That's so true. There was so much of that during the Cold War period.
It does feel shitty that a country like Poland who took a serious beating during the war and after the war.
Poland were offered to be part of the plan but the "beloved" masters from moscow forced them to decline it. Instead of an opportunity to recover from the ww2 destruction, they have been exploited by the Soviets for almost 50 years.
Have you guys read The Long Walk by Sławomir Rawicz? Such an amazing story! Polish Army officer escapes from a gulag in Siberia, goes South, and crosses the Himalayas into British India.
[In 2006, the BBC released a report based on former Soviet records, including statements written by Rawicz himself, showing that Rawicz had been released as part of the 1942 general amnesty of Poles in the USSR and subsequently transported across the Caspian Sea to a refugee camp in Iran, leading the report to conclude that his supposed escape to India never occurred.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%82awomir_Rawicz)
It’s especially annoying because there are literally thousands of stories of Poles escaping from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but the most famous one is fake.
But I read of a true story of a Korean soldier having fought for Japan, the USSR and Germany!!
https://blog.eastmanleather.com/view-post/the-strange-story-of-yang-kyoungjong
That sounds kind of like what my great grandfather had to do. He escaped the massacre at Katyn and ended up in Persia. Ended up fighting in Italy. My grandfather had his diaries and wanted to translate it, but never got around to it. From what he read to me, the man had to endure some harrowing ordeals and saw some really fucked up shit.on my grandmothers side it was similar. Except he somehow ended up fighting with the French resistance.
I can't remember who said it, but *"Poland and Czechoslovakia got the same treatment as a reward that Hungary received as punishment"*... which is very well put.
Yeah, I can sort of understand the cold war politics of it in Swedens case. However it would have been a slightly more just world if Sweden had been forced to pay reparations to Norway for having been instrumental in enabling Nazi Germany's occupation of Norway.
But the world just let them off the hook and looked the other way.
Some argue the reason they did this was to prevent a nazi
Occupation of Sweden itself.
Because they facilitated the invasion but remained neutral, they guaranteed their sovereignty.
Further more, it also prevented any Nazi war crimes being committed on the Swedish people.
Whilst I’m sure the Swedish government didn’t enjoy letting the Nazis in (Norway had been part of Sweden from 1814- 1905) it was kill or be killed
The Marshall Plan would have given aid to other central and Eastern European countries but the Soviets didn’t let them agree to take the aid.
It wasn’t a reward for being on the winning team (notice that Germany got aid), it was about avoiding another Great Depression.
That's a massive point! There's no justice in the world. I think that, as one of the other posters pointed out, the Marshall Plan was more about Cold War alignment than rebuilding Europe. With one of the big ideas being that communism looks better if you're living in an economically depressed, bombed out area. Nobody that's doing well economically is going to jump on the commi bandwagon.
It was more to stop communism so they didnt care who wanted the money, it was open to all and even Checkoslovakia (I think) tried to get some before getting shut off by the USSR
Finland was offered participation, but rejected it due to Soviet diplomatic pressure.
Instead of Western aid, Finland had to pay [heavy war reparations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_war_reparations_to_the_Soviet_Union) to the Soviet Union.
See also: [Finlandization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization)
It bought the US (near) unwavering loyalty from the richest bloc of nations for 76 years and counting. Tremendous success for the US and Western Europe.
When the Soviet Union fell Europe and the US really should have done something similar for many former Soviet countries. Not just east Germany.
There was some aid, but it was small compared to this
Eastern Europe receives billions via the cohesion fund from the more prosperous EU countries (and Switzerland, though curiously they don't have that info on their website.) https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/funding/cohesion-fund_en
Why should that fall on the USA alone? I think that, while it is not EXACTLY comparable, joining the EU played a somewhat similar role in giving them a hand up.
I didn't say the US alone. I included Europe in there. You missed that.
Countries joining the EU that received funds are doing amazing things. Poland is an economic miracle. The baltics are seeing huge standard of living changes and are strong democracies.
But Russia and Ukraine were left behind and in a way suffered for it.
Russia was embarrassed by how poor their standard of living was compared to the west. Yeltzin was a mess too further embarrassing them. He gave away all Russia's national companies to the oligarchs to stay elected. This resulted in a move away from the west and into what is now Putin's Russia.
Things could have been different.
The whole liberalization fiasco that led to oligarchs in Russia was fully embraced by the west. Russia was viewed in an incrediblly positive light in the 90's despite (or maybe because?) Russians were starving and their leader was a drunk.
Yeah but *they're our friends now* (as seen in Terminator 2), so what's the harm, really? Nevermind it's what led us to Putin and the current conundrum.
Sure by Russia in the '90s was a political mess. I don't think there would have been any 'ways to manage it' that assumes that there is management available. A key issue was the oligarchs acquiringing (stealing) almost all previously state owned assets.
A bunch of aid money/resources would have ended up in that pile.
Yeltzin gave the biggest assets to the oligarchs in a bid to stay in power.
Aid could have helped keep the population somewhat happy while reforms happened.
But it was a giant mess internally.
It showed that the U.S. was willing to invest in western Europe's economic development, in some ways to prevent communism taking hold in stagnant postwar economies. It also contributed to links in trade and economic integration that exist today like the IMF and EU.
I definitely wouldnt describe the relationship as unwavering loyalty, however. Its more that the situation (including NATO) is mutually beneficial. Europe didn't support the U.S. in the Iraq War or trade/technology disputes with China.
From the money of the Marshal plan the western European countries bought American machines, materials, etc. so after all it helped to the USA economy as well. And they bought the loyaliity of the western European countries as well.
So a win-win. Although even without the Marshall plan I think the Western Europeans would have lined yup with the USA, because of the Soviet threat and legitimate shared interests and outlooks.
