"How Decisive was Lend Lease to Soviet War Effort: 1941-44?" Topic

The Soviet Red Army won WWII. They won through attrition and at very high cost. mkenny I note that you are English and your postings here indicate an anti-American bias. You discount the value of nearly everything sent Lend Lease. You cite the lack of value of Locomotives because the Soviet Union had 30 thousand locomotives. You don't seem to take into account that the Soviets lost thousands of locomotives and other rolling stock in Barbarossa alone. You do not seem to consider that other surviving rolling stock was being used and worn out during the frantic relocation of the factories. Was it decisive to get 1900 new locomotives? Probably not, but the Soviets did request them and so they did need them. Fifteen million boots is a lot of leather. Not enough to meet all Red Army needs, but enough to assist the Red Army in shoeing their troops and to allow the production of other leather supplies. Boots by the way last much longer than a few months. In my three years as a Marine infantry man I wore out four pairs of boots. I am sure that the Russians recycled the boots of the fallen, perhaps after repairs but the uppers of boots tend to last a lot longer than the soles which can be replaced. The foodstuffs were of tremendous value to the Red Army. You are incorrect in your guess that Soviet food production dwarfed that total. The Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union; without it the grain production of the nation was badly hurt. My Grandfather was one of the US soldiers that met the Russians at Torgau. He told me that they were well supplied with ammunition, were riding in and driving Studebaker trucks. Were clothed in uniforms made in the United States, and they were on very reduced rations because the Soviet Army had not been able to keep the railroad repairs up enough to supply the basic needs of the spearheads. Dmytr Loza in his book "Fighting for the Soviet Motherland" tells of his experiences with Lend Lease. He was one of the highest decorated Soviet Tankers in the war, yet he never was equipped with a Soviet tank. He began the war in a British Matilda II. When his unit was reequipped with new tanks he was put into Shermans with the 76mm Russian cannon. His resupply vehicles were American trucks. Those American tanks all had radios which the Soviet tanks did not. Lend lease allowed Loza's unit to put radios into their supply trucks as well as the tanks, with that they were better able to get supplies to where they were needed in a timely manner. He fought through the Ukraine and writes about while the unit was replenishing troops and equipment they planted crops to eat and to keep the newly liberated peasants from starving. One Soviets experiences alone show that the Lend Lease was of great aid to the Soviet war effort. Lend Lease supplied to the Soviets and allowed them to concentrate their industrial might to fielding more and heavier tanks and guns. Factories that did not have to manufacture supply trucks, staff vehicles and the like were thus available to make light tanks and armored cars. The United States, and the British empire did not equip the Red Army but they did materially help it meet what would have been tremendous shortfalls in production capability.

According to the article on Lend/Lease on Wikipedia, the value in US dollars of lend/lease aid given to the Soviet Union was valued at $10,982.1 USD millions. The value given to Britain and its empire was $31,387.1 USD millions. If these figures are reasonably accurate it looks like Churchill got three times as much lend/lease from FDR as Stalin got.

Maybe a discussion on whether Britain could have survived without lend/lease is also in order?

Not forgetting the rather bizarre thing (to me) is that Great Britain was both a recipient of, and a contributor to, lend lease.

If you're able to access it there's a relevant article to this discussion titled 'British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort, June 1941–June 1942' by Alexander Hill, available here:

muse.jhu.edu/article/218483

The publication details are: The Journal of Military History, Volume 71, Number 3, July 2007.

The abstract reads:

"The historiography of Allied assistance to the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) has paid little attention to deliveries made during the First Moscow Protocol period to the end of June 1942, during which Britain was the primary provider of aid. Whilst aid shipped during this period was limited compared to that for subsequent U.S.-dominated protocols, its significance has to be understood in the context of the military and economic situation faced by the Soviet Union during the first year of the war."

