Chapter 06: The Lend-Lease Act—The Resurrection of the Soviet Communist Party (Part I)

Roosevelt justified the introduction of the Lend-Lease Act with the analogy that if a neighbor’s house is on fire, one cannot sit idly by; lending a hose to help extinguish the fire is only natural. The problem was that Roosevelt confused the nature of the fire itself. He conflated an accidental house fire with deliberate arson. To aid a “deliberate arsonist” like the Soviet Union was, in essence, to raise a tiger that would later turn on its benefactor. In fact, even today, much of the American political establishment still lacks a clear understanding of the distinction between “accidental fire” and “arson.” Communism is a political doctrine in human history that systematically uses hatred as its foundation, recognizes only ends, and disregards means. Within this political philosophy of hatred, “arson” is merely a means to achieve the ultimate goal of seizing power.

Because of its lack of a profound understanding of communism as a “deliberate arsonist,” President Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Act opened the floodgates to the Soviet Union. On March 11, 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was signed into law. By September 1945, when World War II ended, the United States had provided food, military supplies, and weapons—free of charge or on favorable terms—to France, Britain, the Republic of China, and later the Soviet Union and other Allied nations. Most of this aid was provided free; in return, the United States obtained lease rights to army and naval bases on Allied territory during the war. Over nearly four years, goods worth 31.4 billion dollars were delivered to Britain, 11.3 billion dollars to the Soviet Union, 3.2 billion dollars to France, 1.6 billion dollars to China, and 2.6 billion dollars to other Allied nations.

Under the Lend-Lease Act approved by Roosevelt, the United States provided the Soviet Union with massive assistance during World War II, including 14,795 aircraft, 7,500 tanks, 370,000 trucks, 340,000 tons of explosives, 3,000 locomotives, 11,000 railcars, 260 tons of gasoline, 15 million pairs of boots, and food supplies valued at 1.31 million dollars. This aid was equivalent to the entirety of the supplies allocated to U.S. forces at the peak of American wartime production in 1944. The total value reached 11 billion dollars—equivalent to approximately 1.5 trillion dollars seventy years later.

Although history does not permit counterfactuals, without hypothetical reflection there can be no lessons learned. Had Roosevelt possessed a strategic vision grounded in systemic ideological confrontation, recognizing Stalin’s communist despotism as a common enemy of democratic systems, he might have taken advantage of Hitler’s decision to turn his guns on Stalin. He could have negotiated a compromise with Hitler, allowing Hitler to destroy Stalin, occupy much of Europe, preserve Britain’s independence, and leave parts of Western Europe as a neutral buffer. Alternatively, he could have allowed Hitler and Stalin to bleed each other dry, mutually weakening one another, rather than aiding one to defeat the other. In such a scenario, Stalin and Soviet communism would not have survived, and the Soviet Union would not have emerged after the war as America’s enemy.

Toward the end of World War II, Churchill devised a plan aimed at containing the Soviet Union and strengthening control over Eastern Europe. This plan, codenamed “Operation Unthinkable,” envisioned launching a war in the spring or summer of 1945 to wrest control of Poland from Soviet hands. Churchill’s proposal met firm resistance from Roosevelt.

At this time, although the defeat of the Axis powers was already inevitable and surrender was only a matter of time, the Japanese army, loyal to the emperor, continued to fight desperately. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands would cost up to one million American casualties. Roosevelt believed that Soviet assistance was crucial to defeating Japan and hoped to bring the Soviet Union into the war to reduce American losses. Before Japan was defeated, the United States felt compelled to treat the Soviet Union as an ally.

By 1943, the Soviet Union had already surpassed Germany to become the world’s second-largest military power, second only to the United States. At the same time, the ideological opposition between the Soviet Union and the United States was unmistakable. In order to destroy Germany, Roosevelt spared no effort in supporting the Soviet Union, thereby enabling it to rise into America’s future Cold War adversary. In 1945, Roosevelt urgently sought Stalin’s entry into the war against Japan. Stalin delayed until the very last moment—by the time the United States had already dropped atomic bombs on Japan and Japan’s unconditional surrender was a foregone conclusion—before finally sending troops into Northeast China. Japan offered no resistance at that point; Stalin merely moved in to harvest the spoils of victory.

The Soviet Union regarded Northeast China’s industries as enterprises that had served the Japanese Kwantung Army and proceeded to plunder them. An Associated Press report stated that China’s hopes of taking over Northeast China’s industrial base had been completely shattered. Journalists witnessed countless factories, warehouses, and machine plants that had been vibrant before the war now standing deserted; warehouses had been looted clean, and machinery workshops stripped bare. Only solitary sentries patrolled the ruins, while Red Army troops guarded the abandoned facilities with machine guns. Although Soviet commanders claimed that British and American press delegations were free to inspect at any time, they were repeatedly obstructed. United Press reports likewise noted that Northeast China was no longer a prosperous industrial region: the fruits of Japan’s painstaking development since the September 18 Incident had vanished entirely. Countless factories were systematically dismantled, and all kinds of machinery—large and small, from locomotives to lathes—were hauled away by Soviet troops as war booty. After occupying Northeast China, the Soviet Union stripped the region of its industrial resources and transported them back to the Soviet Union.

On August 14, 1945, one day before Japan’s surrender, the Republic of China and the Soviet Union signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. The treaty stipulated that sovereignty over Northeast China would revert to the Republic of China after the war, that Soviet troops would begin withdrawing within three weeks of Japan’s surrender, and that the withdrawal would be completed within three months. In reality, the Soviet occupation of Northeast China was aimed solely at plundering its industrial resources. To gain sufficient time to dismantle machinery and transport it back to the Soviet Union, Soviet forces twice delayed their withdrawal. It was not until March 10, 1946, that Soviet troops withdrew from Shenyang, followed by withdrawals from other parts of Northeast China, culminating on May 3, 1946, when all Soviet forces left the region. Soviet troops stationed in Lüshun (Port Arthur) in southern Dalian, however, did not withdraw until 1955.

In addition to looting Northeast China’s resources, the Soviet Union transferred large quantities of weapons captured from the Japanese Kwantung Army to the Chinese Communist forces. Some former Japanese Kwantung Army prisoners even joined the People’s Liberation Army’s Fourth Field Army, participating in battles such as the bloody fighting at Siping, the Three Defenses of Linjiang, the Four Campaigns South of the Songhua River, anti-bandit operations in the forests and snowfields, the Heishan blocking action, and the Jinzhou Campaign. Later, when the Fourth Field Army’s million-strong forces crossed the passes, these Japanese veterans also took part in the Pingjin Campaign, the massive southern advance across the Yangtze River, and continued fighting all the way to Hainan Island. It was not until 1953 that these Japanese veterans of the Fourth Field Army gradually returned to Japan as repatriates. On June 27, 1956, Zhou Enlai stated while meeting a Japanese delegation: “We are very grateful to some Japanese who, during the War of Liberation, participated as doctors, nurses, and technicians.”