How Capitalists Saved Communism in the Soviet Union

On 22 June 1941 Germany launched

Operation Barbarossa

- more than 4 million men,

3,500 armoured vehicles and

4,000 aircraft across the Soviet border

Operation Barbarossa was the largest military operation ever launched to that date.

Operation Barbarossa

At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, 22 June 1941, Germany faced a Soviet Army of 5, 774,000. The Soviet Union had 316 divisions,

117,600 artillery pieces, 25,700 tanks and 18,700 combat air craft.

The Largest Conflict In History

The German Wehrmacht at this time had 5,200 tanks of which only 3,350 were committed

to the Eastern front. This gave the Soviets more than

7 to 1 advantage in armour.

The Luftwaffe had just over 4,000 aircraft to oppose the 18,700 aircraft in the Soviet Air Force.

It was fought over a 2,900 km front and involved 600,000 motor vehicles and 750,000 horses for the German

and European volunteers of this operation to liberate Russia

from communism and end the Soviet threat to Europe.

In the first day, one quarter of the Soviet Union's Air Force was destroyed.

Unprecedented

The German Blitzkrieg tactics devastated the Red Army and made stupendous progress.

However the further the Wehrmacht advanced into Russia, the more their logistical complications were compounded.

Logistical Nightmare

The Russian infrastructure was primitive. Their dirt roads turned to mud. To supply the frontline troops became an almost impossible assignment.

By the end of that year Germany captured more than

500,000 square miles of the Soviet

Union’s richest territory,

including about 75 million inhabitants (a little more than a third of the pre-invasion population), and 30 percent of its productive capacity.

On top of that, by the end of the year the USSR had lost in combat well over 3 million men

along with about 20,000 tanks, 18,000 military aircraft

and more than 60,000 artillery pieces.

What no one had anticipated was the vast amount of aid which the United States of America would give to the

Soviet Union.

American Industry Bolstered the Soviet

Union

Even before America entered WWII officially, vast quantities of military hardware began being flown, shipped and trucked into Russia via

Alaska, Persia and Murmansk.

On 24 June 1941, Six months before the Pearl Harbour attack, President Roosevelt held a press conference

in which he announced that America would give all possible help to Stalin’s Soviet Union.

That idea was at first not well received within the USA. An opinion poll conducted in July, for example,

found 54 percent of the respondents were opposed to aiding the USSR.

Roosevelt persisted, however and vast quantities of aid continued to flow….

10 May 1940 - British Invasion of Neutral Iceland - a base for supplying the Soviet Union with Allied Weapons of War

There were three main routes by which military aid to Russia /USSR was delivered. The Arctic convoys to Murmansk and Archangel were by far the most dangerous, but more than 50 percent of the supplies went by

ship via the Pacific. American cargo ships flying the flag of the Soviet Union steamed to Vladivostok and unloaded supplies to be transported along the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Soviet assembly plants in the Urals

or directly to the front line. Despite German protests, Tokyo allowed the shipments to the Soviets to continue unhampered throughout the war.

In 1941 the Allies also opened a corridor through Iran into Russia. That route was made possible by the completion in 1939 of the Trans-Iranian Railroad, which linked the Persian Gulf with points all over Iran including

the Russian border

the British and Soviets engaged in a joint operation to overthrow Shah Reza Pahlavi and seized control of Iran & it’s strategic railroad.

Thereafter Allied convoys from the US would sail around the Cape of Good Hope and unload their cargoes at ports in both Iraq and Iran. That route was responsible for deliveries of approximately 25 percent of the

total supplies sent to Russia.

Also part of the Pacific passage was the Alaska-Siberian aircraft route (known by the acronym ALSIB), which was used primarily for the direct

transfer of aircraft to Russia.

An official list of military hardware supplied by the USA to the USSR from 1941, includes:

Gifts To Stalin

13,713 Tanks & Armoured Vehicles;

14,795 military aircraft;

77,972 Jeeps;

375,883 trucks;

35,170 motorcycles;

8,071 tractors; 15,631 artillery pieces; 131,633 machine guns;

1,981 locomotives; 90 cargo ships;

4,478,000 tonnes of food supplies;

$1,078,965,000 of machines and equipment;

2,670,000 tonnes of petroleum products; 49,860 tonnes of leather; 3,786,000 tyres;

15,417,000 pairs of army boots; 106,893,000 tonnes of cotton; building equipment valued at $10,000,910,000;

non-iron metals 802,000 tonnes;

along with 29 tankers; 433 combat ships,

the US provided over 2 million tons of petroleum products.

as well as mobile bridges, railroad equipment, aircraft radio equipment and many other items.

