Statistical and strategic case against the supposed "decisive" role of lend-lease in soviet victory.

[Ringo]

but Germany continued to advance and take more Soviet territory until Battle of Kursk in July 1943. That is the more significant turning point that stopped German advance into Russia and set the long retreat into play.

Soviet and Russian historiography refer to the Battle of Stalingrad as the beginning of a decisive turning point in World War II and the Battle of Kursk as the culmination of that turning point.
But look at the map—in 1941, the Nazis were advancing along the entire front, from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea.
By 1942, they had enough strength to launch an offensive only on the southern front.
And in 1943, despite all the forces they had mustered, due to the absence of a Second Front in Europe, and despite their new heavy tanks, the Germans were able to advance on only one section of the front. After that, only a strategic retreat. But there were still almost two years left until the end of the war...
Speaking of the Allies helping each other. I think the offensive in Belarus in the summer of 1944, which drew enormous Wehrmacht forces onto itself, greatly aided the Allies’ successful landing in Normandy.

 

[Litwin]

Many were used for "slave" labor, as were many in the Jewish-Undesirables concentration camps. Of course those people weren't feed well and literally worked to death.

How much GDP did German slaves (in the camps) generate? Stalin’s Gulag slaves generated 50+ % of all hard cash, and at least 10% of the GDP.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I've spent months going through the records to determine whether the Lend-Lease program actually made a difference on the ground for the Red Army, and the first section, covering the period from the start of Operation Barbarossa to January 1, 1942, is now finished. I will post my examination of the rest of the war once it is completed.

A Precise Statistical and Strategic Case Against the Supposed " Decisive " Role of Lend-Lease in Soviet Victory.

Part One

June 22, 1941 to January 1, 1942

THESIS

The claim that Lend-Lease saved the Soviet Union, or meaningfully contributed to the defeat of Operation Barbarossa, is not merely an exaggeration. In the specific period examined here, from the first hour of the German invasion on June 22, 1941, to January 1, 1942, it is demonstrably false. The numbers do not support it. The timeline does not support it. The battlefield record does not support it.

What saved the Soviet Union in 1941 was Soviet steel, Soviet blood, Soviet industrial capacity, and the iron will of Joseph Stalin. This article will attempt to prove that case precisely, category by category, date by date, and number by number.

PART ONE: THE TIMELINE DESTROYS THE MYTH BEFORE IT BEGINS

The most devastating argument against the supposed decisive role of Lend-Lease in 1941 is not about quality, quantity, or combat performance. It is about dates. A program that does not yet exist cannot save anyone.

June 22, 1941: Germany invades. The Soviet Union begins fighting alone.

July 12, 1941: Britain and the USSR sign a mutual assistance agreement. No materiel is transferred on this date. It is a diplomatic document.

August 2, 1941: The United States agrees in principle to provide aid to the USSR under the existing Lend-Lease Act. No shipment is authorized on this date.

August 25, 1941: The first convoy, codenamed Dervish, departs Britain. It carries seven Hurricane fighters in crates, 40 Hurricanes in crates aboard a second vessel, rubber, tin, and wool. It arrives on August 31. Seven assembled Hurricanes and 40 crated aircraft reaching a nation fighting 153 German divisions across a 2,900-kilometre front was not a lifeline. It was a symbolic gesture.

September 29 to October 1, 1941: The Moscow Conference produces the First Moscow Protocol, the first formal commitment of specific quantities. It promises 400 aircraft per month, 500 tanks per month, and quantities of aluminum, copper, and other materials. Note carefully: this protocol is signed on October 1, 1941.

The Battle of Moscow, Operation Typhoon, begins on October 2, 1941. The protocol was signed the day before the decisive battle began. No protocol equipment played any role in that battle’s opening phase because none had yet arrived.

November 7, 1941: Roosevelt formally extends Lend-Lease to the USSR and authorizes a one-billion-dollar credit. On this same day, Stalin stands on Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square and watches Soviet troops parade past him and march directly to the front to fight the Germans 80 kilometres away. Those troops are carrying Soviet weapons.

December 5 to 6, 1941: The Moscow Counteroffensive begins. The German Army is thrown back from the capital in the decisive engagement of the entire campaign. The bulk of the Lend-Lease supplies promised under the First Protocol has not yet arrived in usable quantities.

January 1, 1942: The period under examination closes. The Soviet Union has survived Barbarossa. The Germans have been pushed back from Moscow.

The Lend-Lease program, as a functioning large-scale supply operation, did not begin delivering meaningful quantities until the spring and summer of 1942. The period in which it theoretically could have mattered, the six months of Barbarossa, was precisely the period in which it was still being negotiated, organized, loaded, and shipped.

