Military-technical cooperation (MTC) is a broad concept that includes the provision of various services in the military - technical field by one country to another state. This can include arms supplies, consultations, transfer of licenses and technologies, assistance in creating military facilities, training specialists, and so on. In return, the other side provides certain priorities in the political and economic fields, or pays with money. The supply of weapons for money is usually called the arms trade.

In recent years, our mass media have been paying considerable attention to Russia's military-technical cooperation with foreign countries. Therefore, today many people know about the existence of the state-owned company Rosvooruzhenie. At the same time, the history of military-technical cooperation, even not so far away, is mostly known only to specialists. This publication covers the main stages of military-technical cooperation up to the end of the 40s.

I. Military-technical cooperation before the Great Patriotic War

The ancestor of Soviet organizations specifically designed for military-technical cooperation with foreign countries was the Department of External Procurement (HIA) of the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs of the RSFSR, established in 1921. Geographically, the department was located in the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, and its head was the commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Military Affairs at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade. At first, the department was mainly engaged in purchasing samples of military equipment abroad and obtaining information.

HIA supervised the work of engineering departments at Soviet trade missions abroad, through which relevant transactions were carried out. Such departments were established at our trade representative offices in England, France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, as well as at Am-gorg JSC in the USA.

By 1938, the growth in the volume of operations and the complexity of relations with interested foreign organizations made it necessary to expand and reorganize the HIA. The Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, by a decision of January 5, 1939, transferred HIA from the People's Commissariat of Defense to the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade. In the transfer certificate, the department was named engineering, and this name was assigned to its subsequent modifications.

Let us briefly review the history of the development of military-technical cooperation with major foreign partners.

Cooperation with Germany. The first major Western country to recognize the de jure Soviet Russia was Germany. On Easter night, April 16, 1922, in the town of Rapallo near Genoa, where an international conference was being held, Russia and Germany unexpectedly signed an Agreement on the establishment of diplomatic relations and on the development of trade and economic ties. At the same time, a document on cooperation in the military-technical field was signed.

However, in fact, cooperation began even earlier, and the document on this was signed by Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin on the Soviet side in March 1920. This is also indicated by the secret post-letter No. 791 of August 20 of the same year, signed by Trotsky. It reports on the decision of the Politburo to conclude a deal with the Germans for the purchase of weapons in the amount of 27 million marks.

After Rapallo, the Soviet-German military-technical cooperation was further developed. A special Sonderkommando R ("Russia") was created in the German Ministry of War, which ordered various military equipment from us. For example, in 1924, 400 thousand 3-inch shells for field guns were ordered, which were transferred to the Germans in 1926.

In April 1925, in Moscow, representatives of the Red Army Air Force and Sonderkommando R signed a document on the organization of a joint aviation school in Lipetsk (the Lipetsk facility). About 50 German pilots and 70-100 technical specialists were trained there every year. Several types of new aircraft, aircraft machine guns, radio stations and aerial bombs were also tested there.

In October 1926, an agreement was signed between the Soviet and German sides to establish a joint tank school in Kazan (the Kama facility). The school has produced several graduates of specialists for the German Army and Red Army.

Cooperation with Germany also developed along the naval line. There was an exchange of delegations, in August 1929, the Soviet cruisers Aurora and Profintern, the destroyers Lenin and Rykov visited Germany. We established contacts with a number of German companies working for the military shipbuilding industry, from which we purchased marine diesels, gyrocompasses, sonar equipment and other equipment for a total of about 17 million marks.

In 1933, after Hitler came to power, cooperation was curtailed, joint facilities were liquidated. According to the General Staff's report to Voroshilov, the Germans " stressed the importance of continuing friendly relations between the Reichswehr and the Red Army in some new form."

Such forms were found, and cooperation was continued after the signing of the Soviet-German treaty in August 1939. As a result, the USSR was able to acquire a number of materials and technologies that were unavailable to it at that time in other markets.

Cooperation with Italy. Considerable attention was paid to naval issues during the military-technical cooperation with Italy. In the autumn of 1930, a Soviet delegation visited the country, which issued the purchase of naval weapons. The destroyers and cruisers built in our country in the second half of the 1930s bore traces of the obvious influence of Italian ideas in the field of military shipbuilding. But life later showed that solutions suitable for the Mediterranean Sea are not very suitable for the Barents Sea, where, for example, the destroyer "Smashing"broke in a storm wave while escorting convoys.

