LEND-LEASE(English lend-lease, from lend - to lend and lease - to rent), a system of transfer by the United States of America for loan or lease of military equipment and other material assets to allied countries during the Second World War.
The Lend-Lease Act was adopted in the USA in March 1941 and the American government immediately extended its effect to Great Britain. In Oct. 1941 in Moscow, representatives of the USSR, USA and Great Britain signed a protocol on mutual supplies. The USSR expressed its readiness to pay for supplies to its allies using funds from its gold reserves. On Nov. 1941 The USA extended the Lend-Lease law to the USSR.
In total, during the Second World War, US supplies under Lend-Lease to the allies amounted to approx. 50 billion dollars, of which the share of Sov. The Union accounted for 22%. At the end of 1945, deliveries to the USSR under Lend-Lease amounted to 11.1 billion dollars. Of these, the USSR accounted for (in million dollars): aircraft - 1189, tanks and self-propelled guns - 618, cars - 1151, ships - 689, artillery - 302, ammunition - 482, machine tools and vehicles - 1577, metals - 879, food – 1726, etc.
Return deliveries from the USSR to the USA amounted to $2.2 million. Sov. The Union supplied the United States with 300 thousand tons of chrome ore, 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, a significant amount of platinum, gold, and timber.
In addition to Amer. Lend-Lease assistance to the USSR was also provided by Great Britain and (since 1943) Canada; the volume of this assistance is estimated at $1.7 billion, respectively. and 200 million dollars.
The first allied convoy with cargo arrived in Arkhangelsk on August 31, 1941. (cm. Allied convoys in the USSR 1941–45). Initially, USSR assistance was provided in a relatively small volume and lagged behind planned supplies. At the same time, it partially compensated for the sharp decline in owls. military production in connection with the seizure by the Nazis of a significant part of the territory of the USSR.
From summer to October. 1942 deliveries along the northern route were suspended due to the defeat of the PQ-17 caravan by the Nazis and the Allied preparations for the landing in North Africa. The main flow of supplies occurred in 1943–44, when a radical turning point in the war had already been reached. Nevertheless, the Allied supplies provided not only material assistance, but also political and moral support for the Owls. people in the war against the Nazis. Germany.
According to American official data, at the end of Sept. 1945 14,795 aircraft, 7,056 tanks, 8,218 anti-aircraft guns, 131 thousand machine guns, 140 submarine hunters, 46 minesweepers, 202 torpedo boats, 30 thousand radio stations, etc. were sent from the USA to the USSR. More than 7 thousand aircraft were received from Great Britain , St. 4 thousand tanks, 385 anti-aircraft guns, 12 minesweepers, etc.; 1188 tanks were delivered from Canada.
In addition to weapons, the USSR received from the United States under Lend-Lease cars (more than 480 thousand trucks and cars), tractors, motorcycles, ships, locomotives, wagons, food and other goods. Aviation squadron, regiment, division, which were successively commanded by A.I. Pokryshkin, from 1943 until the end of the war, flew American P-39 Airacobra fighters. American Studebaker trucks were used as a chassis for rocket artillery combat vehicles (Katyusha).
Unfortunately, some of the Allied supplies did not reach the USSR, because they were destroyed by the Nazi Navy and the Luftwaffe during transport sea crossings.
Several routes were used to carry out deliveries to the USSR. Almost 4 million cargoes were delivered along the northern route from Great Britain and Iceland to Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Molotovsk (Severodvinsk), which amounted to 27.7% of total number supplies. The second route is through the South Atlantic, the Persian Gulf and Iran to the Soviet Union. Transcaucasia; St. was transported along it. 4.2 million cargoes (23.8%).
To assemble and prepare aircraft for flight from Iran to the USSR, intermediate air bases were used, where British, American and Soviet aircraft operated. specialists. Along the Pacific route, ships from the USA to the Far Eastern ports of the USSR sailed under the owl. flags and owls captains (since the US was at war with Japan). Cargoes arrived in Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Nakhodka, Khabarovsk. The Pacific route was the most efficient by volume at 47.1%.
Another route was the air route from Alaska to Eastern Siberia, along which the American and Sov. pilots delivered 7.9 thousand aircraft to the USSR. The length of the air route reached 14 thousand km.
Since 1945, the route through the Black Sea has also been used.
In total from June 1941 to September. 1945 17.5 million tons of various cargoes were sent to the USSR, 16.6 million tons were delivered to their destination (the rest were losses due to the sinking of ships). After the surrender of Germany, the United States stopped Lend-Lease supplies to European part USSR, but for some time they continued them in the Soviet Union. Far East in connection with the war against Japan.
Paying tribute to the USA, I.V. Stalin in 1945 expressed the opinion that the Soviet-Amer. The Lend-Lease agreement played an important role and “contributed greatly to the successful conclusion of the war against the common enemy.” At the same time, both the USSR and the USA understood the auxiliary role of Lend-Lease in the fight against owls. people. “We never believed that our Lend-Lease assistance was the main factor in the Soviet victory over Hitler on the Eastern Front,” noted G. Hopkins, the closest assistant to American President F. Roosevelt. “It was achieved by the heroism and blood of the Russian army.” In addition to the strategist. interaction with the USSR, Lend-Lease brought the United States a certain economy. benefit: by providing supplies, American monopolies earned considerable money.
In the post-war years, negotiations were repeatedly held between the USSR and the USA on payments under Lend-Lease. The USSR returned to the United States part of the property it had received and expressed its readiness to pay for the rest, however, in the conditions of the “ cold war» no agreement was reached. In accordance with the 1972 agreement, the USSR transferred two payments in the amount of 48 million dollars, however, due to the refusal of the American side to provide Sov. Further payments to the Most Favored Nation Union in trade with the United States under the 1972 agreement were suspended. In 1990, payments for Lend-Lease were included in the Russian-American. agreements on restructuring the external debt of the former USSR; Russia's Lend-Lease debt was liquidated in 2006.
Research Institute (Military History) VAGS of the RF Armed Forces
“Few people know that military supplies under Lend-Lease (lend-lease) were not free at all - Russia, as the legal successor of the USSR, paid the last debts on them already in 2006,” writes historian and publicist Evgeny Spitsyn.
On the issue of Lend-Lease (from English lend - to lend and lease - to rent, to rent - ed.) for the USSR, there are many subtleties that it would be nice to understand - on the basis of historical documents.
Not entirely free
The Lend-Lease Act, or "Act for the Defense of the United States", which was passed by the US Congress on March 11, 1941, gave the President of the United States "the power to loan or lease to other states various goods and materials necessary for the conduct of war operations" if these actions, as determined by the President, were vital to the defense of the United States. Various goods and materials were understood as weapons, military equipment, ammunition, strategic raw materials, ammunition, food, civilian goods for the army and rear, as well as any information of important military significance.
The Lend-Lease scheme itself provided for the fulfillment by the recipient country of a number of conditions: 1) materials destroyed, lost or lost during hostilities were not subject to payment, and property that survived and was suitable for civilian purposes had to be paid in full or in part in order to repay a long-term loan issued by themselves USA; 2) the surviving military materials could remain with the recipient country until the United States requests them back; 3) in turn, the tenant agreed to help the United States with all the resources and information available to him.
By the way, and few people know about this either, the Lend-Lease law obliged countries that applied for American assistance to submit a comprehensive financial report to the United States. It is no coincidence that US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., during hearings in the Senate Committee, called this provision unique in all world practice: “For the first time in history, one state, one government provides another with data on its financial position.”
With the help of Lend-Lease, the administration of President F.D. Roosevelt was going to solve a number of urgent problems, both foreign policy and domestic. Firstly, such a scheme made it possible to create new jobs in the United States itself, which had not yet fully emerged from the severe economic crisis of 1929-1933. Secondly, Lend-Lease allowed the American government to have a certain influence on the recipient country of Lend-Lease assistance. Finally, thirdly, by sending his allies only weapons, materials and raw materials, but not manpower, President F.D. Roosevelt fulfilled his campaign promise: “Our guys will never participate in other people’s wars.”
The initial delivery period under Lend-Lease was set until June 30, 1943, with further annual extensions as necessary. And Roosevelt appointed the former Secretary of Commerce, his assistant Harry Hopkins, as the first administrator of this project.
And not only for the USSR
Contrary to another common misconception, the Lend-Lease system was not created for the USSR. The first to provide military assistance on the basis of special lease relations (analogous to operational leasing) at the end of May 1940, the British asked, since the actual defeat of France left Great Britain without military allies on the European continent.
