Comments by "Not Today" (@nottoday3817) on "How close was the Soviet Union to Collapse in 1942-1943?" video.
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You are falling for the same trap moder historio-economists fell for (or even set up) when talking about 'communist' or Soviet trade in general. USSR tried to branch off from the world economics as it was clear they could not succeed in it. (Russian Empire was so much behind the rest of the world that what they inherited was basically useless.) So the ideea of 'we are gonna buy what we need' would not work for them as they had too much to buy and nothing to offer (techonological inferiority and over-saturated market the subject is a bit more complex as we add up time, but for pre-war era this is the general case). Going for world trade, the balance would have been so off their economy would collapse from day one. So what they did is that they closed the borders and tried to develop their own industry. In the first years they hoped they could trade with potential new communist countries formed after glorious communist revolutions. But as the communist revolutions got brutally crushed (Germany by the Western Armies, Hungary by the Romanian Army, China -initially by nationalists backed by Western Powers, Spain by fascists etc) and USSR lost control of strategic ports and connections due to the situation after the [not-so-]Civil War (baltic ports, Poland, Finland) this trading plan went down the drain and the isolation of USSR became even stronger. What little trade they did with the outside was done under the form of bartering: you give me this and I give you those resources. This was made a bit easier in the inter-war era as the Gold Standard was still a big thing and USSR had good gold reserves, so if they needed anything, they would not pay with roubles, but with Gold
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@CruelDwarf TIK is a capitalist hard on. He's the type of guy trying to use a potato peeler to get juice out of oranges. Also, socialist economics does not mean 'state capitalism' (State capitalism was actually considered a degrading term by socialists/communists). The difference between 'state capitalism' and socialism is hard to make because various factions with different ideeas accused each other of being state capitalists instead of socialists. However, the general ideea is this: state capitalism sees the state as a capital producing machine, a giant corporation. It does not matter how it does it, as long as it produces the most capital, it's good. You need to fire hundreds of workers? Do it. You need sacrifices to Satan? How many per month? Socialism also takes into account the human factor. You could go for a slower economic progress in order to allow people to adapt. Let's go for a practical example and food for thought in modern days: full automation in factories. State capitalist nation vs socialist nation. The first nation, as said, works like a corporation: we are going to get as many robots as fast as we can (either produce them or buy them, what is deemed more economically efficient) and we are going to replace every worker with them. Best delay we can do is a couple of years so universities have time to produce students able to handle those robots (if necessary). A socialist nation would delay such full automation for a longer time in order to find new work places for the people being replaced or find a welfare plan for the replaced workers. They might also consider setting up factories to produce their own robots after aquiring the tehnology to do so. HOWEVER, this does not mean they will remain behind. Every new factory that they build is going to be fully automated from the start.
@TIK The price can be both calculated and set. That's how socialist economics work. Capitalist economics is an extension of the way socialist economics work. Actually, it's better to say 'the way we understand capitalist economies is an extension of how socialist economies work'. Why do you thing Marx had 1 of his 2 best known books named "The Capital". In socialist countries you have one way of controlling the price: availability of resources. A product's price means how much it takes to produce it. In capitalist countries you actually have 2 levels of price regulation. You need to account for the resources available and you also have the 'added price'. This is what 'supply and demand' tries to tell you. In socialist economies this second stage is 'usually' (as you have many exceptions) skipped because you have what's called 'planned economy'. This means that the gouvernments try to aproximate how much its needed of each good and set the price for it. However you still need currency as in a country you also have non-basic services, like holiday resorts, trains, hotels, restaurants etc. A citizen might want to go for a place or for another and plannign for such things would be a total headache. (Of course, there are also more reasons why currency is kept in a planned economy, but that's the most basic example I could think of right now). Now, going back to capitalist economies. In capitalist economies, first of all the 'production price' includes other elements that a product in a socialist country would no require, like marketing costs. Secondly, one company can add to the price as much as it wants, while still keeping its price atractive for the consumer.
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And you think wars go like that? They did that in Fall Blau, and what was the result? They did nothing. The ideea of a three proned attack was to anihilate as much of the soviet forces as possible. Due to the scale of the front and the size of the soviet army, they could not pull something like France, where they encircled the main French and British army and forced an easy capitulation by a useless oponent. If they would have concentrated on a single front, yes, the initial gains might have been greater, but this means dozens of soviet divisions would have been left at ease, able to relocate however they wanted. Let's assume the Axis followed your plans and hugged the Black Sea. This means that Dozens of soviet divisions from the Central and Northern parts of the Eastern Front could strike into the flank of the advancing Axis, the germans risking being trapped into their own Dunkirk. This was the main ideea behind the three proned attack.
Another thing, doubling the number of units at a front does not mean that you can advance with all of them. You are still limited by logistics, aka railway tracks, roads etc. If you want to use the full potential, you have to build your own supply lines, which is not an easy feat because the army advances faster than you can build.
