Was it a preemptive war?
Was it a preemptive war?
Aaron Torres
Aaron Phillips
It is more like a new round.
Matthew Bell
As much as Invading Belgium in 1914 was
Jose Edwards
Belgium don't have conditions to invade Germany. But the Russia/Soviet Union was always in near of conflict with Germany for control the fate of Northern Europe
Robert Cruz
>But the Russia/Soviet Union was always in near of conflict with Germany for control the fate of Northern Europe
Not after Germany let them invade the Baltic states, Finland and Eastern Poland
Juan Turner
It's true that the USSR was engaged in a massive rearmament programme at the time, and that if Hitler had any chance of succeeding in an invasion he would have to attack in 1941. There is, however, very little evidence to suggest that the Soviets were planning an invasion of Europe. One theory is that Stalin had a plan to encourage the Germans, French and British to fight each other in a protracted and bloody war, then invade all of Europe at the last moment, but this theory has been discredited by many notable historians and the evidence supporting it turned out to be fabricated.
Hudson Barnes
Both countries see those countries as potential colonies or client states.
Luis Johnson
sure,USSR would probably butted head with Germany in the future and it's possible that Stalin had in his head plans to do that after 1943 when the red army has modernized,but that's all just assumption even if it plausible
Zachary Smith
Maybe to prevent an invasion in 1942, but it seems like the Soviet logistical situation, particularly of stockpiles and rail infrastructure, on the eve of Barbarossa was too deficient for any serious offensive. See this for the stocks of the Red Army in May 15, 1941 - included in Zhukov's "Considerations" report. Compared to other supplies, fuel was relatively well supplied, but as mentioned they were located behind the front lines and so in an offensive would probably have to be brought forward en masse, something very noticeable.
cyber.sci-hub.bz
In support of the deployment and combat actions of the troops, the following supplies are available:
ammunition -
small-caliber shells for three weeks;
medium-caliber shells for one month;
heavy-caliber shells for one month;
mortar shells for half a month;
anti-aircraft rounds -
37-millimeter for five days;
76-millimeter for half a month;
85-millimeter for eleven days;
aircraft ammunition -
high explosive bombs for one month;
armor-piercing bombs for ten days;
concrete-piercing bombs for ten days;
fragmentation bombs for one month;
incendiary bombs for half a month;
fuel and lubricants -
B-78 gasoline for ten days;
B-74 gasoline for one month;
B-70 gasoline for two and a half months;
motor-vehicle gasoline for one and a half months;
diesel fuel for one month.
Stocks of fuel intended for the western districts have been stockpiled to a large extent (because of limited capacity in their territories) in the interior districts.
There's a mention of Soviet railroad capacity here:
cyber.sci-hub.bz
>Second, the aggressor’s railroads had a throughput capacity twice as great as the Soviet Union’s. On 25 May, moreover, Germany converted its railroads to maximum traffic mode, while the Soviet railroads were operating in the usual mode until the very beginning of the war.
Adrian Adams
No, it was preventive. At some point someday they might do something so Hitler invaded. Most Axis invasions used that logic, which is why the whole concept was buried globally for decades.
James Perez
Every war is a preemptive war
Joshua Evans
The 1939-40 invasions of Western Europe were the preemptive war. The war in the East was the war Hitler had always wanted.
Landon Jones
>One theory is that Stalin had a plan to encourage the Germans, French and British to fight each other in a protracted and bloody war, then invade all of Europe at the last moment, but this theory has been discredited by many notable historians and the evidence supporting it turned out to be fabricated.
Stalin literally said so himself on several occasions, I think you're confusing this with the thesis that he planned to invade in 1941, which is of course obviously wrong. He planned to be ready to take all of Europe around 1943.
Jordan Taylor
>He planned to be ready to take all of Europe around 1943
So...Stalin went from not-being able to conquer Finland to conquering "all of Europe" in just 4 years?
Alexander Green
Pretty much, yes. Even with losing more or less the entire Red Army in 1941 they were able to defeat Germany in 1943. After that it was only beating on the autistic G*rms until they saw reason.
If the Russians had been able to invade in 1943 with 2:1 superiority in men and 5:1 superiority in aircraft, artillery and tanks, and with the liberated purged officers having had two more years to turn that shitheap into a real army, they would have smashed the Nazis and wouldn't have stopped marching west until they decided to.