The British themselves, who initially requested 40-50 “old” destroyers, proposed three payment schemes: gratuitous gift, cash payment and leasing. However, Prime Minister W. Churchill was a realist and understood perfectly well that neither the first nor the second proposals would arouse enthusiasm among the Americans, since the warring England was actually on the verge of bankruptcy. Therefore, President Roosevelt quickly accepted the third option, and in the late summer of 1940 the deal went through.
Then, in the depths of the American Department of the Treasury, the idea was born to extend the experience of one private transaction to the entire sphere of all interstate relations. Having involved the War and Navy Ministries in the development of the Lend-Lease bill, the US presidential administration on January 10, 1941 submitted it for consideration by both houses of Congress, which was approved by it on March 11. Meanwhile, in September 1941, the US Congress, after long debates, approved the so-called “Victory Program”, the essence of which, according to the American military historians themselves (R. Layton, R. Coakley), was that “America’s contribution to the war will be weapons, not armies."
Immediately after President Roosevelt signed this program, his adviser and special representative Averell Harriman flew to London, and from there to Moscow, where on October 1, 1941, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.M. Molotov, the British Minister of Reserves and Supply Lord W.E. Beaverbrook and Presidential Special Representative A. Harriman signed the First (Moscow) Protocol, which marked the beginning of the extension of the Lend-Lease program to the Soviet Union.
Then, on June 11, 1942, the “Agreement between the governments of the USSR and the USA on the principles applicable to mutual assistance in waging war against aggression” was signed in Washington, which finally regulated all the fundamental issues of military-technical and economic cooperation between the two main participants in the “anti-Hitler coalition” " In general, in accordance with the signed protocols, all Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR are traditionally divided into several stages:
Pre-Lend-Lease - from June 22, 1941 to September 30, 1941 (before the signing of the protocol); The first protocol - from October 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942 (signed on October 1, 1941); Second protocol - from July 1, 1942 to June 30, 1943 (signed on October 6, 1942); Third Protocol - from July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1944 (signed on October 19, 1943); The fourth protocol is from July 1, 1944 to September 20, 1945 (signed on April 17, 1944).
On September 2, 1945, with the signing of the act of surrender of militaristic Japan, World War II was ended, and already on September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR were stopped.
What, where and how much
The US government never published detailed reports of what and how much was sent under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR. But according to updated data from Doctor of Historical Sciences L.V. Pozdeeva (“Anglo-American relations during the Second World War 1941-1945”, M., “Science”, 1969; “London - Moscow: British public opinion and the USSR. 1939 -1945”, M., Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1999), which were extracted by her from closed American archival sources dating back to 1952, Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR were carried out along five routes:
Far East - 8,244,000 tons (47.1%); Persian Gulf - 4,160,000 tons (23.8%); Northern Russia - 3,964,000 tons (22.7%); Soviet North - 681,000 tons (3.9%); Soviet Arctic - 452,000 tons (2.5%).
His compatriot, the American historian J. Herring, wrote just as frankly that “Lend-Lease was not the most selfless act in the history of mankind... It was an act of calculated selfishness, and the Americans were always clear about the benefits that they could derive from it.”
And this was indeed the case, since Lend-Lease turned out to be an inexhaustible source of enrichment for many American corporations. After all, in fact, the only country in the anti-Hitler coalition that received significant economic benefits from the war was the United States. It is not without reason that in the United States itself the Second world war is sometimes called a “good war,” which, for example, is evident from the title of the work of the famous American historian S. Terkeli “The Good War: An Oral History of World War II” (“ Good war: an oral history of the Second World War" (1984)). In it, he frankly, with cynicism, noted: “Almost the entire world during this war experienced terrible shocks, horrors and was almost destroyed. We came out of the war with incredible technology, tools, labor and money. For most Americans, the war turned out to be fun... I'm not talking about those unfortunate people who lost their sons and daughters. But for everyone else, it was a damn good time."
Almost all researchers of this topic unanimously say that the Lend-Lease program noticeably revived the economic situation in the United States, in the balance of payments of which Lend-Lease operations became one of the leading items during the war. To carry out deliveries under Lend-Lease, the administration of President Roosevelt began to widely use so-called “fixed profitability” contracts (cost-plus contracts), when private contractors could themselves set a certain level of income in relation to costs.
In cases where significant volumes of specialized equipment were required, the US government acted as the lessor, purchasing all the necessary equipment for subsequent leasing.
Only numbers
Of course, supplies under Lend-Lease brought victory over the enemy closer. But here are some real numbers that speak for themselves.
For example, during the war, more than 29.1 million units of small arms of all main types were produced at the enterprises of the Soviet Union, while only about 152 thousand units of small arms were supplied to the Red Army from American, British and Canadian factories. that is 0.5%. A similar picture was observed for all types of artillery systems of all calibers - 647.6 thousand Soviet guns and mortars against 9.4 thousand foreign ones, which was less than 1.5% of their total number.
For other types of weapons, the picture was somewhat different, but also not so “optimistic”: for tanks and self-propelled guns, the ratio of domestic and allied vehicles was, respectively, 132.8 thousand and 11.9 thousand (8.96%), and for combat aircraft - 140.5 thousand and 18.3 thousand (13%).
And one more thing: out of almost 46 billion dollars, which all Lend-Lease aid cost, for the Red Army, which defeated the lion’s share of the divisions of Germany and its military satellites, the United States allocated only 9.1 billion dollars, that is, a little more than one-fifth of the funds .
At the same time, the British Empire received more than 30.2 billion, France - 1.4 billion, China - 630 million, and even countries Latin America(!) received 420 million dollars. In total, 42 countries received supplies under the Lend-Lease program.
It must be said that recently total supplies under Lend-Lease have begun to be assessed somewhat differently, but this does not change the essence of the overall picture. Here are the updated data: out of 50 billion dollars, almost 31.5 billion were spent on supplies to the UK, 11.3 billion to the USSR, 3.2 billion to France and 1.6 billion to China .
But perhaps, given the overall insignificance of the volume of overseas assistance, it played a role decisive role precisely in 1941, when the Germans stood at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad, and when there were only some 25-40 km left before the victorious march across Red Square?
Let's look at the statistics on arms supplies for this year. From the beginning of the war to the end of 1941, the Red Army received 1.76 million rifles, machine guns and machine guns, 53.7 thousand guns and mortars, 5.4 thousand tanks and 8.2 thousand combat aircraft. Of these, our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition supplied only 82 artillery pieces (0.15%), 648 tanks (12.14%) and 915 aircraft (10.26%). Moreover, a fair portion of the military equipment sent, in particular 115 of the 466 English-made tanks, never reached the front in the first year of the war.
If we translate these supplies of weapons and military equipment into monetary equivalent, then, according to the famous historian, Doctor of Science M.I. Frolov (“Vain attempts: against belittling the role of the USSR in the defeat of Nazi Germany,” Lenizdat, 1986; “The Great Patriotic War of 1941 -1945 in German historiography”, SP, LTA publishing house, 1994), which for many years successfully and worthily polemicized with German historians (W. Schwabedissen, K. Uebe), “until the end of 1941 - at the very a difficult period for the Soviet state - materials worth 545 thousand dollars were sent to the USSR under Lend-Lease from the USA, with the total cost of American supplies to the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition being 741 million dollars. That is, less than 0.1% of American aid was received by the Soviet Union during this difficult period.
In addition, the first deliveries under Lend-Lease in the winter of 1941-1942 reached the USSR very late, and in these critical months the Russians, and only the Russians, offered real resistance to the German aggressor on their own land and with their own funds, without receiving any significant assistance from Western democracies. By the end of 1942, the agreed supply programs to the USSR were completed by the Americans and British by 55%. In 1941-1942, only 7% of the cargo sent from the United States during the war years arrived in the USSR. The main amount of weapons and other materials was received by the Soviet Union in 1944-1945, after a radical turning point in the course of the war.”
Part II
Now let's see what the fighting vehicles of the allied countries that were originally part of the Lend-Lease program were like.
Of the 711 fighters that arrived from England to the USSR before the end of 1941, 700 were hopelessly outdated machines such as the Kittyhawk, Tomahawk and Hurricane, which were significantly inferior to the German Messerschmitt and the Soviet Yak in speed and maneuverability and not They even had cannon weapons. Even if a Soviet pilot managed to catch an enemy ace in the machine gun sight, their rifle-caliber machine guns often turned out to be completely powerless against the rather strong armor of German aircraft. As for the newest Airacobra fighters, only 11 of them were delivered in 1941. Moreover, the first Airacobra arrived in the Soviet Union in disassembled form, without any documentation and with a fully exhausted engine life.
