Word: molotovs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...night settled on the capital of all the Russias, white shirt fronts gathered in rigid radiance and evening gowns swayed scented attendance: Foreign Minister Molotov was giving a banquet for his fellow peacemakers. The dinner (caviar, pheasant, ice cream) was almost frugal by official Soviet standards, and the toasts were grimly optimistic. Said Ernie Bevin as he proffered his glass: "We four must not let the people of today or tomorrow say there were men who had a chance to save the world and muffed...
That described some of the things a democracy was not. But what was it? Marshall's definition told Vyacheslav Molotov that the U.S. would not stand for the expansion of Soviet totalitarianism to Germany. But it fell several miles short of telling the Germans what kind of society the U.S. would recognize as democratic...
Concessions & Complications. This week Molotov presented the Russian economic proposals for Germany. He revived the $10 billion reparations claim (first made at Yalta), but offered to spread payments over 20 years. As expected, Molotov stipulated that some German reparations would come out of current production; he demanded a Soviet share in control of the Ruhr. Most significantly, Molotov was willing to let German industry recover to a level represented by 12 million tons of steel production-capacity a year. (In the 1946 squabble over the German level of industry, the British proposed to leave Germany 12 million tons of steel...
Marshall insisted that Germany be made self-sustaining before reparations are skimmed off current production. Otherwise, the U.S., now pouring $300 million a year into Germany, would be subsidizing German reparations to Russia. When Molotov attacked the merger of the U.S. and British zones, Marshall hit back: "Charges and counter-charges get us nowhere. ... They do not solve our problems. They do complicate them...
While Marshall turned down Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov's request for informal talks on China, he offered to exchange with the Russian and British foreign ministers information about the Chinese situation...