Lend-Lease: Getting Rid of the Lies of Soviet Propaganda. All you need to know about Lend-Lease and payment in gold - History What percentage was Lend-Lease aid

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).

We often hear that the United States provided the Soviet Union with invaluable assistance in the war, but we did not appreciate it, did not pay it off, all payments to the USSR and Russia amount to a few percent of the volume of deliveries, and taking into account inflation, even less.

This is not entirely true.

Or even not at all.

First, we appreciated the American help. And the Soviet leadership has repeatedly noted the importance of American supplies, and even more so the post-Soviet leadership.

But we would appreciate the US participation in the defeat of fascism even more if American corporations did not cooperate with Hitler. And they cooperated.

Yes, I understand that these are "legal business rights" and all that. But here's how interesting it turns out: when the US government does not like the policy of Russia or Iran, sanctions are introduced, or even an embargo. And about the "legal rights of business" the American leadership at such moments prefers not to remember. And when American corporations collaborated with Hitler, when banks gave him loans, when IBM supplied equipment for office work (in particular, file cabinets used by the Wehrmacht, SS and Gestapo), when components for poison gas were supplied (chemical weapons, by the way) - to these "legitimate business rights," the American leadership turned a blind eye. And for some reason they did not impose an embargo on cooperation with Germany.

Secondly, the American government provided assistance not only and not so much to the Soviet Union as to Great Britain, but at the same time to its own industry, its own economy.

And the American government paid for lend-lease supplies to enterprises in full. Therefore, the lend-lease program can be viewed as subsidizing one's own economy, only for the purpose of subsidizing the production of certain goods.

Today, the US and the EU also subsidize manufacturers, and in some industries, for 1 dollar or euro of private investment, there are 4-5 dollars and euros of subsidies. Without any lend-lease, they simply subsidize production so that it does not die in the conditions of a wonderful market economy, so that the "invisible hand of the market" does not strangle the industry.

You can also consider lend-lease as a cut of the American budget by American corporations under the plausible pretext of military assistance to the allies. After all, no one knows what the true cost of production of this or that equipment supplied to the USSR and Great Britain was, and what part of the money American industrialists simply put in their pockets. And they certainly did not offend themselves.

Therefore, one should not think that the Americans provided military assistance to the Soviet Union disinterestedly, guided only by considerations of solidarity in the fight against fascism.

Considerations of solidarity also took place, but the main ones for the American government and corporations were purely commercial interests.

It was beneficial for the Americans to provide assistance to the Soviet Union under the lend-lease program. It is beneficial regardless of whether the USSR later pays for these supplies or not.

Due to the lend-lease program, the Americans increased the production of equipment, modernized their industry, reduced the cost of production by increasing volumes, and subsequently recouped all costs by supplying the same or modernized equipment after the war, already for real money.

Thus, the lend-lease program was both a program to subsidize its own economy and a program of state investment in production and a program for the legalized cut of the budget.

In a liberal economic model, it is considered bad form to subsidize a market economy. And in the USA it was not very practiced at that time. And the lend-lease program has become a convenient solution so that the concept of a liberal economy is not violated and industry is supported. It seems impossible to give money to enterprises just like that, but through the lend-lease program, and in the interests of national security, it is possible.

Therefore, it is not necessary to say that the Americans are so kind, and we are so ungrateful.

Americans are not so much kind as prudent. And they calculated everything very well when they passed the law on lend-lease. They did everything in such a way as to be in the black no matter what the outcome. And they stayed positive.

It should also not be forgotten that after the war the United States gained control over West Germany, which suffered the least during the war and had more industry there than in East Germany. And how many specialists, materials, documentation, equipment, gold and other valuables the Americans took out of West Germany - no one still knows for sure.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were several lend-leases for the valuables exported by the Americans alone.

Where did the Germans move everything that was looted in the occupied territories as the Soviet troops approached? To the west. And where does it go then?

By the way, German gold still lies on the territory of the United States and the Americans do not even allow the Germans to audit it. And this applies to what is kept officially! And how many were taken out unofficially? Who counted? To whom did the Americans allow all this to be calculated, if they even do not allow to check what is officially stored?

But who paid with their lives so that the Americans could then freely manage the territory of West Germany, export valuables, specialists, equipment and materials, and then control Germany and other countries of Western Europe economically and politically?

The Soviet Union paid.

The Soviet people paid.

