Did the Soviet Union win WW2 alone?

did the Soviet Union win World War II on its own a controversial question today brought to you by my Patron John Weatherby who has said not so much of a question but I have noticed commie Boos starting to use the USSR won World War II or thank communism for Hitler not winning while I don't want to underrate the Soviet effort this is just pure propaganda they ignore the role the USSR played in helping start the war by securing Germany's Eastern flank in exchange for part of Poland they hoped to take Finland and got the Baltic states and a slice of Romania it seems like disingenuous propaganda for Stalin to start the war then claim Stalin won the war they have some true facts like the Soviets lost the most people still I have my doubts if the Polish Invasion happens in 1939 if not for the molotov on ribbon drop pact saying you won't have a two-front war and the start of trade agreements in which the USSR would bypass the blockages buying rubber from India for Germany and and sending them a bunch of food and oil I was just wondering if you have thoughts on this it seems like propaganda to just say the Soviets won the war implying they didn't need help and ignoring they played a significant role in creating the problem of a strong Germany that threatened all of Europe it seems like a Putin trig of let me create a problem then take credit for solving it that is exactly what all politicians do now I'm not here to slam the Russians just for the sake of it or promote the Western allies or anything like that for me this is not a chess beating exercise because I'm not a nationalist and I don't care about who's better than who my objective here is to be as respectful as possible to everyone whilst also challenging people's thinking and it's interesting that Jon brings up Putin because a few years ago it was Putin who was pushing this pro-soviet narrative the hardest and there are several newspaper articles from 2015 the 70th anniversary of the victory in Europe which all said that yeah the Soviet Union won the war The Washington Post ran with this headline don't forget how the Soviet Union saved the will from Hitler yeah you see the problem with this title is that it implies that it was the Soviet Union that saved the world alone and that nobody else did anything you British American Canadian Indian Australian New Zealand South African French polish Czech Greeks and many other people did absolutely nothing it was the Soviets to save the world bro you guys were do it sat there doing nothing so why don't you just bow down to Communism right and in the article itself it says in the western popular imagination particularly the American One World War II is a conflict we won but that narrative shifts dramatically when you go to Russia well World War II is called the Great Patriotic War and is Remembered in a vastly different light yes it's not a World War to the Russians it was a Russian war against the Nazis the rest of the world doesn't matter so even back then this narrative was the one that was being pushed it's wartime and communist propaganda to downplay the role of anyone else because the Soviets were taking heavy casualties the Soviet Union had to be seen as contributing the most to the war efforts it then mentions Putin saying he hosted a military parade to celebrate the anniversary stating it was a grand moment but few of the world's major leaders attended the heads of state of India and China will look on but not many among their Western counterparts this is a reflection of the tense geopolitical present with Putin's relations with the West having turned Frosty after a year of Russian meddling in Ukraine bearing in mind that this article was from 2015. when Russia's T14 Armature tank broke down and a parade rehearsal on 7th of May the snickering could be heard across Western media so yeah this author is clearly showing for Putin and the Communists but it's okay here's another newspaper called The Independent hopefully this will be slightly more independent in its thinking the headline is the e-day 70th Anniversary we should never forget the Soviets warning World War II in Europe yep once again it was the Soviets that won it alone if anyone needed any proof that the Western media are a bunch of Communists here it is wait a second that's the same author yeah it's the exact same guy here are his latest Publications for the independent and on the Washington Post website his latest articles are here he's working for two newspapers It also says he has a degree from Yale in history and ethnicity race and migration so he believes in the race but also he's clearly a far Lefty and it's not surprising that he's Shilling for Putin his views on the Ukraine situation reflect this so I think we all know why he's pushing the narrative that the Soviets won the war alone thoughts back to his article an estimated 26 million Soviet citizens died during World War II including as many as 11 million soldiers in the western popular imagination particularly the American One World War II is a conflict we won wait yeah it's the exact same article he's just copied and pasted the text and giving it a new headline you know people have called me out in the past