ABSTRACT
Stalin was modest in his triumph. In the meantime the Third Reich had made fresh demands for the delivery of raw materials, and had repeated its protests against the delays in the execution of the agreements already concluded. At the beginning of May the ruler's 'personal network' fixed a date for the German attack upon the USSR. It would take place at the end of the month. Stalin then took a step of undeniable significance. The Russian campaign was thus begun under the most unfavourable conditions for the USSR. The country and Stalin were to pass through a terrible ordeal. He announced that the Superior Council of Defence, over which he presided, had assumed full powers, and he called upon the peoples of the USSR. to rally round the party of Lenin and Stalin, round the Soviet fatherland. It was not by chance that in these critical circumstances the customary epithet of 'Socialist' was omitted.
