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Watching TV shows or movies that display Russia as a military superpower is almost surreal nowadays.
(self.showerthoughts)
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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.