What does the USSR need to beat the Nazis without L-L?

[Deleted member 1487]

I believe there was not much to harvest from liberated territories as whatever was there was already looted by Germans.

On other side without L-L Soviets will be still able to buy at least most important material. (even if we take into consideration they don't have 2800 tons of gold as you asume but Russian historians are saying otherwise). So food, radios etc could still be delivered. Even just Soviet year production of gold, silver, platinum but also some other raw materials which were shipped to US OTL can asure Soviets will get enough to stop Germans if they are not able to do wothout l-L(there is discussion on axis history about importance or not importance of L-L material during battle of Moscow).

One unsourced, contradictory blog post? I mean they claim they had 2800 tons on hand in 1941, barely spent any of it during the war, then after the war after confiscations/looting/reparations from occupied Europe they had 2500 tons?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

They need to strike first.

Wiking might have a heart attack when I say this p), but that is one of the ways which the Soviets could actually lose the war.

 

[AMF]

From the original post:

Now let's say Stalin rose to power as IOTL and, as IOTL, was free to develop any policy as he wished. And let's also say that the Germans invaded the Soviet Union with Barbarossa, as per OTL. Given the requirements we have outlined for the Soviet Union to beat back the Nazis, how much can Stalin accomplish in the timeframe given?

If Stalin is free to do as he pleases (as I think he was OTL) he could have done an un-Stalinist thing and liberalised the economy to some degree, greatly improving its efficiency. Due to a more efficient agricultural sector, more Soviet citizens are alive, more are in good physical shape, and fewer are disillusioned by the system. More consumer goods are produced whose production facilities can in wartime be converted to military goods such as cars and trucks or two-way radios.

Of course all the other things that have been said in this thread about Stalin's not going into a state of denial about Hitler, and putting the Red Army on a war footing, are also true.

I would like to pre-empt a train of thought here that often comes into play when better strategies for Hitler are under discussion, but which could be applied with equal justification to Stalin, or indeed any other historical figure.

Poster A says: If Hitler had treated the non-Russian nationalities, or anti-communist Russians, more humanely, he would have had a better chance of winning the war.
Poster B replies: If Hitler had done this, he would not have been Hitler and we would not have had any Nazi dictatorship or operation Barbarossa in the first place, so what poster A says is totally irrelevant.
With the same logic poster B could say: If Stalin had liberalized the economy, he would not have been Stalin, so this response to the OP's challenge does not make any sense at all.

Of course, if the names "Hitler" and "Stalin" can refer only to persons whose characters are exactly like OTL's Hitler and Stalin, then the alternate courses of action described by poster A and by me become impossible. But this would apply to all historical persons, whatever they have done or refrained from doing in OTL, and would make all alternate history speculation impossible.

What would have happened if JFK had not ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion? Then he would not have been JFK at all, and a different person would have been in the White House, and perhaps there would not have been a Castro revolution in the first place. JFK had exactly the right traits of character to order this operation, and someone who did not have them would not have been JFK. What if Lee Harvey Oswald misses JFK? Then he would not have been Lee Harvey Oswald, and so on and on for every possible question about an alternate course of events.

So I have a person in mind who was born with the same name as the historical Stalin, calls himself Stalin, looks like the historical Stalin, has absolute power like Stalin, but in contrast to OTL Stalin sees a need for a certain liberalisation of the economy.

 

[KACKO]

One unsourced, contradictory blog post? I mean they claim they had 2800 tons on hand in 1941, barely spent any of it during the war, then after the war after confiscations/looting/reparations from occupied Europe they had 2500 tons?

One? I posted one or two links. As to having less after war? Not all they got was L-L OTL. There is shitload of more links. Looting? I would call it reparation. I asked you to link your source on them having zero but didn't see nothing from you.

However regarding discussion here i said that even without 2800 t they would have enough to buy to get by with their yearly production of gold, silver and platinum.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Wiking might have a heart attack when I say this p), but that is one of the ways which the Soviets could actually lose the war.

Not surprised at all, Stalin said the same thing when Zhukov suggested it. Though I am surprised, because you seemed convinced in an earlier convo that a Soviet offensive would be beneficial because it keeps the Germans further West.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

One? I posted one or two links. As to having less after war? Not all they got was L-L OTL. There is shitload of more links. Looting? I would call it reparation. I asked you to link your source on them having zero but didn't see nothing from you.

