Could the USSR have won WW2 without lend lease or the western front?

by Specific_Tomorrow_10

Hi all,

I'm a software engineer who never took the time to think all that much about history. Until Covid. I suddenly was working from home and had the time to take walks, listen to podcasts, read...sad story I know lol, but lately I've been really getting into history. Like really. I started with Rome, then the revolutionary age of Europe, and now I'm gobbling up everything I can about WW1 and 2. One thing I can't wrap my mind around is what exactly was the tipping point in WW2?

twotime

what was the tipping point in WW2?

I don't think there was "the" tipping point. It also depends on the perspective (military, political, etc)

E.g at the purely military level, I'd say that the critical points were:

  1. Successful defense of Moscow (Dec 1941) and then

  2. A victory under Stalingrad (end of 1942)

At the geo-political level, one could argue that US's entrance into the war in Dec 1941 was clearly tipping the scales in Allies' favor

And to answer your other questions (as usual most opinions about "what ifs" are just opinions):

would USSR have won without the western front?

Yes. Almost certainly. By the time the Western front was opened, Germany was clearly losing the war. It is certain however that the Western front sped up the victory by several months.

would USSR have won without the lend lease

Now, that's trickier. Lend lease help was enormous. Yet only 2% of it came in 1941 (before Moscow), only 14% came in 1942. It's hard to say if those 15% were critical to Stalingrad victory... But it does seem certain that after that the lend-lease at least sped up the victory by many, many months. E.g pretty much all trucks in USSR were lend-lease ones.

So, it's plausible that USSR would have won even without lend-lease but it's definitely very much unclear.

Note however, that there also were the African campaign, Italian campaign, US/UK air and naval wars, massive guerrilla wars in Yugoslavia and Poland, Pacific theater (which kept Japan busy), etc... All things considered, I don't think USSR would have survived the war if both UK and US went for a separate peace in early 1941..

E.g, one could make a strong case that it was the African campaign which helped Moscow defense the most! (by keeping a significant chunk of Axis troops occupied elsewhere)

There are 2 other major factors to consider:

  1. Without Western help, USSR could have went for a separate piece: e.g even as late as mid 1943, Germany was still controlling a huge chunk of Soviet territory, yet clearly incapable of pushing it further, so it'd definitely be reasonable for both sides to try to negotiate their way out of the prolonged war...

  2. Nazi did have a serious nuclear program. Would an extra year or two of war give then enough time to build an A-bomb?