And the concluding paragraph reads:

"It would be difficult and unconvincing to argue that Lend-Lease aid "saved" the Soviet Union from defeat in 1941. Axis forces were, for instance, halted before Moscow with Soviet blood, and to a large extent with Soviet-manufactured arms and equipment. Nonetheless, as this article has suggested, Lend-Lease aid provided during the period of the First Moscow Protocol had a far more significant impact on the Soviet war effort and indeed on frontline capability both during and after the Battle for Moscow than the Soviet and indeed Western historiography would suggest. What is perhaps of particular note is not only the speed with which Britain in particular was willing and able to provide aid to the Soviet Union after initial hesitation, but how quickly the Soviet Union was able to put foreign equipment into use. This is testimony both to the political and military realism of Churchill and other key British cabinet ministers in this instance, and to the effectiveness of the Soviet command economy when faced with a clearly defined task."

With respect to tank supplies, from the above article I've plucked this out:

"According to Marshal P. A. Rotmistrov, at the end of November 1941 there were only 670 Soviet tanks, of which only 205 were heavy or medium types, for the Fronts before Moscow, that is, the recently formed Kalinin, Western, and South-Western Fronts. Most of this tank strength was concentrated with the Western Front, with the Kalinin Front having only two tank battalions (67 tanks) and the South-Western two tank brigades (30 tanks). Alternative figures suggest that of 667 tanks with frontline units of the Kalinin, the Western, and the right wing of the South-Western Fronts as of 1 December 1941, 607 were with the Western Front, including 205 which were KV series and T-34s; the Kalinin Front and the right wing of the South-Western Front had 17 and 43 tanks respectively, none of which apparently were KV series or T-34s.58 Either set of figures is a significant improvement on the 141 heavy and medium tanks available to the Western, Reserve, and Briansk Fronts before Moscow as of 1 October 1941. In the light of these statistics, it is reasonable to suggest that British-supplied tanks made up in the region of 30 to 40 percent of the heavy and medium tank strength of Soviet forces before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941, and that they made up a significant proportion of such vehicles available as reinforcements at this critical juncture."

mkenny I note that you are English and your postings here indicate an anti-American bias.
Irish as amatter of fact. A bit childish to equate refusal to prostrate myself in awe of ' your' exceptionilism as bias.

You don't seem to take into account that the Soviets lost thousands of locomotives and other rolling stock in Barbarossa alone
I am fairly confident you have no idea how many Soviet Locos were lost and thus are just trying to muddy the waters. The Soviets would have to lose 28,000 locos for the LL ones to become 'decisive'
You are incorrect in your guess that Soviet food production dwarfed that total

You seriously believe Soviet food production in WW2 was less than 4 million tons!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This (to me) explains everything
Churchill got three times as much lend/lease from FDR as Stalin got.

Whilst there are a good number of Anglophobes who contantly spew 'we saved your ass' the Cold War created a far bigger number of people who believe the Soviet Union to be Satan personified They use LL as a stick to beat the Soviets in order to compensate for their own inferiority complex. The argument is political and facts are never going to change anything.

As an aside when I first started posting on this internet thingy some 15 years back one of the standard 'killer facts; of the LL glory-grabbers was '' LL supplied 90% of Soviet Locos and rolling stock'. It was quoted everywhere and was true if you meant '90% of Soviet wartime production of Locos & rolling stock'. I was the first to actualy go and check and found The Soviets entered WW2 with 30,000 locos and 600,000 rail wagons and rightly decided they could manage on those and concentrate on more important production.
That shows how you need to know Soviet numbers to compare to LL numbers before making any judgement.

