Page 244 - The Chief Culprit

Stalin in May y 205

army was invincible? is question was repeated in Stalin’s speech three times. Stalin’s answer
was no. Stalin said that Germany fought under the flag of conquering other nations. Under
that flag, Germany would not be successful. Stalin asked why Germany lost World War I.
Because it fought on two fronts, he answered. is was a very direct hint. Stalin led his audi-
ence to a logical conclusion: Germany fought Great Britain, which was backed by the United
States. If the Soviet Union opened a second front, Germany would be defeated, just as it was
during World War I.
I have in my possession the unpublished memoirs of Major General of the Air Force M.
V. Vodopianov, who was the very first Hero of the Soviet Union. According to Vodopianov’s
memoirs, the listeners correctly understood Stalin’s hints, and the room was filled with
applause and cheer. e General Secretary of the Comintern, the Bulgarian Communist
Georgyi Dimitrov, wrote in his diary that Stalin at that moment was in an extremely good
mood. During the banquet that followed his speech, Stalin twice made a toast: the first was
to the commanders and the professors from the military academies, the second to the health
of artillerymen, tankers, and aviators. A third toast deserved special attention. It was given
5
by Lieutenant General A. K. Sivkov, who toasted Stalin’s peaceful foreign policy. Stalin
intervened:

Allow me to make a correction. A peaceful foreign policy secured peace in our country.
A peaceful foreign policy is a good thing. For a while, we drew a line of defenses until
we re-armed our army [and] supplied it with modern means of combat. Now, when our
army has been rebuilt, our technology modernized, [now that we are] strong [enough]
for combat, now we must shift from defense to offense. In conducting the defense of
our country, we are compelled to act in an aggressive manner. From defense we have to
shift to a military policy of offense. It is indispensable that we reform our training, our
propaganda, our press to a mindset of offense. e Red Army is a modern army, and the
modern army is an army of offense.
6
On May 5, 1941, Stalin made it perfectly clear to his generals that there would be a war
with Germany and that the Soviet Union would be the aggressor. It is interesting to note that
a few days after the celebration in the Kremlin, Lieutenant General Sivkov, who made a toast
to Stalin’s peaceful foreign policy, was discharged. 7
In March 1939, Stalin publicly accused Great Britain and France of wanting to draw all
of Europe into war, while they stayed on the sidelines and would later “enter the scene with
fresh forces, fight, of course, ‘in the interests of peace,’ and dictate their terms to the weak-
ened participants of the war.” In the same speech, Stalin for the first time declared that the
8
international arena needed to prepare for “surprises.” In August 1939, Stalin presented the
first “surprise,” which stunned not only the Soviet people, but the entire world, the Molotov-
Ribbentrop Pact.
On September 1, 1939, a week after this pact, Germany invaded Poland. On September
17, 1939, the Red Army suddenly attacked the rear of the Polish army. e following day,
the Soviet government proclaimed on the radio the cause for the attack: “Poland [has be-
come] a convenient staging ground for any unanticipated events that might create a threat to
the USSR. . . . e Soviet government can no longer hold a neutral position towards these
facts. . . . In light of such a situation, the Soviet government [has] issued orders to the High