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Unlock This CourseIn August 1939 Stalin had signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact with Hitler. Stalin knew Hitler hated communism and wanted Soviet land, but he hoped the pact would buy time to rearm. He did not expect an attack before 1942, because he was sure Hitler would not start a new war while Britain was still undefeated.
He was wrong. At dawn on 22 June 1941 Germany launched Operation Barbarossa. About 3 million German soldiers, with more than 3,000 tanks, crossed the border along a front that ran from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. They attacked in three great groups: one in the north towards Leningrad, one in the centre towards Moscow and one in the south into Ukraine.
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Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy in Tokyo, reported that Germany would attack in the second half of June. The British prime minister, Churchill, sent a warning in April. German planes kept flying over Soviet land to take photographs. Stalin dismissed it all as a British trick to drag him into war. He forbade anything that might provoke Hitler, and Soviet trains carried grain and oil to Germany right up to the invasion.
Remember, the purge of the armed forces had removed most senior commanders. Their replacements were inexperienced and afraid to act without orders. Many tanks and planes were out of date and few had radios. The army was strung out along the new 1939-40 border, where defences were unfinished. An alert went out only hours before the attack, too late for most units.
The German army had already beaten Poland and France. Its soldiers and officers were experienced and its Blitzkrieg tactics were well practised. Tank columns punched through the Soviet lines, raced ahead and closed behind whole armies, which were then trapped in huge encirclements.
Stalin's own leadership made things worse. He was badly shaken, and at the end of June he shut himself away at his dacha for a short time. It was Molotov, the foreign minister, who told the Soviet people about the invasion by radio. Stalin did not speak to them until 3 July. He also refused to let armies retreat, even when they were about to be surrounded, and he had General Pavlov, the commander of the Western Front, which faced the main German attack, shot in July for failing to stop the Germans.
The opening months brought some of the worst defeats in Russian history.
In places that had suffered most under Stalin, such as parts of Ukraine and the Baltic states, some people at first welcomed the Germans. The losses of 1941 therefore threatened Stalin's rule as well as his army.
On 8 September 1941 German forces cut the last land route into Leningrad, while Finland's army held the north. About 2.5 million civilians were trapped. Hitler chose to starve and shell the city instead of storming it. In the winter of 1941-42 the daily bread ration for many people fell to 125 grams. The siege lasted nearly 900 days, until January 1944, and around a million civilians died, most from hunger and cold.
At the start of October 1941 the Germans began their drive on the capital. In mid-October government offices and foreign embassies were moved more than 800 kilometres east to the city of Kuibyshev. There was panic in Moscow, with crowds trying to flee and some shops looted. Stalin himself stayed. By early December German troops were within about 30 kilometres of the city.
Neither city fell. You will find out why in the lesson Stalingrad and Soviet Survival.
The danger was not over. In May 1942 a Soviet attack near Kharkov failed, with the loss of more than 200,000 men. In June Hitler began a new offensive in the south, aiming for the oilfields of the Caucasus. The naval base of Sevastopol in the Crimea fell in July, and in late August German troops reached the River Volga at Stalingrad. After fourteen months of war, the USSR was still losing ground.
Don't say the Red Army lost because it was small or had no tanks. It was huge and had more than 20,000 tanks. It lost because it was badly led, badly positioned and taken by surprise. Don't say Leningrad or Moscow was captured: both were threatened, neither fell. And keep reasons (why it happened) apart from extent (how bad it was). The spec asks about both.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history textbook)
From a modern history textbook.
The disaster of June 1941 was Stalin's own work. He brushed aside warning after warning and stubbornly forbade his generals to prepare, so the Red Army was caught asleep. Its best commanders were already dead, shot on his orders in the purges. For eleven days the 'great leader' said nothing to his people, and at one point he shut himself away at his dacha. Millions of soldiers paid for his blindness with their freedom or their lives.
(a) What impression does the author give about Stalin's leadership at the time of the German invasion in 1941? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that Stalin's leadership was a disastrous failure and that he alone was to blame for the defeats of 1941. This is shown by the language. The disaster is called 'Stalin's own work', and he 'brushed aside' warnings and 'stubbornly' stopped his generals preparing, which makes him sound careless and pig-headed. Putting 'great leader' in inverted commas mocks him, and 'shut himself away' suggests cowardice. The word 'blindness' sums up his poor judgement. The author has also selected only Stalin's mistakes: the ignored warnings, the purges and his silence. Nothing is said about the strength and skill of the German army, or about Stalin staying in Moscow later in the year. This one-sided choice of points makes the criticism stronger.
What lifts this to the top level: it names one clear impression, proves it with short quotations and explains what they suggest, and it comments on what the author has chosen to stress and to leave out.
Notice the inverted commas around 'great leader'. When an author puts a title or praise in inverted commas, it is usually sarcasm, and saying so is a quick way to show you are analysing the author's treatment and not just copying out the extract. You do not need to add your own facts about Barbarossa here.