An example of Russian strength during the war is the German attack on Stalingrad. In an effort to obtain control of the lower Volga River region German forces attempted to capture the city of Stalingrad on the west bank of the river. Soviet forces put up fierce resistance even after Hitler had reduced the city to rubble. Eventually Soviet forces led by General Zhukov surrounded the German attackers and forced them to surrender in February 1943. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad proved that, after losing this battle, the Germans did not have the strength to maintain their offensive against the Soviet Union. After Stalingrad, the Soviet Union was in a much better position than Germany until the end of the war, and it proved that Russia was strong, determined and able to defeat Hitler.
It was not only the strengths of the USSR that won them the war, but also weaknesses on Germany’s behalf that lead to its defeat. Unlike Hitler, Stalin encouraged strategic debate, and was willing to listen to suggestions. Germany did not grasp that the economies of eastern conquests had to be rebuilt and managed, and they did not appeal to anti-communist peasants due to their treatment of the Slavs. Although the Germans were often welcomed as liberators by villagers weary of Stalin’s rule, this changed after the way Russian citizens were treated. The Germans looted the land, and after the harvest of 1942, the Germans only permitted peasants to keep enough grain for two quarters of a pound of bread a day, these rations depopulating the countryside. Sending Russians away to work also left labour shortages in areas of which Germany had control.
The strength of the USSR was greatly helped by the contributions of western allies. The war would have gone on for much longer were it not for their help. Although the USSR posed a communist threat, Britain and the USA saw Hitler as a greater danger, and they believed that Russia would be useful in defeating Japan. They sent crucial supplies, such as tanks and aircraft, petroleum, zinc, copper, aluminium and chemicals. British aid amounted to £420 million and USA aid to $11 billion. The delivery of these supplies greatly speeded up the war, however it also showed that alone the USSR was not as strong as it may have appeared, and that it needed help from western allies.
The USSR had to pay a high price for the war. It lost more soldiers than any other country, with 1 million people dying from famine or disease during the siege of Leningrad alone. There were food shortages that lead to greatly inflated prices. The yield of food produced in the country in 1945 was only 65% of what it had been in 1940, and caloric consumption fell to a quarter less than was normal before the war. Overall 8.6 million troops and 17 million civilians died, and 25 million were left homeless. Russia was badly bruised, with 1,700 towns and many more villages destroyed, along with 30,000 factories and 65,000 kilometres of railway.
To a certain extent the USSR’s victory in the war proved that the Stalinist system was both politically and economically effective. The fact that the USA and Britain saw the USSR as a vital ally, despite fears of communism, showed that communism had the potential to prevail throughout the world. This seemed even more imminent when at the end of the war the Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two greatest military powers. Its forces occupied most of post-war Eastern Europe, and it also won island holdings from Japan and other concessions from Finland as well as territories the Soviet Union had gained as a consequence of the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact. Throughout the war Russia was able to produce more than double the amount of arms than Germany, and it was always ahead industrially. However it was not only strengths of the Stalinist system that allowed the Soviet Union to triumph. Without western help the war could not have been won as quickly as it was, and it proved that the USSR did still need support from the west. Whilst the Stalinist regime was effective in encouraging its citizens to fight in the struggle against Germany, and Stalin proved an effective leader, it was also the weaknesses of Germany that led to its defeat, for instance its inability to manage the economies of its eastern conquests. The Stalinist System proved that it was strong both politically and economically after winning the war, however this was not without the help of western allies or weaknesses that Germany suffered.
