# Suvorov's Icebreaker



## Stalker (Jun 14, 2005)

Has anybody heard of Victor Suvorov's book *Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?*
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0241126223/qid=1118751108/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-3198535-2104160?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Suvorov is a penname of Vladimir Rezun, ex-GRU spy who fled to the UK in 1978.
He's got an elite military education firstly as a tank officer (Kiev), and then at the Academy of General Staff, and then GRU Academy (Moscow). He proved to be an excellent analyst and once he stumbled over certain facts that made him think the official history of the WW 2 is not quite as it is in the text-books.
Since then he has developed a well-grounded theory that starting from August 1939 Stalin was provoking Hitler into the war so that he could strike the deadly blow into Hitler's back when the latter will become weakened by the war.
Red Army was ready to attack the Reich in July 1941 but Hitler struck earlier...


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Jun 14, 2005)

Well it certainly has widely divergent amazon reviews, as you'd expect. Something I'd certainly like to read in tandem with a more conventional history, it's always fun contrasting a revisionist or contrarian view with the accepted record.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 14, 2005)

Well...here's a couple of quotes I picked as choice:



> The author's contention that the Soviets were planning an offensive is preposterous. Simply read the accounts of the Finno-Soviet War of 1939 and you can see that the Red Army of 1939-1941 was simply not capable of large-scale offensive operations.
> 
> In my view, the main merit of this book is in its clear illustration of the linkage between the Soviet state ideology and National Military Strategy on one side and the Red Army's equipment choices and training priorities on the other.


 
I wouldn't be surprised if the Soviets had some form of planning, in terms of exploring the scenario of an invasion of Germany - but as mentioned, the USSR army at the beginning of WWI was a miserable anachronistic mess and incapable of any "modern" warfare of the period.

Seems a lot of people are posting good ratings on the book, primarily on the grounds that anything questioning the establishment must always be "the real truth".

As we've seen before, people will buy into sensationalism for sensationalism's sake. 

If this particular book has any merit regarding the documents that it alleges to use, then we should see this covered by peer review over the coming years.

For the time being, little more than a curiosity, and seemingly much hyped over very little.


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## Tsujigiri (Jun 14, 2005)

Looks like a book that'd be useful to the course I'm doing at the moment...thanks


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## Stalker (Jun 14, 2005)

I said:
			
		

> Well...here's a couple of quotes I picked as choice:
> 
> The author's contention that the Soviets were planning an offensive is preposterous. Simply read the accounts of the Finno-Soviet War of 1939 and you can see that the Red Army of 1939-1941 was simply not capable of large-scale offensive operations.
> 
> ...


 
That simply signifies how little you know about USSR at the beginning of war.
After Red Army's winter campaign against Finland, Hitler remarked, "The USSR is just a colossus on clay feet. Just push it, and it will fall itself!" Ignorance is what led the German Reich to its end. I wish I could see Wehrmacht storming Mannerheim's defensive line with mine fields, with barbed wire all across, with concrete bunkers covering all possible defiles, with fast detachment of snipers on skies; add to this show layers up to 7 feet, and swamps and sharp rocks under it preventing tanks from passage, add temperatures 20 degress below zero by Celsius, add blizzards and cold winds, impassable forests and swamps - then only you will get a vaguest idea of that offensive! No Army in the world would be able to break through that defensive line. Except for Red Army which paid for that dearly. Suvorov teaches in military academy in the UK, and he fed that scenario of winter campaign to the computer that deals with so called "war games". The result was striking: the computer told that *without nukes such offensive is impossible*!!!!!!!!
Further on, about Soviets having some sort of planning... General Staff of Red Army, I daresay, was headed by those generals that later led Soviet Armies to Berlin. Lots of German officers, especially those of Luftwaffe and Panzer, force studied in Soviet military academies because Versailles peace treaty forbode Wehrmacht from having heavy bombers and tanks. General Staff planned everything... except defensive war. The maps they issued were of Western Europe, the soldiers of the 12th Tank Army received Russo-Romanian dictionaries on 21 of June 1941!!! And do you know how many tanks were in above army, which was positioned against oil fields of Ploesti? Suvorov answers: about 1,400, and T-34, and KV-1, KV-2 are among them!
How many tanks did Hitler have in his 4 tank groups when he invaded Soviet Union? The answer is 5,500. All tanks!!! The 12th Army alone had 1400!!!
Back to tanks... Hitler didn't have any heavy tanks. Stalin had (T-35, KV-1, KV-2). Hitler didn't have any even mid class tanks. Stalin had (T-34). The newest tank cannon German Ranzer-IV posessed was 75-mm short barrel. T-34 had 76,2 mm. No early German AT-artillery (75 mm) could penetrate the angled front armor shields of T-34. There are many historical evidence of how Germans reacted when they firstly met with terrible Russian tanks whose front armor could be penetrated only by Swiss AA-cannon, 88 mm. You only read these accounts! Total panic!!! They were lucky, Soviets, cought in the middle of their preparations, in their haste to retreat were forced to destroy most of their artillery and tanks because of absence of fuel. 20,000 Soviet tanks which in huge majority were formidable weapon themselves were destroyed mainly by their masters in order to prevent their capturing by the enemy.
Red Air Forces. Here Stalin planned to use not quality but quantity. He outnumbered Luftwaffe in that component and Red Air Force was going to do with Luftwaffe what the latter did to it in actual history - that is bombing planes on the ground. 3/4 of Soviet planes in the very first day of German offensive remained on the gound burning.
On 31 August 1939 Stalin orders hidden mobilisation under the label of conscription of those whose term of service started from 1937. In such a manner in that year he expanded Red Army to 4 million, and added to that number 1,2 million each year.
Was that a miseravle force?
Enough for this time. If it's interesting, we may continue discussion.


