How important was the role of the Soviets Forces during the second war?
143182
The Allies won WW II because of the armies of the Soviet Union.  Operation Barbarrossa decided the fate of the Second World War.
179497
It depends on which Germany you are talking about because at this time, Germany was divided in two following the Occupation after World War II.  The part of Germany that had been occupied by Soviet forces became East Germany and was a Communist-controlled satellite state of the Soviet Union (as were the other Eastern Bloc countries like Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria etc).  West Germany was allied to the United States and Great Britain and was a democracy.  \n\nSo what Stalin wanted from East Germany was for it to remain under Soviet control and to act in concert with Russia on the world stage in the UN and such.  From West Germany, I suppose they wanted West Germany to leave Russia alone and ideally for it to also fall into the USSR's orbit and control.\n\nThe ultimate goal was for Germany never to be able to threaten the USSR with attack and domination again, or even to be a meaningful competitor after the experience of World War II.
635299
allies included \n    * Union of Soviet Socialist Republics\n    * International Brigades\n    * Popular Front\n    * Albanian National Liberation Army\n    * Chinese People's Liberation Army\n    * Moldova & Bukovina\n    * Communist Party of Yugoslavia\n    * Greek National Liberation Front\n    * Malayan Communist Party\n    * Tudeh Party of Iran\n    * Mongolian People's Republic\n    * Polish People's Army\n    * Viet Minh\n    * People's Republic of Azerbaijan \n    * Kurdish People's Republic\n    * United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland\n    * United States of America\n    * Republic of China\n    * Union of Soviet Socialist Republics\n    * Commonwealth of Australia\n    * Kingdom of Belgium\n    * Canada\n    * Republic of Costa Rica\n    * Republic of Cuba\n    * Czechoslovak Republic\n    * Dominican Republic\n    * Republic of El Salvador\n    * Kingdom of Greece\n    * Republic of Guatemala\n    * La Republique d' Haiti\n    * Republic of Honduras\n    * India\n    * Grand Duchy of Luxembourg\n    * Kingdom of the Netherlands\n    * Dominion of New Zealand\n    * Republic of Nicaragua\n    * Kingdom of Norway\n    * Republic of Panama\n    * Republic of Poland\n    * Union of South Africa\n    * Kingdom of Yugoslavia\nAxis powers\n     *Germany\n     *Japan\n     *Hungary\n     *Romania\n     *Slovakia\n     *Bulgaria\n     *Yugoslavia\n     *Independent State of Croatia\n     *Italian Social Republic\n     *Thailand\n     *Finland
519697
Yes, there was a Soviet Union in WWII. Stalin had purged (murdered) most of the officer corps just prior to the German invasion. The Red Army fell back at first, but then kicked the Nazi's a$$es from Stalingrad on. A couple of indications of the Red Army's might: the Japanese were afraid to fight them even though the USSR was fighting their ally Germany (The Red Army conquered the Japanese in Manchuria and China at the end of the war in a matter of days). The Red Army kept 300 German, Italian and other Axis DIVISIONS tied down, compared to a mere 30 fighting the US, Britain and all the other Allies on the western front.
414595
Joseph Stalin, born in Georgia (the former Soviet Republic) was part of the Bolshevik leadership who took part in the Russian revolution of 1917-18.  After Lenin died in 1922, Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union, position he held until his death in 1953.\nDuring Stalin's time in power, he was responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens due to his persecusions and decisions like the forced collectivization of farmland.  Stalin eliminated what little capitalism (which was very little) Lenin had left.\nStalin conducted huge purges of anyone he thought was opposed to him, including on the military.  Between 1936-1939, Stalin had numerous Red Army generals taken out and either killed outright, or sent to Siberia.  That's why, when Stalin attacked Finland in the Winter of 1939-1940, Finland nearly beat the Soviet Army.\n\nStalin also made a pact with Hitler in August of 1939.  Under this pact (the Molotov-Ribentropp pact) Germany was given free hand to take over Poland (as long as the USSR got a portion of it), while the USSR was given free hand to take over the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).  Stalin did this because he knew that Hitler wanted to attack him, but he also knew that he needed time to prepare his army for the onslaught.\nWhen, in 1941, Hitler attacked the USSR, Stalin rallied the Soviet people to defend the homeland, not communism.  This was a smart decision because the initial reaction of many soviet citizens was to welcome the Germans as liberators.
