Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin reportedly remarked that the capitalists of the West would sell the Soviet Union the rope by which they themselves would hang. At about that same time (1921) Soviet leader L. B. Kamanev stated it even more specifically: “We are convinced that . . . foreign capital will fulfill the role Marx predicted for it . . . with every additional shovel of coal, with every additional load of oil that we in Russia obtain through the help of foreign technique, capital will be digging its own grave.” There was once a time when we in the West listened to what the Soviets were saying, or at least did not immediately discount it. Today, Lenin’s words, though spoken nearly sixty years ago, are coming home with a vengeance.
The issue we face today is whether or not the United States should sell the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies goods and technologies with potential military uses. Those in favor theorize that by doing so, we will draw the Soviets into “a web of constructive relationships,” give them a stake in the existing world order, and so discourage them from military adventures.
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