Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941

APPENDIX 1 Stalin’s Third Speech, May 5, 1941

“Permit me to make a correction. A peace policy keeps our nation at peace. A peace policy is a good thing. At one time or another we have followed a line based on defense. Up to now we have not re-equipped our army nor supplied it with modern weapons.

“But now that our army is undergoing reconstruction and we have become strong, it is necessary to shift from defense to offense.

“In providing the defense of our country, we must act in an offensist [nastupatel’nym] way. Our military policy must change from defense to waging offensive actions. We must endow our indoctrination, our propaganda and agitation, and our press with an offensist spirit. The Red Army is a modern army—a modern army that is an offensist army [nastupatel’-naya armiya].”

NOTE

This is from A. N. Yakovlev, ed., 1941 god. Dokumenty (Moscow: Mezhdunarodniy Fond “Demokratiya,” 1998), p. 162, my translation. The document’s editor notes that pursuant to Stalin’s speech before the graduates the Main Administration for Political Propaganda in the Red Army was ordered in the light of Stalin’s remarks to reconstruct its indoctrination along the lines of Stalin’s speeches. The new orders reproduced quotes from Lenin in which he emphasized the need for waging offensives. The editor further notes, following Stalin’s speeches to the graduates, there were changes in administrators throughout the whole system of propaganda and indoctrination in which such “hawkish” officials as A. A. Zhdanov and A. S. Shcherbakov were promoted in this area of party work. Stalin made Zhdanov his chief assistant in the Secretariat in charge of civilian and military propaganda. This was followed by a number of militant secret and public speeches by Zhdanov and Shcherbakov extolling offensism.