600698
indirectly,yes. Polish gvt. was in exile in England.\nmany Poles fought under British,American,and Soviet forces\ndirectly or in the underground.\nthe Russian "liberation" amounted to nearly 40 years of sattelite rule by Moscow.\ntry BBC archives
469661
Josef Stalin.... who was the leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), a position which had later become that of party leader.\n\nA hard-won victory in World War II (the Great Patriotic War, 1941–45), for which the Soviet Union was arguably unprepared, was made possible in part through the capacity for production that was the outcome of industrialization, as well as significant Lend-Lease gifts, primarily by the United States. In the postwar years, Stalin laid the groundwork for the formation of the Warsaw Pact and established the USSR as one of the two major world powers, a position it maintained for nearly four decades following his death in 1953.
340494
The US learned that their actions could cause wrong interpretations by the Soviets, example: \n\nUS destroyers were dropping signaling depth charges on a Soviet submarine near the quarantine line, intending to force it to surface. Unbeknownst to the US Navy, it was carrying a nuclear-tipped torpedo. The captain lost his temper.  The oxygen supply dropped in the sub and as temperatures rose to 120 degrees, some sailors fainted.\nVadim Pavlovich Orlov, an intelligence officer said the bombardment was like "sitting in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer.... But we were still holding on, trying to escape. We were suffering like this for about four hours."\n\nThe sub's commander, Valentin Savitsky, who could not communicate with the Soviet general staff, thought a nuclear war may have started up above. He ordered an officer to assemble the nuclear-tipped torpedo and prepare it to be fired.\n\nBut Second Captain Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov told Savitsky that the conditions for firing the torpedo, a rupture of the hull, had not occurred. Savitsky reversed his order and the submarine surfaced.  Nuclear war was averted thanks to the actions of a subordinate officer.\n\nThe outcome of this event, after it became known on the American military on how close they came to nuclear war was to change its policies regarding military confrontations, ie from now on they would take into account the possibility that the Soviets might interpret their actions as a cause for a nuclear response.
379902
Stalin was the leader of Russia during WW II.\n\nHitler had a treaty with Stalin that Germany would not attack Russia. But Germany broke the treaty and attacked Russia causing great damage (Russia was one of the worst affected countries of WW II). The Germans almost reached St. Peters burg. But winter came and that is when Russian striked back. The Russians were brutal during the war... and when the Russians surrounded Hitler's bunker in Berlin, Hitler committed suicide cause he himself feared what the Russians might do with him... so I would say the Russians played an equal role as America and its allies in bringing down Hitler.
921131
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union up until it collapsed. Therefore, they did not get involved in any violent war, just a mental war; the Cold War. The Soviets did never get involved in any war that included violence. \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Ukraine\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Ukraine\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine/Military\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_by_country\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_%281962-1991%29\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine
42650
After the resistance offered by the Japanese on their home islands such as Okinawa, the American and allied Generals believed the US and allied troops would receive up to 1 million casualties as a result of a land invasion of the Japanese mainland. Consequently the decision was made to drop the first 'A' bomb. As the Japanese surrender was not forthcoming the second bomb was dropped. The main benefit to this decision for the allies was to flex her muscles to the Russians who were becoming increasingly recalcitrant towards the west.\n\nI hope this helps,\nBrett
659278
After world war 2 (1945) to 1990 the USSR and USA governments     d each other and raced to be the best superpower. It wasn't a war as such. They gave each other the cold shoulder, so to speak. Hence the term. \n\nSome people claim they had proxy wars. They would have police actions in a third country supposedly to support the third country - but some people would argue this was their way of having a war with each other without admitting to having a war with each other. It was done this way (the argument goes) because the USSR and USA could never really have a war since they would blow us all to kingdom come.
