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Re-reading Evgenii Primakov's memoir, Meetings at Crossroads: https://www.litres.ru/evgeniy-primakov/vstrechi-na-perekrestkah-10328957/chitat-onlayn/. At one point he delves into a discussion of Western aid to the USSR (or, rather, its absence), and says that the failure to keep the Soviets afloat was a serious mistake. 
"It was completely clear that the West was in no hurry to support the USSR [in 1991]... Most likely, this was a result of the unpreparedness and unwillingness on the part of the West to help the Soviet Union 'stand up' and enter the world community as an equal." (p. 97)
This is of course a well-known lament. What to make of it? First. It's true that the West provided very little aid to the crumbling USSR. George H.W. Bush, in particular, did not rise to the occasion, which may well be seen as a failure of leadership.
The notion that there was no money to give away is hardly convincing in view of the colossal expense of the Gulf War. What funding *was* given came mainly from the Germans, and just as a bribe to get the Soviet troops out of East Germany. Still...
Primakov's claim that a version of the Marshall Plan would have helped the USSR join the West on "equal" terms, and which would have somehow sustained Moscow's cooperation with the West in the long-term isn't fully convincing. This is because...
1) The consolidation of the West in 1947-49 was largely shaped by the Soviet threat - not just a fear of direct Soviet aggression but also that of a Communist take-over from within. US leadership in Europe was embraced because it was a sine qua non of political survival.
The Soviet Union of 1991 was not threatened by anyone in this sense, and would not have felt the need to follow the US lead just out of gratefulness for an economic bail-out.
2) The resentment at not being allowed to join the West as an "equal" is accompanied by inevitable vagueness as to what this "equality" entailed. Equal with whom? The US? In this case, could it really have been accommodated within Western security and economic structures?
Or would the Soviets' propensity to shove their way around have translated into friction and ultimately conflict, at which point you could always dig in the past to find historical grievances to legitimise the existing conflict.
For instance, the feeling of gratitude for Lend-Lease didn't prevent the rapid downturn in Soviet-US relations, which happened for other reasons. When it did happen, Lend-Lease was quickly forgotten (and is still not really properly remembered in Russia's historical discourse).
3) A final point. In the 1980s, when Japan was the No. 1 investor in China's economy (and provider of ODA), the Chinese leadership repeatedly assured the Japanese that their help will never be forgotten etc. Read more here: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/more-friends-foes-sino-japanese-relations-1984. Well, then?
Once China did become strong, does it still remember how the Japanese financed and facilitated "reform and opening"? The bottom line is that gratitude counts for little in international relations. Self-interest and ambition count for that much more.
