The Soviets lost 20 million people in WWII and that doesn’t include the millions more wounded and injured and the massive property damage. They would not have the Marshall Plan (nor should they have) to rebuild. They would rape Eastern Europe for resources.
The incomprehensible damage done to the Soviets is the context for their subsequent actions.
My German wife lost her father on the Eastern Front and two uncles, one at Normandy and one captured by the Soviets never to be heard from again, one of a million German prisoners who were used to rebuild the Soviet Union dying in captivity. My wife was 3 years old when the war ended.
The generations of Europeans that grew up in the post- war era had their world views shaped by their experiences during that period. Fortunately, we did not experience that level of destruction with the possible exception of the South after the Civil War. IMO the growth of big government and socialism found fertile ground in these devastated countries.
Yes and then there were the people caught in the middle who had to endure both Nazi occupation and Soviet right afterwards.
And unfortunately young Americans don’t have an understanding of the war from any perspective. And if they do it’s likely an anti-American leaning one.