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How significant were the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in the outbreak of the
Cold War?

Introduction:
The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan were significant as events which showcased
the underlying ideological, economic and political factors that had been in existence.
They were events that actualised the Cold War. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall
Plan made the Cold War visible, brought it to the forefront. As events, the Truman
Doctrine and Marshall Plan were important as economic and political factors could
have been present but without events, the Cold War would have been seething
underground. Hence, the Cold War surfaced due to the Truman Doctrine and Marshall
Plan. Both events dramatised the already existing conflict between the US and USSR
as an ideological struggle between two competing sets of ideas. The Truman Doctrine
was significant as an event which marked a turning point in the relations between the USA
and the USSR from accommodation towards containment leading to the state of tension,
hostility, competition and conflict which characterised Soviet-American relations for much of
the post-war period. It also saw USAs active intervention in Europe as opposed to its
previous policy of isolationism. The acceleration of Europes political and economic
bifurcation (to divide into two part or branches) following the implementation of the Marshall
Plan, which operationalised the principles outlined by the doctrine, also suggests the Truman
Doctrine to be significant in catalysing Cold War divisions. Yet, the Truman Doctrine only
had an influence because the foundations such as the ideological rivalry which influenced
USAs post-war economic and political aims and the history of mistrust between the USA
and USSR were already in place. The problems arising from the Polish issues to the
unresolved German Question meant that relations between USA and USSR would remain
divided, and potentially confrontational. These events would be earlier built-ups to the Cold
War. Thus, this essay argues that the Truman Doctrine was only significant in so far as
being the event that turned American policy which catalysed Soviet-American divergence
officially and the Marshall Plan was crucial in so far as being the catalyst that propelled
Europe towards its split, they were important as events in the manifestation of the Cold
War. The more important causes were the underlying economic and political factors
which set the stage for these events to play out.
T.S. The Truman Doctrine was significant because it marked a departure from the
policy of accommodation towards a more confrontational policy towards USSR.
The Truman Doctrine, based on George Kennans suggestion that there must be long-term,
patient but firm and vigilant containment of the USSR, was a shift away from Roosevelts
intentions to integrate USSR into a liberal internationalist world order. Through the Truman
Doctrine, the US openly declared the Cold War and containment policy on USSR
which was tantamount to a declaration of hostilities. The Cold War became a reality in
Europe because of US proclamation. Trumans abandonment of the policy of
accommodation was first evidenced by USAs response to the Iran Crisis of 1946 when it
forced the USSR to withdraw its troops from Northern Iran. The Truman Doctrine established
Trumans stance to get tough with the USSR and abandonment of accommodating Soviets
interests as an official foreign policy. While Truman characterised Greece and Turkey as
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free people who are resisting attempted subjugation and outside pressures the references
to the threat were clearly in response to Soviet sabre-rattling in Turkey to secure access to
the Dardanelles straits and on-going civil war in Greece between communist guerrillas and
the Greek government. This was part of the USAs containment policy which aimed to
keep USSR within the lines of military demarcation established at the end of the
Second Cold War to combat perceived Soviet expansionism. This would lead to
further tensions thereby causing Europe to split into two rival blocs. As such, the
Truman Doctrine was significant to the outbreak of the Cold War insofar as being an
important turning point in Soviet-American bilateralism which precipitated a cooling
in their relationship.However, in essence, the core of the Truman Doctrine could be
traced back to the political and ideological aims of USA, hence the underlying driving
factors for the Truman Doctrine were more important as an explanation for being a
cause of the Cold War.
T.S. Truman Doctrine was also significant because it was a watershed in American
foreign policy as the USA abandoned isolationism for a more active engagement
through intervention in Europe.
With announcement of the Truman Doctrine, which asked for immediate aid for Greece and
Turkey, the USA took an immense stride in its foreign policy. For the first time in its history,
the USA had chosen to intervene during a period of general peace in the affairs of people
outside North and South America. The USA thereby assumed traditionally the roles played
by Britain in Greece and Turkey as a Great Power. By shifting from the policy of non-
involvement outside the Americas, the USA made a decision to counter perceived
Soviet territorial aggrandizement, thereby contributing to growing hostility between
the former partners of the Grand Alliance that would and propel Europe towards the
Cold War. Therefore, as a watershed in American foreign policy which aggravated
tensions between the USA and USSR, Truman Doctrine was significant.
T.S.The acceleration of Europes political and economic bifurcation following the
implementation of the Marshall Plan meant that relations between USA and USSR
would remain divided.
In announcing the Truman Doctrine, the announcement of an aid package to help the
shattered economies of the western allies to recover their pre-war prosperity was to better
enable these European states to resist communism. The European recovery programme, as
the Marshall Plan was also known, was inherently confrontational, since it drew clear lines
between the Soviet Unions and the USAs sphere of influence. The USA was not above
offering the Marshall Plan to potential Soviet satellite states like Czechoslovakia. In
response, the Soviets accelerated the process of Sovietisation in Czechoslovakia, via the
Czech coup, to combat American hegemony, the perceived Trojan Horse of the American
dollar. It can be argued that the Marshall Plan was an effect of the Cold War because it
was the actualisation of the Truman Doctrine in practice. The Marshall Plan was the
first of US containment policies and it catalysed the political and economic divisions
