Marshall Plan Totally Explained

Everything about The Marshall Plan totally explained

The Marshall Plan (from its enactment, officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the allied countries of Europe, and repelling communism after World War II. The initiative was named for Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan.
The reconstruction plan developed at a meeting of the participating European states was established on July 12, 1947. The Marshall Plan offered the same aid to the USSR and its allies, but they didn't accept it, fearing that capitalistic goverments might "ask" them to change to capitalism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in July 1947. During that period some USD 13 billion in economic and technical assistance were given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation.
By the time the plan had come to completion, the economy of every participant state, with the exception of Germany, had grown well past pre-war levels. Over the next two decades, many regions of Western Europe would enjoy unprecedented growth and prosperity. The Marshall Plan has also long been seen as one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased tariff trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level. An intended consequence was the systematic adoption of American managerial techniques.
In recent years historians have questioned both the underlying motivation and the overall effectiveness of the Marshall Plan. Some historians contend that the benefits of the Marshall Plan actually resulted from new laissez-faire policies that allowed markets to stabilize through economic growth. It is now acknowledged that the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which helped millions of refugees from 1944 to 1947, also laid the foundation for European postwar recovery.

Rejection by the Soviets

British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin heard Marshall's radio broadcast speech and immediately contacted French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault to begin preparing a quick European response to (and acceptance of) the offer. The two agreed that it would be necessary to invite the Soviets as the other major allied power. Marshall's speech had explicitly included an invitation to the Soviets, feeling that excluding them would have been too clear a sign of distrust. State Department officials, however, knew that Stalin would almost certainly not participate, and that any plan that did send large amounts of aid to the Soviets was unlikely to be approved by Congress.
Stalin was at first interested in the plan. He felt that the Soviet Union stood in a good position after the war and would be able to dictate the terms of the aid. He thus dispatched foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov to Paris to meet with Bevin and Bidault. The British and French leadership shared the American lack of genuine interest in Soviet participation, and they presented Molotov with conditions that the Soviets could never accept. The most important condition was that every country to join the plan would need to have its economic situation independently assessed, scrutiny to which the Soviets couldn't agree. Bevin and Bidault also insisted that any aid be accompanied by the creation of a unified European economy, something incompatible with the strict Soviet command economy. Molotov left Paris, rejecting the plan.
On July 12, a larger meeting was convened in Paris. Every country of Europe was invited, with the exceptions of Spain (which had stayed out of World War II but had sympathized with the Axis powers) and the small states of Andorra, San Marino, Monaco, and Liechtenstein. The Soviet Union was invited with the understanding that it would refuse. The states of the future Eastern Bloc were also approached, and Czechoslovakia and Poland agreed to attend. In one of the clearest signs of Soviet control over the region, the Czechoslovakian foreign minister, Jan Masaryk, was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for thinking of joining the Marshall Plan. Polish Prime minister Josef Cyrankiewicz was rewarded by Stalin for the Polish rejection of the Plan. Russia rewarded Poland with a huge 5 year trade agreement, 450 million in credit, 200,000 tons of grain, heavy machinery and factories.(External Link

) Stalin saw the Plan as a significant threat to Soviet control of Eastern Europe and believed that economic integration with the West would allow these countries to escape Soviet guidance. The Americans shared this view and hoped that economic aid could counter the growing Soviet influence. They were not too surprised, therefore, when the Czechoslovakian and Polish delegations were prevented from attending the Paris meeting. The other Eastern European states immediately rejected the offer. Finland also declined in order to avoid antagonizing the Soviets. The Soviet Union's "alternative" to the Marshall plan, which was purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with western Europe, became known as the Molotov Plan, and later, the COMECON.
The Soviet representative to the United Nations said that the Marshall Plan violated the principles of the United Nations. He accused the United States of attempting to impose its will on other independent states, while at the same time using economic resources distributed as relief to needy nations as an instrument of political pressure. The United States was said to have attempted to split Europe into two camps to complete the formation of a bloc of several European countries hostile toward the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe.(External Link

