Reactions to Soviet Expansion
For the Western Allies the setting up of A classless society where all property is owned publicly. governments in Eastern Europe was a major concern. World War Two had been fought in the name of freedom. Now it seemed that in many countries the hard-won freedom from Nazi A country ruled by someone who has complete authority. was being replaced by communist dictatorships.
An Exchange of Telegrams
The Long Telegram (February 1946)
In 1946, George Kennan, an official at the US Embassy in Moscow, was asked to provide a summary of what the Soviets were up to. His response became known as The Long Telegram because at 8,000 words, it was indeed long!
In much fewer than 8,000 words, what Kennan’s telegram said was that the USSR was heavily armed and feared the outside world. It was determined to spread communism and therefore there could be no peaceful co-existence between the USSR and the USA. However, the USA was stronger than the USSR and so communism could be ‘contained’.
The Novikov Telegram
The Soviet response to The Long Telegram was The Novikov Telegram, in which the Soviet ambassador to the USA, Nikolai Novikov, warned that the USA had emerged from World War Two economically strong and bent on world domination. As a result, the USSR needed to secure its An area giving someone protection against a threat, e.g. the USSR wanted a buffer zone around them after being invaded by Germany in both World Wars. in Eastern Europe.
These two telegrams set the scene for the Cold War in Europe. The USSR would attempt to dominate Eastern Europe and spread communism where possible. The USA would commit to a policy of 'An American policy to try and stop communism from spreading, to restrict it from spreading to other countries.'.
The Iron Curtain Speech
On 5 March 1946, the by-now former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, condemned the Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe in his famous A phrase used by Winston Churchill to describe the division in Europe between the communist east and capitalist west. speech. In that speech he famously noted that from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent
.
In a nutshell, what Churchill meant by this was that the Allies had spent six years fighting for the freedom from Fascism in Europe, only to have half the continent now under Soviet dictatorship.
The Truman Doctrine, 12th March 1947
American and British politicians were concerned about events in Greece and Turkey. Previously, Britain had been influential in the area but was no longer in a financial position to support governments who would be pro-Western. Communism had already spread to many of Greece’s neighbours and the Greek Communist Party was becoming ever more popular: there were concerns that Greece would fall to communism next.
The USA was the only Western ally in a financial position to stop this from happening. In March 1947, President Truman made a speech to the US Congress in which he promised that the USA would provide aid to any country taking a stand against communism. This was developed into The Truman Doctrine. The USA was now fully committed to a policy of containment, or stopping the spread of A classless society where all property is owned publicly..
Truman Doctrine to US Congress
The Marshall Plan
Fearing that all of Europe could fall under communist control, in 1947 President Truman sent General George Marshall to see what could be done to ensure this didn’t happen. Marshall recommended spending a lot of money - over $12 billion to be exact. This A plan introduced by the American government to provide financial support to European countries to help them recover from the effects of World War Two. money would be spent to help the economies of Western Europe recover after World War Two and make them less likely to fall prey to communism.
Marshall Aid was effectively a Information, often biased or misleading, designed to persuade people to adopt a particular point of view. tool - a way of saying “Look how wealthy we are, you don’t need communism. Stick with us and you’ll be wealthy too”.
The Aid was offered to all countries, but Truman knew that the conditions were such that they would probably not take it up. Stalin blocked Czechoslovakia when they considered accepting the financial assistance on offer.
The Soviet Response
The USSR objected to the Marshall plan in the following ways:
- It declared Marshall Aid to be ‘dollar imperialism’ and claimed the USA was throwing its economic weight around, using it to gain influence in Europe.
- It forbade the Eastern Bloc countries under its control to apply for Marshall Aid.
- In September 1947 it set up Cominform – the Communist Information Bureau – which had as its aim to tighten Soviet control in Eastern Europe, to build collective heavy industry in those countries and to create a trade network between Communist countries. It published its own newspaper to spread Communist ideals and held conferences in the Eastern Bloc. However, its effectiveness was limited, as demonstrated when Yugoslavia left the group in June 1948.
- In January 1949 it also established Comecon – the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance – to administer its own Molotov Plan of financial aid to keep the Eastern Bloc countries on side. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania all joined the Soviet Union in this group and were joined by Albania and East Germany shortly after. The group was not as successful as it might have been as the USSR dominated in terms of industrial production and total economy size, however all countries were committed to Communist economic theory such as state-ownership and state-planning of the economy. The group became more important after Cominform disbanded in 1956.