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Most Important Allied Member of WWII

Most Important Allied Member of WWII

  • Total voters
    75
aberrant85 said:
. If the USSR got the bomb before the US then maybe they could have got an unconditional surrender.
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Oh yes - and you would be separating rotten potatoes from half-rotten potatoes at some collective farm near Oakland, in the Soviet Socialist Republic of California. (South Korea would simply cease to exist; Stalinists have no use for hard-working, stubborn and proud people).
 
Cyrylek said:
The UK. They were the pivot; they took the stand from the beginning, they persevered to the end. Not to diminish anybody else's contribution, but the Brits deserve the most recognition.

(And - again, not to dismiss the enormous sacrifices the Russian people made during the war - but let's not forget how the war had started: with the Nazis and the Commies attacking Poland from two sides.

The USSR (as the Stalinist political entity, not as a careless nickname for Russia) can take its "significance as an ally" and shove it "where the Sun doesn't shine", as they say in Russia (which means "Siberia", by the way).
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It is a toss up for me. I used to think, as an American, the USA. Now that I know more the UK contribution was huge.

I say:
1. USA or UK
2. USSR

They really won North Africa. They delayed the Germans invasion of Russia in Greece (which may have saved Russia), they were the real code breakers in Europe, the held off the Germans in the Battle of Britain, they secured the Middle East (Palestine and Iraq), they stopped the Japanese, with Indian help, in Burma, they destroyed the German Navy, they were integral in D-Day and the Western Front, they fought the Germans in Norway, they were the first to really set up a French Underground network, they were huge in the bombing of Germany... the UK was insanely important.
 
Cyrylek said:
Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders are the most underappreciated heroes of the greatest drama of the 20th century.
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...and they are really quick to point this out too.
 
CanadaJohn said:
On this Remembrance Day, I'll toss Canada into the mix - after losing over 60,000 soldiers in WW1 even though we were never attacked, we entered the fray very early, in support of our European friends, and lost another 40,000 soldiers in WW2.

Canada isn't just a fair-weather friend and to this day, when travelling in Europe, people will thank Canadians for their ancestors' help in these two great conflicts.
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I don't know that any of that is important but they did bring us Canadian Bacon...
 
Bodhisattva said:
It is a toss up for me. I used to think, as an American, the USA. Now that I know more the UK contribution was huge.

I say:
1. USA or UK
2. USSR .
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It is nowhere close to a toss-up for me - maybe because I am a Pole - even though I grew up in Moscow, Russia.

USA, UK and the West in general had won the war - definitely. Poland just had swapped one brutal occupation regime for another. And Russia had fared even worse: it was forced to accept a triumph of some alien (Marxist) totalitarian madness, as the only alternative to an even more alien (Nazi) totalitarian madness.
 
Proud South Korean said:
They would have swept through its continental holdings, though I agree that it would have taken them several decades at least to defeat Japan. They didn't have the air and naval power like the US
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They could have taken the continental holdings, including Korea, but they would have faced the same obstacle against Japan that Germany faced against England... the sea. The Soviets would have been just as incapable of projecting themselves across the Korea Straight as Germany was incapable of crossing the English Channel.
 
Cyrylek said:
Oh yes - and you would be separating rotten potatoes from half-rotten potatoes at some collective farm near Oakland, in the Soviet Socialist Republic of California. (South Korea would simply cease to exist; Stalinists have no use for hard-working, stubborn and proud people).
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Probably, but now we're in alternate history territory, and I'm sorry for even suggesting a world where USSR got the bomb before the US. From what I understand the Soviets only got there's by stealing American secrets, so if the US had never made one the USSR probably wouldn't have either.

Cyrylek said:
It is nowhere close to a toss-up for me - maybe because I am a Pole - even though I grew up in Moscow, Russia.

USA, UK and the West in general had won the war - definitely. Poland just had swapped one brutal occupation regime for another. And Russia had fared even worse: it was forced to accept a triumph of some alien (Marxist) totalitarian madness, as the only alternative to an even more alien (Nazi) totalitarian madness.
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Wasn't Russia totalitarian well before the war?

You do raise a good point, though, which is effectively WWII didn't really end for Eastern Europe in 1945, at least not with a return to normalcy; it just blended into the tyranny of the USSR for the next 50 years.
 
