The Second World War occurred from 1939 to 1945, and it was fought between two groups of allies. One group was fittingly named the Allies and it consisted of the USA, the UK, France, and the Soviet Union. The opposition was called the Axis Powers, and consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The main aim of the war was to stop Germany, which was being run under Nazi fascism at the time, from invading the surrounding countries.
What was the Soviet Union’s role in World War Two?
Although the Soviet Union is reflected upon as one of the three main Allies of World War Two, they did originally side with Germany, mostly because Stalin also wanted to take over land and expand the spheres of Soviet influence.
On the 23rd of August 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, which also included a secret clause which would divide land in Eastern Europe that the Germans wanted to invade into two separate ‘spheres of influence’, effectively splitting the land between German and Soviet control. In October and November 1940, there were a number of talks taking place about the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis Powers, however nothing came of it due to certain ideologies within Nazi fascism.
The official start of World War Two was the German invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939, and invasion which the Soviet Union actually participated in. 16 days later, on the 17th of September 1939, Stalin launched his own invasion into Poland and areas on the Soviet-Europe border – areas like Estonia and Latvia. However the alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union later fell apart.
Why did the Soviet Union join the Allies?
On the 22nd of June, 1941, Hitler betrayed Stalin and launched a German invasion of the Soviet Union which has become known as Operation Barbarossa. German troops were sent over the Eastern border into the USSR, however they were successfully stopped by the Soviet forces about 30km outside of Moscow. Throughout the rest of the war, the Soviet Union continued to fight the German forces on this Eastern Front.
During the first three weeks of Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union suffered great casualties, including 750,000 lives lost, 10,000 tanks, and 4,000 aircrafts. In July 1941, Stalin reorganised the Soviet military and placed himself directly in charge of many of the different military organisations, which then gave him more control over the country’s war effort than any other leader of any other country involved in the Second World War. Despite this, by the end of 1941, the Soviet military had suffered 4.3 million casualties, seen 3 million Soviet prisoners captured by the Germans, and the German army had advanced 1,700km into their territory.
This led Stalin to finally ally himself with the UK and France. He met with Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt (the USA entered the war after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour) at the Tehran Conference in 1943, in which they discussed fighting Germany on a two front offensive, meaning that they would work together to have the Soviet Union attacking Germany on one side, and the other Allies attacking Germany from the opposite direction. The fighting between Germany and the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front continued until the end of the war in 1945, with many failed operations and millions of lives lost.
Consequences of the Second World War in the Soviet Union
- Although they were victorious in the end, the Soviet Union saw some devastating consequences after World War Two. In total, they lost more than 20 million people, the highest amount of any country involved in the war, which meant that, after the war ended, the amount of young men in the country and, specifically, in the labour forces was incredibly depleted.
- Furthermore, the war had also caused massive infrastructure damage, especially in agricultural regions in the West, which then led the the Famine of 1946. This famine lasted from the middle of 1946 until the winter of 1947/48, and is estimated to have killed anywhere between hundreds of thousands, up to 2 million people.
- There was also a baby boom after the end of the war which led to a population increase that the country was not structurally prepared for – this actually worsened the famine of 1946.
There was also the slightly different consequence upon Stalin’s image. The fact that Stalin had been so directly involved in leading the military meant that, after the war was won, he appeared like the victorious leader and like he was ‘the father of the nation’, which played into propaganda and strengthened his power over the people.
Another, more long-term impact of the Second World War was the Cold War which, although it mostly occurred outside of the time period we’re studying, was very interesting. Tensions during the war between President Truman of the USA and Stalin only intensified within peace time and they continued until Stalin’s death and afterwards until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact cause of the original tension between the two nations, but it is easy to argue that there were a couple of clear factors.
1) Russia lost the most lives during the war, and yet was often overlooked in the victory, with people believing that America ‘saved the day’, which could easily have caused resentment within Stalin and the Russian people.
2) At several points within the war, American and the other Allies withheld information from the USSR, such as the completion of the atomic weapons, which undermines the idea of allyship.
3) There were always clear ideological differences between the capitalist USA and the communist USSR, and neither wanted the other to seem superior to them.
4) There was also the issue that the USSR took over land in Eastern Europe after the end of the war – maybe they felt like it was owed to them for their sacrifice, or maybe they felt like they needed a border to protect them from the other nations that did not share their ideologies.