However regarding discussion here i said that even without 2800 t they would have enough to buy to get by with their yearly production of gold, silver and platinum.

The first link did not support what you said, the 2nd that did was unsourced and contradictory. There is nothing out there about Soviet gold reserves in English put for a CIA post-war report that says its impossible to know. Soviet archives are classified, so there is no way to actually know. The value of the pre-war yearly production of gold, silver, and platinum (minus what they use for production) wouldn't cover close to the $11 Billion they got in LL just from the US, not counting the billions in aid from the British, nor all the extra spending on top of that to upgrade infrastructure to allow supplies to move in via Iran and Siberia, which was in the billions too.

IIRC their yearly gold production was equal to $200 million in 1940 dollars. Not sure what their silver or platinum production was, but if you do we could probably find 1940 prices.

 

[von Adler]

US intelligence reports states that the Soviets had $2 800 000 000 in gold in 1940, including the ex-Spanish gold reserve (of which the Soviets had $573 877 500). The Soviet gold mines produced about $182 000 000 yearly.

Source: CIA intelligence report here http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000496246.pdf

Considering that the US lend-lease to the Soviets during the war was worth about $11 300 000 000, the Soviets could purchase about 1/3 of the US lend-lease on the open market should someone sell it.

The Soviets benefitted a lot from lend-lease, especially as it freed a lot of manpower from their agriculture which could be conscripted, but they could still produce everything they got - they would just have less soldiers and less weapons at the front.

However, the Germans were unable to take Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad or the Caucasus even when there were only British lend-lease, I don't see them taking more territory or knocking the Soviets out of the war even without lend-lease.

It will take the Soviets longer to retake territory, and they might even stall somewhere in Ukraine, but knocked out? I think not.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Not surprised at all, Stalin said the same thing when Zhukov suggested it. Though I am surprised, because you seemed convinced in an earlier convo that a Soviet offensive would be beneficial because it keeps the Germans further West.

It might, but that is such a low-probability outcome that it is... well, it's less probable then the Germans actually achieving victory over the Soviet Union. It requires that the German forces get sufficiently damaged and thrown off balance enough that they can't begin the advance for a few additional weeks or months while the remains of the Soviet attack force are able to withdraw into Soviet territory and reorganize into a coherent defense line. But from what we know of Soviet offensives in early-1942, that just isn't remotely likely. Far more likely that it ends up like 2nd Kharkov (Soviet attacking force annihilated, Germans only inconvenienced by a few days and ultimately has no impact on the rest of the campaign compared to OTL) or that the destruction of those forces further west of the German-Soviet border helps the Germans enough for them to win the war.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

US intelligence reports states that the Soviets had $2 800 000 000 in gold in 1940, including the ex-Spanish gold reserve (of which the Soviets had $573 877 500). The Soviet gold mines produced about $182 000 000 yearly.

Source: CIA intelligence report here http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000496246.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_gold#Use_of_the_deposit
The Spanish gold was all spent.
If the $2.8 Billion is correct that is a fraction of just US LL, nevermind the billions in British LL.

Considering that the US lend-lease to the Soviets during the war was worth about $11 300 000 000, the Soviets could purchase about 1/3 of the US lend-lease on the open market should someone sell it.

The Soviets benefitted a lot from lend-lease, especially as it freed a lot of manpower from their agriculture which could be conscripted, but they could still produce everything they got - they would just have less soldiers and less weapons at the front.

However, the Germans were unable to take Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad or the Caucasus even when there were only British lend-lease, I don't see them taking more territory or knocking the Soviets out of the war even without lend-lease.

It will take the Soviets longer to retake territory, and they might even stall somewhere in Ukraine, but knocked out? I think not.

It would all come down to if the Soviets could survive on their financial reserves or suffer collapse anyway. Regardless there are a lot less people available for the front, which means not liberating territory as per OTL, which compounds problems of 1942. As it was IOTL they got $3 Billion in food just from the US so unless they are willing to spend all of their money on food, they'd be short ITTL of food and everything else. Not only that but without the US/UK spending on infrastructure upgrades to Iran that route would be much smaller ITTL. They may well stave off collapse with purchases, but would still be too weak to go on the offensive on their own unless the British or US are in the war. If not and its just purchasing and transport on their own, then they need to buy the necessary shipping and whatnot to actually get the resources to their ports, which means less on weapons or even food.

