An intense, and densely written, study of the strategic and
diplomatic reasons for the German invasion of Russia in WWII and of
why Stalin wasn't better prepared to defend the country. Gorodetsky
(East European History/Tel Aviv University, Israel) draws on a
wealth of Soviet materials previously unavailable, as well as on
material from German and British archives, to argue that this lack
of preparation until just weeks before Germany launched its attack
was not motivated by political naivete but rather by Stalin's own
brand of realpolitik - a hope for European peace on terms dictated
by Germany, terms in which Stalin would have a part, as an ally of
Hitler's through the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Gorodetsky looks
carefully at the various corespondences and examines the aims that
blinded Stalin to the dangers that were building as Germany
deployed its troops closer and closer to the Russian border. In
addition, Gorodetsky also examines the effect that the Stalinist
purges of the 1930s had in Russia's attempts to formulate a
strategic response to the German buildup of troops without
provoking the Wehrmacht into further action. Gorodetsky's arguments
are clear once the reader has managed to unearth them from the
mounds of dense, jargon-filled prose in which they are buried.
There are few sentences shorter then a full paragraph, and the book
is more than twice as long as it needs be. Gorodetsky's concluding
chapter, a concise 7 pages, sums up all the 300 pages that precede
it. Alas for the reader that this chapter comes at the book's end
rather than at its beginning. Well argued . . . and argued and
argued. (Kirkus Reviews)
This important book draws on vital new archival material to unravel
the mystery of Hitler's invasion of Russia in 1941 and Stalin's
enigmatic behavior on the eve of the attack. Gabriel Gorodetsky
challenges the currently popular view that Stalin was about to
invade Germany when Hitler made a preemptive strike. He argues
instead that Stalin was actually negotiating for European peace,
asserting that Stalin followed an unscrupulous Realpolitik that
served well-defined geopolitical interests by seeking to redress
the European balance of power. Gorodetsky substantiates his
argument through the most thorough scrutiny ever of Soviet archives
for the period, including the files of the Russian foreign
ministry, the general staff, the security forces, and the entire
range of military intelligence available to Stalin at the time.
According to Gorodetsky, Stalin was eagerly anticipating a peace
conference where various accords imposed on Russia would be
revised. But the delusion of being able to dictate a new European
order blinded him to the lurking German danger, and his erroneous
diagnosis of the political scene-colored by his perennial suspicion
of Great Britain-led him to misconstrue the evidence of his own and
Britain's intelligence services. Gorodetsky highlights the sequence
of military blunders that resulted from Stalin's determination to
appease Germany-blunders that provide the key to understanding the
calamity that befell Russia on 22 June 1941.
General
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