How would the world be today had Stalin won?

[pegasos]

Russia would be a super power, totaly possesing Europe, and the ashes of Germany of course, while the only thing that would exist now on European soil would be people's republics. Production and consumption would be totaly controled. China would do the same, an alliance based on ideology and perhaps trade between them. Japan would obviously be destroyed. American would not go down easily. The possible options would be that Latin American countries would be in continuous uprising and revolution situations, allying with the great Eurasian sovietorussian communist dragon, thus America being kept on a continuous state of a coming war, that could maybe come and have a destructive effect on the whole planet. Otherwise, America would be treated as soon as the WW2 ended with combined forces and if not using nuclears in time, could have been devastated by the other two forces and turned to a primitive social democratic state, controlled by Russia and with limited production. No Mc Donalds i m afraid, exept the ones provided for free for american workers and workers abroad!

[eufrenio]

Newsflash: Stalin DID win WWII with his allies, USA and the UK. We all know the results.

[Educate Me]

I guess he means what if Russia had won the war alone with no help of the USA and Britain.

If that were possible, I guess the soviet block would extend all the way to the atlantic and may still exist.

[eufrenio]

My point is that the reason that the USSR survived at all, and that it extended into much of Eastern Europe, was precisely because Stalin won the war and the peace.

[nordicyouth]

Stalin would never have won the war alone. In fact, he was fully prepared to sue for peace if the Allies did not open up a second front.

If Stalin had conquered Europe to the Atlantic, the Soviet Union would resemble Orwell's Eurasia.

He would never invade Great Britain.

He would perhaps occupy Hokkaido but no more of Japan so as not to antagonize the nuclear-armed American forces.

Stalin did not expand aggressively but defensively; he was the proponent of "Socialism in one country." In fact, a Stalinist Europe would have given the USA a free hand in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

[pegasos]

eufrenio said:

Newsflash: Stalin DID win WWII with his allies, USA and the UK. We all know the results.

Really? You really surprise me now.

[dukeofpain]

pegasos said:

Russia would be a super power, totaly possesing Europe, and the ashes of Germany of course, while the only thing that would exist now on European soil would be people's republics. Production and consumption would be totaly controled. China would do the same, an alliance based on ideology and perhaps trade between them. Japan would obviously be destroyed. American would not go down easily. The possible options would be that Latin American countries would be in continuous uprising and revolution situations, allying with the great Eurasian sovietorussian communist dragon, thus America being kept on a continuous state of a coming war, that could maybe come and have a destructive effect on the whole planet. Otherwise, America would be treated as soon as the WW2 ended with combined forces and if not using nuclears in time, could have been devastated by the other two forces and turned to a primitive social democratic state, controlled by Russia and with limited production. No Mc Donalds i m afraid, exept the ones provided for free for american workers and workers abroad!

Uh.... The soviet union did "win", not just that but they did it by themselves, though aided with for example American armaments and later on, what could be called terrorist bombing campaigns. However, the soviet drive to the west was accomplished before there was a western front with troops. The German capitulation of Stalingrad happened in January 1943, which could be considered the watershed battle of the entire war, which was the most brutal and massive battle of attrition in human history. Both, Hitler and Stalin were erratically determined for total victory, whatever the cost. As one German lieutenant put the battle:

"We have fought during fifteen days for a single house. The front is a corridor between burnt-out rooms; it is the thin ceiling between two floors ... From story to story, faces black with sweat, we bombard each other with grenades in the middle of explosions, clouds of dust and smoke, heaps of mortar, floods of blood, fragments of furniture and human beings ... The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses ... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure."

When it was all said and done nearly a million men from BOTH sides had perished in the city. So, by all means it was the Bread and butter of the German war machine vs their soviet counterparts. It was no holds bar, and the German capitulated. So, considering that victory, the fact that 85%+ of the Wehrmacht was exclusive to the east including ALL elite troops, and that D-day was June of 44', begs the question: who really "won" the European war?

I don't attribute the victory to Stalin in the least. It was the Russian soldiers and certain elements of the red army, like General Zhukov. Stalin perpetuated, like always, superfluous death and destruction. Whether it be passive like as caused by the purged army, or active by sending millions into certain death. For him every last citizen was cannon fodder.

