Quote Originally Posted by Al Khalifah
He he.

I'm not sure how far the Soviet propaganda would have worked against the western powers though. While it was effective against the Nazis in World War II, this was because the Nazis were committing attrocities against Soviet prisonners of war and civilians, effectively galvanising the Russian people in resistance against them. Whether they would have been so willing to oppose the western powers who might have used the carrot rather than the stick is not so certain. The Soviets had committed quite a few attrocities against their own people as well and there were large organised groups in the territories that had come under Soviet control that were ready to continue the war they had been waging against the Communists after the Nazis (the Lienez (sp.) Cossacks).
It would probably depend on whether the west decided to re-arm the German army. If they had done so, then the people in the Eastern Bloc would have probably fought fiercely against the west because they would be seen to be sympathising with their former abusers.
The military forces in presence in europe were, for the democracys, heavily dependant on logistics.

Europe was reduced to ashes from east to west, but i think the soviet lines of supply were reliable, at least up to the east borders of germany.

The resistance movements in the east had been harshly repressed by the nazis during five years and the grasp of stalin upon civilian populations was very hard.

On the other hand, in the west, most of the resistance organizations were communists, the prestige of soviet union and stalin were huge and neither great britain nor the us had a political oppressive system at hand.

So, i think if a clash between the democracys and soviet union had happened in 1945, the west armys would have had very quickly unafordable supply problems and would have found themselves if not totaly paralysed, at least unable to lead an effective offensive against the red army.

The red army itself could afford a heavy assault against the west within a short time.

Germany could not have been of much help in 1945 for the west, as the citys, the transports wether by rail, road or river were completely destroyed, the country was exhausted, completely disorganized, the german army was but the shadow of what it had been, the population was almost starving etc ...

In a country such as france, the army was mainly constituted by volunters that had joined immediatly after the liberation and came for the biggest part from communist organizations and this concerened officers as well as soldiers.

In italy, the communist parti was the main political force as well as in other different countrys.

So, this does not mean their would have been a communist revolution in case of war between east and west, but the conjunction of a soviet offensive with massive strikes/sabotage and rebelious troops would have been deadly for the western forces and would very probably have caused a catastroph leading to the expansion of soviet union all over the continent.