From the CIA:
Stalin’s corresponding blindness to all this is more problematic. Hitler’s foreign policy aims were well known, and it is difficult to comprehend how any national leader could do so little to anticipate the onslaught that everyone knew must come. Stalin’s thinking in this regard has been the subject of a longstanding historical debate, not yet resolved—and perhaps not capable of resolution, for the fundamental issue is not what Stalin did or said, but what he believed.
David Murphy’s book is the latest in the growing corpus of literature surrounding this debate. Murphy’s contribution is virtually unique, however. Whereas other historians have looked at Stalin’s actions and sought the reasoning behind them, Murphy examines the intelligencereceived by Stalin—in other words, as the title of the book suggests, “what Stalin knew.”
**From the CIA:**
Stalin’s corresponding blindness to all this is more problematic. Hitler’s foreign policy aims were well known, and it is difficult to comprehend how any national leader could do so little to anticipate the onslaught that everyone knew must come. Stalin’s thinking in this regard has been the subject of a longstanding historical debate, not yet resolved—and perhaps not capable of resolution, for the fundamental issue is not what Stalin did or said, but what he believed.
David Murphy’s book is the latest in the growing corpus of literature surrounding this debate. Murphy’s contribution is virtually unique, however. Whereas other historians have looked at Stalin’s actions and sought the reasoning behind them, Murphy examines the intelligencereceived by Stalin—in other words, as the title of the book suggests, “what Stalin knew.”[1] The author, a retired CIA officer, is supported in this by the publication of three collections of Soviet documents on state policy in the period leading up to the war and the activities of the security and intelligence services. Admittedly selective, these collections nonetheless add considerably to our understanding of the period.
In something of a surprise, Murphy reprints two secret letters from Hitler to Stalin that he found in the published Russian sources, hitherto unknown in the West. In these, the Führer seeks to reassure the Soviet dictator about the scarcely concealable German military buildup in eastern Europe. Hitler confides to Stalin that troops were being moved east to protect them from British bombing and to conceal the preparations for the invasion of the British Isles. He concludes with an assurance “on my honor as a head of state” that Germany would not attack the Soviet Union.[2] Some may question the authenticity of these letters, but they are difficult to dismiss out of hand. Assuming they are genuine, they add to what is perhaps the most bewildering paradox of the Soviet-German war: Stalin, the man who trusted no one, trusted Hitler.
The importance of Murphy’s contribution to the ongoing historical debate becomes clear when it is set in context. There is something more here than a discussion of what Stalin did and thought. What is, on one level, a dialogue between historians, is, on another, a matter of immense political importance for extremists in both Germany and the former Soviet Union who seek to justify the actions of past, discredited regimes. At the heart of the dispute are an article and a book by “Viktor Suvorov,” a pseudonym for a former Soviet staff officer now resident in the West. Suvorov argues that the German attack on the Soviet Union only just preempted a planned Soviet attack on the German Reich. In support of this thesis, he points to the buildup of Soviet troops on the border with German-occupied territory in 1941 and the strategic doctrine of the Red Army, which eschewed defense in favor of a rapid, echeloned offense.[3] In Germany, Stalin’s supposed planned offensive has been seen by some right-wing elements as a validation of Hitler’s decision to attack eastward. A preventative war makes sense of an action that is, on many levels, otherwise strategically inexplicable. Since this is a discussion of a book about Stalin and the Soviet Union, the German debate need not detain us further, save to note that Russian extremists have put forward a mirror image of the German argument: Stalin, realizing he was about to be attacked by Hitler, mobilized his army on the border for a preemptive assault.[4]
Certainly the point of dispute here—Stalin’s forward deployment of his military forces—did not make sense from a purely defensive viewpoint. The imprudence of this action was shown early on the morning of 22 June 1941, when German units punched through the Soviet lines and encircled hundreds of thousands of troops, while the Luftwaffe pulverized the Soviet air force on the ground. On the other hand, few historians would argue that the Soviet military—ill-equipped, ill-supplied, and decimated by the Stalinist purges—was prepared for a grand strategic offensive against the Third Reich. As Franz Halder, chief of the German general staff, said, in explaining the rationale for Operation BARBAROSSA, “After all, we cannot expect them to do us the favor of attacking.”[5]
Historian Gabriel Gorodetsky has advanced the Russian interpretation that the “State Frontiers Defense Plan 1941,” which put Soviet troops on the borders, was intended as “a demonstration of force” rather than an attempt to “safeguard security.” Stalin, who was not, after all, hopelessly dim, regarded the period of enforced peace after the Hitler-Stalin pact as an opportunity to build up and reorganize the Soviet military while Germany was busy in the west. The occupied areas of Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, and Belarus, no less than the forward-deployed troops, were seen as a barrier behind which this military preparation could be accomplished.[6]
Gorodetsky’s argument dovetails nicely with the story told by David Murphy. Murphy massively documents the in-pouring of intelligence from all over Europe and even Japan, warning of the German military buildup for invasion. Insofar as this intelligence was used at all, it was to avoid any action that might be seen as a provocation. German aircraft were allowed to fly reconnaissance missions deep into Soviet territory; German troops were allowed to violate Soviet borders in search of intelligence. All this was intended to remind the Germans of the depth of Soviet resolve, while demonstrating that the Soviet Union was not about to attack. Moreover, Stalin was absolutely convinced that Hitler would attempt nothing until he had resolved his conflict with Great Britain. He was encouraged in this preconception by a well-orchestrated German deception operation—including the two letters to Stalin—that was, at least in part, personally directed by Hitler. Thus it was that Stalin was able to ignore the massive military buildup on his borders and to dismiss every warning of a German attack as disinformation or provocation, right up until the morning of 22 June
[CIA.GOV SOURCE](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol50no1/9_BK_What_Stalin_Knew.htm)
(post is archived)