Mediaboss Marketing

In a break from his usual Hollywood blockbusters, Christopher Nolans latest release offers a dramatic and tense look at the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the bomb, exploring the politics of McCarthy-era America along the way.

Director Christopher Nolans latest epic, Oppenheimer, may appear an unusual subject for a summer blockbuster: a three-hour long biopic of Julius Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), the American physicist who oversaw the development of the first atomic bomb.

This has certainly not dissuaded cinemagoers, however, with the film grossing over $80 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

A star-studded cast; online hype encouraging viewing as a double-feature, alongside tongue-in-cheek release Barbie; and Nolans well-earned reputation for making intense thrillers with impressive set-pieces: all of these ingredients, together, are a recipe for big profits.

And no doubt studio bosses will be grateful for this cash injection, given the strikes that are currently rocking Hollywood.

Based heavily on the biography American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Nolans film aims to cover the eponymous physicists complex life at a blistering pace, whilst maintaining excruciating dramatic tension throughout.

Murphys performance is particularly captivating especially as Oppenheimer comes to face not only personal and professional adversity, but also battles with his own conscience, as he realises the reality of the potential destruction that he has helped to unleash.

Nolans features often see spectacle triumph over substance. But Oppenheimer generally manages to avoid this. In fact, what is most surprising (besides former Nickelodeon child actor Josh Pecks cameo) is just how political the film is.

The storyline hinges around the investigation into Oppenheimers past associations with members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and the revocation of his security clearance in 1954 which effectively ended his career during the peak of the McCarthyite witch-hunt that pervaded America.

The film uses this investigation as a means to explore how the physicists own moral values shifted before and after he became the father of the A-bomb. But in doing so, it also provides an insight into the shifting aims of US imperialism, as it became the worlds predominant superpower.

Given the well-known anti-communist hysteria of the post-war period, it may seem crazy to the modern viewer that Oppenheimer a man whose brother, wife, lover, and numerous friends and colleagues were all CPUSA members was ever allowed to head up the top-secret Manhattan Project.

The CPUSA grew rapidly throughout the 1930s and 40s, especially following the Great Depression and the ensuing industrial tumult. Consequently, it came to hold important positions within the US labour movement though unfortunately often playing a lamentable role.

At the same time, the party also gained a considerable reach amongst the US intelligentsia, such as the academics that surrounded Oppenheimer during his time at Berkeley, as the film portrays.

Oppenheimer himself, though never a card-carrying CPUSA member, was certainly a fellow traveller. He was a sympathiser of many working-class causes, such as that of Spanish republicanism, and the film also shows how he aided his university colleagues in their unionisation efforts.

The CPUSAs Stalinist Popular Frontism, however, no doubt also had some influence on him. The physicist therefore had few qualms about accepting the US governments invitation to join its top-secret programme to develop the bomb before the Nazis.

Put into historical context then, one can see how Oppenheimer ended up leading the Manhattan Project.

His belief that the bombs sole purpose, in the hands of US imperialism, would be to beat back the fascists and end the war was soon to unravel, however.

The strategists of US imperialism feared the USSR as a potential rival world power. The film shows how this was the real motivation behind the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki / Image public domain

American imperialists knew that there was a risk of potential leaks to the USSR, via communist-sympathising scientists such as Oppenheimer and his colleagues.

But they were willing to take this gamble, in order to build and demonstrate the nuclear bomb as quickly as possible not only before the Nazis could, but also to gain an upper hand over the Soviets.

Nolan does well to show how the battle lines of the Cold War were already being drawn before World War Two had even finished.

Stalin had dissolved the Communist International in 1943, and had vociferously disavowed the cause of international socialist revolution. Nevertheless, the strategists of US imperialism feared the USSR as a potential rival world power.

The film shows how this was the real motivation behind the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese imperialists were ready to surrender, but the US cynically used the country to showcase its deadly new weapon as a warning to the Soviet Union, and as a demonstration to the world that American imperialism was now top dog.

Within a matter of years, however, the Soviets also gained nuclear capability, due to leaks from the Manhattan Project. As a result, the Cold War picked up pace, especially following the Korean War.

