Lend-Lease. This topic needs to be brought to a wide range of people, so that people know the truth, and not the lies that have taken root in their heads en masse. The facts of the past have been distorted too much by propaganda, and patriotic impostors of all stripes confidently operate with the distorted product of propaganda as a generally accepted fact. And therefore Lend-Lease turned out to be a blank spot in the history of Russia for its population. If official propaganda mentions Lend-Lease, it is in passing, as an insignificant fact that supposedly did not have a significant impact on the course of the war. In fact, the influence and role of Lend-Lease on the course of the Second World War turned out to be enormous. History has never known anything like this.

What is it -Lend-Lease?

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill first asked US President Franklin Roosevelt for temporary use of American weapons on May 15, 1940, proposing to temporarily transfer 40–50 old destroyers to Great Britain in exchange for British naval and air bases in the Atlantic Ocean.

The deal took place in August 1940, but on its basis the idea of ​​a broader program arose. By order of Roosevelt, a working group was formed at the US Treasury Department in the fall of 1940 to prepare a corresponding bill. The ministry's legal advisers, E. Foley and O. Cox, proposed relying on the law of 1892, which allowed the Secretary of War, “when at his discretion it would be in the interests of the state,” to lease “for a period of no more than five years army property if it is not needed a country".

Employees of the military and naval ministries were also involved in the work on the project. On January 10, 1941, relevant hearings began in the US Senate and House of Representatives, on March 11, the Lend-Lease Act was signed, and on March 27, the US Congress voted to allocate the first appropriation for military aid in the amount of $7 billion.

Roosevelt compared the approved scheme for lending military materials and equipment to a hose given to a neighbor during a fire so that the flames would not spread to one’s own home. I don’t need him to pay for the cost of the hose, the US President said, “I need him to return my hose to me after the fire is over.”

The supplies included weapons, industrial equipment, merchant ships, automobiles, food, fuel and medicine. According to established principles, United States-supplied vehicles, military equipment, weapons, and other materials destroyed, lost, or used during the war were not subject to payment. Only property left after the war and suitable for civilian use had to be paid in full or in part, and the United States provided long-term loans for such payment.

The surviving military materials remained with the recipient country, but the American administration retained the right to demand them back. After the end of the war, customer countries could buy equipment whose production had not yet been completed, or which was stored in warehouses, using American long-term loans. The delivery period was initially set until June 30, 1943, but was then extended annually. Finally, the law provided for the possibility of refusing to supply certain equipment if it was considered secret or was needed by the United States itself.

In total, during the war, the United States provided Lend-Lease assistance to the governments of 42 countries, including Great Britain, the USSR, China, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, etc., amounting to approximately $48 billion.

Lend-Lease- (from the English lend - “to lend” and lease - “to rent, rent”) - a government program under which the United States of America, mostly free of charge, transferred ammunition, equipment, and food to its allies in World War II and strategic raw materials, including petroleum products.

The concept of this program gave the President of the United States the power to assist any country whose defense was deemed vital to his country. The Lend Lease Act, full name "An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States", passed by the US Congress on March 11, 1941, provided that:

supplied materials (machines, various military equipment, weapons, raw materials, other items) destroyed, lost and used during the war are not subject to payment (Article 5)

The property transferred under Lend-Lease, remaining after the end of the war and suitable for civilian purposes, will be paid for in whole or in part on the basis of long-term loans provided by the United States (mostly interest-free loans).

The provisions of Lend-Lease provided that after the war, if the American side was interested, undamaged and not lost equipment and machinery should be returned to the United States.

In total, deliveries under Lend-Lease amounted to about $50.1 billion (equivalent to approximately $610 billion in 2008 prices), of which $31.4 billion was supplied to the UK, $11.3 billion to the USSR, $3.2 billion to France and $1.6 billion to China. Reverse Lend-Lease (supplies from allies to the USA) amounted to $7.8 billion, of which $6.8 billion went to the UK and Commonwealth countries.

In the post-war period, various assessments of the role of Lend-Lease were expressed. In the USSR, the importance of supplies was often downplayed, while abroad it was argued that the victory over Germany was determined by Western weapons and that without Lend-Lease the Soviet Union would not have survived.

Soviet historiography usually stated that the amount of Lend-Lease assistance to the USSR was quite small - only about 4% of the funds spent by the country on the war, and tanks and aircraft were supplied mainly of outdated models. Today, the attitude in the countries of the former USSR to the assistance of the allies has changed somewhat, and attention has also begun to be drawn to the fact that for a number of items, supplies were of no small importance, both in terms of the significance of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the supplied equipment, and in terms of access to new types of weapons and industrial equipment.

Canada had a Lend-Lease program similar to the American one, under which supplies amounted to $4.7 billion, mainly to Great Britain and the USSR.

Volume of supplies and meaning of Lend-Lease

Materials totaling $50.1 billion (about $610 billion in 2008 prices) were sent to recipients, including:

Reverse Lend-Lease (for example, lease of air bases) was received by the United States in the amount of $7.8 billion, of which $6.8 billion came from Great Britain and the British Commonwealth. Reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR amounted to $2.2 million.

The importance of Lend-Lease in the victory of the United Nations over the Axis powers is illustrated by the table below, which shows the GDP of the main countries participating in World War II, from 1938 to 1945, in billions of dollars in 1990 prices.

As the table above shows (from American sources), by December 1941, the GDP of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition (USSR + Great Britain) correlated with the GDP of Germany and its European allies as 1:1. It is worth considering, however, that by this time Great Britain was exhausted by the naval blockade and could not help the USSR in any significant way in the short term. Moreover, by the end of 1941, Great Britain was still losing the Battle of the Atlantic, which was fraught with complete collapse for the country’s economy, which was almost entirely dependent on foreign trade.

The USSR's GDP in 1942, in turn, due to the occupation of large territories by Germany, decreased by about a third compared to the pre-war level, while out of a population of 200 million, about 78 million remained in the occupied territories.

Thus, in 1942, the USSR and Great Britain were inferior to Germany and its satellites both in terms of GDP (0.9:1) and in population (taking into account the losses of the USSR due to the occupation). In this situation, the US leadership was aware of the need to provide urgent military-technical assistance to both countries. Moreover, the United States was the only country in the world that had sufficient production capacity to provide such support in a short enough time frame to influence the course of hostilities in 1942. Throughout 1941, the United States continued to increase military assistance to Great Britain, and on October 1, 1941, Roosevelt approved the inclusion of the USSR in Lend-Lease.

Lend-Lease, coupled with increasing aid to Great Britain in its Battle of the Atlantic, proved to be a critical factor in bringing the United States into the war, especially on the European front. Hitler, when declaring war on the United States on December 11, 1941, mentioned both of these factors as key in his decision to go to war with the United States.

It should be noted that sending American and British military equipment to the USSR led to the need to supply it with hundreds of thousands of tons of aviation fuel, millions of shells for guns and cartridges for SMGs and machine guns, spare tracks for tanks, spare tires, spare parts for tanks, planes and cars. Already in 1943, when the Allied leadership ceased to doubt the USSR’s ability to fight a long-term war, they began to import mainly strategic materials (aluminum, etc.) and machine tools for Soviet industry into the USSR.

Already after the first deliveries under Lend-Lease, Stalin began to voice complaints about the unsatisfactory technical characteristics of the supplied aircraft and tanks. Indeed, among the equipment supplied to the USSR there were samples that were inferior to both the Soviet and, most importantly, the German. As an example, we can cite the frankly unsuccessful model of the aviation reconnaissance spotter Curtiss 0-52, which the Americans simply sought to attach somewhere and forced it on us almost for nothing, in excess of the approved order.

However, in general, Stalin’s claims, subsequently thoroughly inflated by Soviet propaganda, at the stage of secret correspondence with the leaders of the allied countries were simply a form of pressure on them. Leasing relations assumed, in particular, the right of the receiving party to independently choose and negotiate the type and characteristics of the required products. And if the Red Army considered American technology unsatisfactory, then what was the point of ordering it?

