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Alexander Hill - British Lend Lease Aid and The Soviet War Effort
Alexander Hill - British Lend Lease Aid and The Soviet War Effort
Alexander Hill - British Lend Lease Aid and The Soviet War Effort
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet
War Effort, June 1941-June 1942
Alexander Hill
Abstract
The historiographyof Allied assistance to the Soviet Union during
the Great PatrioticWar (1941-45) has paid littleattentionto deliv-
eries made duringthe First Moscow Protocol period to the end of
June 1942, during which Britainwas the primaryproviderof aid.
Whilstaid shipped duringthis period was limitedcompared to that
for subsequent U.S.-dominatedprotocols, its significance has to be
understood in the context of the militaryand economic situation
faced by the Soviet Unionduringthe firstyear of the war.
DURING the first weeks and months following the German invasion of
DURINGthe Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, both foreign observers and many
within the Soviet Union itself saw Soviet survival as far from certain. In
a matter of weeks the Red Army had lost millions of men and vast quan-
tities of equipment, and Axis forces threatened both Leningrad and
Moscow. Additionally, the Germans had seized vast expanses of Soviet
territory along with a significant fraction of the country's population and
much prime agricultural land. Much of the Soviet industrial plant was
destroyed or captured, and a significant proportion of the remainder was
in the process of evacuation to the east. Despite these factors Soviet
*773
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HILL
ALEXANDER
forces were able to halt the Axis during the defensive phase of the Battle
for Moscow, which according to Soviet sources raged from October to
early December 1941. The halting of the Axis advance before Moscow
was undoubtedly a considerable achievement given how critical the sit-
uation might have seemed but weeks before.
Subsequent Soviet victory in what became known in the Soviet
Union as the Great Patriotic War, despite its exorbitant cost, gave the
Soviet regime a legitimating device with a far wider appeal than Marx-
ism-Leninism or indeed victory in the Russian Civil War of 1917-21. In
the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 the Communist Party could claim to
have both organised and inspired the Soviet people in order to achieve
victory over fascism and Germany, war against which had been such a
major contributory factor to the collapse of the Tsarist regime and the
rise of the Bolsheviks in 1917. It is therefore understandable, and par-
ticularly in the context of the Cold War, that Soviet writing on the war
played down the role of Allied aid in the Soviet war effort, to the point
that it was almost ignored. This aid, supplied by the United States,
Britain, and the Commonwealth, was provided in the main without
charge under the U.S. Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 or its principles as
described below and adopted by the British. Whilst the capitalist world
could be accused of giving material assistance to the Soviet Union to save
the lives of its own troops, it could not be reasonably accused of profi-
teering at Soviet expense. Military and associated aid, provided at Soviet
request, was a stark reminder of the limitations of the Soviet system
under losef Stalin and the debacle faced by the Soviet Union as a result
of Soviet foreign and defence policy on the eve of war.'
Throughout the late-Stalinist and post-Stalinist Soviet period, most
Soviet authors were denied access to archival materials on the Soviet use
of Lend-Lease aid, a topic very much off-limits for historians. During
Nikita Khrushchev's premiership and a brief period afterwards, from at
the earliest 1956 until the mid-1960s, historians were allowed much
more leeway in what and indeed about what they wrote, to the extent of
being able to acknowledge the contribution of Allied aid to Soviet vic-
tory, albeit in narrowly defined areas. Suggesting that Allied weapons
systems were of significance at any point in the war was, however, unac-
ceptable. The sixth and concluding volume of the then official Soviet his-
1. For a recent detailed and nuanced work on the debate over the nature of
Soviet defence policy on the eve of war, see Evan Mawdsley, "Crossingthe Rubicon:
Soviet Plans for Offensive War in 1940-1941," International History Review 25, no.
4 (2003): 818-65. For a broader survey of arguments and debates on Soviet foreign
and strategic policy leading up to the Great Patriotic War,see Alexander Hill, "Stalin
and the West,"in A Companion to International History, ed. Gordon Martel (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2007).
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
tory of the Great Patriotic War, completed in 1965, noted that Allied
deliveries:
were not inconsequential, especially the supply to troops and the
rear of automotivetransport,fuels and lubricants(fromthe USAand
Britain401,400 automobilesand 2,599,000 tons of oil products).But
if speakingof the generalincrease in the armamentof the RedArmy,
then the assistance of the Allies played, overall,an insignificantrole.
During the war years 489,900 artillery pieces of all calibres,
136,800 aircraft and 102,500 tanks and self-propelledguns were
delivered by Soviet industry. From the USA and Britain during the
same period 9,600 artillerypieces, 18,700 aircraftand 10,800 tanks
were received. .... In addition it was often the case that the Allies
sent us already outdated examples of weapons. For instance tanks
and a large proportionof the aircraftdid not fully satisfy demandsof
weapons requiredby the characterof militaryactivity on the Soviet-
Germanfront.2
Shorter general works frequently limited references to Allied aid to
the often cited claim, attributed to the wartime First Vice-Chairman of
the Council of People's Commissars Nikolai Voznesenskii, that Allied aid
represented "only 4 per cent" of Soviet production during the war.3Men-
tion of Allied aid would occasionally creep into military memoirs, but
apparently only on the understanding that the value of Allied military
equipment, and in particular weapons systems, was denigrated or at
least compared unfavourably to Soviet equivalents (even if in very lim-
ited supply), to which there appear to have been very few exceptions.
Photographs of Allied equipment in Soviet use were not, it seems, inten-
tionally published in Soviet works concerned with wartime operations.
