plenty of reports about forces movement
Yes there were, still they didn't consider it a threat because they thought it wasn't a preparation for attack (the Germans could have prepared for defence as well). The thing is both sides went through the same motions as if there were a mirror between them (the regrouping to the frontier, the commanders' reconnoitering, the obvious and spectacular buildings of fortifications etc.)
> movement of Soviet forces in early 1941 was and reaction to this.
But the Soviet force movements started after the occupied Poland. The '41 part of it was just a continuation.

 >>/23759/
> I'm not. That's what the Icebreaker says.

Sorry, that was just a some wording style.

> It sounds like a systematic thing.

Maybe it is more Russian thing, although I don't know how it was in Empire years. But mismanagement was a big thing in USSR and modern Russia. Conscripts who fell ill with pneumonia because they didn't receive winter clothing is a thing that happens in modern Russia, for example. And this isn't shortage of equipment but just overall stupidity. USSR dissolved mostly because of that stupidity too, although external pressure did some work.

> Yes there were, still they didn't consider it a threat because they thought it wasn't a preparation for attack (the Germans could have prepared for defence as well)

They considered it, at least on military command level. In April and May there were multiple orders to prepare for potential conflict, but they weren't too effective. People rarely too stupid to ignore possibilities, even if they consider them only partially probable.

> But the Soviet force movements started after the occupied Poland. The '41 part of it was just a continuation.

I wrote here about early 1941 movements, when forces were amassed slowly near border. That is argument that Suvorov use to prove attack plan, but, as I wrote before, it could be attributed to reaction of "ally" movements.

 >>/23658/
That Chapter 6 is funny.
> Suvorov: we had so much BTs isn't it suspicious?
> Isaev: no it isn't we had so much more tanks, we didn't want to attack with the BTs!
> Suvorov: for BT's speed they sacrificed armor
> Isaev: lies! BT had very good armor, see they couldn't have planned to attack with it!

This one needs saving from oblivion.

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i just caught a communist trying to take food from my birds.
tomorrow will give him to my cat

 >>/30745/
If you had to capture the thief yourself your cat isn't doing his job well.

 >>/30747/
Sounds like tzarist Russia.

 >>/30747/
The cat has risen to an executive position in his department, and any specialized units for this type of uncommon work were laid off to trim the fat, so the main branch had to improvise a one-time solution.

This is how capitalism works.

> the Soviets made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to start another war between France and Germany
It's possible, it certainly isn;t something they would have been too worried about.


> the Soviets wouldn't've even joined the war, except Germany was going to lose to Poland (ending the war without weakening the Western powers)
No, Germany was winning quite one sidedly, the Soviet involvement was minimal. The main thrusts came from the German side, Germany actually had to give up land they had taken because it was in the Soviet agreed zone.

> Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike; Hitler never had a choice to avoid war with the Soviet Union, only whether to attack or to be attacked
Yes, a war was going to happen one way or another. A major concern was that the Soviets would attack Germany while it was at war with France which was a part of the need for a fast campaign there. The Soviet Army was deployed along the border in a defensive manner but it was also in manner that could eaasily be changed into an offnsive one.

> the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa because they had an offensive force on the border, waiting to blitz all of Europe

Possible.

 >>/33298/
> The Soviet Army was deployed along the border in a defensive manner
No. Suvorov spends quite a lot of time on this. Nothing made sense from a defensive view. Not even the "defensive" fortifications they built.
Here  >>/23429/ is a concise list of the arguments made by Suvorov, I detailed them throughout the thread, if you are interested.

 >>/33299/
Thanks, it looks quite good, I will read it tomorrow(it's quite late here).

I should have been more descriptive, I was more referring to the strategic deployment of the units not the doctrine or equipment. They were deployed along the border in a broad defensive manner not in the kind of concentrations that one would use for an offensive, however, they were also deployed in such a way that they could quickly redeploy and form concentrations in strategic areas for an offensive.

 >>/33300/
It's about the unit composition too. You'll see. Good night.

 >>/23450/
 >>/23498/
 >>/23502/
 >>/23573/
 >>/23574/
There is some sense to it but it's also exaggerated a bit. All armies are offensive in nature or should be, it's not possible to win a war when relying solely on defensive, defence is just a temporary phase to gain an opportunity to attack. The BT tank being faster on roads is to be expected, all tanks are and the BT tank was designed with British suspension anyway.

 >>/21638/
Great post

 >>/21638/
> and the second one fell short

Only due to a redirection of the main effort to the south at the last moment, meaning that when the offensive was resumed it was to late.

