Analysis: "The Sources of Soviet Conduct"
"The Sources of Soviet Conduct" is a significant analysis of the early Cold War mindset, particularly regarding U.S. foreign policy towards the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Written by George F. Kennan in July 1947, the article emphasizes the historical roots of Soviet expansionism, linking them to both Marxist ideology and a long-standing tradition of Russian imperialism. Kennan argues that the U.S. must adopt a policy of containment to manage Soviet ambitions and prevent further Communist encroachment in Eastern Europe and beyond.
As the geopolitical landscape evolved post-World War II, many in the U.S. questioned how to address the Soviet threat. While some advocated for cooperation, Kennan proposed a more cautious approach, warning that the ideological framework of Soviet Communism, characterized by a belief in the inevitable demise of capitalism, would drive continued expansionist efforts. His insights laid the groundwork for the U.S. containment policy, which aimed for a proactive stance against Soviet initiatives globally.
Kennan’s analysis reflects a critical moment in international relations, as it underscores the complexities of engaging with a regime motivated by both ideological conviction and historical precedent. This perspective invites further exploration of the dynamics that shaped the Cold War and the enduring impact of Kennan's ideas on American foreign policy.
Analysis: "The Sources of Soviet Conduct"
Date: July 1947
Author: George F. Kennan
Genre: article; editorial
Summary Overview
Within two years after the end of World War II, it was becoming increasingly clear in the United States that the nation's wartime alliance with the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was turning sour. Many in the United States wondered how this could have happened so quickly. One man who not only gave an answer, but also a prescription for what to do about it was America's chargé d'affaires in Moscow, George F. Kennan. Writing in the July 1947 issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, under the pseudonym “X,” Kennan wrote from his firsthand knowledge of the Soviet government. He wrote of the history of Russia's desire to expand and the ideological backing now given to it by Stalinism, advising a policy that came to be known as “containment”—the long-term limitation of the Soviets to their own sphere of influence and swift attention whenever they tried to exceed that.
Defining Moment
As World War II came to an end, Americans became increasingly concerned with the geopolitical aspirations of the Soviet Union. With the Soviet Army still occupying large swaths of Eastern Europe and the nations of that region quickly setting up Communist governments, foreign policy experts in the United States and Western Europe scrambled to figure out the best course of action. Some urged cooperation with the Soviet Union, since the United States and most of Europe had just concluded its second cataclysmic war in less than thirty years. Others, such as US senator James O. Eastland, cited the example of the appeasement of Nazi Germany during the 1930s, which only emboldened Hitler to continue German militarization and expansion.
During 1945 and 1946, Communism spread across Eastern Europe at an alarming rate, with East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, and Yugoslavia establishing Communist governments. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union worked to foster Communist uprisings in other nations as well. The very first complaint dealt with by the new United Nations had to do with the Soviet refusal to withdraw its troops from Iran after the war. Communists, supported by Yugoslavia, fought nationalists in Greece. In Turkey, the Soviet Union demanded that it be given free access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean through the two Turkish straits known as the Dardanelles and the Bosporus; the Soviets staged naval exercises in the Black Sea and sent troops to the Balkans—both actions aimed at intimidating Turkey.
As early as February 1946, many in the federal government sought to formulate a coherent policy toward the Soviets. It was at this point that George F. Kennan began to articulate his opinions in what became known as the “Long Telegram.” In it, he made observations about the factors that contributed to the Soviet desire to expand, stating that Soviet actions were shaped both by Marxist ideology and the long tradition of Russian expansionism and imperialism. As such, he argued that the United States could expect Soviet behavior to continue to seek expansion and that the combination of this with the paranoia he asserted to be inherent in Communist ideology was going to pose an ongoing threat to the United States and Western Europe.
By mid-1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall had proposed what became known as the Marshall Plan, which gave massive US economic aid to the nations of Europe under the premise that economically-secure nations would be much less likely to succumb to Communist agitation. But although the Marshall Plan was seen as a part of the American policy to make Soviet expansion more difficult, it still did not deal with how to respond to Stalin's aggressive plans to foster Communist revolutions around the world when they came to bear in particular nations. It was at this point that Kennan wrote an opinion for Defense Secretary James V. Forrestal, which was published in the journal Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym “X” and became the basis for the policy of containment.
