Lend-Lease

Lend-Lease was a program where the United States supplied the Allies with equipment during World War II

Georgy Zhukov said, "Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and economics, one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies. First of all, certainly, from the American side, because in that respect the English helped us minimally. In an analysis of all facets of the war, one must not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American `Studebekkers' [sic], we could have dragged our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided ourfront transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American deliveries." Moreover, Zhukov underscored that `we entered war while still continuing to be a backward country in an industrial sense in comparison with Germany. Simonov's truthful recounting of these meetings with Zhukov, which took place in 1965 and 1966, and are corroborated by the utterances of G. Zhukov, recorded as a result of eavesdropping by security organs in 1963: "It is now said that the Allies never helped us . . . However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war . . we had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us. We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with their steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance."