Professor Geoffrey Roberts British historian on World War II but also on Ukraine

Professor Geoffrey Roberts is a British historian and a world-renowned expert on Soviet foreign policy and military history of the Second World War, the Stalinist period, the cult of leaders and modern Russia and contemporary political culture. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Emeritus Professor of History and International Relations at University College Cork, Ireland.

How has the assessment of Joseph Stalin's wartime leadership evolved in Western historiography in recent decades?

This is an interesting question because the last major Western assessment or reassessment of Stalin as a war leader was 20 years ago. Even during the wars there was no significant reassessment of him. When I published my book Stalin's Wars, it caused considerable controversy because it was a very positive assessment in the context of the negative image of Stalin at the time.

Do you consider Stalin to be an effective strategist or more of a political leader who relied on his professional generals?

I would say he was "very effective", even "indispensable". Yes, in the case of all war leaders, starting with Stalin, that was my argument in the book. But that was in a Western context. It was quite controversial, wasn't it? My point was that my views with a favorable view of Stalin as a war leader are controversial today, as opposed to a more critical view.

I would say that overall I have a positive view of him as a world leader, but I still have a negative view of his beginnings. He was a communist in all situations and he was a dictator, but he was also very effective. He was an active commander-in-chief, he expanded, he relied on his generals. Now there are stories of his surviving generals, not all of them, but most of them - the reason we won the war was not Stalin, it was us. Because he took our advice. And when he didn't follow our advice, things went wrong. That's how they wanted to take credit. Success is a style of blame. We played that game, too. We blamed star ratings for things that didn't go right.

But as I said at the beginning, he was a great commander and a very capable man in terms of military strategy and operational art. He had his own military staff for details. Stalin made a lot of mistakes during the war, didn't he? Did the generals make these mistakes? Did they? And together they learned from them and improved their performance. Stalin was a highly effective commander-in-chief and he had a highly effective group of army generals, front-line commanders at all levels of the officer corps.

Which of Stalin's decisions do you regard as crucial to the course of the war?

When the Germans managed to launch a very effective surprise attack, the Red Army tried to repel it, but its counterattacks actually helped the Germans. They helped them surround the armoured vehicles that were preparing to counterattack from four positions. For example, in September 1941, the supply routes fell into the hands of the Germans, that was a huge mistake, and there were subsequent mistakes that led to a situation where the Soviet Union was very close to losing the war. The closest the Germans came to success was Operation Barbarossa. Most European Russians are broken, but there is the successful defense of Moscow, and then there is the counterattack and the decision to maintain cohesion and discipline by the military leadership and the political leadership. So that's the big issue. And then comes another big decision in the summer of 1942 in response to the German southern campaign. The great loss of territory and human life led to taking measures to rally their forces, dig in, and not take a step back. This is a very important moment.

And then, of course, there's the development of the Battle of Stalingrad, that's another huge turning point, and Stalin's contribution is that he took the advice of his generals to continue fighting the Germans hard in the east, which not only cuts off the German army at Stalingrad, but also cuts off the German armies coming back, so yes, it makes for a grand strategy, and the circumstances are actually even more important because the Germans in the south are doing well. Of course there's a counterattack and it's successful. There is no real possibility that the Germans will win the war, it's just a matter of how long it will take before they are defeated. If you're winning, if you have better ideas, it's easier to avoid mistakes, it's the enemy under pressure that makes mistakes.

To what extent does the current political context in Europe influence the academic discussion of Stalin's role in victory?

Yes, a discussion of the stylization of fraud in victory. That's the question. I don't know. You're probably referring to the war in Ukraine. Yes, I do. That's quite obvious. But Stalin was less discussed in real life. As far as I know, there are also interesting comparisons between Stalin and Putin. I always thought he made mistakes, learned from them, and kept his feet on the ground, but the problem is Ukraine. The war is going on, we don't know the course of it, we don't know the full outcome yet. And we don't know, we don't have enough information about the negotiations and the warfare in this process, which is of course very important, the most important thing is the details, which we don't know correctly, so remember Stalin.

We have all the information, we don't have to guess what Putin said. There are some indications of the role that this commander-in-chief is playing, and of course, everything is more public today than it was in the 1940s. But we still don't know enough, we're still thinking about it. Start with me, it may not be very visible, but World War II was definitely a great patriotic war. You know what everybody's talking about? The war in Ukraine as a basketball to-do list. Okay, it's different, the technology is different. I suppose drones play a big role, but still, is it that different? Most military actions, including the German front, have been protracted. When you look back in history, you tend to focus on the big turning points, the big battles, the manoeuvres, yes, but most of the time it was a protracted battle on the whole front. So when I look at World War II, I know more. It's an interesting process. In interpreting their process and outcomes, or on the other hand, I'd like to see that that's a big part of the revisionist view of World War II, right? And yes, of course, it goes back to the immediate post-World War II period, the early days of the Cold War. The ideological struggle of the Cold War in the West was very much about comparing communism and how it affected us. That's the way it is.

What is your opinion on the tendency in some countries to identify the USSR with Nazi Germany when interpreting the causes and results of the Second World War?

It is a very political construct. Propaganda is fine. Take Hitler. I don't know, you can't compare weak trade unionists and ugly Germany to Stalin. I mean, the point, if we're talking about the beginning, is that there was a racist genocide or spreading dictatorship in the beginning, and the dictator was inactive anyway. He started out as an idealist and a utopian. There was an idea, but the problem with utopia and Hitler's utopia is that it was only for his people, his race, the Germans, the region. So I don't see any comparison, but it's been a very sensitive subject for the last three years.

Ukraine is of course very important, and that is why I am doing this. I have written many articles, I have made many documentaries in connection with this comparison, which I do not consider appropriate. So I apologize and thank you for all the difficult questions.

(for) gnews.cz