Editing Marshall Plan (section)

===Compulsory Eastern Bloc rejection===
Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] left Paris, rejecting the plan.{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=139}} After that, statements were made suggesting a future confrontation with the West, calling the United States both a "fascizing" power and the "center of worldwide [[Reactionary|reaction]] and anti-Soviet activity", with all U.S.-aligned countries branded as enemies.{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=139}} The Soviets blamed the United States for communist losses in elections in Belgium, France, and Italy months earlier, in the spring of 1947.{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=139}} It claimed that "marshallization" must be resisted and prevented by any means and that French and Italian communist parties were to make maximum efforts to sabotage the implementation of the plan.{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=139}} In addition, Western embassies in Moscow were isolated, with their personnel being denied contact with Soviet officials.{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=139}}

On July 12, a larger meeting was convened in Paris. Every country in Europe was invited, with the exceptions of Spain (a World War II neutral that had sympathized with the [[Axis powers]]) and the small states of [[Andorra]], [[San Marino]], [[Monaco]], and [[Liechtenstein]]. The Soviet Union was invited with the understanding that it would likely refuse. The states of the future [[Eastern Bloc]] were also approached, and [[Czechoslovakia]] and [[Poland]] agreed to attend. In one of the most evident signs and reflections of tight Soviet control and domination over the region, [[Jan Masaryk]], the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for considering Czechoslovakia's possible involvement with and joining of the Marshall Plan. The prime minister of Poland, [[Józef Cyrankiewicz]], was rewarded by Stalin for his country's rejection of the plan which came in the form of the Soviet Union's offer of a lucrative [[trade agreement]] lasting for five years, a grant amounting to the approximate equivalent of $450 million (in 1948; the sum would have been $4.4 billion in 2014{{sfn|U.S. Inflation Calculator|2021}}) in the form of long-term credit and loans and the provision of 200,000 tonnes of grain, heavy and manufacturing machinery and factories and heavy industries to Poland.{{sfn|Carnations|1948}}

The Marshall Plan participants were not surprised when the Czechoslovakian and Polish delegations were prevented from attending the Paris meeting. The other [[Eastern Bloc]] states immediately rejected the offer.{{sfn|Schain|2001|p=132}} [[Finland]] also declined, to avoid antagonizing the Soviets (see also [[Finlandization]]). The Soviet Union's "alternative" to the Marshall plan which was purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with western Europe, became known as the [[Molotov Plan]], and later, the [[Comecon]]. In a 1947 speech to the United Nations, Soviet deputy foreign minister [[Andrei Vyshinsky]] said that the Marshall Plan violated the principles of the United Nations. He accused the United States of attempting to impose its will on other independent states while at the same time using economic resources distributed as a relief to needy nations as an instrument of political pressure.{{sfn|Vyshinsky|1947}}