Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 

Born Jan. 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, N. Y.; died Apr. 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Ga. US statesman; president from 1933 to 1945.

Roosevelt was the son of a wealthy landowner and entrepreneur. His family had extensive political connections in the northeastern states. Educated as a lawyer, he attended Groton, a privileged private school, and Harvard and Columbia universities. In 1905 he married a distant relative, Eleanor Roosevelt, a niece of T. Roosevelt. He worked for a law firm from 1907 to 1910, when he was elected to the New York State Senate. He was a member of the Democratic Party. As assistant secretary of the navy from 1913 to 1920, during W. Wilson’s administration, Roosevelt advocated the strengthening of US naval power. In 1920 he was the Democratic Party’s candidate for vice-president. Defeated in the election, he returned to private law practice and entrepreneurial concerns.

Stricken with poliomyelitis in August 1921, Roosevelt never fully regained the use of his legs. Despite his illness, Roosevelt played an increasingly prominent role in the leadership of the Democratic Party. In 1928 he was elected governor of New York.

During the world economic crisis of 1929–33, with the exacerbation of the class struggle in the USA, Roosevelt gained popularity by criticizing the reactionary policy of the ruling Republican Party. The candidate of the Democratic Party, he was elected president in 1932. After taking office in 1933, he adopted a number of emergency measures instituting government regulation of the economy. Roosevelt believed that these measures could reinvigorate the economy and save the capitalist system. Under pressure from the toiling masses, the Roosevelt administration also made some concessions in social legislation.

Roosevelt’s reforms, which were collectively referred to as the New Deal, signified a new stage in the development of state-monopoly capitalism in the USA. In 1936, Roosevelt was re-elected with the decisive support of the popular masses. The New Deal had limited, contradictory results, owing to the class character of bourgeois reformism, but Roosevelt continued to enjoy the support of the majority of voters. He was the only president in US history to be elected to a third (1940) and fourth term (1944).

In foreign policy Roosevelt was a realist. On Nov. 16, 1933, his administration established diplomatic relations with the USSR. Taking into consideration the growing resistance to the expansion of American imperialism in Latin America, Roosevelt proclaimed a Good Neighbor policy, which gave preference to subtle methods of penetrating Latin America.

Roosevelt was aware that fascism posed a threat to the USA, and he condemned the aggressive plans of Germany, Italy, and Japan. With the outbreak of World War II (1939–45), he advocated American support for Great Britain and France against fascist Germany. On June 24, 1941, after fascist Germany attacked the USSR, Roosevelt declared the readiness of the USA to support the struggle of the Soviet people. Opposing reactionary forces in the USA, which adopted anti-Soviet positions, he upheld the idea of rapprochement between the US and the USSR, and he favored providing material assistance to the USSR.

After the US entry into the war in December 1941, Roosevelt made an important contribution to the creation and strengthening of the anti-Hitlerite coalition. Representing the USA at conferences in Tehran (1943) and Yalta (1945), he emphasized the importance of the development of postwar international cooperation and the creation of the UN. He thought highly of the courage and fortitude of the Soviet people in their struggle against the invaders. Roosevelt was a strong advocate of the postwar maintenance and strengthening of US-Soviet cooperation, which he viewed as a very important condition for the preservation of world peace.

REFERENCES

Iakovlev, N. N. F. Ruzvel’t—chelovek i politik. Moscow, 1965.
Mal’kov, V. L. “Novyi kurs” ν SShA: Sotsial’nye dvizheniia i sotsial’naia politika. Moscow, 1973.
Rauch, B. The History of the New Deal, 1933–1938. New York [1963].
Schlesinger, A. M. The Age of Roosevelt, vols. 1–3. Boston, 1957–60.
Leuchtenburg, W. E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. New York [1963].

V. L. MAL’KOV