Cyrylek said:
It is nowhere close to a toss-up for me - maybe because I am a Pole - even though I grew up in Moscow, Russia.

USA, UK and the West in general had won the war - definitely. Poland just had swapped one brutal occupation regime for another. And Russia had fared even worse: it was forced to accept a triumph of some alien (Marxist) totalitarian madness, as the only alternative to an even more alien (Nazi) totalitarian madness.
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The USSR was totalitarian as of the 1920's and certainly after Stalin took control in '24 (or whenever that was). And Poland was independent prior to WWII
 
CanadaJohn said:
That's Peameal Bacon for the uninitiated - one of God's gifts to weekend breakfasts.
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Interesting read... thanks. Didn't know they rolled it in peas back in the day. Sounds good.
 
aberrant85 said:
You do raise a good point, though, which is effectively WWII didn't really end for Eastern Europe in 1945, at least not with a return to normalcy; it just blended into the tyranny of the USSR for the next 50 years.
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As predicted by Patton. He lobbied on several occasions to push on to Moscow.

"Let's keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to the Red Army. This is the only language they understand and respect."
"I understand the situation. Their (the Soviet) supply system is inadequate to maintain them in a serious action such as I could put to them. They have chickens in the coop and cattle on the hoof -- that's their supply system. They could probably maintain themselves in the type of fighting I could give them for five days. After that it would make no difference how many million men they have, and if you wanted Moscow I could give it to you. They lived on the land coming down. There is insufficient left for them to maintain themselves going back. Let's not give them time to build up their supplies. If we do, then . . . we have had a victory over the Germans and disarmed them, but we have failed in the liberation of Europe; we have lost the war!"
Patton to U.S. Secretary of War Robert Patterson, May 7, 1945
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Link to Quote
 
aberrant85 said:
Probably, but now we're in alternate history territory, and I'm sorry for even suggesting a world where USSR got the bomb before the US. From what I understand the Soviets only got there's by stealing American secrets, so if the US had never made one the USSR probably wouldn't have either.
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I think you are 100% correct. They DID steal the technology.

Wasn't Russia totalitarian well before the war?
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Yes, they were. In fact, Stalin knew about the Manhattan Project before Truman did because of Russian spies. The Russians spied from the very beginning of the Project.
 
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aberrant85 said:
Wasn't Russia totalitarian well before the war?.
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Yes, of course, but the victory in WWII turned the Stalinist USSR from a third-world dictatorship perpetually teetering on the brink of economic collapse into a superpower with realistic global ambitions. For Russians it meant that the Communist regime is there to stay, for their lifetime.
 
Bodhisattva said:
The USSR was totalitarian as of the 1920's and certainly after Stalin took control in '24 (or whenever that was). And Poland was independent prior to WWII
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Poland was attacked by Hitler from the West and by Stalin from the East, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, in September of 1939.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland


The USSR sure was totalitarian since its birth, but that was never a choice of Russians and other captive peoples: the Leninists never won any elections, and retained their power by systematic extermination of all and any opposition.

When German tanks rolled into Kiev and western Russian towns, they were showered with flowers. People believed they are being liberated from the worst tyranny in history. Of course, the Nazis being the Nazis, in a year or so the same people were hiding in the woods, staging a greatest guerilla war in history against the occupation.

It's like Solzhenitsyn said, "If you have to choose between two murderous psychopaths, you probably go for the one that speaks your own language".

(Stalin spoke Russian with a huge Georgian accent, but still better than Hitler)
 
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Cyrylek said:
Poland was attacked by Hitler from the West and by Stalin from the East, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, in September of 1939.

The USSR sure was totalitarian since its birth, but that was never a choice of Russians and other captive peoples: the Leninists never won any elections, and retained their power by systematic extermination of all and any opposition.
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Yep... I thought you were implying that Poland dependent prior to the war. As a Pole that lived in Russia I was confused as to why you wouldn't know that, but you do. All good.
 
Bodhisattva said:
I think you are 100% correct. They DID steal the technology.
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And another thing....Let's not forget that the very economic and technological survival of the hideous empire is to a great extent a result of our Western naivety, idealism and greed (take it in any proportions you like).

