# Who Won WW2? Victors write history; the phrase is attributed to Winston Churchill. Whether or not he actually said it, it's clear he embodied this understanding. After the Second World War ended, Churchill went on to author a six-volume history with the same title. Churchill won the war through bravery, perseverance and masterful diplomacy. More importantly, however, he won the war by being on the right side. The Brits would never have won WW2 without their trusty allies, those countries willing and able to supply the men, arms and ammunition required to defeat the Nazi war machine (literally called Wehrmacht). By allies, I am, of course, referring to Britain's trusty, powerful ally - No, not _that_ ally. I'm talking about the USSR. Having revisited some weighty WW2 histories, I've come to the conclusion that the USSR won WW2. I believe it is likely they would have won WW2 even without outright U.S. intervention (by that, I mean without U.S. troops fighting in Europe, and perhaps without U.S. troops fighting in the Pacific either. The Soviets did rely heavily on U.S. manufacturing via the Lend-Lease program.) When U.S. troops first landed in Normandy, the Soviets were already beating back the Nazi armies all over Eastern Europe. The pivotal few battles, most prominently the Battle of Stalingrad, were fought - and won - the year before. When the Allies were fighting skirmishes in North Africa and Italy, the Soviets were fielding multimillion-men armies in Ukraine and Poland. So why did the allies get to write the histories? My theory is that the war wasn't over in 1945. It was only over in 1991, when the Iron Curtain fell. And the clear winner of that broader conflict was, undoubtedly, the Allies.