I'll admit such a view is simplistic, yes. However, I think it played more of a role than you appear to believe it did.
Much trade was with other socialist countries, for one.
I'm not sure this makes much difference, since those other countries were just as messed up. (I also have a hard time taking any numbers that can be found for this at face value anyway, just as I am skeptical of pretty much any numbers that were internally generated by Eastern Bloc countries. Not that Western countries' numbers are miracles of accuracy either, but at least they get a lot more independent checking because the underlying data is more easily available.)
And although Western countries received few Soviet manufactured goods
In other words, you agree with me that this was not a significant factor. Ok.
they, then as now, imported large quantities of Soviet commodities, particularly oil and natural gas
I agree that the West got large quantities of oil and natural gas from the USSR; the question is, at what prices? And at what prices did we sell them grain and other foodstuffs in return? I suspect that the respective answers are "high prices" and "low prices"; the trades were not ordinary free market trades because of the political factors involved.
I'll admit such a view is simplistic, yes. However, I think it played more of a role than you appear to believe it did.
Much trade was with other socialist countries, for one.
I'm not sure this makes much difference, since those other countries were just as messed up. (I also have a hard time taking any numbers that can be found for this at face value anyway, just as I am skeptical of pretty much any numbers that were internally generated by Eastern Bloc countries. Not that Western countries' numbers are miracles of accuracy either, but at least they get a lot more independent checking because the underlying data is more easily available.)
And although Western countries received few Soviet manufactured goods
In other words, you agree with me that this was not a significant factor. Ok.
they, then as now, imported large quantities of Soviet commodities, particularly oil and natural gas
I agree that the West got large quantities of oil and natural gas from the USSR; the question is, at what prices? And at what prices did we sell them grain and other foodstuffs in return? I suspect that the respective answers are "high prices" and "low prices"; the trades were not ordinary free market trades because of the political factors involved.