Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of WWII on the Eastern Front – Hitler's June 1941 Attack and Stalin's Paralysis from the Archives

by Constantine Pleshakov

On June 22, 1941, radios all over the Soviet Union crackled with the announcement that the country had been attacked by Nazi Germany. But the voice on the airwaves was not the familiar one of Joseph Stalin; it was the voice of his deputy, Molotov. Paralyzed by Hitler's unexpected move, Stalin disappeared completely from public view for the crucial ten days of war on the Eastern Front. In this taut, hour-by-hour account, Constantine Pleshakov draws on a wealth of information from newly opened archives to elucidate the complex causes of the Soviet leader's reaction, revealing the feared despot's unrealized military stratagems as well as his personal vulnerabilities, while also offering a new and deeper understanding of Russian history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, World War II, War, Military History, European History

326 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Constantine Pleshakov emigrated to America in 1998 and is a former foreign policy analyst at the Institute of U.S. and Canada Studies in Moscow. In 2012, The Princeton Review named him one of the 300 best college professors in the U.S. He lives in Amherst, MA.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stalin’s folly gets a solid 3 Red Stars for a decent account of the 10 days from the first German crossing the border to Stalin finally coming back to reality to lead the Soviet Union. Pleshakov brings some clarity to a confusing story. A couple of points stand out. First, the move of the Soviets to the new border after splitting Poland with the Germans causes a major problem as the Soviets moved their weapons out of the old defensive positions but have not completed new positions on the new border. Second, the author bases much of the problem on Stalin’s putative plan to preemptively attack Germany. I was not aware of this plan. Third, as anyone familiar with Soviet history knows, Stalin’s Great Terror erased much experience from the Soviet armed forces. Pleshakov gives you a good idea of the real impact of this. Fourth, Pleshakov recounts the confusion at all levels.

Stars are taken away for maps, little information on opposing German forces, other than gross generalizations about their moves.

The Great Terror:

In Stalin’s eyes, society was conspiratorial by definition. Trotsky, in Mexico, could suddenly push a button and get a response from even the most insignificant and remote part of his vast network. That required a gargantuan purge. Trotsky knew the deputy people’s commissar of defense, Tukhachevsky; Tukhachevsky was friendly with Corps Commander A; Corps Commander A bad a brother, Regiment Commander B; Regiment Commander B was on good terms with his chief of artillery, C; C patronized a young lieutenant, D -and that was why all of them had to be taken to the dungeons.

However, limiting the purge to Trotsky’s circle or even to the army didn’t make much sense, as every execution created potential avengers. Lieutenant D could have a devoted brother or a determined girlfriend or a bunch of idealistic classmates. Those potential security risks had to be taken into account too, and that meant that terror had to strike at random, knocking out not just the likely traitors but free will as such.

In the Great Terror, at least 5 million people were arrested. Two hundred were executed daily in Lubyanka prison alone. The vozhd killed those who could betray him and those who were close to those places in society. He killed people who read the Bible or the Koran but he also killed people who read only Stalin. He killed people who failed to report political jokes and people who reported them. He killed people in their nineties and people in their teens. He killed Russians and he killed Georgians. He killed marshals, pilots, housewives, journalists, plumbers, people’s commissars of the interior (two of them), writers, gardeners, spies, fishermen. The dreadful progress of his ax seemed irrational, but it was not. He pursued a clear goal: to reach a point where nobody in the country, be it a miner or a marshal, could be certain whether he would see the dawn. After he reached that point, he stopped. Then, instead of killing people, he sent them to the eastern wilderness, where the gulag camps were waiting for them. There the enemies of the people dug soil for gold, felled trees, and built railroads.

