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

by Albert L. Weeks

"The United States is a country of machines. Without the use of these machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war." ―Josef Stalin (1943), quoted in W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941-1946, Random House, N.Y., 1975, p. 277

The United States shipped more than $12 billion in Lend-Lease aid to Stalin's Russia during World War II. Materials lent, beginning in late 1941 before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, included airplanes and tanks, locomotives and rails, construction materials, entire military production assembly lines, food and clothing, aviation fuel, and much else. Lend-Lease is now recognized by post-Soviet Russian historians as essential to the Soviet war effort. Wielding many facts and statistics never before published in the U.S., author Albert L. Weeks keenly analyzes the diplomatic rationale for and results of this assistance. Russia's Life-Saver is a brilliant contribution to the study of U.S.-Soviet relations and its role in World War II.

186 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Albert Weeks’ Russia’s Life-Saver explains why the convoy routes between Great Britain and Russia were vital and essential to the war effort. According to this book, the lend-lease aid sent to Russia was a significant factor in the outcome of the Soviet war against Germany. It is for this reason that Churchill was willing to risk lives and ships to send war materials to support the Eastern Front campaign. Sending men to their death, knowing many ships would be sunk, was probably not an easy decision to make, but it had to be done to win the war. The sailors did not die in vain.