how important was lend lease to the soviet union

Roosevelt believed that if the Soviets were defeated the Allies would be far more likely to lose. Lend-Lease aid did not save the Soviet Union from defeat during the Battle of Moscow. 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. 5,218 tanks (including 1,380 Valentines from Canada), 323 machinery trucks (mobile vehicle workshops equipped with generators and all the welding and power tools required to perform heavy servicing), 1.15bn ($1.55bn) worth of aircraft engines, Allen, R. G. D. "Mutual Aid Between the U.S. and The British Empire, 1941-45". For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. Materials totalling $. United States and Britain, not the Soviet Union, China, or other United Nations . At the end of 1941 there were greater numbers of the MiG-3, but the plane was considered difficult to fly. LEND LEASE. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend-Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. But for decades the official Soviet line went much further. 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. During early February 1941, a Gallup poll revealed that 54% of Americans were in favor of giving aid to the British without qualifications of Lend-Lease. How important was Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union? Under conditions of much of European Russia being occupied by the Axis, attrition was a losing prospect for the USSR; without Allied aid they might very well have collapsed as a military power some time in 1943. US Government Printing Office. Churchill also granted the US base rights in Bermuda and Newfoundland for free; this act allowed their British garrison to be redeployed to more crucial theatres. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55 percent of all the aluminum the Soviet Union used during the war and more than 80 percent of the copper. [63] The production of heavy bombers in the United States until 1945 amounted to more than 30,000. Lend-Lease aircraft deliveries were also of significance during the Battle of Moscow. 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. Lend-Lease - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org In a few paragraphs the Wiki page shows the importance of the deliveries. Originally, the American policy was to help the British but not join the war. Without Lend-Lease, Russia would not have been able to carry out the Stalingrad counteroffensive and Operation Bagration. (German Language). 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. The Soviet Northern Fleet was also a major and early recipient of British Hurricanes, receiving those flown by No. The U.S. government never published detailed reports on what and how much was sent under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR. On May 11, 1947, 27 people were rescued, having spent nearly three weeks in the icebound wreck. Lend-Lease kept the Soviet home front going through the winter of 1941 and throughout 1942. On February 24, 1943, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft with serial number 42-32892 rolled out of a factory in Long Beach, California, and was handed over to the U.S. Air Force. Under Lend-Lease, the United States provided more than one-third of all the explosives used by the Soviet Union during the war. initially requested by the Soviet Union from Britain was naval, in the. The United States and Soviet Union secretly ferried thousands of warplanes from Great . The body of the captain, Maksim Tyurikov, was found by local hunters about 120 kilometers from the wreck in 1953. In time, opinion shifted as increasing numbers of Americans began to consider the advantage of funding the British war against Germany, while staying free of the hostilities themselves. [34], Lend-Lease contributed to the Allied victory. For the Australian company, see. On April 23, 1947, it was forced to make an emergency landing with 36 people on board near the village of Volochanka on the Taimyr Peninsula. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. [citation needed] The USSR had only a very small number of heavy bombers in comparison. -8. From 1941 and onwards, the RKKA used extensive numbers . 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 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. Dear h, I don't doubt the word of the old gent seeing USA on "Soviet" equipment. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. An estimated 25 million Soviet citizens perished in the titanic conflict with Nazi Germany between June 1941 and May 1945. 19329 posts. | AHA", "Lend-Lease and Military Aid to the Allies in the Early Years of World, The United States at war; development and administration of the war program by the federal government, Sea routes of Soviet Lend-Lease:Voice of Russia, "$220 Million in Gold Bullion was Recovered from HMS Edinburgh", "Report to Congress on Reverse Lend-Lease", "Chapter XIV: The United States and Canada: Copartners in Defense. 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]. It permitted him to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government [whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States] any defense article." 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. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 19411942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. 1776, 55Stat. 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. 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. 