Soviet Awards to non-Soviet personnel.

[desantnik]

Joseph Edward Davies, US Ambassador to USSR, was awarded an order of Lenin in 1945. His view on 1937 purges is peculiar for a Western diplomat:
[SIZE="2"]"All of these trials, purges, and liquidations, which seemed so violent at the time and shocked the world, are now quite clearly a part of a vigorous and determined effort of the Stalin government to protect itself from not only revolution from within but from attack from without. They went to work thoroughly to clean up and clean out all treasonable elements within the country. All doubts were resolved in favor of the government. There were no Fifth Columnists in Russia in 1941 - they had shot them. The purge had cleansed the country and rid it of treason."[/SIZE]

And yet he was awarded the Order of Lenin - I see a connection. By contrast this same individual was probably shocked and outraged at the McCarthy "purges" occuring within a decade in the US.