Despite considerable political and academic interest in Lend-Lease
in the United States in particular, the lack of information on what hap-
pened to aid once it reached the Soviet Union, and indeed on Soviet pro-
duction and losses, prevented Western authors from coming to a
balanced assessment of the significance of Allied aid for the Soviet Union
in the Great Patriotic War.4Whilst a considerable English-language liter-
ature on the diplomatic dimensions of Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet
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HILL
ALEXANDER
Union emerged during the Cold War,5 such works contain very little
detail on the use value of Allied aid to the Soviet war effort, as a result of
the lack of access to Soviet archival sources and the limited content of
Soviet secondary materials.6 Very little of what has been written focuses
on British aid alone.7
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the debate on the sig-
nificance of Lend-Lease aid for the Soviet war effort has become more
sophisticated in both the former Soviet Union and the West, thanks to a
large extent to the availability of a trickle of archival information on the
use to which the Soviet Union put Allied aid, and also to greater acade-
mic freedom for Russian and many other former Soviet historians.8 More
general Western literature, and indeed much post-Soviet work in Russ-
ian, however, often still assumes that Lend-Lease aid became significant
to the Soviet war effort only as deliveries increased from 1943 onwards,
particularly in facilitating the forward movement of the Red Army with
lorries and other transport resources.9 With the possible exception of air-
craft, the value of arms provided by Britain and the United States is often
still played down, especially the significance of the relatively small quan-
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort
tities delivered during the time of the First Moscow Protocol (agree-
ment). In effect through 30 June 1942, the Protocol covered the only
period during which Britain bore a heavier absolute burden in the pro-
vision of aid than the United States. A closer examination of deliveries
during the First Protocol period in the context of Soviet production,
losses, and force equipment levels, and a consideration of the use to
which the aid was put, can, however, lead to a revised assessment of the
relative significance of Allied, in particular British, aid to the Soviet war
effort over time.
After establishing the context in which Britain became the principal
provider of aid to the Soviet Union for the first year of the Great Patri-
otic War, this article will examine the significance of this aid for the
Soviet war effort during that period. It will argue that British Lend-Lease
aid to the Soviet Union over the first year of the war, and including the
later stages of the Battle for Moscow, was far more significant for the
Soviet war effort than acknowledged in published Soviet sources or
widely realised in the West, although it was certainly not decisive. The
strength of this argument rests on Russian-language source material
unavailable to Western and indeed to most Soviet authors prior to the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Whilst much Soviet material on Lend-Lease
aid to the Soviet Union remains "secret" in the Central Archives of the
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and Russian State Archive
of the Economy, or at least has not been declassified,10 valuable archival
materials of the State Defence Committee (GKO)11 concerning Lend-
Lease aid and the Soviet economy, held in the former Central Party
Archive, were kindly made available to the author, and remain, to his
knowledge, accessible to Russian and Western researchers.
Crucial in gaining an appreciation of the specific use to which British
tanks were put during the first year of the war has been the publication
of the wartime service diary of N. I. Biriukov, Military Commissar of the
Main Auto-Armour Board of the Red Army from 10 August 1941 and
responsible for the distribution of recently manufactured or acquired
tanks to frontline units.12 Soviet and post-Soviet academic authors (that
is, those providing scholarly apparatus) have been unwilling or unable to
systematically trace British or U.S. tanks or indeed aircraft provided to
the Soviet Union through to frontline units, a task made possible to a sig-
nificant extent for armour by Biriukov's information on the units to
10. As much for want of funding to formally sort through the vast quantities of
materialstill "secret"as the desireto keep muchof the materialclassified,if reliable
sourcesare to be believed.
11. Formed on 30 June 1941 for the coordination of the Soviet war effort and
chaired by Stalin.
12. N. Biriukov, Tank-frontu! Zapiski sovetskogo generala (Smolensk: Rusich,
2005).
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HILL
ALEXANDER
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort
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HILL
ALEXANDER
in which he used the word "sell" with regard to British fighter deliveries
to the Soviet Union, Churchill pointed out that "any assistance we can
give you would better be upon the same basis of comradeship as the
American Lend-Lease Bill, of which no formal account is kept in
money." Up to this point all items or materials were apparently deemed
to be either purchases on credit with the expectation of eventual pay-
ment, be this in gold or raw materials, or, in the instance of the first 200
Tomahawk (P-40C) fighters, a "gift" from the United Kingdom." Whilst
requests for some items such as raw materials or naval supplies could be
met immediately from British and Commonwealth stocks, the delivery of
significant numbers of weapons systems such as tanks and aircraft was
more complicated. British plans to equip its own forces were dependent
on U.S. supplies, and the addition of the Soviet Union into the equation
required coordination between the two Anglo-Saxon powers prior to dis-
cussion with the Soviet Union.
Whilst the British government was relieved that the Soviet Union
was now in the war, and hopeful that it would remain so, members were
also concerned that aid to "Russia" from the United States would not
damage British military priorities.s8 This thought can only have been
made all the more unpleasant by the fact that Britain had considered
going to war against the Soviet Union in early 1940 in order to aid the
Finns.19 Of particular concern were deliveries of aircraft, especially
medium and heavy bombers, which would be one of the few means for
British forces to take offensive action against the Axis outside North
Africa. At the Cabinet meeting of 19 September 1941, after British and
U.S. military staffs had decided, broadly speaking, what could be offered
to the Soviet Union at the Moscow Conference planned for the end of the
month, opponents and supporters of more wholehearted assistance to
the Soviet Union were able to express their views a further time before
promises were made in Moscow. In the context of concerns about the
ability of the United States to fulfil existing promises to Britain, Sir
Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, leader of the Liberal Party,
17. Most Secret, Hist. (R) 1, 18 September 1941, War Cabinet, Assistance to
Russia, 25th July and 4th September, Foreign Office to Moscow, PREM3/401/1, TNA.
The latter received 6 September, as Correspondence Between the Chairman of the
Council of Ministers of the USSR and ..., vol. 1, Correspondence with Winston S.
