“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.
In 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 for the USSR, there are many subtleties that it would be nice to understand - on the basis of historical documents.
Part I
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 importance.
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 whole or in part in order to repay a long-term loan issued by the United States itself; 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 British were the first to ask for military assistance on the basis of special lease relations (analogous to operational leasing) at the end of May 1940, 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, World War II is sometimes called the “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.” 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 the countries of Latin America (!) received 420 million. 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 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 the Russians alone, offered real resistance to the German aggressor on their own soil and with their own means, 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 his 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 posed the question to him: 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 the Soviet Union with 150 Airacobras, 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 supplied 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 PQ-18 Caravan 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 in London and Washington all this time they were simply waiting to see in whose favor the battle of Stalingrad would end.
Meanwhile, since March 1942, i.e. just six months after the evacuation of more than 10 thousand industrial enterprises from the European part of the USSR, 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 monthly sent 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.
As for the total volume of Ford-Rockefeller supplies to Nazi Germany, there is still no complete information on this matter, since this is a strictly trade secret, but even the little that has become known to the public and historians makes it possible to understand that trade with Berlin in those years was by no means did not calm down.
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
Humanity has experienced one of the most difficult eras in its entire existence - the twentieth century. There have been quite a few wars, but the most difficult test was the Second World War. To this day, there remains a huge number of episodes, facts, events and names that no one knows about. And there is a real threat that no one will know about them if eyewitnesses do not talk about it. Among these little-known facts is the American Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union, during which military equipment, food, equipment, ammunition, as well as strategic raw materials were supplied to the USSR. For certain political reasons, these deliveries were strictly classified until 1992, and only the direct participants knew about them.
The total amount of Lend-Lease received by the Soviet Union amounted to about $9.8 billion. America's help at that time was truly invaluable, and became one of the decisive factors that contributed to the defeat of the fascist force.
A column of American military trucks transporting Lend-Lease to the USSR stands on the road in eastern Iraq
At the same time, the Soviet authorities not only artificially created a negative opinion regarding American assistance, but also kept it in the strictest confidence, and often outlawed all direct participants. But finally the time has come to dot the i’s and find out at least part of the whole truth about such a fruitful (probably the only one in history) cooperation between the two superpowers.
Both American and Soviet pilots and sailors who participated in the ferrying of aircraft, in the transportation and escort of cargo, accomplished a real feat, circumnavigating more than half of the globe, so our generation should not, simply does not have the right to forget their feat and heroism.
Lend-Lease negotiations officially began in the last days of September 1941. On behalf of the American side, A. Harriman, who was specially sent to Moscow by the American President, took part in the negotiations. On October 1, 1941, he signed a protocol regarding deliveries to the Soviet Union, the amount of which amounted to $1 billion. Delivery time is nine months. But, despite this, only at the beginning of November 1941 the American president signed a decree that the Lend-Lease law (the full name of the document in English is “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States”) States"), adopted by the US Congress on March 11, 1941) also applies to the Soviet Union.
The first deliveries of weapons and equipment began in October, and by the end of the year, 256 aircraft were delivered to the Soviet Union for an amount of 545 thousand dollars. The total amount of aviation Lend-Lease during the war was $3.6 billion. However, from the very beginning there were certain difficulties with distillation. It was not possible to achieve a clear organization of supplies. The situation became especially complicated in the winter, when it became clear that American aircraft were not adapted to cold weather: in severe frosts, the rubber of the tires became brittle and the hydraulic system froze. Therefore, it was decided to exchange technologies: the Soviet side shared the technology for producing frost-resistant rubber, and the American side shared frost-resistant hydraulics.
But people experienced even greater difficulties. During the flight across the Verkhoyansk Ridge, the pilots were forced to climb to a high altitude (5-6 kilometers), without oxygen equipment. This turned out to be beyond the strength of many, and a large number of planes crashed, falling onto the rocks. Similar incidents occurred throughout the three years that distillation was carried out. In the Russian taiga, plane wrecks with the remains of pilots are still being found, and how many have not yet been found. In addition, many aircraft and their crews simply went missing.
In total, during the war years, more than 14 thousand aircraft were transported from America to the Soviet Union: Bell P-39 Airacobra, Curtiss Kittyhawk and Tomahawk, Douglas A-20 Boston, Consolidated PBY Catalina, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, North American B-25 Mitchell.
Most of these aircraft (approximately 8 thousand) were transported along the Alaska-Siberia route. Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters, as well as Hendley-Page Hampden bombers, were supplied to Murmansk from England. Lend-Lease also supplied one of the most little-known aircraft, the Armstrong Albermarle.
The planes, which were manufactured in the United States, were ferryed by American and Canadian pilots to Alaska, and from there they were flown to the territory of the Soviet Union by pilots of the Soviet ferry division, which was created specifically for these purposes and consisted of five regiments.
Many of the older generation remember jeeps, airplanes, as well as Studebakers and American stew, which were supplied under Lend-Lease.
In addition to great assistance in material terms, American Lend-Lease also played a significant role in terms of moral support for the Soviet troops. Being at the front, many Soviet soldiers felt more confident when they saw foreign planes in the sky providing them with support. And the civilian population, seeing that the Americans and British were helping with resources, understood that this could greatly help to defeat Nazi Germany.
American planes were always visible at the front. They provided support and air cover for sea convoys with cargo; during the blockade of Leningrad, it was aerially protected by Kittyhawk fighters; they bombed German maritime transport in the Gulf of Finland, and participated in the liberation of Ukraine and Kuban.
In addition to airplanes, jeeps were also supplied to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease, although, according to the Soviet side, they asked for the supply of motorcycle strollers. However, on the advice of US Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, military vehicles were supplied, since the Americans had extensive and very successful experience in using them. The total volume of jeeps received during the war years was 44 thousand units.
In addition, 50 models of cars were supplied under Lend-Lease, manufactured by 26 American, English and Canadian companies. Components for them were produced by a significantly larger number of factories.
The largest number of all delivered vehicles were American trucks US 6 Studebaker and REO - their volume amounted to 152 thousand units. The total volume of such cars was about 478 thousand units, excluding spare parts (and they would be enough to assemble several thousand cars).
Although the documents were signed later, the first sea convoys with Lend-Lease cargo were already sent to the USSR in August 1941. They were designated PQ (the initials of British naval officer Edwards). Cargoes were delivered to Murmansk, Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk. First, the ships arrived in Reykjavik, where they were formed into caravans of 20 ships, and then, accompanied by guards from warships, they were delivered to the territory of the USSR. But very soon German intelligence received the exact coordinates of the routes of these convoys. That's when the losses began. One of the greatest losses is the episode that occurred in July 1942, when out of 36 ships only 11 survived, more than 4 hundred tanks, 2 hundred aircraft and 3 thousand cars were at the bottom. In total, during the war, 80 ships were sunk by German submarines and torpedo bombers, even though warships and aircraft were used to protect them. British and American navies lost 19 warships in the North Atlantic.
Soviet team testing the Hurricane aircraft. Fighters of this model were supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease.
It should be noted that in Soviet history there are many dark spots regarding Lend-Lease. The view that the Americans were deliberately delaying supplies, waiting for the Soviet system to collapse, was generally accepted at that time. But at the same time, many questions arise: why did the Americans pass the Lend-Lease law and its extension to Soviet territory with such haste? Can it be considered an accident that the war “met” the deadline for this law?
Moreover, some researchers put forward the version that American Lend-Lease is the result of the work of Soviet intelligence. There were even rumors that Stalin himself played a major role in signing the Lend-Lease law - supposedly, in order to prevent the spread of Nazism, he intended to be the first to start a war against Nazi Germany and really hoped for help from the West in this war. But these are just rumors; no documentary evidence of these theories exists yet.
In any case, we must give credit to Stalin in this matter. He, one might say, showed himself to be practically a genius of diplomacy, turning Lend-Lease supplies to the benefit of the USSR. When it became known that America and Great Britain were expressing their readiness to provide assistance to the USSR, he first mentioned the word “Sell,” but pride, or some other motives, prevented either the American or British sides from demanding payment. In addition, the Soviet troops very often received equipment that was originally intended for the British, in particular, Bantam all-terrain vehicles, of which there were not many.
Among other things, the Soviet leader did not hesitate to reprimand the allies for the fact that the cargo was poorly packed, and also hinted that if the Soviet troops were unable to continue hostilities, the entire brunt of the war would fall on the British.
Note that supplies practically did not stop throughout the war, with the exception of once in 1942, when Great Britain was preparing for operations in Africa, and once in 1943, when the landing of Allied forces in Italy was planned.
At the end of the war, according to previous agreements, the Soviet side handed over some of the equipment back to the allies. But at the same time, there was also a substantial debt of the USSR to the USA under Lend-Lease, the balance of which in the amount of $674 million, the Soviet authorities refused to pay, citing discrimination against the USSR by the Americans in trade. But already in 1972, an agreement was signed under which the USSR agreed to pay the United States $722 million. The last payment under this agreement was made in 2001.
Thus, downplaying the importance of supplies of military equipment, ammunition and food, which were carried out by the American and British allies, was carried out based on the ideological principles of the time. This was done ostensibly in order to establish the postulate that the Soviet military economy has not just great, but simply enormous superiority over the economies of capitalist states, not only Germany, but also the United States of America and Great Britain.
In contrast to the Soviet point of view, in American historiography, as is almost always the case in the West, the role of Lend-Lease supplies has always been presented as a decisive factor in the ability of the USSR to continue to wage war against Nazi Germany.
The American-built Soviet fighter P-39 Airacobra, supplied to the USSR under the Lend-Lease program, in flight.
But whatever the judgments, one cannot deny the fact that Lend-Lease provided significant support to the Soviet country in difficult times.
In addition, it must be said that on the territory of the former Soviet Union there is practically nothing left that would serve as a reminder of the heroism of our people who ferryed American planes, drove and escorted transports, with the possible exception of three small museums and the remains of aircraft. At the same time, in Alaska and Canada there is a completely opposite picture - memorial plaques and large museums, well-kept cemeteries. Every year, in the cities through which the route passed, celebrations are held in honor of veterans.
Maybe it's time to think about it and at least try to change something? After all, this is also part of that war, which we simply have no right to forget.
Soviet pilots accept the American A-20 medium bomber (Douglas A-20 Boston), transferred under Lend-Lease. Nome Airfield, Alaska.
Both in Soviet times and now in modern Russia, the only existing opinion is that Germany lost the Second World War only thanks to the USSR, which made a decisive contribution to the victory over fascism. At the same time, the assistance that was provided to the USSR during the war by its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, primarily the USA and England, was insignificant and did not in any way affect the victory of the USSR in the Second World War, since it amounted to only about 4% of the funds spent by the country on the war. This assistance is Lend-Lease (from the English lend - to lend and lease - to rent, rent) - a government program under which the United States of America transferred to its allies in World War II: ammunition, equipment, food and strategic raw materials, including petroleum products.
In the West, there is a different point of view on Lend-Lease, according to which the assistance provided to the Soviet Union during the Second World War greatly helped the latter win the Second World War, and, accordingly, win together with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition in the Second World War.
