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

2.  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?

3. Origins of Marshall Plan
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’
General George Marshall, uncompromising US Sec. of State

4. 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 ( ), 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.

5. 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?

6. 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

7.  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

8. 
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?

9. 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)

10. 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

11.  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

12.  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)