by Norman Lowe
(e) The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan
1 The Truman Doctrine
This sprang from events in Greece, where communists were trying to overthrow the monarchy. British troops, who had helped liberate Greece from the Germans in 1944, had restored the monarchy, but they were now feeling the strain of supporting it against the communists, who were receiving help from Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Minister, appealed to the USA and Truman announced (March 1947) that the USA ‘would support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures’. Greece immediately received massive amounts of arms and other supplies, and by 1949 the communists were defeated. Turkey, which also seemed under threat, received aid worth about $60 million. The Truman Doctrine made it clear that the USA had no intention of returning to isolation as she had after the First World War; she was committed to a policy of containing communism, not just in Europe, but throughout the world, including Korea and Vietnam.
2 The Marshall Plan
Announced in June 1947, this was an economic extension of the Truman Doctrine. American Secretary of State George Marshall produced his European Recovery Programme (ERP), which offered economic and financial help wherever it was needed. ‘Our policy’, he declared, ‘is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.’ Western Europe was certainly suffering from all of these problems, exacerbated by the coldest winter for almost 70 years (1947–8). One of the aims of the ERP was to promote the economic recovery of Europe, but there was more behind it than humanitarian feeling. A prosperous Europe would provide lucrative markets for American exports; but its main aim was probably political: communism was less likely to gain control in a flourishing western Europe. By September, 16 nations (Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Greece, Turkey, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and the western zones of Germany) had drawn up a joint plan for using American aid. During the next four years over $13 billion of Marshall Aid flowed into western Europe, fostering the recovery of agriculture and industry, which in many countries were in chaos because of war devastation. During the same period the communist parties in western Europe suffered electoral defeat, most notably in France and Italy, which had seemed the most likely states to go communist.
Most American historians have claimed that Europe’s rapid recovery from impending economic and political disaster was due entirely to the Marshall Plan, which was held up as a perfect example of humanitarian intervention. In his history of the Plan, published in 2008, Greg Behrman follows the same line: Marshall and his assistants were heroes and America saved Europe from economic disaster and a communist takeover. In another 2008 publication, Nicolaus Mills also sees the Plan as a model of how to go about helping states struggling with exhaustion, poverty and economic chaos. However, he admits that European leaders themselves played an important part in their countries’ recovery. In fact, European historians have rejected the view that Europe was saved solely by the Marshall Plan. They point out that European economies recovered so quickly after 1947 that the conditions for recovery must already have been in place. Although $13 billion sounds an awful lot of money, Marshall Aid averaged only about 2.5 per cent of the total national income of the 16 countries involved. This raises the question: if Marshall Aid had not been available, would western Europe have turned communist, either from electoral choice or by Soviet invasion? The overwhelming evidence suggests that the communists’ popularity was already in decline before American aid began to arrive. And most historians agree that Stalin was more concerned to protect Soviet security than to start launching wholesale invasions of western Europe.
The Russians were well aware that there was more to Marshall Aid than pure benevolence. Although in theory aid was available for eastern Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Molotov denounced the whole idea as ‘dollar imperialism’. He saw it as a blatant American device for gaining control of western Europe, and worse still, for interfering in eastern Europe, which Stalin considered to be Russia’s sphere of influence. The USSR rejected the offer, and neither her satellite states nor Czechoslovakia, which was showing interest, were allowed to take advantage of it. The ‘iron curtain’ seemed a reality, and the next development only served to strengthen it.
(f) The Cominform
This – the Communist Information Bureau – was the Soviet response to the Marshall Plan. Set up by Stalin in September 1947, it was an organization to draw together the various European communist parties. All the satellite states were members, and the French and Italian communist parties were represented. Stalin’s aim was to tighten his grip on the satellites: to be communist was not enough – it must be Russian-style communism. Eastern Europe was to be industrialized, collectivized and centralized; states were expected to trade primarily with Cominform members, and all contacts with non-communist countries were discouraged. When Yugoslavia objected she was expelled from the Cominform (1948), though she remained communist. In 1947 the Molotov Plan was introduced, offering Russian aid to the satellites. Another organization, known as Comecon (Council of Mutual Economic Assistance), was set up to co-ordinate their economic policies.
(g) The communist takeover of Czechoslovakia (February 1948)
This came as a great blow to the Western bloc, because it was the only remaining democratic state in eastern Europe. There was a coalition government of communists and other left-wing parties, which had been freely elected in 1946. The communists had won 38 per cent of the votes and 114 seats in the 300-seat parliament, and they held a third of the cabinet posts. The prime minister, Klement Gottwald, was a communist; President Beneš and the foreign minister, Jan Masaryk, were not; they hoped that Czechoslovakia, with its highly developed industries, would remain as a bridge between east and west.