189329
i think it was the soviets.
469208
world war 2 was going on
245837
Hitler's decision to invade The Soviet Union was a huge gamble, and one that he soon lost.  Russia had three things going for it: (1) vast expanses of land, (2) freezing winters, and (3) a huge horde of cannon fodder to throw at the advancing Germans.  Also, the gauge of the Russian railway system was different from that in the West, and the Wehrmacht was unable to easily transport troops by rail. Hitler had learned nothing from Napoleon, and his armies suffered the same fate.  Delayed for a month while Hitler sought revenge in the Balkans, by winter the German troops found themselves up against -20 degree cold wearing nothing but their thin summer uniforms. In the beginning, German invaders were welcomed by the Russian populace as liberators from the yoke of Stalinism, and Rusian peasants would set out little tables of bread and salt as a traditional sign of welcome, the but the atrocities committed by the Germans soon turned popular opinion against them.  Russian peasants took to burying their food and leaving nothing for the Germans to live on; whole factories were dismantled and shipped hundreds of miles east to the Urals.  In the end the German supply lines were overextended, and the counterattacks in and around Stalingrad by a defender determined to save the Motherland broke the back of the German Sixth Army and marked the beginning of the end of Hitler's grand plans. Russia would have been much more hard-pressed than it was without American aid and the fact that the Allies kept so many German divisions pinned down on the Western Front. Stalingrad is generally recognized as a turning point in the war. The German defeat deprived Hitler of sorely needed oil from the Caucasus region as well as the loss of over 600,000 troops and huge amounts of materiel; after Stalingrad the Germans were never able to mount a successful offensive; the tank battle at Kursk was the largest tank battle in history and another stunning defeat for the Gemans. But even with all these losses on the Eastern Front, the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany was a combined allied effort in which backward Russia probably paid by far the biggest price.
688828
Large standing army with good training systems learned from the West. Russian equipped now so the usual AK47's AK 74, shoulder launched rockets etc.\n\nSpecial forces are numerous and built along SAS / Delta principles but not as disciplined.\n \nSubstantial airforce with modern fighter planes, including Iraqs airforce which went to Iran in the first Gulf War to stop the US detroying it and then they never gave it back. Mostly Russian aircraft including Mig 29 interceptors. Some French aircraft. \n\nSmall navy but modern missile patrol boats and Frigates courtesy of the French again. Excocet missiles from the French.\n\nLots and lots of medium range missile systems similar to and including Scud.\n\nLots of poison gas and chemical weapons, which they happily used on the Iraquis.  \n\nFrom an experience perspective they fought an 8 year war against Iraq 20 years ago which was extremely bloody and costly. Interestingly neither side won any territory and it was a stalemate even after 8 years of very nasty fighting so you could assume that they are similar in fighting capability to the Iraquis.
849734
Initially, the German army was one of the best, if not the best army in WW II.  Hitler was very helpful in decimating that army with his plunge into Russian in June 1941.  After that, the Red Army, the Russian Winter and Hitler's blunders destroyed the Army.  Troops in Russia with no winter clothes and Hitler's refusal to let Paulus and the German 6th Army break out of Stalingrad are a couple of examples of wasting fine troops.\n\nWhen the Allies landed at Normandy, the German army they faced was still a force to be reckoned with.  But a combination of Allied pressure and dwindling natural resources brought about by the day and night bombing of Germany, soon reduced the effectiveness of German army.  The Bulge further depleted the Wehrmacht.\n\nNear the end, the German army was using kids and old men.  The veterans and especially the NCOs had long been killed.