What Stalin Knew

ISBN: 0-300-11981-X

Some books sit on shelves as silent witnesses to matters nobody really wants to know or talk about. It’s almost as if they exist to remind people of information that is unpleasant so that these same people can try to memory hole the fact that they ever saw them. Generally, you do not find these books in schools or colleges because educational dollars and funding do not follow those who promote such works. They simply do not fit the narrative that somebody, somewhere has decided is what we should teach. What Joseph Stalin Knew, is, assuredly, one of these books.

It is interesting to note that this book was published by Yale press, and perhaps Yale has a more expansive curriculum or maybe had one at one point that involved frankly discussing and researching academic material that exists well in the shadow. Indeed, most of the records of Soviet Russia under Stalin were destroyed because Stalin wanted them to be. Stalin wanted this record destroyed because the record would not reflect kindly on his decisions or the communist party. Therefore, he simply sought to eliminate anything and everything that might paint him in a less than favorable light.

What was it Stalin knew? Bluntly, Stalin knew that Germany was going to attack the USSR but because he trusted Hitler more than he trusted his own agents, he dismissed these warnings and reports. Some say he was trying to buy Russia time to get ready for such an attack, but what becomes clear is that Stalin, though he trusted hardly anyone, trusted, of all people, the words of Hitler. Perhaps it would be better to say that Stalin hoped that Hitler would do more damage before trying to invade the Soviet Union which would give Stalin the opportunity to launch some counter-invasion with many opponents of communism much weaker for the effort. From the point of view of war, this makes a kind of terrible sense. Attrition and weakening your opponents is a good military strategy. However, hoping that someone who actively hates your ideology and is keen on creating a master race which probably does not include you or at least you and your beliefs is not going to attack you so you can better divide the spoils between you and this other person is foolish. Stalin probably figured if Hitler centralized all of the middle of Europe and England, Russia could later join forces with other places closer to it and attack it on down the road. Of course, that is not what happened because Hitler decided that Russia was weak and could be taken quickly and its resources turned to the advantage of the Reich.

Weirdly enough, this book does not advance this theory which is fairly obvious to anyone who has ever studied any military strategy. The Soviet Union had lots of land, resources, and people. Germany had advanced military technology and had success with “fast lightening wars” but the Soviet Union due to sheer size alone was never going to be a fast event. In this Hitler had delusions concerning Ukraine and an uprising specifically, and the book does state as much. Between Stalin’s delusions, and Hitler’s delusions, and mutual paranoia and arrogance, it was perhaps inevitable that they would wind up at war with one another. Hitler, the book argues, eventually respected and even somewhat envied Stalin in what presumably is due to Stalin’s stalwart adherence to his principles. In the meantime, Stalin was busy ripping apart his own military apparatus for people that had been considered heros of the Soviet Union that he did not like that had spoken truth to him that he had rejected. He instead most often sought to scapegoat these loyal commanders, and in many cases ordered their deaths at a point he could blame them entirely for some failure that was ultimately his own.

In one instance, Stalin continually scapegoats an intelligence chief and installs him in various other military capacities until he ultimately orders his death for the simple reason that he could not control him. Anyone who spoke something to Stalin that Stalin did not want to hear was placed in the memory banks of Stalin as someone to later betray and destroy. Those that remained were too afraid to speak to Stalin about matters concerning Soviet security they knew to be true. Their choices where to face slaughter by German soldiers, or face slaughter by Joseph Stalin. It a terrible hidden tragedy of the war–service men who knew that their fates were sealed no matter which way they tried to steer things–patriotism for their country and service or facing an enemy with superior military power that would surely cut many of them down. Some of them, the book mentions, ran away only to be found later and shot by the army as deserters. The Nazis were cruel, but the Soviet leadership was savage. Both Hitler and Stalin had a fondness for repression and genocide.

One matter the book does not discuss is Stalin’s post-war conviction that Hitler was still alive and probably living somewhere in Argentina. At the same time, Stalin had received various forensic evidence to suggest that Hitler was actually dead. This, is, of course, quite interesting all on its own. Perhaps Stalin needed to insist on some manner of disinfo, or perhaps his instincts were right. It is certainly true that many Nazis did go to Argentina.

A final note concerns the eerie parallels to modern civilization and Russia under Stalin. If one replaces the word “de-platforming” with “purge”, one arrives at a process that sounds strangely familiar. In the online world, anything that does not fit the narrative has been subject to removal and silencing in the last five years or so in massive ways. Communist idealogy and issues are once again, prominent. The dictum that “history does not repeat, but it rhymes” appears to hold. If humanity does not have a terrible tragedy every sixty years or so, it seems to forget most everything learned during the last go-around. For this reason, this book should be required reading for high school or college curriculums. It is not a pleasant read, but then again, life and history is replete with unpleasant happenings. It does us no good to pretend that they never happened.