Viktor Suvorov, author of over a dozen books on the inner workings of the Soviet military apparatus, from the Red Army to the Spetsnaz, put forward the earth shattering thesis in his work ‘Icebreaker’ that Hitler’s invasion of the USSR in 1941 was a pre-emptive strike designed to cut the legs out from under a Russian military machine that was gearing up to invade Europe and then the world.