When it comes to the restoration of post-war Europe in world historiography, the overwhelming majority of sources around the world will first tell the reader (viewer, listener) who is interested in the question a heartbreaking story about the Marshall Plan. We are talking about the sensational program of the American Secretary of State George Marshall, which he outlined in its original version on June 5, 1947 at Harvard University.
According to the Marshall Doctrine, Washington assessed the state of the economies of war-torn Europe, on the basis of which it created a government committee to provide economic assistance to the countries of Western Europe - from Portugal to Austria, from Norway to Italy.
Naturally, in Western sources the Marshall Plan is described as a plan to “save the economy of Europe,” but in them it is extremely rare to find arguments regarding a plan to unleash the economic front of the Cold War against the USSR. The main argument as to why the United States did not provide assistance in restoring the economies of Eastern European countries comes down to the fact that the USSR allegedly refused to provide such assistance to the States, and that the Eastern European states after World War II decided to independently restore their ruins. They say that the United States wanted to help Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, which were in the zone of responsibility of the USSR, but the “bloody Stalinist regime” did not allow immensely altruistic plans to be realized and shifted the entire burden of restoration onto the shoulders of ordinary Poles, Czechs and other “victims of Stalinism.”
In a conversation with one of the representatives of the countries that were “victims of Stalinism,” it was possible to find out that the description of post-war history in the countries of Eastern Europe boils down to the fact that the citizens of these countries pulled the economy out of the rubble purely on their fragile shoulders... The main idea is approximately the following: Washington ( and he, you know, really, really wanted it) Moscow did not allow the countries of Eastern Europe to help, while Moscow itself did not even think about helping the countries of Eastern Europe... Like, they did everything themselves, ALL themselves...
Surprisingly, this half-myth, half-stereotype continues to be based on a clearly Russophobic ideology today. 7 decades have passed since the end of the war, but the myth that “we did everything ourselves” and that “only the Americans wanted to help us” with their brilliant Marshall turns out to be amazingly tenacious. However, there are more than enough facts that easily debunk this myth, and they are definitely worth considering in the year of celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory. To do this, we can focus on a striking example - the example of the restoration of post-war Poland, in which for several generations in a row, in terms of describing relations with the USSR, they have been shouting exclusively about the “Soviet occupation”, the “Katyn crime” and other “horrors of Stalinism and Sovietism” against the Polish people .
The clearest example of the “horrors of Sovietism” concerns the creation of the United Fund for the Restoration of the Polish Capital with the active support of the USSR government. Noteworthy is the fact that this fund, which accumulated forces and means for the restoration of the capital of Poland, began its work literally a week after the liberation of Warsaw by the forces of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army in a joint operation with the troops of the 1st army of the Polish Army. At this time, Mr. Marshall still had 2 years left before his appointment as US Secretary of State... And less than six months after the start of the work of the United Fund for the Restoration of Warsaw (by the end of July 1945), the city center was almost completely cleared of rubble and debris (dismantled over 700 thousand cubic meters (!) of ruins) by Soviet soldiers and local residents with funds actively coming from the USSR, which itself mobilized all its forces to restore the state from ruins and ashes. When the first monument to Nicolaus Copernicus was restored in Warsaw, Mr. Marshall’s plan, pardon the pun, was not even in the plans...
The restoration of the economy of all of Poland, which by that time had received a territorial asset from the government of the USSR in the form of a part previously belonging to Germany (the so-called returned lands of Silesia, East Pomerania, East Prussia, East Brandenburg, Danzig district (Gdansk), Szczecin district), was carried out through the Central Planning Committee. The leading role in the Central Communist Party belonged to the Polish Socialist Party (before it joined the Polish Workers' Party) under the chairmanship of Edward Osubka-Morawski. In the two post-war years preceding the start of the implementation of the American Marshall Plan, truly gigantic assistance from the Soviet Union passed through Polish funds and the Central Communist Party. We are talking about sending trains with food, clothing, building materials, and medicines to Poland along the railways restored by Soviet specialists. By 1948, Warsaw had concluded an agreement with Moscow for the supply of Soviet industrial equipment worth almost half a billion US dollars (of course, the cost is indicated in post-war dollars), which ultimately ended up in Poland free of charge. By 1949, the production of industrial products by Polish enterprises increased 2.5 times (per capita), the economic return from the sale of Polish industrial goods increased by more than 200% in comparison with the pre-war years!
When the Soviet Union sent thousands of tons of grain and other food supplies to Poland in response to a drought in 1947, the country avoided widespread famine. Thanks to a giant leap in trade turnover between Poland and the USSR by 1950 (the total value exceeded $1 billion), the country increased the number of jobs with an industrial component to record levels for the entire existence of independent Poland.
In this regard, it is difficult to ignore Martin Shane’s book “The Marshall Plan. Five years later" (pub. Palgrave, 2001), in which the author literally states the following: "... and if Poland had accepted the Marshall Plan, its economic development would have proceeded at a faster pace." Yes?.. And we say on this occasion that if grandmother had something else, then she would be a grandfather...
The restoration of the architectural appearance of Warsaw was carried out under the leadership of the Polish architect Jan Zakhvatovich, who graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers. Thanks to his collaboration with the architects of Leningrad in 1945-1950, it was possible to implement an architectural project of colossal scale and expense to recreate the historical appearance of Warsaw. For this, documents that were at that time in the state archives of the USSR were also used. It was not for nothing that Polish builders of that time said that half of the restored Warsaw would consist of Soviet cement and brick.
