On Thursday, 13 February, at 14.00 in the press center of the Media Group "Patriot" a press conference was held on the topic "Economy of war: the role of Lend-Lease in the victory of the USSR over fascism ". At the round table, dedicated to this issue, historians and political scientists took part. The discussion was moderated by the CEO Federal News Agency Evgeny Zubarev.
The first to speak was the historian-teacher of the Faculty of History, St. Petersburg State University Evgeny Guryev. He thanked the allies of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition for their support and said, that the country of the Soviets could well have won the war without it. Thanks to industrialization, which the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) Joseph Stalin spent in the 1930s in the USSR, the military industry of the Soviet state could produce a large amount of modern military equipment.
“I will give one example: on 1 December 1941 year, with all the huge losses incurred earlier, the USSR had 6347 tanks, and by spring 1942 — 8857. This is three times more, than Germany had on the Eastern Front. As for lend-lease assistance, then here we have at the same time 330 armored vehicles, 145 British tanks "Matilda" and 216 tanks "Valentine". All! This is all 8% of the total number of tanks the Soviet Union had. And I will remind, what spring 1942 years is the most critical period of the war. So talk about, that we would not have won without it, I would not", - said the expert.
As for the end of the war, continued Guryev, then the numbers here speak of the total superiority of the Red Army over the Wehrmacht: double advantage in tanks, fourfold in artillery and aviation, almost three times in personnel.
The next speaker was a research historian, writer Andrey Ryabkov. In his speech, he emphasized that, that Lend-Lease was primarily a humanitarian mission - due to the fact, that in the first months of the war the USSR lost almost all of its granaries, food, allied supply, significantly raised the morale of personnel.
"As for military equipment, then in January 1945 years at the time of the Vistula-Oder operation in the tank forces were 135 regiments, equipped with Soviet vehicles, but only 29 - «lend-lizovskimi» (17,6% of the total). Self-propelled artillery, which at that time was the most effective instrument of warfare, the gap is even more striking: 234 the shelf was on our equipment, on Lend-Lease - only 1. Here he is the entire contribution of the allies to the armored vehicles of the USSR ", - said the expert.
Speaking about the use by the West of the fact of Lend-Lease in world history as a means for anti-Russian propaganda, aimed at belittling the role of the Soviet Union in the victory over Nazi Germany, Candidate of Historical Sciences Konstantin Plotkin quoted a philosophical thesis.
"History is politics, overturned into the past, - said the scientist. - In the same, as for the lend-lease, breakthrough policies. Of course, should note, that the generosity of the United States was indescribable: we obviously did not expect this. Stalin counted, that the allies will somehow maneuver, but at the disposal of the USSR they simply provided everything necessary without any reservations and political conditions ".
but, Plotkin made a reservation, US assistance was not completely disinterested. The price was vanity fodder: at some point, representatives of Washington complained to the Soviet leadership, that American supplies of food and military equipment are not well covered in Soviet propaganda. Stalin reformed, and since then, the inhabitants of the USSR until the very end of the war were well informed about the generosity of the allies.
“After the victory, no one spoke about it anymore., - said the scientist. - The position "we paid for everything three times with our blood" prevailed - and this, by the way, pure truth. But without Lend-Lease there was much more blood, the war could not go on 4 of the year, a 5-6 years".
Professor and Rector of the Leningrad State University named after. AS. Pushkin Stanislav Eremeev He stated, that aspects of the discussion of Lend-Lease should be shifted towards, how this issue is now covered in the world press.
“Today, through conversations about, who and what exactly contributed to the victory, in fact, the results of the Second World War are being revised - and as a result, the question of the post-war settlement is being questioned. The spirit of Potsdam and Yalta is practically eroding ", - said the professor.
According to him, Today's attacks by Western propaganda on the memory of humanity are not accidental.
“How can those colossal human sacrifices be compared with lend-lease deliveries?, what our country has suffered? Who can dispute 28 million lives, carried away by this war? And this is only the most modest data.. So for me the topic, raised today, has an unpleasant aftertaste - I see, what about talking about, "How we helped you", want to get away from the main: About, like the Soviet Union, initiating an offensive on the Eastern Front, suffering huge losses, pulled back the forces of the Wehrmacht, so that the unsuccessful landing of the Allies in Normandy in 1944 year has not completely failed ", - summed up Eremeev.
Author: Ilya Cherushnikov