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Negotiations

Turning the plan into reality required negotiations both among the participating nations, and also to get the plan through the United States Congress. Thus sixteen nations met in Paris to determine what form the American aid would take, and how it would be divided. The negotiations were long and complex, with each nation having its own interests. France's major concern was that Germany not be rebuilt to its previous threatening power. The Benelux countries, despite also suffering under the Nazis, had long been closely linked to the German economy and felt their prosperity depended on its revival. The Scandinavian nations, especially Sweden, insisted that their long-standing trading relationships with the Eastern Bloc nations not be disrupted and that their neutrality not be infringed. Britain insisted on special status, concerned that if it were treated equally with the devastated continental powers it would receive virtually no aid. The Americans were pushing the importance of free trade and European unity to form a bulwark against communism. The Truman administration, represented by William Clayton, promised the Europeans that they'd be free to structure the plan themselves, but the administration also reminded the Europeans that for the plan to be implemented, it would have to pass Congress. The majority of Congress was committed to free trade and European integration, and also were hesitant to spend too much of the money on Germany.
Agreement was eventually reached and the Europeans sent a reconstruction plan to Washington. In this document the Europeans asked for $22 billion in aid. Truman cut this to $17 billion in the bill he put to Congress. The plan met sharp opposition in Congress, mostly from the portion of the Republican Party that advocated a more isolationist policy and was weary of massive government spending. This group's most prominent representative was Robert A. Taft. The plan also had opponents on the left, with Henry A. Wallace a strong opponent. Wallace saw the plan as a subsidy for American exporters and sure to polarize the world between East and West. This opposition was greatly reduced by the shock of the overthrow of the democratic government of Czechoslovakia in February 1948. Soon after a bill granting an initial $5 billion passed Congress with strong bipartisan support. The Congress would eventually donate $12.4 billion in aid over the four years of the plan.
Truman signed the Marshall Plan into law on April 3, 1948, establishing the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) to administer the program. ECA was headed by economic cooperation administrator Paul G. Hoffman. In the same year, the participating countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States) signed an accord establishing a master financial-aid-coordinating agency, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (later called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD), which was headed by Frenchman Robert Marjolin.

Implementation

The first substantial aid went to Greece and Turkey in January 1947, which were seen as being on the front lines of the battle against communist expansion and were already being aided under the Truman Doctrine. Initially the UK had supported the anti-communist factions in those countries, but due to its dire economic condition it requested the U.S. to continue its efforts. The ECA formally began operation in July 1948.
   The official mission statement of ECA was to give a boost to the European economy: to promote European production, to bolster European currency, and to facilitate international trade, especially with the United States, whose economic interest required Europe to become wealthy enough to import U.S. goods. Another unofficial goal of ECA (and of the Marshall Plan) was the containment of growing Soviet influence in Europe, evident especially in the growing strength of communist parties in Czechoslovakia, France, and Italy.
   The Marshall Plan money was transferred to the governments of the European nations. The funds were jointly administered by the local governments and the ECA. Each European capital had an ECA envoy, generally a prominent American businessman, who would advise on the process. The cooperative allocation of funds was encouraged, and panels of government, business, and labor leaders were convened to examine the economy and see where aid was needed.
   The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods from the United States. The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign exchange reserves during the war, and the Marshall Plan aid represented almost their sole means of importing goods from abroad. At the start of the plan these imports were mainly much-needed staples such as food and fuel, but later the purchases turned towards reconstruction needs as was originally intended. In the latter years, under pressure from the United States Congress and with the outbreak of the Korean War, an increasing amount of the aid was spent on rebuilding the militaries of Western Europe. Of the some $13 billion allotted by mid-1951, $3.4 billion had been spent on imports of raw materials and semi-manufactured products; $3.2 billion on food, feed, and fertilizer; $1.9 billion on machines, vehicles, and equipment; and $1.6 billion on fuel.
   Also established were counterpart funds, which used Marshall Plan aid to establish funds in the local currency. According to ECA rules 60% of these funds had to be invested in industry. This was prominent in Germany, where these government-administered funds played a crucial role lending money to private enterprises which would spend the money rebuilding. These funds played a central role in the reindustrialization of Germany. In 1949 – 50, for instance, 40% of the investment in the German coal industry was by these funds. The companies were obligated to repay the loans to the government, and the money would then be lent out to another group of businesses. This process has continued to this day in the guise of the state owned KfW bank. The Special Fund, then supervised by the Federal Economics Ministry, was worth over DM 10 billion in 1971. In 1997 it was worth DM 23 billion. Through the revolving loan system, the Fund had by the end of 1995 made low-interest loans to German citizens amounting to around DM 140 billion. The other 40% of the counterpart funds were used to pay down the debt, stabilize the currency, or invest in non-industrial projects. France made the most extensive use of counterpart funds, using them to reduce the budget deficit. In France, and most other countries, the counterpart fund money was absorbed into general government revenues, and not recycled as in Germany.
   A far less expensive, but also quite effective, ECA initiative was the Technical Assistance Program. This program funded groups of European engineers and industrialists to visit the United States and tour mines, factories, and smelters so that they could then copy the American advances at home. At the same time several hundred American technical advisors were sent to Europe.

