How feasible would it have been for the USSR to turn against the Allies and try to take the whole of continental Europe after Berlin fell, and why did they refrain from doing it?

by satuon

At the time Berlin fell, the atomic bombs had not yet been dropped, so they wouldn't have been a deterrent.

I've heard that the Germans used only 10% of their forces to fight the Allies. How difficult would it have been for the USSR to fight them, when it no longer had to fight Germany?

So why didn't they do it? Are there any records of deliberations, discussions, or plans made by the Soviet leadership for such a scenario? Why did the refrain from doing it?

I imagine the possible reasons are:

  1. They didn't think they have good chances to win, or they thought it would have been too costly.
  2. They had no ambition to expand, i.e. they didn't have an expansionist policy, even though Communism is supposed to be spread to the whole of the world.
  3. They did it on moral grounds, i.e. betraying your allies, even if they're capitalists, was morally objectionable to them, or they couldn't have justified it in their propaganda.
restricteddata

At the time Berlin fell, the atomic bombs had not yet been dropped, so they wouldn't have been a deterrent.

In a sense that's true, but Stalin did know about the Manhattan Project, through his spies. He knew they would not have a bomb ready for several months, but he knew one was coming. Whether that would have mattered is a separate question.

BeondTheGrave

I would like to just correct this statistic

10% of their forces to fight the Allies.

This lecture from David M Glantz presents several statistics on the number of German men deployed between the Eastern Front and the Western Front. Glantz suggests a number between 30-40% of all mobilized Germans. Thats a pretty big difference, and an important distinction. While the Soviets had a hard time on the Eastern front, and arguably the harder time, the Allies fought major German formations.

nilhaus

You're basically describing what was called Operation Unthinkable. Soviet forces had a 4:1 manpower superiority to the other Allied forces, and a 2:1 tank advantage. Any fighting forces to defend against the Soviet army would have to come from Great Britain and the United States since the rest of Europe was already devastated.

Any sort of mobilizing German Wehrmacht soldiers would be political suicide no matter the real risks involved in a Soviet dominated Europe. Creating German fighting units is very different than having a few former soldiers performing guard duty under supervision. American forces were already strongly transitioning to the Pacific or home, and a pivot to bring them back to Europe would take time and also be politically difficult. The American public was ready for the war to be over.

The Soviet forces would have a good chance at early military domination, but when you introduce atomic weapons and real life politics it's hard to say what would happen. Would America stand for what would likely be years more of war and death? Did Americans really care enough about Europe turning communist? They didn't seem bothered about Poland. Could the Soviet forces absorb another 20 million deaths? Would we even be able to establish the air superiority required to drop an atomic weapon?