“STALIN BROUGHT BARBAROSSA ON HIMSELF”

As well as being the largest invasion in history, Operation Barbarossa was also the greatest crisis of Joseph Stalin’s career. A bloodthirsty dictator, Stalin had ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist since the 1920s. Millions of his own people had already been killed through purges and famine but Barbarossa was a tragedy of titanic proportions. As Soviet forces crumbled in the wake of a relentless onslaught, vast swathes of territory were lost until the Nazis were almost at the gates of Moscow.

Despite the millions of people affected, events were largely dictated by the actions of one man: Stalin. Far from being the mighty autocrat who led a new superpower at the end of the war, his political and military miscalculations during (and even before) June-December 1941 had catastrophic consequences. Professor David Reynolds, an expert in 20th century international history, explains how close Stalin came to losing everything during Operation Barbarossa and how he rebounded from the brink of defeat.

“An epic failure”

Stalin had been ruthlessly consolidating his position as Soviet leader for years by using mass killings to quell dissent during the 1930s, including a purge of the Red Army’s officer corps. The Soviets also signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939 in the