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Spades and Men

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78 pointswallflower24 comments

Some background: This was written by a defected Soviet military intelligence officer Victor Suvorov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Suvorov .

Suvorov wrote a lot of books exploring WWII and demonstrating large amounts of evidence for his "Icebreaker" theory, claiming that Stalin intentionally led Hitler to power, planning to occupy Europe after Nazis and the Western countries were both weary and weakened. The theory has a lot of vocal opponents, but Suvorov never misses a chance to point out that most of them are (paid by) Soviet political/military figures, who are obviously biased and would never admit such a plan. It's a shame that these books are not all translated to English.

He also wrote two memoir books, (Tales of a) "Liberator", describing his service in the Soviet regular forces, and "Aquarium", covering the period after he got noticed by and accepted into the intelligence forces. The first one contains some rather fascinating stories of everyday Soviet life and dogma, well worth a read if you can find it. The second one is also good, even though it lacks those everyday stories.

Summa summarum, the book OP linked to is an interesting view into the old Soviet thinking. Might be an eye opener for those who believe the Soviets were anywhere near as humane as the Western countries.

Suvorov never misses a chance to point out that most of them are (paid by) Soviet political/military figures

There's plenty of criticism of his theories from Western historians as well.

Most of his major works are available in English:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&...

He's certainly a colourful and interesting writer and personality; fun to read while keeping things like grains of salt and critical faculties handy.

"Operation Barbarossa Saved the World" is one of the strangest and most interesting articles I've read about WWII. I don't buy the whole theory, per se, but it's methodical in listing German and Russian armaments, soldiers, aircraft, and positioning. It draws heavily from Suvorov and argues that the the Nazi pre-emptive invasion of the Soviet Union saved all of Western Europe from Soviet conquest.

The basic premise is that Stalin was geared up for a very fast sweep through German territory and following through immediately into Western Europe, but all plans had been made with first strike in mind. It was all first strike aircraft, shock troops, paratroopers, and offensive battleplans without defense or contingency. By violating the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact first, Germany overran the forward positions of the Soviets quickly, destroying their first strike capability, many aircrafts, logistical details, depots, fuel supplies, and other things which the Soviets weren't prepared for. The author argues that if Germany didn't do that, Russia might've conquered all of Europe, and with the combined might of a Soviet Europe, conquered the world.

Interesting idea. I'm not sure I buy it, but it was a fascinating article.

Oddly, the conventional argument--that the Soviets destroyed the bulk of the German army and hence saved Europe from German domination--shares with this theory the odd consequence that liberal democracy in the West was saved from brutal, absolute dictatorship by another brutal, absolute dictatorship.

> Oddly, the conventional argument--that the Soviets destroyed the bulk of the German army and hence saved Europe from German domination--shares with this theory the odd consequence that liberal democracy in the West was saved from brutal, absolute dictatorship by another brutal, absolute dictatorship.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, definitely look up "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace," or at the very least go read a summary. Also fascinating stuff.

Basically, PWFPP's argument is that Nazi Germany would've been very weak and able to overthrow easily by resisting the Nazi conquest of Czechoslovakia - the Czech army was a decent fighting force, and with allied support could've dismantled Nazi Germany right there.

France and England do nothing there, but then declare war on Germany after Germany and the Soviet Union sign a peace treaty and jointly invade and divide Poland, and then inexplicably France and England don't attack. That was the stupidest possible way to declare war. You could've backed the Czechs, but declaring war without an invasion while giving Hitler nine months to plan and let him have first strike/blitzkrieg against France? Totally stupid.

The Western front of WWII was gravely mismanaged until Winston Churchill took over in England. Like, ridiculously so. They had quite a few opportunities to smash Hitler before he became a problem. When they finally did declare war, they just kind of skirmished a little while letting him build and prepare more, and letting him determine the time and place of battle (they overran the totally ineffective Maginot Line in one spot, spread quickly, and conquered France in three days).

Anyway, I do buy that theory. Germany wasn't so strong when they invaded Czech, and the Czechs are strong, tough, proud people. Declare war there and WWII basically doesn't happen. As an added bonus, the Soviet Union couldn't have absorbed Poland, East Germany, and the Baltics as a result. Man oh man WWII was grossly mismanaged in the start of it...