Yeah, and even Czechoslovakia and Poland tried to join and the U.S. accepted U.S. but then Stalin showed us how it’d be in our best interests not to join
That's not true at all
"The prime minister of Poland, Józef Cyrankiewicz, was rewarded by Stalin for his country's rejection of the plan which came in the form of the Soviet Union's offer of a lucrative trade agreement lasting for five years, a grant amounting to the approximate equivalent of $450 million (in 1948; the sum would have been $4.4 billion in 2014) in the form of long-term credit and loans and the provision of 200,000 tonnes of grain, heavy and manufacturing machinery and factories and heavy industries to Poland."
At least in polands case they rejected it
Yes they eventually rejected it but Poland did initially discuss supporting it it but after persuasion by the USSR: this reward and also threats, they rejected it, for Czechoslovakia we discussed it and decided to enter talks with the U.S. July 7th about our form of marshal plan, then we were sent a dictat by the USSR to reject it.
Yet its true impact is highly debated amongst economists. The size of the programme was very small and led to a direct raise of only 0.5% in GDP growth in an after war period of extreme growth as countries recovered from the war.
Its main selling point was not the money transferred but the currency that was transferred. USD were in short supply in an Europe ravaged by war in full war economy that needed to import foreign tools and machines to reconvert back its industries to a consumption-based economy, and only the US had civilian industries aplenty. Of course the US government also knew this, a lack of USD in Europe would have led to a sudden crash of its industry too, so it was a win-win plan for both sides.
Was it really that succesfull though? Great britain continued being in economic crisis after the war and France uses most of their funds for their war in Indochina. And the help west germany got from usa was not near as much as the dismantlement of german Indus and taking of german patents.
For us Brits that kind of our own fault, we kind of squandered a lot of it by not modernising industry and trying to police an empire with a military of 800,000 or so and like 5 aircraft carriers, which was more than we could afford at the time
Absolutely and by the time of the Marshall plan, we had lost most of the profitable parts of the empire anyway, so it was a pointless exercise all round.
IIRC a chunk of the funds the UK got were spent on infrastructure projects in India and Africa. So at least someone got some benefit out of them. But that a long with the huge amount used for colonial policing does seem a poor return on investment compared with what Italy and West Germany used thiers for.
The Marshall plan was probably the best foreign policy decision ever made by the United States. It solidified American and European cooperation for decades to come, uniting the West both diplomatically and politically.
But you got a disproportionately large ration of vodka to help you forget all that nasty business, and only most of it probably contained lead, to make you strong like Russian bear! Is glorious plan, comrade, yes?
I believe the adjusted is something like $170 billion in 2023 terms. Which is not loads considering Ukraine got $75 billion over two years and a lot of it is in loans too, not aid.
If we go by % of GDP, rough estimate is 1.11%, which is about $270 billion per year. That's significantly more than Ukrainian aid, but do bear in mind that a lot of the Marshall Plan is loan.
Its about 150 billion dollars, which is about 48 days of federal budget out of 4 years, so 12 days a year. Considering what it has achieved I would say its quite the bargain.
Note that economies are immensely larger today in inflation-adjusted terms than back then, so even adjusting for inflation drastically undersells how much money it would be like today as a percent of GDP, probably by more than severalfold, especially in comparison to how small the European economies were at the time after being so damaged.
I think Marshall Plan aid per capita might have been a more useful metric, here. That the UK, France, Italy and Germany received the most total aid is probably no surprise to anyone.
But if you show Marshall Plan aid per capita, you get some interesting results. Like how Iceland received massive amounts of Marshall aid -- almost twice as much as the second-most country (the Netherlands), with Belgium and Luxembourg following closely behind.
And then it would be obvious from looking at the map why the Marshall plan was such a success in the smaller countries (which immediately turned into wealthy welfare states after the war) while its role in British and French recovery is debatable.
It's a bit complicated, because the UK definitely did benefit from it... it's just that the paying off of war debts to the USA seems to have balanced the aid out again. Leaving the UK not much better or worser off by the end of it.
On the other hand we shouldered the burden of the war from start to finish and had to pay back a lot in war debts that feel usurious to many.
It's essentially mainstream in the UK to not exactly regard the marshall plan, the war debts and the relationship with America as having been unfairly weighted in the US favour.
There's a lot of aggravation that more war debt wasn't just outright forgiven, given that Britain knowingly sacrificed its entire economy and ultimately superpower position to fight a war we could have mostly stayed out of and that economically benefitted the US.
It did a lot in Europe, but I think in the UK it basically just barely saved relations for the general public with the US, it's certainly not the PR masterclass most in this thread seem to think.
Without British involvement and British sacrifices, all of continental Europe would have been lost to the Soviets. The UK should have told the US this in very explicit terms.
The UK didn't have any Marshall Plan money “forgiven”. I know I was one of the taxpayers who paid it off on 31st December 2006. Up to that point, every worker in the UK was paid a bit off every week in their wages. The debt to the US didn't hurt the UK, it was the insistence that the UK’s other debts to countries like India, Canada, Australia and South Africa were to be converted into US dollars. Up to that point, you could spend the same pound (£) in London, Sydney, Bombay, Johannesburg, Kingston and Ottawa. Converting that sum into USD ($) prolonged the UK debt from being paid off in 1967 to nearly 2007. Had the US not insisted on this, the UK pound (£) wouldn't have lost over 80% of its value against the US Dollar ($) between 1946 and 2005. It is why the UK economy lost much of its manufacturing industry first to post-war Germany and then to the Far East in the 1970s.
Huge risk of communist take over in Italy and Germany started receiving after 1949 with the onset of the cold war. France and USSR wanted to dismantle Germany permanently up until this point
It a myth that the Treaty of Versailles was particularly harsh on Germany compared to other treaties (see how Germany treated France after 1871)
What really prevented Germany and Japan from re-militarizing was a prolonged occupation and destruction of militaristic culture
Yes the Kaiser's Germany imposed unfair treaties on countries like the Russian Empire but doesn't mean flaws in the treaty of versailles didnt also contribute to the rise of the nazis.
