1. Viktor Suvorov, “Eshche raz o soobshchenii TASS,” Russkaia mysl', 16 and 23 May 1985; and “Who Was Planning to Attack Whom in June 1941, Hitler or Stalin?” Journal of the Royal United Service Institution 130, no. 2 (1985): 50–55. The book-length version of the argument was first published in France in a Russian-language edition, Ledokol: Kto nachal vtoruiu voinu? (Paris, 1988). The following year it appeared in a widely distributed German-language edition, Der Eisbrecher: Hitler in Statins Kalkül (Stuttgart, 1989), and the next year an English-language edition was published, Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? (London, 1990). The Russian-language edition was reprinted in Moscow in 1992 by Novoe vremia in a very large press run. It has since been translated into some eighteen languages and reprinted in scores of editions.

2. Suvorov's contention that Stalin had long sought an intraimperialist war that might be turned to Soviet advantage is similar, though much less sophisticated and well documented, to the interpretation advanced by Tucker, Robert C., “The Emergence of Stalin's Foreign Policy,” Slavic Review 36, no. 4 (December 1977): 563–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tucker, , Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941 (New York, 1990), chaps. 10–21.Google Scholar

3. Stalin's 1925 remark that the Red Army would be the last and, therefore, decisive participant in any future European war is sometimes quoted to support the contention that he consistently sought another world war to foster his supposed imperial goals, but the connection between this statement and the decision-making process in 1941 is tenuous, indeed. See Stalin, J. V., Works (Moscow, 1954), 7: 13–14.Google Scholar

4. A similar line of argument is pursued by Stolfi, R. H. S., Hitler's Panzers East: World War II Reinterpreted (Norman, 1991), 204.Google Scholar

5. Suvorov, Viktor, Den'—M: Kogda nachalas’ vtoraia mirovaia voina? (Moscow, 1994)Google Scholar; and Suvorov, , Posledniaia respublika (Moscow, 1996).Google Scholar

6. The text of Stalin's 19 August 1939 Politburo remarks has been published by T. S. Bushueva in Novyi mir, 1994, no. 12.

7. Sontag, Raymond J. and Beddie, James S., eds., Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office as Released by the Department of State (New York, 1948), 356–57Google Scholar. In contrast, German ambassador Friedrich von der Schulenburg in Moscow, who opposed a Russo-German war and who had previously warned the Soviets of its imminence, did not attempt to justify the attack in this way. Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1940–22 iiuniia 1941 (Moscow, 1998), vol. 23, bk. 2, pt. 2, pp. 753–54.

8. Bethell, Nicholas, The War Hitler Won: The Fall of Poland (New York, 1972), 2–3 Google Scholar.

9. Alexander Dallin, “Stalin and the German Invasion,” Soviet Union/Union Soviétique 18, nos. 1–3 (1991): 20. He continues, “whatever Stalin's appetite, Soviet policy-makers have almost invariably tended to opt for low-risk courses of action. “

10. E.g., David MacKenzie, From Messianism to Collapse: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991 (Fort Worth, 1994), 101–8; Adelman, Jonathan R. and Palmieri, Deborah A., The Dynamics of Soviet Foreign Policy (New York, 1989), 90–99 Google Scholar; and Ulam, Adam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–73 (New York, 1974)Google Scholar, chap. 6. Certainly none of these authors can reasonably be accused of being “apologists” for Soviet policy. MacKenzie and Ulam, in particular, are sharply critical of Stalin's policies.

11. E.g., Roberts, Geoffrey K., The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War (London, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weinberg, Gerhard L., Germany and the Soviet Union, 1939–1941 (Leiden, 1954)Google Scholar; Gorodetsky, Gabriel, Stafford Cripps'Mission to Moscow, 1940–42 (Cambridge, Eng., 1984)Google Scholar; and Miner, Steven M., Between Churchill and Stalin (Chapel Hill, 1988)Google Scholar. Miner characterizes the USSR as an expansionistic state, but in a limited and traditional way, seeking to incorporate the Baltic states and grab pieces of territory from other neighbors, but with no indication of an overarching plan for a revolutionary crusade and European-wide conquest (252).