Expenditures

The Marshall Plan aid was divided amongst the participant states on a roughly per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed towards the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The table below shows Marshall Plan aid by country and year (in millions of dollars) from The Marshall Plan Fifty Years Later. There is no clear consensus on exact amounts, as different scholars differ on exactly what elements of American aid during this period was part of the Marshall Plan.

Country	948/49 ($ millions)	949/50 ($ millions)	950/51 ($ millions)	umulative ($ millions)
	232	166	70	468
and	195	222	360	777
	103	87	195	385
	1085	691	520	2296
	510	438	500	1448
	175	156	45	366
	6	22	15	43
	88	45	0	133
and	594	405	205	1204
	471	302	355	1128
	82	90	200	372
	0	0	70	70
	39	48	260	347
	0	0	250	250
	28	59	50	137
	1316	921	1060	3297
Totals	4,924	3,652	4,155	12,721

Effects

The Marshall Plan ended in 1953, as originally scheduled. Any effort to extend it was halted by the growing cost of the Korean War and rearmament. U.S. Republicans hostile to the plan had also gained seats in the 1950 Congressional elections, and conservative opposition to the plan was revived. Thus the plan ended in 1951, though various other forms of American aid to Europe continued afterwards.
   The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels. The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically. There is some debate among historians over how much this should be credited to the Marshall Plan. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe, as evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. Most believe that the Marshall Plan sped this recovery, but didn't initiate it.
   The political effects of the Marshall Plan may have been just as important as the economic ones. Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability. The communist influence on Western Europe was greatly reduced, and throughout the region communist parties faded in popularity in the years after the Marshall Plan. The trade relations fostered by the Marshall Plan helped forge the North Atlantic alliance that would persist throughout the Cold War. At the same time the nonparticipation of the states of Eastern Europe was one of the first clear signs that the continent was now divided.
   The Marshall Plan also played an important role in European integration. Both the Americans and many of the European leaders felt that European integration was necessary to secure the peace and prosperity of Europe, and thus used Marshall Plan guidelines to foster integration. In some ways this effort failed, as the OEEC never grew to be more than an agent of economic cooperation. Rather it was the separate European Coal and Steel Community, which notably excluded Britain, that would eventually grow into the European Union. However, the OEEC served as both a testing and training ground for the structures and bureaucrats that would later be used by the European Economic Community. The Marshall Plan, linked into the Bretton Woods system, also mandated free trade throughout the region.
   While some modern historians today feel some of the praise for the Marshall Plan is exaggerated, it's still viewed favorably and many thus feel that a similar project would help other areas of the world. After the fall of communism several proposed a "Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe" that would help revive that region. Others have proposed a Marshall Plan for Africa to help that continent, and U.S. vice president Al Gore suggested a Global Marshall Plan. "Marshall Plan" has become a metaphor for any very large scale government program that's designed to solve a specific social problem. It is usually used when calling for federal spending to correct a perceived failure of the private sector.
   The West German economic recovery was partly due to the economic aid provided by the Marshall Plan, but mainly it was due to the currency reform of 1948 which replaced the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender, halting rampant inflation. This act to strengthen the German economy had been explicitly forbidden during the two years that the occupation directive JCS 1067 was in effect. The Allied dismantling of the West German coal and steel industry finally ended in 1951 (The industrial plans for Germany). The Marshall Plan was only one of several forces behind the German recovery. Even so, in Germany the myth of the Marshall Plan is still alive. According to Marshall Plan 1947–1997 A German View by Susan Stern, many Germans still believe that Germany was the exclusive beneficiary of the plan, that it consisted of a free gift of vast sums of money, and that it was solely responsible for the German economic recovery in the 1950s.