> Moscow street fighting would have been StalingradX10

Actually no. Firstly the Soviets were not actually in a very good position in Moscow before the German delay and they were planning to leave even after the delay before they decided to stay and fight, secondly they didn't have the resources they had at Stalingrad and around Stalingrad and thirdly it kind of would not matter even if it did turn into a brutal street fight as even that would heavily disrupt the railway hub of the Soviet union(Moscow) and thus all Soviet Logistics.

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Soviet Union did the same with the same tools. No they did not want to attack Germoney...

This could be applied to the current situation as well in a way.

If Russia wanted to invade Poland and Romania to plug the gaps this would be the perfect way to do it. Right now they have their peace time force wearing down the Ukrainian army and pulling in western equipment which as time goes on is weakening the west but also this galvanises Russia herself, Russia would not have been able to start a full-scale war against NATO a year ago or maybe even now, the popular support would not be there. But as the war goes on Russian society starts adapting to the new norm, in addition to that they are seeing NATO assistance in Ukraine and are seeing how NATO essentially is already in conflict with them, many might feel like NATO is the aggressor and NATO wants to destroy them and the Russia media would have an easy time of spinning that tale with some of the rhetoric that has been said by Biden and others so far. Russia could keep this going for a few months, drawing in more western equipment, causing relations to get even more heated between NATO and the west and getting the population even more relied up. Then they could mobilise the entire Russian army under some pretext about protecting the newly incorporated Donbass regions of Russia, saying they are going to defeat Ukraine and that the only way this can end is if Ukraine is conquered entirely. Only once they reach Lviv, they just keep going.

And of course the longer this war goes on the more of a chance there is that NATO might send troops or do something else that might escalate it to a war, there is that too. And then you could say the US expected all this and actually wants it to happen.

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Highly Relevant.
Упущенный шанс Сталина. Советский Союз и борьба за Европу: 1939-1941 
Stalin's missed chance. The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Europe: 1939-1941
http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/index.html

Contents:
Towards war
The political crisis of 1939.
September 1939
Soviet Union and the fight for Scandinavian bridgehead
Soviet military build-up in Baltic states
Soviet Union and the fight for the Balkans
Soviet Union between Britain and Germany
Soviet intelligence and the problem of a surprise attack
The Red Army before the War: Organisation and Personnel
Soviet military planning in 1940-1941.
Soviet leadership's assessment of the events of World War II in 1939-1941.
The place of the Eastern campaign in German strategy in 1940-1941 and forces of the parties at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa

He had the chance to conduct research in soviet archives opened up after 1990, and what he found supports Suvorov, whose evidence is mostly anecdotal, and based on conclusions from certain facts.
Some of the bloke's work appeared in Russian Studies in History, vol 36. - according to Wikipedia, and I found the contents of it on archive.org, but not the publication itself. Nothing on libgen. But here's a full book on militera.lib.ru.
I wish we still had our Rusbernd.

> the Soviets made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to start another war between France and Germany
> the Soviets wouldn't've even joined the war, except Germany was going to lose to Poland (ending the war without weakening the Western powers)
> Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike; Hitler never had a choice to avoid war with the Soviet Union, only whether to attack or to be attacked
> the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa because they had an offensive force on the border, waiting to blitz all of Europe

This is all complex excuses for the Soviet Union's incompetence and Hitler's insanity.  Russians always embellish Russia's blunders, especially FSB Officers.

> the Soviets made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to start another war between France and Germany
> the Soviets wouldn't've even joined the war, except Germany was going to lose to Poland (ending the war without weakening the Western powers)

The Soviet signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact because it was massively advantageous for them.  Free territory and an alliance with their powerful neighbor, after getting a bloody nose by Finland.  They were happy to get half of Poland without having to do anything.  Mototov-Ribbentrop was Germany giving the Soviets free land of value to them.  Why would they say no?

> Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive strike; Hitler never had a choice to avoid war with the Soviet Union, only whether to attack or to be attacked

Was Operation Barbarossa a pre-emptive strike?  Not really.  Hitler hated the Soviet Union.  He spend his young adult years fighting with communists in the streets.  He passionately hated communism, as much as he hated the Jews. The Ultimate Goal of Barbarossa was the destruction of the Soviet Union, Communism, and Russia.  Hitler didn't hate France.  France was Austria's archrival, but Hitler respected France.  Hitler respected Great Britain.  Hitler did not respect Russia or the Soviet Union at all.

Hitler thought, after crushing France, he could easily steamroll the USSR, genocide the Russia people, salt the earth, destroy communism, and open up land for Germans.

