FDR's Lend-Lease....or Stalin's?

[eagle1462010]

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend.................................

WWII we aided a known enemy of our Ideology, and our Way of Life, to defeat the bigger threat of Germany and Japan. We could not let Russia fall as the massive ground battles in Russia were draining German Troops which could have been used to the West instead of the East. Had Russia fallen, we'd have had a hell of a lot harder time retaking Europe.

So the lend lease act wasn't a bad thing, as our ultimate goal was the defeat of Germany.

The real problem was the aftermath of Germany's fall. As now the Enemy of our Enemy is now the MAIN ENEMY OF THE U.S. and basically FREEDOM. Which led to the Cold War and our countries fighting by proxy around the globe. The USSR finally fell via it's own sword. Financially, and from the people themselves who rebelled against the failed policies of Socialism itself.

Which is now why they have turned to Capitalism over Socialism as the later is eventually an utter failure.

Back to FDR. Churchill warned him not to play into Stalin's hands in the battle for Berlin but was ignored. He tried to remind FDR of the consequences of allowing Stalin to have more territory at the end of the War, but it fell on Deaf and Dumb ears, otherwise he would have pushed our fronts further east to avoid a divided Germany at the end of the War. A divide that lasted nearly 4 decades.

The view above is one that obfuscates the emphasis of the Lend-Lease program.

You claim it was because of a need to keep Russia from falling.
First, they couldn't have made a separate peace with Germany....Operation Barbarossa proved that.
Second, I can easily explode the idea that the program was simply to prevent the Russians from being defeated:

Army Maj. George Racey Jordan was an 'expediter' who kept careful records of what was sent to Russia....and when.


Victory in Europe Day—known as V-E Day or VE Day—was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (in Commonwealth countries, 7 May 1945) to mark the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany


According to Jordan, shipments to the USSR via Lend-Lease continued until 1949.
And, they included the material used to build Russia's atomic bomb.

We sent shipments around the globe at that time. The world was destroyed via WWII.
As for the Nuclear Bomb, I'd have to read more on that subject but I tend to go toward your argument as you are a well informed poster. The people of Russia were devastated after the War and in the Battle of Stalingrad they ate rats and even their dead.

So sending in supplies wasn't out of the question even years after the War. Which also included building materials to help rebuild cities that were literally destroyed. We did this in Germany and Japan as well, and as a result we had a very large economic boom as our infrastructure was virtually untouched. The rest of the word was in Ruin.

Quite frankly, we didn't fight Russia then because the World and America were tired of all the dying. My father, uncles and Father N Law all fought in WWII. They were of the time and the jest of it from my perception was they were tired of seeing their friends die. Which was the mindset of the time and WHY WE DIDN'T GO AFTER RUSSIA AT THE TIME.

On hind sight we made the wrong decision by not finishing the job to prevent the problems we had as a result for 4 decades, but at the time so many had died they didn't want more death. This is reasonable logic for the time, even though we'd have been better off finishing it then.

FDR's decisions towards the end of the War were Naive. Even when Churchill tried to press him to NOT ALLOW WHAT WAS COMING. Churchill looked at the bigger picture of what was to come, and FDR didn't. Yet you also have to take in the casualties of Berlin as well. Russian lost a lot of people there.

Anyway, it's history and it is what it is.

 

[Auteur]

Riddle me this.........................

What would have happened had we demanded that Russia turn over the rest of Germany and Poland at the end of WWII. aka OR ELSE.

Would it have led to another year or two of War?

And finally would it have ended the Cold War before it began?

Point being history shows that not finishing a War leads to more wars or problems in the future, because you don't finish it.

WWII happened because the world didn't finish WWI.
The Cold War happened because we didn't finish WWII.
North Korea is a thorn because we didn't finish the Korean War.
Iraq happened because we didn't finish it the First time.

It would have led to more than a couple of years of war, it would have been WW3. The Soviets had been invaded by western forces three times in the previous half century or so. They were understandably suspicious it would happen again. Stalin, himself a product of a a paranoid and violent environment, was determined to create a safey corridor around the country. Poland, and as much of Germany as they could get, were indispensible in this plan. This was central the the SU's foreign policy at the time, and they would have gone to war for it.

Yes, the US had the bomb, but the Soviets were working on it, and in fact a test was then only a few years down the road. Tactics always tend to lag technology, as we have seen. Generals were musing over the value of calvary right into WW1. Strategists were also considering nuclear war fighting, using only modified tactics, right into the '50s. Physicists perhaps new better, but many in military circles were still thinking of duking it out, with atom bombs or not.

 

[oldfart]

It would have led to more than a couple of years of war, it would have been WW3. The Soviets had been invaded by western forces three times in the previous half century or so. They were understandably suspicious it would happen again. Stalin, himself a product of a a paranoid and violent environment, was determined to create a safey corridor around the country. Poland, and as much of Germany as they could get, were indispensible in this plan. This was central the the SU's foreign policy at the time, and they would have gone to war for it.

Yes, the US had the bomb, but the Soviets were working on it, and in fact a test was then only a few years down the road. Tactics always tend to lag technology, as we have seen. Generals were musing over the value of calvary right into WW1. Strategists were also considering nuclear war fighting, using only modified tactics, right into the '50s. Physicists perhaps new better, but many in military circles were still thinking of duking it out, with atom bombs or not.

