red elk, you are my kind of poster:
There were reserves. That's why Red Army still had forces to resist after initial defeats in 1941.
Not only that, but learning days before of the Pearl Harbor attack allowed the USSR to move divisions from the eastern Asia theater (to counter the Japanese in China) because the Japanese would be tied up with a war with America.
See the excellent Chinese spy thriller
East Wind Rain about the Communist spy ring that cracked the intelligence that Japan was plannign the attack and told the US, USSR.
I said there was no second front.
The second front which was opened in 1944, and which existed throughout all WW1 before.
Diverting significant German land forces, not just a dozen of divisions.
The second front which was called that, back then, despite existing of all the other minor fronts.
Only you pretend not to understand what I mean.
Oh, how right you are. The Americans and Brits did not make a move for Europe until 1943 when they tried to go up the "soft underbelly of Europe." Stalin's genius was in getting two fat cat bourgeois politicians to AGREE to open a second front on the west at all -- and only after the defeat of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad.
Read Zhukov's account of the battle of Stalingrad. Or, William Craig's
Enemy at the Gates The plan for "Operation Overlord" (D-Day) did not even see the light of day until the USSR won the Battle at Kursk -- and started pushing the Nazis back into wester Europe.
You mean, Stalin thought nobody would attack USSR and it was perfectly safe, because a few capitalist countries recognized USSR?
And he built 25000 of tanks, almost 20000 of planes, put more than 3-million army along Western border by summer 1941 just for fun, or to cheer German armada on the other side of the border?
Correct me if I'm wrong, you seriously think that Stalin was not preparing USSR in late 1930-s for big war?
Of course, Stalin thought no such thing. Louis Fischer, in
Men and Politics described the process by which the USSR found itself squaring off with the Nazis. One by one, Britain and France gave away Austria and Czechoslovakia and it was only a matter of time before Germany would head East. That is where the MRP came from, known at thetime as the "Pact that stopped Hitler," making the USSR the first Army to stop the Wehrmacht (oh, there was fighting, as Soviet troops had to take the part of Poland ceded to them).
Also, why else would the USSR move its factories to the east side of the Ural mountains.
Oh, no, Stalin has secured this part of history as being one of the greatets leaders of that era.
My gift to you, the Red Army Choir singing "The Sacred War"