Churchill and Clement R. Attlee (July 1941-November 1945) (Moscow:Progress Pub-
lishers, 1957), 29-30. For Stalin's message to Churchill of 3 September, see ibid.,
27-29. See also Suprun, Lend-liz i severnie konvoi, 22-23.
18. For an appreciation of these priorities, see Brian P. Farrell, "YesPrime Min-
ister: Barbarossa,Whipcord, and the Basis of British Grand Strategy, Autumn 1941,"
Journal of Military History 57 (October 1993): 599-625.
19. See Alexander Hill, "The Birth of the Soviet Northern Fleet, 1937-1942,"
Journal of Slavic Military Studies 16 (June 2003): 70-71.
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
20. Secret, D.O. (41) 62nd Meeting, War Cabinet, Defence Committee (Opera-
tions), Minutes of Meeting held on Friday 19th September 1941 ..., PREM3/401/7,
TNA.
21. Destroyers would in fact be supplied to the Soviet Union only in the summer
of 1944 in lieu of the Soviet share of the Italian fleet. The Soviet Northern Fleet was
provided with Town Class ships supplied to Britain under the "destroyers for bases"
agreement, albeit with weapons and electronics fits appropriatefor a later stage of the
war. See Arnold Hague,Destroyers for Great Britain: A History of the 50 Town Class
Ships Transferredfrom the United States to Great Britain in 1940 (London: Green-
hill Books, 1990).
22. Secret, D.O. (41) 11, 22 September 1941, War Cabinet, Conference on
British-United States Production and Assistance to Russia, PREM3/401/7, TNA.
23. Ibid., Enclosure IV.
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HILL
ALEXANDER
Protocol, which covered the period to 30 June 1942. The Soviets were to
pay for the supplies, in part, by cash advances on gold deliveries and by
supplying raw materials in the future. Attempts in Congress failed to
specifically exclude the Soviet Union from the second Lend-Lease appro-
priation, which passed into law on 28 October and preserved the right of
the President to designate Lend-Lease countries. By this point U.S. neu-
trality was increasingly a myth, in view of the U.S. warships convoying
non-U.S. merchantmen as far as Iceland and the United States estab-
lishing a presence in Iran on the basis of a Presidential Directive of 13
September. On 7 November 1941 Roosevelt finally declared the defence
of the Soviet Union essential to that of the United States, and incorpo-
rated the Soviet Union in the provisions of the Lend-Lease Act.24
Nonetheless, even meeting commitments under the First Moscow Proto-
col to supply 1,500,000 tons of goods to the Soviet Union by 30 June
1942 was a challenge to the U.S. administration as the industrial giant
started to flex its muscles. This left the United Kingdom as the senior
partner in the provision of aid to the Soviet Union for the period of the
First Protocol, even if some weapons supplied by Britain to the Soviet
Union came from British Lend-Lease allocations or previous direct pur-
chases from the United States.25 In addition the British would play the
dominant role in the actual delivery of aid during the First Protocol
period. Because supply routes via Iran and Alaska would require devel-
opment, more than 90 percent26 of the delivered equipment and materi-
als arrived at the Soviet ports of Archangel and Murmansk via the
increasingly perilous sea route around German-occupied Norway, from
which German submarines, surface ships, and aircraft could launch
attacks on these "northern" or "Arctic" convoys.27
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
200 aircraft each per month until the end of June 1942, along with 250
tanks, giving totals of 3,600 and 4,500 respectively over a nine-month
period. However, initial British deliveries of tanks would be 300 per
month, "decreasing to 250 as American supplies increase." As for air-
craft, the commitment was to supply, in full, the quantity requested by
the Soviet Union. However, the requested ratio of 300 light and medium
bombers to 100 fighters would be replaced by 200 fighters per month
from the United Kingdom and 100 of each from the United States in
order to satisfy British demands to be able to preserve the expected rate
of expansion of its bomber forces.28 The relative significance of British
deliveries would be increased temporarily during December 1941 by the
U.S. reaction to the outbreak of war with Japan, as until 17 December
1941 U.S. supplies destined for the Soviet Union were apparently
unloaded from merchant vessels still in U.S. ports and provided to U.S.
forces.29
When Allied, and in particular British, deliveries of key weapons sys-
tems for the war as a whole are compared to Soviet production for the
same period, they can understandably be viewed as being of little signif-
icance. If Soviet production of tanks and self-propelled guns is taken as
110,340 for the whole war,30then 4,542 tanks supplied by Britain might
seem unimportant.31 However, Soviet production of principal types of
tanks and self-propelled guns (T-34, KV series, and light tanks) was in
the region of only 4,649 for the second half of 194132 and 11,178 for the
first six months of 1942,33 giving a total of 15,827 from the end of June
1941 to the end of June 1942. British deliveries alone during this time,
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
largely the period of the First Moscow Protocol, come to 1,442, or about
9 percent of Soviet production.34
Under the provisions of the First Moscow Protocol, Britain supplied
to the Soviet Union Matilda (MK II) and Valentine tanks, the most effec-
tive tanks the British had available in any numbers in 1941.35 Canada
would eventually produce 1,420 Valentines, almost exclusively for deliv-
ery to the Soviet Union from 1942.36 Table 1 gives characteristics of
appropriate marks of Matilda and Valentine heavy and medium tanks
compared to principal German models in the field at the end of 1941,
along with Soviet medium and heavy tanks of the same period. Details of
the M3 Light tank (Stuart I) supplied by the United States to both Britain
and the U.S.S.R. at the time are also provided. Whilst the main arma-
ments of the Matilda and Valentine were increasingly satisfactory only
for light tanks, and their lack of a high-explosive capability for dealing
with larger calibre antitank gun threats was a significant drawback, their
armour put them firmly in the heavy and medium categories, respec-
tively. As Table 1 indicates, the protection offered by the armour of both
the Matilda and Valentine was superior to all but the KV-1 and T-34.
