The Soviets played a more important role in winning WWII in Europe than the western allies

Rebuttals "One of the reasons Hitler invaded Russia because he believed that the British hoped that Russia would come to save them. After Russia is defeated, Britain would see sense and make peace with Germany." The main reason for invading Russia was Hitler's want for room, considering Communists subhuman, and the fact that Hitler needed resources for his Country. The Battle of Britain was what really was meant to discourage the English. You don't invade a country as large as Russia for the sole purpose of dissuading another, despite the fact that it is a possibility of a benefit. "All the battles that the western allies fought only involved a few hundred thousands men at most." Just because the Western battles involved less people does not make them less fierce or important in the tide of the war. "If Hitler had not split his forces on his offensive toward Stalingrad and the Caucus oil fields, he would still have lost the battle; Russia would simply have to move troops from the Caucuses" With just half of his forces, Hitler was able to take over 90% of the city until repelled by the Russian Forces once the winter took hold of Russia. If Hitler had used all of his forces on it, then He would not only control 100% of the city, he would have had the resources he needed and would have been well on his way to capturing Moscow simply because he would have controlled the city. "Stalin was almost as brutal as Hitler was. When you talk about the citizens rising up against the Germans, you need to remember that millions of those people hated Stalin as much as they would hate Hitler. For example, until the people of Ukraine really found out what the Nazis were, they treated them as liberators." Actually, Stalin was much much worse than Hitler. He killed 23 million of his own people before he died. Hitler only killed 12 million. However, this does nothing to disprove my point that brutality of Germans caused uprisings. The people attacked his supply lines. "And you largely exaggerate the effects of American supplies to the Soviet Union. I looked at your sources. It did not say that 23% of total Soviet production came from America via the Arctic route. It said that out of all the lend-lease supplies sent to the USSR, 23% of those supplies came via this route. Reread your source." It says "Of total Aid given." Not that it was all of Russia's production. However, it was crucial in the beginning as all factories were destroyed and it took Russia having supplies to regain those factories that were not. America enabled Russia to have its counter-attack(s. Many were not successful). "The Russian winter helped, but it was the Red Army who defeated Germany in the end." This is true, but the Cold winter is the only thing that stalled Hitler's attack. If he had invaded earlier or any warmer time earlier than June, the Blitzkrieg would have captured all of Eastern Europe. "You say that America was prepared for WWII and that it had better technology than the USSR did. The first part is completely false, the second part is somewhat true. In 1939, Poland had a larger army than the United States did. America's army when it was attacked by the Japanese was ~200,000 men." I said America was Prepared for the Battle of the Bulge, not that it was prepared for a World War! It was one of the greatest feats in history for America to bounce into war, train its soldiers, and make the equipment as fast as it did. I said that if they had been as unprepared as Russia, they would have had major setbacks in the war. However, they were able to repel the strong German Offensive. "The Soviets on the other hand had an army of 7 million, 5 million of which were in the west. Japan could not invade the United States in the way Germany invaded the USSR. This gave America time to build up their industry and army. America was protected by two oceans and therefor isolated from where the main fighting was happening. The second part about America having better technology is both true and false. The American navy was perhaps the strongest in the world and American planes were definitely stronger than those of the USSR. On the other hand, the Soviet T-34 tank was the best in the world 1940-1942. Later Soviet tanks such as the KV-1 and IS-2 were also stronger than anything the USA had. In addition to this, the Soviet artillery was the best in the world." Yet the Russians were caught off guard and almost completely defeated by the German blitzkrieg. Stalin refused to acknowledge the fact that Hitler was going to invade. Germany almost destroyed Russia because they were unprepared to deal with the German onslaught. Rebuttals to his arguments 1) The only reason the casualties were so high was because there were many people involved in the fighting. When taking total military deaths by both the Soviet Union and Germany, Soviets had 14,000,000 Military deaths. Germany had 5,500,000 military deaths. The Russians mainly fought Germans, so if you divide Russian Deaths by German deaths, you get a ratio of 1:2.5. That is for every one German that died, there were 2-3 Russians dead. Now, under your figure of 8/10 German military deaths being in Russia, we can calculate the new Ratio. 80% percent of German figure comes out to 4,400,000 deaths, which, divided by the Russian figure of 14,000,000 deaths makes a ratio of 1:3.1. Or, there were 3 Dead Russians for every 1 dead German. This shows that Hitlers strategies and technology were superior because they were able to kill so many them while low on supplies and running low of soldiers. The only thing that stopped the most (Con admits) Powerful army in the world was the Russian Winter and nothing the Generals did. 2) Yes, many soldiers died in Russia. We see that. But Russian Generals had little to with that and Hitlers mistakes destroyed them. 3) Hitler Knew the allies were coming in from the West and before the Soviets actually attacked Berlin, he had lied dead in his bunker. This bloody battle was actually a race for Nuclear Technology that the West was not willing to lose that many men for. 4) The invasion was quick, destructive, and painful. The Winter following that fateful in 1939 was months of preparations by the Allies. They did everything in their power to avoid the coming war. Appeasement, deals, pacts. Anything. And as for the invasion of France, America was only able to do that invasion in 1944 because of the need for preparations and it was tied up in the Pacific. The allies actually wanted to do the main invasion in Italy from Africa, but the debate about where to do the invasion plus circumstances prevented the allies from acting until much later. The debate was if the allies invaded Italy, they would be able to get to Eastern Europe as well and by doing so, stop the Soviet progression. France was not considered until Stalin suggested it to ease the pressure on his front. Operation Overlord was in need of most of the Allies forces, mainly American Forces which were tied up in the Pacific until they became available in 1944. This is why they waited to invade. A new Argument The USSR helped Hitler establish himself In 1939, Hitler was becoming very successful in Europe. His dream of a German world was starting to become a reality, and he needed to be stopped right then and there if millions of lives were to be saved. What exactly did Russia do? Did they instantly invade and disrupt Hitler's operations? Sadly, no. Instead, they signed a pact with Germany, called the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which was a non-aggression treaty [1]. Hitler and Stalin even worked together to take Poland out, splitting it right down the middle. The reader should, at this point, be able to realize that Stalin wasn't trying to win a war, but trying to further himself and his country. Stalin was simply waiting for WW2 to come along, so that he could seize the opportunity to take control of all of Europe. He just needed a spark to start it, and Hitler was that spark. According to Viktor Suvorov, "based on new documents and research, Mr. Suvorov argues that Stalin had a grand design to conquer all of Europe. Furthermore, far from being duped by Hitler, Stalin supported Nazi Germany as part of his offensive strategy ". Once Hitler entered the scene in Europe, Stalin and the USSR jumped at the chance to help them. They trained German soldiers in Russia and allowed them to practice using their poison gas and train soldiers to drive tanks and fly planes. [2- covers both the quote and the following fact] Hitler's cruel and ruthless war machine was started only with the help of he USSR, so this puts them at a major disadvantage for winning the "Most pivotal to winning WW2" award. Stalin is even How can they be considered pivotal in winning when they were pivotal in starting World War Two! We are comparing USSR to the Western Allies. It doesn't make sense to say that two countries which did more to actually end the war wasn't as critical as one country which did more to start the war. Sources 1) http://en.wikipedia.org... 2) http://www.academia.org...