World War II was a contest of evil and justice, a life-and-death struggle between the Allies and the Axis powers; after six years of bitter fighting, the victorious Allies represented justice and the Axis powers were defeated.
The defeat of fascism was the result of a bloody struggle by the Allies, but there is no doubt that without the assistance of the United States among the Allies, the Nazis could not have perished so quickly.
During World War II, the U.S. government provided a large amount of aid to Britain, China, and the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, creating good conditions for them to resist fascism.
So, how much supplies did the United States provide to the Soviet Union using the Lend-Lease Act? Did the Soviet Union give money?
To answer this question, one must first clarify the question of how powerful the Soviet Union was before the outbreak of World War II.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a superpower on a par with the United States, and its military power shocked the whole world.
But before the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet Union's national strength was very limited.
There is a more representative figure, in 1938, the Soviet Union steel production was 12 million tons, Germany was 25 million tons, and the United States was 70 million tons.
Before World War II, the Soviet Republic of the Usser Union had been established for less than two decades; due to differences in values, it was subject to armed intervention and blockade by 14 European powers.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Soviet Union was full of enemies in Europe and lived in a very harsh environment; under such circumstances, the Soviet economy could not develop normally.
Although the Great Depression, which began in the 1930s, made the capitalist countries scramble to export funds and technology to the Soviet Union, and gave the Soviet Economy a golden opportunity to take off, allowing the Soviet Union to move towards a great power and a great power, but in just a few years, the Soviet economy could not change much.
In particular, in the 1930s, the Soviet Union suffered a rare famine in history, starving millions of people and inflicting heavy losses on the Soviet economy; Stalin's nationwide purge brought the Soviet Union's military and political talents to the brink of extinction.
Natural and man-made disasters have greatly damaged the vitality of this emerging socialist country and its national strength is worrying.
Two of the most obvious examples are the Soviet-Polish War of the early 20s, when the Soviet Union lost much of its disputed territory.
In the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940, the Soviet Union won a terrible victory; the other side had only 200,000 troops, the Soviet army sent 1.2 million troops, and nearly one-third of the casualties.
It was the poor performance of the Soviet army in the two wars that gave Hitler more confidence, gave him the confidence to destroy the Soviet Union, and became the basis for his implementation of the Barbarossa Plan.
Just as Hitler expected, the Soviet army's combat effectiveness was very poor; after the outbreak of the war, the German army was like a bamboo, advancing tens of kilometers a day; the Soviet army was gradually defeated, and the whole structure was destroyed.
In the first three months of the Soviet-German war, nearly 4 million Soviet troops were captured.
We know that in the later stages of the Soviet-German War, the Soviet army and the early judges were two people, they became more and more courageous and invincible in the Vietnam War, and they sang all the way to Berlin, let Hitler set himself on fire, and let the red flag fly high in the Reichstag.
If the Soviet army had behaved as unstoppable before the war as it had been in the later period, Hitler would not have gone to war with the Soviet Union and sought his own death.
When the Soviet army rose up, it should be around the Battle of Stalingrad.
The reason for this is that Stalin issued the famous Order No. 270, which killed the defeated and surrendered Soviet troops, curbed the rout of the Soviet army, and boosted morale; second, the Soviet Union made strategic adjustments and national mobilization, and the patriotic enthusiasm of the military and people throughout the country was stimulated and a terrifying force erupted; third, it received international assistance, including American assistance.
It is true that before World War II, Britain and the United States and the Soviet Union were incompatible, especially Britain, who regarded the socialist Soviet Union as a thorn in the eye, and was eager for Germany to start a war with the Soviet Union, fighting for both sides, that is, the so-called appeasement and "disaster in the east".
But after the outbreak of World War II, the Nazis' fierce offensive made the British understand that if they continued to stand by and stay out of the matter, the whole of Europe would be trampled under Hitler's feet, and no country would be spared.
On 7 July, Churchill personally sent a telegram to Stalin, calling him an "ally and friend."
Soon after, Churchill issued a public statement: "The danger of Russia is our danger." ”
Soon after the outbreak of the war, Stalin asked the Soviet ambassador to the United States to send a message to President Roosevelt, hoping to get American assistance.
Stalin's exact words were: "Give us anti-aircraft guns and aluminum, and we will be able to hold out for another three or four years."
39 days after the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, Rossford invited Harry Hopkins to visit the Soviet Union, and Stalin confessed to him that the Soviet Union could not win the Great Patriotic War without the support of the Western Allies.
Roosevelt responded immediately, speaking in Congress that the United States should "stand with the Soviet Union."
Stalin was a bold leader, the leader of a socialist country, and it was really a last resort to turn to the hostile forces that had strangled them.
Only three months after the outbreak of the war, the Soviet Union lost 1.5 million square kilometers of land and 75 million people, and the loss of the industrial base in the west naturally affected the Soviet Union's military manufacturing capacity, and the output of industrial raw materials began to decline.
After the Battle of Kiev, the Loss of Ukraine, known as the European Granary of the Soviet Union, was severely affected by the soviet army's food supply.
The oil fields in the Soviet Transcaucasia were also threatened by the Germans, where the oil could no longer be used by the Soviets.
At that time, Germany had already controlled a large part of Europe, including the human and material resources of more than a dozen countries such as France, western Poland, the Netherlands, and Norway.
If the Soviet Union and Germany were to go head-to-head, they would not be their opponents in any way.