The Soviet Union survived the battle for its existence before the program functioned at scale. This fact alone forms the foundation of the argument.

There's a Vast Difference Between Russian and "Soviet"

Fanatical and dishonest Anti-Communists want us to volunteer to die taking their place. The Cold War II mongers oppose the draft. In a man's country, that would discredit their self-protective extremism.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Your two sentences have nothing to do with each other, kiddo. Stay on track.

War Is Good Business. Invest the Lives of Your Workers' Sons in It

Birchers actually believe that Communism empowers working people. That mistaken notion is the real reason those sweatshopping Scrooges oppose it.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

The Soviet records PROVE that stalins purges murdered at least 65,000,000 Russians.

Don't Be a Foreign-Policy Karen

The internal affairs of foreign countries are none of our business. Only immature brainwashed flunkies of warmongers harp on that. Same goes for Rightist dictatorships.

 

[Stryder50]

Don't Be a Foreign-Policy Karen

The internal affairs of foreign countries are none of our business. Only immature brainwashed flunkies of warmongers harp on that. Same goes for Rightist dictatorships.

Just like the overflowing septic of your neighbor, spilling into your yard, is their "internal affairs" and no concern of yours.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

A more interesting question is: What effect did Lend-Lease have on the Soviet war effort overall?

My view:

Germany probably still loses the war even without Lend-Lease. Once Germany is fighting a prolonged two-front war against the Soviet Union and the industrial capacity of the United States, the long-term strategic balance becomes extremely unfavorable.

But I suspect the postwar map looks different.

Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army likely remains capable of defending Soviet territory and eventually pushing Germany back. What becomes less certain is whether it can sustain the pace and scale of deep offensive operations that carried Soviet forces to Berlin.

The key issue isn't American tanks or aircraft. It's logistics.

American trucks, locomotives, rail equipment, communications gear, fuel additives, food, and industrial inputs increased Soviet mobility enormously. The Red Army became progressively better at operational exploitation — breaking through and then maintaining momentum.

Without that support, Soviet offensives may have resembled earlier campaigns where advances repeatedly outran supply lines. Germany still retreats, but more slowly. The front stabilizes farther east. The war in Europe lasts longer. The eventual Cold War frontier may end up significantly east of where it historically formed.

In that sense, Lend-Lease may not have determined whether Germany lost, but how quickly, at what cost, and where Soviet armies stopped.

Forget the Shermans. The most consequential American contribution may have been the trucks and trains.

This is also where the serious historical debate actually lies. Arguing that Lend-Lease didn't save Moscow in 1941 is mostly arguing against a position few credible historians hold. The more interesting counterfactual is whether the Soviet Union could have conducted the same scale of offensives in 1943–45 without the logistical backbone supplied by Lend-Lease.

Draw Play

Stalin tricked Hitler into invading; it is totally against his character to think that he trusted the Nazi pig and was fooled.

Stalin knew that Hitler could easily be suckered into overextending the invasion, thinking he had another blitzkrieg against a weak, poorly led, and cowardly nation. Stalin sacrificed his worst troops and held back his real army until the German army had reached a point of no return after rushing after a fake retreat.

Since the Eastern Europeans were disgraceful doormats and the Nazi army was demoralized and helpless, Stalin could have easily taken Eastern Europe without any aid from us at all.

 

[jacksonlamb]

Don't Be a Foreign-Policy Karen

The internal affairs of foreign countries are none of our business. Only immature brainwashed flunkies of warmongers harp on that. Same goes for Rightist dictatorships.

We should stay out of Cuba.

We won't.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I repeat—I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said this—the purpose of my articles is to show that Germany had already lost the war in 1941, when the Red Army broke the reckless Blitzkrieg. And behind it stood Soviet industry and the Soviet people.

The Lend-Lease program in 1941–42 played no role in the victories over the Nazis. Victory was forged in the days of defeat. The socialist economy, pitted against the full industrial might of Europe concentrated by Germany, defeated the capitalist economy.

Everything else was a continuation of the nazis’ agony. I repeat: that agony was accelerated by Lend-Lease and the Second Front. They would have been very useful, at least in 1942.

Stalin Knew What Fear to Project

Another benefit to Stalin for making it look like Russia would easily be defeated in a few months was that it forced FDR to get in the war before Germany had seized all the Russian resources, especially the oil.

A big lie we were told was that Stalin was holding a big army east of Moscow to prevent being attacked by Japan. But Zhukov, in Mongolia, had already knocked Japan out of the European war before it even started.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Just like the overflowing septic of your neighbor, spilling into your yard, is their "internal affairs" and no concern of yours.