Therefore, to say that the USSR did not pay the United States for lend-lease is not entirely accurate. In fact, it's not even accurate at all. It's just that the USSR paid off not with money, but with the lives of soldiers who liberated Europe in general and Germany in particular from fascism. They were released so that later the Americans could steer this Europe.

And in the post-war order of the world, in the Yalta conference, the United States participated because they provided us with assistance. And this is also costly.

If the United States had not helped us in the war, who would have invited them to this Yalta?

And the Americans would not have become the founders of the UN if they had not helped to defeat Hitler. And the UN headquarters could not be in New York, but somewhere in Switzerland, if the war in Europe ended without the participation of the Americans.

So the Americans received not so little for their lend-lease.

The United States became a superpower, founding members of the UN headquartered in New York, gained control of Western Europe, took a heck of a lot of stuff out of West Germany - and they got all this, almost without participating in the war directly.

The only major and bloody operation with the participation of American troops in Europe is the landing in Normandy. But on the scale of the entire war, this is a rather small part, only one of many episodes.

And certainly not for the landing in Normandy, the Americans received control over Western Europe, the role of the founder of the UN, the headquarters on their territory and everything else.

Everything that the Americans received as a result of the Second World War - they received mainly for the same lend-lease.

And if we translate all the nishtyaks received by the Americans into cash, then even with the most conservative estimates, it turns out that lend-lease has paid off many times over.

And it paid off thanks to the Soviet Union, the Soviet army, the Soviet people, who forged victory with their lives, their work, their efforts, cleared Europe in general and Germany in particular from Nazism, smashed the Third Reich.

And we must not forget that the Soviet Union wrote off the debts of the GDR, helped restore the destruction in East Germany, and throughout Eastern Europe too. And who got it all now? Ultimately, everything went to West Germany, the European Union and indirectly to the same States.

But that's not all.

As a result of the Second World War, Japan was planned to be divided, like Germany, into two zones of occupation - American and Soviet. However, later the Soviet Union abandoned this, limiting itself to the annexation of the Kuriles. And all of Japan was in the zone of influence of the United States. I don’t know why the Soviet leadership refused to divide Japan, but I don’t exclude that this was also one of the forms of gratitude to the Americans for their assistance during the war.

And this despite the fact that the volume of lend-lease deliveries on the scale of the USSR's own production during the war years amounted to approximately 4% - not such a big figure.

And the main lend-lease supplies came in 1943-44, when the most difficult and dangerous stage of the war for the USSR was left behind.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the supply of Airacobra fighters - they were originally created for deliveries to the UK, but the British pilots abandoned them without evaluating the characteristics. Then they began to deliver them to the USSR. Our pilots appreciated the Aerocobra, our Soviet ace Alexander Pokryshkin even flew one of these fighters. But the fact is that Aircobras began to be delivered to the USSR after the British abandoned them.

And for reference, I quote:

"In total, lend-lease deliveries amounted to about 50.1 billion US dollars (612.88 billion dollars in 2008 prices), of which 31.4 billion dollars were delivered to the UK, 11.3 billion to the USSR."

The USSR received a little more than 20% of the total Lend-Lease supplies. Most of it was delivered to Great Britain, for which Lend-Lease itself was originally created.

But who suffered the greatest losses during the war, who made the main contribution to the defeat of the Third Reich, who liberated most of Europe and Germany? ..

Therefore, it is foolish to say that the Soviet Union did not pay for Lend-Lease.

The Soviet Union paid more for lend-lease.

The Soviet Union provided more than half of what the United States received as a result of World War II - the new world order, the UN headquartered in New York, control over Western Europe, undivided control over West Germany in the first years after the war, control over Japan.

If everything that the States received at the end of World War II is converted into dollars, then the Soviet Union paid for lend-lease twenty times, and maybe more.

If all this is taken into account, then it is not we, but the States, who owe us several tens of billions of dollars in 1945 prices.

But it turned out that we paid them extra for that lend-lease, albeit a little, and continue to pay by buying their government bonds, selling oil and gas for their "wrappers", buying their products with their added value instead of producing our own. However, that's another conversation...

The main thing is that the USSR paid for lend-lease.

Paid multiple times.

And even more than just paid...

LEND-LEASE(eng. lend-lease, from lend - to lend and lease - to lease), a system for the transfer by the United States of America on loan or lease of military equipment and other materiel to allied countries during the Second World War.