> the Soviets lost a shitload of personnel and materiel to Barbarossa because they had an offensive force on the border, waiting to blitz all of Europe

This is mostly true, but the Soviet Union wasn't going to blitz all of Europe.  They baaaarely beat Finland, and were suffering from officer purges.  They had an offensive force at the border because they were lead by Russians and Russian Generals are aggressive idiots.  

They didn't think Germany was going to attack them.  They were considering attacking Germany but were too inept to do it.  They thought that, if the event of a war came, the Soviet and German army would clash in one big aggressive battle and the Soviets would win.  They were still using the preWW1 playbook.

So they just left their army in an aggressive formation on the Polish border waiting for the German army to walk through them.  Which they did.  And The Soviet Union had to rebuild its army from Scratch just outside of Moscow.

All that said, Russian propaganda is pretty straightforward.  Whenever Russia does something stupid, the spin is they did it intentionally, that they are so strong that it doesn't matter, that they will conquer the world because they are the most powerful people and their leader is the smartest man on Earth.  All failures are just fate not lining up with Russia's superior strategy and military.

Just ask yourself, do competent armies get crushed like the USSR did?  Do you think they could conquer Europe after failing to conquer Finland?  Do you think it was all part of a master plan to get your entire army destroyed, the largest encirclement in history, the civilians genocided or enslaved, Moscow and St Petersburg sieged or reached, and to murder your officers that you blame?  Does that sound smart to you?

Your Darkstream video lines up with Russian propaganda almost exactly... with some Russian military facts (and lies) mixed it.

Russia used up its ammunition, trust me, they didn't use 15% of their ammunition in WW2...

They didn't use paratroopers in the winter war because they didn't need to and the paratroopers weren't that good.  The Soviet Paratroopers mostly fought as ground infantry in WW2 because they weren't that good at drops and the Russians didn't have a good airforce anyway.  But the Soviets had a very large number of paratroopers, that were useful on the ground during WW2, so they were applied in that manner when needed.

Russia didn't invent "blitzkrieg".  Blitzkrieg is a continuation of classical German maneuver warfare tactics from the 1700 and 1800s but applied to modern technology at the time, tanks, aircraft, infantry, artillery, etc.  What the Russians had was deep battle, and a similar fascination with tanks and paratroopers... but the Soviet Deep Battle was different in that it was focused on the tactical level, striking far behind enemy lines, as opposed to the blitzkrieg with was tactically focused.

German Generals also claim they didn't invent blitzkrieg, the media did, which may be right as well.

I said tactical but I meant strategic.  Deep battle was a strategy while blitzkrieg was a tactic.

 >>/50149/
 >>/50151/
 >>/50152/
It's all interesting what you woite, albeit I disagree with many things, not necessarily because I agree the premise of the thread. Or not disagree, but points to criticize. 
Perhaps I will.
However. Now I have to give couple notes for you, and encourage you to read the whole thread.
The video is based on a book titled Icebreaker by Viktor Suvorov, a former GRU officer. Through the thread we thoroughly discuss his claims and we pile upon a lot of stuff.
Starting from here  >>/23429/ I present what I found in that book. I gave caveats a bit below:
> I will keep this compact but not necessarily will be comprehensive. Also this will contain more of my thoughts how I make sense of what I read than Suvorov's original lines. Most of the things he wrote are either anecdotal, or intuitive logic on his behalf. I really suggest reading the book, or at least what I extracted from it and posted in the thread.
I don't think we arrived to a certain conclusion, probably everyone took something out of it.
Since then I came across this  >>/49895/ The guy is a historian who had the chance to search the Russian Soviet archives, what he found supports Suvorov's thoughts.
Personally I believe in general strokes they might be right, but it's sure not in every detail.

 >>/50154/
Eh. These should have been in separate lines like this:
> I will keep this compact but not necessarily will be comprehensive. Also this will contain more of my thoughts how I make sense of what I read than Suvorov's original lines.
Most of the things he wrote are either anecdotal, or intuitive logic on his behalf. I really suggest reading the book, or at least what I extracted from it and posted in the thread.

 >>/50154/
 >>/50155/
I mostly agree with your arguments and against the Viktor Suvorov and the video.

Preemptive strike is exaggerating the situation.  Germany attacked them both because they were a threat but mostly because Hitler hated the USSR.

It is... possible... there could have been a strike on Germany in the future.  The evidence shows the Soviet Union probably planned on it at some time.  But the preemptive strike invasion of all Western Europe is exaggeration to hide incompetence.

 >>/50156/
This thread was posted when this board was more lively, we had some users, all quite knowledgeable with their unique perspective. They give breddy gud opinions, worth a read me thinks.

