WI: Soviet Interference in US Politics, 1938

So, I'm reading a book about Soviet espionage in the US before and during WW2, and came across something interesting:

The Haunted Wood said:
Peter Gutzeit [a Soviet agent]... sent his superiors a memorandum in June 1938 regarding "our work here [in America] in the field of big politics." Gutzeit had been in the country for five years, unusually long for Soviet intelligence chiefs in that decade. He recognized the amounts other major countries, but not the Soviet Union, were spending in the United States "on propaganda" to influence American policies, public opinion, and the press "as well as [on] bribing political figures in the government, Senate, and Congress..."

Gutzeit's memo did not advocate bribing key figures... or stealing documents, but rather spending significant funds to shape the attitudes of sympathetic political and public sectors toward Soviet interests. In an assessment decades ahead of his time, Gutzeit tried to persuade his superiors in Moscow that such efforts would help to produce within the Roosevelt Administration, Congress, and the American public "a certain number of people (ours) who by their speeches and all their work would influence U.S. policy."

Elsewhere, the book discusses how Gutzeit's plan included buying American newspapers, bribing journalists to write pro-Soviet articles, and using bribes and campaign donations to try to build up a pro-Soviet block in Congress. His proposed budget started at $500,000 to $1,000,000, equivalent to $7.6 to $15 million today. Gutzeit already had one agent for the proposed Congressional block, Samuel Dickstein, a US representative (who IOTL proved to be mostly a waste of money).

Shortly after proposing this plan, Gutzeit was recalled to Moscow and purged.

What if Moscow had decided to go for it?
 
I think it's too late for it to work. This could've worked great... a few years earlier. But by 1938? I doubt it.
 
Yeah, the great depression was more or less over at this point and although the fears of Bolshevism and communists weren't as pronounced as they were after the Second World War, they were there and I seriously doubt a pro-Soviet block in congress would get far. Hell, I'd even bet those papers would be closed down.

The reason anti-Soviet sentiment wasn't so obvious in the 30's was because of US isloationism, they were uncomfotable with the Soviets but they sort of just passed each other in the halls so to speak, not really really confronting each other. The War drew the US out of it's shell and back onto the global stage, and afterwards, it's role as an antonym to Communism was cemented.

Public perceptions of the Soviets were probably at their best during the war, because the press were trying to sell the alliance to the American people. The US/Soviet alliance in WWII is probably closer to a "enemy of my enemy" relationship, rather than co-operative allies like the UK and the Commonwealth.
 
This "plan", had it been conceived in '33 or '34, might have gained some momentum. 1938, however, seems too late for this to happen.
 
His proposed budget started at $500,000 to $1,000,000, equivalent to $7.6 to $15 million today.

You can't use CPI for diplomatic actions. You need to use %GDP. See Measuring Worth's discussion of the value of money over time for why.

So between $87 million and $175 million in 2011 USD using the US economy's proportion of GDP as an estimate of converting money into power.

thanks,
Sam R.
 
Now, if they had tried this in perhaps... 1933? It could have, especially if FDR gets assassinated. However, I doubt the Soviet Union at the time had the resources to devote to something like that.
 
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