However, a crisis arose early in 1948. Elections were due in May, and all the signs were that the communists would lose ground; they were blamed for the Czech rejection of Marshall Aid, which might have eased the continuing food shortages. The communists decided to act before the elections; already in control of the unions and the police, they seized power in an armed coup. All non-communist ministers with the exception of Beneš and Masaryk resigned. A few days later Masaryk’s body was found under the windows of his offices. His death was officially described as suicide. However, when the archives were opened after the collapse of communism in 1989, documents were found which proved beyond doubt that he had been murdered. The elections were held in May but there was only a single list of candidates – all communists. Beneš resigned and Gottwald became president.
The western powers and the UN protested but felt unable to take any action because they could not prove Russian involvement – the coup was purely an internal affair. However, there can be little doubt that Stalin, disapproving of Czech connections with the West and of the interest in Marshall Aid, had prodded the Czech communists into action. Nor was it just coincidence that several of the Russian divisions occupying Austria were moved up to the Czech frontier. The bridge between East and West was gone; the ‘iron curtain’ was complete.
(h) The Berlin blockade and airlift (June 1948–May 1949)
This brought the Cold War to its first great crisis. It arose out of disagreements over the treatment of Germany.
At the end of the war, as agreed at Yalta and Potsdam, Germany and Berlin were each divided into four zones. While the three western powers did their best to organize the economic and political recovery of their zones, Stalin, determined to make Germany pay for all the damage inflicted on Russia, treated his zone as a satellite, draining its resources away to Russia.
Early in 1948 the three western zones were merged to form a single economic unit, whose prosperity, thanks to Marshall Aid, was in marked contrast to the poverty of the Russian zone. The West wanted all four zones to be re-united and given self-government as soon as possible; but Stalin had decided that it would be
safer for Russia if he kept the Russian zone separate, with its own communist, pro-Russian government. The prospect of the three western zones re-uniting was alarming enough to Stalin, because he knew they would be part of the Western bloc.
In June 1948 the West introduced a new currency and ended price controls in their zone and in West Berlin. The Russians decided that the situation in Berlin had become impossible. Already irritated by what they saw as an island of capitalism a hundred miles inside the communist zone, they felt it impossible to have two different currencies in the same city, and they were embarrassed by the contrast between the prosperity of West Berlin and the poverty of the surrounding area.
The Russian response was immediate: all road, rail and canal links between West Berlin and West Germany were closed; their aim was to force the West to withdraw from West Berlin by reducing it to starvation point. The western powers, convinced that a retreat would be the prelude to a Russian attack on West Germany, were determined to hold on. They decided to fly supplies in, rightly judging that the Russians would not risk shooting down the transport planes. Truman had thoughtfully sent a fleet of B-29 bombers to be positioned on British airfields. Over the next ten months, 2 million tons of supplies were airlifted to the blockaded city in a remarkable operation which kept the 2.5 million West Berliners fed and warm right through the winter. In May 1949 the Russians admitted failure by lifting the blockade.
The affair had important results:
The outcome gave a great psychological boost to the western powers, though it brought relations with Russia to their worst ever.
It caused the western powers to co-ordinate their defences by the formation of NATO.
It meant that since no compromise was possible, Germany was doomed to remain divided for the foreseeable future.
(i) The formation of NATO
The formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took place in April 1949. The Berlin blockade showed the West’s military unreadiness and frightened them into making definite preparations. Already in March 1948, Britain, France, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg had signed the Brussels Defence Treaty, promising military collaboration in case of war. Now they were joined by the USA, Canada, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Italy and Norway. All signed the North Atlantic Treaty, agreeing to regard an attack on any one of them as an attack on them all, and placing their defence forces under a joint NATO command organization which would co-ordinate the defence of the west. This was a highly significant development: the Americans had abandoned their traditional policy of ‘no entangling alliances’ and for the first time had pledged themselves in advance to military action. Predictably Stalin took it as a challenge, and tensions remained high.
(j) The two Germanies
Since there was no prospect of the Russians allowing a united Germany, the western powers went ahead alone and set up the German Federal Republic, known as West Germany (August 1949). Elections were held and Konrad Adenauer became the first Chancellor. The Russians replied by setting up their zone as the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany (October 1949). Germany remained divided until the collapse of communism in East Germany (November–December 1989) made it possible early in 1990 to re-unite the two states into a single Germany (see Section 10.6(e)).
(k) More nuclear weapons
When it became known in September 1949 that the USSR had successfully exploded an atomic bomb, an arms race began to develop. Truman responded by giving the go-ahead for the USA to produce a hydrogen bomb many times more powerful than the atomic bomb. His defence advisers produced a secret document, known as NSC-68 (April 1950), which shows that they had come to regard the Russians as fanatics who would stop at nothing to spread communism all over the world. They suggested that expenditure on armaments should be more than tripled in an attempt to defeat communism.