The Lend-Lease Act was adopted in the USA in March 1941 and immediately the American government extended its effect to Great Britain. In October 1941 in Moscow, representatives of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain signed a protocol on mutual deliveries. The USSR expressed its readiness to pay for the supplies of the allies with funds from the gold reserve. In November 1941, the United States extended the Lend-Lease Act to the USSR.

In total, during the years of World War II, US Lend-Lease deliveries to the Allies amounted to approx. 50 billion dollars, of which the Sov. Union accounted for 22%. At the end of 1945, deliveries to the USSR under Lend-Lease were expressed in the amount of 11.1 billion dollars. Of these, the USSR accounted for (in million dollars): aircraft - 1189, tanks and self-propelled guns - 618, cars - 1151, ships - 689, artillery - 302, ammunition - 482, machine tools and machines - 1577, metals - 879, food - 1726, etc.

Return deliveries from the USSR to the USA amounted to 2.2 million dollars. Owls. The Union supplied the USA with 300,000 tons of chromium ore, 32,000 tons of manganese ore, a significant amount of platinum, gold, and timber.

In addition to Amer. Lend-lease assistance to the USSR was also provided by Great Britain and (since 1943) Canada, the volume of this assistance is estimated at 1.7 billion dollars, respectively. and 200 million dollars.

The first allied convoy with cargo arrived in Arkhangelsk on 31.8.1941. (cm. Allied convoys in the USSR 1941–45). Initially, Soviet assistance was provided in a relatively small amount and lagged behind the planned deliveries. At the same time, it partly compensated for the sharp drop in owls. military production in connection with the capture by the Nazis of a significant part of the territory of the USSR.

From summer to October 1942, deliveries along the northern route were suspended due to the defeat of the PQ-17 caravan by the Nazis and the Allies' preparations for a landing in North Africa. The main flow of supplies came in 1943-44, when a radical turning point in the war had already been reached. Nevertheless, the deliveries of the allies provided not only material assistance, but also political and moral support for the owls. people in the war with Nazi Germany.

According to American official data, at the end of September 1945, 14,795 aircraft, 7,056 tanks, 8,218 anti-aircraft guns, 131,000 machine guns, 140 submarine hunters, 46 minesweepers, 202 torpedo boats, 30,000 radio stations, etc. were sent from the USA to the USSR. More than 7 thousand aircraft received from Great Britain, St. 4 thousand tanks, 385 anti-aircraft guns, 12 minesweepers, etc.; 1188 tanks delivered from Canada.

In addition to weapons, the USSR received from the United States under Lend-Lease cars (more than 480 thousand trucks and cars), tractors, motorcycles, ships, locomotives, wagons, food and other goods. Aviation squadron, regiment, division, which were consistently commanded by A.I. Pokryshkin, from 1943 until the end of the war, flew American P-39 Airacobra fighters. American Studebaker trucks were used as chassis for rocket artillery combat vehicles (Katyushas).

Unfortunately, some of the Allied supplies did not reach the USSR, because they were destroyed by the Nazi Navy and the Luftwaffe during sea crossings of transports.

Several routes were used for deliveries to the USSR. Almost 4 million cargoes were delivered via the northern route from the UK and Iceland to Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Molotovsk (Severodvinsk), which accounted for 27.7% of the total deliveries. The second route is through the South Atlantic, the Persian Gulf and Iran to the Soviet. Transcaucasia; it was transported to St. 4.2 million cargo (23.8%).

For the assembly and preparation of aircraft for flight from Iran to the USSR, intermediate air bases were used, where British, American and Soviet aircraft worked. specialists. On the Pacific route, ships from the USA to the Far Eastern ports of the USSR went under the owls. flags and with owls. captains (because the US was at war with Japan). Cargoes arrived in Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Nakhodka, Khabarovsk. The Pacific route was the most efficient in terms of volume - 47.1%.

Another route was the air route from Alaska to Eastern Siberia, along which American and owls. pilots delivered 7.9 thousand aircraft to the USSR. The length of the air route reached 14 thousand km.

Since 1945, the route through the Black Sea has also been used.

In total, from June 1941 to Sept. In 1945, 17.5 million tons of various cargoes were sent to the USSR, 16.6 million tons were delivered to their destination (the rest was losses during the sinking of ships). After the surrender of Germany, the United States stopped Lend-Lease deliveries to the European part of the USSR, but continued them for some time to the Soviets. Far East in connection with the war against Japan.

On June 11, 1942, an agreement between the USSR and the USA on mutual assistance during World War II and cooperation after the war (Lend-Lease) was signed in Washington. What this treaty gave Moscow and Washington is in our material.