The arms race was then on for developing the hydrogen bomb, a nuclear weapon of even greater power than the original atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer vocally opposed the US pursuit of the H-bomb. And the film shows his nave hope that as the father of the bomb, he was entitled to a say over his child.

The scientists vocal opposition became cause for concern for the authorities, and his loyalties began to be called into question.

At the same time, anti-communist hysteria was being whipped up everywhere, reaching its zenith with the Red Scare of the early 1950s.

The lives and livelihoods of thousands of CPUSA members and sympathisers were ruined, as they lost their jobs and effectively became exiles in their own country. Hundreds were also jailed.

It was in this context, spurred on by petty professional rivalries, that an investigation into Oppenheimers life and beliefs was launched, with a subsequent kangaroo court finding the eminent professor guilty of being a disloyal citizen.

Anti-communist hysteria reached its zenith with the Red Scare of the early 1950s / Image: public domain

His security clearance was revoked, bringing to an end his role as advisor on the Atomic Energy Commission. This resulted in a swift fall from grace, with Oppenheimer rapidly losing any influence that he had previously held in Washington.

The biopics ending (SPOILER ALERT) has Oppenheimer musing as to whether his creation has potentially set in motion events leading to inevitable nuclear armageddon, with Nolan depicting his horrifying vision.

With the ongoing war in Ukraine provoking such Cold-War-era fears, this is clearly intended as a reminder to audiences of just what a modern-day nuclear exchange would entail.

The Mutually Assured Destruction that would result if the worlds imperialist powers were to deploy their atomic arsenals, however, is enough to prevent the ruling classes everywhere from ever pressing the button. After all, there would be little profit to be made if the planet was transformed into a radioactive husk.

Alongside the enormous and growing strength of the working class, this MAD outcome is just one factor that rules out World War Three.

But this does not preclude wars altogether. Every year, across the world, tens of thousands die in battles over profits, markets, resources, and spheres of influence such as the civil wars in Sudan or Ethiopia today.

In fact, as capitalism plunges further into crisis, the coming period will see an intensification of proxy wars and regional conflicts between the imperialist powers, as in Ukraine, or Syria before it.

There is only one force on Earth that can put an end to this horror without end, as Lenin described it: the international working class.

To do this, the working class must first become conscious of its potential power and strength, and organise to overthrow capitalism the true destroyer of worlds.

Originally published at socialist.net

Read the original:
Oppenheimer: communism, McCarthyism, and the bomb | United ... - In Defence of Marxism

Local, state, and federal governments have intruded into every aspect of our lives. Local councilmen have made laws that ban chaining a dog, dictate the length of the grass, and require every change made on ones property to be inspected and permitted. Every private home is now under the control of the government.

State government schools issue mandates on what is to be taught in each grade. The state has established education and license standards that miss the art of being an excellent teacher. Their idea is to complete a series of college courses as a guarantee of becoming a really effective teacher. It is not bearing fruit.

As the American family weakens and dissolves into divorce, our schools have used government funding to provide services to students. These children can be provided psychological/ sociological services, free lunch, breakfast, and dinner, and in some schools, weekend supplies of food, take-home computers, and other school supplies. Many of our children are being parented by the state.

Hillary Clinton famously stated, It takes a village to raise a child. President Biden noted that all the kids are ours. This undermines the importance of parents raising their own children.

As the traditional family dissolves, the government is undermining its past support system by making divorce as easy as checking out of a supermarket. It has become apparent that marriage, as we know it, is no longer just between a man and a woman. Parents are belittled in government schools. Instead of teacher-parent meetings where parents have a major say in their childrens education, government schools are relying on outside experts.

The protectors of students would be a hybrid of government agencies and politically powerful coalitions of education-degreed experts, including governmental health experts who want to legitimize fringe sexual groups. They have little to no intimate knowledge of the childs behavior and inclinations.