Mkenny

The original post queried if Lend Lease was decisive. As I said the sacrifice of the Soviet nation won WWI. I do not believe that Soviet food production provided the majority of what was used by the Soviet people during the years of the war. What I am saying is that the loss of the Ukraine, Belarus and the western half of Russia itself hurt the domestic production of the Soviets dramatically. In 1940 the Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states contributed nearly a third of the GDP of the USSR. By 1942 Soviet GDP was less than two thirds of its prewar capacity, in fact the Soviet GDP never got back to its prewar capacity before the German surrender. So losing a third of its capacity and much of that from its greatest grain producing regions no doubt put a serious dent in the food available to be produced for the citizens and soldiers of the nation. The lend lease shipments went a long way to closing that gap, rationing and the great loss of mouths to feed also went a long way to closing that gap so between the aid and casualties the Soviet Union made do until victory. Afterwards they raped eastern Europe and took their plunder back to help rebuild the Soviet economy.

You poo poo the value of the American built rolling stock. There are reports available on line that show the losses of Soviet locomotives and rolling stock at 4000 locomotives, and 160,000 cars. The German Luftwaffe claimed between 25 and 45 percent of the Soviet rolling stock destroyed. The claims the Soviet Union itself made for reparations for destroyed stock was 15,000 locomotives and 400,000 cars. So lets take only the most conservative number of 4000 locomotives of all kinds. Did the American aid of nearly 2,000 locomotives win the war for the Soviets? No, of course not, only a fool would say that. What it did however was enable the Soviet rail road system to boost its load carrying capacity dramatically in 1943, 1944 from the 256 million tons hauled in 1942 to 297 million tons in 1943, and 314 million tons in 1944, or nearly 19 percent improvement in the space of two years. I do feel that is significant improvement. In addition to the added rolling stock it allowed the Soviet rail system to put worn equipment into the heavy repair yards and to cannibalize them to repair and refurbish other less worn out stock to keep it on the road. Even with the lend lease aid of rail equipment the Soviet Rail system never did achieve its prewar capacity but it was moving 335 million tons by 1945 compared to 228 million tons in the dark days of 1942. The longer ranged American built locomotives also allowed use of the Asian ports of the Soviet Union to be used to bring other materials into the Soviet Nation in addition to Murmansk. Again not decisive but without it the Soviet Union would have had to suffer through much more privation and I believe the war would have been lengthened because the Red Army would have had to halt to replenish much more often because of supply constraints.

You are wrong about me. I was both an enlisted man and an officer in the US military. I was a history major and have a degree in History. I believe WWII was won by the Red Army, that it was the Red Army that wore down the German military. That steady attrition along with that in Africa and later in Italy spread out the German forces and ate up the yearly classes of replacements that meant that the Germans were spread thinly, too thinly to stop the invasions of France and the breakouts from the Normandy beach heads. However without the aid the Soviet Union received from the British Empire which enabled them to hang on through that first winter and spring, and the aid the Americans sent, which enabled them to improve their Operational Doctrine and conduct deeper penetrations of the German positions the war would have lasted longer and the costs to the Soviet people would have been even greater than what they endured.

The LL Locos did not start shipping until mid 1944.

Perhaps it is an indication of just how Eurocentric most folks are but when we talk about WW II and winning it you all do remember there was an entire other theater known as the Pacific and it was far from inconsequential.

So much opinion, so little reasoning …

The OP asks the question: "How decisive was LL…?"

The typical approach to answering seems to be: "We sent XX tons of this stuff, so it was decisive."

Then we lambast the one guy who suggests: "Why is XX tons of stuff decisive? They already had YYY tons of stuff."

Look guys, if you want to know if the boots we sent were decisive, you can't answer that question by just counting how many boots were sent. You have to compare that to how many boots were needed, how many were available from other sources, and how boots impacted the Russian victory. If the Russians needed 45 million boots, had 50 million boots, and we sent them 15 million boots, then it's pretty obvious that the LL boots were not decisive. Maybe they were good boots, better boots, wonderful boots. Maybe it was very helpful that we sent them such nice boots. But they were clearly not decisive.

But if the Russians needed 35 million boots, and only had 20 million boots, then a case can be made that 15 million boots mattered. Then we can examine whether boots, in and of themselves, are a critical (read: decisive) issue, or whether shoes and leggings can also be used for military purposes.

