Did The Marshall Plan Help Europe

Truman gave his iconic Truman Doctrine speech in front of a joint session of congress. This speech outlined the broad strokes of the Truman Doctrine as well as marked the declaration of the Cold War as well as sets the direction of American foreign policy for the next 40 years. Truman used this speech which was broadcast on the radio across the country as a form of going public to help his doctrine pass through congress. The Truman Doctrine finically aided Greece and Turkey in their ongoing war against communism as well as established Truman’s containment policy towards communism. A year later in 1948 when Truman planned to spread a program much like the Truman Doctrine across Europe in the form of the European Recovery Program. Truman knew that due to his high unfavorable rates he would need to use bargaining this time instead of going public to enact his plan. The Marshall plan is born with Truman recruits popular Secretary of State General George C. Marshall to be the face of the plan in order to garner support. While Marshall was the face of the plan Truman worked diligently behind the scenes to garner support for the plan from republicans. The Marshall Plan ultimately passed and in the end sent 13 million dollars in relief funds to Europe to aid in rebuilding from World War II in addition to holding at bay the treat of communism spreading. Truman became a shining example of how going public and bargaining both of there place in the

The evidence for this comes from Rep. Charles W. Vursell wrote, “...20,000,000 that you would waste in the Marshall Plan, and spend them here at home in building the strongest air force.. in the world.” (Vursell, 1, 1947) Using this, is clear that the Marshall Plan is effective because the U.S. would loan more money on other countries instead of using it here at home.

Following World War II, all of Europe was left in a clutter of disarray. Instead of watching Europe endure the hardships left from the war, the United States went to Europe’s aid. From 1947 to 1952, European nations experienced a time of massive growth. The Marshall Plan called for the nations of Europe to draw up a program for economic and political recovery from the war. The plan was a response to American concerns that communist parties were growing stronger across Europe and that the Soviets might intervene. The Marshall Plan also reflected the belief that US aid for European economic recovery would create strong democracies and open new markets for American goods. After World War II, The European Recovery Program was instrumental in economically

The speech was created primarily Charles Bohlen, a Soviet expert and Marshall’s special assistant, and later revised by Marshall. Department officials, including George Kennan and William Clayton saw the Marshall Plan as a way of restricting Communist growth in Europe, by strengthening the struggling democratic European nations . After the end of WWII in 1945, the majority of Europe was in ruins; over a third of the European industry was destroyed by the war, resulting in weak economies, and millions of people unemployed and starving, causing low morale. As economies were not improving at a rapid enough pace, combined with high unemployment and a hungry population, people started to look for change. Communism began to look promising, and was becoming increasingly popular in Europe through rebels and partisans. In an attempt confine the spread of Communism, Marshall was sent to Moscow to negotiate with Stalin. Initially, Stalin welcomed the possibility of Soviet participation in a U.S funded European reconstruction program. However, Stalin opposed the “idea of a coordinated multilateral aid programme, which was seen to threaten the Soviet political and economic position in Eastern Europe”, and withdrew all support and insisted that

The Soviet ambassador to the United States was Novikov at the time. Novikov suggested that the United States wanted to form a Western European alliance directly against the Soviet Union. He felt that the Truman Doctrine was the first step towards this goal, but it had been too harsh to attract any European support. Then he said that the Marshall Plan represented a more appealing tactic to involve the Western Europeans in the creation of an anti-Soviet alliance. However apparently the United States was not just pressuring Western Europe, but Eastern Europe as well. This partially, made the Soviet Union very angry. Maybe if the Marshall Plan had been limited to just Western Europe, maybe it would have been less threatening to the Soviet

The most convincing argument why the Marshall Plan was a scheme driven primarily by political, rather than economic

The reason for the Marshall Plan was that Europe was in desperate need of repair. There was mass homelessness across Europe and

It also was in American interest to rebuild European economies to market American goods in Europe and to receive the money Britain and France borrowed during the war. Congress wasn’t in favor of the proposed plan at first but following a coup by communist in Czechoslovakia, they approved it.

The "Marshall Plan" created by United States Secretary of State George Marshall and the "Molotov Plan" created by Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov were

“The Marshall Plan offered a positive vision to go along with containment. It aimed to combat the idea, widespread since the Great Depression, that capitalism was in decline and communism the wave of the future. It defined the threat to American

According to Harry S.Truman, the 33rd president of the USA, ”The Marshall Plan will go down in history as one of America's greatest contributions to the peace of the world”. The Marshall plan is a plan which helped Germany rebuild its economy after the war. The USA has donated 12 billion dollars to Germany which is now worth 120 billion dollars. The Marshall plan has helped the unions which were poor to rebuild itself. After World War II The Marshall Plan impacted the lives of many people and helped rebuild nations. First, the Marshall plan played an immense role in giving funds to help many countries. Secondly, the Marshall Plan had a huge effect on us today. Finally, the Treaty of Versailles and the Marshall plan have many similarities and differences.

Famine and unemployment, coupled with the near destruction of the continent’s infrastructure left Europe on the brink of economic collapse and starvation. America began supplying financial aid to Europe immediately after the end of the war, George C. Marshall developed the first piece of foreign policy that would serve to not only assist in the rebuilding of Europe, but also counter the growing communist influence on the continent. “Marshall was convinced the key to restoration of political stability lay in the revitalization of national economies. Further he saw political stability in Western Europe as a key to blunting the advances of communism in that region.” http://marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/history-marshall-plan/

The American benefits of the Plan can be divided into political benefits, and economic benefits: Economic outcomes were: building a ‘new European’ economy that encouraged free trade, thus making it easier for American goods to be exported to the continent, thereby profiting American producers, and “Americanizing” some

In June 1947, the United States announced the Marshall Plan, intended to help economic recovery in Europe and thus prevent the spread of Communism in a Europe that was increasingly becoming “a breeding ground of hate”, thus providing a comforting environment for the rise of the Marxist ideology. At first, the Marshall Plan seemed to be a success, with economic aid worth $17 billion being made available to Europe and ensuring the protection of democratic governments in Turkey and Greece. Marshall Aid did help economic recovery in Europe, erasing unemployment and improving living standards greatly. Most Western European nations were happy to accept American aid in order to redevelop their economies. However, Stalin forbade any Eastern European countries from accepting the Plan and setup organizations like the Cominform and Comecon instead, to further tighten Stalin’s grip over Eastern Europe.

If countries accepted Marshall Aid, the USA would have control over what that money was spent on. The Soviets didn’t want that as they thought the USA was just trying to westernise countries and turn them away from communism. When Germany and Berlin were separated into 4 zones, the Russian zone was the only one that was a communist area. The Allies then started to merge their zones together to create Bizonia and then soon afterwards Trizonia which consisted of the American, British and French zones. This caused separate development between West and East Germany. They both had different currencies and were both working towards different aims. In the end, that is what drove the two sectors apart and then the two countries later