One of the great lies that American policy has been based on is the adventurism of the Soviet military. This has suited the needs of America's defense establishment and pretty much everyone except a few scholars and a small cadre in the intelligence community who were paid to give real analysis stated the truth. From beginning to end, the Soviet leadership, including Stalin, was extremely risk averse.

While it might be fun to stop now and let all the folks who have been fed the party line for their entire lives jump in with "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!" (a truly delightful and insightful movie), let me make the case since I think you will find it helpful.

The Soviet Union was created in a political vacuum in 1917 while Russia was disastrously losing WWI. Kerensky fled and Lenin & Trotsky took over in November 1917. At first they assured the Allies they would keep Russia in the war and pleaded for war material and economic aid. The Allies distrusted the Bolsheviks and were reluctant to provide the aid, ending up shipping only small amounts. In 1918 the counterrevolution began with substantial covert aid from the Allies. As the Russians saw their nation dismembered by the Whites in Siberia, the North, and the Caucausus and Ukraine; pulled apart by nationalist movements in Finland, the Baltic, Poland, Ukraine, and the Far East (all with some Allied aid); and much of the country occupied by the Germans, the Soviet leadership decided to leave the war.

Trotsky was sent to negotiate with the Germans. The terms offered were so unacceptable, Trotsky decided to reject them and announce that Russia was no long participating in the war. At this point the Allies decided to intervene and Russian ports were occupied by American, British, French, and Japanese troops. At one point there were 27 separate significant armies involved. When Germany surrendered all of these troops were still inside Russia. Allied policy was heavily driven by the Czechoslovak Legion, a force that found itself in Siberia that the Allies had been trying to get to France to fight Germany (I'm not kidding, but look at a map!).

The Russian Civil War dragged on into 1921. In 1920, the Poles decided to expand beyond the borders they had initially agreed to and the Russo-Polish War broke out. Eventually the Allied Powers, the Germans and the Czechs went home; the Whites were defeated; Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were independent, and the rest of a devastated Russia was left mostly to its own resources. To be fair, America under the direction of the man who had organized the Belgian relief (Hoover), provided aid that probably saved millions of Russians from starvation, but millions died in the years 1917--1924.

In 1924 Lenin dies and the next five years saw the consolidation of power under Stalin. The reason I recite this tragic tale is the effect it had on all subsequent Soviet leadership. They have been terrified that the West was constantly planning to destroy them, and their dominant military posture has been defensive, despite all the internationalist propaganda.

In 1939 the Soviets made a treaty with Germany to divide eastern Europe in general and Poland in particular. Rather than occupy their zone of Poland, Stalin chose to wait until the Germans had competed most of their occupation before he made a move. Partly he was concerned that the treaty was a ruse and that Hitler might not stop at the demarcation line. From that time until Hitler invaded Russia, Stalin scrupulously made deliveries of oil, grain, steel, and war materials to Germany even after Germany had delayed and virtually stopped paying for them. He was not ready for war with Germany and he knew it.

In 1940 Stalin miscalculated and attacked Finland. The issue was a strip of land that was very close to Leningrad. The Finns resisted far more effectively than anyone expected, but in the end the negotiated the transfer of the contested strip to the Soviets. This is the only clear example of an aggressive war waged by the Soviets, with the possible exception of the Afgan debacle.

In the aftermath of WWII, Stalin had agreed to coalition governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia and the division of Germany and Austria. For a period these agreements held. I'll end the history lesson here, since this is the time frame in question, except to note that Soviet reluctance to actually engage in military action against the West remained a cornerstone of policy to the end.

So what would have happened if Stalin had been presented with an ultimatum in 1945 at Potsdam? First remember that at the time Stalin did not know of the success of the Trinity test and Truman was pressuring him to honor his commitment to join the war with Japan promptly after the defeat of Germany. The Japanese at the time were trying to get Stalin to mediate a peace with the Allies.

It makes for a great game of Potsdam poker. If pressed hard Stalin would surely have delayed war with the Japanese, which at the time from his view would have left the Americans to fight a long and bloody war. He might even have made the Japanese offer public, in which case war weariness might have become a factor. At the time the Allies might have suspected bad faith with regard to Poland and Czechoslovakia, but that was not a sure thing. Even if Stalin backed down, the West had a lot to lose.

I believe that what Stalin would most likely have done would have depended largely on what was demanded of him. If America had insisted on a return to the borders of 1939, there would have been war. Had America accepted the Finnish treaty, the absorption of the Baltics, and the border with Poland, while insisting on the true independence of the rest of central Europe, I believe Stalin would have waited.

Had war occurred I believe the outcome would have been a Russian sweep over Europe. Perhaps like in 1920 the Russians would not have made peace and waited to see if the Americans would rather attack the heros of Stalingrad rather than avenge Pearl Harbor. But if attacked, the Russians would have fought and I don't think America would have been prepared for the American casualties thatwould havemade an invasion of Japan look like a cakewalk.

 

[Toronado3800]

It would have led to more than a couple of years of war, it would have been WW3. The Soviets had been invaded by western forces three times in the previous half century or so. They were understandably suspicious it would happen again. Stalin, himself a product of a a paranoid and violent environment, was determined to create a safey corridor around the country. Poland, and as much of Germany as they could get, were indispensible in this plan. This was central the the SU's foreign policy at the time, and they would have gone to war for it.

