Lol what? If you conquer a country’s capital, that country falls unless its government moves elsewhere and establishes a foothold which doesn’t happen often. When the Germans conquered Paris, the French government basically collapsed and from the Germans were able to take control and establish puppet governments.

Yeah, like when DC fell in the War of 1812, or when Moscow fell in Napoleon’s invasion, or when the Japanese took Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese War, or-

Nobody thought that the Nazis were liberators.

See, this is the insane thing - many DID think of the Nazis as liberators. Numerous national independence movements were suddenly excited to collaborate after the start of Operation Barbarossa, for about all of three or four months, at which point it became apparent that the Nazis were even worse than the Soviets.

Those governments were Russian puppets. Russia was always a multi ethnic empire that favored Russians and oppressed the rest. There’s a reason why Stalin went through his “deportation” (read: genocide) plans. They weren’t good.

I’m not arguing that the Sovs were good. Far from it. My point is that there weren’t well-formed independence movements waiting in the wings to take power should the Soviet government falter - all power was tied up in the Party and its bureaucracy, and the only organized institutions capable of taking action would have been Soviet puppets who were ‘all-in’ on the Soviets by a mixture of clientism and purges. If Moscow fell, the idea that the Central Asian SSRs would suddenly turn, or lose their grip, just… doesn’t strike me as realistic.

I think it’s pretty clear given the context that I meant the rate of shipments accelerated

I wouldn’t say ‘pretty clear’, but if I misread it, I misread it.