controlled under the guise of foreign aid. Although the Americans were idealistic of the possibility for post-war peace, the Russians, indoctrinated by their own perverse ideology, forced a stalemate between the two largest superpowers that would last the rest of the century.
The Soviet Union and her leaders made their priorities clear to the United States and beyond during the first several decades of the twentieth century.
Vladimir Lenin, then the leader of the Bolsheviks, encouraged a Communist insurrection in the United States in his open letter to American workers. Lenin writes, “Comrades! At the present time the American revolutionary workers have to play an exceptionally important role as confrontational enemies of American imperialism–the freshest, strongest and latest in joining in the world-wide slaughter of nations the division of capital“ He encourages the downfall of the capitalist US in order for Communism to spread and the conception of a revolution “American Proletariat.” Seven years later, Joseph Stalin repeats this threat. In accordance with Lenin's original aspirations, Stalin welcomes an international rebellion against capitalist institutions and governments. Stalin warns the West, “They will realize that it is high time for them, the Western workers, to set up workers’ states in their own countries. That is why the very existence of the Soviet state is a deadly menace to imperialism. That is why no successes that imperialism achieves can be durable as long as the Soviet state exists and develops.” In his speech, Stalin validates the fears of Palmer and Wilson, prophesying a future in which Communism trumps Capitalism. By the late 1930s, Stalin knows that a war with Germany would lead to the end of the Soviet Union and more
importantly, the dream of international communism. To prevent this disintegration from occurring Stalin agrees to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, sanctioning a German invasion of Poland. Although the Nazi’s values ran contrary to the Soviet’s, Stalin found the agreement palatable enough to sustain friendly relations until the early 1940s.
In putting the survival of ideology, above principle Stalin clearly delineates the measures he will take to grow Communism and crush the capitalist Americans. The Soviets seem to be conciliatory during World War II. The Russians sacrificed tens of millions of its own countrymen to vanquish the German threat. This commitment to victory led both the Americans and British governments to believe that a peaceful world with the three superpowers could be possible. However, Stalin did not feel the same way. At the first conference in Tehran, Stalin had Franklin Roosevelt’s room wiretapped. The breach of trust ordered by Stalin against one of his supposed allies signaled a start of Soviet hostility towards the United States that would continue for nearly another half century.