A mother and father who biologically created the child and trained them to grow into a high-functioning youngster have no logical or moral legitimacy, according to the government. Instead, the national government representatives, particularly teachers who took elementary psychology courses during their BA or MA courses, seem to have more rights and should have more respect than the parents who raised the child.

This should not happen, and we believed it could not happen in the USA, but it is beginning to be proposed in the media and by the most powerful political elements of our society. Too many radical changes have happened in our society in a sudden and seemingly innocuous way. We were informed that children who want to be transformed into the opposite sex than they were born could start the process without their parents being notified or approving of their wishes. This was a direct shot across the bow of parental rights.

There was no strong negative reaction by citizens to this outrageous process of not notifying parents about the government education officials transitioning the child to the opposite sex. Our democratic socialist/communist government continues to push us toward communist policies in our nation that proudly called itself a republic. There has not been a strong reaction against these policies. These political heavy lugs have been dropped one after another with no negative recognition in the media. This is a viable method of desensitizing the population to communist policies, and it is working.

Are we approaching a tipping point where we are too far into communist practices to turn back to being free from governmental control over every aspect of our lives, including how to raise our children? Mao Tse Tung, a communist revolutionary in China, understood that once you gain the power to program young people, you have the power to train them into obedient communists. Our national government bureaucrats and top government leaders are using education indoctrination from elementary school through college to propagandize our children into diehard Marxists.

Stop ignoring all these assaults on our hard-fought freedoms. If we continue to ignore the removal of all of our freedoms and rights as free citizens, we will no longer be free. We need to stand together in masse to remove the progressive left-leaning socialists or outright communists from power, or we will wake up living in a communist nation.

If this happens, a free America will be history- never to be resurrected again.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers and blogs, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and the latest book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglios articles at http://www.drmaglioblogspot.com.

Link:
When teachers have more say than parents, communism has arrived - Hernando Sun

The great revolutionary artist Vladimir Mayakovsky was born 130 years ago, on 19 July 1893. His life, and the mark he left on poetry, theatre, and design, have captured the interest of radicals and revolutionaries ever since.

Today, as growing numbers of workers and youth become radicalised by the deepening crisis of capitalism, we remember Mayakovsky and celebrate his lifelong struggle for revolution, which he strove to give a voice to through his art.

Mayakovsky was born in a small town in Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire, during a tumultuous period.

The revolutionary events of 1905 inspired a whole generation including the young Mayakovsky, who devoured the songs and literature of the time.

His father was from a noble background, though by no means wealthy. When he died in 1906, the family were left with almost nothing, and were forced to move to Moscow.

There, while studying at the 5th Classic Gymnasium, Mayakovsky aligned himself with the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), becoming an active revolutionary.

He took part in Marxist reading groups, propaganda, and other practical activity during the period of black reaction that followed the defeat of the 1905 revolution.

Oppressive Tsarist laws and secret police forced the party and its members underground. Mayakovsky was arrested several times for working at an illegal printing press, smuggling literature, and breaking political prisoners out of jail.

While in prison, Mayakovsky studied art and literature, and began writing poetry.

He was always dissatisfied with the greats, like Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Dostoevsky. He felt deeply that the hypocritical ideals and sentimental lyricism of bourgeois literature were utterly unfit for the new turbulent period, and called for them to be castoverboard from the ship of modernity.

This desire to break with the past reflected a genuine revolutionary spirit. But it also spoke to some of the limitations of Mayakovskys thought.

In his haste to chart a new course for Russias cultural life, he had a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In fact, on cultural matters, the working class had much to learn from Russias grand artistic lineage.

On release from prison, Mayakovsky drifted from the Bolsheviks. Enrolling at the Moscow Art School in 1911, he fell in with a group of rebellious bohemians who together would forge the Russian Futurist movement.

They shared with Italian Futurism a hatred of the past and a fascination with speed, technology, and the big city.

This appeared as a total anathema to the stultifying obelisk Tsarist Russia had become, and the wooden realist tradition that dominated its cultural output at the turn of the 20th century.

The Russian movement, however, developed somewhat independently from its Italian counterpart. The left Futurists around Mayakovsky, in particular, were hostile to the fascist sympathies held amongst their Italian counterparts, by the likes of Marinetti.