It's the same 15 million boots in any case. But without the context we can't get a useful answer to the question. Just shouting about how many boots were sent is not useful … except as a chest-beating exercise.

(Please replace millions of boots with tons of explosives, thousands of locomotives, cans of spam, etc. and re-apply as needed.)

The question is not how many (units of measure) of (stuff) were sent. There were certainly many (units of measure) of (stuff) sent.

The question is not whether Russians said in public at that time (or in private afterwards), that LendLease helped. They certainly said in public at that time (and in private afterwards), that LendLease helped.

The question is also not whether the Russians (Soviets) paid a terrible price in blood. They certainly paid a terrible price in blood.

The question is how decisive was Lend Lease.

To answer that question we really need to see WHERE and WHEN it made a difference.

In front of Moscow in 1941.

In the Caucasus in 1942.

At Stalingrad in 1942.

At Kursk in 1943.

In the Donbass, across the Ukraine in the winter of 1943/44.

In Byelorussia in 1944.

Where and when did LL not just make a contribution, but actually tip the balance between failure and success? What evidence is there -- besides XX (units) of (stuff) -- to support that conclusion?

I offered one specific example. I think that case alone could answer the question in the OP. Clearly, in one case, one critical case, one war-changing case, a German armored / mechanized spearhead was stopped at the critical moment by a Soviet army whose only useful tanks were LL British and American tanks.

But answers don't need to be that specific. They could just compare need and availability to supply. Logistics, after all, is what wins wars. So how many (units) of (stuff) did they have, how many did they need, how many did LL provide?

Are there no others willing to look at the OP and actually answer the question?

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Was it decisive? I can see arguments for both sides, but I don't think so. The Weiler book states that LL contributed 5% of the soviet unions war effort in 1942. While the soviet union is close to starving and economic collapse they were able to deal with the grueling hardships. Without LL the germans still stretch out their supply lines and run out of men. A truce ensues with germany keeping perhaps some parts of russian territory.The germans don't seem to have had the manpower to take Stalingrad let alone push further. I do love the discussion. If Germany was to win they would have to achieve over a 2 to 1 kill ratio.

recommended reading

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PDF link

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One thing to remember is that Lend Lease works both ways. Giving arms to someone else so they can fight the same enemy is common sense and saves the lives of your own men. Now before anyone gets on their high horse and accuse me of calling the Americans cowards who got others to do the fighting for them I am not saying that. But consider this how many extra divisions would the US need to field to compensate for the lack of British armoured divisions? Look at the number of armoured divisions and tank regiments in Italy and NWE equiped with US tanks and replace those with US divisions for a start – that would give a rough estimate. No LL to Britain means fighting El Alamein with Crusaders and Valentines, no Shermans, Grants or Stuarts. Crusaders and Churchills for Italy in '43 as the Cromwell wasn't ready, assuming we got that far. Of course you could argue that with Britain knowing it would not be getting US tanks different decisions would have been made and more domestic designs produced earlier, but it is difficult to see where those designs would come from. Cromwell design started in 1940 and it only entered production in February '44. Other options such as putting the Sherman into UK production would have taken time to get going. And of course that is just considering tank production and doesn't include any shortfalls in U.K./Commonwealth fighting capability due to lack of other weapons.

"Now before anyone gets on their high horse and accuse me of calling the Americans cowards who got others to do the fighting for them I am not saying that"

Why not? Every Empire in history has done precisely that.
Its something you learn on day 1 at world domination school.

Scholarship regarding Lend-Lease conducted prior to the 1990 opening of the Soviet secret archives must be considered highly suspect. Soviet studies in particular were intensely influenced by propaganda considerations. Only in the past twenty years or so has any really honest research emerged from Russia on the contributions and influence of Lend-Lease.

