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It's not that often that I say this, but Roachboy is right. The Soviets were without a doubt a linchpin of the war effort. Their ability to absorb attrition like a sponge and somehow continue to increase numbers caused enough Germans to be sacrificed in a front away from Britain/American invasions.
Yes, the quote "let them bleed themselves white" is true. It was a calculated attempt to have the Soviet communists come out of the war victorious, but ravaged and unable to continue it's advances in other fronts for some time (this was before the A-bomb).
We would have won the war if Russia fell, by that point they would have cost the lives of many Germans during the two or three winters it would have taken, and their supply lines would have been too long. However it would have been much more difficult fighting the remenants of the army.
At the same time Russia would not have lasted the war without us. Their industrial base was obliterated, their food base was conquored, and they had little or no Iron mines east of the Urals. Their army would not have the proper equipment, they would have been starving, and could not have produced the massive amount of tanks that were used to win the war.
How is it so hard to believe that we could not fight the two most highly trained and best equipped nations in the world at the same time on the opposite side of the globe? Britain, Russia, and the US all were victors because they kept each other alive. The US came out ahead without a doubt, but that's due more to geography than anything else.
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