 >>/50149/
> Soviet Union's incompetence and Hitler's insanity
Both are frequently stated but both seems like topoi. Nor the SU was incompetent, neither Hitler insane.
Yes, the SU on all levels did fuckups but they adapted quick, they had vision, and breddy gud ideas.
Yes Hitler's health deteriorated by the end of the war, but he never was insane. Not like Stalin, who was a megalomaniac psychopath without a question.
> massively advantageous
Sure, but free land for a country which had nothing but lands is 20th grade in importance. But yes there were many advantages.
> They were still using the preWW1 playbook.
No. They were after Khalkhin-Gol, check that battle out. The Soviets were thinking in mobile warfare, with combined arms action. All their units were motorized at least, and large formations mechanized. Their infantry and artillery used trucks to get around (when not traveling thousands of kms on rails) meanwhile most German infantry was still tramping on foot, and their guns and howitzers were towed by horses.
They payed large price in Finland because the terrain and Finnish defense use of the terrain denied the mobility and the actual combined use of the arms. The fortified lines of the Finns were very similar to the Stalin line, except was less grandiose.
> Russian Generals are aggressive idiots. 
Nod really. They beat the Whites and the Intervention. The stance in geostrategy changed. They built up large military, successfully beat Japan (which defeated the Tsarist Russia them at the beginning of the century), Stalin felt it's was time to go on the offensive everywhere.

 >>/50149/
> Whenever Russia does something stupid, the spin is they did it intentionally
Soviet propaganda wasn't like that at all when explaining away the defeats that followed Barbarossa.
They said nothing about the massive Red Army groupings on the western frontier, they just kept it quiet. They overstated Germany's preparations for war in the interwar period, and hugely downplayed the Soviet military buildup. According to them the SU did peaceful building activity in those years. They painted a picture of the peaceful Soviet Union which correctly kept itself to the terms of the M-R Pact. The SU was attacked treacherously by surprise by the Germans.
Post-Stalin times they piled the responsibility on Stalin. They said he had all the information but he mistook everything with German provocation, which they made to provoke the SU attacking first. He did moved some of the industry to the East, and couple of units from the Japanese border to the west but he did not take the whole thing seriously as he should have. He also "dismissed" without a reason many officers during 1937-38.
They also stressed that everyone expected the SU to fall very quick (they gladly quoted boasts like "we will win in 14 days" and such), only the soviet people's heroism saved the day.
They claimed the Germans had advantage both in quantity and the quality of the armaments. But in manpower and experience too, claiming they already had two years of fighting behind them (while the soviet soldiers were busy with peaceful building work...).
They said many country attacked the SU, while the SU had to defend herself alone.
They shut the fuck up about their own forces. They never said how many divisions they had on the front, or how many troops, tanks, artillery pieces, airplanes. But they gladly told stories about "four divisions of Moscovite communists who bravely marched out to defend Moscow" and other bs (when Germans arrived to Moscow, not at the start of the Barbarossa).

 >>/50157/
> Yes, the SU on all levels did fuckups but they adapted quick, they had vision, and breddy gud ideas.

The SU military was inept at the start of WW2.  It took the Germans all of 3 months to go from Poland to Moscow all while inflicting the largest encirclement in the history of war repeatedly...  You know what city held out for 3 months? Mariupol...

Sure, the SU military was large and had strengths, as any military of that size would.  It had some surprisingly good tank designs during a time period when tank designs had no military thought behind them.  The T-34 and KV series comes to mind of course.  But the Soviets also had a lot of rather bad tank designs and weren't gifted at mechanics anyway.  Anyway, the Soviet military was inept at the start and it showed.

> lands is 20th grade in importance

Um... no.  Look at how far Russia is willing to go today for Crimea and the Donbas...  They would love to get Poland, especially since Russian lands isn't well developed like European land.  A big poor nation like the USSR would love to get ripe central European developed lands to plunder.

> They were still using their preWW1 playbook

What I meant by this was more that, they were thinking in a classical battle of annihilation sense.  If War between the Germans and Soviets came, it would come in one big aggressive battle and the Soviet forces should be ready to go on the offensive.  They weren't prepared for a defense in depth, draw out attrition style war.  Again, it showed as they were pushed all the way to Moscow in 3 months.

> denied the mobility and the actual combined use of the arms

How do you "deny the combined use of arms"?

The problem with the Soviets in the Winter War was that they didn't know the terrain and they were restricted to roads in which the smaller finnish force could ambush and destroy Russians marching on... not unlike the Battle of Kiev in 2022.

If the Russians were good at combined arms, that wouldn't be a problem because they would apply the right weapons to the situation (light finnish troops on skis).  But they weren't.. So they got cut off, surrounded, and destroyed.

