Reactions in the Soviet Union
The Schuman Plan, just like the Marshall Plan three years earlier, was unequivocally condemned by the Soviet Union. Robert Schuman’s assurances that the new Community was peaceful in nature did not ease the hostility of the Soviet Union and its neighbours. The USSR actually saw the plan to pool resources as a new gambit by the United States to strengthen the grip of American big business on Europe to the detriment of the European working class. The Soviets saw the ECSC as merely NATO’s arsenal in Europe. They also condemned the reintegration of the Federal Republic of Germany into the Western bloc, which they accused of gearing up for a Third World War.