A fun fact is that the Soviets had lost twenty million men, half of their industrial centers and cities were ruins, entire counties depopulated, a famine was looming. And what did they do? Execute another 500k-1m people for losing faith under Nazi occupation and not resisting enough.
Then another couple hundred thousand starved to death because there were no farmers and no tractors and no fertilizers after the war. The Soviet response to such issues was to shoot "wreckers" and increase taxes. They would have cleaned out everyone who had every dreamed about maybe resisting the Soviets, or was engaged in any political movement, including socialist ones, in occupied Europe and turned the entire continent into a complete shithole.
Ethan Roberts
I guess that might have earned them a few nukes to the face?
How would it have played out had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union?
Grayson Ross
>I guess that might have earned them a few nukes to the face?
From whom? The US would never attack a power that stretches from the Pyrenees to the Bering Strait.
>How would it have played out had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union?
>Nazi economy tanks and industrial output decreases. Military production stays stable due to the Nazis cutting into the consumer economy
>subhumans are cleaned out of Nazi Europe
>Soviet Union cuts economic aid for Germany
>Soviets invade Europe
>heavy fighting in Poland and the Carpathians, Germans slowly pushed back, causalities for the Red Army are significantly lower than in the real war because the Germans have less resources and no space to trade for Russian blood
>Russian army reaches central Germany within a year at the most
>German army breaks and the Russian push through to the channel coast and into Italy
>Denmark and Norway fall under Soviet occupation, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland become surrounded by the Soviet System and fall to "revolutions", East Europe develops as it did in our timeline
>Soviets turn their gaze on Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, start to support "revolutionaries" in India
Wyatt Gutierrez
How would the British and the US have reacted to a Soviet Invasion of Europe?
Christian Collins
>nuking germany
They wouldn't nuke fellow white people. They only did that because they viewed Japs as literal subhumans
Xavier Young
There's nothing they could have done. Probably BTFO Japan ASAP and pray the Russians don't intervene in the Chinese civil war, since they're too occupied cleansing their new clay and picking it clean of anything valuable, and are also not interested in starting a war with the Allies.
I imagine a post WW II world map of the two alliances would look something like this.
Jackson Lopez
The Soviet Union had no taxes that could be meaningfully raised. Do you mean they reduced wages?
Colton Nelson
I mean they would collect more of the harvest and let the farmers starve.
Isaiah Ortiz
that is a yes
Jordan Thompson
Alright, that's proper.
Aiden Reyes
>they would have smashed the Nazis and wouldn't have stopped marching west until they decided to
Maybe you shouldn't ignore the whole land-lease bussines, the unification and mobilization of Soviet peoples caused by invasion, railroad situation being a huge disadvantage to the attacker, the fact that shortage of fuel wouldn't trouble Nazis that much if they were on defense or perhaps that a shorter front would reduce the advantage in numbers.
There's no way Stalin would see the Red Army fit to attack Axis, especially not the Axis that controlled more than half of Europe.
Owen Bailey
SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLVM
Carter Nelson
Well i guess they would have the interior line... the European plain seems to be a pain in the ass to defend.
Jeremiah Butler
Land lease helped the Soviets overcome losing half of the country to the Nazis. If that never happens it becomes irrelevant.
>the unification and mobilization of Soviet peoples caused by invasion
That's no necessary for a much shorter war that is decisively won and leads to an improvement of the material conditions through the plundering of the decadent capitalist economies.
>railroad situation being a huge disadvantage to the attacker
They managed in 1944/45 under far worse conditions.
>shortage of fuel wouldn't trouble Nazis that much if they were on defense
Their situation would be awful right from the start of the war, because they immediately lose the Romanian oil.
>a shorter front would reduce the advantage in numbers
I don't see that being relevant whatsoever. If anything I can imagine it making matters worse, because there's no room to maneuver if you have Russians behind every corner.
>There's no way Stalin would see the Red Army fit to attack Axis, especially not the Axis that controlled more than half of Europe.
If he saw that fascists and capitalists were malingering while his Red Army was stronger than ever before and significantly larger and better equipped than the Nazi army, why not? What was the point of the massive military expansion and modernization of the early 40s if not to prepare the Red Army for an invasion of Nazi Europe? Why conduct the build up so close to the borders of the Nazi realm that a surprise attack could destroy virtually all of it within a few months?
You also need to consider that the Soviets would find major industrial centers and the bread basket of the Reich within a few 100km of the border. If the Soviets advance half the distance the Germans advanced during 1941, then Germany ceases to exist.
