What if Hitler never launches Operation Barbarossa, would Stalin have eventually attacked...

What if Hitler never launches Operation Barbarossa, would Stalin have eventually attacked? If so what would be the chances of success? Would the Germans have been able to successfully defend themselves and begin a counterattack?

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>would Stalin have eventually attacked?
Possibly, but far, far later. The Red Army got grounded to pieces in Finland and was still reeling from the purges
Germans could defend it?
Absolutely. Considering their forces were mostly unmolested up until Barbarossa.

Poland would be probably inhabitable.

he also might have gotten allied support

>he also might have gotten allied support

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If hitler invaded Russia pre Sudetenland the allies would have helped him.

We're talking Operation Barbarossa here, not pre-sudetenland, how would Germany even get to the Soviet Union pre-Poland though?

Naval invasion of crimea or leningrad

German war effort falls apart due to lack of oil. Soviets invade at a later time and crush the Germans. Red Europe instead of red eastern Europe.

yes, Mannerheim had his spynetwork who found documents about a secret treaty between the allies and Russia

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No, the USSR's posture in the 30s and 40s was defensive. Two decades of being bullied by even the likes of Poland without any international help made the Soviets extremely leery of being invaded and basically accept their pariah status. They would have relished Germany, France, and Britain beating each other up while reaping the fruits of their exclusive trade with Germany, take some buffer zones in Europe, and look to expand into Central Asia.

No. Stalin wanted to secure USSR's place in the world. That meant subjugating surrounding client states to serve as a buffer zone against incursion. He definitely DID NOT want all out war with another great power.
People think Stalin wanted to paint the world red. This is completely wrong. Imagine the nightmare scenario happens, Stalin conquers Germany and France and makes them communist states. What happens next? Now Germany and France are rivals of the USSR. They're too big and too far away to effectively dominate. The same thing that happened between the USSR and the Chinese would happen with the French and Germans. Much better carve out your own cozy corner of the world where you can bully and dominate a bunch of small states you can use as human shields if anyone tries to take you down, rather than going out and putting your place in the world at risk trying to rock the boat.

This. Stalin literally ice picked a man to death over western expansionism.

Imagine a world that could have been.

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Also, look at the Spanish Civil War. Did the USSR want a far-left truly revolutionary Syndicalist state? No. They wanted a center-left republic. Look at 1920s Germany, did Stalin tell his party men in Germany to resist the Nazis? No. Stalin told them to fuck with non-soviet aligned leftists. Stalin was scared shitless of upsetting the order outside his sphere of influence.

These claims are both wrong. The USSR and Russia both confirmed that the USSR was staging for an invasion of Europe.

They said this to save face. They're not dumb enough to admit they would have been fine with Hitler running roughshod over the west as long as the rodina was safe.

>the country that just barely beat Finland was just about to invade Europe, trust me it's in a book

The same country that defeated Germany (and Finland again) a few years after the Finnish war, yes. Also the same country that beat Japan in 1939.

>The USSR and Russia both confirmed that the USSR was staging for an invasion of Europe.
[citation needed]

The USSR was in no position to invade Europe in 1941.

In 1941, yeah. By 42 or 43 though, they definitely could have.

>That webm

It's really sad to think about what these men would do to each other just 2 years later...

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Molotov-Ribbentrop was never supposed to last.
Both sides knew it wouldnt, they just needed to keep the other off its back...

The timing of Barbarossa was perfect, The Red Army was still reorganising after the Purges and had lost many experienced officers, most frontline officers were younger and fairly inexperienced. Given one or two years more the Red Army would not have been stoppable.

The "best" german equipment came from the experiences of the eastern front, so the soviets may have kept the technological advantages they had in some areas for a bit.

Stalin would have attacked. He recognised the danger Nazi Germany posed. He even tried to convince the western Allies to launch a preemtive strike on Germany in 1939, so they'd have the advantage of the germans having to fight on two fronts.

Eventually he would have attacked, and the germans would have been steamrolled by the full power of the Red Army we saw in the late war.

Is this just me or is there a really palpable tension...

What are tge issues with this plan? The germans have a larger navy at this point in history, and the Soviets aren't ready for war

they were ideological foes only a few weeks prior. they didn't have the years of propaganda that the Allies at the end of the war to create a good cheer as seen during Elbe Day

Oh. Yeah, maybe.

I figured you were arguing (as most people who insist that the USSR had invasion plans do) that the Red Army was JUST about to invade Europe and the Wehrmacht preempted them by a few weeks, a la Memebreaker

>Molotov-Ribbentrop was never supposed to last.
Both sides knew it wouldnt, they just needed to keep the other off its back...

Stalin had some vague ideas of mopping up Europe after the Germans and the Allies had exhausted their forces; Hitler was way more specific in his plans to violate the treaty.

>The timing of Barbarossa was perfect, The Red Army was still reorganising after the Purges and had lost many experienced officers, most frontline officers were younger and fairly inexperienced.

Pretty much, yeah.

>Given one or two years more the Red Army would not have been stoppable. The "best" german equipment came from the experiences of the eastern front, so the soviets may have kept the technological advantages they had in some areas for a bit.

Here is where we disagree: Keep in mind that the same phenomenon goes for the Soviets. Most soviet innovations in arms and usage of arms came from fighting the Germans. They wouldn't have been nearly as combat hardened and adept at strategic offensives in the last 2 years of the war had they not endured 2 years of gruelling defeats first.

