Why did the USSR win WW2?

Why did the USSR win WW2?

1. Russian endurance

   • Survived horrible conditions (ex:Leningrad)
   • Propaganda saying fight was needed everywhere
   • Big sense of patriotism

2. Weather

   • Winter came early in 1941
   • Germans not equipped for Russian weather- believed it would all be over before winter
   • Mud+snow slowed down Germans
   • Long distances: no short end to war

3. Germans unliked

   • Ukrainians at first welcomed germans (1932-33 famine)
     • 11 million soviet deaths during occupation+ 'Einsatzgruppen' repulsed them
   • Soviets were 'untermenschen': sent to labour camps
   • 250,000 pro-russian partisans at their peak --> attacked German units+supply lines

4. Relocation+change of production

   • Factories moved to Urals +focused on war production
   • 1942: production of tanks+planes >1941
   • 1943: produced more war material than Germany

5. 5-year plans

   • Had strengthened: economy+resources
   • 1944: Germans outnumbered+outgunned

6. Food production

   • Limits on private slots in collectivised farms lifted
     • Farmers encouraged to make more food

7. Religion

   • Stalin appointed a new 'Patriarch Sergius'
   • Some churches re-opened--> give hope to people

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