Sarah Paine

And they are off to overextension into parts due south of Russia.

So this two-front Japanese-German war never materialized.

Stalin, very successful.

Chinese, less so, because the Chinese are fighting the Japanese so the Russians don't have to, and that comes at the price of millions of deaths, millions of refugees.

That does indeed derail China's rise yet again.

Next example, per the Yalta Agreement, Russia finally gets in the war in Asia, about time.

And in the very final weeks, in this August storm, when the Russians deploy like 1.5 million soldiers, it's one of the largest military operations of World War II.

And then they rapidly take Manchuria.

And they also do some, that would be the normal thing, but here's the Abbey normal thing.

They also take away Manchuria's industrial base.

That would not normally be what you do to someone.

They take 83% of the electrical power equipment, take it home to Russia, not turning lights on in Manchuria.

86% of mining, 82% of cement making, 80% of metalworking equipment.

Plus they take 640,000 Japanese people

POWs to be slave labor for decades if they ever get home at all.

And they also take the northern islands, which are still under dispute to today.

But if you think about it, if you're going to do indemnities or reparations or whatever this is, China had been fighting Japan in one form or another for 15 long years.

Russia comes in at the cameo performance at the very end.

So if there are indemnities to be paid for whatever Japan did in this war, surely China, not Russia, should have been the recipient for all this stuff.

In addition, another example, so not only does Stalin walk away with the industrial base, but he walks away with Mongolia as well.