I think you are correct.
Where this will go? Who knows?
No one predicted what happened in WWI. The result were an unexpected disaster.
Predictions on what WWII meant were generally far off of what happened.
Stalin is said to have been surprised they won. (at lest at one or more points).
As far as I can see, Stalin was perhaps the most effective, brutal, and personally nasty leader in WWII.
Almost certainly a sociopath. But he saw the war clearly (after he recovered from Hitler betraying him before he could betray Hitler).
Easy to do when you have almost endless cannon fodder.
Stalin was a vicious sociopath arsehole who died in his own excrement, I'm happy to say.