Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982, Bd. Tens of thousands of agricultural machines, such as tractors and threshers, were destroyed or captured. Initially, this proposal failed, but after Germany invaded Poland in September, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939 ending the munitions embargo on a "cash and carry" basis. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. David Glantz, the American military historian known for his books on the Eastern front, concludes: Although Soviet accounts have routinely belittled the significance of Lend-Lease in the sustainment of the Soviet war effort, the overall importance of the assistance cannot be understated. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to the United Kingdom at a large discount for 1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the United States, which were finally repaid in 2006. (1942). [73][74], Reverse Lend-Lease was the supply of equipment and services to the United States. This followed the 1940 Destroyers for Bases Agreement, whereby 50 US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy in exchange for basing rights in the Caribbean. Tomahawks also served in defense of the Doroga Zhizni or Road of Life across the ice of Lake Ladoga, which provided the only supply line to the besieged city of Leningrad during the winter of 194142. Heavy bombers had not been mentioned in previous protocols. "In a hypothetical battle one-on-one between the U.S.S.R and Germany, without the help of Lend-Lease and without the diversion of significant forces of the Luftwaffe and the German Navy and the diversion of more than one-quarter of its land forces in the fight against Britain and the United States, Stalin could hardly have beaten Hitler," Sokolov wrote in an essay for RFE/RL's Russian Service. United States and Britain, not the Soviet Union, China, or other United Nations . The American Lend-Lease program was signed into law in March 1941. In the case of the Soviet Union, this residual civilian-type lend-lease was valued by the United States at $2.6 billion (out of total lend-lease to the Soviet Union of $10.8 billion). Even aid that might seem like a drop in the bucket in the larger context of Soviet production for the war played a crucial role in filling gaps at important moments during this period. . Lend-Lease - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org In a few paragraphs the Wiki page shows the importance of the deliveries. Ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) provided amounted to 53 percent of total domestic consumption. But for decades the official Soviet line went much further. And the Soviet Union didn't pay much of that. [64], From October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the United States delivered to the Soviet Union 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the aviation fuel including nearly 90 percent of high-octane fuel used,[35] 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc. ", "Address Is Spur To British Hopes; Confirmation of American Aid in Conflict is Viewed as Heartening, A joining of interests, Discarding of Peace Talks is Regarded as a Major Point in the Speech.". The Red Army was a force to be reckoned with and was willing to sustain unlimited casualties. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. The Lend-Lease program also provided more than 35,000 radio sets and 32,000 motorcycles. Ukraine is in the process of joining the European Union and has submitted an application for NATO membership. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. I recently heard someone claim that the Soviet Union would have been unable to survive Operation Barbarossa and subsequent German offensives without the vast amount of supplies they received from the Allies under the Lend-Lease program. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act on March 11, 1941. Actual military production was achieved by sacrificing the civilian economy for short-term gain (and likely by burning up pre-existing stockpiles of raw materials). This act set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." . How important was lend lease to Soviet Union? "The Museum of the Allies and Lend-Lease is a unique, one-of-a-kind museum," said Borodin. BM-13N Katyusha on a Lend-Lease Studebaker US6 truck, at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow, In June 1941, within weeks of the German invasion of the USSR, the Anglo-Soviet Agreement was made and the first British aid convoy set off along the dangerous Arctic Sea route to Murmansk, arriving in September. Evolucin de los . Such machines were of higher quality than analogues produced in the Soviet Union, which made a significant contribution to boosting Soviet industrial production. Secret Cipher Telegram. 'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany? "It should be remembered that during World War I, the transportation crisis in Russia in 1916-17 that did a lot to facilitate the February Revolution [which lead to the abdication of the tsar] was caused by a shortage in the production of railway