In order to figure out which side is right, what the notorious 4% are, let’s look at what exactly, by whom and when was supplied to the USSR during the Second World War.
The notorious Lend-Lease: What was it like?
The USSR was subject to the US Lend-Lease law, based on the following principles:
- all payments for supplied materials are made after the end of the war
- materials that are destroyed will not be subject to any payment
- materials that remain suitable for civilian needs are paid for no earlier than 5 years after the end of the war, in the form of long-term loans
- US share in Lend-Lease – 96.4%
Supplies from the USA to the USSR can be divided into the following stages:
- pre-Lend-Lease - from June 22, 1941 to September 30, 1941 (paid in gold)
- first protocol - from October 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942 (signed October 1, 1941)
- second protocol - from July 1, 1942 to June 30, 1943 (signed October 6, 1942)
- third protocol - from July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1944 (signed October 19, 1943)
- the fourth protocol - from July 1, 1944, (signed on April 17, 1944), formally ended on May 12, 1945, but deliveries were extended until the end of the war with Japan, which the USSR undertook to enter 90 days after the end of the war in Europe (that is, on August 8 1945). From the Soviet side, it received the name “October 17 Program” (1944) or the fifth protocol. From the American – “MailPost Program”.
Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, and on September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR were stopped.
In addition, during the Second World War, the “Russia War Relief Committee” was created in the United States, which, using donations collected, supplied medicines, medical supplies and equipment, food and clothing worth more than $1.5 billion.
A similar committee operated in England, but the amount it collected was much more modest. And with the funds of the Armenians of Iran and Ethiopia, money was collected for the construction of a tank column named after Bagramyan.
Note 1: as we see, supplies of military equipment and other things necessary for waging war to the USSR were carried out from the first days of the war. And this, as everyone knows, was the most difficult and intense stage of military operations taking place on the territory of the Soviet Union, since no one knew whether the USSR would lose in this war or not, which means that every tank, every plane, every cartridge supplied by the allies was precious.
By the way, people in Russia often like to remember that the USSR paid for the assistance provided in gold (For information on how the USSR paid in gold and whose gold it was, most likely, see Appendix I), but they paid for the pre-Lend-Lease deliveries of 1941 in gold , and for the remaining years? Has the Soviet Union paid for all the machinery, equipment, non-ferrous metals and other materials supplied to it?
The most interesting thing is that the USSR still has not paid for the assistance provided to it! And the point here is not that the Lend-Lease debt is some astronomical amount. Quite the contrary, both the USSR and Russia were able to pay at any moment, but the whole point, as always, is not about money, but about politics.
The United States decided not to claim payment for military supplies under Lend-Lease, but the USSR was offered to pay for civilian supplies, but Stalin refused to even report the results of the inventory of goods received. This was due to the fact that otherwise, as USSR Foreign Minister A.A. wrote to Stalin. Gromyko: “...the Americans may then demand that we decipher the remains for individual groups, in particular for equipment.
Having received from us this kind of information about the remains of civilian items, the Americans can, referring to Article V of the Agreement of June 11, 1942, present to us a demand for the return of the items most valuable to us.”
The Soviet leadership simply appropriated all the remaining technology and equipment received during the war from the allies and in particular from the Americans, which the USSR was obliged to return!
In 1948 The USSR agreed to pay only a small amount. In 1951 The USA twice reduced the amount of payment to 800 million dollars, and the USSR agreed to pay only 300 million. The debt was partially repaid during the time of N. Khrushchev, the remainder amounted to about 750 million dollars in the era of L. Brezhnev. According to the 1972 agreement The USSR agreed to pay 722 million dollars along with interest and by 1973. 48 million were paid, after which payments stopped. In 1990 A new maturity date was set - 2030. in the amount of 674 million dollars.
Thus, out of the total volume of American supplies under Lend-Lease of $11 billion, the USSR, and then Russia, recognized and then partially paid for $722 million, or about 7%. However, it is worth considering that today’s dollar is about 15 times “lighter” than the 1945 dollar.
In general, after the end of the war, when the help of the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition was no longer needed, Stalin abruptly remembered that they were capitalists and enemies to whom there was no need to repay any debts.
Before giving dry supply figures, it is worth getting acquainted with what Soviet military commanders and party leaders actually said about Lend-Lease. As they, in contrast to modern forum “historians” and specialists in military equipment from the plow, estimated, that same 4% of the total.
Marshal Zhukov said in post-war conversations:
“Now they say that the allies never helped us...
But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us so much material, without which we would not have been able to form our reserves and would not have been able to continue the war...
We didn't have explosives or gunpowder. There was nothing to equip rifle cartridges with. The Americans really helped us out with gunpowder and explosives. And how much sheet steel they sent us! Would we have been able to quickly establish tank production if not for American steel assistance? And now they present the matter in such a way that we had all this in abundance...
Without American trucks, we would have nothing to pull our artillery with.”
– From the report of KGB Chairman V. Semichastny to N. S. Khrushchev; classified as “top secret”.
The role of Lend-Lease was also highly appreciated by A.I. Mikoyan, who during the war was responsible for the work of the seven allied People's Commissariats (trade, procurement, food, fish and meat and dairy industries, maritime transport and river fleet) and, as the People's Commissar of the country's foreign trade, with 1942, in charge of receiving allied supplies under Lend-Lease:
“... when American stew, shortening, egg powder, flour, and other products began to arrive to us, what significant additional calories our soldiers immediately received! And not only the soldiers: something also fell to the rear.
Or let's take the supply of cars. After all, as far as I remember, we received, taking into account losses along the way, about 400 thousand first-class cars for that time such as Studebaker, Ford, Willys cars and amphibians. Our entire army actually found itself on wheels, and what wheels! As a result, its maneuverability increased and the pace of the offensive increased noticeably.
Yeah...” Mikoyan said thoughtfully. “Without Lend-Lease, we would probably have fought for another year and a half.”
G. Kumanev “Stalin’s people’s commissars speak.”
We will return to the question of the extra years of the war, but for now let’s look at who supplied what and how much to the Soviet Union during the war years and what role this assistance played in the victory over Germany.
Note 2: What is important is the name of the aid supplied under Lend-Lease was determined by the Soviet government and was intended to plug the “bottlenecks” in the supply of Soviet industry and the army.
That is, the most essential things necessary for conducting military operations at that particular moment were supplied. Therefore, for the entire period of the war, in some respects, military equipment, machinery or vehicles supplied under Lend-Lease may seem ridiculous, but at a certain period, for example, in the battle of Moscow, this help was invaluable.
Thus, the 750 British and 180 American tanks that arrived from September to December 1941 amounted to more than 50% of the number of tanks that the Red Army had (1731 tanks) at that time against the Wehrmacht!!! In the Battle of Moscow, imported military equipment amounted to 20%, which, in turn, was equivalent to the monthly losses of Soviet armored personnel carriers.
And Soviet and Russian historians laugh at the size of the assistance provided, while calling the military equipment supplied to the USSR obsolete. Then in 1941 it was neither small nor outdated, when it helped Soviet troops survive and win the battle of Moscow, thereby deciding the outcome of the war in their favor, and after the victory it sharply became insignificant and did not affect the course of hostilities in any way.
The total amount of everything provided under Lend-Lease by all donor countries:
Aircraft - 22,150. The USSR received 18.7 thousand aircraft from the USA alone. In 1943 The United States supplied 6,323 combat aircraft (18% of all fighters produced by the USSR in 1943), of which 4,569 fighters (31% of all fighters produced by the USSR in 1943).
In addition to the 4,952 P-39 Airacobra and 2,420 P-63 Kingcobra fighters supplied under Lend-Lease, more than a million high-explosive shells were also supplied to the USSR for their 37-mm M4 aircraft gun. It’s not enough to have an airplane; you also need to use it to fire at enemy targets.
Also, all aircraft supplied under Lend-Lease, without exception, were equipped with radio stations. At the same time, for the construction of aircraft on the territory of the USSR, a special tarpaulin was used, supplied exclusively under Lend-Lease.
Many Soviet pilots became Heroes of the Soviet Union by flying Lend-Lease aircraft. Soviet historiography tried in every possible way to hide or minimize this fact. For example, three times Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Pokryshkin piloted the P-39 Airacobra. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Glinka also flew the P-39 Airacobra. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Arseny Vasilyevich Vorozheikin flew a Kittihawk fighter.
Tanks and self-propelled guns - 12,700. The British supplied 1,084 Matilda-2 tanks (164 were lost during transportation), 3,782 (420 lost during transportation) Valentine tanks, 2,560 Bren MK1 armored personnel carriers, 20 Tetrarch MK- light tanks 7, 301 (43 lost during transportation) Churchill tank, 650 T-48 (Soviet designation SU-57),. The United States delivered 1,776 (104 lost during transportation) light Stuart tanks, 1,386 (410 lost during transportation) Lee tanks, 4,104 (400 lost during transportation) Sherman tanks. 52 self-propelled guns M10.
Ships and vessels - 667. Of these: naval 585 - 28 frigates, 3 icebreakers, 205 torpedo boats, 105 landing craft of various types, 140 submarine hunters and other small ones. In addition, American engines from General Motors were installed on the Soviet large sea hunters of Project 122. And trade - 82 (including 36 wartime buildings, 46 pre-war buildings).
Ground transport. Cars - During the war, the Soviet Union received only 52 thousand Willys jeeps, and this does not include Dodge cars. In 1945, out of 665 thousand available trucks, 427 thousand were received under Lend-Lease. Of these, about 100 thousand were legendary Studebakers.
3,786,000 tires were also supplied for vehicles. While in the USSR during all the years of the war, the total number of cars produced was 265.5 thousand units. In general, before the war, the Red Army’s need for vehicles was estimated at 744 thousand and 92 thousand tractors. There were 272.6 thousand cars and 42 thousand tractors in stock.
Only 240 thousand cars were planned to come from the national economy, of which 210 thousand were trucks, not counting tractors. And even summing up these figures, we do not get the planned staffing level. And of those who were in the army by 08/22/41. 271.4 thousand Soviet vehicles were lost. Now think about how many soldiers can carry a load weighing hundreds of kilograms on their hands for tens or hundreds of kilometers?
Motorcycles – 35,170.
Tractors – 8,071.
Small arms. Automatic weapons - 131,633, rifles - 8,218, pistols - 12,997.
Explosives - 389,766 tons: dynamite - 70,400,000 pounds (31,933 tons), gunpowder - 127,000 tons, TNT - 271,500,000 pounds (123,150 tons), toluene - 237,400,000 pounds (107,683 tons). Detonators – 903,000.
Note 3: The same explosives and gunpowder that Zhukov spoke about, with the help of which bullets and shells could hit the enemy, and not lie in warehouses as worthless pieces of metal, because the Germans captured the factories for their production, and new factories had not yet been built and they For a long time they did not cover all the necessary needs of the army.
