The fifth colloquium of historians of the USSR and the United States1 , dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the United States of America, was held in Kiev on July 11-14, 1984. The colloquium was opened by the Chairman of the National Committee of Historians of the Soviet Union, Academician - Secretary of the Department of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician S. L. Tikhvinsky, who headed the delegation of Soviet historians. He noted the importance of scientific contacts between scientists of the two countries and expressed hope that the meeting will be fruitful. The Soviet delegation included specialists in the history of the USSR and the United States from scientific institutions and universities in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Kuibyshev.

At the head of the American delegation was a historian and diplomat, former US Ambassador to the USSR, J. R. R. Tolkien. Kennan and S. Gammon, Executive Secretary of the American Historical Association. The program of the colloquium included two topics: "Relations between Russia and the United States before and during the First World War" and "Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the United States".

Within the first topic, 6 reports were discussed. The report of G. Rogger (USA) "America enters the XX century: a view from Russia (1895-1915)" considered the coverage of American reality in the Russian periodical press, in the works of writers, letters, and diaries of representatives of Russian society. The author used the statements of V. I. Lenin, N. K. Krupskaya, A.M. Gorky, D. I. Mendeleev and others. The speaker challenged the opinion recognized in the literature that relations between the United States and Russia had cooled by the end of the 19th century, and put forward the thesis that the Russian public allegedly considered the American way of life as a model for itself. N. Saul (USA) in the report "American Perception of a changing Russia (1890-1914)" He gave evidence of the broad interest of the American public in Russia, but expressed the opinion that there was a certain impasse in relations between the two countries before the First World War. Referring to the fact that the interests of Russia and the United States clashed in the Far East, that they competed in the world market of oil and grain, N. Saul assured that the basis for the rupture of relations after 1917 was only a psychological factor.

R. S. Ganelin (Leningrad) in his report "The Revolutionary Movement in Russia and the United States of America, 1905 - 1917" showed that in American government circles the revolutionary movement in Russia was viewed with distrust and fear. American workers and progressive intellectuals sympathized with the Russian Revolution. The February Revolution was enthusiastically received by the American bourgeoisie, and the Provisional Government's decision to "continue the war to the bitter end" caused immediate (earlier than all other countries) recognition by the US government. "Russia and the United States during the First World War" is the subject of a report by B. D. Kozenko (Kuibyshev), which showed the complexity of relations between the two countries, the turn towards rapprochement, which was manifested especially after the fall of tsarism and the coming to power of the Provisional Government. The report showed that the United States tried by all means to keep Russia from withdrawing from the war.

1 For previous colloquiums, see: New and Recent History, 1973, No. 2; 1979, No. 3; Voprosy Istorii, 1976, No. 1, 1979, No. 1.

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In the colloquium, the problem of American intervention in Soviet Russia occupied a large place. President Wilson's attitude to the young Soviet state was discussed in the report "Wilson and the Bolsheviks", made by B. M. Anterberger (USA), who insisted that the president was supposedly against intervention, that only allied pressure, as well as concern about Japan's actions in Siberia, the desire to preserve the principle of "open doors" in the Far East."they forced him to agree to the landing of American troops there.

A. A. Fursenko (Leningrad), using documents of the US State Department, as well as information gleaned from the Rockefeller family archive, in his report "The oil question in Soviet-American relations at the Genoa Conference of 1922", convincingly showed that the attitude of the Wilson government towards the Soviet government was hostile and that the US oil business was involved in the actual breakdown The Genoese Conference.

The first topic included the report of the Academy of Sciences. Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR A. N. Shlepakova (Kiev) "National and ethnic problems of the United States during the First World War: domestic and foreign policy aspects", which showed how this war affected the immigration policy of the US ruling circles. Congress was debating the Immigration Restriction Act at the time. The true nature of Wilson's policy on the national question was even more clearly revealed when the "Versailles peacemakers" began to redraw the map of Europe, regardless of the real interests of its peoples.