for saying that the Western media is all owned by the same people the Socialist Elite and is influenced by various state governments around the world or that they're just pumping out propaganda but here is solid proof that they absolutely are doing that we've also got plenty of Articles showing that Russian and Chinese operatives are writing for the Western media and pumping out propaganda and don't get me started on the British 77th Brigade which was spying on British citizens and I think it still is nor shall we forget about all the other government-run fact Checkers out there all supposedly combating disinformation I. E anyone who dares to question the narrative this sort of thing is happening so you've got to be careful when you read anything and always ask the question but is this really the case don't just believe what you see or hear especially when it comes from the government but regardless we can't just dismiss the propaganda we have to challenge it so what exactly is the argument that the commie Boos are stating starting in 1941 the Soviet Union bore the bronze of the Nazi war machine and played perhaps the most important role in the Allies defeat of Hitler by one calculation for every single American Soldier killed fighting the Germans 80 Soviet soldiers died doing the same don't worry we'll come back to this point of course the start of the war had been shaped by a Nazi Soviet pact to carve up the lands in between their borders then Hitler turned against the USSR well I'm glad you mentioned that but you're kind of glossing over it if I'm honest he then gives a quote from Max Hastings about the millions of Soviets who were killed before proceeding to say that 95 of the military casualties of the three major Powers were taken by the Soviet Union he mentions Stalingrad and Kursk falsely claiming that cursed was the biggest tank battle in history nope dubno 1941 was but that was also in the Soviet Union so it doesn't take away from the central point he says these battles had no parallel on the Western Front where the Nazis committed fewer military assets the savagery on display was also of a different degree than that experienced further west he then proceeds to talk about how Hitler was focused on the Soviet Union and how lots of people died he says by 1943 the Soviet Union had already lost some 5 million soldiers and two-thirds of its industrial capacity to the Nazi advance that it was yet able to turn back the German invasion is Testament to the courage of the Soviet war effort but it came at a shocking price yeah no mention of Lend Lease at all in the article here is another Vox article from 2014 stating the successful 70-year campaign to convince people that the USA and not the USSR beat Hitler so again implying that the USA audience has been tricked by a deliberate conspiracy to conceal the truth which is that the Soviet Union won the war alone oh does this mean that Vox is engaging in conspiracy theories they're all conspiracy theorists but I don't care because the idea of labeling something a conspiracy theory as a way to dismiss it is an intellectually bankrupt sleight of hand conspiracies do actually happen and even if they didn't there's no reason not to at least consider the opposing point of view you don't have to agree with it but shutting down the debate before it even begins is a dangerous precedent I'm not going to read the whole article but again it's all about the casualties there is a quote from Richard ovary stating that the main theater was the axis Soviet front and how over 400 German and Soviet divisions fought along the front of more than 1 000 miles Soviet forces destroyed or disabled an estimated 607 axis divisions between 1941 and 1945.

the scale and geographical extent of the Eastern Front dwarfed all earlier Warfare losses on both sides far exceeded losses anywhere else in the middle military contest there is a slightly more balanced article by history extra from 2008 which is interesting A. D Harvey argues against the numbers while Richard ovary fires back it's actually a good debate so I'll link it below but for now I believe it is A. D Harvey who says since the publication of Richard ovory's book Russia's war in 1997 it has been fashionable to assert that the Soviet Union's contribution to the military defeat of Nazi Germany and her allies far outstripped that of Britain and the United States at the time of the battle of El Alamein in October 1942 there were four German divisions in North Africa and 179 in Russia in late 1944 there were 65 German divisions in Northwest Europe opposed to 91 British and American divisions and 235 German divisions on the Eastern Front opposed to 560 Soviet divisions at least 70 percent of German battle casualties occurred on the Eastern Front the losses Germany and her allies suffered in terms of those killed in prisoners of War are probably the best means available of estimating the comparative contribution of the various Allied Powers the United States suffered 250 000 fatalities in the second world war the Soviet authorities claimed a death toll of 25 million but nobody would pretend that Russia's contribution to the defeat of the Nazis was a hundred times greater than that of the U.