Under the Lenin's New Economic Policy (the "fascist" phase, 1920-1929, give or take, when strictly controlled private enterprise and foreign investments were encouraged), there was a rush of American money, expertise and entrepreneurial energy. The Democratic sugar daddy Armand Hammer made his big bucks there (and kept close ties with Stalin and subsequent Soviet bosses); and the charismatic Fred C. Koch - father of our own libertarian sugar daddies, the Koch Bros. - also was there, and as productive as anyone (he emerged from the USSR cursing and spitting, and terminated all business contacts there; I do recommend his book, A Business Man Looks at Communism, but still - the deed was done...).
 
That's very hard to say. I picked Russia before I realized the U.S. is on the list (I realize the U.S. was one of the allied nations, but was thinking of the question as "which was our most valuable ally, in which case, it's Russia hands down). I would put those two at roughly equivalent in terms of overall causal importance to winning the war.
 
Bodhisattva said:
The scale was big, yes, but that does not determine contribution. The USA contributed in two theatres of war, lent other major Allies significant and important supplies, was integral in breaking codes that lead to the shortening the war, etc. The Russians just threw tons of unarmed and badly armed men into machine gun fire until they withered down the Germans. That was great, but that was about it.
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You're making a fallacy, pointing out important successes the Western Allies made while oversimplifying Soviet ones. As an example, I could say that the Soviets conquered half of Europe, accounted for 80% of German casualties not to mention Roumanian, Hungarian, and other Eastern European countries, and finally conquered Berlin, while all the Western allies did was throw bombs from the air, but it's obviously a fallacy.
Also, the Soviets were certainly not unarmed, badly trained, and incompetently led during the latter years of the war.
 
Bodhisattva said:
It is a toss up for me. I used to think, as an American, the USA. Now that I know more the UK contribution was huge.

I say:
1. USA or UK
2. USSR

They really won North Africa. They delayed the Germans invasion of Russia in Greece (which may have saved Russia), they were the real code breakers in Europe, the held off the Germans in the Battle of Britain, they secured the Middle East (Palestine and Iraq), they stopped the Japanese, with Indian help, in Burma, they destroyed the German Navy, they were integral in D-Day and the Western Front, they fought the Germans in Norway, they were the first to really set up a French Underground network, they were huge in the bombing of Germany... the UK was insanely important.
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A little trivia, without Polish contributions, UK code-breaking would may not have existed.
 
Chiefgator said:
As predicted by Patton. He lobbied on several occasions to push on to Moscow.



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Not just Patton, but everybody knew what would happen. Churchill and others also pushed for a war with the Soviets (though Churchill also had a bit of madness in him), and when the Soviets intentionally withheld and even blocked aid to the Poles during the Warszawa uprising, even a fool could see what would happen.
 
It's difficult to say for sure which Allied nation played the most crucial role. The United States gave the most money and arms to other Allied countries so in terms of finances, we were the greatest Allied power. Also, there's a misconception that Russia was a great power at this time because quite frankly they weren't a great power militarily. The only thing that stopped the Germans from completely over running Russia was the vast territory they would have had to supply. It wasn't Russia's troops that stopped and occupied Hitler's troops per say, but on the contrary it was the Germans over shooting their own supply lines. Meanwhile, U.S. factories continued to churn out military supplies without any real threat of bombing from opposing countries.

In my opinion, it's hard to argue that the U.S. wasn't the greatest Allied power because I think it would've been the only country that had any chance of stopping Japan and Germany on it's own. Plus we had a "two-ocean navy" at the time. Meaning our navy's size and strength was larger and stronger than any other presence in both the Pacific and Atlantic
 
DiAnna said:
Started right after WW2, IIRC, as the Allies were dividing the spoils of war, and Russia was claiming its share of Eastern bloc countries. That's simplistic, but basically correct, I believe, for what we consider the "modern" and expansive USSR.
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:shock:

What in the world are you talking about?
 
rathi said:
The USSR was the only nation capable of defeating the Nazis. The U.S. was the only nation capable of defeating Japan. These facts are easily backed up if you look at the break down of which nation caused the various losses suffered by the Axis.
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Actually, by 1945, we had the Bomb and could have defeated any nation on earth by 1947, including the Soviet Union and China at the same time.
 
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