 

[von Adler]

The Spanish spent it, the Soviets kept it. The gold was still in the Soviet Union and the Soviets just took it as payment for their services and arms (which were mostly old and odd stuff, such as British and Japanese weapons and ammunition for them recieved during ww1).

 

[Deleted member 1487]

The Spanish spent it, the Soviets kept it. The gold was still in the Soviet Union and the Soviets just took it as payment for their services and arms (which were mostly old and odd stuff, such as British and Japanese weapons and ammunition for them recieved during ww1).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_gold#Use_of_the_deposit

Negrín signed 19 consecutive sell orders between February 19, 1937 and April 28, 1938, directed to the successive People's Commissioner of Finance: G.F. Grinko (until May 1937), V. Tchoula (until September 1937) and A. Zverev (until the end of the war). In them, the value of an ounce of gold troy was converted into pounds sterling, U.S dollars or French francs according to the exchange rate at the London Stock Exchange. According to Martín Aceña, 415 tonnes of crude gold (374 tonnes of fine gold) were sold in 1937, then between January and April 1938 another 58 (52) were sold, and out of the remaining gold, 35 (31) tonnes were separated from the original deposit to constitute a second deposit that guaranteed a credit of 70 million U.S. dollars. Thus, by August 1938 a remaining 2 tonnes were still available. The Republic obtained from the selling of the gold a total of 469.8 million U.S. dollars, 131.6 of which remained within the USSR to pay for various purchases and expenses. The Soviets kept 2.1% of the funds in the form of commissions and brokerage, and kept an additional 1.2% in the form of transport, deposit, melting, and refining expenses: in total, slightly less than 3.3%, approximately 14.5 million U.S. dollars. The remaining 72%, 338.5 million U.S. dollars' worth, was transferred to the Banque Commerciale pour L'Europe du Nord, or Eurobank, in Paris, the Soviet financial organization in France, property of the Gosbank, the national bank of the Soviet Union.[81][82] From Paris, agents of the Treasury and diplomatic representatives paid for the purchase of matériel acquired in Brussels, Prague, Warsaw, New York and Mexico, among others.


With the Spanish gold deposited in Moscow, the Soviets immediately demanded from the Republican government payment for the first deliveries of war supplies, which had apparently arrived as a gift to combat international fascism.[83] Stashevski demanded from Negrín US$51 million in accumulated debt and expenses for the transport of the gold from Cartagena to Moscow. On the Nationalist side, German and Italian aids also had to be compensated; however, the Germans and Italians allowed Franco to satisfy his debt once the war came to an end. Authors such as Francisco Olaya Morales,[84] and Ángel Viñas[85] criticized the actions and behaviour of the Soviets.


Historians that have had access to the "Negrín dossier" believe that the Soviets did not abuse their position nor did they defraud the Spanish in their financial transactions. Nevertheless, in the words of María Ángeles Pons: "nothing did the Republicans obtain for free from their Russian friends", as all types of expenses and services had been charged to the Government of the Republic.[86] However, authors such as Gerald Howson believe in the existence of a Soviet fraud in the management of the deposit in Moscow, claiming that Stalin intentionally inflated the price of the matériel sold to the Republic by manipulating the exchange of Russian rubles to U.S. dollars and of U.S. dollars to Spanish pesetas, raising the international exchange rates up to 30% and 40%.[87]

 

[BootOnFace]

The real question here is whether the Soviets can withstand a 1942 summer from the Nazis offensive with 30% fewer men and materiel for their defense. The Soviet state won't collapse over winter 1941, the Germans weren't close to defeating them. Even if they made it to Moscow, it would be hell for them and just increase German losses.

1941 was just an exercise in grand retreat. 1942 is when the Soviets brought war upon the Germans. Without the LL materiel, I don't think that the Soviets would have been able to retrieve the gains that the Germans made in the south. They might be able to hold the line in the north, but the grand offensives that took the areas around Stalingrad and Leningrad back wouldn't be possible. The decreased mobility from a lack of trucks and tanks puts them on the defensive.

If the Soviets survive 1942, I don't think they'd be able to retake anywhere west of the Don before a second front opens up in the West.

