I posted the video with said arguments in abundance if you care to watch it. It has primary source material that supports the currently held historical POV on Lend Lease.
Edit - its in another thread so I’ll re-post it here for you.
The video, and the sources, are vague and quite odd.
This video has sources well listed (book, page, and the exxact point) whilst your video doesn’t.
Great video, I should have included it as well, I watch all of Berndts’ material in both his channels.
To be fair to TIK, the video he made was a collation of responses across a number of questions, he is also pretty festidious with sources in explicit format as in the video above. He only covers 9 min on Lend Lease, and uses some of the material which Berndt goes into in more detail.
Here are the key take aways though, whilst Berndt spends more time covering Lend Lease composition and focuses in more on specific equipment that he thinks statistically supports the question of the video (and cites the sources where those statistics come from) he does not present you with a broader contextualisation.
Whilst its great to have more detail around the number of trucks, radios, tanks or explosives and their contribution to operational and strategic effects, it is also important to understand how these cited numbers translate chronologically to what was happening on the actual front.
Whilst TIK does some wholistic numbers incluing a synopsis of tanks, the %s match up with Berndt’s video, but more importantly you’re given a better understanding of when the equipment was finally in place to have an operaional/tactical effect that ultimately contributed to the outcome of the war.
The references to Sokolov are also interesting because he’s often viewed negatively in some of the Russian historical analyses that I’ve read and some of his statistics and therefore subsequent conclusions questioned, but that’s all in the heart of the debate. Equally comments by Zhukov or Khrushchev carry about as much weight as those of Manstein or Guderian in their memoirs… 2nd hand sources which don’t necessarily corroborate the detail with captured and archived documents of the time.
Nevertheless, I sill stand by the broader assessment that’s principally borne out from TIK video, that by Dec 1941, Barbarossa was derailed and from there Germany would not achieve its conditions for victory, and this was principally without any Allied help (specifically British) - note the arguments made by Berndt about the value of truck over railways still apply to their delivery to units as well in order to generate said effect. So when the ships reach Murmansk by October, there is still a long time before they are transferred by train and/or drive 1000’s of Km across Russia to reach the troops.
Similarly, by the time Soviets derail Fall Blau and win back the strategic initiative by the end of '42 the effects of Lend Lease are now beginning to pay dividends, noting that this is largely still borne of British contributions whilst they are equally receiving US aid, because the direct US contribution is only starting to ramp up by the time the outcomes of Stalingrad are decided in November '42.
This then dovetails nicely into what Bernd’s video highlights when you track the dates in some of the references, to begin to address the higher level question of whether the Soviet Union needed Lend Lease to stop the Germans - note Berndt does not answer the question directly unlike TIK.
Two of Bernd’s sources correlate with TIK in that the Soviet Union would not lose to the Nazi’s without lend lease and infact the subsequent analysis focused on how much lend lease helped the Soviets shorten the war, which is clearly a different perspective to needing it to survive the Nazis, which is Sokolov’s perspective.
The final comments we are left with, whilst non-committal as to the extent of the aid, are certainly not indicative that it was essential for the survival of the Soviet union, which is ultimately what the discussion was about.
A coherent post, thank you.
It falls down to “yes - no” topic but:
Imagine lend lease not coming and the Soviet generals supply officers have to cope with what they have. This means that what-ever they have on the use is significantly reduced as you need to have food, and especially trucks, in the reserve.
Just that the truck that was lended had arrived gave the supply confidence that all material available at that time could be used.
This unshackles the reserves, or signifcant part of it to be moved to the front right away.
Of course you could argue that the Soviet High Command didn’t care about the next week, or the next month, and had dictated that the war is won or lost with today, every single day.
The western lend-lease program game Soviet forces the back-plate to lean on, and the legs and arms to do their manouvers.
Without the back-plate the bear would be toppled.
It would have been politically very unfavorable, or even disasturous, for the post-war USSR to admit western aid having no affect to their war-story, as Sokolov later found out.
There’s was immense pressure for the post-war Soviet Union to show that their political and more importantly economical system was inherently superior compared to the lackluster capitalism over the yonder.
Imagine arguing, as a common historian or a scholar that in post war conditions that the Soviet Union, that western economy (the lend lease) saved the USSR.
If Lend Lease did not come to be, there is no doubt about it in anyone’s mind that the war would have dragged on for another few years.
But the key point that needs to be driven home is that by the time the Soviets gain this “strategic mobility” they have effectively re-gained the initiative - ie they are now winning !
Manstein’s counterstroke which recaptures Kharkov merely delayed the inevitable and prevented a Napoleonic level of a disaster befalling the German army in 1942. The counterstroke equally exhausted the Germans and the dreaded rasputitsa put an untimely end in Mansteins ability to restore the massive gash torn in the front - to become the Kusk salient.
When the mud dries out by May, the Germans have somewhat re-built their units in time for the resumption of their '43 Summer Offensive, but by this stage the real effect of Lend Lease kicks in.
This is why the Soviets can put a whole Front (not just armies) against each pincer and then have Konev’s whole Steppe Front in reserve for the now better planned counter offensive.
By this stage the Soviets logistic supply chain and operational mobility are being well and truly bolstered by Lend Lease as Berndt describes, whilst Germany’s logistics are going from bad to worse, with degradation on the home front from the Strategic bombing campaign conducted by the RAF and USAF in the West, and the VVS and significantly increasing partisan activity in the East.
Consequently, Lend Lease is a very positive influence on the pace or tempo of the war, but not a determinant in and of itself. Equally one could look at it a bit more cynically and suggest that Lend Lease was the perfect alternative to having Allied troops fight further to the East than the Elbe and taking further casualties against a proportionally less attrited enemy.