The value of Lend-Lease to Britain was three times that to the Soviet Union.
That Britain “mortgaged the empire” in the destroyers for bases deal (which predated Lend-Lease) is pure fantasy. Britain gave the US 99-year leases to a few bases in the Caribbean.
The only portion of Lend-Lease that Britain paid back was a small portion the British elected to take after the war was over. Just like the USSR, they paid nothing for the aid they received during the war. The post-war aid was given on better-than-market terms, which is why they were able to pay it back over 50 years.
Is the book not worth it? Is it just a conservative bias to make it look like the soviet’s made out like bandits due to leftist sympathizers in the west?
It covers a lot of ground and I’m not qualified to speak to a lot of it. But he’s a lawyer arguing a brief, not a historian expounding on a thesis. And on Lend-Lease he definitely goes beyond advocacy to dishonesty. And yes, the book is catnip to some on the right because it centers WWII around Stalin rather than Hitler. I think the main value of the book is to show where many on the right are coming from…but it’s a lot of pages to invest in for that payoff. https://substack.com/@zinjanthropus/note/p-159397195?r=2y2mz&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
My focus is on covert influence--and the Comintern's fantastically successful operations to infiltrate and destroy America's transmission belts of culture, the media, education/academia, and Hollywood. Willi Muenzenberg was the genius behind these. His only mistake was the calculation of how long it would take for his operations to bear fruit. He thought a couple years--it actually took about 80 years.
You might want to also explore the late Stan Evans' books and writing on the USSR's espionage operations against the USA. He focuses on intelligence collection operations, and ignores covert influence, for the most part:
Thanks for sharing. If I were British I would be fuming because of the unfairness of it all.
There is no unfairness to fume about.
The value of Lend-Lease to Britain was three times that to the Soviet Union.
That Britain “mortgaged the empire” in the destroyers for bases deal (which predated Lend-Lease) is pure fantasy. Britain gave the US 99-year leases to a few bases in the Caribbean.
The only portion of Lend-Lease that Britain paid back was a small portion the British elected to take after the war was over. Just like the USSR, they paid nothing for the aid they received during the war. The post-war aid was given on better-than-market terms, which is why they were able to pay it back over 50 years.
McMeekin cannot be trusted.
Is the book not worth it? Is it just a conservative bias to make it look like the soviet’s made out like bandits due to leftist sympathizers in the west?
It covers a lot of ground and I’m not qualified to speak to a lot of it. But he’s a lawyer arguing a brief, not a historian expounding on a thesis. And on Lend-Lease he definitely goes beyond advocacy to dishonesty. And yes, the book is catnip to some on the right because it centers WWII around Stalin rather than Hitler. I think the main value of the book is to show where many on the right are coming from…but it’s a lot of pages to invest in for that payoff. https://substack.com/@zinjanthropus/note/p-159397195?r=2y2mz&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
For your point #5, though, you missed a few sources that are much, much better than McMeekin.
I'd recommend starting with my book:
Willing Accomplices: How KGB covert influence agents created Political Correctness and destroyed America
http://willingaccomplices.com/
My focus is on covert influence--and the Comintern's fantastically successful operations to infiltrate and destroy America's transmission belts of culture, the media, education/academia, and Hollywood. Willi Muenzenberg was the genius behind these. His only mistake was the calculation of how long it would take for his operations to bear fruit. He thought a couple years--it actually took about 80 years.
You might want to also explore the late Stan Evans' books and writing on the USSR's espionage operations against the USA. He focuses on intelligence collection operations, and ignores covert influence, for the most part:
McCarthy was Right:
https://www.amazon.com/Blacklisted-History-Senator-McCarthy-Americas/dp/1400081068/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1661354672&sr=1-1
Stalin's Secret Agents:
https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Secret-Agents-Subversion-Roosevelts/dp/B00A2FLEAI/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=M.+Stanton+Evans&qid=1661354775&s=audible&sr=1-3
Keep up the good work!
Kent
kent@kentclizbe.com
Thanks for the pointer, will check out!
"Invaded and occupied 7 countries by 1941 - as many as Hitler by that time."
Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania.
What's the 7th country? Iran was invaded in Aug 1941 in conjunction with the British, so he can't mean that.