Meltyukhov was born in Moscow. In 1995, he defended the dissertation “Contemporary Historiography on Pre-history of the German-Soviet War” on historiography concerning the beginning of World War II. Since then, he has published several studies, many of which are notable for the critical review of the official Soviet conceptions of World War II. Some important works in this direction are On the Verge of the Great Patriotic War: the Debate Goes on and Stalin's Missed Chance and "Soviet-Polish Wars: Military and Political Standoff in 1918-1939". Meltyukhov also contributed to a recently published collection of articles on Viktor Suvorov's ideas. Meltyukhov supported some ideas of Suvorov in general but criticized him for inaccuracies. In his latest work, Stalin's Liberation Campaign, he deals with Joseph Stalin's attempts to re-gain 'lost territories' of the Russian empire, for example, Bessarabia. He presents a hypothesis that precisely at the time of Soviet occupation of Bessarabia did Adolf Hitler make the decision to invade the Soviet Union, because he realized that Red Army can quickly cut Germany off its oil reserves in Romania by a strike from Bessarabia. This thesis was put forward earlier by Viktor Suvorov who described Soviet preparations for the strike. An English version of some of his work has been published as "Disputes over 1941" by M I Mel'tiukhov in the series Russian studies in history.
Assessment
Criticism
Meltyukhov's Soviet-Polish Wars: Military and Political Confrontation in 1918-1939 was strongly criticized for bias and inaccuracies by journalist Peter Cheremushkin who works as a lecturer at Moscow State University and historian Andrzej Nowak of Jagiellonian University and Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences. According to Nowak, Mikhail Meltyukhov interprets Polish-Soviet conflicts as “fragments of eternal Western aggression against Russia.” Russia's aggressions “are presented as purely defensive postures”, thus presenting Soviet crimes in occupied Poland “as a ‘peacekeeping mission’” In his 2004 book Nowak lists in detail biases and inaccuracies concerning Polish-Russian relations in Meltyukhov's book, primarily pointing out that Poland is always portrayed as an aggressor and many instances of Russian aggression toward Poland are ignored.
Support
Meltyukhov's study Stalin's Missed Chance has also been valued positively for covering Soviet military plans before the outbreak of German-Soviet war in 1941, relying on documents that were previously inaccessible. While the theory that the Soviet leadership was indeed planning to strike Germany in 1941 remains disputed, Meltyukhov's data has been used by authors who do not support the Soviet assault plans thesis mentioned above. However, some reviewers who agree that the USSR intended to attack Germany, have also criticised Meltyukhov for including pro-Soviet views.
