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Watching TV shows or movies that display Russia as a military superpower is almost surreal nowadays.
(self.showerthoughts)
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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That wasn't Russia, it was the Soviet Union.
Also it was very stupid, ineffective and had allies.
This is such a popular misconception I really don't understand. Russia was so entirely dependant on the US for their logistics in WW2 it's shocking how little it's talked about. They were supplied American food and trucks in mass. Without the help of American supplies Hitler would of beaten Russia. They only held out as long as they did due to poor Nazi strategy, luck and mountains of dead bodies. Then once the Western front was more of a threat the Russians were able to surge forward with their mass of bodies and utter disregard for casualties.
The Russian army has always been a joke. Brutality and lack of regard for human life is their strength. Theyre like the big dumb fat kid who bullies people in school. You get in a real fight with em and it quickly becomes obvious they haven't ever done cardio (logistics, supplies) and there's very little muscle mass (technology) hiding behind the fat layer (overblown specs and lies about capabilities).
Several docs over the years I've seen and could probably never find again mentioned it. But here's some numbers that paint a pretty good picture of how much assistance the USSR required. Between 41-45:
400,000 jeeps & trucks 14,000 airplanes 8,000 tractors 13,000 tanks 1.5 million blankets 15 million pairs of army boots 107,000 tons of cotton 2.7 million tons of petrol products 4.5 million tons of food
https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/
Russia would of never been able to defeat the Nazis without basically being subsidized by the US. They were so bad at industrialization in this time period they would pay Americans to build factories for them because they couldn't figure it out. Not to mentions their poorly planned info structure also had a lot of important factories too vulnerable/far west to where they were destroyed early on.
USSR/Russia has always been a shit show economically. Economics is more my point interest, wartime economies are fascinating. I get that nukes are scary but I don't understand how we made the USSR such a Boogeyman for the cold war. They were like a ponzi scheme of an economy. The US was well aware of how disfunctional they were in WW2 and how much help they needed. The second it ended we somehow forgot.
Well technically the Soviet Union but you could try starting with operation Bagration and the battle of Berlin
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It's not reading material, but WWII In Color is an amazing documentary that covers the entire war, all fronts, all nations, and most major battles. It also covers the Holocaust and concentration camps, which is a horrific nightmare to see with your own eyes.
The USSR that was massively propped up and kept in the fight thanks to the absurd volume of war materiel being pumped in by Britain and America?
A general disregard for numbers of casualties, an almost complete lack of maintenance capability for heavy vehicles, and unimaginative tactics relying primarily on overwhelming numbers and firepower might have ground down the resource starved Nazis, but it would have been a very different story against the Allies.
The Russians didn't defeat the Nazis, they stopped their advance. While this was critical for the eventual defeat of the Nazis, it is not the same thing. The Nazis were defending against advances from Allied forces along 3 flanks, while stopped-dead against the 4th in Russia. The Russians also lost 1.5 million people in the battle for Lennongrad and were almost out of supplies. The wouldn't budge because it was their absolute last stand. By the end of that battle Russian soldiers were reporting to the lines without weapons or boots, and picking up both from the guy in front of them when he was killed. It was a horrific nightmare of a situation. It was a critical victory against the Nazis, but not their ultimate defeat. The Nazis were defeated when the western forces advanced on Berlin and Hitler killed himself rather than be captured.
I would like to make one correction. Berlin didn't fall because the Western forces captured it, but it was in fact the Red Army that got there first. This of course doesn't change the fact that the Soviets never would have managed it by themselves, but this is the reason why claiming "the Soviets defeated the Nazis" is technically true.
Getting there first means you get credit for winning the whole war?
They were on the winning side, so they did win the whole war. But as I said, they didn't do it alone nor would they ever have been able to win without all the help they received from everyone else fighting the Nazis at the same time. I don't think current events should be a reason to see history differently. The Soviets were a powerful war machine during WWII and their contribution played a huge role in the outcome of that war.
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Thanks for the correction. It's crazy how many countries were required to defeat the Germans in WWII.