Re: Could Stalin Have Prevented Hitler from Coming to Power?

I think that Hitler's unwonted optimism concerning war in the
East was based more on other factors than the quick defeat of
France.

First and foremost was his contempt for the Soviets. He
considered Slavs to be inferior to Germans. He considered the
Soviet leadership to be composed of stupid Bolsheviks, cowardly
Jews, and stupid, cowardly, Slavic Jewish Bolsheviks. He would
not have believed such people capable of standing up to German
ubermenchen, capable of intelligent military organization, or
capable of building or using sophisticated weapons of war. His
own idiotic racism was a major factor in his inability to see the
strengths of his enemies.

Secondly, there was the performance of the Red Army in the Winter
War. If they had such a terrible time dealing with little
Finland, how strong could they be?

Thirdly, he had to have seen various intelligence estimates of
the damage done to the Red Army by the Communist Party purges,
the damage to the Soviet infrastructure by forced
collectivization, and the general disaffection of conquered
nationalities, former middle classes, and educated people in the
USSR.

To use the Chinese metaphor, the USSR was seen as a paper tiger.
They had lots of divisions, lots of tanks, lots of airplanes, but
none of them were worth much (in Hitler's estimation) and they
would all fold much as the large but impotent Iraqi Army folded
in the face of American attacks in the Gulf Wars.

Furthermore, Hitler might well have considered that the British
and French would not have attacked him if he went on to attack
the Soviet Union instead of France. Certainly the British were
hostile to the USSR and became even more so after the Winter War.
But Chamberlain's government might well have adopted "a plague on
both your houses" attitude and stood back to watch two enemies
kill each other. The French would have been deeply alarmed, but
would they have acted without British support?

Alan

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