IceBreakChron II: THE NAZIS ARISE

[JasonPratt]

Later in 1940, the Soviet standard will consider the minimum necessities for supplying and supporting the operation of one mechanized corps of nominally 1031 tanks, to be 36,008 soldiers and officers; 358 artillery guns and mortars; 266 armored cars; 352 combat tractors; and 5165 automobiles of various sorts from cars to large trucks. This won't count locomotive transport for strategic deployment, nor even the rear formation for supplying the corps and its support divisions -- much less air force support!

One tank doesn't need an average of three men; it needs a bare minimum average of thirty-six men. Except these calculations are also too low! -- once in combat, Soviet logistics will demonstrate that every single tank needs twice as many previously estimated automobiles (trucks mostly), three times as much artillery, and no less than seventy troops per tanks, even up to eighty men!

But never mind experimental reality, which no one accurately predicted; even taking the bare minimum expected 1940 estimates, Tukhachevsky's program for 1928 alone would have needed 1.8 million to 3.6 million soldiers and officers; 18 thousand to 36 thousand tractors; just as many arty pieces; 13 thousand to 26 thousand armored cars; and 250 to 500 thousand trucks. And all the supplies necessary for them. And all the training and production facilities and supplies for them. And all the locomotive railway vechicles and supplies for them. Even if the trucks and tractors (alone) could have been supplied in 1928, that would have shut down all agriculture, all construction, all transportation, and all industry (including all tank production industry, which itself would be shutting down all automobile and tractor production for the year).

We have not yet begun to account for training divisions either, and not only for training the tank crews but for training everyone else. How many training divisions, and their supply and support, would have been needed?

[JasonPratt]

Suppose however you somehow only (!!!) intended to produce fifty thousand tanks, or double that number ideally; never mind anything else at all. And suppose those tanks could be zerg-rushed like in a modern real-time strategy game.

Which type of tanks would the butcher of blood be zerg-rushing with?

This year (1927) in tanks, by the way, the Soviet Union started producing the MS-1 tank for the Red Army. Its armor is held together with rivets. Its maximum speed is 19 km/h -- when on parade at the Red Square. The power of its engine speaks for everything else: 35 horsepower, about the size of a large modern lawnmower today. On its armament, Suvorov gives no indication, because it doesn't matter: this tank was not intended for combat. It was intended to give a first taste of experience in producing and operating tanks.

For that purpose, properly understood and applied, this is the most useful tank in all of Soviet history, upon which everything would later depend! But for fighting, this tank is worthless, except in small border disputes where it can act like a small mobile machine-gun revetment.

True, in the entire world there is no tank worth being manufactured starting next month in 1928, therefore no point buying or stealing the plans to do so. But regardless of that, it is simply impossible to have built even fifty thousand of these worthless tanks in 1928; and simply impossible to use them if they could be built.

[JasonPratt]

This provides the context for Marshal Biruzov's polite assessment: in principle Tukhachevsky is correct, only his numbers need to be clarified. But his numbers are so insane and ignorant that they make his proposal ludicrously incorrect!

So why bother saying his proposal is principally correct at all? Biruzov outranks him, after all, and the butcher of blood has some detractors (for some obvious reasons).

Suvorov doesn't explicitly guess about this, but his information elsewhere shows that Biruzov is thinking of Tukhachevsky's deep operational principles -- combined arms blitzkrieg at strategic levels -- which will predominate Soviet preparations going forward. When you put that together with ongoing Soviet ideology about using the Red Army to capture and secure all property and means of production in the world under the control of the Soviet government (and under the control of whomever controls the Soviet Government), then the numbers of tanks are not even themselves incredible -- only the proposal to have them ready in 1928!

Suvorov himself, while pretending that Tukhachevsky was only talking about producing tanks in 1928 without any support weapons, goes on immediately to quote a Soviet military textbook, reproduced (apparently) in JMH #3, 1999 (page uncited), stating that Tukhachevsky influenced a vision of the USSR's industry reaching a yearly production capacity of 90,000 tanks a year, plus 60,000 combat planes, plus 53,000 artillery pieces, by the year 1938. This is still impossible, even by Soviet mega-industrial standards, but it does demonstrate that Tukhachevsky wasn't only thinking of spamming out tanks like a modern real-time strategy player might! -- not only.  ::)

Alexander the Great once quipped that the most nervous men in his army were his logistic officers, because they knew if he failed he would slit their throats first. His logistic officers would have slit their own throats, perhaps, to keep from choking on laughter at this blithely insane proposal.

