How many copies were broken around this term, and even more around the essence. Yes, Lend-Lease in the Great Patriotic War became a very controversial event in our history. And to this day, the controversy does not subside, I am sure that it will be hot in the comments.
Usually two opinions are promoted.
First, we would have won everyone without handouts from our allies.
Second: if not for the help of the allies, we would have come to an end.
It is clear who is promoting each version and why. Hooray patriots and liberals - this is our headache for a long time, because the truth lies, as usual, in the middle.
Talking about Lend-Lease is not easy, if only because you need to understand that this is a really difficult stage in history. From the very beginning to the end. And it is very difficult to evaluate it simply by numbers of statistics, moreover, it is stupid.
Why? Everything is simple to disgrace. There is a little more behind the numbers than it seems. Take tanks, for example. A certain number of them were delivered. And from this we also start from the main. Just not taking into account the fact that the tanks were equipped with spare engines, gearboxes, rollers, torsion bars, springs, machine guns, helmets, ammunition, that is, everything without which a tank is not a tank. Not a combat unit.
It is not serious, because of a breakdown of a pair of rollers, for example, from a mine, to throw a tank away? They were not thrown away. Repaired, replacing everything that is needed. And, if 12 thousand tanks were delivered to us, it is worthwhile to imagine how many spare parts and accessories also went to them.
By the way, the same thing happened with the planes. In the memoirs of the pilots, there are enough memories (Pokryshkin, Golodnikov, Sinaisky) on the topic of how long the engines from the Allison were nursed. But then they were changed. And the correspondence between the USSR and the USA about the supply of aircraft engines was very lively, since there was a very burning question. No one wants planes stuck to the ground for lack of engines. And such tanks are not needed.
Here one more claim of the “patriots” comes to mind. Say, everything came too late. When we ourselves defeated the German.
Well, everything is simple here too. August 12, 1941. This is the date of departure of the first convoy ("Dervish") from the ports of Great Britain to the northern ports of the Soviet Union. So - it's not too late.
Few? Well, the British after Dunkirk themselves sat on the suction of the States. And the Americans needed not only to produce everything they needed, but also to deliver it across the ocean. And the ocean, the Atlantic (with German submarines) and the Pacific (with Japanese), is a serious obstacle.
And nevertheless, the goods went and went and reached. Not without flaws. Read the two-volume Correspondence of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill 1941-1945. Joseph Vissarionovich at the end of 1942 very badly restrained his emotions. And in his own way he was 100% right, especially with regard to the British allies.
That is why, when they stopped counting losses and started counting debts, Stalin abruptly broke off the Americans with his phrase that "everything was paid for with our blood." Until 1972, when negotiations resumed again.
When it comes to money, it's worth starting from the very beginning.
In the first year of World War II, the Soviet Union was not included in the American Lend-Lease program at all. We were included in it only on June 11, 1942, when the Basic Agreement on this program of military supplies was signed.
The question immediately follows: what about the caravans that came earlier? Until the term for the conclusion of the contract?
And everything is not simple, but very simple. For money.
From June to November 1941, the USSR made orders in the USA and Great Britain and paid for them after the fact. We can say that in cash. Need an explanation? Of course.
It is known that there was always a problem with currency in the USSR. And then suddenly, before the conclusion of the lend-lease agreement, the Soviet comrades begin not only to buy everything they need, but in the volume of shipments by sea convoys! According to the "pay and take" formula. Weird…
Roosevelt is to blame for this. Yes, it was the American president who turned out to be a real ally of the USSR. Roosevelt, as president, could not then provide a loan for the purchase of weapons without the approval of Congress. The discussion just dragged on until 1942.
But Franklin Delano Roosevelt would not have been one of the smartest people in the New World if he hadn't come up with a workaround. So, in fact, if you really want to, you can. Roosevelt bypassed all the prohibitions.
The US government entered into two trade deals with the USSR: for the purchase of strategic materials for $ 100 million and gold for $ 40 million. Total for $ 140 million.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and our side's representative Vyacheslav Molotov set the price at $ 35 per ounce of gold, and on August 15, 1941, the American Treasury paid the Soviet side an advance in the amount of $ 10 million for its future deliveries.
As a result, by the end of October 1941, the USSR received $ 90 million from the United States as an advance on the above transactions.
