What was the Marshall Plan? (also known as Marshall Aid)

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What was the Marshall Plan? (also known as
Marshall Aid)
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? Your task

• Read your textbooks (p.48-9) and try to answer
  these questions
• Why did the US see the need for Marshall Aid?
• What were its main aims?
• How successful was Marshall Aid?

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Origins of Marshall Plan

• General George Marshall, American Secretary of
  State
• Assessment of Europes economic needs
• Europe owed US, 11.5 billion
• Shortages of goods fuel
• Rationing, e.g. Britain, 1947 power cuts
• Churchill, a rubble heap, a breeding ground of
  hate

General George Marshall, uncompromising US Sec.
of State
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Aims of the Marshall Plan

• Stop spread of Communism
• Help economies of Europe recover
• Provide a market for American goods
• 17 billion rebuild European prosperity

Illustration for a booklet by Jo Spier
(1900-1978), a Dutch, Jewish artist and writer
who had been imprisoned in a German concentration
camp during World War II and who emigrated to the
U.S. in 1951.
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How successful was the Plan?

• 12-13 billion dollars poured into Europe
• 16 European states accepted aid (all
  non-Communist)
• Stalin banned Marshall Aid for USSR and banned
  satellite states from accepting it

Why would Stalin want to ban Marshall Aid?
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How successful was the Marshall Plan?

• Rejected by Stalin as dollar imperialisation
• Unacceptable to Soviet pride
• Czechoslovakia considered plan, but elections
  fixed foreign minister killed
• Yugoslavia 1948, Tito expelled
• Warsaw 1947, Communist Information Bureau
  (Cominform) created to protect communist states
  from US aggression

President Tito of Yugoslavia a loose canon
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? Your task

• How far do you feel each side was to blame for
  the increasing tension in the Cold War
  immediately after WWII? Decide where you would
  put the USA USSR on the scale below. State your
  reasons why.

Not to blame
Mostly to blame
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?

• You are going to hold a debate over the issue
  who was to blame for increasing tensions during
  the early stages of the Cold War? One side will
  argue the case that it was the USSR the other
  that it was the Americans?

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US blame

• Support for anti-Communists during Civil War
• Anti-Communist stance of Truman
• Development of atomic bomb
• Iron curtain speech
• Truman Doctrine Marshall Aid
• Ideological differences (US capitalist democracy)

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USSR blame

• Historic tensions, e.g. Hitler Stalin pact, 1939
• Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe setting up
  of Communist governments
• Rejection of Marshall Aid
• Formation of Cominform
• Red army, development of own nuclear weapons

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? Your task

• Work in pairs. Prepare two statements. One which
  Truman could give to Congress explaining why he
  is supporting the Marshall Plan and one from
  Stalin to the Politburo condemning the Plan and
  outlining his response to it.
• Compare the differences in interpretation in your
  two speeches

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? Extra help

• You might want to consider the following points
• The background to the Marshall Plan (Greece
  fear of Communist take-over)
• Marshalls assessment of Europes needs
• The public hidden agenda (economic political
  support)
• The growing tensions during the Cold War (spread
  of Communism, arms race, Iron Curtain speech)