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Why was Russia so against the US joining the war?

posted 11 years ago by supergran
16 replies | jump to latest

I understand why the British needed to persuade Americans, by fair means or foul, to join them in the war against Germany. What isn't so clear to me is why Russia didn't share the same objective.

The premise of Restless is that Russia had it's sights on postwar Europe and didn't want American soldiers around spoiling it's plans, so it did what it could to sabotage the efforts of British Security Coordination (the covert news manipulation and propaganda organization). My question is: was Russia so confident that it could defeat Hitler without America's help? After all, there could be no expansion of communism while the Nazis controlled Europe.

Who knows where the time goes?

[–] gtbarker 11 years ago

Romer stated it was because the Soviets considered Europe theirs and Communist ideology was as certain and confident in its supremacy as Fascism.

[–] gloops 11 years ago

Don't forget the The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact - the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany. They'd basically agreed to carve Europe up between them, until Hitler broke the deal with his invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

[–] d_aston2002 11 years ago

The same question also arose in my mind, and I didn't find it effectively answered by the drama. I believe that after Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop-pact and attacked Russia, Stalin urged the allies to open up the western front as quickly as possible. Russia was also assisted heavily by US aid. But in this drama their espionage activity was directed to stop the US entering the war, which seems contradictory.

[–] movielove99 11 years ago

I am a little unsure of dates here but I am sure that Stalin was begging Churchill and Roosevelt to enter the war in Europe (via a Western front), so surely this makes Romer's plan a little unbelievable?

[–] movielove99 11 years ago

Sorry ashton, I didn't see that you made the same point. It's true though, and Stalin was disappointed with the Africa/Greece/Italy campaigns because they went South rather than West. At the period in the film 41/42(?) Russia was still very much struggling with Germany.

I think it's a shame we never got his motivations for betraying the country...surely he would have been spying through the cold war too?

[–] supergran 11 years ago

Thank you for all your replies.

The history of WW2, and it's causes and aftermath, is indeed very complex. I need to educate myself a little more.

I wonder if the book sheds any more light on Romer's rationale? I know he's a fictional character, but Boyd must have based his motives on Russian thinking of that time. Yes? Or is this part of the book purely hypothetical?

Who knows where the time goes?

[–] ib011f9545i 11 years ago

It depends exactly when things in the film happened.
I was not always clear when things were meant to be happening in the film (apart from the Pearl Harbor news report of course).

Germany invaded the USSR 22 JUNE 1941.
Stalin wanted Germany and her allies to crush the other european states in 1940,he hoped that the 2 sides would fight each other till they were exhausted and the communists could seize control of what was left.

At least this is what I was taught 25 years ago when studying the history of Soviet foreign policy.
After the Germans invavded the USSR despite the huge early losses of land and people it seems STALIN never felt that the USSR could lose the whole war and he wanted the USSR to be the biggest winner of the final victory

In September 1939 Soviet policy was to encourage anti war feelings in the western powers,after June 1941 the policy was all possible help to our soviet allies,so it is not surprising that the plot of the film is confusing.
Certainly the USSR knew that their eastern front was safe as they knew (from RICHARD SORGE)that Japan was not going to attack them in the east.
They would have been happy for the USA and JAPAN to fight each other forever in the pacific.

[–] Squeeth2 10 years ago

From Stalin's point of view there was little to choose between the nazi racist imperialists and the Anglo-French racist imperialists. A war between them was fratricidal and thus made the USSR safer, even though the USSR was a state, same as the other terrorist gangs. Ideology was the continuation of the boss classes by other means.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] ib011f9545i 11 years ago

See answer 10 in the thread THOUGHTS ON THE FILM,it is a link to an piece by the books author explaining the background to the story.
I would disagree with most of the comments under the artice,comments understand too much much the Soviet western spies and ignore the fact that the nazi soviet pact allowed the nazis to take over western europe and in the process crush all the communist anti fascists were were not lucky enough to live in Britain or the USA.
Orwell was right,the USSR was an enemy of human progress and peace.

[–] frantz21 11 years ago

its a chronological and ideological thing

1)when Mr Romer was recruited 1920's

- Capitalism was into the throes of the great depression

- on its way the wall street Crash

- there was no NHS

- there was no welfare state
~
- mass Unemployment was a fact

- factory owners seemed cruel and Callous and RICH

2) there were strong Communist parties/ cells in Most European nations

3) the Communist take over seemed inevitable

4) fascism was seen as a symptom of capitalism failure

see it through the Prism of his recruitment time not 1940 or now

[–] ib011f9545i 11 years ago

Well yes up to a point,but there were lots of left wing people who were anti communist,people who supported democratic solutions and reforms.
People who wanted change did not have to support communism,look at lots of the people who were communists in the 1930s,they must have been disappointed with the nazi-soviet pact and the the Stalinist purges.

In fact I know many were disappointed because my father was a communist in the 1930s in Britain.

He used to tell me that people in the party tried to incite strikes during the phony war 1939,the same people who had campaigned for Britain to arm the Spanish republic 1936-1938 and who demanded industrial peace and increased productivity after June 1941 when the imperialist war became the great patriotic war to defend the first first socialist state.

[–] blakedw 11 years ago

Of course the whole idea is absurd. In late 1941, the Soviet Union was on the verge of total defeat. Stalin was pleading for help. US entry into the war was what Russia wanted most. It is ridiculous to premise a work of fiction on the opposite. Whether done from ignorance or deliberately, the BBC is pathetic to allow it.

[–] emeraldeyes7 11 years ago

Except the BBC didn't commission the story - it was adapted by William Boyd from his own novel.

[–] ib011f9545i 11 years ago

The USSR needed material help for sure but then and now they resented every thing they got,they still try to downplay the size of the help and its importance but it does not follow that they wanted American troops on european soil.
Remember the Stalin quote about armies which occupy a place imposing their social system on the occupied people.

[–] poupartca 10 years ago

Russia didn't want America kept out of the war. That's just a conceit of the film. In reality Stalin pushed hard and constantly for a Second Front in the West. The Russians lost tens of millions of people on the Eastern Front, and required substantial American Lend-Lease Aid. It would have been insane to try to kept America out of the war.

By the way, after Pearl Harbor America declared war on Japan, not Germany. Germany declared war on America first a few days later.

[–] AllyCat_L 10 years ago

Stalin definitely was not happy with four victors (USSR, Great Britain, USA, France). He got just 1/4 Germany and Eastern Europe.