A little bit of respect for the USSR, please...

Image of the capture of the Reichstag, Berlin, 1945

This post is directed to all people who disregard the enormous role played by the USSR in the shaping of the world as we know it. We would not be probably enjoying what we call freedom it it was not for the brave people of the Soviet Union, people who never surrendered, who gave their lives protecting and reconquering their land and who showed how more than 1000 years of harsh history can create the bravest of the people.

Here are the some facts that highlight what I have just said:

-75% of all casualties of WW2 occured in the Eastern Front (EF).
-At all moments of the war after June 22, 1941, more than 70% of the German war machine was in the east.
-The USSR made a gigantic effort to move most of the industries that later helped her in the war, effort to the east of the Ural mountains, where German bombers cannot reach them
-When German soldiers in the EF wanted a break, they were sent to Western Europe, North Africa or Italy
-The war in EF was a war of annihilation, compared to the other wars in which it was more strategically/politically/tactically driven. In order to understand this, we have to go back and analyze Hitler's "Mein Kampf". There, he said that the slavic people where subhumans (untermenschen) and the space they occupied had to be part of a greater Germany (lebensraum). That explains the savage behavior towards civilian population and prisoners. In the West, battles were won once a position was obtained and the enemy had retreated.
-The greatest military encounters of all times happened in the EF. The battle of Kursk saw the greatest tank and airbattles of all times.
-The most adverse conditions (like temperatures of -40 degrees Celsius (-40F) were seen in the EF
-Leningrad and Stalingrad never surrendered to the Germans in spite of German superior forces and eventually the USSR overcame this.
-The Soviet Union lost 27 million people, roughly equivalent to a quarter of its population.
- In spite of all this destruction, the Soviet Union rose as a superpower to rival the US in military capacity and space exploration.

At the same time I have to mention the negative aspects:

-The level of savagery shown by the Soviet soldiers towards the civilian German population (specially rape) and even towards the liberated Soviet prisoners has been considered as the worst example of revenge of all times.

- The lack of freedom and the repression experienced by millions before and after the WW2 was also unparallelled.

The analysis of history has to be always objective. I will never be ungrateful enough to forget the sacrifice that the USSR did for humanity when fighting the fascist monster. At the same time I will always criticize lack of freedom and repression.