how important was lend lease to the soviet union how important was lend lease to the soviet union

Soviet industry in World War II - Wikipedia ), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. 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. The U.S. received $2 million in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. [34], Lend-Lease contributed to the Allied victory. 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. Supply volumes and the significance of lend-lease. Lend Lease A transformative example that demonstrated America's willingness and ability to help its allies in times of war was the aid provision America provided to Britain and the Soviet Union during World War II. Nikita Khrushchev, having served as a military commissar and intermediary between Stalin and his generals during the war, addressed directly the significance of Lend-lease aid in his memoirs: I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin's views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. L.7711, H.R. Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? Under Lend-Lease, the United States provided more than one-third of all the explosives used by the Soviet Union during the war. Lend Lease Acts - Lend Lease Lend Lease: A Transformation of - Studocu When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, we Mongols stood with our northern neighbor as best we could. 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." The American lend and lease system was introduced in the beginning of the war to support Great Britain in their struggle with Germany. [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. 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. 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 story of how that microfilm came to be in the National Archives is a convoluted tale worthy of telling. 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. Mystery surrounds the infamous burning of the Reichstag in 1933. Even after the United States forces in Europe and the Pacific began to attain full strength during 19431944, Lend-Lease continued. You act like that would have been easy. 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. Originally, the American policy was to help the British but not join the war. 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. 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. During the war, Soviet factories produced more than 29.1 million small arms of all major types, while only 152,000 small arms ( 0.5% of the total) were manufactured by American, British, and Canadian plants. And Soviet forces would have been much more poorly coordinated with a constant lack of radio equipment. [nb 2][9] Sympathetic to the British plight, but hampered by public opinion and the Neutrality Acts, which forbade arms sales on credit or the lending of money to belligerent nations, Roosevelt eventually came up with the idea of "lendlease". 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. The United States did not provide them to the USSR when requested. In addition, there would have been constant shortages of transportation and fuel. Thereafter it saw the passage of 4,160,000 tons of goods, 27% of the total. 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. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. [55] This constituted some 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war. 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. The aid was given for free on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982, Bd. Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union officially ended in September 1945. How important was Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union? Mongolian lamb and meat donations to the front lines outperformed those sent by the Lend-Lease Act. 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. In the meantime, Great Britain was running out of liquid currency and asked not to be forced to sell off British assets. Member since Oct 2007. [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. 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. By October, German troops were poised outside both Leningrad and Moscow. And many of the supplies needed by our Air Force are procured for us without cost by reverse lend-lease. World War II Allies: U.S. Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union, 1941-1945 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]. Lend-Lease: Aircraft to the Soviet Union > National Museum of the Lend-Lease Act of 1941: Facts, Summary, and Significance [69] Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941. 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. 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. 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. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend-Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. Perhaps most directly, without Lend-Lease trucks, rail engines, and railroad cars, every Soviet offensive would have stalled at an earlier stage, outrunning its logistical tail in a matter of days. Report from Mikoyan to Stalin and Molotov regarding Lend-Lease Lend-lease | Facts & Definition | Britannica Soviet authorities recognized that the Great Patriotic War gave the Communist Party a claim to legitimacy that went far beyond Marxism-Leninism or the 1917 Revolution, and took pains to portray their nations victories in World War II as single-handed. 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]. 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. 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. [15] Though these may be considered the most significant, many other items were also transported, including designs for rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks and plastic explosives. [38] With the outbreak of war these plants switched from civilian to military production and locomotive production ended virtually overnight. Known today as Lend-Lease. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so. How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? | AHA - Historians . 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. In September 1940, during the Battle of Britain the British government sent the Tizard Mission to the United States. "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. British Lend Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort, - Scribd In 1946, the post-war Anglo-American loan further indebted Britain to the U.S. Lend-Lease items retained were sold to Britain at 10% of nominal value, giving an initial loan value of 1.075billion for the Lend-Lease portion of the post-war loans. Lend-Lease's precise significance to Allied victory in WW2 is debated. The munitions totaled 308m (not including naval munitions supplied), the food and raw materials totaled 120m in 1946 index. 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. 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. 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]. It provided Britain and the Soviet Union with limited war materiel beginning in October that year. 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. The Soviet Northern Fleet was also a major and early recipient of British Hurricanes, receiving those flown by No. Robert Coalson is a senior correspondent for RFE/RLwho covers Russia, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. But for decades the official Soviet line went much further. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. L. 77-11, H.R. | 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. 