Thus, Roosevelt made the USSR solvent in dollar terms and convinced the American public, the Senate and Congress that Stalin independently financed his program of purchasing weapons from the United States. Without breaking a single letter of American law.
American weapons went to our ports. And on the way back, the ships took the cargo of the very strategic materials (for example, manganese ores), which were mentioned in the agreement.
It was noted more than once that the Soviet side complied with this agreement with all scrupulousness. This may serve as one of the explanations for the dispatch from Murmansk on the ill-fated cruiser "Edinburgh" 5, 5 tons of gold worth about 6, 2 million dollars - this cargo could be part of those 30-40 tons of Russian gold paid by the Americans back in 1941.
True, the gold of "Edinburgh" could be intended for the British, who also did not let their own. By an agreement of August 16, 1941, Great Britain provided the Soviet Union with a loan of £ 10 million. The loan was later increased to £ 60 million.
According to the agreement of August 16, 1941, the Soviet government paid 40% of the cost in gold or dollars and the remaining 60% from a loan provided by the British government.
This is just an argument towards those who are still sure that the lend-lease was paid in gold.
In repayment of supplies under Lend-Lease, the United States received from the USSR 300 thousand tons of chromium and 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, and in addition, platinum, gold, furs and other goods totaling $ 2.2 million.
1945-21-08 The United States of America stopped lend-lease supplies to the USSR. Roosevelt, unfortunately deceased, was replaced by Truman. A new era was dawning, the era of the Cold War. And allies who recently fought with one enemy became enemies themselves. If the majority of other countries had their supply debts simply written off, then negotiations with the Soviet Union on these issues were conducted in 1947-1948, 1951-1952, 1960, 1972.
The total amount of lend-lease supplies to the USSR is estimated at $ 11.3 billion.
At the same time, according to the Lend-Lease Law, only goods and equipment that have survived after the end of hostilities are subject to payment. Those Americans estimated at 2, 6 billion dollars and were, to put it mildly, not understood and sent to think.
On reflection, a year later, the former allies cut this amount in half.
Thus, the United States issued an invoice for $ 1.3 billion, payable over 30 years at a rate of 2.3% per annum.
Stalin was not going to take resources from our war-ravaged country in order to give them to a potential enemy in the Third World War. Therefore, the United States was again sent, now no longer to think, with a clear resolution of the Soviet leader: "The USSR paid off the debts of the Lend-Lease in full in blood."
Negotiations on the repayment of lend-lease debts resumed only after Stalin's death, and only on October 18, 1972, an agreement was signed on the payment of 722 million dollars by the Soviet Union until July 1, 2001. And even 48 million dollars were paid, but after the Americans introduced the discriminatory Jackson-Broom Amendment, the USSR stopped payments.
In 1990, at new negotiations between the presidents of the USSR and the United States, the final maturity date of the debt - 2030 - was agreed. However, a year later, the USSR collapsed, and the debt was “reissued” to Russia. In 2006, the lend-lease debt was fully paid off.
Such is the financial history of the issue.
Was it all beneficial?
Definitely: yes. We received the equipment and components we needed very much, and some positions completely covered the products of the factories lost in the occupied territory.
The Americans received a huge boost to the development of their industry, which brought them to the first place in the world.
Now that all the bills have been paid, we can safely talk about Lend-Lease and analyze as much as we like. What are we actually going to do.
In the subsequent articles of this series, a thoughtful and careful consideration and assessment of everything that we received under the Lend-Lease program will go. This became possible thanks to our joint and fruitful work with the museums of military equipment in Padikovo and Verkhnyaya Pyshma.
We will not compare the figures for the number of deliveries and their output, although the figures will have their place.
We will not try to answer the question whether we would have won without lend-lease supplies.
We will not count dollars and rubles.
Our main task will be to tell you what kind of equipment came to us in the framework of Lend-Lease and (in our opinion, the most interesting) let's compare it with our counterparts. Something has already happened in the series "At home among strangers", but there were ships and planes, and here there will be a place for tanks, self-propelled guns, cars, trucks, armored personnel carriers, guns and small arms.
Starting the preliminary work, we were amazed at how much information fell on our heads. Indeed, perhaps, for someone, through our efforts, Lend-Lease will appear in a different light. We look forward to it very much.
