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The Soviet Union and the United Nations: An Essay in Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Rupert Emerson  and
Inis L. Claude Jr
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Extract

In the present climate of opinion it is customary to view the attitudes and actions of the USSR in the United Nations — as elsewhere — as dictated only by malice and evil.

Since the gravest issues of peace and war may hinge upon the assessment which is made of the Soviet attitude, it is essential to seek an understanding of the ideas and forces which have shaped it. We have, therefore, attempted in the first place to assess the Soviet position as Moscow may see it, in some instances deliberately giving the benefit of the doubt, where doubt plausibly enters in, to the Soviet side; but the elements of explanation which have inevitably intruded themselves reflect the western frame of reference. The word “may” is in italic since this is necessarily an essay in interpretation; Soviet pronouncements obviously cover only part of the story and have their strong propaganda implications and limitations.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1952 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1952

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References

1 “The position that the Soviet Union has taken toward the United Nations – her wild use of the veto, the frustration of orderly meetings by endless and pointless discussion, the vilification and diatribes directed against all people who do not agree with her, the withdrawal of her representatives from the various organs of the United Nations — are all based not upon a conviction that the United Nations is inadequate and should be strengthened but are based upon an effort to frustrate and discredit any other pattern of world organization than that of world communism.” Russell, , Francis, H., “Toward a Stronger World Organization,” Department of State, Bulletin, XXIII, p. 221Google Scholar.

2 Koretsky, the Soviet member of the International Law Commission, explained to that orbody on April 25, 1949, that “If Soviet statesmen fought for the principle of sovereignty, it was because that principle protected democratic governments and encouraged the battle against world domination by one group …’ He asserted that sovereignty limits international law and prevents reactionary intervention by both states and international organizations. “If States were deprived of their sovereignty and independence, the international community would become a voting machinery, controlled by those Powers which directed that machinery.” Document A/CN.4/SR.9, p. 9, 10.

3 Litvinov declared at the Hague in 1922 that “there was not one world but two, a Soviet world and a non-Soviet world,” and that “only an angel could be unbiased in judging Russian affairs.” Hudson, Manley O., International Tribunals, Past and Future, 1944, p. 240Google Scholar.

4 In relation to the Court it may also be remarked that the USSR has consistently sought to limit or deny its role as an interpreter of the Charter, asserting the need for political answers to what it regards as political questions.

5 New York Times, May 1, 1947. In an article in which he attacked Eden and Bevin for their advocacy of international government, Korovin put the Soviet position in perhaps its most attractive and persuasive form: “In a world where there are rich and poor, exploiters and exploited, weak states and strong ones, and independent countries and colonies, to reject the concept of sovereignty or the other legal guarantees of national independence and freedom would always help those who are strong and would never benefit those who are weak.” American Journal of International Law, Vol. 40, p. 748.

6 The Strategy and Tactics of World Communism, House Document 619, 80th Cong., 2nd Sess., Supp. 1, p. 222–223.

7 General Assembly, Official Records (2nd session), p. 90Google Scholar. Korovin similarly finds the special rights of the great “absolutely essential for guaranteeing genuine equality in international relations.” “Thus genuine equality, as a guarantee of equal opportunities for each state to develop and assert its spiritual and material culture is possible in modern times only if it is under the reliable protection of the great democratic states.” Op. cit., p. 748–747.

8 “The aggressive core of the UN is represented by the ten member countries of the aggressive North Atlantic Pact and twenty Latin-American countries.” New York Times, February 17, 1951.

9 Director-General's Report to the International Labour Conference, 27th Session, 1945, p. 143.

10 Speeches by A. Y. Vishinsky at the Fifth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (USSR Embassy, Washington, 1950), p. 85Google Scholar. It should, however, be noted that the USSR showed no scruples in drawing the fullest possible advantage from the arithmetic of its majority at the Belgrade Danubian conference in 1948.

11 Document A/65, June 30, 1946, Intro., p. V.

12 Vishinsky, in speech to the Political Committee of the General Assembly, 10 10, 1950. Loc. cit., p. 82Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., p. 81. Cf. Padelford, , Norman, J., “The Use of the Veto”, International Organization, II, p. 227Google Scholar.

