12 март 1947 г. - Truman Doctrine

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Background info:
- When the Germans retreated from Greece in 1944, there were 2 rival groups, the monarchists and the communists. These 2 groups both wanted to rule Greece. The communists wanted Greece to be a Soviet Republic, while the monarchists wanted a return of the king of Greece. Churchill sent in British troops in 1945 to supposedly restore the order and supervise the elections. However, in 1946, the USSR protested to the UN stating that Britain was a threat to the peace in Greece; when the UN took no action, the USSR went in by force. A civil war quickly developed, and the British could not economically handle it, so it ended up withdrawing its troops. Truman ended up stepping in, paying for some British troops to remain in Greece, and helped prop up the government. By 1950, the royalists were in control.

After the intervention of the US within Greece, the US now had a different view on world politics, and created something called the 'Truman Doctrine'. Under the Truman Doctrine, the US was prepared to send money, equipment, and advice to any country that was being threatened by communism. Truman had accepted that East Europe was now communist, but what he wanted to do was ensure that communism did not spread past Eastern Europe. This policy became known as containment.

What was Marshall plan?

The Marshall plan was the plan made after the idea of the Truman doctrine. Truman believed that communism succeeded when people faced poverty and hardship, so to solve this he sent the secretary of state George Marshall to assess the economic state of Europe. What he found was a ruined economy filled with refugees, shortages of food, war debts, damaged homes, and homelessness. In total, Europe had 11.5 Billion USD in debt to the US. By the end of the inspection, Marshall had concluded that about 17 Billion USD would be needed to rebuild Europe, and in December 1947 Truman put his idea forward to Congress. For a short time, the congress refused, because 17 billion USD was very expensive.

However, in 1948 Czechoslovakia was taken over by communists after being ruled by a coalition government. Although the coalition government contained communists, Czechoslovakia had been trying to become independent of Moscow. The communists were very harsh, and with this, the American Congress immediately accepted the Marshall Plan.

Marshall Aid (the actions taken after the Marshall plan was accepted by Congress), consisted of 2 POVs of the help given by the US. On one hand, Marshall Aid was a generous act by the US, to send equipment and money to countries in need was a huge help. On the other hand, it could be argued that the US did it out of self-interest since most of the equipment given was American, the US was making a lot of profit off giving it to help countries (Truman remembered the depression (1929-1941) and did not want to cause economic issues in the US because of Marshall Aid); and, with the help of the US, a lot of countries became dependent of the US and the loads it would offer, this gave the US a lot of control worldwide. The Marshall Aid (and the entire plan overall) made Stalin very suspicious of the US.

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