What are tens of thousands of tanks and guns worth if you can’t fire them? Absolutely nothing. It was precisely this opportunity to shoot at the enemy that the allies - the Americans and the British - gave to Soviet soldiers, thereby providing invaluable assistance during the most difficult period of the war, in 1941, as well as in all subsequent years of this war.
Railway rolling stock. Locomotives - 1,981. Soviet ones were almost never produced during the war. They will be discussed a little later. But now it is worth mentioning that diesel or steam locomotives, for example, in 1942 in the USSR were produced - not a single diesel locomotive, 9 steam locomotives.
Freight cars - 11,155. In the Soviet Union itself, as many as 1,087 cars were produced in 1941-1945. It seems like a small thing, some wagons, these are not guns or airplanes, but how can you deliver thousands of tons of cargo hundreds of kilometers from the factory to the front line? On soldiers' backs or on horses? And this is time, the same time that during war is more valuable than all the gold in the world, because the outcome of the battle depends on it.
Raw materials and resources. Non-ferrous metals - 802,000 tons (of which 387,600 tons of copper (the USSR produced 27,816 tons of copper in 1941-45)), petroleum products - 2,670,000 tons, chemicals - 842,000 tons, cotton - 106,893,000 tons, leather - 49,860 tons, alcohol - 331,066 liters.
Ammunition: army boots - 15,417,000 pairs, blankets - 1,541,590, buttons - 257,723,498 pieces, 15 million pairs of shoes. The telephone cable received from the USA was 3 times greater than the quantity that the USSR produced during the war.
Food – 4,478,000 tons. Under Lend-Lease, the USSR received 250 thousand tons of stewed meat, 700 thousand tons of sugar, more than 50% of the USSR's needs for fats and vegetable oils. Despite the fact that the Americans themselves denied themselves these very products so that Soviet soldiers could get more of them.
Separately, it is necessary to mention those delivered to the USSR in 1942. – 9000 tons of seed material. The Bolsheviks and party leaders, of course, remained silent, territories were captured, vast territories, production and people were evacuated to distant corners of the country.
It is necessary to sow rye, wheat, and fodder crops, but they simply do not exist. The Allies delivered everything necessary to the USSR on time. It was thanks to this help that the Soviet Union was able to grow its own grain during the war and provide it to a certain extent for its citizens.
Note 4: But war is not only and not so much shells and cartridges, guns and machine guns, but also soldiers, the very ones who must go into battle, sacrifice their health and lives for the sake of victory. Soldiers who need to eat and eat well, otherwise the soldier simply will not be able to hold a weapon in his hands and pull the trigger, let alone go on the attack.
For modern people who know neither famine nor war, it is easy to talk about the dedication, heroism and exceptional contribution to victory of a particular country, having never seen a single battle in their lives, let alone a full-scale war. Therefore, for them, in their opinion, the main thing is to have something to fight with, and such “little things” as food do not even fade into the background or into the background.
But war does not consist of a series of incessant battles and battles, there is defense, the transfer of troops from one sector of the front to another, and so on. And the soldier, without receiving food, will simply die of hunger.
There are plenty of examples of how Soviet soldiers died at the front from hunger, and not from an enemy bullet. After all, at the very beginning, the Germans captured the territories of Belarus and Ukraine, the very territories that supplied bread and meat. Therefore, to deny the obvious - the allied assistance in the victory of the USSR in the Second World War, provided even with the help of food supplies - is stupid.
Separately, before drawing certain conclusions, I consider it necessary to focus attention on those names of weapons, equipment or materials that not only helped to “forge” victory for the USSR during the Second World War, but raised the USSR in the post-war period at the technological level, eliminating its lag behind Western or American countries. Thus, Lend-Lease played its role as a “lifesaver” for the USSR, helping the country to recover as soon as possible. But this particular point was not simply denied, as in the case of weapons, but was simply hushed up, both in the USSR and today in Russia.
And now in more detail
Transport:
In the second half of the war, Lend-Lease Studebakers (specifically, Studebaker US6) became the main chassis for Katyushas. While the US gave approx. 20 thousand vehicles for Katyusha; after June 22, only 600 trucks were produced in the USSR (mainly ZIS-6 chassis).
As you can see, the difference between 20,000 and 600 is quite significant. If we talk about car production in general, then during the war 205 thousand cars were manufactured in the USSR, and 477 thousand were received under Lend-Lease, that is, 2.3 times more. It is also worth mentioning that 55% of the cars produced in the USSR during the war were GAZ-MM trucks with a carrying capacity of 1.5 tons - “lorry-and-a-half”.
Machines and equipment:
Industrial products delivered at the end of the war included 23.5 thousand machine tools, 1526 cranes and excavators, 49.2 thousand tons of metallurgical equipment, 212 thousand tons of power equipment, including turbines for the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station. To understand the significance of the supply of these machines and mechanisms, you can compare them with production at domestic enterprises, for example, in 1945.
That year, only 13 cranes and excavators were assembled in the USSR, 38.4 thousand metal-cutting machines were produced, and the weight of metallurgical equipment produced was 26.9 thousand tons. The range of Lend-Lease equipment and components included thousands of items: from bearings and measuring instruments to cutting machines and metallurgical mills.
An American engineer who visited the Stalingrad Tractor Plant at the end of 1945 discovered that half of the machine park of this enterprise was supplied under Lend-Lease.
Along with batches of individual machines and mechanisms, the Allies provided the Soviet Union with several production and technological lines, and even entire factories. American oil refineries in Kuibyshev, Guryev, Orsk and Krasnovodsk, and a tire plant in Moscow produced their first products at the end of 1944. Soon, automobile assembly lines transferred to the Soviet Union from Iran and a plant for the production of rolled aluminum began to operate.
Thanks to the import of more than a thousand American and British power plants, industrial enterprises and residential areas of many cities came to life. At least two dozen American mobile power plants made it possible to solve the problem of power supply to Arkhangelsk in 1945 and in subsequent years.
And one more very important fact related to Lend-Lease machines. On January 23, 1944, the T-34-85 tank was adopted by the Red Army. But its production at the beginning of 1944 was carried out only at one plant Љ 112 (“Krasnoe Sormovo”). The largest manufacturer of "thirty-fours", the Nizhny Tagil plant Љ 183, could not switch to producing the T-34-85, since there was nothing to process the turret ring gear with a diameter of 1600 mm.
The rotary machine available at the plant made it possible to process parts with a diameter of up to 1500 mm. Of the NKTP enterprises, such machines were available only at Uralmashzavod and plant Љ 112. But since Uralmashzavod was loaded with the IS tank production program, there was no hope for it in terms of production of the T-34-85. Therefore, new rotary machines were ordered from the UK (Loudon) and the USA (Lodge).
As a result, the first T-34-85 tank left the workshop of the Љ 183 plant only on March 15, 1944. These are the facts, as they say, you can’t argue with them. If the plant had not received 183 imported rotary machines, new tanks would not have come out of its gates. So it turns out that, in all honesty, it is necessary to add 10,253 T-34-85 tanks produced by Nizhny Tagil “Vagonka” before the end of the war to Lend-Lease supplies of armored vehicles.
Railway transport:
It was not enough to produce tanks and planes; they also had to be delivered to the front. The production of mainline steam locomotives in the USSR amounted to 914 in 1940, 708 in 1941, 9 in 1942, 43 in 1943, 32 in 1944, 8 in 1945. 5 mainline diesel locomotives were produced in 1940, and in 1941 - one, after which their production was discontinued until 1945 inclusive.
9 mainline electric locomotives were produced in 1940, and 6 in 1941, after which their production was also discontinued. Thus, during the Great Patriotic War, the locomotive fleet was not replenished through its own production. Under Lend-Lease, 1,900 steam locomotives and 66 diesel-electric locomotives were delivered to the USSR (according to other sources, 1,981 locomotives). Thus, deliveries under Lend-Lease exceeded the total Soviet production of steam locomotives in 1941-1945 by 2.4 times, and electric locomotives by 11 times.
The production of freight cars in the USSR in 1942-1945 amounted to 1,087 units, compared to 33,096 in 1941. Under Lend-Lease, a total of 11,075 cars were delivered, or 10.2 times more than Soviet production. In addition, railway fastenings, tires, locomotive axles and wheels were supplied.
Under Lend-Lease, 622.1 thousand tons of railway rails were supplied to the USSR, which amounted to 83.3% of the total volume of Soviet production. If we exclude production for the second half of 1945 from the calculations, then Lend-Lease on rails will amount to 92.7% of the total volume of Soviet rail production. Thus, almost half of the railroad rails used on Soviet railroads during the war came from the United States.
Without exaggeration, it can be said that supplies under Lend-Lease prevented the paralysis of railway transport in the USSR during the war.
Means of communication:
It’s a rather “slippery” topic that the USSR and Russia tried and are still trying not to talk about, because in this regard many questions arise and answers that are inconvenient for jingoists are found. The fact is that with numerous calculations of Lend-Lease volumes, we are usually talking about military supplies. And to be even more precise – about the supply of weapons and military equipment. Most often, it is for this category of Lend-Lease that percentages are calculated in order to prove that the Allied assistance was insignificant.
But military supplies consisted not only of tanks, aircraft and guns. A special place, for example, in the list of allied supplies was occupied by radio equipment and communications equipment. In this area, according to the then leading specialists of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade on imported communications, the Soviet Union lagged behind its allies by almost 10 years. Not only did the technical characteristics and workmanship of Soviet radio stations on the eve of the Great Patriotic War leave much to be desired, but they were also in short supply.
In the tank forces of the Red Army, for example, on April 1, 1941, only T-35, T-28 and KV tanks were 100% equipped with radio stations. All others were divided into “radial” and “linear”. Transceiver radio stations were installed on “radium” tanks, but nothing was installed on “linear” tanks. The space for the radio station in the niche of the BT-7 or T-26 turret was occupied by a rack for 45-mm rounds or disks for the DT machine gun. In addition, in the niches of the “linear” tanks, the rear “Voroshilov” machine guns were installed.
On April 1, 1941, the troops had 311 T-34 “linear” tanks, that is, without a radio station, and 130 “radio” tanks, 2452 BT-7 “linear” and 1883 “radio” tanks, 510 BT-7M “linear” and 181 “radium”, 1270 BT-5 “linear” and 402 “radium”, finally, 3950 T-26 “linear” and 3345 “radium” (in relation to the T-26 we are talking only about single-turret tanks).
Thus, out of 15,317 tanks of the mentioned types, only 6,824 vehicles were equipped with radio stations, that is, 44%. Communication with the rest in battle was carried out only by flag signaling. I think there is no need to explain that during a battle, amidst shell explosions, smoke and dust, showing the direction of movement and directing a tank attack with the help of flags is “a little” difficult and simply suicidal.
It will not be unexpected to say that the situation with communications equipment in other branches of the military - aviation, infantry, cavalry, etc. was similar, and sometimes even worse. After the start of the war, the situation only worsened. By the end of 1941, 55% of the Red Army's radio stations were lost, and most of the manufacturing plants were in the process of being evacuated.
