I believe this was already known. Stalin’s purges of the military was what hurt the Soviet Union. Stalin is the one that almost lost the war.
... I see the would-a, could-a, should-a, but didn’t syndrome continues ...
The Russians were lucky to have won the war after Joe Stalin murdered the cream of the crop of the Russian command staff.
The Russians won because of the weather, the Russian people, the T-34 and Zhukov. Stalin was a hindrance if anything.
Without Uncle Sam’s Lend-Lease, they certainly would have lost. The Red Army arrived in Berlin on Dodge trucks.
As we (U.S.) hadn’t entered the war by that time, am I right to think Germany focused most if not all of its attention on the Eastern Front?
It would be great to hear a translation of the interview.
If Hitler had beaten Stalin then we beat Hitler we would not be havng such a communist problem right here now.
And the Red Army was almost defeated by the White Army in 1918. How the Red Army pulled that one off I have no idea.
The headline assumes that if Moscow had fallen the Soviets had “lost” the war. Not sure if Zhukov regarded it that way but based upon what appears in the article it seems that Z. was referring to the desperate need to stop the German advance short of Moscow. However, it is also at least debatable whether the loss of Moscow would have been tantamount to losing the war or not. It would have been a further disaster of course, and something of major symbolic impact, but the vast and bloody war may have continued on to the same conclusion in 1945 or so, even had Moscow fallen.
Good thing Hitler ordered his forces to turn away from Moscow and head to Stalingrad.
Sorry to everyone. There should have been ‘/snip’ sign before the last sentence “In giving the reasons for the Soviet victory, Zhukov made no mention of Stalin, who was taken unawares by the Nazi invasion of Russia.”
interesting!
God directly intervened by providing two of the most brutal winters in history, even by Russian standards.
DontTreadOnMe2009
A rare boatload of bananas arrived in the Soviet Union.
Stalin’s son rushed to give some to his father.
Stalin peeled one. It was not yet ripe.
Stalin peeled another. It was not yet ripe.
Stalin peeled yet a third one. It was not yet ripe.
He began to shout.
Who did this?
Who is sabotaging the Soviet Union?
What is the name of the ship? Who is the captain?
Get me his name!!! Heads must roll! (over a few bananas)
And all the little flunkies began scurrying around the dacha looking for phones to call and investigate this wrecking of the Soviet Economy (from the book “Stalin”)
Well America,
this is what we now have.
BTW
did you know
that with the breakup of East Germany, there were people who for the first time in their lives could now see and eat a banana???
Reason?
The powers on top, the bureaucrats, had decided there was no need to import such a rarity. No need for the people down below to have them.
In the USA, today, they cost about a dime or twenty cents each don’t they?
We now all live under a system, if it continues, where a government flunky will now decide EVERYTHING.
And the Dems in Congress, not knowing or understanding any of this, will smile and look around for something else to wreck. Er, I mean, reform.
We want our reform now!!!!!!!
i.e. you got it/ we want it/ let’s go get it.
BTW, the great Alexandr Solzhenitsyn went to Siberia for 12 years for a joke he wrote about Stalin, in a private letter, during WW II, while an artillery captain.
Stalin hated joke writers more than he wanted soldiers, while fighting for his country’s survival.
Think about it.
Keep well, stay safe everyone.
May God bless all my fellow FReepers cuz it is sure as hell that the Democrats won’t.
“Life has become gayer, comrades.”
Life has become more joyous.”
-—————Josef Stalin’s pronouncement at the height of the Great Terror, where millions were killed. (the purges).
Had the Germans taken Moscow they might still have lost. The Soviets still had the Urals to their backs. Oh, and Marshal Zhukov probably would have been shot.
If Hitler didn’t have to go into the Balkans to rescue Mussolini, the Nazis may very well had won the war.
They won the war despite the idiotic Stalin. The only man Stalin ever trusted was Adolf Hitler.