This, by the way, also applies to two squadrons of Hurricane fighters, armed with 40-mm tank guns to combat enemy armored vehicles. The attack aircraft made from these fighters turned out to be completely worthless, and they stood idle in the USSR throughout the war, since there were simply no people willing to fly them in the Red Army.
A similar picture was observed with the vaunted English armored vehicles - the light tank "Valentine", which Soviet tankers dubbed "Valentina", and the medium tank "Matilda", which the same tankers called even more harshly - "Farewell, Motherland", Thin armor, fire-hazardous carburetor engines and antediluvian transmission made them easy prey for German artillery and grenade launchers.
According to the authoritative testimony of V.M. Molotov’s personal assistant V.M. Berezhkov, who, as a translator for I.V. Stalin, participated in all negotiations of the Soviet leadership with Anglo-American visitors, Stalin was often indignant that, for example, the British supplied land -lized obsolete Hurricane-type aircraft and avoided deliveries of the latest Spitfire fighters. Moreover, in September 1942, in a conversation with the leader of the US Republican Party, W. Wilkie, in the presence of the American and British ambassadors and W. Standley and A. Clark Kerr, the Supreme Commander directly asked him the question: why did the British and American governments supply the Soviet Union low-quality materials?
And he explained that we are talking, first of all, about the supply of American P-40 aircraft instead of the much more modern Airacobra, and that the British are supplying worthless Hurricane aircraft, which are much worse than the German ones. There was a case, Stalin added, when the Americans were going to supply 150 Airacobras to the Soviet Union, but the British intervened and kept them for themselves. “The Soviet people... know very well that both the Americans and the British have aircraft of equal or even better quality than German machines, but for unknown reasons some of these aircraft are not delivered to the Soviet Union.”
The American ambassador, Admiral Standley, had no information on this matter, and the British ambassador, Archibald Clark Kerr, admitted that he was aware of the matter with the Airacobras, but began to justify their sending to another place by the fact that these 150 vehicles in the hands of the British would bring “much more benefit to the common cause of the Allies than if they had ended up in the Soviet Union.”
Wait three years for the promised one?
The United States promised to send 600 tanks and 750 aircraft in 1941, but sent only 182 and 204, respectively.
The same story repeated itself in 1942: if Soviet industry produced that year more than 5.9 million small arms, 287 thousand guns and mortars, 24.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns and 21.7 thousand aircraft, then under Lend-Lease in January-October 1942, only 61 thousand small arms, 532 guns and mortars, 2703 tanks and self-propelled guns and 1695 aircraft were delivered.
Moreover, since November 1942, i.e. in the midst of the battle for the Caucasus and Stalingrad and the conduct of Operation Mars on the Rzhev salient, the supply of weapons almost completely ceased. According to historians (M.N. Suprun “Lend-Lease and Northern Convoys, 1941-1945”, M., St. Andrew’s Flag Publishing House, 1997), these interruptions began already in the summer of 1942, when German aviation and The submarines destroyed the notorious Caravan PQ-17, abandoned (by order of the Admiralty) by British escort ships. The result was disastrous: only 11 out of 35 ships reached Soviet ports, which was used as an excuse to suspend the departure of the next convoy, which sailed from British shores only in September 1942.
The new Caravan PQ-18 lost 10 out of 37 transports on the road, and the next convoy was sent only in mid-December 1942. Thus, in 3.5 months, when the decisive battle of the entire Second World War was taking place on the Volga, less than 40 ships with Lend-Lease cargo arrived individually in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. In connection with this circumstance, many had a legitimate suspicion that all this time in London and Washington they were simply waiting to see in whose favor the battle of Stalingrad would end.
Meanwhile, from March 1942, i.e. just six months after the evacuation of more than 10 thousand people from the European part of the USSR. industrial enterprises, military production began to grow, which by the end of this year exceeded pre-war figures five times (!). Moreover, it should be noted that 86% of the entire workforce were old people, women and children. It was they who in 1942-1945 gave the Soviet army 102.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, more than 125.6 thousand aircraft, more than 780 thousand. artillery pieces and mortars, etc.
Not just weapons. And not only allies...
Supplies not related to the main types of weapons were also supplied under Lend-Lease. And here the numbers turn out to be really solid. In particular, we received 2,586 thousand tons of aviation gasoline, which amounted to 37% of what was produced in the USSR during the war, and almost 410 thousand cars, i.e. 45% of all vehicles of the Red Army (excluding captured vehicles). Food supplies also played a significant role, although during the first year of the war they were extremely insignificant, and in total the United States supplied approximately 15% of meat and other canned goods.
And there were also machine tools, rails, locomotives, carriages, radars and other useful equipment, without which you couldn’t fight much.
Of course, having familiarized yourself with this impressive list of Lend-Lease supplies, one could sincerely admire the American partners in the anti-Hitler coalition,” if not for one nuance: At the same time, American industrial corporations also supplied supplies to Nazi Germany...
For example, the Standard Oil oil corporation, owned by John Rockefeller Jr., sold $20 million worth of gasoline and lubricants to Berlin through the German concern I.G. Farbenindustry alone. And the Venezuelan branch of the same company sent monthly 13 thousand tons of crude oil to Germany, which the powerful chemical industry of the Third Reich immediately processed into first-class gasoline. Moreover, the matter was not limited to precious fuel, and the Germans from overseas received tungsten, synthetic rubber and a lot of different components for the automotive industry, which the German Fuhrer was supplied with by his old friend Henry Ford Sr. In particular, it is well known that 30% of all tires manufactured at its factories were supplied to the German Wehrmacht.
Regarding the total volume of Ford-Rockefeller supplies Nazi Germany, then there is still no complete information on this matter, since this is the strictest trade secret, but even the little that has become known to the public and historians makes it clear that trade with Berlin has by no means died down over the years.
Lend-Lease is not charity
There is a version that Lend-Lease assistance from the United States was almost of a charitable nature. However, upon closer examination, this version does not stand up to criticism. First of all, because already during the war, within the framework of the so-called “reverse Lend-Lease,” Washington received the necessary raw materials with a total value of almost 20% of the transferred materials and weapons. In particular, 32 thousand tons of manganese and 300 thousand tons of chrome ore were sent from the USSR, the importance of which in the military industry was extremely great. Suffice it to say that when, during the Nikopol-Krivoy Rog offensive operation of the troops of the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian fronts in February 1944, German industry was deprived of Nikopol manganese, the 150-mm frontal armor of the German “Royal Tigers” began to withstand the blow of Soviet artillery shells where worse than the similar 100 mm armor plate that was previously installed on conventional Tigers.
In addition, the USSR paid for allied supplies in gold. Thus, only one British cruiser Edinburgh, which was sunk by German submarines in May 1942, contained 5.5 tons of precious metal.
A significant part of the weapons and military equipment, as expected under the Lend-Lease agreement, was returned by the Soviet Union at the end of the war. Having received in return a bill for the round sum of $1,300 million. Against the backdrop of writing off Lend-Lease debts to other powers, this looked like outright robbery, so J.V. Stalin demanded that the “allied debt” be recalculated.
Subsequently, the Americans were forced to admit that they were mistaken, but added interest to the final amount, and the final amount, taking into account these interests, recognized by the USSR and the USA under the Washington Agreement in 1972, amounted to 722 million greenbacks. Of these, 48 million were paid to the United States under L.I. Brezhnev, in three equal payments in 1973, after which payments were stopped due to the introduction of discriminatory measures by the American side in trade with the USSR (in particular, the notorious “Jackson-Vanik Amendment” - author).
Only in June 1990, during new negotiations between Presidents George W. Bush and M.S. Gorbachev, the parties returned to discussing the Lend-Lease debt, during which a new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was established - 2030, and the remaining amount of the debt — 674 million dollars.
After the collapse of the USSR, its debts were technically divided into debts to governments (Paris Club) and debts to private banks (London Club). The Lend-Lease debt was a debt obligation to the US government, that is, part of the debt to the Paris Club, which Russia fully repaid in August 2006.
According to my own estimates
US President F.D. Roosevelt directly said that “helping the Russians is money well spent,” and his successor in the White House, G. Truman, back in June 1941, on the pages of the New York Times, stated: “If we see, that Germany wins, we must help Russia, and if Russia wins, we must help Germany, and thus let them kill each other as much as possible”...
