 Historians have debated whether Stalin was planning an invasion of German territory in the summer of 1941 . The debate began in the late 1980s when Viktor Suvorov published a journal article and later the book Icebreaker in which he stated that Stalin had seen the outbreak of war in western Europe as an opportunity to spread communist revolutions throughout the continent , and that the Soviet military was being deployed for an imminent attack at the time of the German invasion . This view had also been advanced by former German generals following the war . Suvorov 's thesis was fully or partially accepted by some historians , including Valeri Danilov , Joachim Hoffmann , Mikhail Meltyukhov and Vladimir Nevezhin , and attracted public attention in Germany , Israel and Russia . However , it has been strongly rejected by most historians of this period , and Icebreaker is generally considered to be an " anti @-@ Soviet tract " in western countries . David Glantz and Gabriel Gorodetsky wrote books to rebut Suvorov 's arguments , and most historians believe that Stalin was seeking to avoid war in 1941 as he believed that his military was not ready to fight the German forces . 