in Europe between states that received the Marshall Plan aid and the states that did
not.The political and economic divide between the Eastern European states (Bulgaria,
Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia) influenced by the USSR and the Western
European states influenced by the USA became rapidly clear. This would escalate
tensions between the USA and USSR and propel Europe towards its Cold War split. In
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short, the Truman Doctrine was not only significant as a watershed event, allied with
the Marshall Plan, it was also significant as a catalyst that accelerated Europes
economic and political bifurcation making it official and an open declaration of the
Cold War.In essence, the heart of Marshall Plan could be traced by to the political and
economic motives of the USA in ensuring the promotion of capitalistic economies to
drive international trade and the existence of liberal democracies.
TS: The Marshall Plan triggered an official response from the USSR that led to further
developments and intensification of the Cold War.
With the challenge thrown out officially to the USSR, she retaliated with the
Sovietisation of Eastern Europe to prevent attempts by the USA from acting adversely
against USSR. Stalin saw the Marshall Plan as attempts by the USA to influence
Eastern Europe and destroy the communist hold. Soviet Union would engage in salami
tactics and solidify their control over Eastern Europe. She would no longer show tolerance
to Eastern European countries experimenting with liberal democracies. Her aggression was
seen clearly in Poland and Bulgaria where USSR intervened in the political affairs of both
countries to solidify communist control. In Bulgaria, Stalin clamped down firmly on the
opposition and the leader of the Agrarian Peasant Party, Petkov, was executed in 1947. In
Poland, rigged elections enabled the communists to gain power in 1947 while the Polish
Peasant Party, Mikolaczyk had to flee. Soviet control over Poland was the tightest due her
geographical position and its army was commanded by Soviet officers too. By consolidating
Soviet control over Eastern Europe explicitly, USSR had clearly responded to the US
challenge. To counter the Marshall Plan, USSR implemented the Molotov Plan which
expanded into Comecon two years later. The plan was to provide economic assistance to
Eastern European states and prevent them from being enticed by the West. In USSRs eyes,
this was a form of economic imperialism by the USA to threaten her existence. Hence it was
Stalins desire to enforce Soviet domination of over Eastern Europe, as allowing these states
to establish stronger ties with the West would have been unacceptable to Stalin. To further
solidify the communist hold, Stalin expanded the role of the Cominform to circulate
propaganda abroad, to liaise with the communist parties of Western Europe and assist in
their attempts to obstruct elected governments as a form of political retaliation. Hence,
these were official, explicit economic and political measures taken by Stalin to
counter US containment policies which would contribute to the developments and
intensify the Cold War which had already broken out with the official announcement
made by the Truman Doctrine.
T.S. The extension of the Marshall Plan to Europe made the unresolved German
Question more pressing of whether to rehabilitate or paralyse the defeated enemy,
initiating the Berlin Blockade that led to the first confrontation in the Cold War.
The USA introduced Marshall Plan in the Western occupied zones of Germany, and
extended currency reforms to West Germany and West Berlin in June 1948 by introducing
the Deutschmark, in view of establishing a separate Western German state. Fearing a
revived revanchist Germany that would threaten Soviet security, the USSR struck back by
blockading Berlin from 20
th
June 1948 till May 1949. As a strategic counter-response, the
West in turn brought the Berlin Airlift to bear to alleviate the lack of supplies and aid to West
Berlin. Truman now certain of Soviet aggression and designs for territorial aggrandizement
after the Blockade lead the formation of NATO as a military pact institutionalizing American
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protection of Western European independence and integrity against the threat of Soviet
attack. This airlift would signify the first confrontation in the Cold War, having been
split along political and economic lines, was now driven to a military split. The
hostilities caused by previous divisions had been accentuated under Trumans
leadership to the point of being divided along military terms. Again at the core of
driving these containment policies in West Germany were the political and economic
motives of the USA, so containment policies actualised the underlying causes of the
Cold War.
T.S. Fundamentally, the inherent compatibility between the ideologies of the USA and
USSR, as well as their pre-WWII relationship, fraught with a history of mistrust and
mutually antagonism, would contribute to the frozen state of international relations in
Europe.
Diametric opposites, the liberal capitalist system espoused by the USA and endorsed by
Western Europe fundamentally went against the values of Marxist-Leninist communism,
which was practiced by the USSR and its Eastern European allies. Communism did indeed
call for worldwide Marxist revolution, operating on a centrally planned command economy,
and denounced all capitalist states as corrupt and exploitative. This made it an innate and
immediate menace to the survival of all capitalist and democratic civilizations in Europe, as
well as USA. The free market principles of capitalism, which relied heavily on international
trade and openness, conversely espoused values of individual liberty, a system that would
not be tolerated in the repressive police state, which was the USSR. The ideological rift of
both powers thus divided Europe, creating a dynamic of mutual hostility and
antagonism, and caused both sides to view each other with distrust. As such, it was
not just the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan,it was also this rivalry that would
make bilateral relations to any issue both insoluble and contentious. The fear of each
others ideology created intrinsic distrust that set the stage for misunderstandings. It
created preconceived roots of the others political and economic objectives and thus
subsequently actions to combat or pre-empt them.
T.S: Ideology was the intrinsic underlying factor that would influence the economic
and political post-war aims of USA and USSR which would set the stage for further
misunderstandings that would lead to a built-up of the Cold War.
In the post-WWII policies of USA and USSR, it was fraught with mutual differences