Author Biography
George F. Kennan was one of the few American diplomats with significant experience in Soviet policy when he wrote “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in Foreign Affairs. After graduating from Princeton University, Kennan entered the diplomatic corps, being assigned to Moscow in 1933. He spent a number of years in Berlin before the outbreak of World War II and was briefly interred by Nazi Germany after the United States entered the war in late 1941. He returned to Moscow in 1944 as chargé d'affaires, a key advisory position to the US ambassador. After writing the “Long Telegram,” Kennan was recalled to Washington, DC, where he was appointed chairman of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, and it was in this position that he wrote “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” as an opinion piece at the behest of Defense Secretary James V. Forrestal.
Document Analysis
In July 1947, former American chargé d'affaires in Moscow George F. Kennan, writing under a pseudonym so as to avoid the appearance of articulating the official policy of the United States, published an article entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” which put forward a convincing explanation of why the Soviet Union pursued the courses of action that it did and what the United States must do in response, so as to avoid a continuation of the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe during 1945 and 1946. Kennan argues that the main approach of the United States toward its new Cold War foe should not be one of placating the Soviets or trying to work with them to create the new postwar world, but rather that American policy must be one of containment, stating, “The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”
Kennan begins the lengthy article by outlining the seeds of the Soviet drive to expand, in much the same way as he had in the “Long Telegram.” The Soviet Union, and especially Joseph Stalin, had combined the long-term expansionism and imperialism of the Russian past with the ideology of Marxism to form a potent type of Communism that saw itself as the catalyst for successive Communist revolutions in other nations. To Kennan, only this could explain Stalin's refusal to honor the agreements made with the other Allies at the Yalta Conference, where the leaders of the World War II Allies outlined what they envisioned happening after the end of the war. Despite their wartime alliance, the Soviet Union and the other Western powers were destined to have a difficult relationship, based simply on the Marxist formulation that socialism (the ideology of the Soviet Union) was destined to do away with capitalism (the ideology of the Western powers). However, Kennan did not see this as an immediate issue, as the basic idea of Marxian socialism was that capitalism would collapse on its own and that the Soviets saw no reason to press the matter. Individual setbacks meant little when the victory of socialism was seen as inevitable.
What this meant to Kennan was that the United States needed to apply policies containing Soviet expansionism for the long haul. The Soviets might give up a particular Cold War battle when counterforce was applied by the United States, but they would certainly pursue the same strategies in other locations at other times, and the United States needed to be ready there as well. According to Kennan, following his advice would “promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power.”
Glossary
adroit: expert or nimble in the use of the hands or body; resourceful
amorphous: lacking definite form; having no specific shape
caveat emptor: “let the buyer beware”; the principle that the seller of a product cannot be held responsible for its quality unless it is guaranteed in a warranty
expropriated/expropriation: to take possession of by taking away the title of the private owner
glib: readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely
intransigence: the state or quality of being intransigent; refusing to compromise or agree; inflexibility
physiognomy: the outward appearance of anything, taken as offering some insight into its character
proletariat/proletarian: the class of workers, especially industrial wage workers, who do not possess capital or property and who are dependent on their own labor to survive
quixotic: extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; impractical; impulsive; resembling or befitting Don Quixote
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Gaddis, John Lewis. George F. Kennan: An American Life. New York: Penguin, 2011. Print.
Kennan, George F. “Containment: 40 Years Later.” Foreign Affairs. Council on Foreign Relations, Spring 1987. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
Mastny, Vojtech. The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Print.
Mayers, David. George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. Print.
Miscamble, Wilson D. George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–1950. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992. Print.
Pechatnov, Vladimir O. “The Soviet Union and the World, 1944–1953.” The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume I: Origins. Ed. Melvyn P. Leffler & Odd Arne Westad. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010. 90–111. Print.