If you ask me who lost World War II, my answer is The Soviet Union. Yes, they did wind up with huge parcels of land and got to hoist the Hammer and Sickle over the Reichstag, but it was at a cost.
There were more than 50 countries involved in the conflict. If you took all of them: Axis and Allied with the exception of the Soviet Union and added up their casualties they still fall short of the casualties sustained by the Soviet Union alone. In other words, the U.S.S.R. lost more people than all the other countries combined. When your country has more that half the total casualties in a war, I call that losing.
Also from 1941 to late 1944, the war was fought on Soviet territory. There is such a thing as the home field advantage during a war, but you don’t want to have it.
Because of this, paranoia has dictated Russian politics ever since. It’s relatively easy to convince the populace that the fascists are out to get them again.
The Russians call it “The Great Patriotic War.”
If you ask me who lost World War II, my answer is The Soviet Union. Yes, they did wind up with huge parcels of land and got to hoist the Hammer and Sickle over the Reichstag, but it was at a cost.
There were more than 50 countries involved in the conflict. If you took all of them: Axis and Allied with the exception of the Soviet Union and added up their casualties they still fall short of the casualties sustained by the Soviet Union alone. In other words, the U.S.S.R. lost more people than all the other countries combined. When your country has more that half the total casualties in a war, I call that losing.
Also from 1941 to late 1944, the war was fought on Soviet territory. There is such a thing as the home field advantage during a war, but you don’t want to have it.
Because of this, paranoia has dictated Russian politics ever since. It’s relatively easy to convince the populace that the fascists are out to get them again.