Yes, the US had the bomb, but the Soviets were working on it, and in fact a test was then only a few years down the road. Tactics always tend to lag technology, as we have seen. Generals were musing over the value of calvary right into WW1. Strategists were also considering nuclear war fighting, using only modified tactics, right into the '50s. Physicists perhaps new better, but many in military circles were still thinking of duking it out, with atom bombs or not.

One of the great lies that American policy has been based on is the adventurism of the Soviet military. This has suited the needs of America's defense establishment and pretty much everyone except a few scholars and a small cadre in the intelligence community who were paid to give real analysis stated the truth. From beginning to end, the Soviet leadership, including Stalin, was extremely risk averse.

While it might be fun to stop now and let all the folks who have been fed the party line for their entire lives jump in with "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!" (a truly delightful and insightful movie), let me make the case since I think you will find it helpful.

The Soviet Union was created in a political vacuum in 1917 while Russia was disastrously losing WWI. Kerensky fled and Lenin & Trotsky took over in November 1917. At first they assured the Allies they would keep Russia in the war and pleaded for war material and economic aid. The Allies distrusted the Bolsheviks and were reluctant to provide the aid, ending up shipping only small amounts. In 1918 the counterrevolution began with substantial covert aid from the Allies. As the Russians saw their nation dismembered by the Whites in Siberia, the North, and the Caucausus and Ukraine; pulled apart by nationalist movements in Finland, the Baltic, Poland, Ukraine, and the Far East (all with some Allied aid); and much of the country occupied by the Germans, the Soviet leadership decided to leave the war.

Trotsky was sent to negotiate with the Germans. The terms offered were so unacceptable, Trotsky decided to reject them and announce that Russia was no long participating in the war. At this point the Allies decided to intervene and Russian ports were occupied by American, British, French, and Japanese troops. At one point there were 27 separate significant armies involved. When Germany surrendered all of these troops were still inside Russia. Allied policy was heavily driven by the Czechoslovak Legion, a force that found itself in Siberia that the Allies had been trying to get to France to fight Germany (I'm not kidding, but look at a map!).

The Russian Civil War dragged on into 1921. In 1920, the Poles decided to expand beyond the borders they had initially agreed to and the Russo-Polish War broke out. Eventually the Allied Powers, the Germans and the Czechs went home; the Whites were defeated; Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were independent, and the rest of a devastated Russia was left mostly to its own resources. To be fair, America under the direction of the man who had organized the Belgian relief (Hoover), provided aid that probably saved millions of Russians from starvation, but millions died in the years 1917--1924.

In 1924 Lenin dies and the next five years saw the consolidation of power under Stalin. The reason I recite this tragic tale is the effect it had on all subsequent Soviet leadership. They have been terrified that the West was constantly planning to destroy them, and their dominant military posture has been defensive, despite all the internationalist propaganda.

In 1939 the Soviets made a treaty with Germany to divide eastern Europe in general and Poland in particular. Rather than occupy their zone of Poland, Stalin chose to wait until the Germans had competed most of their occupation before he made a move. Partly he was concerned that the treaty was a ruse and that Hitler might not stop at the demarcation line. From that time until Hitler invaded Russia, Stalin scrupulously made deliveries of oil, grain, steel, and war materials to Germany even after Germany had delayed and virtually stopped paying for them. He was not ready for war with Germany and he knew it.

In 1940 Stalin miscalculated and attacked Finland. The issue was a strip of land that was very close to Leningrad. The Finns resisted far more effectively than anyone expected, but in the end the negotiated the transfer of the contested strip to the Soviets. This is the only clear example of an aggressive war waged by the Soviets, with the possible exception of the Afgan debacle.

In the aftermath of WWII, Stalin had agreed to coalition governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia and the division of Germany and Austria. For a period these agreements held. I'll end the history lesson here, since this is the time frame in question, except to note that Soviet reluctance to actually engage in military action against the West remained a cornerstone of policy to the end.

So what would have happened if Stalin had been presented with an ultimatum in 1945 at Potsdam? First remember that at the time Stalin did not know of the success of the Trinity test and Truman was pressuring him to honor his commitment to join the war with Japan promptly after the defeat of Germany. The Japanese at the time were trying to get Stalin to mediate a peace with the Allies.

It makes for a great game of Potsdam poker. If pressed hard Stalin would surely have delayed war with the Japanese, which at the time from his view would have left the Americans to fight a long and bloody war. He might even have made the Japanese offer public, in which case war weariness might have become a factor. At the time the Allies might have suspected bad faith with regard to Poland and Czechoslovakia, but that was not a sure thing. Even if Stalin backed down, the West had a lot to lose.

I believe that what Stalin would most likely have done would have depended largely on what was demanded of him. If America had insisted on a return to the borders of 1939, there would have been war. Had America accepted the Finnish treaty, the absorption of the Baltics, and the border with Poland, while insisting on the true independence of the rest of central Europe, I believe Stalin would have waited.

Had war occurred I believe the outcome would have been a Russian sweep over Europe. Perhaps like in 1920 the Russians would not have made peace and waited to see if the Americans would rather attack the heros of Stalingrad rather than avenge Pearl Harbor. But if attacked, the Russians would have fought and I don't think America would have been prepared for the American casualties thatwould havemade an invasion of Japan look like a cakewalk.