In fact, only one plant continued to produce radios. As a result, for example, from January to July 1942, the Stalingrad Tractor Plant shipped 2,140 T-34 tanks to the active army, of which only 360 were equipped with radio stations. This is something like 17%. Approximately the same picture was observed at other factories.
In 1942, radio stations, locators, telephones, charging units, radio beacons and other devices began to arrive in the USSR under Lend-Lease, the purpose of which was only guessed at in the Soviet Union. From the summer of 1942 to July 1943, the import of radio stations increased more than 10 times, and telephone sets almost doubled.
Based on the norms for manning divisions in military conditions, these radio stations were enough to equip 150, and field telephones to supply 329 divisions. Thanks to the supply of 400-watt radio stations, for example, front, army headquarters and airfields were fully provided with communications.
The domestic industry began to produce similar radio stations only in 1943, in a semi-handicraft way and in quantities of no more than three units per month. With the arrival of another American radio station, V-100, in 1942, the Red Army was able to provide reliable communications to the division-regiment link. In 1942-1943, most heavy KV tanks were also equipped with imported radio stations Љ 19.
As for field telephones, their shortage in the Red Army from 1941 to 1943, largely thanks to imports, was reduced from 80 to 20%. The import of the telephone cable supplied with the devices (338 thousand km) was three times higher than its production in the USSR.
The supply of communications equipment was of great importance for the control of troops in the final battles of the war. In value terms in 1944-1945 they exceeded the imports of previous years by 1.4 times. According to military supply standards, the radio stations imported in 1944-1945 (23,777 units) would have been enough to supply 360 divisions; charging units (6,663 units) - 1,333 divisions, and telephone sets (177,900 units) - to staff 511 divisions. By the end of the war, the “share” of allied communications equipment in the Red Army and Navy averaged about 80%.
It should be noted that a large amount of imported communication equipment was sent to the national economy. Thanks to the supply of 200 high-frequency telephone stations, the production of which was practically absent in the USSR, by 1944 it was possible to establish reliable communications between Moscow and the largest Soviet cities: Leningrad, Kharkov, Kiev, Ulyanovsk, Sverdlovsk, Saratov, etc.
And imported telegraph devices “Teletype”, telephone switches and civilian devices in a matter of months replaced the Soviet ones, providing reliable communications between transport routes and remote regions of the country with administrative centers. Following the 3-channel high-frequency telephony systems, more complex, 12-channel ones began to arrive in the country.
If before the war the Soviet Union managed to create an experimental 3-channel station, then there were no 12-channel stations at all. It is no coincidence that it was immediately installed to serve the most important lines connecting Moscow with the largest cities of the country - Leningrad, Kiev and Kharkov.
American radio stations Љ 299, 399, 499, designed to provide communications for the headquarters of armies and navies, have also found wide application in the sea and river fleets, in the communications system of the fishing industry and the country's electric power industry. And the entire art radio broadcasting system of the country was provided by only two American 50-watt radio transmitters “M-83330A”, installed in 1944 in Moscow and Kyiv. Four more transmitters were sent to the NKVD special communications system.
It is also difficult to overestimate the supply of British and American radars. In the Soviet Union, this topic was also hushed up in every possible way, because: in the USSR during the war years, 775 radars of all types were manufactured, and more than 2 thousand were received under Lend-Lease, including 373 naval and 580 aircraft.
In addition, a significant part of domestic radars was simply copied from imported samples. In particular, 123 (according to other sources, even 248) SON-2 artillery radars (SON - gun guidance station) were an exact copy of the English GL-2 radar. It would also be appropriate to mention that NI I-108 and plant Љ 498, where SON-2 was assembled, were equipped with imported equipment by two-thirds.
And what do we have in the end? Communications, as you know, are often called the nerves of the army, which means that during the Great Patriotic War these nerves were mostly imported.
Food:
Already at the beginning of the war, the Germans captured the territory that produced 84% of sugar and almost 40% of grain in the USSR. In 1942, after the occupation of southern Russia, the situation became even more complicated. The United States supplied the entire range of food products to the USSR under Lend-Lease. Of which the modern reader knows nothing except canned meat.
But in addition to canned meat, nicknamed the “second front,” the Lend-Lease diet included the no less popular “Roosevelt eggs” - powdered eggs from the “just add water” series, dark chocolate (for pilots, scouts and sailors), biscuits, as well as a canned substance called “meat in chocolate”, incomprehensible to Russian taste. Canned turkeys and chickens were supplied with the same “sauce”.
Food supplies for Leningrad and the cities of the Far North played a special role. In Arkhangelsk alone, through which one of the main flows of food flowed, 20 thousand people died from hunger and disease during the first war winter - every tenth resident of the pre-war city!
And if not for those 10 thousand tons of Canadian wheat, which, after much delay, Stalin allowed to remain in Arkhangelsk, it is unknown how many more people would have been killed by hunger. It is even more difficult to calculate how many lives in the liberated areas were saved by 9 thousand tons of seeds transferred to the Soviet Union via the Iranian “air bridge” in 1942 at the beginning of spring field work.
Two years later the situation became catastrophic. The Red Army, which went on the offensive, liberated vast war-ravaged territories in which millions of people lived in 1943-1944. The situation was complicated by drought in the regions of Siberia, the Volga region and the North Caucasus.
An acute food crisis has broken out in the country, which military historians prefer to remain silent about, focusing on the course of hostilities and the supply of the army. Meanwhile, in November 1943, the already meager food distribution standards were secretly reduced by almost a third.
This significantly reduced the workers’ rations (800 g of bread was provided on the worker’s food card), not to mention the dependents. Therefore, food supplies by mid-1944 significantly exceeded the total food imports under the First and Second Protocols, displacing metals and even some types of weapons in Soviet requests.
The food supplied to the USSR would be enough to feed an army of ten million for 1600 days. For information, the Great Patriotic War lasted 1418 days!
Conclusions: In order to show that Lend-Lease deliveries to yesterday's allies did not play any role in the war of the Soviet Union with Germany, the Bolsheviks and modern Russian forum “historians” used their favorite technique - to give out the total mass of equipment produced in the USSR for the entire period of the war and compare it with the amount of military equipment supplied under Lend-Lease, while simultaneously keeping silent about the most unpleasant moments associated with Lend-Lease. Of course, in this total mass, all the military equipment supplied by the Americans and the British had a small share. But, at the same time, Stalin and the Bolsheviks slyly kept silent that:
A) During the most intense period of the war for the USSR, namely from September to December 1941, it was British and American tanks and aircraft that helped the USSR survive. A fifth of all tanks participating in the Battle of Moscow were Lend-Lease, foreign.
b) The names of supplied materials and equipment under Lend-Lease were determined by the Soviet government and were intended to plug the “bottlenecks” in the supply of Soviet industry and the army. That is, the most essential things necessary for conducting military operations at that particular moment were supplied.
In 1941, what was needed was mainly military equipment, since the production of weapons had not yet been established at the evacuated factories and it was this that was supplied, and when the USSR survived the first year of the war, it no longer needed tanks and planes, first of all, but raw materials , equipment and food, which were in good working order and supplied to him by the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition.
V) It is, allegedly, such secondary materials as non-ferrous metals, explosives, communications equipment, transport, etc. that significantly influenced both the production of military equipment within the country and simply helped the soldiers of the Red Army fight the enemy. As an example, “Katyushas”, which simply would not drive without Lend-Lease Studebakers, or gunpowder, without which, in general, it is problematic to shoot a weapon, no matter how good it is.
G) Food is a separate line. In the list of which, without a doubt, it is necessary to include the seed material that the USSR received from the allies during the war. Not only was there enough canned meat for the entire period of the war and beyond that, but at the moment when the USSR needed seeds to resume the sowing season, the necessary assistance was provided to it.
This means that the war and post-war famine of the civilian population that the Soviet Union experienced after the war would have been even more terrible and deadly. For some this may seem insignificant, but it is precisely from such “insignificant” and “minor” moments that victory is achieved.
It’s not enough to have a machine gun in your hands, you need to shoot something else from it, the soldier must be fed, shod, dressed, like his commanders, who, in turn, can quickly receive and transmit urgent information about the location of the enemy, about the beginning of his offensive, or on the contrary, retreat.
d) The debt for deliveries under Lend-Lease, a ridiculous debt for which the USSR and Russia have been paying for about 60 years, can be perceived as both the level of gratitude for the assistance provided by the USA and England during the war, and the attitude towards yesterday's allies until today, that is simply none.
And in the end, the allies also found themselves guilty before the USSR-Russia, in which there are still reproaches about insufficient assistance from them during the war. Which very well characterizes the approach in foreign policy to states and peoples on the part of the USSR-Russia.
To summarize all of the above, we can say that at a minimum the following:
Without Lend-Lease assistance, it is quite possible that the Soviet Union would still have won the Second World War (although in the light of already known information this statement is not so clear), but the war would have lasted several years longer and, accordingly, they would have lost several million people more lives.
But they did not lose it precisely thanks to the help of the Lend-Lease allies. This is what these insignificant 4% mean, as Soviet historians wrote and Russian historians write today, of the total produced by the Soviet Union during the war years - several million human lives!
Even if we don’t focus on the details that we discussed above, these 4% are the lives of someone’s fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters. It is quite possible that these would be our relatives, which means it is quite possible that we were born thanks to this insignificant 4%.
So, are their lives and ours really an insufficient contribution of the USA, England, Canada and other allied countries in the anti-Hitler coalition to the victory over Germany? So, don’t both the USA and England deserve a kind word and gratitude from us today? At least a little bit, at least by 4%?
Is 4% a lot or a little - millions of lives saved? Let everyone decide for themselves and answer this question according to their conscience.
The additions contain several striking examples of how the Soviet leadership was able to appropriate part of the assistance received under Lend-Lease, and also put an end to the speculation of the Soviet and Russian side regarding payment for Lend-Lease in gold, traces of which, by the way, lead to completely unexpected conclusions.
Appendix I. How the USSR paid for Lend-Lease in gold (Edinburgh gold and the Spanish trace).
Let's start with the fact that the USSR used gold to pay for pre-Lend-Lease, as well as for goods and materials purchased from allies other than Lend-Lease. Modern Russian forum “specialists” claim that the USSR paid for Lend-Lease in gold even after 1941, without making a difference between Lend-Lease itself and pre-Lend-Lease, and also completely deliberately omitting the fact that the Soviet Union During the war, purchases were made outside the Lend-Lease framework. As an example of their correctness, such generalist “experts” cite the sunken British cruiser Edinburgh, which carried approximately 5.5 tons of gold in 1942.
And, as they claim, this was the USSR’s payment to the allies for the military equipment received under Lend-Lease. But the fact is that after this, on the part of such “specialists,” there comes a deathly silence. Why?
Yes, because the USSR could not pay in gold for deliveries under Lend-Lease in 1942 - the Lend-Lease agreement stipulated that material and technical assistance would be supplied to the Soviet side with a deferred payment. 465 gold bars with a total weight of 5536 kilograms loaded onto the cruiser Edinburgh in Murmansk in April 1942 were payment from the Soviet Union to England for weapons supplied in excess of the list stipulated in the Lend-Lease agreement.