As for official Soviet propaganda, it preferred to downplay the importance of American assistance in every possible way, or even to ignore it altogether. In March 1943, the American ambassador in Moscow, without hiding his resentment, allowed himself an undiplomatic statement: “The Russian authorities apparently want to hide the fact that they are receiving outside help. Obviously, they want to assure their people that the Red Army is fighting in this war alone." And during the Yalta Conference of 1945, Stalin was forced to admit that Lend-Lease was Roosevelt’s remarkable and most fruitful contribution to the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition.

Mk II "Matilda II";, Mk III "Valentine" and Mk IV "Valentine"

Churchill tank

M4 General Sherman

Intantry Tank Mk.III Valentine II, Kubinka, May 2005

Routes and volumes of supplies

The American P-39 Aircobra is the best fighter of World War II. Of the 9.5 thousand Cobras launched into the sky, 5 thousand were in the hands of Soviet pilots. This is one of the most striking examples of military cooperation between the USA and the USSR

Soviet pilots adored the American Cobra, which more than once carried them out of deadly battles. The legendary ace A. Pokryshkin, flying Airacobras since the spring of 1943, destroyed 48 enemy aircraft in air battles, bringing the total score to 59 victories.

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, 8 August 1945). Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, and on September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR were stopped.

Allied supplies were distributed very unevenly throughout the years of the war. In 1941-1942. the stipulated obligations were constantly not fulfilled, the situation returned to normal only in the second half of 1943.

The main routes and volume of transported goods are shown in the table below

Three routes - the Pacific, Trans-Iranian and Arctic convoys - provided a total of 93.5% of total supplies. None of these routes were completely safe.

The fastest (and most dangerous) route was the Arctic convoys. In July-December 1941, 40% of all deliveries went along this route, and about 15% of the goods sent ended up on the ocean floor. The sea part of the journey from the east coast of the USA to Murmansk took about 2 weeks.

Cargo with northern convoys also went through Arkhangelsk and Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk), from where cargo went to the front along a hastily completed railway line. The bridge across the Northern Dvina did not yet exist, and to transport equipment in the winter, a meter-thick layer of ice was frozen from river water, since the natural thickness of the ice (65 cm in the winter of 1941) did not allow the rails with cars to withstand. Then the cargo was sent by rail to the south, to the central, rear part of the USSR.

The Pacific route, which provided about half of Lend-Lease supplies, was relatively (though far from completely) safe. Since the beginning of the war in the Pacific Ocean on December 7, 1941, transportation here could only be provided by Soviet sailors, and trade and transport ships sailed only under the Soviet flag. All ice-free straits were controlled by Japan, and Soviet ships were subject to forced inspection and sometimes sunk. The sea part of the journey from the west coast of the USA to the Far Eastern ports of the USSR took 18-20 days.

The first deliveries to the USSR along the Trans-Iranian route began in November 1941, when 2,972 tons of cargo were sent. To increase supply volumes, it was necessary to carry out a large-scale modernization of Iran's transport system, in particular, ports in the Persian Gulf and the Trans-Iranian railway. To this end, the Allies (USSR and Great Britain) occupied Iran in August 1941. Since May 1942, deliveries averaged 80-90 thousand tons per month, and in the second half of 1943 - up to 200,000 tons per month. Further, cargo delivery was carried out by ships of the Caspian Military Flotilla, which until the end of 1942 were subject to active attacks by German aircraft. The sea part of the journey from the east coast of the United States to the shores of Iran took about 75 days. Several automobile factories were built specifically for the needs of Lend-Lease in Iran, which were managed by General Motors Overseas Corporation. The largest ones were called TAP I (Truck Assembly Plant I) in Andimeshk and TAP II in Khorramshahr. In total, during the war years, 184,112 cars were sent from Iranian enterprises to the USSR. The cars were transported along the following routes: Tehran - Ashgabat, Tehran - Astara - Baku, Julfa - Ordzhonikidze.

It should be noted that during the war there were two more Lend-Lease air routes. According to one of them, planes flew “under their own power” to the USSR from the USA through the South Atlantic, Africa and the Persian Gulf, according to another - through Alaska, Chukotka and Siberia. The second route, known as Alsib (Alaska - Siberia), carried 7,925 aircraft.

The range of supplies under Lend-Lease was determined by the Soviet government and was intended to plug the “bottlenecks” in the supply of our industry and army.

Supply value

Already in November 1941, in his letter to US President Roosevelt, I.V. Stalin wrote:

Marshal Zhukov said in post-war conversations:

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:

Quote:

Here's Mikoyan:

Quote:

The main chassis for the Katyushas was the Lend-Lease Studebakers (specifically, the Studebaker US6). While the States provided about 20 thousand vehicles for our “fighting girl,” only 600 trucks were produced in the USSR (mainly ZIS-6 chassis). Almost all Katyushas assembled on the basis of Soviet cars were destroyed by the war. To date, only four Katyusha rocket launchers have survived throughout the CIS, which were created on the basis of domestic ZiS-6 trucks. One is in the St. Petersburg Artillery Museum, and the second is in Zaporozhye. The third mortar based on the “lorry” stands like a monument in Kirovograd. The fourth stands in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

The USSR received a significant number of cars from the USA and other allies: in the Red Army's vehicle fleet there were 5.4% of imported cars in 1943, in 1944 in the SA - 19%, on May 1, 1945 - 32.8% ( 58.1% were domestically produced vehicles and 9.1% were captured vehicles). During the war years, the Red Army's vehicle fleet was replenished with a large number of new vehicles, largely due to imports. The army received 444,700 new vehicles, of which 63.4% were imported and 36.6% were domestic. The main replenishment of the army with domestically produced cars was carried out at the expense of old cars withdrawn from the national economy. 62% of all vehicles received were tractors, of which 60% were Studebaker, as the best of all the brands of tractors received, largely replacing horse-drawn traction and tractors for towing 75-mm and 122-mm artillery systems. The Dodge 3/4 ton vehicle, towing anti-tank artillery guns (up to 88 mm), also showed good performance. A big role was played by the Willys passenger car with 2 drive axles, which had good maneuverability and was a reliable means of reconnaissance, communications and command and control. In addition, the Willys was used as a tractor for anti-tank artillery (up to 45 mm). Among special-purpose vehicles, it is worth noting the Ford amphibians (based on the Willys vehicle), which were assigned as part of special battalions to tank armies to conduct reconnaissance operations when crossing water obstacles, and the Jiemsi (GMC, based on a truck of the same brand), used mainly by engineering in parts when constructing crossings. The USA and the British Empire supplied 18.36% of the aviation gasoline used by Soviet aviation during the war; True, American and British aircraft supplied under Lend-Lease were mainly refueled with this gasoline, while domestic aircraft could be refueled with domestic gasoline with a lower octane number.

American Ea series steam locomotive

According to other data, the USSR received under Lend-Lease 622.1 thousand tons of railway rails (56.5% of its own production), 1900 locomotives (2.4 times more than those produced during the war years in the USSR) and 11075 cars ( 10.2 times more), 3 million 606 thousand tires (43.1%), 610 thousand tons of sugar (41.8%), 664.6 thousand tons of canned meat (108%). The USSR received 427 thousand cars and 32 thousand army motorcycles, while in the USSR from the beginning of the war to the end of 1945, only 265.6 thousand cars and 27816 motorcycles were produced (here it is necessary to take into account the pre-war amount of equipment). The United States supplied 2 million 13 thousand tons of aviation gasoline (together with the allies - 2 million 586 thousand tons) - almost two-thirds of the fuel used by Soviet aviation during the war. At the same time, in the article from which the figures in this paragraph are taken, B.V. Sokolov’s article “The Role of Lend-Lease in the Soviet Military Efforts, 1941-1945” appears as a source. However, the article itself says that the USA and Britain together supplied only 1216.1 thousand tons of aviation gasoline, and to the USSR in 1941-1945. 5,539 thousand tons of aviation gasoline were produced, that is, Western supplies amounted to only 18% of total Soviet consumption during the war. If we consider that this was the percentage of aircraft in the Soviet aircraft fleet delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease, then it is obvious that gasoline was imported specifically for imported aircraft. Along with aircraft, the USSR received hundreds of tons of aviation spare parts, aviation ammunition, fuel, special airfield equipment and equipment, including 9351 American radios for installation on Soviet-made fighters, and aircraft navigation equipment (radio compasses, autopilots, radars, sextants, attitude indicators).

