Czechoslovakia’s exclusion from the Marshall Aid programme was an economic and political catastrophe for the country. The same is true of the ‘choice’ imposed on every other country in the region, and above all, perhaps, for the Soviet Union itself. His decision to stand aside from the European Recovery Program was one of Stalin’s greatest strategic mistakes. Whatever their private calculations, the Americans would have had no choice but to include eastern Europe in the ERP, having made the offer available to all, and the consequences for the future would have been immeasurable. Instead, the
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