But it turned out that this gold did not reach England. The cruiser Edinburgh was damaged and scuttled. And, the Soviet Union, even during the war years, received insurance in the amount of 32.32% of the value of gold, paid by the British War Risk Insurance Bureau.
By the way, all the gold transported, the notorious 5.5 tons, at prices of that time cost just over 100 million dollars. Let's compare it with the total amount of assistance provided under Lend-Lease of 10 billion dollars, which neither the USSR nor Russia, of course, like to talk about, but at the same time, making wide eyes, they vaguely hint that it was simply an astronomical amount.
However, the story of Edinburgh's gold did not end there.
In 1981, the English treasure hunting company Jesson Marine Recovery entered into an agreement with the authorities of the USSR and Great Britain on the search and recovery of gold. “Edinburgh” lay at a depth of 250 meters. In the most difficult conditions, the divers managed to lift 5129 kg. According to the agreement, 2/3 of the gold was received by the USSR, 1/3 by Great Britain. Minus the payment to the company for the gold lifting operation carried out.
Thus, not only was the gold transported by Edinburgh not a payment for Lend-Lease, not only did this gold never reach the Allies, and a third of its value was reimbursed to the USSR during the war years, and even later forty years, when this gold was raised, most of it was returned to the USSR.
What is most interesting and deserves the closest attention is whose gold it was that the USSR used to pay its allies?
Following simple logic, we have the right to think that the USSR could pay with its own and only its own gold. And nothing else. But, as they say, it’s not like that. And the point here is this: during the Spanish Civil War, on October 15, 1936, Caballero and Negrin officially turned to the Soviet Union with a request to accept approximately 500 tons of gold for storage. And already on February 15, 1937, an act of acceptance of 510.07 tons of Spanish gold was signed, which was melted into gold bars with the Soviet mark.
Did Spain get its gold back? No. Therefore, even the gold that the Soviet Union used to pay its allies during World War II most likely...was Spanish. Which very well characterizes the workers’ and peasants’ power of the country of the Soviets.
Someone might say that these are simple speculations and that the Soviet leadership is the most honest, the most international, only thinking about how to help everyone in need in the world. This is roughly how aid was provided to the Republicans in Spain during the Civil War. The USSR helped or helped, but not disinterestedly. When it came to money, all the capitalists of the world simply cried with envy, seeing how the USSR provided “free and selfless” assistance to the revolutionary workers and peasants in Spain.
So Moscow billed Spain for the placement and storage of gold reserves, the services of Soviet advisers, pilots, tank crews, translators and mechanics. The costs of round trip travel for Soviet military personnel and their families, daily allowances, salaries, costs of accommodation, maintenance, treatment in hospitals and vacation stays for Soviet military personnel and members of their families, funeral expenses and benefits for military widows, and training for Spanish pilots were taken into account. in the Soviet Union, the construction and refurbishment of airfields on Republican-controlled territory where training flights took place. All this was paid for in Spanish gold.
For example, the total amount of material supplied from the USSR from September 1936 to July 1938 amounted to $166,835,023. And for all shipments to Spain from October 1936 to August 1938, the republican authorities fully paid the entire debt to the Soviet Union in the amount of $171,236,088.
By adding the cost of military equipment sent at the end of 1938 - beginning of 1939 to Spain from Murmansk via France ($55,359,660), we get the total cost of military-technical supplies.
It varies from 222,194,683 to 226,595,748 dollars. Due to the fact that the cargo of the last delivery was not completely delivered to its intended destination and part of it was returned to Soviet military warehouses, the final figure for the cost of military cargo delivered to Republican Spain is 202 .4 million dollars
So is it really possible that after the USSR “pocketed” Spanish gold and provided “disinterested” assistance to the Republicans, it will behave differently with the Americans and the British in matters of payment for Lend-Lease and other assistance received? No. Further, this will be demonstrated using a specific example.
Appendix II. How the USSR returned equipment and equipment to the allies.
It is enough to simply quote a number of Soviet documents that were exchanged between the Soviet and American sides during negotiations on the settlement of issues related to the payment of Lend-Lease after the war. But first, it’s better to cite an excerpt from a memo from the USSR Foreign Minister A.A. Gromyko, from which it becomes clear why the Soviet side hid in every possible way from its former allies the amount of surviving technology and equipment:
Memorandum by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR A.A. Gromyko to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR I.V. Stalin on negotiations with the Americans to settle Lend-Lease payments
21.09.1949
“If in the negotiations we proceed from the above calculations of the global amount of compensation, based on the size of the balances of Lend-Lease supplies to the USSR, we would have to inform the Americans about the presence of such balances, which is undesirable for the following reasons: the Americans may then demand from us a decryption balances for individual groups, in particular for equipment. Having received from us this kind of information about the remains of civilian items, the Americans can, referring to Article V of the Agreement of June 11, 1942, present to us a demand for the return of the items most valuable to us.”
Thus, Stalin and the Soviet party leadership, after the war, tried by any means to avoid returning the borrowed equipment and machinery. That is why all researchers are still faced with the following problem - it is known how much equipment, weapons and equipment the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition supplied to the USSR and for what amount, but there is no exact data on the amount of all remaining equipment and equipment after the end of World War II war with the Soviet Union, which he had to return.
Therefore, on the one hand, the Soviet Union did not return the technology and equipment itself, much less, did not pay a single penny for it to the allies. And propagandists, both then in the USSR and today in Russia, received a convenient argument, proving that the allied assistance in the Lend-Lease war was insignificant.
Although, knowing that the USSR hid data on the amount of assistance received, we have the right to believe American and British data on the amount of all equipment, weapons and materials supplied to the USSR and, based on these data, draw conclusions regarding how much this received through lending -Liz help helped the USSR in the war against Germany.
As an example of such concealment of data and deliberate machinations on the part of the Soviet leadership, one can cite excerpts from the diary of Soviet-American negotiations to resolve outstanding Lend-Lease issues (Washington) held on January 13, 1950.
“As for the factories supplied under Lend-Lease, Panyushkin asked Wiley if he was referring to the factory equipment supplied as part of the loan agreement of October 15, 1945.
To this, Wiley replied that these were the factories that were supplied to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease, but were not used for military purposes.
In response to this, Panyushkin said that during the war there are no factories that have nothing to do with the war.”
How “elegantly” the Soviet leadership removed entire factories from the list of payments or returns!!! It simply stated that all the equipment used in the USSR was related to the war, and therefore is not civilian equipment that would have to be returned under the terms of Lend-Lease, and if it is recognized as such and the USSR reports its unsuitability, then in addition for this Under the terms of Lend-Lease, the Soviet leadership does not have to pay for equipment!
And so on throughout the entire list of military equipment, equipment or materials. And, if the USSR was able to keep entire factories for itself, then it’s not worth talking about some: cars, planes, ships or machine tools. All this became sharply Soviet.
And, if the Americans nevertheless persisted in the issue of some type of technology or equipment, then the Soviet side in every possible way delayed the negotiation processes, underestimated the cost of this item, or simply declared it unsuitable, and therefore not obligatory for return.
Eg:
LETTER OF THE UNITED STATES DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE J. E. WEBB TO THE USSR CHARGES AFFAIRS TEMPORARY TO THE USA V.I. BAZYKIN
“With regard to the two icebreakers which were not returned to the United States by December 1, 1949, in accordance with the Agreement of September 27, 1949, and which the Soviet Government informed the United States Government on November 12, 1949, that they would be returned to Germany or Japan by 30 June 1950, the United States Government wishes to express its regret that the Soviet Government finds it impossible at present to deliver these vessels before November or December 1950.
In view of the fact that the Soviet Government has still not complied with the request of the United States Government for the return of the 186 vessels, the United States Government must therefore consider that your Government continues to fail to comply with the obligations arising from Article V of the Basic Lend-Lease Agreement.”
In response to a request from the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the return of 186 naval vessels to the United States, USSR Naval Minister Comrade Yumashev, in his letter dated June 24 of this year. reported the following:
"A) If it is necessary to return 186 ships and strict adherence to the nomenclature specified in the US note dated September 3, 1948, the navy can transfer to the Americans: 15 landing craft (of which 14 are in satisfactory condition and 1 in unsatisfactory condition), 101 torpedo boats (9 - in satisfactory condition and 92 - in unsatisfactory condition), 39 large hunters and 31 small hunters - all in unsatisfactory condition - a total of 186 vessels.
b) In the event that the Americans do not demand compliance with the nomenclature, the navy could hand over 186 ships – all in unsatisfactory condition.”
Memorandum by the Minister of Foreign Trade of the USSR M.A. Menshikov and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR A.A. Gromyko I.V. Stalin in connection with negotiations with the United States on the settlement of Lend-Lease payments
18.09.1950
“State that out of the total number of 498 vessels, 261 units, including 1 AM-type minesweeper, 16 Navy-type minesweepers, 55 large hunters, 52 small hunters, 92 torpedo boats, 44 landing craft and 1 motorboat, are in completely unsatisfactory technical condition, taken out of service and unsuitable for further use, which can be confirmed by providing relevant documents on their technical condition.
State that the remaining 237 ships, including 29 AM-class minesweepers, 25 Navy-class minesweepers, 19 large hunters, 4 small hunters, 101 torpedo boats, 35 landing craft, 4 floating repair shops, 6 pontoon barges and 14 river tugs can still be used for some time only for auxiliary purposes. These ships are not suitable for independent passages in open sea areas.
Offer the Americans to sell these ships to the Soviet Union... consider it possible to purchase ships at a price not exceeding an average of 17%.
...to declare that as a result of the violation of the agreement of October 15, 1945 by the United States, which underdelivered various equipment and materials by $19 million, the Soviet Union suffered damage estimated at approximately $49 million. Demand compensation for this damage;
If the Americans again raise questions about the payment of freight for the transportation of commercial cargo on Lend-Lease ships ($6.9 million according to American estimates) and the insurance compensation we received for Lend-Lease cargo, state that since these questions were not raised in negotiations since 1947, the Soviet side considers them to have fallen due to negotiations on establishing a global amount of compensation.”
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See for yourself and show your friends to the “grandfather warriors” and Western haters with Stalin on their avatars who want to turn the USA into radioactive ashes ☛ https://t.co/fYIUVivUN9 pic.twitter.com/WLQd3IpjOS— Skrepo history (@Skrepo_history)
It’s worth starting with “deciphering” the term “Lend-Lease” itself, although for this it is enough to look into the English-Russian dictionary. So, lend - “to lend”, lease - “to rent out”. It was under these conditions that during the Second World War the United States transferred military equipment, weapons, ammunition, equipment, strategic raw materials, food, and various goods and services to its allies in the Anti-Hitler Coalition. You will have to remember these conditions at the end of the article.
The Lend-Lease Act was passed by the US Congress on March 11, 1941, and authorized the President to grant the above provisions to countries whose "defense against aggression is vital to the defense of the United States." The calculation is clear: protect yourself with the hands of others and preserve your strength as much as possible.