During the discussion, Soviet historians raised the issue of shaping public opinion and its reflection in the press and contemporary testimonies. I. A. Belyavskaya, highly appreciating the professional level of the report (other Soviet historians joined her opinion), expressed disagreement with the general concept of G. Rogger. She stressed that the true state of affairs in the United States was assessed by the Americans themselves in the person of progressive journalists and writers ("mud rakes", for example), who raised their voice against the dominance of monopolies in the socio-political life of the country. Their speeches were many times sharper and more merciless than V. G. Korolenko's story " Without Language "and A. M. Gorky's essays on America, which Rogger called" tendentious doctrinaire". V. I. Bovykin pointed out the importance of studying the entire spectrum of public consciousness, its dependence on the class affiliation of cultural figures and representatives of various social strata. This issue is directly related to the problem of mutual understanding between peoples. That is why the historian does not have the right to limit himself to the statements of individual authors, but should turn to a deep study of mass information. Sogrin stressed that it is necessary to approach the characterization of public consciousness from the standpoint of historicism, in a differentiated way, taking into account the difference in views of different social strata. In Rogger and Saul's account, the fact that socialist ideas flourished in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, marked by the formation of the Socialist Party and the militant union "Industrial Workers of the World" (IWW). G. P. Kuropyatnik agreed with this position, noting, as well as V. V. Sogrin, that in the report of G. Rogger, the correct thesis about the influence of Marxism on public consciousness received an incorrect refraction. Marxism undermined the belief in the uniqueness of the development of the United States, but never denied the progressiveness of this development in comparison with the absolutist landlord - bureaucratic regimes of other countries at that time. G. P. Kuropyatnik spoke out for the need to study Russian-American economic and cultural ties in the XIX century.

A. Dallin (USA) claimed that the Americans ' opinion of Russia changed as if under the influence of the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. He agreed with the need to continue studying public consciousness. Rogger, responding to criticism, noted the difficulties of studying public opinion of all social strata.

The issue of American responses to the revolutionary movement in Russia was also discussed. According to Saul, the Americans were disappointed that Russia took a different path from the United States. Rogger, while admitting the general picture presented in the reports of Soviet historians was correct, nevertheless argued that US public opinion feared "extremism" in the social revolution. US workers, he said, had little understanding of what was happening in Russia, and were not interested in it.-

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G. Gurov (USA) tried, and in an extremely harsh form, to justify the anti-Sovietism of US policy. He denied the monopolistic nature of American business and said that the US working class was completely ignorant of the situation in Russia and the Russian Revolution.

Soviet historians criticized these provisions. They showed that the US bourgeois press did not provide sufficient information about the events in Russia. January 9 was portrayed as a "riot", and Gorky, who came to tell the truth about the revolution in Russia, was met with hostility in the United States (V. I. Bovykin). Nevertheless, the truth about the events in Russia reached American workers. At the IWW congress in 1905, a resolution was adopted on sympathy and assistance to "suffering brothers in distant Russia" (I. A. Belyavskaya). The US working class also knew about the Great October Socialist Revolution. Numerous reports in the press about the support of the workers for the revolutionary movement in Russia show the falsity of the claims about the complete lack of spirituality of the American proletariat (S. V. Listikov).

A sharp debate has arisen over the problems associated with the US intervention in Soviet Russia. The provisions of the Anterberger report aroused fundamental objections on the part of Soviet historians. A. E. Kunina objected to the desire to transfer this issue from the field of politics to the field of psychology and convincingly refuted the thesis that Wilson opposed intervention in Soviet Russia and did not at all think about its dismemberment. In this regard, she showed a map of the dismemberment of Russia compiled for the members of the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-1920, which, along with other documents, was published by the legal expert of this delegation, D. H. Miller .2
American participants of the colloquium spoke in support of Anterberger. J. Kennan, while admitting that the intervention was a mistake of the US government, nevertheless supported the conclusions of the speaker, expressing regret that American and Soviet historians could not come to a solution acceptable to both sides. J. Gaddis (USA), noting that there is a point of view that is more similar to Soviet historiography, nevertheless insisted that Wilson's intentions did not coincide with the real development of events. The point of view about the contradiction between the intentions of a political leader and the result of his actions was supported by J. Hoff-Wilson (USA). R. Tucker (USA) also tried to translate the question into the field of psychology.

