The Role of American Lend-Lease for the USSR During the Great Patriotic War

The article examines the American lend-lease of the period of World War II as a financial instrument that ensured the national economic, geopolitical, military-strategic interests of the United States . Lend-Lease is also interpreted as a program of military-strategic supplies to the USSR on the terms of credits, loans, leases, payment with foreign exchange and gold reserves of the State return deliveries to the United States, the provision of services and information . The Lend-Lease program was used in relation to more than forty beneficiary countries, including the USSR during the Great Patriotic War . The routes for the delivery of lend-lease cargo to the territory of the USSR were studied from the point of view of logistics supply schemes; infrastructure and economic security; security; military-strategic importance; types of delivery, volumes and structure of goods . In terms of the volume and military-strategic importance of lend-lease cargo transportation in the USSR in 1942–1945, the most effective was the Far Eastern route and the ALSIB air route . A significant contribution to the provision of the rear and front was made by the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky seaport . Based on documentary sources from the funds of the State Archive of the Kamchatka Territory, the modernization of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky sea fishing port, carried out under the Lend-Lease program, is being investigated . The structure of cargo transit from the USA to the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky seaport has been identified and systematized . For the study of the unique system of the aviation chain of Kamchatka military airfields, documents of the State Archive of the Kamchatka Region, the 865th Fighter Regiment, stationed during the Great Patriotic War on the Kamchatka Peninsula and and further to Kazan, from where the planes were already arriving at the front . The question of the significant role of the USSR in the post-war reconstruction and development of the countries of people’s democracy was raised, assistance was provided in the payment of their debt obligations under Lend-Lease.

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