As a result, the first three-year plan for the restoration of the Polish economy, developed by Warsaw and Moscow, was implemented ahead of schedule, after which Poland, with again active financial and scientific support from the USSR, began a six-year stage of industrialization (1950-1955). It was based on the Soviet experience. The main emphasis was on heavy industry and mechanical engineering. The results of industrialization were more than impressive. Thus, by 1955, Polish production in volume increased 2.5 times compared to the indicators at the beginning of the six-year plan (1950). The number of agricultural cooperatives (a Polish innovation proposed by Moscow) by 1955 increased 14.3 times compared to 1955.
Never in the history of independent Poland in the 20th-21st centuries could the growth of industrial production compare with the indicators of 1946-1955, when Moscow directed the lion's share of investments into the country's economy. For comparison: the growth of industrial production in Poland within the EU averages 4.8%, and the growth of the country's industrial production in the period 1946-1955 was measured in tens of percent. Western anti-Soviet propaganda tried to present Polish economic successes as harsh pressure on the economy from the state apparatus, but no Marshall Plan in its effectiveness at that time could really compete with the effectiveness of investments in the Polish economy by the USSR.
All this suggests that Soviet injections into the Polish economy based on qualitatively distributed local labor resources with active state regulation of the economic sector allowed Poland to recover after the Second World War, to become one of the leading places not only in the countries of the so-called socialist camp, but also to compete in economic indicators with Western European countries. Such, you know, “Stalinist tyranny” and “Soviet occupation”... Poland, haven’t you forgotten?..
The Second World War turned out to be an important milestone in the development of ideas about the tasks of preserving monuments and their restoration. Such significant factors as the massive destruction of monuments during hostilities and the sharp changes in the social structure that emerged in the post-war period, in particular the rapid development of urbanization, led to the formation of a situation that was new in many respects. Ideas about restoration methods, no matter how different they may have been before, have traditionally been based on the assumption that the destruction of a monument and changes in its architecture, which the restorer will have to correct in one way or another, have already been formed in ancient times, and data for restoration will have to be obtained by reading the remains of old forms on the site itself, collecting historical evidence and studying the architecture of the corresponding time. The relativity and incompleteness of the evidence collected in this way was one of the reasons for the often manifested mistrust of restoration in general, which was especially reflected in the formulation of the principles of archaeological restoration. In addition, in an ordinary, traditional situation, a monument that has not been restored, no matter how severely distorted it may have been, was presented as a historical reality, while its integral appearance, the restoration of which was part of the task of restoration, was perceived as something not only ideal, but also at the same time artificial. An ancient or medieval building revived in its original forms inevitably had to seem in some sense false, if only because its complete renovation seemed to cross out the existence of a huge historical layer separating its construction from modernity.
In this regard, the situation with monuments destroyed during the war turned out to be fundamentally different. There was no need to speculate about the former appearance of such structures: it was accurately recorded in measurements, photographs, and detailed descriptions. The integral appearance of the monument (in this case, formed at the time of destruction) was alive in the minds of people; It was not he who was perceived as abnormal, but the sight of the ruins lying on the site of the monument. This abnormality was especially striking when part of an entire building or an important component of an architectural ensemble was lost.
The existence of a similar problem was revealed long before the Second World War, when in 1902 the bell tower of St. Mark's in Venice, which served as the main dominant feature of not only the group of central squares, but also the entire city panorama, suddenly collapsed. Even then, a lively debate arose between supporters of its reconstruction and opponents, who insisted, in order to avoid falsification of the monument, that the new bell tower be erected in new forms and in a new location. The decision to recreate the bell tower in the old way was perceived as controversial, but private, as if it did not affect the fundamental problems of restoration.
A similar situation became more acute after the First World War, when monuments in a number of countries, especially France and Belgium, were seriously damaged. At the same time, controversy arose again over the legality of recreating what was lost. Many cultural figures, in particular the sculptor Rodin, the poet Rostand, objected to attempts to repeat the ancient original, insisting on preserving the ruins as evidence of human barbarity (“a shame for them, the Parthenon for us”). Very soon, however, it was discovered that the ruins of the structures damaged by artillery were quickly destroyed by exposure to the atmosphere, and special measures were needed to protect them. In addition, in some cases, the technical capabilities of restorers turned out to be more advanced than was generally believed. For example, the broken sculptures of Reims Cathedral were not replaced with new copies, which the artists objected to, but were carefully and accurately glued together from the rubble. All this led to the fact that in practice almost everything damaged was restored.
The scale of destruction that the Second World War brought with it left the scale of previous military disasters far behind. Particularly severe damage was caused to monuments in the Soviet Union and Poland. Not only individual buildings were destroyed, but also entire cities with large architectural complexes. It was no longer a question of the loss of individual valuable works, but of the possibility of losing traces of the existence of a national culture (as was the case with the destruction of Warsaw). The principles of attitude towards architectural heritage, developed in the practice of restoring individual buildings, had to be correlated with a new situation in which broader problems were being solved than methods for restoring an individual structure.
Both practice and theoretical statements regarding the principles of restoring what was destroyed were very different. The closest thing to the recommendations of the theory of archaeological restoration was the decision made in relation to the cathedral in Coventry (England), which was almost completely destroyed when the city was bombed by German aircraft. The remains of the medieval building were preserved with the minimum repairs necessary to preserve the original, and the new building of the city cathedral was erected nearby in modern forms. The ruins of the cathedral have acquired the significance of not only a ruined monument of ancient architecture, but also a historical monument associated with the tragic events of our era.
