Stalin and the second front, Stalin constantly pushed for the Anglo Americans to enact a second front against the Germans. His reasons for doing so were understandable, but in my opinion flawed. Stalin was focused on the ground war in the East, and the cost to the Soviet Union of this war. His nation was suffering tremendous losses both human and material, and while he had very little consideration for the human losses, he was very concerned about the material. One of the major problems for Stalin was, while the war was a global war for two of the principle allies, America and Britain, it was only a regional conflict for the Soviet Union. America and Britain fought from the freezing waters of the Arctic to the equally freezing waters of the Antarctic. Of the world’s continents, only in South America and Antarctica didn’t they engage in conflict. Thanks to Lend Lease, a Soviet soldier wearing British boots having breakfasted on bread made from American grain, and spam made with American pork, washed down with coffee from Brazil transported to Russia in a British ship. Could then be carried in an American truck to battle, while American fighter bombers provided top cover. While the Soviets could have defeated the Germans without LL, it would have been much harder and taken a greater toll on the nation.
Stalin who never paid anything other than lip service to the contributions that America and Britain made to the success of Soviet forces. And constantly called for a second front. While failing to acknowledge two of the campaigns that the Anglo Americans engaged in, and their contribution to the eventual victory. The invasion of Italy and the strategic bombing campaign, both of which in their own way were second fronts, diverting significant resources away from the German campaign in the East. And while LL in the West was a four lane road, with three lanes going from the Americans to the British, and one lane going from the British to the Americans, LL to Russia was a one way street. Other than a few strategic minerals, and possibly some timber, nothing came back to the West from the Soviet Union. No British or American forces used Soviet equipment, unlike the Anglo Americans, were both sides used each other’s equipment, from the most basic to the most highly sophisticated. Americans maned British built ships in the battle of the Atlantic, while the British maned American built merchantmen, built on a modified British design. Americans flew British built aircraft in combat missions, and the British flew American aircraft in multiple roles.The exchange of equipment, resources, ideas, information and on occasion personnel, between the British Empire and the United States, was unprecedented in history.
Stalin wanted the Anglo Americans to develop what he considered to be a second front, for a number of complex reasons. He was paranoid, and thought that the Anglo Americans, would do a deal with the Nazis, which would allow them to concentrate on defeating the Soviets. His worst fear was that the Anglo Americans would agree to join the Nazis in an anti communist front. His failure to understand that some of the people proposing various what ifs, such as the formation of an anti communist alliance, were politically beyond the pale, and no one was going to listen to them. Not being used to hearing any opposing arguments, Stalin was not used to the free expression of ideas, and found it incomprehensible that the British or American governments didn’t suppress were controversial opinions. And he didn’t understand that the Allied governments could and did totally ignored the more lunatic fringe of their populace. I personally think that he had another reason for demanding that the second front was enacted sooner rather than later. It wasn’t that he wanted the pressure on the Soviets reduced, rather that he would be pleased for the Anglo American to fail. Such a failure would allow him to gain more land in Europe, and present the Soviet Union as the liberator of all. As he did in the post war era, while denying that the Anglo Americans had made any contribution to the liberation struggle. It should be noted that it was his generals who having seen the results of the strategic bombing campaign in Eastern Germany, advised him that going to war with the Anglo Americans, would not be a good idea. I believe that it was the growing realisation of the power that the Anglo Americans had, including at the end of the war, the atomic bomb. That forced Stalin to pretend to cooperate, even while his security forces were extinguishing any possibility of opposition in those territories his forces embedded in.
RR.