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". The Lend-Lease Act was signed into law on March 11, 1941, and ended on September 20, 1945. A Soviet report by Politburo member Nikolai Voznesensky in 1948 asserted that the United States, described as "the head of the antidemocratic camp and the warrior of imperialist expansion around the world," contributed materiel during the war that amounted to just 4.8 percent of the Soviet Union's own wartime production. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me.". In addition, the Lend-Lease program propped up the Soviet railway system, which played a fundamental role in moving and supplying troops. 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. From: 30 Military Mission. A monument in Fairbanks, Alaska, to the American pilots who flew almost 8,000 U.S. planes to Alaska and to the Soviet pilots who flew them on to Siberia as part of Lend-Lease. [82] In June 1942, SSPort Nicholson was sunk en route from Halifax to New York, allegedly with Soviet platinum, gold, and diamonds aboard; the wreck was discovered in 2008. The Strange Alliance, The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. The Neutrality Acts, enacted between 1935 and 1939, were intended to prevent the United States from becoming involved in foreign wars. Answer (1 of 14): Lend Lease was pretty much strategic charity. As early as October 12, 1941, the Soviet 126th Fighter Air Regiment was operating with Tomahawks bought from the United States by Britain. Crowley, Leo T. "Lend-Lease". 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 Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937 intended to keep the United States out of war, by making it illegal for Americans to sell or transport arms, or other war materials to warring nationsneither to aggressors, nor to defenders. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about $11 billion. The Senate passed it by a vote of 63 to 1. 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. Lend-lease was a system of U.S. assistance to the Allies in World War II.It was based on a bill of March, 11, 1941, that gave the president of the United States the right to sell, transfer into property, lease, and rent various kinds of weapons or materials to those countries whose defense the president deemed vital to the defense of the United States itself. 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. That is the U.S. would be "repaid" when the recipient fought the common enemy and joined the world trade and diplomatic agencies, such as the United Nations.[51]. 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]. A map of lend-lease shipments from the United States to the U.S.S.R. from 1941-45. Although it was not entirely reasonable that Canada should pay for any construction that the Canadian Government considered unnecessary or that did not conform to Canadian requirements, nevertheless considerations of self-respect and national sovereignty led the Canadian Government to suggest a new financial agreement. In April, this policy was extended to China,[20] and in October to the Soviet Union. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. . They Say He Burned Down the Reichstag. The supplies dispersed under the Lend-Lease Act ranged from tanks, aircraft, ships, weapons and road building supplies to clothing, chemicals and food. The total of defense materials and services that Canada received through lend-lease channels amounted in value to approximately $419,500,000. "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. Our Fortresses and Liberators take off from huge air bases built, equipped and serviced under reverse lend-lease at a cost to them of hundreds of millions of dollars. Canada operated a program similar to Lend-Lease called Mutual Aid that sent a loan of Can$1billion (equivalent to Can$15.4billion in 2021)[30] and Can$3.4billion (Can$52.3billion) in supplies and services to Britain and other Allies.[31][5]. While in April 1944 Congress were briefed by the Foreign Economic Administrator, Leo T Crowley; Just as the RAF's operations against Germany and the invasion coasts would not have been possible on their present scale without lend-lease so the United States Eighth and Ninth air forces daylight missions from Britain would not have been possible without reverse lend-lease. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. From the depths of the Cold War to the present day, many Soviet and Russian politicians have ignored or downplayed the impact of American assistance to the Soviets, as well as the impact of the entire U.S.-British war against the Nazis. 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. Under Lend-Lease, the U.S. shipped more than $50 billion in supplies equivalent to more than $700 billion today. While the Matilda Mk II and Valentine tanks supplied by the British were certainly inferior to the Soviets homegrown T-34 and KV-1, it is important to note that Soviet production of the T-34 (and to a lesser extent the KV series), was only just getting seriously underway in 1942, and Soviet production was well below plan targets. On December 7, 1940, its Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed President Roosevelt in a 15-page letter for American help. Lacking any detailed information to the contrary, Western authors generally agreed that even if Lend-Lease was important from 1943 on, as quantities of aid dramatically increased, the aid was far too little and late to make a difference in the decisive battles of 19411942. Britain and the Commonwealth were carrying the battle for all civilization, and the overwhelming majority of Americans, led in the late election by their president, wished to help them. Although most of the actual construction of joint defense facilities, except the Alaska Highway and the Canol project, had been carried out by Canada, most of the original cost was borne by the United States. [12] The aim of the British Technical and Scientific Mission was to obtain the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of the research and development work completed by the UK up to the beginning of World War II, but that Britain itself could not exploit due to the immediate requirements of war-related production. 