"[The USSR] would have won anyway. At the end of the day we would have won by ourselves. That was obvious by the end of 1943. But the Allies did help in some ways and diminished our casualties and shortened the war. But otherwise we would have managed ourselves."
> I have a lot of respect for Roi Medvedev on lots of grounds, but this
> is silly
Arguing counterfactuals is without means of resolution. All opinions are equally true or false. But the lot of us know less than Roy Medvedev has forgotten about the history of the eastern front and the internal situation in the wartime USSR. Clearly he's not talking about some bizarre counterfactual in which the Brits were not at war with Germany, but rather whether Hitler would have been defeated by the USSR without Lendlease type aid or the second front. And his conclusion (to me evident) as to that question -however judged - is not "silly".
Among the people who were worried about just that possibility in 1943- 1944 were Roosevelt, Churchill and the Wehrmacht officers who tried to kill Hitler on July 20th, 1944.
john mage