The Lend-Lease system was not created under the USSR. The British were the first to request military assistance from Washington in May 1940. As part of the original agreement, the Americans gave Britain 50 destroyers and 28 torpedo boats in exchange for the Kingdom's military bases.

In March 1941, the U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which provided that the American president had the right to donate, lease, sell, or otherwise transfer services and military materials to states whose defense capability was vital to America. .

What, where and how much

Over the entire existence of the program, Lend-Lease deliveries to the Soviet Union have been estimated at $11.3 billion. Traditionally, they are divided into several stages - "pre-land-lease" and four protocols.

The last protocol formally ended on May 12, 1945, but deliveries were extended until the end of the war with Japan, which the USSR undertook to enter three months after the end of the war in Europe (thus, some historians argue about the existence of the fifth protocol). Finally, all Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR were terminated on September 20, 1945, 18 days after the surrender of Japan.

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.

None of these routes were completely safe. The fastest and most dangerous route was the Arctic convoys. In July-December 1941, almost half of all deliveries went along this route. In addition, there were two more lend-lease air routes - from the USA to the USSR through the South Atlantic, Africa and the Persian Gulf, the other route ran through Alaska, Chukotka and Siberia.

According to official data, the Soviet Union received more than 22,000 aircraft under Lend-Lease (including 247 R-40 Tomahawk fighters, R-40 Kitahawk, R-39 Airacobra, R-63 Kingcobra), almost 13 thousand tanks, 51 thousand cars (the famous Studebakers and Willis), eight thousand rifles, 131 thousand automatic weapons, hundreds of thousands of tons of various explosives and metal.

There were also deliveries under Lend-Lease that were not related to the main types of weapons. So, the USSR received 4.5 million tons of food (the famous American "stew" was especially popular among the people, without which, according to the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, it would be impossible to feed the army), 15.5 million pairs of army boots, as well as 331 thousand liters alcohol.

Who benefits from it

Lend-Lease is an international agreement, upon signing which both parties preliminarily calculate and stipulate their own interests, primarily economic ones. It goes without saying that Washington carefully calculated everything before adopting the document. Thus, Jesse Jones, who held the post of US Secretary of Commerce, stated in plain text: "With supplies from the USSR, we not only returned our money, but also made a profit, which was far from a special case in trade relations regulated by our state bodies." In addition, the lend-lease scheme made it possible to create new corporations and jobs in America, which had not yet fully recovered from the economic crisis of 1929-1933, and also to influence the recipient country.

Bruce Russett, professor of political science at Yale University, wrote of World War II: "According to our national mythology, it was a 'good war', one of the few where the gains clearly outweigh the losses."

In Soviet historiography, a rather skeptical attitude towards the amount of Lend-Lease assistance has developed. Marshal Zhukov in his book "Memoirs and Reflections" wrote the following: "I can say the following about weapons. We received about 18 thousand aircraft, more than 11 thousand tanks under Lend-Lease from the USA and England. In addition to the total number of weapons that the Soviet people equipped their army during the war years, lend-lease deliveries averaged 4 percent.Therefore, there is no need to talk about the decisive role of deliveries.As for the tanks and aircraft that the British and American governments supplied to us, let's face it, they were not popular with our tankers and pilots."

However, there were other points of view. Thus, a high-ranking Soviet official, Anastas Mikoyan, believed that without the help of the United States, the war between the USSR and Germany would have lengthened by another year and a half: “If this assistance had not been, our victims would have been even greater. Of course, it shortened the road to Victory. But, probably , it should be added: Russia would still have won the Patriotic War, since it relied on more powerful objective factors than Nazi Germany.

Debt good turn deserves another

Lend-lease was not paid during the war. However, the Americans provided the bill to the recipient countries immediately after the signing of the act of surrender of Nazi Germany. The debt of the USSR was determined in 1948 at $1.3 billion. The Soviet representatives agreed to pay only $170 million, but such conditions were unacceptable to Washington. An agreement with the USSR on the procedure for repaying lend-lease debts was concluded only in 1972 (the amount of the debt had already been determined at 722 million dollars).

In 1973, the USSR made several payments totaling $48 million, after which the payments were stopped due to the implementation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. In 1990, during negotiations between the presidents of the United States and the USSR, the parties returned to the discussion of debt. A new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030.

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 United States and the USSR, the parties returned to the discussion of 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.