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Almost everyone knows about American deliveries to the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. The "Studebakers" and the American stew, nicknamed "the second front" by the Soviet soldiers, immediately pop up in my memory. But these are, rather, artistic and emotional symbols, which are actually the tip of the iceberg. The purpose of this article, the author sets out 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 act of neutrality was in force in the United States, according to which the only way to provide assistance to any of the belligerents 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). At that time, Great Britain became the main consumer of military products in the United States, but very soon it exhausted its hard currency. At the same time, President Franklin Roosevelt was well aware that in this situation the best way out for the United States is all-round economic support for the countries fighting against Nazi Germany. Therefore, he actually "pushed" on March 11, 1941 in Congress the "United States Protection Act", also referred to as the Lend-Lease Act. Now, any country whose defense was recognized as vital for the United States, and strategic raw materials were provided on the following conditions:

1. Weapons and materials lost in the course of hostilities are not subject to payment.

2. Property remaining after the end of the war, suitable for civilian purposes, must be fully or partially paid on the basis of long-term loans provided by the United States.

3. Equipment not lost after the war must be returned to the United States.

Joseph Stalin and Harry Hopkins, 1941

After the German attack on the USSR, Roosevelt sent his closest aide Harry Hopkins to Moscow, as he wanted to find out "how long Russia will hold out." This was important, since in the United States at that time the prevailing opinion was that the resistance of the USSR would not be able to provide significant resistance to the Germans, and the supplied weapons and materials would simply fall into the hands of the enemy. On July 31, Harry Hopkins met with Vyacheslav Molotov and Joseph Stalin. Following their results, the American politician left for Washington with the firm conviction that the Germans would not have a quick victory and that the supply of weapons to Moscow could have a significant impact on the course of hostilities.

However, the USSR was included in the Lend-Lease program only in October-November 1941 (up to this point, our country paid for all American military supplies). It took such a long period of time for Roosevelt to overcome the resistance enough a large number 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, oil products, wheat and sugar. Further, the number and range of supplies were constantly expanding.

The delivery of goods took place along three main routes: 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 imminent victory remained so great, but as the hostilities 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 defeated the PQ-17 convoy: 22 out of 35 transport ships were killed. Heavy losses, as well as the need to attract a large number ships for escorting ships with supplies for the besieged Malta, and then preparing for 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. The number of convoys increased, and their escort was accompanied by fewer losses. All in all, 4027 thousand tons of cargo along the Arctic route to the USSR. Losses did not exceed 7% of the total.

Less dangerous was the Pacific route, along which 8376 thousand tons were delivered. Transportation could only be carried out by ships flying the Soviet flag (the USSR, unlike the United States at that time, was not at war with Japan). Further, the received cargo had to be transported by rail practically through 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 full control over transport routes in August 1941, the USSR and Great Britain occupied Iran.

To increase the capacity, we carried out a large-scale modernization of the ports of the Persian Gulf and Trans-Iranian railroad... Also, General Motors has built two factories in Iran, which assembled cars intended for delivery to the USSR. In total, during the war years, these enterprises manufactured and sent to our country 184,112 vehicles. The total cargo traffic through the ports of the Persian Gulf for the entire period of the existence of the Trans-Iranian route amounted to 4227 thousand tons.

Aircraft under the Lend-Lease program

From the beginning of 1945, after the liberation of Greece, the Black Sea route also began to function. In this way, the USSR received 459 thousand tons of cargo.

In addition to those noted above, there were two more air routes along which aircraft were ferried on their own in the USSR. The most famous was the Alsib (Alaska - Siberia) air bridge, over which 7925 aircraft were airlifted. Also, planes flew from the USA to the USSR through the South Atlantic, Africa and the Persian Gulf (993 planes).

For many years, in the works of Russian historians it was indicated that supplies under Lend-Lease accounted for only about 4% of the total volume of production of Soviet industry and agriculture. And, although there is no reason to question 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 the weakest link. Therefore, defining the range of American supplies, the Soviet leadership strove first of all to close the "weak points" 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 accounted for 53% of all produced at domestic enterprises. Such a ratio for copper - 76%, aluminum - 106%, tin - 223%, cobalt - 138%, wool - 102%, sugar - 66%, and canned meat - 480% looks even more impressive.

General A.M. Korolev and Major General Donald Connelly shake hands in front of a train arriving as part of a Lend-Lease supply.

The analysis of supplies of automotive equipment deserves no less close attention. In total, the USSR received 447,785 vehicles under Lend-Lease.
It is significant that during the war years Soviet industry produced only 265 thousand cars. Thus, the number of vehicles received from the allies exceeded their own production by more than 1.5 times. In addition, these were real army vehicles, adapted for operation in front-line conditions, while the domestic industry supplied the army with ordinary national economic vehicles.

The role of Lend-Lease vehicles in combat can hardly be overestimated. To a large extent, they ensured the success of the victorious operations of 1944, which were included in the “ten Stalinist blows”.

