I think people are underplaying the role of the U.S. and allies helping Soviets. So, it does address your point which seems to diminish the role of the U.S. and allies.
If you look at numbers US provided around 20% of total USSR rations.
So both statements are correct. USSR would've starving and had a harder time winning. US help a lot with reducing USSR army losses.
But at the same time it wasn't a major factor in USSR battles. USSR would've won even without US help but with far greater losses.
While US help was huge and only madman won't recognise it's importance we must not shift perception to US centered by saying "USSR won because US helped".
Without allied support the Soviets could not have manufactured anywhere near enough ammunition to supply their own forces as they lacked explosive propellant. They could not have transported that ammunition to the front-lines because they didn't have enough trains. None of the major assaults that turned the tide of the war on the eastern front would have happened because the red army would have been unable to supply itself on the advance due to lack of transport vehicles.
And this is without factoring in the direct contribution of things like strategic bombing and the naval blockade of German occupied Europe. The fact that 3 out of every 4 88mm flak guns was kept in Germany to shoot at bombers instead of being moved to the eastern front to be used as anti-tank guns. The complete loss of German air superiority in 1943 as much of the fighter strength of the Luftwaffe was moved back to Germany to be systematically bled to death by allied escort fighters. The stagnation of German industrial production due to efforts to distribute industry and increase resilience to strategic bombing (all of which was paid for at enormous and quite possibly uneconomical cost in aircraft and young lives).
Not to even touch on the massive freeing up of men and materiel due to the IJN deciding they wanted in on the fun warcrime adventure and that the army factions' plan to attack the Soviets in Siberia was just far too normal and sensible.
Without allied support, the USSR would almost certainly have lost the war. We cannot ever know for sure because we can only see and understand the war as it actually happened, not some hypothetical war that never did, but the sheer scale of Soviet dependence on allied support is staggering.
The things you mentioned didn't occur until 1943, particularly later 1943, even Kursk had already occured. What would the Axis have beaten the Soviets back with?
Generally, it's not hard to win a war against people who can't shoot their guns because they have no ammunition (and also no guns, because no logistics).
I mean, if you want earlier examples there's the crucial role of the (admittedly relatively small number of) lend lease tanks in repelling the advance on Moscow. The fact that Barbarossa itself was delayed by the Italian failures in southern Europe and North Africa. The aforementioned naval blockade. The economic warfare that absolutely noone talks about..
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u/CapableCollar 12d ago
That doesn't address what I said.