Reading Mr. “X”s “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” | A Primary Source Close Read w/ BRI

0:01 Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the Bill of Rights Institute’s. Primary Source Close Reads. We’re really glad you’re joining us. My name is Kirk Higgins and for those of you who are new to our Close Read format, every other Thursday we work through a significant primary source for American history, looking for important ideas and themes and discussing those. And this week we have an important document from 20th century American foreign policy called The Sources

0:24 of Soviet Conduct by Mr X, who was later revealed to be George Kennan. To help me unpack this document, I am fortunate to be joined once again by my colleague Tony Williams. Tony, thanks for joining me. Hi, Kirk. Sure. And a great document, a great topic of the Cold War. So really excited. Absolutely. Well, let’s dive in.

0:50 So, Sources of Soviet Conduct was published in July of 1947 and I think this period I mentioned at the beginning, it’s a part of American foreign policy, but this period between 1945 and 1950 call it sees an incredible change. I want us to explore the article kind of with that in mind because I think that’s often how it comes up in context.

1:14 I think often it’s also just referred to as the Mr X article, which is also really interesting to me. As we’re going through, I hope we can also keep an eye out for how George Kennan is articulating this need for change, particularly in 1947, because I think seeing any document in its context I think is incredibly important.

1:35 But when you think about it, this one, in terms of its 1947, we don’t know what’s going to happen in 1948 or 1949 or 1989 for that matter. I think it becomes really interesting. So we’ll come back to these questions at the end, but I just wanted to lay them out for us. Tony. So speaking of that historical context,

1:55 George Kennan writes this article and it comes after the Yalta conference in 1945, which is important after the founding of the United Nations and is written by this gentleman, George Kennan, who was Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States to the Soviet Union between 1944 and 1946.

2:15 So Tony, can you set the stage? What’s going on in this period? Why is Kennan writing this article? And what about the end of the Second World War? Should we know in order to really understand this particular piece? Right, well, there’s a lot going on, but we’ll dial into some of the most important events.

2:40 Russia and the United States are closing in on Germany and even crossing the borders into Germany. Germany’s defeat is somewhat of a forgotten conclusion at this point. And the Allies do meet at Yalta to try to hammer out some of their visions of what the post war world is going

3:03 to look like and try to come to some sort of agreement. The Russians agree to provide free elections in Poland, free governments in Eastern Europe. But of course they’ll break those very quickly as they establish their sort of unilateral domination over those areas. A few months later, as the war is really winding down

3:26 and coming to an end in early May, we have the major powers meeting in San Francisco to establish the United Nations. But even there, there’s some tensions about who’s going to control the Security Council and how many votes they’re going to have and several other issues come up. So even as they’re solving some of the post war issues or attempting to,

3:55 there’s increasing conflict between the Soviets and the west, specifically in the United States and also Great Britain and France. And George Cannon is in the Soviet Union as a diplomat, as someone who’s in the Foreign Service and he’s sort of seeing

4:18 the formulation of Soviet policy and trying to understand the psychology, if you will, of why they are pursuing the policies that they are. Great. I think understanding is a really

4:39 interesting way to frame this at the beginning. So I like when we look at these primary sources, I really love to look at the beginning of them but I also like looking at the title and of course the author is always important. So we have this title Sources of Soviet Conduct, which isn’t I mean, it’s not jumping off the page, right. But it’s interesting.

5:00 I think that title is important for what he does in this piece and in particular even this opening paragraph. Do you agree, Tony, that he’s really setting up it’s pretty cut and dry. What he’s wanting to talk about here? Right. As you see, he says Soviet power and the policy they

5:23 are pursuing around the globe are rooted in the product of their ideology. In other words, their communist Soviet ideology and their circumstances. So what historical circumstances have led to this, especially on the bizarrest regimes? Kennan takes a very long view over several centuries but also then

5:44 dialed in on the actual Marxist Leninist philosophy and how those trends and viewpoints are shaping Soviet foreign policy and Soviet conduct. Yeah. I think it’s interesting to me that again.