For example, the "4 percent of Soviet production" figure has been proven to be a fantasy propaganda construct. Most recent numbers have been estimated to be in the overall 15 pct range, with contributions in key war industries in the 50 pct range (aluminum for a/c, propellant and explosives) and more (90+ pct of high octane aviation fuel). Certain research argues that, with the loss of nearly all its principal agricultural production regions, American food aid spelled the difference between mass starvation on a Leningrad scale (so claims one Russian author) and survival.

A quick trip around the web will turn up a variety of new and more honest reference works on Lend-Lease.

B

Certain research argues that, with the loss of nearly all its principal agricultural production regions, American food aid spelled the difference between mass starvation on a Leningrad scale (so claims one Russian author) and survival

Where are the actual quotes with figures?
I see 4 million tons of food via LL.
Once we see Soviet annual food production figures we can see if starvation was on the horizon.
Who has the numbers?

Where are the actual quotes with figures?

Here is at least some information … but please see below my discussion of the sourcing.

During the war food was rationed in the Soviet Union. Rations were an official entitlement. You were authorized an amount of food … so no one would complain if you got that much. But you were not guaranteed that amount.

The rationing was tiered, depending on your position. Active military was top tier, with combat rations even higher than base military rations. Industrial workers were next. Children 12 and under were high tier. People over 12 who were not industrial workers were low tier. Party leaders and political officials got to obtain their food from party stores, so they were separate from the rationing program.

Examples of the ration amounts:

Military: 2,954 calories per day authorized
Active Combat Military: 3,450 calories per day
(Comparison: British Army Winter Ration: 5,300 calories per day)

Soldiers actively foraged for supplemental food. The rations were barely enough for survival, and were often not met through official sources. The only item guaranteed through rationing was bread. This provided the major source of calories to Soviet soldiers and citizens alike throughout the war. Other items were authorized, but not guaranteed.

After 1943 food aid (through LL) increased the availability of food items under rationing by the following increments:

Sugars: More than 50%
Fats (oil, butter, margarine, etc.): About 50%
Vegetables: More than 50%
Meats (mostly canned, some dehydrated): 20%

Given that the major source of daily calories was the rationed black bread, even after these increments, I can not suggest how decisive these increments were.

Sources:
I have not seen any of the primary sources, nor even the secondary sources on this. I have only seen tertiary sourcing (ie: some otherwise anonymous web site).

In particular one can find a discussion at:
link

That site lists the following published secondary sources for several of these statistics:

Moskoff, William. The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply in the Soviet Union during World War II (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990).

Collingham, Lizzie. The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food (Penguin Books: New York, 1962), 634p.

Erickson, John. The Road to Berlin: Stalin's War with Germany Vol. II (Widenfield & Nichols: London, 1983).

Miller, James R. "Conclusion: Impact and aftermath of World War II," in Susan Linz, ed. The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union (Rowman & Allanheld: Totowa, N.J., 1985), pp. 283-91.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

link

Examples of the ration amounts:

Military: 2,954 calories per day authorized
Active Combat Military: 3,450 calories per day
(Comparison: British Army Winter Ration: 5,300 calories per day)

Today 2500 calories a day is deemed adequate to keep healthy.
Wartime UK was c.3000.
Rationed food was in all respects far more nutritious and healthier than unrestricted access.

Some UK figures as a yardstick. Do I see 500 million pairs of 'footwear'?
Also if your meat ration is low to start with then even if an outside source provides 100% of your meat it still is a low % of your food ration.

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To all the TMP folks who contributed to this thread:

Thank you so much for an excellent discussion and a good examination of how to start evaluating whether Lend Lease had a decisive effect upon the early and mid Great Patriotic War. From my own perspective the jury is still out but this discussion has provided excellent fodder for me to ruminate on. I suppose it is worth pointing out that the preponderance of evidence presented here has moved me more towards the critical end of the spectrum but I can't shake the nagging doubt that a mythic importance has been laminated onto the programme by both Western and Soviet commentators over the last 75 years, thus making an objective examination of this question much more difficult. Well done to all.

Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.