The first official assessment of the role of Lend-Lease in the overall victory over Nazism, which was then replicated in different interpretations in many encyclopedias and scientific works, was given by member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR N.A. Voznesensky, who in his work “The Military Economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War” (Moscow, Gospolitizdat, 1948) wrote: “If we compare the size of the allies’ supplies of industrial goods to USSR with the size of industrial production at socialist enterprises of the USSR, it turns out that specific gravity These supplies in relation to domestic production during the war economy period will be only about 4%.”
American scientists, military men and officials themselves (R. Goldsmith, J. Herring, R. Jones) admit that “all allied assistance to the USSR did not exceed 1/10 of Soviet arms production,” and the total volume of Lend-Lease supplies, taking into account the famous American stewed meat “Second Front”, amounted to about 10-11%.
"Valentine" "Stalin" is coming to the USSR under the Lend-Lease program.
The history of Lend-Lease has been mythologized by both opponents of Soviet power and its supporters. The former believe that without military supplies from the USA and England the USSR could not have won the war, the latter believe that the role of these supplies is completely insignificant. We bring to your attention a balanced view of this question by historian Pavel Sutulin, originally published in his LiveJournal.
History of Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease (from the English “lend” - to lend and “lease” - to rent) is a unique program for lending to allies by the United States of America through the supply of equipment, food, equipment, raw materials and materials. The first step towards Lend-Lease was taken by the United States on September 3, 1940, when the Americans transferred 50 old destroyers to Britain in exchange for British military bases. On January 2, 1941, an employee of the Ministry of Finance, Oscar Cox, prepared the first draft of the Lend-Lease law. On January 10th, this bill was transmitted to the Senate and House of Representatives. On March 11, the Law received approval from both chambers and was signed by the President, and three hours later the President signed the first two directives to this law. The first of them ordered the transfer of 28 torpedo boats to Britain, and the second ordered the transfer of 50 75-mm cannons and several hundred thousand shells to Greece. This is how the history of Lend-Lease began.
The essence of Lend-Lease was, in general, quite simple. According to the Lend-Lease law, the United States could supply equipment, ammunition, equipment, etc. countries whose defense was vital for the States themselves. All deliveries were free of charge. All machinery, equipment and materials spent, used up or destroyed during the war were not subject to payment. Property remaining after the end of the war that was suitable for civilian purposes had to be paid for.
As for the USSR, Roosevelt and Churchill made a promise to supply it with the materials necessary for war immediately after Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, that is, on June 22, 1941. On October 1, 1941, the First Moscow Protocol on Supply to the USSR was signed in Moscow, the expiration of which was set on June 30. The Lend-Lease Act was extended to the USSR on October 28, 1941, as a result of which the Union was granted a loan of $1 billion. During the war, three more protocols were signed: Washington, London and Ottawa, through which supplies were extended until the end of the war. Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR officially ceased on May 12, 1945. However, until August 1945, deliveries continued according to the “Molotov-Mikoyan list.”
Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR and their contribution to victory
During the war, hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo were delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease. Military historians (and, perhaps, everyone else) are of greatest interest, of course, in allied military equipment - and that’s where we’ll start. Under Lend-Lease, the following were supplied to the USSR from the USA: light M3A1 “Stuart” - 1676 pcs., light M5 - 5 pcs., light M24 - 2 pcs., medium M3 “Grant” - 1386 pcs., medium M4A2 “Sherman” (with a 75-mm cannon) - 2007 pcs., medium M4A2 (with a 76-mm cannon) - 2095 pcs., heavy M26 - 1 pc. From England: infantry "Valentine" - 2394 units, infantry "Matilda" MkII - 918 units, light "Tetrarch" - 20 units, heavy "Churchill" - 301 units, cruising "Cromwell" - 6 units. From Canada: “Valentine” - 1388. Total: 12199 tanks. In total, during the war years, 86.1 thousand tanks were delivered to the Soviet-German front.
Thus, Lend-Lease tanks accounted for 12.3% of the total number of tanks produced/delivered to the USSR in 1941-1945. In addition to tanks, self-propelled guns/self-propelled guns were also supplied to the USSR. ZSU: M15A1 - 100 pcs., M17 - 1000 pcs.; Self-propelled guns: T48 - 650 pcs., M18 - 5 pcs., M10 - 52 pcs. A total of 1,807 units were delivered. In total, 23.1 thousand self-propelled guns were produced and received in the USSR during the war. Thus, the share of self-propelled guns received by the USSR under Lend-Lease is equal to 7.8% of the total number of equipment of this type received during the war. In addition to tanks and self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers were also supplied to the USSR: English “Universal Carrier” - 2560 units. (including from Canada - 1348 pcs.) and American M2 - 342 pcs., M3 - 2 pcs., M5 - 421 pcs., M9 - 419 pcs., T16 - 96 pcs., M3A1 “Scout” - 3340 pcs. ., LVT - 5 pcs. Total: 7185 units. Since armored personnel carriers were not produced in the USSR, Lend-Lease vehicles accounted for 100% Soviet park this technique. Criticism of Lend-Lease very often pay attention to low quality armored vehicles supplied by the Allies. This criticism actually has some basis, since American and British tanks were often inferior in terms of performance characteristics to both their Soviet and German counterparts. Especially considering that the Allies usually supplied the USSR with not the best examples of their equipment. For example, the most advanced modifications of the Sherman (M4A3E8 and Sherman Firefly) were not supplied to Russia.
The situation with supplies under Lend-Lease to aviation is much better. In total, during the war years, 18,297 aircraft were delivered to the USSR, including from the USA: P-40 "Tomahawk" fighters - 247, P-40 "Kitihawk" - 1887, P-39 "Airacobra" - 4952, P-63 " Kingcobra - 2400, P-47 Thunderbolt - 195; A-20 Boston bombers - 2771, B-25 Mitchell - 861; other types of aircraft - 813. 4171 Spitfires and Hurricanes were delivered from England. In total, the Soviet troops received 138 thousand aircraft during the war. Thus, the share of foreign equipment in the domestic aircraft fleet was 13%. However, even here the allies refused to supply the USSR with the pride of their Air Force - the B-17, B-24 and B- strategic bombers. 29, of which 35 thousand were produced during the war, and at the same time, it was precisely such vehicles that the Soviet Air Force needed most.
Under Lend-Lease, 8 thousand anti-aircraft and 5 thousand anti-tank guns were supplied. In total, the USSR received 38 thousand units of anti-aircraft and 54 thousand anti-tank artillery. That is, the share of Lend-Lease in these types of weapons was 21% and 9%, respectively. However, if we take all Soviet guns and mortars as a whole (receipts during the war - 526.2 thousand), then the share of foreign guns in it will be only 2.7%.
During the war, 202 torpedo boats, 28 patrol ships, 55 minesweepers, 138 submarine hunters, 49 landing ships, 3 icebreakers, about 80 transport ships, about 30 tugs were transferred to the USSR under Lend-Lease. There are about 580 ships in total. In total, the USSR received 2,588 ships during the war years. That is, the share of Lend-Lease equipment is 22.4%.
The most noticeable were the Lend-Lease deliveries of cars. In total, 480 thousand cars were delivered under Lend-Lease (85% of them from the USA). Including about 430 thousand trucks (mainly US 6 companies Studebaker and REO) and 50 thousand jeeps (Willys MB and Ford GPW). Despite the fact that the total receipt of vehicles on the Soviet-German front amounted to 744 thousand units, the share of Lend-Lease vehicles in the Soviet vehicle fleet was 64%. In addition, 35,000 motorcycles were supplied from the United States.
But supplies of small arms under Lend-Lease were very modest: only about 150,000 units. Considering that the total supply of small arms to the Red Army during the war amounted to 19.85 million units, the share of Lend-Lease weapons is approximately 0.75%.
During the war years, 242.3 thousand tons of motor gasoline were supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease (2.7% of the total production and receipt of motor gasoline in the USSR). The situation with aviation gasoline is as follows: 570 thousand tons of gasoline were supplied from the USA, and 533.5 thousand tons from Britain and Canada. In addition, 1,483 thousand tons of light gasoline fractions were supplied from the USA, Britain and Canada. From light gasoline fractions, gasoline is produced as a result of reforming, the yield of which is approximately 80%. Thus, from 1,483 thousand tons of fractions, 1,186 thousand tons of gasoline can be obtained. That is, the total supply of gasoline under Lend-Lease can be estimated at 2,230 thousand tons. During the war, the USSR produced about 4,750 thousand tons of aviation gasoline. This number probably includes gasoline produced from fractions supplied by the Allies. That is, the USSR's production of gasoline from its own resources can be estimated at approximately 3,350 thousand tons. Consequently, the share of Lend-Lease aviation fuel in the total amount of gasoline supplied and produced in the USSR is 40%.