The example of Coventry Cathedral remains, however, exceptional, and this is no accident. Life urgently demanded the revival of destroyed cities, and only very few structures could be preserved as ruins. In practice, it was necessary in one way or another to restore buildings for housing or other vital functions. Therefore, basically there was an alternative - to come to terms with the loss and erect completely new structures on the site of historical buildings, dismantling their remains, or try to restore the integrity of destroyed monuments. There are quite a lot of examples of both solutions.
The most authoritative restoration theorists have spoken in favor of a differentiated approach to the problem. Minor, private damage, according to the general belief, had to be unconditionally eliminated. In the case of more significant destruction, when significant parts of the monument were lost, the possibility of various solutions was recognized depending on the degree of documentation of the proposed restoration, the compositional role of the lost element, functional requirements and other factors. In practice, the prevailing tendency has been the desire to restore monuments even with significant losses, sometimes completely or almost completely destroyed. Thus, in Northern Italy, many bridges blown up by German troops during the retreat were restored, among them the bridges of Santa Trinita in Florence, Castelvecchio and de la Pietra in Verona. The motivation for recreating them in old forms varied, but in general urban planning considerations prevailed. Thus, the medieval bridge of Castelvecchio formed a single complex with a castle, which completely survived, and speech, according to the head of the work, archit. Piero Gazzola, was about recreating not the whole monument, but its important component part. The restoration of the Ponte de la Pietra, which retained late antique masonry of massive marble blocks in its supports and arches and dated back to the 16th century in its upper parts, was made easier by the fact that many of the blocks were intact, and fragmentary anastylosis was possible. New material was added mainly to the brickwork. However, in this case, one of the main arguments in favor of restoring the bridge in its previous forms was its urban planning role. According to Gazzola, “for more than five centuries, the appearance of the pre-war bridge contributed to the creation of a special atmosphere of the quarter: a unique fusion of shapes, different materials and colors.”
In the Soviet Union, the enormous losses caused by the war led to a reassessment of the official position towards cultural heritage and a corresponding change in government policy. In 1948, a government decree on the protection of monuments was adopted, and a network of restoration workshops was created. The most widespread work was carried out on the restoration of destroyed palace and park complexes in the suburbs of St. Petersburg (Fig. 15).
15. Ruins of the Peterhof Palace after the Great Patriotic War. 
Restored Peterhof Palace and Grand Cascade. 
16. Church of Friday in Chernigov before destruction during the Great Patriotic War. 
View after temporary conservation 
View of the church after restoration by P.D. Baranovsky and N.V. Kholostenko
In them, as a rule, parks and skeletons of stone structures survived, while the rich interior decoration was almost completely lost. Recreating suburban palaces in their previous form required reproducing not only ordinary elements, but also complex, sometimes unique, elements that were independent works of decorative and applied or fine art. Traditional provisions of archaeological restoration excluded the possibility of reproducing such elements anew. At the same time, to refuse to restore them would mean in this case to come to terms with the loss of reminders of a great and extremely important phenomenon in the development of Russian art. The uniqueness of the situation led to the adoption of a decision that would hardly have been possible under normal conditions. The implementation of the task of reviving the St. Petersburg suburbs required enormous material and creative efforts, the organization of a specialized construction base, and the revival of lost artistic crafts. The restoration of monuments from ruins took place not only near St. Petersburg. Thus, in Novgorod, the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa was almost completely recreated, from which only the lower parts of the walls survived. In this case, the reconstruction was dictated by the requirements of preserving the historical landscape of Novgorod and the need to protect the remaining fragments of the murals. It became possible thanks to the presence of an exhaustive recording made during the first restoration of the monument.
The largest complex, restored from ruins almost anew, was the central district of Warsaw - Staro Miasto. The buildings of the old city were recreated based on materials from recordings carried out on the eve of the war. While accurately replicating the old facades, they were equipped inside in accordance with modern comfort requirements. What was decisive in this case was not the theoretical principles of the restoration methodology, but the national feelings of the people who defended their right to exist during the war - the restoration of the old center of the capital, purposefully destroyed by the fascists, acquired the significance of a symbolic act.
Significant controversy was caused by attempts to recreate the monuments not in the edition that they had at the time of destruction, but with the reconstruction of only the most ancient and most artistically interesting parts. On the one hand, this approach to the restoration of monuments with a complex construction history made it possible to reveal the most ancient and valuable historical layer in them without destroying later layers, since by the time the restorer intervened they had practically ceased to exist. This is how the Gothic churches of Santa Chiara and San Lorenzo in Naples were restored, the baroque interior of which was destroyed during the bombing of the city. The most famous example of such a solution in domestic practice is the restoration of the Church of Friday in Chernigov (architects P.D. Baranovsky and N.V. Kholostenko, Fig. 16).
The Pyatnitskaya Church, the structural system of which, it would seem, did not allow it to be dated earlier than the 15th century, and the external decoration was of a baroque character, was considered a relatively late monument. It was only as a result of military destruction, when the main structure of the building was exposed, that it became obvious that the monument actually dates from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. and is of exceptional interest for the history of Russian architecture. Measurements of the ruins and careful dismantling of the rubble made it possible to reconstruct the original appearance of the building with great reliability. However, such an approach to the restoration of destroyed monuments deprived its supporters of an important argument in favor of a departure from the strict norms of usual restoration practice, since it was no longer the usual appearance of the monument, alive in the minds of contemporaries, that was being recreated. Therefore, restorations of this type are not recognized by everyone as legitimate. In particular, the restoration of the Church of Santa Chiara in the Gothic version caused very sharp controversy at one time.
