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Relations between the west and the Soviet Union were more complex than that: >...The United States government was initially hostile to the Soviet leaders for t
by opo 9y ago
Relations between the west and the Soviet Union were more complex than that:
>...The United States government was initially hostile to the Soviet leaders for taking Russia out of World War I and was opposed to a state ideologically based on communism. Although the United States embarked on a famine relief program in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and American businessmen established commercial ties there during the period of the New Economic Policy (1921–29), the two countries did not establish diplomatic relations until 1933. By that time, the totalitarian nature of Joseph Stalin's regime presented an insurmountable obstacle to friendly relations with the West.
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html
- vkou 9y ago> By that time, the totalitarian nature of Joseph Stalin's regime presented an insurmountable obstacle to friendly relations with the West. That is complete nonesense. The West has had, currently has, and will always have friendly relations with dictators and killers of all shades and stripes, as long as they are useful to us. There is nothing about their domestic policies that we consider insurmountable.
- gaius 9y agoParticularly if they have a veneer of leftist lip service. Plenty of Westerners were and still are supporters of brutal regimes, while hostile to regimes that just happen to be right wing. If the Apartheid regime of SA had called itself "socialist" there would have been no boycotts or concerts...
- dashundchen 9y agoI'm not sure where this bizarre revision of history comes from. The "West", dominated by the US for the past century, has installed plenty of brutal dictators and military regimes, mostly when countries ignored the US to go left, not right. See Iran, Syria, a good fraction of Latin America including Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, along with Korea and Vietnam. Western governments, including Reagan, Nixon, and Thatcher ignored and even actively supported SA's apartheid government for decades. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Baby_Option https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Baby_Option
- dragonwriter 9y ago> If the Apartheid regime of SA had called itself "socialist" there would have been no boycotts or concerts Well, sure, because the Western anti-Communist support that propped it up wouldn't have existed, so there’d have been nothing to protest or boycott. The US and other Western allies didn't support it and (at a minimum) turn a blind eye to Israel transferring nuclear weapons technology to South Africa independently of it's anti-Communisr orientation.
- vkou 9y agoYou are confusing support from a few academics and socialist groups with foreign policy. As it turns out, Noam Chomsky writing nasty op-eds that don't get published in the New York Times has less of an impact then what side of the bed the Secretary of State woke up on.
- igivanov 9y ago>embarked on a famine relief program the bolsheviks sold to the West heaps of art pieces and treasures from museums and expropriated private collections - for food and other vital goods. that would largely explain the "relief program".
- gandhium 9y agoRelief program was a _relief program_. Free as in beer. Why do you think treasures were involved is beyond me.
- Spooky23 9y agoThe US was more than hostile, we had soliders on the ground in Murmansk and Vladivostok. Russia for a few years was in a China like scenario with outside powers.
- gandhium 9y ago> The US was more than hostile, we had soliders on the ground in Murmansk and Vladivostok. US sent soldiers to secure shipments sent to Tsarist Russia. And surprisingly bolsheviks declared themselves "free" of any Tsarist Russia financial burden(s), so allying with Whites was logical. So it wasn't hostile at that time.