Lend-Lease deliveries in 1939-45. 42 countries received it, US expenditures on them amounted to over 46 billion dollars (13% of the country’s total military expenditures during World War II). The main volume of supplies (about 60%) fell on the British Empire; Against this background, the share of the USSR, which bore the brunt of the war, is more than indicative: slightly higher than 1/3 of Great Britain’s supplies. The largest portion of the remaining supplies came from France and China.
Even the Atlantic Charter, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill in August 1941, spoke of the desire to “supply the USSR with the maximum amount of those materials that it most needs.” Although the United States officially signed the supply agreement with the USSR on 07/11/42, the Lend-Lease Law was extended to the USSR by presidential decree on 11/07/41 (obviously “for the holiday”). Even earlier, on 10/01/41, an agreement was signed in Moscow between England, the USA and the USSR on mutual supplies for a period until 06/30/42. Subsequently, such agreements (they were called “Protocols”) were renewed annually.
But again, even earlier, on 08/31/41, the first caravan under the code name “Dervish” arrived in Arkhangelsk, and more or less systematic deliveries under Lend-Lease began in November 1941. At first, the main method of delivery was sea convoys arriving in Arkhangelsk, Murmansk and Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk). In total, 1,530 transports traveled along this route, consisting of 78 convoys (42 to the USSR, 36 back). Due to the actions of submarines and aviation of Nazi Germany, 85 transports (including 11 Soviet ships) were sunk, and 41 transports were forced to return to their original base.
In our country, we highly value and honor the courageous feat of the sailors of Britain and other allied countries who participated in escorting and protecting convoys along the Northern Route.
THE IMPORTANCE OF LEND-LEASE FOR THE USSR
For the Soviet Union, which was fighting an exceptionally strong aggressor, the most important thing was the supply of military equipment, weapons and ammunition, especially considering their huge losses in 1941. It is believed that according to this nomenclature the USSR received: 18,300 aircraft, 11,900 tanks, 13,000 anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, 427,000 vehicles, a large amount of ammunition, explosives and gunpowder. (However, the figures given may vary significantly from one source to another.)
But we did not always receive exactly what we especially needed, and on time (besides the inevitable battle losses, there were other reasons for this). Thus, during the most difficult period for us (October - December 1941) the USSR was under-delivered: 131 aircraft, 513 tanks, 270 tankettes and a whole range of other cargo. During the period from October 1941 to the end of June 1942 (terms of the 1st Protocol), the United States fulfilled its obligations on: bombers - by less than 30%, fighters - by 31%, medium tanks - by 32%, light tanks - by 37%, trucks - by 19.4% (16,502 instead of 85,000).
SUPPLY OF AVIATION EQUIPMENT UNDER LEND-LEASE
This type of supply was, of course, of primary importance. Lend-Lease aircraft came mainly from the USA, although a certain part (and a considerable one) also came from Great Britain. The figures indicated in the table may not coincide with other sources, but they very clearly illustrate the dynamics and range of aircraft supplies.
In terms of their flight performance characteristics, Lend-Lease aircraft were far from equivalent.
So. the American fighter "Kittyhawk" and the English "Hurricane", as noted in a report to the Soviet Government by the People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry of the USSR A.I. Shakhurin in September 1941, “are not the latest examples of American and British technology”; in fact, they were significantly inferior to German fighters in speed and armament. The Harry Kane, moreover, had an unreliable engine: due to its failure, the famous North Sea pilot, twice Hero of the Soviet Union B.F. died in battle. Safonov. Soviet pilots openly called this fighter a “flying coffin.”
The American Airacobra fighter, on which Hero of the Soviet Union A. I. Pokryshkin fought three times, was practically not inferior to the German Me-109 and FV-190 in speed and had powerful weapons (37 mm air cannon and 4 12.7 mm machine guns), which, according to Pokryshkin, “smashed German planes to smithereens.” But due to miscalculations in the design of the Airacobra, with complex evolutions during the battle, it often fell into a difficult “flat” spin, deformation of the fuselage “Airacobra - Of course, an ace like Pokryshkin brilliantly coped with a capricious aircraft, but among ordinary pilots there were many accidents and disasters.
The Soviet government was forced to present a claim to the manufacturing company (Bell), but it rejected it. Only when our test pilot A. Kochetkov was sent to the USA, who demonstrated the deformation of the Airacobra’s fuselage in the tail area over the company’s airfield and in front of its management (he himself managed to jump out with a parachute), the company had to rework the design of its machine. An improved model of the fighter, labeled P-63 “Kingcobra”, began to arrive at the final stage of the war, in 1944-45, when our industry was mass-producing excellent Yak-3, La-5, La-7 fighters, which were superior in a number of characteristics to the American ones.
A comparison of the characteristics shows that the American machines were not inferior to German ones of the same type in their main indicators: the bombers also had an important advantage - night vision bomb sights, which the German Yu-88 and Xe-111 did not have. And the defensive armament of the American bombers consisted of 12.7 mm machine guns (the German ones had 7.92), and their number was large.
The combat use and technical operation of American and British aircraft, of course, brought a lot of trouble, but our technicians relatively quickly learned not only to prepare “foreigners” for combat missions, but also to repair them. Moreover, on some British aircraft, Soviet specialists managed to replace their rather weak 7.71 mm machine guns with more powerful domestic weapons.
Speaking about aviation, one cannot fail to mention the provision of fuel. As you know, the shortage of aviation gasoline was an acute problem for our Air Force even in peacetime, limiting the intensity of combat training in combat units and training in flight schools. During the war, the USSR received 630 thousand tons of aviation gasoline from the USA under Lend-Lease, and more than 570 thousand from Great Britain and Canada. The total amount of light fraction gasoline supplied to us amounted to 2,586 thousand tons - 51% of the domestic production of these varieties during the period 1941 - 1945. Thus, we have to agree with the statement of historian B. Sokolov that without imported fuel supplies, Soviet aviation would not have been able to operate effectively in the operations of the Great Patriotic War. The difficulty of ferrying aircraft from the United States “under their own power” to the Soviet Union was unprecedented. The ALSIB (Alaska-Siberia) air route, laid in 1942 from Fairbanks (USA) to Krasnoyarsk and beyond, was especially long - 14,000 km. The uninhabited expanses of the Far North and taiga Siberia, frosts up to 60 and even 70 degrees, unpredictable weather with unexpected fogs and snow storms made ALSIB the most difficult crossing route. The ferry division of the Soviet Air Force operated here, and, probably, more than one of our pilots laid down their young lives not in battle with the Luftwaffe aces, but on the ALSIBA route, but his feat is as glorious as his front-line one. 43% of all aircraft received from the United States passed along this air route.
Already in October 1942, the first group of American A-20 Boston bombers was transported to Stalingrad via ALSIB. Aircraft manufactured in the USA could not withstand the severe Siberian frosts - rubber products burst. The Soviet government urgently provided the Americans with a recipe for frost-resistant rubber - only this saved the situation...
With the organization of cargo delivery by sea across the South Atlantic to the Persian Gulf region and the creation of aircraft assembly workshops there, aircraft began to be transported from airfields in Iran and Iraq to the North Caucasus. The southern air route was also difficult: mountainous terrain, unbearable heat, sand storms. It transported 31% of aircraft received from the United States.
In general, it must be recognized that the supply of aircraft under Lend-Lease to the USSR undoubtedly played a positive role in intensifying the combat operations of the Soviet Air Force. It is also worth considering that although on average foreign aircraft accounted for no more than 15% of their domestic production, for certain types of aircraft this percentage was significantly higher: for front-line bombers - 20%, for front-line fighters - from 16 to 23%, and for naval aircraft aviation - 29% (sailors especially noted the Catalina flying boat), which looks quite significant.
ARMORED VEHICLES
In terms of their importance for combat operations, the number and level of vehicles, tanks, of course, took second place in Lend-Lease deliveries. We are talking specifically about tanks, since the supply of self-propelled guns was not very significant. And again it should be noted that the corresponding figures vary quite significantly in different sources.
The "Soviet Military Encyclopedia" provides the following data on tanks (pieces): USA - about 7000; UK - 4292; Canada – 1188; total – 12480.
The dictionary-reference book “The Great Patriotic War 1941 - 45” gives the total number of tanks received under Lend-Lease - 10,800 units.
The newest edition “Russia and the USSR in wars and conflicts of the 20th century” (M, 2001) gives the figure of 11,900 tanks, as well as the latest edition “The Great Patriotic War of 1941-45” (M, 1999).
So, the number of Lend-Lease tanks amounted to about 12% of the total number of tanks and self-propelled guns that entered the Red Army during the war (109.1 thousand units).
ENGLISH TANKS
They made up most of the first batches of armored vehicles under Lend-Lease (together with American M3 series tanks of two varieties). These were combat vehicles designed to accompany infantry.
"Valentine" Mk 111
It was considered infantry, weighing 16.5 -18 tons; armor - 60 mm, gun 40 mm (on some tanks - 57 mm), speed 32 - 40 km/h (different engines). At the front it proved itself to be positive: having a low silhouette, it had good reliability and comparative simplicity of design and maintenance. True, our repairmen had to weld “spurs” onto the Valentine’s tracks to increase cross-country ability (tea, not Europe). They were supplied from England - 2400 pieces, from Canada - 1400 (according to other sources - 1180).
"Matilda" Mk IIA
According to its class, it was a medium tank weighing 25 tons, with good armor (80 mm), but a weak 40 mm caliber gun; speed - no more than 25 km/h. Disadvantages - the possibility of loss of mobility in the event of freezing of dirt that gets into the closed chassis, which is unacceptable in combat conditions. A total of 1,084 Matildas were delivered to the Soviet Union.
Churchill Mk III
Although it was considered infantry, in terms of mass (40-45 tons) it belonged to the heavy class. It had a clearly unsatisfactory layout - the tracked contour covered the hull, which sharply worsened the driver's visibility in combat. With strong armor (side - 95 mm, front of the hull - up to 150), it did not have powerful weapons (guns were mainly 40 - 57 mm, only on some vehicles - 75 mm). Low speed (20-25 km/h), poor maneuverability, and limited visibility reduced the effect of strong armor, although Soviet tank crews noted the good combat survivability of the Churchills. 150 of them were delivered. (according to other sources - 310 pieces).
The engines on the Valentines and Matildas were diesel, while the Churchills had carburetor engines.
AMERICAN TANKS
For some reason, the M3 index designated two American tanks at once: the light M3 - “General Stewart” and the medium M3 - “General Lee”, also known as “General Grant” (in common parlance - “Lee/Grant”).
MZ "Stuart"
Weight - 12.7 tons, armor 38-45 mm, speed - 48 km/h, armament - 37 mm cannon, carburetor engine. Despite good armor and speed for a light tank, one has to note reduced maneuverability due to the characteristics of the transmission and poor maneuverability due to insufficient adhesion of the tracks to the ground. Delivered to the USSR - 1600 pcs.
