Stalin’s Plans

Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin adopted three Five-Year Plans beginning in 1927 designed to make the Soviet Union the greatest military power in the world. Stalin also conspired to start a major war in Europe by drawing Great Britain and France into war against Germany and other countries. Stalin’s plan was to eliminate one enemy with the hands of another. If Germany entered into a war with Great Britain and France, other countries would enter into the war and great destruction would follow. The Soviet Union could then invade Europe and easily take over the entire continent.[1]

Stalin first attempted to start a major war in Europe during the civil war in Spain in 1936.  Stalin’s political agents, propagandists, diplomats and spies in Spain all screamed in outrage that children were dying in Spain while Great Britain and France did nothing. However, Stalin’s agents were not able to spread the war beyond Spain’s borders. By the end of 1938, Stalin stopped all anti-Hitler propaganda to calm Hitler and to encourage him to attack Poland.[2]

Stalin eventually forced war in Europe with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. British and French delegations had arrived in Moscow on August 11, 1939, to discuss joint action against Germany. During the course of these talks, British and French delegates told the Soviets that if Germany attacked Poland, Great Britain and France would declare war against Germany. This was the information Stalin needed to know. On August 19, 1939, Stalin stopped the talks with Great Britain and France, and told the German ambassador in Moscow that he wanted to reach an agreement with Germany.[3]

On that same day, August 19, 1939, a secret meeting of the Politburo took place. The following are some excerpts from Joseph Stalin’s speech:

If we accept Germany’s proposal about the conclusion of a pact regarding invasion, she will of course attack Poland, and France and England’s involvement in this war will be inevitable. Western Europe will be subjected to serious disorders and disturbances. Under these conditions, we will have many chances to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, and we will be able to count on our advantageous entrance into the war…It is in the interest of the USSR—the motherland of workers—that the war unfolds between the Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French block. It is necessary to do everything within our powers to make this war last as long as possible, in order to exhaust the two sides. It is precisely for this reason that we must agree to signing the pact, proposed by Germany, and work on making this war, once declared, last a maximum amount of time.[4]

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement which led to the destruction and division of Poland and the beginning of World War II in Europe. The nations of Western Europe became mired in a destructive war while the Soviet Union remained neutral. Stalin’s role in unleashing World War II was quickly and thoroughly forgotten. Stalin even received an historically unprecedented amount of aid from the United States and Great Britain after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.[5]

American historian John Mosier writes about the Allied aid given to the Soviet Union:

His resources were being augmented daily by the vast flow of British and American aid coming into the USSR. In the first half of 1943, Stalin had received 1,775,000 tons of aid; in the second half of the year he received 3,274,000 tons, a considerable increase. Given that aid, and his willingness to see his citizenry slaughtered, the struggle would be bitter…[6]

Debates on the importance of Allied aid to Stalin have essentially been comparing the numbers of actual working armored vehicles that the British and Americans loaded onto ships and transported to the USSR with the theoretical numbers of armored vehicles that the tank factories claimed they had produced in order to satisfy Stalin’s demands. Even on that comparison, however, the shipments were substantial: 12,575 British and American tanks were sent to the Red Army, enough to equip 273 tank brigades based on the theoretical Soviet organizational charts of December 1941, an armored force substantially larger than the one Stalin had lost in the first six months of the war.[7]

Why Hitler Signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement

The Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement is remarkable in that Hitler repeatedly stated he hated Communism and did not trust the leaders of the Soviet Union. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

It must never be forgotten that the present rulers of Russia are blood-stained criminals, that here we have the dregs of humanity which, favored by the circumstances of a tragic moment, overran a great State, degraded and extirpated millions of educated people out of sheer blood-lust, and that now for nearly 10 years they have ruled with such a savage tyranny as was never known before. It must not be forgotten that these rulers belong to a people in whom the most bestial cruelty is allied with a capacity for artful mendacity and believes itself today more than ever called to impose its sanguinary despotism on the rest of the world. It must not be forgotten that the international Jew, who is today the absolute master of Russia, does not look upon Germany as an ally but as a State condemned to the same doom as Russia. One does not form an alliance with a partner whose only aim is the destruction of his fellow partner. Above all, one does not enter into alliances with people for whom no treaty is sacred; because they do not move about this earth as men of honor and sincerity but as the representatives of lies and deception, thievery and plunder and robbery. The man who thinks that he can bind himself by treaty with parasites is like the tree that believes it can form a profitable bargain with the ivy that surrounds it.[8]

Hitler also wrote in Mein Kampf: “Therefore the fact of forming an alliance with Russia would be the signal for a new war. And the result of that would be the end of Germany.”[9]