Poor Stalin had no one to talk to at key points:

He had no confidant with whom to discuss any of this. Since the death of his wife, no woman had occupied a special place in his life, he had no friends, and as for his colleagues, they had mediocre minds, as had been his wish. The diplomatic corps had been devastated by the 1937 purge, and the person in charge of international policies, Vyacheslav Molotov, had been in the job just two years. Molotov had no command of foreign languages, no expertise in the outside world, and no real interest in his job. Lavrenty Beria, who commanded a blossoming web of agents abroad, had been a mere provincial police general before the Great Purge and had no idea how to run an international spy ring or, even more important, how to interpret and assess the information acquired. Those who could have helped both Molotov and Beria, educated and sophisticated men who had created both the Soviet foreign service and the worldwide Soviet intelligence network, now lay in common graves in prison yards.

Stalin couldn’t even discuss the details of his preemptive strike plan with his generals. Brilliant strategists like Tukhachevsky, whom he had ordered shot, had been obsessed with the idea of leading the Red Army into Europe and would have enthusiastically joined in his great enterprise, contributing the knowledge and daring he so desperately needed. But they were dead, just like the diplomats and spymasters, and he couldn’t possibly get sound advice from people like Voroshilov and Budenny, for whom the center of the world lay in the southern Russian steppes; they would have been literally lost in the confining European world of small countries and odd borders. Marshal Shaposhvili was well versed in the art of war and European politics, but he lacked vision.
Even though the Germans were kicking the snot out of the Soviets, there was as occasional victory for the Reds:

The area was in total disarray. Retreating Soviet units, attacking Soviet units, German motorcyclists, refugees, German panzers, Soviet panzers --everything intermingled in an unending nightmare. At midnight Filatov’s column ran into a bunch of naked German officers, who, certain that the battle was over for the day, had decided to spend the night in a grove beside a brook. While the soldiers were putting up tents, the officers had stripped and begun splashing in the stream. The Soviet scouts found them there. Fifty bathers were killed and five captured, and their cars were either destroyed or taken. Among the trophies were four briefcases, one containing the Army Group Center battle map.

“Off with their heads” or let’s have a purge to find the traitor:
Stalin's attitude toward the progress of the war was hardly rational. No master plan could turn the tables on Hitler, but surely the Red Army needed more guidance than Timoshenko’s pep talks over the phone. The vozhd was not ready to use the drastic maneuver that had saved Russia in 1812 ~withdrawing the troops inland, organizing viable defenses there, and luring Hitler’s army to an exhausting pursuit. Neither was he ready for compromise measures, like building a second line of defense between the western border and Moscow. Instead he relied on a familiar tool: purge. Grand failures demanded high-profile scapegoats. On June 23, Kirill Meretskov, the former chief of the general staff, was arrested, and soon Beria’s butchers were beating him and asking for a confession.

On the eve of war Stalin had sent Meretskov to scrutinize all the frontier military districts, and he had been satisfied enough with his report to entrust him, on the evening of June 21, with supervising two northern fronts and two northern fleets. That made Meretskov one of the most powerful men in the country, let alone the armed forces. Less than forty-eight hours later, however, the vozhd changed his mind. Looking for evidence of treason, he may have thought that Meretskov had been involved in some grandiose act of sabotage during his travels.

[Sean Smart · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really well written history of the first 10 days of the German invasion of the USSR in 1941 focusing on all the mistakes by Stalin and his henchmen, and the sacrifices of the Red Army who paid the price for Stalin's errors, paranoia and arrogance.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know almost nothing about Operation Barbarossa--besides the fact that it was called Operation Barbarossa and was, obviously, unsuccessful--so I can't speak to the historical viability of the argument or whatever. All I can say is that I really enjoyed reading this book and I found it fairly persuasive. I particularly enjoyed the attention given to the personalities of the various Soviet leaders--it made history seem so much more human and fascinating and tangible. I also appreciated the straightforward, simple, and often very lovely writing style--there's no convoluted academic jargon here, and for that I am very thankful.

I will say quickly that I'm slightly biased because I go to Mount Holyoke and am in a class with Professor Pleshakov. In case you're wondering, he's hilarious and a very good teacher. Not that it really matters, but I always like hearing a little about the backgrounds of authors...there's nothing more awkward than enjoying a book and then realizing the author is a douche (which isn't at all the case with this book, thankfully).

