"Purposes of prestige," 1933 : the Roosevelt touch and U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union.

This thesis examines the United States government's official diplomatic recognition of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1933. I argue that in severing sixteen years of executive policy President Franklin D. Roosevelt's personal leadership directly impacted recognition, aided by the involvement of his Soviet counterpart: Foreign Minister Maxim M. Litvinov. Their combined efforts formed a union of convenience which ensured diplomatic recognition, and a rapprochement to earlier hostility. FDR's advisors began seriously discussing the possibility of recognizing the Marxist state in May 1932, although their actions were not made known until well after the March 1933 inauguration. Alternatively, Litvinov initiated a policy of collective security within the USSR that dovetailed succinctly with western machinations for international prosperity. Several milestones throughout Roosevelt's first year in office were a direct result of the ultimately fruitful negotiations between him, the United States' State Department, and Litvinov. The bitter impasse they arrived at, however, set the tone of US/Soviet diplomacy for the remainder of the century