Comparative data on the role of Lend-Lease in providing the Soviet economy with certain types of materials and food during the war are given below:

And here is the first lie, which many repeat to this day, not knowing its origin and source:

The first official historical assessment of the role of Lend-Lease was given by the Chairman of the State Planning Committee Nikolai Voznesensky in his book “The Military Economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War,” published in 1948:

Quote:

The 4% figure was published without further comment and raised many questions. In particular, it was unclear how Voznesensky and his collaborators calculated these percentages. It was difficult to estimate Soviet GDP in monetary terms due to the lack of convertibility of the ruble. If the count was based on units of production, then it is not clear how tanks were compared with airplanes, and food with aluminum.

Voznesensky himself was soon arrested in connection with the Leningrad case and executed in 1950, and, accordingly, could not give comments. Nevertheless, the figure of 4% was subsequently widely cited in the USSR as reflecting the official point of view on the significance of Lend-Lease.

Lend-Lease debts and their payment

Immediately after the war, the United States sent countries that received Lend-Lease assistance an offer to return surviving military equipment and pay off the debt in order to obtain new loans. Since the Lend-Lease Act provided for the write-off of used military equipment and materials, the Americans insisted on paying only for civilian supplies: railways, power plants, ships, trucks and other equipment that were in the recipient countries as of September 2, 1945. The United States did not demand compensation for military equipment destroyed during the battles.

Great Britain
The volume of Great Britain's debts to the United States amounted to $4.33 billion, to Canada - $1.19 billion. The last payment in the amount of $83.25 million (to the United States) and $22.7 million (Canada) was made on December 29, 2006. The main debt was compensated for account of the presence of American bases in Great Britain

China
China's debt to the United States for supplies under Lend-Lease amounted to $187 million. Since 1979, the United States has recognized the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate government of China, and therefore the heir to all previous agreements (including supplies under Lend-Lease). However, in 1989, the United States demanded that Taiwan (not China) repay the Lend-Lease debt. The further fate of the Chinese debt is unclear.

USSR (Russia)
The volume of American supplies under Lend-Lease amounted to about 11 billion US dollars. According to the Lend-Lease law, only equipment that survived the war was subject to payment; To agree on the final amount, Soviet-American negotiations began immediately after the end of the war. At the 1948 negotiations, Soviet representatives agreed to pay only a small amount and were met with a predictable refusal from the American side. The 1949 negotiations also came to nothing. In 1951, the Americans twice reduced the payment amount, which became equal to $800 million, but the Soviet side agreed to pay only $300 million. According to the Soviet government, the calculation should have been carried out not in accordance with the actual debt, but on the basis of precedent. This precedent should have been the proportions in determining the debt between the United States and Great Britain, which were fixed back in March 1946.

An agreement with the USSR on the procedure for repaying debts under Lend-Lease was concluded only in 1972. Under this agreement, the USSR agreed to pay $722 million, including interest, by 2001. By July 1973, three payments were made for a total of $48 million, after which payments were stopped due to the introduction of discriminatory measures by the American side in trade with the USSR (Jackson-Vanik Amendment). In June 1990, during negotiations between the presidents of the USA and the USSR, the parties returned to discussing debt. A new deadline for final debt repayment was set - 2030, and the amount - $674 million.

After the collapse of the USSR, the debt for assistance was transferred to Russia (Yeltsin, Kozyrev); as of 2003, Russia owes approximately 100 million US dollars.

Thus, out of the total volume of American deliveries under Lend-Lease of $11 billion, the USSR and then Russia paid $722 million, or about 7%.

It should be noted, however, that taking into account the inflationary depreciation of the dollar, this figure will be significantly (several times) less. Thus, by 1972, when the amount of debt for Lend-Lease in the amount of $722 million was agreed upon with the United States, the dollar had depreciated 2.3 times since 1945. However, in 1972, only $48 million was paid to the USSR, and an agreement to pay the remaining $674 million was reached in June 1990, when the purchasing power of the dollar was already 7.7 times lower than at the end of 1945. Subject to the payment of $674 million in 1990, the total volume of Soviet payments in 1945 prices amounted to about 110 million US dollars, that is, about 1% of the total cost of Lend-Lease supplies. But most of what was supplied was either destroyed by the war, or, like shells, was spent for the needs of the war, or, at the end of the war, in accordance with the Lend-Lease Act, was returned to the United States.

France

On May 28, 1946, France signed a package of treaties with the United States (known as the Bloom-Byrnes Agreement) that settled the French Lend-Lease debt in exchange for a series of trade concessions from France. In particular, France has significantly increased quotas for the screening of foreign (primarily American) films on the French film market.

By 1960, almost all countries had paid off their debt, except the USSR.

During negotiations in 1948, Soviet representatives agreed to pay a small amount, but the United States rejected this offer. Negotiations in 1949 were also unsuccessful. In 1951, the American side reduced the amount it demanded to $800 million, but the USSR was ready to pay only 300 million, citing the proportions agreed upon by Great Britain and the United States in 1946. Only in 1972 did Soviet and American representatives sign an agreement in Washington on phased payment The Soviet Union amounted to $722 million until 2001. By July 1973, only $48 million had been paid, after which further payments ceased: the Soviet side thus protested against restrictions imposed on trade between the two countries. Only in June 1990 did the presidents of the USSR and the USA agree to pay off the debt by 2030. The agreed amount was measured at $674 million.

Now it’s easy to say that Lend-Lease didn’t mean anything - you can’t check it

Stalin, both during and after the war, stubbornly did not want to advertise the help of the allies of the USSR, so that the crown of the winner belonged only to him. In the Soviet military-historical literature of the “stagnation period” it was stated that deliveries under Lend-Lease amounted to only 4% of all weapons and military equipment produced in the USSR during the war years.

Digital data confirming the above statements of Zhukov and Mikoyan can be found in the studies of I.P. Lebedev 2) who writes: “During the war, the USSR received from the allies 18,700 (according to other sources, 22,200) aircraft, including Airacobra, Kitty Hawk, Tomahawk, Hurricane fighters, from the allies. ", medium bombers B-25, A-20 "Boston", transport C-47, 12,200 tanks and self-propelled guns, 100 thousand kilometers of telephone wire, 2.5 million telephones; 15 million pairs of boots, more than 50 thousand tons of leather for sewing shoes, 54 thousand meters of wool, 250 thousand tons of stewed meat, 300 thousand tons of fat, 65 thousand tons of cow butter, 700 thousand tons of sugar, 1860 steam locomotives, 100 tanks on wheels, 70 electric diesel locomotives, about a thousand self-unloading cars, 10 thousand railway platforms With their help, 344 thousand tons of explosives, almost 2 million tons of petroleum products, and another 2.5 million tons of special steel for armor, 400 thousand tons of copper and bronze, 250 thousand tons of aluminum were delivered to the front and rear from the allies. aluminum, according to experts, it was possible to build 100 thousand fighters and bombers - almost as many as our aircraft factories produced during the entire war" (Lebedev I.P. 1)

The contributions of other allies should also be noted. Aid in arms and military materials provided to the Soviet Union by Great Britain from the summer of 1941 to September 8, 1945 amounted to 318 million pounds sterling, or 15% of the total amount of aid. It was in the first months of the war that the British military assistance that Stalin asked for and received was very significant. English Spitfires and Hurricanes defended not only our capital, but also Stalingrad, the North and South of Russia, the Caucasus, and Belarus. It was on Hurricanes that the Heroes of the Soviet Union, Amet Khan Sultan, I. Stepanenko, and A. Ryazanov, won their victories twice.

