Hindsight, Orrin, hindsight.

So, Soviet operations were so superior to the German's, but the one example cited is a Soviet disaster (42% casualties and the loss of 72% of the tanks), only confirming the charge that they threw men and machines at the Germans to be destroyed.

ala U.S. Grant (and, some would say, George S. Patton).

Foresight Robert, foresight--almost no Americans, other than FDR & company, wanted to intervene in Europe. That's why FDR was rebuked so soundly in the midterm election of '42. GIs in Europe were so relutant to fight the Germans that after touring his first liberated concentration camp Eisenhower famously snarled at a soldier: "Still having trouble hating them?"

jd:

Note that their brilliant insight was that when an enemy plunges deep into your territory his rear is vulnerable.

And of course, the Soviets learned about rapid deployment and encirclement from the Germans, who did this to multiple Soviet armies in the first year of the war. That's panzer warfare (which is not the same thing as blitzkreig), invented by a Brit, made operational by the Germans, and eventually figured out by the Soviets.

75 % of German Army deaths in the war were credited to the Soviets. Hitler's army was in part, defeated by the same enemy as Napolean's. The Russian winter, extended supply lines and Soviet/Russian General's ruthless use of their troops who were truly expendable. Hitler and Napolean ignoring their General's advice helped as well. Add to that extended supply lines through populations made hostile by atrocities.

Little known but true fact: the highly mechanized Panzer divisions relied upon horse-drawn logistics.

And if we had let the Soviet Union defeat Hitler on their own, they would have owned Eastern AND Western Europe.

Which would have differed from 1945-91 how?

By the way, I love how much faith you have in communism--almost Harry-like.

Jeff:

The reason that's not known is because the Poles' reliance on horses is used to belittle them by FDR partisans. Can't readily admit the Krauts used them too.

Genecis:

Shhhh!!! You'll interrupt Harry/Robert's daydream where the Soviets could hasve driven to Paris without similar problems.

There remains the possibility that Stalin and Hitler could have made a seperate peace. This would have allowed Hitler to maintain control of Western Europe. Which would have been worse than what actually happened.

Brandon:

That's silly, of course, nazism required killing Slavs as surely as Jews, but why would that have made any difference? Neither ism was sustainable.

The Germans never expected to have to defeat the Soviet army. They expected it to collapse.

So did everybody else, including, very likely, Stalin.

Orrin maintains the fantasy that the restive Russians, Ukrainians etc. would have risen up against their Bolshevik masters if given a chance.

Well, they had a chance, and they rallied round the Bolshevik regime more solidly than the Bolshiviki themselves, who decamped to Kuibyshev.

Jeff is right and wrong. Most German military traffic moved by rail. It is true that the German army used horses, even in France, where there were good roads; but especially in Russia, where there were no roads.

All armies used horses in 1939-45 except the U.S. and U.K.

Harry:

America would have rallied around a Stalin when attacked. The Russians would have rallied against a German occupation and made it impossible.

Harry:

If memory serves, the track gage of Russian railroads did not match the German gage, forcing the Germans to use horse drawn logistics, because they hadn't built enough trucks.

Had the Germans taken Moscow and killed Stalin, things would likely have been different. How much different, we will never know. But different.

Harry:

"Well, they had a chance, and they rallied round the Bolshevik regime more solidly than the Bolshiviki themselves"

That is egregious leftist myth. They rallied behind Russia. It was the call of traditional, religious Mother Russia that moved them to the greatest heroism and sacrifice the world has ever seen.

Here is Martin Amis, knowledgable British ex-leftist novelist and trendy intellectual, from "Koba the Dread", a chilling book that decribes Stalin's atrocities in the greatest detail and takes straight aim at the cowardly efforts of Western intellectuals to minimize or excuse them:

After recounting the gruesome, total destruction of the Russian church during the 20's and 30's, he goes on to say:

"It seems safe to say that by June 1941 religion had disappeared from Stalin's alternate world. But then reality intruded, in the form of a rampant Wehrmacht: the greatest war machine ever assembled, and heading straight for him. He knew that his citizens would not lay down their lives for socialism. What would they lay down their lives for? Consulting this sudden reality, Stalin saw that religion was still there--that religion, funnily enough, belonged to the real."

