Quote Originally Posted by SJPONeill View Post
Further , one might argue that had the Soviet Government not played so fast and loose with its people i.e. not purged out anyone who could think for themselves, then it very much might have kept pace in the Cold War and the Reagan Doctrine would not have had much to get a foothold in...
So when do the playing the fast and loose stop and start? So how does that make the Soviet Union the main beneficiary of WW2??
Think you might be on a bit of a hiding to nothing on this one, Wilf...
So you seriously wish to suggest that:
a.) The Soviet Union was not severely harmed by WW2?
b.) It strategically benefited from having fought it more than the US?

I fully concur the Soviet Union had no choice but to fight - because of its massive strategic errors, but to stop the clock in June 45, and state that the USSR was "better off," than say the US, is very far fetched. - especially as for the US it was a "discretionary war."

The US went from being an almost strategically irrelevant, barely post industrially depressed nation, to a world super power in 5 years. As a "beneficiary" of WW2, the USSR cannot make that claim.