A considerable merit of the allied deliveries is also in the successful functioning of the Soviet railway transport during the war years. The USSR received 1,900 steam locomotives and 66 diesel-electric locomotives (these figures are especially clear against the background of its own production in 1942-1945 in 92 locomotives), as well as 11,075 cars (own production - 1,087 cars).

In parallel, the "reverse lend-lease" functioned. During the war years, the Allies received from the USSR 300 thousand tons of chromium and 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, as well as timber, gold and platinum.

During discussions on the topic "Could the USSR do without Lend-Lease?" many copies have been 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 could to one degree or another be fully compensated for by the 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 turn into a critical one.

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 could have withstood and won even in such a situation, but it is not possible to determine how much the price of victory would have increased.

The Lend-Lease program was terminated on the initiative of the American government on August 21, 1945, although the USSR asked to continue deliveries 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 a new era of the Cold War was knocking loudly at the door.

During the war, payments for deliveries under Lend-Lease were not made. In 1947, the United States estimated the Soviet Union's debt for deliveries at $ 2.6 billion, but a year later the amount was reduced to $ 1.3 billion. It was planned that the repayment will be made within 30 years with an accrual of 2.3% per annum. I.V. Stalin rejected these accounts, saying that "the USSR paid off the debts of the Lend-Lease in full in blood." As a substantiation of its point of view, the USSR cited the precedent of writing off debts for supplies under Lend-Lease to other countries. In addition, I.V. Stalin quite reasonably did not want to give the funds of the war-ravaged country to a potential enemy in the Third World War.

An agreement on the procedure for paying off debts was concluded only in 1972. The USSR pledged to pay $ 722 million by 2001. But after the transfer of $ 48 million, payments were stopped again in connection with 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 United States. A new amount was set - $ 674 million - and a final maturity date of 2030. After the collapse of the USSR, the obligations on this debt passed to Russia.

Summing up, we can conclude that for the United States, Lend-Lease was primarily, in the words of F. Roosevelt, "a profitable investment of capital." Moreover, it is not the profit 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 was pleased to order that the post-war welfare of the United States to a large extent was paid for with the blood of Soviet soldiers. For the USSR, Lend-Lease became practically the only way reduce the number of victims on the way to Victory. Here's a "marriage of convenience" ...

257 723 498 pcs.

Importance of supplies

Your decision, Mr. President, to provide the Soviet Union with an interest-free loan of $ 1,000,000,000 to ensure the supply of military equipment and raw materials to the Soviet Union was accepted by the Soviet Government with heartfelt gratitude, as a vital aid to the Soviet Union in its enormous and difficult struggle against a common enemy - bloody Hitlerism.
Original text(English)

Your decision, Mr. President, to grant the Soviet Union an interest-free loan to the value of $ 1,000,000,000 to meet deliveries of munitions and raw materials to the Soviet Union is accepted by the Soviet Government with heartfelt gratitude as vital aid to the Soviet Union in its tremendous and onerous struggle against our common enemy-bloody Hitlerism.

The first official historical assessment of the role of Lend-Lease was given by the Chairman of the State Planning Commission Nikolay Voznesensky in his book "The military economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War", published in 1948 year :

... if we compare the size of allied supplies of industrial goods to the USSR with the size of industrial output at the socialist enterprises of the USSR for the same period, it turns out that the share of these supplies in relation to domestic production during the war economy will be only about 4%.

The 4% figure was released 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 the Soviet GDP in monetary terms due to the lack of convertibility of the ruble. If the count went to units of production, then it is not clear how tanks were compared to airplanes, and food to aluminum.

Voznesensky himself was soon arrested by Leningrad case and shot in 1950 year, respectively, could not give comments. Nevertheless, the figure of 4% was later widely cited in the USSR as reflecting the official point of view on the importance of Lend-Lease.

Appreciated the role of Lend-Lease and A. I. Mikoyan, during the war, was responsible for the work of seven allied commissariats(trade, procurement, food, fish and meat and dairy industries, sea transport and river fleet) and, as the people's commissar for foreign trade of the country, since 1942, supervised the acceptance of allied supplies under Lend-Lease:

-… when we began to receive American stew, mixed fat, egg powder, flour, and other products, what significant additional calories our soldiers received at once! And not only the soldiers: something also fell into the rear.
Or let's take the supply of cars. After all, we received, as far as I remember, taking into account the losses on the way, about 400 thousand first-class cars of that time, such as "Studebaker", "Ford", passenger "Willis" and amphibians. Our entire army actually ended up on wheels and what kind of wheels! As a result, its maneuverability has increased and the pace of the offensive has noticeably increased.
Yes ... - Mikoyan drawled thoughtfully. - Without Lend-Lease, we probably would have fought for another year and a half.

The Lend-Lease program was mutually beneficial for both the USSR (and other recipient countries) and the United States. In particular, the United States won the necessary time to mobilize its own military-industrial complex.