12. Glantz, David M. and House, Jonathan M., When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (Lawrence, 1995), 27 and 327Google Scholar. John Erickson lends no support to the Suvorov thesis. See Glantz, David, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War (Lawrence, 1998): 3–7 Google Scholar; Erickson, , The Road to Stalingrad (London, 1975)Google Scholar; and Erickson, , “Threat Identification and Strategic Appraisal by the Soviet Union, 1930–1941,” in May, Ernest R., ed., Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars (Princeton, 1984), 375–423.Google Scholar

13. Weinberg, Gerhard L., A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge, Eng., 1994), 193.Google Scholar

14. Gorodetskii, Gabriel’, Mif “Ledokola “: Nakanune voiny (Moscow, 1995)Google Scholar. Prior to this, Gorodetsky had already challenged Suvorov's first article-length presentation of his thesis. See Gabriel Gorodetsky, “Was Stalin Planning to Attack Hitler in June 1941? “Journal of the Royal United Service Institution 131, no. 2 (1986): 69–72. Also see Gorodetsky, “Stalin and Hitler's Attack on the Soviet Union,” in Bernd Wegner, ed., From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939–1941 (Providence, 1997), 343–59; and V. A. Nevezhin, “Stalinskii vybor 1941 g.: Oborna ili ‘lozung nostupatel'noi voiny'? (po povodu knigi G. Gorodetskogo Mif ‘Ledokola’),” Otechestuennaia istoriia, 1996, no. 3: 55–73.

15. Also see Grigor'ev, S. O., “O voenno-tekhnicheskii aspektakh knig V. Suvorova,” in Bordiugov, G. A., ed., Gotovil li Stalin nastupatel'nuiu voinu protiv Gitlera? (Moscow, 1995), 13–23.Google Scholar

16. Suvorov, Posledniaia respublika, 477. Suvorov concludes with this appeal: “Brother paratroopers, need I say more about what needs to be done? Or perhaps you will defend your honor without being prompted? And the honor of your Motherland at the same time. “

17. Mark von Hagen, “Soviet Soldiers and Officers on the Eve of the German Invasion,” Soviet Union/Union Soviétique 18, nos. 1–3 (1991): 79–101. These problems were referred to collectively as shapkozakidatel'stvo, the literal meaning of which is “hat tossing,” but which carries some of the meaning of the American slang term “half-assed” and also of what Paul Fussell describes as “chickenshit.” See Fussell, Paul, Wartime (New York, 1989), chap. 7.Google Scholar

18. See Bianka Pietrow, “Deutschland im Juni 1941—ein Opfer sowjetischer Agression?: Zur Kontroverse über die Präventivkriegsthese,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 14 (1988): 116–35; Bosworth, R. J. B., Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War, 1945–1990 (London, 1993), chap. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baldwin, Peter, ed., Reworking the Past: Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Historians'Debate (Boston, 1990)Google Scholar; and Evans, Richard J., In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York, 1989).Google Scholar

19. Post, Walter, Unternehmen Barbarossa: Die Deutsche und sowjetische Angriffspläne 1940/41, 2d ed. (Hamburg, 1996)Google Scholar.

20. Joachim Hoffmann, “The Soviet Union's Offensive Preparations in 1941,” in Wegner, ed., From Peace to War, 361–80; and Hoffmann, “Die Sowjetunion bis zum Vorabend des deutschen Angriffs,” and “Die Kriegführung aus der Sicht der Sowjetunion,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, 2d ed. (Stuttgart, 1987), 4: 713–809.

21. Topitsch, Ernst, Stalin's War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War (London, 1987).Google Scholar

22. Raack, R. C., Stalin's Drive to the West, 1939–1945: The Origins of the Cold War (Stanford, 1995)Google Scholar. Also see Raack, , “Stalin's Plans for World War Two Told by a High Comintern Source,” The Historical Journal 38, no. 4 (1995): 1031–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. House of Representatives, Report of the Select Committee to Investigate Communist Aggression and the Forced Incorporation of the Baltic States into the U.S.S.R., Third Interim Report of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, 83d Cong., 2d sess., 1954, pp. 342–43 and 462.

24. Gerd Ueberschär, “Hitler's Decision to Attack the Soviet Union in Recent German Historiography,” Soviet Union/Union Soviétique 18, nos. 1–3 (1991): 301.

25. Günther Gillessen, “Der Krieg der Diktatoren: Wollte Stalin im Sommer 1941 das Deutsche Reich angreifen?” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 August 1986.

26. The fact that many American and British journals did not review Suvorov's book has led some of his defenders to posit a conspiracy of silence or even a campaign of intellectual “cleansing” allegedly being waged by “traditional” or “official” historians against the work. See Raack, R. C., “Stalin's Role in the Coming of World War II,” World Affairs 158, no. 4 (Spring 1996): 198–211.Google Scholar

27. The Journal of Historical Review 16, no. 6 (November/December 1996–97): 22 (review of Icebreaker by Joseph Bishop) and 28 (review of Den'—M by Daniel W. Michaels); and 17, no. 4 (July/August 1998): 30 (review of Posledniaia respublika by Daniel W. Michaels).

