It's called a world war in english because everyone and everywhere was at war during that time. Pretty much every group has a name for it in their own language.
It's hyperbolic but mostly right. Wars raged on every continent outside the Americas and millions upon millions died. All those wars started at different times, but ended about the same, so they're all "WWII".
We used both terms, the WW term meant the overall event and the other one was for the Soviet part that started June 22, 1941 and ended in 1945, first in Germany, the main victory, the in Far East in the war with Japan. The term itself is taken from to the war of 1812 with Napoleon; that one was The Patriotic War. The Finnish war has its own name. The Poland operation is not counted as a part of the war.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 34.0 ms ] threadThe Soviet Union did not have WWII. They had the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.
There is a difference there.
No, that is incorrect
So very wrong, not "mostly right"
South America is a big place, lots of people live there
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
Somewhere I think I have a copy of Grossman's A Writer at War.