ABSTRACT
The 1930s was an ominous decade for the Soviet Union, Europe, and the world as a whole, particularly after 1935. Political, economic, and social changes had devastating consequences for a sizeable portion of the world. Soviet military strategy in the 1930s and up to June 1941 reacted to sharply alter international conditions in general and, specifically, to the emergence of potentially powerful military threats. The evolution of capitalism and European political in the 1930s, in the Soviet view, seemed to conform to V. I. Lenin predictions that internal contradictions within capitalism and capitalist hostility to socialism would sharpen. Throughout the 1930s Soviet interest in the theme of the initial period of war intensified. The theoretical work of Soviet military theorists found practical expression in Soviet war planning, exercises, and actual partial mobilizations conducted during the period 1936-1941. The German conquests in western and northern Europe in the spring of 1940 lent an air of urgency to subsequent Soviet war planning.
