I know that the United States did not become heavily involved except through the Lend Lease Act for years and was wondering if certain members of the allied forces intentionally left Russia to deal with the Nazi invasion so that they would be in a better position after the war to deal with communism.
Was it always the strategy for the Allies to have a "backdoor" invasion of Nazi Europe for strategic purposes or was the decision to wait calculated on having the USSR take losses?
Did we immediately pull support of Lend Lease after the war, and did that do significant economic damage the USSR?
Thanks all!
The rift between the East and West began before the war was over. It wasn't a "America pulled out, to fuck over Russia" or "America pulled out, and accidentally fucked over Russia." What happened was the two sides couldn't agree on how to deal with postwar Germany. The western allies wanted to help rebuild and then leave Germany alone (rather than decimate their economy and gut the country, which is what happened after ww1) while the Russians wanted true occupation, and to punish the Germans. The western allies, Churchill specifically, saw what was coming and that didn't help either. To answer the question, though, in 15 years of research I've never come across anything pertaining to holding out on the soviets. Not saying it didn't happen (which I don't believe it did, and after researching the eastern front a great deal as of late, haven't found anything that would point to that) but I haven't found anything that would suggest it. After the last war America was reluctant to get involved. Also, in 1942 the allies were not equipped to invade Europe and push into germany.