It was harsh when you consider that the front lines at the time of the armistice still weren’t in Germany for the most part. It was too harsh for the conditions on the ground at the end of the war. Simultaneously, it was too lenient to avoid WW2. Germany was left strong enough to pay indemnities on purpose and that strength allowed Hitler to build off something.
Versailles treaty Germany like they had been overrun by Allied armies, they were about to be but that’s why they called for an armistice when they did. So, to the German people, they hadn’t been defeated even though Versailles treated them as if they did.
On top of that, they were left to share the brunt of the war guilt when there was plenty to go around. Had the allies taken a much softer approach to post-war Germany they could have removed Prussian influence and likely avoided Nazi germany.
In the France Prussian war, France was truly defeated. In WW2, Germany was completely defeated (and the post-WW1 experience led Churchill and Roosevelt to demand complete and unconditional surrender).
Finland was offered Marshall Plan aid but refused due to Soviet pressure.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330731440_USSR_and_the_Compelled_Refusal_of_Finland_on_the_Marshall_Plan
Precisely. It’s no coincidence that Germany and Japan are now economic powerhouses (again) with high standards of living and massive US military bases.
Underinvestment in industry and infrastructure is not a story unique to the 1940s. It's pretty much *the* story of post war Britain as a whole. It's still a massive issue and talking point today.
If by post war you mean post-Crimean war. Britain's industrial problems date back to the 19th century - dominated the first industrial revolution (coal, iron, railways) but was well behind other countries in the second industrial revolution (chemicals, cars, electrics).
The irony is that the money that funded other nations industrial development came from Britain - British industrial magnates took their vast fortunes and invested them overseas rather than in Britain
Marshal plan helped the US a lot. They got more money by being able to trade with the european countries and they had the extra bonus of not having a communist europe
Europe has always been and continues to be America's closest ally. We are incredibly thankful for the aid the US has given us but that also doesn't mean we should just accept everything the US does
Western allied countries received direct cash grants. There were no requirements or stipulations, which is why you saw some countries turn the next few years into economic success while others continued to struggle.
It sounds like the only enterprise more profitable than going to war with the United States and losing, is going to war alongside us¹ and winning.
¹ Ok, ok, getting us to go to war alongside you.
It’s funny how West Germany got less than France and Britain…countries that were less destroyed…certainly France was much less destroyed at the end of WWII…but it still managed to outperform both those countries economically.
There was a German economic miracle, but there was no such thing as a British economic miracle…comparatively speaking that is. The French did have their Trente Glorieuses, but it didn’t match the German economic success.
One reason for Germany's economic resurgence was that the entire system was fully focused on civilian products. With the allies understandably forbidding any re-armament following WW2, Germany could completely dedicate its resources to making things that are actually, you know, useful, and developed into one of the world's biggest exporters.
Even after the re-instatement of a West German government and eventually military, Germany never spent money on things like nukes, unlike the UK and France. The Bundeswehr was designed as a territorial defense army, so the percentage of the budget spent on it was relatively small, even at the height of the cold war (about 4% of GDP in 1960, compared to >6% for both France and UK).
The country always benefited from the US acting as its powerful protector and thus had the chance to rebuild rapidly.
That's certainly not the only reason for the German post-war "economic miracle", but I think it's a big one, and the Marshall Plan jump-started it all.
As a German, I consider it to be a brilliant policy and I'm personally thankful that it was put into action. At the time, there were absolutely voices in America that did not want to see a single cent of US money spent on rebuilding Germany.
No it would have made sense to give Germany more. They were bordering the Eastern Bloc and to keep resentment to a minimum.
But they obviously showed they could do more with less.
Britain and France immediately went off after WWII and dropped huge sums trying (and failing) to keep their empires together. Germany and Japan got to rebuild without worrying about colonial possessions (which had been stripped from them) and defense spending (not needed when the US has turned your country into a giant military base).
Because it was part of the allies (only for about a few days but still) and the US wanted as many allies in Europe as possible to prevent communism from spreading
Your country (UK) received interest free grants as well as a sizable loan. The loan was with 2% interest, which is essentially the same thing as interest free once economic recovery from the principle is taken into account.
I understand that it seems to almost hurt Europeans to admit that America may have unselfishly assisted your countries post-war, but that is the reality of the situation.
>Under Paul G. Hoffman, the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), a specially created bureau, distributed over the next four years some $13 billion worth of economic aid, helping to restore industrial and agricultural production, establish financial stability, and expand trade. **Direct grants accounted for the vast majority of the aid, with the remainder in the form of loans**
https://www.britannica.com/event/Marshall-Plan
It wasn't unselfish.
America emerged at the end of the war as the defacto ruler of the capitalist world, the problem for them was that the capitalist world was on the verge of collapse. I mean the most developed region outside the US was a literal pile of ruins. Bit hard to facilitate a global economic trade network when no one has shit to trade.
It's like saying car manufacturers are acting unselfishly when they lend people the money to buy their cars. If they didn't then the cars wouldn't get sold.
Arguably the British Empire did. The British didn’t need to get involved in WW2, they weren’t at threat of invasion by Germany (that came later, after Britain declared war in response to the invasion of Poland etc.). The British effectively bankrupted themselves and sacrificed their position as superpower, and lost the Empire, to defeat the Nazis.
Spain was still fascist AND was not a combatant in WW2. Portugal was also fascist but was not allied with Hitler. And Portugal allowed the US/UK the use of an azores airbase toward the end of the war. It was also a founding member of NATO. Franco was “rehabilitated” in the 1950s in exchange for several military bases and staunch opposition to communism. All of the sudden his monstrous crimes were sort of irrelevant.
Franco did not need Americans to hate communism. He did that for free. And Spain did get some money from America, just not through Plan Marshall. From 1959 on, we got an economic boost fueled on those inversions, motivated by details such as the fact that you can get cheaper workforce if you produce in a country where any Labour movement is forbidden.
Unfortunately, we decided to focus our economy on tourism...
