The Online Library of Liberty

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• Editorial Staff
• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Isaac Kramnick, English Middle-class Radicalism In the Eighteenth Century
• I: I Social and Political Thought
• Community, Individuality, and Freedom
• Rousseau's Social Thought
• A Sociological History of Utilitarianism
• Spencer and Comte In American Labor Thought
• Bureaucracy In Weber & Kafka
• Bergson's Political Doctrines
• Oakeshott's Political Theory
• Oakeshott's Political Philosophy
• Undermocratic Liberal Republicans
• Wilkes and Radical Politics
• Late Liberal Imperialism
• Kant and Reason In Politics
• II: Education, Politics, and Values
• Schools and Political Socialization
• Schooling For Imperialism
• The Political Economy of Public Schooling
• Federal Education Policy
• The Problems of Federal Education
• William James As Individualist
• Existential and Phenomenological Education
• Early Federal Educational Policy
• Education, Labor Markets, & Controlled Youth
• Government Control of Universities
• III: Economic Thought and Values
• Business and Legal History
• Schumpeter's Economic Theories
• Menger and Entrepreneurship
• Saint-simonian Economic Ideas
• The Free Market & the Third World
• Democratic Capitalism, Justice, & Religion
• Property, Law, and Economics
• The Economic Analysis of Law Vs. Values
• IV: Foreign Policy and Ideology
• The Attractiveness of War
• Walzer On International Morality
• Eduard Bernstein and Imperialism
• Roosevelt Vs. His War Critics
• American Preconceptions of Japan
• The Marshall Plan and Russia
• V: Self-knowledge, Autonomy, and Liberty
• The Self In Political Thought
• Autonomy, Self, and Will Power
• Self-knowledge: Goethe, Kant, and Hegel
• The Egoist As a “psychopath”
• The History of Social Psychology
• Psychology, Self, and Society
• Free Will, Responsibility, and Motivation
• Free Will, Purpose, and Responsibility
• Political “groupthink” and Reality
• Personal Freedom and Autonomy
• Research Fields
• Economics
• Education
• History
• Philosophy
• Political Philosophy
• Psychology
• Sociology

The Marshall Plan and Russia

William C. Cromwell

• The American University

This study examines U.S. policy planning with respect to the issue of Soviet and Eastern European participation in the Marshall Plan in order to ascertain whether the U.S. pursued a strategy excluding Russia, as suggested by several revisionist historians.

An early paper by George Kennan acknowledged that “we have no plan,” and Secretary of State George Marshall sought to disassociate any U.S. recovery policy from the anti-communist rhetoric which had characterized the Truman Doctrine. The Policy Planning Staff stressed that any formal plan for recovery should be initiated by the Europeans. On the other hand Undersecretary of State William L. Clayton argued that “the U.S. must run the show.” Marshall's Harvard speech, drafted by Charles Bohlen, drew upon both above sources, but it does appear that at this point the U.S. had no plan. In later talks with the British what is clear is that its leaders sought to secure maximum aid, though the question of Soviet participation drew little attention.

The major consideration by the Americans was to secure domestic acceptance of any plan by the Congress. Marshall wished to avoid any debate and before his own thoughts had developed and before any European response was forthcoming. Ironically, the European approach pressed by the Administration against the British was not anti-Soviet, whereas the British separate national position was similar to the idea later pushed by the Russians.

Kennan and others sought to keep the aid issue out of the conflict between the U.S. and Russia, but policy makers like Clayton thought in terms of Western Europe. In talking with the British about any program, the French especially were anxious to avoid the impression of taking organizational initiatives without the Russians, but both agreed to proceed without the Soviets if necessary. The Russians certainly were suspicious in the meetings held by the three nations, where the British, in effect, denied the talks with Clayton had been official. The Russians refused to go along with a plan that would have required revealing more data about their situation than they felt necessary.

It would appear that, despite the offer, policy makers were not enthusiastic about the idea of Soviet participation in any recovery plan. On the other hand the devolving strategy which placed initiative and conditions on the Europeans, and which caused the Soviets to back away, was not intended for that reason but rather to gain domestic support and passage by the Congress.

V

Self-Knowledge, Autonomy, and Liberty

The debated conceptions of what constitutes the individual's true self account for the sometimes warring political notions of individualism and collectivism, autonomy and dependence. The relevance, then, of the knowledge of the self or “self-knowledge” to political liberty is intimate and inescapable. Our optimistic or pessimistic judgments of human nature, our confidence or disillusionment in our ability as individuals to cooperate socially, economically, and politically, in short, our natural capacity to be both free individuals and social beings—all depend on our self-knowledge. Psychological issues are, therefore, central to the debates on the relationship between the individual and the community. Peter McCormick's lead summary highlights the relevance of self-knowledge to political liberty by tracing the historical evolution or rival notion of the self in political thought. The remaining summaries delve into related themes of egoism (pro and con), social psychology, free will, responsibility, and autonomy.