Sources used in this document:

Sources of Soviet Conduct is also known as the "X Article," written by George Kennan who was the Deputy Mission Chief in the Soviet Union between 1944-46. Kennan wrote the article as a telegram, and it was published in Foreign Affairs magazine in July 1947.

2. Kennan's analysis of the Soviet Union states that they do not see the possibility of long-term peaceful coexistence with the capitalist world. Their aim is to advance the socialist cause, and capitalism was a menace to socialism. The U.S.S.R. would continue to build up its client states, and would use controllable Marxists within the capitalistic world as its allies. Further, Soviet aggression was not really aligned with the viewpoints of the Russian people or with the economic reality of the modern world, but more in historic Russian paranoia and xenophobia.

3. In February 1946, the U.S. Treasury asked the U.S. Embassy in Moscow why the Soviet Union was not supporting the newly created World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Kennan wrote the response to these questions, but included a broader base.

4. Initially, the intended audience was the American government, but when the document was published in Foreign Affairs, the audience became the academic and interested public, along with a way to get the message to the populace about the actual motives of the U.S.S.R.

5. Kennan was far from being reactionary. He left out specifics on Soviet aggression, but was writing based on the actions that he actually observed after World War II, and the signals he received from his diplomatic contacts within the Soviet government.