6:04 Taking off our presentism hat. Reading this paragraph now is like. Yeah. Okay. We know this about the Soviet Union. But in 1947 that would have been not that it was unknown. But I think stating it this frankly and as a direct cause of the way that the Soviet Union is going to make decisions on the foreign stage was significant.

6:25 And I think looking at it from that perspective is important. But it does strike me though because it does seem pretty a name. Why disguise your name as Mr X? What is it that George Kennan might have been concerned about? Well, I think twofold. One is if you got a little trouble with General George Marshall on criticizing the administration earlier.

6:49 But he also, I think more importantly wanted to be anonymous because he wanted the ideas to speak for themselves. He didn’t want his own personality reputation wrapped up in the ideas. He wanted to influence American policy makers through this article,

7:10 through this idea and really shape the thinking of the Truman administration and how to approach the Soviet Union diplomatically. Great. So he sets out again how he’s going to address those ideas. He says there can be few tasks of psychological analysis more difficult than to trace the interaction of these two

7:32 forces in the relative role of each in the determination of official Soviet conduct. Yet the attempt must be made if that conduct is to be understood and effectively countered. So it sounds like he’s going to psychoanalyze the Soviet Union to try to determine how it is that we should deal with them. And he launches right into that, I think right away in this sort of long but very detailed summary of Soviet style

8:01 governing and economic outlook, which I found really interesting right now. One of the things you don’t see is quite like the character of the Tsarist regime that had existed for hundreds of years and the Tsarist regime and the Soviet regime were really close societies in many ways and not really readily understood in the west.

8:24 And so he’s really trying to educate as long as provide policy prescriptions. And here you basically see him talking about it’s a communist society, it’s rooted in violent revolution, overthrow of capitalism and that because of the historical

8:49 circumstances and also because of their experience as a Soviet state since 1917 they sort of felt beleaguered by the west and wanted to prove themselves. That’s kind of the psychological factor here. And he sees the Soviets as expecting the eventual collapse of capitalism and

9:16 what the Russians understand is Russian, I’m sorry, Western imperialism and says that this Marxist Leninist viewpoint of capitalism, they are going to work to achieve that consistently and constantly in their conduct. And one needs to understand how antagonistic to the west

9:38 that fundamentally this regime is and it will constantly work to defeat the west. Yeah, I think what I see are a couple of themes that Kennan really builds on and works throughout this entire article. One is the Soviets are true believers in their ideology, that that ideology drives the decisions that they make both domestically

10:03 and on the foreign stage, that the main enemy within their ideology is a capitalist system and that they believe that over time that capitalist system is going to destroy itself and eventually collapse. And I think it’s on those things that Kennan begins to formulate

10:25 his argument for how it is that the United States should respond, given those elements, the belief, the idea that the Soviet Union is very much poised against capitalist systems and that they’re going to defeat themselves. He then articulates his vendor, but sort of like the final thing

10:48 to underscore that he says, okay, so here are the things that they believe. And then he uses Lenin’s own words to say, and this is what they mean by that. So their beliefs, on the one hand, academically, we can understand that, but there’s a consequence to that. And that’s where he starts talking about that. The Soviet Union is very interested in pushing Western empires to reach

11:08 that final stage of revolutionary proletariat movement right. To overthrow themselves and eventually collapse. Right. The interesting thing here, just generally thinking about diplomacy, is all nation states act according to their own self interests. Of course, the United States has and does and will.

11:31 But what he’s saying is that they’re going to act according to their self interest, guided by this Marxist Leninist, by this Communist ideology. And that’s really central. He keeps that, as you see, in all these different slides, keeps that center. Yeah absolutely. And it’s interesting, too, that it’s centered now.

11:51 So again, we’re talking about that change between 1945 and 1950. And earlier he had mentioned the Soviet revolution in Russia takes place in 1917. The Soviet regime was established after that, they’ve been in power through the yet now he’s concerned about it.

