United States and the Russian Revolution
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American involvement in the Russian Revolution was the key event that pitted the United States and the Soviet Union against each other for the next seventy years. It was the foundation for a face-off between the two nations that would emerge as the world's superpowers.
Allied intervention
The United States responded to the Russian Revolution of 1917 by participating in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War with the Allies of World War I in support of the White movement, in seeking to overthrow the Bolsheviks.[1] The United States withheld diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union until 1933.[2]
Under his
Following Wilson's decision, the 339th Infantry Regiment was mobilized and sent to Archangel, with a brief stop in England. Under British leadership, Generals F.C. Poole and
Domestic response
Inevitably, Americans became concerned about Bolshevism in the United States. Many viewed
It was not until men such as Francis Fisher Kane, a member of the Justice Department, and Lewis F. Post, Acting Secretary, exposed the violation of civil liberties that the public began to question the actions of the Palmer Raids. With the economy stable once again and no violent anarchist acts since the bombing of Palmer's home, the public began to criticize Palmer once again for these violations. The Red Scare was coming to an end.[citation needed]
Cold War implications
Once Americans left Archangel in 1919, distrust grew between communist Russia and capitalist America as the twentieth century developed. At the height of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev recalled America's Russian Expedition by saying "We remember the grim days when American soldiers went to our soldiers headed by their generals…Never have any of our soldiers been on American soil, but your soldiers were on Russian soil. These are facts."[4] The creation of the Cold War evolved out of World War II, but American intervention in the Russian Revolution created a sentiment between the United States and USSR that either communism or capitalism should prevail.
Results
The results of U.S. action toward the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union created an anti-Soviet attitude in America. This attitude, along with the Soviet's anti-capitalism ideals, created a hostility that would remain strong throughout the rest of the century. World War II proved to be the high point of Soviet-U.S. relations, which would quickly drop off after the war. Journalist Harry Schwartz sums it up in his article in the July 7, 1963 New York Times: "Soviet-United States relations since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution have gone through almost all possible phases from warm comradeship in arms to the deepest hostility".
References
- ISBN 9781848136823.
- ^ Recognition of the Soviet Union, 1933
- ^ "Prologue: Current Issue". National Archives. 2016-08-15. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
- ^ .