Large parts of the world devastated by World War II did not benefit from the Marshall Plan. The only major Western European nation excluded was Francisco Franco's Spain, which did not overtly participate in World War II. After the war, it pursued a policy of self-sufficiency, currency controls, and quotas, with little success. With the escalation of the Cold War, the United States reconsidered its position, and in 1951 embraced Spain as an ally, encouraged by Franco's aggressive anti-communist policies. Over the next decade, a considerable amount of American aid would go to Spain, but less than its neighbors had received under the Marshall Plan.[83]
While the western portion of the Soviet Union had been as badly affected as any part of the world by the war, the eastern portion of the country was largely untouched and had seen a rapid industrialization during the war. The Soviets also imposed large reparations payments on the Axis allies that were in its sphere of influence. Austria, Finland, Hungary, Romania, and especially East Germany were forced to pay vast sums and ship large amounts of supplies to the USSR. These reparation payments meant the Soviet Union received about the same itself as 16 European countries received in total from Marshall Plan aid.[84]
In accordance with the agreements with the USSR shipment of dismantled German industrial installations from the west began on March 31, 1946. Under the terms of the agreement the Soviet Union would in return ship raw materials such as food and timber to the western zones. In view of the Soviet failure to do so the U.S. temporarily halted shipments east (although they were never resumed), although it was later shown that although utilized for cold war propaganda reasons the main reason for halting shipments east was not the behavior of the USSR but rather the recalcitrant behavior of France.[85] Examples of material received by the U.S.S.R. were equipment from the Kugel-Fischer ballbearing plant at Schweinfurt, the Daimler-Benz underground aircraft-engine plant at Obrigheim, the Deschimag shipyards at Bremen-Weser, and the Gendorf powerplant.[86][87]
Eastern Europe saw no Marshall Plan money, as their Moscow-controlled governments rejected joining the program, and moreover received little help from the Soviets. The Soviets did establish COMECON as a riposte to the Marshall Plan. The members of Comecon looked to the Soviet Union for oil; in turn, they provided machinery, equipment, agricultural goods, industrial goods, and consumer goods to the Soviet Union. Economic recovery in the east was much slower than in the west, and the economies never fully recovered in the communist period, resulting in the formation of the shortage economies and a gap in wealth between East and West. Finland, which did not join the Marshall Plan and which was required to give large reparations to the USSR, saw its economy recover to pre-war levels in 1947.[88] France, which received billions of dollars through the Marshall Plan, similarly saw its average income per person return to almost pre-war level by 1949.[89] By mid-1948 industrial production in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia had recovered to a level somewhat above pre-war level.[90]
Japan too, had been badly damaged by the war. However, the American people and Congress were far less sympathetic towards the Japanese than they were to the Europeans. Japan was also not considered to have as great a strategic or economic importance to the United States. Thus no grand reconstruction plan was ever created, and the Japanese economic recovery before 1950 was slow. However, by 1952 growth had picked up, such that Japan continued, from 1952 to 1971 to grow in real GNP at an average annual rate of 9.6 percent. The US, by contrast, grew at a rate of 2.9 percent from 1952 to 1991.[91] The Korean War may have played a role in the early economic growth in Japan. It began in 1950 and Japan became the main staging ground for the United Nations war effort, and a crucial supplier of material. One well-known example is that of the Toyota company. In June 1950, the company produced 300 trucks, and was on the verge of going out of business. The first months of the war saw the military order over 5,000 vehicles, and the company was revived.[92] During the four years of the Korean War, the Japanese economy saw a substantially larger infusion of cash than had any of the Marshall Plan nations.
Canada, like the United States, was little damaged by the war and in 1945 was one of the world's largest economies. The Canadian economy had long been more dependent than the American one on trade with Europe, and after the war there were signs that the Canadian economy was struggling. In April 1948, the U.S. Congress passed the provision in the plan that allowed the aid to be used in purchasing goods from Canada. The new provision ensured the health of that nation's economy as Canada made over a billion dollars in the first two years of operation.[93] This contrasted heavily with the treatment to Argentina, another major economy dependent on its agricultural exports with Europe, received from the ECA, as the country was deliberately excluded from participation in the Plan due to political differences between the U.S. and then-president Juan Perón. This would damage the Argentine agricultural sector and help to precipitate an economic crisis in the country.
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