Stalin’s forced-pace industrialization undoubtedly contributed mightily to he Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. The tempo of industrialization was literally killing and extremely wasteful, but by 1941 the USSR had closed he gap, militarily and industrially. The greatest spurt occurred during the ‘three good years’ of industrialization (1934–6). By 1937 steel output was nearly three times greater than in 1932, coal production had doubled, and electricity generation had risen by 250 per cent. Thereafter, the Great Purges and the channelling of investments into armaments—defence expenditure quadrupled between 1936 and 1940—caused growth rates in these and other branches of industry to subside. But on the eve of the war, Soviet industry was producing 230 tanks, 700 military aircraft, and more than 100,000 rifles every month. However, agriculture still lagged. A major crop failure in 1936—a yield even smaller than the official harvest for 1932—strained the state’s reserves and distribution network; it has even been argued that this crisis contributed to the political events of 1937. Because of increased military expenditure, investments in the collective and state farm system remained woefully minuscule.
But ‘backwardness’ is qualitative, not merely quantitative. In cultural and political terms, the USSR’s backwardness was perpetuated, even intensified, not because party and state officials tried to do too little, but because they tried to do too much. Browbeating the nation into modernity and socialism—the two were deemed to be synonymous—Stalin and his lieutenants provoked much resistance, but also conjured up demons of their own Manichean imaginings. These they combated with cults, reliance on miracles, and a great deal of force. They thus conformed to what Moshe Lewin has called ‘the contamination effect’, whereby radical and rapid transformation in fact ensures the survival of fundamental continuities, especially in social behaviour and political culture. Hence, the methods employed in ‘building socialism’, derived from previous centuries and combined with twentieth-century technology, actually built something called Stalinism.
12.
WILLIAM C. FULLER, JR
At four a.m. (Moscow time) on 22 June 1941, several thousand pieces of German ordnance simultaneously thundered into Soviet territory. Operation Barbarossa had begun, initiating four years of the most brutal and destructive war in history. From the very beginning the Soviet–German conflict was waged with a ferocity and savagery that was unparalleled in modern times. When Hitler announced his move against Russia to his highest officers (30 March 1941), he made it absolutely clear that he expected his troops to discard every principle of humanity, chivalry, or international law. This was, he said, to be a war ‘of extermination’.
The 153 divisions of the invasion force formed three army groups—north, centre, and south. Army Group North was to punch through the Baltic republics in the direction of Leningrad. Army Group Centre was supposed to entrap and destroy Soviet units in the western expanses of the country. And, the third force—Army Group South—to drive south-east of the Pripet marshes and slice Ukraine off from the rest of the Soviet state.
It was obviously impossible to mask the colossal military preparations for Barbarossa. Since February, Germany had been concentrating forces on the Soviet frontier, ‘explaining’ this as a defence against British air raids. In the months, weeks, and days prior to 22 June, the Soviet government received over
