Lend-Lease. Myths and reality

It’s worth starting with the “decoding” of the very term “lend-lease”, although for this it is enough to look into the English-Russian dictionary. So, lend - "to lend", lease - "to lease". It was under such conditions that the United States during the Second World War transferred military equipment, weapons, ammunition, equipment, strategic raw materials, food, various goods and services to the allies in the Anti-Hitler coalition. These conditions will still have to be remembered at the end of the article.

The Lend-Lease Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on March 11, 1941, and authorized the President to grant the above species to countries whose "defence against aggression is vital to the defense of the United States." The calculation is clear: to protect yourself with the hands of others and to preserve your strength as much as possible.

Lend-Lease deliveries in 1939-45. received 42 countries, US spending on them amounted to more than 46 billion dollars (13% of all military spending of the country during the Second World War). The main volume of supplies (about 60%) fell on the British Empire; against this background, the share of the USSR, whose share fell the brunt of the war, is more than indicative: slightly higher than 1/3 of the British supplies. The largest part of the remaining deliveries came from France and China.

Even in the Atlantic Charter, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill in August 1941, it was said about the desire "to supply the USSR with the maximum amount of those materials that it needs most of all." Although the United States officially signed the supply agreement with the USSR on July 11, 1942, the effect of the Lend-Lease Law was extended to the USSR by a presidential decree on November 7, 1941 (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 deliveries for a period up to 06/30/42. Subsequently, such agreements (they were called "Protocols") were renewed annually.

But again, even earlier, on August 31, 1941, the first caravan under the code name "Dervish" arrived in Arkhangelsk, and more or less systematic Lend-Lease deliveries began in November 1941. At first, sea convoys arriving in Arkhangelsk, Murmansk were the main delivery method. and Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk). In total, 1530 transports followed this route, consisting of 78 convoys (42 - to the USSR, 36 - back). By 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.

Our country highly appreciates and honors the courageous feat of the sailors of Britain and other allied countries who participated in the escort and protection of convoys along the Northern route.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LEND-LEASE FOR THE USSR

For the Soviet Union, which fought against an exceptionally strong aggressor, the supply of military equipment, weapons and ammunition was primarily important, 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 considerably from source to source.)

But we did not always get exactly what we especially needed, and within the agreed time frame (besides inevitable combat losses, there were other reasons for this). So, in the most difficult period for us (October - December 1941), the USSR was underdelivered: aircraft - 131, tanks - 513, wedges - 270 and a whole range of cargoes. For the period from October 1941 to the end of June 1942 (the terms of the 1st Protocol), the United States fulfilled its obligations for: 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 AIRCRAFT EQUIPMENT UNDER LEND-LEASE

This type of supply, of course, was of paramount importance. Lend-lease aircraft came mainly from the United States, although a certain part (and a lot) also came from the UK. The figures indicated in the table may not coincide with other sources, but they very clearly illustrate the dynamics and range of aircraft deliveries.

In terms of their flight performance, the Lend-Lease aircraft were far from equivalent.

So. the American Kittyhawk fighter and the English Hurricane, as A.I. Shakhurin in September 1941, "are not the latest examples of American and British technology"; in fact, they were significantly inferior to the German fighters in terms of speed and armament. "Harry-Kane", moreover, had an unreliable engine: due to its failure in battle, the famous pilot from the North Sea, twice Hero of the Soviet Union B.F. Safonov. Soviet pilots frankly called this fighter a "flying coffin."

The American fighter Airacobra, on which the 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 machine guns 12.7 mm), which, according to Pokryshkin, "broke the German planes to smithereens." But due to miscalculations in the design of the "Aircobra", with complex evolutions during the battle, it often fell into a hard-to-remove "flat" tailspin, deformation of the fuselage "Aerocob-Of course, such an ace as 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 manufacturer ("Bell"), but she rejected it. Only when our test pilot A. Kochetkov was sent to the USA, who over the airfield of the company and in front of its management demonstrated the deformation of the Aerocobra fuselage in the tail area (he himself managed to jump out with a parachute), the company had to redesign the design of his car. The improved model of the fighter, which received the designation P-63 "Kingcobra", began to arrive at the final stage of the war, in 1944-45, when our industry mass-produced excellent Yak-3, La-5, La-7 fighters, which surpassed the American ones in terms of characteristics.

A comparison of the characteristics shows that American vehicles were not inferior to the German ones of the same type in terms of basic indicators: the bombers also had an important advantage - night vision bomb sights, which the German Yu-88 and Xe-111 did not have. Yes, and the defensive weapons of the American bombers were machine guns of 12.7 mm caliber (for the German ones - 7.92), and their number was large.

The combat use and technical operation of American and British aircraft, of course, brought a lot of worries, but our technicians relatively quickly learned not only to prepare "foreigners" for combat missions, but also to repair them. Moreover, on the part of British aircraft, Soviet specialists managed to replace their rather weak machine guns of 7.71 mm caliber with more powerful domestic weapons.

Speaking of 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, holding back the intensity of combat training in combat units and training in flight schools. During the war years, the USSR received under Lend-Lease 630 thousand tons of aviation gasoline from the USA, and more than 570 thousand more from Great Britain and Canada. 1941 - 1945. Thus, one has to agree with the statement of the 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. Unprecedented was the difficulty of ferrying aircraft from the United States "under its own power" to the Soviet Union. Particularly long - 14,000 km) was the ALSIB air route (Alaska-Siberia), laid in 1942 from Fairbanks (USA) to Krasnoyarsk and beyond. 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 loads made ALSIB the most difficult haul route. The ferry air division of the Soviet Air Force operated here, and, probably, more than one of our pilots laid down his young head not in battle with the aces of the Luftwaffe, but on the ALSIBA track, but his feat is as glorious as the front-line one. 43% of all aircraft received from the United States passed through this air route.

Already in October 1942, the first group of American A-20 Boston bombers was overtaken by ALSIB near Stalingrad. Aircraft made 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 the delivery of goods by sea across the South Atlantic to the Persian Gulf region and the creation of aircraft assembly workshops there, aircraft began to be ferried from the airfields of Iran and Iraq to the North Caucasus. The southern air route was also difficult: mountainous terrain, unbearable heat, sandstorms. 31% of the aircraft received from the United States was transported through it.

In general, it must be admitted 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% (especially the sailors noted the Catalina flying boat), which looks very significant.

ARMORED VEHICLES

In terms of importance for combat operations, in terms of 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 must be noted that the corresponding figures fluctuate quite significantly in different sources.

"Soviet Military Encyclopedia" gives the following data on tanks (pieces): USA - about 7000; Great Britain - 4292; Canada - 1188; total - 12480.

The reference dictionary "The Great Patriotic War 1941 - 45" gives the total number of tanks received under Lend-Lease - 10800 units.

The latest edition of Russia and the USSR in Wars and Conflicts of the 20th Century (M, 2001) gives the figure of 11,900 tanks, as does the latest edition of The Great Patriotic War 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 lots of Lend-Lease armored vehicles (together with two types of American tanks of the M3 series). These were combat vehicles designed to escort infantry.

"Valentine" Mk 111

It was considered infantry, weighing 16.5 -18 tons; armor - 60 mm, gun 40 mm (on parts of tanks -57 mm), speed 32 - 40 km / h (different engines). On the fronts, it proved to be positive: having a low silhouette, it had good reliability, comparative simplicity of device and maintenance. True, our repairmen had to weld spurs on the Valentine's tracks to increase patency (tea, not Europe). They were delivered from England - 2400 pieces, from Canada - 1400 (according to other sources - 1180).

"Matilda" Mk IIA

By 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 has fallen into the closed undercarriage, 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, by weight (40-45 tons) it belonged to the heavy class. It had a clearly unsatisfactory layout - the caterpillar bypass covered the hull, which sharply worsened the visibility of the driver in battle. With strong armor (board - 95 mm, forehead of the hull - up to 150), it did not have powerful weapons (the guns were installed mainly 40 - 57 mm, only for some vehicles - 75 mm). Low speed (20-25 km / h), poor maneuverability, limited visibility reduced the effect of strong armor, although Soviet tankers noted the good combat survivability of the Churchills. There were 150 of them delivered. (according to other sources - 310 pieces).

Diesel engines were installed on the Valentines and Matildas, and carburetors on the Churchills.

AMERICAN TANKS

For some reason, the M3 index denoted two American tanks at once: the light M3 - "General Stuart" and the medium M3 - "General Lee", aka "General Grant" (in everyday life - "Lee / Grant").

MZ "Stuart"

Weight - 12.7 tons, armor 38-45 mm, speed - 48 km / h, armament - 37 mm caliber gun, carburetor engine. With good armor for a light tank and speed, 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 sponson of the hull and 37 mm cannon in the turret, 4 machine guns. The layout of the tank (high silhouette) and the location of the weapons were extremely unfortunate. The bulkiness of the design and the placement of weapons in three tiers (which forced the crew to be brought up to 7 people) made the Grant a fairly easy prey for enemy artillery. Aviation gasoline engine exacerbated the situation of the crew. We called it "a mass grave for seven." Nevertheless, in late 1941 - early 1942, 1400 of them were delivered; in that difficult period, when Stalin personally distributed the tanks individually, and the "Grants" were at least some kind of help. Since 1943, the Soviet Union has abandoned them.

The most effective (and, accordingly, popular) American tank of the period 1942 - 1945. the medium tank M4 "Sherman" appeared. In terms of production during the war (a total of 49324 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 armor 100 mm thick at ranges up to 500 m.

"Sherman" М4А2

Weight - 32 tons, armor: hull forehead - 76 mm, turret forehead - 100 mm, side - 58 mm, speed - 45 km / h, gun - indicated above. 2 machine guns caliber 7.62 mm and anti-aircraft 12.7 mm; crew - 5 people (like our modernized T-34-85).

A characteristic feature of the Sherman was a removable (bolted) cast front (lower) part of the body, which served as a cover for the transmission compartment. An important advantage was given by a device for stabilizing the gun in a 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 traverse 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 heavy tank IS-2 only in 1944.

For its time, the Sherman had sufficient mobility, satisfactory armament and armor. The disadvantages of the car were: poor roll stability, insufficient reliability of the power plant (which was an advantage of our T-34) and relatively poor cross-country ability on slippery and frozen soils, until during the war the Americans replaced the Sherman caterpillars with wider ones, with spurs - lugs. Nevertheless, in general, according to tankers, it was a completely reliable combat vehicle, easy to set up and maintain, very maintainable, since it made the most use of automotive units and components well mastered by American industry. Together with the famous "thirty-fours", although somewhat inferior to them in certain characteristics, the American "Shermans" with Soviet crews actively participated in all major operations of the Red Army in 1943-1945, reaching the coast of the Baltic, to the Danube, Vistula, Spree and Elba.