Hitler repeated his distrust of the Soviet Union in a conversation on March 3, 1938 with British Ambassador Nevile Henderson. Hitler stated in this conversation that any limitations on arms depended on the Soviet Union. Hitler noted that the problem was rendered particularly difficult “by the fact that one could place as much confidence in the faith in treaties of a barbarous creature like the Soviet Union as in the comprehension of mathematical formulae by a savage. Any agreement with the U.S.S.R. was quite worthless….” Hitler added that it was impossible, for example, to have faith in any Soviet agreement not to use poison gas.[10]

Hitler’s statements in Mein Kampf and to Nevile Henderson were prescient. Stalin had been planning to take over all of Europe ever since the 1920s. Stalin and the Soviet Union could not be trusted to uphold any peace agreement. However, Hitler entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement because Hitler was desperate to end the atrocities being committed against the ethnic Germans in Poland. Hitler was hoping that the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement would prevent Great Britain and France from declaring war against Germany.[11]

Hitler also signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement because the negotiations that had been ongoing between Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union had taken on a threatening character for Germany. Hitler was confronted with the alternative of being encircled by this massive alliance coalition or ending it via diplomatic channels. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact prevented Germany from being encircled by these three powers.[12] 

Stalin stayed out of the war in Europe he had conspired to instigate. Stalin kept the war in Europe going by supplying much needed-supplies to Germany. However, Hitler’s swift, surgical victory over France prevented the massive destruction in Europe Stalin had hoped for. Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister Vyacheslav Molotov was sent to Germany in November 1940 to announce the Soviet Union’s new territorial demands in Europe. These new territorial demands effectively ended the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. Hitler was forced to launch a preemptive attack on June 22, 1941, to prevent the Soviet Union from conquering all of Europe.[13]

The Soviet war effort in the European theater of World War II was enormous. Most historians underestimate the incredible power of the Soviet military. British historian Norman Davies writes: “…the Soviet war effort was so overwhelming that impartial historians in the future are unlikely to rate the British and American contribution to the European theatre as much more than a supporting role. The proportions were not ‘Fifty-fifty’, as many imply when talking of the final onslaught on Nazi Germany from East and West. Sooner or later people will have to adjust to the fact that the Soviet role was enormous and the Western role was respectable but modest.”[14]

A crucial factor that prevented the Soviet takeover of Europe was the more than 400,000 non-German Europeans who volunteered to fight on the Eastern Front. Combined with 600,000 German troops, the 1,000,000-man Waffen SS represented the first truly pan-European army ever to exist. The heroism of these non-German volunteers who joined the Waffen SS prevented the planned Soviet conquest of Europe. In this regard, Waffen SS Gen. Leon Degrelle wrote:

If the Waffen-SS had not existed, Europe would have been overrun entirely by the Soviets by 1944. They would have reached Paris long before the Americans. Waffen-SS heroism stopped the Soviet juggernaut at Moscow, Cherkov, Cherkassy and Tarnopol. The Soviets lost more than 12 months. Without SS resistance the Soviets would have been in Normandy before Eisenhower. The people showed deep gratitude to the young men who sacrificed their lives.[15]

The Soviet Union Infiltrated the U.S. Government

The Soviet Union also conspired to have Japan attack the United States. Harry Dexter White, later proven to be a Soviet agent, carried out a mission to provoke Japan into war with the United States. When Secretary of State Cordell Hull allowed the peacemakers in Roosevelt’s administration to put together a modus vivendi that had real potential, White drafted a 10-point proposal that the Japanese were certain to reject. White passed a copy of his proposal to Hull, and this final American offer—the so-called “Hull Note”—was presented to the Japanese on November 26, 1941.[16]

The Hull Note, which was based on two memoranda from White, was a declaration of war as far as the Japanese were concerned. The Hull Note destroyed any possible peace settlement with the Japanese, and led to the Japanese attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor. In this regard, American historian John Koster writes:

Harry Dexter White, acting under orders of Soviet intelligence, pulled the strings by which Cordell Hull and [State Department expert on Far Eastern Affairs] Stanley Hornbeck handed the Japanese an ultimatum that was tantamount to a declaration of war—when both the Japanese cabinet and the U.S. military were desperately eager for peace.…Harry Dexter White knew exactly what he was doing. The man himself remains a mystery, but the documents speak for themselves. Harry Dexter White gave us Pearl Harbor.[17]

The Soviets had also planted numerous other agents in the Roosevelt administration. For example, Harold Glasser, a member of Morgenthau’s Treasury staff, provided intelligence from the War Department and the White House to the Soviets. The Soviet NKVD deemed Glasser’s reports so important that 74 reports generated from his material went directly to Stalin. American historian Robert Wilcox writes of the Soviet infiltration of the U.S. government and its effect on Roosevelt:

