What was the Marshall
Plan?
(also known as Marshall Aid)
 Your task
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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?
Origins of Marshall Plan
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General George Marshall,
uncompromising US Sec. of
State

General George Marshall,
American Secretary of State
Assessment of Europe’s
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’
Aims of the Marshall Plan
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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.
How successful was the Plan?
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Why would Stalin want to ban
Marshall Aid?
$12-13 billion dollars
poured into Europe
16 European states
accepted aid (all nonCommunist)
Stalin banned Marshall
Aid for USSR and
banned satellite states
from accepting it
How successful was the Marshall
Plan?
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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
 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.
Mostly to
blame
Not to
blame

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?
US blame
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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)
USSR blame
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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
 Your task
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
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
 Extra help

You might want to consider the following points
The background to the Marshall Plan (Greece & fear
of Communist take-over)
 Marshall’s assessment of Europe’s needs
 The public & hidden agenda (economic & political
support)
 The growing tensions during the Cold War (spread
of Communism, arms race, Iron Curtain speech)
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