Whilst the Matilda and Valentine were certainly inferior to the T-34
and KV-1, it is worth noting that Soviet production of the T-34 (and to a
lesser extent the KV series), was only just getting seriously underway in
1942,37 and hence the relative inferiority of British tanks to the Soviet
armoured pool as a whole was less during this period than it would be
only a few months later, after the First Protocol period. It is also worth
noting that Soviet production was well below plan targets. For instance,
production of the T-34 at Factory Number 112, according to a State
Defence Committee decree of 9 July 1941, was supposed to rise from 10
units in August 1941 to 250 by December, a total of 710 units over five
months.38 The reality was, in itself a significant achievement given the
34. Most Secret, W.P.(42) 417, 7 September 1942, War Cabinet, Report on ful-
fillment of the Moscow Protocol, October, 1941-June, 1942, p. 17, PREM3/401/7,
TNA.
35. Some of this material on British tanks up to the end of 1941 was published
as Alexander Hill, "British 'Lend-Lease'Tanks and the Battle for Moscow, November-
December 1941--A Research Note," in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies 19
(June 2006): 289-94.
36. See Report No. 38, historical Section (G.S.), Army Headquarters, 27 July
1950, Tank Production in Canada, http://www.forces.gc.ca/dhh/downloads/ahq/
ahq038.pdf. On 31 January 1942 only fifteen Canadian-produced Valentines had
arrived in the Soviet Union, increasing to thirty by 4 March. See Secret A.S.E. (1942)
74, 4th March 1942, WarCabinet, Allied Supplies Executive, Military Supplies to Rus-
sia: Progress Report .... Extract .... Tanks, DO 35/1047/4, TNA.
37. See Simonov, Voenno-promishlennii kompleks, 163-64.
38. GKO, Postanovlenie No.GOKO-82/ssot 9 iiulia 1941 g. Moskva, Kreml', Ob
obespechenii proizvodstva tankov T-34 na zavode "Krasnoe Sormovo,"
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HILL
ALEXANDER
British tanks, apparently loading for shipment to the Soviet Union, exact date
unknown. In the foreground, Matilda heavy tanks, and in the background
Valentinemedium tanks. (Photo courtesy of the TankMuseum,Bovington,U.K.
print #991/D3.)
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
and KV series for the second half of 1941 as 2,819 units, and Mikhail
Suprun notes that 361 heavy and medium British Lend-Lease tanks had
reached the Red Army by this point, a total of 3,180.42
Both the Matilda and the Valentine required modification for service
in Russian conditions. The pneumatic transmission on Matildas, for
instance, could not stand up to the temperatures in Russia and required
replacement with mechanical alternatives.43 Not only were the track
plates on Valentines considered too narrow, and suitable only for sum-
mer conditions, but spurs were regarded as necessary in Russian condi-
tions and had to be manufactured locally. British-supplied track pins
were viewed as weak and difficult to replace.44 Understandably consider-
ing the 40 mm gun on both the Matilda and Valentine to be inadequate,
the Soviets made abortive attempts to up gun both, the Matilda with a 76
mm gun.45Whilst both faced contemporary German tanks during British
service in North Africa, in Soviet service they were apparently used
increasingly often in defensive operations or for infantry support in con-
junction with Soviet tanks.46 This limitation was certainly realistic from
the second half of 1942 onwards, but prior to this, Soviet stocks of
medium and heavy tanks did not always permit the relegation of British
tanks to supporting roles.
Assessment of the significance of British deliveries of armour during
the first year of the war requires, however, the consideration of not only
relative quality and British deliveries as a proportion of Soviet produc-
tion, but also the scale of Soviet losses and resulting force levels; during
the period of the First Moscow Protocol Soviet losses approached and at
times exceeded domestic supply, making any additional inputs signifi-
cant.47 Whilst the Soviet Union had developed tanks far superior to those
in service in Britain and the United States, and indeed of such effective-
ness as to drive Germany to produce the overcomplicated Panther in
response to the T-34 and KV-1, the Soviets not only did not have the
planned quantities of these types, but were barely able to maintain force
levels in the face of horrendous losses. According to Krivosheev, the
Soviet Union lost 20,500 tanks between 22 June and 31 December 1941,
of which 3,200 were either heavy or medium, with an initial stock of
such types of 1,400. Only 5,600 tanks were received during the same
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HILL
ALEXANDER
48. Krivosheev,Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses, 252; and Suprun, Lend-
liz i severnie konvoi, 52.
49. Suprun, Lend-liz i severnie konvoi, 49 and 52.
50. Krivosheev,Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses, 252; and Suprun, Lend-
liz i severnie konvoi, 53.
51. Biriukov, Tanki-frontu! 16 and 47.
52. Ibid., 51-55.
53. Secret Cipher Telegram,From:30 MilitaryMission, To: The WarOffice, Reed
11/12/41, WO 193/580, TNA.
