Lie himself defended his hard-line tactics, claiming communism had represented a threat to democracy as well as the party, famously exclaiming "The Labour Party is no damn Sunday school! ()". There were also external events that aided his cause. The Marshall Plan accepted in 1947 and the Norwegian membership in NATO from 1949 drew the nation closer to the United States. Meanwhile, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 demonstrated the threat represented by the Soviet Union. Yet Lie was stronger in his support of the United States, and more fierce in his anti-communism, than most within the Labour party.