In effect, the Soviet union saved the Western world and its civilization. In the post-war years the Western nations that capitulated to Nazi Germany received economic assistance that enabled them to prosper and grow. As if the Americans did not know who had been shooting at them, the United States assisted Japan and Germany, its antagonists in WW II, to become economic power houses. The demands of post-war capital allowed this circumstance and the Cold War urgencies subdued Russia's economic potential. Russia, victor of WW II, now remains stagnated in poverty and limps along begging for assistance.
National governments have little heart and almost no feeling.
They approach the world with a hand that will give after having received- benevolence to those who partner to policies and callous indifference to those who rebel. Citizens in a democratic country have a possibility to contradict their government's indifference. They can recognize those who saved the lives of their sons and sacrificed for their eventual prosperity. The peoples of the Western world should recognize their debt to the Russian people. Newly wedded couples in Russia still place flowers at the memorials to the Soviet soldiers who died in WW II, reminding all of the great sacrifices.