For our purposes however, let us consider the revelations of the logistics involved in this tank-spam plan, and keep them engraved in our hearts: for they shall provide context for appreciating and understanding the implications of other things actually commanded by Stalin and achieved by the Soviet Union along the way.

Such as, for example, those first 4538 tanks which will in fact be built in the waning years of the first Five Year Plan. Consider their implications in light of their logistic requirements...


1928 edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Volume 12, pp.276-277: Marshal Tukhachevsky inserts the "scientific" label "expanding the basis of war", into this edition, to describe the process of his preferred method of "unfettered use of brute force" to exploit the resources of "liberated" areas in order to prepare the Red Army to "liberate" the next areas similarly.

That provides some interesting context about what the butcher of blood intended those 50 to 100 thousand tanks for, by the end of 1928.

[JasonPratt]

Early 1928, Stalin exiles Trotsky to Kazakhstan instead of having him executed or murdered. There, Trotsky is completely isolated and fully monitored by Stalin's secret police.

Running out across the borders would be extremely difficult in the best of circumstances, since the borders are constantly guarded to keep workers from escaping from their workers' paradise, and in many places (such as for example Kazakhstan) there is only a harsh or harsher wilderness to escape to! But for Trotsky, it would have been completely impossible thanks to the constant surveillance.

As it happens, he does not exhibit any desire to run away, even though he has no power strings, no influence, no money, and no means of communication. His letters are always checked; often detained for several months or in most cases they simply disappear.

His few followers are harshly persecuted, starting with beatings in dark alleys; being a Trotskey follower, true or not, will later lead to exiles, prisons, torture, public trials, and executions. Stalin will ultimately exterminate millions of people whom he considers to be his real or even potential enemies, whether sent directly to execution cellars, or by concentration camp gulags in Siberia, the Far East, Sakhalin, or Kolyma. There is a very not-nice gulag in Kazahkstan, too! -- but Stalin doesn't send Trotsky there. He's only under something like house arrest.

More on this curiosity later.

[JasonPratt]

1928 (date unclear): Stalin, from Vol 11 of his works, p.202, figures that Germany's territorial aggression will be critical in starting a second capitalist/imperialist world war. He plans once they do to "smash fascism, bring down capitalism, hoist the hammer and sickle [the Soviet flag-symbol], and liberate the colonies from slavery."

To accomplish this, what must be done, oh Comrade of Comrades? "First of all, a tireless struggle against Social Democrats on all lines... including exposure of bourgeois pacifism."

The 'bourgeois' are the property owners, using pacifism on this theory to bolster and solidify their control over the means of production. Right now the Social Democrats have too much power in Germany, so Germany won't be seeking to conquer new territory. But Stalin needs Germany to be aggressive in conquering new territory!

Thus the SDs must be removed. And a more territorial aggressor government must take their place -- but not the German Communists!

The only question then, is which Germany political party best fits Comrade Stalin's goals for Germany in Europe. Hmmmm....  ^-^

[JasonPratt]

winter 1928: Stalin enacts his plan to loot the gold rubles saved up by the smartest and hardest-working peasants, eliminate the private ownership they've gained from Lenin's smattering of capitalism in the New Economic Plan, and force them to work even if they cannot buy anything worth working for -- even their lives.

This is the process of collectivization.

On Stalin's orders, executed by his rising deputy, Molotov, units of the Red Army encircle entire regions. The peasants who, from their gold reserves (now seized as property from these enemies of the people), worked harder and more successfully than the others, are rounded up in the middle of winter, herded together with their families into railroad cattle wagons, and transported not hundreds of kilometers (as with Hitler's Jewish victims eventually) but thousands of kilometers in those cattle wagons, to Siberia, the Urals, or Kazakhstan, to be thrown out into the bare steppes.

Many years later, Molotov will be asked how many such people were "collected". As reported in Chuev's "Molotov: Master of Half a Domain", 2002, p.458, he will answer, "Stalin said we relocated ten million. In reality, we relocated twenty million." Not all at the end of 1928, of course; this kept going through at least 1933.