Repayment

The Organization for European Economic Cooperation took the leading role in allocating funds, and the ECA arranged for the transfer of the goods. The American supplier was paid in dollars, which were credited against the appropriate European Recovery Program funds. The European recipient, however, wasn't given the goods as a gift, but had to pay for them (though not necessarily at once, on credit etc.) in local currency, which was then deposited by the government in a counterpart fund. This money, in turn, could be used by the ERP countries for further investment projects.
Most of the participating ERP governments were aware from the beginning that they'd never have to return the counterpart fund money to the U.S.; it was eventually absorbed into their national budgets and "disappeared." Originally the total American aid to Germany (in contrast to grants given to other countries in Europe) had to be repaid. But under the London debts agreement of 1953, the repayable amount was reduced to about $1 billion. Aid granted after 1 July 1951 amounted to around $270 million, of which Germany had to repay $16.9 million to the Washington Export-Import Bank. In reality, Germany didn't know until 1953 exactly how much money it would have to pay back to the U.S., and insisted that money was given out only in the form of interest-bearing loans — a revolving system ensuring the funds would grow rather than shrink. A lending bank was charged with overseeing the program. European Recovery Program loans were mostly used to support small- and medium-sized businesses. Germany paid the U.S. back in installments (the last check was handed over in June 1971). However, the money wasn't paid from the ERP fund, but from the central government budget.

Areas without the Marshall Plan

Large parts of the world devastated by World War II didn't benefit from the Marshall Plan. The only major Western European nation excluded was Francisco Franco's Spain. After the war, it pursued a policy of self-sufficiency, currency controls, and quotas, with little success. With the escalation of the Cold War, the United States reconsidered its position, and in 1951 embraced Spain as an ally, encouraged by Franco's aggressive anti-communist policies. Over the next decade, a considerable amount of American aid would go to Spain, but less than its neighbors had received under the Marshall Plan.
   While the western portion of the Soviet Union had been as badly affected as any part of the world by the war, the eastern portion of the country was largely untouched and had seen a rapid industrialization during the war. The Soviets also imposed large reparations payments on the Axis allies that were in its sphere of influence. Finland, Hungary, Romania, and especially East Germany were forced to pay vast sums and ship large amounts of supplies to the USSR. These reparation payments meant that the Soviet Union received almost as much as any of the countries receiving Marshall Plan aid.
   It should be noted for the historical point of view that Finland is the only country so far (2008) which has paid all the reparation payments.
   Eastern Europe saw no Marshall Plan money, as their governments rejected joining the program, and moreover received little help from the Soviets. The Soviets did establish COMECON as a rebuttal to the Marshall Plan. The members of Comecon looked to the Soviet Union for oil; in turn, they provided machinery, equipment, agricultural goods, industrial goods, and consumer goods to the Soviet Union. Some claim economic recovery in the east was much slower than in the west, and some feel the economies never fully recovered in the communist period, resulting in the formation of the shortage economies and a gap in wealth between East and West. However, the Soviet economy returned to pre-war levels in 1949 -- at the same time as West Germany. (External Link

) Finland, which didn't join the Marshall Plan and which was required to give large reparations to the USSR, saw its economy recover to pre-war levels in 1947. (External Link

) France, which received billions of dollars through the Marshall Plan, similarly saw its economy return to pre-war levels in 1947.(External Link

) By mid-1948 industrial production in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia had recovered to a level somewhat above pre-war level. (External Link

) Japan too, had been badly damaged by the war. However, the American people and Congress were far less sympathetic towards the Japanese than they were to the Europeans. Japan was also not considered to have as great a strategic or economic importance to the United States. Thus no grand reconstruction plan was ever created, and the Japanese economic recovery before 1950 was slow. However, by 1952 growth had picked up, such that Japan continued, from 1952 to 1971 to grow in real GNP at an average annual rate of 9.6 percent. The US by contrast, grew at a rate of 2.9 percent from 1952 to 1991.(External Link

) The Korean War may have played a role in the early economic growth in Japan. It began in 1950 and Japan became the main staging ground for the United Nations war effort, and a crucial supplier of materiel. One well known example is that of the Toyota company. In June 1950, the company produced 300 trucks, and was on the verge of going out of business. The first months of the war saw the military order over 5,000 vehicles, and the company was revived. During the four years of the Korean War, the Japanese economy saw a substantially larger infusion of cash than had any of the Marshall Plan nations. Canada, like the United States, was little damaged by the war and in 1945 was one of the world's largest economies. The Canadian economy had long been more dependent than the American one on trade with Europe, and after the war there were signs that the Canadian economy was struggling. In April 1948, the U.S. Congress passed the provision in the plan that allowed the aid to be used in purchasing goods from Canada. The new provision ensured the health of that nation's economy as Canada made over a billion dollars in the first two years of operation. This contrasted heavily with the treatment Argentina, another major economy dependent on its agricultural exports with Europe, received from the ECA, as the country was deliberately excluded from participation in the Plan due to political differences between the U.S. and then-president Perón. This would damage the Argentine agricultural sector and help to precipitate an economic crisis in the country.