622.1 thousand tons of railway rails were supplied to the USSR, which is equal to 36% of the total number of rails supplied and produced in the USSR. During the war, 1,900 steam locomotives were delivered, while in the USSR in 1941-1945, 800 steam locomotives were produced, of which 708 in 1941. If we take the number of steam locomotives produced from June to the end of 1941 as a quarter of the total production, then the number of locomotives produced during the war will be approximately 300 units. That is, the share of Lend-Lease steam locomotives in the total volume of steam locomotives produced and delivered in the USSR is approximately 72%. In addition, 11,075 cars were delivered to the USSR. For comparison, in 1942-1945, 1092 railway cars were produced in the USSR. During the war years, 318 thousand tons were supplied under Lend-Lease explosives(of which the USA - 295.6 thousand tons), which is 36.6% of the total production and supply of explosives to the USSR.
Under Lend-Lease, the Soviet Union received 328 thousand tons of aluminum. If we believe B. Sokolov (“The Role of Lend-Lease in the Soviet War Efforts”), who estimated Soviet aluminum production during the war at 263 thousand tons, then the share of Lend-Lease aluminum in the total amount of aluminum produced and received by the USSR will be 55%. 387 thousand tons of copper were supplied to the USSR - 45% of the total production and supply of this metal to the USSR. Under Lend-Lease, the Union received 3,606 thousand tons of tires - 30% of the total number of tires produced and supplied to the USSR. 610 thousand tons of sugar were supplied - 29.5%. Cotton: 108 million tons – 6%. During the war, 38.1 thousand metal-cutting machines were supplied from the USA to the USSR, and 6.5 thousand machines and 104 presses were supplied from Great Britain. During the war, the USSR produced 141 thousand machine tools and forging presses. Thus, the share of foreign machine tools in the domestic economy was 24%. The USSR also received 956.7 thousand miles of field telephone cable, 2.1 thousand miles of sea cable and 1.1 thousand miles of submarine cable. In addition, 35,800 radio stations, 5,899 receivers and 348 locators, 15.5 million pairs of army boots, 5 million tons of food, etc. were supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease.
According to the data summarized in diagram No. 2, it is clear that even for the main types of supplies, the share of Lend-Lease products in the total volume of production and supplies to the USSR does not exceed 28%. In general, the share of Lend-Lease products in the total volume of materials, equipment, food, machinery, raw materials, etc. produced and supplied to the USSR. Typically estimated at 4%. In my opinion, this figure, in general, reflects the real state of affairs. Thus, we can say with a certain degree of confidence that Lend-Lease did not have any decisive impact on the USSR’s ability to wage war. Yes, under Lend-Lease such types of equipment and materials were supplied that made up the majority of the total production of such in the USSR. But would the lack of supply of these materials become critical? In my opinion, no. The USSR could well have redistributed its production efforts so as to provide itself with everything it needed, including aluminum, copper, and locomotives. Could the USSR do without Lend-Lease at all? Yes, I could. But the question is, what would it cost him? Without Lend-Lease, the USSR could have taken two ways to solve the problem of the shortage of those goods that were supplied under Lend-Lease. The first way is to simply turn a blind eye to this deficiency. As a result, the army would experience a shortage of cars, aircraft and a number of other types of equipment and equipment. Thus, the army would certainly be weakened. The second option is to increase own production products supplied under Lend-Lease by attracting excess labor to the production process. This force, accordingly, could only be taken at the front, and thereby again weaken the army. Thus, when choosing any of these paths, the Red Army found itself a loser. The result is a prolongation of the war and unnecessary casualties on our part. In other words, Lend-Lease, although it did not have a decisive influence on the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front, nevertheless saved hundreds of thousands of lives of Soviet citizens. And for this alone Russia should be grateful to its allies.
Speaking about the role of Lend-Lease in the victory of the USSR, we should not forget about two more points. Firstly, the vast majority of equipment, equipment and materials were supplied to the USSR in 1943-1945. That is, after the turning point during the war. For example, in 1941, goods worth approximately $100 million were supplied under Lend-Lease, which amounted to less than 1% of the total supply. In 1942, this percentage was 27.6. Thus, more than 70% of deliveries under Lend-Lease occurred in 1943-1945, and during the most terrible period of the war for the USSR, allied assistance was not very noticeable. As an example, in diagram No. 3 you can see how the number of aircraft supplied from the USA changed in 1941-1945. An even more telling example is cars: as of April 30, 1944, only 215 thousand of them were delivered. That is, more than half of the Lend-Lease vehicles were delivered to the USSR in last year war. Secondly, not all of the equipment supplied under Lend-Lease was used by the army and navy. For example, out of 202 torpedo boats delivered to the USSR, 118 never had to take part in the hostilities of the Great Patriotic War, since they were put into operation after its end. All 26 frigates received by the USSR also entered service only in the summer of 1945. A similar situation was observed with other types of equipment.
And finally, to conclude this part of the article, a small stone in the garden of Lend-Lease critics. Many of these critics focus on the insufficient supplies of the allies, reinforcing this by the fact that, they say, the United States, given its level of production, could supply more. Indeed, the USA and Britain produced 22 million small arms, but delivered only 150,000 thousand (0.68%). Of the tanks produced, the Allies supplied the USSR with 14%. The situation with cars was even worse: in total, about 5 million cars were produced in the USA during the war years, and about 450 thousand were delivered to the USSR - less than 10%. And so on. However, this approach is certainly wrong. The fact is that supplies to the USSR were limited not by the production capabilities of the allies, but by the tonnage of available transport ships. And it was with him that the British and Americans had serious problems. The Allies simply did not physically have the number of transport ships necessary to transport more cargo to the USSR.
Delivery routes
Lend-Lease cargo reached the USSR via five routes: through Arctic convoys to Murmansk, along the Black Sea, through Iran, through the Far East and through the Soviet Arctic. The most famous of these routes, of course, is Murmansk. The heroism of the sailors of the Arctic convoys is glorified in many books and films. It is probably for this reason that many of our fellow citizens had the false impression that the main deliveries under Lend-Lease went to the USSR precisely by Arctic convoys. A similar opinion - clean water delusion. In diagram No. 4 you can see the ratio of cargo transportation volumes along various routes in long tons. As we see, not only did most of the Lend-Lease cargo not pass through the Russian North, but this route was not even the main one, giving way to the Far East and Iran. One of the main reasons for this state of affairs was the danger of the northern route due to the activity of the Germans. In diagram No. 5 you can see how effectively the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine operated in Arctic convoys.
The use of the trans-Iranian route became possible after Soviet and British troops (from the north and south, respectively) entered the territory of Iran, and already on September 8, a peace agreement was signed between the USSR, England and Iran, according to which British and Soviet troops were stationed on the territory of Persia troops. From that moment on, Iran began to be used for supplies to the USSR. Lend-Lease cargo went to the ports of the northern tip of the Persian Gulf: Basra, Khorramshahr, Abadan and Bandar Shahpur. Aircraft and automobile assembly plants were established in these ports. From these ports to the USSR, goods traveled in two ways: by land through the Caucasus and by water through the Caspian Sea. However, the Trans-Iranian route, like the Arctic convoys, had its drawbacks: firstly, it was too long (the convoy route from New York to the coast of Iran around the South African Cape of Good Hope took approximately 75 days, and then the passage of cargo took time across Iran and the Caucasus or the Caspian Sea). Secondly, navigation in the Caspian Sea was hampered by German aviation, which sank and damaged 32 ships with cargo in October and November alone, and the Caucasus was not the calmest place: in 1941-1943 alone, 963 bandit groups with a total number of 17,513 were liquidated in the North Caucasus Human. In 1945, instead of the Iranian route, the Black Sea route began to be used for supplies.
However, the safest and most convenient route was the Pacific route from Alaska to the Far East (46% of total supplies) or through the Arctic Ocean to Arctic ports (3%). Basically, Lend-Lease cargo was delivered to the USSR from the USA, of course, by sea. However, most of the aviation moved from Alaska to the USSR under its own power (the same AlSib). However, this path also had its own difficulties, this time associated with Japan. In 1941 - 1944, the Japanese detained 178 Soviet ships, some of them - the transports "Kamenets-Podolsky", "Ingul" and "Nogin" - for 2 months or more. 8 ships - the transports "Krechet", "Svirstroy", "Maikop", "Perekop", "Angarstroy", "Pavlin Vinogradov", "Lazo", "Simferopol" - were sunk by the Japanese. The transports “Ashgabat”, “Kolkhoznik”, “Kyiv” were sunk by unidentified submarines, and about 10 more ships were lost under unclear circumstances.
