Battle Act

(official name, Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951), enacted in the USA in order to establish an economic blockade of the USSR and other socialist countries. It was named after Senator Battle, the author of the bill. The act established an embargo on the export of so-called strategic goods from the USA to the USSR and the other socialist countries and limited the export of all other goods to these countries; it also stated that American military, economic, and financial aid were to be granted only to those countries that instituted a similar embargo. The plans of American imperialism that were bound up with the Battle Act were thwarted by the rapid growth in the power of the socialist countries and the uninterrupted development of their economic and trade relations, both among themselves and with the other countries of the world.