Air University Review, September-October 1985
Dr. Bryan I. Fugate
I WOULD like to reply to the attack by Lieutenant Colonel Barry D. Watts and Dr. Williamson Murray on the thesis set forth in my book Operation Barbarossa: Strategy and Tactics on the Eastern Front, 1941.*
*Lieutenant Colonel Barry D. Watts, USAF, and Williamson Murray, "Inventing History: Soviet Military Genius Revealed," Air University Review, March-April 1985, pp. 102-12.
From the accounts given by the Soviets regarding the January 1941 war games, it is impossible to say precisely how the games were played and what the rules of engagement were. It is possible, however, to create a scenario for these games by making judicious use of different available sources. It must be stated outright that the Soviets themselves have never made the claim that they devised a strategy to combat the German onslaught before the war began. Many substantive reasons for creating a scenario for the strategic defense of the Soviet Union are given in Operation Barbarossa. Colonel Watts and Dr. Murray point out that although my book relies heavily on Soviet sources, those same sources take pains to prove that the Soviet Union was caught off guard by the attack. I would make no attempt to deny that the Soviets have portrayed themselves as innocents, lambs waiting for the slaughter by Hitler's wolves, but the facts simply are otherwise. Even the best sources cited by my critics go to prove the contention that the Soviets were aware of the German plans and responded positively, skillfully, and secretly to thwart them. Let us examine two key passages by General S. P. Ivanov (Nachal'nyy period voyny) cited by my critics to prove that the General Staff had no plans for a deep defense of Soviet territory but simply a plan to repel the German invasion using the forces massed along the frontier in the Bialystok and Lvov salients.
Since carrying out the missions designated by the plan was to be executed in the form of a retaliatory strike after the strategic deployment of the main forces of the Red Army, in the first stage of the initial strategic operations the covering armies deployed in the border zone should, by active defensive operations with the support of aviation and the tactical reserves, repel the enemy thrust and thereby provide for the concentration and deployment of all the forces designed for making the retaliatory strike. (p. 105)
Again, quoting Ivanov:
Thus, according to the general strategy of the Soviet High Command, the immediate strategic aim . . . consisted in repelling the first strike of the enemy by using the troops of the first strategic echelon (the covering armies and the reserves of the border districts), in securing the concentration and deployment of the main forces of the Red Army, and in creating favorable conditions for making a retaliatory strike against the enemy. (p. 105)
There is nothing in Ivanov's account that contradicts, in any way, my thesis that the Soviets had prepared an in-depth defense of the Soviet Union in 1941; on the contrary, these two passages reinforce this contention. It must be realized that the Soviets use cryptic or Aesopian language when discussing their strategic defense in 1941. That is, they have not been telling out-and-out lies, but still the whole truth is difficult to come by in what they say. Simply put, Ivanov is saying:
This is precisely what I said in Operation Barbarossa when I outlined the missions of the three echelons of defense. My critics make much of the fact that these mission requirements called for the first echelon to repel the invader. Again, the General Staff assigned this task to the first echelon, but it did not risk the survival of the Soviet State on this eventuality. That is why the tactical echelon forces were deployed along the Dvina-Dnepr line. No one has ever explained why, if the Soviets were caught by surprise, the following deployments were ordered by the General Staff Directive of 13 May 1941:
It should be noted here that before the 13 May Directive, already in place in the Western District's reserves in the tactical echelon were (1) the Twentieth Army at Smolensk; (2) the Twenty-fourth Army at Yelnia in the land bridge between the Dnepr and the headwaters of the Desna, 82 kilometers southeast of Smolensk; and (3) the Twenty-eighth Army behind the Desna, south of Yelnia.
The total size of the operational echelon before the war was about ninety-six divisions, although not all of these units were fully manned. In addition, eleven more divisions were held as a reserve directly under control of the Supreme Command. The hefty size of these forces concentrated along the Dnepr-Dvina line and in the western-central Ukraine proves that the Soviets were not relying on their frontier defenses, the tactical echelon, to turn the German tide. On the face of it, it seems ludicrous to suppose that the General Staff and Stalin would have gambled on one major battle in the frontier zone, especially after Pavlov's failure in the January war games. The gamble on one major battle would also have meant ignoring the major theoretical concepts of deep battle that had been worked out by Triandafilov and Tukhachevski in the 1930s. As far back as 1934, Tukhachevski in an article titled, The Character of Border Operations" had warned that in modern war the only tactic that could succeed would be that of preparing a defense in depth, leading to a protracted conflict with broad fronts and deep operations. According to Tukhachevski, the initial contact along the frontiers would be important but would by no means decide the issue if the defending side had prepared for an echeloned "deep-battle" defense hundreds of kilometers in the interior. The Soviet Field Regulations of 1936 (PU-36) in fact embodied the combined-arms, deep-battle plan for war.
My critics say that my thesis that the Soviets had prepared an in-depth defense in 1941 is unnecessary to explain anything; that Erickson and others are right in their belief that the Russians were caught by surpise and were totally unprepared for war. I suppose that Einstein might have had the same kind of critics who believed that Newtonian mechanics were adequate to explain all physical phenomena. I would like to call for all interested parties to examine the physical evidence of the Soviet deployments on the eve of the war, especially in the areas of the tactical echelon on what would become the flanks of German Army Group Center, and try to explain these deployments on the basis of lucky happenstance. No, Erickson and the others were right as far as they went, but it is time now to push on from the myths of the past and examine the situation in the light of the new data as we know it to be.