M3 "Lee/Grant"
Weight - 27.5 tons, armor - 57 mm, speed - 31 km/h, armament: 75 mm cannon in the hull sponson and a 37 mm cannon in the turret, 4 machine guns. The layout of the tank (high silhouette) and the placement of weapons were extremely unsuccessful. The bulkiness of the design and the placement of weapons in three tiers (which forced the crew to increase to 7 people) made the Grant quite easy prey for enemy artillery. The aviation gasoline engine made the situation worse for the crew. We called it a “mass grave for seven.” Nevertheless, at the end of 1941 - beginning of 1942, 1,400 of them were delivered; during that difficult period, when Stalin personally distributed tanks one by one, and “Grants” were at least some help. Since 1943, the Soviet Union abandoned them.
The most effective (and, accordingly, popular) American tank of the period 1942 - 1945. The M4 Sherman medium tank appeared. In terms of production volume during the war (a total of 49,324 were produced in the USA), it ranks second after our T-34. It was produced in several modifications (from M4 to M4A6) with different engines, both diesel and carburetor, including twin engines and even blocks of 5 engines. Under Lend-Lease, we were supplied mainly with M4A2 Shsrmams with two 210 hp diesel engines, which had different cannon armament: 1990 tanks - with a 75-mm gun, which turned out to be insufficiently effective, and 2673 - with a 76.2 mm caliber gun, capable of hitting 100 mm thick armor at ranges up to 500 m.
Sherman M4A2
Weight - 32 tons, armor: hull front - 76 mm, turret front - 100 mm, side - 58 mm, speed - 45 km/h, gun - indicated above. 2 machine guns of 7.62 mm caliber and 12.7 mm anti-aircraft; crew - 5 people (like our modernized T-34-85).
A characteristic feature of the Sherman was the removable (bolt-on) cast front (lower) part of the hull, which served as the transmission compartment cover. An important advantage was provided by a device for stabilizing the gun in the vertical plane for more accurate shooting on the move (it was introduced on Soviet tanks only in the early 1950s - on the T-54A). The electro-hydraulic turret rotation mechanism was duplicated for the gunner and commander. A large-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun made it possible to fight low-flying enemy aircraft (a similar machine gun appeared on the Soviet IS-2 heavy tank only in 1944.
For its time, the Sherman had sufficient mobility, satisfactory weapons and armor. The disadvantages of the vehicle were: poor roll stability, insufficient reliability of the power plant (which was an advantage of our T-34) and relatively poor maneuverability on sliding and frozen soils, until during the war the Americans replaced the Sherman tracks with wider ones, with spurs. lugs. Nevertheless, in general, according to tank crews, it was a completely reliable combat vehicle, simple to design and maintain, and very repairable, since it made maximum use of automotive components and components that were well mastered by American industry. Together with the famous "thirty-fours", although somewhat inferior to them in certain characteristics, American "Shermans" with Soviet crews actively participated in all major operations of the Red Army in 1943 - 1945, reaching the Baltic coast, the Danube, the Vistula, the Spree and Elbe.
The scope of Lend-Lease armored vehicles also includes 5,000 American armored personnel carriers (half-track and wheeled), which were used in the Red Army, including as carriers of various weapons, especially anti-aircraft weapons for air defense of rifle units (their armored personnel carriers during the Patriotic War in the USSR were not produced, only BA-64K reconnaissance armored cars were made).
AUTOMOTIVE EQUIPMENT
The number of vehicles supplied to the USSR exceeded all military equipment not by several times, but by an order of magnitude: in total, 477,785 vehicles of fifty models were received, manufactured by 26 automobile companies in the USA, England and Canada.
In total, 152 thousand Studebaker trucks of the US 6x4 and US 6x6 brands were delivered, as well as 50,501 command vehicles (“jeeps”) of the Willys MP and Ford GPW models; It is also necessary to mention the powerful Dodge-3/4 all-terrain vehicles with a lifting capacity of 3/4 tons (hence the number in the marking). These models were real army models, the most suitable for front-line use (as you know, we did not produce army vehicles until the early 1950s; the Red Army used ordinary national economic vehicles GAZ-AA and ZIS-5).
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Studebaker truck |
Deliveries of cars under Lend-Lease, which exceeded by more than 1.5 times the own production in the USSR during the war years (265 thousand units), were certainly crucial for the sharp increase in the mobility of the Red Army during large-scale operations of 1943-1945. . After all, for 1941-1942. The Red Army lost 225 thousand cars, which were half missing even in peacetime.
American Studebakers, with durable metal bodies that had folding benches and removable canvas awnings, were equally suitable for transporting personnel and various cargoes. Possessing high-speed qualities on the highway and high off-road capability, the Studebaker US 6x6 also worked well as tractors for various artillery systems.
When deliveries of Studebakers began, only the Katyusha BM-13-N began to be mounted on their all-terrain chassis, and from 1944 - BM-31-12 for heavy M31 rockets.
One cannot fail to mention car tires, of which 3,606 thousand were supplied - more than 30% of domestic tire production. To this we must add 103 thousand tons of natural rubber from the “bins” of the British Empire, and again remember the supply of light fraction gasoline, which was added to our “native” (which was required by Studebaker engines).
OTHER EQUIPMENT, RAW MATERIALS AND MATERIALS
Supplies of railway rolling stock and rails from the USA largely helped solve our transport problems during the war. Almost 1,900 steam locomotives were delivered (we ourselves built 92 (!) steam locomotives in 1942–1945) and 66 diesel-electric locomotives, as well as 11,075 cars (with our own production of 1,087). Supplies of rails (if we count only broad gauge rails) accounted for more than 80% of domestic production during this period - the metal was needed for defense purposes. Considering the extremely intense work of the USSR railway transport in 1941 - 1945, the importance of these supplies is difficult to overestimate.
As for communications equipment, 35,800 radio stations, 5,839 receivers and 348 locators, 422,000 telephone sets and about a million kilometers of field telephone cable were supplied from the United States, which basically satisfied the needs of the Red Army during the war.
The supply of a number of high-calorie products (4.3 million tons in total) was also of certain importance for providing the USSR with food (of course, primarily for the active army). In particular, sugar supplies accounted for 42% of its own production in those years, and canned meat - 108%. Even though our soldiers mockingly nicknamed the American stew “second front,” they ate it with pleasure (although their own beef was still tastier!). To equip the fighters, 15 million pairs of shoes and 69 million square meters of woolen fabrics were very useful.
In the work of the Soviet defense industry in those years, the supply of raw materials, materials and equipment under Lend-Lease also meant a lot - after all, in 1941, large production facilities for the smelting of cast iron, steel, aluminum, and the production of explosives and gunpowder remained in the occupied areas. Therefore, the supply from the USA of 328 thousand tons of aluminum (which exceeded its own production), the supply of copper (80% of its smelting) and 822 thousand tons of chemical products were, of course, of great importance,” as well as the supply of steel sheets (our “one and a half trucks” and “three-ton tanks” were made during the war with wooden cabins precisely because of the shortage of sheet steel) and artillery gunpowder (used as an additive to domestic ones). The supply of high-performance equipment had a tangible impact on improving the technical level of domestic mechanical engineering: 38,000 machine tools from the USA and 6,500 from Great Britain continued to work for a long time after the war.
ARTILLERY GUNS
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Automatic anti-aircraft gun "Bofors" |
The smallest quantity of Lend-Lease deliveries were classic types of weapons - artillery and small arms. It is believed that the share of artillery guns (according to various sources - 8000, 9800 or 13000 pieces) amounted to only 1.8% of the number produced in the USSR, but if we take into account that most of them were anti-aircraft guns, then their share in similar domestic production for wartime (38,000) will rise to a quarter. Anti-aircraft guns from the USA were supplied in two types: 40-mm automatic Bofors guns (Swedish design) and 37-mm automatic Colt-Browning guns (actually American). The most effective were the Bofors - they had hydraulic drives and were therefore aimed by the entire battery simultaneously using the AZO launcher (anti-aircraft artillery fire control device); but these tools (as a whole) were very complex and expensive to produce, which was only possible by the developed US industry.
SUPPLY OF SMALL ARMS
In terms of small arms, supplies were simply scanty (151,700 units, which amounted to about 0.8% of our production) and did not play any role in the armament of the Red Army.
Among the samples supplied to the USSR: the American Colt M1911A1 pistol, Thompson and Raising submachine guns, as well as Browning machine guns: the easel M1919A4 and the large-caliber M2 NV; English light machine gun "Bran", anti-tank rifles "Boyce" and "Piat" (English tanks were also equipped with machine guns "Beza" - an English modification of the Czechoslovak ZB-53).
At the fronts, samples of Lend-Lease small arms were very rare and were not particularly popular. Our soldiers sought to quickly replace the American Thompsons and Reisings with the familiar PPSh-41. The Boys PTR turned out to be clearly weaker than the domestic PTRD and PTRS - they could only fight German armored personnel carriers and light tanks (there was no information about the effectiveness of the Piat PTR in the Red Army units).
The most effective in their class were, of course, the American Brownings: the M1919A4 was installed on American armored personnel carriers, and the large-caliber M2 NV were mainly used as part of anti-aircraft installations, quadruple (4 M2 NV machine guns) and triple (37-mm Colt anti-aircraft gun -Browning" and two M2 HB). These installations, mounted on Lend-Lease armored personnel carriers, were very effective air defense systems for rifle units; They were also used for anti-aircraft defense of some objects.
We will not touch on the naval nomenclature of Lend-Lease deliveries, although these were large quantities in terms of volume: in total, the USSR received 596 ships and vessels (not counting captured ships received after the war).
In total, 17.5 million tons of Lend-Lease cargo were delivered along ocean routes, of which 1.3 million tons were lost due to the actions of Nazi submarines and aircraft; the number of heroes-sailors of many countries who died in this case amounts to more than one thousand people. Supplies were distributed along the following supply routes: Far East - 47.1%, Persian Gulf - 23.8%, Northern Russia - 22.7%, Black Sea - 3.9%, Northern Sea Route - 2.5%.
RESULTS AND ASSESSMENTS OF LEND-LEASE
For a long time, Soviet historians only pointed out that supplies under Lend-Lease amounted to only 4% of domestic industrial and agricultural production during the war. True, from the data presented above it is clear that in many cases it is important to take into account the specific nomenclature of equipment samples, their quality indicators, timely delivery to the front, their significance, etc.
To repay deliveries under Lend-Lease, the United States received $7.3 billion worth of various goods and services from allied countries. The USSR, in particular, sent 300 thousand tons of chrome and 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, and in addition, platinum, gold, furs and other goods totaling $2.2 million. The USSR also provided the Americans with a number of services, in particular , opened its northern ports, took over partial support for the Allied troops in Iran.
08/21/45 The United States of America stopped deliveries under Lend-Lease to the USSR. The Soviet government turned to the United States with a request to continue part of the supplies on the terms of providing a loan to the USSR, but was refused. A new era was dawning... While supply debts to most other countries were written off, negotiations on these issues were conducted with the Soviet Union in 1947 - 1948, 1951 - 1952 and 1960.
