What would the Soviet Union look like without WW2?

[DrakonFin]

The Soviets didn't do as well in the Winter War as they probably should have, nor did they do quite as well as everyone expects a major power to do against a primarily agrarian state.

That said, after they fired Voroshilov and put Timoshenko in, they broke the Mannerheim Line (i.e. the only thing keeping the Red Army from Helsinki) and quickly forced the Finns to peace. A peace in which the Soviet Union did get a good deal of the prewar demands it had made in the ultimatum to Finland. I wouldn't say they universally lost the Winter War, they did about as good (or rather, as poorly at first anyway) as any force in a horrifically cold winter (as in the kind where your planes can't fly from the cold) invading one of the most naturally-formidable landscapes in all of Europe.

What the Soviets achieved in the Winter War were pretty good starting positions for taking over the rest of Finland - as pretty much had been the intent of the pre-war demands in the first place. It was the best Stalin could achieve under the circumstances without directly risking the escalation of the war, ending in a state of war with the Western Allies. For Stalin's prestige this was really the bare minimum acceptable result.

The war ended in a situation both sides could just about live with at the moment - and in one that made it well nigh impossible to avoid a revanche from one side or the other. A total Soviet conquest of Finland might have averted the continuation of the war on this front during the war; the same might have been achieved by the USSR not attacking at all. So neither side really won and neither side really lost: the result of the Winter War was an open wound that in the short term benefited nobody. With the exception of Hitler, possibly.

 

[Karelian]

Or to Hungarians or Romanians in front of Stalingrad, or to Finns in 1944 .

Actually one cannot really tell it to the Finns - the Soviet summer offensive was stopped before it could reach the designated target lines between Kotka and Lappeenranta. While Finland left the Axis camp as the original intention was, Finland wasn't occupied.

The Soviets didn't do as well in the Winter War as they probably should have, nor did they do quite as well as everyone expects a major power to do against a primarily agrarian state.

The distance between Viipuri and Leningrad was 121km, and the total distance to Helsinki through Viipuri is 340km - on a terrain of rolling fields and light forest without significant river obstacles. Had Stalin allowed the Leningrad Military Disctrict to implement their actual prewar war plans, Finland would have crumbled like an eggshell hit by a sledgehammer.

That said, after they fired Voroshilov and put Timoshenko in, they broke the Mannerheim Line (i.e. the only thing keeping the Red Army from Helsinki) and quickly forced the Finns to peace. A peace in which the Soviet Union did get a good deal of the prewar demands it had made in the ultimatum to Finland.

Oh yeah, that vaunted impregnable fortress that had less concrete in total than in Finlandia House

Only criminal Red Army incompetence was keeping them from Helsinki, considering the force ratios.

I wouldn't say they universally lost the Winter War, they did about as good (or rather, as poorly at first anyway) as any force in a horrifically cold winter (as in the kind where your planes can't fly from the cold) invading one of the most naturally-formidable landscapes in all of Europe.

Stalin had wanted to show the strength of the RKKA to the world by crushing the feeble resistance of an obstinate former Russian province - instead he had nearly ended up in war against Britain and France, escalated the war to Scandinavia and - worst of all - convinced Hitler that the Soviet Union was fatally weak. Even the planned annexation and Sovietization of Finland had to be postponed.

As for the terrain, the main battlefield in the Karelian Isthmus was mostly good open tank ground, theoretically well-suited for Soviet tactics.

 

[Julian]

The distance between Viipuri and Leningrad was 121km, and the total distance to Helsinki through Viipuri is 340km - on a terrain of rolling fields and light forest without significant river obstacles. Had Stalin allowed the Leningrad Military Disctrict to implement their actual prewar war plans, Finland would have crumbled like an eggshell hit by a sledgehammer.

I think this is an unrealistic assessment of Soviet operational ability. Consider that even in June of 1944, with well equipped, commanded, and experienced forces the Soviets were unable to inflict a decisive defeat on the Finns.