The Russian Futurists attacked bourgeois art and morality, expressing a mood not unlike that which prevails amongst many young people today, who are rightfully repulsed by thedegeneration and profiteering in artand wider society.

Futurism was always constrained by its origins. It reflected the youthful contempt of petty-bourgeois intellectuals disgusted with the old order and its stagnant cultural life, but ill-equipped to fight for a new one.

Nevertheless, as Trotsky later wrote: If the Futurist protest against a shallow realism had its historic justification, it was only because it made room for a new artistic recreating of life, for destruction and reconstruction on new pivots.

As the First World War broke in 1914, and class struggle in Russia began to grow again, Mayakovskys art became increasingly political.

When, in 1917, the Russian masses overthrew the hated Tsar, and fought to establish the first workers state in history, Mayakovsky put his considerable talents entirely at the service of the revolution.

He wrote great rallying poems such as Left March. He produced a play celebrating the October Revolution. And he painted Bolshevik posters.

The revolution provoked an enormous flourishing of art. The gilded doors of Russias immense cultural legacy were opened to the masses for the first time, and a generation of artists were inspired to capture the spirit of the new world through their craft.

Mayakovsky became a highly celebrated and popular artist, with his poetry enjoying particular acclaim.

He threw himself wholly into, as he saw it, the revolutionary task of reshaping Russias cultural life. This involved collaborations with many of the greatest artistic figures of the time: the constructivist painter Malevich; theatre director Meyerhold; graphic designer Rodchenko; legendary filmmaker Eisenstein; and even the young composerShostakovich.

Yet, despite holding the latters personal admiration, Lenin did not hold Mayakovsky in great esteem, whose work he dubbed hooligan communism. He held similar views on Futurism in general.

Partly, this was down to Lenins self-confessed conservatism on artistic matters. But he was also likely conscious of the political problems in Mayakovskys outlook.

Trotsky who was much more open to experimental art recognised Mayakovskys enormous talent, naming him the greatest poet of the [Futurist] school. But he also saw the artists weaknesses.

He criticised Mayakovskys unwillingness to engage with the stark realities of post-revolutionary Russia: the backwardness that would need to be overcome for there to be any question of raising Soviet societys cultural level to the heights envisioned by this petty-bourgeois idealist.

For Trotsky: Mayakovskys revolutionary individualism poured itself enthusiastically into the proletarian revolution, but did not blend with it. His subconscious feeling for the city, for nature, for the whole world, is not that of a worker, but of a bohemian.

Later, as the Stalinistbureaucracy grew powerful in the isolated workers state, Mayakovsky attacked the red tape and stupidity of the bureaucrats in poems like In Re: Conferences.

While still not a fan of the poetry, Lenin praised the political content of this work as absolutely right.

As Lenins health worsened, Mayakovsky rightly railed against those who sought to transform the Bolshevik leader from flesh-and-blood revolutionary into a harmless icon.

In a 1923 editorial for the Left Art Front (LEF) journal he helped found, Mayakovsky wrote:

We insist

Dont stereotype Lenin

Dont print his portrait on placards, stickybacks, plates, mugs and cigarette cases.

Dont bronze-over Lenin

Dont take from him the living gait and countenance.

After Lenins death, Mayakovskys increasingly critical line made him a target. His critique of the Stalinist clique in the satirical playThe Bathhouseprovoked a vicious campaign against him.

Vladimir Yermilov, a literary critic and Stalinist attack dog, implied thatThe Bathhouseexpressed sympathy for the ideas of Leon Trotskys Left Opposition.

This cultural epigone might have actually had a point. Mayakovsky was always an avowed internationalist, who saw the Russian Revolution as the starting gun for world communist revolution.

The association with Trotsky was intended as a Mark of Cain. It was followed by a smear campaign in the Soviet press, with Mayakovsky being drowned out at public readings by jeering audiences whipped into a frenzy by Stalinist calumny.

