 | |
 Soviet Union |  United States |
|---|---|
| Diplomatic mission | |
| Embassy of the Soviet Union, Washington, D.C. | Embassy of the United States, Moscow |
| Envoy | |
| Ambassador Maxim Litvinov (first) Viktor Komplektov [ru] (last) | Ambassador William C. Bullitt Jr. (first) Robert S. Strauss (last) |
Relations between theSoviet Union and theUnited States were fully established in 1933 as the succeeding bilateral ties to those between theRussian Empire and the United States, which lasted from 1809[1] until 1917; they were also the predecessor to the current bilateral ties between theRussian Federation and the United States that began in 1992 after the end of theCold War.
The relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States was largely defined by mistrust and hostility. Theinvasion of the Soviet Union byGermany as well as theattack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor byImperial Japan marked the Soviet and American entries intoWorld War II on the side of theAllies in June and December 1941, respectively. As the Soviet–American alliance against theAxis came to an end following the Allied victory in 1945, the first signs of post-war mistrust and hostility began to immediately appear between the two countries, as the Soviet Unionmilitarily occupied Eastern European countries and turned them intosatellite states, forming theEastern Bloc. These bilateral tensions escalated into theCold War, a decades-long period of tense hostile relations with short phases ofdétente that ended after thecollapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of the present-dayRussian Federation at the end of 1991.
In wake of theFebruary Revolution andTsar Nicholas II's abdication, Washington was still largely ignorant of the underlying fractures in newRussian Provisional Government and believed thatRussia would rapidly evolve into a stable democracy enthusiastic to join thewestern coalition in thewar against Germany.[2] With the establishment of theProvisional Government,United States Ambassador toPetrogradDavid R. Francis immediately requested from Washington authority to recognize the new government arguing the revolution "is the practical realization of that principle of government which we have championed and advocated. I mean government by consent of the governed. Our recognition will have a stupendous moral effect especially if given first." and was approved on 22 March 1917 making the United States the first foreign government to formally recognize the new government.[3][2][4] A week and a half later whenPresident Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress to request adeclaration of war against Germany, Wilson remarked "Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart... Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor."[2][5]
Hoping the fledglingparliamentary democracy would reinvigorate Russian contributions to the war, President Wilson took sizable strides to build a relationship with theProvisional Government. The day following his requestdeclaration of war on Germany, Wilson began offering American governmental credits to the new Russian government totaling $325 million – about half of which was actually used. Wilson also dispatched the Root Mission, a delegation led byElihu Root and inclusive of leaders from theAmerican Federation of Labor,YMCA, and theInternational Harvester company, toPetrograd to negotiate means through which the United States could encourage further Russian commitment to the war.[6] By product of poorly chosen delegates, a lack of interest from those delegates, and a significant inattention to the role and influence of thePetrograd Soviet (some members of which were opposed to the continuingRussian war effort), the mission made little benefit to either nation. Despite the satisfactory reports returning from Petrograd, whose impression of the nation's conditions came directly from theProvisional Government, Americanconsular and military officials in closer contact with the populace and army occasionally warned Washington to be more skeptical in their assumptions about the new government. Nonetheless, the American government and public were caught off-guard and bewildered by the fall of the Provisional Government in theOctober Revolution.[2][6][7]
After theBolshevik takeover of Russia in the October Revolution,Vladimir Lenin withdrew Russia from the First World War, allowing Germany to reallocate troops to face the Allied forces on the Western Front. This caused theAllied Powers to regard the new Russian government as traitorous for violating theTriple Entente terms against aseparate peace.[8] Concurrently, President Wilson became increasingly aware of thehuman rights violations perpetuated by the newRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and opposed the new regime'smilitant atheism and advocacy of acommand economy. He also was concerned thatcommunism would spread to the remainder of the Western world, and intended his landmarkFourteen Points partially to provideliberal democracy as an alternative worldwide ideology to Communism.[9][10]
However, President Wilson also believed that the new country would eventually transition to afree-market economy after the end of the chaos of theRussian Civil War, and that intervention against Soviet Russia would only turn the country against the United States. He likewise advocated a policy of noninterference in the war in the Fourteen Points, although he argued that the formerRussian Empire'sPolish territory should be ceded to the newly independentSecond Polish Republic. Additionally many of Wilson's political opponents in the United States, including the Chairman of theSenate Foreign Relations CommitteeHenry Cabot Lodge, believed that an independentUkraine should be established. Despite this, the United States, as a result of the fear ofJapanese expansion into Russian-held territory and their support for the Allied-alignedCzech Legion,sent a small number of troops toNorthern Russia andSiberia. The United States also provided indirect aid such as food and supplies to theWhite Army.[8][11][9]