S yeah so I think it's time for me to also push back on the casualty narrative the Soviet Union absolutely paid the heaviest price of Any Nation in the second world war in terms of casualties no one's denying that however losing a lot of guys and civilians and tanks doesn't necessarily mean you contributed the most to actually winning the war having your economy in civilian population get battered doesn't mean you're contributing to Victory it means you're losing or at best you gained a peric victory so when we think critically the casualties actually suggest the opposite to the conclusion the Commodus are coming to in reality the Soviets sacrificed their population in order to scrape their way to Victory there's also problems with the statistics Soviet divisions were smaller than German divisions at every point in the war even when the German divisions were at half strength the Soviet divisions were often also at half strength and thus were even smaller Soviet divisions were tiny compared to Allied divisions especially after casualties the Soviets might have had 560 divisions in 1944 but most of them couldn't be classed as divisions so just saying yeah they they had this many divisions doesn't mean anything if I have 10 divisions and you have 20 but my divisions are twice as large then we're equal so it would be false to claim that you've contributed more based on the number of Divisions when the Manpower of those divisions isn't equal a reason why the Western allies didn't have as many divisions as the Soviets or didn't take as many military casualties as the Soviets is because they were better equipped and better trained than the Soviets every single division of the British and Americans had apart from the parachute divisions were either armored mechanized or motorized these are Force multipliers meaning that you can use a smaller Force to do do more than a larger less efficient Force the vast majority of Soviet and German divisions were foot-borne infantry divisions and even their tank divisions weren't as well equipped as your typical Western Allied division in terms of trucks and bridging equipment and radio equipment Etc yes they had some Superior tank models in 1945 but your typical Western Allied division is equipped with copious amounts of tanks and half tracks and radios and can call in significant air support or even Naval support when they're along the coast on the other hand Soviet divisions are on foot hardly had any radios and their air power is hit and miss so because of all this the Allies didn't need as many divisions to do the same job the British victory in 1940 operation Compass is a clear example of how tank and motorized forces could overwhelm a false infantry force the British had one Armored Division and two motorized infantry divisions except they only had one of these motorized divisions at any one time they swapped one for another part way through the battle so at any One Moment In Time the British had a force of two divisions equating to 30 000 men the Italians had one hundred and fifty thousand men and the Italians lost they were annihilated two mobile divisions ran rings around the foot infantry and simply overwhelmed them showing how having armor and motor or mechanized elements multiplied the effectiveness of the units the Soviets also destroyed an Italian army during operation little Saturn but they had to use a far larger Force to do that the Soviets had 425 000 men and 1 200 tanks against a combined Italian and German force of two hundred thousand and the Germans only had one division in there by the way now I'm not saying that they had to use that entire force to achieve the Breakthrough perhaps they had more than they actually needed in order to exploit and hold a wider front but the point being that just two British divisions could take out an Italian Army of 150 000 men whereas the Soviets definitely had more than two divisions against the Italians in the months prior to operation little Saturn in 1942 yet they didn't achieve a breakthrough until they had amassed a force of 425 000. is that because most of their rifle forces were under strength foot infantry units just like the Italians is it because they weren't as efficient as the two or three British divisions I would suggest yes that's probably a significant reason for it they asked school before mentioned how 80 Soviet soldiers died per American Soldier killed thus concluding that the Soviets contributed more to the war no not necessarily perhaps fewer Americans die because they were all armed with the grand semi-automatic rifle and were better trained and equipped in general compared to their Soviet counterparts therefore the American soldiers may have just been more efficient at destroying the enemy which is why they suffered fewer casualties than the Soviets did My overall point here is that the sheer volume of troops and tanks alone doesn't necessarily mean you provided more of a contribution if we compare Compass to little San the British achieved a lot more with a lot less Manpower they were more efficient so they didn't need to use vast amounts of manpower to achieve the same results therefore when it's argued that the Soviets contributed more not necessarily because Manpower and casualties alone don't tell the full story there's more to this than sheer volume men let's imagine that you have a guy with a shovel and a guy with a digger who's going to contribute more to digging a hole yes the shoulder guy is going to be working longer hours and sweating and whatnot arguably he will be working harder but not smarter the Digger guy can dig a hole far quicker and deeper than the shovel guy ever could contributing more even if he didn't exert as much effort and this is important because comibus are marxists and marxists believe in the labor theory of value this says that value is derived from labor spread out across Society that's why they're emphasizing the number of men in casualties because that fits into the labor theory of Value World View except value isn't derived from labor the Digger guy can dig more than 10 shovelers could or even 20 shovelers so the more manpower you have doesn't necessarily mean more value because value isn't labor it's subjective that also means it's difficult to calculate the value contribution of any of the powers in the second world war for example the Red Army had very few radios and most of those they did have came from Britain the Soviet general staff and prospective wartime fronts lacked 65 percent of their authorized radios field armies and cores were sure 89 of their radios and divisions regiments and battalions lacked 38 23 and 42 of their radios respectively worse still 75 percent of the radios within the front commands were obsolete as were 22 89 and 63 of the radios within field armies divisions and regiments when these commands relied heavily on vehicle couriers and the Postal Service to communicate they found vehicles and motorcycles also in short supply and the Postal Service far too untimely but to one extent could having more radios have reduced the number of casualties they sustained you know it absolutely would have done but there's no way to make that calculation this is why it's impossible to say exactly how effective Len lease was the radios the food the raw materials the tanks they did have an impact but to what extent there's no way to know for any certainty that doesn't mean we can discount it but it also doesn't mean we can hold it up and say it won the war to highlight this point Len lease supplied boots that the Soviets marched to Berlin wearing 14. 5 million pairs in 1942 to 43 alone and an enormous amount of trucks tanks trains tractors motorcycles food petroleum products and other equipment that got them to the rights Capital without them lease the Soviets might have still got into Berlin at some point but it would have taken them a lot longer with higher casualties so the Allies absolutely contributed to the Soviet victory but by how much lendley's trucks solved one of the red Army's greatest deficiencies the inability to resupply and sustain mobile forces once they had penetrated into the German rear areas without the trucks each Soviet offensive from 1943 to 1945 would have come to a halt after a shallower penetration allowing the Germans time to reconstruct their defenses and forcing the Red Army to mount yet another deliberate breakthrough attack I do think and I've said this before that the Soviet Union would have collapsed by 1943 had the Allies not propped it up with food violin lease Soviet soldiers and civilians were going hungry because there wasn't enough food despite the lenly shipments the situation would have been worse without them thought there are no guarantees with that only probabilities there's no way for me to prove this nor for anyone to really disprove it we've got to make our best guesses because there's no calculation that can be done here by mere mortals but either way the Allies absolutely contributed to the Soviet Victory on the Eastern Front violin lease a factor the commi Boos are unwilling to accept and wasn't even mentioned in the pro-putin Articles if we go back to the history extra article A.

