Chapter 04: Hoover: “An Alliance with Stalin Is a Tragedy” 1941 (Part I)

From 1932 to 1934, the Soviet Union once again plunged into a catastrophic famine that claimed the lives of some seven million people. The famine originated in Stalin’s forced collectivization of agriculture. Panicked peasants slaughtered their horses and livestock and refused to farm in resistance to collectivization. Government forces conducted armed searches for hidden grain, confiscating everything—including seed grain—and carried out unlimited requisitions, leading to mass starvation deaths. The authorities also forbade peasants from fleeing to seek survival elsewhere. Estimates of the death toll range from a low of 5.5 million to a high of 8.5 million, with a commonly cited figure of about 7 million, including 4 to 5 million deaths in Ukraine alone.

In the face of this shocking famine and mass death within the Soviet Union, the United States did not raise a voice of justice to condemn the cruelty of the Soviet Communist regime. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ignored the fact that some seven million people had died as a result of Communist brutality. Not only did he refrain from condemning the evil of communism, he instead took the initiative to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet regime, formally recognizing in 1933 the Communist government that the United States had refused to recognize for sixteen years.

When Roosevelt took office in 1933, hope emerged for Soviet diplomatic recognition. Roosevelt was indifferent to communist ideology; he sought partners to counter the expansion of Japan and Germany, hoped to develop trade with the Soviet Union, and wished to recover some old debts. He therefore took the initiative to write to Moscow, inviting Soviet representatives to Washington to negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations. The Soviet Union welcomed this eagerly, and negotiations focused on issues of propaganda, religion, and debt.

Stalin categorically denied engaging in infiltration, subversion, or propaganda through the Communist International, and Roosevelt tolerated this denial, choosing not to raise the issue further. In reality, Soviet infiltration and propaganda in the United States never ceased, and the American Communist Party continued to receive instructions from Moscow. On the question of debts, both sides made concessions: Russia acknowledged old debts of $187 million, while the United States extended a long-term loan of $200 million to the Soviet Union. The brief ten-day negotiation ended largely in American concessions.

The United States had been the only major power to continue withholding formal diplomatic recognition from the Soviet Union. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought to an end nearly sixteen years of non-recognition. He hoped that recognizing the Soviet Union would serve American strategic interests by restraining Japan’s expansionism in Asia.

On November 16, 1933, the United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations, and William C. Bullitt was appointed U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union. The Soviet side promised not to engage in espionage activities in the United States, but espionage in fact continued unabated. Old debts were never recovered, and trade remained minimal, soon shattering American expectations. Based on his close observations, Ambassador Bullitt concluded that Soviet leaders harbored deep hostility toward the United States. As the Soviet Union launched massive purges and repression, he recommended severing diplomatic relations the following year. Roosevelt, however, decided to maintain relations as a fallback option. Bullitt would spend the rest of his life openly and consistently opposing communism.

During Stalin’s Great Terror of 1937–1938, marked by mass purges and massacres, 1.3 million people were sentenced and 680,000 were executed. In the face of such rampant communist brutality, the United States remained silent. President Roosevelt did not regard Stalin’s communism as an enemy; his attention was fixed solely on Hitler’s Germany. This misjudgment closely parallels George W. Bush’s later abandonment of labeling the Chinese Communist Party as part of an “axis of evil,” shifting instead to a focus on combating Taliban terrorism.

Throughout the 1930s, as global tensions accumulated and the danger of war became unmistakable, the United States still refrained from intervention, repeatedly declaring neutrality and remaining outside world affairs. Only when Japan’s sudden attack struck directly in 1941 was America forced to enter the war. That, however, is another story.

As the wartime president during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to ally with the Soviet Union—the leading force of communism—in order to defeat the fascist camp constituted another major American error. These mistakes all stemmed from a failure to understand the true nature and dangers of communism as a political ideology.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Roosevelt extended Lend-Lease assistance to the Soviets, beginning to supply Stalin with vital support. It was evident that Roosevelt had chosen to side with the Soviet Union. On June 29, 1941—one week after the German invasion—Herbert Hoover sharply criticized any notion of a tacit U.S.–Soviet alliance. Although he did not name Roosevelt explicitly, his criticism was clearly directed at him. Hoover said: “If we enter this war and win it, what we will have won is Stalin’s iron grip over the Communist empire of Russia. We shall have assisted him to impose more communism over Europe and the world. To make such sacrifices and then proclaim that we are fighting alongside Stalin for freedom is not a farce, but a tragedy.” Hoover used two strongly pejorative terms to describe the Soviet Union: grip and bedfellow. He argued that Stalin ruled through an iron grip, and that alliance with him made the United States a bedfellow—tantamount to adultery.

This view is supported by the new book Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin, professor of history at Bard College in New York State. In this work of “reinterpreting World War II,” McMeekin shifts the epicenter of the war eastward, fundamentally altering how the global conflict is understood. He argues that World War II was not “Hitler’s war,” but rather “Stalin’s war,” since Hitler “did not benefit from the war.” While such macro-level history may not yield fixed historical laws, it opens entirely new perspectives—ones that closely align with the perspective of this book. For anyone seeking to understand the current world order, this is an indispensable work.

McMeekin contends that the Pacific War of 1941–1945 “fulfilled Stalin’s objectives” by provoking a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the Anglo-Saxon capitalist powers. Regarding the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany, McMeekin asserts that the “self-destructive strategy” of the United States and Britain, rooted in Western short-sightedness, “largely saved Soviet communism.” These actions began with Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union. American and British supply committees almost blindly agreed to every Soviet demand. Stalin’s war machine depended to a large extent on American material supplies.

One enduring argument found in Hoover’s writings from World War II is that the United States should have allowed Hitler and Stalin to fight each other to exhaustion, weakening both sides, rather than aiding one against the other. Viewed from today’s perspective, this argument still carries practical significance. When two devils are locked in combat, the United States should sit back and watch, not become entangled in the fight.