Obviously, France and Britain could have just launched straight across the border into Germany then and there, but then wouldn't they have to face the entire Soviet army? Having just taken out Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and half of Poland, the Soviets were as clear a threat as the Germans. I guess the question then becomes what would have happened if western Europe stopped Hitler at the soonest possible point of advantage and WWII was against the Soviets.

Man oh man WWII was grossly mismanaged in the start of it...

Well sure... with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and everything.

>Man oh man WWII was grossly mismanaged in the start of it...

that was the historical point of WWII - it was a product of one world view and resulted in the other

>Declare war there and WWII basically doesn't happen.

yep. The post-WWII world would do just that. UN, NATO and Warsaw Pact. 68' Czech invasion. Vietnam war to prevent spread of communism. Iraq and Afghanistan to, supposedly, prevent spread of terrorism. While i don't agree with these wars (or especially with how they've been conducted), we can't not notice this is a system preventing another war like WWII, though not WWIII, in action.

The WW-III would be a different beast. It will be product of the current world view, ie. of conflict between the view and the critical problems. The obvious conflict is between complete state sovereignty principle of international law and global, transnational, problems of human rights and environment, especially global warming. These problems can not be resolved through voluntary ratification and obeying of treaties by 180+ states. Thus global enforcement is in order.

> and then inexplicably France and England don't attack.

This is easily explained. There was at the time no possible way to coerce the deeply traumatized French and English to attack. When Daladier and Chamberlain came back from Munich in 1938, they were cheered by the crowd in Paris; Daladier told Chamberlain "ils sont contents, les cons" (they're happy, these morons). He was perfectly aware that the vast majority of englishmen - and even more frenchmen, were so deeply against any form of war after WWI that the concept of a preemptive strike was simply unthinkable.

The Soviets destroyed huge chunks of the German army, but had the Germans concentrated their army in the West instead of the East it wouldn't have changed the ultimate outcome of the war. There would have been a lot more allied bombing campaigns in Western Europe, a lot more civilian deaths, and potentially the use of nuclear weapons in Europe, but ultimately the Germans did not have the ability to fight against American logistics.

Alternately, the Soviets would have just pushed further west. It's hard to imagine German weakness on their eastern front making the Soviets being less enthusiastic about adding parts of Europe to their sphere of influence, especially considering the fact that, before Barbarossa, the Soviets were just as enthusiastic about invading their neighbors as Germany was.

That's the truly interesting part. I suspect it would have led directly to a hot war between the Soviets and the US/UK et al.

In 1941 there were two very nasty dictatorships in the world. How fortunate for everyone else that they fought each other, one was destroyed and the other badly weakened!

He's also a compulsive liar, attention-seeker and conspiracy nut (you can kind of tell already because "Suvorov never misses a chance to point out that most of them are (paid by) Soviet political/military figures"). Half the facts in that book are rumors he overheard from colleagues or things he made up based on seeing something he didn't understand (the "backwards-print shoe" is pretty hilarious, for example). Try tracking down any of the sources he bothers to cite and see how he misinterprets them.

>The theory has a lot of vocal opponents, but Suvorov never misses a chance to point out that most of them are (paid by) Soviet political/military figures, who are obviously biased and would never admit such a plan.

Highly recommend "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", the work which is almost academic in quality, if not in shape :

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich-History/dp/06717...

Buy a fairly serious recreation of the Spetznas spade here: http://www.coldsteel.com/spshovel.html Be sure to bring it to your local startup party to impress your investors and mutilate your opponents.

This reminds me of a scene in "All Quiet on the Western Front", where the young recruits are told by a veteran to sharpen their shovels' edges and use them instead of bayonets. The strike he preferred was, IIRC, between the neck and the shoulders.

Here is a live demo, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b60OZhrTB6o

Article specifically says the Soviet spade was NOT folding.

in my childhood i played with both types - folding and not.

The folding one seems more useful. And that's a pretty impressive demo.

That's not a folding shovel. It has a rotatable spade head.

spades were very effective when "unarmed" soldiers were used to pacify civil uprisings, for example in 87-89. It worked like Rome soldiers' short swords in the crowd of the battle.

Holt sh!t I read it all. Do I get a cookie?

On a more serious note, seeing that the author is not exceptionally trustworthy (apparently), how much of it is real and how much isn't? Seems plausible to me at least, but I wouldn't know for what to look out.

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