D Harvey says if we factor in the dead and prisoners of War of Germany's European allies we find that a total of six million five hundred and sixty thousand German Italian Romanian Hungarian and Finnish combatants were killed or taken prisoner 66. 5 percent on the Eastern front but the Italians weren't that big of a deal the British had no problem taking out the Italians in Africa before the Germans arrived and arguably the Romanians and hungarians weren't much better so yes we can't dismiss those numbers at all but the soldiers from those Nations weren't as motivated to fight as the Germans were even the Germans said they weren't as good as they were although racism did play a part in their assessment so yes the axis allies sent more forces East than they did against the west but again their contribution to the axis war effort wasn't equal to the Germans but by relying entirely on casualty numbers to the exclusion of everything else it tilts the odds to the Soviets these however are military uniformed casualties the British and Americans also invested massively in operations that involved inflicting civilian casualties forcing the Germans to devote 30 percent of their artillery production to the manufacture of heavy anti-aircraft guns so let's just take that as it is imagine if the Germans hadn't needed to produce as many anti-aircraft guns but instead swapped that production to artillery and anti-tank guns you would have seen even higher casualties for the Soviets not mentioned by Harvey is that the Allied air campaigns also forced the Germans to strip their divisions of anti-aircraft guns including the dreaded 88 millimeters in order to defend the Reich this had a massive impact on the late War fewer 88 millimeter guns to protect you against the onrush of t-34s in our operation bagration for example meant that victory was easier than it otherwise would have been so the Allied air campaign did contribute to the victory on the Eastern Front even if they weren't an active participant though however there's no actual way to calculate the exact impact the reduction of anti-tank guns and artillery production would have had nor can we calculate the exact effect the removal of the 88s would have had but we know it did have an impact just no way to know the you know to what extent did these factors change the outcome of some of the battles and shorten the war probably but we can't measure that contribution we can only make educated guesses and assumptions with civilian air raid casualties factored in the Soviet contribution to German casualties Falls to 61 percent without the Royal Navy blockade Germany would have been able to import copious amounts of oil and fuel to power their tanks and economy resulting in a completely different ball game as I've shown in the past the Germans ran out of fuel and their blitzkrie came to a halt in October and November 1941. had they have the fuel then they would have had more trucks and more mobile divisions and the divisions they did have wouldn't have been so badly impacted by their poor Logistics they may have had the fuel and ammunition to get to Moscow they may have been able to get to the Caucasus in 1942 so again the British blockade had a significant impact on the accessibility to conduct the war and was a vital contribution to the victory there's no way we can dismiss it yet the commie Boos expect us to do just that also due to the nature of Naval and air Warfare you're not going to have as high a casualty rate as you would with land armies a German U-Boat is going to do a lot of shipping damage potentially crippling an economy and thus contributes a lot to the German war effort yeah it's taking out one of the U-boats is the only gonna you know land you a handful of crew members so even though Britain and the USA fought the longest campaign in the second world war the battle of the Atlantic Army Boos can dismiss this because the casualty rates were relatively low but what about the shipping tonnages and the overall economic impact what about the power the Allies gained with Naval superiority what about the Lend Lease equipment they could then ship to the Soviet Union via the shipping routes what about the ability of the land forces on the continent you know to be kept supplied all these factors are not considered when you choose to focus entirely on casualties alone in another article found online this author fires back against the comibu suggestion that the Soviets won the war as the world marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II it would be much better not only for the history of Russia but also for the country's future if Russian leaders were willing to permit and even encourage a more even-handed discussion of the Soviet Union's role in the war I agree I think as well that the censorship and bleat and propaganda that pumps the idea of the Soviets were the best is actually damaging the Russian reputation not helping it okay you know I'm not anti-russian my argument in this video could be construed it's not and I'm sure it will be but in reality I think being arrogant and saying that your nation it's not your nation did more