 >>/50158/

Russia propaganda is like that.  I can't tell you how many times I have heard the "our mistakes are actually strengths you just don't know how strong we are fear us" line.

I call a horse a horse.  I don't convince people that donkeys are horses.

 >>/50159/
I will reply to the rest hopefully tomorrow, for now just the last point.
> Russian propaganda is like that
You have no idea what are you talking about. I skimmed a Hungarian history book about WWII, published in 1961 and which quotes literally from the official History of the Communist Party. The book is carbon copy of Soviet history books of the topic. It confirms everything what Suvorov says about how the topic was presented to the Soviet people after the war.
What you say is just memes, Russian poster behaviour on imageboards, and taken from Polanball comics and such.

 >>/50160/
> skimmed
Skimmed for the particular post above.

 >>/50160/

> What you say is just memes, Russian poster behaviour on imageboards, and taken from Polanball comics and such.

We are talking about a former GRU officer...  Former GRU officer says Russia is strong and can do no wrong and their leader is the smartest man in the world.

Okay buddy...

 >>/50162/
Suvorov is one bloke telling his opinion. That is not Russian propaganda. 99,9% of GRU officers would tell things otherwise.
You are confusing things.

 >>/50163/
Well I am going based on the video, specifically where he said “Hitler was an idiot, Stalin was a genius, Stalin played Hitler with Barbarossa”

How can any of that be true?  Barbarossa was one of the worst military disasters in world history?

Suvorov does bring into account the Soviet perspective that is often forgotten in the West, but there is ample evidence on the German side that the attack was premeditated with the goal of the destruction of the USSR.

Stalin probably did have confidence that, in the event of a war, the USSR would be in Berlin by fall of 1941.  Who cares? It shows how out of touch he was, not how genius and powerful he was.

 >>/50162/
> Former GRU officer says Russia is strong and can do no wrong and their leader is the smartest man in the world
Plus Suvorov did not say that at all.
 >>/50159/
> "our mistakes are actually strengths you just don't know how strong we are fear us" line.
Neither this.
Nowhere Suvorov says getting beaten by the German at the launch of Barbarossa was part of the plan.
He clearly says the German attack collapsed all the Soviet plans. It's the other way around.

You note Crimea and Donbas and Mariupol, pulling current events into the discussion tells me you extrapolate from the current stance of Moscow, that if a plan fails they just say they did not want to achieve that - or at least what you think is the current stance of moscow.
Another problem with this that Moscow nowhere stated what they wanted with the initial attack.
They did not claimed beforehand that they wanted to capture Kiev. We, the outsiders, guess that it was in the plans (yeah, they really thought it will be like a 2nd, Crimea maybe I'll write about this too).
But they can freely claim they did not want to capture Kiev, they just wanted to distract forces from the south and such. We don't know for sure and can't know for sure.

 >>/50164/
> Stalin played Hitler with Barbarossa
This was never said by anyone.

 >>/50152/
That's a controversial subject around these parts.

Well, now that he probably isn't here, it's time to reply in more earnest. Probably will go on in a couple of posts in the following days.

First back to the previous post, just above  >>/50166/
Stalin played Hitler to get into a war with France and Great Britain. Barbarossa was an unseen event by him, it took him by surprise. Suvorov spent time on explaining this too (eg. warning from Churchill, or the sheep price index).
We have to remember in the interwar era there was no CIA to play anyone on Earth, or US based multinational giants to buy the rest. All the major powers had their independent will, which wasn't subordinated to the US master. They had their foreign politics and secret services weaving a web to catch all the others and further the cause of their own country. It wasn't a two sided game of the Cold War.
Communism had quite a few sympathizers all over the world, and recruiting agents for the SU was easy. Stalin was also a devious psychopath who played the Soviet Game of Thrones, and outsmarted all the competing Jews. Furthermore it would be a mistake to confuse the various eras of the Soviet Union, these aren't Andropov times with the lazy corruption and high level of inefficiency. 
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact not just allowed the SU to act unchecked inside the limits of the agreed border of influence, but it allowed to get into a serious war with France and GB for Germany. One of Moscow's goals was pushing Germany into that mire they expected the war to be. They calculated well the war started. But they did expect what noone expected that Germany will breeze through several countries including France. So that was a failure, they wanted the Germans to bogged down for years in the West as they did in WWI. And failing to recognize they are next are partially for the wishful thinking that the Germans are preparing the landing in Britain.
On the side note they surely observed curiously the Blitz, which had some resemblance to their Deep Operation/Battle doctrine.