In wake of the February Revolution and Tsar Nicholas II's abdication, Washington was still largely ignorant of the underlying fractures in new Russian Provisional Government and believed that Russia would rapidly evolve into a stable democracy enthusiastic to join the western coalition in the war against Germany.

"[2][5] Hoping the fledgling parliamentary democracy that would reinvigorate Russian contributions to the war, President Wilson took sizable strides to build a relationship with the Provisional Government.

The day following his request declaration of war on Germany, Wilson began offering American governmental credits to the new Russian government totaling $325 million – about half of which was actually used.

[8] Concurrently, President Wilson became increasingly aware of the human rights violations perpetuated by the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and opposed the new regime's militant atheism and advocacy of a command economy.

Additionally many of Wilson's political opponents in the United States, including the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Henry Cabot Lodge, believed that an independent Ukraine should be established.

Despite this, the United States, as a result of the fear of Japanese expansion into Russian-held territory and their support for the Allied-aligned Czech Legion, sent a small number of troops to Northern Russia and Siberia.

The Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, under the leadership of Leon Trotsky and Georgy Chicherin, received British and American envoys respectfully but had no intentions of agreeing to the deal due to their belief that the Conference was composed of an old capitalist order that would be swept away in a world revolution.

Republican Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes rejected recognition, telling labor union leaders that, "those in control of Moscow have not given up their original purpose of destroying existing governments wherever they can do so throughout the world.

"[19] Herbert Hoover in 1919 warned Wilson that, "We cannot even remotely recognize this murderous tyranny without stimulating action is to radicalism in every country in Europe and without transgressing on every National ideal of our own.

"[20] Inside the U.S. State Department, the Division of Eastern European Affairs by 1924 was dominated by Robert F. Kelley, a dedicated opponent of communism who trained a generation of specialists including George Kennan and Charles Bohlen.

[21] Meanwhile, Great Britain took the lead in reopening relations with Moscow, especially trade, although they remained suspicious of communist subversion, and angry at the Kremlin's repudiation of Russian debts.

[26] Amtorg handled almost all exports from the USSR, comprising mostly lumber, furs, flax, bristles, and caviar, and all imports of raw materials and machinery for Soviet industry and agriculture.

[31] Historian Harvey Klehr describes that Armand Hammer "met Lenin in 1921 and, in return for a concession to manufacture pencils, agreed to launder Soviet money to benefit communist parties in Europe and America.

"[34] According to journalist Alan Farnham, "Over the decades Hammer continued traveling to Russia, hobnobbing with its leaders to the point that both the CIA and the FBI suspected him of being a full-fledged agent.

"[35] In 1929, Henry Ford made an agreement with the Russians to provide technical aid over nine years in building the first Soviet automobile plant, GAZ, in Gorky (Stalin renamed Nizhny Novgorod after his favorite writer).

The U.S. government hoped for some repayment on the old tsarist debts, and a promise not to support subversive movements inside the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the initiative, with the assistance of his close friend and advisor Henry Morgenthau Jr. and Russian expert William Bullitt, bypassing the State Department.

"[48] Many American businessmen expected a bonus in terms of large-scale trade, but it never materialized, instead being a one-way movement that saw the United States fuel the Soviet Union with technology.

Bullitt arrived in Moscow with high hopes for Soviet–American relations, but his view of the Soviet leadership soured on closer inspection due to the regime's totalitarian nature and terror.

Come the invasion of 1941, the Soviet Union entered a Mutual Assistance Treaty with the United Kingdom, and received massive aid from the American Lend-Lease program, relieving American–Soviet tensions, and bringing together former enemies in the fight against Germany and the Axis powers.

[56][57] In total, the U.S. deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[58] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans);[59] 11,400 aircraft (4,719 of which were Bell P-39 Airacobras)[60] and 1.75 million tons of food.

[61] Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the Soviet Union, with 94 percent coming from the United States.

[65] Memorandum for the President's Special Assistant Harry Hopkins, Washington, D.C., 10 August 1943: In World War II Russia occupies a dominant position and is the decisive factor looking toward the defeat of the Axis in Europe.

Nixon and Kissinger promoted greater dialogue with the Soviet government, including regular summit meetings and negotiations over arms control and other bilateral agreements.

[82][83] After the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the two superpowers agreed to install a direct hotline between Washington, D.C., and Moscow (the so-called red telephone), enabling leaders of both countries to quickly interact with each other in a time of urgency, and reduce the chances that future crises could escalate into an all-out war.

"[103] Following this, relations turned increasingly sour with the Soviet repression of anti-occupation resistance in Poland,[104][105] end of the SALT II negotiations,[106] and the subsequent NATO exercise in 1983.

START negotiated the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, and its final implementation in late 2001 resulted in the removal of about 80% of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence.

[129] Bush warned independence movements of the disorder that could come with secession from the Soviet Union; in a 1991 address that critics labeled the "Chicken Kiev speech", he cautioned against "suicidal nationalism".

Perhaps, the most famous example is McDonald's, who first restaurant in Moscow led to cultural shock on behalf of bewildered Soviet citizens, who stood in huge lines to buy American fast food.

[133] The first McDonald's in the country had a grand opening on Moscow's Pushkin Square on 31 January 1990 with approximately 38,000 customers waiting in hours long lines, breaking company records at the time.

[135] Later that month, Gorbachev resigned as general secretary of the Communist party, and Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered the seizure of Soviet property.