Lend-Lease payment
This is probably main topic for speculation by people trying to somehow denigrate the Lend-Lease program. Most of them consider it their indispensable duty to declare that the USSR allegedly paid for all cargo supplied under Lend-Lease. Of course, this is nothing more than a delusion (or a deliberate lie). Neither the USSR nor any other countries that received assistance under the Lend-Lease program, in accordance with the Lend-Lease law, paid, so to speak, a single cent for this assistance during the war. Moreover, as was already written at the beginning of the article, they were not obliged to pay after the war for those materials, equipment, weapons and ammunition that were used up during the war. It was necessary to pay only for what remained intact after the war and could be used by the recipient countries. Thus, there were no Lend-Lease payments during the war. Another thing is that the USSR actually sent various goods to the USA (including 320 thousand tons of chrome ore, 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, as well as gold, platinum, wood). This was done as part of the reverse Lend-Lease program. In addition, the same program included free repairs of American ships in Russian ports and other services. Unfortunately, I was unable to find which total amount the allies were provided with goods and services under reverse Lend-Lease. The only source I found claims that this same amount was 2.2 million dollars. However, I personally am not sure of the authenticity of this data. However, they may well be considered as a lower limit. The upper limit in this case will be an amount of several hundred million dollars. Be that as it may, the share of reverse Lend-Lease in the total Lend-Lease trade turnover between the USSR and the allies will not exceed 3-4%. For comparison, the amount of reverse Lend-Lease from the UK to the USA is equal to 6.8 billion dollars, which is 18.3% of the total exchange of goods and services between these states.
So, no payment for Lend-Lease occurred during the war. The Americans provided the bill to the recipient countries only after the war. The volume of Great Britain's debts to the United States amounted to $4.33 billion, to Canada - $1.19 billion. The last payment in the amount of $83.25 million (to the United States) and $22.7 million (Canada) was made on December 29, 2006. The volume of China's debts was determined at 180 million. dollars, and this debt has not yet been repaid. The French paid the United States on May 28, 1946, providing the United States with a number of trade preferences.
The USSR's debt was determined in 1947 in the amount of 2.6 billion dollars, but already in 1948 this amount was reduced to 1.3 billion. However, the USSR refused to pay. The refusal also followed new concessions from the United States: in 1951, the amount of the debt was again revised and this time amounted to 800 million. An agreement on the procedure for repaying the debt to pay for Lend-Lease between the USSR and the USA was signed only on October 18, 1972 (debt amount was again reduced, this time to $722 million; the repayment period was 2001), and the USSR agreed to this agreement only on the condition that it was provided with a loan from the Export-Import Bank. In 1973, the USSR made two payments totaling $48 million, but then stopped payments due to the implementation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1972 Soviet-American trade agreement in 1974. In June 1990, during negotiations between the presidents of the USA and the USSR, the parties returned to discussing debt. A new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030, and the amount - 674 million dollars. Currently, Russia owes the United States $100 million for supplies under Lend-Lease.
Other types of supplies
Lend-Lease was the only significant type of allied supplies to the USSR. However, not the only one in principle. Before the adoption of the Lend-Lease program, the United States and Britain supplied the USSR with equipment and materials in cash. However, the size of these supplies was quite small. For example, from July to October 1941, the United States supplied the USSR with cargo worth only $29 million. In addition, Britain provided for the supply of goods to the USSR on account of long-term loans. Moreover, these deliveries continued even after the adoption of the Lend-Lease program.
We should not forget about the many charitable foundations created to raise funds for the benefit of the USSR around the world. The USSR and private individuals also provided assistance. Moreover, such help came even from Africa and the Middle East. For example, the “Russian Patriotic Group” was created in Beirut, and the Society medical care Russia.. Iranian merchant Rahimyan Ghulam Husein sent 3 tons of dried grapes to Stalingrad. And merchants Yusuf Gafuriki and Mamed Zhdalidi transferred 285 heads of cattle to the USSR.
Literature
1. Ivanyan E. A. History of the USA. M.: Bustard, 2006.
2. /Brief History of the USA / Under. ed. I. A. Alyabyev, E. V. Vysotskaya, T. R. Dzhum, S. M. Zaitsev, N. P. Zotnikov, V. N. Tsvetkov. Minsk: Harvest, 2003.
3. Shirokorad A. B. Far Eastern Final. M.: AST: Transizdatkniga, 2005.
4. Schofield B. Arctic convoys. Northern naval battles in World War II. M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2003.
5. Temirov Yu. T., Donets A. S. War. M.: Eksmo, 2005.
6. Stettinius E. Lend-Lease - a weapon of victory (http://militera.lib.ru/memo/usa/stettinius/index.html).
7. Morozov A. Anti-Hitler coalition during the Second World War. The role of Lend-Lease in the victory over the common enemy (http://militera.lib.ru/pub/morozov/index.html).
8. Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century. Losses of the armed forces / Under the general. ed. G. F. Krivosheeva. (http://www.rus-sky.org/history/library/w/)
9. National economy of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. Statistical collection.(
Lend-Lease is a program under which the United States provided its allies in World War II with everything they needed - weapons, food, production equipment and raw materials.
Most often, however, “Lend-Lease” is understood specifically as the supply of weapons, without paying attention to other goods.
Causes and conditions
The American leadership rightly believed that in World War II it was necessary to help those countries whose defense was vital important for USA.
Initially, the Lend-Lease program included China and the British Empire, but then other countries, including the USSR, joined it.
The Lend-Lease Law, adopted in March 1941, established following rules supplies:
- Equipment, weapons, food, materials and other goods used or destroyed during the war were not subject to payment.
- Supplies remaining after the war, if they could be useful for civilian purposes, were paid for on the basis of US credits.
- If the United States is interested in returning a particular product after the war, it should be returned.
Thus, supplies were a kind of “gift” to the allies during the war, and in peacetime they turned into goods and could be purchased at quite reasonable prices.
Lend-Lease in the USSR
Lend-Lease in the USSR is still the subject of fierce debate between opponents and supporters of Soviet power. The former claim that without American supplies the USSR was unlikely to win the war, while the latter argue that supplies were insignificant and did not play a special role in the fight against fascism.
Both of them are cruelly mistaken. The Western “superpower” organized large-scale supplies of weapons and other goods to European countries due to the fact that the US GDP was several times higher this indicator in any developed European country, including the USSR.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo were imported into the Soviet Union. More than 12 percent of the tanks and aircraft available in the Red Army were American and British-made, and armored personnel carriers were completely imported: such equipment had not yet been produced in our country.
But such Lend-Lease had weak points. Firstly, agreements on the supply of weapons and equipment were not fully implemented. Of the 800 aircraft and 1,000 tanks intended for the USSR in 1941, only 669 aircraft and 487 tanks were sent. The situation more or less returned to normal only in 1943.
Secondly, large number foreign aid to the Soviet Union did not mean best quality. And here the point is not only that the United States deliberately supplied not the most modern and best of its equipment, but also that American military production generally lagged behind Soviet and European ones.
The USSR and Germany at that time invested most of their production forces in the development of weapons, including tanks, as a result of which they surpassed all other states in this; therefore, against the background of Soviet and German technology, American and even British technology often looked weak.
A more acceptable situation developed with the supply of aircraft, a less acceptable situation with the supply of tanks. The share of anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns was very small, since the USSR had enough of its own similar equipment. Small arms were also supplied, but on an absolutely microscopic scale - the share of American “barrels” in the Red Army was less than 1 percent.
Could the USSR do without Lend-Lease?
It is known that most of the Lend-Lease deliveries occurred in the period after 1943, when a turning point came in the war. That is, in the most terrible period of the war, the early one, the help of the allies was minimal, and in more successful years it was not so noticeable.
There are those who ask: if the Allies produced large quantities of weapons, why didn't they send more of them? In fact, the reason was not the stinginess of the “capitalist comrades”, but the tonnage of the American and British cargo fleet - it was very insufficient for mass deliveries.
There is another version that deliveries were simply delayed. And one more thing, the Americans were waiting for someone to help, either the USSR or Germany. Depending on the progress of the war. The more losses the parties have, the greater the investment. As always, they have calculations.
