Death, Succession, and Consequences

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I suppose a lot of Russians prayed for the death of Stalin.
Especially after he was outsmarted by Hitler during Operation Barbarossa in June, 1941.
It was an unnecessary blunder.
Hitler had telegraphed his intent via his infamous book, "Mein Kampf" just eight years earlier.
Presumably, Stalin was busy completing his purges and shoring up his defenses against the Far Eastern threat from Japan.

Some historical accounts recorded that Stalin initially seemed on verge of suicide. He was certainly stunned and incommunicado during the first critical days. This delay cost thousands of Russian soldiers their lives.
Luckily for the tyrant, he hadn't yet killed General Georgy Zhukov.

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Reminds me of the sex shop opened in a small town. Dildos, blow-up dolls videos and the like. The god botherers staged a protest and prayed for the demise of the business.

Next thing the shop burns down, the botherers are celebrating saying their prayers had been answered. So the shop owner threatens to sue them for the putting a curse on his business. Botherers are all back pedalling.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg has more to offer civilization than Queen Mary I, Hitler and Chairman Mao put together.

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I do not need to research and write a scholarly article in this forum to understand that Stalin was nothing more than a Georgian thug.
He murdered as many Russians as Hitler.
He dishonorably entered into a pact with Hitler in order to invade and control Eastern Poland. He then cried for Western help once he, the betrayer, had himself been betrayed.

If not for the United Kingdom and the USA: German would be a primary language in Moscow today.

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Once again your attitude reveals your immodesty: Does your ego, indeed, have no reset?

"The ignorant American Wolfe63 subscribes to the myth that the
UK and the USA saved [Russia](how?)"

First of all, the United States, having just emerged from the self-inflicted trauma of the Great Depression, had no appetite to involve itself in another European war. Isolationism and apathy were well represented in the American ethos of the 1930's.

Our view held that the Treaty of Versailles was at the root of Europe's problems. Especially because Wilson had warned Lloyd George and Clemenceau against being too punitive with Germany. His "Fourteen Points" seemed perfectly reasonable and, in our view, would have precluded extremist ascendance against the Weimar Republic.

But, as the "clock struck twelve" in September 1939...the inevitable reality of U.S. involvement became clear. Roosevelt initiated measures to set America upon a defensive war footing; while simultaneously pledging assistance to Churchill via the Lend-Lease Act.

Hitler was emboldened to attack Poland, precisely because of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. The agreement, concluded in late August, precipitated in Hitler's September 1st invasion.

However, as fate would have it, Japan came to Stalin's rescue on December 7th, 1941 and Hitler sealed his own fate by declaring war upon the U.S. four days later.

The fact of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was not forgotten by the remaining Allied nations as Stalin screamed for aid in 1942/43. His insistence upon the establishment of a 2nd Front via a continental invasion fell upon less than sympathetic ears.

Though, Stalin found adequate solace from America's determination to avenge itself against Japan. This fact, as well as his spy network in Japan, enabled his comfort in bringing more Siberian Divisions to the West in order to subdue the invading Hun.

War, like human nature, is filled with complexity. Simplistic sloganeering, by those with a propagandistic will to rewrite history, in order to suit themselves, is a shallow undertaking indeed.

Originally posted by @wolfe63
Once again your attitude reveals your immodesty: Does your ego, indeed, have no reset?

"The ignorant American Wolfe63 subscribes to the myth that the
UK and the USA saved [Russia](how?)"

First of all, the United States, having just emerged from the self-inflicted trauma of the Great Depression, had no appetite to involve itself in another European wa ...[text shortened]... gandistic will to rewrite history, in order to suit themselves, is a shallow undertaking indeed.

You really are bad at history.

Stalin throughout the 30s actively supported the concept of European "collective security" and joined with France and other countries in a series of mutual defense pacts. The French destroyed that relationship by agreeing to sell out the Czechs at Munich with neither the Czechs or the Soviets being allowed to attend those "talks" with Hitler. At that point, the Soviets, with good reason, distrusted the Western allies; they also had stood idly by while German and Italian troops and planes were dispatched to Spain to assist the Fascist takeover of that country.

If historical research has proven anything, it is that the Nazis were going to attack Poland in 1939 irregardless of what any other nation did. The Soviets invited the Poles, French and British to high level military talks in Moscow that summer; the Poles absolutely refused the idea of any assistance from the USSR and the French and Brits sent low level functionaries who's message was that their countries could take little offensive actions against the Germans in the early stages of the war and that Poland would not willingly grant passage to Soviet troops even if invaded by Germany.

Given that situation, Stalin's decision to cut a deal was cynical, but probably in the USSR's best interest. He avoided an immediate, probably disastrous war with the Germans to aid a country that didn't want his help and pushed the Soviet defense lines hundreds of kilometers west.

The Siberian Divisions were dispatched to the West well before Pearl Harbor. The Soviets never entirely discounted the possibility of a Japanese attack, but by November an invasion of Siberia wasn't likely - the Siberian winter is much worse than one the Germans found so unpleasant in front of Moscow, there isn't much of immediate strategic worth in Siberia anyway and the Japanese had been badly mauled by Soviet forces at Khalkin Gol in the summer of 1939 and were wary of Soviet military strength. The idea that the US somehow saved the USSR from attack by the Japanese is a pretty silly one.

The Soviets for most of the war faced the great majority of German land and air strength and decisively beat it though at almost unthinkable cost in lives and destruction. The timidity of Western war planning in 1942-43 given the situation on the Eastern Front is hard to understand but by summer 1943 the USSR had essentially turned the war to their strategic advantage despite the West's unwillingness to gamble.

The bottom line is this; the Soviets were not to blame for Nazi aggressiveness and if the West had held the line on a collective security policy rather than appeasement, WW II would probably never have happened (heck a couple of French brigades resisting the takeover of the Rhineland in 1936 would have been sufficient to stop it and probably end Hitler's regime once and for all).

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I think Mao was a military genius though a cold hearted and cynical one. He was indeed a terrible peacetime leader.

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It seems my statement was an exaggeration as regards the Luftwaffe; even before Kursk most planes had been diverted to other theaters:

A substantial portion of the Luftwaffe strength still remained on the Russian front. Of the total aircraft available at the end of June, 38.7 percent were in the east; more specifically, 84.5 percent of all dive bombers, 27 percent of all fighters, and 33 percent of all bombers were serving in the east.65

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAF-Luftwaffe/AAF-Luftwaffe-5.html