The sphere of Lend-Lease armored vehicles should also include 5,000 American armored personnel carriers (half-tracked and wheeled), which were used in the Red Army, including as carriers of various weapons, especially anti-aircraft for air defense of rifle units (their armored personnel carriers during the Patriotic War in the USSR not produced, only reconnaissance armored cars BA-64K were made).

AUTOMOTIVE EQUIPMENT

The number of vehicles supplied to the USSR exceeded the entire combat 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 firms in the USA, England and Canals.

In the total number of vehicles, 152,000 Studebaker US 6x4 and US 6x6 trucks 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 carrying capacity of 3/4 tons (hence the number in the marking). These models were real army models, most adapted to front-line operation (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).

Truck "Studebaker"

Deliveries of Lend-Lease vehicles, which exceeded their own production in the USSR by more than 1.5 times during the war years (265 thousand units), were certainly of decisive importance for a sharp increase in the mobility of the Red Army during large-scale operations in 1943-1945 . After all, for 1941-1942. The Red Army lost 225,000 vehicles, which were halfway missing even in peacetime.

The American Studebakers, with strong 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 maneuverability, the US 6x6 Studebakers also worked well as tractors for various artillery systems.

When deliveries of the Studebakers began, the BM-13-N Katyushas began to be mounted only on their all-terrain chassis, and from 1944 - the BM-31-12 for heavy M31 rockets.

It is impossible not to mention the tires, of which 3606 thousand were delivered - more than 30% of the domestic tire production. To this we must add 103 thousand tons of natural rubber from the "bins" of the British Empire, and again recall the supply of light fraction gasoline, which was added to ours, "native" (which was required by Studebaker engines).

OTHER EQUIPMENT, RAW MATERIALS

Deliveries from the United States of rolling stock and rails helped in many ways to solve our transport problems during the war years. 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 wagons (with our own production of 1087). The supply of rails (if you count only broad gauge rails) accounted for more than 80% of their domestic production during this period - the metal was needed for defense purposes. Taking into account the extremely hard work of the railway transport of the USSR in 1941 - 1945, the importance of these deliveries can hardly be overestimated.

As for communication 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 delivered from the USA, which basically satisfied the needs of the Red Army during the war.

Of certain importance for providing the USSR with food (of course, primarily for the army in the field) were also deliveries of a number of high-calorie foods (4.3 million tons in total). In particular, the supply of sugar accounted for 42% of its own production in those years, and canned meat - 108%. Even though our soldiers nicknamed the American stew mockingly “the 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 became 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 smelting iron, steel, aluminum, the production of explosives and gunpowder remained in the occupied areas. Therefore, the supply of 328 thousand tons of aluminum from the USA (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 sheet (our" one and a half and “three-tons” were made in the war with wooden cabins precisely because of the shortage of sheet steel) and artillery gunpowder (used as an additive to domestic ones). Deliveries of high-performance equipment had a tangible impact on raising the technical level of domestic mechanical engineering: 38,000 machine tools from the USA and 6,500 from Great Britain worked for a long time after the war.

ARTILLERY GUNS

Automatic anti-aircraft gun "Bofors"

The smallest number of Lend-Lease deliveries turned out to be the classic types of weapons - artillery and small arms. It is believed that the share of artillery pieces (according to various sources - 8000, 9800 or 13000 pieces) was only 1.8% of the number produced in the USSR, but if we consider that most of them were anti-aircraft guns, then their share in similar domestic production for war time (38000) will rise to a quarter. Anti-aircraft guns from the United States were supplied in two types: 40-mm automatic guns "Bofors" (Swedish design) and 37-mm automatic "Colt-Browning" (actually American). The Bofors were the most effective - they had hydraulic drives and therefore were induced by the entire battery at the same time with the help of the AZO launcher (artillery anti-aircraft fire control device); but these tools (in the complex) were very complex and expensive to manufacture, which was only possible for the developed US industry.

SUPPLY OF SMALL ARMS

In terms of small arms, the deliveries were simply meager (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 Reising submachine guns, as well as Browning machine guns: easel M1919A4 and large-caliber M2 HB; English light machine gun "Bran", anti-tank guns "Boys" 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 not very popular. American "Thompsons" and "Raising" our soldiers sought to quickly replace 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 parts of the Red Army).

The most effective in their class were, of course, American Brownings: M1919A4s were mounted on American armored personnel carriers, and large-caliber M2 HBs were mainly used as part of anti-aircraft installations, quad (4 machine guns M2 HB) and built-in (37-mm anti-aircraft gun "Colt -Browning" and two M2 HB). These installations, mounted on Lend-Lease armored personnel carriers, were very effective means of air defense 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 from the actions of Hitler's submarines and aviation; the number of heroes-sailors of many countries who died at the same time has more than one thousand people. Deliveries were distributed along the following delivery routes: the Far East - 47.1%, the Persian Gulf - 23.8%, Northern Russia - 22.7%, the Black Sea - 3.9%, along the Northern Sea Route) - 2.5%.

RESULTS AND ASSESSMENTS OF LEND-LISA

For a long time, Soviet historians only pointed out that Lend-Lease deliveries amounted to only 4% of the output of domestic industry and agriculture during the war years. True, the data presented above shows that in many cases it is important to take into account the specific range of equipment samples, their quality indicators, the timeliness of delivery to the front, their significance, etc.

As repayment for Lend-Lease supplies, the United States received various goods and services worth $7.3 billion from allied countries. The USSR, in particular, sent 300 thousand tons of chromium and 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, and in addition, platinum, gold, furs and other goods for a total of $ 2.2 million. The USSR also provided the Americans with a number of services, in particular , opened its northern ports, took over the partial provision of the Allied troops in Iran.

08/21/45 The United States of America stopped Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR. The Soviet government turned to the United States with a request to continue part of the supplies on the terms of a loan to the USSR, but was refused. A new era was coming... If most of the other countries' debts on supplies were written off, then negotiations on these issues with the Soviet Union were conducted in 1947-1948, 1951-1952 and in 1960.

The total amount of lend-lease deliveries to the USSR is estimated at $11.3 billion. At the same time, according to the law on lend-lease, only goods and equipment that have survived after the end of hostilities are subject to payment. Such Americans were estimated at 2.6 billion dollars, although a year later they reduced this amount by half. Thus, initially the US demanded compensation in the amount of $1.3 billion, paid 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 morally obsolete and no longer represented any combat value. That is, American assistance to the allies in some way turned out to be a “pushing” of equipment that the Americans themselves did not need and became morally obsolete, for which, nevertheless, it was necessary to pay off 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 is fundamentally different from the trials that befell its main allies. Only Americans could name World War II "good war", since it helped to significantly raise living standards and demanded too few victims from the overwhelming majority of the population ... ”And Stalin was not going to take away 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 by the Soviet Union of 722 million dollars, until 07/01/01. $48 million was paid, but after the Americans introduced the discriminatory Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the USSR suspended further Lend-Lease payments.

In 1990, at new negotiations between the presidents of the USSR and the USA, the final maturity of the debt was agreed upon - 2030. However, a year later the USSR collapsed, and the debt was "reissued" to Russia. By 2003, it was about $100 million. Adjusted for inflation, the US is unlikely to receive more than 1% of its original cost for its supplies.

(The material was prepared for the site "Wars of the XX century" © http: //site under article H. Aksenova, magazine "Arms". When copying an article, please do not forget to link to the source page of the Wars of the XX Century website).

This is perhaps the main topic for speculation by people who are trying to somehow denigrate the Lend-Lease program. Most of them consider it their indispensable duty to declare that the USSR, they say, paid for all the goods 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 aid under the Lend-Lease program, in accordance with the law on Lend-Lease during the war, paid not a cent for this aid, so to speak. Moreover, as it 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 did indeed send various goods to the USA (including 320,000 tons of chrome ore, 32,000 tons of manganese ore, as well as gold, platinum, and timber). This was done as part of the reverse Lend-Lease program. In addition, the same program included free repair of American ships in Russian ports and other services. Unfortunately, I could not find the total amount of goods and services provided to the Allies under the reverse Lend-Lease. The only source I found claims that this same amount was $2.2 million. However, I personally am not sure of the authenticity of these data. However, they may well be considered as a lower limit. The upper limit in this case will be the amount of several hundred million dollars. Be that as it may, the share of reverse lend-lease in the total lend-lease trade between the USSR and the allies will not exceed 3-4%. For comparison, the amount of reverse lend-lease from Great Britain to the USA is 6.8 billion dollars, which is 18.3% of the total volume of 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 United Kingdom owed $4.33 billion to the United States and $1.19 billion to Canada. The last payment of $83.25 million (to the United States) and $22.7 million (to Canada) was made on December 29, 2006. China's debt was set at 180 million. dollars, and this debt has not yet been repaid. The French paid off the United States on May 28, 1946, by granting the United States a series of trade preferences.

The debt of the USSR was determined in 1947 in the amount of 2.6 billion dollars, but already in 1948 this amount was reduced to 1.3 billion. Nevertheless, the USSR refused to pay. The refusal followed in response to new concessions from the United States: in 1951, the amount of the debt was again revised and this time amounted to 800 million. was again reduced, this time to 722 million dollars; maturity - 2001), and the USSR agreed to this agreement only on condition that it was granted a loan from the Export-Import Bank. In 1973, the USSR made two payments totaling $48 million, but then stopped payments in connection with the introduction in 1974 of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1972 Soviet-American trade agreement. In June 1990, during the talks between the presidents of the USA and the USSR, the parties returned to discussing the debt. A new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030, and the amount - 674 million dollars. At the moment, Russia owes the US $100 million for Lend-Lease deliveries.

The volume of American Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR amounted to about $ 10.8 billion.

March 1946, when W. Churchill delivered his famous speech on the "Iron Curtain" in Fulton (Missouri, USA), is conditionally considered the date of the start of the Cold War. Two world centers of power were formed - the USSR and the USA, their confrontation began. The Lend-Lease debt problem has generated controversy. But if it was relatively easy for the NATO allies to reach an agreement, then the opponents in the Cold War could not reach a compromise for a long time.

Lend-Lease debt claims

The US government made formal demands on the Soviet Union as a lessee, emphasizing the purely military purpose of all supplies made and the eligibility of their use only during the war with Germany and its allies. Even dual-use products were limited by these limits.

The USSR classified the use of Lend-Lease cargoes, did not provide reports and did not allow inspection commissions, and, apparently, did not keep a systematic record of income and losses. American specialists and instructors were invited only to solve technical issues.

This was due not only to the closed nature of the country in wartime conditions. The USSR proceeded from the indisputable fact of its decisive role in the victory over Nazi Germany, which cost it the greatest losses and destruction. But moral arguments were not used in the negotiations. Lend-lease lending conditions corresponded to international practice, and the basis of disagreements was the assessment of debt on lend-lease products (Table 2).