12:13 Right. He mentions here kind of why it is that this is a problem immediately, which I found really interesting too. Right. And the Russians feel insecure. Right. And he talks about that under the tsarist regime and under the Communist regime as well. And in many ways, right after the war, you could understand that, right.

12:35 They had been invaded by Germany twice over, what, a 30 year period or so, and had suffered great destruction during World War II. They had lost 25 million soldiers and civilians. It was just incredible the amount of death

12:55 and destruction in Russia, particularly in the western part of Russia. And Russia was saying, no more. No more. Are we going to deal with this not only just imperialism, but also these invasions. Yeah, and I think he sums it up well when he says for ideology, as we have seen,

13:16 taught them that the outside world was hostile and that it was their duty eventually to overthrow the political forces beyond their borders. So later, when we’re looking at the Cold War, we’re hearing these terms, the Iron Curtain and everything else. I think Kennan is, if not predicting that, he’s at least saying, look,

13:38 it is a closed society, and it’s closed because of a reason you can sort of discern, which, again, we don’t know what’s going to happen. But it’s interesting that Kenneth is picking up on these themes. So again, after setting up the seriousness with which they take their ideology, he kind of comes down

14:02 on that again and says they’re going to take this seriously. And because they believe that the outside world is dangerous, and because they see capitalism as being antagonistic to their interests, and because they are this closed society, they are going to position themselves so that they are constantly working toward

14:23 the attainment of the ends of society that they think are most important. And it seems to me that’s the crux on which the rest of this article lands. So, again, the ideology is serious. They take it seriously. He says here that it’s a sincere assumption of a community of Ames, right.

14:46 They mean what they say and that all of their tactical decisions on a foreign policy level are serving their own self interest, as you said earlier, their own self interest, seen through this lens. Yeah. I mean, a really important quote there, down at the bottom, where he says, and it may flow many of the phenomenon

15:07 which we find disturbing in the Kremlin’s conduct of foreign policy the secretiveness, the lack of frankness, the duplicity, the weary, suspiciousness and the basic unfriendliness of purpose, right. He’s basically saying, you can’t trust the Russians, right? They may make agreements, they may seem like they have some peaceful

15:27 intentions in places, they may disclaim that they’re intervening somewhere or trying to influence the situation. But he says, you can never trust them. They’re too duplicitous. Think about the context, right? They were expanding into Iran with troops, they were threatening Turkey,

15:51 they were pushing communism in Greece during a civil war, they were influencing elections in Italy and France, they were establishing totalitarian control in Poland and throughout much of Eastern Europe. They were making threatening overtures in Asia as well.

16:13 Within a few years, we’ll have the Korean War. Erupt, so Kennen’s writing in a world where these are not just abstract thoughts, but he’s looking at their actual actions over the previous couple of years and he’s seeing that they are threatening the world and expanding their influence. And it

16:37 really stresses that duplicitousness. Right? And the concern over it, because, again, I think it’s important to keep in mind, too, I’m sure, that there were continued concerns about the appeasement that had taken place in Europe in the 1930s. I know that Winston Churchill had given a speech in 1946 decrying the Iron Curtain that’s falling over to Europe, right?

17:03 So this is something being talked about in other sectors, but people it’s only two years after the Second World War, which was worldwide catastrophe. You can see where people are going to fall on both sides of this issue. And I think it’s interesting that Kennan. After making that statement. Again. Showing. Look. This is their ideology. They believe in it.

17:24 This is what it means. He then makes this argument to say. They’re always going to be duplicitous because that’s the thing they’re ultimately serving. Regardless of what they tell you. And then goes on to say. And maybe this gets at some of the end of an interview. Look. There’s going to be people that are coming forward and defending these actions because they think that the Soviets are sincere.