Comparing numbers, on the Karelian Isthmus in 1939 the Soviets deployed over 200,000 men, against some 130,000 Finns. Later during their 1940 offensive they totaled over 400,000 men against a similar number of Finns as before.

In their 1944 offensive they deployed over 400,000 men against 70,000 Finns, later reinforced to over 200,000 men.

In the 1944 offensive initial Finnish defenses were shattered, and they were forced back steadily to Vyborg. However, at this point the Soviet offensive bogged down with heavy losses despite repeated attempts to achieve a major breakthrough. Artillery ammunition began to run low, and forces were exhausted.

The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that while the Finns in the 1940 battles were certainly in a desperate situation, the Soviets were themselves at the end of their tether. Artillery ammunition would have begun to run low, and the army would have been far ahead of it's supply lines. As Soviet offensive capabilities were far below what it could do in 1944, where it still failed, I think it's reasonable to assume that Soviet attempts to exploit further beyond Vyborg would have been bloody failures.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Snip.

I agree entirely.

Snip

I'm sorry, have I done something to warrant this condescending "Boy you sure is dum" treatment?

And when you go to the background and preparations made by the USSR for this conflict, I really just don't see anything but trouble in store. The main body force used in the Finnish War was composed of Byelorussians, Ukrainians, and others who had been drilled and trained for warfare encompassing a massive front of the Eurasian steppe. Stalin deliberately refused to use Karelians and the Ingrians because he feared potential disloyalty. While this wasn't an entirely unjustified fear, this nonetheless meant that the Soviets were going to send an entirely unprepared (and underequipped) force to territory that they did not know how to survive in. Add in the fact that the winter of 1939 was one of the coldest in European history and the Soviets found themselves with planes that couldn't fly, vehicles that couldn't start, and soldiers who had neither the experience nor the equipment for so bitter a climate. And their commander was an idiot. So yeah, the Karelian is great tank ground, too bad the roads were horrendous and the Finns generally got to fight on their own defensive terms (which explains the success of their homespun defenses against Soviet tanks like the Molotov Cocktail).

This was, of course, assuming the weather allowed the tanks to start at all, which it often didn't.

The debacle that the Finnish War was in its early months was no surprise, yet the presence of a single, competent commander proved instrumental in changing the course of the war. The Soviets could certainly have done better in Finland, maybe even to the point of overrunning Helsinki, but the circumstances in 1939 were just not good for the Soviets.

 

[B_Munro]

Even with the economic devastation of World War II, both England and France built the bomb in the 1950s. Granted, that's after the US proved feasibility, but the likely feasibility was understood by 1939-40 and every major European country other than maybe Italy had a research program. Those programs would undoubtedly take longer to make a bomb than our crash wartime one did, but given tensions on the continent they wouldn't just go away. My guess: First Atomic bomb is tested between 1948 and 1955. After that, either every European Great Power has them within five years of the first public test or there is a nuclear war in Europe within those five years.

IIRC, "no WWII - recall the Soviets were speculating about atomic bombs as early as 1940" is a statement (in various forms) Rich was fond of dropping into such discussions years and years ago on soc.history.what-if. I guess Nuclear-Armed Stalinist USSR Rampant is just something that tickles his fancy.

Bruce

 

[Faeelin]

Not so sure about that, depend on what Japan does. One has to remember that before the war the USSR backing of the Chinese Communists was nominal, and it was not a big secret that the USSR wouldn't lift a finger to help them if the Kuomintang ever become competent enough to actually get rid of them. The Soviet policy was to have a friendly China in the south to counter balance Japan, didn't matter that much whether it was Kuomintang or the Communists in charge. The war put the Communists in a position from where they could win, while Chiang and the Kuomintang had become too friendly with the West for Soviet's taste, so their China policy naturally shifted.

By the same token, the USSR was giving a lot of aid to the Kuomintang. If Stalin thinks Japan is being bled white, or that the KMt are goign to collapse, he might jump.