Built in Italy before the war by our order, the leader of the destroyers "Tashkent" valiantly fought the enemy on the Black Sea.

Cooperation with China. As a result of the revolution of 1911-1913, a republic was proclaimed in China, with Sun Yat-sen as president. In 1923, Sun Yat - sen reorganized the Kuomintang Party, which he led, and entered into an alliance with the newly formed Communist Party. He was sympathetic to the changes that had taken place in Russia and wanted to use the Soviet experience to some extent. Therefore, he invited Soviet advisers in the financial, economic and military fields to Canton. Among the latter was V. K. Blucher, known in China as General Galin.

When the south of China was sufficiently strong, the army in July 1926 began a campaign to the north in order to achieve the real liberation of the country. The Soviet Union, in accordance with the agreements reached, supplied this army with weapons, ammunition and other military equipment. The campaign plan was developed with the participation of Soviet specialists led by V. K. Blucher.

After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1927, power passed to Chiang Kai-shek, who broke with the Communist Party and pushed out the revolutionary-minded parts of the army in remote rural areas.,

In 1931, Japan invaded northeast China, and in 1937 began a war to conquer the entire country. This caused a rapprochement of the national forces of China, which turned to the USSR for help in the fight against the invaders.

In August 1937, a non-aggression pact was signed between the USSR and China. In March and June 1938, agreements were signed with China to provide a loan for the purchase of weapons and ammunition totaling $ 250 million. Contracts were signed for these loans, according to which 897 aircraft, 975 guns and howitzers, 9525 hand and machine guns, 1550 cars, aircraft engines, shells, ammunition and many other property were delivered to China.

The USSR helped China not only with weapons, but also with specialists. By February 1938, there were 3,665 of them. About two hundred of them remained lying in the land of China.

Cooperation with Spain. In July 1936, reactionary forces in Spain rebelled against the Republican government. Support for the rebels was provided by Germany and Italy. Republicans ' hopes for help from Western democratic countries were not fulfilled, and it came mainly from the Soviet Union. The most difficult problem was the delivery of military cargo from the USSR to Spain. The main flow of them was directed from our Black Sea ports to the Mediterranean ports of Spain, past the Italian possessions that the rebels used. From October 1936 to July 1937, they detained 96 Soviet ships, three of which were sunk.

From the Soviet Union in the period from October 1936 to January 1939, 648 aircraft, 347 tanks, 1186 guns, 20,486 machine guns, about 500 thousand rifles, ammunition and other property were delivered to Spain. In addition, 21 aircraft, 16 tanks, 243 guns and other weapons purchased for this purpose in France, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and other countries were delivered. All deliveries were made in accordance with the rules and laws of international foreign trade. Payment for deliveries was made on account of the Spanish gold reserve, transferred to the State Bank of the USSR in October 1936. In the fall of 1938, an additional $ 85 million loan was granted to Republican Spain.

In addition to material assistance, the USSR provided Spain with support from military specialists. In total, there were about three thousand Soviet volunteers in Spain, about 200 of them died.

Cooperation with Eastern countries. On November 20, 1917, the Government of the RSFSR adopted an appeal "To all Muslim workers in Russia and the East", in which it proposed "to help the oppressed peoples of the world win their freedom." First of all, the national forces of Afghanistan, Iran (Persia) and Turkey responded to this call. At the beginning of 1921, the Soviet Government concluded fraternity treaties with these states, established military-technical contacts, and provided appropriate weapons assistance. So, Turkey in 1921 was supplied with more than 33 thousand rifles, 327 machine guns, 54 guns, ammunition and two patrol boats. Weapons assistance was also provided to other countries.

II. Military-technical cooperation during the war

During the war, the main task of the Engineering Department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade was to ensure the supply of weapons and other property from the allied countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. There was a lot of work, and by the decision of the NKVT board of April 27, 1942, the department was transformed into an Engineering Department. In addition, many military and civilian employees were engaged in handling cargo transportation and acceptance. The Engineering Department and the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade were responsible not only for receiving, but also for distributing imported cargo, the bulk of weapons imports in those years were supplied from the United States under the so-called lend-lease, which means "lend, lease". Cargo delivery was very difficult and was carried out in several ways, each of which had its own advantages and disadvantages.