These spies, plus the hundreds in other U.S. agencies at the time, including the military and  OSS, permeated the administration in Washington, and, ultimately, the White House, surrounding FDR. He was basically in the Soviets’ pocket. He admired Stalin, sought his favor. Right or wrong, he thought the Soviet Union indispensable in the war, crucial to bringing world peace after it, and he wanted the Soviets handled with kid gloves. FDR was star struck. The Russians hardly could have done better if he was a Soviet spy.[18]  

The opening of the Soviet archives in 1995 revealed that more than 300 communist members or supporters had infiltrated the American government. Working in Lend-Lease, the Treasury Department, the State Department, the office of the president, the office of the vice president, and even American intelligence operations, these agents constantly tried to shift U.S. policy in a pro-Soviet direction. During World War II several of these Soviet agents were well positioned to influence American policy. Especially at the Tehran and Yalta meetings toward the end of World War II, the Soviet spies were able to influence Roosevelt to make huge concessions to the Soviet Union.[19] 

The Soviet Union Allowed to Control Eastern Europe

In addition to instigating the war in Europe, the Allied leaders intentionally allowed the Soviet Union to take over Berlin and Eastern Europe. The Supreme Allied Commander in the West, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, had no intention of occupying Berlin. According to Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs, “Stalin said that if it hadn’t been for Eisenhower, we wouldn’t have succeeded in capturing Berlin.”[20]

Stalin wanted his troops to reach as far into Europe as possible to enable the Soviet Union to control more of Europe after the war was over. Stalin knew that once Soviet troops had a stronghold in Eastern Europe, it would be almost impossible to dislodge them. Soviet hegemony could not be dislodged unless Roosevelt wanted to take on the Soviet Union after fighting Germany. Stalin said in private: “Whoever occupies a territory imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.”[21]

The United States could easily have prevented the Soviet Union from marching as far west into Europe as it did. After defeating Germany in North Africa, the Americans and British went into Sicily and then Italy. Churchill favored an advance up the Italian or Balkan peninsulas into central Europe. Such a march would be quicker in reaching Berlin, but Roosevelt and Stalin opposed this strategy at the Tehran Conference in November 1943. In general sessions at Tehran with Churchill present, Roosevelt opposed strengthening the Italian campaign. Instead, Roosevelt wanted troops in Italy to go to France for the larger cross-Channel attack planned for 1944.[22]

Gen. Mark Clark, the American commander in Italy, later commented on Roosevelt’s decision: “The weakening of the campaign in Italy in order to invade Southern France, instead of pushing on into the Balkans, was one of the outstanding mistakes of the war….Stalin knew exactly what he wanted…and the thing he wanted most was to keep us out of the Balkans.”[23]

The Allied military leaders also intentionally prevented Gen. George Patton from quickly defeating Germany in Western Europe. In August 1944, Patton’s Third Army was presented with an opportunity to encircle the Germans at Falaise, France. However, Gens. Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower ordered Patton to stop at Argentan and not complete the encirclement of the Germans, which most historians agree Patton could have done. As a result, probably 100,000 or more German soldiers escaped to later fight U.S. troops in December 1944 in the last-ditch counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge.[24]

Patton wrote in his diary concerning the halt that prevented the encirclement of Germans at Falaise: “This halt [was] a great mistake. [Bradley’s] motto seems to be, ‘In case of doubt, halt.’ I wish I were supreme commander.”[25]

Maj. Gen. Richard Rohmer, who was a Canadian fighter pilot at the time, wrote that if the gap had closed it “could have brought the surrender of the Third Reich, whose senior generals were now desperately concerned about the ominous shadow of the great Russian Bear rising on the eastern horizon of the Fatherland.” Even Col. Ralph Ingersoll, Gen. Bradley’s own historian, wrote, “The failure to close the Argentan-Falaise gap was the loss of the greatest single opportunity of the war.”[26]

By August 31, 1944, Patton had put Falaise behind him and quickly advanced his tanks to the Meuse River, only 63 miles from the German border and 140 miles from the Rhine River. The German army Patton was chasing was disorganized and in disarray; nothing could stop Patton from roaring into Germany. However, on August 31, the Third Army’s gasoline allotment was suddenly cut by 140,000 gallons per day. This was a huge chunk of the 350,000 to 400,000 gallons per day the Third Army had been consuming. Patton’s advance was halted even though the way ahead was open and largely undefended by the German army in retreat.

