Under Lend-Lease, the U.S. shipped more than $50 billion in supplies equivalent to more than $700 billion today. 'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany? For foreign citizens who want to live permanently in the United States. Substantial quantities of machine tools and raw materials, such as aluminum and rubber, were supplied to help Soviet industry back on its feet: 312 metal-cutting machine tools were delivered by convoy PQ-12 alone, arriving in March 1942, along with a range of other items for Soviet factories such as machine presses and compressors. (German Language). "Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World. Britain had been paying for its materiel with gold as part of the "cash and carry" program, as required by the U.S. Neutrality Acts of the 1930s, but by 1941 it had liquidated a large part of its overseas holdings and its gold reserves were becoming depleted in paying for materiel from the United States. In April 1945, Congress voted that it should not be used for post-conflict purposes, and in August 1945, after Japan surrendered, the program was ended. How important was lend lease to Soviet Union? Although it was not entirely reasonable that Canada should pay for any construction that the Canadian Government considered unnecessary or that did not conform to Canadian requirements, nevertheless considerations of self-respect and national sovereignty led the Canadian Government to suggest a new financial agreement. 150 in July 1942, for example, was the critical factor in enabling the factory to reach projected capacity within two months. By July 1942 the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, with more than 16 percent of those imported, and more than half of those British. Secret Cipher Telegram. The Lend-Lease act was enacted in March 1941 and authorized the United States to provide weapons, provisions, and raw materials to strategically important countries fighting Germany and Japan -- primarily, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. The U.S. asked for $1.3 billion at the cessation of hostilities to settle the debt, but was only offered $170 million by the USSR. Initially, this proposal failed, but after Germany invaded Poland in September, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939 ending the munitions embargo on a "cash and carry" basis. Once again, raw figures do not tell the whole story. Together with other recently published sources, including the wartime diaries of N. I. Biriukov, a Red Army officer responsible from August 1941 on for the distribution of recently acquired tanks to the front lines, this newly available evidence paints a very different picture from the received wisdom. Lend-Lease effectively ended the United States' pretense of neutrality which had been enshrined in the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s. [34], Lend-Lease contributed to the Allied victory. As early as October 12, 1941, the Soviet 126th Fighter Air Regiment was operating with Tomahawks bought from the United States by Britain. How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? The American lend and lease system was introduced in the beginning of the war to support Great Britain in their struggle with Germany. [67][68] The British tanks first saw action with the 138 Independent Tank Battalion in the Volga Reservoir on November 20, 1941. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend-Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. 151 Wing in Operation Benedict, to provide air defence of the port and to train Soviet pilots. It allowed the USSR to conquer and subjugate eastern Europe and Manchuria and allowed them to prop up communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, China and North Korea. Lend-Lease - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org In a few paragraphs the Wiki page shows the importance of the deliveries. In all, the United States shipped $50 billion ($608 billion in 2020 money) worth of materiel under the program, including $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union. On April 28th, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act ( S.3522 ), which has now gone to President Joe Biden's desk for signature.. Canada was not a direct recipient of Lend-Lease aid. While in April 1944 Congress were briefed by the Foreign Economic Administrator, Leo T Crowley; Just as the RAF's operations against Germany and the invasion coasts would not have been possible on their present scale without lend-lease so the United States Eighth and Ninth air forces daylight missions from Britain would not have been possible without reverse lend-lease. By October, German troops were poised outside both Leningrad and Moscow. Robert Coalson is a senior correspondent for RFE/RLwho covers Russia, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. I was recently able to examine Russian-language materials of the State Defense Committeethe Soviet equivalent of the British War Cabinetheld in the former Central Party Archive. The Hurricane was rugged and tried and tested, and as useful at that point as many potentially superior Soviet designs such as the LaGG-3 and MiG-3. Britain and the Commonwealth were carrying the battle for all civilization, and the overwhelming majority of Americans, led in the late election by their president, wished to help them. United States and Britain, not the Soviet Union, China, or other United Nations . After this final payment, Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury formally issued thanks to the U.S. for its wartime support. "It was not just some piece of scrap metal. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to Britain at a large discount for 1.075billion, using long-term loans from the United States. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986. Recd 11/12/41. In particular, it shows that British Lend-Lease assistance to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 played a far more significant part in the defense of Moscow and the revival of Soviet fortunes in late 1941 than has been acknowledged. In fact the British intercepted German communications indicating that German forces had first come in contact with British tanks on the Eastern front on November 26, 1941. Soviet authorities recognized that the Great Patriotic War gave the Communist Party a claim to legitimacy that went far beyond Marxism-Leninism or the 1917 Revolution, and took pains to portray their nations victories in World War II as single-handed. [15] Though these may be considered the most significant, many other items were also transported, including designs for rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks and plastic explosives. TNA WO 193/580, Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, Allied technological cooperation during World War II, "Letter, Winston Churchill to Franklin Roosevelt, December 7, 1940, pp. It is our living history. The total of defense materials and services that Canada received through lend-lease channels amounted in value to approximately $419,500,000. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. Perhaps most directly, without Lend-Lease trucks, rail engines, and railroad cars, every Soviet offensive would have stalled at an earlier stage, outrunning its logistical tail in a matter of days. Roosevelt concluded that the United States needed to help the Soviets fight against the Germans. Materials totalling $. The lend/lease military aid program, and the Matilda's role in it, was hardly decisive to the Soviet Union's subsequent victories on the Eastern or Western front. . The aid was given for free on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States. adopted, it is in some important respects anachronistic today. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 19411942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. 28, 30, 31, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHardesty1991 (, Soviet Supply Protocols. After the war, it was transferred to civilian aviation, carrying passengers over the frozen tundra above the Arctic Circle. In practice, most equipment was destroyed, although some hardware (such as ships) was returned after the war. Actual military production was achieved by sacrificing the civilian economy for short-term gain (and likely by burning up pre-existing stockpiles of raw materials). Much of the logistical assistance of the Soviet military was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks and by 1945, nearly a third of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. On December 7, 1940, its Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed President Roosevelt in a 15-page letter for American help. The Soviets lost a substantial number of draft and farm animals as they were not able to relocate all the animals in an area before it was captured and of those areas in which the Axis forces would occupy, the Soviets had lost 7 million of out of 11.6 million horses, 17 million out of 31 million cows, 20 million of 23.6 million pigs and 27 million out of 43 million sheep and goats. Before becoming secretary of commerce in the Truman administration, he had served in two crucial posts during World War II, as Lend-Lease representative in Britain and then as U.S. ambassador to Moscow. The Lend-Lease Memorial in Fairbanks, Alaska, commemorates the shipment of U.S. aircraft to the Soviet Union along the Northwest Staging Route. The Strange Alliance, The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. 5-6. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest. [27] Other recipients were led by $11.3billion ($137billion) to the Soviet Union, $3.2billion ($38.7billion) to France, $1.6billion ($19.3billion) to China, and the remaining $2.6billion to the other Allies. In contrast, 17 Republicans (63 percent) voted "nay" while 10 Senate Republicans (37 percent) sided with the Democrats to pass the bill.[19]. The tanks reached the front lines with extraordinary speed. Moscow. [36] Most belligerent powers severely decreased production of non-essentials, concentrating on producing weapons. The captain, two crew members, and six passengers had left earlier in an ill-fated effort to get help. On April 23, 1947, this C-37 was forced to make an emergency landing with 36 people on board near the village of Volochanka on the Taimyr Peninsula. The dispute remained unresolved until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722 million linked to grain shipments from the U.S., representing 25% of the initial debt with inflation taken into account, with the remainder being written off. The Soviet Union got arms, ammunition, aircraft, and industrial equipment for its army. 106124, Albert L. Weeks The Other Side of Coexistence: An Analysis of Russian Foreign Policy, (New York, Pittman Publishing Corporation, 1974), p. 94, quoted in Albert L. Weeks, Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World, Zaloga (Armored Thunderbolt) pp. [66], By the end of 1941, early shipments of Matilda, Valentine and Tetrarch tanks represented only 6.5% of total Soviet tank production but over 25% of medium and heavy tanks produced for the Red Army. The museum was established inside a former school and has been open for 8 years. For example, in the 4 Ottawa Protocol (July 1, 1944, to June 30, 1945) the USSR requested 240 B-17 bombers and 300 B-24 bombers, none of which were supplied. At the end of November 1941, only 670 Soviet tanks were available to defend Moscowthat is, in the recently formed Kalinin, Western, and Southwestern Fronts. Agriculture also suffered a loss of labour; between 1941 and 1945, 19.5 million working-age men had to leave their farms to work in the military and industry. The records constitute the primary policy and subject files on World War II Lend-Lease to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Similarly, the Soviet Union repaid $722 million in 1971, with the remainder of the debt written off. The sole modern heavy bomber the USSR had was the Petlyakov Pe-8, and it only had 27 of them at the start of the war, with fewer than 100 produced until 1945. And the Soviet Union didn't pay much of that. It was part of a scratch operational group of the Western Front consisting of the 18th Rifle Brigade, two ski battalions, the 5th and 20th Tank Brigades, and the 140th Independent Tank Battalion. The exploits of the British-equipped 136th Independent Tank Battalion are perhaps the most widely noted in the archives. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. On April 23, 1947, it was forced to make an emergency landing with 36 people on board near the village of Volochanka on the Taimyr Peninsula. Overcoming massive defeats and colossal losses over the first 18 months of the war, the Red Army was able to reorganize and rebuild to form a juggernaut that marched all the way to Berlin. During the war, Soviet factories produced more than 29.1 million small arms of all major types, while only 152,000 small arms ( 0.5% of the total) were manufactured by American, British, and Canadian plants. The U.S. government never published detailed reports on what and how much was sent under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR. James Phinney Baxter III (Official Historian of the Office of Scientific Research and Development), Wolfgang Schumann (et al. Answer (1 of 14): Lend Lease was pretty much strategic charity. On February 24, 1943, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft with serial number 42-32892 rolled out of a factory in Long Beach, California, and was handed over to the U.S. Air Force. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. Balances for the Soviet Union were solved through a payment scheme in 1972, where they pledged to make three initial payments. Canada operated a program similar to Lend-Lease called Mutual Aid that sent a loan of Can$1billion (equivalent to Can$15.4billion in 2021)[30] and Can$3.4billion (Can$52.3billion) in supplies and services to Britain and other Allies.[31][5]. 31, enacted March 11, 1941), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, China, and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. I believe that lend lease to the USSR was a massive mistake that led directly to the cold war and all the issues associated with it. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft. Following the Nye Committee[nb 1] hearings, as well as influential books of the time, such as Merchants of Death, both 1934, the United States Congress adopted several Neutrality Acts in the 1930s, motivated by non-interventionismfollowing the aftermath of its costly involvement in World War I (the war debts were still not paid off), and seeking to ensure that the country would not become entangled in foreign conflicts again. "During World War II, only the supplies brought in by Lend-Lease prevented the paralysis of rail transport in the Soviet Union." The Lend-Lease program also sent tons of factory equipment and machine tools to the Soviet Union, including more than 38,000 lathes and other metal-working tools. Russian historian: Importance of Lend-Lease cannot be overestimated The history of Lend-Lease began on May 15, 1940 when UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked Roosevelt to temporarily. 19329 posts. The most important aspect of Lend Lease was the first few months of the war when British Aircraft and Tanks represented such a huge influx of material while the Soviets had factories still in transit etc. The Red Army was a force to be reckoned with and was willing to sustain unlimited casualties. Mystery surrounds the infamous burning of the Reichstag in 1933. .. [43] Lend-Lease also supplied significant amounts of weapons and ammunition. Officially the "Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry". The Lend-Lease Act was signed into law on March 11, 1941, and ended on September 20, 1945. Source: "The Soviet Union: The Defeated Victor" pp. [6], After the Fall of France during June 1940, the British Commonwealth and Empire were the only forces engaged in war against Germany and Italy, until the Italian invasion of Greece.