I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war… 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. J. Stalin, November 1943 Tehran conference
(Question: Could the Soviet Union have defeated the Germans without U.S. Support or Lend Lease?)
No, the war in the Eastern USSR would likely have stalemated into a bloody mess without US support or Lend Lease. Don’t forget WW2 was not one vs one - the USSR and Nazi Germany were not slogging it out alone. It was a global war involving all major powers including the British Commonwealth and the USA.
In a snapshot in time, in July 1943 while Soviet tanks were smashing into Nazi panzers in the Battle of Kursk, British bombers were raining death and destruction on the German city of Hamburg in Operation Gomorrah which caused Nazi leaders to realise the war was lost.
It was I who first verbally reported to the Fuehrer at that time that a continuation of these (bombing) attacks might bring about a rapid end to the war.” (Albert Sperr)
It is not correct to say America or UK or USSR defeated Nazi Germany single handedly. It took the efforts of all three superpowers (Communists and Capitalists) to defeat Nazi Germany. And you haven’t even factored in the scenario if USA or UK decided to not send any supplies to the USSR or sat on their hands and waited while Germany fought the USSR.
A bit of background, in 1939 Stalin signed a pact with Hitler to enable Germany to attack Poland/Britain/France without worrying about a 2nd front. Stalin thought they would wear themselves out and allow the USSR to step in later to mop things up. As part of the pact, Soviet troops even invaded Poland as well. The Nazis and Soviets also held a joint parade to celebrate their achievement.
Still Stalin did not expect Germany to swiftly defeat France in 1940. He assumed Hitler would not attack the USSR until it finished defeating Britain; Stalin guessed wrong.
Stalin did not expect the Nazi invasion in 1941 even though there was plenty of warnings and evidence to support it, not to mention the fact that the entire Nazi Army was marshalling next to their border. He ignored all the evidence. When it did come, Stalin had a mental breakdown. He ordered his troops to hold their ground which resulted in the Soviet Army being encircled and decimated, losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed or captured.
Thankfully the USSR managed to halt the Nazi advance in 1941, partly thanks to severe early winter conditions which caused the Nazi war machine to stop in its tracks. Nonetheless, the USSR had to rely on Western aid to push the Nazis back and eventually defeat Nazi Germany in 1945.
The USSR suffered badly when the Nazis invaded. Not only was its army and airforce decimated during Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets lost a big section of the food production areas in Western USSR. Eventually, the USSR depended heavily on supplies coming from America. Supply ships (flying the USSR flag) went to the USA to take supplies.
The USSR lost 20,500 tanks from June 22 to December 31, 1941. At the end of November 1941, the Soviet Union had only 670 tanks to defend Moscow. Thankfully the British sent aid.
For example, the first British tanks arrived at the Soviet tank training school in Kazan on October 28, 1941. British tanks made up 30 to 40 percent of the entire heavy and medium tank strength of Soviet forces at Moscow at the beginning of December 1941. By the end of 1941 Britain had delivered 466 tanks out of the 750 promised. By July 1942 the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, with more than 16 percent of those imported, and more than half of those British.
You can google about the importance of this Lend-lease arrangement. If you do not believe me, take the word of some of the actual participants in the conflict from the Soviet side - namely Stalin, Zhukov, and Khrushchev.
Nikita Khrushchev said:
"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. 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."
And furthermore:
Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."
This is not idle speculation but actual observations made by key participant Soviet personnel.
The Americans supplied the Russians with vital transport equipment, trains, trucks, steel, fun, more food, winter clothes, telecommunication equipment, radios, train tracks, aviation fuel, medical supplies, tanks, aircraft etc.. Most of it came via the Pacific link, unmolested by the Japanese Navy or Army.
USSR propagenda said that the initials ‘USA’ in American weapons and tools stood for “Ubiyat Sukinsyna Adolfa” (Kill the son of a whore Adolf).
It was true that the quantity of armaments sent was not great when compared with the remarkable revival of Soviet mass production. The raw statistics show that Western aid supplied only 4 per cent of Soviet munitions over the whole war period, but the aid that mattered did not come in the form of weapons. In addition to radio equipment the United States supplied more than half a million vehicles: 77,900 jeeps, 151,000 light trucks and over 200,000 Studebaker army trucks. One-third of all Soviet vehicles came from abroad and were generally of higher quality and durability, though most came in 1943 and 1944. At the time of Stalingrad only 5 per cent of the Soviet military vehicle park came from imported stocks. Imports, however, gave the Red Army supply system a vital mobility that was by 1944 better than the enemy’s.