US also delivered about 470,000 tons of explosives,

1.4 billion rounds of small arms ammunition, and 21 million rounds of ammunition of 37mm and larger sizes. The raw explosives delivered were enough for the

Soviets to load more than 60 million artillery shells.

The US sent about 270,000 tons of rolled steel, enough to manufacture about 15,000 T-34 Tanks

All of the US effort resulted in an immense quantity of war materials delivered to the Soviet Union.

The American aid can be broken down into three categories: weapons, support items and raw materials.

In terms of major weapon systems, the US delivered 11,400 aircraft, 7,165 tanks, 5,500 40mm antiaircraft guns,

1,000 quad-mounted 50 caliber anti-aircraft guns, 2,500 81mm mortars

and 137,000 .45 caliber submachineguns.

The American provision of 1,981 locomotives, some 11,000 freight cars

and 3,600 miles of railway track helped the USSR expand its rail capacity

American factories also sent 106 million yards of cotton cloth, 62 million yards

of woolen cloth, and over 15 million

pairs of boots. 225,000 cans

of shoe polish, 50,000 hair clippers

and 257 million buttons

This does not include the very generous aid given by Great Britain to the Soviet Union.

British and Canadian Aid to the USSR

Great Britain sent the USSR: 5,218 tanks

5,511 Bofors anti-aircraft guns,

5,042 tanks and 12 minesweepers.

Britain supplied 5,800 aircraft,

along with approximately 3,300 Hurricane and 1,000 Spitfire fighter aircraft.

The British sent over 1.7 billion dollars worth of supplies to Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Canada supplied the Soviet Union

with 2,788 Tanks & Armoured Vehicles

Canada also supplied Stalin over a million artillary shells and 208,000 tonnes of wheat and flour.

There is no doubt that without the Western aid the Soviet Union wouldn’t have been able to survive a year.

Russian historian Boris Sokolov wrote in 1998: “Lend Lease was the decisive factor

in the Soviet ability to continue the war.”

The British also formed a unit that fought directly for the Soviets in 1941. The first British deliveries included the

personnel and all 40 Hurricanes of 151 Wing of the RAF.

From 11 September through 18 October,1941 those British pilots flew missions over Murmansk.

After training Soviets to fly their planes, the RAF personnel returned to England where their commander was awarded

the Order of Lenin by the Soviet ambassador.

A series of increasingly fierce battles were fought over

successive convoys to Murmansk .

PQ-17 convoy in mid-1942 saw 24 merchantmen sunk out of 35 dispatched along with the loss of

153 seamen, 210 aircraft, 430 tanks

and 100,000 tons of munitions.

The battle over that convoy was so intense that, as the merchantman Olopana approached survivors of the sunken Washington, those sailors refused rescue, figuring their odds of survival were greater in lifeboats

on the open sea than on a fresh target for the Germans !

The colossal American military aid shipped to Stalin's Soviet Union was neither morally defensible, nor wise.

Capitalist America effectively salvaged the Communist dictatorship in Russia from collapse and helped fund, fuel and arm

the greatest military threat to Western civilization: the Soviet Union.

"…Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord?

Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you.”

2 Chronicles 19:2

"…Should you help the wicked and love those

who hate the Lord?Therefore the wrath of the Lord

is upon you.” 2 Chronicles 19:2

Dr Peter Hammond

Reformation Society

P.O. Box 74

Newlands, 7725

Cape Town, South Africa

Tel: (021) 689 4480

Fax: (021) 685 5884

Email: info@ReformationSA.org

Website: www.ReformationSA.org

We need to understand the context of our history and rediscover the real facts, the real people and the real history

- so that we might counter satan's deceptions of the nations.

Facts are Stubborn Things

The facts are always stranger than fiction.

THE TRUTH SETS FREE. That is why it is

absolutely essential that we know the truth of

history to recognize the lies of

propaganda..

We need to study the truth in the Bible

so that we can

be freed from the

deceptions of the world.

“You shall know the

truth and the

truth shall make you

free.” John 8:32

Frontline FellowshipPO Box 74Newlands7725Cape TownSouth AfricaE-mail: admin@frontline.org.zaWeb: www.frontline.org.za