how important was lend lease to the soviet union

Trucks such as the Dodge '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000003F-QINU`"'34-ton and Studebaker 2+12-ton were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. Tens of thousands of agricultural machines, such as tractors and threshers, were destroyed or captured. More than 20,000 Katyusha mobile multiple-rocket launchers were mounted on the chassis of American Studebaker trucks. The Red Army was a force to be reckoned with and was willing to sustain unlimited casualties. The Senate passed it by a vote of 63 to 1. The Soviet air force received 18,200 aircraft, which amounted to about 30 percent of Soviet wartime fighter and bomber production (mid 194145). "What do I do in such a crisis?" They Say He Burned Down the Reichstag. In September 1940, during the Battle of Britain the British government sent the Tizard Mission to the United States. During World War II, the Soviet Union received almost 15,000 U.S.-built aircraft under the lend-lease program. During the bitter fighting of the winter of 19411942, British aid made a crucial difference. Both were superior to all but the Soviet KV-1 and T-34 in armor, and indeed even their much maligned winter cross-country performance was comparable to most Soviet tanks excluding the KV-1 and T-34. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. A Soviet report by Politburo member Nikolai Voznesensky in 1948 asserted that the United States, described as "the head of the antidemocratic camp and the warrior of imperialist expansion around the world," contributed materiel during the war that amounted to just 4.8 percent of the Soviet Union's own wartime production. James Phinney Baxter III (Official Historian of the Office of Scientific Research and Development), Wolfgang Schumann (et al. Alerts and Messages for U.S. visitors to Russia. 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. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so. "[17], Opposition to the Lend-Lease bill was strongest among isolationist Republicans in Congress, who feared the measure would be "the longest single step this nation has yet taken toward direct involvement in the war abroad". Agriculture also suffered a loss of labour; between 1941 and 1945, 19.5 million working-age men had to leave their farms to work in the military and industry. In practice, very little equipment was in usable shape for peacetime uses. LEND LEASE. Churchill also granted the US base rights in Bermuda and Newfoundland for free; this act allowed their British garrison to be redeployed to more crucial theatres. The museum was established inside a former school and has been open for 8 years. ", In practice, very little was returned except for a few unarmed transport ships. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. ", In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. 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. Democrats voted 238 to 25 in favor and Republicans 24 in favor and 135 against. The Soviet government at first offered to pay $170 million. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Source: "The Soviet Union: The Defeated Victor" pp. [11] Isolationists were strongly opposed, warning it would result in American involvement with what was considered by most Americans as an essentially European conflict. [33], The program was gradually terminated after V-E Day. 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. Langer, William L. and S. Everett Gleason. Lend Lease A transformative example that demonstrated America's willingness and ability to help its allies in times of war was the aid provision America provided to Britain and the Soviet Union during World War II. This inevitably produced shortages of related products that are required for industrial or logistical uses, particularly unarmored vehicles. Congress did not allow the aid to be free, so the U.S. discounted it's Lend-Lease supplies by 90 percent of costs. [79], Congress had not authorized the gift of supplies delivered after the cutoff date, so the U.S. charged for them, usually at a 90% discount. aid from Britain can be argued to have had the most significant impact. [63] The production of heavy bombers in the United States until 1945 amounted to more than 30,000. And it is a salient point that over 80% of the aid was received after June 1942, when the tide of the war had already turned against the Germans on the Eastern Front. Then in 1972 agreement was reached on $722 . Borodin said he wished to honor and show gratitude to the United States and its veterans who rendered aid to the Soviet Union during World War II. In 1941, the threat of World War II drove passage of the Lend-Lease Act repealing key provisions of the Neutrality Acts. 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. Reverse lend-lease policies comprised services such as rent on bases used by the U.S., and totaled $7.8billion; of this, $6.8billion came from the British and the Commonwealth, mostly Australia and India. L. 77-11, H.R. Robert Coalson is a senior correspondent for RFE/RLwho covers Russia, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. But in order to sustain the war effort all the way back to Germany, Lend-Lease was decisive. "In order to really assess the significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet victory, you only have to imagine how the Soviet Union would have had to fight if there had been no Lend-Lease aid," Sokolov wrote. But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.[48]. Lend-lease will be considered, first, as a method of wartime supply allocation; second, as a method of accounting which may create inter- . [55], The Pacific Route opened in August 1941, but was affected by the start of hostilities between Japan and the U.S.; after December 1941, only Soviet ships could be used, and, as Japan and the USSR observed a strict neutrality towards each other, only non-military goods could be transported. Learn more about quality higher-education opportunities in the U.S. that you will not find anywhere else in the world. Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? Yes, in 1942 Lend-Lease was of course important for Soviet Russia. 151 Wing of the RAF, which operated briefly from Soviet airfields near Murmansk. [49], Roosevelt, eager to ensure public consent for this controversial plan, explained to the public and the press that his plan was comparable to one neighbor's lending another a garden hose to put out a fire in his home. 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. And many of the supplies needed by our Air Force are procured for us without cost by reverse lend-lease. Marshall Plan Countries. [7], During this same period, the U.S. government began to mobilize for total war, instituting the first-ever peacetime draft and a fivefold increase in the defense budget (from $2billion to $10billion). (German Language). Exmo. 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. [35] Most tank units were Soviet-built models but about 7,000 Lend-Lease tanks (plus more than 5,000 British tanks) were used by the Red Army, eight percent of war-time production. By the end of 1941 Britain had delivered 466 tanks out of the 750 promised. British and Commonwealth deliveries to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 would not only assist in the Soviet defense of Moscow and subsequent counteroffensive, but also in increasing Soviet production for the next period of the war. At a time when the majority of Americans opposed direct participation in the war, Lend-Lease represented a vital U.S. contribution to the fight against Nazi Germany. From 1941 to 1945, total lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union accounted for only 5% of the Soviet GDP in total. After a series of dramatic Nazi successes during the opening stages of Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, foreign observers predicted that Soviet resistance would soon collapse. 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Lend-Lease thus provided a massive quantity of foodstuffs and agricultural products.[44]. New Orleans. While Soviet pilots praised the maneuverability of the homegrown I-153 Chaika and I-16 Ishak fightersstill in use in significant numbers in late 1941both types were certainly obsolete and inferior in almost all regards to the British-supplied Hurricane. Britain got of their arms and ammunition from this Act. It was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy and toward open support for the Allies. [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. ): Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg. [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. An oft-quoted statement by First Vice-Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars Nikolai Voznesensky summed up the standard line that Allied aid represented only 4 percent of Soviet production for the entire war. It needed all the available resources to pressure Germany on the lands far from Moscow, where Germany was getting a degree of home advantage. Roosevelt's Soviet Protocol Committee was dominated by Harry Hopkins and General John York, who were totally sympathetic to the provision of "unconditional aid". Materials totalling $. $31 billion went to Britain, $11 billion to the Soviet Union, $3 billion to France, and $1.6 billion to China. "Transatlantic Generosity: Canada's 'Billion Dollar Gift' to the United Kingdom in the Second World War.". In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR. "I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law on March 11, 1941. 3, S. 468. Lend-Lease Helped Win World War II, But Not On The Eastern Front The evidence is here. About half of these were delivered by sea via the North Atlantic or were flown across the South Atlantic Ocean to the USSR via North Africa. And though rapid increases in tank firepower would soon render the 40mm two-pounder main gun of the Matilda and Valentine suitable for use on light tanks only, the armor protection of these British models put them firmly in the heavy and medium categories, respectively.