Materials (edit)	USSR production	Lend-Lease	Lend-Lease / Production of the USSR, in%
Explosives, thousand tons	558	295,6	53 %
Copper, thousand tons	534	404	76 %
Aluminum, thousand tons	283	301	106 %
Tin, thousand tons	13	29	223 %
Cobalt, tons	340	470	138 %
Aviation gasoline, thousand tons	4,700 (according to V.B.Sokolov - 5.5 million tons)	1087	23 %
Car tires, million pieces	3988	3659	92 %
Wool, thousand tons	96	98	102 %
Sugar, thousand tons	995	658	66 %
Canned meat, million cans	432,5	2077	480 %
Animal fats, thousand tons	565	602	107 %

Lend-Lease debts and their payment

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

Great Britain

The volume of UK debts to the United States amounted to $ 4.33 billion, to Canada - $ 1.19 billion.The last payment of $ 83.25 million (in favor of the United States) and $ 22.7 million (Canada) was made December 29th.

China

China's debt to the United States for lend-lease supplies amounted to $ 187 million. 1979 year The United States recognized the People's Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, and therefore the heir to all previous agreements (including lend-lease deliveries). However, in 1989, the United States demanded that Taiwan(not from the PRC) debt repayment under Lend-Lease. The fate of the Chinese debt is not clear.

USSR (Russia)

The volume of American supplies under Lend-Lease amounted to about 11 billion US dollars. According to the Lend Lease Act, only equipment that had survived the war was payable; to agree on the total amount, immediately after the end of the war, Soviet-American negotiations began. In negotiations 1948 g. the Soviet representatives agreed to pay only a small amount and met the predicted refusal of the American side. Negotiation 1949 g. also led nowhere. V 1951 g. the Americans twice reduced the amount of payment, 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 real debt, but on the basis of a 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 paying off lend-lease debts was concluded only in 1972 year... Under this agreement, the USSR undertook to 2001 year pay $ 722 million, including interest. By july 1973 g. 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 year during the talks between the presidents of the United States and the USSR, the parties returned to discussing the debt. A new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030 g., and the amount is $ 674 million.

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

However, it should be noted that taking into account the inflationary depreciation of the dollar, this figure will be significantly (several times) lower. So, by 1972, when the amount of debt for lend-lease in the amount of $ 722 million was agreed 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. Provided that $ 674 million was paid in 1990, the total volume of Soviet payments in 1945 prices amounted to about $ 110 million, i.e. about 1% of the total cost of lend-lease supplies. But most of the supplies were either destroyed by the war, or, like shells, spent on the needs of the war, or, at the end of the war, in accordance with the Lend-Lease law, returned to the United States.

France

May 28 1946 year France signed a package of agreements with the United States (the so-called Blum-Byrnes accords) that settled the French debt for lend-lease deliveries in exchange for a number of trade concessions from France. In particular, France has significantly increased the quotas for showing foreign (primarily American) films on the French film market.

Notes (edit)

Using the example of the USSR, lend-lease materials were received for $ 11.3 billion, of which less than 1% was paid. The remaining 99% was received virtually free of charge - see the section for details. Lend-Lease debts and their payment
Mutual Aid Agreement Between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: June 11, 1942
For example, refusing the USSR in the supply of such acutely scarce raw materials as duralumin and tungsten The United States supplied them to the Third Reich.
The recalculation is based on the official data on inflation in the USA for 1913-2008 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA)
"The Big" L "- American Logistics in World War II", Alan Gropman, 1997, National Defense University Press, Washington, DC
Leo T. Crowley, "Lend Lease" in Walter Yust, ed. 10 Eventful Years (1947) 2: 858-60; 1: 520
“The USSR has repeatedly recognized great value equipment and materials necessary for the conduct of hostilities, received from the United States with the participation of England in Soviet Union... But in 1942, the agreed plans for these deliveries were only 55 percent fulfilled. In the most difficult time of preparation for the Kursk operation (in Washington and London they knew about this work), deliveries were interrupted for 9 months and resumed only in September 1943. Such a long break is not a technical question, but a political one! " ( O.B. Rakhmanin,). See also .
Vishnevsky A.G. Sickle and ruble. Conservative modernization in the USSR. Moscow, 1998, ch. 10
The First Lend-Lease Protocol was signed between the USSR and the USA, in the amount of $ 1 billion, valid until 06/30/1942.
The Reichstag speech of December 11, 1941: Hitler's declaration of war against the United States
http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KUMANEV_Georgiy_Aleksandrovich/Govoryat_stalinskie_narkomy.(2005).%5Bdoc%5D.zip
Paperno A.L. Lend-Lease. Pacific Ocean. M., 1998.S. 10
Zaostrovtsev G. A. "Northern Convoys: Research, Memories, Documents", Arkhangelsk 1991. p. 27
V. Zimonin "Lend-Lease: How It Was", 26.10.2006, newspaper "Krasnaya Zvezda"
Leo T. Crowley, "Lend Lease" in Walter Yust, ed. 10 Eventful Years (1947) 2: 858-60; 1: 520
Correspondence of Roosevelt and Truman with Stalin on Lend Lease and Other Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941-1945
Voznesensky N. The military economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War. - M .: Gospolitizdat, 1948
Artem Krechetnikov, "Garden Hose" by Franklin Roosevelt, June 29, 2007, BBCRussian.com
From the report of the chairman of the KGB V. Semichastny - NS Khrushchev; stamp "top secret" // Zenkovich N. Ya. Marshals and general secretaries. M., 1997.S. 161-162
G. Kumanev "The Stalinist People's Commissars Speak", p. 70- Smolensk: Rusich, 2005
http://militera.lib.ru/research/sokolov1/04.html
http://militera.lib.ru/research/sokolov1/04.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/russia/newsid_6248000/6248720.stm
http://militera.lib.ru/research/sokolov1/04.html
Federal Agency for State Reserves, "Reserves during the Great Patriotic War"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/russia/newsid_6248000/6248720.stm
http://militera.lib.ru/research/sokolov1/04.html
V. Gakov "The Green Price of Victory", "Money" magazine No. 23, 06/2002