Soviet scientists criticized these provisions. V. L. Malkov recalled that already during the revolution in Mexico in 1910-1917, the United States showed by its actions that it does not recognize the right of peoples to decide their own fate. This position follows from the class nature of US policy. A. A. Fursenko also spoke about the fact that the foreign policy of this country is traditionally characterized by the desire to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. A. O. Chubaryan raised the question of the responsibility of political leaders for making decisions, emphasizing that, as the experience of history shows, the essence of these decisions, and not the mechanisms of their adoption, is of paramount importance. He recalled the negative attitude of the Entente countries and the United States to the Brest Peace.

Summing up the statements of Soviet experts on this issue, Academician S. L. Tikhvinsky emphasized that the point is not in Wilson's good intentions, but in real facts. And they are as follows: the United States participated in the intervention, landed its troops in the North of Russia and in the Far East, supported Kolchak, agreed with Japan on joint actions against the Soviet government (the R. Lansing - Ishii agreement), etc. That is why Soviet historiography negatively evaluates Wilson's activities.

7 reports were heard on the second topic. The discussion focused on two issues: the nature of Soviet-American relations during the period of non-recognition of the USSR by the United States and the reasons that led to the normalization of relations between the two countries in 1933.

In the X report. De Santis (USA) " Arranged Marriages: The United States,

2 Miller D. H. My 3 ary of the Conference of Paris in 20 vis. Vol. IV. N. Y. 1924 - 1926, pp. 219 - 220.

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Europe and the recognition of the Soviet Union, 1921-1933. " It was suggested that the policy of non-recognition of the USSR was determined by ideological and ethical motives. The speaker was referring to the Soviet country's refusal to pay its debts to the tsarist government. He explained the turn of public opinion and the US government towards recognition of the USSR by the desire of President F. D. Roosevelt to help stabilize the international situation.

J. Gaddis in his report "Continuity and discontinuity in relations between the USSR and the USA" said that the establishment of good relations between Russia and the USA at the end of the XVIII century became possible due to mutual interest and recognition by both countries of the principle of non-interference in internal affairs. Good relations were maintained as long as this principle was observed. The United States, which was the first to violate the principle of non - interference, is responsible for the deterioration of Russian-American relations at the end of the 19th century. The speaker tried to assign responsibility for the lack of legal relations between the two countries in the 1920s to the USSR. After 1933 and until the Second World War, these relations, in his opinion, did not improve. The situation changed when both countries came together to achieve a common goal: the defeat of Nazism. Soviet historians have contrasted the American concept with a multi-faceted and documented analysis of the problem of Soviet-American relations. In the discussion, they put forward important, fundamental points that refute the point of view of their American colleagues.

In the report of V. K. Furaev (Leningrad) "Main trends in the development of Soviet-American trade and economic relations in 1917-1924", it was shown that the Soviet country made every effort to develop mutually beneficial trade and economic ties, seeing in this a real way to normalize bilateral political relations. Despite the negative attitude of the US government, a certain part of the American business community showed interest in concluding agreements on technical assistance to the industrialization of the USSR. V. A. Shishkin (Leningrad) in his report "Soviet-American economic relations on the eve of recognition, 1924-1933" traced how the policy of the US ruling circles in the field of economic relations with the USSR evolved. The speaker noted that the US business community has different approaches to the issue of trade with the Soviet Union and criticized the concept of "trade without recognition", the essence of which was that the policy of non-recognition did not interfere with the alleged development of economic ties.

In his report "On the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the United States", G. N. Sevostyanov emphasized that the basis of the USSR's foreign policy is Lenin's idea of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. The Soviet government responded kindly to Roosevelt's proposal, while simultaneously rejecting the US claims regarding tsarist debts and "Comintern propaganda"as untenable. The agreement was reached because the parties showed a willingness to make mutual concessions while respecting the principle of equality and respect for the sovereignty of each State.

The reasons that led to the normalization of relations between the USSR and the United States were considered in historical retrospect in the report of V. L. Malkov. After the failure of the intervention, the main motives of US policy in recognizing the USSR were: the desire for US supremacy in the new political conditions prevailing in the world, the increasing importance of the Soviet factor in international politics, and the desire to use the power of the Soviet Union in the Far East as a counterweight to Japan. world Wars") told about the interest in the Country of the Soviets on the part of the progressive American public, about education in 1921. Society for Technical Assistance to Soviet Russia and exchange of visits of Soviet and American scientists. G. N. Tsvetkov (Kiev) spoke about the impact of the mass social movement on the formation of the US policy towards the USSR immediately after its recognition.