[JasonPratt]

The Brain of the Soviet Army
--------------------------------

1929: Soviet military theorists have been debating how to achieve air superiority during a war. There are two basic methods; by fighter superiority, and by close-air support.

Fighter superiority is much more expensive to acquire: the aircraft themselves are complex, and the pilots need to train innate skills, so it's difficult to get enough numbers to achieve the result, and even more difficult to replace those numbers in losses as a war continues. This method does have one advantage: it is universal. It can be used in any situation, from in-depth defense of home territories, to all out invasion of enemies.

Close air support achieves superiority through destruction of enemy air forces on the ground. It can, and indeed must, be accomplished quickly, ideally over the course of one day or even only a few hours. No exhausting prolonged air battles must be fought against enemies of whatever skill and equipment already in their element. Nor do tremendous resources need to be spent on training pilots and creating aircraft -- you can have those, too, or instead, if you really want them, but even pilots of relatively low qualification can be good enough for this job: they only need to learn how to take off, follow a route, and shoot at (mostly) stationary targets on the ground, then return and land to rearm and refuel. The ones who develop more skill can be assigned roles to attack the army's foes on the ground as well, potentially much better than fighter pilots. This method of achieving air domination does have one major drawback: it can only be effectively used (for achieving air domination) against an enemy who is not expecting to be attacked, and in conjunction with an advance by ground forces (and perhaps by airlanding ground forces, through parachutes, gliders, and transports), to secure enemy airports. Close-air support can be of some use on defense, in conjunction with plenty of fighter cover, but in that case fighters should predominate.

Both methods can be used simultaneously to some degree, but any operations commander must decide when to use which one primarily or secondarily at any time, based on his estimation of the situation as it develops.

At the grand strategic level, before the start of a war, the military and political high command of a nation should clearly determine which method will be primary in the early period of a war, and set up their production and training to match their focus. The schools for the chosen superiority should receive most or more of the innately skilled pilots, and be given the largest parts of training resources and fuel, even if this shorts he training of the secondary focus pilots. Aircraft designers of the chosen focus should be given priority for the best production facilities, the best aircraft engines, the most expensive equipment, the rarest materials.

[JasonPratt]

The 1929 article "Start-up Phase of War", published in the Soviet magazine "War and Revolution", #9, 1929, pp.19-20, draws this conclusion: "In our view, there is much to be gained from taking the initiative and launching a pre-emptive strike against your enemy. Whoever is first to strike enemy airfields and hangars with his air force can expect to win air superiority." \

This is presented, and treated, as a major policy piece. Soviet textbooks for training the fighter and bomber air fleet, will emphasize one massive surprise attack against ground targets, and barely concentrate on dogfighting techniques.

This idea is based on Triandafillov's refinements of Tukhachevsky's "deep operations" theories, which will be expressed in the Red Army's Field Regulations of 1929 (this year).

It should also be noted that this year, Tukhachevsky will be replaced as Chief of the Soviet General Staff by Shaposhnikov, who will go on to become Marshal of the Soviet Union before Hitler invades Poland.

As Suvorov puts it, "the General Staff is the brain of the army. A country cannot have a man more cautious than the Chief of General Staff. His accuracy first and foremost needs to be applied to his work with numbers. Thousands of the most highly qualified officers are under the command of the Chief of General Staff. The General Staff exists to think everythng through, count and calculate everything, and then, having weighed all the information and taken into account the thousands of contradictory circumstances, report to the head of the country."

Tukhachevky, despite his key and abiding strategic (and even operationally tactical) influence, which Suvorov must acknowledge (elsewhere, when it serves his purposes better  ::) ), clearly did not understand the implications of large numbers in a realistic way: most recently illustrated by his recommendation that Stalin should build FIFTY THOUSAND tanks in the previous year, 1928! -- or ideally ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND!

What about his successor, however...?

[JasonPratt]

1929: this year, the new Chief of the Soviet General Staff, and eventual Marshal of the Soviet Union Boris M. Shaposhnikov, shall publish his three-volume textbook "Nerve Center of the Army" (aka "The Army's Brain" or "Brain of the Army").

