Opinion Piece - Myths and Realities of the Great Patriotic War

[USS Wyoming]

Just got around to reading this thead and I just happen to have finished Merridale's, " Ivan's War" a couple months ago.

I concur with the notion that the USSR's pounding of the German armies was decisive in ending the war, but I was struck by a couple other things I gleaned from the book.

How the total control of communication within the country allowed the Red army to hide the massive casualties they continued to suffer throughout the entire war from the general public. Had the public been aware with some certainty of the human cost, they may have pressed for an end to the fighting once the Germans had been pushed firmly out of Russia.

While the Eastern Front consumed men from both sides, its appetite for war material was just as great. Despite the rapid growth of Soviet material production I do not think they could have out produced the German's had it not been for the Allied bombing of Germany.

Finally, the discussion seems to suggest that the sacrifice by the Soviet soldier was never appreciated by the Allies. That shouldn't be a surprise considering the Soviet Union cloaked all of its operations in secrecy following the war. Combined with the aftermath of the war that included the annexing of previously independent eastern European countries by their new liberators and the failure to repatriate thousands of prisoners (two wrongs don't make a right). I shudder to think what the West would have concluded if the information contained in Merridale's book about the unneccessary sacrifice of Soviet troops during the battle of Berlin, the sanctioned conduct upon the civilian population by the Red Army and the broken promises of the Soviet state following the return of those Hero's of the Soviet Union to the motherland would have become common knowledge at the end of hostilities.