The Ukranians contributed a division to the German effort in "Mutha Russia."

Everyone confessed of the atheist religion, er belief, who I know, has a barely disguised affection for the Soviets, The Atheist Empire.

Beyond being non-relgious, the fundamental atheist's I know believe that they know ... not just believe and are beyond being just non-religious but are anti-religious, perhaps for feelings of guilt or feelings of being ostracised in their youth. I say to them: Get over it. Your belief is as valid as any other. I admire your courage in confessing it. But get real ... you don't KNOW and neither does anyone else ... so get off your high horse. The Soviet Union was a criminally miserable failure whose end could never justify the means.

"Which would have differed from 1945-91 how?"

Europe would be buying Soviet made goods, not American. No postwar boom for America. No German rocket scientists working for NASA. No Moon landings (by Americans).

You can't be a world power without exercising power.

Soviet goods? HaHahHaHa..... You can't really believe that can you?

I'm always mystified when a sensible conservatie thinks communism could have worked.

As for the moon, we'd have flown there in a plane instead of getting sidetracked into rocketry.

It wouldn't have worked in the long run, but it could have ruled Europe for a generation or more. How many cars did we sell to Eastern Europe before 1989 Orrin?

It wouldn't have worked in the long run, but it could have ruled Europe for a generation or more. How many cars did we sell to Eastern Europe before 1989 Orrin?

Space plane? Nice try OJ.

Robert:

It did work for a generation--exactly one and that only in Russia and Eastern Europe, with us providing them an enemy to rally against. The idea that they could have conquered and held all of Europe for a generation is the stuff of Stalinist fantasy.

OJ, who would have taken it away from them, if not us?

Taken what?

Europe. If we had stayed out of the war, and had the Soviets conquered Nazi Germany and inherited Europe, who would have taken it away from them? England?

Europeans. The same folks who took Eastern Europe away from them.

No US in the war would mean that the Soviets and probably not the British would have received Lend Lease after 1941. Without all those extra trucks, ammo, and supplies, I wonder how well armed the Red Army would be. The likelihood of the US sharing its knowledge of German operations gleamed from its intercepts of Japanese code from Berlin (even assuming Hitler would give updates to Japan's ambassador if the two were not fighting a common enemy) is also nil. Which means the Soviets would have less operational intelligence. And with no US Army in Africa, Italy, and France and no 8th Air Force, it all means more troops and supplies for the Eastern Front.

I don't think any Anglo-Soviet victory was assured w/o US help. And in case they did win, it would take long enough to assure the completion of the Final Solution.

Communism could always survive when it had other societies it could invade and cannibalize. No US presence in Europe would mean additional targets for the Soviets, not to mention west Atlantic seabases to threaten Britain. And then there's the question of what all those socialist, pro-Soviet Nasserites would do. Are we to believe that the Americans in this counterfactual never become concerned that the Soviets seem to control all of Eurasia, parts of Africa, and making in roads into Latin America? Doesn't seem plausible.

Chris:

Wow! Who knew communism was so effective? Hard to believe it could have conquered the entire planet given that it never worked in a single country where it was tried.

Of course you're also acknowledging that without our help they'd not likely have finally defeated the Nazis.

Is communism that mighty or that feeble?

The Russians rallied to the regime from the get-go. The Ukrainians didn't, at first, though many did later.

Stalin's appeal for Mother Russia didn't come until the Red Army had already shown that the German Army could not prevail against it -- so long as the government stayed intact.

Nobody knew it at the time, not even the Russians, but the Germans were defeated in August-September, long before any western aid arrived and even before the Bolshevik propaganda could have taken hold.

We could argue forever about what the Russian common soldiers and their officers (who on the face of it had little reason to love the regime) really thought; but the bottom line is that everybody expected them to repudiate the government, go home or even go over to the enemy.

Overwhelmingly, they did not. Men who were surrounded in the first kessel battles, cut off for weeks, fought their way back to Russian lines.

Propaganda had nothing to do with their motivations, because they could not have heard it.

Harry:

Are you thinking of the French?