Starting with the third protocol (came into force on July 1, 1943), Canada began to take direct part in providing assistance to the USSR. Canadian supplies included weapons, industrial equipment, non-ferrous metals, steel, rolled products, chemicals, and food. To provide assistance to the USSR in 1943-1946. about C$167.3 million was spent, or 6.7% of the total aid.

We also point out that the annotated list of ships and vessels, including the battleship, transferred to us by the allies under Lend-Lease is over four hundred pages.

It should be added that the USSR received assistance from its allies not only under the Lend-Lease program. In the United States, in particular, the “Russia War Relief Committee” was created. “Using the money collected, the committee purchased and sent medicines, medical supplies and equipment, food, and clothing to the Red Army and the Soviet people. In total, during the war, the Soviet Union received assistance worth more than one and a half billion dollars.” In England, a similar committee was headed by Clementine Churchill, the wife of the Prime Minister.

The Soviet government noted that supplies from the United States and other countries “contributed to the successes of the Red Army in liberating its native land from fascist invaders and in accelerating the overall victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany and its satellites.”

Notes

1) “It can definitely be said that Stalin would never have been able to launch a large-scale counter-offensive of the Red Army if it were not for 150 thousand heavy Studebaker trucks received from the USA” (I. Bunich. Operation “Thunderstorm”, or Error in the third sign. T 2. St. Petersburg, 1994. P. 269. The adverb “never” is highlighted by I. Bunich.

2) I.P. Lebedev - Major General of Aviation, member of the USSR Purchasing Commission in the USA; worked on the reception of A-20 Boston bombers.

Downplaying the role of Western supplies in Soviet military conditions was aimed primarily at establishing the myth of the “economic victory of socialism” during the Great Patriotic War and the superiority of the Soviet military economy over the war economies of capitalist countries, not only Germany, but also Great Britain and the United States. Only after 1985 did Soviet publications begin to come across different assessments of allied assistance. So, Marshal G.K. Zhukov, in post-war conversations with the writer K.M. Simonov, stated:

“When talking about our preparedness for war from the point of view of the economy, we cannot ignore such a factor as subsequent assistance from the allies. First of all, of course, from the Americans, because the British helped us minimally in this sense. When analyzing all sides of the war, this cannot be discounted. We would have been in dire straits without American gunpowder; we would not have been able to produce the quantity of ammunition that we needed. Without American Studebakers, we would have nothing to carry our artillery with. Yes, they largely provided our front-line transport. The production of special steels needed for a variety of war needs was also associated with a number of American supplies.”

The Red Army's vehicle fleet was also largely supplied from Western supplies. Car production in the USSR in 1940 amounted to 145,390, in 1941 - 124,476, in 1942 -34,976, in 1943 - 49,266, in 1944 -60,549, in 1945 - 74,757. Moreover, in the first half of 1941, 73.2 thousand cars were produced, and in the second - only 46.1 thousand, so from the beginning of the war until the end of 1945, the total production of cars can be determined at 265.6 thousand. things. During the war years, 409.5 thousand cars were delivered from the USA to the USSR, which was 1.5 times higher than Soviet production during the war years. By the end of the war (as of May 1, 1945), the vehicles supplied under Lend-Lease accounted for 32.8% of the Red Army's vehicle fleet (58.1% were domestically produced vehicles and 9.1% were captured vehicles). Taking into account the greater carrying capacity and better quality, the role of American vehicles was even greater (Studebakers, in particular, were used as artillery tractors). The pre-war fleet of Soviet cars (both those in the Red Army and those withdrawn from the national economy at the beginning of the war) was very worn out. Before the war, the Red Army's needs for vehicles were determined to be 744 thousand cars and 92 thousand tractors, but 272.6 thousand cars and 42 thousand tractors were available. It was planned to remove 240 thousand cars from the national economy, including 210 thousand trucks (GAZ-AA and ZIS-5), however, due to the severe deterioration of the vehicle fleet (for passenger cars, cars belonging to the 1st and 2nd categories , i.e., those that did not require immediate repair, was 45%, and for trucks and special ones - 68%), only 206 thousand vehicles were actually withdrawn from the national economy in the first months of the war, while by August 22, 1941. irretrievable losses of cars reached 271.4 thousand. Obviously, without Western supplies, the Red Army would not have gained the degree of mobility that it had at least since mid-1943, although until the end of the war, the use of vehicles was constrained by a lack of gasoline.

Motor gasoline in the USSR in 1941-1945. 10,923 thousand tons were produced (including 2,983 thousand tons in 1941), and 267.1 thousand short, or 242.3 thousand metric, tons were received from the USA under Lend-Lease, which amounted to only 2, 8% of total Soviet production during the war (minus production for the first half of 1941). True, the actual role of American gasoline was somewhat higher due to higher octane numbers. The USSR could not satisfy its own needs for this type of fuel, and the shortage of gasoline in the Red Army persisted until the end of the war. Obviously, this situation was partly a consequence of the irrational preparation of applications for Lend-Lease assistance by the Soviet side - it would have been more expedient to ask for fewer cars and more gasoline.

Also, the functioning of Soviet railway transport would have been impossible without Lend-Lease. The production of railway rails (including narrow gauge rails) in the USSR changed as follows (in thousand tons): 1940 - 1360, 1941 - 874, 1942 - 112, 1943 - 115, 1944 - 129, 1945 - 308. Under Lend-Lease, in The USSR was supplied with 685.7 thousand short tons of railway rails, which is equal to 622.1 thousand metric tons. This amounts to about 56.5% of the total production of railway rails in the USSR from mid-1941 to the end of 1945. If we exclude from the calculation narrow gauge rails, which were not supplied under Lend-Lease, then American supplies will amount to 83.3% the total volume of Soviet production.

Even more noticeable was the role of Lend-Lease supplies in maintaining the required level of the size of the Soviet fleet of locomotives and railway cars. The production of mainline steam locomotives in the USSR changed as follows: in 1940—914, in 1941—708, in 1942—9, in 1943—43, in 1944—32, in 1945—8. 5 mainline diesel locomotives were produced in 1940, and in 1941 - 1, 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. Under Lend-Lease, 1,900 steam locomotives and 66 diesel-electric locomotives were delivered to the USSR during the war years. Thus, deliveries under Lend-Lease exceeded the total Soviet production of steam locomotives in 1941-1945. by 2.4 times, and for electric locomotives - by 11 times. The production of freight cars in the USSR in 1942-1945 amounted to a total of 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 1942 —1945 It is known that during the First World War, the transport crisis in Russia at the turn of 1916-1917, which largely provoked the revolution of February 1917, was caused by insufficient production of railway rails, steam locomotives and cars, since industrial capacities and rolling resources were reoriented to the production of weapons . During the Great Patriotic War, only Lend-Lease supplies prevented the paralysis of railway transport in the Soviet Union.

Western supplies were of decisive importance in providing the national economy with non-ferrous metals. Figures of Soviet production of basic non-ferrous metals in 1941-1945. still remain secret, so here we have to rely not on official data, but on estimates.

Facts of deliberate overreporting - an ineradicable vice of the socialist planned economy - are known in relation to weapons and military equipment in the USSR both in the pre- and post-war years.

According to our estimates, based on the reduction in labor costs per unit of various types of weapons and equipment in 1941-1943, the production of tanks and combat aircraft during the war was at least doubled. Taking this into account, the share of Western supplies of weapons and military equipment turns out to be approximately twice as high as is commonly believed.

But perhaps most important to the Soviet Union were the supplies of sophisticated machine tools and industrial equipment. Back in 1939-1940. The Soviet leadership placed orders for imported equipment for the production of artillery weapons. Then these orders, placed mainly in the USA, were delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease. Namely, there was the greatest need for special machines for artillery production during the war years in the USSR. At the same time, these orders also contained a major miscalculation. A significant proportion of the equipment was intended for the production of purely offensive weapons - powerful naval and super-heavy land weapons designed to destroy enemy fortifications. Naval guns were not needed, since shipbuilding was curtailed at the beginning of the war; super-heavy land artillery was also not needed, since the Red Army had to fight the corresponding fortifications only at the very end of the war, and not on the scale that was thought before it began.

