[muawiyah]

There was an Allied plan and they expected to draw so many casualties in the final push against the Germans. Russia drew the short straw and had to pay in blood.

They also had this legitimate grievance against the Germans who'd just knocked down 60% of all standing structures in what used to be called the USSR.

Eventually Stalin died, a series of apparatchiks of questionable talent followed, and in the end we got to see Boris Yeltsin on TV writing decrees that dismantled that structure and put the Russians on a different path.

Maybe that could have happened earlier with a deeper Allied advance from the West, and maybe it couldn't.

[dfwgator]

Russia drew the short straw and had to pay in blood.

A lot of that blood could have been avoided if they had a different ruler....The Soviet Union won, in spite of Stalin.