This is discounting the fact that no LL is insane for the Western Powers. If you have weapons, you point them at your enemy and shoot, not let them sit in a warehouse for three years waiting to become obsolete.
Any timeline with no LL ends with the Nazis winning. Not by just the Soviets losing, but by the UK signing some kind of armistice and the US having an isolationist government that never fights the Nazis.

Of course this assumes that if the British acquiesced to German demands, Stalin wouldn't have immediately put his troops on high alert and into defensive positions, with Generals putting defensive plans into action ASAP. I mean even Stalin isn't so stupid as to think that Hitler wouldn't turn on them as soon as he got a single front.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

The real question here is whether the Soviets can withstand a 1942 summer from the Nazis offensive with 30% fewer men and materiel for their defense. The Soviet state won't collapse over winter 1941, the Germans weren't close to defeating them. Even if they made it to Moscow, it would be hell for them and just increase German losses.

1941 was just an exercise in grand retreat. 1942 is when the Soviets brought war upon the Germans. Without the LL materiel, I don't think that the Soviets would have been able to retrieve the gains that the Germans made in the south. They might be able to hold the line in the north, but the grand offensives that took the areas around Stalingrad and Leningrad back wouldn't be possible. The decreased mobility from a lack of trucks and tanks puts them on the defensive.

If the Soviets survive 1942, I don't think they'd be able to retake anywhere west of the Don before a second front opens up in the West.

This is discounting the fact that no LL is insane for the Western Powers. If you have weapons, you point them at your enemy and shoot, not let them sit in a warehouse for three years waiting to become obsolete.
Any timeline with no LL ends with the Nazis winning. Not by just the Soviets losing, but by the UK signing some kind of armistice and the US having an isolationist government that never fights the Nazis.

Of course this assumes that if the British acquiesced to German demands, Stalin wouldn't have immediately put his troops on high alert and into defensive positions, with Generals putting defensive plans into action ASAP. I mean even Stalin isn't so stupid as to think that Hitler wouldn't turn on them as soon as he got a single front.

In the winter 1941 counteroffensive 30-40% of AFVs and aircraft were British LL. Without that the Germans are not pushed back as far, lose less men and equipment, and the Soviets suffer more losses. So already in 1941 there is a difference (assuming they aren't buying those weapons with their gold and the British are selling).

We can argue perhaps that LL is not forthcoming because of Wallied shortages for their armies; they don't give the Soviet stuff when they need it for their own armies they are mobilizing. They gave the Soviets a lot of stuff they could have used.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

He asserts that LL aid was irreplaceable in all categories;

He says on page 140:

Nonetheless, if the Soviet armed forces had been denied these western resources, they would have procured replacements.

He then goes on to describe some of the substitutes they would have resorted too.

other professionals that I have cited in the past specifically state that without US food the Soviets would lose 38% of their civilian daily caloric rations to make up for shortfalls with the army. Death rates were already well above natural causes due to malnutrition and IOTL the situation stabilized as greater aid was brought in after 1942 even though replanting of liberated areas didn't really restart until 1944.

Yet they never reached famine proportions and showed no indication of doing so throughout the winter and spring of 42-43. Furthermore the Soviets could still ITTL request and potentially receive food aid as they had in the 1920s, with or without lend-lease.

I disagree with him on the Soviets destroying German offensive power in those years, they were able to survive those years without LL aid, though without LL in 1941-42 they would have suffered worse and performed more poorly as that was when important machine tools and such were coming in.

Those machine tools did not ultimately determine Soviet industrial recovery. The most I have seen is that they sped it up.

In the winter 1941 counteroffensive 30-40% of AFVs and aircraft were British LL.

Except the overwhelming bulk of the Soviet's combat power in their winter counter-offensive was not in armor or aircraft, but in infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Even with those lend-lease, the Soviet's largely withheld their shattered armored brigades and battalions as well as their broken air force, committing only penny-packets here and there to support infantry or cavalry attacks. Overwhelmingly the onerous of carrying the offensive lay with Soviet foot soldiers and cavalrymen. Under such circumstances, the idea that British lend-lease made a difference at Moscow is quite simply inane.

