Customer Reviews

What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

barely glancing at the old woman about to cut the rope and spring shut the trap. This aphorism summarizes neatly the trap Hitler laid for Stalin in the days prior to the German invasion of the USSR.

Lord Acton once said that absolute power corrupts absolutely. One of the chief lessons to be learned from David Murphy's "What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa" is that absolute power breeds an absolute arrogance that erodes the critical faculties that facilitated the despot's acquisition of power in the first place.

It is commonly known that the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the pre-dawn hours of June 22, 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) took Stalin completely by surprise. The Soviet air force in the western zone was destroyed on the ground. The Soviet army, from Memel on the Baltic Sea to Odessa along the Black Sea was engulfed in fear and chaos almost from the start. Millions of Soviet soldiers were killed or taken prisoner and hundred of miles of Soviet territory was overrun in the first ten days of the war. As Murphy points out, the tragedy of Barbarossa for the USSR was not just the horrible loss of life and territory but the fact that these losses could have been lessened dramatically (although probably not eliminated) but for the supreme arrogance of the Soviet's supreme leader.

Murphy fleshes this general information out with an exhaustive amount of additional information gleaned from recently opened Soviet archives. Murphy was a career intelligence officer with the CIA and served as its head of Soviet operations before retiring from the intelligence services. As a result of his experience, Murphy is able to cast a practiced eye on the USSR's intelligence gathering operations in the years before the invasion.

Murphy begins with a brief overview of some critical events prior to the invasion, specifically the Stalin/Hitler pact and the brief Russo-Finnish winter war in 1939/1940. The first extended the USSR's territory hundred of miles westward. The USSR never managed to move its old defensive fortifications west and left the old fortifications to crumble. The Soviet army suffered horrible losses to the undermanned Finnish army before finally prevailing. Each event only served to confirm Hitler's notion that he could invade and defeat the USSR in a matter of weeks.

Murphy then proceeds to outline the extensive intelligence gathering information operations of the Soviet military (the RU) and the civilian security apparatus (the NKVD). From cities across eastern and western Europe, from Japan, and the U.S. came reliable information indicating that Hitler had abandoned plans to invade Britain and had set in motion a plan to invade the USSR. Taken together this cumulative evidence represents a stunning indictment of Stalin and his inner circle. Stalin refused to believe any of this information. Rather, he believed the German disinformation campaign designed to convince the USSR that Germany had no immediate plans to invade the USSR. The centerpiece of this disinformation campaign was two (perhaps more) letters from Hitler to Stalin in which Hitler pledged on his honor as a head of state not to invade the USSR. Stalin chose to believe Hitler rather than his own intelligence agencies.

The failure of Stalin to accept his intelligence reports were heightened by the fear he engendered amongst those responsible for providing him with critical information. After the purges of the 1930s, including the elimination of the Red Army's entire officer corps, most of those closest to Stalin provided him only with information that had been filtered to support his own preconceived notion. The story Murphy tells of two senior Soviet officers, Ivan Proskurov and Filipp Golikov sums things up nicely. Proskurov was an effective, diligent intelligence officer who dared to give Stalin hard information without bending it to Stalin's views. Golikov was something of a toady who served up information supporting the view that Hitler was ready to invade Britain. Proskurov was purged and later executed. Golikov was promoted.

As the book concludes it become clear that Stalin, in his arrogance, decided he could trust Hitler and as such any contrary information was disinformation. As one Russian author once said, Hitler was the only man Stalin ever trusted and that gross error in judgment cost millions of Soviet lives.

Murphy's book is an excellent look at "what Stalin knew and when he knew it". I recommend it for anyone with an interest in Soviet or military history.
L. Fleisig

After reading this book, I found myself remembering something that Ian Fleming wrote in a James Bond novel (I think). "The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't change their view of the world in response to the facts. They change the facts to fit their view of the world."

Stalin was the epitome of this principle. The array of evidence that Soviet intelligence uncovered in the run-up to Barbarossa (the massive 1941 German invasion of Russia) was staggering. Yet all of this intelligence, purchased with the time and effort and sometimes the blood of Soviet intelligence personnel, might as well have never been collected. Stalin didn't want to conclude that Hitler was going to attack him in 1941. Therefore, all evidence pointing to that was provocation.

It's incredible, and speaking as a serving intelligence officer, I find myself wishing that all the people making charges about the politicization of intelligence in the last few years in the US would read Murphy's book and see what real "politicization" involves.

The only criticisms I have with this book is that I think it would have been appropriate for Murphy to italicize passages of the text which are his suppositions, inferences, and judgments as opposed to absolute facts. This is routine practice for Intelligence Community products, and it would be useful here.

I also think any student of denial and deception ought to read the appendix of this book which contains letters that Hitler sent to Stalin in the run-up to the attack. Whoever wrote them for "der Fuhrer" was truly a master at deception.

