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Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II

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Every student of 20th-century history knows that the Marshall Plan reconstructed Western Europe after World War II, but not so many know that America's Lend-Lease aid played a comparable role in winning the war itself.This is because the main recipient of the aid, the Soviet Union, consistently downplayed its significance, not wanting to acknowledge the weaknesses in its system of government. Every Soviet leader, from Stalin to
Gorbachev, pretended that American aid was just something extra, almost a trifle, while state historians assigned it an arbitrary figure of 4 percent of the Soviet war production. Those historians abroad who accepted Soviet statistics perpetuated this myth. Now Albert Weeks sets the record straight.

After the collapse of the Soviet system, Russian historians were able to look into the archival files and total up the real figures. One study, by M.N. Suprin, calculates the caloric content of Lend-Lease foodstuffs sent to the USSR, divides the total by the caloric needs of the Red Army and arrives at a stunning conclusion: "The foodstuffs provided by Lend-Lease to the USSR would have sufficed to feed an army of ten million men for 1,688 days, that is, for the course of the entire war." Another study, by Boris Sokolov, which translates as THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, estimates that the US supplied 92.7% of the USSR's railroad equipment, including locomotives and rails, and from 15% to 90% of production in all other categories. Weeks, who reads Russian, surveys these recent studies and cites them to show that Lend-Lease was indeed "Russia's Life-Saver."

Beyond the raw figures, Weeks also explains the politics and inner workings of Lend-Lease, which President Roosevelt called the US "arsenal of democracy." As a longtime expert on Soviet Russia, he is able to explore the special relationship that FDR thought he had with Stalin, to sort out the Soviet spies operating on US soil and to look into such interesting topics as Armand Hammer's role in US-USSR relations. As an engaging writer, he handles the historical material with a modern sensibility, raising the questions of "trusting and verifying" and "the gratitude factor." I particularly liked his chapter on the USS Liberty Ship John Barry, which was sunk in the Arabian Sea by a
Nazi U-boat in August 1944. Its cargo included trucks, jeeps, steel rails and other standard provisions, but also 750 boxes of silver coins and, it is believed, $26 million of silver ingots. Was the ship headed for Iran, a transfer point for goods to the USSR? Was the bullion a gift from FDR to Uncle Joe? It's one of the many fascinating questions raised by this book. (See also STALIN'S SILVER by John Beasant.) The book concludes with some valuable tables of the standard Lend-Lease shipments.

RUSSIA'S LIFE-SAVER, in short, is another first-rate study by Albert Weeks. If you are interested in World War II, you will want this book. The publisher has set a high price on it, so if you can't afford it yourself ask your library to buy it. Every library should have it for today's readers and for future reference.

The long-time observer and analyst of the Soviet Union, Prof. Weeks documents an important chapter of US and Soviet history during World War II.

Based on the latest research from Russia, Weeks presents new findings about the vital importance of US aid to the Soviet Union of Dictator Joseph Stalin. Under the Soviet Regime, especially during Stalin's life-time, it was a rule to ignore or at least downplay the significance of any foreign aid to the Soviet victory in World War II. But the facts that Prof. Weeks is able to present to the Western reader demonstrate the opposite. Weeks cites a recent statement by President Putin, who officially acknowledged the vital importance of US Lend-Lease deliveries for the Soviet victory in World War II.

Weeks uses research by post-Soviet scholars in Russia that clearly shows crucial importance of Lend-Lease deliveries to Stalin's USSR. There are many facts and statistics about the amount of American aid to Russia that will be new to most readers. But Prof. Weeks doesn't stop there, he also paints a lively picture of the political developments leading to the decision of President Roosevelt to come to the rescue of the bloodiest Dictator of the 20th century, Joseph Stalin, in his fight against his opponent and recent collaborator, Hitler.

Prof. Weeks also demonstrates that Stalin was actively working through the channels of his espionage agencies to influence the US administration to deliver material aid to the USSR (he cites the Venona decrypts and material from Russia, most notably the NKVD's "Operation Snow"). It becomes clear that the large-scale infiltration of various US government branches by the Soviet espionage agencies played an important role in the speedy decision to send vast amounts of military and civilian goods to Stalin's Soviet Union. Stalin also ordered his agents to obtain military secrets from the US, both before and during the war, even when the Soviet Union was a nominal ally of the US.

At times, aid to the USSR was given priority over aid to Britain by President Roosevelt. Roosevelt's dubious and na?ve role in his dealings with Stalin is presented in some detail as well.

Weeks also shows that Stalin always rightly understood the might and potential of the American economic potential. US technical assistance had already played a major role in the mechanisation of both the Soviet agriculture and the Red Army. Stalin has been able to use the huge "tractor factories", built with the help of Ford, among others, to establish the necessary industrial base for the mechanisation of his huge tank forces before the outbreak of the Second World War.

The excellent mastery of both Russian and Soviet history allows the author to put the history of Lend-Lease into the wider context of American-Russian and American-Soviet political and economic relations, starting in Tsarist times.

After presenting Stalin's offensive war plans against Hitler in his equally superb book "Stalin's Other War. Soviet Grand Strategy 1939-45", Weeks again delivers important historical facts and puts them into proper context.

Despite the amount of data (quite rightfully) used in the book, Weeks' writing style makes reading about this often neglected aspect of history easy.

For any serious student of US-Soviet war-time relations, this is a must-read.