From Volume Three of that work (page uncited), "Once reservists have been mustered [to fill out the divisions and their constituents], having them mark time at length with no prospect of going to war may adversely affect their morale. The result will be not to heighten, but to lower the combat readiness... In a word, no matter what the [High] Command, much less the diplomats may wish, for strictly military reasons a call to arms may cause the cannons to roar all by themselves. Doubtful, therefore, must be deemed the proposition that, given the conditions now governing war, you can for extended periods keep mobilized armies quietly standing by, not going into action."

Soviet military science will continue to understand this up through the late Cold War: "Mobilizing, massing, and tactically deploying forces, then using them to conduct initial operations, comprises an inexorable progression." (JMH, 1986, #1, p.15.) Again, from the modern Russian ministry of defense, "No nation can maintain a mobilized army with any intent other than war: the economy cannot stand the strain, and the mobilized but unused army begins to decay." (JMH, #3, 1999, p.10. Suvorov seems to say that the article is directly referencing the mobilization conducted by Stalin starting on August 19, 1939! Much more on this auspicious date, much later...)

Suvorov says that as long as the Soviet military continues to exist, this three-volume book will serve as a manual for every Soviet general and officer. And not only for them! -- just as Lenin always had a copy of Gustav le Bon's "Mob Psychology" on his desk, so Stalin will always have a copy of "The Army's Brain".

[JasonPratt]

Shaposhnikov's point is that thanks to modern numbers mustered in war, once a nation as large as the Soviet Union begins to mobilize, and especially once it has started massing and tactically deploying forces, it cannot halt this progression, or even intentionally slow it down. Eastern Europe's recent experience in the diplomatic runup to the opening of World War One provides a painful illustration of this tendency.

Suvorov summarizes the theory:

1.) To achieve victory in a war, not only the efforts of the entire army, but full efforts by the entire nation, the people, industry, transport, agriculture, etc., are necessary. To win a gunfight, a man's whole body and mind must be focused on shooting the enemy, and ideally the gunfighter should have both hands full with his guns. He should not be hammering with his other hand, or eating, or even trying to take a drink.

2.) A man cannot constantly hold a gun in each hand. If he is always holding two guns, he cannot do anything else. Similarly, a nation cannot constantly expend all its resources on preparations for war. Constant concentration of forces and expenditure of social resources on war preparations, will ruin the nation. Therefore, during peacetime the army and the military industry must operate at a minimal level. However, the nation, its people, government apparatus, industry, transport, agriculture, communication channels, ideological apparatus, etc., must be prepared for a maximally quick and full transition, from a peacetime to a wartime regime.

3.) Mobilization is therefore the transition of the entire country from a peacetime to a wartime regime. Mobilization cannot be curbed or turned back; mobilization is similar to to thrusting both arms down to unlatch your holsters and then drawing both your guns to aim at the enemy with your fingers already on the triggers.

4.) As soon as you reach to draw, your enemy will do the same, trying to be faster than you by at least the time it takes his bullets to stop you from shooting or at least spoiling your aim. If you are a tiny bit of a second slow, you must expect him to kill you. In just the same way, mobilization and a shooting war are inseparable.

5.) You can aim your guns at your neighbors with your fingers on the triggers, and not shoot them, but if you do this the outcome will not be a good one for you! Do not play games with mobilization.

6.) Mobilization cannot be partial. You are either mobilizing or you are not, just as a woman can never be only a little bit pregnant!

[JasonPratt]

There is a further corollary, partially mentioned by Suvorov later, and highly important to how Barbarossa turns out: if your guns are so heavy that you need six months to draw them as fast as you can, you will need at least as much time to holster your guns again, during which time you cannot be doing other work or even feeding yourself.

For these reasons, once mobilization starts, a war will be born, even if military commanders and politicians would rather not do that later! Again, the recent Great War serves as a hideous illustration of the momentum of mobilizations dragging nations to their deaths -- if they are not yet ready to truly mobilize! The politicians and leaders and even some generals (not all) tried to call it off. But they all failed.