17:45 And I’m here to argue, George Kennan or Mr X, I guess, in this case, don’t trust them because they’re. They’re going to follow this ideology. It’s what they believe in. They’re sincere about it. And we need to have our eyes wide open to the fact that that is the primary interest that they’re going to serve. Right. The line is hardened, right?

18:06 And Henry Wallace, Secretary of the Commerce, he’s more liberal and left leaning and says some sympathetic things about Communism and he’s fired by President Truman and other Western intellectuals and politicians are sympathetic

18:28 to the Russians and they make these arguments that they suffered a great deal in World War Two, but they’re also somewhat sympathetic to Communism. And we start to see some of those dividing lines in America though, right, as sort of this Cold War mentality eventually takes hold and McCarthyism comes around only a few years later.

18:53 People in America aren’t going to tolerate that kind of support in that environment and that kind of atmosphere where rushes the enemy. Yeah. And it’s interesting, like you said, this is an example it’s not the only example, but this article is such a seminal piece because it is an example of seeing those lines hardened.

19:18 It is someone who is established in the foreign policy apparatus of the United States government giving their honest opinion about what they’re reading asofar as what the Soviet Union believes and ultimately what that’s going to mean and why that sows a seed of distrust when they had been an ally. An essential ally.

19:40 In winning the Second World War without the Soviet Union involved on that conflict on the side of the Allies. It’s a very different conflict. And so he goes on to really nail this down and he begins to articulate what that then means for the United States, which I think is really interesting.

20:04 So again, he’s summarizing how it is that they’re looking at this theory, what that’s going to mean? And yet it’s not an immediate threat. It’s kind of like, hey, be concerned about this, but just know this is going to be around for a while. Which again, I think is one of these pressing things that people come back to this article time and time again because he says, I love this one.

20:25 The forces of progress can take their time in preparing the final Kuda gras. And it’s sort of this, look, the Soviets think that we’re going to collapse us capitalist, free market nations, democratic governments. And so they’re not in a hurry to get rid of us, but they do want to sort of advance their ideology and put us in a position

20:48 to make that happen as quickly as possible to meet that worldview. But don’t panic. Just understand that’s how I’m reading it anyway, Kennan is just saying, look, understand this is just the way it is and we should get used to it. Right? And I think on this and the next slide you see that he’s already spoken about the sources of Soviet conduct and now he’s

21:11 going to provide because he’s a diplomat, he’s a policymaker. He wants to provide some prescriptive course to follow for the United States, and that policy is going to be known throughout the Cold War for decades as containment. Right. And there’s a lot of controversy

21:33 with Kennan because he believed in many ways, as we’ll see in the source, that in this containment should be political, it should be diplomatic, it can be economic. Occasionally, it can be military. But he didn’t mean for it to be primarily military. Right. And he later of course.

21:55 We don’t know this at this point. But he later sort of became despondent that the various administrations had taken his containment idea and used it for sure of what he considered military adventure. Is around the globe. Intervening in Korea. Intervening in Vietnam. Getting involved in the wars in Africa and the Middle East and in Latin America.

22:21 Throughout the world. Joining NATO in Europe. He didn’t really support much of that later on throughout the decades, and he lived a very long life. I think it was over 100 when he died. And so he saw all of this occur, and he was really dismayed that his ideas are more of a political, diplomatic containment became militarized.

22:46 Yeah. And you had mentioned containment, and I think that is the very next slide here that he starts to go into. And I think this is often, I think, the lesson that comes away. But I want to push on that, too, because I think Kennan has two themes that are interwoven here that he thinks are important in the United States does. But one is and he says,

23:07 in these circumstances, it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union, meaning our average stance, must be that of a long term, patient, but firm, vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. Right. So reading that again, looking backwards,

23:28 we said, well, yeah, it looks like that’s what we did. We went to Vietnam, we went to Korea, we went to all of these other places around the globe trying to push back against communism. But, yeah, it’s interesting to hear you say, Tony, that’s not quite the way that he was framing it. Go ahead. But he’s vague.