The truth about Lend-Lease: just the facts

“Few people know that military supplies under lend-lease (lend-lease) were not free at all - Russia, as the successor to the USSR, paid the last debts on them already in 2006,” writes historian and publicist Yevgeny Spitsyn.

In the lend-lease issue (from English lend - to lend and lease - to lease, 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 of charge

The Lend-Lease Act or the "United States Defense Act", which was passed by the US Congress on March 11, 1941, gave the US President "the right to lend or lease to other states various goods and materials necessary for the conduct of hostilities." 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 the rear, as well as any information of military importance.

The lend-lease scheme itself provided for the recipient country to fulfill a number of conditions:1) the materials destroyed, lost or lost during the hostilities were not subject to payment, and the surviving and suitable for civilian purposes property should 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 requested them back; 3) in turn, the tenant pledged to help the United States with all the resources and information at his disposal.

Incidentally, and few people know about this either, the Lend-Lease Law obliged countries that applied for American assistance to submit to the United States a comprehensive financial report. It is no coincidence that US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., during a Senate committee hearing, called this provision unique in all world practice: "For the first time in history, one state, one government provides another with data on its financial position."

With the help of Lend-Lease, the administration of President F.D. Roosevelt was going to solve a number of urgent tasks, both foreign policy and internal. First, 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. Second, lend-lease allowed the US government to exert some influence over the recipient country of lend-lease aid. Finally, thirdly, by sending his allies only weapons, materials and raw materials, but not manpower, President F.D. Roosevelt fulfilled his election promise: "Our guys will never participate in other people's wars."

The initial Lend-Lease delivery date was set to June 30, 1943, with further annual renewals as needed. And the first administrator of this project, Roosevelt appointed the former Secretary of Commerce, his assistant Harry Hopkins.

And not only for the USSR

Contrary to another common misconception, the Lend-Lease system was not created for the USSR. The British were the first to ask for military assistance on the basis of special lease relations (analogous to operational leasing) at the end of May 1940, since the actual defeat of France left Britain without military allies on the European continent.

The British themselves, who initially requested 40-50 "old" destroyers, proposed three payment schemes: a free gift, payment in cash and leasing. However, Premier W. Churchill was a realist and understood perfectly well that neither the first nor the second proposal would inspire the Americans with enthusiasm, since the belligerent England was practically on the verge of bankruptcy. Therefore, President Roosevelt quickly accepted the third option, and in the late summer of 1940 the deal was made.

Then, in the bowels of the American Treasury Department, the idea was born to extend the experience of one private transaction to the entire sphere of all interstate relations. Having involved the War and the Navy Departments in the development of the Lend-Lease Bill, the administration of the US President on January 10, 1941 introduced it to both chambers of Congress, which was approved by him on March 11. Meanwhile, in September 1941, the US Congress, after a long debate, approved the so-called "Victory Program", the essence of which, according to the American military historians themselves (R. Leighton, R. Coakley), was that "America's contribution to the war will be weapons, not armies. "

Immediately after the signing of this program by President Roosevelt, his adviser and special envoy Averell Harriman flew to London, and from there to Moscow, where on October 1, 1941, USSR People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov, British Minister of Reserves and Supplies Lord W.E. Beaverbrook and Presidential Special Representative A. Harriman signed the First (Moscow) Protocol, which marked the beginning of the spread of the Lend-Lease program to the Soviet Union.

Then, on June 11, 1942, the "Agreement between the governments of the USSR and the United States on principles applicable to mutual assistance in the war against aggression" was signed in Washington, which finally settled all fundamental issues of military-technical and economic cooperation between the two main participants in the "anti-Hitler coalition. ". In general, in accordance with the signed protocols, all lend-lease deliveries to the USSR are traditionally divided into several stages:

Before Lend-Lease - from June 22, 1941 to September 30, 1941 (before the signing of the protocol); The first protocol - from October 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942 (signed on October 1, 1941); The second protocol - from July 1, 1942 to June 30, 1943 (signed on October 6, 1942); The third protocol - from July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1944 (signed on October 19, 1943); The fourth protocol - from July 1, 1944 to September 20, 1945 (signed on April 17, 1944).

