Marshall Aid

To what extent were the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Aid successful at containing communism in 1948? The cold war was a period of tension between the communist side of Europe, USSR, and the capitalist side, USA and Britain. Although it was called a cold war, there was never any declaration of war between the two sides. There were many events during the cold war period that were seen as a policy of containing communism to just Eastern Europe. Some historians believe 2 of the main policies that were so successful were the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Aid. The Truman Doctrine was an international relations policy set forth by the U.S. President Harry Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947. The speech stated that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere of influence. Marshall Aid was the American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Communism. With sufficient evidence, the answer to this essay question will show that even though the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Aid were successful, there were other events more successful than them at containing communism. The Truman Doctrine was seen as a successful policy for containing communism because it was America’s first public criticism of Russia, and it was their first real hostile act towards the Soviets. Just before the Truman Doctrine, Britain had announced that they couldn’t afford to look after Greece and Turkey anymore, because of this America agreed to look after the two countries. Truman knew it was vital that the USSR did not take these two countries over as they would strengthen the threat of communism, and increase the spread of communism over Europe. The Truman Doctrine’s main aim was to stop the spread of communism and this is what it achieved. The Soviets couldn’t take over