The motivation for the legality of recreating lost structures based on urban planning considerations reflects significant changes that have occurred by this time in the assessment of works of architecture of past eras. The theory dating back to the 18th-19th centuries was finally rejected. the tradition of viewing a monument as “an entity isolated from its context and only valuable for its internal stylistic features” (characteristic of P. Gazzola). In some countries, primarily in Italy, the understanding of the inextricable connection of each ancient structure with its surroundings and the significance of the urban environment itself as an independent and full-fledged monument was determined already in the 30s, but this principle received general recognition in the post-war period. Shifting the emphasis from an individual structure to the environment of which this structure is a part could not help but have a different impact on the approach to solving restoration problems in different cases. In addition, in the post-war decades, the idea of the need to actively integrate a building into modern life, to indispensably endow it with a practical function important for society, finally matured. The adaptation of monuments for modern use began to be viewed not as a necessary evil, but as a necessary condition for their preservation. This circumstance also left its mark on modern restoration practice.
The new situation brought to life, on the one hand, a significant revival of restoration activities (especially noticeable in the countries most affected during the war), on the other hand, a very large diversity of decisions made. The unusual scale of re-creating missing parts, often common in the liquidation of war destruction, indirectly contributed to the manifestation of similar trends in the restoration of monuments that were simply dilapidated or rebuilt or destroyed in ancient times. Some works were closer in nature to the norms of stylistic restoration that seemed to be forever rejected. Particularly sharp controversy was caused by the re-construction of the very insignificant remains of Attalus's camp in Athens. Such a significant scale reconstruction of an ancient structure would have been rare even for the 19th century. In the Soviet Union, similar trends also took place. The most famous example is the unjustified and undocumented recreation of the Golden Gate in Kyiv.
The controversial nature of many restorations and the variety of individual approaches of individual architects stimulated a revival of interest in issues of restoration theory. The most pressing question was the attitude towards the provisions of archaeological restoration. In this regard, the overwhelming majority of those who spoke out were quite in agreement: the basic principles formulated in the first half of our century, despite the new shades that life introduced in the post-war period, remain unshakable. If we do not take into account the restoration of monuments destroyed during the war, then the attempts observed in the post-war years to return to old methods of restoration, which allowed attempts at stylistic speculation, represent, according to the definition of one of the restoration theorists Roberto Pane, “oblivion of cultural experience.” Attal Pane described the reconstruction of the stoa as a manifestation of an approach to the monument not as a historical individuality, but as an item of consumption, the “consumer value” of which increases depending on the degree of its entertainment for an unprepared, “tired of the ruins” tourist. Similarly, in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. There have been repeated calls in the press to move from restoration of monuments to their conservation.
At the same time, in the statements of many authors, a tendency towards a more flexible application of the rules of restoration formulated previously was evident. Thus, P. Gazzola and R. Pane proposed partial changes to the text of the 1931 Restoration Charter, giving somewhat greater freedom to restorers in choosing techniques, for example, in methods of marking restoration additions. These proposals reflected another new trend - to move towards a more multilateral assessment of the monument. Stylistic restoration was based on the idea of a monument as a work of art, which the restorer is free to add to, as soon as he is imbued with the laws of its construction. In contrast, archaeological restoration proceeded from the assessment of the monument primarily as a historical source, which motivated the rigor of the scientific approach. According to the point of view of a number of modern theorists, a monument, being a historical source, should be considered to the same extent as a work of art. Without pretending to be able to replace the ancient architect, the modern restorer cannot, however, be distracted from artistic appreciation, and restoration is not only a field of scientific research, but also a field of creativity, albeit limited by strict boundaries. The architect carrying out the restoration must take care not only of historical fidelity and compliance with established norms, but also of the harmony of the whole, achieved, however, not by methods of stylized addition, but based on the modern system of artistic thinking.
The inviolability of the basic principles of archaeological restoration was confirmed by the decision of the II International Congress of Architects and Technical Specialists on Historical Monuments, held in 1964 in Venice. This decision was called the Venice Charter.
The Venice Charter gives priority to the conservation of monuments, limiting the scope of restoration: “restoration should be carried out in exceptional cases.” The motivation for restoration is the requirements for the preservation of the monument, as well as the desire to emphasize its aesthetic or historical value. Methods for such value discovery are strictly limited. First of all, unconditional documentation is necessary: “restoration should stop where the hypothesis begins.” At the same time, the layers of different eras should be preserved, “since the unity of style is not the ultimate goal of restoration.” It is possible to remove only layers of no value if this reveals something valuable in the composition of the monument itself.
The Venice Charter, to a much greater extent than previous documents, pays attention to the issues of the urban planning role of monuments and their environment. This new attitude is reflected in the official title of the document: “International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Historic Monuments and Sites” (not an entirely adequate translation of the English “monuments and sites”, which more clearly emphasizes the urban planning aspect of understanding the monument). The text states that urban and rural complexes should also be considered as architectural monuments. They “must be surrounded by special care.” A broader idea of what an architectural monument is is reflected in the statement that “this concept covers not only outstanding monuments, but also more modest ones that acquire significant cultural value over time.”
Thus, the general modern trend in the field of restoration methodology is a reaffirmation of the principles of archaeological restoration while recognizing the possibility of a flexible approach based on a broader interpretation of the monument.
The Allies did not celebrate their victory over Nazi Germany for long. Soon after the end of the war they were separated by the Iron Curtain. The democratic and “progressive” West saw a new threat in the face of the “totalitarian” communist regime of the USSR.
Waiting for change
Following the results of World War II, the USSR finally became one of the superpowers. Our country had a high international status, which was emphasized by membership in the UN Security Council and the right of veto. The only competitor of the Soviet Union in the international political arena was another superpower - the United States of America. Insoluble ideological contradictions between the two world leaders made it impossible to hope for stable relations.