rails, engines, and freight cars because industrial production had been diverted to munitions," Sokolov wrote. Between June 1941 and May 1945, Britain delivered to the USSR: In total 4million tonnes of war material including food and medical supplies were delivered. After a decade of neutrality, Roosevelt knew that the change to Allied support must be gradual, given the support for isolationism in the country. Then in 1972 agreement was reached on $722 . Negotiations dragged on intermittently for 25 years. In particular, it shows that British Lend-Lease assistance to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 played a far more significant part in the defense of Moscow and the revival of Soviet fortunes in late 1941 than has been acknowledged. Regardless of Soviet cold-war attempts to forget (or at least diminish) the importance of Lend-lease, the total impact of the Lend-Lease shipment for the Soviet war effort and entire national economy can only be characterized as both dramatic and of decisive importance. Britain also supplied extensive material assistance to American forces stationed in Europe, for example the USAAF was supplied with hundreds of Spitfire Mk V and Mk VIII fighter aircraft. On April 23, 1947, this C-37 was forced to make an emergency landing with 36 people on board near the village of Volochanka on the Taimyr Peninsula. The Lend-Lease Act was the system by which the U.S. gave away $50 billion in military aid in 1941-45 (during World War II) so that the Allies could better fight Germany and Japan. Many of our pilots fly Spitfires built in England, many more are flying American fighter planes powered by British Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, turned over to us by the British. The Lend-Lease law was adopted by the U.S. Congress on March 11, 1941; according to it, all the supplied vehicles, arms, equipment and materials were not to be paid for should they be destroyed. An estimated 25 million Soviet citizens perished in the titanic conflict with Nazi Germany between June 1941 and May 1945. 150 in July 1942, for example, was the critical factor in enabling the factory to reach projected capacity within two months. "What do I do in such a crisis?" Stalin needed trucks and was provided with Studebaker trucks on a massive scale. The story of how that microfilm came to be in the National Archives is a convoluted tale worthy of telling. But in order to sustain the war effort all the way back to Germany, Lend-Lease was decisive. Roosevelt made sure that Lend-Lease policies were supportive of his foreign policy goals by putting his top aide Harry Hopkins in effective control of the program. Check out A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn on Amazon https://amzn.to/3lS8oVMLike & Subscribe for Daily US H. Franklin D. Roosevelt had committed the United States in June 1940 to materially aiding the opponents of fascism, but, under existing U.S. law, the United Kingdom had to pay for its growing arms purchases from the United States with cash, popularly known as cash-and-carry. And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own.". The 1930s began with one of the world's greatest economic depressionswhich had started in the United Statesand the later recession of 193738 (although minor relative to the Great Depression) was otherwise also one of the worst of the 20th century. By October, German troops were poised outside both Leningrad and Moscow. American aid also provided 4.5 million tons of food, 1.5 million blankets, and 15 million pairs of boots. But the Soviet Union was never alone: Months before the United States formally entered the war, it had already begun providing massive military and economic assistance to its Soviet ally through the Lend-Lease program. [6], After the Fall of France during June 1940, the British Commonwealth and Empire were the only forces engaged in war against Germany and Italy, until the Italian invasion of Greece. If Germany defeated the Soviet Union, the most significant front in Europe would be closed. 1776, 55 Stat. This inevitably produced shortages of related products that are required for industrial or logistical uses, particularly unarmored vehicles. In a November 1943 report to Congress, President Roosevelt said of Allied participation in reverse Lend-lease: the expenditures made by the British Commonwealth of Nations for reverse lend-lease aid furnished to the United States, and of the expansion of this program so as to include exports of materials and foodstuffs for the account of United States agencies from the United Kingdom and the British colonies, emphasizes the contribution which the British Commonwealth has made to the defense of the United States while taking its place on the battle fronts. Newly discovered files tell another story. Trucks such as the Dodge '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000003F-QINU`"'34-ton and Studebaker 2+12-ton were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. Surplus military equipment was of no value in peacetime. It was quite important, and it became especially important during the second half