During World War II, the USSR lost 27 million Soviets due to the devastation of war, despite this huge loss the USSR was still capable of coming to the top of the 3rd Reich. Before the start of the Second World War we witnessed a series of purges, carried out by Stalin in the hope of getting rid of the political opposition. These hit the Red Army during the war. We will also be able to look at the five year plans and we will also see how the Germans could have brought about their own downfall by reducing their troops, trying to fight a war on two fronts and how unprepared they were to face the Soviets during the winter. Moving on to the purges, Stalin's purges led to the deaths of many of the senior commanders of the Red Army; consequently the experience of these commanders was lost due to Stalin's thirst for power. We can deduce that if these commanders had not been assassinated then the Red Army would have been much more prepared for what the Germans would have thrown at them; This way the Germans would have the advantage at the beginning of the war. This gives the Germans an advantage. During the war we can exploit the Italian attack on Greece, due to the fierce resistance of the Greeks. The Italians needed support and so the Germans had to provide it, due to this need to support Italy this meant the Germans would have to delay Operation Barbarossa. One consequence of this month-long delay meant that if the German line did not advance quickly enough, there was a risk of being stuck fighting in the Russian winter. The fact that the Germans would be stuck in Russia during the winter would have allowed the Russians to react considering the fact that the German troops had been prepared for different conditions thinking they could take Moscow before the winter arrived. Along with commen... ...middle of paper......war. We can also see that the allied aid they reserved helped them progress. Another factor that we can say had a direct impact was the German lack of stand-off weapons that would allow the Soviets to keep their means of production safe from invading Nazi forces. But from a historical point of view it is safe to say that you should never underestimate your opponent, and this is exactly what the Nazis did. In this way the Soviets were able to cause major damage to the main divisions of the German Army, a factor which perhaps gave them more time, we see that the Soviets were very resilient fighting to the last man, which once again gave them more time. So we can truly conclude that the Soviets were able to outlast the Germans in production due to Allied assistance and stubbornness in resisting the German forces until they could fight against the Germans..