how important was lend lease to the soviet union

The Soviets have long insisted that Lend-Lease aid made little difference. 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. Russian historian: Importance of Lend-Lease cannot be overestimated The history of Lend-Lease began on May 15, 1940 when UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked Roosevelt to temporarily. 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 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. Heavy bombers had not been mentioned in previous protocols. Alerts and Messages for U.S. visitors to Russia. There were apparently only 263 LaGG-3s in the Soviet inventory by the time of the Moscow counteroffensive, and it was an aircraft with numerous defects. Democrats voted 238 to 25 in favor and Republicans 24 in favor and 135 against. Even after the United States forces in Europe and the Pacific began to attain full strength during 19431944, Lend-Lease continued. The U.S. government never published detailed reports on what and how much was sent under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR. 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. 151 Wing in Operation Benedict, to provide air defence of the port and to train Soviet pilots. re: In hindsight was it a mistake for the US to ally with the Soviet Union during WW2. 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. Surplus military equipment was of no value in peacetime. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R. Popular Questions What was the cause of World War II? How important was Lend-Lease for the Soviet war effort? An oft-quoted statement by First Vice-Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars Nikolai Voznesensky summed up the standard line that Allied aid represented only 4 percent of Soviet production for the entire war. Any mention of the role that Western assistance played in the Soviet war effort was strictly off-limits. Championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Lend-Lease Act authorized the transfer . ), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. Almost all European nations outside the Soviet bloc were members of the plan from the beginning. In hindsight was it a mistake for the US to ally with the Soviet Union And Soviet forces would have been much more poorly coordinated with a constant lack of radio equipment. James Phinney Baxter III (Official Historian of the Office of Scientific Research and Development), Wolfgang Schumann (et al. Part I. Lend-Lease started in March 1941, providing for military aid to any country whose defense was considered vital to the security of the U.S. In 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Roosevelt bypassed these restrictions by persuading Congress to permit the government to sell military supplies to France and Britain on a cash-and-carry basisin other words, they could pay cash for American-made supplies and then transport them on their own ships. [75][77], Though diminutive in comparison, Soviet Union supplied the United States with goods that the latter badly needed, including 300,000 tons of chrome ore, 32,000 tons of manganese ore, and large supplies of platinum, gold and wood. In the meantime, Great Britain was running out of liquid currency and asked not to be forced to sell off British assets. Both were superior to all but the Soviet KV-1 and T-34 in armor, and indeed even their much maligned winter cross-country performance was comparable to most Soviet tanks excluding the KV-1 and T-34. It carried 40 Hawker Hurricanes along with 550 mechanics and pilots of No. Newly discovered files tell another story. Britain had been paying for its materiel with gold as part of the "cash and carry" program, as required by the U.S. Neutrality Acts of the 1930s, but by 1941 it had liquidated a large part of its overseas holdings and its gold reserves were becoming depleted in paying for materiel from the United States. Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion. The distribution of loans was 90% to the UK, 5% to Australia, 1% to New Zealand, 3% to India, and zero to Canada. Red Army Lend/Lease Vehicles - Axis History Moscow. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. Crowley, Leo T. "Lend-Lease". Known today as Lend-Lease. 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. Lend-Lease Act (1941) | National Archives Photo: Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Courtesy Photo). About 15 percent of the aircraft of the 6th Fighter Air Corps defending Moscow were Tomahawks or Hurricanes. 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. The Arctic route was the shortest and most direct route for lend-lease aid to the USSR, though it was also the most dangerous as it involved sailing past German-occupied Norway. Recd 11/12/41. [35] One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. Similarly, the Soviet Union repaid $722 million in 1971, with the remainder of the debt written off. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 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. [7], During this same period, the U.S. government began to mobilize for total war, instituting the first-ever peacetime draft and a fivefold increase in the defense budget (from $2billion to $10billion). Negotiations dragged on intermittently for 25 years. 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. It needed all the available resources to pressure Germany on the lands far from Moscow, where Germany was getting a degree of home advantage. Overcoming massive defeats and colossal losses over the first 18 months of the war, the Red Army was able to reorganize and rebuild to form a juggernaut that marched all the way to Berlin. 