Just as Stalin murdered all the old Bolsheviks, in order to consolidate the privileges of the bureaucracy, so too in art he waged a brutal counter-revolution. This later included enforcing a new shallow (socialist) realism as the only accepted style in the Soviet Union.

Mayakovsky ultimately could not withstand the withering effect of Stalinist counter-revolution. In April 1930, at the age of 36, he took his own life in mysterious circumstances.

Mayakovskys revolutionary legacy was still feared by the bureaucracy. Their anxiety only intensified when his funeral became the third-largest event of public mourning in Soviet history, with 150,000 in attendance.

In a cynical about-face, in 1935, Stalin proclaimed Mayakovsky to be the best and most talented poet of our Soviet epoch!

The bureaucracy proceeded to strip Mayakovsky of his humanity, converting him just like Lenin into another harmless icon; a mere propagandist. His oppositional works were censored or altered, while statues and public squares unveiled in his honour.

This acted as nothing short of his second death, as fellow Futurist Boris Pasternak later wrote.

Today, the last remnants of the revolutionary Mayakovsky continue to be wiped out in defence of the status quo.

His political works are buried under academic gossip about his lovelife and personal struggles. Statues and streets dedicated to him are torn down and renamed. In Ukraine, for example, a Mayakovsky Street was recently renamed in honour of Boris Johnson.

Those of us who are not content with the status quo of the world today, andwho call ourselves communists, remember the real, complex, inspiring legacy of Mayakovsky: his courageous revolutionary struggle, and great artistic achievements.

In doing so, we heed the words of Trotsky. Art has a role to play in revolution, but cannot be achieved through art alone.

It is only through conscious organisation, education, and persistent struggle that this decrepit system can be overthrown, once and for all.

One can say of Mayakovsky that, from a young age, he recognised the need to get organised and fight for revolution. Communists today must follow this example.

See the article here:
130 years of Mayakovsky: Art, communism, and revolution - Socialist Appeal

When the United States Congress passed a resolution in 1959 requiring the president to issue a proclamation on Captive Nations Week every July, this measure was viewed both by its authors and those opposed to it as directed against the repression of nations by communist regimes. Until the collapse of the Soviet bloc and then the Soviet Union itself in 1989 and 1991, respectively, these messages served as indicators of how the US government viewed these communist regimes. In the years since, the messages have celebrated the freeing of nations in the former communist states and focused on nations that remain under communist rule. But many of those participating in these commemorations have spent more time celebrating past victories than talking about current challenges. Many others have been dismissive of the continuation of this project as such.

That is perhaps understandable because of how much progress has been made in combating repression; even so, these celebrations miss the point. On the one hand, they ignore the fact that the Captive Nations Week resolution focused not on communism as a doctrine but communism as a practice, which involved repression not limited to communist states. Victories over communism have led to real advances. However, many who proclaimed themselves as non-communists or even anti-communists have continued or revived the kind of ethnonational repression that the Soviet communists carried out in the past and that other surviving communist regimes, China first among them, are carrying out to this day. On the other hand, focusing on communist regimes alone obscures just how many atrocities are being carried out by nominally non-communist regimes and how much work remains to be done in countries like the Russian Federation. There, for example, two of the captive nations the 1959 resolution spoke of inside Russia, Idel-Ural and Cossackia, remain hopeful for liberation (see EDM, November 19, 2013; February 21, 2019).

In his proclamation of Captive Nations Week a year ago, US President Joe Biden sought to correct this trend and returned to the principles underlying the original resolutions concerns about the victims of imperialist oppression, regardless of how those carrying it out would characterize themselves (Whitehouse.gov, July 15, 2022). Biden made three key points: First, Captive Nations Week is not about anti-communism per se, but rather, against all forms of repression. Only three of the regimes he listed among the worlds most repressive are communistCuba, North Korea and the Peoples Republic of China. The other six are either former communist countries or have never been communistRussia, Iran, Belarus, Syria, Venezuela and Nicaraguaand the US president listed Russia first among these countries, not because of its communist roots, but because of its continuing imperialist behavior.