Anyways, I enjoyed the read, I learned a lot, and if you're interested in the early days of the German invasion of the USSR, I would certainly recommend this book.

[Emmanuel Gustin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subject matter is interesting (as well as surprisingly controversial), and Pleshakov made a worthwhile contribution. Nevertheless I didn't like it very much. Perhaps the author wanted just to write for the widest audience possible, but the end product in many places does not read as the work of a professional historian. It is full of sweeping claims and bold statements, often poorly substantiated, and not seldom of the kind that should raise eyebrows in people with detailed knowledge of Soviet history. Pleshakov is of course entirely entitled to defend his specific interpretation of events, but he should have done so with more caution and due diligence.
Overall, this work reminds me too much of popular war history as it was written in the 50s and 60s. It is worth reading, but I think the events of the period have been better (if perhaps less entertainingly) described by others.

[Robey NeJame]

A well paced book, mixing personal accounts with the grand picture. History is tricky because usually you need to know what came before to really understand it. The author nailed the needed amount of exposition, and while telling the story, did not waste pages. It is a shorter read and I really appreciated the author not drawing the story out as other books on a specific subject may.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is Russian, currently a professor at Mount Holyoke College, so he has insights and access to the Soviet war archives that might not be so accessible to a foreign author. Consequently, it provides interesting views of the terror of the vozhd (leader - Stalin) that overwhelmed all levels of command in the Red Army at the time of the Nazi invasion in June 1941. So many events are covered that the book jumps from person to person and incident to incident that it is difficult at times to get the "big picture" of what was occurring. It's worth reading, if you have an interest in the subject.

Pleshakov indicates that Stalin planned a preemptory invasion German-held Europe at about the time that Hitler invaded. This is somewhat controversial, because another author, Niall Ferguson in "The War of the World" (which I'm currently reading) states that the evidence supporting this thesis is to scant to be credible.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. I don't believe the author supports his contention that Stalin was preparing to attack Hitler when Hitler beat him to the punch. He can produce no evidence, such as notes from meetings. He does give a good description of the depression that gripped Stalin in the first days of the war, and the ineptness of the high command and a feel for the magnitude of the losses suffered by the Soviets.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quick trot through the first 10 days of the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941. Readable but not too much more than that. Pleshakov tries to do to that conflict what Barbara Tuchman did for World War I (in The Guns of August), but really isn't in the same league. rated PG for war themes. 2.5/5

[Varmint · Rating 3 out of 5]

the way he puts thought into the heads of the soviet officers makes me a little uncomfortable. i understand that he had access to the archives and many personal journals. but still awkward.

[Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good beach read for me. This was really well done and I recommend it for anyone who wonders how the Soviet army fell apart so quickly in 1941, and how it was put back together afterwards. Stalin is often portrayed as being completely blinded by his respect for Hitler, and indeed, he ignored warnings from the USA and Britain that Germany was about to invade. However, he did take one warning seriously: that from the Japanese.

Accordingly, he prepared a "secret" preemptive strike in a private meeting with just a few top commanders. He ordered Soviet troops straight to the border, sacrificing strategic defense for the ability to move as rapidly as possible. But the troops following his orders on the ground wondered to themselves whether an invasion was about to begin, and Stalin realized his "secret" had got out. He was wracked with fear that one of his commanders had betrayed him, so he tortured and executed his own military brass. The survivors were too intimidated to persuade him that Germany was still going to move. (Pleshakov's critics point out that we don't know when exactly the Soviet strike was planned for, and it may have been as late as 1942 in the first place.)