surrounding political and economic concerns. USAs plans were global in scope, she hoped
to reshape the world into a community, independent and free-trading nations through new
US-led institutions such as the UN, World Bank and the IMF, which was described as the
one world policy. This one world vision embraced the Soviet Unions neighbours in Eastern
Europe and it was in Poland where the US design for a new post-war order first clashed with
USSRs more limited objective of creating a sphere of influence on its borders which was her
chief concern. To Stalin, it was essential that the Eastern European states forming USSRs
security barrier should have similar political and economic systems to hers. Therefore,
USAs one world vision was not acceptable in Eastern Europe to Stalin on security grounds.
The motives of each side were translated and interpreted by the other in a different light. US
and USSRs political objectives were interpreted as expansionistic by each other. While
USSR interpreted USAs economic objectives as strangling the Soviet Union and trying to
destroy her, keep her weak and subservient indefinitely. On the US side, Soviet economic
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objectives were seen to be an imposition of socialism. Their contrasting views of the world
after the war reflected different value systems, historical experiences and security
requirements. These interpretations resulted into mutual suspicion and mistrust that
culminated into fear which lead to misunderstandings of each others objectives, motives
hence they interpreted each others actions in the worst possible way. Hence differing aims
set the stage for misunderstanding which manifested themselves in the
implementation of policies. This caused both parties to see it as proof of their fears
and suspicions which caused them to respond in kind that led to further
reinforcement of the fears of the other party. Hence a self-reinforcing relationship
emerged which was played out over several events that caused a built-up to the Cold
War.
T.S. Due to the differing post-war economic and political aims of both powers, a self-
reinforcing relationship would emerge that would be manifested into a series of
events, contributing to the emergence of the Cold War.
In the early stages of 1945, disagreements over the political make-up of Poland and Soviet
security concerns would create early signs of weariness. This was reinforced at Potsdam a
few months later where disagreements over reparations, the economic handling of Germany
would lead to further tensions. Disagreements over US and USSRs political and economic
post-war aims would manifest itself further in US attempts to introduce capitalism and
democracy in Eastern Europe, resulting in getting USSR to comply by terminating lend-lease
and attaching stringent conditions to dollar diplomacy. US application of atomic monopoly
was designed to get Stalin to re-organise the governments in Bulgaria and Romania in
exchange for information on the bombs, another form of diplomatic pressure. The Long
Telegram and iron curtain speech in 1946 would influence US to embark on get tough
policies whereby diplomatic pressure was placed on the Soviet withdrawal of Iran in 1946,
US military pressure would be seen in Korea and Manchuria. Economic assistance to anti-
communist forces in Greece and Turkey, not instigated by Stalin but Tito, which US had a
tendency to ignore contrary evidence, led to a steady build-up of tensions that culminated
into the Truman Doctrine. Throughout these events, all of them were manifestations of
underlying factors, which were the political and economic post-war aims that were
tied intrinsically to ideology. These events before the 1947 Truman Doctrine could be
argued as build-ups, contributors to the emergence of the Cold War but they
themselves did not manifest the Cold War to the forefront.
T.S.The inherent ideological rivalry in Europe would be further exacerbated by a
history of mistrust between both sides.
During the Russian Civil War (1918-1920), for example, the USA participated on the side of
the Whites against the Bolshevik communists, thus firmly establishing its hostility in Soviet
minds, which would later perceive her as a long-standing Western threat. The delayed
opening of the 2
nd
front in WWII over one and a half years late left the Russians
especially bitter and resentful, who saw her wartime ally as being selfish, at the expense of
20 million Russian casualties. That the USA immediately terminated the Lend-Lease
Agreement after the war ended on 9
th
May 1945 reinforced the belief that the USA was
highly aggressive toward the USSR. Furthermore, the USA emerged from the war in
possession of atomic monopoly, as well as a GNP that doubled owing to a strong munitions
industry. Analytically, this long-standing historical baggage would worsen the inherent
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suspicions and distrust already built-up due to the ideological opposition of both sides. This
fundamental split in ideology would serve as the building blocks for their eventual
Cold War rivalry, a foundation hostility that would frame their perceptions in post-war
years, and cause the descent of events into the Cold War outbreak by 1949. Hence,
with the momentum of an ideological foundation to the Cold War rivalry, combined
with a long history of mistrust and growing mutual antagonism, it is clear that the
Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan come as important events, but not crucial
factors, in the sequence of events that escalate towards the formation of NATO in
1949.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, this essay has argued that the Truman Doctrine was only significant in
so far as being the turning point in American policy towards the USSR and allied with the
Marshall Plan, it accelerated Europes political and economic bifurcation. The Truman
Doctrine was important as being the final trigger to the Cold War which surfaced the Cold
War officially. The Marshall Plan was the first actualisation of the Truman Doctrine that led to
a series of retaliatory responses from USSR, causing the Cold War to develop further and
intensify.Fundamentally, the inherent incompatibility between the ideologies of USA and
USSR would influence the post-war economic and political aims of USSR which would set
the stage for a series of self-reinforcing actions to occur, thereby increasing the level of
misunderstanding and the emergence of the Cold War. In addition, their pre-WWII
relationship, fraught with a history of mistrust and mutual antagonism, would contribute in the
long term to the frozen state of international relations in Europe as two rival militarised blocs
after the formation of NATO in 1949.