>Stalin would have attacked. He recognised the danger Nazi Germany posed.

Again, Stalin had vague concepts of a Red Army strike after the war had gone on for a while, but nothing specific. As is, if Hitler never opens up the eastern front but everything else goes as it did, you're gonna see American and British troops capturing Berlin in like 1947 after nuking the shit out of occupied Europe. Doubtful Stalin would have attacked then.

just look at that soviet officer on the right afer he shakes the german officers hand...
They all knew what was gonna happen, just not when...

The Officers knew what was about to happen.
The poor grunts just wanted to be friends.

>As is, if Hitler never opens up the eastern front but everything else goes as it did, you're gonna see American and British troops capturing Berlin in like 1947 after nuking the shit out of occupied Europe. Doubtful Stalin would have attacked then.
Well these American and British troops would have to get to the mainland first...The moment it becomes clear the Nazis are loosing in the west the Soivets would have seized the opportunity imo

Not even they. Just think of the german propaganda against Slavs and the soviet anti-fascist doctrine...
But yeah the interactions between the officers are much more obvious...

Actually Germany and the USSR had been on friendly relations throughout the 20s and 30s as the two outcast countries who looked out for each other. Germany helped the Soviets train their military and the Soviets in turn gave Germany an outlet for giving its officers experience.

there's good argument on both sides
but i personally think that Stalin would've prefered to see the nazi and west knock each out

>Germany, France, and Britain beating each other up
France was conquered by the time Barbarossa happened.
Germany and Britain would have been left at a stalemate, since neither could realistically invade the other. That is unless the US joined in.

Stalin was extremely cautious before the start of the Great Patriotic War and wouldn't attack Germany unless they were in a truly dire situation and he was sure of victory. The invasion of Poland, the annexation of the Baltic states, and the Winter War only occurred because of the secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, where Germany gave the Soviets free reign to do whatever they wished in the "Soviet sphere of influence", which included those countries.

>Hitler works together with Stalin to let the Soviets take over multiple countries
>70 years later edgy teens idolize him as the defender of Europe against evil commies

That last cut looks kinda friendly, although it's obvious that none of them speak the same languages.

I find it hard to imagine that the Soviets would fight with the same tenacity and endure the same casulties they did if they believed they were fighting an offensive war of expansion rather than the life or death struggle of the motherland.

I see this resulting in a victorius german counter-offensive.

Not to mention those Stalin had shot because they were politically unreliable for mingling with the enemy (even though they were allies at the time of mingling)

>t. Harry Turtledove

Yes Stalin would have attacked. It was leaked as a part of his plan for a continental communist a Central Europe. Hitler had no choice but to launch Barbarossa.

This. Stalin believed in Socialism in One Country. Even when the KMT was massacring the Communist Party of China he continued to trade and send military supplies to the KMT. He was not devoted to world revolution, unlike Lenin and Trotsky.

>Stalin works with Hitler to let the Nazis terrorize and genocide most of Eastern Europe
>70 years later he's viewed by tankies as the messiah of world communism

context on the .webm?

I don't think the Nazi military was capable of that operation yet. They barely managed to move their mechanized units unopposed into Austria in 1938.

what if hitler actually killed all the jews?

Almost all of Europe favoured Germany over the USSR. After all they were godless commies. Yes, that includes Poland.

If the Germans played their cards right it could've been conceivable for Nazi Germany to lead a crusade against the Soviet Union, alongside Poland.

Factor in trade from the Allies, Germany likely would've lost much slower to the USSR.

it doesn't matter what stalin would have done, hitler needed to fight something before his shit collapsed on itself and britain wasn't an option

>What if Hitler never launches Operation Barbarossa, would Stalin have eventually attacked? If so what would be the chances of success? Would the Germans have been able to successfully defend themselves and begin a counterattack?

No Russian attack was planned. Red army was weakened from winter war and purges. Russia was not even ready to defend itself properly and both Russians and Germans knew.

>Almost all of Europe favoured Germany over the USSR
Actually almost all of Europe saw Germany as the far greater threat to its stability.

Meeting of German & Soviet troops during their invasion of Poland in 1939

Nah. Why do you think hitler got away with so much before he went full retarded?

Yes. A lot of facts say Soviet army was preapring to assault, not defence. Looks like July 6.
Germany was able not only to defen, but to attack itself later. It ment light military disadvantage compare to real life. I see no significat difference in diplomacy. USA could require bigger price from Britain to join war. But finally, Soviet agression could be justified as "effort of liberation from Nazism".

no issues apart from the walls of sea mines, but that is no biggy

Because no one wanted a new world war.

The red army had extensive plans of attacks and in 1941 their troops were in atrack formations. It is very likely that they would have attacked and as the german army was designed purely for attack, the soviets would have likely advanced till paris.

Afaik the russian conscription laws made it so that in 1941 they had far more troops than usual so it’s likely that it’s when they planned to attack.

>needed to fight something when now he had acces to czech,norse,french,polish,austrian,greek,danish, yugoslavian gold reserves

>I find it hard to imagine that the Soviets would fight with the same tenacity and endure the same casulties they did if they believed they were fighting an offensive war of expansion rather than the life or death struggle of the motherland.

This.

wrong

>uneducated damage control

pathetic