The units were thus stationed right next to the border with no possibility for maneuvering, and were told to ignore German "provocations", which meant they were all destroyed when Germany did invade. The initial defeat was so total that over the next few days, as news trickled into Moscow, Stalin began to believe that he would now be executed himself, and retreated to his summer home to await his fate instead of assuming command. (His absence led to further defeats.) But while one of his surviving advisors fearfully suggested taking out Stalin, the lot of them were too scared to do anything but submit to him. With renewed confidence in his psychological control of his advisors and the nation, Stalin announced leadership over the country, winning the hearts of the people immediately. He ended his reign of terror and began reconstructing the chain of command in earnest.

Stalin lost about 600k troops in the space of a few weeks through nobody's fault but his own, but over the next 4 years he would sacrifice 4 million more, not in murderous bungles but in extremely hard-fought and heroic battles. Hitler had not prepared for the incredible courage and endurance of Soviet soldiers, nor the treachery of Russian terrain and geography. Thanks to Hitler's decision to invade and Stalin's suppression of his own terrifying paranoia, Communism was transformed from mere totalitarianism to the selfless and patriotic defense of the motherland and its people, a visage it maintains in Russia today.

If I could change anything about this book, I would include more detail about what Hitler was thinking as he prepared the invasion and removed his embassy from Moscow. It seems that he was aware of Stalin's paranoia and indecision.

[Kevin Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good understanding of what happened just before and during the opening of Operation Barbarossa from the Soviet Union's side. All I ever heard before was Stalin froze for the first ten days. Turns out it was not 100% true. Although he held back from taking complete charge, he did do some things that really allowed the Soviet Union to survive and eventually defeat the Germans. Giving the order to move the factories to the East past the Urals is just one example.

[Doug I · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty esoteric to history fans and those who don't mind making sense of a lot of Russian names.

If you like those things, then hey, awesome book.

A lot of insight that would not have existed prior to the opening of WWII archives, post Cold War, pre-Putin.

[Edwing · Rating 4 out of 5]

magnifico libro, los 10 primeros días de la campaña oriental, el enfrentamiento mas colosal de la guerra, fue, sencillamente aterrador....

[Lorena Cervantes silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente de principio a fin!!!

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speedy read. Clear, compelling, and all too relevant.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A man puts his trust in Hitler. What could possibly go wrong?

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting study of a very specific, short period of World War 2 history -- the first 10 days of Operation Barbarossa, the Germany invasion of the Soviet Union. More specifically, he tries to answer a few questions: (1) Why did the Soviet Army and Air Force perform so poorly? (2) Why wasn't Stalin overthrown as a result of the poor performance? (3) Why did Stalin ignore the numerous warnings that a German attack was imminent, and (in passing, in the Epilogue (4) How did the Soviet Union recover from this disastrous performance to capture Berlin less than 4 years later? The author is a Russian historian who was a visiting professor at Mount Holyoke College when this book came out. He has lots of insight into the personalities of the different commanders, for example Zhukov and Rokossovsky, and looks at the impact of the purges on both of them (Zhukov advanced because of the purges, while Rokossovsky was tortured). I certainly would not recommend it as a first book on the history of the Russian-German conflict -- it's too specific, and much of the book would not make sense to someone who did not already have at least some basis in the subject.

[Stefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stalin’s Folly is a readable and well researched analysis of why Stalin and the Soviet Union reacted so poorly and slowly following the German invasion in 1941. Pleshakov did an excellent job at articulating why Stalin ignored reports from his intelligence services and the Red Army which predicted the German invasion. The author persuasively supports the theory that Stalin was preparing for an offensive war against Germany (which was planned to begin about a year later) and ignored the reports about the German’s plan to attack Russia, because Stalin believed that Hitler would not attack Russia without defeating Britain first. In fact, Stalin considered the evidence that pointed towards a German offensive to be an attempt by the Germans to get the Soviet Union to act foolishly. Constantine Pleshakov also did a good job at explaining why the purge of senior of Senior Soviet Union Military Officers led to inefficiency and paralysis within the Red Army when the Germans invaded.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book,
if the author is correct,
the history of WW2's eastern front needs to be rewritten,
some other authors who published before this book <2005>,
considered the idea Stalin was going to attack first,
and dismissed the idea.