In general, we can conclude that without Western supplies, the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, but would not even have been able to withstand the German invasion, not being able to produce a sufficient number of weapons and military equipment and provide it with fuel and ammunition. This dependence was well understood by the Soviet leadership at the beginning of the war. For example, Special Presidential Envoy F.D. Roosevelt G. Hopkins reported in a message dated July 31, 1941 that Stalin considered it impossible to resist the material power of Germany, which had the resources of occupied Europe, without American help from Great Britain and the USSR. Roosevelt, back in October 1940, announcing his decision to allow the War Department to provide weapons and equipment surplus to the needs of the American armed forces, as well as strategic materials and industrial equipment to those countries that could defend American national interests, allowed the inclusion of and Russia.

The Western allies provided assistance to the USSR in preparing for war not only with supplies under Lend-Lease. The fight against the USA and Great Britain forced Germany to build submarines, diverting scarce metal, equipment and skilled labor. Only in 1941-1944. German shipbuilding produced submarines with a total displacement of 810 thousand tons. The main forces of the German fleet were sent to fight against the fleets and merchant shipping of Western countries (including convoys with supplies to the USSR under Lend-Lease). The Western allies also diverted significant ground forces of the Wehrmacht (in the last year of the war - up to 40%). Strategic bombing of Germany by Anglo-American aircraft slowed down the growth of its military industry, and in the last year of the war practically reduced gasoline production in Germany to nothing, completely paralyzing the Luftwaffe. From March to September 1944, the production of aviation gasoline in Germany, carried out almost exclusively at synthetic fuel factories - the main target of Allied bombing during that period, decreased from 181 thousand tons to 10 thousand tons, and after some growth in November - to 49 thousand t - in March 1945 it completely disappeared. The main forces of German aviation, especially fighter aircraft, acted against the British and US Air Forces, and it was in the fight against the Western allies that the Luftwaffe suffered the bulk of its losses. The Soviet estimate of the losses of German aviation on the Soviet-German front: 62 thousand vehicles and 101 thousand aircraft, which amounted to irretrievable combat losses of German aviation during the entire war, is far from reality, since it was obtained by simply multiplying the number of German aircraft in individual theaters of war by the time of deployment of combat operations in a given theater, without taking into account the comparative intensity of combat operations (in sorties) in different theaters. Meanwhile, in the West, the intensity of air combat was generally higher than in the East, and the best German pilots fought there. Thus, in July and August 1943, when significant Luftwaffe forces were concentrated on the Eastern Front during the battles for Kursk, Orel and Kharkov, of the 3,213 irretrievably lost combat aircraft, only 1,030 aircraft, or 32.3%, fell on the Eastern Front. , approximately the same part of all irretrievable losses during the war was suffered by the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front.

Since without the assistance of Great Britain and the USA the USSR could not have waged a war against Germany, the assertions of Soviet propaganda about the economic victory of socialism in the Great Patriotic War and the ability of the USSR to independently defeat Germany are nothing more than a myth. Unlike Germany, in the USSR the goal, outlined in the early 1930s, to create an autarkic economy capable of providing the army in wartime with everything necessary to wage a modern war, was never achieved. Hitler and his advisers miscalculated not so much in determining the military-economic power of the USSR, but in assessing the ability of the Soviet economic and political system to function in conditions of severe military defeat, as well as the ability of the Soviet economy to effectively and quickly use Western supplies, and for Great Britain and the United States to implement such supplies in the required quantity and on time.

Historians are now faced with a new problem - to assess how Western supplies of industrial equipment under Lend-Lease, as well as supplies from Germany as part of reparations, contributed to the formation of a Soviet military-industrial complex capable of conducting an arms race with the West on equal terms, right up to the very end. time, and determine the degree of dependence of the Soviet military-industrial complex on imports from the West for the entire post-war period.

CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC

There are different opinions about the role of Lend-Lease in the defeat of German Nazism and its allies. So, Churchill called him " the most selfless act in the history of all countries". And in Stalin's message to US President Truman dated June 11, 1945, it was noted that "the agreement on the basis of which the United States throughout the war in Europe supplied the USSR with strategic materials and food through Lend-Lease played an important role in significant degree contributed to the successful completion of the war against the common enemy - Hitler's Germany."

Of the almost 18 million tons of cargo sent to the Soviet Union, more than a quarter - over 4.5 million tons - were food products

American food supplied from the United States under Lend-Lease made life easier for the country at war. Foreign products helped survive in the post-war years

Food supplies under Lend-Lease provided the Red Army with high-calorie food throughout the entire period of the war(!!!).

In Arkhangelsk alone, during the first war winter, 20 thousand people died from hunger and disease - every tenth resident. And if not for the 10,000 tons of Canadian wheat left with Stalin’s consent, the number of deaths would have been much higher.

Undoubtedly, such an assessment is the only correct one and fully reflects gratitude for the help of the Soviet people and the Armed Forces of the USSR, who first of all felt its results. Unfortunately, with the beginning of the Cold War, the importance of Lend-Lease was either hushed up or downplayed. It became a common opinion that supplies under Lend-Lease were not essential for the victory over Germany, because They made up a small share of the total production of weapons, ammunition and military equipment in the USSR in 1941-1945, so that the Americans received huge profits, and the Soviet people actually paid for them with their blood.

You can’t call all this untrue. But a more detailed analysis allows us to reconsider the attitude towards Lend-Lease and find out the whole truth, since the truth cannot be incomplete and partial. An incomplete truth is a lie that is used out of context of the overall picture. They are not used for good purposes, but to incite hatred, enmity and misunderstanding.

Why this is being done is another question and has nothing to do with the help of the allies.

NEED TO REMEMBER

This incredible amount of cargo was delivered across seas in which convoy ships were lost en masse under the attacks of German aircraft and submarines. Therefore, some of the planes traveled from the American continent to the USSR under their own power - from Fairbanks through Alaska, Chukotka, Yakutia, Eastern Siberia to Krasnoyarsk, and from there by train.

Years have passed. Many participants in the transportation of Lend-Lease goods are no longer alive. But the peoples of the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition remember the heroic exploits of the sailors of the transport and military fleets. It is planned to install memorial plaques to participants of the Northern convoys, made in the USA (Portland), in Arkhangelsk on the Sedov embankment. By a joint decision of both houses, the Alaska State Congress on May 1, 2001 approved the creation of monuments in Alaska, Russia and Canada in memory of the Lend-Lease program.

Unfortunately, only the Russian government has not yet expressed words of gratitude on behalf of the people of the Russian Federation for the enormous and selfless assistance provided by the USA and Great Britain in 1941-1945. our country. Even in the main museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, there is not the slightest mention of the joint struggle on the seas and oceans, of the courage of those who, at the risk of their lives, delivered to the USSR everything necessary for Victory.

Therefore, it would be correct and timely to pay tribute to Lend-Lease and the Northern convoys in a special section of the museum on Poklonnaya Hill. It is high time to erect a monument to Franklin Roosevelt in Moscow, a great and sincere friend of the Soviet people, who did a lot for the triumph of the anti-Hitler coalition.

The Russian people long ago need to stop being plague-ridden Soviet cattle and be guided in their feelings by the facts of real history, and not by its ersatz - Kremlin propaganda for the domestic consumer.

Southern route Lend-Lease

At first glance, Mr. Roosevelt was lured into a clearly unprofitable business. Just look at the Lend-Lease payment procedure:
- materials destroyed or lost during the war, as well as those that became unsuitable for further use, were not subject to payment;
- materials that turned out to be suitable for civilian needs after the war were paid for in full or on long-term credit terms;
- the customer country could purchase the materials that were not received before the end of the war, and the generous American government promised to credit the payment.

The only thing that somehow justified the Americans was the right provided for by the Lend-Lease Act to reclaim the surviving military materials back.

Under Lend-Lease, an endless stream of cargo came to our country, from foppish officer boots with cowboy stitching on the tops to tanks and airplanes.