I agree in general. Our intervention in the Russian civil war is under taught. Socialism does not work but it is necessary to look at the world from your opponent's point of view to understand. As crazy as PC and a few others are about Russian spies imagine if Russian troops came over and fought against us a decade before the great depression!

To make conversation:

I am pretty sure Stalin was aware of the Trinity test but I am not sure to what detail.

Stalin making the Japanese peace offerings public would have sure been interesting. Their points and ours were not that different. I am not sure how our public would have reacted. As it is I view the Japanese not just broadcasting their proposal on every radio frequency they could transmit over as a grave mistake. And by lord, did they think we were friends with the Russians actually? I did a bit of a paper on this decades ago in a cultural communications class. An amazing failure on Japan's part.

Far as a war with the Russians in May of 45, for sure it would have been in our best interest to wait for the war in the Pacific to end. But if Patton raced for Berlin and started the war I am of the opinion we would have had our own Dunkirk or been pushed into the Pyrenees which wow, might have been a worse meat grinder. Buy then our Navy could be totally concentrated on the new war with Russia as could our industrial capacity but man, that's a rough one. One would think until the late 40's our dozens of Essex class carriers and combined air force could have kept the Soviets out of England especially since they had only a hodgepodge navy (lol @ Russia bothering to capture the Graf Zeppelin).

By 1950 our nuclear superiority was sufficient we could I guess have leveled Russian held France and wherever we could get a bomber through to while the limited Soviet bombs and heavy bombers I suppose could tag London but with severe losses.

 

[eagle1462010]

It would have led to more than a couple of years of war, it would have been WW3. The Soviets had been invaded by western forces three times in the previous half century or so. They were understandably suspicious it would happen again. Stalin, himself a product of a a paranoid and violent environment, was determined to create a safey corridor around the country. Poland, and as much of Germany as they could get, were indispensible in this plan. This was central the the SU's foreign policy at the time, and they would have gone to war for it.

Yes, the US had the bomb, but the Soviets were working on it, and in fact a test was then only a few years down the road. Tactics always tend to lag technology, as we have seen. Generals were musing over the value of calvary right into WW1. Strategists were also considering nuclear war fighting, using only modified tactics, right into the '50s. Physicists perhaps new better, but many in military circles were still thinking of duking it out, with atom bombs or not.

One of the great lies that American policy has been based on is the adventurism of the Soviet military. This has suited the needs of America's defense establishment and pretty much everyone except a few scholars and a small cadre in the intelligence community who were paid to give real analysis stated the truth. From beginning to end, the Soviet leadership, including Stalin, was extremely risk averse.

While it might be fun to stop now and let all the folks who have been fed the party line for their entire lives jump in with "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!" (a truly delightful and insightful movie), let me make the case since I think you will find it helpful.

The Soviet Union was created in a political vacuum in 1917 while Russia was disastrously losing WWI. Kerensky fled and Lenin & Trotsky took over in November 1917. At first they assured the Allies they would keep Russia in the war and pleaded for war material and economic aid. The Allies distrusted the Bolsheviks and were reluctant to provide the aid, ending up shipping only small amounts. In 1918 the counterrevolution began with substantial covert aid from the Allies. As the Russians saw their nation dismembered by the Whites in Siberia, the North, and the Caucausus and Ukraine; pulled apart by nationalist movements in Finland, the Baltic, Poland, Ukraine, and the Far East (all with some Allied aid); and much of the country occupied by the Germans, the Soviet leadership decided to leave the war.

Trotsky was sent to negotiate with the Germans. The terms offered were so unacceptable, Trotsky decided to reject them and announce that Russia was no long participating in the war. At this point the Allies decided to intervene and Russian ports were occupied by American, British, French, and Japanese troops. At one point there were 27 separate significant armies involved. When Germany surrendered all of these troops were still inside Russia. Allied policy was heavily driven by the Czechoslovak Legion, a force that found itself in Siberia that the Allies had been trying to get to France to fight Germany (I'm not kidding, but look at a map!).

The Russian Civil War dragged on into 1921. In 1920, the Poles decided to expand beyond the borders they had initially agreed to and the Russo-Polish War broke out. Eventually the Allied Powers, the Germans and the Czechs went home; the Whites were defeated; Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were independent, and the rest of a devastated Russia was left mostly to its own resources. To be fair, America under the direction of the man who had organized the Belgian relief (Hoover), provided aid that probably saved millions of Russians from starvation, but millions died in the years 1917--1924.

In 1924 Lenin dies and the next five years saw the consolidation of power under Stalin. The reason I recite this tragic tale is the effect it had on all subsequent Soviet leadership. They have been terrified that the West was constantly planning to destroy them, and their dominant military posture has been defensive, despite all the internationalist propaganda.

In 1939 the Soviets made a treaty with Germany to divide eastern Europe in general and Poland in particular. Rather than occupy their zone of Poland, Stalin chose to wait until the Germans had competed most of their occupation before he made a move. Partly he was concerned that the treaty was a ruse and that Hitler might not stop at the demarcation line. From that time until Hitler invaded Russia, Stalin scrupulously made deliveries of oil, grain, steel, and war materials to Germany even after Germany had delayed and virtually stopped paying for them. He was not ready for war with Germany and he knew it.

