National Socialism was, to a considerable extent, a counter-movement to the international communism sponsored by Russian Bolshevism. Hence, both systems were deeply antagonistic, and had been engaged in a cold war since the end of the First World War, presaging the later Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West. Indeed, Germany and Russia were to fight a proxy war, each taking opposing sides in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Mutual threats of extermination were commonplace. Therefore, in the absence of any deterrent, it seemed inevitable that a military conflict would break out at some point.
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Constantine Pleshakov. Stalin’s Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 2005, 312 pp. As the title of Constantine Pleshakov’s book implies, the author, a Russian historian,[1] holds Stalin personally responsible for the debacle that befell the Red Army at the outbreak…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Yuri Rubtsov, Alter Ego Stalina (Based on declassified archival documents), Svonnitsa-MG, Moscow, 1999, 302 pp. Yuri Rubtsov, Iz-za spiny vozhdya: poli ticheskaya i voyennaya deyatel’nost L. Z. Mekhlisa (Behind the Leader’s Back; The Political and Military Activities of L. Z. Mekhlis), Kompaniya Ritm, Moscow, 2003, 253 pp. Until the appearance of two recent Russian political…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ August 1, 2004
Viktor Suworow, Marschall Schukow – Lebensweg über Leichen, Pour-le-Mérite, Selent, Germany, 2002, 350 pp., €25.80 Prologue Every war produces genuine military strategists and heroes, many of whom die on the battlefield or whose exploits go unrecognized. Decorated “Hero of the Soviet Union” four times, Marshal Georgi Zhukov was indisputably the most honored military figure in…
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