Roosevelt made sure that Lend-Lease policies were supportive of his foreign policy goals by putting his top aide Harry Hopkins in effective control of the program. Democrats voted 238 to 25 in favor and Republicans 24 in favor and 135 against. 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 programme began to increase in scale during 1943. A total of 22,800 armored vehicles were delivered to the Red Army during World War II, of which 1,981 were lost in dangerous Arctic convoys. Even Joseph Stalin himself would say that the lend-lease was . The Lend-Lease agreements with 30 countries provided for repayment not in terms of money or returned goods, but in "joint action directed towards the creation of a liberalized international economic order in the postwar world." How much Soviet equipment was Lend-Lease? The munitions totaled 308m (not including naval munitions supplied), the food and raw materials totaled 120m in 1946 index. Milestones: 1937-1945 - Office of the Historian American contributions of the time were far fewer. Substantial quantities of machine tools and raw materials, such as aluminum and rubber, were supplied to help Soviet industry back on its feet: 312 metal-cutting machine tools were delivered by convoy PQ-12 alone, arriving in March 1942, along with a range of other items for Soviet factories such as machine presses and compressors. Of this, $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. uboat.net - Fighting the U-boats - The Lend-Lease Act 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. This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 02:14. 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. 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. The Lend-Lease program also provided more than 35,000 radio sets and 32,000 motorcycles. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 19411942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. Alerts and Messages for U.S. visitors to Russia. Lend-Lease's precise significance to Allied victory in WW2 is debated. Canada was not a direct recipient of Lend-Lease aid. Ukraine is a founding member of the United Nations and it is also a member of the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, and the OSCE. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986. TNA WO 193/580, Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, Allied technological cooperation during World War II, "Letter, Winston Churchill to Franklin Roosevelt, December 7, 1940, pp. [40] In total, 92.7% of the wartime production of railroad equipment by the USSR was supplied by Lend-Lease,[35] including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars[41] which augmented the existing stocks of at least 20,000 locomotives and half a million railcars.[42]. President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law on March 11, 1941. Lend-Lease - Wikipedia The tanks reached the front lines with extraordinary speed. The Lend-Lease Act was initially created to help Great Britain as they struggled in World War II. Lend-Lease Helped Win World War II, But Not On The Eastern Front The evidence is here. In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR. 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. Within months, the Lend-Lease program was expanded to include China and the Soviet Union. 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. According to Biriukovs service diary, the first 20 British tanks arrived at the Soviet tank training school in Kazan on October 28, 1941, at which point a further 120 tanks were unloaded at the port of Archangel in northern Russia. D.C. 4 Ottawa Protocol (July 1, 194430 June 1945). 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. 1920's, Great Depression & WWII timeline | Timetoast timelines Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. 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 Arctic route was the shortest and most direct route for lend-lease aid to the USSR, though it was also the most dangerous as it involved sailing past German-occupied Norway. The Short History Of The Great Patriotic War, also from 1948, acknowledged the Lend-Lease shipments, but concluded: "Overall this assistance was not significant enough to in any way exert a decisive influence over the course of the Great Patriotic War. Materiel delivered under the act was supplied at no cost, to be used until returned or destroyed. The Warplanes to Siberia Project | Historical Spotlight | News | Wargaming In May 1942, HMSEdinburgh was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. Aircraft Deliveries to the Soviet Union - Lend-Lease 4, 48/Maslov MA Bomber PE-8. It was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy and toward open support for the Allies. Thanks to Lend-Lease, during the war years, the Soviet Union received about 14.8 thousand aircraft, 7.1 thousand tanks, 8.2 thousand anti-aircraft guns, a large number of cars, tractors and other vital supplies. "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. Yes, in 1942 Lend-Lease was of course important for Soviet Russia. Washington. It seems to fly in the face of some stories I've heard about Stalin ordering the obliteration of all USA and British markings on Lend Lease Materiel so as to maintain the illusion of the USSR doing it all on its own and that the others fighting the common enemy were the "little allies". The Lend-Lease Memorial in Fairbanks, Alaska, commemorates the shipment of U.S. aircraft to the Soviet Union along the Northwest Staging Route. 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. In fact the British intercepted German communications indicating that German forces had first come in contact with British tanks on the Eastern front on November 26, 1941. [34], Lend-Lease contributed to the Allied victory. 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. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. The U.S. government never published detailed reports on what and how much was sent under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR. Lend-Lease assistance to the USSR. the president asked at a press conference. 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]. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. 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]. Moscow. And many of the supplies needed by our Air Force are procured for us without cost by reverse lend-lease. There were apparently only 263 LaGG-3s in the Soviet inventory by the time of the Moscow counteroffensive, and it was an aircraft with numerous defects. . Evolucin de los . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982, Bd. After the war, it was transferred to civilian aviation, carrying passengers over the frozen tundra above the Arctic Circle. 