What Stalin Knew

What Stalin Knew by David E. Murphy

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‘‘Lithuanian Legion.’’ Predicting the Germans’ imminent
    invasion of the USSR, it set as its goal to ‘‘create an uprising in the rear of
    the Red Army and engage in diversionary and subversive activity, destroy-
    ing bridges and rail lines and disrupting communications.’’ An NKGB re-
    port of June 10 dealt with a ‘‘Guard for the Defense of Lithuania’’ that
    sought to unify Lithuanians around the idea of an independent Lithuania.
    The group instructed its members that the signal for a national uprising
    would be the moment Germany crossed the frontier of the Lithuanian
    SSR; its tasks would include ‘‘the arrest of commissars and communist
    activists, seizure of Communist Party centers without destruction of their
    archives, stopping deportations, rendering rail lines and highways in the
    rear of Soviet troops unusable, and finally, in the event of assistance by the
    Lithuanian corps [of the Red Army], disarming Soviet troops and creating
    panic.’’ Another report on the Guard and on the so-called Diversionists was
    sent to Moscow by a USSR NKGB operational group working in Lithu-
    ania; it described them as prepared to lend armed support to German
    troops invading the USSR. The Lithuanian NKGB hoped to arrest twenty-
    four members of these organizations and asked Moscow to send a group of
    ‘‘qualified interrogators.’’ Wonder if they made it before June 22?33
    Theater Infrastructure and Fortified Areas
    It was not only the hostility of the populations of the areas absorbed by
    the Soviet Union in 1939–40 that would create problems for the Red Army.
    It was also the absence of a well-developed military infrastructure of the
    type that had existed along the old frontier. Meeting the needs of a fully
    The Partition of Eastern Europe
    FINLAND
    N
    Tallinn
    Leningrad
    EST
    ES ONIA
    TO
    EST NIA
    ONIA
    SWEDEN
    SWEDEN
    SWEDEN
    Occupied b
    Occupied y
    b
    Occupied b
    Russia 1940
    Russia 1940
    Russia 1940
    A
    E
    Pskov
    S
    Riga
    C
    I
    T
    LA
    L TVIA
    AT
    LA VIA
    TVIA
    L
    A
    Occupied b
    Occupied y
    b
    Occupied b Russia 1940
    y
    y Russia 1940
    Russia 1940
    B
    LITHU
    LITH ANIA
    UA
    LITHU NIA
    ANIA
    Occupied b
    Occupied y
    b
    Occupied b Russia 1940
    y
    y Russia 1940
    Russia 1940
    Königsberg
    Vilnius
    Vilnius
    Danzig
    Danzig
    Vilnius
    Danzig
    EAST
    EAST
    EAST
    PR
    P USSIA
    RU
    PR SSIA
    USSIA
    Minsk
    R. Neman
    R. Nema
    BELORUSSIA
    German-So
    German-S viet
    ov
    German-So iet
    viet
    Poznan
    Po
    P znan
    oznan
    demar
    dema cation line
    rc
    demar ation line
    cation line
    R.Vi
    V stula
    Sept.
    Sept 8,
    .
    Sept. 8 1939
    ,
    8, 1939
    1939
    U . S . S . R .
    G E R M A N Y
    Kutno
    Ku
    K tno
    utno
    Warsa
    Wa
    W rs w
    a
    arsa
    Br
    B est-Liv
    re
    Br st-Li otsk
    vo
    est-Liv tsk
    Lodz
    Lodz
    otsk
    Lodz
    German-Soviet
    Nonaggression
    P
    O
    L
    A
    N
    D
    Pact
    August 23, 1939
    Lublin
    Lublin
    Lublin
    G O V E R N M E N T
    G E N E R A L
    Craco
    Crac w
    o
    Craco
    PR
    P O
    R
    PR TECT
    OT
    O EC ORA
    TO
    TECT R TE OF
    AT
    ORA E OF
    TE OF
    BOHEMIA
    BOHEMIA
    BOHEMIA - MORA
    MOR VIA
    AV
    MORA IA
    VIA
    Lv
    L o
    v
    Lv v
    o
    SLOVAKIA
    M
    O
    NOR
    NO THERN
    RT
    NOR HERN
    THERN
    L
    BUK
    BU O
    K
    BUK VINA
    OV
    O INA
    VINA
    D
    HUNGARY
    A
    B
    Transylvania to
    Tr
    T ansylvania to
    ransylvania to
    E
    V
    Hungar
    Hungar
    Hungary 1940
    y 1940
    y 1940
    S
    I
    S
    R
    A
    A
    .
    R
    D
    A
    nie
    B
    s
    I
    tse
    A
    re
    YUGOSLAVIA
    ROMANIA
    0
    50 100 150 200 km
    Bucharest
    0
    50
    100 mi
    R
    BLACK
    . Danube
    SEA
    BULGARIA
    BULGARIA
    BULGARIA
    SOVIET BORDERS MOVE WESTWARD
    43
    mobilized army meant improving roads, rail lines, and telecommunica-
    tions and constructing airfields, firing ranges, barracks, repair shops, hos-
    pitals, warehouses, fuel storage tanks, and so on. At enormous expense,
    work on these facilities went on intermittently all during the 1930s in the
    Kiev and Belorussian Special Military Districts and also in the Far East,
    reflecting concern with Germany and Japan as potential adversaries. With
    the territorial expansion of 1939–40, Soviet

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