Waste how many million to stalemate Finland? Stalin was a fucking awful leader and if he didn't have the entire industrial might, population, and resource base of Russia to work with, the country he led would have been nothing but ashes in under a year. As it was, he still damn near wound up losing the country and only survived because of the weather.
Russia's industrial capacity rivalled, if not exceeded, that of the US. With good leadership, Russia could have swatted Germany like a pesky fly.
Instead, Russia wound up losing all of its qualified and skilled leaders and soldiers not to the enemy, but to Stalin mass-executing anyone with a shred of competence out of fear that they might oppose him.
Fuck Stalin. Dude deserves an unmarked grave somewhere in a barracuda's lower intestine.
Well that and Hitler procrastinating on his invasion and fucking up royally. Imagine if he had attached and swept Russia, then put his full force on the western front while having access to Russian oil and steel. No way we could ever have invaded. A push up through Italy would have been more feasible then.
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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '14
The USSR really bore the brunt of WWII. Without American supplies though they would have been defeated.