Second, Biden was explicit that governments that repress their people at home, as all nine of these countries do, seek to repress others abroad through aggression. Russias invasion of Ukraine is the most obvious case of this. And third, and this may be the most important aspect of his declaration last year, Biden made clear that Americans cannot remain unconcerned about such repression, be it within countries or between them and their neighbors. They must stand in solidarity with the brave human rights and pro-democracy advocates around the world (Whitehouse.gov, July 15, 2022).

The US leader concluded with the following words: May Captive Nations Week reinvigorate our efforts to live up to our ideals by championing justice, dignity and freedom for all, words that apply not only to communist countries but also to post-communist countries, states that have never been communist and the United States. Biden did not say it directly, but his words clearly imply something that has often been forgotten: We are anti-communists not because people call themselves communists; we are anti-communists because of what communists have done.

This year, the reinvigoration of the principles behind Captive Nations Week has continued and expanded. In his proclamation issued on July 14, Biden devoted particular attention to Russias brutal aggression against its neighbor Ukraine and the Ukrainian peoples courageous defense of their sovereignty, freedom, land and lives. He concluded that the actions of Ukrainians and others who champion democracy are living proof that the darkness that drives autocracy can never extinguish the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere (Whitehouse.gov, July 14). And perhaps representing an even more critical development, for the first time ever, Captive Nations Week is being marked not just in the United States but in Ukraine as well, itself a former captive nation and a current victim of imperialist aggression.

Ukraine has particular reasons for taking the lead: Kyiv sees the non-Russians in Russia as its allies against Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine on the basis of the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And last week, at a meeting hosted by two Verkhovna Rada deputies, representatives of the Erzya, Oirat-Kalmyk, Sakha, Ingush, Dagestani, Buryat and other submerged nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation came together and declared Ukraine must become a center of support for the non-Russian nations there. They called for support in the division of the Moscow empire into individual nation states and thereby guarantee the security of Ukraine and the entire civilized world (Abn.org.ua, July 10; Abn.org.ua, July 11).

This action by Kyiv is the latest example of Ukrainian efforts to support non-Russian peoples within the borders of the Russian Federation. (For background, see Window on Eurasia, December 9, 2018; April 17, 2019.) Indeed, already at the end of 2022 in particular, Ukraine took two pages from the American Cold War playbook about captive nations: its parliament called for the international recognition of the right of the peoples of Russia for self-determination and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to Putins Russia as an updated version of the evil empire. The first of these echoed the 1959 US Congress Captive Nations Week resolution but goes even further by denouncing Moscow for carrying out acts of genocide against the non-Russians in Russia, including through the use of selective mobilization (Itd.rada.gov.ua, October 6, 2022). The second, by Zelenskyy, recalls the words of US President Ronald Reagan, who in 1983 described the Soviet Union as an evil empire (see EDM, October 13, 2022).

Moscow has long been dismissive of the American Captive Nations Week resolutions, suggesting they are survivors of the past that should be cast into the dustbin of history (see EDM, January 18; June 8; Ukraina.ru, May 12). Even so, Russias leaders are clearly worried about them (Aif.ru, January 11)and they will find it harder to dismiss what Ukraine is now doing, especially because Kyivs actions are another sign of the solidification of its ties with the West.

Go here to read the rest:
Captive Nations Week Marked for First Time in Ukraine - Jamestown - The Jamestown Foundation

The Marshall Plan envisioned the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. President Harry Trumans administration launched the initiative, which provided $13 billion for economic and technical assistance. It boosted European morale and promoted political and economic stability, which lowered the influence of domestic communist parties and strengthened the American position. The plan was implemented after negotiations between the United States and 16 participating European countries in July 1947. The Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites, however, did not participate. Joseph Stalin saw the plan as a threat to communism and a manifestation of American imperialism. After the completion of the Marshall Plan, all participating countries economies, except Germany, surpassed their pre-war levels. The subsequent two decades saw unprecedented economic growth in Western Europe.

