How accurate was George F. Kennan's assessment of Soviet motivations, strengths, and weaknesses in 'Sources of Soviet Conduct'?

George F. Kennan’s 10 page document was a document which the Truman doctrine was built around. It held broad ideas, and had the pros and cons of the Soviet Regime. In fact, looking back, his document was accurate; his policy of containment was implemented and worked its charm, and this policy was based off of Kennan’s understanding of the USSR. The Sources of Soviet Conduct put forth the three main points of the Soviet Regime; its motivations, weaknesses and strengths. Capitalism was considered the evil system, and the Soviets were to fight against it and win, some day. They were to become more technically advanced, to challenge the Western powers. The soviet leaders were always right, even if they were wrong; they were impervious to logic and reason, and were masters of human psychology. The fact that Soviet economy was bad was a strength, and not only a weakness; economic inefficiency in civilian sector reduced the cost of the military. The USSR was a superpower, but it still was the weaker party compared to the west; the USSR was unstable internally, from the first day, and policies of containment would help it become more unstable. The Marxist-Leninist views were flawed; the economy in the USSR was terrible, and the leaders, being the only people in power, not caring about the people, did not help. The USSR was a flawed totalitarian regime which became powerful through the sheer number of people. Kennan’s three points can be considered extraordinary, as most of his ideas and thoughts did come true.

The USSR in WWII seeked to get land; it seeked Poland, Japan and other countries. Japan was to become partially Russian if they, the Russians were to help the invasion (the nukes deterred these ideas, and the USSR started building their own). It wished to create a buffer zone, “expansionist tendencies”, to protect its own hide from the Western powers., and it did. Later, with the withdrawal of the USSR from the Marshall plan, the Western powers got a scapegoat to blame all the growing division in Europe on. The Soviets in fact tried to test their economic worth in the eyes of the Western Powers, with making alternatives, but to no avail. Stalin backed away and “recalled Molotov July 2nd, counseling Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia to withdraw”. The Marshall plan strengthened anti communist political forces, which “were easily able to quash their leftist opponents”. The Soviets now were more cautious, but Stalin still knew the USSR was not ready for another armed conflict. Nevertheless, by 1948, the Balkans were communist, and Czechoslovakia too became communist. The Soviets tried, and in some cases managed to, impose communist regimes in the western world, not only to help with their “expansionist tendencies”, but also to help with the war against capitalism. China, shortly after the war, became communist, and became the USSR ally (the treaty was largely in favor of USSR: low interest loan of 300 million to be paid back in 10 years, and other). Kennan had realised this, and had realised that communism in USSR and capitalism were antagonistic; “the aims of the capitalist world are antagonistic to the Soviet régime, and therefore to the interests of the peoples it controls.” He realised the US was “going to continue for a long time to find the Russians difficult to deal with.”, and that the USSR was a nation striving to become in a short period one of the great industrial nations of the world. It was, due to the 5 year plans, but it still had room to grow. The new nuclear weapons deterred the USSR from any open acts of violence until their own WMD with the exception of treaty violation in Iran shortly after the war. The USSR, unlike the US, did not have a nuclear arsenal, and only in 1949 did they manage to test their first successful nuclear weapon. The US found out, and tensions rose. The USSR was communist, and Stalin had established the cominform (evolved version of the comintern). The cominform had the same ideas; wage global struggle against the capitalist regimes. In fact, Kennan’s ideas of the USSR seeking to become more advanced to challenge the capitalist power goes hands in hands with the cominform ideology. The USSR was seeking to become technologically advanced to conquest over the capitalist societies; this can be seen through a series of “proxy wars”, like the 1950’s Korean war, and others. The fact that the USSR was more advanced made the US fearful, and as consequence the US started mass producing weapons. They built B-52 bombers and increased their nuclear capacity. But, the stalemate was there; the Russians could not dislodge the Americans from Western Europe, and the US could not bring any CIA led coups (they tried, but Russian tanks crushed protest in 53). In fact, Europe was in a constant state of tensions, so the “wars” went elsewhere; to third world countries. The USSR, like Kennan said, were always in a position of inferiority, but that worked in their favor; “the ideas of communism appealed to the third world, against the “imperial” US ideals”. The people would revolt, and when the revolution was successful, the CIA would lead a coup (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954). He was also right that The ideas of capitalism being antagonistic were integrated into the state machinations, and it stayed in the USSR up until Gorbachev, and were part of the way the regime ruled over its people.

The USSR and the US were the only two superpowers in history, and both had different ideologies, and different economic systems. They both had their own strengths, unique, due to their differences. The USSR’s leaders; Stalin, Khrushchev and others were infallible; their words were the law. The fact that communism was antagonistic to capitalism was helpful to their cause; “As long as remnants of capitalism were officially recognized as existing in Russia, it was possible to place on them, as an internal element, part of the blame for the maintenance of a dictatorial form of society”. The leaders used these “capitalist remnants” to destroy opposition, “as long as there is a capitalist encirclement there will be danger of intervention with all the consequences that flow from that danger.”, and impose the communist regime. Hungary, in 56, wished to withdraw from the Warsaw pact, posing a great danger to moscow. If hungary were to gain its independence, it would “create a physical wedge in the Soviet Union’s East European empire, encouraging imitators, and creating a domino effect” which would pose a problem. The USSR ruled with an iron fist; the revolution was quelled, with a conservative estimate of 2,000 dead on the Hungarian side. This scenario was repeated, in 68, with Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. “all internal opposition forces in Russia have consistently been portrayed as the agents of foreign forces of reaction antagonistic to Soviet power”; everything, all opposition,

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