How did Joseph Stalin affect World War 2?

Answer 1

Without the involvement of the USSR in World War 2, the outcome would almost certainly have been vastly different.

Had Stalin listened to his military advisors rather than having them shot for telling him what he did not want to hear, the USSR may have got involved much earlier, or at least may have been much better prepared and prevented some of the death and destruction that subsequently occurred.

Stalin had been convinced by von Ribbentrop, and signed a pact mutually ensuring that Nazi Germany and the USSR would not initiate any aggression towards each other. This of course, bought Hitler the time he needed to settle issues in Western Europe and to prepare for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR.

Once Stalin became aware of Hitler's intent, more or less as Nazi troops were marching into the USSR and destroying everything in their path, he reassessed his views almost too late. The USSR's highest ranking military commanders had all been shot or exiled and his new officers were inexperienced.

Stalin decreed "Not one step back", no retreat. While the USSR's front line troops were being massacred by the Nazis, they bought the USSR the time necessary to get their military manufacturing industries functioning properly and started to turn out tanks and planes and other machines of war in large quantities.

During this period, the USSR was accepting huge quantities of miltary supplies from Britain and the USA before the USA became involved directly in the war.

Stalins determination to push the Nazis back and crush them, was possibly motivated as much by a giant ego as much as any patriotic virtues.

After the war, it was Stalin who created what Churchill referred to as the "Iron Curtain".