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]. 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. After a decade of neutrality, Roosevelt knew that the change to Allied support must be gradual, given the support for isolationism in the country. 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. Roosevelt's Soviet Protocol Committee was dominated by Harry Hopkins and General John York, who were totally sympathetic to the provision of "unconditional aid". [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. Campbell, Thomas M. and George C. Herring, eds. 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. Nearly $8billion (equivalent to $124billion today) worth of war material was provided to U.S. forces by its allies, 90% of this sum coming from the British Empire. Mentions of Lend-Lease in memoirs were always accompanied by disparagement of the quality of the weapons supplied, with American and British tanks and planes invariably portrayed as vastly inferior to comparable Soviet models. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. On March 11, 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act. Saudi Arabia-Top 10 most important events in the History. Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland. Mongolian lamb and meat donations to the front lines outperformed those sent by the Lend-Lease Act. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, we Mongols stood with our northern neighbor as best we could. Most went to Britain, but the Soviet Union received more than $11 billion. Together with other recently published sources, including the wartime diaries of N. I. Biriukov, a Red Army officer responsible from August 1941 on for the distribution of recently acquired tanks to the front lines, this newly available evidence paints a very different picture from the received wisdom. The museum was established inside a former school and has been open for 8 years. 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. the president asked at a press conference. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. Most famously, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin raised a toast to the Lend-Lease program at the November 1943 Tehran conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. [36] Most belligerent powers severely decreased production of non-essentials, concentrating on producing weapons. After a series of dramatic Nazi successes during the opening stages of Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, foreign observers predicted that Soviet resistance would soon collapse. Canada was not a direct recipient of Lend-Lease aid. Supply volumes and the significance of lend-lease. Photo: Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Courtesy Photo). During Nikita Khrushchevs rule in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a window of greater frankness and openness about the extent of aid supplied from the West under the Lend-Lease Actbut it was still clearly forbidden for Soviet authors to suggest that such aid ever made any real difference on the battlefield. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a trickle of information has emerged from archives in Moscow, shedding new light on the subject. [69] Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941. Canada also aided the United Kingdom and other Allies with the Billion Dollar Gift and Mutual Aid totalling $3.4 billion in supplies and services (equivalent to $61 billion in 2020) .[4][5]. "During World War II, only the supplies brought in by Lend-Lease prevented the paralysis of rail transport in the Soviet Union.". . Nikolay Ryzhkov & Georgy Kumanev Food and other strategic deliveries to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, 19411945, pp. The Soviet Union got arms, ammunition, aircraft, and industrial equipment for its army. In April 1945, Congress voted that it should not be used for post-conflict purposes, and in August 1945, after Japan surrendered, the program was ended. [38] With the outbreak of war these plants switched from civilian to military production and locomotive production ended virtually overnight. 150 in July 1942, for example, was the critical factor in enabling the factory to reach projected capacity within two months. [65], Warsaw 1945: Willys jeep used by the Polish First Army as part of U.S. Lend-Lease program. 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. In the meantime, Great Britain was running out of liquid currency and asked not to be forced to sell off British assets. Negotiations dragged on intermittently for 25 years. "[17], Opposition to the Lend-Lease bill was strongest among isolationist Republicans in Congress, who feared the measure would be "the longest single step this nation has yet taken toward direct involvement in the war abroad". In Walter Yust, ed., "17 Billion Budget Drafted; Defense Takes 10 Billions. Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken twelve to eighteen months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht; the ultimate result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers could have waded at France's Atlantic beaches. How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? It needed all the available resources to pressure Germany on the lands far from Moscow, where Germany was getting a degree of home advantage. Fourth protocol period from July 1, 1944 (signed April 17, 1945), formally ended May 12, 1945, but deliveries continued for the duration of the war with Japan (which the Soviet Union entered on August 8, 1945) under the "Milepost" agreement until September 2, 1945, when Japan capitulated. New Orleans. "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. 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. 1776, 55 Stat. The 19th and Early 20th Century History. Extrapolating from available statistics, researchers estimate that British-supplied tanks made up 30 to 40 percent of the entire heavy and medium tank strength of Soviet forces before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941, and certainly made up a significant proportion of tanks available as reinforcements at this critical point in the fighting. This Douglas is the only Lend-Lease aircraft that remains in Russia.". The aid was given for free on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States. The American lend and lease system was introduced in the beginning of the war to support Great Britain in their struggle with Germany. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany's pressure, and we would have lost the war. By the end of the war, the United States had extended over $49 billion in Lend-Lease aid to nearly forty nations. Robert Coalson is a senior correspondent for RFE/RLwho covers Russia, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. 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. Lend-Lease thus provided a massive quantity of foodstuffs and agricultural products.[44]. 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. Just 446 locomotives were produced during the war,[39] with only 92 of those being built between 1942 and 1945. It was quite important, and it became especially important during the second half of WWII when the Red Army went from defending to attacking. On April 28th, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act ( S.3522 ), which has now gone to President Joe Biden's desk for signature.. Collection. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. The country's agriculture was in a difficult situation. Only 205 of these tanks were heavy or medium types, and most of their strength was concentrated in the Western Front, with the Kalinin Front having only two tank battalions (67 tanks) and the Southwestern Front two tank brigades (30 tanks). "[10] As the President himself put it, "There can be no reasoning with incendiary bombs."[11]. Courses on the British tanks for Soviet crews started during November as the first tanks, with British assistance, were being assembled from their in-transit states and undergoing testing by Soviet specialists. 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. [61][62], Restrictions in the supply of weapons from the United States were mainly limited to heavy bombers. [79], Congress had not authorized the gift of supplies delivered after the cutoff date, so the U.S. charged for them, usually at a 90% discount. While Soviet pilots praised the maneuverability of the homegrown I-153 Chaika and I-16 Ishak fightersstill in use in significant numbers in late 1941both types were certainly obsolete and inferior in almost all regards to the British-supplied Hurricane. The pact was terminated when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. 31, enacted March 11, 1941),[1] was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, China, and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. Lend-Lease's precise significance to Allied victory in WW2 is debated. 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. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.". Lend-Lease Helped Win World War II, But Not On The Eastern Front The evidence is here. Havlat, Denis. The Soviets lost a substantial number of draft and farm animals as they were not able to relocate all the animals in an area before it was captured and of those areas in which the Axis forces would occupy, the Soviets had lost 7 million of out of 11.6 million horses, 17 million out of 31 million cows, 20 million of 23.6 million pigs and 27 million out of 43 million sheep and goats. The records constitute the primary policy and subject files on World War II Lend-Lease to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). How important was the Lend Lease Act to the Soviet Union? [16] Propaganda showing the devastation of British cities during The Blitz, as well as popular depictions of Germans as savage also rallied public opinion to the Allies, especially after Germany conquered France. No one ever discussed this subject officially, and I don't think Stalin left any written evidence of his opinion, but I will state here that several times in conversations with me he noted that these were the actual circumstances. 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. 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. In practice, most equipment was destroyed, although some hardware (such as ships) was returned after the war. So the Soviets were charged 10 cents on the dollar of actual cost. "It was not just some piece of scrap metal. It carried 40 Hawker Hurricanes along with 550 mechanics and pilots of No. Before becoming secretary of commerce in the Truman administration, he had served in two crucial posts during World War II, as Lend-Lease representative in Britain and then as U.S. ambassador to Moscow. [18], The vote in the Senate, which occurred on 9 March, revealed a similar partisan difference: 49 Democrats (79 percent) voted "aye" with only 13 Democrats (21 percent) voting "nay".

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