The notes section is a bit hard to decipher,
so it's hard to tell how solid the foundation of this theory is,
but the fact that Stalin built airfields and everything else
right up by the border indicates either he was planning to attack first,
or he was an even bigger idiot than we already knew.

Because Stalin was so paranoid, he wouldn't have shared his thinking with others until they had a need to know.

And he wasn't ready to attack before 22 June 1942.

[Chi Pham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really want to give this book five stars, for its extraordinary story-telling styles and its descriptive tragedy. However, I honestly feel that the author blames Stalin too much. I understand that the book is ultimately about Stalin's mistakes, but it suggests that Stalin's mistakes ruined the Russian cause during the first ten days of the war. I guess that I am still in doubt about one of the biggest question in history: Can a mere human change the fate of the society, or Did everything happen according to a rule?

Nevertheless, this book is a must read for people who love to embrace tragedy. Tragedy is Pleshakov's strong forte, so why don't you enjoy the story for now?

[Christopher Carbone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author also wrote the utterly unreadable "Tsar's Last Armada." Stalin's Folly is as good as Tsar was bad. A painstaking look at how near the USSR was to absolute defeat at the hands of the rising German Juggernaut. Most notably, how both sides were looking to launch an offensive and the Soviets were caught flat footed and on the ropes. Whole armies disintegrated under the rush of German tanks, better generals and an overall better army. A fascinating look at the first ten days of the Russian war and how bad they had it at the beginning.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did I like this book? Yes. Was I confused half the time I was reading it? Yes. Would I recommend it? Only if you are a history dork like me. Really, not a bad reading of a very specific subject. I remembered a few details from some classes at IU, but it was interesting to see some of the reasoning (and I use that term loosely) behind the decisions and policies that determined what happened in the first 10 days. The author also has an interesting note at the end of the book regarding his sources which I think anyone who is interested in writing or reading non fiction would find fascinating.

[Gary]

Very interesting, filled in the behind the scenes of what went on between Stalin and his Generals, and in the Kremlin during the first 10 days after the Nazi invasion.
I found it amazing how inept most of the Soviet military leaders, including the field commanders were.I also learned that the reason Stalin was slow to prepare for what looked like an inevitable invasion by the Nazi's was that he was planning his own offensive against them, and he couldn't prepare for both an offensive and defensive war at the same time.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first read this book, I had my doubts about the author's assertion that the USSR did, indeed, have a plan in 1941 for a pre-emptive strike directed against a German mobilisation on the USSR's borders. Further research (e.g., Bellamy, "Absolute War") inclines me to accept Pleshakov's viewpoint.

Pleshakov does not argue that the USSR had a plan to attack Germany in 1941. He suggests that Stalin agreed to a plan that would enable the USSR to forestall a German invasion. However, the plan became moot because the Germans struck before the USSR had time to implement it.

[Kriegslok · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tale of mistrust and madness tied up with heroics and bravery topped off with terror and tragedy. You can feel the frustration of the Soviet officer class as they watch the inevitable unfold before them and know that Tsar Stalin will be the last to shoulder the blame. A fascinating study of the run up to and the early days of The Great Patriotic War, still essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Russia today and it's continuing security fears in the face of an expansionist NATO.

[Sal Valdez]

not only a bestial monster but an idiot as a head of state.
Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of WWII on the Eastern Front

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engaging overview of Stalin's government during the first 10 days of German attack. My WW2 knowledge is limited to the fighting in the Western Europe, so this book offered an interesting insight to the USSR during that time.

[Jase · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessible to history buffs and novices alike, this book's depth accurately and articulately details the disastrous debacle known as the Eastern Front during the first ten days of war.

[Jason Cecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning how ill prepared Stalin was for the German attack. Also sad that soviet leases missed the chance to depose Stalin when they had the chance.

[Jim Blessing · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out as a decent read, but it seemed to get bogged down and it was difficult remembering the various Russian names and who had been previously purged by Stalin.