As Shaposhnikov puts it, "Mobilization is not only a symptom of war, it is war itself. An order by the government to declare mobilization constitutes a de facto declaration of war... In modern conditions, a mobilizing country must make a firm decision ahead of time to conduct war... In a general mobilization, it is understood that there can be no more return to peacetime positions... We maintain that only a general mobilization has value, the concentration of all resources and forces necessary for achieving victory." As he concludes on page 413 (of the collected edition of "Nerve Center of the Army"), as the ultimate statement of his textbook: "Mobilization is war. In our minds, there is no other meaning for it."

The key to the success of Shaposhnikov's textbook, in Suvorov's estimate, is the simplicity of presentation, in the crystal-clear argumentation, and in the ability to explain the most complex problems in terms anyone can understand. Shaposhnikov's mobilization theory is "simple, understandable, logical, and unquestionably correct."

Understanding his theory, and his supporters and opponents, helps understand Stalin's actions. In Stalin's book "On the Foundations of Leninism", Stalin proves that games are not permissible in the quest for power. You either take control or you do not. Once you attempt the task, you must act with resolve to finish it. This goes along with the teachings of Niccolo Machiavelli: either you deliver a fatal blow, or you do not attack at all; no in-between decisions can exist in strategy or in politics.

Shaposhnikov understands war the same way: no partial, in-between positions can be adopted. Either do not mobilize at all, or conduct a full mobilization and go into the war to win it!

Alas, there is no English translation of his work available on Amazon apparently! -- but in case you're wondering how relevant he will remain to Soviet military doctrine, Time Magazine will feature him on a 1942 cover. 

[JasonPratt]

1929: sometime this year, Stalin sends Trotsky out of his house arrest in Kazakhstan, to exile in the heavenly islands of Turkey's Sea of Marmara.

This is more than a little strange, considering the death rate of Trotsky's allies! -- in the 1930s, the standard accusation of Stalin against his enemies will be that they are allies of Trotsky, worth a death sentence quickly by nine millimeter headache or more slowly by concentration camps!

Moreover, in Kazakhstan, Trotsky could not publish anything, but from now until his death in 1940 he will be able to write anything he wishes, including the most horrible things about Stalin. After the fantastic beauty of Marmara, Trotsky will go on to live in the south of France, in Norway, and finally in Mexico, publishing his occasional "Opposition Bulletin".

To be fair, Suvorov acknowledges that there will be several assassination attempts before the infamous icepick finally nails Trotsky. However, for a while Trotsky will complain that Stalin has betrayed International Communism and World Revolution by setting up a tsardom for himself under the guise of socialism. In other words, Trotsky will spend a few years loudly complaining that Stalin isn't actually trying to take over Europe and the world!

Trotsky's opinion has credibility for Western politicians, not only because Stalin keeps blaming and persecuting people as Trotsky's followers (even when they aren't), but because Trotsky played a key role in the Communist Revolution, the Civil War, and the establishment of the Red Army, as well as being the first chief diplomat. If he says Stalin is slacking off about instigating a final world revolutionary war, people will tend to believe him.

On Suvorov's theory, Trotsky is inadvertently dulling the fears of the West that Stalin would pursue Revolution: there is no reason to fear Stalin (outside Russia anyway) because he is "the greatest mediocrity in power", and Trotsky fully expects his tyrannical regime will implode from within.

[JasonPratt]

End of 1929: in Kiev Military District alone, 60 demolition teams, totaling 1400 members, stand ready on an instant (per Starinov's "Mines Awaiting Their Moment", p.22) to detonate 1640 fully operational complex-explosive units with tens of thousands of detonator charges in incendiary pipes. The purpose is to hamper any modern military invasion. Similar work, of course, has been prepared in each of the Military Districts.

1929: Finland escalates construction of its Slavic security corridor on the Karelian peninsula, combining it with modern standards. It will be known as the Mannerheim Line, named after Finland's commander-in-chief who won Finland's independence from the Russian Empire, and then from Lenin's communist revolutionaries, in 1918. For the next ten years, Finland will plow practically all her military budget into this world-class marvel of fortification.

1920s: since coming to power, Stalin has promoted the creation of traditional Slavic security corridors, nicknamed the "Death Zones", updated to modern standards of the time, on the Soviet western border. These were the forerunners of the Fortified Sectors soon to be started, and equivalent to Finland's Mannerheim Line except far more extensive (having far more land to work with).