[harri]

Btw, it's funny how WWII discussions put so much weight on single individuals, like Stalin and Hitler who are supposedly these cartoony superhero/villain types. And both "tried to take over the world", of course. Both had limited goals, actually - the Nazi goal being Germania. For 'The Powers that Be' that was just too good of an idea, so it had to be destroyed at any cost. The Soviet goal is more complicated, because the Soviet Union had more layers to it - I suppose you could call Lenin the creator of version 1.0, but even that S.U. is built on the underlying dream of Russian Eurasia, which still exists in the Russian mindset to a degree. Of course the Bolsheviks used it to their advantage, just like the Neo-Cons are using the Manifest Destiny to their advantage. Had Trotsky inherited the power, the Russians would have been ten times worse off than under Stalin.

I suggest picking up "The Court of The Red Tsar" for a good inside look for how much power Stalin actually had and didn't have.

[pegasos]

Stalin won? Come on, dont act so ignorantly. Russia had the greatest amount of dead millions in the war and is now back (?) to the starting point. Stalingrad does not mark a battle given by victors, but marks a battle of desperate resistance. I am, yes though it may sound surprising to some of you, "aware" that Russia was considered to be amongst the so called victors, but Stalins way was global communism, and in this respect it failed tragically. A winning Russia according to me should have kept the whole of Europe, and struggled for the cause of global communism. Thus practising the vision of Eurasia and in alliance with the red dragon of the east, who knows what could have happened to the western capitalist commonwealth forces...So i am not striclty refering to national states but also to the great ideologies of that era that battled for the peoples' minds and hearts.

[dukeofpain]

harri said:

Had Trotsky inherited the power, the Russians would have been ten times worse off than under Stalin.

I suggest picking up "The Court of The Red Tsar" for a good inside look for how much power Stalin actually had and didn't have.

He had enough, so long as he had a will and lackeys like Kaganovich to fulfill it, that were as ruthless as he. You're right about Trotsky. I disdain the myth of Stalin being somehow unique in his crimes regarding pre-kruschev soviet History, when in fact had Lenin lived longer or had Trotsky assumed power the bloodshed would've been most likely even worse. Because he after all wasn't quite of the same school as the others, in that he paradoxically wanted world communism to be subservient to him and the SU. Which is another thing that sets him apart: his willingness to liquidate any potential subversive opponents to him, even communists.

Both so-called totalitarians were powerful, however the power itself was sometimes not so tangible. Stalin for instance seems to have claimed power by ruthlessness and by default, whereas much of Hitlers "totalitarianism" was by proxy of the masses, and would have to have been seeing as how the war effort right to the end was so devoted and so clearly in vain, literally fighting at the steps of the Reichstag! It's funny how Stalin appears to have been jealous of it, even going so far as to MAKE people worship him, which is now referred to as an induced "personality cult" hahahaha.

[dukeofpain]

pegasos said:

Stalin won? Come on, dont act so ignorantly. Russia had the greatest amount of dead millions in the war and is now back (?) to the starting point. Stalingrad does not mark a battle given by victors, but marks a battle of desperate resistance. I am, yes though it may sound surprising to some of you, "aware" that Russia was considered to be amongst the so called victors, but Stalins way was global communism, and in this respect it failed tragically. A winning Russia according to me should have kept the whole of Europe, and struggled for the cause of global communism. Thus practising the vision of Eurasia and in alliance with the red dragon of the east, who knows what could have happened to the western capitalist commonwealth forces...So i am not striclty refering to national states but also to the great ideologies of that era that battled for the peoples' minds and hearts.

Rest assured, the soviet union won. lol.

p.s. theres evidence that suggests axis vs. soviet casualties were actuallly very similar.

[wendland]

Stalin did win. If the Soviets had gained everything to the Atlantic, probably the same result as what happened in the late 80s would have happened: Stagnation and eventual collapse under the weight of its own ineptitude. And, France, W. Germany etc... would have a post-communist heritage. As for human losses, that for the Soviets was just part of the formula: Russian saying: U nas mnogo ludiei (We have lots of people...probably said with a shrug)