I share your take on the Soviets, but,

> The west could conceivably have liberated the Soviet block after WW2

This is dubious, for several reasons: Public sentiment, starting another major war immediately after they thought they'd catch a break from war for a while. The premise of America building enough nukes to actually get the Soviets on their knees instead of provoking them to steamroll the rest of Europe instead. The ability of American forces, in the late 40s and early 50s, to get nuclear armed bombers over the appropriate targets in Russia.

Japan was already defeated, and two bombs proved enough to make them admit it. That context doesn't hold true for the Soviets; they may well have tanked several bombs to major cities then proceeded to fight a conventional war instead of surrender.

It's fascinating to read how few nuclear bombs we actually had until the 1950's. There was real concern that we would need more than two for Japan, and really had none ready after Fat Man and Little Boy were expended.

Almost as fascinating is how often in the late 40's and early 50's we threatened the USSR with nuclear weapons. Don't leave Iran quickly enough? We'll blast you. Amazing and scary how the world has survived so far...

Stalin was undoubtedly evil with the blood of millions on his hands.

I don't think that the West had any chance to liberate the Soviet bloc (I'm assuming what you meant is the Warsaw Pact countries). The Red Army was simply too big, too powerful, and too experienced at the end of WW2. Even using the few atomic bombs available between 1945-1949 (when the Soviets exploded their first atomic weapon), the USSR was just too big a country, with too many people.

And if you look at the willingness to take casualties that the Red Army demonstrated while fighting the Nazis, trying to take on the USSR would have been folly.

The West was spent after WW2 (as were the Soviets), with no appetite for further conflict. Even the US was tired of war, and only the drumbeat against the Red Menace did much to motivate the populace.

Yeah, that's about it. General Patton, John von Neuman were among those advocating for it, and in hindsight I think it would have been a good thing to avoid the Cold War and the communist era, saving China from the horrific Mao era, etc.

But I agree that turning on an ally, sacrificing millions more of your soldiers etc at that point would have been a very hard sell. I'm sure I would have been opposed to it at the time.

Of course avoiding the Cold War would have been beneficial to humanity, but it wasn't realistic considering the state of the world at the time.