Icebreaker (Suvorov)
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Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? (ISBN 0241126223; Viking Press/Hamish Hamilton; 1990) - by Viktor Suvorov (Russian title: Ledokol, Ледокол) is a documentary book, which alleges that the World War II started as a result of Joseph Stalin's ploy to "liberate" the working class of Europe and eventually of the whole world. According to Stalin's History of VKP(b). A Brief Course, the only way to eliminate being "surrounded by the enemies", i.e., by capitalist countries, was to replace them with ideologically friendly countries. This had been proven to be not just an academic theory: five nations were "liberated" and became new Soviet republics while WWII raged in Western Europe.
The communist theory considers wartime to be favorable for the victory of communism, since a war "sharpens class contradictions". The war in Europe was seen favorable for the communist cause, because it was to weaken the imperialist powers. The book alleges that Stalin devised a plan to use an 'icebreaker' who would first take over Europe. The Red Army would come later as a liberation force bringing Communism with it. It would be welcomed because its cause would be clearly just.
The book tries to show how Stalin helped Adolf Hitler to gain and maintain power, and how he prepared Soviet armed forces for an offensive war. The reason why World War II took a different course was, according to Suvorov, because Hitler, scared by endangerment of Romanian oil fields, invaded the USSR two weeks earlier than Stalin planned to invade Germany.
Suvorov's thesis that the Soviet invasion had been imminent is not shared by most historians, see Viktor Suvorov article for more information about this controversy.
External link
- Online books of Viktor Suvorov (mostly in Russian) (http://lib.ru/WSUWOROW/)