23:49 Right? I mean, he’s not a long term patient, but firm and vigilant. Well, what does that mean? Right. The prudential sort of politician needs to apply those in certain situations. Can a firm and vigilant containment include intervening in the Korean War? Can it mean sending troops to Vietnam? He’s vague.

24:11 Right. And he’s just laying out a vision, not a specific policy per se. And so it’s probably not a surprise that various administrations will see their actions as firm and vigilant. And that can include going to war. Yeah. And he says that they could be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce.

24:33 Right. What is counter force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points corresponding to shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence, right? And again, thinking about context of appeasement, it sounds like he’s against appeals in the Soviet Union. It sounds like he’s saying, hey, we need to counter this wherever it comes up.

24:56 And it doesn’t seem anything to be charmed and talked out of, which to me sounds like foreign policy. But it’s interesting that it’s not. Like you said later, he says, it’s not quite what I meant or what I intended, which is really interesting. But again, he doesn’t define the geographical points, right? He says they’re shifting. And of course he doesn’t just say we only need to do this in Europe, for example,

25:19 or only do it in Asia, I mean, if they’re shipping. Again, that’s vague and it provides a lot of latitude for people who embrace this rejection of appeasement and embrace containment to follow the policies of their respective administration. And I think it’s interesting that he comes off that containment. But again, it comes back to what seems to be the central point of his article.

25:44 It’s called source of Soviet conduct. It’s not what to do about Soviet conduct or what the world is going to look like in several years or whatever. Sources of Soviet conduct. Seems to me, if that’s his title, I’ve got to assume that’s a deliberate choice. There’s got to be something that he’s pointing to here. And it comes back to the sources,

26:05 the ideology, the seriousness with which they take it. And because of that, this paragraph becomes incredibly important to me because, look, for the foreseeable future we cannot expect that we’re going to have political intimacy with the Soviet regime. The United States must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner in the political arena.

26:25 It must continue to expect that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the socialist and capitalist world, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure towards the disruption and weakening of all rival influence and rival power. So again, we know their ideology.

26:46 We see how they’ve been acting. Even though he doesn’t go into those details, it’s sort of assumed and this is the way things are going to be. So we need to contain that. Like we said, that containment word is complicated, but we need to be open, we need to be understanding of that. I think to me seems to be the central thrust of his policy argument here.

27:06 They are rival, they’re an enemy, they’re an opponent. They need to be resisted. He says, no peaceful coexistence, no detant, no decreasing of tensions. They are out to basically dominate the world or pursue their self interest in every way possible.

27:26 And it’s going to be up to the United States to contain that expansion. And yet what’s interesting to me is that he doesn’t stop there. And this was when I re reading this again, it’s been a while since I picked up this document, but rereading this in preparation for our conversation, that containment is one piece of it, but there’s this other piece that is

27:50 important, which is sort of the alternative narrative. Right. I think that’s probably what we call it today. But it’s this idea that, look, the Soviet Union is pushing their ideology. We’ve got to be willing to stand up for our own ideology. Should we oppose the Soviet view of the world? So containing it, having that passive stance of just saying

28:11 like, no, that’s not right, or no, there’s not a lot of hope and freedom, there isn’t the only way that this needs to be pushed back again. But there’s actually a positive element here, too, of saying, I don’t know that he directly said that it’s a capitalist world, but this idea that there’s something to free societies, open societies,

28:35 democratic societies that need to be advocated for, otherwise we’re already in a losing position by not having another side of the story. Right. I mean, I couldn’t have said it better. He’s promoting the best way to defeat Soviet Communism is to be a free society with democratic forms of government and prosperous capitalist, free market economies and give people the

28:58 freedom to pursue their own happiness and live their lives. Yeah, I love there’s several great lines in here, but which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time. To the extent that such an impression can be created and maintained,

29:20 the aims of Russian Communism must appear sterile and quixotic. The hopes, enthusiasm of Moscow’s supporters must wane. In added strain must be imposed on the Kremlin’s foreign policies. For the Palisade decrepitude of the capitalist world is the keystone of communist philosophy. So look, if we can show ourselves

29:41 to be offering an alternative that offers hope and possibility and prosperity, then that is going to be the key thing that defeats Soviet ideology. Which, again, interesting too, if we take a step back and we think about foreign policy in the 20th century, this is a different kind of thing that would have happened in the 19th century.