So without LL they are in a worse historical position by the start of the winter offensive in 1941 when LL gear first appeared to November 1942 when they were historically able to go on the offensive; because of the stacking issues of no LL from late 1941 to late 1942 they might not have been able to pull off Stalingrad

Overwhelmingly, that the Soviets were able to go on the offensive at Stalingrad was a Soviet accomplishment, not a Western Allied one. It was Soviet industry that provided the overwhelming bulk of the weapons and munitions used in Uranus and Saturn, Soviet trucks ferrying supplies, Soviet aircraft flying in support of their forces, Soviet boots on their feet, and so-on and so-forth. There was literally only one unit in Operation Uranus armed with lend-lease weapons (17th IAP Regiment under the 2nd Air Army with a whopping 21 P-39Ds in a force totaling around 1,500 aircraft).

You (and Angrybird) have also attempted to pretend that lend-lease was somehow able to improve Soviet combat performance in the winter of 1942-43 compared to '41-'42. This is also largely nonsense. That was the result of hard lessons the Soviets had learned in combat with the Germans and lend-lease would not have mattered one little bit without those lessons. Lend-lease did not enable the Soviets to learn to fight effectively, rather it was learning to fight effectively that allowed the Soviets to use lend-lease to it's fullest potential.

We can argue perhaps that LL is not forthcoming because of Wallied shortages for their armies; they don't give the Soviet stuff when they need it for their own armies they are mobilizing. They gave the Soviets a lot of stuff they could have used.

Unlike the Germans, the Western Allies are not idiots when it comes to strategy and unlike the Soviet they do care for the well-being of their troops. They recognize that if the Soviets do not break the German army, then it is they who will have to pay the relevant blood price. Furthermore, not aiding the principle people who are bleeding the German army is (in effect) aiding the Germans and thus detrimental to the general war effort. These simple facts instantly implode any argument against withholding lend-lease from the Soviets.

You have tried to pretend in the past that this would not be the case, that even if the Eastern Front bogs down in stalemate, the Germans will not transfer a single soldier westward. This is nonsense. If the Soviets are bogged down, then that frees up a minimum of several hundreds of thousand of German soldiers, thousands to tens of thousands of artillery pieces, and thousands of armored vehicles. If the Soviets bog down as badly as you suggest and collapse or sue for a seperate peace like you are suggesting, then the Germans can transfer westward more combat troops then they ever even committed facing the WAllies IOTL. And then there are the millions of German soldiers who would have otherwise died facing the lend-lease equipped Soviets that can now instead be sent west.

There is no way the Western Allies are not going to provide the Soviets with lend-lease, with those being the facts.

 

[Namayan]

If the USA is selling stuff to the Russians would it be rational to say they would be also selling to the Germans?

If the Germans do purchase US resources would this make any difference in the German efforts?

 

[KACKO]

The first link did not support what you said, the 2nd that did was unsourced and contradictory. There is nothing out there about Soviet gold reserves in English put for a CIA post-war report that says its impossible to know. Soviet archives are classified, so there is no way to actually know. The value of the pre-war yearly production of gold, silver, and platinum (minus what they use for production) wouldn't cover close to the $11 Billion they got in LL just from the US, not counting the billions in aid from the British, nor all the extra spending on top of that to upgrade infrastructure to allow supplies to move in via Iran and Siberia, which was in the billions too.

IIRC their yearly gold production was equal to $200 million in 1940 dollars. Not sure what their silver or platinum production was, but if you do we could probably find 1940 prices.

Of course it would not cover 11 billion dollars of imports. However right in this discussion I would more operate with what they were able to produce annually. With this they would be able to buy at least more important materials and products to help their war effort.

Of course there is of course one more source of gold Soviets had. 510 t of Spanish gold imported in 1937. Some of it was used to pay for Spanish republic arms purchases and what was left... Was kept.

CIA reports estimate for example in 1954 Soviet gold reserves to some 3200 tons which is even more then Russians are saying they had. However CIA report didn't say there is no way to know. It says margin of error is some 40%.

What CIA knew at the time how much gold were Soviets selling annually and it saying they are able to cover at least 1/3 of their imports.

Silver and platinum is even harder to get by then gold. The numbers for silver I saw were app 1500 t a year and platinum around 5 t a year. But seems these are more guesses when more known data from pre WWI era and after WWII era are compared. Before WWI Russia produced above 2500 t of silver according to one article I saw some time ago and 5 t of platinum. After WWII it was something about 2500 t of silver and up to 30 t of platinum.

