Opinions are of value if they are based on facts, and not simply by virtue of the fact that someone has them. Russians have quite a few novel opinions relating to WW2. For example, they have the opinion that Russia actually brought liberty to Eastern Europe, calling Stalinist oppression “liberty”. They are of the opinion that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania committed national suicide in unison in 1940, and willingly and legally joined the house of horrors that was Stalin’s Soviet Union. Most Russians also have the opinion that there never was a Soviet occupation of the Baltics. None of these opinions is worth a kopek.

Sorry but without allied help Russia would defeated by Germans - the start of the campaign showed that clearly. Defeat after defeat, mass capitulations, bad leadership - only when large supplies of ammo, food and fuel went from UK and US throgh the Northern Sea, USSR began to stop German offensive. Remember jeeps and studebakers?

This view is way too simplistic, The military Nazi machime was one efficient SOB spreading from Germany up to the Baltics and including some other states along the way. The Allies had to pull together to beat the Nazi monster. No doubt the Soviets took the greatest hit, and were the only ones who could hold the Nazis on the ground, loosing an immense amounts of souls. However, without the British, Americans, Canadians, Anzacs, Free poles ..... all mixing it up to keep the Nazis fighting on all fronts. Then we would have faced a single pointed full force attack. What would have happened then, is a moot argument, I would like to think we could have held the Nazis out, but my mind says, we may never have. The British were bombing, there were campaigns in the Mediteranean and Africa, the North Americans kept the commodities coming, then they came with Aircraft and finally on the beaches. I think it is a little fantasy to think we could have held the Nazis out on our own. While it is a huge fantasy to thing the western powers won the war. It was an Allied team effort, it needed to be, to face down the evil of humanity, the Nazis. let's remember all who fell in the defeat of the Nazis, from wherever they came. They stood up met the challenge and put the Nazis to the sword. This was not competitive game with a bonus structure. People were dying in their millions, women children..... All in the persuit of a master race. It's easy to sit in a reading room and fantasise, Quite a different matter to realise the suffering inflicted by the Nazis and the huge response that needed to be given to defeat it.

Another event which was extremely important was the Battle of Britain, a prolonged duel in the air between the RAF (supplemented by air crew from Poland, amongst other places) and the Luftwaffe. As well as weakening the German air force, the predominance of British air power in the west meant that bombing raids by the Americans and the British diverted German fighters to the west. This being the case, when they invaded Russia, the Germans were unable to bring to bear the full combination of air and land forces - the Blitzkrieg - that had devastated Poland and France. This is not to downplay the heroism, sacrifices and operational brilliance with which the Russians eventually won, but some objectivity is desirable. As one Mr Stalin put it: the Americans paid in money, the Russians paid in blood and the British kept the whole thing going.

Some historians have suggested that the USSR would have still won but that the cost would have been substantially higher loss of life, with around 40 million dead from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Britain would have been better off just defending itself and it's empire. A substantial proportion of the standing British army was lost in the British Expeditionary Force, leading up to the Dunkirk evacuation (My father was one of the lucky survivors of the BEF but lost his hearing and saw most of his friends killed). Many in America considered they should not become involved in a European war and that they should look to the defense of the USA - had Britain not survived 1940 alone, the US would have probably stayed away. The loss of the US monetary and industrial contributions may well have been decisive for the outcome. It is difficult to predict what would have happened without the western allies. Without the British destruction of most of the French navy in Brest, the Germans would have had a much larger navy at their disposal. If the heavy water plant in German occupied Norway was not sabotaged, would the Nazis have developed a nuclear weapon? Would the German war machine have been more effective in the east had they not been subjected to a naval blockade and bombing of all their major cities?

Whatever anyone might say, i never heard a Russian WW2 veteran understating allies involvement in the war. They remember that it's western food and supplies that kept them hanging on through the hardest times. And American trucks provided much to the mobility of Russian counter-offensive. While factories relocated to Siberia from occupied territories only started working in 1942, allies provided enough ammunition to at least slow the enemy advancement to Moscow. I understand why Russian people think that way though. Soviet education on the matter was a bit one-sided. While not openly understating the importance of other fronts it, naturally, focuses on eastern theater. It's often considered that a full-scale involvement of Allies in the war began only in Normandy, when Germans were forced to move some of their forces from eastern front. And then a person is asked that kind of question in the poll, he/she doesn't give much thought to it, so it goes like this - largest battles, most casualties, yes, i think we could have won. For those who is interested in Russian perception of WW2 - the Great Patriotic War - I have recently stumbled upon this interesting project: http://english.pobediteli.ru/

IF Russian people think they could have won wwii without allied help by sending supplies to murmansk what with the hellish sea conditions and ships being torpedoed and bombed did all these british sailors die for nothing dont you try to rewrite history as well.

All very good comments on the support and joint effort in the fight against the Nazis - it was a great team effort. jnn - your comments on WW2 veterans is excellent. For far too long we have not brought all the veterans and parties together in one global celebration. For far too long we have not celebrated together the defeat of the Nazis by the Allies as a whole. Personally I would love to see a global celebration, maybe once every five years, when all the Allies can stand together with veterans and soldiers parading. It would serve as the education you ask for. But also as a reminder of the collosal effort it took to take down the Nazis, so to remind us never to play geopolitical games and allow Nazis to rise again. Where could we hold it? A global Museum would also be fantastic, dedicated to the Allies.