And finally, Barbarossa's demise might have been the same reason why it had so much success. The soviets were anticipating a war with Germany, correctly guessing Hitlers intent, the grain fields in Ukraine and the oil in Caucasus. So they concentrated quite a lot of their forces into the Southern Front. However, Halde sensed the opportunity for a faster victory by doing the same thing like in France, aka go for the Wolfs lair and strike for Moskow. This meant that instead of the main Soviet force fighting the main Axis force, the main Axis force went towards Moskow and Leningrad. Now the bulk of the Axis forces faced a weaker enemy (although it seems the crews were better trained here). And this is supported by how the war unfolded, the Army Group North and Center had the greatest success, meanwhile in the South many objectives were not even close.
Lastly, we again have to look at logistics. Having the main german force go along the Black Sea meant that the logistical lines had to either pass through Romania or go from Poland to southern Ukraine and again be vulnerable to Soviet counter attacks. Not to mention, the Black Sea Fleet of the Soviet Navy could have intervened.
As for how things got so bad for the Soviets, there are three main reason that are too often overlooked.
1. A German attack in 1941 made almost no sense in 1941, especially in June 1941. Germany was still fighting a war against Great Britain. And it just launched an operation in Greece. Furthermore, USSR and Sweden were both main suppliers of strategic resources (iron and oil) for the German War Machine. Germany invaded two countries (Norway and Denmark) in one high risk operation just to secure the supply of iron from Sweden, so why would it attack a vital supplier of oil? The Ribbentrop-Molotov anti-agression pact and further deals secured Soviet Union's position as a necessity for Germany, so an immediate war made no sense in the context. The joke of Battle of France, the disaster in Greece and inaction from the British to engage mainland Germany along with other developments I'll discuss further made all those reasons useless.
2. Germany got unexpected allies. Bulgaria was a fascist state (well, close to one if not one at least), but it had no intention of war and was in good relations with USSR. Bulgaria had actually not actively participated in the war against USSR, but served as a supply route and naval base for the Germans. Furthermore, USSR was in good relations with Italy as well. Hungary was a bit of a mix, but they were considered as insignifiant. However, the biggest blow to Soviet plans was perhaps the joining of Finland and Romania along the Axis. This made almost no sense to them. In the memoirs of the Romanian embassy staff in USSR it is shown that our ambassador was the second most surprised person of the declaration of war, being topped only by Molotov. Not only Romania and Finland were countries too small to face the USSR, but they had reasons to hate the Germans as well. Yes, they had animosities with the soviets from 1939, but there is a lesser known side of history. Germans actually helped the Soviets in the Winter War. And with Romania, everyone knows the 'secret protocol' of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact allowing to annex the territories known as Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina (now Republic of Moldova and part of Western Ukraine) <I am not going to discuss the Soviet demands on Romania here, but they were not 'totally' unjustified>. Yet the Germans gave the way for this. BUT. And this is a big round but. No one seems to remember the more open and official Treaty of Vienna from 1940. With this, parts of Transylvania were given to Hungary (which secured the later's participation in the war). Economically speaking, this was a bigger blow then the loss of Bessarabia. Not only that, but following the annexation, the hungarians began butchering the romanian population there. And if that was not enough, later the same year <1940> Germany again pressed Romania to give up territories obtained after the Balkan wars to Bulgaria. So for the Soviets, Romania joining the Axis was illogical. 'I know we had problems, but why on Earth would you ally with a guy who did much worse to you and another guy [Hungary] that also did worse to you?! Couldn't you just stay neutral?' Finalnd joining the war meant that Soviet Forces had to be diverted to defend north of Leningrad which just a few months later proved to be crucial as there were no supply routes to the city. As for Romania joining the war, that was even worse. It meant that the Germans had a whole new logistic network to supply their Army Group souths. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers joined the Axis. A capable airforce (better than the Italian) joined the fight. Germans now had access to Black Sea ports and airfields and the length of the initial front almost doubled.
3. Given the fake sense of security the Soviets were not expecting a war in the West, so they began dismantling and reorganising their defensive lines and depots there. They were however expecting a war with Japan (they just fought an inconclusive one in 1939, part of a decade-long border conflict). So less attention was given to the Western Soviet Front compared to the Far East one.
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Dude, that's alternate history to Maximum power. First of all, it's not 'Socialist Russia' it's USSR, Socialist Russia was part of USSR.
Second, the whole reason why Hitler started the Second World War was to attack USSR. The invasion of France was meant to prevent a future offensive from the Allies, aka Britain and France. What you are describing is a scenario in which UK and France would have not sat on their useless asses in 1939-1940 and actually send their expeditionary corps into Germany while Poland was getting squashed.
As for what would have happened, God knows. USSR also gained quite a few technological advancements due to the war, putting them on the same level with US and UK. They also managed to secure some ties with political factions around the world.
A more realistic scenario would be if USSR was ready for the German onslaught in 1941. In this case they might have been able to push or at least hold the Germans back without suffering so much. In this case, yes, USSR would have been a true victor of the war, like US
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