The Soviet Union had to determine the unused part of the deliveries after their termination at the end of September 1945, taking into account the goods in transit, and decide what could be returned and what could be paid. The United States required all lessee countries to conduct the most thorough inventory. The difficulty was in determining what of the property received in wartime was to be written off as destroyed or spent, and what was suitable for use, taking into account depreciation. The cost of the reverse lend-lease was included in the offset. Cargoes delivered to the USSR after the end of the war were not subject to markdown, but they were already moving at a low speed, and their receipt was fully completed in 1946.

Start of calculations

The time of the beginning of the calculations was 1947, but complications immediately arose. Due to the extremely tense post-war budget, the USSR did not have the necessary funds. His Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the inventory could not be carried out due to the lack of such specialists, but pointed to a violation by the United States of its previous obligation to provide the lessee with a long-term credit to pay for supplies. Washington refused to issue a $1 billion targeted loan: American politicians preferred the chance to earn interest and get their property back to limit Soviet economic opportunities. No one in the West could guarantee that Moscow would not redirect this colossal amount for those times to support the communist movement in different parts of the world and to create its own nuclear weapons.

In May 1947, the United States handed over to Moscow its estimate of the value of the Lend-Lease property that the USSR had left after the end of the war with Japan. This amount was estimated at 2067 million dollars, 75% of which was the cost of non-military equipment. The $170 million offered by the USSR in 1948 was considered in Washington to be too low and unacceptable.

Further negotiations took the path of mutual concessions: in 1951 the American side agreed to receive $800 million, and the Soviet Union to pay $300 million. Receiving them by sea in foreign ports, American representatives carefully checked the delivered property for serviceability and completeness to make sure that the terms of the contract were fulfilled, and then destroyed it right on the spot with the help of giant presses, not intending to use it further. At the same time, the Americans understood that most of the supplies that turned out to be unnecessary during the war would be useful to the USSR in peacetime. Of course, it was not possible to force the former ally to fully repay the debt in money or in kind, as well as to obtain from him accurate data on what supplies were spent and what survived.

Difficulties in negotiations

This was especially true for ships that were relatively little used in the Great Patriotic War. Having returned 3 icebreakers and 27 military frigates and, thanks to this, writing off part of the debt, the USSR detained most of the ships for various purposes, including those that were supposed to be bought from the United States, but the deal did not take place. In 1953–1955 The United States received through the ports of Istanbul and Kiel (Germany) another 227 small ships, mostly out of service, another 90 were destroyed in Soviet ports in the presence of American observers, but, as it turned out, not all of them.

Ironically, five former American transports under the Soviet flag participated in the delivery of strategic cargo to Cuba during the Caribbean crisis of 1962. In 1951, the Soviet leadership refused to discuss the real amount of the debt and took as a basis, as it seemed in Moscow, a different way of calculating the UK with the United States, seeing in it a concession to the British as NATO allies. The precedents were applied in the judicial and legal practice of both countries, and the USSR Foreign Ministry decided to take advantage of this. However, the Soviet side, as shown by a recent study, incorrectly calculated the amount of reverse lend-lease from Great Britain, due to which part of the debt was written off. It was not 2, but 4.1% of the total supply. This country itself received assistance, and played the role of a transshipment base through which part of the cargo went to the USSR. In the US, this was counted as a leaseback service. In addition, the British interacted with the Americans in North Africa and Normandy, helping to solve the problems of supply, transportation, etc. The British finished paying their debt only at the end of 2006.

The Soviet-American negotiations dragged on, and the disputed amount increased due to interest and capitalization (interest on interest), although it was partially written off due to the return of unused equipment. During the visit of N.S. Khrushchev in the USA in 1959 no decision was made. The conditions of the "cold war" did not contribute to the rapprochement of positions, and in the meantime, the American side made concessions to other states, "generously" reducing the lend-lease debt by obtaining new services from them.

The US is making concessions

A real shift took place during the period of thaw in relations in 1972 at the talks in Moscow of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers A.N. Kosygin and US President R. Nixon, and the American side also took into account the moral arguments about the greatest losses of the USSR during the war.

At the level of trade ministers of the two countries, the amount of the Soviet debt, including interest, was determined at 722 million dollars in 1945 prices, and the maturity date was 2001. In 1973, the Soviet Union paid 48 million dollars, but soon froze payments due to for the adoption by Congress of the well-known Jackson-Vanik amendment, which, for political reasons, introduced significant restrictions on trade between the two countries and deprived the USSR of a loan for its development. Only in 1990, J. Bush-St. and M.S. Gorbachev returned to the problem of payments, fixing a balance of $674 million, without accruing interest and due by 2030. Most of his share, apparently, was written off due to counter services. In 2002, they included the destruction by Russia of its chemical and part of its nuclear missile weapons under the program of mutual reduction of strategic arms. The Russian Federation currently owes the United States $100 million.

According to the monograph: The economic foundation of the Victory. Parallels of history and modernity. To the 70th anniversary of the Victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War (2016) // edited by I. V. Karavaeva

P.S. Thus, out of the total volume of US Lend-Lease deliveries of $10.8 billion for the surviving equipment, according to the United States, it was necessary to pay $1.3 billion, or about 12%. As a result, the USSR, and then the Russian Federation, out of the amount of 1.3 billion dollars, 722 million dollars, or about 55%, that is, 6.5% of the total value of the supplies received by the USSR, were recognized and then partially paid. It should also be taken into account that the amount of debt was not indexed for inflation, and in 2015 prices, the cost of lend-lease supplies was $160 billion and, thus, the real payment amounted to 0.4% of all aid ( Oleg Budnitsky. Lend-Lease: Facts and Myths // Forbes Russia).

Lend-Lease is mythologized both by opponents of Soviet power and by its supporters. The former believe that without military supplies from the USA and England, the USSR could not have won the war, while the latter believe that the role of these supplies is completely insignificant. We bring to your attention a balanced view of this question by the historian Pavel Sutulin, originally published in his LiveJournal.

History of Lend-Lease

Lend-lease (from the English "lend" - to lend and "lease" - to lease) is a kind of lending program for allies by the United States of America through the supply of machinery, food, equipment, raw materials and materials. The first step towards Lend-Lease was taken by the United States on September 3, 1940, when the Americans transferred 50 old destroyers to Britain in exchange for British military bases. On January 2, 1941, Treasury Department official Oscar Cox prepared the first draft of the Lend-Lease Act. On January 10, this bill was submitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives. On March 11, the Law was approved by both chambers and signed by the President, and three hours later the President signed the first two directives to this law. The first of them ordered the transfer of 28 torpedo boats to Britain, and the second - to betray Greece 50 75-mm guns and several hundred thousand shells. Thus began the history of Lend-Lease.

The essence of Lend-Lease was, in general, quite simple. Under the Lend-Lease Act, the United States could supply machinery, ammunition, equipment, and so on. countries whose defense was vital to the States themselves. All deliveries were free. All machinery, equipment and materials spent, expended or destroyed during the war were not subject to payment. Property left after the end of the war and suitable for civilian purposes had to be paid for.

As for the USSR, Roosevelt and Churchill made a promise to supply it with the materials necessary for the war immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union, that is, on June 22, 1941. On October 1, 1941, the First Moscow Protocol on the supply of the USSR was signed in Moscow, the expiration date of which was determined on June 30. The Lend-Lease Law was extended to the USSR on October 28, 1941, as a result of which the Union was granted a loan of 1 billion dollars. During the war, three more protocols were signed: Washington, London and Ottawa, through which supplies were extended until the end of the war. Officially, Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR ceased on May 12, 1945. However, until August 1945, deliveries continued according to the “Molotov-Mikoyan list”.

Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR and their contribution to the victory

During the war, hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo were supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease. For military historians (and, perhaps, for everyone else), of course, allied military equipment is of the greatest interest - we will start with it. Under Lend-Lease, the following were delivered to the USSR from the USA: light M3A1 “Stuart” - 1676 pieces, light M5 - 5 pieces, light M24 - 2 pieces, medium M3 “Grant” - 1386 pieces, medium M4A2 “Sherman” (with 75 mm gun) - 2007 pieces, medium M4A2 (with 76 mm gun) - 2095 pieces, heavy M26 - 1 piece. From England: infantry "Valentine" - 2394 pieces, infantry "Matilda" MkII - 918 pieces, light "Tetrarch" - 20 pieces, heavy "Churchill" - 301 pieces, cruising "Cromwell" - 6 pieces. From Canada: "Valentine" - 1388. Total: 12199 tanks. In total, during the war years, 86.1 thousand tanks were delivered to the Soviet-German front.

Thus, lend-lease tanks accounted for 12.3% of the total number of tanks produced / delivered to the USSR in 1941-1945. In addition to tanks, ZSU / self-propelled guns were also supplied to the USSR. ZSU: M15A1 - 100 pcs., M17 - 1000 pcs.; SPG: T48 - 650 pcs., M18 - 5 pcs., M10 - 52 pcs. A total of 1807 units were delivered. In total, during the war in the USSR, 23.1 thousand self-propelled guns were produced and received. Thus, the share of self-propelled guns received by the USSR under lend-lease is 7.8% of the total number of equipment of this type received during the war. In addition to tanks and self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers were also supplied to the USSR: English "Universal Carrier" - 2560 units. (including from Canada - 1348 units) and American M2 - 342 units, M3 - 2 units, M5 - 421 units, M9 - 419 units, T16 - 96 units, M3A1 "Scout" - 3340 units ., LVT - 5 pcs. Total: 7185 units. Since armored personnel carriers were not produced in the USSR, lend-lease vehicles accounted for 100% of the Soviet fleet of this equipment. Criticism of Lend-Lease very often draws attention to the poor quality of the armored vehicles supplied by the Allies. This criticism really has some grounds, since American and British tanks in terms of performance characteristics were often inferior to both Soviet and German counterparts. Especially considering that the Allies usually supplied the USSR with not the best examples of their equipment. For example, the most advanced modifications of the Sherman (M4A3E8 and Sherman Firefly) were not delivered to Russia.

Where the best situation has developed with the supply of Lend-Lease aircraft. In total, during the war years, 18,297 aircraft were delivered to the USSR, including from the USA: R-40 Tomahawk fighters - 247, R-40 Kitahawk - 1887, R-39 Airacobra - 4952, R-63 " Kingcobra - 2400, P-47 Thunderbolt - 195; A-20 Boston bombers - 2771, B-25 Mitchell - 861; other types of aircraft - 813. 4171 Spitfires and Hurricanes were delivered from England In total, Soviet troops received 138 thousand aircraft for the war. Thus, the share of foreign equipment in the revenues to the domestic fleet was 13%. True, even here the Allies refused to supply the USSR with the pride of their Air Force - the strategic bombers B-17, B-24 and B- 29, of which 35,000 were produced during the war.

