By 1947, the worries had grown for America towards the spread of communism in Western Europe.

Section C Lloyd Griffiths

By 1947, the worries had grown for America towards the spread of communism in Western Europe. Italy and France had both come close to electing communist governments and there was a fierce civil war going on in Greece between the Royalists and the Communists, who had lost the election to the Royalists in 1946 The guerrilla warfare that went on brought yet another country in Europe closer to be being a communist state. This was worrying the United States, as the felling of Greece would open a whole new area of the world as being susceptible to communism. If the Greek communists had won the civil war and taken power there, they would have almost definitely allied with Russia and would have allowed Russia to build military bases in Greece. These bases and use of warm water ports as naval bases would have allowed Russia to go two ways, towards Turkey where much violence and trouble was boiling up or towards Western Europe where much was to be gained from there, through protecting Russia’s people through a larger buffer zone. America did not want Russia getting its hands on Turkeys because from there, the huge oils supplies of the Middle East could be found and Russia may have exploited them, cutting off supplies to the West of Oil, which was and still is the fuel which powers industry of the world. If Russia had been able to build bases in Greece then the Italian Communists would have supported them and Russia could have used this as a building block to defeat the rest of Europe. The other reason why America was fearful was also because they knew that they could not compete with the ground force of the Russians and with any extra power that Greece could provide, America knew that they would almost certainly be defeated in a ground battle with them in Europe.

This is a preview of the whole essay

These worries about the Russian force and spread of Communism were to force American president Truman into a drastic change of policy in 1947 where he announced his doctrine to congress and his change of policy towards America being involved with international affairs. Previously, it had always been the policy of America to keep out of other countries affairs, and look after their own country, but this had begun to change during the Second World War, where they were forced into fighting after Pearl Harbour. President Truman then announced on the 12th March 1947 that the Greek government was appealing for help in the Civil War. This was not a complete change in policy but he went on to say that ‘it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples (non communist states) who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures’. This speech soon become known as the Truman doctrine and America was effectively becoming the world’s helper, providing smaller countries with help. Truman’s whole speech was a change in Policy for America that was to say that America wanted to help and defend all the smaller countries under pressure from the large communist power that was emerging. It was Truman’s view that all countries should be free of Political and Military oppression and that all countries should have their own free will and choice in elections. He was clearly announcing in this speech, not only his change of policy for the United States, but also saying that he would help to free any countries from oppression, and of course the main oppressor was Russia and communism, who gave no free elections or freedom to the countries they took over. The concerns that President Truman were mainly announcing from his speech were that of the plight of smaller countries, but also of the spread of communism. The spread of communism was clearly a huge threat against America and President Truman wanted to push it back and secure its place. This speech would have also been a warning to Stalin that America was beginning to ‘fight’ back after the communist capture of Eastern Europe. In the speech he also asked congress for $400 million to help Greece and Turkey to fight off communism and this was agreed. America were easily able to give out money to fight against communism because it was the only country who had withheld its land, economy and business during the Second World War and they were able to be stable enough to give out large sums of money to support anti-communism. They also intended to give out more money to any Western European countries that wanted it. They wanted to gain support against communism and end its threat, but they also knew that pumping money into the European economy would give America chances to use the markets that would come back out of Europe and chances to import and export goods to keep the American Economy fresh. After this $400 million had been given to Greece, within 3 years, the Royalists had defeated the Communists and America clearly had helped to prevent the communists spreading here.

The reasons why America wanted to donate money to Greece and Turkey were very much the same for why they drew up the Marshall plan In June 1947. The new secretary of state, General George Marshall thought that it was vital that Europe had the United States backing otherwise they would not be able to buy goods from America in future which could lead to a Recession in years to come. He also thought that Europe desperately needed Americas help to recover form the war as nearly every major city in Europe was demolished and the Economy and Business of Europe was shattered. In Source C4, you can see the destruction of homes, Business and death that the war caused and if Europe was to rebuild its countries then it needed money to do so, Marshall thought that American should provide it. The other reason was that the destroyed countries would fall to Communism easily if they had nothing to defend or no money to help their cause. As it was announced in the Truman Doctrine, America was now helping smaller countries have their own freedom and if Western Europe was going to fight the threat of Communism, they needed America’s support to do so.

General Marshall’s plan was to give Europe $13000 million (13 billion) of aid of food, loans, goods and gifts. At first the sum was rejected by congress but after communists overthrew the Czechoslovakian government, it gave Congress the message that communism wasn’t going stop spreading and it gave the go ahead for the Marshall plan to be implemented. All the countries in Europe were offered Marshall Aid, even Russia, but they angrily rejected this and the whole of the U.S.S.R’ s colonies were denied the chance to use the Aid. Stalin’s reaction to Marshall aid was one that he thought it was trying to put pressure on European countries and force their beliefs with the money they had over everyone, this view showed by the Russian telling the ‘Yankee go home’ to Marshall aid.