The Soviet Union
was especially hard hit. Under the Marshall Plan billions of dollars of
United States aid were poured into Britain, France, Belgium and West
Germany. At the same time, the Soviet request for United States loans
was refused categorically by President Truman. Alone and unaided the
Soviet People repaired the extensive damage inflicted by the 1914-18
war, the Russian Civil War and the 1941 military invasion from the West,
and went on with the task of socialist construction which the war had
interrupted. Within five years--by 1950--the Bolsheviks were again on
their feet, going strong, extending substantial aid to China and other
professedly socialist countries and playing a crucial part in the
struggle for disarmament and peace.
At war's end in 1918 the Soviet Union was struggling to draw the first
breath of socialist life. Three decades later, after expelling the
Nazis, the Soviet Union was a sturdy giant of a nation standing head
and shoulders above its nearest European competitors. During the
interval, Soviet Russia was attacked, denounced, boycotted, encircled,
invaded, ostracized as the leading figure in "an international communist
conspiracy". When the policy of intervention and invasion failed, the
counter-revolutionaries turned to cold war.
Whether or not there was a "communist conspiracy" to overthrow
capitalism, there was certainly an organized capitalist conspiracy to
overthrow socialism-communism.
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