Were Stalin's suspicions of the west during ww2 justified?

I'm doing this question for my A2 coursework and wondered what you guys had to say on it.

It basically relates to the idea that the West delayed the second front, either to "bleed the Red army white" or save the lives of allied soldiers by expending those of russians. but if you think any other issues are related, please bring them up.
im balancing out both sides of the argument and i havnt quite come to a conclusion.

cheers

 

I myself believe Stalin's fears were grounded in the past actions of the west against the Soviet, and as such perhaps well founded in his mind, and with justificaiton.

That said, the west wasn't having it's borders crossed, nor fighting on it's own soil and the need to present a "second front" just to aid the Soviets wasn't very "immediate". Stalin had afterall, supplied the enemy with fuel, alloy metals, grain, and fiber while Britain stood alone and America wasn't in the battle.

To expect that all would be "forgiven" and the west come to the aid of the USSR when she needed help is a bit disingenuous. To ask the westen allies to cross the English Channel and attack Europe without proper preparation is flawed reasoning. The Nazis couldn't do it, and when the west finally did it we succeeded. The west succeeded in every large scale amphibous invasion it attempted against "Festung Europa". It was unsuccessful at Deipe, and that taught the west a hard lesson.

The west was perfectly happy to see the Soviets and the Nazis at each other's throats, and the expressions of many politicians of the time reflected it. But, that was perhaps tempered by the fact the Soviets had made the Nazi aggression in the west possible with Stalin's aid to Hitler's war machine.

Just a thought.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

I would add the Munich "appeasements" , that trasformed Hitler from an "empty" threat to a real one, to the motivations for the suspicions, the German war machine beneffitted a as much from from Czec factories than from Soviet goods.
Crazies like Patton, probably made enough noise to be heard in the Kremlin only after D-Day but then soviet intelligence was petty good and he was far from the only one to give voice to similar thoughts.
IMO Stalin had many good reasons not to trust the west, but there is no evidence the Allied timetable was influenced by what happened on the Eastern front either way.

 

Well both the Western allies and the Soviets did not trust each other they never did Pre-war because of the fact of they were a communist nation and they were viewed as a threat to their nations. That is also evident by the red scare in the post-ww1 era Red Scare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and in the post-ww2 era remember the cold war and also they never trusted each and the only reason why they worked to gather was because the existence of their countries(if this is the right term?) and communism depended on it.

 

It seems to stem from a letter given to Stalin promising a second front in 1942 which clearly was a rather daft thing to say. I can understand where Stalin was coming from, after all he was in deep do-do, the Red Army were far from ready to boot Germany off there land.

There is a book that covers this one...

World War Two: Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West

 

Indeed it was, based on the book.

 

Good point, I do wonder if the Western Allies made this clear to Stalin.

 

Long live Socialism/communism down with capitalism you greedy pigs.

I was kidding.

Even tho wasn't 70% of the German army destroyed by the Soviets??

 

"Delayed the second front" implies that the western Allies were capable of launching the cross-Channel assault and deliberately chose not to. I don't see any basis for believing that. The Americans in particular were eager to launch an invasion as soon as possible. The British were less so; but while we can debate their reasons, I don't any deliberate intent not to carry their share of the load.

While "second front" came to be synonymous with "cross-Channel invasion" in many minds both then and since, that's an oversimplification. It wasn't an "on-off" situation, where there was no second front at all until June 6, 1944 when Eisenhower flipped a switch and suddenly there was one. It would be more accurate to say that the western combat role, and the German commitment required to match it, steadily escalated throughout the period - which doesn't exclude the thought that it should have escalated more quickly.

 

of course,his suspicions were not justified:there was already a second front on june 1941(the Germans attacked the SU with less aircraft and artillery than in may 1940)

 

so none of you guys think there's anything in the theory that the west found it convenient to let the soviets bear the brunt of the war? either because it saved british and american lives or because (i don't personally believe this but its still interesting) they wanted the soviet union weakened by Germany.

a quote by truman in 1941 comes to mind,
“if we see than Germany is winning the war we should help Russia, and if Russia is winning we should help Germany and in that way let them kill as many as possible”.

 

I don't know if "convenient" is the proper term. The west (Britain and France) had been fighting the Nazis for twenty months while the USSR supplied them with goods with which to fight. It is difficult to wholeheartedly and with energy; "throw your support" behind a nation who has been helping your enemy with the tools to attack you. The USSR made a deal with a snake, the snake turned around and bit them. If Hitler and the Nazis hadn't turned on him, Stalin would probably have been just as pleased to supply Hitler with the tools and materials to keep the aggression in the west while he (Stalin) solidified his position.

While Truman's quote is all well and good, he was simply a little known Senator from Missouri in charge of a little known sub-committee investigating Defense Spending gouging practices at the time. He was still trying to keep American involvment at the minimum in human lives and tax dollars.

It was certainly practical and rational for America and the western allies to only apply themselves to the attack on Axis Europe when there was at least a chance of success. Moving the men, material, and transport across three thousand miles of ocean, dodging U-boats to build up supply is certainly not the same as driving a T-34 out the door and into battle on your own tuff. And don't forget, America had another little problem in the Pacific and the China theater to deal with as well.

The USSR had one enemy, on one thousand mile front, on their land (for the most part). Different problems entirely.