World War II caused the deaths of 60 million military and civilians. It marked the first international conflict in which civilian casualties outnumbered military casualties, and the world saw the tragedy of one of the first organized genocides in modern history, the Holocaust. Additionally, heavy artillery and aerial bombing across Europe brutally destroyed cities, towns, and villages, including the industrial and cultural centers. The horrors of World War II and its aftermath caused the displacement of at least 40 million people from their home countries, with about 11 million coming from Allied-occupied Germany.

The United States, being less damaged by the war than other Allied forcesGreat Britain, the Soviet Union, and Francesupplied aid to millions of people living in refugee camps through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration as well as other organizations. However, it was not enough.

World War II disrupted the supply and production of food and other agricultural products in Europe. In addition, airstrikes and artillery attacks severely damaged the regions transportation infrastructure, including railroads, power plants, port infrastructure, roadways, bridges, and airports. The naval forces and shipping fleets of key European countries had been destroyed. All of these contributed to the disruption of the regions trade flows and economic isolation from the rest of the world.

The economies of most European states were recovering slowly. Industrial production was 88% of 1938 levels, exports 59%, and agricultural production 83%. The only exceptions were the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France. In these countries, production had already been brought back to pre-war levels by 1947. In 1948, Belgium and Italy also reached the pre-war production level. From 1946 to 1948, food production was two-thirds of what it had been before the war. A drought and a harsh winter destroyed most of the wheat crop. Severe socio-economic conditions were only contributing to the rising popularity of communist parties. The economic issues could not be fixed promptly, as most countries at war had drained their resources. The Truman administration saw the need to adopt a definite position on the world scene or fear losing credibility.

To avoid the economic deterioration of post-war Europe, the expansion of communism, and the stagnation of world trade, the Marshall Plan sought to stimulate European production, promote the adoption of policies leading to stable economies, and take measures to increase trade among European countries and the rest of the world. The government of the United States was concerned that the hardships, unemployment, and instability of the post-World War II era would increase the attractiveness of communist parties to voters in western Europe and further contribute to the Soviet Unions expansionist policies.

The idea of providing economic assistance to Europe as part of the United States early strategies in the Cold War was first introduced on May 8, 1947, by Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson. In Cleveland, Mississippi, he gave a speech at the annual meeting of the Delta Council, where different social, economic, and financial issues had been discussed since 1935.

During his speech, Acheson outlined the urgent need to provide international aid to post-war European countries. For Acheson, the plan was not just about rebuilding Europe but also for:

With this speech, he hoped to attain wider public support, including that of the local farmers and businesses of the Mississippi Delta, as the growing dollar deficit in Europe was negatively affecting the American economy: unable to pay for the imported goods, European states would be eventually prohibited from trading with the United States, creating financial difficulties for farmers and businesses locally.

In his historic speech at Harvards graduation ceremony, the idea of a European self-help initiative that the United States would finance was advanced by Secretary of State George C. Marshall on June 5, 1947. In his speech, Marshall outlined the need for an economic aid strategy to assist the devastated European countries in recovering from the effects of World War II. The Secretary of State outlined that,

Events unfolding in Greece and Turkey proved the necessity of such a program. Greece was suffering from a civil war between the communist-backed National Liberation Front and the British-supported Greek monarchy, and Britain was losing its position. Supporting anti-communist forces while trying to rebuild after the war seemed challenging. The same scenario prevailed in Turkey, where the Soviet Union pressured the Turkish government to grant the Union special privileges for using the Turkish Straits. If accomplished, it would strengthen the Soviet Unions influence in Europe and threaten American economic and political interests on the already polarized European continent.

As a result, the Truman Administration and Congress formulated the European Recovery Program, otherwise known as the Marshall Plan. It comprised of providing roughly $13.3 billion (worth $174 billion in 2023) of assistance to 16 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Western Germany. The assistance equaled 5 % of the United States gross domestic product at the time.