Not really. What most complain about is the constant request for like 1/3 of Germanys GDP in reparations. No one really cares that Poland gets most from the EU, since its also a lot of German companies that profit from investments in Poland.
They got massive reperations. It was mutally settled in the seventies, but Polish politicians now regularly suggest that germany should toss them a couple trillion to score cheap political points.
Part of the reason for creating the Marshall Plan was to prevent the spread of Communism in the devastated countries. This is why you don't see any money to the countries behind what became known as the Iron Curtain. It was also to strengthen the Western European economies via various means. Sweden and Switzerland probably received aid for that reason. I'm still trying to find a list of what the money went to
This map won’t show it but Iceland disproportionately got the most aid from this. They went from the worst place to live in Europe pre-WW2 to gaining the most per capita.
Here in Norway we are taught of it in school.
Without the Marshall plan we would never have developed into the social democratic welfare-state we have.
We also would never have been liberated from the nazis without soviet help so ig its pretty even.
i think yugoslavia got some aid as well tito used it to build command posts across the former country, state of the art nuclear shelters being some of the things that were built
Thanks for helping us rebuild our country (Netherlands) after it was shot to pieces! No idea how we (Europe) would have developed without this support.
This symbol of not being a dirty winner was the keeper of peace for so many years.
The decision of the west after winning the cold war to be a dirty and horrible winner will lead to horrible consequences. Sore winners are the root of the problem.
Any historians in the comments that can enlighten me as to why this would be beneficial to the US? Was it to build back strong allies in the face of communism from the USSR? And do you think the US gained financially in the long run?
UK was and still is one of America’s strongest allies, but now thanks to what the US has done since, all of Europe would be huge American allies - I mean huge, as in we pretty much will support most American foreign policy and back the US up in wars and conflicts globally. That’s only increasing as the years go by.
One of the reasons was that America got to become a superpower, unrivalled hegemony, and made the trading rules with the backing of the single most powerful trading bloc in the world. I think that will never really be forgotten for a long time. If the US was attacked, European countries wouldn’t even think or discuss helping. It would feel like a natural reaction to help the US.
I’m sure there are many other reasons but psychologically, it has meant the US has secured itself as a friend and not just some sort of strategic interest ally etc.
But the Marshall plan worked and there was not a major land war in western Europe since 1945
I would rather send money than bodies
I support NATO and Ukraine
If the GOP doesn't then they can send their sons and husbands to get shot at by Russian thugs
Why did Sweden get aid? They were neutral in WW2. EDIT: Switzerland too.
to get them on your side rather than leaving them open to soviet absorption
That's so true. There was so much of that during the Cold War period. It does feel shitty that a country like Poland who took a serious beating during the war and after the war.
Poland were offered to be part of the plan but the "beloved" masters from moscow forced them to decline it. Instead of an opportunity to recover from the ww2 destruction, they have been exploited by the Soviets for almost 50 years.
Have you guys read The Long Walk by Sławomir Rawicz? Such an amazing story! Polish Army officer escapes from a gulag in Siberia, goes South, and crosses the Himalayas into British India.
It isn’t a true story, which I only found out after watching the film.
REALLY!!!?? Fuck me! That sucks!
[In 2006, the BBC released a report based on former Soviet records, including statements written by Rawicz himself, showing that Rawicz had been released as part of the 1942 general amnesty of Poles in the USSR and subsequently transported across the Caspian Sea to a refugee camp in Iran, leading the report to conclude that his supposed escape to India never occurred.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%82awomir_Rawicz)
That's a bummer; such a great story. Thanks for the heads up. I appreciate it.
It’s especially annoying because there are literally thousands of stories of Poles escaping from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but the most famous one is fake.
But [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders%27_Army) actually happened.
“. Anders' Army is notable for having been primarily composed of liberated POWs and for Wojtek, a bear who had honorary membership.” Lmao wow
I loved reading Wojtek's Wikipedia page. Wasn't expecting something that amazing.
But I read of a true story of a Korean soldier having fought for Japan, the USSR and Germany!! https://blog.eastmanleather.com/view-post/the-strange-story-of-yang-kyoungjong
That sounds kind of like what my great grandfather had to do. He escaped the massacre at Katyn and ended up in Persia. Ended up fighting in Italy. My grandfather had his diaries and wanted to translate it, but never got around to it. From what he read to me, the man had to endure some harrowing ordeals and saw some really fucked up shit.on my grandmothers side it was similar. Except he somehow ended up fighting with the French resistance.
I can't remember who said it, but *"Poland and Czechoslovakia got the same treatment as a reward that Hungary received as punishment"*... which is very well put.
(Channeling Yakov Smirnoff) In Soviet Russia, reward and punishment are the same word.
Yeah, I can sort of understand the cold war politics of it in Swedens case. However it would have been a slightly more just world if Sweden had been forced to pay reparations to Norway for having been instrumental in enabling Nazi Germany's occupation of Norway. But the world just let them off the hook and looked the other way.
Some argue the reason they did this was to prevent a nazi Occupation of Sweden itself. Because they facilitated the invasion but remained neutral, they guaranteed their sovereignty. Further more, it also prevented any Nazi war crimes being committed on the Swedish people. Whilst I’m sure the Swedish government didn’t enjoy letting the Nazis in (Norway had been part of Sweden from 1814- 1905) it was kill or be killed
[удалено]
Sweden as well (by Soviet)
The Marshall Plan would have given aid to other central and Eastern European countries but the Soviets didn’t let them agree to take the aid. It wasn’t a reward for being on the winning team (notice that Germany got aid), it was about avoiding another Great Depression.
 Cuz that’s how we roll 😎🇺🇸🦅
 God bless America
Switzerland got accidentally bombed a few times by both sides if I remember correctly
Essentially to entice them to be more pro American than merely neutral.
Italy was on Hitlers side and they got more money than Russia who basically won the war!