Finally, the irony of the situation is profound. Hitler did to Stalin with Barbarossa what the Allies did to Hitler with Fortitude South (the deception plan that convinced him that D-Day would be at Calais and not Normandy).

One of the more unwelcome developments associated with the return of centralized dictatorship in Russia has been the closing of the Soviet intelligence archives. A number of intriguing books came out in the 1990s, giving the reader a peek inside the Kremlin and the gulag from back in the first half or so of the Soviet era. Now these are drying up as the FSB, the successor to the KGB, slams the door on any more investigation into the totalitarian past.

Author David E. Murphy clearly resents it. This book, compiled mainly from a couple of Russian collections of archival documents released in the 1990s, amasses an amazing amount of detail about the run-up to Operation Barbarossa. Yet for all that, the information is chiefly drawn from the Soviet military intelligence services, as access to the prewar archives of the Soviet security services proved to be impossible.

It doesn't really matter to the general reader, though. The book confirms in overwhelming detail what was long known in general: Stalin ignored and frequently punished warnings of the impending German attack on the Soviet Union. The blow was so telegraphed, on the way for so long, that the reader can only shudder at both Stalin's blindness, and his underlings' abject fear of him. The book shows Stalin's obstinacy in considerably more minute detail than we've seen before, but it is still the same Stalin: paranoid, out of his depth in military matters, calculating, and bloody-minded. There are doubtless unpleasant surprises moldering away in the NKVD archives, but surely nothing to overturn the picture we now have.

The historical recovery Murphy accomplishes is impressive enough, though. The most notable example is the interwoven biography of aviator Soviet Military Intelligence chief Ivan Iosevich Proskurov. This no-nonsense, outspoken professional stood out like a tarantula on a piece of angel food cake, so far as Stalin was concerned. His candid warnings about Soviet military deficiencies were no more welcome than anyone else's. Stalin pinned the blame of the Finnish war on him and had him shot. His tale, interwoven through the documentary evidence assembled here, is a sad encapsulation of the terror of High Stalinism, and the godawful ruination of lives that was its fruit.

Since this is more or less my 'forte' when it comes to World War II studies and especially the Eastern Front is where my concentration lies, specifically 1941, I was very pleased to get my hands on a copy of this book even before it was published (thanks to my history professor at my University). Overall it was a solid effort on the part of the author to show how much information Stalin, GRU, and in effect the Soviet Union was receiving from abroad. From Eastern to Western Europe and the US, embassies and personnel were sending information confirming the time of the invasion and detailing what the invasion itself would encompass or simply denying it as part of a German deception campaign.
When viewing this information we can see that much of the data that confirmed the invasion was in fact correct while many details were not. Bottom line being that the idea that an invasion was going to occur was most definitely right but the dates being attributed to the invasion were not.
The first messages began to arrive soon after December 1940 when Hitler has first through up of the invasion, but they were in effect useless since no troop movements had begun. The first thoughts coming into Stalin's mind were probably that it couldn't be true since Germany was still at war with England and Hitler would never make the mistake that was made in World War I when a two front war was fought and lost by Germany.
The US was also one of the first to warn Stalin but in the end why should Stalin trust them? Or Great Britain who also tried to warn him? They had interfered in the Russian civil war, sent their troops to Russian lands to kill Red Army men, and now when only England was standing up to Hitler and Germany would it not suit England's interests to get the USSR on her side? This is one thing that has to be kept in mind, most messages from foreign sources like these were ignored, even worse if they were substantiated by other sources it simply made it seem as if this information was planted.
Later on during one or two months before the invasion began an avalanche of information was forthcoming about Germany's intentions from every corner of the globe. Yet this is where the author makes a mistake, he does not in fact show all German deception that was focused on keeping the Soviet uninformed about their plans nor does he show some of the contradictory information coming in from the very same Soviet agents and sources that said Germany would attack. This is most definitely a lot to grasp and keep in mind. One example of the authors omission is from that famous spy Sorge in Tokyo, a few days before the invasion he sent a message saying "Germany might not attack or if it does it'll be at the end of June" this was sent on June 17th. I have in fact collected some of the volumes that Murphy based his work on and much of the information found in them he has omitted, this being just one example. Although in the end one cannot blame him for this, there is a wealth of information and a limited amount of space to present it all in within Murphy's book. So I commend him for what he's done in at least bringing this topic to light in English.
Now going back to some of the first details that were surfacing about the invasion, their estimates were March, and then later on mid May. March was seen as a joke since this was right after winter and before the rasputitsa would begin, thus Germany would simply be bogged down in the mud. May was more feasible but when it came and went and nothing happened, why should Stalin even consider that if they were wrong once they'd be right the next time? Mobilizing a country, any country, is a lot of work and at that time for Stalin mobilization meant war. The reasons for why he thought Hitler would first make demands are explained in the book, which I give the author credit for finding out, as well as the fact that Golikov the Chief of GRU was hiding a huge amount of information from Stalin and supplying him with what he thought Stalin wanted to see and hear.
This of course made it much harder for Stalin to believe the few pieces of information that might have slipped through or he was told about by others which did in fact confirm the invasion. Usually his estimation of what Germany would do rested with the disinformation Germany was supplying throughout Europe to keep the USSR in the clouds vis a vis German intentions toward it. Also keep in mind that when information started to pile up about German invasion plans, who would believe that such a crucial event would be massively broadcast throughout the world? It would have been believable from a few sources, but from dozens all over the world parroting the same thing? It couldn't be true, it was a deception by the British and Americans to get the USSR into war with Germany! I'm sure I'm forgetting much that was addressed and was forgotten about in this book but overall it is a good investment for those who want to understand something of why this was a surprise to Stalin and what kind of information he was receiving.