For many Western political elites, the radical changes that took place in Eastern Europe and some countries in the Asian region came as a real shock. The world was divided into two camps: democratic and socialist. The leaders of the two ideological systems of the USA and the USSR in the first post-war years did not yet understand the limits of each other’s tolerance, and therefore took a wait-and-see attitude.
Harry Truman, who succeeded Franklin Roosevelt as American President, advocated tough opposition to the USSR and communist forces. Almost from the first days of his presidency, the new head of the White House began to review allied relations with the USSR - one of the fundamental elements of Roosevelt’s policy. For Truman, it was fundamental to intervene in the post-war structure of the countries of Eastern Europe without taking into account the interests of the USSR, and if necessary, then from a position of strength.
The West acts
The first to break the calm was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who instructed the chiefs of staff to assess the prospects for a military invasion of the USSR. Operation Unthinkable, scheduled for July 1, 1945, called for a lightning attack on the USSR to overthrow the communist government. However, the British military considered such an operation impossible.
Very soon the West acquired a more effective means of putting pressure on the USSR. On July 24, 1945, during a meeting at the Potsdam Conference, Truman hinted to Stalin about the American creation of an atomic bomb. “I casually remarked to Stalin that we had a new weapon of extraordinary destructive power,” Truman recalled. The American president felt that Stalin did not show much interest in this message. However, the Soviet leader understood everything and soon ordered Kurchatov to accelerate the development of his own nuclear weapons.
In April 1948, a plan developed by US Secretary of State George Marshall came into force, which, under certain conditions, envisaged the restoration of the economies of European countries. However, in addition to assistance, the Marshall Plan provided for the gradual ousting of communists from the power structures of Europe. Former US Vice President Henry Wallace condemned the Marshall Plan, calling it a tool of the Cold War against Russia.
Communist threat
Immediately after the war in Eastern Europe, with the active assistance of the Soviet Union, a new politicized bloc of socialist commonwealth countries began to form: leftist forces came to power in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Moreover, the communist movement has gained popularity in a number of Western European countries - Italy, France, Germany, Sweden.
In France, the likelihood of communists coming to power was as high as ever. This caused discontent even among European politicians who sympathized with the USSR. The leader of the French Resistance during the war, General de Gaulle, directly called the communists “separatists,” and the General Secretary of the French Section of the Workers’ International, Guy Mollet, told communist deputies in the National Assembly: “You are neither left nor right, you are from the East.”
The governments of England and the USA openly accused Stalin of attempting a communist coup in Greece and Turkey. Under the pretext of eliminating the communist threat from the USSR, $400 million was allocated to provide assistance to Greece and Turkey.
The countries of the Western bloc and the socialist camp have taken the path of ideological war. The stumbling block continued to be Germany, which the former allies, despite the objections of the USSR, proposed to divide. Then the Soviet Union was unexpectedly supported by French President Vincent Auriol. “I find this idea of dividing Germany into two parts and using it as a weapon against the Soviets absurd and dangerous,” he said. However, this did not save Germany from the division of Germany in 1949 into the socialist GDR and the capitalist West Germany.
Cold War
Churchill's speech, which he delivered in March 1946 in Fulton, America, in the presence of Truman, can be called the starting point of the Cold War. Despite the flattering words addressed to Stalin several months ago, the British prime minister accused the USSR of creating the Iron Curtain, “tyranny” and “expansionist tendencies”, and called the communist parties of capitalist countries the “fifth column” of the Soviet Union.
Disagreements between the USSR and the West increasingly drew the opposing camps into a protracted ideological confrontation, which at any moment threatened to result in a real war. The creation of the NATO military-political bloc in 1949 brought the likelihood of an open clash closer.
On September 8, 1953, new US President Dwight Eisenhower wrote to Secretary of State Dulles regarding the Soviet problem: “Under present circumstances, we would have to consider whether it is not our duty to future generations to go to war at a favorable moment of our choosing.”
Nevertheless, it was during Eisenhower’s presidency that the United States somewhat softened its attitude towards the USSR. The American leader has more than once initiated joint negotiations, the parties have significantly moved closer in their positions on the German problem, and agreed to reduce nuclear weapons. However, after an American reconnaissance plane was shot down over Sverdlovsk in May 1960, all contacts ceased.
Personality cult
In February 1956, Khrushchev spoke at the 20th Congress of the CPSU condemning Stalin's personality cult. This event, unexpectedly for the Soviet government, hit the reputation of the Communist Party. Criticism against the USSR rained down from all sides. Thus, the Swedish Communist Party accused the USSR of hiding information from foreign communists, the CPSU Central Committee “generously shares it with bourgeois journalists.”
In many communist parties around the world, groups were created depending on the attitude towards Khrushchev’s report. Most often it was negative. Some said that the historical truth was distorted, others considered the report premature, and still others were completely disappointed in communist ideas. At the end of June 1956, a demonstration took place in Poznan, the participants of which carried slogans: “Freedom!”, “Bread!”, “God!”, “Down with Communism!”
On June 5, 1956, the American newspaper The New York Times responded to the resonant event by publishing the full text of Khrushchev’s report. Historians believe that the material from the speech of the head of the USSR came to the West through the Polish communists.
Commenting on Khrushchev's speech, New York Times journalist Jim Bell noted that during Khrushchev's report - with tears, listing the intrigues, conspiracies and counter-plots that surrounded Stalin's last days - someone from the audience asked: “Why didn’t you kill him? ? Khrushchev replied: “What could we do? There was terror then.”