54. Biriukov, Tanki-frontu! 57.
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BarentsSea
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HILL
ALEXANDER
Tank Battalions. The first of these units to have been in action seems to
have been 138 Independent Tank Battalion, which as part of 30 Army of
the Western Front, along with 24 and 145 Tank Brigades and 126 Inde-
pendent Tank Battalion, was involved in stemming the advance of Ger-
man units in the region of the Volga Reservoir to the north of Moscow in
late November. In fact the British intercepted German communications
indicating that German forces had first come into contact with British
tanks operated by the Soviets on 26 November 1941.55 More widely noted
are the exploits of 136 Independent Tank Battalion, part of a scratch
operational group of 33 Army of the Western Front, consisting of 18 Rifle
Brigade, two ski battalions, 5 and 20 Tank Brigades, and 140 Independent
Tank Battalion. The latter was combined with 136 Independent Tank Bat-
talion to produce a tank group of only 21 tanks, which was to operate with
the two ski battalions against German forces advancing to the west of
Moscow in early December. In action with the Western Front from early
December was 131 Independent Tank Brigade with 50 Army to the east
of Tula to the south of Moscow. Also seeing action was 146 Tank Brigade
with 16 Army of the Western Front from early December in the region of
Kriukovo to the immediate west of the Soviet capital.56
According to Marshal P. A. Rotmistrov, at the end of November 1941
there were only 670 Soviet tanks, of which only 205 were heavy or
medium types, for the Fronts before Moscow, that is, the recently formed
Kalinin, Western, and South-Western Fronts. Most of this tank strength
was concentrated with the Western Front, with the Kalinin Front having
only two tank battalions (67 tanks) and the South-Western two tank
brigades (30 tanks).57 Alternative figures suggest that of 667 tanks with
frontline units of the Kalinin, the Western, and the right wing of the South-
Western Fronts as of 1 December 1941, 607 were with the Western Front,
including 205 which were KV series and T-34s; the Kalinin Front and the
right wing of the South-Western Front had 17 and 43 tanks respectively,
none of which apparently were KV series or T-34s.58Either set of figures is
a significant improvement on the 141 heavy and medium tanks available
to the Western, Reserve, and Briansk Fronts before Moscow as of 1 Octo-
ber 1941.59 In the light of these statistics, it is reasonable to suggest that
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort
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HILL
ALEXANDER
the United Kingdom had delivered 1,323 fighter aircraft, or about 8 per-
cent of Soviet production from the start of the war.66Given that Soviet
combat aircraft losses for this period at best approached domestic sup-
ply, and were especially severe for the first six months of the war, then
British deliveries alone are of some significance, particularly when tak-
ing into account the extremely high Soviet losses of the first weeks of the
war, which depleted prewar stocks. According to Krivosheev, total Soviet
combat aircraft losses for the period 22 June to 31 December 1941 were
17,900. Added to the 20,000 stocks on 22 June 1941 were 9,900 deliv-
ered during the period concerned, giving a force level of approximately
12,000 at the end of 1941. Specifically regarding fighters, Krivosheev
lists stocks on 22 June 1941 as about 11,500, augmented by 6,000
received during the period to 31 December, but with losses of 9,600, giv-
ing a force on 31 December of 7,900.67 Convoys had delivered 699 air-
craft to Archangel by the time the destination changed to Murmansk in
December 1941, due to winter ice in the White Sea.68 Of these aircraft,
99 Hurricanes and 39 Tomahawks were already in service with the
Soviet air defence forces (PVO) as of 1 January 1942,69 out of a total of
1,470 (6.7 percent) as detailed in Table 2, with the Northern Fleet being
a major recipient as described below.70
Those aircraft types supplied by Britain, either from domestic pro-
duction or from British orders from the United States, such as the Tom-
ahawk, Kittyhawk (P-40E), and Hurricane, were inferior to the latest
marks of the German Bfl09, and indeed in aspects of performance to the
latest Soviet types. Britain was reluctant to supply Spitfires to the Soviet
Union given its own needs.71 Initial Soviet concerns about the Hurricane
focused on its armament and armour. The Soviets not only viewed the
armour plating protecting the pilot as inadequate against medium cali-
66. Most Secret, W.P.(42) 417, September 17, 1942, WarCabinet, Report on ful-
fillment of the Moscow Protocol, October, 1941-June, 1942, p. 17, PREM3/401/7,
TNA.
67. Krivosheev, Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses, 254. See also Harrison,
Soviet Planning, 114 and 251.
68. Severnie konvoi: Issledovaniia, vospominaniia, dokumenti. Vip.3 (Moskva:
Andreevskii flag, 2000), 328.
69. As distinct from airpower attached to particular Fronts, or of the navy,
responsible for the air defence of naval bases.
70. Iu. Izotikov, "Nakakikh samolotov letal Pokhrishkin, ili ne boites' britantsev,
dari prinosiashchikh?" Vestnik protovozdushnoi oboroni, no. 4 (1991): 35. On the
Northern Fleet, see below.
71. Nonetheless, by late 1942 they were being supplied in small numbers. On 3
November 1942, 49 of 150 promised had been dispatched to the Soviet Union, with
the remainder due to be sent by the end of the month. Extract from A.B.E. (42) 21st
meeting held on Tuesday, 3rd November, 1942, Supplies of Aircraft to the USSR, AIR
20/3904, TNA.
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort
Table 2
Aircraft in service with the air defence forces (PVO)
of the Soviet Union 1941-1942
Year Available on 1 Jan 42 1942
Type of aircraft Total Written off
1-153 264 143 52
1-16 .........411 ...........333 ........131
MiG-3 351 409 192
LaGG-3 ................170 ...........418 ........172
Yak-1 136 261 119
Yak-7 ................. -...........109 .........17
Hurricane 99 468 121
Tomahawk ..............39 ............56 .........15
Kittyhawk - 98 56
P-39 ......- .............12 ..........3
Total 1470 2307 878
Of which Lend-Lease .....138 ...........634 ........195
c Lend-Lease 9.4 27.5 22.2
Source: Iu. Izotikov, "Na kakikh samoletakh letal Pokrishkin, ili ne
boites' britantsev, dari prinosiashchikh?" Vesnik protivovozdushnoi
oboroni, no. 4 (1991): 35.
72. Secret Cipher Telegram, Reed AMCS 0112 hrs. 4.7.42, To: Air Ministry,
From: 30 Mission, AIR 20/3904, TNA; and Gosudarstvennii Komitet Oboroni.