At theParis Peace Conference in 1919 President Wilson and British Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George, despite the objections of French Prime MinisterGeorges Clemenceau and Italian Foreign MinisterSidney Sonnino, pushed forward an idea to convene a summit atPrinkipo between the Bolsheviks and theWhite movement to form a common Russian delegation to the Conference. TheSoviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, under the leadership ofLeon Trotsky andGeorgy Chicherin, received British and American envoys respectfully but had no intentions of agreeing to the deal due to their belief that the Conference was composed of an oldcapitalist order that would be swept away in aworld revolution. By 1921, after the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand in the Russian Civil War,murdered theRomanov imperial family, organized theRed Terror against "enemies of the people", repudiated thetsarist debt, and called for a world revolution, it was regarded as apariah nation by most of the world.[9] Beyond the Russian Civil War, relations were also dogged by claims of American companies for compensation for thenationalized industries they had invested in.[12]
UnderHerbert Hoover, very large scale food relief was distributed to Europe after the war through theAmerican Relief Administration. In 1921, to ease the devastating famine in theRussian SFSR that was triggered by the Soviet government'swar communism policies, the ARA's director in Europe,Walter Lyman Brown, began negotiating with theRussian People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs,Maxim Litvinov, inRiga, Latvia (at that time not yet annexed by the USSR). An agreement was reached on August 21, 1921, and an additional implementation agreement was signed by Brown and People's Commissar for Foreign TradeLeonid Krasin on December 30, 1921. The U.S. Congress appropriated $20,000,000 for relief under theRussian Famine Relief Act of late 1921. Hoover strongly detested Bolshevism, and felt the American aid would demonstrate the superiority of Western capitalism and thus help contain the spread of communism.[13][14]
At its peak, the ARA employed 300 Americans, more than 120,000 Russians and fed 10.5 million people daily. Its Russian operations were headed by Col.William N. Haskell. The Medical Division of the ARA functioned from November 1921 to June 1923 and helped overcome thetyphus epidemic then ravaging Russia. The ARA's famine relief operations ran in parallel with much smallerMennonite, Jewish andQuaker famine relief operations in Russia.[15][16]
The ARA's operations in Russia were shut down on June 15, 1923, after it was discovered that Russia under Lenin renewed the export of grain.[17]
Leaders of American foreign policy remain convinced that the Soviet Union, which was founded by Soviet Russia in 1922, was a hostile threat to American values. Republican Secretary of StateCharles Evans Hughes rejected recognition, telling labor union leaders that, "those in control of Moscow have not given up their original purpose of destroying existing governments wherever they can do so throughout the world."[18] Under PresidentCalvin Coolidge, Secretary of StateFrank B. Kellogg warned that the Kremlin's international agency, theCommunist International (Comintern) was aggressively planning subversion against other nations, including the United States, to "overthrow the existing order."[19]Herbert Hoover in 1919 warned Wilson that, "We cannot even remotely recognize this murderous tyranny without stimulating action is to radicalism in every country in Europe and without transgressing on every National ideal of our own."[20] Inside theU.S. State Department, the Division of Eastern European Affairs by 1924 was dominated byRobert F. Kelley, a dedicated opponent of communism who trained a generation of specialists includingGeorge Kennan andCharles Bohlen.[21]
Meanwhile, Great Britain took the lead in reopening relations with Moscow, especially trade, although they remained suspicious of communist subversion, and angry at the Kremlin's repudiation of Russian debts. Outside Washington, there was some American support for renewed relationships, especially in terms of technology.[22]Henry Ford, committed to the belief that international trade was the best way to avoid warfare, used hisFord Motor Company to build a truck industry and introduce tractors into Russia. ArchitectAlbert Kahn became a consultant for all industrial construction in the Soviet Union in 1930.[23] A few intellectuals on the left showed an interest. After 1930, a number of activist intellectuals have become members of theCommunist Party USA, or fellow travelers, and drummed up support for the Soviet Union. TheAmerican labor movement was divided, with theAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL) ananti-communist stronghold, whileleft-wing elements in the late 1930s formed the rivalCongress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CPUSA played a major role in the CIO until its members were removed beginning in 1946, and American organized labor became stronglyanti-Soviet.[24]
Founded in 1924,Amtorg Trading Corporation, based in New York, was the main organization governing trade between the USSR and the US.[25] By 1946, Amtorg organized a multi-million dollar trade.[26] Amtorg handled almost all exports from the USSR, comprising mostly lumber, furs, flax, bristles, and caviar, and all imports of raw materials and machinery for Soviet industry and agriculture. It also provided American companies with information about trade opportunities in the USSR and supplied Soviet industries with technical news and information about American companies.[27][28] Amtorg was also involved inSoviet espionage against the United States.[29] It was joined, in both its trade and espionage roles, by theSoviet Government Purchasing Commission from 1942 onward.[30]