However, the official point of view of the USSR on Lend-Lease was expressed in the following lines:

Therefore, it is not surprising that when the American film “The Unknown War” was shown in cinemas across the country in the 80s, many were shocked: ace Pokryshkin told how he flew the American Airacobra fighter almost throughout the war from 1942, how the northern caravans went with loads of help.

Until now, we believe that the allies supplied us with everything unnecessary that was lying in warehouses. And we remember how Churchill himself once said: “The tank named after me has more shortcomings than I myself.” But excuse me, our commissions accepted the Lend-Lease equipment; we ordered a list of what was needed (or we could have also asked for simple pitchforks as weapons!). And then, is this “Willis” a bad car?!

Actually, we didn’t ask the Americans for Willys at all, but for motorcycle sidecars. But US Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius in January 1942 advised Ambassador Litvinov to use jeeps, which the American army had already successfully used. We tried it and soon asked for more. In total, during the war we received 44,000 Willys MB and Ford GPW (General Purpose Willys) command vehicles. There were no emblems on them, so they were all called “Willis”.

Most of all American trucks US 6 came to the Soviet Union - about 152,000 copies. They were produced by two companies, Studebaker and REO. In each cabin, a Red Army soldier was waiting for a new, crisp leather jacket made of sealskin, but this luxury was immediately withdrawn for more important matters - they say, our driver will travel in an overcoat. “Students,” as the front-line soldiers nicknamed these trucks, turned out to be the most suitable transport for harsh front-line conditions (in particular, due to the lower compression ratio, they were less sensitive to the quality of gasoline

The total number of cars delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease was 477,785, not counting spare parts, which would be enough to assemble more than one thousand cars.

On August 12, 1941, the first maritime Lend-Lease convoy headed for the USSR. The cargo went to our northern ports: Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Severodvinsk (Molotovsk). Return convoys bore the QP index.

From American, Canadian and English ports, ships first arrived in the deep Icelandic Hvalfjord north of Reykjavik. There, no less than 20 ships each, were grouped into caravans, after which they were sent to us under the protection of warships. True, there was also a less dangerous route: through Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Nogaevo (Magadan), Nakhodka and Khabarovsk.

Official Soviet history left many questions regarding Lend-Lease. It was believed that the West, under any pretext, delayed deliveries, because it expected Stalin’s regime to collapse. Then how to explain the haste by the Americans to extend the Lend-Lease Act to the USSR?

Stalin showed the highest art of diplomacy to turn Lend-Lease into a benefit for the USSR. Discussing supplies with Churchill, Stalin was the first to use the word “sell,” and pride did not allow the prime minister to demand payment from the USSR. In Roosevelt, Stalin recognized his comrade in persuading the skeptical Churchill. And whenever the northern convoys threatened to stop, Roosevelt began bombarding Churchill with panicked dispatches. As a result, Churchill was forced to share with the Soviets even the equipment that was intended for the British army under Lend-Lease. For example, the light all-terrain vehicles Bantam, which the British themselves had - the cat cried.

Northern convoys were interrupted only twice - in the 42nd, when Great Britain was accumulating forces for a major operation in Africa, and in the 43rd, when the Allied landing in Italy was being prepared.

Stalin also did not forget to regularly reprimand the allies for “poorly packed cargo.” And the Soviet ambassador in London, Comrade. Maisky did not hesitate to hint to Churchill that if the USSR could no longer fight the Germans, then the entire burden of the war would fall on the shoulders of the British. Churchill even had to retort that until June 22, 1941, he was not at all sure that Russia would not side with Hitler against Great Britain.

The Pravda newspaper, in its report on Lend-Lease, noted that British deliveries began... June 22, 1941! It is certainly known that on July 20, the first English naval caravan headed for us with help.

It is also a known fact that in September 1941, two British squadrons of Hurricane fighters arrived on the northern front. We know about the French Normandy squadron that fought on our soil. What about British pilots?

But this is true, by the way. And here is an “automotive” example: during the Battle of Moscow, Marshal Zhukov’s all-wheel drive GAZ-61 all-wheel drive vehicle was closely followed by a Bantam with guards - one of those that the British soldier did not get.

On September 29, 1941, the Moscow Conference of representatives of the USSR, Great Britain and the USA at the highest level discussed the issue of military supplies, and on November 7, 1941, Roosevelt extended the Lend-Lease Act to the USSR. By the way, the United States had not yet entered the world war!

The technical training of drivers and technical personnel of the Red Army left much to be desired. In this regard, the Main Automobile Directorate raised the issue of training personnel of automobile units in the basics of maintaining, operating and repairing imported equipment. Books on operation and repair were translated into Russian and published - they were included with each machine. But for a simple Red Army driver, such books turned out to be too complicated. Then brochures were printed with extremely simplified content and instructions like: “Driver! You can’t put kerosene in a Studebaker car. It won’t drive, it’s not a lorry for you!” On the pages of such “short manuals,” a Red Army soldier could find a sequence of repair operations for all cases of front-line automotive life: “Do this; if you see such and such a result, do this: first, second, third...”. However, thousands of Lend-Lease cars were destroyed by drivers.

There is another mysterious page in the history of Lend-Lease. On September 19, 1941, Churchill wrote to Stalin: “I attach great importance to the question of opening a through route from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, not only by rail, but also by highway, in the construction of which we hope to attract the Americans with their energy and organizational abilities.” However, large-scale military operations in the Persian Gulf region began long before this message. British commandos carried out the operation to capture the Iraqi port of Basra back in April 1941. And the first American Lend-Lease plant started working there before Germany attacked the USSR!

On July 25, British troops entered Iran from the south and Soviet troops from the north. British losses in clashes with the regular army of Reza Shah Pahlavi amounted to 22 people killed and 42 wounded. Our losses are unknown. Later, a small territory in the south of the country (the port of Bushehr, Fars province) went to the Americans.

An interesting fact: the group of American military specialists sent to Iran was led by Soviets - I.S. Kormilitsyn and his deputy L.I. Zorin. Controlling transportation along the southern route was none other than Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

At that time there was only one land route from this area - from Bandar Shahpur along the Trans-Iranian Railway through Ahwaz and Qom to Tehran. There was no more or less developed transport network between the border ports of Iraq and Iran.

In preparation for receiving Lend-Lease cargo, the ports in Khorramshahr, Bandar Shahpur and Basra were reconstructed. From Ahvaz, a railway line descended south to Khorramshahr with a branch to the Iraqi village of Tanuma (on the left bank of the Shatt al-Arab, opposite Basra). The American construction company Fallspan built a highway from Tanum through Khorramshahr and Ahwaz to northern Iran.

Automotive equipment arrived in the form of assembly kits - in boxes, and the cars were assembled right on the shore. An aircraft and car assembly plant grew up in the port of Khorramshahr, a car assembly plant in the port of Bushehr (it was there that Willys, Dodges, Studebakers and GMs were assembled), and a car assembly plant in Basra.

Local residents - Arabs and Persians - worked for them, the administration consisted of Americans and British, and Soviet military specialists accepted the products. The locals were paid little, and the build quality was very low at first. Then our military experts insisted on improving the working and living conditions of workers, and improving their skills. Barracks towns were built, life and food were organized, wages became piecework, and heavy fines began to be imposed for marriage. Very soon things got better.

Driving cars more than 2,000 km through mountains and passes, on or without roads, turned out to be extremely difficult. On the way there was a run-in, and the cars were loaded to the limit - they were carrying spare parts, weapons, food, medicine.

With titanic efforts in the first half of 1942, it was possible to lay an extensive system of roads across the territory of Iran, build food, recreation and technical prevention points, establish security for columns and parking areas, which was important - gangs and wild Qashqai tribes, incited by the Nazis, were rampant on the roads.

While the British ruled the Persian Gulf, 2,000 cars a month came to the USSR, although the plan was set to deliver 120 cars a day.

In March 1943, the Americans took over supervision of the Trans-Iranian Railway and the ports of the Persian Gulf. Since the middle of the year, assembly plants have started operating in the towns of Ash-Shuaiba (southwest of Basra, Iraq) and Andimeshk, on the Trans-Iranian Railway. Immediately the flow increased - up to 10,000 cars per month began to arrive from the south. The car assembly plant in Andimeshka alone sent about 78,000 cars to the USSR - that’s what American mass production technology means! In total, we received two-thirds of Lend-Lease cars via the southern route.