of WWII when the Red Army went from defending to attacking. [53] Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov significantly contributed to the Lend-Lease agreement of 1941. Lend-Lease Helped Win World War II, But Not On The Eastern Front The evidence is here. on the Soviet war effort during the first year of the war was in the far. In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR. . I was recently able to examine Russian-language materials of the State Defense Committeethe Soviet equivalent of the British War Cabinetheld in the former Central Party Archive. The plane spent 69 years on the tundra before a Russian Geographical Society expedition rescued it in 2016 and returned the wreckage to Krasnoyarsk. How important was the Lend Lease Act to the Soviet Union? In practice, very little equipment was in usable shape for peacetime uses. The most important aspect of Lend Lease was the first few months of the war when British Aircraft and Tanks represented such a huge influx of material while the Soviets had factories still in transit etc. On May 11, 1947, 27 people were rescued, having spent nearly three weeks in the icebound wreck. New Orleans. About 15 percent of the aircraft of the 6th Fighter Air Corps defending Moscow were Tomahawks or Hurricanes. Lend-Lease also sent aviation fuel equivalent to 57 percent of what the Soviet Union itself produced. 4, 48/Maslov MA Bomber PE-8. It allowed the USSR to conquer and subjugate eastern Europe and Manchuria and allowed them to prop up communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, China and North Korea. And it is a salient point that over 80% of the aid was received after June 1942, when the tide of the war had already turned against the Germans on the Eastern Front. In addition, almost half of all the rails used by the Soviet Union during the war came through Lend-Lease. The Lend-Lease act was enacted in March 1941 and authorized the United States to provide weapons, provisions, and raw materials to strategically important countries fighting Germany and Japan -- primarily, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. [40] In total, 92.7% of the wartime production of railroad equipment by the USSR was supplied by Lend-Lease,[35] including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars[41] which augmented the existing stocks of at least 20,000 locomotives and half a million railcars.[42]. [80], The final payment of $83.3million (42.5million), due on December 31, 2006 (repayment having been deferred in the allowed five years and during a sixth year not allowed), was made by Britain on December 29, 2006 (the last working day of the year). [61][62], Restrictions in the supply of weapons from the United States were mainly limited to heavy bombers. But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.[48]. [citation needed] The USSR had only a very small number of heavy bombers in comparison. The sole modern heavy bomber the USSR had was the Petlyakov Pe-8, and it only had 27 of them at the start of the war, with fewer than 100 produced until 1945. U.S. Citizens with emergencies, please call +(7) (495) 728-5577, Outside of Office Hours, contact: +7 (495) 728-5000. Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. ): Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. [36] The USSR was very dependent on rail transport and starting during the latter half of the 1920s[37] but accelerating during the 1930s (The Great Depression), hundreds of foreign industrial giants such as Ford were commissioned to construct modern dual-purpose factories in the USSR, 16 alone within a week of May 31, 1929. Yes, in 1942 Lend-Lease was of course important for Soviet Russia. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, while forcing the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks in order to advance the same distance. [citation needed]. L. 77-11, H.R. The United States is a country of machines. In fact the British intercepted German communications indicating that German forces had first come in contact with British tanks on the Eastern front on November 26, 1941. Most visibly, the United States provided the Soviet Union with more than 400,000 jeeps and trucks, 14,000 aircraft, 8,000 tractors and construction vehicles, and 13,000 battle tanks. By the end of 1941, the lend-lease policy. American contributions of the time were far fewer. Roosevelt concluded that the United States needed to help the Soviets fight against the Germans. Thus, Stalin told Harry Hopkins [FDR's emissary to Moscow in July 1941] that the U.S.S.R. could not match Germany's might as an occupier of Europe and its resources.[35]. The 136th Independent Tank Battalion was combined with the latter to produce a tank group of only twenty-one tanks, which was to operate with the two ski battalions against German forces advancing to the west of Moscow in early December. Even after the United States forces in Europe and the Pacific began to attain full strength during 19431944, Lend-Lease continued. The Soviet debt for Lend-Lease supplies was finally paid and closed as part of the settlements with the Paris Club on August 21, 2006. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. According to the Russian historian Boris Vadimovich Sokolov, Lend-Lease had a crucial role in winning the war: On the whole the following conclusion can be drawn: that without these Western shipments under Lend-Lease the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, it would not have been able even to oppose the German invaders, since it could not itself produce sufficient quantities of arms and military equipment or adequate supplies of fuel and ammunition. Rather, Lend-Lease was designed to serve America's interest in defeating Nazi Germany without entering the war until the American military and public was prepared to fight. The total amount that Canada agreed to pay under the new arrangement came to about $76,800,000, which was some $13,870,000 less than the United States had spent on the facilities. The first American tanks and planes reached Egypt in time to be used in the second British drive into Libya which started on November 2, 1941. Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. The Lend-Lease program also sent tons of factory equipment and machine tools to the Soviet Union, including more than 38,000 lathes and other metal-working tools. initially requested by the Soviet Union from Britain was naval, in the. 106124, Albert L. Weeks The Other Side of Coexistence: An Analysis of Russian Foreign Policy, (New York, Pittman Publishing Corporation, 1974), p. 94, quoted in Albert L. Weeks, Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World, Zaloga (Armored Thunderbolt) pp. Without Lend-Lease food, clothing, and raw materials (especially metals), the Soviet economy would have been even more heavily burdened by the war effort. When the House of Representatives finally took a roll call vote on February 9, 1941, the 260 to 165 vote was largely along party lines. But the speed at which Britain in particular was willing and able to provide aid to the Soviet Union, and at which the Soviet Union was able to put foreign equipment into frontline use, is still an underappreciated part of this story. Following the Nye Committee[nb 1] hearings, as well as influential books of the time, such as Merchants of Death, both 1934, the United States Congress adopted several Neutrality Acts in the 1930s, motivated by non-interventionismfollowing the aftermath of its costly involvement in World War I (the war debts were still not paid off), and seeking to ensure that the country would not become entangled in foreign conflicts again. .. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Some of these shipments were intercepted by the Germans. And they would have been perpetually hungry without American canned meat and fats. The British shared technology included the cavity magnetron (key technology at the time for highly effective radar; the American historian James Phinney Baxter III later called "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores"),[13][14] the design for the VT fuze, details of Frank Whittle's jet engine and the FrischPeierls memorandum describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb. The lend/lease military aid program, and the Matilda's role in it, was hardly decisive to the Soviet Union's subsequent victories on the Eastern or Western front. [69] Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941. President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law on March 11, 1941. By the end of the war, the United States had extended over $49 billion in Lend-Lease aid to nearly forty nations. The first of these units to have seen action seems to have been the 138th Independent Tank Battalion (with twenty-one British tanks), which was involved in stemming the advance of German units in the region of the Volga Reservoir to the north of Moscow in late November. The British Military Mission to Moscow noted that by December 9, about ninety British tanks had already been in action with Soviet forces. WWII program to provide U.S. allies with free armaments, This article is about the World War II program. This was agreed upon before the signing of the first protocol on October 1, 1941, and extension of credit. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. [1] There was no repayment required. Roosevelt's top foreign policy advisor Harry Hopkins had effective control over Lend-Lease, making sure it was in alignment with Roosevelt's foreign policy goals.[3]. On March 12, 1943, the plane was given to the Soviet Air Force in Fairbanks, Alaska, and given the registration USSR-N238. As the war continued, however, the United States and Great Britain provided many of the implements of war and strategic raw materials necessary for Soviet victory. The museum was established inside a former school and has been open for 8 years. British and Commonwealth deliveries to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 would not only assist in the Soviet defense of Moscow and subsequent counteroffensive, but also in increasing Soviet production for the next period of the war. Given the disruption to Soviet production and Red Army losses, the Soviet Union was understandably eager to put British armor into action as soon as possible. The cooperation that was built up with Canada during the war was an amalgam compounded of diverse elements of which the air and land routes to Alaska, the Canol project, and the CRYSTAL and CRIMSON activities were the most costly in point of effort and funds expended. About half of these were delivered by sea via the North Atlantic or were flown across the South Atlantic Ocean to the USSR via North Africa. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF LEND-LEASE By EUGENE STALEY . In all, the United States shipped $50 billion ($608 billion in 2020 money) worth of materiel under the program, including $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union. In 194546, the value of Reciprocal Aid from New Zealand exceeded that of Lend-Lease, though in 194243, the value of Lend-Lease to New Zealand was much more than that of Reciprocal Aid. [35] Answer (1 of 14): Lend Lease was pretty much strategic charity. [60], Roughly 17.5million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. At a time when the majority of Americans opposed direct participation in the war, Lend-Lease represented a vital U.S. contribution to the fight against Nazi Germany. In particular, it shows that British Lend-Lease assistance to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 played a far more significant part in the defense of Moscow and the revival of Soviet fortunes in late 1941 than has been acknowledged. Thanks to Lend-Lease, during the war years, the Soviet Union received about 14.8 thousand aircraft, 7.1 thousand tanks, 8.2 thousand anti-aircraft guns, a large number of cars, tractors and other vital supplies. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. I believe that lend lease to the USSR was a massive mistake that led directly to the cold war and all the issues associated with it. From 1941 to 1945, total lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union accounted for only 5% of the Soviet GDP in total. The Lend-Lease agreements with 30 countries provided for repayment not in terms of money or returned goods, but in "joint action directed towards the creation of a liberalized international economic order in the postwar world." The Persian Corridor was the longest route, and was not fully operational until mid-1942. Canada would eventually produce 1,420 Valentines, almost exclusively for delivery to the Soviet Union. The Yak-1, arguably the best of the batch, and superior in most regards to the Hurricane, suffered from airframe and engine defects in early war production aircraft. "In order to really assess the significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet victory, you only have to imagine how the Soviet Union would have had to fight if there had been no Lend-Lease aid," Sokolov wrote. The U.S. received $2 million in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. This is the official website of the U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Russia. Congress did not allow the aid to be free, so the U.S. discounted it's Lend-Lease supplies by 90 percent of costs. This was mostly in the form of landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare minerals were sent to the U.S. Other largely British-equipped tank units in action with the Western Front from early December were the 131st Independent Tank Brigade, which fought to the east of Tula, south of Moscow, and 146th Tank Brigade, in the region of Kriukovo to the immediate west of the Soviet capital. -8. The Soviet Northern Fleet was also a major and early recipient of British Hurricanes, receiving those flown by No. And though rapid increases in tank firepower would soon render the 40mm two-pounder main gun of the Matilda and Valentine suitable for use on light tanks only, the armor protection of these British models put them firmly in the heavy and medium categories, respectively. It was part of a scratch operational group of the Western Front consisting of the 18th Rifle Brigade, two ski battalions, the 5th and 20th Tank Brigades, and the 140th Independent Tank Battalion. It is obvious from this information that during the period of October 1, 1941, to May 1, 1944, the U.S.A., under Lend-Lease, Sent the Soviet Union arms, equipment, materials, and food totaling $5,357,300,000 and weighing 8,514,000 long tons, not including the weight of 92 delivered ships or the weight of 3333 airplanes, which arrived by air. It seems to fly in the face of some stories I've heard about Stalin ordering the obliteration of all USA and British markings on Lend Lease Materiel so as to maintain the illusion of the USSR doing it all on its own and that the others fighting the common enemy were the "little allies". And how much steel! [75] Reciprocal contributions included the Austin K2/Y military ambulance, British aviation spark plugs used in B-17 Flying Fortresses,[75] Canadian-made Fairmile launches used in anti-submarine warfare, Mosquito photo-reconnaissance aircraft, and Indian petroleum products.
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