Postanovlenie No. GKO-1291ss ot 16 fevralia 1942 g. Moskva, Kreml', O
perevooruzhenii samolotov "Kharrikein,"f.644.o.1.d.21.1.96, RGASPI.
73. Suprun, Lend-liz i severnie konvoi, 51.
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Table 3
Key characteristics of Soviet-manufactured aircraft in service
with the Soviet PVO 1941-1942
Type of aircraft Armament Max Time to Service Operational
speed 16,400 feet ceiling Range
1-153 (1940) 4x 7.62 mm (16,750 ft) (Prototype) 34,750 ft
MG 265 mph 6.1 min
1-16 Type 29 1x12.7 mm MG (14,250 ft) (Prototype) 32,000 ft
(1940) 2x7.62 mm MG 286 mph 6.8 min
MiG-3(1941) 1x12.7 mm MG (25,500 ft) 5.3 min 39,500 ft 509 miles
2x7.62 mm MG 398 mph
LaGG-3(1941) 1x20 mm (16,500 ft) 8.5 min 30,500 ft 438 miles
cannon, 2x 332 mph
12.7 mm MG
Yak-i (1941) 1x20 mm (15,750 ft) 6.8 min 32,500 ft (1940) 434
cannon, 2x 348 mph miles
7.62 mm MG
Yak-7B 1x20 mm (12,000 ft) 5.8 min 32,500 ft 400 miles
cannon, 2x 354 mph
12.7mm MG
Source: Yefim Gordon and Dmitri Khazanov, Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Sec-
ond World War, vol. 1, Single-Engined Fighters (Leicester: Midland Publishing,
1998), 174-77.
Table 4
Key characteristics of Lend-Lease aircraft in service with the
Soviet PVO 1941-1942, compared with German Bfl09
Type of aircraft Armament Max Time to Service Operational
speed 16,400 feet ceiling Range
HurricaneIIA 8x.303 in MG (11C) (11C) (11C) (IIC)(Max)
(18,000 ft) [30,000] 35,600 ft 920 miles
329 mph 12 min30 sec
TomahawkIIA 2 x .5 in MG (15,000 ft) 32,400 ft (Max)1,230
(P-40B) 2 x .3 in MG 352 mph miles
KittyhawkIA 6x .5 in MG (5,000 ft) [10,000] 29,000 ft (Max)850
(P-40E) 335 mph 4 min48 sec miles
Bf109F-2 1 x 15 mm MG (19,685 ft) [16,400] 36,090 ft (Max)528
cannon, 2x 373 mph 5 min 12 sec miles
7.9 mm MG
Source: Appropriate entries in Elke C. Weal, John A. Weal, and Richard F.
Barker, Combat Aircraft of World War Two (Agincourt, Ontario: Gage Trade
Publishing, 1977).
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- BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet War
Effort
A Hurricane fighter operating from northern Russia during the early winter of
1941. These aircraft of 151 Wing were initially flown by British pilots before
being handed over to the Soviets. (Photo courtesy of the ImperialWarMuseum,
#CR58.)
1-153 Chaika and 1-16 Rata fighters, both still in use in significant num-
bers in 1941, both types were certainly obsolete and inferior to the Hur-
ricane in almost all regards.74The Hurricane was also both rugged and
tried and tested, and arguably at least as useful at that point as many
potentially superior Soviet designs such as the LaGG-3 and MiG-3,
which were suffering considerable teething troubles in early war pro-
duction aircraft. For instance, in the LaGG-3, of which there were appar-
ently only 263 in the Soviet inventory by the time the Soviet Moscow
counteroffensive started on 5-6 December 1941, eight "serious" defects,
many the result of "poor manufacturing standards," were identified in
74. Nonetheless, only the previous summer, when the British, who were as des-
perate then for aircraftas the Soviet Union was in the second half of 1941, were look-
ing to purchase fighter aircraft abroad, the British Air Ministry considered the 1-16,
although they viewed it, arguably unreasonably, as comparable to the Gloucester
Gladiatorbiplane fighter! It was mooted that China might be a suitable go-between in
any purchases, given the diplomatic unacceptability of direct sales of such aircraft to
Britain (and indeed, the purchase of tanks was also suggested). The proposal, unsur-
prisingly, did not get anywhere. See discussions in AIR 8/372, TNA.
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HILL
ALEXANDER
75. Gordon and Khazanov, Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War,
1:28-29, 69, 126.
76. Suprun, Lend-liz i severnie konvoi, 52.
77. Gosudarstvennii Komitet Oboroni, Postanovlenie No. GKO-1497s ot 26
marta 1942 g. Moskva, Kreml'. . . . raspredeleniia pribivshego iz-za granitsi s 12-m
karavanom vooruzheniia ..., f.644.o.1.d.25.1.106, RGASPI.
78. Gosudarstvennii Komitet Oboroni, Postanovlenie No. GKO-1376ss ot 3
marta 1942 g. Moskva, Kreml',O formirovanii aviapolkov v reserv Stavki Verkhnogo
Glavnogo Komandovaniia,f.644.o.1.d.23.11.46-7, RGASPI.
79. N. F. Kuznetsov,Front nad zemlei (Moskva:Voenizdat, 1970), 73-77; and N.
G. Bodrikhin, Sovetskie asi. Ocherki o sovetskikh letchikakh (Moskva: ZAO KFK,
"TAMP," 1998), 114, http://militera.lib.ru.
80. Izotikov, "Na kakikh samolotov letal Pokhrishkin,"35.
81. A. G. Fedorov, Aviatsiia v bitve pod Moskvoi (Moskva: Nauka, 1975),
114-15, http://militera.lib.ru.
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort
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ALEXANDERHILL
86. One ramification being that in 1942, the crews of T-34s had a more unpleas-
ant ride as rubber rims on the wheels were sacrificed.