Could the Soviet Union even do without Lend-Lease? It seems like he could. It was enough to redistribute our own production capacities. However, this would require mobilizing a huge amount of manpower, which would mean weakening the army. Let us remember that America was an ally of the USSR.
One could turn a blind eye to the lack of necessary equipment, but then the army would also be weakened. The war for the USSR would have turned into an even more protracted conflict; the Soviet Army would have won the war anyway, perhaps later. R. Sherwood (American historian) quoted Harry Hopkins, who did not consider American assistance important in the USSR’s victory over fascism. He said: "The victory was achieved by the heroism and blood of the Russian army."
Americans' benefit
Many political scientists, and even politicians themselves, do not hide the benefits to states from the supply of weapons that are not entirely new and in good working order. But they received their debt from Russia since World War 2. The exhausted and destroyed USSR could not give it up, and there were all sorts of other reasons, for example, tension between the two countries. We profited in full.
Collocation Lend-lease comes from English words: lend- lend and lease- rent out. The article offered to readers by P. S. Petrov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, sets out the views of American political and military leaders, as well as gives assessments of Western researchers, drawn from various US sources, on issues of Soviet-American cooperation within the framework of Lend-Lease, which largely determined policy attitude towards the Soviet ally during the last war.
According to the established opinion, when supplying supplies to the parties fighting against Germany, the United States of America was guided primarily by its own interests - to protect itself with the hands of others and preserve as much as possible own strength. At the same time, the US monopoly bourgeoisie pursued certain economic goals, bearing in mind that supplies under Lend-Lease would contribute to a significant expansion of production and its enrichment through government orders.
The Lend-Lease Act (officially called the American Defense Assistance Act) was passed by the American Congress on March 8, 1941. Initially it extended to Great Britain and a number of other countries against which Germany fought.
According to this act, the head of state received the authority to transfer, exchange, lease, lend or otherwise supply military equipment, weapons, ammunition, equipment, strategic raw materials, food, provide various goods and services, as well as information to the government of any country “the defense of which the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”
States receiving assistance under Lend-Lease signed agreements with the US government. According to them, delivered vehicles, various military equipment, weapons, and other items destroyed, lost or consumed during the war were not subject to payment after its end. The goods and materials remaining after the war that could be used for civilian consumption were supposed to be paid for in whole or in part on the basis of long-term loans provided by America. And the United States could demand the return of military materials, although, as A.A. Gromyko, former ambassador USSR in the USA in 1943-1946, the American government has repeatedly stated that it will not use this right.
It is important to note that countries that entered into agreements with the United States, in turn, assumed obligations to “assist in the defense of the United States” and to assist them with materials that they had, to provide various services and information. The United States thus received counter, or reverse, Lend-Lease: machine tools, anti-aircraft guns and ammunition, equipment for military factories, as well as various services, military information, strategic raw materials, precious metals, etc.
By supplying military equipment and materials to countries fighting against Germany, the United States primarily pursued its own selfish interests. Many American authors testify to this, because the government provided Lend-Lease as an alternative to war. For example, R. Dawson wrote that in the US Congress and the country at the end of October 1941, there was a firm conviction, despite neutralist, isolationist and even anti-Soviet sentiments, that “dollars, even transferred to Soviet Russia, were a much more favorable contribution than sending American army". On the other hand, the supply of goods contributed to the expansion of production and greater profits. Thus, the prudence underlying Lend-Lease was characteristic feature all types of assistance and US policy in the war, which was especially clearly manifested in relations with the USSR.
The US government, which declared after the attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941 by Nazi Germany and its satellites, that it intended to provide assistance to it, nevertheless, before doing this, it took a number of months to understand for itself what “Russia’s ability to resist” was, and then has already determined its position.
The USA proceeded from the danger Germany posed, first of all, to them and whether Great Britain and the USA would be able to continue to rule the world or whether Germany and Japan would take their place. They understood that a German victory in the war against the USSR would result in “a catastrophe of the first importance for England and America,” because if it established control over all of Europe and Asia, the Third Reich “would threaten the United States from both shores.” At the same time, they were also worried about the following question: “Suppose we help Russia and she defeats Hitler, who will dominate Europe..?” .
Only after calculating all the pros and cons, the American leadership decided to provide assistance to the USSR. A week after the start of hostilities on the eastern front, a special committee was created at the US State Department from representatives of various services, which prepared a small list of goods, including military ones, for export to the USSR. The Soviet side was given the opportunity to purchase materials in cash. However, red tape and bureaucratic obstacles immediately stood in the way of this undertaking, because various departments, sending applications from the USSR to each other, argued for a long time about how to get Russian gold.
US Secretary of State Harry Hopkins at a meeting with Stalin, summer 1941.
At the same time, the United States, recognizing that the Russians also defend America, considered it necessary to assure our country of their desire to help, since they also took into account the need to have a friendly Russia in the Japanese rear. To this end, US leaders began to visit Moscow. The first to arrive was Presidential Assistant Harry Hopkins, who understood the situation in the USSR and its ability to withstand Hitler. Based on an analysis of the information he received, the president became convinced “that helping the Russians is money well spent.”
In negotiations between Hopkins and Stalin at the end of July 1941, it was determined that the Red Army especially needed anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine guns, rifles, high-octane aviation gasoline and aluminum for aircraft production. The United States assessed these requests as insignificant, but nevertheless did not rush to satisfy them. “Nearly six weeks have passed since the outbreak of war with Russia, but we have done practically nothing to deliver the necessary materials to them,” Roosevelt wrote in one document. In addition, he believed that aircraft intended for sale to the Soviet Union did not necessarily have to be the latest models, and deliveries could be of a “symbolic nature.”
Former US Secretary of the Interior G. Ickes wrote that according to the request for 3,000 bombers, only five were sent.
From June to August 1941, only 128 tons of materials purchased for cash were delivered to the USSR. It was the third month of the war, and the US only supplied us with tools and industrial equipment previously purchased. The situation has not changed even after several months. As G. Ickes testifies, the American leadership sought to ensure that “the Russians would transfer to us all their gold, which would be used to pay for the supply of goods until (it) was exhausted. From now on, we will apply the Lend-Lease law to Russia." In payment for supplies, the USSR also transferred strategic raw materials to the United States - manganese, chromium, asbestos, platinum, etc.
It must be assumed that England began real supplies of military materials to the Soviet Union before the United States, because on September 6, 1941, W. Churchill announced the first limited supplies to the USSR on terms similar to the American Lend-Lease.
On October 1, 1941, in Moscow, the representative of the US President A. Harriman signed the first supply protocol for a period of 9 months - until June 30, 1942. The value of imported goods was $1 billion. For payment, an interest-free loan was provided, which was supposed to begin to be repaid 5 years after the end of the war - within 10 years. On November 7, 1941, that is, four and a half months after Germany’s attack on the USSR, Roosevelt finally signed a document based on the permission adopted by Congress to extend the Lend-Lease Act to the Soviet Union.
The first deliveries from the USA date back to October 1941. That year, the USSR received $545,000 worth of various weapons and military materials, which was less than one-tenth of one percent of the total cost of American supplies to other countries. In addition, the USSR purchased goods for cash in the amount of $41 million. By the end of 1941, the United States had supplied the USSR with 204 aircraft instead of the 600 provided for under the protocol, and 182 tanks instead of 750. According to Harriman, the United States fulfilled only a quarter of its obligations under the first protocol. All this was done with the goal not so much of helping the USSR as of keeping Russia in a state of war, maintaining the front at a considerable distance from American territory with minimal human losses and minimizing direct military material costs. During the fighting near Moscow at the end of 1941, American weapons were just beginning to arrive. The front was provided with Soviet-made weapons, the production of which, after the evacuation of the country's enterprises from west to east, began to increase steadily in the summer of 1942.
In February 1942, Roosevelt advanced a second billion dollars and wanted to renegotiate the terms of the loan, and then wrote to Stalin about the planned use of American military forces. These issues were discussed in Washington during Molotov's visit to the United States in May 1942. A second protocol was prepared for one year, according to which it was initially planned to supply 8 million tons of materials. However, the president, citing the need to ensure the promised, but not opened in 1942, second front, reduced the volume of supplies to 2.5 million tons. The signed “Agreement between the USSR and the USA on the principles applicable to mutual assistance in waging war against aggression” provided the extension of the most favored nation regime to the Soviet Union and regulated issues related to supplies. The United States abandoned the formal requirement to pay for loans and transferred Lend-Lease for the USSR to the same Lend-Lease basis as for England.
