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I didn't find the original article that I had read concerning Soviet plans to invade Germany prior to Barbarossa, but here is an article that sums-up all the revisionist writing, mostly eminating from the former Soviet Union. It's cross-referenced & footnoted, so it should offer some access to the original works. Click here.

Stalin was certainly unrealistic about the capabilities of the Soviet Army of 1941, but then is that so hard to believe from a dictator who didn't welcome a contrarian point-of-view?

Tallguy, thank you for the link. I've been pondering how to reply to your post and the link to the "revisionists."

Having perused the article, there is much that I am agreement with the so called revisionists, as stated by Strauss: in the 20's and 30's the USSR was considered the pariah of the modern world. Indeed, in my opinion, among the modern world, the USSR probably had better relations with the United States during the terms of Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Both of these administrations were very pro socialist. President Hoover's assessment strikes me as true about the FDR administration being pro soviet.

Where I digress with the revisionists is that Stalin had plans for offensive operations before the German invasion. I do believe that Stalin would exploit the war in the west to expand soviet power, but realistically, you do not decimate your army up to 4 years before contemplated offensive operations as Stalin did.

Had Stalin had intentions of offensive operations, he would have done the following: used more secure codes for communications (he did not), not purged his generals, not allowed his air force to be destroyed on the ground, allowed the red army to actively develop offensive operational doctrine of combined arms, and given army commanders more trust by not relying on the political commissars. As proof of my contention, i ask you: when did the red army develop its offensive operational doctrine? The answer is after operation Barbarossa, and the cost was millions of lives lost learning the doctrine (on live fire two way ranges). I think what they revisionists en masse fail to state is that Stalin was a psychopath, even more dangerous than Hitler. Yes, they accurately give the numbers of the red terror, but they don't seem to discuss how every remotely potential threat to Stalin's hold on power was liquidated (to use the soviet term).

Yes, the revisionists are correct imho that Hitler was compelled more by his own foolish propaganda to execute operation Barbarossa more so than any kind of military necessity. Militarily, that one decision doomed his regime; most military history people agree on that point.

Yet, ironically, western historians are pretty much ignorant how paranoid, evil, and brutal Stalin was. I think this is because the victors in the war wrote the history books, FDR was the U.S. president, and many of the historians have socialist sympathies.