Representatives from 16 European countries gathered in Paris on July 12, 1947, to discuss the economic issues they were facing as well as potential remedies. This discussion was mandatory under the proposed Plan to receive aid. Before the Plans approval, participating European countries committed to taking steps toward solving their economic problems rather than simply receiving financial aid for recovery. The Committee of European Economic Cooperation (CEEC), a cooperative organization, was formed and consisted of participating members. Marshall did not restrict any state, including the Soviet Union, from joining the meeting. However, the USSR and its satellites refused to participate, as the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Joseph Stalin, believed that it would restrict their economic sovereignty and increase American influence.

As a result of these discussions, the design of the Marshall Plan was finally crafted. It would last for four fiscal years and provide aid to the recipients per capita, with larger amounts given to major industrial powers such as West Germany, France, and Great Britain. This was done under the assumption believed by Marshall and his advisors that the revival of these key countries was essential to Europes recovery.

According to the Marshall Plan, it would assist European countries in:

However, the Marshall Plan had conditionality recipient states had to consent to the following:

In April 1948, twoagencies were createdto implement the Marshall Plan: from the side of the United States, the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), and on Europes side, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). The latter assisted in ensuring that members met their shared obligations to adopt trade- and production-enhancing measures. The ECA helped Europe buy goods like food, fuel, and machinery with monetary assistance and leveraged money for specialized projects, particularly those that developed and repaired infrastructure. Additionally, it authorized the use of local currency matching funds, granted guarantees to stimulate private investment in the United States, and provided technical support to boost productivity.

The $13 billion project began with the delivery of food and supplies to French and Dutch ports throughout Europe. Soon after, tractors, turbines, lathes, and other industrial machinery were provided, along with the fuel needed to run them.

Money from the Marshall Plan was distributed to local governments and jointly managed by ECA. In each participating country, a special ECA envoy, usually a well-known American businessman, was appointed to provide guidance and expertise during implementation. To assess the economy in each participating state and determine where assistance was required, panels of government, corporate, and labor leaders were assembled to gather and analyze the economic developments.

As a result of these developments, the fastest phase of growth in European history occurred between 1948 and 1952. The level of industrial production in Western Europe had increased by 40% by the time the Marshall Plan was completed in 1951. Moreover, trade and exports significantly outpaced what they were before World War II. Increased production created more working places, and thus the living standards of Europeans improved.

Perhaps even more significant than the economic implications of the Marshall Plan were the political ones. Aid from the Marshall Plan enabled Western European countries to ease rationing and spending restrictions, which decreased dissatisfaction within Western European populations and brought political stability. Communist parties lost political influence. Economic self-sufficiency in all participating European countries had been achieved, and as Secretary of State George C. Marshall thought, the cooperation of all European nations led to greater unity. Communism in Western Europe was successfully contained. Aside from Czechoslovakias fall to communism on February 25, 1948, no other Western European nation shared the same fate.

A sort of United States of Europe was what the Truman administration envisioned for the future of the European continent. Indeed, the promotion of economic and political cooperation among European countries through the Marshall Plan influenced the idea of forming the European Union.

It promoted economic integration, which led six countries Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands to establish the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950. Eight years later, the same six created a more cohesive European Economic Community, eventually transforming into the European Union in 1993. The frameworks that were implemented by the European Economic Community were tested and developed in the OEEC as part of the Marshall Plan.

Additionally, the Brussels Treaty on Mutual Defense, ratified in 1948 by the 16 participating European countries, served as the precursor for the creation of the collective security organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in 1949.

Scholars often suggest that the Marshall Plan only further intensified tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and contributed to the intensification of the Cold War. It signaled a new era of global responsibility for the United States. Turning away from its traditional policy of isolationism, the Marshall Plan helped the United States to position itself as a new leader in a new emerging post-war order, threatening the dominance of the Soviet Union.

The Marshall Plan is regarded as one of Americas most efficient foreign aid initiatives and one of its more successful foreign assistance programs. As economic historians J. Bradford De Long and Barry Eichengreen outlined, the Marshall Plan can be regarded as historys most successful structural adjustment program.

Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for proposing and supervising the plan for the economic recovery of Europe. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rightfully called Marshalls decision to rebuild Europe the highest level of statesmanship.

Continued here:
What Was the Marshall Plan? - The Collector