Under Lend-Lease, 8,000 anti-aircraft and 5,000 anti-tank guns were delivered. In total, the USSR received 38 thousand units of anti-aircraft and 54 thousand anti-tank artillery. That is, the share of Lend-Lease in these types of weapons was 21% and 9%, respectively. However, if we take all Soviet guns and mortars as a whole (receipts for the war - 526.2 thousand), then the share of foreign guns in it will be only 2.7%.

During the war years, 202 torpedo boats, 28 patrol ships, 55 minesweepers, 138 submarine hunters, 49 landing ships, 3 icebreakers, about 80 transport ships, about 30 tugboats were transferred under Lend-Lease to the USSR. There are about 580 ships in total. In total, the USSR received 2588 ships during the war years. That is, the share of Lend-Lease equipment is 22.4%.

Lend-lease deliveries of cars became the most noticeable. A total of 480,000 vehicles were supplied under Lend-Lease (of which 85% were from the USA). Including about 430 thousand trucks (mainly US 6 companies Studebaker and REO) and 50 thousand jeeps (Willys MB and Ford GPW). Despite the fact that the total receipts of cars on the Soviet-German front amounted to 744 thousand units, the share of Lend-Lease equipment in the Soviet vehicle fleet was 64%. In addition, 35,000 motorcycles were delivered from the USA.

But the supply of small arms under lend-lease was very modest: only about 150,000 units. Considering that the total receipts of small arms in the Red Army during the war amounted to 19.85 million units, the share of Lend-Lease weapons is approximately 0.75%.

During the war years, 242.3 thousand tons of motor gasoline were supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease (2.7% of the total production and receipt of motor gasoline in the USSR). The situation with aviation gasoline is as follows: 570 thousand tons of gasoline were supplied from the USA, 533.5 thousand tons from Britain and Canada. In addition, 1483 thousand tons of light gasoline fractions were supplied from the USA, Britain and Canada. From light gasoline fractions, as a result of reforming, gasoline is produced, the yield of which is approximately 80%. Thus, 1186 thousand tons of gasoline can be obtained from 1483 thousand tons of fractions. That is, the total supply of gasoline under Lend-Lease can be estimated at 2230 thousand tons. In the USSR, about 4,750 thousand tons of aviation gasoline were produced during the war. Probably, this number also includes gasoline produced from fractions supplied by the allies. That is, the USSR's production of gasoline from its own resources can be estimated at about 3350 thousand tons. Consequently, the share of Lend-Lease aviation fuel in the total amount of gasoline supplied and produced in the USSR is 40%.

622.1 thousand tons of railway rails were supplied to the USSR, which is equal to 36% of the total number of rails supplied and produced in the USSR. During the war, 1900 steam locomotives were delivered, while in the USSR 800 steam locomotives were produced in 1941-1945, of which 708 were produced in 1941. If we take the number of steam locomotives produced from June to the end of 1941 as a quarter of the total production, then the number of locomotives produced during the war will be approximately 300 pieces. That is, the share of Lend-Lease steam locomotives in the total volume of steam locomotives produced and delivered in the USSR is approximately 72%. In addition, 11,075 wagons were delivered to the USSR. For comparison, in 1942-1945, 1092 railway cars were produced in the USSR. During the war years, 318 thousand tons of explosives were supplied under Lend-Lease (of which the United States - 295.6 thousand tons), which is 36.6% of the total production and supply of explosives to the USSR.

Under lend-lease, the Soviet Union received 328 thousand tons of aluminum. If we believe B. Sokolov (“The Role of Lend-Lease in the Soviet Military Efforts”), who estimated the Soviet production of aluminum during the war at 263 thousand tons, then the share of Lend-Lease aluminum in the total amount of aluminum produced and received by the USSR will be 55%. Copper was delivered to the USSR 387 thousand tons - 45% of the total production and supply of this metal to the USSR. Under lend-lease, the Union received 3606 thousand tons of tires - 30% of the total number of tires produced and delivered to the USSR. 610 thousand tons of sugar were supplied - 29.5%. Cotton: 108 million tons - 6%. During the war years, 38.1 thousand metal-cutting machine tools were delivered from the USA to the USSR, and 6.5 thousand machine tools and 104 presses from Great Britain. During the war, the USSR produced 141,000 m/r of machine tools and forging presses. Thus, the share of foreign machine tools in the domestic economy amounted to 24%. The USSR also received 956,700 miles of field telephone cable, 2,100 miles of marine cable, and 1,100 miles of submarine cable. In addition, 35,800 radio stations, 5,899 receivers and 348 locators, 15.5 million pairs of army boots, 5 million tons of food, and so on, were delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease.

According to the data summarized in diagram No. 2, it can be seen that even for the main types of supplies, the share of Lend-Lease products in the total volume of production and supplies to the USSR does not exceed 28%. In general, the share of Lend-Lease products in the total volume of materials, equipment, food, machinery, raw materials, etc. produced and supplied to the USSR. Usually estimated at 4%. In my opinion, this figure, in general, reflects the real state of affairs. Thus, it can be stated with a certain degree of certainty that Lend-Lease did not have any decisive impact on the USSR's ability to wage war. Yes, such types of equipment and materials were supplied under Lend-Lease, which accounted for a large part of the total production of such in the USSR. But would the lack of supplies of these materials become critical? In my opinion, no. The USSR could well redistribute production efforts in such a way as to provide itself with everything necessary, including aluminum, copper, and locomotives. Could the USSR do without Lend-Lease at all? Yes, I could. But the question is what would it cost him. If there were no Lend-Lease, the USSR could go in two ways to solve the problem of the shortage of those goods that were supplied under this Lend-Lease. The first way is to simply close your eyes to this deficit. As a result, there would be a shortage of cars, aircraft and a number of other items of equipment and machinery in the army. Thus, the army would certainly be weakened. The second option is to increase our own production of products supplied under Lend-Lease by attracting excess labor to the production process. This force, accordingly, could only be taken at the front, and thereby, again, weaken the army. Thus, when choosing any of these paths, the Red Army turned out to be a loser. As a result - the prolongation of the war and unnecessary sacrifices on our part. In other words, although Lend-Lease did not have a decisive influence on the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front, it nevertheless saved hundreds of thousands of lives of Soviet citizens. And for this alone, Russia should be grateful to its allies.

Speaking about the role of Lend-Lease in the victory of the USSR, we should not forget about two more points. Firstly, the vast majority of machinery, equipment and materials were supplied to the USSR in 1943-1945. That is, after the turning point in the course of the war. So, for example, in 1941, under Lend-Lease, goods worth approximately $ 100 million were delivered, which amounted to less than 1% of the total supply. In 1942, this percentage was 27.6. Thus, more than 70% of Lend-Lease deliveries fell on 1943-1945, and in the most terrible period of the war for the USSR, the help of the allies was not very noticeable. As an example, in diagram No. 3, you can see how the number of aircraft supplied from the USA changed in 1941-1945. An even more telling example is cars: on April 30, 1944, only 215 thousand units were delivered. That is, more than half of the Lend-Lease vehicles were delivered to the USSR in the last year of the war. Secondly, not all of the equipment delivered under Lend-Lease was used by the army and navy. For example, out of 202 torpedo boats delivered to the USSR, 118 did not have to take part in the hostilities of the Great Patriotic War, since they were commissioned after it ended. All 26 frigates received by the USSR also entered service only in the summer of 1945. A similar situation was observed with other types of equipment.

And, finally, at the end of this part of the article, a small stone in the garden of Lend-Lease critics. Many of these critics emphasize the insufficiency of allied supplies, backing this up with the fact that, with their level of production, the United States could supply even more. Indeed, the United States and Britain produced 22 million small arms, and delivered only 150,000 thousand (0.68%). Of the tanks produced, the Allies supplied the USSR with 14%. The situation was even worse with cars: in total, about 5 million cars were produced in the USA during the war years, and about 450 thousand were delivered to the USSR - less than 10%. And so on. However, this approach is clearly wrong. The fact is that deliveries to the USSR were limited not by the production capabilities of the allies, but by the tonnage of the available transport ships. And just with him, the British and Americans had serious problems. The Allies simply did not physically have the number of transport ships necessary to transport more cargo to the USSR.

Supply routes

Lend-lease cargoes entered the USSR via five routes: via Arctic convoys to Murmansk, via the Black Sea, via Iran, via the Far East, and via the Soviet Arctic. The most famous of these routes, of course, is Murmansk. The heroism of the sailors of the Arctic convoys is glorified in many books and films. It is probably for this reason that many of our fellow citizens got the false impression that the main Lend-Lease deliveries went to the USSR precisely by Arctic convoys. Such an opinion is pure delusion. On the diagram No. 4 you can see the ratio of the volume of cargo transportation on various routes in long tons. As we can see, not only did most of the Lend-Lease cargo not pass through the Russian North, but this route was not even the main one, yielding to the Far East and Iran. One of the main reasons for this state of affairs was the danger of the northern route due to the activity of the Germans. On diagram #5 you can see how effective the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were in dealing with Arctic convoys.

The use of the trans-Iranian route became possible after the Soviet and British troops (from the north and south, respectively) entered the territory of Iran, and already on September 8, a peace agreement was signed between the USSR, Britain and Iran, according to which British and Soviet troops were quartered in Persia. troops. From that moment on, Iran began to be used for deliveries to the USSR. Lend-lease cargoes went to the ports of the northern tip of the Persian Gulf: Basra, Khorramshahr, Abadan and Bandar Shahpur. Aircraft and car assembly plants were set up in these ports. From these ports, goods went to the USSR in two ways: by land through the Caucasus and by water through the Caspian Sea. However, the Trans-Iranian route, like the Arctic convoys, had its drawbacks: firstly, it was too long (The route of the convoy from New York to the coast of Iran around the South African Cape of Good Hope took about 75 days, and then it took more time and the passage of cargo for Iran and the Caucasus or the Caspian). Secondly, German aviation interfered with navigation in the Caspian Sea, which only in October and November sank and damaged 32 ships with cargo, and the Caucasus was not the most peaceful place: in 1941-1943 alone, 963 bandit groups with a total number of 17,513 were eliminated in the North Caucasus human. In 1945, instead of the Iranian route, the Black Sea route was used for supplies.

However, the most safe and convenient route was the Pacific route from Alaska to the Far East (46% of total supplies) or across the Arctic Ocean to Arctic ports (3%). Basically, Lend-Lease cargo was delivered to the USSR from the USA, of course, by sea. However, most of the aviation moved from Alaska to the USSR under its own power (the same AlSib). However, along this path there were also difficulties, this time connected with Japan. In 1941 - 1944, the Japanese detained 178 Soviet ships, some of them - the Kamenets-Podolsky, Ingul and Nogin transports - for 2 or more months. 8 ships - transports "Krechet", "Svirstroy", "Maikop", "Perekop", "Angarstroy", "Peacock Vinogradov", "Lazo", "Simferopol" - were sunk by the Japanese. Transports "Ashgabat", "Kolkhoznik", "Kyiv" were sunk by unidentified submarines, and about 10 more ships died under unclear circumstances.

