This seemed to many Americans like a betrayal, and U.S. soldiers were deployed to keep supplies stockpiled in Siberia from falling into German hands and to help the so-called Czech Legion leave Russia. This half-hearted attempt at military containment cost more than 200 hundred American lives and continued even after the ceasefire on November 11, 1918; the last American troops left Soviet soil on June 3, 1919.
After World War I, by helping Germany with its reparations through Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, the United States created a bulwark against communist encroachment in Europe, employing humanitarian aid to European countries to prevent a spread of Soviet influence. Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover ignored Soviet efforts to establish diplomatic relations.
In 1933, during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried stimulating exports to the Soviet Union by finally giving the country diplomatic recognition. In light of the increased danger posed by Nazi Germany and World War II, the antagonism between the Soviet Union and the United States moved into the background. But even before the end of World War II, it had become obvious that the ideological antagonism had only been glossed over by wartime cooperation.
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