Dramnek

[Yorick]

You said this:

Without the Soviet Union and its unmatched ability to mobilise men and industry towards one end, as engendered by its authoritarian power structure the war in Europe could not have been won by the allies.

You have some questionable "facts" here.

The unmatched ability to mobilise men and industry towards one end?

History showed the Nazis as having similar skill.
History also shows the USA as being better at mobilising people and industry towards one end. The end is different that's all. Money.

Secondly did not Stalin embrace a form of capitalism during the war years? A pragmatic approach if so.

Thirdly your assumptions about the end of the war are ones I'd have to disagree with.

Had Stalin not signed his treaty with Hitler dividing Poland, the war wouldn't have developed in the same fashion.

Also, rather than Russias success, it was Hitlers hubris in attacking during the winter, (echoes of Napoleon) and key tactical errors that meant Russia held out.

I would be putting more emphasis on Britains victory in the battle of Britain, which if they had lost, would have meant the bombing raids which so devastated German industry, would not have brought German industry to it's knees.

Basically there are myriad reasons why the war was won, and why the war developed the way it did.

To bend history and make an erronious generalised statement as you have, to raise the banner of communist management (instead of highlighting the mismanagement and corruption that was it's downfall) is bad form Dramnek.

Looking at history and trying to make it justify your current economic worldview is a blinkered way to look at history.

But I hope you're having a good day. I've been agreeing with your sentiments on other topics of late. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 06-08-2002, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

[johnny]

is this really necesary ?

[uss]

Originally posted by johnny: is this really necesary ?

maybe not to some people but im sure interested in it [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[khazadman]

now now uss.please don't get this thread shut down.
and there was no way the soviets could have won the war if it hadn't been for the americans supplying them with raw materials and manufactured goods.well,that and the fact that hitler thought he could run the war better than his generals.

How come no one ever remembers something that was called "Lend Lease"? Without that both the UK and Russia were dead meat. The british fought valiently but the evacuation at Dunkirk saw the loss of most of the British Army's heavy equipment without which they could not fight a sustained war. As for Russia, Stalin having killed off all his Sr. Generals and politicians left his country wide open, hell 10 Divisions of the Finnish army defeated 100 divisions of the Russian army, Russia was ripe for the picking without the massive load of supplies and war materials supplied by the americans and shipped by the british...who by the way gave many a life to keep Russia from folding. err ummm just my comments on the issue.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by MagiK: How come no one ever remembers something that was called "Lend Lease"? Without that both the UK and Russia were dead meat. The british fought valiently but the evacuation at Dunkirk saw the loss of most of the British Army's heavy equipment without which they could not fight a sustained war. As for Russia, Stalin having killed off all his Sr. Generals and politicians left his country wide open, hell 10 Divisions of the Finnish army defeated 100 divisions of the Russian army, Russia was ripe for the picking without the massive load of supplies and war materials supplied by the americans and shipped by the british...who by the way gave many a life to keep Russia from folding. err ummm just my comments on the issue.

And a valid contribution too. Thanks MagiK.

[Scholarcs]

Yorick you should remember also how the Battle of Stalingrad is called the "Turning Point" in WW2. Germany lost something like half a million men on the eastern front (at least, perhaps more, i havent looked it up). Had hitler not turned against the Soviet Union, then he would have had alot more men and equipment to use against Britain.

I do not deny that the British fought strongly and valiantly, but I do think that they are just a little over-rated in their influence on the overall success of the war.

[johnny]

Originally posted by Scholarcs: Yorick you should remember also how the Battle of Stalingrad is called the "Turning Point" in WW2. Germany lost something like half a million men on the eastern front (at least, perhaps more, i havent looked it up). Had hitler not turned against the Soviet Union, then he would have had alot more men and equipment to use against Britain. I do not deny that the British fought strongly and valiantly, but I do think that they are just a little over-rated in their influence on the overall success of the war.

*waiting for the Tommies to show up*

[Ar-Cunin]

From the middle of 1940 to the middle of 1941 England was the only country that fought (with materiel help from USA) - If they had stopped fighting (f.x. signed a peacetreaty) WW2 would have finished early

This is trolling yorick, Attempting to find something with which to attack me.
You should know better than this.

but FYI While the contributions of the other Allies was important, it was not those aspects alone, nor was it America & britain alone who won the war. Without the people of the CCCP's vast industural output and sacrifice of men and machines, It is highly unlikely that the war in europe could have been won.

"...no misjudgements were more costly in the end than the German belief that the Red Army was a primitive force..."

“The transformation in Soviet fighting power and morale has a number of explanations. In the first place the Red Army learned a great deal from German practice and from their own mistakes. The air and tank armies were reorganised to mimic the German Panzer divisions and air fleets; communication and intelligence were vastly improved (helped by a supply of American and British telephone equipment and cable); training for officers and men was designed to encourage greater initiative; and the technology available was hastily modernised to match German.

Two other changes proved vital to allow the army to profit from the reform of operational practice. First, Soviet industry and workforce proved remarkable adaptable for a command economy long regarded as inherently inefficient and inflexible. The pre-war experience of economic planning and mobilisation helped the regime to run a war economy on an emergency basis, while the vast exodus of workers (an estimated 16 million) and factories (more than 2,500 major plants) from in front of the advancing Germans allowed the USSR to reconstruct its armaments economy in central and eastern Russia with great rapidity.
The second factor lay with politics. Until the summer of 1942 Stalin and the Party closely controlled the Red Army. Political commissars worked directly alongside senior officers and reported straight back to the Kremlin. Stalin came to realise that political control was a dead hand on the army and cut it back sharply in the autumn of 1942. He created a deputy supreme commander under him, the talented Marshal Zhukov, and began to step back more from the day-to- day conduct of the war. Given the freedom to work out their own salvation, the Soviet General Staff demonstrated that they could match the Germans on the battlefield. Not until the later stages of the war did Stalin begin to reimpose control, when victory was at last in sight"

[ 06-09-2002, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: Dramnek_Ulk ]