With the distance of the front from the borders of the USSR, this route lost its significance, and in 1945, Lend-Lease cargo went through the Black Sea. Car assembly in Iran and Iraq began to be curtailed, and enterprises were dismantled. On October 15, 1944, personnel were withdrawn from the Soviet military camp in Ash-Shuaiba. On October 24, Soviet receivers in Basra ceased their activities. In November 1944, the last cars were assembled in Andimeshk, and at the same time the Soviet representative office in Bandar Shahpur was liquidated.

We preferred to keep quiet about all this. Soviet troops in Iran, military experts in Iraq, foreign cars in the Red Army. All this is complicated and incomprehensible to ordinary people. Once you start explaining, you will have to remember that similar enterprises operated in the USSR. For example, the Gorky Automobile Plant began assembling American cars in November 1941. Even when GAZ was heavily bombed in the summer of 1943, work continued right in the open air. In October 1944, assembly equipment and technical personnel were sent to Minsk, where they occupied the premises of the Daimler-Benz auto repair plant (future MAZ) recaptured from the Germans. The first 50 trucks of this enterprise went to the front in November 1944. Moscow ZIS and KIM were also involved in assembling Lend-Lease - they also repaired the vehicles that returned from the front. In addition, many small enterprises were engaged in Lend-Lease vehicles. I wonder if these cars were counted among the 205,000 that, according to Soviet statistics, our factories produced during the war years?

In a word, we are so close to a complete reassessment of the role of our allies in the victory over Germany!

But now it’s time to return the “hose” borrowed from a neighbor. In 1946-47, after major repairs, we handed over some of the cars to the allies. According to eyewitnesses, it happened like this: the allies brought a ship with a press and scissors to the port. A special commission meticulously accepted the equipment, checked its compliance with the factory configuration, after which it was immediately sent... under the press and loaded into barges in the form of “cubes”. Who, one might ask, in the West needed cars of dubious assembly, and even those that had been in the hands of the Red Army?

Under these presses, rare models disappeared without a trace, including the RC (reconnaissance car) reconnaissance cars of the American company Bantam. Of the 2,675 “Bantiks” produced, as our drivers called them, almost all ended up in the USSR in the first year of the war.

Victory without allies?

Could we have won without Western allies? That is, suppose that England and the United States would not have participated in World War II at all. What would the Soviet Union then lose? Let's start with Lend-Lease. We like to quote Gosplan Chairman Nikolai Voznesensky, who stated that Lend-Lease assistance amounted to no more than 4% of the total volume of Soviet wartime production. Let it be so, although no one has yet figured out how to correctly determine the then relationship between the dollar and the ruble. But if we take several natural indicators, it becomes clear that without the help of the Western allies, the Soviet military economy could not satisfy the demands of the front. Lend-Lease supplied approximately half of all the aluminum consumed by Soviet industry during the war years, the bulk of alloying additives, without which it was impossible to produce high-quality armor, more than a third of the aviation gasoline consumed in the USSR and explosives used during the war. The vehicles supplied under Lend-Lease made up a third of the front-line fleet. Not to mention the fact that Lend-Lease delivered the bulk of the cars, locomotives and rails, thanks to which Soviet railway transport functioned smoothly. Lend-Lease also supplied the bulk of radio stations and radars, as well as a wide variety of industrial equipment, tanks, aircraft, anti-aircraft guns, etc. And American stew and melange should not be forgotten.

Just think: would we have won if we had produced half as many aircraft, a quarter less tanks, a third less ammunition, if we did not have enough vehicles to transport troops, if we had several times fewer radio stations, radars and a lot of other imported equipment.

We must not forget that the Wehrmacht began to suffer the most severe defeats on the Eastern Front, such as the defeat in Belarus and Romania, after the landing in Normandy, where the best German tank divisions and the main aviation forces were transferred. And in general, the Luftwaffe suffered two-thirds of its losses in the fight against the Western allies. Almost the entire German navy also acted against England and America. And in the last year of the war, Anglo-American troops diverted more than a third of the German ground forces.

Just imagine for a moment that the USSR would fight Germany one on one. Then the entire power of the Luftwaffe and the German fleet, as well as the entire German land army, would fall on the Red Army. And the Soviet troops, having half as many aircraft, would never have gained air supremacy, would not have been able to defend Sevastopol and Leningrad for a long time in the conditions of the overwhelming superiority of the German fleet, and would hardly have won victories at Stalingrad and Kursk. I'm afraid that in a one-on-one duel between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, Soviet defeat would be very likely.

Now let’s try to imagine the exact opposite situation: the Soviet Union does not participate in the war, remains neutral and supplies Germany with raw materials and food (option - in 1942 the USSR is defeated and leaves the war, as described in Robert Harris’s science fiction novel “Fatherland” and based on the Hollywood film). How would the struggle of England and the USA against Germany then end? The economic potential of the Western allies would still surpass the German one, which would ensure the dominance of Anglo-American aviation and navy in the long term and would exclude a German landing on the British Isles. The war would come down mainly to strategic bombing of German territory. However, in terms of ground forces, the armies of England and the United States would have to catch up with the Wehrmacht for a long time. Based on what we know about the development of the American and German nuclear projects, it can be argued that the non-participation of the USSR in the war would not have had a significant impact on the speed of their implementation. The gap between the Germans and Americans on the way to the atomic bomb in 1945 was at least three years, since the Americans carried out a chain reaction in a reactor at the end of 1942, and the Germans’ such experiment in March 1945 ended in failure. So there is no doubt that the United States would have received an atomic bomb at a time when Germany would still be far away from it. The Americans, of course, would not have spent these scarce weapons on already defeated Japan, but, having accumulated nuclear warheads, would have dropped dozens of nuclear bombs on Berlin and Hamburg, Nuremberg and Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt at the end of 1945 or at the beginning of 1946 -Maine. The war would probably have ended with the surrender of Germany after the destruction of its largest cities and industrial zones. So we can say with confidence that the Red Army, with its heroic resistance, saved the Germans from the horrors of the atomic bombings.

Quote: Lend-Lease payment
This is perhaps the main topic of speculation among people trying to somehow denigrate the Lend-Lease program. Most of them consider it their indispensable duty to declare that the USSR allegedly paid for all cargo supplied under Lend-Lease. Of course, this is nothing more than a delusion (or a deliberate lie). Neither the USSR nor any other countries that received assistance under the Lend-Lease program, in accordance with the Lend-Lease law, paid, so to speak, a single cent for this assistance during the war. Moreover, as was already written at the beginning of the article, they were not obliged to pay after the war for those materials, equipment, weapons and ammunition that were used up during the war. It was necessary to pay only for what remained intact after the war and could be used by the recipient countries. Thus, there were no Lend-Lease payments during the war. Another thing is that the USSR actually sent various goods to the USA (including 320 thousand tons of chrome ore, 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, as well as gold, platinum, wood). This was done as part of the reverse Lend-Lease program. In addition, the same program included free repairs of American ships in Soviet ports and other services. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the total amount of goods and services provided to the Allies under reverse Lend-Lease. The only source I found claims that this same amount was 2.2 million dollars. However, I personally am not sure of the authenticity of this data. However, they may well be considered as a lower limit. The upper limit in this case will be an amount of several hundred million dollars. Be that as it may, the share of reverse Lend-Lease in the total Lend-Lease trade turnover between the USSR and the allies will not exceed 3-4%. For comparison, the amount of reverse Lend-Lease from the UK to the USA is equal to 6.8 billion dollars, which is 18.3% of the total exchange of goods and services between these states.
So, no payment for Lend-Lease occurred during the war. The Americans provided the bill to the recipient countries only after the war. The volume of Great Britain's debts to the United States amounted to $4.33 billion, to Canada - $1.19 billion. The last payment in the amount of $83.25 million (to the United States) and $22.7 million (Canada) was made on December 29, 2006. The volume of China's debts was determined at 180 million. dollars, and this debt has not yet been repaid. The French paid the United States on May 28, 1946, providing the United States with a number of trade preferences.
The USSR's debt was determined in 1947 in the amount of 2.6 billion dollars, but already in 1948 this amount was reduced to 1.3 billion. However, the USSR refused to pay. The refusal also followed new concessions from the United States: in 1951, the amount of the debt was again revised and this time amounted to 800 million. An agreement on the procedure for repaying the debt to pay for Lend-Lease between the USSR and the USA was signed only on October 18, 1972 (debt amount was again reduced, this time to $722 million; repayment period - 2001), and the USSR agreed to this agreement only on the condition that it was provided with a loan from the Export-Import Bank. In 1973, the USSR made two payments totaling $48 million, but then stopped payments due to the implementation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1972 Soviet-American trade agreement in 1974. In June 1990, during negotiations between the presidents of the USA and the USSR, the parties returned to discussing debt. A new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030, and the amount - 674 million dollars. Currently, Russia owes the United States $100 million for supplies under Lend-Lease.