Adrian Turner
>If that never happens it becomes irrelevant.
They still wouldn't be able to make as much trucks, planes and aluminium
>That's no necessary for a much shorter war that is decisively won and leads to an improvement of the material conditions through the plundering of the decadent capitalist economies.
This is relying purely on the assumption that Russian will be able to knockout Germans quickly. Same mistake German staff did.
>They managed in 1944/45 under far worse conditions.
With American trucks against Wermacht that was already kill.
>Their situation would be awful right from the start of the war, because they immediately lose the Romanian oil.
Romanian oil would have been protected by Carpathia and the Danube delta.
>I don't see that being relevant whatsoever.
Shorter front always reduces the advantage in numbers, especially in modern warfare. That's common knowledge.
>If he saw that fascists and capitalists were malingering while his Red Army was stronger than ever before and significantly larger and better equipped than the Nazi army, why not?
By '43 Nazis would have forced Brits to peace and tighten their grip over conquered territories. Wermacht would be a force to fear while RA would still be a laughing stock.
>What was the point of the massive military expansion and modernization of the early 40s if not to prepare the Red Army for an invasion of Nazi Europe?
You mean the third p'atiletka? Well, it would be stupid af to have a weak army in those times. "Conquest of entirety of Europe" was still in the realm of fantasy, however.
>Why conduct the build up so close to the borders of the Nazi realm that a surprise attack could destroy virtually all of it within a few months?
For the adrenaline of potentially getting entirely destroyed in a month by a surprise attack? I dunno, you tell me.
Jeremiah Moore
>By '43 Nazis would have forced Brits to peace and tighten their grip over conquered territories. Wermacht would be a force to fear while RA would still be a laughing stock.
Not him, and I generally agree with you (more out of the notion that Soviet battle doctrine and personnel reforms were reactions to the German invasion, and would not occur in absence of it), but this is laughable. There is no way Germany is knocking Britain out of the war or forcing them to come to peace.
> Why conduct the build up so close to the borders of the Nazi realm that a surprise attack could destroy virtually all of it within a few months?
Because Soviet doctrine before 1944 or so was dogshit. Material reality doesn't matter, will to fight and protect the motherland does. Not one centimeter of holy soviet soil shall be desecrated by an invader. Of course you're up right against the border.
They did the exact same (stupid) thing along the Manchurian border against the Japanese too. I guess they were planning it all the way back in 36 or so and didn't have to be strongarmed by the Western Allies into attacking. Oh wait.....
Aiden Adams
Soviet war doctrine (made by Tukhachevsky, IIRC) was considering the main opponent Poland, and possible war over Ukrainian territories.
Polaks being egoistical enough to literally shit all over Poland-German relationships was pretty much a surprise.
Only when Hitler started carving Czechslovakia and, later, France, it was considered that the main enemy will be Germany, albeit not that soon.
Jaxson Diaz
>One theory is that Stalin had a plan to encourage the Germans, French and British to fight each other
I heard the same story, but about bongs and americans wishing to collide both USSR and Third Reich, and eliminate the winner.
That's why Phoney War and help of both regimes by USA (USSR via lend lease, Third reich via corporations like IBM) were taking place.
Adam Cooper
>You also need to consider that the Soviets would find major industrial centers and the bread basket of the Reich within a few 100km of the border. If the Soviets advance half the distance the Germans advanced during 1941, then Germany ceases to exist.
First of all they would need to cross Vistula and neuter German counterattacks.
>There is no way Germany is knocking Britain out of the war or forcing them to come to peace.
It was wild guess relying on Axis being able to outproduce Brits in aircraft turning the war into a status quo where only thing that could be done is rather inneficient strategic bombing.
Thomas Myers
>It was wild guess relying on Axis being able to outproduce Brits in aircraft turning the war into a status quo where only thing that could be done is rather inneficient strategic bombing.
Two problems with this. Firstly, Germany was not outproducing Britain in aircraft. (And quite a few other things besides), the reverse was the case. Secondly, Britain is banking on, and with good reason, of gradually escalating American involvement. It starts with Cash and Carry and protecting trade in the Atlantic. Then it moves to things like Lend-Lease and repairing of damaged Commonwealth vessels, and finally into open war. The British know that the longer the war lasts the more they can draw upon the U.S.'s near limitless resources, so unless they're going to lose and lose quickly, they have every incentive to wait.
John Nguyen
No, and anyone saying otherwise is a fascist apologist.