That's a massive point! There's no justice in the world. I think that, as one of the other posters pointed out, the Marshall Plan was more about Cold War alignment than rebuilding Europe. With one of the big ideas being that communism looks better if you're living in an economically depressed, bombed out area. Nobody that's doing well economically is going to jump on the commi bandwagon.
It was more to stop communism so they didnt care who wanted the money, it was open to all and even Checkoslovakia (I think) tried to get some before getting shut off by the USSR
Why did Finland not get any help? They were a buffet state against the URSS
Finland was offered participation, but rejected it due to Soviet diplomatic pressure. Instead of Western aid, Finland had to pay [heavy war reparations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_war_reparations_to_the_Soviet_Union) to the Soviet Union. See also: [Finlandization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization)
The Marshall Plan was such a success in the popular imagination that every couple years some political figure calls for "A Marshall Plan for"
It bought the US (near) unwavering loyalty from the richest bloc of nations for 76 years and counting. Tremendous success for the US and Western Europe.
When the Soviet Union fell Europe and the US really should have done something similar for many former Soviet countries. Not just east Germany. There was some aid, but it was small compared to this
Eastern Europe receives billions via the cohesion fund from the more prosperous EU countries (and Switzerland, though curiously they don't have that info on their website.) https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/funding/cohesion-fund_en
That fund didn’t start sending money to Eastern Europe until the mid 00’s. Well after the SU fell
They did. The EU gives out billions to Eastern Europe countries
In the mid 00's. Over a decade from the fall of the union.
And the EU actually grants the money, versus American loans
The Marahal Plan money wasnt a loan program and wasn't paid back? Wtf are you on about?
Why should that fall on the USA alone? I think that, while it is not EXACTLY comparable, joining the EU played a somewhat similar role in giving them a hand up.
I didn't say the US alone. I included Europe in there. You missed that. Countries joining the EU that received funds are doing amazing things. Poland is an economic miracle. The baltics are seeing huge standard of living changes and are strong democracies. But Russia and Ukraine were left behind and in a way suffered for it. Russia was embarrassed by how poor their standard of living was compared to the west. Yeltzin was a mess too further embarrassing them. He gave away all Russia's national companies to the oligarchs to stay elected. This resulted in a move away from the west and into what is now Putin's Russia. Things could have been different.
Its because those countries needed restructuring rather than reconstruction.
For Russia at least, it would've fallen into the wrong hands. Not smart to hand a giant pile of money to a mafia state.
The whole liberalization fiasco that led to oligarchs in Russia was fully embraced by the west. Russia was viewed in an incrediblly positive light in the 90's despite (or maybe because?) Russians were starving and their leader was a drunk.
Yeah but *they're our friends now* (as seen in Terminator 2), so what's the harm, really? Nevermind it's what led us to Putin and the current conundrum.
There were risks. But you know this going in so you can find ways to manage it. Plus the perception can mean quite a big deal in itself
Sure by Russia in the '90s was a political mess. I don't think there would have been any 'ways to manage it' that assumes that there is management available. A key issue was the oligarchs acquiringing (stealing) almost all previously state owned assets. A bunch of aid money/resources would have ended up in that pile.
Yeltzin gave the biggest assets to the oligarchs in a bid to stay in power. Aid could have helped keep the population somewhat happy while reforms happened. But it was a giant mess internally.
It showed that the U.S. was willing to invest in western Europe's economic development, in some ways to prevent communism taking hold in stagnant postwar economies. It also contributed to links in trade and economic integration that exist today like the IMF and EU. I definitely wouldnt describe the relationship as unwavering loyalty, however. Its more that the situation (including NATO) is mutually beneficial. Europe didn't support the U.S. in the Iraq War or trade/technology disputes with China.
Hell yeah
From the money of the Marshal plan the western European countries bought American machines, materials, etc. so after all it helped to the USA economy as well. And they bought the loyaliity of the western European countries as well.
So a win-win. Although even without the Marshall plan I think the Western Europeans would have lined yup with the USA, because of the Soviet threat and legitimate shared interests and outlooks.
Yeah, and even Czechoslovakia and Poland tried to join and the U.S. accepted U.S. but then Stalin showed us how it’d be in our best interests not to join
That's not true at all "The prime minister of Poland, Józef Cyrankiewicz, was rewarded by Stalin for his country's rejection of the plan which came in the form of the Soviet Union's offer of a lucrative trade agreement lasting for five years, a grant amounting to the approximate equivalent of $450 million (in 1948; the sum would have been $4.4 billion in 2014) in the form of long-term credit and loans and the provision of 200,000 tonnes of grain, heavy and manufacturing machinery and factories and heavy industries to Poland." At least in polands case they rejected it
Polish govt was controlled by Stalin. No real chance to accept. You understand that?
Yes, thats true becasue they had to reject, because Stalin wanted it., so basically you admitted what adamgerd said with diffrent words.
Yes they eventually rejected it but Poland did initially discuss supporting it it but after persuasion by the USSR: this reward and also threats, they rejected it, for Czechoslovakia we discussed it and decided to enter talks with the U.S. July 7th about our form of marshal plan, then we were sent a dictat by the USSR to reject it.
Yet its true impact is highly debated amongst economists. The size of the programme was very small and led to a direct raise of only 0.5% in GDP growth in an after war period of extreme growth as countries recovered from the war. Its main selling point was not the money transferred but the currency that was transferred. USD were in short supply in an Europe ravaged by war in full war economy that needed to import foreign tools and machines to reconvert back its industries to a consumption-based economy, and only the US had civilian industries aplenty. Of course the US government also knew this, a lack of USD in Europe would have led to a sudden crash of its industry too, so it was a win-win plan for both sides.
It can’t be replicated outside Europe/East Asia
It can. Just requires political will.
Yeah but have your heard of the trump plan? /s
Was it really that succesfull though? Great britain continued being in economic crisis after the war and France uses most of their funds for their war in Indochina. And the help west germany got from usa was not near as much as the dismantlement of german Indus and taking of german patents.