During Lenin's tenure, American businessmanArmand Hammer established a pencil factory in the Soviet Union, hiring German craftsmen and shipping American grain into the Soviet Union. Hammer also established asbestos mines and acquired fur trapping facilities east of the Urals. During Lenin'sNew Economic Policy, which stemmed from the failure of war communism, Armand Hammer became the mediator for 38 international companies in their dealings with the USSR.[31] Before Lenin's death, Hammer negotiated the import ofFordson tractors into the USSR, which served a major role in agricultural mechanization in the country.[32][31] Later, after Stalin came to power, additional deals were negotiated with Hammer as an American–Soviet negotiator.[31]
HistorianHarvey Klehr describes that Armand Hammer "met Lenin in 1921 and, in return for a concession to manufacture pencils, agreed to launder Soviet money to benefit communist parties in Europe and America."[33] HistorianEdward Jay Epstein noted that "Hammer received extraordinary treatment from Moscow in many ways. He was permitted by the Soviet Government to take millions of dollars worth of Tsarist art out of the country when he returned to the United States in 1932."[34] According to journalist Alan Farnham, "Over the decades Hammer continued traveling to Russia, hobnobbing with its leaders to the point that both the CIA and the FBI suspected him of being a full-fledged agent."[35]
In 1929,Henry Ford made an agreement with the Russians to provide technical aid over nine years in building the first Soviet automobile plant,GAZ, inGorky (Stalin renamed Nizhny Novgorod after his favorite writer).[36][37] The plant would constructFord Model A andModel AA trucks.[37] An additional contract for construction of the plant was signed with The Austin Company on August 23, 1929.[38] The contract involved the purchase of $30,000,000 worth of Ford cars and trucks for assembly during the first four years of the plant's operation, after which the plant would gradually switch to Soviet-made components. Ford sent his engineers and technicians to the Soviet Union to help install the equipment and train the workforce, while over a hundred Soviet engineers and technicians were stationed at Ford's plants in Detroit andDearborn "for the purpose of learning the methods and practice of manufacture and assembly in the Company's plants".[39][40]
By 1933, the American business community, as well as newspaper editors, were calling for diplomatic recognition. The business community was eager for large-scale trade with the Soviet Union. The U.S. government hoped for some repayment on the old tsarist debts, and a promise not to support subversive movements inside the U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt took the initiative, with the assistance of his close friend and advisorHenry Morgenthau Jr. and Russian expertWilliam Bullitt, bypassing the State Department.[41][42] Roosevelt commissioned a survey of public opinion, which at the time meant asking 1100 newspaper editors; 63 percent favored recognition of the USSR and 27 percent were opposed. Roosevelt met personally with Catholic leaders to overcome their objections stemming from thepersecution of religious believers and systematic demolition of churches in the USSR.[43][44] Roosevelt then invited Foreign MinisterMaxim Litvinov to Washington for a series of high-level meetings in November 1933. He and Roosevelt agreed on issues of religious freedom for Americans working in the Soviet Union. The USSR promised not to interfere in internal American affairs, something they would not honor, and to ensure that no organization in the USSR was working to hurt the U.S. or overthrow its government by force, similarly a broken promise. Both sides agreed to postpone the debt question to a later date. Roosevelt thereupon announced an agreement on resumption of normal relations with the signing of the Roosevelt-Litvinov agreements on November 16, 1933.[45][46][47][48][49] There were few complaints about the move.[50]
However, there was no progress on the debt issue, and little additional trade. HistoriansJustus D. Doenecke and Mark A. Stoler note that, "Both nations were soon disillusioned by the accord."[51] Many American businessmen expected a bonus in terms of large-scale trade, but it never materialized, instead being a one-way movement that saw the United States fuel the Soviet Union with technology.[52]
Roosevelt namedWilliam Bullitt as ambassador to the USSR from 1933 to 1936. Bullitt arrived in Moscow with high hopes for Soviet–American relations, but his view of the Soviet leadership soured on closer inspection due to the regime's totalitarian nature andterror. By the end of his tenure, Bullitt was openly hostile to the Soviet government. He remained an outspoken anti-communist for the rest of his life.[53][54]
Before the Germans decidedto invade the Soviet Union in June 1941, relations remained strained, as theSoviet invasion of Finland,Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact,Soviet invasion of the Baltic states and theSoviet invasion of Poland stirred, which resulted in Soviet Union's expulsion from theLeague of Nations. Come the invasion of 1941, the Soviet Union entered a Mutual Assistance Treaty with the United Kingdom, and received massive aid from the AmericanLend-Lease program, relieving American–Soviet tensions, and bringing together former enemies in the fight againstGermany and theAxis powers.
