Rotate ICE by hand - no tools, hypothetically

Hypothetical question.

When doing a piston soak people often rotate the engine a little every so many hours by using a ratchet on the big nut on the pulley which is used to belt drive the water pump. Which led me to wonder, if the plugs were out and one just grabbed the sides of the big pulley wheel and turned it by hand, would that be enough force to rotate the motor? Doing this the water pump would also turn, so maybe too much friction from that to spin the motor that easily unless the belt was also removed? The usual piston soaks would also strip the oil from the cylinder walls and rings, I don't have any gut feeling for what that does to the force needed to rotate the motor. Does it become substantially more difficult to rotate as the treatment progresses?

Safe direction is clockwise looking at that pulley from the passenger side wheel well?