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## Stalker (Jun 16, 2005)

I should alo add to above that Russian historians will rather admit that Soviet generals were utter fools than let Russia that is an official successor of the USSR share reponsibility for initiating WW 2 with Germany.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 16, 2005)

I'd have to do a lot more research to be able to pull proper pointers to your arguments where appropriate - but I really do not see how what is presented so far can argue anything other than the Russians were planning to try and attack the German eastern flank, but were attacked before they could properly mobilise. 

Certainly, I believe modern historians would generally see a conflict between the USSR and Nazi Germany as being a matter of inevitbility, not if - and it's not at all hard to see there being a mental arms race between Nazi Germany and USSR before open hostilities - in fact, I believe this is pretty much mainstream WWII history.

However, the claim that the Russians "forced" Germany to invade Europe so far seems a claim based on bravado rather than fact.


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## Stalker (Jun 16, 2005)

I said:
			
		

> I'd have to do a lot more research to be able to pull proper pointers to your arguments where appropriate - but I really do not see how what is presented so far can argue anything other than the Russians were planning to try and attack the German eastern flank, but were attacked before they could properly mobilise.
> 
> Certainly, I believe modern historians would generally see a conflict between the USSR and Nazi Germany as being a matter of inevitbility, not if - and it's not at all hard to see there being a mental arms race between Nazi Germany and USSR before open hostilities - in fact, I believe this is pretty much mainstream WWII history.
> 
> However, the claim that the Russians "forced" Germany to invade Europe so far seems a claim based on bravado rather than fact.


 
What bravado is in the fact that Stalin, a faithful Lenin's pupil was going to export revolution to Europe? Suvorov named his book Icebreaker because he was going to demonstrate *the idea of Stalin using Hitler as Icebreaker in Europe*!
Arms race had place but don't forget that in their August treaty 1939 Stalin and Hitler simply divided Poland, Romania and Baltic States. They were friends not only in words: these two years were the peak of German-Soviet scientific and military co-operation. 
From the historical point of view conflict of two totalitarian empires was inevitable but was it from Hitler's point of view back in 1940? My answer is NO! Up to june 1940, Hitler never thought of invasion to the USSR. You only read his Mein Kampf and it will become quite clear to you that *his real enemy he hated with all his heart was France* and then British Empire - two countries (especially, the first one, that humiliated Germany after the Great War!) France, France, France! - this name drives Adolf even madder, and he goes on repeating _Frankreich_ everywhere to underline his hatred.
But the war appeared to be quick, and after Dunkerk evacuation, France quickly put its hands up. 
Stalin meanwhile occupied Bessarabia, and North Bukovina and that was his mistake because seeing Soviet armies overhanging the oil heart of Germany situated in Ploesti, Romania at so dangerously close distance simply made him panic, you may imagine! Stalin didn't think France would surrender so fast and that was his mistake. And by june 1941 Stalin had almost finished his mobilisation. "Almost" means here that to form fresh armies of ready divisions, he needed 2-3 weeks.
My estimates of beginning of his assault is 11 July 1941. Suvorov gives 4 July 1941.
Stalin would like to set up Hitler as agressor and then come to Europe as "liberator" and natural ally for the French and British. It actually happened... in 1945 after 4 years of meat-grinder on the Eastern Front. I advise that you read the book, Brian, it is worth it.


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