Criticism

Early criticism

Initial criticism of the Marshall Plan came from a number of liberal economists. Wilhelm Röpke, who influenced German chancellor Ludwig Erhard in his economic recovery program, believed recovery would be found in eliminating central planning and restoring a market economy in Europe, especially in those countries which had adopted more fascist and corporatist economic policies. Röpke criticized the Marshall plan for forestalling the transition to the free market by subsidizing the current, failing systems. Erhard put Röpke's theory into practice and would later credit Röpke's influence for the West Germany's preeminent success. Henry Hazlitt criticized the Marshall Plan in his 1947 book Will Dollars Save the World?, arguing that economic recovery comes through savings, capital accumulation and private enterprise, and not through large cash subsidies. Ludwig von Mises also criticized the Marshall Plan in 1951, believing that "The American subsidies make it possible for [Europe's] governments to conceal partially the disastrous effects of the various socialist measures they've adopted." He also made a general critique of foreign aid, believing it creates ideological enemies rather than economic partners by stifling the free market.

Modern criticism

Criticism of the Marshall Plan became prominent among historians of the revisionist school, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s. They argued that the plan was American economic imperialism, and that it was an attempt to gain control over Western Europe just as the Soviets controlled Eastern Europe.
The economist Tyler Cowen stated that nations receiving the most aid from the Marshall Plan (Britain, Sweden, Greece) saw the least returns and grew the least between 1947 and 1955. Those nations who received little (Austria, Germany & Italy) grew the most.
In a review of West Germany's economy from 1945 to 1951, German analyst Werner Abelshauser concluded that "foreign aid wasn't crucial in starting the recovery or in keeping it going." The economic recoveries of France, Italy, and Belgium, Cowen found, also predated the flow of U.S. aid. Belgium, the country that relied earliest and most heavily on free market economic policies after its liberation in 1944, experienced the fastest recovery and avoided the severe housing and food shortages seen in the rest of continental Europe. (External Link

) Former U.S. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan gives most credit to Ludwig Erhard for Europe's economic recovery. Greenspan writes in his memoir The Age of Turbulence that Erhard's economic policies were the most important aspect of postwar Western Europe recovery, far outweighing the contributions of the Marshall Plan. He states that it was Erhard's reductions in economic regulations that permitted Germany's miraculous recovery, and that these policies also contributed to the recoveries of many other European countries. Japan's recovery is also used as a counter-example, since it experienced rapid growth without any aid whatsoever. Its recovery is attributed to traditional economic stimuli, such as increases in investment, fueled by a high savings rate and low taxes. Japan saw a large infusion of cash during the Korean war, but because this came in the form of investment and not subsidies, it proved far more beneficial.
Criticism of the Marshall Plan also aims at showing that it has begun a legacy of disastrous foreign aid programs. Since the 1990s, economic scholarship has been more hostile to the idea of foreign aid. For example, Alberto Alesina and Beatrice Weder, summing up economic literature on foreign aid and corruption, find that aid is primarily used wastefully and self-servingly by government officials, and ends up increasing governmental corruption. This policy of promoting corrupt government is then attributed back to the initial impetus of the Marshall Plan. Noam Chomsky wrote that the amount of American dollars given to France and the Netherlands equaled the funds these countries used to finance their military forces in southeast Asia. The Marshall Plan was said to have "set the stage for large amounts of private U.S. investment in Europe, establishing the basis for modern transnational corporations."(External Link

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Use for colonialism and aggression

The Netherlands used a significant portion of the aid it received to try to re-conquer Indonesia in the Indonesian War of Independence.(External Link

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The E.R.P. in numismatics

The E.R.P. has left such a legacy behind that has been the main motive of many collectors and bullion coins. One of the most recent is the 20 euro Post War Period coin, minted in September 17 2003. The reverse side of the coin is based on the design of two famous posters of the era: the “Four in a Jeep” and the E.R.P. The German inscription “Wiederaufbau in Österreich” translates as “Reconstruction in Austria”, one of the countries aided by this program.

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