LITERATURE
Lebedev I.P. Once again about Lend-Lease. – USA: Economics. Policy. Ideology. 1990, no. 1
Lebedev I.P. Aviation Lend-Lease. – Military History Magazine, 1991, No. 2
Kotelnikov V.R. Aviation Lend-Lease. – Questions of history. 1991, no. 10
Berezhnoy S.S. Lend-Lease ships and vessels. Directory. St. Petersburg, 1994
Ilyin A. Aircraft of the Allies under Lend-Lease. – International life. 1995, no. 7
Allies in the war 1941–1945 M., 1995
Kashcheev L.B., Reminsky V.A. Lend-Lease cars. Kharkov, 1998
Sokolov B.V. The truth about the Great Patriotic War (Collection of articles). - St. Petersburg: Aletheia, 1989. Book on the website: http://militera.lib.ru/research/sokolov1/index.html

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).

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

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

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

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 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”...

Lend-Lease is a government program under which the United States of America transferred to its allies, including the Soviet Union, in World War II: ammunition, equipment, food and strategic raw materials, including petroleum products. Aid to the Soviet Union came in three ways: across the Atlantic, through Iran and through Alaska. German aviation and the Navy tried their best to prevent this. But nevertheless, Lend-Lease played an important role in the victory over Nazi Germany and its allies. Soviet propaganda subsequently downplayed the role of supplies from the United States in the war. This led to the fact that many sailors, pilots and all those who participated in this program were forgotten.

A Soviet Air Force officer stands near the post office at Galena Airfield in Alaska, USA.

Loading Matilda tanks in one of the British ports for shipment under Lend-Lease to the USSR.

Royal Air Force Captain Jack Ross unfastens his parachute after taking off near Vaenga (now Severomorsk, Murmansk region).

Indian women wipe and lubricate parts of Lend-Lease tanks.

British Major General McMullen and American Army Colonel Ryan in the cabin of a steam locomotive delivered to the UK from the USA under Lend-Lease.

General A.M. Korolev and General Connelly shake hands in front of the first train passing through the Persian corridor.

General A.M. Korolev, General Sanley Scott and General Donald Connelly stand in front of the locomotive of the first train to pass through the Persian corridor in 1943 as part of deliveries from the USA to the USSR under Lend-Lease.

Soviet and American aviators dance with girls at the Nome airfield club in Alaska.

Soviet pilots, Lieutenants Susin and Karpov, talk with US Air Force Sergeant Alex Khomonchuk at an airfield in Alaska.

American A-20 bombers stand at Nome airfield in Alaska before being transported to the USSR.

Colonel N.S. Vasin having lunch with US Vice President Henry Wallace and Colonel Russell Kiner in Alaska.

American A-20 Boston bomber that crashed in Alaska.

American P-39 fighter that crashed at Nome airfield in Alaska.

An American P-39 fighter aircraft stands at Nome Airfield in Alaska.

The first Soviet Air Force delegation stands in front of an airplane at Nome Airfield in Alaska.

Soviet pilots accept the A-20 bomber, transferred under Lend-Lease.

American Lieutenant General Henry Arnold looks at a map at a meeting about the delivery of Lend-Lease goods to the USSR through Alaska and Chukotka.

American senior officers at a meeting on the delivery of Lend-Lease cargo to the USSR via Alaska and Chukotka.

American General George Marshall talks with Admiral Ernst King at a meeting about the delivery of Lend-Lease cargo to the USSR through Alaska and Chukotka.

Soviet and American soldiers play billiards. Alaska.

Sending the Valentine tank from England to the USSR.

Transfer of frigates from the US Navy to Soviet sailors. 1945

English women are preparing the Matilda tank for shipment to the USSR under Lend-Lease.

Checking radio communications in the P-63 Kingcobra fighter before being transported to the USSR as part of Lend-Lease deliveries.

Pilot of the 2nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Northern Fleet Guard Senior Lieutenant N.M. Didenko with the P-39 Airacobra fighter.

A group photo of Soviet and American pilots against the backdrop of the first accepted P-63 Kingcobra fighters.

American military cargo prepared for shipment to the USSR under Lend-Lease. M3 Stuart tank and A-20 Boston aircraft.

American A-20 Boston bombers at an airfield in Alaska before being sent to the USSR.

A-20 Boston bomber at an airfield in Alaska before being sent to the USSR.

B-25, A-20 Boston bombers and P-39 fighters, prepared for delivery to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease, are lined up along the Ladd Field air force base in Alaska before the arrival of the selection committee from the USSR.

American A-20 Boston aircraft (also P-39 and AT-6 in the background) are ready for acceptance by the technical commission and pilots from the USSR. Abadan Field Air Force Base, Iran.

Soviet pilots arrived at Abadan Field Air Force Base in Iran.

The Soviet crew of the A-20 Boston bomber and the Americans: a photo for memory. Somewhere in Alaska.

Soviet pilots on leave in Alaska.

The P-63 Kingcobra fighter, previously delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease, has returned to the United States and is being inspected by American technicians. Great Falls Air Force Base, USA.

P-63 Kingcobra fighters at the Buffalo airfield before being sent to the USSR.

A pair of P-63 Kingcobra fighters in flight over Niagara Falls.
The aircraft were intended for delivery to the USSR under Lend-Lease.

An American B-25J-30 bomber with Soviet markings in flight over Alaska.

Soviet and American pilots at the P-63 fighter in Alaska.

Soviet team testing the Hurricane aircraft.

Studebaker trucks in the transport reserve of the Red Army command.

Pre-flight preparation of the P-39L fighter, intended for the USSR, at Ladd Field airbase in Alaska.

A rare photo of Soviet tank crews with M3A1 Stuart tanks, in American headsets, with a Thompson M1928A1 submachine gun and an M1919A4 machine gun. American equipment was left fully equipped under Lend-Lease - with equipment and even small arms for the crew.

Head of the Alaska-Siberia air route, Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Mark Izrailevich Shevelev

A column of American military trucks carrying out Lend-Lease transportation to the USSR stands on the road in eastern Iraq.

A British Army Ordnance Department corporal carries Thompson submachine guns received under Lend-Lease from the United States for inspection.

British soldiers in a warehouse near boxes of trinitrotoluene received under Lend-Lease from the USA.

American A-36A attack aircraft on board a cargo ship before departure.

American P-63 and P-39 fighters before being sent to the USSR.

American Douglas SBD-3/5 Dontless dive bombers from squadron VC-29, armed with depth charges, on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Santee, during a convoy escort operation in the Atlantic in 1942-1943.

Preparation of British Spitfire fighters, delivered under Len-Lease, for transfer to the Soviet side. Soviet pilots will fly planes from Iran to the USSR.

American planes fly to the USSR under Lend-Lease.

English fighter pilot Sergeant Howe, who fought on the Northern Front, was awarded the Order of Lenin for 3 downed German aircraft.

Panorama of the Navy Yard in Philadelphia.

“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.

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.”

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.