alt Hacker NewsI doubt it was for any particular energy policy objective, if they were Soviet funded. The soviets (or whatever name you want to give them now) are masters of finding fracture points in relatively stable western societies and exploiting them to make unstable western societies that are less effective at combating Soviet policy. See: almost the entirety of the modern political discourse.
given how the united states starved them of foreign currency and then introduced economic shock therapy that reduced life expectancy of the population by 10 yrs particularly for men one might say the western imperialists were better at that