On September 2, 1945, by signing the act of surrender of militaristic Japan, the Second World War was ended, and already on September 20, 1945, all lend-lease deliveries to the USSR were stopped.

What, where and how much

The US government has never published detailed reports of what and how much was sent under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR. But according to the specified data of Doctor of Historical Sciences L.V. Pozdeeva ("Anglo-American relations during the Second World War 1941-1945., M.," Science ", 1969;" London - Moscow: British public opinion and the USSR. 1939 -1945 ", M., Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1999), which were extracted by her from closed American archival sources dated 1952, deliveries under Lend-Lease to the USSR were carried out along five routes:

Far East - 8,244,000 tons (47.1%); Persian Gulf - 4,160,000 tons (23.8%); Northern Russia - 3,964,000 tons (22.7%); Soviet North - 681,000 tons (3.9%); Soviet Arctic - 452,000 tons (2.5%).

His compatriot, American historian J. Herring, just as frankly wrote that "Lend-Lease was not the most disinterested act in the history of mankind ... It was an act of calculating selfishness, and Americans have always clearly understood the benefits that they can derive from it."

And this was indeed so, since Lend-Lease turned out to be an inexhaustible source of enrichment for many American corporations. Indeed, in fact, the United States was the only country of the anti-Hitler coalition that received a significant economic gain from the war. It is not for nothing that in the United States itself, the Second World War is sometimes called a "good war", which, for example, is evident from the title of the work of the famous American historian S. Terkeli "The Good War: An Oral History of World War II" World War "(1984)). In it, he frankly, with cynicism noted: “Almost the entire world during this war experienced terrible shocks, horrors and was almost destroyed. We came out of the war with incredible equipment, tools, labor and money. For most Americans, the war turned out to be fun ... I'm not talking about those unfortunate people who lost their sons and daughters. However, for everyone else, it was a damn good time. "

Almost all researchers on this topic unanimously say that the Lend-Lease program has noticeably revived the economic situation in the United States, in the balance of payments of which Lend-Lease operations have become one of the leading articles during the war. To carry out lend-lease deliveries, the Roosevelt administration began to widely use the so-called “cost-plus contracts”, when private contractors could set a certain level of income in relation to costs themselves.

In cases where significant volumes of specialized equipment were required, the US government acted as the lessor, buying all the necessary equipment for its subsequent leasing.

Only numbers

Of course, Lend-Lease deliveries brought the victory over the enemy closer. But here are some real numbers that speak for themselves.

For example, during the war years, more than 29.1 million small arms of all basic types were produced at the enterprises of the Soviet Union, while only about 152 thousand small arms were supplied to the Red Army from American, British and Canadian factories. that is, 0.5%. A similar picture was observed for all types of artillery systems of all calibers - 647.6 thousand Soviet guns and mortars against 9.4 thousand foreign ones, which was less than 1.5% of their total number.

For other types of weapons, the picture was somewhat different, but also not so "optimistic": for tanks and self-propelled guns, the ratio of domestic and allied vehicles was, respectively, 132.8 thousand and 11.9 thousand (8.96%), and for combat aircraft - 140.5 thousand and 18.3 thousand (13%).

And one more thing: out of almost $ 46 billion, which cost all the Lend-Lease assistance, for the Red Army, which defeated the lion's share of the divisions of Germany and its military satellites, the United States allocated only $ 9.1 billion, that is, slightly more than one-fifth of the funds ...

At the same time, the British Empire received more than $ 30.2 billion, France - 1.4 billion, China - 630 million, and even the countries of Latin America (!) Received $ 420 million. A total of 42 countries received supplies under the Lend-Lease program.

I must say that in Lately General Lend-Lease deliveries began to be assessed somewhat differently, but this does not change the essence of the overall picture. Here are some updated data: of the 50 billion dollars, almost 31.5 billion were spent on supplies to Great Britain, 11.3 billion - to the USSR, 3.2 billion - to France and 1.6 billion - to China. ...

But, perhaps, with the overall insignificance of the volume of overseas aid, it played a decisive role precisely in 1941, when the Germans stood at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad, and when only 25-40 km were left before the victorious march across Red Square?

Let's take a look at the statistics on arms deliveries for this year. From the beginning of the war to the end of 1941, the Red Army received 1.76 million rifles, machine guns and machine guns, 53.7 thousand guns and mortars, 5.4 thousand tanks and 8.2 thousand combat aircraft. Of these, our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition delivered only 82 artillery pieces (0.15%), 648 tanks (12.14%) and 915 aircraft (10.26%). Moreover, a fair amount of sent military equipment, in particular 115 of 466 British-made tanks, did not reach the front in the first year of the war.

If we translate these supplies of weapons and military equipment into monetary equivalent, then, according to the well-known historian, Doctor of Sciences M.I. -1945 in German historiography ", St.-P., Publishing house LTA, 1994), which for many years successfully and adequately polemicizes with German historians (W. Schwabedissen, K. Uebe)," until the end of 1941 - in the a difficult period for the Soviet state - materials worth 545 thousand dollars were sent to the USSR under Lend-Lease from the United States, while the total cost of American supplies to the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition was 741 million dollars. That is, less than 0.1% of American aid was received by the Soviet Union during this difficult period.