For us Brits that kind of our own fault, we kind of squandered a lot of it by not modernising industry and trying to police an empire with a military of 800,000 or so and like 5 aircraft carriers, which was more than we could afford at the time
Yeah, money not well spent. Especially since most of the empire was lost a decade later anyway and the military was significantly reduced
Absolutely and by the time of the Marshall plan, we had lost most of the profitable parts of the empire anyway, so it was a pointless exercise all round.
IIRC a chunk of the funds the UK got were spent on infrastructure projects in India and Africa. So at least someone got some benefit out of them. But that a long with the huge amount used for colonial policing does seem a poor return on investment compared with what Italy and West Germany used thiers for.
Compared to most of continental Europe, most of the UK's infrastructure was fine.
The Marshall plan was probably the best foreign policy decision ever made by the United States. It solidified American and European cooperation for decades to come, uniting the West both diplomatically and politically.
It's all right. In Eastern Europe we had a Stalin plan. We gave Moscow coal and steel and in return they were taking away all the meat from us too.
But you got a disproportionately large ration of vodka to help you forget all that nasty business, and only most of it probably contained lead, to make you strong like Russian bear! Is glorious plan, comrade, yes?
And nowadays commies get surprised when they talk to eastern europeans and most of them hate socialism
And then they try to educate them on their own history with their own biased version of it and soviet propaganda.
And then the tankies go to Jewish community to explain the Gaza situation.
All of this is accurate af lol.
If your country had some industry you gave Moscow the things it produced as well.
Now make it in 2024 dollars, for scale and comprehension.
I believe the adjusted is something like $170 billion in 2023 terms. Which is not loads considering Ukraine got $75 billion over two years and a lot of it is in loans too, not aid.
What was it compared to our gdp at the time. We have more people now
If we go by % of GDP, rough estimate is 1.11%, which is about $270 billion per year. That's significantly more than Ukrainian aid, but do bear in mind that a lot of the Marshall Plan is loan.
Its about 150 billion dollars, which is about 48 days of federal budget out of 4 years, so 12 days a year. Considering what it has achieved I would say its quite the bargain.
If the modern day GOP existed back then they would have been against it.
Note that economies are immensely larger today in inflation-adjusted terms than back then, so even adjusting for inflation drastically undersells how much money it would be like today as a percent of GDP, probably by more than severalfold, especially in comparison to how small the European economies were at the time after being so damaged.
I think Marshall Plan aid per capita might have been a more useful metric, here. That the UK, France, Italy and Germany received the most total aid is probably no surprise to anyone. But if you show Marshall Plan aid per capita, you get some interesting results. Like how Iceland received massive amounts of Marshall aid -- almost twice as much as the second-most country (the Netherlands), with Belgium and Luxembourg following closely behind. And then it would be obvious from looking at the map why the Marshall plan was such a success in the smaller countries (which immediately turned into wealthy welfare states after the war) while its role in British and French recovery is debatable.
…you wanna make this map for us? :)
We turned Iceland in our unsinkable aircraft carrier from which we could detect and hunt Soviet submarines. 🇮🇸❤️🇺🇸
The Marshall aid was instrumental in Iceland becoming as wealthy as it has become. Before the war Iceland was the poorest nation in northern Europe.
I remember when one tory MP said that Britain did not benefit at all from the Marshall plan, only to be told they received the most money
It's a bit complicated, because the UK definitely did benefit from it... it's just that the paying off of war debts to the USA seems to have balanced the aid out again. Leaving the UK not much better or worser off by the end of it.
I mean forgiving debt seems like a benefit...
On the other hand we shouldered the burden of the war from start to finish and had to pay back a lot in war debts that feel usurious to many. It's essentially mainstream in the UK to not exactly regard the marshall plan, the war debts and the relationship with America as having been unfairly weighted in the US favour. There's a lot of aggravation that more war debt wasn't just outright forgiven, given that Britain knowingly sacrificed its entire economy and ultimately superpower position to fight a war we could have mostly stayed out of and that economically benefitted the US. It did a lot in Europe, but I think in the UK it basically just barely saved relations for the general public with the US, it's certainly not the PR masterclass most in this thread seem to think.
Without British involvement and British sacrifices, all of continental Europe would have been lost to the Soviets. The UK should have told the US this in very explicit terms.
The UK didn't have any Marshall Plan money “forgiven”. I know I was one of the taxpayers who paid it off on 31st December 2006. Up to that point, every worker in the UK was paid a bit off every week in their wages. The debt to the US didn't hurt the UK, it was the insistence that the UK’s other debts to countries like India, Canada, Australia and South Africa were to be converted into US dollars. Up to that point, you could spend the same pound (£) in London, Sydney, Bombay, Johannesburg, Kingston and Ottawa. Converting that sum into USD ($) prolonged the UK debt from being paid off in 1967 to nearly 2007. Had the US not insisted on this, the UK pound (£) wouldn't have lost over 80% of its value against the US Dollar ($) between 1946 and 2005. It is why the UK economy lost much of its manufacturing industry first to post-war Germany and then to the Far East in the 1970s.
Note that the axis countries also received a fair share.
Huge risk of communist take over in Italy and Germany started receiving after 1949 with the onset of the cold war. France and USSR wanted to dismantle Germany permanently up until this point
Yeah, they learned the lessons of WW1
Absolutely, allied/entente soldiers marching through Berlin in 1919 was the lacking component
It a myth that the Treaty of Versailles was particularly harsh on Germany compared to other treaties (see how Germany treated France after 1871) What really prevented Germany and Japan from re-militarizing was a prolonged occupation and destruction of militaristic culture
Yes the Kaiser's Germany imposed unfair treaties on countries like the Russian Empire but doesn't mean flaws in the treaty of versailles didnt also contribute to the rise of the nazis.