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. As one Roosevelt biographer has characterized it: "If there was no practical alternative, there was certainly no moral one either. This inevitably produced shortages of related products that are required for industrial or logistical uses, particularly unarmored vehicles. Lend-Lease Act - Conservapedia A map of lend-lease shipments from the United States to the U.S.S.R. from 1941-45. [76] Australia and New Zealand supplied the bulk of foodstuffs to United States forces in the South Pacific. I will quote at length: Reverse Lend-Lease to the United States totalled $7.8 billion. Agriculture also suffered a loss of labour; between 1941 and 1945, 19.5 million working-age men had to leave their farms to work in the military and industry. 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. 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. Officially the "Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry". 15 Great Facts About Ukraine - Discover Walks Blog 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. Did Soviet Union Repay Lend-lease? - Caniry [83] However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of its treasure has been produced.[84]. 151 Wing of the RAF, which operated briefly from Soviet airfields near Murmansk. Has Russia paid off the USSR's Lend-Lease debt? - Quora Materiel delivered under the act was supplied at no cost, to be used until returned or destroyed. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. 'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet But in order to sustain the war effort all the way back to Germany, Lend-Lease was decisive. [81], While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. Aircraft Deliveries to the Soviet Union - Lend-Lease 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. [1] There was no repayment required. [43] Lend-Lease also supplied significant amounts of weapons and ammunition. The tanks reached the front lines with extraordinary speed. 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. After a decade of neutrality, Roosevelt knew that the change to Allied support must be gradual, given the support for isolationism in the country. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Materials totalling $. Each method was difficult. How Much Did Lend Lease Help Russia? - Czech Heritage 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]. Any mention of the role that Western assistance played in the Soviet war effort was strictly off-limits. 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. In accordance with the Anglo-Soviet Military Supplies Agreement of June 27, 1942, military aid sent from Britain to the Soviet Union during the war was entirely free of charge. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. 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 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. 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. He suggested amending the act to allow warring nations to purchase military goods, arms and munitions if they paid cash and bore the risks of transporting the goods on non-American ships, a policy that would favor Britain and France. Matilda II in Soviet Service - Tank Encyclopedia Campbell, Thomas M. and George C. Herring, eds. 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 Strange Alliance, The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. Roosevelt approved $1billion in Lend-Lease aid to Britain at the end of October 1941. How important was Lend-Lease for the Soviet war effort? Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely. Some idea of the scope of economic collaboration can be had from the fact that from the beginning of 1942 through 1945 Canada, on her part, furnished the United States with $1,000,000,000 to $1,250,000,000 in defense materials and services. "I knew that its place was in a museum," Vyacheslav Filippov, a colonel in the Russian Air Force reserve who has written extensively about the Lend-Lease program's Siberian connection, told RFE/RL at the time. [56] Nevertheless, some 8,244,000 tons of goods went by this route, 50% of the total. By the end of the war, the United States had extended over $49 billion in Lend-Lease aid to nearly forty nations. 28, 30, 31, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHardesty1991 (, Soviet Supply Protocols. Dalton Delan: It's not World War II, but we are dealing with a new Axis The body of the captain, Maksim Tyurikov, was found by local hunters about 120 kilometers from the wreck in 1953. This Douglas is the only Lend-Lease aircraft that remains in Russia.". The American Lend-Lease program was signed into law in March 1941. The Warplanes to Siberia Project | Historical Spotlight | News | Wargaming In terms of its relationship with the Soviet Union, lend-lease served as a powerful tool for demonstrating the benefits of the . The Allies and the Role of Lend-Lease in WWII: The Russian View "I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. In December 1940, President Roosevelt proclaimed the United States would be the "Arsenal of Democracy" and proposed selling munitions to Britain and Canada. It was quite important, and it became especially important during the second half of WWII when the Red Army went from defending to attacking. [67][68] The British tanks first saw action with the 138 Independent Tank Battalion in the Volga Reservoir on November 20, 1941. Within months, the Lend-Lease program was expanded to include China and the Soviet Union. 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. On March 11, 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act. The country's agriculture was in a difficult situation. "What do I do in such a crisis?" And how much steel! 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? The British Military Mission to Moscow noted that by December 9, about ninety British tanks had already been in action with Soviet forces. It was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy and toward open support for the Allies. [citation needed]. I don't want $15I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (Pub. Negotiations dragged on intermittently for 25 years. 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. 5-6. 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. They Say He Burned Down the Reichstag. "During World War II, only the supplies brought in by Lend-Lease prevented the paralysis of rail transport in the Soviet Union." 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. And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own.". Mackenzie, Hector. During the war the USSR provided an unknown number of shipments of rare minerals to the US Treasury as a form of cashless repayment of Lend-Lease. Canada was not a direct recipient of Lend-Lease aid. 2009. . First protocol period from October 1, 1941, to June 30, 1942 (signed October 7, 1941), Second protocol period from July 1, 1942, to June 30, 1943 (signed October 6, 1942), Third protocol period from July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1944 (signed October 19, 1943). [61][62], Restrictions in the supply of weapons from the United States were mainly limited to heavy bombers. Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (Pub. A further 15% were in favor of qualifications such as: "If it doesn't get us into war," or "If the British can give us some security for what we give them." Much of the meaning of Lend-Lease aid can be better understood when considering the innovative nature of World War II, as well as the economic distortions caused by the war. Without Lend-Lease, Russia would not have been able to carry out the Stalingrad counteroffensive and Operation Bagration. How important was the Lend-Lease to the Soviet war effort? 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. 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.