than anyone else and then dismissing what other people did or not even considering the views of others is actually hurts in the reputation of the Russians more than just being humble and admitting that all the powers contributed to the war all you're doing is making enemies you're not convincing anybody nobody likes a bragger you know I'm the best yeah you're not going to win any friends there so if there are any Russian viewers listening to this maybe telling everyone that nobody else did much and that the Soviets won the war alone it's not a good idea it's not an argument you can actually prove and it hurts your own reputation especially when it's backed up by myths and lies this history is important to bear in mind nowadays because the Soviet Union's role in the war has been obscured in myths miss that arose initially during the Soviet period and that have been multiplied in recent years under Vladimir Putin one of the more disingenuous myths fostered last year and earlier this year by Putin is now Poland started the war a bizarre claim that turns history on its head another myth is that the Soviet Union's role in the Second World War Began on 22nd of June 1941 when the Vermont attacked the USSR in reality the Soviet Union was a leading participant from the very start colluding for nearly two years with Nazi Germany the brutality of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland including massacres and widespread ours is a taboo subject in Russia nowadays on the legislation adopted in May 2014 at Putin's behest the legislation allows criminal charges punishable by up to five years of prison as well as large fines to be brought against anyone in Russia who spreads information on Military and Memorial commemorative dates related to Russia's defense that is clearly disrespectful of society or who spreads intentionally false information about the Soviet Union's activities during World War II Russian Scholars who wish to investigate and write about sensitive topics such as the collaboration of Russians with the Nazi occupiers or the atrocities committed by Soviet troops are deterred from doing so lest they be sent to prison prosecutions and convictions have indeed occurred there is of course censorship in the west as well as Constantine kissing pointed out recently thousands of people are being arrested per year in Britain for saying stuff that offends people on social media this is actually many more times more people who are arrested in Russia for the same offense my video on the age of World War II in Greece was surprised asked by YouTube entire channels have been wiped out from mentioning bad things that happen during the War I have to self-censor and not mention loads of things the 77 Brigade is probably listening right now trying to catch me out so we've got our own problems over here as well but the fact that the state is writing laws about these topics as a way to push a narrative and sense to anyone who dares to question that narrative should be an indication that what we're being told on a particular topic isn't entirely true for in the case of the Soviets in World War II the Russian people are being fed in highly nationalist version of events and he's downplaying or outright distorting history as I have pointed out in the past to try and claim that Poland started World War II it's not only ridiculous but it's the exact same argument that the Nazi H deniers use as well in the past I've described the axis Soviet pact as an alliance in all but name and Roger Morehouse the author of the book The Devil's Alliance says that while it technically wasn't an alliance it was close enough it is worth clarifying that the Nazi Soviet pact was not an alliance as such it was a treaty of non-aggression consequently aside from the metaphorical title used here the devil's Alliance I generally refrain from referring to Hitler and Stalin as allies or their collaboration as an alliance however that clarification should not blind us to the fact that the Nazi Soviet relationship between 1939 and 1941 was a profoundly important one which consisted of four further agreements after The Pact of August 1939 and was therefore close to an alliance in many respects certainly it was far more vital and far more crucial to both sides than for instance Hitler's alliance with Mussolini's Italy Hitler and Stalin were allies in all but name how do we calculate the Soviet Union's assistance of Hitler in the Years 1939 to 1941.

how do we calculate the Soviet Union's unwillingness to fight Hitler during those years now I know that the Allies are partly to blame for this but then again so was Marxist ideology since Stalin distrusted the capitalists and Albion Britain so I'm not entirely blaming the Soviets here however it would be wrong to ignore the carving up of Eastern Europe and the raw materials that the Soviets gave to the Germans or the fact that the Soviets didn't intervene as Britain fought on alone the Soviet decision to almost Ally with the Germans resulted in the strengthening of the German position in Europe and contributed to the Soviet Union's own initial defeat when Hitler attacked in June 1941.