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Skeleton outline
1. Introduction: Main arguments
TD and MP showcased the underlying factors that have been in existence and they
actualised the Cold War.
TD/MP made the CW visible, brought it to the forefront.
As events, the TD and MP were important as factors could have been present but
without events, the CW would have been seething underground, hence Cold War
surfaced due to TD and MP.
TD and MP dramatised the already existing conflict between the US and USSR as an
ideological struggle between 2 competing sets of ideas.
However, in reality, the causes of the Cold War were driven by fundamentally different
views on the new world: the differences in their economic and political motives which led
to clashes in as they played out in events that emerged at the end of WWII.
So while there were earlier events such as clashes at Yalta over Poland, Potsdam over
Germany and the status of Eastern Europe, loan issues and ad hoc get tough actions
adopted by USA as influenced by the Long Telegram and Iron curtain speech, these did
not manifest the Cold War officially but caused a built-up.

2. Significance of the Truman Doctrine as a departure from policy of accommodation
to confrontation: official declaration of the Cold War which manifested the Cold
War and surfaced it.
Significance of the Truman doctrine

3. Truman doctrine marked a change in US foreign policy from an isolationist to active
one which was seen as the final trigger to the start of the Cold War.
US involvement in Europe

4. Marshall Plan was the actualisation of the Truman Doctrine which effectively divided
Europe economically into two, hence was regarded as a consequence of the Truman
Doctrine.
Significance of Marshall Plan

5. Marshall Plan actualised the Truman Doctrine and was the Cold War in practice with
explicit Soviet retaliation.
These were effects of the Cold War, the CW was already in progress.

6. Marshall Plan intensified the Cold War to the point of confrontation.
Economic and political considerations over Germany led to the first confrontation:
Berlin Blockade

7. Ideology would be the intrinsic contributor to the outbreak of the Cold War by
influencing the political and economic post-war aims of the USA and USSR.
Role of ideology

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8. Differing post- war economic and political aims influenced by ideology as the intrinsic
factor set the stage for conflict and clash through a series of events.
Elaboration on differing post-war aims and effects/significance

9. Underlying factors set the stage for misunderstandings which caused a built-up of
events leading to the outbreak of the Cold War.
Issue over Poland: Yalta
Issue over Germany: Potsdam, economic and political developments: reparations,
bizone
Get Tough: Issue on loans- lend lease, dollar diplomacy
Get Tough issues over strategic matters: Korea, Manchuria, Iran, Greece, Turkey,
Trieste
Get tough: Atomic monopoly

10. Historical mistrust contributed to early encounters
not the most important, if time does not permit, can leave out
11. Conclusion