It was not only the Russians who alarmed the Americans: a communist government was proclaimed in China (October 1949) after the communist leader Mao Zedong (Mao Tsetung) had defeated Chiang Kai-shek, the nationalist leader, who had been supported by the USA and who was now forced to flee to the island of Taiwan (Formosa). When the USSR and communist China signed a treaty of alliance in February 1950, American fears of an advancing tide of communism seemed about to be realized. It was in this atmosphere of American anxiety that the Cold War spotlight now shifted to Korea, where, in June 1950, troops from communist North Korea invaded non-communist South Korea (see Section 8.1).
7.3 TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A THAW AFTER 1953?
There is no doubt that in some ways East–West relations did begin to improve during 1953, though there were still areas of disagreement and the thaw was not a consistent development.
(a) Reasons for the thaw
1 The death of Stalin
The death of Stalin was probably the starting point of the thaw, because it brought to the forefront new Russian leaders – Malenkov, Bulganin and Khrushchev – who wanted to improve relations with the USA. Their reasons were possibly connected with the fact that by August 1953 the Russians as well as the Americans had developed a hydrogen bomb: the two sides were now so finely balanced that international tensions had to be relaxed if nuclear war was to be avoided.
Nikita Khrushchev explained the new policy in a famous speech (February 1956) in which he criticized Stalin and said that ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the West was not only possible but essential: ‘there are only two ways – either peaceful coexistence or the most destructive war in history. There is no third way.’ This did not mean that Khrushchev had given up the idea of a communist-dominated world; this would still come, but it would be achieved when the western powers recognized the superiority of the Soviet economic system, not when they were defeated in war. In the same way, he hoped to win neutral states over to communism by lavish economic aid.
2 McCarthy discredited
Anti-communist feelings in the USA, which had been stirred up by Senator Joseph McCarthy, began to moderate when McCarthy was discredited in 1954. It had gradually become clear that McCarthy himself was something of a fanatic, and when he began to accuse leading generals of having communist sympathies, he had gone too far. The Senate condemned him by a large majority and he foolishly attacked the new Republican President Eisenhower for supporting the Senate. Soon afterwards Eisenhower announced that the American people wanted to be friendly with the Soviet people.
(b) How did the thaw show itself?
1 The first signs
The signing of the peace agreement at Panmunjom ended the Korean War in July 1953 (see Section 8.1(c)).
The following year the war in Indo-China ended (see Section 8.3(c–e)).
2 The Russians made important concessions in 1955
They agreed to give up their military bases in Finland.
They lifted their veto on the admission of 16 new member states to the UN.
The quarrel with Yugoslavia was healed when Khrushchev paid a visit to Tito.
The Cominform was abandoned, suggesting more freedom for the satellite states.
3 The signing of the Austrian State Treaty (May 1955)
This was the most important development in the thaw. At the end of the war in 1945, Austria was divided into four zones of occupation, with the capital, Vienna, in the Russian zone. Unlike Germany, she was allowed her own government because she was viewed not as a defeated enemy but as a state liberated from the Nazis. The Austrian government had only limited powers, and the problem was similar to the one in Germany: whereas the three western occupying powers organized the recovery of their zones, the Russians insisted on squeezing reparations, mainly in the form of food supplies, from theirs. No permanent settlement seemed likely, but early in 1955 the Russians were persuaded, mainly by the Austrian government, to be more co-operative. They were also afraid of a merger between West Germany and western Austria.
As a result of the agreement, all occupying troops were withdrawn and Austria became independent, with her 1937 frontiers. She was not to unite with
Germany, her armed forces were strictly limited and she was to remain neutral in any dispute between East and West. This meant that she could not join either NATO or the European Economic Community. One point the Austrians were unhappy about was the loss of the German-speaking area of the South Tyrol, which Italy was allowed to keep.
(c) The thaw was only partial
Khrushchev’s policy was a curious mixture, which western leaders often found difficult to understand. While making the conciliatory moves just described, he was quick to respond to anything which seemed to be a threat to the East, and he had no intention of relaxing Russia’s grip on the satellite states. The Hungarians discovered this to their cost in 1956 when a rising in Budapest against the communist government was ruthlessly crushed by Russian tanks (see Sections 9.3(e) and 10.5(d)). Sometimes he seemed to be prepared to see how far he could push the Americans before they stood up to him:
The Warsaw Pact (1955) was signed between Russia and her satellite states shortly after West Germany was admitted to NATO. The Pact was a mutual defence agreement, which the West took as a gesture against West Germany’s membership of NATO.
The Russians continued to build up their nuclear armaments (see next section).
The situation in Berlin caused more tension (see below).
The most provocative action of all was when Khrushchev installed Soviet missiles in Cuba, less than a hundred miles from the American coast (1962).