Soviet attitudes towards the US in the 1920s and 30s were actually quite complex. While the US was a capitalist power and therefore not to be trusted, many within the Soviet leadership were fascinated by American society and its industrial power. It was not the United States per se, but rather a America's allegedly progressive attitude towards technological solutions that cultivated an interest in American methods. Lenin in particular was a fan of Taylorism, the rational and scientific management of production lines popularized by American businessmen like Henry Ford, and Taylorist management would become a major feature of the Soviet planned economy through 1991. Soviet urban planners and architects studied Manhattan's skyscrapers when planning Stalin's new metropolises. On a more quotidian level, Soviet magazines and state kitchens presented American food staples like ketchup and hamburgers, the latter observed by Anastas Mikoyan during a trip to the US, as examples of scientific and efficient food for the masses.

This celebration of American technological achievements and prowess also coexisted with state-directed criticism of America and its institutions, especially in the 1930s. For example, Il'ia Il'f and Evgennii Petrov published a photo-essay of Depression America in Ogonyok magazine noting that behind the popular image of skyscrapers and hustle and bustle were small towns and poverty. Although the Soviets had highlighted Jim Crow and anti-black racism in the 1920s, largely at the behest of African-American activists, the antiracism campaign of the Soviet Union picked up speed in the 1930s.

So while the US's modernity and technological-mindedness certainly encapsulated much of what the Soviets were trying to accomplish in the 1920s and 30s, the stance of the leadership was that the USSR was not a slavish copy of the US, but rather an improvement upon American methods.

Sources

Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Alexander Rabinowitch, and Richard Stites. Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Gronow, Jukka. Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin's Russia. Oxford: Berg, 2003.

Schlögel, Karl. Moscow, 1937. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2012.