Is there any evidence to suggest that Stalin knew Hitler would attack the USSR?

[Finn]

My teacher is adamant that Stalin continuously ignored advice from spies and advisers that Germany was preparing to attack the USSR, is this true? I always assumed from the beginning Stalin was intent on building up the Red Army because he knew such an attack was imminent.

[General Winter]

For example,this :

From the memoirs of Marshal Vasilevsky, chief of the armed forces General Staff in 1942-1945 :

"It is enough to say that the number of divisions has been more than doubled from the fall of 1939 to 1941, while the number of aviation regiments has been increased by 4/5 to June 1941, compared with the beginning of 1939.....

A number of armies - up to 28 divisions – began to advance from domestic constituencies to the border from mid-May of 1941 according to the directives of the General Staff, thus marking the beginning of the implementation of the plan on the concentration and deployment of Soviet troops on the western borders. In May and the beginning of June 1941, about 800 thousand of people were called up from the reserves for training sessions and they were all aimed at the completion of the border troops of the western military districts and fortified areas. By mid-1941, the total number of the army and navy had reached more than 5 million of people and it was 2.7 times more than in 1939.

In May - June 1941, the railway line on the Western Dvina and Dnepr was used to transfer the 19-th, 21-th and 22-th Armies of the North Caucasus, Volga and Urals military districts, the 25th Rifle Corps of the Kharkov Military District as well as the 16th Army of the Trans-Baikal military District. All of them have been sent to Ukraine as a part of Kyiv special Military District. On May 27 the General Staff gave the western border districts an instruction on the urgent construction of frontline field command posts, and on June 19 - to bring there the front-line management of the Baltic, Western and Kiev Special Military Districts. The management of the Odessa District had received such a permission before, by the request of the District Command. On June 12-15, these districts were ordered to bring divisions located in the depths of the county, closer to the state border. On June 19, these districts were ordered to mask airfields, military units, parks, warehouses and bases and to disperse the aircraft on the ground."

Ask your teacher,can all this measures be called "ignoring the threat of war by Soviet leadership" or this "ignoring" is only a myth of the Cold war?

[willowtooth]

The important thing to remember is the non scientific mythical beliefs that not only guided decisions of the Nazis in ww2 but even in the creation of the Nazi party, which was that the nordic races were superior to all races and therefore near invincible, Stalin and the USSR were not subject to this, scientifically a war between the USSR and Germany would've ended not only in unprecedented bloodshed, but in Germany's eventual collapse. Hitler so convinced of his races own superiority that things like being outnumbered, outgunned, and comparably inexperienced, didn't matter to him.


They're goal was to destroy the USSR and all Communists, Hitler made this clear decades before the war started. However most assumed that Germany would attack great Britain and France first, Hitler even secretly promised Stalin in writing, several times that he would not attack. The german buildup of troops was believed to be done (by stalin) to avoid the upcoming bombings of the Great Britain not to invade the USSR. Stalin was more concerned with oil, and I think he truly believed Hitler would spend the next decade or so, in a bloody war with Britain. While the USSR could enjoy the relative peace of neutrality. the USSR buildup along the border, however was ill equipped to deal with any invasion, and was not organized to deal with one, it was not meant to be a threat to germans either and wasn't seen as one, but rather a defensive buffer from which the eastern and central parts of the USSR could be re-organized and prepare for the eventual war with the west, which Stalin believed would come from Great Britain rather than Germany.

It's also important to note that military intelligence is hard to decipher and is often contradictory, hindsight is always 20/20. Just as George Bush was given intelligence about the 9/11 attack that taken by itself, would seem that he knew about, even allowed the attack, or failed to act. When in reality that intelligence was buried under thousands of other reports that would make it seem less credible. In fact counter intelligence officers often release false or phony intelligence to mislead spies. The first reports of an attack were actually a surprise and disbelieved by many soviet officers, in fact the first order for soviet troops to head to the border, were given to not provacate an attack, and to only act defensively, despite it being two hours after Hitler's invasion had begun

So while Stalin might have supsected an attack even been given intelligence from spies that turned to be true, there was nothing to suggest that Stalin knew Hitler would attack or was preparing to attack himself.

[SkepticalofYourDogma]

Don't get me wrong, I love Joseph. But I believe all Stalin discussion is supposed to be in the stickied thread, no? I have heard this before that the US and Britian warned Stalin. Quite honestly I don't think Stalin was purposely ignorant, rather I think he made a mistake. Capitalism is an ever-growing phenomenon, he really should of expected the Nazi's to invade at some point.