Should Stalin Be Armed?

In the autumn of 1941, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, launched on June 22, had reached catastrophic proportions. The Wehrmacht had encircled entire armies, taken Kiev and Smolensk, and was closing in on Moscow. In Washington, military observers were divided: some believed the Red Army would hold out only a few weeks, others wagered on its ability to absorb the shock. Uncertainty prevailed over the outcome of the eastern front.

The Lend-Lease Act, passed in March 1941, allowed the president to supply arms and provisions to countries whose defense was deemed vital to the United States. So far it had applied to Great Britain and China. The Soviet case raised distinct questions: a communist and atheist regime loathed by a large part of public opinion, Congress, and the Church, but also a force tying down part of the Wehrmacht. The Harriman-Beaverbrook mission, sent to Moscow in September-October, had assessed the needs in aircraft, tanks, trucks, and raw materials.

Roosevelt weighed conflicting considerations: the strategic value of an active eastern front, the risk of seeing the matériel captured in the event of a collapse, the domestic political cost, and the fragility of the supply routes through the Arctic and Persia, exposed and uncertain. Each approach committed the president's resources and credibility differently. He now had to decide.