In addition, the first Lend-Lease deliveries in the winter of 1941-1942 reached the USSR very late, and in these critical months the Russians, and only Russians, put up real resistance to the German aggressor on their own land and with their own means, without receiving any notable assistance from Western democracies. By the end of 1942, the agreed delivery programs to the USSR were completed by the Americans and the British by 55%. In 1941-1942, the USSR received only 7% of the cargo sent from the United States during the war years. The bulk of weapons and other materials were received by the Soviet Union in 1944-1945, after a radical change in the course of the war. "

Part II

Now let's see what the combat vehicles of the allied countries, which originally went under the Lend-Lease program, were.

Of the 711 fighters that arrived from England to the USSR before the end of 1941, 700 were hopelessly outdated machines of the Kittyhawk, Tomahawk and Hurricane types, which are significantly inferior to the German Messerschmit and the Soviet Yak in speed and maneuverability and not even had cannon armament. Even if the Soviet pilot managed to catch the enemy ace in the machine-gun sight, their rifle-caliber machine guns often turned out to be completely powerless against the rather strong armor of German aircraft. As for the newest Airacobra fighters, in 1941 only 11 of them were delivered. Moreover, the first "Airacobra" arrived in the Soviet Union disassembled, without any documentation and with a fully exhausted service life.

This, incidentally, applies to two squadrons of Hurricane fighters, armed with 40-mm tank cannons to fight enemy armored vehicles. The attack aircraft from these fighters turned out to be completely useless, and they stood idle in the USSR throughout the war, since there were simply no people willing to fly on them in the Red Army.

A similar picture was observed with the vaunted British armored vehicles - the light tank "Wallentine", which Soviet tank crews dubbed "Valentine", and the medium tank "Matilda", which the same tankers called even more biting - "Goodbye, Motherland", Thin armor, fire-hazardous carburetor engines and the antediluvian transmission made them easy prey for German gunners and grenade launchers.

According to the authoritative testimony of V.M. Molotov's personal assistant V.M. Berezhkov, who, as a translator of I.V. Stalin, participated in all the negotiations of the Soviet leadership with the Anglo-American visitors, Stalin often resented the fact that, for example, the British supplied - lick out obsolete Hurricane aircraft and shied away from deliveries of the latest Spitfire fighters. Moreover, in September 1942, in a conversation with the leader of the US Republican Party, W. Wilkie, in the presence of the American and British ambassadors and W. Standley and A. Clark Kerr, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief directly put before him the question: why are the British and American governments supplying the Soviet Union substandard materials?

And he explained that we are talking, first of all, about the supply of American P-40 aircraft instead of the much more modern Airacobras, and that the British are supplying useless Hurricane aircraft, which are much worse than the German ones. There was a case, Stalin added, when the Americans were about to supply the Soviet Union with 150 Aerocobras, but the British intervened and kept them for themselves. "The Soviet people ... know very well that both the Americans and the British have aircraft of equal or even better quality than the German aircraft, but for some unknown reason, some of these aircraft are not supplied to the Soviet Union."

The American ambassador, Admiral Standley, had no information on this matter, and the British ambassador Archibald Clark Kerr admitted that he was aware of the Airacobra business, but began to justify their sending elsewhere by the fact that these 150 machines in the hands of the British would bring “much more benefit to the common cause of the allies than if they were in the Soviet Union. "

Are they waiting for the promised three years?

The United States promised to send 600 tanks and 750 aircraft in 1941, and sent the first only 182 and 204, respectively.

The same story repeated itself in 1942: if the Soviet industry this year produced more than 5.9 million small arms, 287 thousand guns and mortars, 24.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns and 21.7 thousand aircraft, then under Lend-Lease for January-October 1942, only 61 thousand units of small arms, 532 guns and mortars, 2703 tanks and self-propelled guns and 1695 aircraft were delivered.

Moreover, since November 1942, i.e. in the midst of the battle for the Caucasus and Stalingrad and the conduct of Operation Mars on the Rzhev salient, the supply of weapons almost completely stopped. According to historians (M.N. Suprun "Lend-Lease and Northern Convoys, 1941-1945", M., publishing house "Andreevsky Flag", 1997), these interruptions began in the summer of 1942, when German aviation and submarines defeated the notorious PQ-17 Caravan, abandoned (by order of the Admiralty) by British escort ships. The result was disastrous: only 11 of 35 ships reached the Soviet ports, which was used as an excuse to suspend the dispatch of the next convoy, which sailed from the British coast only in September 1942.

The new Caravan PQ-18 lost 10 out of 37 transports on the way, and the next convoy was sent only in mid-December 1942. Thus, in 3.5 months, when the decisive battle of the entire Second World War was going on on the Volga, less than 40 ships with lend-lease cargoes came to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk one by one. In connection with this circumstance, many had a legitimate suspicion that all this time in London and Washington they were simply waiting for the victory in whose favor the battle of Stalingrad would end.