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. And they would have been perpetually hungry without American canned meat and fats. [53] Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov significantly contributed to the Lend-Lease agreement of 1941. L. 77-11, H.R. Although it was not entirely reasonable that Canada should pay for any construction that the Canadian Government considered unnecessary or that did not conform to Canadian requirements, nevertheless considerations of self-respect and national sovereignty led the Canadian Government to suggest a new financial agreement. Could the soviets have won without lend lease? How Lend-Lease helped the Red Army win in World War II (PHOTOS) [32] In September 1943, he was promoted to Undersecretary of State, and Leo Crowley became director of the Foreign Economic Administration, which was given responsibility for Lend-Lease. More than 20,000 Katyusha mobile multiple-rocket launchers were mounted on the chassis of American Studebaker trucks. The legislation is modeled off the World War II-era Lend-Lease Act that allowed the US to arm the Soviet Union, Britain, and other allies prior to its entry into the war. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.". One of the greatest differences with prior wars was the enormous increase in the mobility of armies. 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. Of these, 99 Hurricanes and 39 Tomahawks were in service with the Soviet air defense forces on January 1, 1942, out of a total of 1,470 fighters. An oft-quoted statement by First Vice-Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars Nikolai Voznesensky summed up the standard line that Allied aid represented only 4 percent of Soviet production for the entire war. Report from Mikoyan to Stalin and Molotov regarding Lend-Lease Lend Lease | Encyclopedia.com The cooperation that was built up with Canada during the war was an amalgam compounded of diverse elements of which the air and land routes to Alaska, the Canol project, and the CRYSTAL and CRIMSON activities were the most costly in point of effort and funds expended. Part of the bill required the British to open their empire to trade. https://www.historynet.com/did-russia-really-go-it-alone-how-lend-lease-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. I recently heard someone claim that the Soviet Union would have been unable to survive Operation Barbarossa and subsequent German offensives without the vast amount of supplies they received from the Allies under the Lend-Lease program. "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. The Persian Corridor was the longest route, and was not fully operational until mid-1942. [38] With the outbreak of war these plants switched from civilian to military production and locomotive production ended virtually overnight. Almost all European nations outside the Soviet bloc were members of the plan from the beginning. In the meantime, Great Britain was running out of liquid currency and asked not to be forced to sell off British assets. British Lend Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort, - Scribd The Soviets lost a substantial number of draft and farm animals as they were not able to relocate all the animals in an area before it was captured and of those areas in which the Axis forces would occupy, the Soviets had lost 7 million of out of 11.6 million horses, 17 million out of 31 million cows, 20 million of 23.6 million pigs and 27 million out of 43 million sheep and goats. How important was the Lend-Lease to the Soviet war effort? [35] Most tank units were Soviet-built models but about 7,000 Lend-Lease tanks (plus more than 5,000 British tanks) were used by the Red Army, eight percent of war-time production. [36] The USSR was very dependent on rail transport and starting during the latter half of the 1920s[37] but accelerating during the 1930s (The Great Depression), hundreds of foreign industrial giants such as Ford were commissioned to construct modern dual-purpose factories in the USSR, 16 alone within a week of May 31, 1929. [66], By the end of 1941, early shipments of Matilda, Valentine and Tetrarch tanks represented only 6.5% of total Soviet tank production but over 25% of medium and heavy tanks produced for the Red Army. The Senate passed it by a vote of 63 to 1. The American Lend-Lease program was signed into law in March 1941. In April, this policy was extended to China,[20] and in October to the Soviet Union. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. 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. In 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Roosevelt bypassed these restrictions by persuading Congress to permit the government to sell military supplies to France and Britain on a cash-and-carry basisin other words, they could pay cash for American-made supplies and then transport them on their own ships. L.7711, H.R. While Soviet pilots praised the maneuverability of the homegrown I-153 Chaika and I-16 Ishak fightersstill in use in significant numbers in late 1941both types were certainly obsolete and inferior in almost all regards to the British-supplied Hurricane. I don't want $15I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. Pro lend-lease ! # On September 2, 1945, with the signing of Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? After the German assault on Russia in June 1941, the defenders got aid with this system through war material, food, fuel and other important raw materials. on the Soviet war effort during the first year of the war was in the far. Ladd Field and the Lend-Lease Mission: Defending Alaska in WWII 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. CMV: Lend Lease to the Soviet Union during WWII was a massive mistake The lend/lease military aid program, and the Matilda's role in it, was hardly decisive to the Soviet Union's subsequent victories on the Eastern or Western front. The terms of the agreement provided that the materiel was to be used until returned or destroyed. [65], Warsaw 1945: Willys jeep used by the Polish First Army as part of U.S. Lend-Lease program. 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. Under conditions of much of European Russia being occupied by the Axis, attrition was a losing prospect for the USSR; without Allied aid they might very well have collapsed as a military power some time in 1943. Without Lend-Lease, Russia would not have been able to carry out the Stalingrad counteroffensive and Operation Bagration. billion (about $ billion in prices ) were sent to several dozen recipient countries, including the main ones: How important was lend lease to Soviet Union? Member since Oct 2007. Lend-Lease thus provided a massive quantity of foodstuffs and agricultural products.[44]. How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? Havlat, Denis. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion. How important was Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union? Actual military production was achieved by sacrificing the civilian economy for short-term gain (and likely by burning up pre-existing stockpiles of raw materials). Allen (1946) p 252. [8] The Two-Ocean Navy Act of July 1940 set in motion a rapid expansion of the United States Navy. Yauza. According to research by a team of Soviet historians, the Soviet Union lost a staggering 20,500 tanks from June 22 to December 31, 1941. aid from Britain can be argued to have had the most significant impact. 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. Lend-Lease aircraft supplied to the Red Air Force 1942-1944: References and literature American M3 tanks on the railway near Murmansk after arriving in Northern Russia. 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. United States and Britain, not the Soviet Union, China, or other United Nations . World War II | Facts, Summary, History, Dates, Combatants, & Causes But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a trickle of information has emerged from archives in Moscow, shedding new light on the subject. The plane spent 69 years on the tundra before a Russian Geographical Society expedition rescued it in 2016 and returned the wreckage to Krasnoyarsk. Underestimation of lend lease to the Soviet Union during WW2 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. In the case of the Soviet Union, this residual civilian-type lend-lease was valued by the United States at $2.6 billion (out of total lend-lease to the Soviet Union of $10.8 billion). use.' On the negative side, however, it must be recorded that actual .. 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. So the Soviets were charged 10 cents on the dollar of actual cost. How important was the Lend Lease Act to the Soviet Union? For foreign citizens who want to live permanently in the United States. How important was the Lend-Lease to the Soviet war effort? An estimated 25 million Soviet citizens perished in the titanic conflict with Nazi Germany between June 1941 and May 1945. According to the Russian historian Boris Vadimovich Sokolov, Lend-Lease had a crucial role in winning the war: On the whole the following conclusion can be drawn: that without these Western shipments under Lend-Lease the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, it would not have been able even to oppose the German invaders, since it could not itself produce sufficient quantities of arms and military equipment or adequate supplies of fuel and ammunition. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. Lend-Lease: How the US Kept the Soviets Afloat in World War II It is commonly agreed that the implementation of the Lend-Lease Act greatly increased the strength of the Soviet Union and Great Britain against Germany, the two biggest gainers in this Act. In all, the United States shipped $50 billion ($608 billion in 2020 money) worth of materiel under the program, including $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union. [56] Nevertheless, some 8,244,000 tons of goods went by this route, 50% of the total. Most went to Britain, but the Soviet Union received more than $11 billion. The passage of the 1939 amendment to the previous Neutrality Acts marked the beginning of a congressional shift away from isolationism, making a first step toward interventionism. 1415 FDR Library", "Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement, February 28, 1942", "The Hyde Park Declaration 1941: Origins and Significance", "Consumer Price Index, annual average, not seasonally adjusted", "Consumer Price Index by product group, monthly, percentage change, not seasonally adjusted, Canada, provinces, Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit", "America Reports On Aid To Allies etc. And the Soviet Union didn't pay much of that. [33], The program was gradually terminated after V-E Day. While the Matilda Mk II and Valentine tanks supplied by the British were certainly inferior to the Soviets homegrown T-34 and KV-1, it is important to note that Soviet production of the T-34 (and to a lesser extent the KV series), was only just getting seriously underway in 1942, and Soviet production was well below plan targets. Stalin needed trucks and was provided with Studebaker trucks on a massive scale. Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. Saudi Arabia-Top 10 most important events in the History. In December 1940, President Roosevelt proclaimed the United States would be the "Arsenal of Democracy" and proposed selling munitions to Britain and Canada. Roosevelt concluded that the United States needed to help the Soviets fight against the Germans. The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. Some of these shipments were intercepted by the Germans. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. [63] The production of heavy bombers in the United States until 1945 amounted to more than 30,000. ", In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. "Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army would not have had about one-third of its ammunition, half of its aircraft, or half of its tanks. 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]. American aid also provided 4.5 million tons of food, 1.5 million blankets, and 15 million pairs of boots. . The Neutrality Acts, enacted between 1935 and 1939, were intended to prevent the United States from becoming involved in foreign wars. Courses on the British tanks for Soviet crews started during November as the first tanks, with British assistance, were being assembled from their in-transit states and undergoing testing by Soviet specialists. What percent of Soviet equipment was Lend-Lease? [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". [55], In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[57] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans);[58] 11,400 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras, 3,414 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,397 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras)[59] and 1.75million tons of food. How important was Lend-Lease for the Soviet war effort? "Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World. [73][74], Reverse Lend-Lease was the supply of equipment and services to the United States. Russian historian: Importance of Lend-Lease cannot be overestimated The history of Lend-Lease began on May 15, 1940 when UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked Roosevelt to temporarily. [55] This constituted some 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war. 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." 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. Agricultural issues were also compounded when the Soviets were on the offensive, as areas liberated from the Axis had been devastated and contained millions of people who needed to be fed.
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