Though operational cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union was notably less than that between other allied powers, the United States nevertheless provided the Soviet Union with huge quantities of weapons, ships, aircraft, rolling stock,strategic materials, and food through the Lend-Lease program. The Americans and the Soviets were as much for war with Germany as for the expansion of an ideological sphere of influence. Before the United States joined the war, future PresidentHarry S. Truman stated that it did not matter to him if a German or a Russian soldier died so long as either side is losing.[55]
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.[56]
This quote without its last part later became a staple inSoviet and laterRussian propaganda as "evidence" of an American conspiracy to destroy the country.[57][58]
The American Russian Cultural Association (Russian: Американо–русская культурная ассоциация) was organized in the United States in 1942 to encourage cultural ties between the Soviet Union and U.S., withNicholas Roerich as honorary president. The group's first annual report was issued the following year. The group does not appear to have lasted much past Nicholas Roerich's death in 1947.[59][60]
In total, the U.S. deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11billion in materials: over 400,000jeeps and trucks; 12,000armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[61] of which wereM3 Lees and 4,102M4 Shermans);[62] 11,400 aircraft (4,719 of which wereBell P-39 Airacobras)[63] and 1.75 million tons of food.[64]
Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from theWestern Hemisphere to the Soviet Union, with 94 percent coming from the United States. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through thePersian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.[65][66]
The United States delivered to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the following: 427,284trucks, 13,303combat vehicles, 35,170motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons ofpetroleum products (gasoline andoil) or 57.8 percent of thehigh-octane aviation fuel,[67] 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats,sugar,flour,salt, etc.), 1,911steam locomotives, 66diesel locomotives, 9,920flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. Provided ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) amounted to 53 percent of total domestic production.[67] One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford'sRiver Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about eleven billion dollars.[68]
Memorandum for the President's Special AssistantHarry Hopkins, Washington, D.C., 10 August 1943:
In World War II Russia occupies a dominant position and is the decisive factor looking toward the defeat of the Axis in Europe. While in Sicily the forces of Great Britain and the United States are being opposed by 2 German divisions, the Russian front is receiving attention of approximately 200 German divisions. Whenever the Allies open a second front on the Continent, it will be decidedly a secondary front to that of Russia; theirs will continue to be the main effort. Without Russia in the war, the Axis cannot be defeated in Europe, and the position of the United Nations becomes precarious. Similarly, Russia's post-war position in Europe will be a dominant one. With Germany crushed, there is no power in Europe to oppose her tremendous military forces.[69]
 | |
 United States | Soviet Union |
|---|---|
The end of World War II saw the resurgence of previous divisions between the two nations. The expansion of communism inEastern Europe following Germany's defeat saw the Soviet Uniontakeover Eastern European countries, purge their leadership and intelligentsia, and install puppet communist regime, in effect turning the countries into client orsatellite states.[70] This worried the liberal free market economies of the West, particularly the United States, which had established virtual economic and political leadership in Western Europe, helping rebuild the devastated continent and revive and modernize its economy with theMarshall Plan.[71] The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was draining its satellites' resources by having them pay reparations to the USSR or simply looting.[72]
The United States and the Soviet Union nations promoted two opposing economic and political ideologies, and the two nations competed for international influence along these lines. This protracted geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle—lasting from the announcement of theTruman Doctrine on March 12, 1947, in response to the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991—is known as theCold War, a period of nearly 45 years.