Meanwhile, since March 1942, i.e. Just six months after the evacuation of more than 10 thousand industrial enterprises from the European part of the USSR, the growth of military production began, which by the end of this year exceeded the pre-war figures by five times (!). Moreover, it should be noted that 86% of the entire labor force was made up of old people, women and children. It was they who in 1942-1945 gave Soviet army 102.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, more than 125.6 thousand aircraft, more than 780 thousand artillery pieces and mortars, etc.

Not just weapons. And not only to the allies ...

There were also lend-lease supplies that did not belong to the main types of weapons. And here the numbers are really solid. In particular, we received 2,586 thousand tons of aviation gasoline, which was 37% of the production in the USSR during the war years, and almost 410 thousand cars, i.e. 45% of all vehicles of the Red Army (excluding captured vehicles). Food supplies also played a significant role, although during the first year of the war they were extremely insignificant, and the United States supplied about 15% of meat and other canned food.

And there were also machine tools, rails, steam locomotives, carriages, radars and other useful property, without which you can't fight much.

Of course, having familiarized yourself with this impressive list of lend-lease supplies, one could sincerely admire the American partners in the anti-Hitler coalition ", if not one nuance:at the same time, American industrial corporations carried out supplies to Nazi Germany ...

For example, the oil corporation Standard Oil, owned by John Rockefeller Jr., sold gasoline and lubricants worth $ 20 million to Berlin through the German IG Farbenindustry concern alone. And the Venezuelan branch of the same company sent 13 thousand tons of crude oil to Germany every month, which the powerful chemical industry of the Third Reich immediately processed into first-class gasoline. Moreover, the matter was not limited to precious fuel, and tungsten, synthetic rubber and a lot of various components for the automotive industry, which the German Fuhrer supplied his old friend Henry Ford Sr., came from overseas to the Germans. In particular, it is well known that 30% of all tires manufactured at its factories were used to supply the German Wehrmacht.

As for the total volume of Ford-Rockefeller supplies to Nazi Germany, there is still no complete information on this matter, since this is the strictest commercial secret, but even that little that has become the property of the public and historians makes it possible to understand that trade with Berlin in the years by no means did not subside.

Lend-Lease is not charity

There is a version that the US lend-lease assistance was almost charitable. However, upon closer examination, this version does not stand up to criticism either. First of all, because already during the war, within the framework of the so-called "reverse lend-lease", Washington received the necessary raw materials with a total cost of almost 20% of the transferred materials and weapons. In particular, 32 thousand tons of manganese and 300 thousand tons of chromium ore were sent from the USSR, the importance of which in the military industry was extremely high. Suffice it to say that when, during the Nikopol-Kryvyi Rih offensive operation of the troops of the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian fronts in February 1944, the German industry lost Nikopol manganese, the 150-mm frontal armor of the German "royal tigers" began to withstand the impact of Soviet artillery shells where worse than a similar 100-mm armor plate, which was previously on conventional "tigers".

In addition, the USSR paid for allied deliveries in gold. So, only one British cruiser "Edinburgh", which was sunk by German submarines in May 1942, was 5.5 tons of precious metal.

A significant part of the weapons and military equipment, as expected under the Lend-Lease agreement, was returned by the Soviet Union at the end of the war. In return, he received an invoice for a round sum of $ 1,300 million. Against the background of writing off Lend-Lease debts to other powers, this looked like an outright robbery, so JV Stalin demanded to recount the "allied debt".

Subsequently, the Americans were forced to admit that they were mistaken, but increased interest on the total amount, and the final amount, taking into account this interest, recognized by the USSR and the USA under the Washington Agreement in 1972, amounted to 722 million green. Of these, 48 million were paid by the United States under Leonid Brezhnev, in three equal payments in 1973, after which payments were stopped due to the introduction by the American side of discriminatory measures in trade with the USSR (in particular, the notorious Jackson-Vanik Amendment - ed.).

Only in June 1990, during new negotiations between Presidents George W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, did the parties return to the discussion of the Lend-Lease debt, during which a new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030, and the remaining amount of the debt - 674 million dollars.

After the collapse of the USSR, its debts were technically divided into debts to governments (Paris Club) and debts to private banks (London Club). The lend-lease debt was a debt obligation to the US government, that is, part of the debt to the Paris Club, which Russia fully repaid in August 2006.

According to our own estimates

US President F.D. Roosevelt said bluntly that “helping the Russians is money well spent,” and his successor in the White House, G. Truman, back in June 1941, in the pages of the New York Times, said: “If we see that Germany is winning, we must help Russia, and if Russia wins, we must help Germany, and let them thus kill each other as much as possible "...

