Nestor made a comment in passing on the "Totalitarian" thread (which seemed to calm down and drain away the "Rivers of Blood" discussion on Trotsky vs Stalin") about how WWII was won in Stalingrad and Kursk and not at Normandy etc.
[It's funny because this is not the Soviet view. In fact, it's only Western Leftists, both Trotskyists and Stalinist/anti-Revisionists, that actually put this rather mythic proposition forward. In reading the very Trotskyist Militant from 1942, you will see *nothing but praise* for The Red Army. Its as if the western Allies were not in the war. And that from the anti-Stalinist left, not even the pro-Stalinist faction itself, the Daily Worker.] If you take what Nestor says, and look at this seriously, he is quite wrong, or, perhaps, only 3/4 true. We all know the 'facts' of this: biggest tank battle in the war: Kursk. Biggest land battle where armies directly confronted each other: Stalingrad. We know that about 8 out 9 German divisions were facing Russian divisions. All true. Also a half truth. One assumes that it was the Russians that won the war "almost by themselves". I think this is leftist projection based on a failed understanding on how the USSR survived. You have to ask: "if there was not a million German troops tied up in occupied western Europe...would the results have been the same?" "if *massive* allied material aid...from thousands of tanks to uniforms to food to fighter planes produced by western workers, mostly American, ...would the results have been the same?" "if Hitler faced the USSR with a neutral capitalist west...would the results have been the same?" My conclusion would of been that the USSR probably would of lost or at least been pushed back to the foothills of the Ural Mountains to rot in the cold of a Siberian winter. In fact, there are too many *numerous* instances even *with* the actual scenario the exact same that it was where Hitler's pretense of being an actual strategic genius caused the loss of Germany against Russia. Stalingrad is the best example but there are lots of others. What is not widely looked at was that the forces facing Stalingrad were only about 2/3 of the total number of army groups he sent there. The other 1/3 were sent *south east* of Stalingrad to take Baku. Post-Stalingrad western and even *Soviet* historians had said this was a huge mistake. Had that army been sent to the Volga at Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht could of *secured* a large stretch of the Volga and strengthened it's defensive lines there against the Deep Thrust counter-attacks of the Red Army. It would of cut off, probably for good, all oil flowing north on barges from Baku. End game, likely. There are too many numerous other scenarios before and after Stalingrad that could of resulted in a defeat. Add to this that the Allies were supplying the USSR and tying up *enough* troops in France and Belgium, maintaining about 1/4 of it's air force against possible bombing raids by the British, and THAT is the reason they won. David ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
