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In reply to the discussion: If Hitler hadn't attacked the USSR, would the USSR have maintained its secret pact with the Nazis? [View all]RZM
(8,556 posts)That's definitely in the David Murphy book mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Soviet battle plans called for an invasion to be halted at the borders and the war to be carried beyond Soviet territory immediately. An organized 'space for time' plan of retreat would have served them well, but they didn't really have one. One amazing thing about the Soviet war effort in WWII was that the massive movement of industrial equipment away from the Germans as they advanced in 1941 had not been planned for at all. They did it all completely on the fly.
There were even Soviet commanders who argued that the Red Army should strike preemptively as the Germans were building up their forces in the East.
It makes sense in the context of Russian history. One the ironies is that plenty of people (not saying you here) somehow believe the world's largest country is a perennial victim and target of invasion. In fact Russia has been one of the most successfully expansionist powers in all of human history. Up until the Crimean War in the 1850s, Russia was riding high on about 200 years of near constant military success.
Even the notion that that the Russians tricked Napoleon by allowing him to advance too far into Russia isn't entirely correct. They actually wanted a big battle early, but had trouble coordinating everything and getting enough troops in the right spot at the right time. That's one reason it took until September for Borodino to happen. I'm not saying the Russians haven't used space to their advantage, but it generally hasn't been 'Plan A.'