My critics charge also that I have no special claim or resources to allow me to penetrate a Soviet strategic deception that has been in place since 1941. Let me digress for a moment and explain the peculiar circumstances that led me to discover the truth behind the deception. When I first began my research in the summer of 1971, no one was convinced any more than I that the standard interpretations of surprise were in fact true. It was only after an exhaustive search of the microfilmed records of German units in 1973 at the National Archives and my subsequent studies at the Bundes Militaer-Archiv in Freiburg in 1974-75 that I realized that something about this interpretation was terribly wrong. One only has to go through the records of some of the infantry units, especially the Second Army on the southern flank of Army Group Center, to realize that the Soviet forces encountered west of the Pripet area had to have been in place for some time and were well prepared to repel the invaders. Another case in point was the experience of a tank battalion of the German 10th Panzer Division, which, along with some motorized infantry, overran some Russian artillery positions to the east and south of Yelnia. According to the German report, "these emplacements were especially well-constructed, with accommodations for both men and horses, and had obviously been completed for some time. " (Barbarossa, p. 132.) This incident took place on 20 July 1941, or only four weeks after the war began.
The point is that no one to my knowledge had ever looked before at quite so many records of German units, especially the nonarmored units, and gotten the full picture of what the Soviets were doing. Indeed, even with my time-consuming research, I was barely able to scratch the surface of the information in the German records. Other historians will find a wealth of material in the National Archives that, I believe, will further substantiate at least the main lines of my thesis.
The other part of the concern about Soviet strategy, or lack thereof, comes in the area of why the Soviets themselves have not yet owned up to the facts and admitted what they were doing, Also, why have so many of their memoirists, General Georgii Zhukov for example, not taken credit for their exploits? The answers to these questions expose many of the dilemmas that the Soviets have faced since the war. The fact is that they have admitted what they have done--if one is conscious of their unique, Aesopian, Alice-in-Wonderland methods of expression, as demonstrated in the passages from Ivanov. Zhukov's memoirs are a masterpiece of subterfuge; he was trying as best he could to tell the truth to the Russian people and the world, insofar as his political masters would allow him. Zhukov provides the key, if he is read correctly. For an example, read again a passage from Zhukov that I quoted in Barbarossa. This passage shows that Zhukov was telling the truth, but not in a clear and straightforward manner. It also shows that Zhukov had taken to heart the lessons he had learned from the January war game with Pavlov.
In recent years it has become quite common practice to blame the General Headquarters for not having ordered the pulling up of our main force from the interior zone in order to repulse the enemy. I would not venture to guess in retrospect the probable outcome of such an action. . . . It is quite possible, however, that being under equipped with anti-tank and anti-aircraft facilities and possessing lesser mobility than the enemy forces, our troops might have failed to withstand the powerful thrusts of the enemy panzer forces and might, therefore, have found themselves in as grave a predicament as some of the armies of the frontier zone. Nor is it clear what situation might then have developed in the future on the approaches to Moscow and Leningrad and in the southern areas of the country. [Barbarossa, p. 42. Emphasis mine.]
The reasons why Zhukov was not allowed to tell the whole truth and why the Soviets have failed to explain their strategic plans before the Great Patriotic War are not difficult to understand:
It was a crucial part of Zhukov's plan that the deception to be employed would have to be good enough not only to fool the Germans but also, unfortunately, the commanders in the border districts. The frontier armies had to stand and fight, letting the Germans armored pincers flow around them. In this role, they would retard the advance of the German infantry and prevent the panzers from plunging farther eastward too rapidly. This delaying tactic would allow time to consolidate the forces of the operational echelon and call up the strategic reserve. Pavlov could not be made privy to the real plan for defense, for he had shown himself to be an avid advocate of the idea that his mechanized corps could withstand the onslaught of Army Group Center's two panzer groups led by Colonel General Heinz Guderian and German Hermann Hoth. Zhukov could not dissuade Pavlov from his acting out his own fate and so he elected to make the best use of what he knew to be a hopeless situation in the Bialystok salient. The newer tanks, the T-34S and KVs, were not formed into brigades and moved directly to the frontier zone. They were withheld for use along the Dnepr-Dvina line, although those newer tanks already in the salients were allowed to remain where they were, together with the older tanks.
In response to the charge that I did not take the logistics of Barbarossa into account, I can only say that my long discussion about the Paulus war game in December 1940 was intended to show the difficulties of logistics. Also, I made repeated comments about the problems of getting ammunition, petroleum products, and spare parts to the front. With just these circumstances in mind, I suggested that the Soviets should have held the Oka line during the winter in order to improve the supply situation for a spring 1942 offensive, which, I believe, would have succeeded.
The Soviet Union survived because its military and political leaders were able to assess the objective lessons of history and their strategic exercises accurately. These lessons are no less valid today, and the Soviets' long-range strategic planning for Europe, Southwest Asia, and Central America no doubt rests on the same kind of analysis.
Austin, Texas
Contributor
Dr. Fugate is Administrator, Technical and Financial Service, for the Software Technology Program at Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC).
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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