Armand Hammer, Lenin, and the First American Concession in Soviet Russia

Slavic Review ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip S. Gillette
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Personal Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
American Trade

In 1921 a young American doctor named Armand Hammer went to Russia, met Lenin, and undertook the first American concession in Soviet Russia. Interest in this episode has been heightened by the fact that fifty years later Armand Hammer, as chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, forged new commercial links between the United States and the Soviet Union. This article provides a new interpretation of Hammer’s meeting with Lenin and his receipt of the first American concession granted by the Soviet government. It throws light on how Soviet national security objectives and personal relations can influence Soviet government decisions on American trade.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 263-284
Author(s):  
Kevin Riehle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Perception Of Threat ◽  
The Stability

Several lessons emerge from these defectors’ revelations. First, the motivations of defectors changed based on the circumstances around them, which reflected Soviet policy changes. Those policy changes, such as purges and increased domestic repression, were often at the foundation of defector’s motivations. Second, vetting standards for Soviet personnel assigned to sensitive national security positions fluctuated, depending on the stability in the Soviet government and the level of urgency for hiring new personnel. When the Soviet Union was stable, it had the luxury of enforcing strict standards. When the Soviet Union needed a lot of people fast—such as during purges or wartime—it did not vet them as thoroughly. Finally, the Soviet perception of threat evolved, beginning with Great Britain as the primary threat in the early Soviet era, and joined by Germany after 1933, although Stalin never abandoned hope for an accommodation with Hitler. However, even before Germany was defeated in 1945, Soviet intelligence began targeting its wartime allies. By the late 1940s, when the United States assumed the role of the leader of the democratic world, the label “main enemy” was coined and applied to the United States, which stuck for the rest of the Soviet era.

Rational Superiority, Crises, and Arms Control, 1961–1963

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Rhetoric ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Test Ban

Chapter 1 describes how John F. Kennedy rose to power by articulating his own new nuclear strategy, which would use the latest advances in social and organizational sciences, combined with US superiority in nuclear weapons, to defend the United States’ national security interests. The foremost exponent of this strategy of “rational superiority” was Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. The chapter then explains how this scheme was dealt a series of blows by Kennedy’s experiences during the Berlin and Cuban missile crises, which disabused him of the idea that nuclear superiority could be used to coerce the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration used the rhetoric of rational superiority to advance the Limited Test Ban Treaty and was planning to employ it as part of the president’s reelection campaign in 1964. Kennedy had not reconciled this gap between his public rhetoric and personal doubts at the time of his death.

Future Forces and Future Policies

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 35-39
Author(s):  
Richard L. Garwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Great Improvement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Capital ◽  
Missile Attack ◽  
Do So

Pertinent Highlights of the SALT Agreements: The SALT I Agreements signed in Moscow May 26, 1972, were the result of more than three years of negotiation by the Nixon Administration. They provide the basis for a great improvement in national security. The ABM Treaty recognizes the technical reality that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States can defend its population or industry against ballistic missile attack and that it is not simply wasteful but counterproductive to try to do so. The treaty limits each side to a negligible defense at two sites—the national capital and another at least 800 miles away. Furthermore, it limits the number of radar complexes around the national capital to six, at most, and the number of interceptors at each of the two sites to 100, with the clear implication that not only should these defenses against missiles be penetrable but also destroyable by those missiles.

Council of Foreign Ministers

1951 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-229
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
German Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Foreign Ministers

Proposed Meeting of the Council: Meeting in Prague on October 20 and 21, 1950, the foreign ministers of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, eastern Germany and the Soviet Union issued a statement in reply to the communiqué on Germany released on September 19 by the foreign ministers of France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Charging that the position of the three western governments was merely a screen to conceal the aggressive objectives of the North Atlantic Treaty and that the creation of mobile police formations was nothing less than the reconstitution of a German army, the eight foreign ministers stated that they considered as urgent 1) the publication by the three western powers and the Soviet Union of a statement of their intent to refuse to permit German rearmament and of their unswerving determination to create a united peace-loving German state; 2) the removal of all restrictions hindering the development of the peaceful German economy and the prevention of a resurgence of German war potential; 3) the conclusion of a German treaty and the withdrawal of all occupation forces within one year of its conclusion; and 4) the creation of an all-German constituent council to prepare for a provisional German government. The text of the communiqué was communicated to the United Kingdom, the United States and France under cover of a Soviet note on November 3. Stating that the Prague declaration possessed “the greatest significance for the cause of assuring international peace and security” and touched the “fundamental national interests of the peoples of Europe,” the Soviet government proposed the convening of the Council of Foreign Ministers „for consideration of the question of fulfillment of the Potsdam agreement regarding demilitarization of Germany.”