In 1940 Stalin miscalculated and attacked Finland. The issue was a strip of land that was very close to Leningrad. The Finns resisted far more effectively than anyone expected, but in the end the negotiated the transfer of the contested strip to the Soviets. This is the only clear example of an aggressive war waged by the Soviets, with the possible exception of the Afgan debacle.

In the aftermath of WWII, Stalin had agreed to coalition governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia and the division of Germany and Austria. For a period these agreements held. I'll end the history lesson here, since this is the time frame in question, except to note that Soviet reluctance to actually engage in military action against the West remained a cornerstone of policy to the end.

So what would have happened if Stalin had been presented with an ultimatum in 1945 at Potsdam? First remember that at the time Stalin did not know of the success of the Trinity test and Truman was pressuring him to honor his commitment to join the war with Japan promptly after the defeat of Germany. The Japanese at the time were trying to get Stalin to mediate a peace with the Allies.

It makes for a great game of Potsdam poker. If pressed hard Stalin would surely have delayed war with the Japanese, which at the time from his view would have left the Americans to fight a long and bloody war. He might even have made the Japanese offer public, in which case war weariness might have become a factor. At the time the Allies might have suspected bad faith with regard to Poland and Czechoslovakia, but that was not a sure thing. Even if Stalin backed down, the West had a lot to lose.

I believe that what Stalin would most likely have done would have depended largely on what was demanded of him. If America had insisted on a return to the borders of 1939, there would have been war. Had America accepted the Finnish treaty, the absorption of the Baltics, and the border with Poland, while insisting on the true independence of the rest of central Europe, I believe Stalin would have waited.

Had war occurred I believe the outcome would have been a Russian sweep over Europe. Perhaps like in 1920 the Russians would not have made peace and waited to see if the Americans would rather attack the heros of Stalingrad rather than avenge Pearl Harbor. But if attacked, the Russians would have fought and I don't think America would have been prepared for the American casualties thatwould havemade an invasion of Japan look like a cakewalk.

Well, I had to open up Pandora's box with my questions. Your post is a very educated evaluation of the situation at hand, and I appreciate it.

I agree with a lot of what you say, and disagree with some of what you say.

First off, I believe Japan would have surrendered after the bombs even without their losses to the Russians. Even though they were losing against the Russians their forces were isolated and would not have been able to get back to Japan. There position would have been insignificant in the Battle for Japan. So I disagree here. I believe Japan would have surrendered anyway.

Europe. Stalin had superior numbers. Hell he attacked Berlin with about 2.7 million troops. We had about 4 million in the region. Stalin had at least double that in the region. Air power. Fairly even numbers but we had the advantage of high altitude aircraft. So we would have gained air superiority over Stalin's forces. They had no means to counter high altitude bombers so our air force would have bombed them with impunity. While that alone wouldn't have decided the ground war, it would have greatly influenced the outcome. We had roughly 80,000 aircraft at the end of the War and productions lines were spitting them out at historical rates. Eventually had we fought them these numbers would have tripled in size, while the Russians would have taken severe losses. Another factor we had 16.1 million forces overall. We owned the seas and would have owned the air. The War factories not touchable by Germany would have become touchable, and a massive bombing campaign would have started to take a toll on the industrial side of Russia.

Critical War supplies, especially food, would have been cut off aka the lend lease act. This would have also put Russia at a disadvantage.

I believe we'd have won it, but at a cost of millions of lives. We had similar populations, but the Russians had already lost 20 to 21 million people, including 12 million troops. These kind of losses were not sustainable had it continued. The world would have also lost another 30 million or more people had the fight continued to the bitter end.

Another variable that I believe would have happened. Many of the troops fighting with Russia were from areas taken by Germany. Had they known that the U.S. was fighting Stalin to restore these countries to there original borders it is quite possible that a couple of million soldiers in Stalin's army may have started pointing their guns east instead of west. Stalin was also a TYRANT to his people and the people of Russia might have remembered that the Tyrants slaughtered 20 million of their own people. Which might have caused a portion of his army to simply stop fighting, as they didn't really like Stalin to begin with.

I believe we could have done more damage to the red army by dropping leaflets instead of bombs on the red army. Letting them know we were only fighting to restore prewar borders.

Finally, no country in Europe wanted to be ruled by Stalin. European countries would have joined the fight if faced with being ruled by Stalin. Which could have added millions of troops to the battlefield. Secondly, the left over German forces would have fought as well as they would want their whole country back. Which would have added about 1 million to the fight from the onset.

That is just my stab at it. Just an opinion. I read a lot, and had a hard time deciding what to say on this issue. However, since I opened Pandora's box I felt I had an obligation to take a stab at it.

 

[editec]

Riddle me this.........................

What would have happened had we demanded that Russia turn over the rest of Germany and Poland at the end of WWII. aka OR ELSE.

Would it have led to another year or two of War?

And finally would it have ended the Cold War before it began?

Point being history shows that not finishing a War leads to more wars or problems in the future, because you don't finish it.

WWII happened because the world didn't finish WWI.
The Cold War happened because we didn't finish WWII.
North Korea is a thorn because we didn't finish the Korean War.
Iraq happened because we didn't finish it the First time.