Prices of silver in from 1941 to 1945 went from $ 5.4 to 6.8 per oz at the end of war. Platinum was around $ 180 per oz I believe.

Maybe it would be good to place the question on Soviet part of Axis history forum.

 

[KACKO]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_gold#Use_of_the_deposit
The Spanish gold was all spent.
If the $2.8 Billion is correct that is a fraction of just US LL, nevermind the billions in British LL.


It would all come down to if the Soviets could survive on their financial reserves or suffer collapse anyway. Regardless there are a lot less people available for the front, which means not liberating territory as per OTL, which compounds problems of 1942. As it was IOTL they got $3 Billion in food just from the US so unless they are willing to spend all of their money on food, they'd be short ITTL of food and everything else. Not only that but without the US/UK spending on infrastructure upgrades to Iran that route would be much smaller ITTL. They may well stave off collapse with purchases, but would still be too weak to go on the offensive on their own unless the British or US are in the war. If not and its just purchasing and transport on their own, then they need to buy the necessary shipping and whatnot to actually get the resources to their ports, which means less on weapons or even food.

However argument about Spanish gold is that part of it transported to Soviet Union was spent in Soviet Union.

As to imports which they would pay off with their own. It's logical it would be less. But with less also they don't need to spent money on infrastructure from Iran. They may just divert their existing shipping for Far Eastern run.

With less material from West they may even decide to stay on defensive longer and not attempt some of offensives of 1942 and 1943. And Germans can really get at the end some kind of settlement from Soviets.
With that however Hitler attention could be diverted back to west. Western politicians as well as Stalin were not totally stupid. Both of them realized that and after all L-L was kind of payment for blood of Soviet soldiers. How much is blood worth? Well we can actually calculate that too. Today one unit of blood cost US hospital app $ 155. With Soviet losses during war being over 20 million Soviets spent some 1.5 billion of 1941 dollars in blood. Is that cynic? Well it is.

 

[King Augeas]

Okay, so let's assume that without LL, the Battle of Moscow goes ahead roughly as OTL, but slightly worse for the Soviets. The strategic implications seem minor to me - the USSR is still standing and it seems unlikely that Hitler will attempt another attack on Moscow in 1942. So, they attack south like OTL, towards Stalingrad. Does no LL result in Stalingrad falling? I'm no expert, but it seems unlikely - it seems to me that it was Soviet blood and materiel that kept the ferries open and the riverside strip supplied. Maybe if Germany had the ability to cross the river and encircle the city?

If not, then it seems that we're still on OTL, with the Soviets pinning Germany in the city and then encircling them. Again, LL doesn't seem critical here, so it seems reasonable to assume that 6th Army is still destroyed. That pushes us on to 1943 and German planning for Kursk. Germany will still attack somewhere, but will it be more ambitious than Kursk, assuming a weaker USSR? What other offensive options are there? The Soviets seemed to have stopped Citadelle without too much difficulty historically, so they're probably capable of stopping it again, but surely the exploitation will be much more difficult.

But really what strikes me here is that it's now summer 1943 and the Soviets are still standing. Germany in 1941 may be capable of winning, but she's not capable of winning quickly.

 

[Booster Gold]

Everyone's looking at the Soviet Union's capabilities, but what about the Germans? The Nazi economy is mostly made of scotch tape and terror, and by 1944-45 they're going to be running low on both regardless of Lend-Lease. All the Soviets have to do is wait for the Germans to run out of crucial raw materials, which they absolutely will, and then watch as the Wehrmacht implodes.

All the SU needs to do is not give up and they win.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Everyone's looking at the Soviet Union's capabilities, but what about the Germans? The Nazi economy is mostly made of scotch tape and terror, and by 1944-45 they're going to be running low on both regardless of Lend-Lease. All the Soviets have to do is wait for the Germans to run out of crucial raw materials, which they absolutely will, and then watch as the Wehrmacht implodes.

All the SU needs to do is not give up and they win.

What's critical to understand is that the situation is that results in no LL. If the Wallies are out of the war then what you suggest won't be the case, but if they are in the German is still suffering from strategic bombing and other fronts and will lose eventually anyway. Can the Soviets purchase or not?