It's never too late to say thanks...

2005-03-25 17:36
RUSSIANS GRATEFUL FOR LEND-LEASE

MOSCOW-- (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov) Today, any Russian schoolchild can afford the 100 rubles or so to buy the computer game "Lend-Lease." This popular computer game is a simulator of ten types of U.S., Soviet and German equipment used in WWII. The goal of the game is expressed by the slogan on the box: "Victory is all that matters!"

The goals of the real lend-lease arrangement were more complicated. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who came up with the idea of helping America's allies during WWII, compared it to a fire hose that should be given to a neighbor to prevent fire from spreading to one's own home.

It was mostly the Soviet Union that was ablaze at the time, in the early 1940s. In lending and leasing weapons, ammunition, foodstuffs and other goods, the United States was primarily pursuing its own interests, which boiled down to playing for time and retaining its ability to join the war in the best possible shape. American historian George Herring wrote that the lend-lease program was not the most selfless act in the history of mankind, but rather an act of prudent egotism, with the Americans fully aware of how they could benefit from it.

The Soviet Union was not the sole recipient of aid under the lend-lease program, either. Forty-two other countries received aid, most of which went to Britain and its colonies, consuming over $30 billion out of the $46 billion the United States spent under the program. As for the Soviet Union, U.S. supplies amounted to just 4% of the country's defense-industry output at the time.

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