Lend Lease to Russia

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mike the bike:

Only the 50's Jason? that's not bad - the UK had rationing until teh 50's I believe - maybe there are soem lister's who could confirm that?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I do believe that is correct. Germany and Japan also had to rebuild their economies, but they were lucky to have US aid for that. I am pretty sure Russia rebuilt on her own, no? With the US, UK, and her prewar ally Germany out of the picture, rebuilding in only 5 or so years does indeed say something.

[GriffinCheng+]

One of the reasons why Britian was still under rationing till 1950 was related to the agricultural output on the island could not substain the demand. Most of food needed had to be transported from her colonies and allies via shipments. That is one of the reason why after the War, the British government rebuild her agricultural industry on the island. It is also why the recent "foot-mouth" disease hurt the British so hard.

Griffin.

[Stalins Organ]

Yes Mike - New Zealand did quite well out of the post war period supplying food to the UK! then the bloody Common Market came along #$%#$^ #$%^*&^ Euro's!! lol

I believe the EEC's Common Agricultural Policy has it's roots in the failure of food production during WW2 across Europe too - the policy was designed to ensure that the continent would always have suffient domestically produced food not to have to rely on imports (put very simplistically of course).

[JasonC]

"that's not bad"

Many economies expanded during WW II. Capital (the stock) was reduced directly, but income (the flow) was higher. Less of it went to civilians, of course. Even Germany and Japan, which suffered heavy bombing and occupation, recovered rapidly.

The point is simply that Russia went farther down than most, by a large amount. (Only Japan is in the same league, and only at the end with her shipping sunk and her cities burned out). In overall output, the 1944 level was still 12% below the 1940 one. German output was vastly higher in 1944 than in 1940, despite bombing, and the same is true of most other belligerents. Most countries fought the war out of an expanding economic pie, the Russians out of a shrunken one, that was my point.

"I've sen lists a steel rolling mill"

Oh sure. Ford made them a tire plant with an enourmous capacity, but it didn't operate until after the war. There were lots of industrial transfers, many of them not very timely, some more useful. But feedstock materials to feed through the Russian factories, or finished products to replace their work, were the main items. Almost everything else was just too slow to matter very much.

"Maybe the savings would have been not to start work on the Yak 9"

The thing you save is *labor*, and engineers. That is the constraint, far more than materials. What makes the output of an industrial economy fungible, is you can send twice as many workers to the #38 factory making one thing and expand it, instead of sending the same number to the #38 factory and the #39 factory making something else.

"LL may have had a "real" value of 14-20% of Russian economy"

No, not of its economy. There are different categories involved here, layered and of different sizes. There is the whole economy. There is a smaller subset of that, all government expenditure - the budget. There is a smaller subset of -that- - expenditure on military armaments. The LL figure is 7% of the middle of those three. It is less than 7% of the economy. It is 14% of the armaments expenditure.

Of course, not all of LL is armaments. Some is other stuff the government needs - like rations for the soldiers, which is in the "budget" part but not in the "armaments" part. Some of it might be just support for the general economy (e.g. an industrial plant that doesn't start up until post-war).

But I made the estimate that LL was freeing up things that needed to be done and could not possibly be economized further, and that therefore if the LL had not been present, the government could not have afforded so much armaments production.

It is a point about "disposable" income rather than "income". Say you are living on a budget that allows you $2000 for vacations. You get a $1000 raise (after taxes, yada yada). The raise may be a small % of your income, but it can still allow a 50% increase in your vacation budget, if you want.

That sort of consideration led to my estimate of a 14-20% increase in available Russian *armaments*. Not their whole economy. Why does this difference matter? To get a sense of the scale of things.

The whole economy is much larger than just armaments. The whole economy shrunk by 34%. Out of the 66 cents on the dollar left in their budget, the Russians, on their own, -doubled- armaments spending by 1942. That is +100%. In an economy shrinking faster than the Great Depression here.

LL adds another 15-20% on top of that doubling. Then the Russians added another +15% in 1943 as their whole economy recovered 12%; the portion going to armaments increased very slight in 1943, but it was pretty much already on the ceiling. The armaments budget rose another 10% in 1944, as the whole economy recovered 19%, from liberated areas kicking back in.

So the portion going to armaments, while still high, fell slightly in 1944 for the first time since the invasion. That allowed a bit more of output to go to things like food for the civilians, maybe workers first pair of shoes in 3 years, little things like that.

"1/7th to 1/5th isn't important?"

When did I say it wasn't important? I said on its own, one such factor might have stabilized the front in 1943 or 1944, with a remaining edge to the Russians but not a large one. That is a large change from the Germans getting the ever-living crud kicked out of them, which is what actually happened. But it is not a Russian defeat.

And I showed that another factor of at least that size, 1/5-1/4, was caused by Germany delaying war mobilization of the economy. I even suggested that if both of those were operating, the Russians might actually have lost.

But you can see above why I estimate its importance about that much. The difference between having LL and not, is like the expansion of Russian output in 1943, compared to the 1942 rate.

But it is nothing like the scale of changes brought about by war economy mobilization - which doubled Russian armaments production in one year, even in a collapsing economy, and eventually led to a 2.5-fold increase. The Germans got a 3.2-fold increase between 1942 and 1944 from the same process.

Changing just the *timing* of a 2.5-3.2 times process, is going to have as big or bigger effects, than a 1.15 to 1.2 times factor. That does not mean that LL was not important. It means the -timing- of war-economy mobilization is -also- important, even more important. As for mobilizing at all compared to not, that dwarfs either of them, but everyone eventually did so.

"I don't understand your point about the invasion being a disaster"

It was a response to one of your points. You said a 7% economic decline in a state would be a national disaster. The point is that much larger effects were at work. They handled a "hit" 5 times as big as loss of LL would have been, and still doubled output in the first year of mobilization. That does not mean LL was "unimportant". It does mean it was nothing like the largest factor operating.

[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]