9781422282809

The economic situation intheSovietBlocwas evenbleaker.Manynations, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, did not abolish rationing until the mid-1950s, while it continued in Albania and East Germany until 1957 and 1958, respectively. The economic situation was so bad in 1953 that 50,000 East German workers faced down Soviet troops in East Berlin to protest economic conditions. In subsequent years, protests took place in Poland (1956), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968). All demanded economic and political reforms. In most cases, the Soviet military put down the revolts. New Monetary Policies The United States was the only nation to emerge from World War II stronger than it had been. Its economy was robust. After the war, America found itself as a bulwark against communism. As some Western European nations, including Italy and France, flirted with communism, many in the West were certain that unless the United States took an active role in rebuilding Western Europe, communism would spread across the continent. Many also feared that if trade did not increase and newmonetary policies were not established, Europe would devolve into mayhem, as it did in the aftermath of World War I (1914–1918). The economic collapse of the world’s economies after World War

I gave rise to fascist governments in Italy, Japan, and Germany, which eventually led an even greater world war twenty years later. Policy makers in the United States understood the challenges that a new world order would bring long before World War II ended. In 1944, world leaders from forty-four Allied nations, including the Soviet Union, gathered at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to discuss the eco- nomic future of a postwar world.

Some foodstuffs were still being rationed in Britain in 1953 and 1954 , when this ration book was issued.

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CHAPTER 1