It would have led to more than a couple of years of war, it would have been WW3. The Soviets had been invaded by western forces three times in the previous half century or so. They were understandably suspicious it would happen again. Stalin, himself a product of a a paranoid and violent environment, was determined to create a safey corridor around the country. Poland, and as much of Germany as they could get, were indispensible in this plan. This was central the the SU's foreign policy at the time, and they would have gone to war for it.

Yes, the US had the bomb, but the Soviets were working on it, and in fact a test was then only a few years down the road. Tactics always tend to lag technology, as we have seen. Generals were musing over the value of calvary right into WW1. Strategists were also considering nuclear war fighting, using only modified tactics, right into the '50s. Physicists perhaps new better, but many in military circles were still thinking of duking it out, with atom bombs or not.

We did NOT have the material to bomb Russia into submission in 1945, kiddies.

Russia's military forces on the ground in Europe were staggering.

Had we declared war on Russia after Germany fell, I suspect they'd have kicked our asses on the ground for quite some time.

You anti-commies notwits have been fed a load of crap about the invincibility of the Western powers at the end of the war.

The Soviets had 6,400,000 combat hardened and well equiped TROOPS on the ground in Germany, Austria and Eastern Euruope.

You fantasy armchair generals need to so some basic research.

 

[Unkotare]

While it might be fun to stop now and let all the folks who have been fed the party line for their entire lives jump in with "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!" (a truly delightful and insightful movie), let me make the case since I think you will find it helpful.

The Soviet Union was created in a political vacuum in 1917 while Russia was disastrously losing WWI.

You missed the first step, where the Czarist system lost legitimacy after the humiliation of the Russo-Japanese War.

 

[Unkotare]

[

The Soviets had 6,400,000 combat hardened and well equiped TROOPS on the ground in Germany, Austria and Eastern Euruope [sic].

NO, they had exhausted, often starving, ill-equipped troops. The American public would not likely have supported an immediate next-step war at the time, with the war in the Pacific still going on.

 

[eagle1462010]

Riddle me this.........................

What would have happened had we demanded that Russia turn over the rest of Germany and Poland at the end of WWII. aka OR ELSE.

Would it have led to another year or two of War?

And finally would it have ended the Cold War before it began?

Point being history shows that not finishing a War leads to more wars or problems in the future, because you don't finish it.

WWII happened because the world didn't finish WWI.
The Cold War happened because we didn't finish WWII.
North Korea is a thorn because we didn't finish the Korean War.
Iraq happened because we didn't finish it the First time.

It would have led to more than a couple of years of war, it would have been WW3. The Soviets had been invaded by western forces three times in the previous half century or so. They were understandably suspicious it would happen again. Stalin, himself a product of a a paranoid and violent environment, was determined to create a safey corridor around the country. Poland, and as much of Germany as they could get, were indispensible in this plan. This was central the the SU's foreign policy at the time, and they would have gone to war for it.

Yes, the US had the bomb, but the Soviets were working on it, and in fact a test was then only a few years down the road. Tactics always tend to lag technology, as we have seen. Generals were musing over the value of calvary right into WW1. Strategists were also considering nuclear war fighting, using only modified tactics, right into the '50s. Physicists perhaps new better, but many in military circles were still thinking of duking it out, with atom bombs or not.

We did NOT have the material to bomb Russia into submission in 1945, kiddies.

Russia's military forces on the ground in Europe were staggering.

Had we declared war on Russia after Germany fell, I suspect they'd have kicked our asses on the ground for quite some time.

You anti-commies notwits have been fed a load of crap about the invincibility of the Western powers at the end of the war.

The Soviets had 6,400,000 combat hardened and well equiped TROOPS on the ground in Germany, Austria and Eastern Euruope.

You fantasy armchair generals need to so some basic research.

Kiddies and armchair generals.

LOL

They actually had about 8 million in the region with at least another 4 million that could be called up. Which is why I said we'd be outnumbered at the onset by at least 2 to 1. That being the U.S. standing alone, which we were not alone.

You don't take into consideration of Russia being supplied by the U.S.
You don't take into consideration that we would have had air superiority shortly intot the fight, and our air power helped bring Germany to it's knees. We didn't win the war by ourselves and the Russians played a very significant role, but you underestimate our abilities as well.
You also don't take into the equation as would all of the Russians have fought had they known the fight started to restore Germany, Poland and Czec.........Many of those would have also fought knowing it was to restore their previous boundaries. It's hard to say whether or not they would fight along side a million German troops though, but I guarantee that about a million of them would have fought to restore the previous German borders.

I would also remind you that Germany attacked Russia with about 2.7 million troops and nearly beat them at the onset. Only though Human wave attacks did the Russians take them down. aka sheer numbers. I remember a German general in Stalingrad saying that as soon as we take out a Division of Russians another 3 show up.

Yet the cost of human wave warfare was taking it's toll on Russia. They had sustained 12 million casualties to that point even though they outnumbered the Germans nearly 8 to 1.

Either way, it is what it is. And this is only speculation of what it might have been.

