sgrig
Comrade
Actually his latest books in the series have been written after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It is still a matter of great controversy, of whether Stalin did or did not plan to backstab Hitler. Many people think that Suvorov's date for the Soviet 'Operation Thunderstorm', 6 July 1941 is unrealistic, while some of them agree that Stalin could've planned to attack in 1942.
Soviet archives are also not a very reliable source, because the Communists, especially in Stalin's time would do everything to delete any mention of such aggressive plans by the Soviet Union, to make the country seem as an innocent victim of Nazi aggression.
It is an established fact, that while building up his army, Stalin did not prepare for a defensive war. The military doctrine sounded "defeat the enemy on his territory with our minimal casualties". Most of 20,000 tanks which Stalin had were fast, lightly armoured, highly maneouverable tanks which had little use on Russian territories with its low quality roads, while they would've been very useful for a deep strike into the heart of Germany. Pilots were not trained for dogfights, but were taught to take off, drop bombs and then return and land. The military doctrine called for the enemy air force to be destroyed while still on the ground.
These are just some of the facts which cannot be disproven which are provided by Suvorov.
A field for debate is whether the USSR could defeat Germany if the Red Army attacked first, given how badly the Red Army fared against the Wehrmacht in the first stages of the German invasion of Russia.
The major point is as Donsig pointed out - Romanian oil. In fact the most powerful Soviet force was focused not against Germany itself, but against Romania, which was Germany's only source of oil, without which the German war machine would quickly grind to a halt. Added to that the advantage of a surprise attack... but minus the morale boost which Red Army troops received when they had to fight to the survival of their Motherland...
So it is a difficult question, which may never be answered.
It is still a matter of great controversy, of whether Stalin did or did not plan to backstab Hitler. Many people think that Suvorov's date for the Soviet 'Operation Thunderstorm', 6 July 1941 is unrealistic, while some of them agree that Stalin could've planned to attack in 1942.
Soviet archives are also not a very reliable source, because the Communists, especially in Stalin's time would do everything to delete any mention of such aggressive plans by the Soviet Union, to make the country seem as an innocent victim of Nazi aggression.
It is an established fact, that while building up his army, Stalin did not prepare for a defensive war. The military doctrine sounded "defeat the enemy on his territory with our minimal casualties". Most of 20,000 tanks which Stalin had were fast, lightly armoured, highly maneouverable tanks which had little use on Russian territories with its low quality roads, while they would've been very useful for a deep strike into the heart of Germany. Pilots were not trained for dogfights, but were taught to take off, drop bombs and then return and land. The military doctrine called for the enemy air force to be destroyed while still on the ground.
These are just some of the facts which cannot be disproven which are provided by Suvorov.
A field for debate is whether the USSR could defeat Germany if the Red Army attacked first, given how badly the Red Army fared against the Wehrmacht in the first stages of the German invasion of Russia.
The major point is as Donsig pointed out - Romanian oil. In fact the most powerful Soviet force was focused not against Germany itself, but against Romania, which was Germany's only source of oil, without which the German war machine would quickly grind to a halt. Added to that the advantage of a surprise attack... but minus the morale boost which Red Army troops received when they had to fight to the survival of their Motherland...
So it is a difficult question, which may never be answered.
) - I don't think that Hungary was the most useless nation in wwii. The Hungarian leadership made a lot of mistakes when choosing allies - but in wwi basically Austria made the choice not Hungary, (despite the common monarchy) and this choice just determined every other choice from then. After the Trianon treaty (that took away about the 2/3 of the former Hungary) all Hungarian leaders had the payback in their minds through the twenties and thirties. This desire for payback was supported by the Axis and not the Allies. The particular army leadership in battles like the Don river (when the core and majority of the Hungarian army was lost) was really sucks with a bunch of idiots as army leaders.
