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I'm talking about the military/food etc deliveries whilst the USSR was battling the Nazis during Barbarossa. Would they have eventually righted the ship on their own and driven the Germans from their territory and ended up in Berlin or would they have succumbed?
Don't ask us, ask Stalin:
"I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war, the most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war." (during toast to the US during Tehran conferance, 1943)
Or Khruschev:
"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me." (Khrushev memoirs)
There have been various thread over the past decade here on the History forum about this exact subject. The consensus is that the USSR would have beaten Nazi Germany, but it would have taken them a few more years to accomplish their goal.
The USSR manufactured its own weapons, tanks, artillery, planes, and ammunition. It refined its own oil. Its people, who suffered from famine during the 1930's, had already figured out how to survive on low food stocks.
Lend Lease didn't really get supplying the USSR until after the Soviets began pushing the German Wehrmacht back out of Russia. And the greatest contributions the USSR got from lend lease was about 2 million trucks to speed the Soviet war offensives, along with food supplies.
Don't ask us, ask Stalin:
"I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war, the most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war." (during toast to the US during Tehran conferance, 1943)
Or Khruschev:
"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me." (Khrushev memoirs)
I'd take what Stalin said in 1943 with a grain of salt. IMO, he was flattering his friend Franklin Roosevelt.
On the other hand, Khrushchev had no need to butter up the Americans.
It's interesting, how general diplomatic courtesy speech is considered solid political value. Ironic. Yet, the US had HUGE investments in the growing USSR economy. Ford, as one example.
It is even more ironic to put Khrushchev and Stalin into the same quote, as shoe striker was Stalin's about worst enemy and Trotskist. He was snake on Stalin's chest.
Anyhow. Where were Red Army troops, when the 2nd front was opened? Poland, closing on German boarder? Steamrolling German troops? Allies HAD TO open the 2nd Front to secure at least some Europe leftover or, Red Army would have stopped at the End of the World. It was more of the socialism spread deterrent, than fighting already dead enemy.
There have been various thread over the past decade here on the History forum about this exact subject. The consensus is that the USSR would have beaten Nazi Germany, but it would have taken them a few more years to accomplish their goal.
The USSR manufactured its own weapons, tanks, artillery, planes, and ammunition. It refined its own oil. Its people, who suffered from famine during the 1930's, had already figured out how to survive on low food stocks.
Lend Lease didn't really get supplying the USSR until after the Soviets began pushing the German Wehrmacht back out of Russia. And the greatest contributions the USSR got from lend lease was about 2 million trucks to speed the Soviet war offensives, along with food supplies.
The people had already figured out how to survive on low food stocks? So many people in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) were dying of starvation and starvation-related illness, that bodies had to be bulldozed into mass graves stretching for blocks. (They're still there, and there's a memorial hall on the site, with photos of the times, in case any history buffs might be interested in actually visiting and seeing it.) The country was having trouble getting food to its troops, the troops were ill-equipped to withstand the winter conditions, and lacked training. Rumor has it, that generals back in Moscow were making poor decisions, being out of touch with the true conditions on the front.
What Russia had going for it was the sheer determination of the populace, plus a population that was used to Russian winters, which the Germans were not. Whether those two things would have been enough for them to win on their own, I'm not qualified to say. I'm not sure anyone is. These threads about second-guessing history and "what if", always seem so speculative to me, as to be pointless. But I guess for some, it's kind of fun to bat around some ideas.
It's interesting, how general diplomatic courtesy speech is considered solid political value. Ironic. Yet, the US had HUGE investments in the growing USSR economy. Ford, as one example.
It is even more ironic to put Khrushchev and Stalin into the same quote, as shoe striker was Stalin's about worst enemy and Trotskist. He was snake on Stalin's chest.
Anyhow. Where were Red Army troops, when the 2nd front was opened? Poland, closing on German boarder? Steamrolling German troops? Allies HAD TO open the 2nd Front to secure at least some Europe leftover or, Red Army would have stopped at the End of the World. It was more of the socialism spread deterrent, than fighting already dead enemy.
. "Shoe-banger", in English. I've always wondered how the folks at home reacted to that (if those scenes were shown at all). What's the general opinion of it now?
What Russia had going for it was the sheer determination of the populace, plus a population that was used to Russian winters, which the Germans were not. Whether those two things would have been enough for them to win on their own, I'm not qualified to say. I'm not sure anyone is. These threads about second-guessing history and "what if", always seem so speculative to me, as to be pointless. But I guess for some, it's kind of fun to bat around some ideas.
No, what Russia had going for it was territory, lots of territory to retreat and fall back on, along with the brutal strategy to torch everything of value that the enemy could use as it's Army fell back. Winter was not really the key factor, only a contributor to the difficulty of logistics and supply. Hitler's Wehrmacht was already running low on supplies in November 1941, before the arrival of winter.
The determination of the populace was really the determination of the government to trade blood and lives for time. Those troops who resisted the thought of being cannon fodder were executed outright, by Russian security troops just behind the front lines. But in terms of supply, Russia could continuously fall back all the way to the Urals and into Asia, while German supply lines grew longer and longer. No need to surrender, just keep on shoving soldiers into the meat grinder, just keep on falling back, until Germany wore itself out, then counterattack. Napoleon learned this as well, occupy Moscow and then what? Russia still would not surrender.
Well Russia has plenty of fire wood, and fresh water despite US aid since Russia is filled with rivers, and snow in the winter. I imagine food be harder to purview as the growing season is short. The long winters probably makes difficult to mine for raw materials.
But even before the war, the Sovs made great strides in industrialization. They had two towns Magnitogorsk, and Omsk set up behind the Urals strictly for industry that the Germans cannot reach.
By 1932 Sovs already have more tanks than Germany, and UK combined.
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