Paranoiacs Need to Grow a Pair

 

[westwall]

Actually, much of the Soviet infantry divisions still relied heavily upon horse drawn wagons and carts, for getting supplies to the front lines. Trucks did help haul to the rear area depots, especially in the many cases where the railroads didn't reach.

Other than enhanced logistics, trucks mainly helped motorize the the infantry attached to tank corps and similar armor/mechanized units.

The USA Army on the other hand was even better motorized than any combatant when it came to troop movements, except for close in tactical movement.

The trucks moved the supplies from the railhead to the depots behind frontline. The soviet infantry tended to ride on their tanks into combat. The trucks would move the infantry from point A to point B a long way behind the front lines. They had to do that to avoid the German Luftwaffe. Any time a mass of Soviet transport was found the Luftwaffe would pound it into oblivion.

 

[westwall]

Stalin Knew What Fear to Project

Another benefit to Stalin for making it look like Russia would easily be defeated in a few months was that it forced FDR to get in the war before Germany had seized all the Russian resources, especially the oil.

A big lie we were told was that Stalin was holding a big army east of Moscow to prevent being attacked by Japan. But Zhukov, in Mongolia, had already knocked Japan out of the European war before it even started.

There was no Soviet attack on Japanese forces till long after the US had entered the war. In fact, it was August 9th, days after Hiroshima. Your propaganda is historically inaccurate.

 

[Stryder50]

Soviet and Russian historiography refer to the Battle of Stalingrad as the beginning of a decisive turning point in World War II and the Battle of Kursk as the culmination of that turning point.
But look at the map—in 1941, the Nazis were advancing along the entire front, from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea.
By 1942, they had enough strength to launch an offensive only on the southern front.
And in 1943, despite all the forces they had mustered, due to the absence of a Second Front in Europe, and despite their new heavy tanks, the Germans were able to advance on only one section of the front. After that, only a strategic retreat. But there were still almost two years left until the end of the war...
Speaking of the Allies helping each other. I think the offensive in Belarus in the summer of 1944, which drew enormous Wehrmacht forces onto itself, greatly aided the Allies’ successful landing in Normandy.

Unfortunately for the Germans, the stalled in Winter 1941 just short of Moscow. Some would say this was where the war in Russia was lost. More correctly a few months earlier when Hitler directed armor corps/armies of Central Front to shift South to assist the advance of the South Front Army Groups. This took momentum out of the drive to Moscow and Germany wasn't able to recover before "General Winter" struck, to an Army that hadn't prepared for a campaign/war going that long.

Taking Moscow would not have knocked Russia out of the war, but could be a serious setback since the railroad network all funneled through Moscow before continuing onward. The grid looked like a spider's web rather and a set or rectangular grids which would have been more practical. Since most of the rail movement from the East had to pass through Moscow before moving North, West, or South holding Moscow was a key lunch-pin for Soviet strategic movements/shifting along the battle fronts with Germany.

Had Hitler not directed the Southern Panzer Army Group of Central Front southward and rather put Army Groups North and South to hold the advance and focus all on Center and a drive on Moscow, they might have captured Moscow and make a real twist on the course of the War in the East.

On a related note , the railroad gauge (width of the pair of iron rails) of Germany's trains were the same as the rest of Europe's whereas the Russian gauge was different size width. As the German's advanced they needed to have special railroad units changing the gauge so that German trains could roll Eastward to supply their advancing Army.

Often during this war, Germany was more restrained for lack of getting sufficient supplies to the Front to enable their units to keep advancing, as well as supplies in general. Part of why in Spring of 1942 they could only focus on one front for advance and hence Hitler gambled on taking the Caucuses to get their petroleum resources. Germany was always too short of oil/petroleum.

During the first couple years of the war on the Eastern Front, Germany's handicap was ever growing supply lines length with also not enough routes and resources to reach the Fronts, i.e. more logistics shortfall than not enough military units. Meanwhile Russia had it's supply lines shrinking closer to it's depots and hence better ability to keep it's forces supplied.

By mid 1943 was Germany's last chance for if not defeating Russia, perhaps positioning for a stalemate and tenuous cease-fire. Realistically and pragmatically speaking. However, Hitler lacked both those attributes.

 

[AZrailwhale]

There was no Soviet attack on Japanese forces till long after the US had entered the war. In fact, it was August 9th, days after Hiroshima. Your propaganda is historically inaccurate.

He's talking about the Battle of Nomohan or Khalkhin Gol in 1939.

 

[westwall]

He's talking about the Battle of Nomohan or Khalkhin Gol in 1939.

Ahhhh. The border war. Not exactly a big battle, but it did convince the Japanese to go south instead of north.

I had forgotten about that one.