•The Marshall Plan: effect of Marshall Aid and the Soviet response; Cominform and Comecon; Yugoslavia; Czechoslovakia • The Berlin Blockade and Airlift

Yugoslavia

Is a Southeastern European country that was led in 1946 by Partisan Leader Joseph Broz. Yugoslavia was the first country to be communist but independent from the Soviet Union as Tito did not agree with Stalin and his interpretation of communism.

Soviet response go Marshall aid

Cominform/Comecon (see flash card 5)

Satellite states

Country that is independent in the world although heavily influenced by another countries political, economic and military control, in this case Central and Eastern European countries.

Berlin Airlift

Following the Berlin Blockade, the United States of America and the United Kingdom airlifted food and fuel from Allied airbases located in West Germany. Ended on the 12th May 1949 when the SU allowed road access to West Berlin.

The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 - 12 May 1949)

When the Soviet Union blocked off western allies entry to sectors of Berlin under Western control. This was because the Western allies had introduced the Deutsche mark to West Berlin, in turn improving the Western German economy which angered Stalin as he wanted the Germans to be weak to prevent another attack on Russia.

Effects of Marshall aid

The donated 17 billion dollars were very effective and did certainly rescue many economies of Western Europe, 16 countries received this aid and was initially used to benefit the recovery of agriculture, followed by industry recovery. France and the UK received most of this aid, with Stalin preventing Communist countries from receiving any. Yugoslavian President Joseph Broz Tito disagreed with Stalin and received Marshall aid. Soviet ideology stated that the Marshall plan was implemented to make Europe dependent on the USA and Allie with them to conflict with the SU. Although many countries believed the Marshall Plan was beneficial, many other countries did not agree with this and even protested as this meant the USA had control and had the right to know many useful pieces of information such as number of arms sold, number of spies, nuclear weapon development etc. This lead to Stalin developing Cominform and Comecon

Cominform/Comecon

This was Stalin's reaction to The Truman doctrine and the Marshall Plan. the Communist Information Bureau was set up in September 1947, with all Communist European parties involved, to defend Communism against the USA. This strengthened Stalin's grip of Eastern European Communist states, intended to be satellite states (See set part 6). After President Tito's defiance and independence Yugoslavia was expelled from Cominform, with a different style of Communism according to President Tito. Following the introduction of Comecon, supposedly the movement set up to unite the Communist state economies, but actually was set up by Stalin to secretly strengthen Stalin's control over Commie states.

The Marshall Plan

This was initiated by the American President Harry S. Truman, which was proposed to aid and benefit Western Europe's economic recovery following the end of World War II. The United States gave 17 billion dollars to Western European countries. "Our policy is directed against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Although many American people were worried that Truman was getting too involved into foreign affairs.