Had someone who was not a paranoid killer like Stalin, assuming the West sill is not into doing a deal against Hitler with USSR would a Pact have still happened?
Would ANY Soviet leadership have done deal with Nazis
- Thread starter Derek Jackson
- Start date
No. In order for a deal to happen and stick, you need to give the Nazis a collective personality transplant. They only agreed to a friendship pact the Soviets buy time to build up their war machine. Remember, the Nazis hated Slavs and Communists almost as they hated Jews.They will break their deal the Russians at the first opportunity.
Stalin would probably have won in the long term, but striking first in the spring of 1940 with a post-Winter War army would have been a humiliating struggle that could even see him deposed for incompetence. The Red Army was barely ready in 1941 - thankfully, it was ready enough.
It would have been humiliating but it may still have been decisive, the Soviets would have air superiority and a massive disparity in armour, artillery and indeed simple numbers. The Germans would also lack the terrain and weather conditions that benefitted the Finns so greatly, not to mention that iinitially a lot of Poles, especially the Jews, might actually help the Soviets.
Wasn't the Red Army officer corps still suffering from chronic post-Purge brain drain? That's one of the (conventional wisdom) reasons they struggled so much in '41, and it was worse in '40, no?
True though it tends to be overstated, and for the wrong reasons. It hit the Soviets far more organisationally than it did in terms of talent. During the invasion and subsequent occupation of what is today part of Belarus and Ukraine there were Soviet officers who would go on to become heroes in the Great Patriotic War (Semyon Krivoshein became infmaous later on for his bro-chat with Guderian yet became a badly wounded hero who walked into the fire of Tigers and came out during Kursk, later playing a major role in the Battle of Berlin), the question is whether the 18 or so poorly equipped German divisions who were mostly b-grade and/or green can manage to hold off the sheer mass of a Soviet onslaught, even if it is one that it is organisationally and to some extent logistically hampered.
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Deleted member 6086
Not sure how plausible this is, but it would be amusing on some level if Soviet intervention in 1940 resulted in another WW1-style stalemate, only this time in the East as well.
WWI-style stalemates have gone the way of the dinosaurs by this point. Modern technology doesn't permit static battlefield conditions, and definitely not in Mother Russia, of all places.
Wasn't the Continuation War a succession of intermittent set-piece battles and skirmishes, rather than a protracted campaign in the tradition of WWI's Western Front?
Have run across stories Stalin did send a peace feeler to Germany, via Bulgaria, in October 1943. Hitler is said to have dismissed the idea out of hand and made no response. I have no idea if there is any basis for the story. It seems to have been traced to a Bulgarian diplomat.
Stalin was very disappointed with the western Allies at this point. Assorted documents attest to this. A delegation of Red Army officers was sent to the west in latter 1943 to take a look at what exactly the Allies were doing. They toured the Italian front and observed closely a British attack there. Their report back to home said the Allies were fighting, but not much or very well.
There are other stories about Stalin & Co speculating on what they might do if the west Allies failed to do anything of substance in 1944. I dont know how factual those are. I do know Stlain came to the November 1943 confrence at Terhan focused on if the Allies were going to actually fight the Germans in 1944 or not. When Churchill started proposing more periphrial attacks Stalin effectively cut him off and sounded out the Americans attitude.
Digging into the Russian archives for evidence on what Stalin was actually thinking then would be a useful and interesting project for a historian.
Stalin was very disappointed with the western Allies at this point. Assorted documents attest to this. A delegation of Red Army officers was sent to the west in latter 1943 to take a look at what exactly the Allies were doing. They toured the Italian front and observed closely a British attack there. Their report back to home said the Allies were fighting, but not much or very well.
There are other stories about Stalin & Co speculating on what they might do if the west Allies failed to do anything of substance in 1944. I dont know how factual those are. I do know Stlain came to the November 1943 confrence at Terhan focused on if the Allies were going to actually fight the Germans in 1944 or not. When Churchill started proposing more periphrial attacks Stalin effectively cut him off and sounded out the Americans attitude.
Digging into the Russian archives for evidence on what Stalin was actually thinking then would be a useful and interesting project for a historian.
Well, that'll have to wait until Putin's gone. Those doors are swinging shut again for historians.
How much was already available, anyway? These things don't tend to get released in generous bulk, and I imagine a huge amount of material has been destroyed.
Back in the 1990s it seemed like everything was opening. If a western historian was willing to pay some reasonable 'acess fees' about anything from the era was available. This era saw some fresh new material published on the Soviet history from the 1920s through the 1950s. Russian chavanism was of course still strong, one could hardly expect them to be different from anyone else.
The rise of Putin & similar politicians in Russia led to new restrictions and more difficult acess to the archives.
The rise of Putin & similar politicians in Russia led to new restrictions and more difficult acess to the archives.
I think what Derek was asking in the OP was whether anyone else in Stalin's place leading the Soviet Union in 1939 would have signed the non-aggression pact with the Nazis (and presumably agreed to the partition of Poland). I don't think he was asking about the likelihood of Stalin or alternative leaders doing a separate peace with the Nazis after Barbarossa.
----and for the record, my answer to that question is......it depends. I think plausible timelines could be written with alternate leaders either being willing or unwilling to sign the pact.
----and for the record, my answer to that question is......it depends. I think plausible timelines could be written with alternate leaders either being willing or unwilling to sign the pact.
Gotta look at it from the PoV of the Reds in 1939. Molotov had just failed to get a alliance treaty from the French and British. Those negotiations swiftly stalled and then were terminated by the Brits. Too many anti bolshiviks in Chamberlains cabinet. The French delegates were unable to save the situation. Lacking a effective alliance with the French the Soviet government did not have many options.
Yeah, I'm sure that getting back some of the territories the Soviets lost in 1918 had NOTHING to do with it. The Germans weren't the only ones with revanchist ambitions. The question is would another Soviet leader other than Stalin been tempted to make a deal with the fascists to realize those ambitions. My answer would be "Depends".
It doesn't matter if any of the Soviet leadership would have done a deal with the Nazis because the Nazis were not about to do any deal with the Soviet leadership so long as they thought they were winning. Hitler's vision involved pushing the Soviets all the way back to the Urals, and then leaving them to rot in Siberia. If there was any indication that the threat was going to rise again, they would simply resume the advance eastward, crush it, seize more territory for the reich, and exterminate more Slavic Untermenschen. This was a vision which his subordinates eagerly went along with.