Byelorussia alone features six partisan detachment cores, staffed by 300 to 500 men each (commanders, organizers, and specialists), who would become the experienced nucleus around which several thousand men per detachment would rally upon the threat of invasion -- weapons, munitions, and gear for 50,000 partisans in Byelorussia alone. For these cores, here and in all other areas up and down the border (e.g. Ukraine, Crimea, Leningrad), the Soviets have created secret bases, out in impassable forests or on islets in the middle of vast swamps, to serve as depots and subterranean workshops for arms and ammunition.

The NKVD, and the separate military intelligence service (eventually named the GRU in 1942), as well as party officials, have each set up secret schools to train leaders, organizers, and instructors for guerilla operations; along with secret R&D labs for devising tools designed specifically for this warfare. Partisans are put through regular mandatory exercises, usually with NKVD Special Ops divisions posing as the enemy. Moreover, small 'public' covert-ops forces are trained and prepared to operate in any towns seized by the enemy, their mission being to gain and exploit the enemy's trust. The majority of partisans, outside the city, have plans to keep an invader from repairing the destroyed lines of communication (bridges having been dynamited already, tunnels backfilled, rail hubs wrecked, telephone cables removed, etc.)

Stalin won't stop with such master-class defensive preparations either, as we shall see: this is only the basis for what will later be called the Stalin Line!

But then the question becomes: why will these epic and ultimate defensive measures fail so badly in the summer and autumn of 1941? Well, we shall have to see...  ^-^

[JasonPratt]

Getting Off the Ground
-------------------------

1930: Soviet fighter and bomber airfleet training manuals continue to focus teaching one massive ground strike instead of dogfighting. (You're going to be seeing this introducing every year for a while...!  ^-^ )


1930: this year, Tupolev starts production model tests of an even more powerful successor to his TB-1, the TB-3.

As designer and historian V.B. Shavrov will write, in his "History of Aircraft Design in the USSR before 1938", 1985, p.488, "This airplane of A.N. Tupolev's design belongs to [the] category of the most remarkable planes, not just of their own time period. It was the first four-motor cantilever monoplane bomber, with engines that were installed inside the wings. Its design became a prototype for all similar airplanes and planes of various designations."

It needs that design for also being the largest airplane in the world this year, whether civilian or military! With a normal bomb cargo of two tons, it has a range up to 2250km (naturally less if carrying its nominal maximum load of four tons), and mounts eight (!) machine guns. Its speed is 288 km/h, practically unthinkable for a mere bomber in 1930.

Other nations will not even be creating blueprints on par with it for a while, much less putting those designs into production -- but the Soviet Union does.

[JasonPratt]

1930: Since starting his takeover of Lenin's faction, Stalin has financed his massive industrialization projects (the Five Year Plans) by plundering churches, monasteries, imperial storehouses, and museums, selling off the treasures collected and created by Russians over the centuries. He has also mass exported timber, coal, nickel, manganese, oil, cotton, caviar, furs -- and so much grain as to cause mass starvations!

In 1930, in response to the mass starvation caused by his selling off Russia's grain production, Stalin now starts a plan of (Suvorov unsourced quote) "siphoning resources from agriculture into heavy industry." Wait, what?! -- the nation is starting starvation unprecedented even by Russian standards, and Stalin is planning to pull resources OUT of agriculture?!

Well, Stalin does have a plan. Sort of.

Specifically, Stalin orders people working the land to be herded into "kolkhozes" where all their grain can be more effectively confiscated for redistribution. The theory here (such as it is), is that the peasants aren't working efficiently, and if they would just be forced to work more efficiently under administrative control, like in a heavy-industry factory, then not only would more grain be available to sell off (not primarily to feed the peasants with) but more peasants could be moved to actual heavy-industry factories by proportion!

Ten to sixteen million Russian citizens will be tortured and will die over the coming years in these concentration camps, while Stalin sells off around five million tons of grain every year to fund his industrialization projects.

Suvorov recommends checking Robert Conquest's 'book on the Five Year Projects'. Presumably he means "The Great Terror: A Reassessment" or "Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine". Conquest isn't included in Icebreaker's works cited, but is quoted by Suvorov on occasion in both books, particularly The Great Terror, which had a 40th anniversary edition in 2007, and (according to its publishers anyway) became considered the definitive account in the final years of the Soviet Union.