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87 3 POLARIZED CONFRONTATION U.S. Aid and Propaganda versus Cominform in France and Italy, 1947–1950 Triumph of Economic Determinism? Cominform Choices America’s “permanent revolution,” which, according to a 1951 propaganda book with that subtitle, envisioned a land of ultimate emancipation for every individual and “for all human spirit”1 on Earth, had a compelling premise in another revolution, that of “rising expectations.” This was how U.S. economic advisor Harlan Cleveland described the quantitative and qualitative effects of modernization, mass consumption, and mass democracy that the United States had experienced since the end of World War I, and was now supposed to transmit to Europe.2 The message stressed the universal logic of the connection between prosperity, democracy and, in general, a sense of self-fulfillment. Europe’s postwar hardship required emphasis on the “quantitative ” aspects first. This was how the effects of the European Recovery Program (ERP), announced by Secretary of State George Marshall on 5 June 1947, and beginning a year later, would be measured at the onset. But the “qualitative” aspects were actually as important. The United States needed to restore Europe’s self-confidence and sense of limitless possibility for each individual; through this plan, it was also supposed to inspire social reform in each of its recipient countries and the formation of a genuinely cooperative international community among them. Under an ideal scenario, the United States would strike a balance between asserting its role as leader of an emerging transatlantic community and fostering a truly self-reliant community of European nations. Of course, all this had to appear disinterested and not exclusively anticommunist. It would not be easy to reconcile all these purposes, and to avoid charges of hypocrisy. The communist forces in Western Europe of course exploited the U.S. contradictions. But, in doing so, they also revealed their own. In a struggle hinged on material as well as psychological effects, the French and Italian Communists, together with their Cominform sponsors, became far less consistent than their opponents.Their anti-Marshall campaign almost dissolved the link they had established after the war between economic promise, national emancipation, and international pacifism. Full alignment with Moscow did not alone cause such mistakes and contradictions. The two parties’ 88 POLARIZED CONFRONTATION own constructs of America and their interactions with internal dynamics also harmed their strategies—much like U.S. shortcomings could be blamed partly on Washington and partly on government and economic forces in recipient countries. Most historians now agree that from a strictly economic point of view, the effects of the $13.5 billion aid plan were far from essential.3 At the political level, too, there was a great deal of resistance from the very government forces the plan intended to benefit.4 But the impact of the plan was nevertheless fundamental in at least three respects: it provided the “crucial margin ” that made European recovery and, by the end of the 1950s, self-help possible;5 it confirmed most Europeans’ desire to emulate the American dream of high productivity, mass consumption, and gratified individuals; and it powerfully reiterated America’s reputation of generosity above that of self-interest, especially in contrast with the increasingly gloomier aspects of economic life in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This moral advantage was corroborated by the United States’ ostensible offer to extend aid to all of Europe, including the Soviet Union and its satellites, and the Soviets’ decision, as expected, to turn it down, and to prevent any of its allies from participating. In due time the plan generated, as its first architect, George Kennan, had augured, the spectacle of a “vigorous, prosperous, forwardlooking civilization” across the fence for eyes in Eastern Europe to witness.6 America’s influence through the ERP was so large that it warrants the recent description of the United States as an empire defined mainly by its consumerist lure.7 ECONOMIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DESIGNS Historians are not the only ones who have noticed the plan’s economic limitations . While the ERP was still in its implementation phase, it failed to deliver the short-term results it had announced. And yet, what mattered most was its psychological effect of increasing Europe’s admiration for America as well as “faith in its own potential for renaissance.” When George Kennan recommended an aid program for Europe in the spring of 1947 he saw a connection between “the profound exhaustion of [Europe’s] physical plant” and that of its “spiritual vigor.”8 Although...

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