The only real question is why. Why was not Stalin prepared for the German offensive? Despite a huge number of details, some interesting, and most perhaps interesting only to a professional researcher of that epoch, the author does not even attempt to answer the main question, and this is why I am rating this book so low.

Let's face it, Stalin was no idiot. For close to thirty years he was holding together his huge empire not only by the force of his cruelty, but also by the force of his determination, his strong will, his shrewdness, and his superb intellect - this admission should not turn me into his apologist.

In fact, the answer to this question can be easily found right there on page 24 of this book, in the speech that Stalin gave in 1939. According to this speech, he was going to sit out the war in the West until that time that both the British and the Germans were weakened enough. What was supposed to happen after that is fairly obvious.

By many accounts, by the early summer 1941 Stalin thought that the time was ripe, and was amassing his troops in Ukraine for a decisive strike on Romanian oil wells in the Carpathians. As is well known from military history (or pretty much any team sport), preparations for an offensive war are quite different from those for defending one's territory. And Stalin was ready for a war, but only on his own terms. This turned out to be the biggest miscalculation of his whole life, for which the people of the Soviet Empire paid dearly. Stalin did not believe that Hitler would dare to move East, but for Hitler this was the only, however slim, chance to avoid being hit from the rear.

For me as a European Jew, it is truly very painful to say so, but I strongly believe that if Hitler did not expose his policy of racial superiority toward Ukrainian and Russian peasants, he might have been victorious in that war.

Unfortunately, instead of describing the critical personalities, this book is filled with trivial details, which well describe some second-rate personalities, second rate not because of their character or abilities, but because of their influence on unfolding events.

Like any armistice after a long and bitter struggle, there was much fraternizing between former enemies when the disintegration of the Soviet Union brought about the end of the Cold War. It is unclear what ex-CIA official David Murphy told his Russian counterparts when the boys got together to talk over old times. Obvious from this book is that the intelligence officials from behind the Curtain took the opportunity to clear themselves and their service of any blame for the most disastrous failure by a head of State in modern times. Though we never can know what remains hidden, there was apparently an unprecedented opening of secret files by the Soviet side, to show how well the spies did their job of informing Stalin of Hitler's preparations to attack the Soviet Union and how fiendishly clever the Nazis were in obfuscating it.

The problem with this book is that the author essentially acts as a mouthpiece for the alphabet soup of former Red spy organs: MVD [military intelligence], GRU, NKGB, RU. The leading spymasters of each organization are profiled as to personal history, accomplishments and ultimate fate, often in numbing detail. Some paid the ultimate price for having been right where the Boss was wrong. Some survived but few prospered.

The author repeats some dubious legends concerning the period of Soviet-German "friendship" such as the existence of a letter to Stalin signed by Hitler giving his word "as a head of state" that the military preparations in eastern Poland were all directed against England. Hitler never signed anything. Examples of his actual signature are extremely rare.

While Murphy is no A.J.P. Taylor for style, the book reads well and is of appropriate length.

The book is a very good compilation of already existing information. There is definitely a value in having it together all under the same cover. Also, there are some new tidbits here and there.

And there is no enigma to be solved: in author's view Stalin was self-deceived about Hitler's plans, which is the traditional point of view.