30:02 Right. It’s not about geographic territory. It’s not about what would have been the 18th century, which is sort of glory for the nation or the monarch. It’s about ideology. And winning ideological battles is a war of words. It’s a war of ideas. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t take place in the battlefield, the traditional battlefield that we’ve

30:24 seen in the past, and I think he’s pointing that out. And again, sources of Soviet conduct. It’s ideology. What’s important about that ideology is that it’s contained in the ways that it can be contained and that we are offering another ideology that is counter to the one that seems to be opposed to our interests and the interests of those in the world that we support.

30:47 Great summary. And I think that that’s his conclusion here, too. Surely there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of circumstance, the thoughtful observer of Russian American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin’s challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a providence

31:08 which by the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities and more on political leadership that history plainly intended than to bear. So that’s both an extraordinarily American statement to me, but also one that is really hitting home on this idea

31:31 that ideology, the way to counter growing Communist influence and things around the world is to double down on our ideology. And by the way, the success of that ideology. All we have to do is have the success that we believe that we’re destined to have in essence, which I think is really powerful and really insightful.

31:52 It’s a statement of American exceptionalism, as the term goes. And he’s also pushing America to accept responsibilities of moral and political leadership, as he says the history plainly intended them to bear. Well, not necessarily, right? I mean, they could have gone either way. And before World War II,

32:12 there was a great deal of isolationism and a desire not to get involved in world and especially European affairs, especially after World War I. And now we have a second world war. And rather than retreat to that isolationism again from an even more destructive war, cannon is pushing Americans towards accepting a more expansive vision of their

32:38 global responsibilities and a more expansive foreign policy. Yeah, so again, thinking about these questions, I think we touched on them pretty good, though. I mean, that change between 1945 and 1950 is, in a way, America stepping into that role, whatever its justification may be. It steps forward and sort of becomes this.

33:02 It at least begins to see itself as an important piece of combating. That alternative ideology is that drive that begins to get involved in different foreign conflicts around the world that obviously has roots further back in American history. And the way that we talked about imperialism in the 1890s Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points.

33:23 There’s lots of stages, but this is sort of the time that it emerges and gets pointed towards a distinct enemy. And then to that point, that’s kind of the second question. Right? That’s what George Kennan is articulating here. It’s that idea of containment, right. So tactically a way of thinking about it, I think it becomes famous for that. But even more than that, it’s the importance of America having

33:45 with the United States having that position on the world stage and sort of what it begins to, at least from Kennan’s point of view, how it ought to justify taking that stance in all of its foreign policy decisions. Right? And I think that’s absolutely right. And my concluding thought might be to offer that I think Kennan sort of even

34:06 moral vision, his ideological vision of the world really is borne out by history. And with the benefit of hindsight, looking at the long history of the Cold War and the eventual demise of the Soviet Union and its control over Eastern Europe, we see that the vision of sort of free and democratic societies around the world

34:32 was better than the communist alternative that the Soviets had to offer. Well, thank you, Tony, again for joining me. This is a lot of fun picking apart this article. And to all of you watching, thank you for joining us again. If you like this video, please be sure to subscribe to our channel. As I mentioned, we put out new videos

34:54 every Tuesday and Thursday on all things US. History and civics, including close reads of primary sources, but also interviews we have distinguished scholars on. Tony speaks to many of them, and we also produce homework help videos and using classrooms. Our next Primary Source Closed read will come out on April 8, and I’ll be discussing the Port Huron

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35:35 So thank you again for joining us. Tony, thank you. Thank you. And we’ll see everyone next time.