One key aspect of chapter 3 from Stalin’s War is United States willingness to forgive debts and provide loans to the Soviet Union in return for their willingness to negotiate a deal to repay their old debts. Stalin manipulated Roosevelt into recognizing Russia and providing them loans for their Tsarist history and claimed that Communism would help them pay back those loans and buy American products. In reality Communism impoverished Russia to such a degree that they needed more financial help from the United States and could not pay for those materials on their own. Later on in the chapter Litvinov is quoted saying:
“Well, it is all in the bag; we have it. They wanted us to recognize the old debts that we owed them and I promised we were going to negotiate… but they did not know we were going to negotiate until doomsday.”
Excerpt From: Sean McMeekin. “Stalin’s War.” Apple Books. chapter 3 pg. 72
Stalin and Litvinov were essentially using the United States for their resources and finances to improve their stability as a nation. They lied to the American government when they told them that they would negotiate to pay back those old loans. These lies reminded me of the passage in Demons Part III chapter 7 where Stepan Trofimovich is telling Sofya Matveevna that his whole life has been a lie and that he constantly lied to himself and his friends. Dostoyevsky writes: “My friend, I’ve been lying all my life. Even when I was telling the truth. I never spoke for the truth, but only for myself, I knew that before , but only now do I see… The worst of it is that I believe myself when I lie” (Dostoyevsky 652). This constant lie is the bane of the Soviet Union’s existence that they are constantly lying to themselves and other people and countries that they have everything under control but they do not. The last part of that quote sums it up perfectly… they even BELIEVE themselves when they lie, it has become so engrained in them they cannot separate themselves from right and wrong. This is the ultimate downfall of totalitarian regimes, a lie can only be kept for so long before the truth comes out.