 

[regent]

The sad thing is that in a democracy often times the citizens must be considered. I don't think the American people would have allowed an attack on the USSR or carry on the war one day longer than absolutely necessary. Already we were discharging troops with the 85 points and getting ready to close up the war-shop. Even with the A-bombs and the means to deliver them, I doubt if any politician was ready to say on to Moscow.
The beauty of fighting the war on these boards today is that we don't have to face the problems of that period, we can pick and choose and it becomes quite easy.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The sad thing is that in a democracy often times the citizens must be considered. I don't think the American people would have allowed an attack on the USSR or carry on the war one day longer than absolutely necessary. Already we were discharging troops with the 85 points and getting ready to close up the war-shop. Even with the A-bombs and the means to deliver them, I doubt if any politician was ready to say on to Moscow.
The beauty of fighting the war on these boards today is that we don't have to face the problems of that period, we can pick and choose and it becomes quite easy.

"....often times the citizens must be considered."


1. On April 1, 1944, Victor Kravchenko left Washington for New York, where, at a press conference arranged by the NYTimes, he revealed the truth about the Soviet Union. Two years later he published “I Chose Freedom,” which played a crucial role in the formation of public opinion in the formation of the incipient Cold War.

a. The front-page article that began, "Accusing the Soviet Government of a 'double-faced' foreign policy with respect to its professed desire for collaboration with the United States and Great Britain and denouncing the Stalin regime for failure to grant political and civil liberties to the Russian people, Victor A. Kravchenko….” Fleming, "The Anti-Communist Manifestos,".[ p. 182-183]

b. Both in Europe, and in the United States, communist supporters engaged I a ‘full court press’ trying to deny reports about communism and the Soviet Union. Defectors like Kravchenko faced the same sort of barrage that McCarthy did later…and for the same reasons.


2. During the 1950s, the Gallup Organization responded to new issues and personalities as they related to the ongoing superpower struggle. Joseph McCarthy entered the public opinion polls for the first time, and won initial approval. Fifty percent agreed with McCarthy in a March 1950 survey that there were communists working in the State Department.Note 45 A June 1950 poll found 45 percent expressed unqualified approval of McCarthy saying "he is anxious to rid us of communists and he is right"; 16 percent expressed qualified approval with remarks such as "there must be some foundation for his charges, but they are greatly exaggerated"; 31 percent disbelieved McCarthy saying he is "a rabble-rouser seeking personal glory who is trying to get reelected"; 8 percent were unsure what to make of McCarthy.
Cold War International History Conference: Paper by John White

 

[oldfart]

The great thing about counterfactual history is that it dispels the notion that what happened is the only outcome that could have happened. There is no "correct", only plausible.

I am pretty sure Stalin was aware of the Trinity test but I am not sure to what detail.

I almost put a footnote on this one, but was running long. This period is unbelievably sensitive to exact dates. At Potsdam Stalin was unaware of the results of Trinity (hell, Truman got the results at the conference!). A few days later he probably knew, but not in time to influence his possible decisions at Potsdam. Now if we move up the date of apotential war with Russia to the German surrender, no one would have known the Trinity results because the test had not occurred.

Stalin making the Japanese peace offerings public would have sure been interesting. Their points and ours were not that different. I am not sure how our public would have reacted. As it is I view the Japanese not just broadcasting their proposal on every radio frequency they could transmit over as a grave mistake. And by lord, did they think we were friends with the Russians actually? I did a bit of a paper on this decades ago in a cultural communications class. An amazing failure on Japan's part.

I learned something. If there is a way to get access to your paper, I'd be most interested. My main thought was that with the failure of the sixth War Bond Drive and the anticipated casualties of Operation Olympic, the United States was in an advanced stage of war weariness and the public and political will for military adventurism was virtually nil. We just wanted the war over.

Far as a war with the Russians in May of 45, for sure it would have been in our best interest to wait for the war in the Pacific to end. But if Patton raced for Berlin and started the war I am of the opinion we would have had our own Dunkirk or been pushed into the Pyrenees which wow, might have been a worse meat grinder. Buy then our Navy could be totally concentrated on the new war with Russia as could our industrial capacity but man, that's a rough one. One would think until the late 40's our dozens of Essex class carriers and combined air force could have kept the Soviets out of England especially since they had only a hodgepodge navy (lol @ Russia bothering to capture the Graf Zeppelin).

Agreed! I cannot conceive of a sense in which we could have "won" such a war.

By 1950 our nuclear superiority was sufficient we could I guess have leveled Russian held France and wherever we could get a bomber through to while the limited Soviet bombs and heavy bombers I suppose could tag London but with severe losses.

It's hard to comprehend how limited atomic stockpiles were in the 40's and early 50's. The initial production was three bomb and we used all three. A third strike on Japan would have been delayed while the bomb was assembled. We had material for no more more than four or five additional bombs. After that we were limited by our capacity to produce fissile material, enough for about six bombs a year in 1945--6. By the Korean War our stockpiles were probably 150--200 weapons and the Soviets 30--40.

And you are correct that into the 50's the only delivery system available were heavy bombers, neither land based ICBM's nor SLBM's were operational.

 

[regent]

The Russians were always hard to deal with and after the German surrender were even harder to deal with. Truman too became a little harder to deal with after Trinity but Churchill was also hard to deal wih at times and even DeGaulle. The diplomatic thing may have been one reason Ike was picked for the ETO. There was always the hope, however, that with the end of the war we could somehow manage to get along.
I'm sure one of the Russian big complaints was our failure to open a second front early in the war, and lend lease probably never made up for that. In fact, the lend lease rations we sent for the troops, were called Second Front Rations by the Russian GI's.