Lend-lease payment

This is perhaps the main topic for speculation by people who are trying to somehow denigrate the Lend-Lease program. Most of them consider it their indispensable duty to declare that the USSR, they say, paid for all the goods 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 aid under the Lend-Lease program, in accordance with the law on Lend-Lease during the war, paid not a cent for this aid, so to speak. Moreover, as it 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 did indeed send various goods to the USA (including 320,000 tons of chrome ore, 32,000 tons of manganese ore, as well as gold, platinum, and timber). This was done as part of the reverse Lend-Lease program. In addition, the same program included free repair of American ships in Russian ports and other services. Unfortunately, I could not find the total amount of goods and services provided to the Allies under the reverse Lend-Lease. The only source I found claims that this same amount was $2.2 million. However, I personally am not sure of the authenticity of these data. However, they may well be considered as a lower limit. The upper limit in this case will be the amount of several hundred million dollars. Be that as it may, the share of reverse lend-lease in the total lend-lease trade between the USSR and the allies will not exceed 3-4%. For comparison, the amount of reverse lend-lease from Great Britain to the USA is 6.8 billion dollars, which is 18.3% of the total volume of 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 United Kingdom owed $4.33 billion to the United States and $1.19 billion to Canada. The last payment of $83.25 million (to the United States) and $22.7 million (to Canada) was made on December 29, 2006. China's debt was set at 180 million. dollars, and this debt has not yet been repaid. The French paid off the United States on May 28, 1946, by granting the United States a series of trade preferences.

Other types of supplies

Lend-lease was the only significant type of allied supplies to the USSR. However, not the only one in principle. Before the adoption of the lend-lease program, the United States and Britain supplied the USSR with equipment and materials for cash. However, these deliveries were quite small. For example, from July to October 1941, the United States supplied the USSR with goods worth only 29 million dollars. In addition, Britain provided for the supply of goods to the USSR on account of long-term loans. Moreover, these deliveries continued even after the adoption of the Lend-Lease program.

Do not forget about the many charitable foundations created to raise funds in favor of the USSR around the world. The USSR and private individuals provided assistance. Moreover, such assistance even came from Africa and the Middle East. For example, the “Russian Patriotic Group” was created in Beirut, the Russian Medical Aid Society in Congo. The Iranian merchant Rakhimyan Ghulam Hussein sent 3 tons of dried grapes to Stalingrad. And the merchants Yusuf Gafuriki and Mammad Zhdalidi transferred 285 heads of cattle to the USSR.

Literature
1. Ivanyan E. A. History of the USA. M.: Drofa, 2006.
2. / A Brief History of the United States / Under. ed. I. A. Alyabiev, E. V. Vysotskaya, T. R. Dzhum, S. M. Zaitsev, N. P. Zotnikov, V. N. Tsvetkov. Minsk: Harvest, 2003.
3. Shirokorad A. B. Far East Final. M.: AST: Transizdatkniga, 2005.
4. Schofield B. Arctic convoys. Northern naval battles in World War II. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2003.
5. Temirov Yu. T., Donets A. S. War. Moscow: Eksmo, 2005.
6. Stettinius E. Lend-Lease is a weapon of victory (http://militera.lib.ru/memo/usa/stettinius/index.html).
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Lend-Lease. This topic needs to be brought to the attention of a wide range of people so that people know the truth, and not the lies that have taken root en masse in their heads. The facts of the past have been distorted too much by propaganda, and the perverted product of propaganda is self-confidently operated, as a generally recognized fact, by impostor patriots of all stripes. And therefore "Lend-Lease" turned out to be a white spot in the history of Russia for its population. If official propaganda mentions Lend-Lease, then briefly, as a fact of little significance, which allegedly 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 did not know this.

What is it -"Lend-Lease"?

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

The deal took place in August 1940, but the idea of a wider program arose from it. By order of Roosevelt, in the autumn of 1940, a working group was formed in the US Treasury Department to prepare an appropriate bill. The legal advisers of the ministry, E. Foley and O. Cox, proposed relying on the law of 1892, which allowed the Minister of War, "when at his discretion it would be in the interests of the state", to lease "for a period of not more than five years the property of the army, if it is not needed country".

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

Roosevelt likened the approved scheme for lending military materials and equipment to a fire hose passed to a neighbor so that the flames would not spread to their own house. I don't need him to pay for the cost of the hose, the US president said, "I need him to give me back my hose after the fire is over."

The deliveries included armaments, industrial equipment, merchant ships, vehicles, food, fuel and medicines. According to established principles, US-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. Customer countries could, after the end of the war, buy equipment that had not yet been completed or was stored in warehouses using American long-term loans. The delivery period was initially set to June 30, 1943, but then extended annually. Finally, the law provided for the possibility of refusing to supply certain equipment if it was recognized as secret or was necessary 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, and others, in the amount of approximately $ 48 billion.

lend-lease- (from the English lend - "to lend" and lease - "to rent, for hire") - a state program under which the United States of America, mainly on a gratuitous basis, transferred ammunition, equipment, food to its allies in World War II and strategic raw materials, including oil products.

The concept of this program gave the President of the United States the power to help any country whose defense was deemed vital to his country. 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:

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

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

Lend-lease provisions stipulated that after the war, if the American side was interested, undestroyed and not lost machinery and equipment should be returned to the United States.

In total, lend-lease deliveries amounted to about $50.1 billion (equivalent to about $610 billion in 2008 prices), of which $31.4 billion was delivered to the UK, $11.3 billion to the USSR, $3.2 billion to France and $1.6 billion to China. Reverse lend-lease (supplies of allies to the United States) amounted to $7.8 billion, of which $6.8 billion went to Great Britain and the 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.

In Soviet historiography, it was usually argued that the amount of lend-lease assistance to the USSR was rather small - only about 4% of the funds spent by the country on the war, and tanks and aircraft were supplied mostly outdated models. Today, the attitude in the countries of the former USSR towards the help of the allies has changed somewhat, and attention has also begun to be paid to the fact that, for a number of items, deliveries 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 America's, with deliveries totaling $4.7 billion, mostly to Britain and the USSR.

The volume of deliveries and the significance of lend-lease

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

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

The significance of lend-lease in the victory of the United Nations over the Axis is illustrated in 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.

Country	1938	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945
Austria	24	27	27	29	27	28	29	12
France	186	199	164	130	116	110	93	101
Germany	351	384	387	412	417	426	437	310
Italy	141	151	147	144	145	137	117	92
Japan	169	184	192	196	197	194	189	144
USSR	359	366	417	359	274	305	362	343
Great Britain	284	287	316	344	353	361	346	331
USA	800	869	943	1 094	1 235	1 399	1 499	1 474
Anti-Hitler coalition total:	1 629	1 600	1 331	1 596	1 862	2 065	2 363	2 341
Axis countries total:	685	746	845	911	902	895	826	466
GDP ratio, Allies/Axis:	2,38	2,15	1,58	1,75	2,06	2,31	2,86	5,02

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, according to the results of 1941, Great Britain was still losing the battle for the Atlantic, which was fraught with a complete collapse for the country's economy, which was almost entirely tied to foreign trade.

The GDP of the USSR 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 200 million people, about 78 million people 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 terms of population (taking into account the losses of the USSR due to the occupation). In this situation, the US leadership saw the need to provide urgent military-technical assistance to both countries. Moreover, the United States was the only country in the world with sufficient production capacity to provide such support in a short enough time to have time 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 USSR joining Lend-Lease.

Lend-Lease, coupled with increasing British aid in its Battle of the Atlantic, proved to be a critical factor in bringing the US 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 deciding to go to war with the United States.

It should be noted that the sending of 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 PP and machine guns, spare caterpillars for tanks, spare car tires, spare parts for tanks, aircraft and cars. As early as 1943, when the leadership of the Allies ceased to doubt the USSR's ability to wage a long-term war, the USSR began to import mainly strategic materials (aluminum, etc.) and machine tools for Soviet industry.

Already after the first Lend-Lease deliveries, Stalin began to complain 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, German. As an example, we can cite the frankly unsuccessful model of the Curtiss 0-52 aviation reconnaissance spotter, which the Americans simply sought to attach somewhere and imposed 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. The leasing relationship implied, in particular, the right of the receiving party to independently choose and stipulate the type and characteristics of the required products. And if the Red Army considered American equipment unsatisfactory, then what was the point of ordering it?

As for the official Soviet propaganda, it preferred to downplay the importance of American aid in every possible way, if not to completely hush it up. In March 1943, the American ambassador in Moscow, without hiding his offense, allowed himself an undiplomatic statement: “The Russian authorities, apparently, want to hide the fact that they receive help from outside. Obviously, they want to assure their people that the Red Army is fighting in this war alone." And during the Yalta Conference in 1945, Stalin was forced to admit that Lend-Lease was Roosevelt's wonderful and most fruitful contribution to the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition.

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

Tank "Churchill"

M4 "General Sherman"

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

Routes and volumes of deliveries

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 the combat commonwealth of the USA and the USSR.

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

Deliveries 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)
-- 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, (signed on April 17, 1944), formally ended on May 12, 1945, but deliveries were extended until the end of the war with Japan, into which the USSR undertook to enter 90 days after the end of the war in Europe (that is, 8 August 1945). Japan capitulated on September 2, 1945, and on September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR were stopped.

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

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

Delivery routes	tonnage, thousand tons	% of total
Pacific	8244	47,1
Trans-Iranian	4160	23,8
Arctic convoys	3964	22,7
Black Sea	681	3,9
Soviet Arctic	452	2,6
Total	17 501	100,0

Three routes - the Pacific, Trans-Iranian and Arctic convoys - provided a total of 93.5% of total deliveries. 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 exactly this route, and about 15% of the shipped cargo ended up on the ocean floor. The sea part of the journey from the US East Coast to Murmansk took about 2 weeks.

Cargo with northern convoys also went through Arkhangelsk and Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk), from where, along a hastily completed railway line, cargo went to the front. The bridge across the Northern Dvina did not yet exist, and for the transfer of equipment in the winter, a meter 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 rails with wagons to withstand. Further, 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. With the outbreak of the Pacific War on December 7, 1941, transportation here could only be provided by Soviet sailors, and merchant ships sailed only under the Soviet flag. All non-freezing straits were controlled by Japan, and Soviet ships were subjected to compulsory inspection, and sometimes drowned. The sea part of the journey from the western coast of the USA to the Far Eastern ports of the USSR took 18-20 days.

