(3) The USA's involvement in Europe Flashcards
3.2 The launch of the Marshall Plan
What was the Marshall Plan?
✩ The Marshall Plan in April 1948 was the realization of the Truman Doctrine. The Marshall Plan was an economic stimulus package of $13 billion created by US Secretary of State, George Marshall, to help countries that were trying to reconstruct after the war, but which were therefore more susceptible to falling to communism.
How did Churchill describe the Marshall Plan?
✩ Marshall plan according to Churchill was “the most unsordid act in history”
What was Comecon and when was it established?
✩ Establishment of the Comecon in 1949 for economic control.
What were the motivations behind the Marshall Plan in terms of economy in the USA?
✩ There were concerns that without economic recovery in Europe there was a danger of economic recession in the USA, which faced a decline in domestic demand after the war.
✩ A Europe under communism would be unable to serve as a market for US goods.
What were the motivations behind the Marshall Plan in the terms of communist fear?
What events may have hastened this action?
✩ The Americans also believed that where there was economic desperation, communism was more likely to flourish.
✩ There was real fear, for example, the Italian communists might win the election due in the spring of 1948.
✩ It is suggested therefore that the Marshall Plan was part of the containment strategy
What were the motivations behind the Marshall Plan in terms of potential self-conflict and refusing?
✩ It was clear that, with the conditions attached to the Marshall Plan, the Russians would refuse it.
✩ This included the opening up of economic markets to capitalist countries and producing transparent economic records.
✩ However, the Americans secretly hoped that eastern European countries might accept and this could drive a wedge between the satellite states and the USSR.
What were the Soviet and eastern European reactions to it?
✩ Stalin rejected the Plan and vetoed the inclusion of any states in the Soviet bloc.
✩ The Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, labelled the Plan as dollar imperialism, by which he meant that it would give the USA the power to determine diplomatic and meant fundamental change to the domestic policies in the USSR.
✩ In response, the USSR tightening its grip across eastern Europe and attempted to thwart the Plan through the following actions. (Comecon, Cominform)
What happened in Yugoslavia, and what did this lead to?
✩ One beneficiary of Marshall aid was Yugoslavia. Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia challenged Stalin’s control over Southern and Eastern Europe. He simply refused to be the USSR’s puppet. Tito had been a loyal communist yet this act of defiance saw him expelled from the Cominform.
How did Yugoslovia interact with the USA and how did Stalin interpret their stance?
✩ Both Yugoslavia and the USA capitalised on Yugoslavia’s expulsion from the Cominform and entered into an agreement that provided economic assistance to Yugoslavia through the Marshall plan.
✩ His Cold War Stance was one of non-alignment with the East or West - USSR simply let them be because they did not harm Soviet interests and they were a convinient buffer state that allowed them to focus their main Cold War strategy on Central Europe