Without foreign aid, the Soviet Union would not be able to withstand the Nazi offensive, and the Great Patriotic War would have been fought more difficultly.
In this situation, Stalin also had to bow down and ask for help from his former rivals, Britain and the United States.
And the U.S. aid to the Soviet Union was not a temporary decision, but a "premeditated plan" that had a law to follow, and this law was the famous "Lend-Lease Act."
The purpose of the Lend-Lease Act was only one, that is, to spare no effort to provide military and economic assistance to the anti-fascist allies to help them win the war.
As early as March 1941, the bill was passed in the United States Congress.
Then again, the aid of the United States and Britain is not charity, but for its own national interests, and no country in the world is selfless.
To be precise, if the United States and Britain assisted the Soviet Union, the Soviet army could contain the depletion of the German army, and they could restore peace and order in Europe at the least cost.
Otherwise, the Soviet Union would be destroyed, and Hitler would have acquired a large amount of oil resources, which would have been even more difficult to deal with.
Soviet leader Khrushchev said in his memoirs that Stalin once said to me: "If the United States does not help us, we will not win the war." We will not be able to resist German pressure, and we will lose this war. ”
So, on October 1, 1941, the Soviet Union. United States. The three British countries signed a protocol in Moscow, the core of which was that the United States and Britain provided assistance to the Soviet Union.
The United States and Britain said they would do whatever they wanted, and began to provide assistance to the Soviet Union from the month of the signing of the protocol.
So, how much aid did the Soviet Union receive from Britain and the United States in World War II?
Britain's mutual assistance to the Soviet Union throughout World War II is estimated at £318 million ($1.27 billion).
From August 1941 to August 1945, ninety percent of the high-octane fuel used in the production of aviation gasoline in the Soviet Union came from the United States and Britain.
The Western Allies supplied four times as much aviation fuel as the Soviet Union itself.
The United States provided the Soviet Union with 2.6 million tons of oil, 1.5 times the Soviet Union's total wartime production.
427,500 vehicles were provided, accounting for two-thirds of the Soviet Union's military vehicles.
In this way, the Soviet Union's own automobile and tractor factories were able to build tanks at full power to defend against the Germans.
The United States provided the Soviet Union with about 500,000 kilometers of railroad tracks, accounting for about fifty percent of the total output of Soviet rails.
The United States supplied 2.4 times the total production of steam locomotives in the Soviet Union, 11 times the total production of electric locomotives, and 10.2 times the number of carriages.
The Soviet Union received 260,000 tons of aluminum for the manufacture of aircraft with U.S. aid during the Great Patriotic War, 0.8 times the soviet union's aluminum production during World War II.
Under the Lend-Lease Act, the U.S. aided the Soviet Air Force with 14,200 aircraft, most of which were advanced fighters.
The United States supplied the Soviet Union with 387,600 tons of high-quality copper, accounting for 82% of the total production of the Soviet Union.
The United States also provided the Soviet Union with 103,410 locomotives of various kinds, 52 light oil depots, 92 ocean-going freighters, 12 ocean-going tankers, and 14 pontoons.
There were 1239 light tanks, 4957 heavy tanks, 2054 armored reconnaissance vehicles and 629 tank transport vehicles.
More than 950,000 miles of telephone lines, 2,100 miles of submarine cables, 5,899 radio stations, and 348 radars.
The United States supplied 732595 tons of canned meat to the Soviet Union, and the Western Allies provided twice as many cans as the Soviet Union's total production.
Petroleum products (aviation gasoline, octane, lubricants and greases, gasoline, kerosene): 20,000 tons per month.
Rubber: 6,000 tons per month; jute: 4,000 tons per month; Shellac: 300 tons per month
Leather for soles: 1,500 tons per month Wool: 2,000 tons per month; Military boots: 400,000 pairs per month; Military clothing: 1.2 million meters per month; Wheat: 200,000 tons per month; Sugar: 70,000 tons per month; Cocoa beans: 1,500 tons per month;
Throughout World War II, the United States aided the Soviet Union with 16.42 million tons of military supplies, worth as much as $11 billion, now at $147.8 billion.
Moreover, these supplies were only supplies obtained by the Soviet Union, excluding those lost on the road.
The United States opened three lines of transport to aid the Soviet Union, the Arctic Ocean Route, the Persian Corridor, and the Pacific Route.
Because it was a time of war, Germany would have to obstruct it. For example, the Arctic Ocean route was attacked by German submarines, losing a quarter of the supplies.
In addition, the Soviet Union borrowed a total of 10.9 billion (9.8 billion by the Soviets) from the United States, accounting for a quarter of the U.S. loans to the Allies in World War II.
It is undeniable that the Soviet Union won the Second World War mainly on its own, including weapons and ammunition; but the assistance of the United States played a role in sending charcoal in the snow, otherwise the war would have been fought harder.
So how much of this aid did the Soviets pay back?
Aid is not to be repaid, U.S. aid ships are returned in part, and loans are not repaid, becoming a bad debt.
This is because, after the war, the Soviet Union was full of holes and was poor, needed to restore its economy, heal the wounds of the war, and was unable to pay it back.
Later, the Soviet economy recovered, and it did not want to pay it back, because the Cold War began, the United States and the Soviet Union became sworn enemies, and the Soviet Union was an enemy at this time.
The Soviets believed that when the United States first aided the Soviet Union, it was to let the Soviet Union block the guns for the United States and Britain, and the assistance to itself was completely out of its own interests, you paid for weapons, we gave up our lives, so why should we pay back?