Studebakers in Iran on their way to the USSR

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 the volume of deliveries, it was necessary to carry out a large-scale modernization of the Iranian transport system, in particular, the ports in the Persian Gulf and the trans-Iranian railway. To this end, the Allies (USSR and Great Britain) occupied Iran in August 1941. From 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, the delivery of goods was carried out by the ships of the Caspian military flotilla, which until the end of 1942 were subjected to active attacks by German aircraft. The sea part of the journey from the east coast of the United States to the coast of Iran took about 75 days. Especially for the needs of lend-lease in Iran, several automobile plants were built, which were under the control of General Motors Overseas Corporation. The largest were called TAP I (Truck Assembly Plant I) at Andimeshk and TAP II at Khorramshara. In total, during the war years, 184,112 cars were sent from Iranian enterprises to the USSR. Cars were distilled 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 "under their own power" flew to the USSR from the USA through the South Atlantic, Africa and the Persian Gulf, according to another - through Alaska, Chukotka and Siberia. On the second route, known as Alsib (Alaska-Siberia), 7925 aircraft were deployed.

The nomenclature of Lend-Lease supplies was determined by the Soviet government and was designed to plug the "bottlenecks" in the supply of our industry and army.

Aircraft	14 795
tanks	7 056
Passenger all-terrain vehicles	51 503
trucks	375 883
Motorcycles	35 170
Tractors	8 071
Rifles	8 218
Automatic weapons	131 633
Pistols	12 997
Explosives	345,735 tons
dynamite	70,400,000 pounds
Gunpowder	127,000 tons
TNT	271,500,000 pounds
Toluene	237,400,000 pounds
Detonators	903 000
Building equipment	$10 910 000
Freight wagons	11 155
locomotives	1 981
cargo ships	90
anti-submarine ships	105
torpedoes	197
Radars	445
Ship engines	7 784
Food stocks	4,478,000 tons
Machinery and equipment	$1 078 965 000
non-ferrous metals	802,000 tons
Oil products	2,670,000 tons
chemicals	842,000 tons
Cotton	106,893,000 tons
Skin	49,860 tons
Shin	3 786 000
Army boots	15,417,000 pairs
Blankets	1 541 590
alcohol	331 066 l
Buttons	257 723 498 pcs.

Importance of supplies

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

Marshal Zhukov said in post-war conversations:

Now they say that the allies never helped us... But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us so many materials, without which we could not form our reserves and could not continue the war... We did not have explosives, gunpowder. There was nothing to equip rifle cartridges. The Americans really helped us out with gunpowder and explosives. And how much they drove us sheet steel! How could we quickly start producing tanks if it weren't for American help with steel? And now they present the matter in such a way that we had all this in abundance. - From the report of the chairman of the KGB V. Semichastny - N. S. Khrushchev; stamp "top secret" // Zenkovich N. Ya. Marshals and general secretaries. M., 1997. S. 161

A. I. Mikoyan also highly appreciated the role of lend-lease, during the war he was responsible for the work of seven allied people's commissariats (trade, procurement, food, fish and meat and dairy industries, maritime transport and the river fleet) and, as the country's people's commissar for foreign trade, with 1942, who led the reception of allied Lend-Lease supplies:

Quote:

Here is another Mikoyan:

Quote:

The main chassis for the Katyushas was the Lend-Lease Studebakers (specifically, the Studebaker US6). While the States gave about 20,000 vehicles for our “war girl”, only 600 trucks were produced in the USSR (mainly the 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 famous Katyusha rocket launchers on the chassis of the American Studebaker truck:

The USSR received a significant number of cars from the USA and other allies: in the automobile fleet of the Red Army 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 cars and 9.1% were captured cars). During the war years, the fleet of the Red Army 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 cars of domestic production was carried out at the expense of old cars withdrawn from the national economy. 62% of all received vehicles were tractors, of which 60% were Studebaker, as the best of all tractor brands received, largely replacing horse traction and tractors for towing 75-mm and 122-mm artillery systems. Good performance was also shown by a 3/4 ton Dodge car towing anti-tank artillery guns (up to 88 mm). A large role was played by the Jeep car with 2 driving axles, which has good cross-country ability and was a reliable means of reconnaissance, communications and command and control. In addition, Willis was used as a tractor for anti-tank artillery (up to 45 mm). Of the special purpose vehicles, it should be noted the Ford amphibians (based on the Willis vehicle), which were attached to tank armies as part of special battalions to conduct reconnaissance operations when crossing water barriers, and Jimsi (GMC, based on a truck of the same brand), used mainly by engineering parts at the device of crossings. The US and the British Empire supplied 18.36% of the aviation gasoline used by Soviet aviation during the war years; True, American and British aircraft delivered under Lend-Lease were mainly refueled with this gasoline, while domestic aircraft could be refueled with domestic gasoline with a lower octane number.

American steam locomotive of the Ea series

According to other sources, 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 produced during the war years in the USSR) and 11075 wagons ( more by 10.2 times), 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 until 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 2,13,000 tons of aviation gasoline (together with its allies, 2,586,000 tons)—almost two-thirds of the fuel used by Soviet aviation during the war years. At the same time, in the article where the figures of this paragraph are taken from, the article by B. V. Sokolov "The role of Lend-Lease in the Soviet military efforts, 1941-1945" appears as a source. However, the article itself says that the United States and Britain supplied together only 1216.1 thousand tons of aviation gasoline, and in the USSR in 1941-1945. 5539 thousand tons of aviation gasoline were produced, that is, Western supplies accounted for only 18% of the total Soviet consumption during the war. Considering that such was the percentage of aircraft supplied by the USSR under Lend-Lease in the Soviet fleet, 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 apparatus, including 9351 American radio stations for installation on Soviet-made fighters, and navigation equipment (radio compasses, autopilots, radars, sextants, artificial horizons).

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 people repeat to this day, not knowing its origin and source:

The first official historical assessment of the role of Lend-Lease was given by Gosplan Chairman 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 not clear how Voznesensky and his staff calculated these percentages. Estimating Soviet GDP in monetary terms was difficult due to the lack of convertibility of the ruble. If the bill went to units of production, then it is not clear how tanks were compared to aircraft, and food to aluminum.

Voznesensky himself was soon arrested in the Leningrad case and shot in 1950, and, accordingly, he could not comment. Nevertheless, the figure of 4% was subsequently widely quoted 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 a proposal to the countries receiving lend-lease assistance 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 was in the recipient countries as of September 2, 1945. The United States did not demand compensation for the military equipment destroyed during the battles.

Great Britain
The volume of the UK's debt to the USA amounted to $4.33 billion, to Canada - $1.19 billion. The last payment of $83.25 million (in favor of the USA) and $22.7 million (Canada) was made on account of the location of American bases in the UK

China
China's debt to the United States for lend-lease deliveries amounted to $187 million. Since 1979, the United States has 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 US demanded that Taiwan (not China) repay its Lend-Lease debt. The further fate of Chinese debt is not clear.

USSR (Russia)
The volume of American Lend-Lease deliveries amounted to about 11 billion US dollars. According to the lend-lease law, only equipment that survived during the war was subject to payment; to agree on the final amount, immediately after the end of the war, Soviet-American negotiations began. At the 1948 negotiations, the 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 amount of the 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 was to be the proportions in determining the debt between the United States and Great Britain, which were fixed as early as March 1946.

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

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

Thus, out of the total volume of US lend-lease deliveries 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 (many times) less. 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. Given the payment of $674 million in 1990, the total amount 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 delivered was either destroyed by the war, or, like shells, was 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

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

By 1960, almost all countries had repaid their debts, except for the USSR.

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

Now it's easy to say that Lend-Lease meant nothing - you can't check

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 “stagnant period”, it was stated that Lend-Lease deliveries amounted to only 4% of all weapons and military equipment produced in the USSR during the war years.

Numerical 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 18,700 (according to other sources, 22,200) aircraft, including Air Cobra, Kitty Hawk, Tomahawk, and Hurricane fighters, from the allies to help under Lend-Lease. ", medium bombers B-25, A-20 "Boston", transport C-47, 12,200 tanks and self-propelled units, 100 thousand kilometers of telephone wire, 2.5 million telephones; 15 million pairs of boots, more than 50 thousand tons of leather for footwear, 54 thousand meters of wool, 250 thousand tons of stew, 300 thousand tons of fat, 65 thousand tons of cow butter, 700 thousand tons of sugar, 1860 locomotives, 100 tank cars on wheels, 70 electric diesel locomotives, about a thousand self-unloading wagons, 10 thousand railway platforms With their help, 344 thousand tons of explosives, almost 2 million tons of oil 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 from the allies to the front and rear. aluminum, according to experts, you can about to build 100 thousand fighters and bombers - almost as many as our aircraft factories produced during the entire war "(Lebedev I.P. one)

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

Beginning with the third protocol (entered into force on July 1, 1943), Canada began to take a direct part in providing assistance to the USSR. Canadian deliveries included armaments, industrial equipment, non-ferrous metals, steel, rolled metal, chemicals, and food. To assist the USSR in 1943-1946. approximately CAD 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, handed over to us by the allies under lend-lease, is over four hundred pages.

It should be added that the USSR received assistance from the allies not only under the Lend-Lease program. In the United States, in particular, the “Committee for Assistance to Russia in the War” (Russia War Relief) was created. “With the money raised, the committee purchased and sent medicines, medicines and equipment, food, clothing to the Red Army, the Soviet people. In total, during the war, the Soviet Union was provided with assistance in the amount of more than one and a half billion dollars. In England, a similar committee was chaired by Clementine Churchill, the Prime Minister's wife.

The Soviet government noted that supplies from the United States and other countries "contributed to the success of the Red Army in liberating their native land from fascist invaders and in accelerating the overall victory of the allies over Nazi Germany and its satellites"

Notes

1) “It can be definitely said that Stalin would never have been able to organize a large-scale counter-offensive of the Red Army, if not for 150 thousand heavy Studebaker trucks received from the USA” (Bunich I. 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 procurement commission of the USSR in the USA; worked to receive A-20 Boston bombers.

The downplaying of the role of Western supplies in the Soviet military conditions was aimed primarily at asserting the myth of the “economic victory of socialism” in the Great Patriotic War and the superiority of the Soviet military economy over the war economies of the capitalist countries, not only Germany, but also Great Britain and the USA. It was only after 1985 that other assessments of allied assistance began to come across in Soviet publications. So, Marshal G.K. Zhukov, in post-war conversations with the writer K.M. Simonov, stated:

“Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy, the economy, one cannot hush up such a factor as subsequent assistance from the Allies. First of all, of course, from the side of the Americans, because the British in this sense helped us minimally. When analyzing all sides of the war, this cannot be discounted. We would be in a difficult position without American gunpowder, we would not be able to produce the amount of ammunition that we needed. Without the American Studebakers, we would have nothing to carry our artillery on. Yes, they largely provided our front-line transport in general. The production of special steels, necessary for the various needs of the war, was also associated with a number of American supplies.