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. Lend-lease | Facts & Definition | Britannica Did Russia Really Go It Alone? How Lend-Lease Helped the - HistoryNet On March 11, 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act. About $11 billion in war matriel was sent to the Soviet Union under that program. The munitions totaled 308m (not including naval munitions supplied), the food and raw materials totaled 120m in 1946 index. [43] Lend-Lease also supplied significant amounts of weapons and ammunition. Havlat, Denis. Lend-Lease aid to the USSR was nominally managed by Stettinius. In contrast, 17 Republicans (63 percent) voted "nay" while 10 Senate Republicans (37 percent) sided with the Democrats to pass the bill.[19]. 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. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. Mongolian lamb and meat donations to the front lines outperformed those sent by the Lend-Lease Act. Interested in U.S. History? [83] However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of its treasure has been produced.[84]. 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. At the end of 1941 there were greater numbers of the MiG-3, but the plane was considered difficult to fly. The Soviet air force received 18,200 aircraft, which amounted to about 30 percent of Soviet wartime fighter and bomber production (mid 194145). British Lend Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort, - Scribd north, and in particular for the Northern Fleet.102Much of the material. The Strange Alliance, The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. $31 billion went to Britain, $11 billion to the Soviet Union, $3 billion to France, and $1.6 billion to China. 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. Lend-lease will be considered, first, as a method of wartime supply allocation; second, as a method of accounting which may create inter- . [8] The Two-Ocean Navy Act of July 1940 set in motion a rapid expansion of the United States Navy. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to Britain at a large discount for 1.075billion, using long-term loans from the United States. Report from Mikoyan to Stalin and Molotov regarding Lend-Lease Totaling $11.3 billion, or $180 billion in today's currency, the Lend-Lease Act of the United States supplied needed goods to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 in support of what Stalin described to Roosevelt as the "enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy bloodthirsty Hitlerism." 400,000 jeeps & trucks; 14,000 airplanes 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 Short History Of The Great Patriotic War, also from 1948, acknowledged the Lend-Lease shipments, but concluded: "Overall this assistance was not significant enough to in any way exert a decisive influence over the course of the Great Patriotic War. https://www.historynet.com/did-russia-really-go-it-alone-how-lend-lease-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. 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. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55. 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. 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. 'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany? [22], In February 1942, the U.S. and Britain signed the Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement[23] as part of a greater multilateral system, developed by the Allies during the war, to provide each other with goods, services, and mutual aid in the widest sense, without charging commercial payments. 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 tanks reached the front lines with extraordinary speed. ", "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.". However, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov both stated that Lend-Lease enabled the Soviet Union to defeat Germany on the Eastern Front. "Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army would not have had about one-third of its ammunition, half of its aircraft, or half of its tanks. In addition, almost half of all the rails used by the Soviet Union during the war came through Lend-Lease. on the Soviet war effort during the first year of the war was in the far. Source: "The Soviet Union: The Defeated Victor" pp. As one Roosevelt biographer has characterized it: "If there was no practical alternative, there was certainly no moral one either. ", In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. 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. Washington. In fact, for a brief period during December 1941, the relative importance of British aid increased well beyond levels planned by the Allies as a result of American reaction to the outbreak of war with Japan; some American equipment destined for the Soviet Union was actually unloaded from merchant vessels and provided to American forces instead. "Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Marshall Plan Countries. The plane spent 69 years on the tundra before a Russian Geographical Society expedition rescued it in 2016 and returned the wreckage to Krasnoyarsk. Without Lend-Lease, Russia would not have been able to carry out the Stalingrad counteroffensive and Operation Bagration. 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. Allen (1946) p 252. 