PART A: Which of the following best describes the Soviet Union's participation in WWII under Stalin's command?

The Soviet Union under Stalin's command in WWII was, overall, directly useless to the victory of Allies over Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers.


PART B: Which of the following quotes best supports the answer to Part A?

A
"The first mass executions took place shortly after the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a treaty of 'Friendship and Cooperation' in August 1939, and both countries invaded Poland (the Wehrmacht from the west and the Red Army from the east)." ( Paragraph 20)
B
"The second wave of murders followed the staggeringly successful June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union — in brazen violation of the 1939 treaty — by the Wehrmacht." ( Paragraph 23)
C
"His solution was to order a crackdown that started with the arrest of eight top Air Force generals, and continued — during the desperate "Battle of Moscow" — with the execution of at least 300 Red Army high-ranking officers and generals." ( Paragraph 24)
D
"As the supreme commander, Stalin prohibited the Red Army to retreat and frequently ordered the troops to fight hopeless battles against the superbly equipped Wehrmacht... Khrushchev, who served in the war as a political commissar, charged in his memoirs that Stalin's conduct of the war 'cost us much blood.'" ( Paragraphs 26-27)