Discuss @The Red 's latest article here
Stalin's ability to shut his eyes and stopper his ears to things he didn't want to believe were true was truely astounding.
It was a particularly convoluted feat of mental gymnastics, involving both head-in-the-sand denialism that went on into the first hours of the invasion combined with an obsession that because the German attack could theoretically be postponed that it would be delayed if the Soviets went out of their way to make peace more attractive. What made things worse was that Soviet intelligence were wary of actively refuting Stalin on this and so were more likely to mark evidence backing him up as 'trustworthy' and the great weight of evidence to the contrary as 'doubtful' so Stalin felt that he wasn't alone in believing that appeasement would work so long as provocations could be avoided.
There's a great quote about how 'every bird was tweeting that the invasion was coming' or something like that.
Another fine article, Paul. Don't have much to say that hasn't alredy been said, but a good read.
The new bit of information for me was Stalin sending vast shipments of supplies to the Reich without either request or payment.
Madness.