The first official assessment of the role of Lend-Lease in the overall

In the initial period of World War II, the so-called act of neutrality was in force in the United States, according to which the only way to provide assistance to any of the belligerents 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). At that time, Great Britain became the main consumer of military products in the United States, but very soon it exhausted its hard currency. At the same time, the President Franklin Roosevelt I perfectly understood that in this situation the best way out for the United States is all-round economic support for the countries fighting against Nazi Germany. Therefore, he actually "pushed" on March 11, 1941 in Congress the "United States Protection Act", also referred to as the Lend-Lease Act. Now, any country whose defense was recognized as vital to the United States, weapons and strategic raw materials were provided on the following conditions:

1. Weapons and materials lost in the course of hostilities are not subject to payment.

2. Property remaining after the end of the war, suitable for civilian purposes, must be fully or partially paid on the basis of long-term loans provided by the United States.

3. Equipment not lost after the war must be returned to the United States.

Joseph Stalin and Harry Hopkins, 1941

After Germany attacked the USSR, Roosevelt sent his closest assistant to Moscow Harry Hopkins to find out "how long Russia will hold out." This was important, since in the United States at that time the prevailing opinion was that the resistance of the USSR would not be able to provide significant resistance to the Germans, and the supplied weapons and materials would simply fall into the hands of the enemy. On July 31, Harry Hopkins met with Vyacheslav Molotov and Joseph Stalin... Following their results, the American politician left for Washington with the firm conviction that the Germans would not have a quick victory and that the supply of weapons to Moscow could have a significant impact on the course of hostilities.

However, the USSR was included in the Lend-Lease program only in October-November 1941 (up to this point, our country paid for all American military supplies). It took Roosevelt such a long period of time to overcome the resistance of a sufficiently large number of American politicians.

The delivery of goods took place along three main routes: Pacific, Trans-Iranian and Arctic. The fastest, although 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 imminent victory remained so great, but as the hostilities became protracted, the German command pulled all the O great strength. The result was not long in coming.

In July 1942, the German fleet, in close cooperation with aviation, practically defeated the PQ-17 convoy: 22 out of 35 transport ships were killed. 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. The number of convoys increased, and their escort was accompanied by fewer losses. All in all, 4,027 thousand tons of cargo were transported along the Arctic route to the USSR. Losses did not exceed 7% of the total.

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 sent to Russia using rail and road transport. In order to ensure full control over transport routes in August 1941, the USSR and Great Britain occupied Iran.

To increase the capacity, we carried out a large-scale modernization of the ports of the Persian Gulf and the Trans-Iranian Railway. Also, General Motors has built two factories in Iran, which assembled cars intended for delivery to the USSR. In total, during the war years, these enterprises manufactured and sent to our country 184,112 vehicles. The total cargo traffic through the ports of the Persian Gulf for the entire period of the existence of the Trans-Iranian route amounted to 4227 thousand tons.

Aircraft under the Lend-Lease program

From the beginning. 1945, after the liberation of Greece, the Black Sea route began to function. In this way, the USSR received 459 thousand tons of cargo.

General A.M. Korolev and Major General Donald Connelly shake hands in front of a train that arrived as part of Lend-Lease supplies

The analysis of supplies of automotive equipment deserves no less close attention. In total, the USSR received 447,785 vehicles under Lend-Lease. It is significant that during the war years Soviet industry produced only 265 thousand cars. Thus, the number of vehicles transferred from the Allies was more than 1.5 times higher than their own production. In addition, these were real army vehicles, adapted for operation in front-line conditions, while the domestic industry supplied the army with ordinary national economic vehicles.

The role of Lend-Lease vehicles in combat can hardly be overestimated. To a greater extent, they ensured the success of the victorious operations of 1944, which went down in history as the "ten Stalinist blows."

During discussions on the topic "Could the USSR do without Lend-Lease?" many copies have been broken. The author believes that, most likely, he could. Another thing is that now it is not possible to calculate what the price would be. If the volume of weapons supplied by the allies could to one degree or another be fully compensated for by the 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 turn into a critical one.

The Lend-Lease program was terminated on the initiative of the American government on August 21, 1945, although the USSR asked to continue deliveries on credit terms (it was necessary to restore the country destroyed by the war). However, by that time Franklin Roosevelt was no longer among the living, and a new era of the Cold War was knocking loudly at the door.

During the war, payments for deliveries under Lend-Lease were not made. In 1947, the United States estimated the Soviet Union's debt for deliveries at $ 2.6 billion, but a year later the amount was reduced to $ 1.3 billion. It was planned that the repayment will be made within 30 years with an accrual of 2.3% per annum. Joseph Stalin rejected these accounts, saying that "the USSR paid off the debts of the Lend-Lease in full in blood." As a substantiation of its point of view, the USSR cited the precedent of writing off debts for supplies under Lend-Lease to other countries. In addition, Stalin quite reasonably did not want to give the funds of the war-ravaged country to a potential enemy in the Third World War.

Summing up, we can conclude that for the United States, Lend-Lease was primarily, in the words of Franklin Roosevelt, "a profitable investment of capital." Moreover, it is not the profit 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 was pleased to order that the post-war welfare of the United States to a large extent was paid for 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. Here's a "marriage of convenience" ...

Andrey CHAPLYGIN

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