The total amount of Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR is estimated at $11.3 billion. Moreover, according to the Lend-Lease law, only goods and equipment that were preserved after the end of hostilities are subject to payment. The Americans valued these at $2.6 billion, although a year later they halved this amount. Thus, initially the United States demanded compensation in the amount of $1.3 billion, payable over 30 years with an accrual of 2.3% per annum. But Stalin rejected these demands, saying, “The USSR paid off its Lend-Lease debts in full with blood.” The fact is that many models of equipment supplied to the USSR immediately after the war turned out to be obsolete and no longer represented practically any combat value. That is, American assistance to the allies, in some way, turned out to be “pushing away” unnecessary and obsolete equipment for the Americans themselves, which, nevertheless, had to be paid for as something useful.
To understand what Stalin meant when he spoke of “payment in blood” , should be quoted excerpt from an article by a professor at the University of Kansas Wilson: “What America experienced during the war was fundamentally different from the trials that befell its main allies. Only Americans could name World War II "good war", since it helped to significantly increase the standard of living and required too few sacrifices from the vast majority of the population...” And Stalin was not going to take resources from his already war-ravaged country in order to give them to a potential enemy in World War III.
Negotiations on the repayment of Lend-Lease debts resumed in 1972, and on 10/18/72 an agreement was signed on the payment of $722 million by the Soviet Union, until 07/01/01. $48 million was paid, but after the Americans introduced the discriminatory “Jackson-Venik Amendment,” the USSR suspended further payments under Lend-Lease.
In 1990, at new negotiations between the presidents of the USSR and the USA, the final debt repayment period was agreed upon - 2030. However, a year later, the USSR collapsed, and the debt was “re-issued” to Russia. By 2003 it was about $100 million. Taking inflation into account, the US is unlikely to receive more than 1% of its original value for its supplies.
(Material prepared for the site “Wars of the 20th Century” © http://website for article N. Aksenov, magazine "Weapon". When copying an article, please do not forget to put a link to the source page of the “Wars of the 20th Century” site).
Almost everyone knows about American supplies to the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. Studebakers and American stew, nicknamed “the second front” by Soviet soldiers, immediately come to mind. But these are rather artistic and emotional symbols, which are actually the tip of the iceberg. The purpose of this article is to create a general idea of Lend-Lease and its role in the Great Victory.
In the initial period of World War II, the so-called neutrality act was in force in the United States, according to which the only way to provide assistance to any of the warring parties was the sale of weapons and materials exclusively for cash, and transportation was also entrusted to the customer - the “pay and take” system (cash). and carry). Great Britain then became the main consumer of military products in the United States, but very soon it exhausted its foreign exchange funds. At the same time, President Franklin Roosevelt understood perfectly well that in the current situation the best way out for the United States was to provide all possible economic support to the countries fighting against Nazi Germany. Therefore, on March 11, 1941, he actually “pushed through” the “Act for the Defense of the United States,” also called the Lend-Lease Act, in Congress. Now any country whose defense was considered vital to the United States and strategic raw materials was provided under the following conditions:
1. Weapons and materials lost during hostilities are not subject to payment.
2. The remaining property suitable for civilian purposes after the end of the war must be paid for in whole or in part on the basis of long-term loans provided by the United States.
3. Any equipment not lost after the war must be returned to the United States.
Joseph Stalin and Harry Hopkins, 1941
After Germany attacked the USSR, Roosevelt sent his closest assistant Harry Hopkins to Moscow, as he wanted to find out “how long Russia could hold out.” This was important, since the prevailing opinion in the United States at that time was that the Soviet resistance would not be able to provide significant resistance to the Germans, and the supplied weapons and materials would simply fall to the enemy. On July 31, Harry Hopkins met with Vyacheslav Molotov and Joseph Stalin. As a result, the American politician left for Washington with the firm conviction that the Germans would not have a quick victory and that the supply of weapons to Moscow could have a significant impact on the course of hostilities.
However, the inclusion of the USSR in the Lend-Lease program occurred only in October-November 1941 (until that moment, our country paid for all American military supplies). Roosevelt needed such a long period of time to overcome the resistance of a sufficiently large number of American politicians.
The first (Moscow) protocol, signed on October 1, 1941, provided for the supply of aircraft (fighters and bombers), tanks, anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, trucks, as well as aluminum, toluene, TNT, petroleum products, wheat and sugar. Further, the quantity and range of supplies constantly expanded.
Cargo delivery took place along three main routes: the Pacific, Trans-Iranian and Arctic. The fastest, but at the same time dangerous, was the Arctic route to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The ships were escorted by the British fleet, and on the approaches to Murmansk, security was reinforced by ships of the Soviet Northern Fleet. At first, the Germans practically did not pay attention to the northern convoys - their confidence in an early victory remained so great, but as the fighting became protracted, the German command pulled more and more forces to bases in Norway. The result was not long in coming.
In July 1942, the German fleet, in close cooperation with aviation, practically destroyed convoy PQ-17: 22 transport ships out of 35 were killed. Heavy losses, as well as the need to attract a large number of ships to escort ships with supplies for besieged Malta, and then prepare the landing in North Africa forced the British to stop escorting northern convoys before the onset of the polar night. Beginning in 1943, the balance of power in Arctic waters gradually began to shift towards the Allies. There were more convoys, and their escort was accompanied by fewer losses. In total, there are 4027 thousand tons of cargo along the Arctic route to the USSR. Losses did not exceed 7% of the total.
The Pacific route was less dangerous, along which 8,376 thousand tons were delivered. Transportation could only be carried out by ships flying the Soviet flag (the USSR, unlike the United States, was not at war with Japan at that time). Next, the resulting cargo had to be transported by rail through almost the entire territory of Russia.
The trans-Iranian route served as a definite alternative to the northern convoys. American transport ships delivered cargo to the ports of the Persian Gulf, and then they were delivered to Russia using rail and road transport. In order to ensure complete control over transport routes, the USSR and Great Britain occupied Iran in August 1941.
To increase capacity, large-scale modernization of the Persian Gulf ports and the Trans-Iranian Railway was carried out. General Motors also built two factories in Iran where they assembled cars intended for delivery to the USSR. In total, during the war years, these enterprises produced and sent 184,112 cars to our country. The total cargo flow through the ports of the Persian Gulf for the entire period of existence of the trans-Iranian route amounted to 4227 thousand tons.
Aircraft under the Lend-Lease program
From the beginning of 1945, after the liberation of Greece, the Black Sea route also began to function. The USSR received 459 thousand tons of cargo this way.
In addition to those noted above, there were two more air routes along which aircraft were ferried “under their own power” to the USSR. The most famous was the Alsib air bridge (Alaska - Siberia), over which 7925 aircraft were transferred. Airplanes also flew from the USA to the USSR via the South Atlantic, Africa and the Persian Gulf (993 aircraft).
For many years, the works of domestic historians indicated that supplies under Lend-Lease accounted for only about 4% of the total production of Soviet industry and agriculture. And, although there is no reason to doubt the reliability of this figure, nevertheless, “the devil is in the details.”
It is well known that the strength of a chain as a whole is determined by the strength of its weakest link. Therefore, when determining the range of American supplies, the Soviet leadership sought first of all to close “weak spots” in the army and industry. This can be seen especially clearly when analyzing the volumes of strategic raw materials supplied to the USSR. In particular, the 295.6 thousand tons of explosives received by our country amounted to 53% of all produced at domestic enterprises. Even more impressive is this ratio for copper - 76%, aluminum - 106%, tin - 223%, cobalt - 138%, wool - 102%, sugar - 66% and canned meat - 480%.
General A.M. Korolev and Major General Donald Connelly shake hands in front of a train arriving as part of Lend-Lease deliveries.
The analysis of automotive equipment supplies deserves no less close attention. In total, the USSR received 447,785 cars under Lend-Lease.
It is significant that Soviet industry produced only 265 thousand cars during the war years. Thus, the number of vehicles received from the allies was more than 1.5 times higher than our own production. In addition, these were real army vehicles, adapted for use in front-line conditions, while domestic industry supplied the army with ordinary national economic vehicles.
The role of Lend-Lease vehicles in combat operations is difficult to overestimate. To a large extent, they ensured the success of the victorious operations of 1944, which were included in the “ten Stalinist strikes.”
Considerable credit goes to allied supplies for the successful functioning of Soviet railway transport during the war. The USSR received 1,900 steam locomotives and 66 diesel-electric locomotives (these figures look especially clear against the background of its own production in 1942–1945 of 92 locomotives), as well as 11,075 cars (own production - 1,087 cars).
“Reverse Lend-Lease” also functioned in parallel. During the war years, the Allies received from the USSR 300 thousand tons of chrome and 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, as well as wood, gold and platinum.
During discussions on the topic “Could the USSR do without Lend-Lease?” many copies were broken. The author believes that, most likely, he could. Another thing is that now it is not possible to calculate what the price of this would be. If the volume of weapons supplied by the allies, to one degree or another, could well be compensated by domestic industry, then with regard to transport, as well as the production of a number of types of strategic raw materials, without supplies from the allies, the situation would very quickly become critical.
The lack of rail and road transport could easily paralyze the supply of the army and deprive it of mobility, and this, in turn, would slow down the pace of operations and increase the growth of losses. A shortage of non-ferrous metals, especially aluminum, would lead to a decrease in the production of weapons, and without food supplies it would be much more difficult to fight hunger. Surely our country would be able to survive and win even in such a situation, but it is not possible to determine how much the price of victory would increase.
The Lend-Lease program ended at the initiative of the American government on August 21, 1945, although the USSR asked to continue supplies on credit terms (it was necessary to restore the country destroyed by the war). However, by that time F. Roosevelt was no longer among the living, and the new era of the Cold War was loudly knocking on the door.
During the war, payments for supplies under Lend-Lease were not made. In 1947, the United States estimated the USSR's debt for supplies at $2.6 billion, but a year later the amount was reduced to $1.3 billion. It was planned that repayment would be made over 30 years with an interest rate of 2.3% per annum. I.V. Stalin rejected these accounts, saying that “the USSR paid off the Lend-Lease debts in full with blood.” To substantiate its point of view, the USSR cited the precedent of writing off debts for deliveries under Lend-Lease to other countries. In addition, I.V. Stalin quite reasonably did not want to give the funds of a war-ravaged country to a potential enemy in the Third World War.
An agreement on the procedure for repaying debts was concluded only in 1972. The USSR pledged to pay $722 million by 2001. But after the transfer of $48 million, payments stopped again due to the adoption by the United States of the discriminatory Jackson-Vanik amendment.
This issue was raised again in 1990 at a meeting of the presidents of the USSR and the USA. A new amount was set - $674 million - and the final repayment date was 2030. After the collapse of the USSR, obligations on this debt passed to Russia.
Summing up, we can conclude that for the United States, Lend-Lease was, first of all, in the words of F. Roosevelt, “a profitable investment of capital.” Moreover, it is not the profits directly from supplies that should be assessed, but the numerous indirect benefits that the American economy received after the end of World War II. History would have it that the post-war well-being of the United States was paid for to a large extent with the blood of Soviet soldiers. For the USSR, Lend-Lease became practically the only way to reduce the number of victims on the way to Victory. This is a “marriage of convenience”...