Not just the Russian public, notably historians like David Glantz who was a former historian for the U.S. Army and hardly a Russian nationalist, has the same opinion. I directly asked him this question and he responded that the USSR would have won without Allied aid but it would have taken 1 or 2 years longer. Only 10% of USSR supplies came from the Allies and these supplies peaked in 1944, not the critical 1941-1942 period. The most important supplies were certain raw materials, not manufactured goods like planes or tanks. In terms of allocating "credit" for the victory, given that about 80% of Nazi losses were in the East, and the qualitative and moral difference between the Werrhmacht of 1941-1943 and the grossly weakened and dispirited Wehrmact the Allies faced from June 1944, one can easily claim that 80 plus percent of the credit belongs to the USSR.

I think the fact that 71% believed this to be the case in 2001 (not long after the fall of the USSR) and now only 63% believe now, only proves this is propaganda. The old Soviet propaganda machine is still working and those many of those that believed they lies they were fed then are still alive today to vote the same way. maybe we should take another survey in 20 years?

There are a lot of factors to consider ie what if Britain had come to terms with Hitler after the fall of France? What if then the british empire ,as it was ,was free to supply the Germans with troops and equipment oil and raw materiels? The US only came in after Russia had won the war against the nazis after D-day was mostly about stopping the soviets getting western Europe. The British did deflect much of the nazis war effort during the crucial years 1940 1941 by the desert campaign and the 1000 bomber raids against germany. We all recognise that the soviets did the bulk of the fighting in world war two but they would not have won if britain had not stood up to the nazis in the first place. Dont forget that the UK was bankrupt at the start of the war and had to borrow from the US mostly on very severe terms which we only paid back about 5 years ago. So I think that the UK did play a very significant role in defeating Hitler.

95% of the European axis forces that got killed got killed fighting the Russians.

Of course the Red Army was a massive, potent force with superb tanks and artillery. And the bravery and heroism of the individual Russian soldier has widely been considered legendary, and especially so by those who were their opponents on the field of battle. At the same time, it should be clear that with the advance on Moscow during late 1941, the German Army had a real chance to drive the Soviet central government out of the Kremlin, out of Moscow and running for their lives towards the Urals in what could have been the propaganda spectacle of the entire war. The results of such a mass flight from Moscow would have been unpredictable. It could have meant the fall of the Communist government, or at least a military coup deposing Stalin to seek terms with the Germans. What if Britain had not been so tenacious in the Battle of Britain in 1940? What if British Intelligence had not engineered a small bit of official resistance to Hilter in Balkans? This alone caused Hitler to settle Balkan accounts before lauching Barabarossa, thus delaying the invasion by 5 weeks and tying up even more German divisions in the Balkans. What if the Germans had focused on Moscow 5 weeks earlier than they did - before the winter hit so hard? And what about the British and others cracking the Enigma cipher with increasing success. This is now known to have caused huge fuel supply problems for the Germans in North Africa during this time. No doubt some was replaced by fuel that could have supplied the German tanks for that last 20 or 30 miles into Red Square? If the Wehrmacht had been just a little earlier and stronger when reaching Moscow in the fall of 1941, who knows??

Somehow, I think that "my country is better than yours" is not really the lesson we were supposed to learn from WWII...

Maybe Russia could have prevailed alone, maybe not (though consider how much stronger Germany would be if it was allowed to take Western Europe THEN strike at Russia). But either way, the casualties for Russia would have been so much greater! It is not a simple win/lose question; trying to cheat other nations out of their fair share of the credit is mean-spirited. I come from the UK and am often irritated at British and Americans talking as though their nation was the decisive one. As others have stated here, it was a joint-effort. It was in a way fortunate that Hitler had the ill-judged audacity to turn on Russia when he did. If he had conquered all of Western Europe, would Russia have been next or would Russia and America still to this day be in diplomatic relations with a United Nazi Europe?

Contact me at wndublanica@msn.com. 95% of european axis forces that got killed ,got killed on the Russian Front. American and British military historians agree.

The Americam military equipment sent to the Soviet Union during World War II prevented the loss of tens of millions of Russian lives at the hand of the Third Reich. There was probably no country that could have stood up against the NAZI war machine at that time, if they were next door to the NAZI'S. The simple fact was that the NAZI war machine was extremely dangerous and could walk through practically any army of that time. The Soviet Union started the "softening process" of the NAZI war machine and helped effect the final outcome. All countries and military forces involved in WWII were victims of the war. In a sense, there were no real winners, as is the case in all wars. Everyone loses.

The war in the East was nothing like the war in the west. The war in the east was a war of extermination. The Germans wanted all of Russia to the Urals, but did not want the population that was present at the time to remain there. Very simply it was all about numbers... the Soviets had the numbers in their favour. With a population so large every year they had 2.5 to 3 million new young men coming of age ready to join the war. Fighting alone would have extended the war, but the actions of the Germans in the Soviet Union didn't really give them much alternative but to fight. Very simply the Soviets had no where else to go and had little choice but to fight. Claims that if Hitler had interfered less and german generals had gotten to Moscow and they would have won the war is ridiculous. Napoleon captured Moscow. It didn't help him much. In both cases they had stretched themselves to breaking point just to get to Moscow and were in no condition to fight.

Marzipan6, yes, most people in Russia "have the opinion that there never was a Soviet occupation of the Baltics" I lived in Estonia for 13 years. What is occupation? We never destroyed any building or culture or forbade to use a native language. I am half-Estonian and i am shocked to see how propaganda machine is working now and some one is paying for that a huge amount of dollars. Look how Americans occupied American Indian territory or Brits used up India for a century. Now compare it with Russian occupation! I do not believe that Russia would have won WWII without allies help. In my opinion that is more important is how Soviet Union now blames for everything. That is their "thank you" %( Also,most American do believe that THEY WON WWII!This is just hilarious!