87. Most Secret, W.P.(42) 417, September 17, 1942, WarCabinet, Report on ful-
fillment of the Moscow Protocol, October, 1941-June, 1942, p. 18, PREM3/401/7,
TNA;and Harrison,Accounting for War, 195. Whilst not within the scope of this arti-
cle, it is worth noting that raw materials were provided to the Western Allies by the
Soviets under reverse Lend-Lease. To 30 June 1942, these included 20,243 tons of
chrome ore and 10,000 railway sleepers, excluding supplies for the Middle East. War
Cabinet, Report on fulfillment of the Moscow Protocol, October, 1941-June, 1942, p.
25.
88. Gosudarstvennii Komitet Oboroni, Postanovlenie No. GKO-227ss ot 20 iiu-
lia 1941 g. Moskva, Kreml', O postavke Narkomatu Oboroni sredstv sviazi,
f.644.o.1.d.3.1.209, RGASPI.
89. Gosudarstvennii Komitet Oboroni, Postanovlenie No. GKO-998 ss ot 6
dekabria 1941 g. Moskva, Kreml',O plane proizvodstva i postavkakh osnovnikh sred-
stv sviazi dlia Glavnogo Upravleniia Sviazi KA v dekabria 1941 goda,
f.644.o.1.d.16.1.62, RGASPI.
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
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HILL
ALEXANDER
96. Louis Brown, A Radar History of World War II--Technical and Military
Imperatives (Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1999), 59-60.
97. Severnie konvoi: Issledovaniia, vospominaniia, dokumenti. Vip.2, 220.
98. Gosudarstvennii Komitet Oboroni, Postanovlenie No. GKO-1266ss ot 10
fevralia 1942 g. Moskva, Kreml',O priniatii na vooruzhenie voisk PVO KrasnoiArmii
i Voenno-MorskogoFlota Stantsii Orudiinoi Navodki (SON-2) i organizatsii otech-
estvennogo proizvodstva SON-2, f.644.o.l.d.21.1.31, RGASPI.
99. Gosudarstvennii Komitet Oboroni. Postanovlenie No. GKO-1497s ot 26
marta 1942 g. Moskva,Kreml'... raspredeleniia pribivshego iz-za granitsi s 12-m kar-
avanom vooruzheniia ..., f.644.o.l.d.25.1.112, RGASPI.
100. Most Secret, W.P.(42) 417, September 17, 1942, War Cabinet. Report on
fulfillment of the Moscow Protocol, October, 1941-June, 1942, PREM3/401/7, TNA;
and Harrison,Accounting for War, 196.
101. Suprun, Lend-liz i severnie konvoi, 122.
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
102. This section draws on material first published in Alexander Hill, "The Birth
of the Soviet Northern Fleet," 65-82, an extended version of which was published as
"The Soviet Northern Fleet 1939-1942," in Flot i pobeda . . . , ed. V. Il'in
(Arkhangel'sk:Administratsiia Arkhangel'skoioblasti, 2004), 100-116.
103. Direktiva Voennomu sovetu SF o tralenii min v Belom more, 30 iiulia 1941
g. and Prikaz o merakh po prikritiiu s vozdukha transportov v raione Murmanska,28
ianvaria 1942 g., in Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia. Prikazi i direktivi
Narodnogo Komissara VMFv godi Velikoi Otechestvennoi voini. T.21(10) (Moskva:
Terra, 1996), 42 and 88.
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HILL
ALEXANDER
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort
110. British Embassy, Moscow, 26th August 1940, Dear Admiral Godfrey [Direc-
tor of Naval Intelligence] .... [Signed] Clancy, ADM223/506, TNA.
111. Suprun, Lend-liz i severnie konvoi, 36 and 41.
112. Most Secret, W.P. (42) 417, September 17, 1942, War Cabinet, Report on
fulfillment of the Moscow Protocol, October, 1941-June, 1942, p. 20, PREM3/401/7,
TNA.
113. SSSR, Narodnii Komissariat po Voennim i Morskim Delam, Pomoshchnik
nachal'nika Voenno-MorskikhSil RKKAPo Politicheskoi Chasti, 27 dekabria 1928 g.
Nachal'niku Voenno-morskikh sil R.K.K.A.,f.r-1483.o.1.d.72.1.8, RGAVMF.
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HILL
ALEXANDER
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BritishLend-LeaseAid and the Soviet WarEffort
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HILL
ALEXANDER
was also true of the 1-16 monoplane, of which only three were avail-
able.127It is therefore unsurprising that on a fact-finding mission to Mur-
mansk during the summer of 1941, the British Rear-Admiral Philip Vian
had found fighter defences "quite inadequate to allow a force to use it as
a base with safety," being another reason, in addition to the proximity of
German ground forces to Murmansk and the better port facilities at
Archangel, for the first convoys to head for the latter.128
Although LaGG-3, MiG-3, and to a lesser extent Yak-1 fighters were
being delivered to frontline units in relatively small quantities prior to
the war, the Northern Fleet was a long way down the list of potential
recipients for recent aircraft types. In fact, even by 1 December 1941,
despite the growing significance of the far north as a maritime link with
Britain, only four MiG-3s, perhaps the least satisfactory of the latest
Soviet types, had found their way to the Fleet. By this point Lend-Lease
aircraft were of considerable significance to the Northern Fleet, making
up 29 out of a total of 65 aircraft, with British-supplied Hurricanes com-
paring favourably to available Soviet types.129By February 1942, 44 out
of 90 aircraft of the Northern Fleet were of foreign manufacture.130
By April 1942 the Hawker Hurricane had clearly become the princi-
pal fighter of the Northern Fleet. Both 2nd Guards Red Banner Mixed Air
Regiment and 78th Fighter Air Regiment, based at Vaenga, were reliant
on the British Hawker Hurricane fighter. The former had 50 Hurricanes,
of which 30 were operational, and four MiG-3s, of which three were oper-
ational. The latter had 33 Hurricanes, of which 17 were operational, in
addition to 12 I-16s, of which 9 were operational. Additional fighter
strength was provided by 27th Fighter Air Regiment equipped with 29 I-
15s at more than one location, of which 27 were operational.131By 1 July
1942, 83 out of 109 fighter aircraft of the Northern Fleet were of foreign
manufacture. 132
Whilst the low state of readiness of the Lend-Lease aircraft might
have been due in part to their more intensive use, it is also indicative of
the Soviet failure either to make full use of British technical support or
to ensure adequate Soviet alternative provision. The problem was, how-
ever, exacerbated at times during the early stages of the war by a less-
than-adequate supply of spares, a problem not confined to the Soviet
127. Doklad po inspektsii Severnogo flota 11-17 maia 1941g (21 maia 1941g),
f.r-1678.o.l.d.230.1.180, RGAVMF.