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]. The records constitute the primary policy and subject files on World War II Lend-Lease to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). [citation needed] The USSR had only a very small number of heavy bombers in comparison. By the end of 1941, the lend-lease policy. For European Recovery (June 23, 1997) - Library of Congress - Loc.gov "During World War II, only the supplies brought in by Lend-Lease prevented the paralysis of rail transport in the Soviet Union.". Answer (1 of 14): Lend Lease was pretty much strategic charity. 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. However, the real significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet war effort was that it covered the "sensitive points" of Soviet production -- gasoline, explosives, aluminum, nonferrous metals, radio communications, and so on, says historian Boris Sokolov. Dalton Delan: It's not World War II, but we are dealing with a new Axis . While much of the documentary evidence remains classified secret in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian State Archive of the Economy, Western and Russian researchers have been able to gain access to important, previously unavailable firsthand documents. 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. The Soviet Union and the United States - Library of Congress By spring and summer of 1942 the Hurricane had clearly become the principal fighter aircraft of the Northern Fleets air regiments; in all, 83 out of its 109 fighters were of foreign origin. American deliveries to the Soviet Union can be divided into the following phases: Delivery was via the Arctic Convoys, the Persian Corridor, and the Pacific Route. What Was the Lend-Lease Act? - The Defense of the United States External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein. Ukraine is a founding member of the United Nations and it is also a member of the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, and the OSCE. Lend-Lease: Western Aid for the Soviet UnionPart of Eastern Front Fortnight (4) on WW2TVWith Denis HavlatDuring WWII the Soviet Union received large amounts . The 19th and Early 20th Century History. For travel to the United States on a temporary basis, including tourism, temporary employment, study and exchange. Borodin said he wished to honor and show gratitude to the United States and its veterans who rendered aid to the Soviet Union during World War II. 4, 48/Maslov MA Bomber PE-8. WWII program to provide U.S. allies with free armaments, This article is about the World War II program. The Soviet Northern Fleet was also a major and early recipient of British Hurricanes, receiving those flown by No. Each method was difficult. [34], Lend-Lease contributed to the Allied victory. The country's agriculture was in a difficult situation. The United States, the Soviet Union, and the End of World War II It was said that the Matilda was inferior to the T-34, and in truth it probably was. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [69] Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941. Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. From 1941 to 1945, total lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union accounted for only 5% of the Soviet GDP in total. In addition, much of the $31 billion worth of aid sent to the United Kingdom was also passed on to the Soviet Union via convoys through the Barents Sea to Murmansk. The supplies dispersed under the Lend-Lease Act ranged from tanks, aircraft, ships, weapons and road building supplies to clothing, chemicals and food. 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. The Resurrection of World War II Lend-Lease Records on the USSR: A Pro lend-lease !<br><br>#<br><br>On September 2, 1945, with the signing of the act of surrender of militaristic Japan, the Second World War was completed, and on September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease supplies to the USSR were stopped. [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). American contributions of the time were far fewer. The Lend-Lease Memorial in Fairbanks, Alaska, commemorates the shipment of U.S. aircraft to the Soviet Union along the Northwest Staging Route. At a time when Soviet industry was in disarraymany of their industrial plants were destroyed or captured by the advancing Nazi troops or in the process of evacuation eastbattlefield losses of specific equipment approached or even exceeded the rate at which Soviet domestic production could replace them during this crucial period. This was agreed upon before the signing of the first protocol on October 1, 1941, and extension of credit. 19329 posts. Arctic convoys of World War II - Wikipedia 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. To address balance of payment issues between the US and Canada, and to prevent the US monopolizing British orders, the Hyde Park Declaration of 20 April 1941[28] made weapons and components manufactured in Canada for Britain eligible for Lend-Lease financing as if they had been manufactured in the US. 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. ", Nikolai Ryzhkov, the last head of the government of the Soviet Union, wrote in 2015 that "it can be confidently stated that [Lend-Lease assistance] did not play a decisive role in the Great Victory.". by Robert Beckhusen Key point: If the West had not invaded Europe and provided equipment, it would have. 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. Nikolay Ryzhkov & Georgy Kumanev Food and other strategic deliveries to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, 19411945, pp.

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