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The Marshal Plan offering was actually a bluff by the US - they knew that the USSR would never accept it on priciple, so they took the free good PR and offered
by taway_1212 10y ago
The Marshal Plan offering was actually a bluff by the US - they knew that the USSR would never accept it on priciple, so they took the free good PR and offered it anyway.
The bigger point here though is that Poland didn't just magically end up being ruled by Stalin (via local proxies). Allied forced gave it up to him in part of a political deal, even though 200,000 Polish soldiers fought on the Western front
with an idea of returning to free Poland after the war. (actually, upon hearing of this betrayal, dozens of Polish military officers committed suicide).
- ptaipale 10y agoSure, but they gave the help to practically anyone who could receive it. The agreement on Oder-Neisse line was indeed not due to magic, it was due to geography and military power. The alternative? Let Patton have his way, and once Germany had surrendered, ally immediately with the Wermacht and attack the exhausted Soviet troops to force a downfall of the other mustached dictator, using the atom bomb if necessary? That wouldn't have gone down too well in the public opinion in the U.S. -- or Britain or France for that matter. Even today, there's still a Stalingrad, in the Paris metro...