To seize and control Europe, the Soviet Union would have to have the most powerful industrial, military, and political apparatus in the world. To achieve this, Stalin set out to build a massive industrial base, to industrialize agriculture, to create the world’s most powerful military machine – the Red Army and Red Air Force. During the 1930s, Stalin built an Army and Air Force that had more tanks and aircraft than the combined forces of Germany, France, Britain, America, and Japan. It was composed of tens of thousands of high-speed tanks and ground-attack aircraft. It was designed for a lightning surprise attack. To control the Soviet Union and a conquered Europe, Stalin built the largest, most pervasive, and tyrannical political and police apparatus in the history of the world – the CPSU and the NKVD. From the first Five-Year Plan in 1929, this program never changed; the Soviet Union became and remained to the end a giant war machine.
At secret meetings in the pre-war years, Stalin had often discussed his plan for “liberating” a war-torn Europe with the Red Army. The plan always involved getting a war started in Europe in which the Soviet Union would remain neutral until the adversaries had exhausted each other. At that point the Red Army would sweep into Europe to “liberate” the masses. Stalin had written:
“A great deal depends upon whether we succeed in delaying the war, which is unavoidable, with the capitalist world, until that moment when the capitalists start fighting among themselves.” I. V. Stalin, Sochineniya, Vol.10, p. 228.
Cited by Viktor Suvorov, ICEBREAKER, London, Hamish Hamilton,1990, p. 33.
“The decisive battle can be considered imminent when all the class forces hostile to us become sufficiently entangled with each other, when they are fighting sufficiently with each other, and when they have weakened each other sufficiently for the conflict to be beyond their strength.” I. V. Stalin, Sochineniya, Vol. 6, p. 158.
Suvorov, op. cit., p. 33.
“Struggles, conflicts and wars among our enemies are … our greatest ally. If war does break out, we will not sit with folded arms – we will have to take to the field, but we will be the last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive load on the scale and tip the balance.” I. V. Stalin, Sochineniya, Vol. 7, (Moscow, 1952), pp. 14, 27.
Cited by Richard Pipes, COMMUNISM, New York, The Modern Library, 2001, p.74.
The decision to finally implement this plan was reached at a special session of the Politburo held on August 19, 1939.
“The question of war or peace is entering a phase which for us is critical. If we conclude the Treaty of Mutual Assistance with France and Great Britain, Germany will renounce its claim to Poland and seek a modus vivendi with the Western powers. The war will be set aside, but subsequently events could take on a dangerous character for the USSR. If we accept Germany’s offer for the conclusion of a non-aggression pact, she will naturally attack Poland and the entry of France and Great Britain into the war will become inevitable. Western Europe will be caught up in serious troubles and disorders. In these conditions, we shall have good chances to stay outside the conflict, and we may expect our entry into the war to be favorable for us.”
“The experience of the past twenty years demonstrates that in time of peace the Communist movement in Europe has no chance of being strong enough to seize power. The dictatorship of the Communist Party may be envisaged only as a result of a great war.”
“Thus, our task consists in making sure that Germany should be involved in war as long as possible, so that England and France would be so exhausted that they would no longer be capable of presenting a threat to a Soviet Germany. We shall maintain a position of neutrality, while biding our time; the USSR will grant aid to present-day Germany to provide raw materials and general supplies.”
“For these plans to be realized, it is indispensable to prolong the war as long as possible, and it is in this precise direction that we should guide all the forces with which we shall act in Western Europe and in the Balkans.”
“Comrades! It is in the interest of the USSR - the Fatherland of the Workers - that war should break out between the Reich and the Franco-British capitalist bloc. We must do everything so that the war should last as long as possible with the aim of weakening both sides. It is for these reasons that we must give priority to the approval of the conclusion of the pact proposed by Germany, and to work so that this war, which will be declared within a few days, shall last as long as possible.”
Excerpts from speech of I. V. Stalin to the Plenum of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party, 19 August 1939. Cited by Brian Crozier, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE, Appendix A.
News of the Politburo meeting and what had been decided quickly leaked out to the Western press. The French news agency Havas published a report of the proceedings. This obviously touched a raw nerve in the Kremlin. Stalin quickly and uncharacteristically published a scathing denial in Pravda on November 30, 1939:
“THE FALSE REPORT ISSUED BY THE HAVAS AGENCY”
“The editor of Pravda has put the following question to Comrade Stalin. What is Comrade Stalin’s attitude to the message issued by the Havas agency on ‘Stalin’s speech’, allegedly made by him ‘in the Politburo of 19 August’, at which ideas were supposedly advanced to the effect that ‘the war must be continued for as long as needed to exhaust the belligerent countries’?
Comrade Stalin has sent the following answer:
‘This report issued by the Havas agency, like many more of its messages, is nonsense. I of course cannot know in precisely which nightclub these lies were fabricated. But no matter how many lies the gentlemen of the Havas agency might tell, they cannot deny that:
a) it was not Germany which attacked France and Britain, but France and Britain which attacked Germany, thereby taking upon themselves the responsibility for the present war;
b) after hostilities began, Germany made peace proposals to France and Britain, while the Soviet Union openly supported these German peace proposals, for it considered, and continues to consider, that only as early end to the war as possible can bring relief in a fundamental way to the condition of all countries and all peoples;
c) the ruling circles in Britain and France rejected out of hand both the German peace proposals and the Soviet Union’s efforts to end the war as quickly as possible.
Such are the facts. What can the nightclub politicians of the Havas agency provide to counter these facts?’
J. STALIN, Pravda, 30 November 1939.
Suvorov, op. cit., p. 43.
During a 1940 meeting with Party agitators in Dnepropetrovsk, Leonid Breshnev was questioned about the Nazi - Soviet Non - Aggression Pact:
“Comrade Breshnev, we have to interpret non - aggression and say that it has to be taken seriously, and that anyone who does not believe in it is talking provocation. But people have little faith in it. So what are we to do? Do we go on interpreting it or not?
Breshnev: “You have to go on interpreting it; and we shall go on interpreting it until not one stone of Nazi Germany remains upon another.”
Leonid Breshnev, Malaya Zemlya, Moscow, 1978, p. 16.
Suvorov, op. cit., pp. 34, 35.
On March 13, 1940, the Politburo ordered the People’s Commissariat for Defense to classify and grade the entire nomenklatura (the ruling elite) of the CPSU, and give them appropriate military ranks in the Red Army and Red Navy. Overnight the Party was converted into a para - military organization.
“Officials of Party committees would be obliged systematically to undergo military retraining