"The military loss ratio of Soviet to Axis was 1.3:1, which belies this insulting and mendacious "human wave"/"sent to the front without guns" tale some of you keep telling"

Can you substantiate this in any way? Have you ever looked up at casualty numbers for WWII? What are you comparing when you say 1.3:1?

Noone is questioning the role USSR played in WWII - I at least don't see anyone saying anything like it - however what you're claiming (that USSR would have done it alone or that the USSR leadership of the time deserves any credit) is total nonsense.

They were under attack, they ordered the whole country to fight and they did it in a very ineffective and inhumane manner.

"Only reading Russian sources and history books can do that to anyone."

Except I've only cited one Russian source, on the Census for population statistics. But I'm sure you read sources from all points of view, right? It's only "brainwashing" when the other person disagrees, right?

"Putin is a dictator. You may adore him for his nationalistic PR, 'restoring Russian pride' and a glorious victory against the might Georgians... but that does no change the fact he'll be in power for the foreseeable future and will squash any opposition with all means necessary. Plus, is your self-esteem as a person really so tied to how big the borders of the country you live in are, or how big is the military? :)"

Funny, I don't remember Putin ever rolling in tanks to fire upon parliament, killing dozens and wounding hundreds when he didn't get his way. I DO, however, remember that darling of the West and drunken maniac, Boris Yeltsin, doing that. Putin isn't even President of the country, so I'm wondering how he can be dictator. He isn't in charge of internal security or the military anymore. He stepped down when his term was up.
Anybody who doesn't follow western orders is automatically branded a "dictator", no matter how democratic the regime really is.

"If you think the USSR would have won WWII without the heavy support from US/UK you're totally deluded. You lost 50 million people in this war because you had no guns and bullets. To be more precise - the soldiers attacking the German tanks didn't - the MP behind them (making sure noone retreats) did have all the ammo they needed to shoot their own comrades."

I've already gone through this. The Soviets went into battle better armed than the Germans in terms of overall weapons production, producing more machine guns, artillery, tanks, and mortars. You're spouting complete horsepuckey that none of you have bothered to substantiate. Maybe you're still confused with World War I. But none of what you're saying has any basis in fact.

"Because Stalin organized a famine killing some 16 million Ukranians few years before that (~1936 when 80% of USSR's agricultural output was coming from Ukraine at the time"

Once again, I've already gone through this. And you even get basic facts like the year of the famine wrong, (the famine took place in the early 1930s. 1932-33). and are just making up numbers here, 80% of agricultural production from Ukraine? If that were true there would have been catastrophic starvation when the Germans overran Ukraine. Somehow that didn't happen (I'm sure it was the Lend-Lease!). Kazakhstan and western Siberia were also agriculturally productive areas, as is the North Caucasus.

"As deranged as Hitler may have been, Stalin was much more brutal."

Apparently the Holocaust and the band of roving murdering Einsatzgruppen who were given orders to kill POWs and Jews on sight were "much less brutal". And of course the numbers you people citing about the disparity in Soviet and German casualties are examples of Nazi comparative 'humaneness'. What a sick joke.

"so soon after everyone hated them even more" But yet the Soviets were "more brutal". Funny how that works.

"The allies objective in WWII was to defeat GER, not to help USSR. They made their plan accordingly. You may not like it, but most other countries are not really keen on sending millions of recruits to fight with bare arms"

"Bare arms", more of that rubbish again. If they were so keen on defeating Germany, why didn't they do more to help defeat Germany, instead of engaging in pointless tank battles over barren wastelands in North Africa? Or instead of fighting the woefully inept Italians who couldn't even defeat the vanquished French army in the Alps after the Germans had overrun the country. The British wanted to win the war at Soviet expense while keeping their Empire in tact, and possibly expanding it. The Germans rampaging in Eurasia were a secondary concern. Roosevelt wanted to fight the Germans but his own generals wanted to concentrate on the Pacific war. But all of this is besides the point. The point is the West doesn't recognize the reality of who won the war for them.

"Democracies find it hard to deal with wars and casualties - and I think it's better this way."

Correction, "democracies" find it hard to deal with their own casualties. Letting other people die, or killing other people, is just fine with them. They don't blink when they kill over a million Vietnamese, or level Pyongyang to the Stone Age in the 1950s, or help fuel a brutal Iran-Iraq war in which hundreds of thousands die. You can congratulate yourself on your supposed moral superiority if you want to though. You sure are good at it.

"I just think when millions of heroes died saving your hide, you better show some gratitude. Instead we here in the West spit on their graves,"

I'd like you to cite one example of someone 'spitting on the grave' of the dead of the Red Army.

No one has sought to diminish what they accomplished - except in your world, it appears what 'they accomplished' was the whole shooting match, and that's simply not true.

If you believe otherwise, feel free to cite your sources. And I'd prefer books that are more than 25 pages, rather than random wacky-assed websites.

I have a degree in history. Granted I studied the Byzantines instead of the Second World War, the objective fact is that your beliefs are not backed up by the facts.

@Putin - "I've already gone through this. The Soviets went into battle better armed than the Germans in terms of overall weapons production, producing more machine guns, artillery, tanks, and mortars."

