"Victors Are Not Judged": Byways on Stalin's Road to Berlin

22 Historically Speaking July/August 2006 W Victors Are Not Judged": Byways on Stalin's Road to Berlin Evan Mawdsley A ^ "^T T^ictors are not judged" was one of ^/ Stalin's favorite sayings. He used * these words most memorably in a postwar speech justifying his leadership in the "Great Patriotic War." In the good old days of the USSR there developed a similar broad brush approach to the history of this war, based as much on Russian nationalism as on Marxism-Leninism. Over time this perspective has been influential outside Russia as well. The release in Moscow of new material, however, has allowed historians to produce more unvarnished accounts of the strategic direction of the Soviet war effort. Especially useful have been the documents to and from Stalin and his Stavka (General Headquarters), giving a better sense of what was intended in particular situations.1 In addition, the availability of Stalin's appointments diary means that these orders can be tied to the individuals that the Soviet leader consulted. Also valuable has been the publication of new memoirs and diaries, and less censored (if not uncensored) versions of earlier ones.2 Much more information about Soviet casualties has also been made public, which allows an assessment—albeit indirect—of the scale and importance of different operations. The starting point for a correct overview of the war is the offensive orientation of the Red Army, which was based on the doctrine that Marshal M. N. Tukhachevskii sponsored before the war: the central concept of this is often called "deep battle."5 Tukhachevskii may have been tried and executed in 1937, but "deep battle" survived. Stalin even summed up the concept in a public order of February 1944: "I order . . . the whole Red Army by a skillful combination of fire and maneuver to break through the enemy defense across its full depth, not giving the enemy time to catch his breath."' It seems to me incontestable, in the light of newly published documents, that a basic cause of the Red Army's 1941 disaster was that it was deployed for offensive operations. This is not to say that Stalin intended a preemptive attack against the Third Reich in the late summer of 1941, as has been argued by Viktor Suvorov and others.5 Rather, the intention was that if war should break out, the Red Army would fight on enemy territory. This explains the forward deployment of its tanks and aircraft. More specifically, the documents make it clear that in 1941 the Red Army was deployed for an offensive (or counteroffensive) drive into German-occupied southern Poland from the Ukraine, rather than for one into East Prussia from Belorussia. This explains the relative weakness in Belorussia, where the main German blow was actually struck on the 22nd of June. The Soviet disaster on the frontiers in June-July 1941 by no means ended the offensive orientation of the Red Army. The neglected Battle of Smolensk deserves a place as one of the decisive battles of the Second World War. In this prolonged engagement, fought in July and August 1941 halfway between the borders and Moscow, the Red Army's second strategic echelon stalled the German Blitzkrieg. This was Hitler's only chance for victory in Russia, and perhaps in Europe as a whole. As David Glantz has recently shown, the Battle of Smolensk was also important in a negative sense. Still wedded to the offensive doctrine, Stalin and Marshal Timoshenko threw their hastily assembled forces, now the main strength of the Red Army, into one costly offensive after another around Smolensk.6 The Smolensk attacks bled white Soviet divisions and air regiments and allowed the renewal of the German drive toward Moscow in early October 1941, known as Operation Typhoon. This offensive was only stopped in early December 1941 in front of Moscow by the desperate head-on counterattack mounted by Marshal Zhukov against an exhausted Wehrmacht. Most historians see the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943) as the turning point of the war in the East. This judgment is largely right, but it oversimplifies events. In the first half of 1942 (roughly from January to May), after Zhukov...