Siegfried Westphal, Gen. von Rundstedt’s chief of staff, later described the condition of the German army on the day Patton was stopped: “The overall situation in the West [for the Germans] was serious in the extreme. The Allies could have punched through at any point with ease.” The halt of the Third-Army blitzkrieg allowed the Germans to reposition and revitalize. With the knowledge that they were defending their home soil, the Germans found a new purpose for fighting. They were not just waging a war, but were defending their families from what they regarded as revenge-seeking hordes.[27]

Germany took advantage of the overall Allied slowdown and reorganized her troops into a major fighting force. Germany’s counterattack in the Battle of the Bulge took Allied forces completely by surprise. The Germans created a “bulge” in the overextended American line, and the Allies ran the risk of being cut off and possibly annihilated or thrown back into the sea. Patton had to pull back his Third Army in the east and begin another full-scale attack on the southern flank of the German forces. Patton’s troops arrived in a matter of days and were the crucial factor in pushing the German bulge back into Germany.[28]

Patton was re-enthused after the Battle of the Bulge and wanted to quickly take his Third Army into the heart of Germany. The German Army had no more reserves and was definitely on its last legs. However, once again Patton was held back by Gen Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs of Staff led by Gen. George Marshall. Patton was dumbfounded. Patton wrote: “I’ll be damned if I see why we have divisions if not to use them. One would think people would like to win a war…we will be criticized by history, and rightly so, for having sat still so long.”[29]

The Western Allies were still in a position to easily capture Berlin. However, Eisenhower ordered a halt of American troops at the Elbe River, thereby in effect presenting a gift to the Soviet Union of central Germany and much of Europe. One American staff officer bitterly commented: “No German force could have stopped us. The only thing that stood between [the] Ninth Army and Berlin was Eisenhower.”[30]

On May 8, 1945, the day the war in Europe officially ended, Patton spoke his mind in an “off-the-record” press briefing. With tears in his eyes, Patton recalled those “who gave their lives in what they believed was the final fight in the cause of freedom.” Patton continued:

I wonder how [they] will speak today when they know that for the first time in centuries we have opened Central and Western Europe to the forces of Genghis Khan. I wonder how they feel now that they know there will be no peace in our times and that Americans, some not yet born, will have to fight the Russians tomorrow, or 10, 15 or 20 years from tomorrow. We have spent the last months since the Battle of the Bulge and the crossing of the Rhine stalling; waiting for Montgomery to get ready to attack in the North; occupying useless real estate and killing a few lousy Huns when we should have been in Berlin and Prague. And this Third Army could have been. Today we should be telling the Russians to go to hell instead of hearing them tell us to pull back. We should be telling them if they didn’t like it to go to hell and invite them to fight. We’ve defeated one aggressor against mankind and established a second far worse, more evil and more dedicated than the first.[31]

A few days later Patton shocked everyone at a Paris hotel gathering by saying basically the same things. At a later gathering in Berlin, when asked to drink a toast with a Soviet general, Patton told his translator, “tell that Russian sonovabitch that from the way they’re acting here, I regard them as enemies and I’d rather cut my throat than have a drink with one of my enemies!”[32]

Patton became known among U.S. and Soviet leaders as a bona-fide menace and a threat to world peace. In addition, Patton was viewed as insubordinate, uncontrollable, and, in the eyes of some, treasonous. U.S. Maj. Douglas Bazata claims he was given the order to assassinate Patton by the Office of Strategic Services, an American military-espionage unit. Bazata says he shot Patton during a planned auto wreck of Patton’s vehicle on December 9, 1945. Patton later died in a hospital on December 21, 1945 under very suspicious circumstances.[33]

Conclusion 

The US fought in World War II supposedly to stop fascist aggression and to create democratic institutions in the liberated nations of Europe. However, within a remarkably short period after the end of the war, the Soviet Union ruthlessly subjected Eastern Europe to its totalitarian control. The Red Army brought Moscow-trained secret policemen into every Soviet-occupied country, put local communists in control of the national media, and dismantled youth groups and other civic organizations. The Soviets also brutally arrested, murdered and deported people whom they believed to be anti-Soviet, and enforced a policy of ethnic cleansing.[34]          

A war allegedly fought for democracy and freedom had turned into a totalitarian nightmare for the people of the Eastern European nations. This result was not accidental. The historical record indicates that the Soviet Union actively conspired to instigate World War II. The U.S. government was also infiltrated by high-level Soviet agents who influenced Franklin Roosevelt to make huge concessions to the Soviet Union at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower also prevented Gen. Patton and other U.S. forces from taking over Berlin and the rest of Eastern Europe before the Soviets could do so. 

The Allies had planned a long and devastating war resulting in the complete destruction of Germany. This is indicated by a conversation on November 21, 1938 between U.S. Ambassador to France William Bullitt and Polish Ambassador Jerzy Potocki. According to what military experts told Bullitt during the fall crisis of 1938, a war lasting at least six years would break out in Europe. In the military experts’ opinion the war would result in the complete destruction of Europe, with communism reigning in every European state. The benefits would accrue to the Soviet Union at the conclusion of the war. Bullitt, who enjoyed the special confidence of President Roosevelt, also told Potocki that the United States would take part in the war after Great Britain and France had made the first move.[35] The complete destruction of Germany and the communist takeover of Eastern Europe occurred exactly as Bullitt had predicted.

Notes