Two words: Lend-Lease. Without the US Lend-Lease program, Russia would *not* have been so well armed. Those weren't Russian made planes and trucks and weapons. Russia relied on the US Lend-Lease program to supply their troops.

though im only 15 i can say that with confidence(being i have been studying world war 2 sense i was five) that hitler was a less violent man then the georgian stalin and also he was beaten from the age of 7 because his brother ran away and that he would be up until 12 at night and wake up at four in the morning to do farm chores and school work.

"Can you substantiate this in any way? Have you ever looked up at casualty numbers for WWII? What are you comparing when you say 1.3:1?"

Post-Soviet historian Grigoriy Krivosheyev's Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses, p 96-97.

The number of soldiers who were killed in military action, went MIA, became POWs and died of non-combat causes was 11,285,057 for the USSR and 8,649,500 for all the Axis forces on the Eastern Front.

Here you go using a book written by someone of the propaganda machine that is Mother Russia.

"Russia would *not* have been so well armed. Those weren't Russian made planes and trucks and weapons. Russia relied on the US Lend-Lease program to supply their troops."

Lend Lease didn't get there until 1943. Planes sent by the magical Lend Lease only accounted for 10% or so of overall plane production. And yes all of those weapons were Soviet made. In terms of DOMESTIC production, the Soviets outproduced the Germans on machine guns, artillery, tanks and mortars. Show me one citation anywhere that says the Soviets relied on Lend Lease for those things.

General Krivosheyev is a well reputed military historian. If you're going to claim he has no credibility, you better back it up . His work on Soviet casualties is relied on by most serious people. But I take it you're just going to dismiss any author with a Slavic surname.

Wasn't the surname - you called him "Post-Soviet historian Grigoriy Krivosheyev" which means he is part of the Russian propaganda machine.

And try more like 14+% of the military planes were Lend-Lease and Lend-Lease reached Russia in June 1941. Two years before your claim of 1943.

"I'd like you to cite one example of someone 'spitting on the grave' of the dead of the Red Army."

Have you been reading this thread?

"No one has sought to diminish what they accomplished - except in your world, it appears what 'they accomplished' was the whole shooting match, and that's simply not true."

Go back and re-read the argument about the Manchurian invasion. Or hell the comments on this page about Lend Lease. Or about how the Soviets were somehow rushed into battle in human wave columns without arms. And how their generals were incompetent and how the massive losses were their own fault. This was all said in this thread.

"If you believe otherwise, feel free to cite your sources. And I'd prefer books that are more than 25 pages, rather than random wacky-assed websites."

I've cited respectable sources this entire time. Few of you have bothered to cite anything except wikipedia. In fact I can't think of a single source anybody who bothered to cite anything at all used besides wikipedia.

If it's books you want, I've already cited some. Overy's book on the Battle of Britain and Krivosheyev's book on Soviet casualties. What books has anyone else cited?

"I have a degree in history. Granted I studied the Byzantines instead of the Second World War, the objective fact is that your beliefs are not backed up by the facts."

I don't really care about your resume. Asserting that I'm wrong without bothering to explain why or provide any information as to why I'm wrong doesn't make me so, whether you're a Byzantine scholar or not.

@putin i dont understand when ur comparing a military death rate when the mass genocide by stalin of his own people was atleast 20 million

@TimeOfDeath - "i feel that if you are asking whether or not to have one of two of the most hated communist party leaders in the world is very idiotic."
I would just like to point out that Hitler was not a communist leader, he was a fascist leader. Heck, in any true form of communism there wouldn't be a 'leader', so Stalin's wasn't really communist either. There have been very few (if any) actual communist nations in world history. What most people in the west think of as communism is actually closer to a form of fascism.

@everyone else: if this debate is going to go anywhere, people need to start quoting from reputable, unbiased sources when stating facts. Putin33's interpretation of his facts appears to be somewhat biased, but at least he's using sources.

Oh, and that happens to coincide with Operation Barbarossa - Germany's attempt to invade Russia on June 22, 1941.

Yes, Wikipedia gives a different result, and so do the top ten results on Google.

I'm sure some Russian historian can cook the books when needed.

excuse my wording because im typing this during a 5min phase game

id like to say that wikipedia is like a community pool evrybody has put some "water" in it water being information

Anyone who uses wikipedia as a "credible" source doesn't know anything about what a credible source is.

agreed i only trust the cia fact book

I could go on wikipedia right now and make up anything I want. Someone else could then use that information to try to prove a point, but they'd be basing their information on something somebody made up.

ive acctualy done that on an elmo page

Wikipedia is useful for getting general knowledge, but when you're dealing with specific facts or you need proof, it's useless.

ok but back to stalin

"Post-Soviet historian Grigoriy Krivosheyev" which means he is part of the Russian propaganda machine."

How does that mean what you say it means? Simply using the word "Post-Soviet" means he's a propagandist? By post-Soviet I meant his work was written post-Soviet Union. It's sheer laziness to dismiss a writer like Krivosheyev without even bothering to read his work or know who he is.

"And try more like 14+% of the military planes were Lend-Lease and Lend-Lease reached Russia in June 1941. Two years before your claim of 1943."

You base this on what?

@putin the lend lease was though never stated by the u.s. was an attempt to befriend russia

Were 14% (more like 10%) of the military planes Lend Lease by June 1941? I think not.

no they werent it would be nearly impossible unless the u.s. had a work force 15million strong working 12 hourdays for 2 years

lso here is a post for those who like history to check out http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=654359#654359

By the way, most of the planes sent by the US were Bell P-39s and P-63s. Not exactly top of the line here.