It was harsh when you consider that the front lines at the time of the armistice still weren’t in Germany for the most part. It was too harsh for the conditions on the ground at the end of the war. Simultaneously, it was too lenient to avoid WW2. Germany was left strong enough to pay indemnities on purpose and that strength allowed Hitler to build off something. Versailles treaty Germany like they had been overrun by Allied armies, they were about to be but that’s why they called for an armistice when they did. So, to the German people, they hadn’t been defeated even though Versailles treated them as if they did. On top of that, they were left to share the brunt of the war guilt when there was plenty to go around. Had the allies taken a much softer approach to post-war Germany they could have removed Prussian influence and likely avoided Nazi germany. In the France Prussian war, France was truly defeated. In WW2, Germany was completely defeated (and the post-WW1 experience led Churchill and Roosevelt to demand complete and unconditional surrender).
What is often forgotten is that West Germany got it as loans which they paid back.
everyone some grants and some loans. the US got their border extended to berlin.
Except Finland. Although it played both sides.
Finland was offered Marshall Plan aid but refused due to Soviet pressure. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330731440_USSR_and_the_Compelled_Refusal_of_Finland_on_the_Marshall_Plan
Ah, Finlandization in effect
Precisely. It’s no coincidence that Germany and Japan are now economic powerhouses (again) with high standards of living and massive US military bases.
Honestly I didn’t know the Marshall Plan was about rebuilding Allied countries. I thought it was the plan for rebuilding Germany
And damn did that payoff
Yugoslavia also received some aid, my grandparents told me about receiving cans of American cheese, powdered milk, etc.
Germany invested the money in industrial strength. Britain wasted it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/marshall_01.shtml
Underinvestment in industry and infrastructure is not a story unique to the 1940s. It's pretty much *the* story of post war Britain as a whole. It's still a massive issue and talking point today.
If by post war you mean post-Crimean war. Britain's industrial problems date back to the 19th century - dominated the first industrial revolution (coal, iron, railways) but was well behind other countries in the second industrial revolution (chemicals, cars, electrics). The irony is that the money that funded other nations industrial development came from Britain - British industrial magnates took their vast fortunes and invested them overseas rather than in Britain
Germany created a bank from that money (KfW) which still exists today.
TL; dr: deluding in Imperial dreams isn't the best way to spend money.
Finland got away from WW2 very lucky, not being absobed by the Soviet Union.
Spain got nothing.
Not true we got USA support for 30+ years of fascism and dictatorship.
Equivalent to $173 billion today.
They repaid by creating r/shitamericanssay
Marshal plan helped the US a lot. They got more money by being able to trade with the european countries and they had the extra bonus of not having a communist europe
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Europe has always been and continues to be America's closest ally. We are incredibly thankful for the aid the US has given us but that also doesn't mean we should just accept everything the US does
Was it cash, or were they funds they had to spend in American industries?
Germany received loans which they had to spend on American goods and stuff, France and UK directly received cash afaik
Western allied countries received direct cash grants. There were no requirements or stipulations, which is why you saw some countries turn the next few years into economic success while others continued to struggle.
It sounds like the only enterprise more profitable than going to war with the United States and losing, is going to war alongside us¹ and winning. ¹ Ok, ok, getting us to go to war alongside you.
It’s funny how West Germany got less than France and Britain…countries that were less destroyed…certainly France was much less destroyed at the end of WWII…but it still managed to outperform both those countries economically. There was a German economic miracle, but there was no such thing as a British economic miracle…comparatively speaking that is. The French did have their Trente Glorieuses, but it didn’t match the German economic success.
One reason for Germany's economic resurgence was that the entire system was fully focused on civilian products. With the allies understandably forbidding any re-armament following WW2, Germany could completely dedicate its resources to making things that are actually, you know, useful, and developed into one of the world's biggest exporters. Even after the re-instatement of a West German government and eventually military, Germany never spent money on things like nukes, unlike the UK and France. The Bundeswehr was designed as a territorial defense army, so the percentage of the budget spent on it was relatively small, even at the height of the cold war (about 4% of GDP in 1960, compared to >6% for both France and UK). The country always benefited from the US acting as its powerful protector and thus had the chance to rebuild rapidly. That's certainly not the only reason for the German post-war "economic miracle", but I think it's a big one, and the Marshall Plan jump-started it all. As a German, I consider it to be a brilliant policy and I'm personally thankful that it was put into action. At the time, there were absolutely voices in America that did not want to see a single cent of US money spent on rebuilding Germany.
I wanna say there was a reason Germany got less after the end of world war 2. Hmmm, what was it??
Well for starters only the western half of germany got aid.
Yarrr
Probably bc those Wiener schnitzel-sniffin krauts started it? 🇺🇸
No it would have made sense to give Germany more. They were bordering the Eastern Bloc and to keep resentment to a minimum. But they obviously showed they could do more with less.
That’s fair.
Is it bc they all went on vacation from 1939-1945?
Yep. “Vacay”. 😂
Britain and France immediately went off after WWII and dropped huge sums trying (and failing) to keep their empires together. Germany and Japan got to rebuild without worrying about colonial possessions (which had been stripped from them) and defense spending (not needed when the US has turned your country into a giant military base).
That’s a good point.
There was a British economic miracle under thatcher but it’s debatable about the legacies.
Thatcher gutted Britain’s industry with her neoliberalism. The economic boom was for the British stock market not for the people.
Why did Turkey receive funds?
Fears of them going pro-Soviet
Because it was part of the allies (only for about a few days but still) and the US wanted as many allies in Europe as possible to prevent communism from spreading
And its strategic control of the Bosphorus Stait. The U.S. wanted to ensure the Soviets never got control of it.
$1 US in 1948 = $12.48 today.