In the Tretyakov Gallery, Bell continued, where a considerable part of the exhibition consisted of paintings about Stalin, only two small portraits of the leader of the people remained. The American journalist did not hide his positive attitude towards what happened, but ended the article with the words: “Stalin’s ghost will still roam the Earth for a long time.”
Passions cool down
In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out, putting the world at risk of thermonuclear war. John Kennedy, who was president of the United States, in his speech at one of the American universities, announced the possibility of finding common ground between the USSR and the USA. He noted many similarities between the two states, among which “none is more pronounced than our mutual aversion to war.”
Kennedy continued to maintain a position of strength, but was a proponent of a more mature and realistic approach to Soviet-American relations. In August 1963, the two countries signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which Kennedy called "the first step toward peace, the step toward sanity, and the step away from war" in "our interests and especially the interests of our children and grandchildren."
In addition, Washington and Moscow agreed to establish a hotline and establish closer economic relations. Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin wrote about Kennedy's great desire to continue the dialogue with Khrushchev. The trend of rapprochement between the two superpowers was evident, but it was interrupted by the tragic death of the 35th President of the United States.
On June 20, 1966, the historic visit of French leader Charles de Gaulle to the Soviet Union took place. The President of the Fifth Republic, despite the height of the Cold War and existing ideological contradictions, intended to demonstrate to the world the need for cooperation with the USSR.
Back in 1950, de Gaulle prepared a document “Prospects for our relations with Russia,” in which he outlined the position of building trusting relations with Moscow. He believed that this would prevent “France and its Empire” from being subordinated to US interests. In February 1966, he confirmed his words with deeds and withdrew France from the NATO military structure.
It is curious that de Gaulle preferred to use the term “Russia” rather than “USSR”. The French essayist Roland Hurot wrote about this: “He always said “Russia” because he believed that the nation was eternal, or at least unchangeable, and that ideology such as communism was a temporary phenomenon.”
In 1913, the United States had a negative foreign trade balance, and the North American state's investments in the economies of other countries, mainly Latin American countries, were less than the external public debt. At the end of 1913, North American capital worth $2.065 billion was placed abroad, and the States themselves owed $5 billion. It must be said that the dollars of that time - the 1873 model - were a real monetary unit, each dollar was equal to 1.50463 grams. pure gold. But with the outbreak of the First World War the picture changed radically. The United States has gone from being a debtor state to becoming a creditor to the world's leading powers.
The First World War claimed millions of lives, swept through the territories of France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia like a destructive tornado, and became a real manna from heaven for the American government. From August 1, 1914 to January 1, 1917, the United States provided $1.9 billion in loans to the warring powers. Already in April 1915, one of the owners of the Morgan financial empire, Thomas Lamont, speaking to representatives of the press, noted that the United States needed to help its European allies as much as possible, since this would lead to the Americans buying out their debt obligations to Great Britain and France. An even greater flow of loans to European countries came when the United States itself entered the war. Until the end of the First World War, the total volume of loans amounted to more than $10 billion. Approximately 7 billion dollars went to purchase ammunition, ammunition, and various military materials. Moreover, all this was bought in the USA itself. The money stayed in the States and stimulated its economy. It is clear that huge profits were made by financial tycoons and industrialists. One of the results of the First World War was the transformation of the United States from the world's largest debtor to the largest creditor. France and Great Britain, on the contrary, have turned from the world's largest creditors into debtors.
In the case of France, the transformation of this country into a large debtor was facilitated by the fact that protracted military operations were taking place on its territory, millions of workers were cut off from the national economy, and the northeastern regions, where a significant part of the heavy industry was concentrated, were under German occupation. French gold reserves at the beginning of the war were estimated at 845 million dollars and they were spent already in the first months of the First World War.
An interesting fact is that in informal conversations with their British partners, American statesmen assured throughout the war and the first time after it that after the end of the war the United States would write off some of the debts and transfer some to the defeated countries. It was proposed to link the payment schedule of debtor countries with the schedule of their receipt of reparation payments from the defeated powers. The situation for the debtor countries became clear only in March 1920, when the American financial department, in response to a message from the British Secretary of the Treasury, said that the United States did not care about the delay in payments from Germany, England must pay the United States on time. In a letter dated November 3, 1920, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George asked American President Woodrow Wilson to reconsider the terms of the payments. However, the response of the American president was in approximately the same spirit as the message from the financial department. As a result, the issue of war debts was brought to the Genoa Conference. It was decided that the 4 billion 600 million dollars that Great Britain owed the United States would be paid over 62 years. Moreover, until 1932, the British had to pay 3% per annum, and from 1933 until the end of payments - 3.5%. As a result, the amount of interest became higher than the amount of debt itself. England had to pay 11 billion 105 million dollars. This is despite the fact that France received most of the German reparations - 54.4%, and England received 23%.
Berlin was obliged to pay the winning teams 650 million dollars annually, of which 149 million 760 thousand dollars were due to England. Until 1933, London had to transfer $138 million annually to the Americans. Thus, almost all of Germany's reparations, which were due to England, were absorbed by the United States. However, already in 1923 Germany was unable to pay a single mark. France responded by occupying the Ruhr. The British convened the London Conference, at which a new reparations plan for Germany was approved in August 1924. It was developed by an international committee of experts headed by the American banker Charles Gate Dawes.