The Soviet Union detonated itsfirst nuclear weapon in 1949, ending the United States' monopoly on nuclear weapons. The United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a conventional andnuclear arms race that persisted until the collapse of the Soviet Union.Andrei Gromyko wasMinister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, and is the longest-servingforeign minister in the world.
After Germany's defeat, the United States sought to help its Western European allies economically with theMarshall Plan. The United States extended the Marshall Plan to the Soviet Union, but under such terms, the Americans knew the Soviets would never accept, namely the acceptance democracy and free elections in Soviet satellite states. The Soviet Union sought to counter the Marshall Plan with theComecon in 1949, which essentially did the same thing, though was more an economic cooperation agreement instead of a clear plan to rebuild. The United States and itsWestern European allies sought to strengthen their bonds; they accomplished this most notably through the formation ofNATO which was essentially a defensive agreement in 1949. The Soviet Union countered with theWarsaw Pact in 1955, which had similar results with theEastern Bloc. As by 1955 the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its easternsatellite states, the pact has been long considered "superfluous".[73][74] Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard theSoviet Union's hegemony over itsEastern European satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away.[75] In 1961,East Germany constructed theBerlin Wall to prevent the citizens ofEast Berlin from fleeing toWest Berlin (part of US-alliedWest Germany. This prompted President Kennedy to deliver one of the most famous anti-Soviet speeches, titled "Ich bin ein Berliner".[76][77]
In 1949, theCoordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) was established by Western governments to monitor the export of sensitive high technology that would improve military effectiveness of members of the Warsaw Pact and certain other countries.
All sides in the Cold War engaged in espionage. The SovietKGB ("Committee for State Security"), the bureau responsible for foreign espionage and internal surveillance, was famous for its effectiveness. The most famous Soviet operation involved itsatomic spies that delivered crucial information from the United States'Manhattan Project, leading the USSR to detonate its first nuclear weapon in 1949, four years after the American detonation and much sooner than expected.[78][79] A massive network of informants throughout the Soviet Union was used to monitor dissent from official Soviet politics and morals.[80][81]
Détente began in 1969, as a core element of the foreign policy of presidentRichard Nixon and his top advisorHenry Kissinger. They wanted to end thecontainment policy and gain friendlier relations with the USSR and China. Those two werebitter rivals and Nixon expected they would go along with Washington as to not give the other rival an advantage. One of Nixon's terms is that both nations had to stop helping North Vietnam in theVietnam War, which they did. Nixon and Kissinger promoted greater dialogue with the Soviet government, including regular summit meetings and negotiations over arms control and other bilateral agreements. Brezhnev met with Nixon at summits in Moscow in 1972, in Washington in 1973, and, again in Moscow and Kiev in 1974. They became personal friends.[82][83] Détente was known inRussian as разрядка (razryadka, loosely meaning "relaxation of tension").[84]
The period was characterized by the signing of treaties such asSALT I and theHelsinki Accords. Another treaty,START II, was discussed but never ratified by the United States due to theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. There is still ongoing debate amongst historians as to how successful the détente period was in achieving peace.[85][86]
After theCuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the two superpowers agreed to install a direct hotline between Washington, D.C., and Moscow (the so-calledred telephone), enabling leaders of both countries to quickly interact with each other in a time of urgency, and reduce the chances that future crises could escalate into an all-out war. The U.S./USSR détente was presented as an applied extension of that thinking. The SALT II pact of the late 1970s continued the work of the SALT I talks, ensuring further reduction in arms by the USSR and by the U.S. The Helsinki Accords, in which the Soviets promised to grant free elections in Europe, has been called a major concession to ensure peace by the Soviets.
In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed therule of law,civil liberties,protection of law andguarantees of property,[87][88] which were considered examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet legal theorists such asAndrey Vyshinsky.[89] The Soviet Union signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 and the Helsinki Accords in 1975, but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by the Communist authorities.[90]: 117 Human rights activists in the Soviet Union were regularly subjected to harassment, repressions and arrests.
