There might be some responsibility that the Russians share for the outbreak of WWII, but really, this was a war of Hitler's own design.
Under what government?
https://www.feldgrau.com/WW2-German-Military-Soviet-Union/
https://www.historynet.com/devils-bargain-germany-and-russia...
https://warontherocks.com/2016/06/sowing-the-wind-the-first-...
Exactly, it's a real shame, Russia had the biggest sacrifices and the West just pats his own back.
Another factor is; a lot of senior (and sometimes non-senior) officers were comissioned after the war to write memoirs and histories - these were at best personal views and at worst outright biased. Because of secrecy (which the cold war didn't help remove) these were often the only reference material for 20th century historians.
A great example is a lot of the work on deception during WW2 (one of my pet subjects). Early works were heavily redacted and biased, and later seemingly scholarly works by real historians have since been shown to be simply parroting a lot of that misinformation. It is only in the last 5-10 years as material has been declassified that the truth begins to emerge.
It also colonised half of Europe, gaining huge amounts of territory that would have been totally unthinkable ten years previously.
The post WWII settlement for russia was spectacular.
It's also interesting that the Soviet Union would probably not have been able to put up such a fight without the massive shipments of aid from the US - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Corridor
If you look at the amount of material, technology, and cost the German had to spend on the air war, air defense, u-boat war and fighting on a different continent. This type of fighting doesn't kill as many people but its very important. Without the Western Allied efforts Soviet Union had basically no way to effect German economy at all.
And one of the single most important points that is often ignored is the economic blockade of Germany that started in 1939. This was a massive issue for Germany.
Overall is far, far more then 20% any way you measure it other then casualties.
And that is without even mentioning that literally from the moment the German invasion of the Soviet Union started Britain was sending them important war material and eventually the Soviets received massive amounts from Western allies that massively helped them to actually win the war.
Britain even sent ships full of the most advanced fighter aircraft that were planned for the defense of Singapore, poor choice there Britain.
> People assume Nagasaki and Hiroshima convinced Japan to surrender, but it was actually the (surprise) Russian declaration of war...
This is often claimed but its simply false. Japan hoped the Soviets could help them make a deal and once they declared war, Japan understood that there was no deal to be had. What Soviet joining of the war did was to convince the last few people in the war part that conditional surrender was not possible.
It was the US nukes that convinced them that surrender was inevitable and in response to the nukes the emperor formally asked by the war council to give his opinion.
I'm all for questioning national myths, but many people are simply willing to believe anything as long as it goes against the national myth because they are so sick of hearing.
Edit: And I'm European not American, this is just my study of WW2 history
That is still a huge discussion in Historian Circles and NOT a Fact.
https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/education/008/expertclips/01...
However, many of those people then didn't actually follow threw with this, as even after Soviet Union joined some in the war council still didn't want to surrender.
What actually changed the situation in the war council was Hirohito coming out with a clear message, and he did not want to see Japan wiped out. Even then, some in the war council were still against surrender but they followed orders from the Emperor.
The people who believe nuclear weapons had nothing to do with the surrender always underestimate or ignore the opinion of the Emperor and simply put it as an 'excuse' rather then his actual opinion. His decision to come out with a clear opinion, against tradition, was not because the Soviets rolled up some Japanese armies in a far away land but rather what was happening to his subjects. That makes way more sense.
If you want to call it an 'excuse' then that fine also, but even so, a war its over then the other side admits its over. The war had been military decided for years, if it took nukes to give them an 'excuse' and allowed the emperor to make a statement then that is still the effect of that weapon.
>…The Soviet Union’s declaration of war, on the other hand, fundamentally altered the strategic situation. Adding another great power to the war created insoluble military problems for Japan’s leaders. It might be possible to fight against one great power attacking from one direction, but anyone could see that Japan couldn’t defend against two great powers attacking from two different directions at once.
Trying to call the Soviet Union at the end of WW II, a great power that could attack from a different direction is bizarre.
The few navy vessels that the USSR had that would be useful in an amphibious landing were ones given to it by the USA as part of Project Hula. The Soviet Union was not a threat to Japan at the end of WW II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula
Compare that to what the rest of the allies were planning on:
>...Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyūshū, was to begin on "X-Day", which was scheduled for 1 November 1945. The combined Allied naval armada would have been the largest ever assembled, including 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts. Fourteen U.S. "division-equivalents" (13 divisions and two regimental combat teams)[28] were scheduled to take part in the initial landings.
and if that armada wasn't enough:
>...Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "[p]lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops.
The invasion of Honshu would have been even more devastating:
>…Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu at the Kantō Plain south of the capital, was to begin on "Y-Day", which was tentatively scheduled for 1 March 1946.[33] Coronet would have been even larger than Olympic, with up to 40 divisions earmarked for both the initial landing and follow-up.[34] (The Overlord invasion of Normandy, by comparison, deployed 12 divisions in the initial landings.) In the initial stage, the First Army would have invaded at Kujūkuri Beach, on the Bōsō Peninsula, while Eighth Army invaded at Hiratsuka, on Sagami Bay.[35] Later, a follow-up force of up to 12 additional divisions of the Tenth Army and British Commonwealth Corps would be landed as reinforcements.[36] The Allied forces would then have driven north and inland, meeting at Tokyo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
There is really no comparison.
The millions upon millions of lives that were wasted by russia is a utter tragedy.
> but it was actually the (surprise) Russian declaration of war...
its really not clear cut like that though is it? The timeline really doesn't back this up.
>According to the Russian historian Boris Vadimovich Sokolov, Lend-Lease had a crucial role in winning the war:
>On the whole the following conclusion can be drawn: that without these Western shipments under Lend-Lease the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, it would not have been able even to oppose the German invaders, since it could not itself produce sufficient quantities of arms and military equipment or adequate supplies of fuel and ammunition. The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. Thus, Stalin told Harry Hopkins [FDR's emissary to Moscow in July 1941] that the U.S.S.R. could not match Germany's might as an occupier of Europe and its resources.
Nikita Khrushchev made the same point in his memoirs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
(Or for that matter how would the events of WW II have been different without the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact?)
>...People assume Nagasaki and Hiroshima convinced Japan to surrender, but it was actually the (surprise) Russian declaration of war...
The Soviet Union did not have the amphibious capability to invade Hokkaido. Though before the declaration, Japan still had hopes the Soviet Union would help broker a peace agreement. Knowing no one was going to help them negotiate with the allies, the emperor knew they had to surrender and as the emperor said:
>...Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
On the other hand, one could argue that 50% of starting WW II was Russia.
“Nikita Khrushchev, having served as a military commissar and intermediary between Stalin and his generals during the war, addressed directly the significance of Lend-lease aid in his memoirs:
I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin's views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war.”
So that puts a bit of a stain on their efforts. As much as their soldiers fought and died bravely, a modern war without modern equipment is hopeless. That's how they broke through at Stalingrad: they attacked the flanks occupied by Romanians, who also fought and died bravely, but without good equipment, especially anti tank equipment.
So in the end, it was still a joint effort.