128. Capt. S. W. Roskill, The Warat Sea 1939-1945, vol. 1, The Defensive (Lon-
don: HMSO,1954), 488.
129. Larintsev, "Lend-lizovskiepostavki," 263.
130. Suprun, Lend-liz i severnie konvoi, 51.
131. Khronika Velikoi Otechestvennoi voini Sovetskogo Soiuza na Severnom
teatre s 1.01.42--30.06.42 gg. (vipusk 2-i) (Sankt-Peterburg:Galeia Print, 1999), 60.
132. Larintsev, "Lend-lizovskiepostavki," 263.
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British Lend-Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort
British Aid during the First Year of the Great Patriotic War
During 1941-42 the United States was unable to supply material aid
to the Allies, and in particular the Soviet Union, in anything like the
quantities it would subsequently provide. In this period the United
States was not only shifting industrial capacity to a relatively neglected
military sector, but also building up its own armed forces to levels appro-
priate to the opposition faced. The quantitative British and Common-
wealth contribution to the Lend-Lease supply pool was therefore far
more significant during the period of the First Moscow Protocol than it
would subsequently be. The quantity of British and Commonwealth
inputs was, however, certainly small compared to both U.S. and Soviet
production for the war as a whole, and indeed, as this article has shown,
when compared to Soviet production of key items for the first year of the
war. However, Soviet losses were so high compared to production during
the first year of the Great Patriotic War that even British supplies of basic
weapons systems became significant in a period when Soviet production
was recovering from the loss and relocation of industrial capacity as a
result of the Axis invasion. British aid would also go some way to com-
pensating for unrealistic planning in the Soviet Union, both in topping up
Soviet production and providing scarce resources on demand, even if
with delay, which could, as in the case of machine tools, for instance,
unclog bottlenecks and put unused capacity in the system to use. Qual-
itatively, British aid in particular could also, during the first months of
133. For lengthy discussion on these matters, see Secret, Supply of Hurricanes
and Hurricane spares to the U.S.S.R., Notes of a meeting at the Air Ministry 11th Jan-
uary 1943, Present: Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Courtney . . . Rear Admiral
Kharlamov . . . , AIR 20/3904, TNA. By September 1942 it was apparently being
widely claimed in the Soviet Union that the Hurricane should not be supplied to the
Soviet Union because of its obsolescence. See, for example, Secret, Cypher Telegram,
WX2980, Reed ... 15/9/42, To: Air Ministry. From: 30 Mission, AIR 20/3904, TNA.
134. Secret, Inquiry into damaged supplies for Russia, Lord Chancellor's Office,
House of Lords, January 31, 1942, PREM3/401/4, TNA.
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ALEXANDERHILL
the war, "fill in the gaps" in Soviet production and research and devel-
opment in areas outside the principal foci of Soviet efforts, such as naval
technology and even "basic" naval equipment, even if the rewards in
terms of Soviet capabilities in this area were not necessarily immediate.
Finally, and perhaps just as important although difficult to assess, was
the psychological impact of British readiness to support the Soviet Union
on the Soviet population, and indeed, on the leadership. Particularly
early in the war, the Soviet population was reminded that it was not
alone in the fight against Nazi Germany135, but was now part of an
alliance which would have seemed unthinkable only months before
when there was the genuine prospect of the Soviet Union and Germany
both being at war with Britain and France, had the latter two intervened
in Finland. As for the Soviet leadership, it was clearly comforting to be
increasingly aware that, despite prewar animosities, the West was willing
to provide, with few questions asked and without financial recompense,
not only significant quantities of equipment and raw materials, but also
some of the latest technology.
It would be difficult and unconvincing to argue that Lend-Lease aid
"saved" the Soviet Union from defeat in 1941. Axis forces were, for
instance, halted before Moscow with Soviet blood, and to a large extent
with Soviet-manufactured arms and equipment. Nonetheless, as this
article has suggested, Lend-Lease aid provided during the period of the
First Moscow Protocol had a far more significant impact on the Soviet
war effort and indeed on frontline capability both during and after the
Battle for Moscow than the Soviet and indeed Western historiography
would suggest. What is perhaps of particular note is not only the speed
with which Britain in particular was willing and able to provide aid to the
Soviet Union after initial hesitation, but how quickly the Soviet Union
was able to put foreign equipment into use. This is testimony both to the
political and military realism of Churchill and other key British cabinet
ministers in this instance, and to the effectiveness of the Soviet com-
mand economy when faced with a clearly defined task.
135. See, for example, the speech made by Stalin, 6 November 1941, which
mentions specific types of aid provided by Britain and the United States to the Soviet
Union. J. Stalin, The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Wartime Addresses
and Orders of the Day ... (New York:International Publishers, 1945), 30-31.
808 *
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