On WWII: 1947 — Recovery and Relapse

by luvart329

In January 1947, the Poles continued to be the victims of suffering as during the elections the Communists arrested more than 2,000 opposition party activists and forced voters to cast their ballots for the Communist candidates. In China there was also much conflict between the Government and the Communists. In Budapest, a coup brought the Hungarian Communist Party into complete power. The Communist control in Eastern Europe  increased over the year. It was under Soviet pressure that the French Communist party left the government to protest the French acceptance of the Marshal Plan—a plan presented by United States Secretary of State George Marshal to aid any nation affected by the devastations of the war. In fact, not one country in the Soviet bloc accepted Marshal’s offer. Dr Vladimir Clementis, the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, wanted to accept, which was later made into one of the charges against him when he was tried and executed. The Soviet Union also ordered Finland to refuse. In place of the Marshal Plan, Stalin created a Council for Mutual Economic Understanding (COMECON), which soon became an instrument of suffocating the economies of the satellite States, and a large factor in the growth of anti-Moscow feelings throughout the Soviet bloc.
On July 12, the first meeting of the fourteen countries who agreed to participate in the Marshal Plan was held in Paris. In the coming four years, those countries would receive the essential supplies and dollars to restore their economic life.
The Communist party executed Nikola Petkov, the leader of Bulgaria, as well sentencing Julius Maniu, a veteran anti-Fascist politician and former Prime Minister of Roumania, to hard labor for life.
The British Empire was waning. The resolution of violence between Hindus and Muslims in India and between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine was too much to bear when they had their own economic crisis with which to deal. The Jews in Palestine armed themselves and awaited the day when they would have to fend for themselves.
The French attempted to wipe out Communist control in Vietnam in October, as well as two further attempts before the end of 1947; all three failed.