It must also be said about the quality of American equipment and its suitability for combat. Stalin, in correspondence with Roosevelt, noted that American tanks burn very easily from anti-tank rifles hitting from behind and from the side, because they run on high-grade gasoline. He also wrote that the Soviet side is ready to temporarily completely abandon the supply of tanks, artillery, ammunition, pistols and other things, but is in dire need of increasing the supply of fighter aircraft modern type, but not the Kittyhawk aircraft, which cannot withstand the fight against German fighters. Preference was given to Airacobra fighters, but it turned out that they often went into a tailspin, and this did not make the Americans themselves want to fly them and risk their lives. Marshal G.K. Zhukov also wrote that tanks and aircraft from the United States were not distinguished by high combat qualities.
In 1942, the following were delivered to the USSR: 2,505 aircraft, 3,023 tanks, 78,964 vehicles. 12% of the total amount of equipment sent was lost on the way to our country (this is exactly how much was sunk at sea, which is why deliveries stopped in the spring and summer). Also in 1942, the Soviet Union produced 25,436 aircraft and 24,446 tanks.
After the defeat of the Nazi troops at Stalingrad in February 1943, to which the Allies’ contribution was insignificant, a radical turning point in the war came and the United States slightly increased the supply of military equipment.
In the spring of 1943, the United States and England decided to suspend the sending of convoys with cargo to the Soviet northern ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, citing preparations for an operation against Italy and a landing on its territory. As a result, by the end of the second protocol, 1.5 million tons of cargo were underdelivered. Only towards the end of November, after an eight-month break, another convoy arrived via the northern route. Thus, in the battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943, almost entirely domestically produced military equipment took part.
On July 1, 1943, the third protocol came into force. Canada joined in supplies to the Soviet Union, more active participation Great Britain began to accept them. By this time, the needs of the USSR had changed somewhat. More was required vehicles, communications equipment, clothing, medical equipment, explosives and food than tanks, guns, and ammunition.
Aid to the Soviet Union, despite a delay in mid-1943, increased overall for the year to 63% of 1942 levels.
As for the supply of food products, and some American authors, proving the decisive role of the United States in supplying the Soviet Army, focus on this, then not all was well here either. According to Roosevelt's promise, in 1943 food supplies were to account for 10% of the total amount of food produced in the United States. In the first six months of the year, food supplies to the Soviet Union accounted for only one-third. It follows that the USSR received a little more than 3% of the food that was produced in the USA. Could this play an important role for such a large country as the USSR?
For 1941 -1944 Our country received 2 million 545 thousand tons of food from the USA, Canada and Great Britain under Lend-Lease. At the same time, since 1944, the Soviet Union had to feed both the western regions of the USSR and the countries plundered and devastated by the fascists Eastern Europe liberated by the Soviet Army.
However, the Soviet Union appreciated the help of the allies, especially since since the summer of 1943, American military equipment and various equipment could increasingly be seen on the fronts of the Soviet Army. American military supplies were based on increased production in the United States by that time (by 35% compared to the 1935-1939 average). Under the third protocol, in 1944, well-known and much needed trucks and other motor vehicles, various metals, machinery and equipment, fuels and lubricants, steam locomotives, rails, and wagons were supplied to the USSR.
Lend-Lease. Dodge WF32.
At the beginning of 1944, negotiations began on the contents of the fourth supply protocol. Although Roosevelt considered the USSR to be the main factor ensuring the defeat of fascism, in the United States forces that slowed down supplies and advocated a revision of relations with the Soviet Union, since the crisis in the war with Germany had been overcome, gained increasing influence. Congress feared that some of the supplied materials, machinery, and equipment could be used by our country to restore the economy after the war.
On May 2, 1945, i.e. after the death of Roosevelt (in April), a group of people in the US administration, which included, in particular, Deputy Secretary of State J. Grew and the head of the foreign economic administration L. Crowley, insisted on limiting and even ending supplies to the Soviet Union, taking advantage of the fact that the anti-Soviet-minded G. Truman became the president of the country, she reported this opinion to him. And on May 10, a decision was made to revise the policy towards the USSR, expressed in a memorandum. According to this document, supplies under Lend-Lease were permitted only for military operations against Japan. Purchases of other materials were possible only in cash. Supplies to the Soviet Union were finally stopped after the surrender of Japan in August 1945.
“This policy of change was one of many harbingers of a new period in Soviet-American relations.” Therefore, it is obviously no coincidence that in the United States a number of studies related to the end of Lend-Lease include the concept of “Cold War”.
Having interrupted deliveries under Lend-Lease, the United States signed an agreement with the USSR in October 1945 to sell previously ordered goods to it on credit. But in January 1947, the American government stopped supplies under this agreement.
Summarizing the assistance provided to our country by the United States, Great Britain and Canada, it should be noted that the share of their supplies in relation to domestic production was only about 4%. In total, during the war, 42 convoys arrived at Soviet ports, and 36 were sent from the USSR. According to American sources, which differ in indicators, for the period from October 1, 1941 to May 31, 1945, 2,660 ships were sent to the USSR with a total cargo volume of 16.5- 17.5 million tons, of which 15.2-16.6 million tons were delivered to their destination (77 ships with 1.3 million tons of cargo were lost at sea). In value terms, supplies to the Soviet Union, transport costs and services amounted to 10.8-11.0 billion dollars, that is, no more than 24% of the total dollars spent by the United States on Lend-Lease assistance to all countries (more than 46 billion) . This amount is equal to approximately 13% of all US military expenditures, of which aid to the eastern front accounted for only 3.3%. During the war, the USSR received: 401.4 thousand vehicles and 2 million 599 thousand tons of petroleum products, 9.6 thousand guns (that is, about 2% of the production volume of this type of weapon in our country in the amount of 489.9 thousand artillery guns), 14-14.5 thousand aircraft (taking into account losses during transportation - about 10% of the total number, equal to 136.8 thousand aircraft produced by Soviet industry), tanks and self-propelled guns-12.2 thousand, or 12% (according to other sources, 7 thousand, or 6.8%), against 102.5 thousand Soviet-made tanks and self-propelled guns, 422 thousand field telephones, over 15 million pairs of shoes, about 69 million m2 of woolen fabrics, 1860 steam locomotives (6.3% of the total steam locomotive fleet of the USSR), 4.3 million tons of food, which amounted to approximately 25% of the total tonnage of supplies.
“Our supplies,” admits the head of the military mission, General Dean, “may not have won the war, but they were supposed to support the Russians.”
After the end of the Second World War, negotiations began between the USSR and the USA to settle Lend-Lease payments, as the American government continued to strive to obtain maximum benefit in the form of payments or reimbursement of goods in kind. The administration initially valued its claims at $2.6 billion, but the following year reduced the amount to $1.3 billion. These claims showed discrimination against the Soviet Union, since, for example, Great Britain, which received twice as much aid, had to pay only $472 million, i.e., about 2% of the cost of military supplies.
Finally, on October 18, 1972, an agreement was reached to resolve the Lend-Lease issue. The Soviet Union had to pay $722 million, subject to the American side providing it with most favored nation treatment in trade with the United States, as well as export credits and guarantees. However, due to the unacceptable position for the USSR that the United States subsequently took on the agreements reached, the implementation of the agreement remains unfinished.
It must be said that the United States became greatly enriched from the war. Their national income by the end of the war was one and a half times higher than before the war. Total power industrial production compared to 1939 increased by 40%. The losses of the Soviet Union in that war reached 485 billion dollars (US military spending amounted to approximately 330 billion dollars).
Leskie R. The Wars of America. - New York, Evanston and London. 1968. - p. 719.
Leighton R. M. and Soakley R. W. Global Logistics and Strategy. 1940-1943. - Washington, 1955. - p. 259.
Dawson R. H. The Decision to Aid Russia 1941. - Chapel Hill, 1959. - p. 287.
The New York Times. - 1941. - June, 26. - p. 18.
Wall Street Journal. - 1941. June, 25. - p. 4.
Kimball W. F. Churchill and Roosevelt. The Complete Correspondence I. Alliance Emerging. October 1933. - November 1942. - Princeton, New Jersey, 1984. - p. 226.
Ickes H.L. The Secret Diary - Vol. 3 - New York, 1954. - p. 595
Ibid. — p. 320.
Leighton R. M. and Coalley R. W. Global Logistics and Strategy. 1943-1945. - Washington, 1968. - P. 699.
Deane J.R. The Strange Alliance, - New York, 1947. - P. 95.