Prior to 1941, America had supported the isolationist position, particularly concentrated among the Republican party. However, with the defeat of France and the German bombing of Britain, American sympathy for the Allies had increased. As a compromise position, recognizing increased American support for the British war effort, between the interventionist President Franklin Roosevelt and the isolationists in Congress, the Lend-Lease Act was passed, which legalized the sale of arms and war materiel to the Allies; this had previously been illegal under the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s.
What President Roosevelt really wanted was to declare war on Germany and Japan and involve the US in the Second World War, but the American public was still strongly opposed to war, as was Congress. Lend-Lease was a way to support Britain, China, and Free France without directly declaring war.
Lend-Lease, which was continued into America’s involvement in the war, was monumentally important to the Allied war effort on all fronts. Britain, whose trade with its colonies had been cut off by the Japanese, Italian, and German navies, became almost totally dependent on the USA for not only weapons, but also food and most consumer goods. Having been deprived of its industrial bases by Japan and Germany, China and Free France came to depend on the USA for nearly their entire war supply. The Soviet Union was also a major recipient of American aid through Lend-Lease, with the USA providing the majority of vehicles, equipment, and tank parts used by the Soviet Union. Nikita Xrushchyov commented after the war that, “we would have lost,” if not for American aid provided through Lend-Lease. It is very likely that, without American aid through Lend-Lease, both Britain and the USSR would have surrendered.
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