From the point of view of geography, the most suitable route was from the United States and England across the North Atlantic and the Barents Sea to our northern ports-Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The protection of sea communications from German ships and aircraft at the first stage was carried out by British forces, and then by the ships of our Northern Fleet. Convoys were used for transportation, each of which consisted of 20 to 30 transports. To attack convoys, the Germans used mainly submarines and aircraft, but there were cases when the battleship Tirpitz also left the Norwegian skerries for this purpose.

Allied convoys, especially at first, suffered considerable losses. So, from the end of November 1941 to May 1942, 8 convoys arrived in our ports, which lost 15 transports. The greatest losses were suffered by the convoy "PQ-17" in the summer of 1942, when only 11 out of 35 transports reached our ports. On the ships sunk by the Germans, 430 tanks, 210 aircraft, 3,350 cars and about 100 thousand tons of other cargo were destroyed. With the acquisition of experience in escorting and the strengthening of our Northern Fleet, losses have decreased. During the entire period of the war, 738 transports arrived in the North as part of 41 convoys and 726 transports left as part of 36 convoys. At the latter, about 300 thousand tons of chromium and 32 thousand tons of manganese ore and other raw materials were sent to the United States from the USSR.

The second route of cargo delivery passed from America across the Pacific Ocean to our Far Eastern ports and then by rail to the front. Its disadvantages were the long distances and obstacles that the Japanese caused to the passage of our ships. American and British transports could not be used at all after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of war. The Japanese delayed 178 of our transports, and 14 were sunk. Many sailors ended up in camps and prisons.

The third route of delivery of military cargo to the USSR from the United States and England passed through many seas to the Persian Gulf, then through Iran and the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and other Soviet republics. At the same time, only the sea route took up to 70 days. To resolve many issues related to the acceptance and transportation of goods, the Soviet government sent Colonel I. S. Kormilitsyn, the commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, with a group of employees to that area. VO Iransovtrans, VO Iransovneft, as well as the specially created Soviet Transport Administration (STU) were involved in this work. Officially, it was subordinate to the Rear of the Red Army, but its work was practically supervised by a member of the GKO A. I. Mikoyan, who received a report from Iran every day at 6 am. In 1944-1945 alone, 4,546 thousand tons of cargo passed through Iran to the USSR, which was delivered by 614 American and 20 British ships. It should be noted that planes, cars and some other equipment were delivered in disassembled form and had to be assembled and tested before being sent from the Persian Gulf region.

The approximate ratio of the number of goods delivered to the USSR by the three routes listed above is shown in the table:

Way

1942

9 months of 1943

Via northern ports

40%

12%

Via ports in the Far East

35%

50%

Across the Persian Gulf

25%

38%

There was also another way, which was used in 1942-1945 only in the summer for the distillation of aircraft from the United States. They flew through Alaska to Krasnoyarsk and then to the European part of the USSR.

In total, during the war years, the USSR received lend-lease property worth about $ 9,800 million. According to our estimates, lend-lease supplies accounted for 4 percent of the USSR's industrial output in the same years.

But military-technical cooperation with foreign countries during the war did not consist only of importing weapons and military-technical equipment from the United States and England. At the same time, especially in the last years of military operations, weapons were supplied to the peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europe who fought the Nazis. Such cooperation was conducted, as a rule, in several ways. First, the national military units that were formed on the territory of the USSR were provided with weapons and all necessary equipment. Secondly, possible assistance was provided with weapons, ammunition, food and other supplies to partisan and patriotic movements in these countries. Third, cooperation was carried out through the transfer of weapons and military equipment to countries when forming their own armed forces in their territories liberated from the invaders.

Some form of military-technical assistance was provided to Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Two Polish armies, a Czechoslovak army corps, two Romanian volunteer divisions, a Yugoslav infantry and tank brigade, and other units were formed and armed on the territory of the USSR. Their total number exceeded 550 thousand people.

At the request of the Governments of the countries liberated from occupation, they were assisted in equipping national armies to fight the Nazis. The Soviet Union supplied them with about 960,000 rifles, carbines and submachine guns, more than 40,500 machine guns, 16,500 guns and mortars, more than 1,100 tanks and self-propelled guns, more than 2,300 aircraft, ammunition and other military equipment. The largest number of weapons received the armies of Poland and Yugoslavia. All countries were greatly assisted in training personnel.

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