Wilson 1917:
"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, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the imtimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honor."
This interpretation lasted right through FDR and WWII, although in gradually ever more diluted form as time went on.
This was so in spite of the fact that specialists like Kennan, and those advising Churchill and the British government, knew the true picture almost from the beginning, but efforts to intervene failed.
(ps See Ferguson's Chapter, Square and Tower, on Lenin and Stalin.....)
This interpretation lasted right through FDR and WWII, although in gradually ever more diluted form as time went on.
This was so in spite of the fact that specialists like Kennan, and those advising Churchill and the British government, knew the true picture almost from the beginning, but efforts to intervene failed.
(ps See Ferguson's Chapter, Square and Tower, on Lenin and Stalin.....)
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