No lend lease to communists!

When the lend lease bill went through congress it was deliberately left open as to which countries could receive it. This was partly foresight and partly luck by the FDR administration as they knew about possible attack on the USSR, and feared anti-communists in congress would add country restrictions.

So assume a change in circumstances. US intelligence does not expect an attack on the USSR. FDR is struggling for votes to get the bill passed. A few more congressmen can be persuaded to vote for it provided it says no lend-lease to the USSR, so the administration agrees to put this provision in the bill...
 

Cook

Banned
When the Lend-Lease Bill was passed the Soviet Union was a Neutral power on good terms with Nazi Germany, why would the Lend-Lease Bill even mention them?
 
In law, lend lease was not limited as to potential the recipients. In practice, lend lease was not limited to belligerents.

The bill could plausibly have said only countries X, Y and Z. (i.e. excluding the USSR by accident or design).
 
Such law could be changed/ammended later when when both SU and US are fighting Germany. Or it could be circumvented so that aid destined for SU would be first sent to UK or Canada and shipped to SU from there.
 
The law would be amended. If not it would be hard to praise the Soviets as gallant allies when you're not giving them any support, the Alliance will be much more bitter.
 
The USSR entered the war 6 months before the US, which could plausibly mean no lendlease or pre-lendlease during June-Dec 41 - on the theory that Nazis are as bad a commies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_USSR

What actual change is being suggested as PoD here? As it was, it wasn't a matter of airy-fairy ideological stuff so much as the fact that one of the regimes was locked in a gigantic arms-race-by-proxy with the United States as part of its attempts to upset the world balance of power and build a giant empire using genocide that would certainly oppose America, and the other, ah, wasn't.

Against such cold diplomatic facts, the whole "But the commies are so evil!" line didn't fly IOTL. Why here?
 
The issue is the FDR administration specifically drafted the lend lease legislation so that no specific countries were named. They did that in anticipation of possible lendleasing the USSR if and when the USSR was fighting on the allied side. They also that avoided naming specific countries, because they feared that if the USSR was named as a potential recipient, the bill might not pass.

Now because they didn't name countries, the issue of the USSR was a non-issue in congressional debates on passing the bill.

But it only takes one ass-hat in congress to raise the USSR (either because they don't want the USSR on the list as they fear FDR's administration is too left and soft on commies, or because they use it as a stick to stop the whole bill)... and then either the bill doesn't get passed, or the bill gets written so as to specifically exclude the USSR.
 
You might get some Congress members and Senator among with prominent News organization that will demand that the majority of the top-of-the-line military assets and material be used and diverted to U.S. Forces first while secondary equipment and material be sent via LL to the SU to appease any potential critics of the Roosevelt Administration and anti-communistic elements within American Society whom distrust the Soviet Union due to their duplicity in their pact to split Poland with the Nazis and their attacks upon Finland and absorbing the Baltic States.......
 
SunilTanna, except that apparently not a single member of Congress could imagine the USSR receiving Lend Lease or not a single member could bring himself to try to block the USSR from being able to receive aid under Lend Lease...which does not support your premise that changing/blocking the bill would be that easy.



As for this claim that FDR somehow knew about Barbarossa months before the invasion of the USSR, let alone formulated his policies on that basis...
 
Given that the USSR was fighting the Nazis for six months before the USA moved from undeclared war with Nazi Germany to a US-Nazi War, the Soviets not being aided would be suicidally stupid on the part of the democracies.
 
I don't recall lend-lease having any impact on Soviet fighting capabilities until 1942. By then, however, the US will also be in the war and thus aiding the Soviets with lend-lease would only make sense...
 
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