The list of other supplies, equally vital to the Soviet supply effort, is impressive – 57.8 per cent of aviation fuel requirements, 53 per cent of all explosives, almost half the wartime supply of copper, aluminium and rubber tyres. Arguably the most decisive contribution was supplies for the strained Soviet rail network, much of which was in the occupied areas in 1941. From America came not only 56.6 per cent of all the rails used during the war but 1,900 locomotives to supplement the meagre Soviet output of just 92, and 11,075 railway cars to add to the 1,087 produced domestically. Almost half the supplies, by weight, came in the form of food, enough to provide an estimated half-pound of concentrated nourishment for every Soviet soldier, every day of the war. The shiny tins of Spam, stiff, pink compressed meat, were universally known as ‘second fronts’.
Soviet production of motor vehicles during the war amounted to 265,00 vehicles. Lend-lease delivered 409,500 motor vehicles. Lend-lease delivery of motor vehicles exceeded Soviet production by 1.5 times. In fact, the Soviets, due to Lend-lease, had more vehicles than fuel for them, i.e. 1st Belorussian Front at the end of 1944 as did the 1st Ukrainian Front. Both fronts requested more deliveries of fuel, less of vehicles.
Russia included lend-lease deliveries of aviation fuel in their total production figures. In truth, Lend-lease deliveries of aviation fuel amounted to 57.8% of Russia’s production totals. Lend-lease deliveries of automobile fuel were 242,300 metric tons or 2.8% of Soviet wartime production, but their value was much higher because of the higher-octane level.
Lend-lease deliveries of explosive materials amounted to 53% of the total Soviet wartime production and lend-lease supplied an estimated 82.5% of copper production. Lend-lease deliveries of aluminum, essential for production of aircraft and tank engines exceeded Soviet wartime production by 1.25 times. Lend-lease also delivered 956,700 miles of field telephone wire, 2,100 miles of sea cable, 35,800 radio stations, 5,899 radio receivers and 348 radars. Lend-lease deliveries of canned meat alone amounted to 17.9% of total meat production.
Lend-lease deliveries of locomotives exceeded Soviet production by 2.4 times and railroad rails amounted to 92.7% of overall volume of Soviet rail production. Deliveries of rolling stock exceeded production by 10 times. Deliveries of tires amounted to 43.1% of Soviet production.
Soviet production never produced enough material to sustain the war effort in any key area. In tank production, it wasn’t until 1944 that they actually had a year where tank production exceeded tank losses. Lend-lease tanks amounted to 20% of all Soviet tanks operating in 1944 and without these tanks, they never could have formed the Mech Corps they did in 1944.
In 1941, 708 locomotives were made; in 1942, their number went down to 9; in 1943, the country produced 43 locomotives; in 1944, Russia made 32 locomotives, and in 1945, mere 8 locomotives were produced.
In the post-war period, Soviet historians denigrated Lend-lease efforts for propaganda reasons. You can’t depend on Soviet statistics alone. The Communists were notorious for altering their records to avoid spoiling the official feel-good narrative.
On August 31, 1943, tank factory no. 255 reported from Cheliabinsk to Moscow that the August plan was 100% fulfilled (Case 205, 1943). In truth, the August plan was completed only on September 15. This had the natural consequence that, on the last day of September, 44% of the monthly plan was still outstanding.
Personally I do not think the USSR could have defeated Nazi Germany by itself without Lend Lease. USSR managed to stop the Nazis at the gates of Moscow in 1941 - but the USSR needed American aid (trucks and trains) to carry its army into Nazi Germany in 1944 - 1945.
Don’t forget that Nazi Germany was also being blockaded by the British and the US Navies and Allied bombers were destroying German cities and factories. This forced Nazi Germany to devote valuable resources - fighter planes, 88mm guns etc.., against the Allied bombers and the Western Allied war effort.
This is of course not an argument to say the USA defeated Nazi Germany etc.. it is a fact that most of Nazi Germany’s army was trapped fighting the war in the East and the Nazis lost most of their soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front.
But you cannot ignore or dismiss the Lend Lease efforts. During the final push to victory, 1944 - 1945, the USSR depended heavily on Lend Lease for its offensive push.
You should also not simply accept Soviet statistics wholeheartedly without further scrutiny.
The USSR during the reign of Stalin made great efforts to downplay the role of US and UK support. The Soviets attempted to erase all mention of the word “Made in America” in Lend Lease supplies even going so far as removing “Made in USA” labels.
During the post-war era the USSR, the communist govt downplayed the significance of Lend Lease. Any scholarship in this area has to be mindful of this.
Source:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/jce2011postprint.pdfI Pryadko, Russian railroad transport within the historical military cargo delivery system: VIII International Scientific Conference Transport of Siberia – 2020 IOP Publishing IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 918 (2020) Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, Russia
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/918/1/012230/pdf
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