The pro-Soviet American business magnateArmand Hammer ofOccidental Petroleum often mediated trade relations. AuthorDaniel Yergin, in his bookThe Prize, writes that Hammer "ended up as a go-between for five Soviet General Secretaries and seven U.S. Presidents."[91] Hammer had extensive business relationship in the Soviet Union stretching back to the 1920s with Lenin's approval.[92][93] According toChristian Science Monitor in 1980, "although his business dealings with the Soviet Union were cut short when Stalin came to power, he had more or less single-handedly laid the groundwork for the [1980] state of Western trade with the Soviet Union."[92] In 1974, Brezhnev "publicly recognized Hammer's role in facilitating East-West trade." By 1981, according to theNew York Times in that year, Hammer was on a "first-name basis with Leonid Brezhnev."[93]
Despite the otherwise improvement in relations, various tensions would appear during détente. These included theBrezhnev Doctrine, which allowed from Soviet invasions of Warsaw Pact states to keep them under communist rule,[94] theSino-Soviet split, an apparent rapprochement between the United States and China withRichard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. However, Nixon's international relations priority was Soviet détente even after the visit to China.[95] In 1973, Nixon announced his administration was committed to seekingmost favored nation trade status with the USSR,[96] which was challenged by Congress in theJackson-Vanik Amendment.[97] The United States had long linked trade with the Soviet Union to its foreign policy toward the Soviet Union and, especially since the early 1980s, toSoviet human rights policies. TheJackson-Vanik Amendment, which was attached to the1974 Trade Act, linked the granting ofmost-favored-nation to the USSR to the right of persecutedSoviet Jews to emigrate. Because the Soviet Union refused the right of emigration to Jewishrefuseniks, the ability of the President to apply most-favored nation trade status to the Soviet Union was restricted.[98]
Détente, also described aslinkage policy in the West, was challenged by proxy conflicts and increasing Soviet interventions, which included theSecond Yemenite War of 1979.[99] The period of détente ended after theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan, which led to the United States-led 66-nationboycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. The United States, Pakistan, and their allies supported the rebels. To punish Moscow, President Jimmy Carter imposed agrain embargo.[100] Carter also recalled the US AmbassadorThomas J. Watson from Moscow,[101] suspended high-technology exports to the Soviet Union[100][102] and limited ammonia imports from the Soviet Union.[103] According to a 1980 paper, the grain embargo hurt American farmers more than it did the Soviet economy. Other nations sold their own grain to the USSR, and the Soviets had ample reserve stocks.[104] PresidentRonald Reagan resumed sales in 1981.[100] Reagan'selection as president in 1980 was further based in large part on an anti-détente campaign.[105] In his first press conference, President Reagan said "Détente's been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its aims."[106] Following this, relations turned increasingly sour with theSoviet repression of anti-occupation resistance in Poland,[107][108] end of theSALT II negotiations,[109] and the subsequentNATO exercise in 1983.[110]
Reagan escalated the Cold War, accelerating a reversal from the policy of détente, which had begun in 1979 after theSoviet invasion ofAfghanistan.[111] Reagan feared that the Soviet Union had gained a military advantage over the United States, and the Reagan administration hoped that heightened military spending would grant the U.S. military superiority and weaken theSoviet economy.[112] Reagan ordered a massive buildup of theUnited States Armed Forces, directing funding to theB-1 Lancer bomber, theB-2 Spirit bomber,cruise missiles, theMX missile, and the600-ship Navy.[113] In response to Soviet deployment of theSS-20, Reagan oversawNATO's deployment of thePershing missile in West Germany.[114] The president also strongly denounced the Soviet Union and communist totalitarianism in moral terms, denouncing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire".[115][116]
The failing Soviet economy and a disastrous war in Afghanistan contributed toMikhail Gorbachev's rise to power, who introduced political reforms calledglasnost andperestroika aimed at liberalizing the Soviet economy and society. At theMalta Summit of December 1989, both the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union declared the Cold War over, and the Soviet forces retreated from Afghanistan.[117] In 1991, the two countries were partners in theGulf War againstIraq, a longtime Soviet ally. On 31 July 1991, theSTART I treaty cutting the number of deployed nuclear warheads of both countries was signed by Gorbachev and Bush. START negotiated the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, and its final implementation in late 2001 resulted in the removal of about 80% of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence.[118]
