There is no doubt that the Soviet Union under Stalin played the major role in the destruction of Nazi Germany. Questions remain, however, over the contribution of the Anglo-Americans, especially in ensuring supply of arms and materials (e.g. the US the “lend lease” scheme). How critical was the supply role, and how critical was the role of the Soviet soldiers? Here are some key points by way of a brief literature guide.
In ‘The value of Lend-Lease for the USSR’ Andrey Chaplygin (2016) outlines some key points
https://en.topwar.ru/95477-znachenie-lend-liza-dlya-sssr.html
- Russian historians indicate that lend-lease supplies accounted for only about 4% of the total volume of Soviet industry and agriculture … there is no reason to question the reliability of this figure
- However in some areas the dependence on Anglo-American supply was much higher – in particular, the 295.6 thousand tons of explosives accounted for 53% of all produced at domestic enterprises. There were also high rations for copper – 76%, aluminum – 106%, tin – 223%, cobalt – 138%, wool – 102%, sugar – 66%, and canned meat – 480%.
- Soviet Union payments to the USA continued long after the war; after the collapse of the USSR, obligations for some of the remaining debt went to Russia.
- Lend-Lease was primarily, in the words of Roosevelt, “a profitable investment of capital” especially in the numerous indirect benefits that the American economy received after WW2 … the post-war welfare of the United States to a large extent was paid for with the blood of Soviet soldiers.
Robert Coalson (2020) in US state media RFERL http://’We Would Have Lost’: Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany? claims that Stalin and Khrushchev both admitted that the Soviet Union “would have lost” without US-UK support. Quotes from that article:
- Stalin: “The most important things in this war are the machines…. The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.”
- Khrushchev: “If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war,” he wrote in his memoirs. “One-on-one against Hitler’s Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me.”
The US sent more under Lend Lease to Britain (31bn) than to the Soviet Union (11.3bn).
Phillips P. O’Brien from the University of Glasgow, even argued (2008) ‘East versus West in the defeat of Nazi Germany’ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402390008437792?casa_token=lop_SSQf46MAAAAA:lUZ8b18CBUQCQnaa-T4gtNXc5qAErwDyMz6Weac6IO4BJFsxsW8tA0QWCKpcto4dyFJzOf-Ijw that “The West’s contribution to German defeat was more than is often recognised, by “tying down and destroying a significantly larger share [of German assets] than the Soviet Union”
A 2004 book by Albert L Weeks ‘Russia’s Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II’, documents the Lend Lease operation, saying “Lend-Lease is now recognized by post-Soviet Russian historians as essential to the Soviet war effort.” Weeks (who served in the US air force during WW2) tries to revise upwards the value of Lend Lease to the USSR from 11 to 12,5 billion and from 4% to 15% of total Soviet production.
However a scathing review of the Weeks book here https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=10887 says that the book is poorly written, with many errors. The reviewer David S. Foglesong says that “Weeks might have presented a more persuasive case if he had addressed questions such as how much military equipment was delivered before the fall of 1941, when the Red Army first held off the Wehrmacht outside Moscow.” Even Weeks concludes “the jury is still out” on “establishing exactly how crucial this aid was” (p.134). Weeks carried much of the cold war mentality, suggesting that Roosevelt adviser Harry Hopkins was a “Soviet agent”: and Roosevelt himself was a soft hearted sympathizer with Stalin (pp.5, 14, 15)
There can be little doubt that “the blood of Soviet soldiers” was the key factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
There can be little doubt that “the blood of Soviet soldiers” was the key factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
tbc …
