Equating the Soviet Union's role to that of Germany during the second world war is certainly uhhh.. one of the takes. It's not as if the US sent tons of food, aircraft, and hundreds of thousands of vehicles to the SU as part of lend-lease.
The priority was to defeat Hitler and sending Western troops to the East wasn't feasible, so helping Soviet Union with lend-lease was seen as a lesser evil. The idea was then to defeat Soviet Union afterwards. However, the West was too tired fighting and since Stalin didn't look to move westwards, the war de facto got frozen.
The point is the west didn't care about Poland, the Baltics and other states that fell under Russia.
In their mind it was the "price" to pay for relative stability in the west.
The status quo was sealed once Soviet Union has developed their own nuclear weapons using stolen IP. Had this not happened, most likely Stalin would have been pushed back.
It was indeed an ally. In fact, after the war surveys showed French people overwhelmingly credited it with winning WW2. It was decades of american propaganda that reversed that.
The western front was already lost. The game was over. Germany won. Britain was pinned back and had no chance of invading France. If the soviets hadn't won at Stalingrad, turned the whole war and then slowly pushed back Germany... it was over. The US would've done absolutely nothing about it.
More Russians died at Stalingrad alone than Americans in the entire war. WW2 was, for most of it, just Germany v Russia. That's where all the losses were. Thats where all the fighting was. D-day was only in 1944... what was happening from the french surrender in 1940 until 1944? Who was fighting?
Honestly, Americans drinking their own kool-aid is mad to me. This is all basic history and a few hollywood films won't change that.
From France 24:
"Just after the European fighting ended in May 1945, a poll by the French survey group Ifop found that 57 percent of the French thought Moscow had contributed the most to the war effort, compared with just 20 percent who named the United States.
But by the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings by Allied forces in 2004 -- when Russia was represented for the first time, by Putin -- the figures were reversed, with just 20 percent putting the Soviet Union first.
Instead, 58 percent lauded the US, even though its total losses of 400,000 in both the European and Pacific theatres were just a small fraction of the dead in the Soviet Union.
"In 1945, the great ally was Stalin and the USSR -- their role was absolutely clear for the French," said Stephane Grimaldi, director of the Caen Memorial Museum for World War II in Normandy.
"But 50 years later, it's the US that won, for the very simple reason that in the meantime we had the Cold War," he said.
Hollywood also helped change perceptions with a string of hit films starting in the 1960s showing brave Americans fighting far from home.
"If you look at way it has been portrayed in popular culture, it's all about the battle in France and the Battle of Britain, but World War II was overwhelmingly Germans and Russians killing each other," said Jeremy Shapiro from the European Council on Foreign Relations."
You're overlooking the war in the Pacific. Hitler hoped that Japan would keep the US busy, and wanted a free hand to attack lend lease shipping. US Atlantic supply was key to keeping the UK and USSR alive and fighting. The UK shipped Churcill tanks via the Arctic convoy. The US sent Shermans, Jeeps and much infra. All key to the eventual victory at Stalingrad.
> In fact, after the war surveys showed French people overwhelmingly credited it with winning WW2. It was decades of american propaganda that reversed that.
Contributions aren't judged by polling random people.
Russia would have lost if it wasn't for American supplies. In fact the biggest US mistake was feeding 10 million reds a day during the 1921 famine[1].
They are usually considered allies in the context of WW2. The Von Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was evil, though, and it doesn't look like the USSR would have attacked Nazi-Germany if they hadn't invaded. So in that sense, it was an ally only out of necessity.
IMO the discussion often boils down to definition of words and emotional attachment to those words. I don't think people here disagree on the (most prominent) facts.
