ABSTRACT

Victory over Nazi Germany and its allies came as an immense relief to the Soviet Union. No victorious power had suffered more. The war had devastated European Russia, 25 million were homeless, factories were destroyed, railways disrupted, mechanised farm machinery virtually nonexistent. Of the population of 194 million before the war, 28 million had lost their lives; more than one in four Russians had been killed or wounded. Stalin did not expect much help from the capitalist US once the defeat of the common enemies was accomplished. Supplies had been shipped to Russia under the wartime Lend-Lease programme, but this was severely curtailed after the victory over Germany and was ended altogether in August 1945, after Japan’s defeat, for all countries. But crucial Western food supplies still reached the Soviet Union in 1946 under the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), mainly financed by the US. This programme saved devastated regions from famine.