Reagan and Gorbachev had eased Cold War tensions during Reagan's second term, but Bush was initially skeptical of Soviet intentions.[119] During the first year of his tenure, Bush pursued what Soviets referred to as thepauza, a break in Reagan's détente policies.[120] While Bush implemented hispauza policy in 1989, Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe challenged Soviet domination.[121] Bush helped convince Polish Communist leaders toallow democratic elections in June, won by the anti-Communists. In 1989, Communist governments fell in all the satellites, with significant violence only in Romania. In November 1989, massive popular demand forced the government ofEast Germany to open theBerlin Wall, and it was soon demolished by Berliners.[122] Gorbachev refused to send in the Soviet military, effectively abandoning theBrezhnev Doctrine.[123] Within a few weeks Communist regimes across Eastern Europe collapsed, and Soviet-supported parties across the globe became demoralized. The U.S. was not directly involved in these upheavals, but the Bush administration avoided the appearance of gloating over the NATO victory to avoid undermining further democratic reforms, especially in the USSR.[124][125]
Bush and Gorbachev met in December 1989 at thesummit on the island of Malta. Bush sought cooperative relations with Gorbachev throughout the remainder of his term, putting his trust in Gorbachev to suppress the remaining Soviet hard-liners.[126] The key issue at the Malta Summit was the potentialreunification of Germany.[127] While Britain and France were wary of a re-unified Germany, Bush pushed for German reunification alongside West German ChancellorHelmut Kohl.[128] Gorbachev resisted the idea of a reunified Germany, especially if it became part ofNATO, but the upheavals of the previous year had sapped his power at home and abroad.[129] Gorbachev agreed to hold "Two-Plus-Four" talks among the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Britain, West Germany, and East Germany, which commenced in 1990. After extensive negotiations, Gorbachev eventually agreed to allow a reunified Germany to be a part of NATO. With the signing of theTreaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, Germany officially reunified in October 1990.[130]
While Gorbachev acquiesced to the democratization of Soviet satellite states, he suppressed separatist movements within the Soviet Union itself.[131] Stalin hadoccupied and annexed theBaltic states ofLithuania,Latvia, andEstonia in the 1940s. The old leadership was executed or deported or fled; hundreds of thousands of Russians moved in, but nowhere were they a majority. Hatreds simmered. Lithuania's March 1990proclamation of independence was strongly opposed by Gorbachev, who feared that the Soviet Union could fall apart if he allowed Lithuania's independence. The United States had never recognized the Soviet incorporation of the Baltic states, and the crisis in Lithuania left Bush in a difficult position. Bush needed Gorbachev's cooperation in the reunification of Germany, and he feared that the collapse of the Soviet Union could leave nuclear arms in dangerous hands. The Bush administration mildly protested Gorbachev's suppression of Lithuania's independence movement, but took no action to directly intervene.[132] Bush warned independence movements of the disorder that could come with secession from the Soviet Union; in a 1991 address that critics labeled the "Chicken Kiev speech", he cautioned against "suicidal nationalism".[133]
In July 1991, Bush and Gorbachev signed theStrategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) treaty, the first major arms agreement since the 1987Intermediate Ranged Nuclear Forces Treaty.[134] Both countries agreed to cut their strategic nuclear weapons by 30 percent, and the Soviet Union promised to reduce itsintercontinental ballistic missile force by 50 percent.[135] Along with this, American businesses started to enter the liberalized Soviet economy, leading to famous U.S. companies opening their stores in Russia. Perhaps the most famous example isMcDonald's, whose first restaurant in Moscow led to aculture shock on behalf of bewildered Soviet citizens, who stood in huge lines to buy Americanfast food.[136] The first McDonald's in the country had a grand opening on Moscow'sPushkin Square on 31 January 1990 with approximately 38,000 customers waiting in hours long lines, breaking company records at the time.[137] In August 1991, hard-line conservative Communists launched acoup attempt against Gorbachev; while the coup quickly fell apart, it broke the remaining power of Gorbachev and the central Soviet government.[138] Later that month, Gorbachev resigned asgeneral secretary of the Communist party, andRussian PresidentBoris Yeltsin ordered the seizure of Soviet property. Gorbachev clung to power as the President of the Soviet Union until 25 December 1991, when the USSRdissolved.[139]Fifteen states emerged from the Soviet Union, with by far the largest and most populous one (which also was the founder of the Soviet state with theOctober Revolution in Petrograd), theRussian Federation, taking full responsibility for all the rights and obligations of the USSR under the Charter of the United Nations, including the financial obligations. As such, Russia assumed the Soviet Union'sUN membership and permanent membership on the Security Council, nuclear stockpile and the control over the armed forces; Soviet embassies abroad became Russian embassies.[140] Bush and Yeltsin met in February 1992, declaring a new era of "friendship and partnership".[141] In January 1993, Bush and Yeltsin agreed toSTART II, which provided for further nuclear arms reductions on top of the original START treaty.[142]
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