How did they become a world superpower and almost overtake the us? During ww1 russia had the highest death toll, this led to the Russian revolution and an even higher death toll. Russia was the only entente nation that surrendered.
Ww2 was even worse, they lost 26 million people and the west was completely ravaged. The British and French empires fell apart after Ww2 but somehow soviet Russia was stronger than ever.
In: Economics
ELI5: while the Soviet Union was a military superpower, they were never an economic superpower. The quality of life for the average family in the Soviet Union was never as good as the USA’s, and certainly the nation never close to “overtaking the USA” from an economic perspective.
The Cold War did see both nations spend huge amounts on their military and nuclear programs, and that resulted in a classic “arms race”. The result was a nuclear capability that could have potentially ended life on most of the earth had both nations expended their nuclear and kinetic arsenals at once.
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