At the same time, Zhukov emphasized that "we entered the war while still continuing to be an industrially backward country compared to Germany." The authenticity of K. Simonov's transmission of these conversations with Zhukov, which took place in 1965-1966, is confirmed by the statements of G. Zhukov, recorded as a result of listening by security agencies in 1963: “Now they say that the allies never helped us ... But you can’t to deny that the Americans gave us so many materials, without which we could not form our reserves and could not continue the war ... We did not have explosives, gunpowder. There was nothing to equip rifle cartridges. The Americans really helped us out with gunpowder, explosives. And how much they drove us sheet steel! How could we quickly start producing tanks if it weren't for American help with steel? And now they present the matter in such a way that we had all this in abundance.

The fleet of the Red Army was also provided to a large extent by Western supplies. The production of automobiles in the USSR in 1940 was 145,390; in 1941, 124,476; in 1942, 34,976; in 1943, 49,266; in 1944, 60,549; At the same time, 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) in the Red Army car park, Lend-Lease vehicles accounted for 32.8% (58.1% were domestically produced vehicles and 9.1% were captured vehicles). Given the greater carrying capacity and better quality, the role of American vehicles was even higher (Studebakers, in particular, were used as artillery tractors). The pre-war fleet of Soviet cars (both those that were in the Red Army and withdrawn from the national economy with the outbreak of war) was badly worn out. Before the war, the needs of the Red Army in vehicles were determined at 744 thousand cars and 92 thousand tractors, but there were 272.6 thousand cars and 42 thousand tractors. It was planned to withdraw 240 thousand cars from the national economy, including 210 thousand trucks (GAZ-AA and ZIS-5), however, due to the heavy wear and tear of the fleet (for passenger cars, cars belonging to the 1st and 2nd categories , i.e., those that did not require immediate repair, there were 45%, and for trucks and special ones - 68%), in fact, only 206 thousand vehicles were 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.

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 motor gasoline in the Red Army continued until the end of the war. Obviously, this situation was partly a consequence of the irrational drawing up of requests for help under Lend-Lease by the Soviet side - it would be more expedient to ask for fewer cars and more gasoline.

Also, the functioning of the 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, The USSR was supplied with 685.7 thousand short tons of railway rails, which is equal to 622.1 thousand metric tons. This is about 56.5% of the total production of railway rails in the USSR from mid-1941 to the end of 1945. If we exclude narrow gauge rails from the calculation, which were not supplied under Lend-Lease, then American deliveries will amount to 83.3% total Soviet production.

Even more noticeable was the role of Lend-Lease deliveries in maintaining the number of Soviet locomotives and railway cars at the required level. 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. and in 1941 - 1, after which their release was discontinued until 1945 inclusive. Mainline electric locomotives in 1940 were produced 9 pieces, and in 1941 - 6 pieces, after which their production was also discontinued. Under Lend-Lease, 1900 steam locomotives and 66 diesel-electric locomotives were delivered to the USSR during the war years. Thus, lend-lease deliveries exceeded the total Soviet production of steam locomotives in 1941-1945. 2.4 times, and electric locomotives - 11 times. The production of freight cars in the USSR in 1942-1945 totaled 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 railroad rails, steam locomotives and wagons, since industrial capacities and rolling stock were reoriented to the production of weapons . During the Great Patriotic War, only Lend-Lease deliveries prevented the paralysis of railway transport in the Soviet Union.

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

The facts of conscious overestimation of reporting - an indelible vice of the socialist planned economy, are known in relation to weapons and military equipment in the USSR both in the pre-war and post-war years.

According to our estimates, based on the decrease 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 years was at least doubled. With this in mind, the share of Western deliveries of weapons and military equipment turns out to be approximately twice as high as it is commonly believed.

But perhaps most important to the Soviet Union was the supply 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 United States, were delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease. Namely, in special machines for artillery production during the war years in the USSR there was the greatest need. However, these orders 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 guns designed to destroy enemy fortifications. Naval guns were not needed, since shipbuilding was curtailed with the start 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, it can be concluded that without Western supplies, the Soviet Union would not only not be able to win the Great Patriotic War, but would not even be able to resist the German invasion, not being able to produce a sufficient amount 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, Presidential Special 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 military department to provide weapons and equipment that are excessive for the needs of the American armed forces, as well as strategic materials and industrial equipment to those countries that can protect American national interests, allowed inclusion in the number of these countries and Russia.

The Western allies assisted the USSR in preparing for war not only with Lend-Lease supplies. The struggle against the United States and Great Britain forced Germany to build submarines, diverting scarce metal, equipment and skilled labor to this. Only in 1941-1944. German shipbuilding produced submarines with a total displacement of 810,000 tons. The main forces of the German fleet were thrown into the fight against the fleets and merchant shipping of Western countries (including here and 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%). The 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 brought to naught the production of gasoline in Germany, completely paralyzing the Luftwaffe. From March to September 1944, the production of aviation gasoline in Germany, which was carried out almost exclusively at synthetic fuel plants - the main object of allied bombing at that time, decreased from 181 thousand tons to 10 thousand tons, and after some growth in November - up to 49 thousand .t - in March 1945, it completely came to naught. The main forces of German aviation, especially fighter aircraft, acted against the air forces of England and the USA, and it was in the fight against the Western allies that the Luftwaffe suffered the bulk of their losses. The Soviet estimate of the losses of German aviation on the Soviet-German front: 62,000 vehicles and 101,000 aircraft, which amounted to irretrievable combat losses of German aviation throughout the 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 hostilities in a given theater, without taking into account the comparative intensity of hostilities (in sorties) in different theaters. Meanwhile, in the West, the intensity of fighting in the air was on the whole higher than in the East, and the best German pilots fought there. So, in July and August 1943, when significant forces of the Luftwaffe were concentrated on the Eastern Front during the battles for Kursk, Orel and Kharkov, out of 3213 irretrievably lost combat aircraft, only 1030 aircraft, or 32.3%, fell on the Eastern Front. Probably , about the same part of all irretrievable losses during the war suffered by the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front.

Since without the assistance of Great Britain and the USA the USSR could not have waged war against Germany, the statements of Soviet propaganda about the economic victory of socialism in the Great Patriotic War and the ability of the USSR to defeat Germany on its own are nothing more than a myth. Unlike Germany, in the USSR, the goal of creating an autarkic economy capable of providing the army in wartime with everything necessary for waging a modern war, which was outlined as early as the 1930s, was not achieved. Hitler and his advisers miscalculated not so much in determining the military and economic power of the USSR, but in assessing the ability of the Soviet economic and political system to function in the face of a severe military defeat, as well as the ability of the Soviet economy to effectively and quickly use Western supplies, and Great Britain and the United States to implement such supplies in the required quantity and in a timely manner.

Historians now face 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 the Soviet military-industrial complex, capable of conducting an arms race on equal terms with the West, right up to the very last time, and to determine the degree of dependence of the Soviet military-industrial complex on imports from the West for the entire post-war period.

DISCUSSION 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 under Lend-Lease, played an important role and to a large extent 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 foodstuffs

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

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

In Arkhangelsk alone, during the first war winter, 20,000 people perished from starvation and disease - every tenth inhabitant. And if not for the 10,000 tons of Canadian wheat left with the consent of Stalin, the number of deaths would have been much greater.

Undoubtedly, such an assessment is the only correct one and fully reflects the gratitude for the help of the Soviet people and the Armed Forces of the USSR, which in the first place felt its results. Unfortunately, with the beginning of the Cold War, the significance of Lend-Lease was either hushed up or downplayed in our country. It became widely believed that lend-lease supplies were not essential for the victory over Germany, because. they accounted for an insignificant share of the total production of weapons, ammunition and military equipment in the USSR in 1941-1945, that the Americans received huge profits, and the Soviet people actually paid for them with their blood.

You can't call it all wrong. But a more detailed analysis allows us to reconsider our attitude to 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, taken out of the context of the big picture. They are used not at all for good purposes, but to incite discord, enmity and misunderstanding.

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

REMEMBER

This incredible amount of cargo was delivered across the seas, in which the ships of the convoys died en masse under the blows of aviation and the German submarine fleet. Therefore, part of the aircraft traveled from the American continent to the USSR under its own power - from Fairbanks through Alaska, Chukotka, Yakutia, Eastern Siberia to Krasnoyarsk, and from there - by echelons.

Years have passed. Many participants in the transportation of Lend-Lease cargo are no longer alive. But the peoples of the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition remember the heroic deeds of the sailors of the transport and military fleets. It is envisaged to install memorial plates to the participants of the Northern convoys, made in the USA (Portland), in Arkhangelsk on the Sedov embankment. By a joint decision of both chambers, 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 disinterested assistance provided by the United States 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 everything necessary for the Victory to the USSR.

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

The Russian people should long ago stop being plagued by soviet cattle and in their feelings be guided by the facts of real history, and not by its ersatz - Kremlin propaganda for domestic consumers.

Southern Lend-Lease Route

At first glance, Mr. Roosevelt was pitted against a clearly unprofitable business. Just look at the order of payments for Lend-Lease:
- 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 in full or on the terms of a long-term loan;
- 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 by the "Lend-Lease Law" to reclaim the surviving military materials back.

Under Lend-Lease, an endless wave of cargo went to our country, from foppish officer boots with cowboy stitching to the tops to tanks and aircraft.

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" went to the cinemas of the country in the 80s, many were shocked: ace Pokryshkin told how he had been flying the American Airacobra fighter for almost the entire war since 1942, how the northern caravans were going with supplies of aid.

Until now, we believe that the allies supplied us with everything unnecessary, stale in warehouses. And we recall how Churchill himself once said: "The tank named after me has more shortcomings than I myself." But excuse me, Lend-Lease equipment was accepted by our commissions, it was we who ordered a list of the necessary (or we could ask for simple pitchforks as weapons!). And then, this "Willis" is a bad car ?!

In fact, we did not ask the Americans for "Willis" at all, but for motorcycle sidecars. But in January 1942, US Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius advised Ambassador Litvinov of jeeps, which were already successfully used by the American army. We tried 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 hit the Soviet Union - about 152,000 copies. They were produced by two firms, Studebaker and REO. In each cabin of the Red Army soldier, a brand new crisp leather jacket made of sealskin was waiting, but this luxury was immediately withdrawn for more important matters - they say, our driver will ride in an overcoat. "Students", as the front-line soldiers called 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 amounted to 477,785 units, not counting spare parts, which would be enough to assemble more than one thousand cars.

On August 12, 1941, the first naval Lend-Lease convoy headed for the USSR. Cargo went to our northern ports: Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Severodvinsk (Molotovsk). The return convoys carried 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, they were grouped into caravans, after which, under the protection of warships, they were sent to us. True, there was a less dangerous route: through Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Nogaevo (Magadan), Nakhodka and Khabarovsk.

The official Soviet history left a lot of questions about Lend-Lease. It was believed that the West, under any pretext, delayed deliveries, because it was waiting for the Stalin regime to collapse. Then how to explain the haste with the spread by the Americans of the "Lend-Lease Law" to the USSR?

