What Was The Marshall Plan Dbq

At the end of the Second World War, the European economy was devastated and the continent was in despair, and there was no political or economic stability in the region. Secretary Marshall believed that a politically stable and an economically strong Europe could serve the best interests of the United States. In June of 1947, Marshall revealed his mega plan for his European economic recovery program, also known as the “Marshall Plan”, which would, modernize industry, boost trade and make Europe prosperous continent again. The plan was a big success that laid the framework for a rebuilding of war ruined Europe and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Marshall was not only dedicated to building a strong defense to safeguard the freedom and security of our nation, but also determined to find peaceful solutions to world conflicts.

Soviet Union and United States wanted to put the halves back together, but had different ideas of how the government should be run, which caused tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States to escalate. The United States thought that the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism to surrounding nations. The United States focused on communism, to start, President Harry S Truman created a foreign policy called the Truman Doctrine to defend the Soviet's political pushes. With the policy established, the United States would contribute any forces or supplies needed to those nations under fire from outside and in-house forces. The plan was set to defend areas anywhere from Asia to Europe.

Marshall Foundation, n.d.). The plan was to assist in the recovery of the European economy. Europe had not recovered from the effects of war, and its people were still suffering. The aim was to stop starvation, and to end the economic cycle that took funds away from reconstruction in order to purchase food from foreign markets (U.S. National Archives & Records Administration, n.d.). As with the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan speech in June 1947 proclaimed that it was America’s duty to answer the call of aid (U.S. National Archives & Records Administration, n.d.).

World War II caused many tensions in the world, even in the allied nations. After the war, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were especially tense. The communistic ideals of the Soviet Union clashed with United States capitalism on many occasions. The Soviets wanted to expand their empire and economy to other areas of the world; the U.S. wanted the opposite. They were determined to keep communism where it is, which brings up the question: how did the U.S. contain communism?

RONALD REAGAN AND THE BERLIN WALL THESIS STATEMENT Ronald Reagan’s speech at the Berlin wall challenged Gorbachev to tear down the wall because communism supported by Soviet Union divided the Germans and caused the Berlin wall. Berlin wall The Berlin Wall, one of the key symbols of the Cold War conflict, was constructed by the Soviet-influenced East German state in August 1961 to stop East Berlin residents from fleeing west. For nearly three decades it reminded the world of the division between East and West, between the Communist and the western countries.

During the 1940 's, the United States faced the pressing challenge of transferring from war to peacetime after the events of World War II. One of the major challenges that America faced after WWII was the cold war between the U.S and the U.S.S.R as a result of the ideological differences between the two. A number of incidents in the 1940 's contributed to the tensions between the Untied States and the Soviet Union, particularly the United State 's involvement in Turkey and Greece, as well as the war in Korea. Paranoia and suspension between the Soviet Union and the United, fueled by events such as the USSR 's violation of promises made at the Yalta Conference to hold democratic elections, led the United States to peruse the concept of

This source is very useful to a historian, it explains the Soviet response to the Marshall Plan, and they believed it was a clear example of American economic imperialism. They believed the Americans were trying to undermine the Soviet sphere of influence in Europe by taking over countries and making them dependant on the US dollar so that they could not turn to communism, if they did they would face the risk of having their aid stopped. From my own knowledge, I know that one condition of receiving the aid was that countries would have to share their economic information with the USA. The soviets believed that the Marshall Plan was an attempt to place countries under their economic and political control, as demonstrated by the fact they had to share economic information. The plan was perceived as having ideological reasons and the USA were trying to control countries by making them reliant on the dollar and through fear of this money being taken away if they turned to Communism, undermining and posing a clear threat to Soviet influence in eastern

Marshall. This plan idea was to reform, aid, and reconstruct Europe after World War II. After the war, much of Europe was still feeling the damage and result of the War. George C. Marshall suggested that they aid the Country in billions of Dollars to help the country get back on its feet economically. This term is significant because it showed at this time in history that capitalism is on its way down, and communism is on the rise throughout the world.

After World War II, the leaders of the Soviet Union in Moscow had hoped the poverty of war-torn Western Europe would give them the opportunity to spread Communism into Western Europe. In 1948, President Truman, with the approval of Congress, established the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan granted $12,500,000,000 to repair the economic damage of World War II. The Marshall Plan shocked the Soviet leaders in Moscow.

The Soviet Union requested substantial reparations from Germany, but the United States recalled the reason that World War II started was because of post World War I reparations. In March and April 1947, the United States, British, French, and Soviet officials met in Moscow to arrange Germany’s future, but failed. After the conference, the Western Allies unified their German occupation zones to create West Germany. In response to this, Soviets built the Berlin Blockade, cutting off railways, highways, and waterways into West Berlin. To counteract this, the United States airlifted food and supplies to the residents, until Soviets finally realized their blockade was not achieving their goals, and tore it down in May 1949.

The plan was proposed by US Secretary of State - George C. Marshall. During 1948 - 1951 years. Officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), the Marshall Plan was intended to rebuild the

The Marshall Plan, among other things wanted to empower people. It aimed to strengthen democracies and alleviate poverty and misery. It wanted to enrich people and educate people by establishing new infrastructure, and by establishing new schools, colleges and universities; and investing in new industries and new technology. American Secretary of State, George Marshall said: ‘Our policy is not directed against any country, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Any government that is willing to assist in recovery will find full co-operation on the part of the USA.

When the Soviets blocked off all land and water routes in, it cut off all supplies that the Berlin people import and rely on to survive. And that shook the people pretty bad, some died of starvation, some died of disease, and some died of hypothermia. Once the United States saw what was happening,

People were totally disappointed, hopeless and aimless, they considered themselves to be in the state of poverty for the rest of their life. Marshall Plan provided people of Europe with a new hope of sound

In that period after World War II the purpose for the Alliance was keeping Sovi-ets down Germany out and US in. ‘Deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration’ (A short history of NATO). Moreover, ‘several Western European democracies came together to imple-ment various projects for greater military cooperation and collective defence, includ-ing the creation of the Western Union in 1948, later to become the Western Europe-an Union in 1954. In the end, it was determined that only a truly transatlantic se-curity agreement could deter Soviet aggression while simultaneously preventing the revival of European militarism and laying the groundwork for political integration’ (A short history of NATO).