Challenges many generally held assumptions about US-Soviet relations
and associated events before and during World War II.
How did the USSR emerge from World War II militarily and economically
strong enough to confront the United States effectively on a global
scale? Was the USSR stronger than was accepted prior to the beginning of
the Cold War? What did US officials really know about conditions inside
the Soviet Union, the Soviet government's oppression of the people, and
the extent of resistance to communist rule in the years leading to and
during the Second World War? Were the pre-Cold War US policies
concerning the USSR based on erroneous perceptions and assumptions and
to what extent did this contribute to the Cold War?
This important book seeks to answer these and a number of other
questions through detailed examination of the US intelligence-gathering
and analysis on the Soviet Union in the period 1921-46. It encompasses
the several major factors in US officials’ perceptions of Soviet
economic and military power during the entire 1921-46 period, while
providing unique insight into the pre-World War II intelligence
establishment in the United States. Presenting a wealth of documentary
evidence from previously classified US intelligence files, Leonard
Leshuk employs common sense and logic, often lacking in the intelligence
and policy-making process, to bring to light new information about the
significant Soviet military and industrial strength and the intention
and capability to use such strength in a hostile manner. These important
facts had generally been overlooked, ignored and misinterpreted by US
officials.
Whilst examining the Soviet strength in that period, the author’s main
focus is to determine what the US intelligence perceptions were, on what
information they were based and what connections they had to the US
policy. The book also reveals many of the problems inherent in
attempting to assemble useful data concerning the economy and military
of a country such as the Soviet Union. Those problems, compounded by the
failures in analysis of the limited intelligence that was obtained in
that earlier period, resulted in totally inadequate knowledge and
understanding of Soviet strength at the end of the Second World War, which in turn led to the
widely varying, and so often erroneous, intelligence estimates
concerning the USSR during the Cold War.
This book gives new perspective on events in Eastern Europe in the first
half of the twentieth century. Among the information which US officials
obtained but generally ignored or discounted, was that concerning the
pivotal role of Ukraine in Soviet power all through this period. The
author makes the case that had US officials truly understood, and based
their policies on, the intelligence gathered concerning matters such as
the initial weakness of the new Soviet state due to the government not
having direct control of Ukraine's agricultural wealth, the effects and
ramifications of the forced collectivisation carried out by Stalin to
finance military industrialisation, the stripping and destroying of
Ukrainian resources by the Soviets in their 1941 retreat, the 'lesser of
the two evils' attitude shown by the populace toward the invading
Germans, and the nature of resistance to reoccupation by the Soviets,
the Second World War could have been far less devastating and the Cold
War avoided altogether. A very disturbing pattern of the US government's
intentional concealment of Soviet crimes before and during WW II is also
shown. By covering up what they knew about of the horrors of the
man-made famine, the Soviets' desire to obtain German co-operation in an
invasion of Poland years before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the
discovery of the mass graves of hundreds of thousands executed at places
such as Vinnitsia, abuses of American citizens, the Soviet collusion in
the German attack on the US airbase at Poltava, the disappearance of
thousands of "liberated" Allied POWs into the gulag, and similar
matters, US officials made themselves accessories to those crimes. The
author concludes that fear of that collusion being exposed was a primary
reason for the US officials' unwillingness to confront or even risk
angering the Soviets during and immediately after the war.
Divided into seven chronological parts, the book examines critical
aspects for each time period, including industrial and more general
economic strength, espionage/counter-espionage activities and
capabilities that contributed to strength. In the conclusion the author
notes that despite the massive expansion of intelligence operations
since 1946, many of the same serious problems continue to beset US
policy-making, as evidenced by the lack of preparedness for the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1991. Worryingly close parallels with recent US
intelligence and policy failures concerning China and other countries
are also included here.
By bringing to light the long-neglected documentary evidence and
challenging many of the existing beliefs concerning the early period of
US-Soviet relations, as well as providing a new perspective on a number
of events related to the Second World War, this unique and
ground-breaking book will undoubtedly become essential reading for all
scholars and professionals in the fields of intelligence, international
relations, Russian/Soviet studies, Cold War studies, twentieth century
European history, and military history.
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