The plan was adopted under US pressure. To start the mechanism of the German economy, according to the Dawes Plan, Berlin not only paid reparations, but at the same time received an international loan. Initially, Germany was given a loan of 200 million dollars (110 million were provided by American banks) to stabilize the mark. Until 1929, Germany received loans in the amount of 21 billion marks, mainly from the United States. Therefore, in the first year of implementation of the Dawes Plan, Berlin had to independently pay only 200 million gold marks. The Dawes Plan established that in 1924 the Germans would pay reparations in the amount of 1 billion gold marks (which was then approximately $238 million), in the first few years the amount grew to 1.75 billion gold marks and in 1928 it was due increase to 2.5 billion marks. Thus, the annual payments to Germany were significantly reduced, and now the British had to pay most of the annual payment to the United States out of their own pockets. In addition, Berlin paid these amounts irregularly, and from the beginning of the 1930s it stopped paying altogether.
At the Hague Reparations Conference 1929-1930. Germany's second reparations plan (the Young Plan) was adopted. The United States did not officially take part in the conference, but in fact became the initiator of the Young Plan. The plan was prepared by a group of financial experts led by the American Owen Jung and reflected the interests of private, primarily American, creditors of Germany. The US put pressure on the conference participants to ensure that the plan was adopted. Young's plan provided for a slight reduction in the size of annual payments - to an average of 2 billion marks, abolished the reparation tax on industry and a reduction in transport taxes, and the destruction of foreign control bodies. It also provided for a reduction in the total amount of German payments to 113.9 billion gold marks with a maturity of 37 years (possibly revised in the future). However, this plan lasted only one year. In 1931, Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning was able to impose a moratorium on reparation payments and the Germans paid nothing more. Another blow to Great Britain’s finances was dealt by the USSR, which refused to recognize the debts of the tsarist and provisional governments - 13.2 billion gold rubles (and taking into account the debts of the governments of Kolchak, Wrangel, Miller and other “governments” of Russia - 18.5 billion gold rubles ). As a result of the First World War, the leading world powers - England, France, Germany and Italy - became debtors to the United States.
The United States earned even more money from World War II. On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland; on September 16, the Polish government and high command fled the country to Romania. Together with them, the country's gold reserves were also taken out of Poland. Soon he came from Romania to France. France also found gold from defeated Belgium. After France was defeated, Polish, Belgian, part of the gold of the Netherlands, and most importantly, the gold reserves of the French National Bank, which at the end of May 1940 amounted to 2 billion 477 million dollars, were exported to French Africa. In November 1942, the Americans landed in Dakar; in 1943, the gold was transported to the United States and moved to the vaults of Fort Knox. Even earlier, the Americans exported Norwegian gold. True, there was not so much of it; before the German occupation, the country had gold worth 84 million dollars.
In addition, it should be noted that gold, silver and various jewelry from Europe seemed to flock to the United States. Their owners, individuals, companies, transferred their savings to a safe place - the USA, because war was raging in Europe. So, if in October 1939 the US Federal Reserve System stored gold worth 17 billion dollars, then by February 1940 this amount had already increased by a whole billion (the then dollar was worth approximately 25-26 modern ones). With the outbreak of active hostilities in Europe, the influx of gold into the United States increased even more. Thus, during May 10–14, 1940 alone, the United States received gold worth $46 million. When it became obvious that France was doomed, the flow increased even more - on June 3–4, gold worth $500 million arrived in the United States.
It is also necessary that American firms profited from financing the Third Reich. During the war, the United States enriched itself by supplying weapons and war materials to the allies. When the war ended, the United States gave loans to European countries devastated by the war. Europeans used loans to buy American goods. The US economy grew, the money was returned and again given in growth to the junior partners. So, on December 6, 1945, a loan agreement was signed between the United States and England, which came into force on July 15, 1946. According to it, the British received 3 billion 750 million dollars. Article 6 of this agreement prohibited England, until 1951, from taking loans from other countries and using the money to repay other loans. Article 9 prohibited the use of this loan for the purchase of non-American goods. The United States immediately after the entry into force of this treaty raised prices for its goods. England lost up to 28% of the loan amount due to rising commodity prices. Part of the amount was lost due to the exchange of dollars for pounds (more than 6% of the amount).
In 1947, the American Secretary of State George C. Marshall put forward the “European Recovery Program” (Marshall Plan). The plan came into force in 1948 and covered 17 European states. In fact, the United States put them under its financial and economic control.
Thus, the United States became the richest country in the world after World War II, having previously robbed, robbed and enslaved a significant part of the world. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that for this, American financial and industrial groups took an active part in preparing and kindling the fires of the First and Second World Wars. Two world wars allowed the United States to establish financial control over the planet.
With the end of World War II, the United States, along with the USSR, became one of the world's two superpowers. The States helped raise Europe from ruins and experienced an economic and demographic boom. The country began the process of abandoning segregation and racial discrimination. At the same time, an anti-communist propaganda campaign by supporters of Senator McCarthy unfolded in American society. Nevertheless, despite all the internal and external trials, the country managed to maintain and consolidate its status as the main democracy of the Western world.
New superpower
When a bloody war began in Europe in 1939, the US authorities tried to stay away from the large-scale conflict. However, the longer the confrontation continued, the less opportunities remained for pursuing an isolationist policy. Finally, in 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. The treacherous Japanese attack forced Washington to reconsider its plans. This is how the role of the United States after World War II was determined in advance. American society rallied in the 20th century "crusade" to defeat the Nazis and their allies.
The Third Reich was defeated, leaving Europe in ruins. The primary economic and political importance of the Old World (primarily Great Britain and France) was shaken. After World War II, the United States occupied the vacated niche. By all indicators, the country, which was relatively weakly affected by the horrors of recent years, has deservedly become considered a superpower.
"Marshall Plan"
In 1948, the “European Recovery Program”, also called the “Marshall Plan”, proposed by US Secretary of State George Marshall, began to take effect. Its goal was economic assistance to the countries of destroyed Europe. Through this program, the United States after World War II not only provided support to its allies, but also consolidated its dominant status in the Western world.