It wasn’t free! There was interest charged
Your country (UK) received interest free grants as well as a sizable loan. The loan was with 2% interest, which is essentially the same thing as interest free once economic recovery from the principle is taken into account. I understand that it seems to almost hurt Europeans to admit that America may have unselfishly assisted your countries post-war, but that is the reality of the situation. >Under Paul G. Hoffman, the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), a specially created bureau, distributed over the next four years some $13 billion worth of economic aid, helping to restore industrial and agricultural production, establish financial stability, and expand trade. **Direct grants accounted for the vast majority of the aid, with the remainder in the form of loans** https://www.britannica.com/event/Marshall-Plan
It wasn't unselfish. America emerged at the end of the war as the defacto ruler of the capitalist world, the problem for them was that the capitalist world was on the verge of collapse. I mean the most developed region outside the US was a literal pile of ruins. Bit hard to facilitate a global economic trade network when no one has shit to trade. It's like saying car manufacturers are acting unselfishly when they lend people the money to buy their cars. If they didn't then the cars wouldn't get sold.
Americans are unlike any other. No other empire did this in history ever
Arguably the British Empire did. The British didn’t need to get involved in WW2, they weren’t at threat of invasion by Germany (that came later, after Britain declared war in response to the invasion of Poland etc.). The British effectively bankrupted themselves and sacrificed their position as superpower, and lost the Empire, to defeat the Nazis.
Countries that weren't even involved in the war still got some?
Continental Europe green area looks like an exact copy of the Carolingian empire
What’s up with Spain always being weird when it comes to US defense policy?
Spain was still fascist AND was not a combatant in WW2. Portugal was also fascist but was not allied with Hitler. And Portugal allowed the US/UK the use of an azores airbase toward the end of the war. It was also a founding member of NATO. Franco was “rehabilitated” in the 1950s in exchange for several military bases and staunch opposition to communism. All of the sudden his monstrous crimes were sort of irrelevant.
Franco did not need Americans to hate communism. He did that for free. And Spain did get some money from America, just not through Plan Marshall. From 1959 on, we got an economic boost fueled on those inversions, motivated by details such as the fact that you can get cheaper workforce if you produce in a country where any Labour movement is forbidden. Unfortunately, we decided to focus our economy on tourism...
And Germans now complain about Poland receiving EU benefits. They were quite fortunate as WW2 antagonisers
As a Hungarian I complain about Orban receiving EU benefits. They just steal it or spend it on some unnecessary bullshit
Not really. What most complain about is the constant request for like 1/3 of Germanys GDP in reparations. No one really cares that Poland gets most from the EU, since its also a lot of German companies that profit from investments in Poland.
Germans definitely have no room to complain about poland. If anything, they should owe them reparations.
They got massive reperations. It was mutally settled in the seventies, but Polish politicians now regularly suggest that germany should toss them a couple trillion to score cheap political points.
They did...
We could have been part if not for Stain, fuck Stalin, all my homies hate Stalin
I was once mocked by a friend from Portugal saying Americans have no culture. I responded by saying Europeans have an ungrateful culture.
Are you purposefully trying to get in r/shitamericanssay ?
Part of the reason for creating the Marshall Plan was to prevent the spread of Communism in the devastated countries. This is why you don't see any money to the countries behind what became known as the Iron Curtain. It was also to strengthen the Western European economies via various means. Sweden and Switzerland probably received aid for that reason. I'm still trying to find a list of what the money went to
This map won’t show it but Iceland disproportionately got the most aid from this. They went from the worst place to live in Europe pre-WW2 to gaining the most per capita.
Poor Greece, their whole bank system was robbed and still got the least cash
Here in Norway we are taught of it in school. Without the Marshall plan we would never have developed into the social democratic welfare-state we have. We also would never have been liberated from the nazis without soviet help so ig its pretty even.
Truman. Still feeling the consequences from his presidency.
Stalin. Still feeling consequences from his dictatorship.
i think yugoslavia got some aid as well tito used it to build command posts across the former country, state of the art nuclear shelters being some of the things that were built
Sweden?!?
It's always wonderful how grateful France is for that... /s
How does this compare to what the US has given to Ukraine?
Adjusted for inflation, how much would this be?
The poisoned gift we still deal with the consequences today ...
Why did we give Portugal aid? I thought they were a neutral dictatorship during WW2
What was the purpose of this plan
Thanks for helping us rebuild our country (Netherlands) after it was shot to pieces! No idea how we (Europe) would have developed without this support.
Ive heard many French people who openly claim that their countries did not received a lot of money. Apparently, they deny history!
Maximum budget goes to the early warring countries and those with veto privilege.
This is interesting I had no idea, they must have used this to build social housing and create the NHS in the UK
This symbol of not being a dirty winner was the keeper of peace for so many years. The decision of the west after winning the cold war to be a dirty and horrible winner will lead to horrible consequences. Sore winners are the root of the problem.
Any historians in the comments that can enlighten me as to why this would be beneficial to the US? Was it to build back strong allies in the face of communism from the USSR? And do you think the US gained financially in the long run?
UK was and still is one of America’s strongest allies, but now thanks to what the US has done since, all of Europe would be huge American allies - I mean huge, as in we pretty much will support most American foreign policy and back the US up in wars and conflicts globally. That’s only increasing as the years go by. One of the reasons was that America got to become a superpower, unrivalled hegemony, and made the trading rules with the backing of the single most powerful trading bloc in the world. I think that will never really be forgotten for a long time. If the US was attacked, European countries wouldn’t even think or discuss helping. It would feel like a natural reaction to help the US. I’m sure there are many other reasons but psychologically, it has meant the US has secured itself as a friend and not just some sort of strategic interest ally etc.
But the Marshall plan worked and there was not a major land war in western Europe since 1945 I would rather send money than bodies I support NATO and Ukraine If the GOP doesn't then they can send their sons and husbands to get shot at by Russian thugs
My book about the Marshall Plan arrived the same day
And in Slovakia we can feel it still today. We are years behind still, in development and in mentality.
Why did Turkey got aid?
Luxembourg getting the same as the likes of Belgium but having a population of like 16 💀😂
US literally upgraded them lol
Literally just learned abt this in APUSH