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The Marshall Plan, Britain and the cold war

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

William C. Cromwell
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Extract

By mid-1947 the division of Europe had acquired clear momentum and definable contours, yet it had not yet fully congealed. The period was a transitional one, moving away from the contexts of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements which anticipated post war great power collaboration in Europe, and moving toward the complete Stalinizatioh of eastern Europe and the concomitant linking of western Europe to an American led economic and security order. Yet despite the recent Soviet backed ouster of Nagy in Hungary in May, some elements of a pan-European fabric remained intact if uncertain The Four Power negotiations over Germany's future were continuing and the allied occupation machinery remained in place. The establishment of the Economic Commission for Europe in May 1947 provided at least an institutional framework for considering recovery problems on a pan-European rather than an east-west basis. And during this pre-Cominform period the east European states appeared to anticipate some independence in foreign affairs, as suggested by the initial expressions of interest by Czechoslovakia and Poland in responding to Secretary of State Marshall's aid initiative.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , October 1982 , pp. 233 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1982

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