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Comment by 411111111111111 | Hacker News Reader

Another thing that's been mostly sweeped under the rug wrt WW2 is that Russia both did the most damage to the German army and paid the highest price.

America only started their offensive after Russia started winning and likely only wanted to deny them Europe. And the heavy casualties in the war likely caused Russia to fold on the cold war as well, there were just not enough able men after the war to create families with about 80% of the male population in their prime dead. That low birth rate circle continues to date.

The world would've been a very different place with the USSR still in power and indoctrinating europes youth for generations.

America likely did save the Democratic western Europe at that time, just not from Germany.

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No western democracy could have paid the human cost the USSR did. Arguably they only paid such a high price due to their industrial underdevelopment which was partly due to their economic and political system.

It's often said that the war was won with British intelligence, American steel, and Soviet blood.

>Arguably they only paid such a high price due to their industrial underdevelopment which was partly due to their economic and political system.

Very arguably, as it's actually the opposite: the socialism forced mass force industrialization, and prepared USSR better for WWII than Russia ever had any chance of being.

Well, technically the Tsardom is also a economic and political system.

Yes, it just wasn't a very effective one in comparison... In fact it was dying for decades before 1905 and finally 1917 put it out of its misery...

> their industrial underdevelopment which was partly due to their economic and political system

I'm sorry? They went from a peasant society immediately to defending against multiple foreign invasions (including the U.S.) to fighting and defeating the fascists, all in three decades. That was achievable only due to their economic and political system.

His intent was not to suggest that the USSR was always backwards, but rather that due to it's history the development was not undertaken until the war. The Tsars didn't do it because they were busy being feudal masters and the communists because they were nation building and hadn't faced the german onslaught yet. Atleast, that is how I understand it. His comment is not an underhanded insult.

> They went from a peasant society immediately to defending against multiple foreign invasions (including the U.S.) to fighting and defeating the fascists, all in three decades. That was achievable only due to their economic and political system.

This is old, debunked propaganda trope recited for a millionth time.

No, USSR never went to industrial giant overnight, for a reason it never been it. USSR relied on single digit of large factories for everything during the war.

Even tiny Eastern European countries USSR invaded were heads above USSR, to the point the first thing USSR did there were stealing all factory equipment, and relocating it to new factories in USSR.

For background consistent with the overall theme of this post, I'd strongly recommend Solzhenitsyn's "The Red Wheel" [0], and especially the first volume, "August 1914" (1984 edition).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Wheel

The USSR pay a high price because they suffered a massive, brutal invasion for years, against 80% of the German forces. None of that happened to the western countries.

> Arguably they only paid such a high price due to their industrial underdevelopment which was partly due to their economic and political system.

So arguably it had nothing to do with the largest war of all time waged against them explicitly for their annihilation?

Could you clarify what you mean with "economic and political system"? Do you count the Tsar's reign and the years of civil war under that heading?

Marshall Georgy Zhukov: "Today [1963] some say the Allies didn't really help us ... But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war."

Stalin himself is also reported to have said the Soviets couldn't have won the war without American aid, among other Soviet leaders.

Worth nothing that Russia was the 2nd largest recipient of American lend-lease (after the British), which started well before the Normandy landings. Yes they were in the unenviable position of the being German bullet sponges, but they couldn't have even done that without American supplies. So it's arguable the US did save Europe from Germany: 100% indirectly at first and more directly later.

Swept under the rug as well is the Luftwaffe secret training facilities in the Soviet Union (in circumvention if the Treaty of Versailles) and among other things the Soviet invasion of Poland 2 weeks after the Nazis.

The Soviet Union paid a very high price, but their hands were not clean.

True but the USSR was ally of Germany, two dictator states started world war two.

What history have you been reading?

I think it's a reference to this pact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...

Ha! Think we posted at same time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_P...

Also USSR pretty much annexed eastern Europe after the war, in a way they are the only country that won anything out of ww2.

The USSR and Germany concluded a non-aggression-pact in 1939 with a secret amendment to divide Poland and the Baltic states between themselves. This late became known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (or Hitler-Stalin-Pact, or Nazi-Soviet-Pact). With the Sowjet occupation of Bukovina in 1940 and definitely the German attack on the USSR ("Operation Barbarossa") in 1941, the pact was defunct.

In December of 1941, after Pearl Harbour, the US entered the war, and then you had the main combatants in place:

The allies with the USSR (Stalin), USA (Roosevelt), British Empire (Churchill), France (de Gaulle), Republic of China (Chiang Kai-Shek), against

The axis with Germany (Hitler), Italy (Mussolini), and Japan (Hirohito).

Russia did pay a massive cost for WW2, but they also paid a high cost due to: 1) their attempt to placate the Nazi’s with their non-aggression pact and attempt to avoid war (which they weren’t that prepared for), 2) the Great Purge in the late 30’s where they executed and imprisoned a massive number of experience officers, which they had to replace, 3) their tactics (no retreat) which resulted in massive encirclements and POWs who were starved to death.

Eventually the USSR learned and with support of the UK and US in terms of materiel turned into a formidable fighting force. But a decent amount of their casualties were somewhat self-imposed.

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