Stalin showed the highest art of diplomacy in order to turn Lend-Lease into a benefit for the USSR. Discussing deliveries 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 figured out the skeptical Churchill, his comrade in persuasion. And whenever the northern convoys threatened to stop, Roosevelt began to bombard Churchill with panic dispatches. As a result, Churchill was forced to share with the Soviets even the equipment that, under Lend-Lease, was intended for the British army. For example, the Bantam light all-terrain vehicles, which the British themselves had - the cat cried.

The northern convoys were interrupted only twice - in 1942, when Great Britain was building up forces for a major operation in Africa, and in 43, when the Allied landings in Italy were being prepared.

Even Stalin 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 whole 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 take the side of Hitler against Great Britain.

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

It is also known 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 so, by the way. And here is a "car" example: during the battle for Moscow, Marshal Zhukov's GAZ-61 all-wheel drive "emka" was constantly followed by 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 Law to the USSR. By the way, the States had not yet entered the world war!

The technical training of drivers and technical staff of the Red Army left much to be desired. In this regard, the Main Automobile Directorate raised the issue of training the personnel of automotive units in the basics of maintaining, operating and repairing imported equipment. Books on operation and repair were translated into Russian and published - they were attached to 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 pour kerosene into a Studebaker car. He won’t go on it, this is not a lorry for you!” On the pages of such "short guides" a soldier of the Red Army 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 ...". Nevertheless, thousands of Lend-Lease vehicles were ruined by the 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 not only by rail, but also by a highway, in the construction of which we hope to attract the Americans with their energy and organizational abilities." However, large-scale hostilities in the Persian Gulf began long before this message. The British "commandos" carried out the operation to capture the Iraqi port of Basra back in April 1941. And the first Lend-Lease American plant started working there before the German attack on 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 area in the south of the country (the port of Bushehr, Fars province) went to the Americans.

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

There was only one land route from this region at that time - from Bandar Shahpur along the Trans-Iranian railway through Ahvaz 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 cargoes, the ports at Khorramshahr, Bandar Shahpur and Basra were reconstructed. From Ahvaz, a railway line descended south to Khorramshahr with a branch line to the Iraqi village of Tanuma (on the left bank of the Shatt al-Arab, opposite Basra). The American construction company "Folspen" rolled off the highway from Tanum through Khorramshahr and Ahvaz to the north of Iran.

Automotive equipment arrived in the form of assembly kits - in boxes, and the cars were assembled right on the shore. Aircraft and car assembly plants have grown in the port of Khorramshahr, a car assembly plant has grown in the port of Bushehr (Willis, Dodges, Studebakers and GMC were assembled there), and a car assembly plant in Basra.

Local residents worked for them - Arabs and Persians, 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. Barrack towns were built, life and food were established, wages became piecework, and they began to fine fines for marriage. Things got better very soon.

Driving cars for more than 2000 km through mountains and passes, on roads and without them 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, medicines.

Through 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, rest and technical prevention points, establish protection for columns and parking lots, which was important - gangs and wild Qashqai tribes incited by the Nazis raged on the roads.

While the British were in charge in the Persian Gulf, 2000 cars a month came to the USSR, although a plan was set - to hand over 120 cars a day.

In March 1943, the Americans took over the supervision of the Trans-Iranian Railway and the ports of the Persian Gulf. Since the middle of the year, assembly plants have been operating in the places 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. Only the car assembly plant in Andimeshk sent about 78,000 cars to the USSR - that's what American mass production technology means! All in all, we received two-thirds of Lend-Lease vehicles by the southern route.

With the removal 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. The assembly of cars in Iran and Iraq began to be curtailed, 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, 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 vehicles in the Red Army. All this is difficult and incomprehensible to ordinary people. If you start explaining, you will have to remember that similar enterprises worked in the USSR. For example, the Gorky Automobile Plant has been assembling American cars since November 1941. Even when GAZ was heavily bombed in the summer of 1943, work continued right under the open sky. In October 1944, assembly equipment and technical staff 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 company went to the front in November 1944. Moscow ZIS and KIM were also involved in the assembly of "lend-lease" - in the same place they repaired the cars that returned from the front. In addition, many small enterprises were engaged in Lend-Lease vehicles. I wonder if these cars were counted among those 205,000 units that, according to Soviet statistics, our factories produced during the war years?

In a word, it is not far from 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 a major overhaul, we handed over part of the cars to the Allies. According to eyewitnesses, it happened like this: the Allies drove a ship with a press and scissors to the port. A special commission meticulously accepted the equipment, checked the conformity of the factory equipment, after which it was immediately sent ... under the press and in the form of "cubes" loaded onto barges. Who, one wonders, in the West needed cars of dubious assembly, and even those that had been in the hands of the Red Army?

Under these pressures, rare models disappeared without a trace, including reconnaissance cars RC (reconnaissance car) of the American company Bantam. Of the 2675 "Bantikov" produced, as our drivers called them, almost all of them ended up in the USSR in the first year of the war.

P-63 aircraft are being prepared for shipment to the USSR. We received 2,400 of them under Lend-Lease. Nicknamed "Kingcobra" (Kingcobra), this most modern Lend-Lease fighter took a strong place in Soviet aviation after the war - it was the most massive imported aircraft. The Kingcobras remained in service until the arrival of jet fighters. Their replacement began in 1950. Finally, they played an important role in the mass retraining of pilots for jet technology - MiG-9 fighters, and then MiG-15. The fact is that both of them had a chassis with a nose wheel, like the R-63, and all Soviet piston fighters had the chassis of the old scheme with a tail support. On the "Kingcobra" and set up training for takeoff and landing in a new manner.

Victory without allies?

Could we have won without Western allies? That is, suppose that England and the United States did not participate in the Second World War at all. What would the Soviet Union have lost then? Let's start with lend-lease. We like to quote Gosplan Chairman Nikolai Voznesensky, who said that lend-lease assistance amounted to no more than 4% of the total Soviet production during the war years. So be it, although no one has yet figured out how to correctly determine the then ratio between the dollar and the ruble. But if we take a few 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. Approximately half of all aluminum consumed by Soviet industry during the war years, the main part of alloying additives, without which it was impossible to produce high-quality armor, more than a third of aviation gasoline consumed in the USSR and explosives used during the war came under Lend-Lease. Cars delivered under lend-lease accounted for a third of the front-line fleet. Not to mention the fact that Lend-Lease delivered the main part of the wagons, locomotives and rail, thanks to which the Soviet railway transport functioned smoothly. Lend-lease also received the bulk of radio stations and radars, as well as a 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 as many tanks, a third as little ammunition, if we didn’t have enough vehicles to transport troops, if we had several times fewer radio stations, there were no radars and a lot of other imported equipment.

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

Just imagine for a moment that the USSR would have fought 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 upon the Red Army. And the Soviet troops, having half as many aircraft, would never have won air supremacy, would not have been able to defend Sevastopol and Leningrad for a long time under 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, a Soviet defeat would be very likely.

And 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 withdraws from the war, as described in Robert Harris' science fiction novel "Vaterland" and based on his Hollywood film). How would the struggle between England and the USA against Germany end then? The economic potential of the Western allies would still exceed the German one, which would ensure in the long term the dominance of the Anglo-American air force and fleet and would rule out a German landing on the British Isles. The war would be reduced mainly to the 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 the Americans on the way to the atomic bomb in 1945 was at least three years, since the Americans carried out a chain reaction in the reactor at the end of 1942, and for the Germans such an 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 have been far from it. The Americans, of course, would not waste this scarce weapon on the already defeated Japan, but, having accumulated nuclear warheads, would have dropped dozens of nuclear bombs at the end of 1945 or at the beginning of 1946 on Berlin and Hamburg, Nuremberg and Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt -Maine. Probably, the war would have ended with the surrender of Germany after the destruction of its largest cities and industrial zones. So it can be said with certainty that the Red Army, with its heroic resistance, saved the Germans from the horrors of atomic bombings.

Quote: Lend-lease payment
This is perhaps the main topic for speculation by people who are trying to somehow denigrate the Lend-Lease program. Most of them consider it their indispensable duty to declare that the USSR, they say, paid for all the goods 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 aid under the Lend-Lease program, in accordance with the law on Lend-Lease during the war, paid not a cent for this aid, so to speak. Moreover, as it 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 did indeed send various goods to the USA (including 320,000 tons of chrome ore, 32,000 tons of manganese ore, as well as gold, platinum, and timber). This was done as part of the reverse Lend-Lease program. In addition, the same program included free repair of American ships in Soviet ports and other services. Unfortunately, I could not find the total amount of goods and services provided to the Allies under the reverse lend-lease. The only source I found claims that this same amount was $2.2 million. However, I personally am not sure of the authenticity of these data. However, they may well be considered as a lower limit. The upper limit in this case will be the amount of several hundred million dollars. Be that as it may, the share of reverse lend-lease in the total lend-lease trade between the USSR and the allies will not exceed 3-4%. For comparison, the amount of reverse lend-lease from Great Britain to the USA is 6.8 billion dollars, which is 18.3% of the total volume of 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 United Kingdom owed $4.33 billion to the United States and $1.19 billion to Canada. The last payment of $83.25 million (to the United States) and $22.7 million (to Canada) was made on December 29, 2006. China's debt was set at 180 million. dollars, and this debt has not yet been repaid. The French paid off the United States on May 28, 1946, by granting the United States a series of trade preferences.
The debt of the USSR was determined in 1947 in the amount of 2.6 billion dollars, but already in 1948 this amount was reduced to 1.3 billion. Nevertheless, the USSR refused to pay. The refusal followed in response to new concessions from the United States: in 1951, the amount of the debt was again revised and this time amounted to 800 million. was again reduced, this time to 722 million dollars; maturity - 2001), and the USSR agreed to this agreement only on condition that it was granted a loan from the Export-Import Bank. In 1973, the USSR made two payments totaling $48 million, but then stopped payments in connection with the introduction in 1974 of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1972 Soviet-American trade agreement. In June 1990, during the talks between the presidents of the USA and the USSR, the parties returned to discussing the debt. A new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030, and the amount - 674 million dollars. At the moment, Russia owes the US $100 million for Lend-Lease deliveries.

LITERATURE
Lebedev I.P. Once again about Lend-Lease. - USA: Economics. Politics. Ideology. 1990, No. 1
Lebedev I.P. Aviation lend-lease. - Military History Journal, 1991, No. 2
Kotelnikov V.R. Aviation lend-lease. - Questions of history. 1991, no. 10
Berezhnoy S.S. Ships and Lend-Lease ships. Directory. SPb., 1994
Ilyin A. Lend-Lease Allied Aircraft. - 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: Aleteyya, 1989. Book on the site: http://militera.lib.ru/research/sokolov1/index.html