 

[oldfart]

I agree with a lot of what you say, and disagree with some of what you say.

I don't agree with some of what I say! I think I can change my mind and that I can be persuaded. Especially with alternative histories.

First off, I believe Japan would have surrendered after the bombs even without their losses to the Russians. Even though they were losing against the Russians their forces were isolated and would not have been able to get back to Japan. There position would have been insignificant in the Battle for Japan. So I disagree here. I believe Japan would have surrendered anyway.

You may well be right. As it was, it was a close run thing with the attempted palace coup. Suppose that had been successful in isolating the Emperor and suppressing the surrender broadcast. As I mentioned above, America was very close to having expended it supply of fissile material and could only produce additional bombs at a rate of perhaps one every two months. That might not have been enough to force a Japanese surrender.

An interesting alternative was the Navy's plan to avoid an invasion of the home islands. With virtually no effective air defense or naval force left and running out of food and raw materials, a blockade might have been more effective (either with or without another bomber offensive or additional atomic attacks). I cannot see a scenario where Japan could have held out beyond the end of 1945.

Europe. Stalin had superior numbers. Hell he attacked Berlin with about 2.7 million troops. We had about 4 million in the region. Stalin had at least double that in the region. Air power. Fairly even numbers but we had the advantage of high altitude aircraft. So we would have gained air superiority over Stalin's forces. They had no means to counter high altitude bombers so our air force would have bombed them with impunity. While that alone wouldn't have decided the ground war, it would have greatly influenced the outcome. We had roughly 80,000 aircraft at the end of the War and productions lines were spitting them out at historical rates. Eventually had we fought them these numbers would have tripled in size, while the Russians would have taken severe losses. Another factor we had 16.1 million forces overall. We owned the seas and would have owned the air. The War factories not touchable by Germany would have become touchable, and a massive bombing campaign would have started to take a toll on the industrial side of Russia.

You make a lot of good points. The Soviets would not have been successful in a protracted war. The two questions would have been their capability to sweep to the Channel in a few weeks, or alternatively to have remained in place at see if the Allies were willing to bleed their forces dry. It's a lomg way from Berlin to the Urals, and no one has made it yet.

I believe we'd have won it, but at a cost of millions of lives. We had similar populations, but the Russians had already lost 20 to 21 million people, including 12 million troops. These kind of losses were not sustainable had it continued. The world would have also lost another 30 million or more people had the fight continued to the bitter end.

This is really the nut of it. I cannot conceive of the Allies being able to accept the cost of such an effort.

Another variable that I believe would have happened. Many of the troops fighting with Russia were from areas taken by Germany. Had they known that the U.S. was fighting Stalin to restore these countries to there original borders it is quite possible that a couple of million soldiers in Stalin's army may have started pointing their guns east instead of west. Stalin was also a TYRANT to his people and the people of Russia might have remembered that the Tyrants slaughtered 20 million of their own people. Which might have caused a portion of his army to simply stop fighting, as they didn't really like Stalin to begin with.

This is a little beyond the scope of the present discussion, so I won't make a full argument here. I think this argument misunderstands the nature of the Red Army and allied forces in 1945. The argument might have been true of Warsaw Pact forces by 1955, but I don't think it was true in 1945.

Finally, no country in Europe wanted to be ruled by Stalin. European countries would have joined the fight if faced with being ruled by Stalin. Which could have added millions of troops to the battlefield. Secondly, the left over German forces would have fought as well as they would want their whole country back. Which would have added about 1 million to the fight from the onset.

I think you underestimate the degree to which the ability to wage war or mobilize armed forces had degraded in Europe by mid-1945. By Potsdam the only significant uncommitted military were Spanish, Swiss, and Swedish.

Now as I said before, a lot depends on the type of ultimatum. I don't think a return to 1939 borders was possible, but I think a better outcome could have been achieved in central Europe. The failure though did not occur at Potsdam, it was the inability or unwillingness to hold Stalin to his agreements 1945--8.

 

[Auteur]

I think there would have been a huge resistance to carrying on the war in 1945 among the rank and file of western forces. The US and other countries had put a postive spin on the Soviets as temporary allies, and as the great depression was still a close memory in the minds of many, the idea of communism wasn't as abhorrent to the average man in the street as it is today. The worst excesses were not generally known, but the worst excesses of captialism were a living memory for those in the front lines in 1945. Telling them that they had a new enemy, after six years of war, and surprise- its our former friends, so go to it, would have been a hard sell.

There was a similar situation after WW1. After four years of senseless slaughter, rebellion was breaking out. Not just in Russia and Germany, but also in the west. Some French troops were in open revolt, dire murmurings were heard in Britain, and there was an incident in Canada, when some troops refused to board ships headed for the intevention in Russia. One could see a lot of turmoil if hostilities were renewed in Germany at the end of the second war.

 

[regent]

It is these kinds of things, as people tired of the war, that some of the quarterbacks fail to consider. I think if one lived through that period they might have a different slant on things. Accomplishments that are so easy on the boards today might have drawn second looks, or murder, if they were suggested at the time.
And that's one problem with a democracy.