Oh guys, you can not even imagine what you obliged to Comrade Stalin
If not his victory over the West - no Decolonization would happened. It would be physically impossible. Old empires would repressed the rebellion with ease - because the technology gap between the colonies and metropoly would constantly increasing. And no matter how many people in colony - even in the era of flintlock rifles Europeans won in the ratio of 1 to 100. Now would be flying thousands of drones over the whole of Asia and Africa - and would have killed fighters for independence. But in the newspapers they would called rebels and terrorists.
All the countries that gained independence after World War II - owe it to Comrade Stalin.
I am sure that after a couple of centuries mankind will give him his due, or may be earlier.
Decolonization happened mostly because -
1]Devastation of europe from 2 world wars.
2]Rise of colonial nationalism
3]America,the major western power after the war refusing to support the colonial empires after the war,the old powers mostly economically exhausted relying on US loans.
4]The colonies-were no longer economically attarctive as earlier.Due to the effects of the industrial revolution most of the economic strength was concentrated now on the euroepan homelands.For example india acounted for 22% of world's GDP in 1800 and only 3% in 1900s.Maintaining these overland possesions was now solely for raw materials and now with disruptions caused by local unrest,increasingly unprofitable.
5]A general feeling amongst the european public having suffered nazi tyranny that their colonial oppression was similarly wrong.
5]
This is a graph of German losses in WWI and WWII.
As you can see, about 75% of German losses in WW2 accounted to the USSR.
Indeed,russia fought and won the second world war.The rest were supporting players to the eal contest between USSR and germany.Almost every scholar has accepted this.
Also the lend lease was just a tiny part of soviet industrial production,no more than 9-10%.The war was won with soviet built tanks.The t-34s,not us built shermans or british built cromwells.
The japs doing the pearl harbour episode was a suicidal mission and dragged US in the battle with full force.For me this was the real turning point in WW2 and proved demise of Nazi forces.
US entry alone wouldn't have been decisive if USSR had collapsed at moscow at the same time in winter 1941.Then even the biggest American army couldn't have dislodged a fully preapred massie german army redeployed to the westwall,with all of europe plus russia's resources at its disposal and now coast clear for german armies to advance through caucasus and middle east and link up with rommel in north africa.
Essentially the battle for russia was for the fate of the world.