Truman Doctrine & Marshall Plan

• A speech given by President Truman, committing to intervene to help to spread capitalism and limit the spread of communism. This was a policy called 'containment'.

  What is the Truman Doctrine?
• • "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way."

  The contents of the Truman Doctrine
• He committed to giving military, political and financial aid to countries to stop the spread of communism.
• The Marshall Plan (or Marshall Aid) formalised the economic assistance that Truman described in the Truman Doctrine of 1947.
• • Politicians argued that the Soviets were trying to isolate Eastern Europe from the West by installing communist governments and banning them from accepting aid.
  • The USA thought that giving rebuilding, poor nations money would stop people from supporting communism. Demanding equality and redistribution of all wealth was likely to be more attractive to starving & unemployed people than employed and wealthy individuals in a prosperous nation.


  US perspective on the Marshall Plan
• The Soviet Union saw both the 1947 Truman Doctrine and the 1947 Marshall Plan as a threat to Eastern Europe.

  --> The Soviet Politburo viewed the Marshall Plan as an example of America's "economic imperialism"


  Soviet perspective on the Marshall Plan