Money was allocated to 17 countries to restore industry and other important infrastructure. The Americans offered their assistance to the socialist states of Eastern Europe, but under pressure from the Soviet Union they refused to participate in the program. In a special manner, money was provided to West Germany. American funds entered this country along with the parallel collection of indemnities for previous crimes of the Nazi regime.
Growing contradictions with the USSR
In the USSR, the Marshall Plan was viewed negatively, believing that with its help the United States was putting pressure on the Soviet Union after World War II. A similar point of view was widespread in the West. It was also supported by former American Vice President Henry Wallace, who criticized the aid program for Europe.
Every year the growing confrontation between the USSR and the USA became more and more acute. The powers that stood on one side of the barricades in the fight against the Nazi threat now themselves began to openly hostile. There were contradictions between communist and democratic ideologies. Western Europe and the United States after World War II created the military alliance NATO, and Eastern Europe and the USSR created the Warsaw Pact Organization.
Internal problems
The internal development of the United States after World War II was accompanied by contradictions. The fight against Nazi evil united society for several years and made it forget about its own problems. However, almost immediately after the victory, these difficulties reappeared. First of all, they were in relation to ethnic minorities.
US social policy after World War II changed the previous way of life of the Indians. In 1949, the authorities abandoned the previous Self-Determination Law. Reservations are a thing of the past. Assimilation into Native American society accelerated. Often, Indians moved to cities under pressure. Many of them did not want to give up the way of life of their ancestors, but they had to give up their principles because of the radically changed country.
Fight against segregation
The problem of relations between the white majority and the black minority remained acute. Segregation remained. It was abolished by the Air Force in 1948. During World War II, many African Americans served in the air force and were famous for their amazing feats. Now they could repay their debt to the Motherland in the same conditions as the whites.
1954 gave the United States another important public victory. Thanks to a long-overdue Supreme Court decision, U.S. history since World War II was marked by the abolition of racially segregated schools. Congress then officially certified blacks as citizens. Gradually, the United States embarked on a path leading to a complete rejection of segregation and discrimination. This process ended in the 1960s.
Economy
The accelerated economic development of the United States after World War II led to an unprecedented economic boom, sometimes called the "golden age of capitalism." It was caused by several reasons, such as the crisis in Europe. Period 1945-1952 is also considered the era of Keynes (John Keynes is the author of the famous economic theory, according to the precepts of which the United States lived in those years).
Through the efforts of the United States, the Bretton Woods system was created. Its institutions facilitated international trade and made it possible to implement the Marshall Plan (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, etc. appeared). The economic boom in the United States led to a baby boom - a demographic explosion, as a result of which the population of the entire country began to grow rapidly.
Beginning of the Cold War
In 1946, while on a private visit to the United States, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a famous speech in which he called the USSR and communism threats to the Western world. Today, historians consider this event to be the beginning of the Cold War. In the United States at that time, Harry Truman became president. He, like Churchill, believed that it was necessary to adhere to a tough line of behavior with the USSR. During his presidency (1946-1953), the division of the world between two opposing political systems was finally consolidated.
Truman became the author of the Truman Doctrine, according to which the Cold War was a confrontation between the democratic American and totalitarian Soviet systems. The first real bone of contention for the two superpowers was Germany. By decision of the United States, it was included in the Marshall Plan. The USSR responded to this by blockading the city. The crisis continued until 1949. As a result, the GDR was created in eastern Germany.
At the same time, a new round of the arms race began. Afterwards, there were no more attempts to use nuclear warheads in wars - they stopped after the first one. World War II was enough for the United States to realize the lethality of new missiles. However, the arms race has already started. In 1949, the USSR tested a nuclear bomb, and a little later - a hydrogen one. The Americans lost their arms monopoly.
McCarthyism
With the deterioration of relations in both the USSR and the USA, propaganda campaigns were launched to create the image of a new enemy. The "Red Scare" has become the agenda for millions of Americans. The most ardent anti-communist was Senator Joseph McCarthy. He accused many high-ranking politicians and public figures of sympathizing with the Soviet Union. McCarthy's paranoid rhetoric was quickly picked up by the media.
The United States after World War II, in short, experienced anti-communist hysteria, the victims of which were people who were completely far from left-wing views. The McCarthyites blamed traitors for all the ills of American society. They attacked trade unions and supporters of negotiations with the socialist bloc. Truman, although he was a critic of the USSR, differed from McCarthy in his more liberal views. The Republican, who won the next presidential election in 1952, became close to the scandalous senator.
Many scientific and cultural figures became victims of the McCarthyites: composer Leonard Bernstein, physicist David Bohm, actress Lee Grant, etc. Communist spouses Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage. The propaganda campaign to find internal enemies, however, soon fizzled out. At the end of 1954, McCarthy was sent into dishonorable retirement.
Cuban missile crisis
After World War II, France, Great Britain, and the United States, together with others, created a military force. Soon, these countries came out in support of South Korea in its fight against the communists. The latter, in turn, were helped by the USSR and China. The Korean War lasted from 1950-1953. This was the first armed peak of confrontation between two world political systems.
In 1959, a revolution occurred in Cuba, a neighbor of the United States. Communists led by Fidel Castro came to power on the island. Cuba enjoyed economic support from the USSR. Moreover, Soviet nuclear weapons were stationed on the island. Its appearance near the United States led to the Cuban Missile Crisis - the apogee of the Cold War, when the world was on the verge of new nuclear bombings. Then, in 1962, the American president and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev managed to come to an agreement and not aggravate the situation. The fork has been passed. A policy of gradual détente began.
