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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Adverse effects of the Abolition of
Message-ID: <7800955@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Feb-86 02:48:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800955
Posted: Sun Feb  2 02:48:00 1986
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Feb  2 02:48:00 1986


[ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720]
>>>	This is surely going to ignite someone's ire, but I would even
>>>go so far as to say that the only reasons the USSR didn't lose WWII were:
>>>1) Russian Winter  2) US Aid (lend/lease)  3) Physical expanse of territory
>>>and 4) Hitler's arrogant incompetence.
>>
>>Not the only reasons, but I'll agree that without even one of these
>>Stalin would have lost the war.

>US Lend/lease was a minuscule influence in the Soviet theatre.  If anything,
>I'd call it bait for German subs, distracted from the Atlantic convoys.
>Not that that was the intention!  

I agree with the most of your article. I'm not sure you are right
on  the  above, though I didn't read any special studies on lend-
lease, and you apparently have. (On the other hand, I  don't  be-
lieve  all  the  studies  I read). But its effects were *felt* in
Russia; especially the food  supplies  were  gratefully  recalled
many years after, even when propaganda had more or less convinced
the population that Americans had been really on Hitler's side in
the  war.  But the *spam* couldn't be erased from hungry people's
memory. Also, American jeeps were seen around Russia  long  after
the  war.  I  conjecture that of more directly military stuff the
same may be true. Even the money value of the supplies, as origi-
nally  estimated, was, I seem to recall, considerable - though of
course the Soviets never paid up.

>Missing in the list of major reasons is:
>
>5) the month long delay in the start of Barbarossa, caused by Mussolini's
>   defeats in Greece/Albania and the suddenly new anti-Nazi Yugoslavian
>   government, thereby guaranteeing point 1) would occur before victory.
>6) the knowledge that Japan would stay out, allowing crack Siberian troops
>   to be brought to defend Moscow in time for December 1941, and
>7) the dropping of Sovietism/Communism in favor of Mother Russia by Stalin.
>
>This last point was immensely aided by point 4), which includes not only the
>military incompetence Hitler now developed, but also his brutal treatment of
>the indigenous populations.  The Germans were quite often greeted as welcome
>liberators throughout the first month of Barbarossa, and could easily have
>turned whole nations (Ukraine, Byelorussia, etc.) to their side.  Indeed,
>more than any of the other points, I feel this is where Hitler missed his
>greatest chances for conquering the Soviet Union.

All very true ! Let me add to this last observation:  Hitler  did
not  dissolve the kolkhozes (collective farms) as the farmers had
hoped. The Germans saw them as a ready-made structure  for  pump-
ing  grain  away (which is what Stalin used them for). In the few
areas where land *was* privatized, the  Germans  were  remembered
with nostalgia years after the war.

		Jan Wasilewsky