[LaMarseillaise]

The idea that the Soviet Union won WWII is itself propaganda and ignores the contributions of many, many nations, not to mention the entire Pacific war. Also, the liberation of France was exclusively the western allies.

[metalliqaz]

For the most part I agree but the Soviets were integral. Without the Eastern front taking up so much of the enemy resources, the Western front would have been very different.

[car_analogy]

After they were forced to switch sides. Before, they did their own share of conquest and genocide in eastern Europe [1,2,..], and the Allies generously let them keep those countries after the war. But all is forgiven and forgotten if one ends up on the Right Side of History.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

[drekk]

This really egregiously rewrites the history in which the nascent USSR was rebuked by every single European nation it tried to enter into a defense treaty with against Germany. I'm not going to spoon-feed, but here's a source from mainstream Western media: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322...

If you want to categorize what the USSR did in that period as conquest and genocide would you say the same about the US annexing Hawai'i? I don't know where you're getting "forgiven and forgotten" from given that you can't talk about the USSR without someone bringing up historical events they don't understand. The Holodomor, Katyn massacre, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact are all common offenders here.

And it was the collapse of the USSR + subsequent privatization of state enterprises at bargain bin prices that created the oligarchs that today are Putin's power base. The US & UK also intervened to put Putin into power in 1999, continuing a long-standing tradition of destabilizing regions and not really caring until the consequences spill over into a country like Ukraine that "looks like us" and live in "a civilized country with McDonalds"

[car_analogy]

> USSR was rebuked by every single European nation it tried to enter into a defense treaty with against Germany

That does not imply eastern European states joined the Soviet union willingly.

> If you want to categorize what the USSR did in that period as conquest and genocide would you say the same about the US annexing Hawai'i?

Unless Hawai'i joined willingly, it is by definition conquest, yes. I'm not aware of any subsequent nationality or ethnicity based mass killings, but if they took place, that is, again, genocide by definition.

> you can't talk about the USSR without someone bringing up historical events they don't understand.

You are correct, I don't fully understand that part of history. Could you explain how using military force to expand the Soviet empire wasn't conquest, or how the Holodomor wasn't genocide?

> The US & UK also intervened to put Putin into power in 1999, continuing a long-standing tradition of destabilizing regions and not really caring until the consequences spill over into a country like Ukraine that "looks like us" and live in "a civilized country with McDonalds"

You disprove your point in the same sentence that you make it. Russians look very similar to Ukrainians, and they've had McDonald's since 1990, while Ukraine got its first in 1997, and has less than half as many McDonald's per capita as Russia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_McDonal...

[drekk]

7/10 Nazi deaths were on the eastern front. Nobody said the USSR won the war itself, but they absolutely did contribute the most to the war effort. They were invaded by the largest land army in history and lost entire swathes of the country before eventually pushing the invaders out and liberating Majdanek and Auschwitz. US could have had a similar impact but we only got involved after Pearl Harbor. By then the writing was already on the wall for the Third Reich.

[lenkite]

I suggest asking some professional historians this question and you will be surprised at the answer. Only Americans believe that the the USA was the primary nation responsible for victory in WW2.