Quote Originally Posted by Firn View Post
In short the author makes a detailed and very convincing argument, partly based on not offically published work of the TsAMO and other sources that the total irrevocable losses (of the Soviet forces) were 'to the most conservative calculations no less then 14,500,000 people, which is a approximately half of the total number of 29,500,000 who were mobilized throughout the war.' A deeply shocking loss of life, indeed, and impossible to truly comprehend.
Am I right to assume that some of the (indeed, deeply shocking) loss of life was of a piece with pre-War Stalinist political purging, economic reorganization, and social engineering?

Which is to say, being a Soviet citizen meant you had been dealt a bad hand, a situation that Operation Typhoon only exacerbated?

OTOH, it seems difficult to imagine a counterfactual Tsarist Russian economy turning back the Third Reich as did the centralized Leninist/Stalinist USSR’s.