28. Weinberg, A World at Arms, 198. “The perception of a weak Soviet Union could not be remedied by accurate intelligence. The Germans had very little, and they would not be dissuaded by those whose estimates of Soviet strength were more perceptive, primarily because the prejudices against Slavic peoples were reinforced by the euphoria of victory in the West.” On the Nazi ideological wellsprings of Barbarossa, also see Rich, Norman, Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion (New York, 1973)Google Scholar, chap. 18.

29. Boelcke, Willi A., ed., The Secret Conferences of Dr. Goebbels, October 1939-March 1943 (London, n.d.), 176–77.Google Scholar

30. The details of this and subsequent strategic plans are available in Zakharov, M. V, General’ nyi shtab v predvoennye gody (Moscow, 1989)Google Scholar.

31. These ideas had been developed by V. K. Triandafillov and M. N. Tukhachevskii, and they remained embedded in Soviet military dogma even after the purges swept away their authors. See R. Savushkin, “K voprosu ozarozhdenii teorii posledovatel'nykh nastupatel'nykh operatsii, 1921–1929 gg.,” Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, 1983, no. 5: 77–83.

32. The full text of the “Considerations” was published by Iu. A. Gor'kov, appended to his article, “Gotovil li Stalin uprezhdaiushchii udar protiv Gidera v 1941 g.,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1993, no. 3: 29–45; and is available in English translation in Russian Studies in History 36, no. 3 (Winter 1997–98): 22–46. See also Gor'kov and Semin, Iu. N., “O kharaktere voenno-operativnykh planov SSSR nakanune velikoi otechestvennoi voiny i novye arkhivnye dokumenty,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1997, no. 5: 108–29.Google Scholar

33. On the correlation between plan recommendations and actual deployments, see Shimon Naveh, “Soviet Military Doctrine: The Clue to the Deployment of the Red Army in June 1941” (paper presented at the conference, “The Soviet Union and the Outbreak of War, 1939–41,” Russian Academy of Sciences and Tel Aviv University, Moscow, 3 February 1995).

34. V. D. Danilov, “Gotovil li general'nyi shtab krasnoi armii uprezhdaiushchii udar po Germanii?” in Bordiugov, ed., Gotovil li Stalin, 82–91.

35. M. I. Mel'tiukov, “Spory vokrug 1941 goda: Opyt kriticheskogo osmyleniia odnoi diskussii,” Olechestvennaia istoriia, 1994, no. 3: 22.

36. Mel'tiukov, M. I., “Ideologicheskie dokumenty maia-iiunia 1941 goda o sobytiiakh vtoroi mirovoi voiny,” Otechestvennaia istoriia, 1995, no. 1: 70–85 Google Scholar.

37. V. A. Nevezhin, “Rech’ Stalina 5 maia 1941 goda i apologiia nastupatel'noi voiny,” Otechestvennaia istoriia, 1995, no. 2: 53–69. His views are developed in greater detail in Nevezhin, Sindrom nastupatel'noi voiny: Sovetskaia propaganda v preddverii “sviashchennykh boev,” 1939–1941 gg. (Moscow, 1997).

38. See Besymensky, Lev, “Die Rede Stalins am 5. Mai 1941: Dokumentiert und interpretiert,” Osteuropa, 1992, no. 3: 242–64Google Scholar; and Vishlev, O. V., “Rech’ I. V. Stalina 5 maia 1941 g.: Rossiiskie dokumenty,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1998, no. 4: 77–89.Google Scholar

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49. Ibid., 1.

50. Ibid., 208.

51. Ibid., 321.

52. Documentary evidence indicates that the Soviets did have an accurate knowledge of the magnitude of the German threat. See, for example, “Voenno-vozdushnye sily Germanii i SSSR,” Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1998, no. 1: 63–86.

53. As the late Valentin Berezhkov, translator for Stalin and Molotov, put it, “The idea was to gain time, to appease Hitler, and at the same [time?] to demonstrate to him that it made no sense for Germany to go to war with the Soviet Union since this would effectively cut it off from a rich source of supplies.” Berezhkov, , At Stalin's Side (New York, 1994), 102.Google Scholar

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59. Werth, Alexander, Russia at War, 1941–1945 (New York, 1964), 270.Google Scholar

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