American historians could not but agree that the Soviet government showed a desire to normalize relations, that it helped to conclude deals with American firms, and also that the US business community was not unanimous on the issue of relations with the United States.

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the USSR. However, when trying to explain the reasons for the non-recognition of the USSR by the United States, as well as the subsequent turn to establishing relations, they put forward subjective-psychological, rather than objective-historical (economic and political) factors in the foreground. Thus, J. Kennan, followed by G. Gurov and J. Hoff-Wilson, emphasized that the United States at that time had no experience of economic relations with a country whose socio-political system was fundamentally different from the American one. Economic considerations, Hoff-Wilson argued, despite their importance, did not play a leading role, and business, she said, could not influence government policy at all.

G. Ellison (USA) agreed that the expansion of Soviet - American contacts in various branches of science should be sought, but at the same time reproached Soviet scientists for the "ideologization" of science and the anti-bourgeois orientation of social sciences in the USSR. A. Dallin agreed with the conclusions of G. N. Sevostyanov that the lack of legal relations between the USSR and the USA played a negative role in Moreover, the USSR already had established diplomatic relations with other countries, in particular with Germany and Japan. But then he tried to belittle the fact of establishing diplomatic relations. G. Rogger and R. Tucker made unsubstantiated statements about the alleged subversive activities of the USSR and its inciting disagreements between European countries.

G. N. Sevostyanov raised fundamental objections to the way in which the policy of the USSR was covered in the report of Kh. De Santis. The goal of Soviet foreign policy was peaceful coexistence, ensuring conditions for peaceful economic development of the country. De Santis approached the topic one-sidedly and did not see two directions in American public opinion: for and against the recognition of the USSR. The objection is also raised by De Santis ' unequivocal understanding of the policy of "isolationism", which, as is well known, did not prevent the United States from contributing to the restoration of German military potential. De Santis did not attract the documents of the State Department, the minutes of Congress, and the multi-volume Soviet publication of diplomatic documents, as well as many Soviet and American works, remained out of his field of view. He could not rise above the interpretation of US foreign policy that was common in the bourgeois historiography of the 1920s.

The opinion of G. N. Sevostyanov was supported by S. S. Khromov, who, using statistical material, showed the gradual growth of Soviet-American trade and economic ties in the 1930s. A. O. Chubaryan criticized the" anti-European pathos "of the De Santis report, which clearly expressed disdain for" impoverished Europe", which turned out to be" ungrateful " towards the United States. He also stressed that the report did not reflect the fact that European countries took the path of political realism, recognizing the Soviet State as part of the pan-European structure. B. I. Marushkin noted that J. Gaddis, who examined the two-hundred-year history of relations between Russia and the United States, and then the USSR and the United States, was able to establish the main trends in their development, to show that periods of cooperation were replaced by periods of cooling and confrontation. However, Gaddis ignores the indisputable fact that the starting point for the US transition to confrontation with the USSR was its intervention in Soviet Russia. V. S. Mikheev focused his attention on the peace initiatives of the Soviet government, recalling the fruitfulness of the union of the USSR and the United States against the common enemy - German fascism.

At the end of the discussion, J. Kennan gave a positive assessment of the work of the colloquium, which was held in an atmosphere of free exchange of views. In one of his speeches, Kennan shared his memories of his personal participation in the conclusion of the treaty between the two countries. He is the only living witness to this historic event. J. Kennan stressed the importance of taking into account the mistakes of the past. The discussion showed that scientists from both countries strive for mutual understanding. This is especially important at present, when the world is facing the threat of a thermonuclear war.

Summing up the results of the colloquium, Deputy Chairman of the National Committee of Historians of the Soviet Union A. O. Chubaryan expressed satisfaction with its results, noting that the meeting dispelled doubts about the possibility of a serious scientific dialogue between historians of the USSR and Russia.

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The United States is in such an alarming international situation as the current one. A significant role in creating a working atmosphere was played by the hospitality of our colleagues from Kiev, who provided a clear organization of the colloquium and introduced their guests to the beautiful Kiev, the ancient capital of the Russian state, the flourishing capital of socialist Ukraine. The colloquium in Kiev showed the possibility and usefulness of contacts between scientists from the two countries.

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