Mr. Murphy follows the conventional line on how Stalin ignored evidence of the Wehrmacht's plan to invade the USSR in June 1941. The author ignores the very latest information and interpretation by RUSSIAN historians of Stalin's alleged "folly." We now know--see Russian specialist Albert L. Weeks' new book, ASSURED VICTORY--that Stalin was fully aware not only of the impending German invasion but even of the details of "Operation Barbarossa." Obviously, then, he wasn't "in denial." So knowing this, why didn't the Soviet dictator do at least one of two things? Either get the jump on Hitler with a preemptive attack or so strengthen border defenses as to be able to repulse the German armies.
Answer: First, Stalin told his aides that the USSR must never be perceived as the aggressor in the "inevitable war" that Hitler would make against the Soviet Union.(Facts about this are contained in Weeks's book.) Second, if Stalin had deployed more Red Army troops than he did for a decisive border showdown (or "Hauptschlacht") with the experienced, war-hardened Wehrmacht, the Soviets would surely have lost the war in the east in the very first month! The Germans had hoped Stalin WOULD deploy the larger part of the Red Army to the frontier. This Stalin refused to do--fortunately!Instead, he prepared for a Kutuzov-like defense.
The USSR and the Red Army were simply not ready for the inevitable, ultimate war with Nazi Germany although Moscow was well aware of Hitler's long-standing plans to enslave the Russians, utterly destroy the "Russian state." Above all, as mentioned above, Stalin reasoned that the USSR would need Western Allied help in defeating the Germans. In fact, only two weeks after the German invasion,. Stalin personally requested that Britain send whole divisions of British troops to help the Soviets defend themselves! In order to guarantee that Western aid would be forthcoming (in the form of Lend-Lease), it was crucial that the USSR be perceived as the "victim of aggression." See more in Weeks's book.

David E. Murphy has written one of the best books on the near-defeat that the Soviet Union endured. He studied Stalin's reactions to the growing evidence that an invasion was imminent. Murphy evaluates what contributed to a national disaster for the Soviet Union - Stalin's ruthlessness toward any potential opponent, his overwhelming self-confidence and his capacity for self-delusion. Murphy's CIA background gave him the ability to sort through and collate the information that is available. I found his description of Stalin's treatment of the military officers, like Proskurov and Shtern, who tried to either tell the truth or prepare for the inevitable interesting.. While Stalin's purges of his armed forces in the 1930s are well-known, his assault on his own armed forces at the eve of the invasion and, especially, immediately afterward is not. He especially targeted veterans of the Spanish Civil War, who were among the most capable and experienced members of the Soviet armed forces. It was clear that Stalin's self-delusion prevented utilization of many intelligence sources, including his own armed forces and able foreign recruits like Richard Sorge, that indicated that an invasion was imminent. Murphy makes a good case for Stalin's refusal to believe that Hitler would invade the Sovet Union. Especially bizarre was Stalin's insistence on allowing German overflights over Soviet territory to proceed without resistance or any attempts at interception. Murphy describes how Soviet military intelligence observed the German preparations for Barbarossa, especially the extensive logistical preparations, and correctly interpreted them as preparation for an invasion. Stalin scoffed at these reports. Murphy also presents the likely possibility of correspondence from Hitler to Stalin that aimed to mislead the Soviet leader about the Hitler's actual intent. The material here overwhelmingly points to Stalin's self-delusions as the main cause of the initial Soviet defeats. Clearly, this was not a pre-emptive strike by the Germans; the Soviets were in no condition after years of purges to wage war.

the author was a CIA station chif during the cold war ,the author is an intelligence professional and shows us why in this book.The purpose of this book is to detail all the available evidence that Stalin had at the time and to try to figure out why is it that despite all of this Stalin refused to believe that Hitler was about to invade the USSR and thus leading to the loss of over 27 of his citizens' lives.
Murphy shows how the NKVD had excellent intelligence networks in both Europe and Japan that provided excellent details on what was about to take place but through his paranoia,his desire to be surrounded by sycophants and yes men instead of independent thinkers like the GRU chief prokhorov ,the climate of fear he created within his own security forces whereby no one wanted to report bad news and his strange decision to place faith in Adolf Hitler's assurances that he only had peaceful intentions .Out of these reasons,I personally find the last one perplexing why believe a man like Hitler, a man who continuously broke promises and was known to be the ideological opponent of Communism.
True to its title ,Murphy's book does show that it is an enigma as to why Stalin refused to see reality.Was it due to ideological reasons,his conspiratorial mind or his empathy with his fellow blood thirsty tyrant? Was it due to his desire to see the Nazis and the western powers slug it out to the death before he delivered his killer blow vanquishing both and in the process make himself undisputed master of Europe.(This is likely given the fact that he did take over the majority of the Nazi empire).I am afraid the only way we would find out is if the Russians release more from their archives.The book provides useful lessons for Politicians ,spies and military leaders in that they should make judgements on facts and not reality.It also should provide a lesson for some of the idiots in the Russian Federation who argue that Stalin should be forgiven for his brutality because of his role as a wartime leader.Whilst it is true to a point ,these fools should also remember that it was his incredible stupidity that caused this disaster in the first place.True credit should belong to the brilliant generals of the red army like marshal zhukov ,the spy chiefs like pavel fitin ,richard sorge and pavel sudoplatov and the people of the USSR.