The Soviet Union and World Peace

1946 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-474
Author(s):  
N. S. Timasheff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
World Peace ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Post War

On the two victory days, military action on the fronts stopped. But peace did not return, nor does anyone know when it will. Peace is not simply absence of military .ction. It is a state of international relations corresponding to “periods of normalcy” in the internal affairs of a nation. Peace exists, when these relations are dominated by good will, mutual understanding and friendly cooperation.The post-war world longs for peace. But there is no peace because, among the sovereign states, there is one which acts against peace. This is the Soviet Union. Is it, however, certain that the foreign policy of the Soviets is aggressive? Is it not true that, in Moscow, aggressiveness is ascribed to the United States and to the alleged Western bloc headed by it?In March, 1946, Professor E. Tarle, an authoritative spokesman of the Soviet government, placed in opposition “the old imperialistic concept of international relations” practiced by London and Washington and “the Soviet conception which is based on respect for the rights of the peoples and their real independence.”

Historical and textual research and essence analysis of the evolution of Lenin’s “German Spy” case

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (02) ◽  
pp. 32-49
Author(s):  
Li Yan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
New Materials ◽  
German Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Media ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Textual Research

The rumors that Lenin was a “German spy” first appeared in Petrograd after the February revolution in Russia. During the Soviet period, the “Sisson documents” (papers) were fabricated in the United States and other Western countries, and other evidence was sought that Lenin was allegedly an “agent” of the German government. However, all the evidence presented were convincingly refuted. V. I. Lenin’s “German spy” case was discussed again during the collapse of the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. In some Russian media, political and academic circles, this “case” was reproduced in various forms, but new materials and new evidences were not found.

The Soviet Income Revolution

Slavic Review ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Yanowitch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Russia

A number of studies of income distribution have suggested that income inequality in the United States showed some tendency to decline during the 1930's and the war years. Although the extent and timing of the decline may be in dispute among specialists in this area, and some recent studies suggest that no significant changes in income shares have occurred since 1944, the American Income Revolution has nonetheless been widely accepted and acclaimed. All the more reason, it would seem, that studies of changes in income inequality in Soviet Russia should prove of great interest. If income inequality has been reduced in the world's major capitalist economy, what has been happening to income distribution in the Soviet Union?

Consular Immunities: the Kasenkina Case (U.S.–U.S.S.R.)

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Lawrence Preuss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Legal Case ◽  
The Status

The recent Kasenkina and Samarin affairs, which led to a breach of consular relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, have raised a number of legal issues relating to the status of foreign consular officials. The legal principles involved, however, have been beclouded by widespread misunderstanding of the nature and scope of consular privileges and immunities, by obviously baseless charges made by the Soviet Government against that of the United States, and by the apparent reluctance of the latter to press to its fullest extent a sound legal case.

scholarly journals A Horse Derby, A Missed Connection, and Hiking through the Alps: John Dewey's 1928 visit to the Soviet Union

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladislav Ryabyy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Department ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
Soviet Russia

After December 6, 1917, the government of the United States led by President Woodrow Wilson decided not to recognize the new government of Russia, which was led by the Bolshevik Party. Some of the reasons for this lack of recognition came from the Bolshevik government’srefusal to honor prior debits owed by the Tsarist government and the seizure of American property. The next three presidents would continue this policy.1 For the next sixteen years, many Americans visited and wrote about the Soviet Union. Amongst those visitors was a delegation of twenty-five who visited the Soviet Union in the summer of 1928. Their stated purpose was to,“study methods of public instruction in Soviet Russia this summer.” 2 The most influential amongst the twenty-five was John Dewey, a professor of philosophy at Colombia University and one of the leading educational reformers in the United States. In the time during and after this trip Dewey wrote a series of articles for the “New Republic” and later collected these articles andplaced them in his book, Impressions of the Revolutionary World.3 This book also dealt with his travels to China in 1920, Turkey in 1924, and Mexico in 1926. This book does not tell the full story of the trip. By analyzing his letters that he sent during this time, one can recreate a partial itinerary of his daily activities and those that he met with. Those letters also reveal that this trip influenced not only the twenty-five educators from the United States but also had an impact on Soviet educators because they had the ability to finally meet the man that they had studied for so long. The United States Department of State was also interested in this trip and used it to learn more about the Soviet Union. The Department of State was also dealing with anticommunism at this time and this caused Dewey’s trip to be closely monitored. The New York Times and other newspapers reported on this trip and the aftermath of this trip can be seen through these reports. This trip impacted not only those within the Soviet Union but also the State Departments and the American public’s view of the Soviet Union.

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