14 Document A/PV.192, April 13, 1949. This speech by Andrei Gromyko includes an extensive review of Soviet use of and attitude toward the veto.

15 These proposals covered, among other things: the reaffirmation of the unanimity principle in the Security Council, the unconditional prohibition of atomic weapons and the determination that the first government to use such weapons should be branded a war criminal, reiteration of the demand for equality in the armed forces to be made available under Art. 43, condemnation of war propaganda, a demand for a new peace pact to be entered into by the Big Five, the reduction of the armed forces of the great powers by one-third, the provision of technical assistance through the United Nations without strings attached to it, and the development of international trade without discrimination and without interference in the domestic affairs of states.

It is not without interest that a number of speakers expressed their agreement with one or or more of these points, but indicated their refusal to go along with them because of distrust of the general Soviet position and because of the propagandistic setting in which they were presented.

16 The principal objection of the USSR to Mr. Lie was his immediate acceptance of the challenge raised by the North Korean attack, but it has also accused him of a regular tendency to line up with the western powers. It cannot have been ignored by the Kremlin that Mr. Lie's main personal advisers are to a surprising degree Americans, one of the effects of which has been virtually to eliminate the Soviet Assistant Secretary-General for Security Affairs from his potential role as an adviser in the political sphere.

17 Vyshinsky linked the veto and the Interim Committee in a speech to the Assembly on November 21, 1947: “It is no mere chance that the Interim Committee, that illegitimate offspring of the arbitrary attitude towards the Charter taken by the majority of the First Committee and the General Assembly, is being asked to consider the question of the voting procedure in the Security Council.” He had just previously remarked: “Behind all this fine talk about getting agreement, and about gentlemen's agreements, etc., there lie concealed dark designs for abolishing the unanimity rule or, as Mr. Marshall has said, liberalizing the voting procedure, which means the same thing. We know that reactionary ideas and reactionary activities are frequently masked by talk of liberalism.” General Assembly, Official Records (2d session), p. 1248, 1250Google Scholar.

18 Speech to plenary session of fifth General Assembly, September 20, 1950. Department of State, Bulletin, XXIII, p. 524–5Google Scholar. Soviet representatives, as strict constructionists, can argue that a negative decision of the Security Council, reached as the result of a veto, is quite as valid and decisive as an affirmative decision, and that to shift a matter to the General Assembly at that stage is to repudiate a Security Council decision made in conformity with Artide 27 (3).

19 Report to the President on the Results of the Son Francisco Conference by the Chairman of the United States Delegation, the Secretary of State, Department of State Publication 2349, p. 65Google Scholar.

20 For a record account of the efforts to secure international agreement, emphasizing Soviet obstructionism, see: Osborn, , Frederick, , “The USSR and the Atom,” International Organization, V, p. 480Google Scholar. The negotiations have frequently furnished vivid illustrations of the attitude of Soviet representatives toward an extension of international authority. They have showed scorn and hostility for the United States United Nations plan of international control and operation of atomic energy plants, seeing it not as an advance toward a higher internationalism, but as a device to promote an American monopoly and to pave the way for intervention in the Soviet economy. In the Security Council on March 5, 1947, Gromyko, while agreeing that the projected international control agency might have the right to take decisions by majority vote in appropriate cases, vigorously denied that the USSR could allow a general right to interfere in the economic life of a country, explaining his stand as follows: “The Soviet Union is aware that there will be a majority in the control organ which may take one-sided decisions, a majority on whose benevolent attitude toward the Soviet Union the Soviet people cannot count. Therefore the Soviet Union, and probably not only the Soviet Union, cannot allow that the fate of its national economy be handed over to this organ.” Security Council, Official Records (2d year), No. 22, p. 453Google Scholar.

21 See the remarks of Isador Lubin in ECOSOC, New York Times, 08 8, 1951Google Scholar.

22 Yearbook of the United Nations, 1948–49, p. 910. As of the same date – August 31, 1949 – the United States is listed as having 345 persons in the Secretariat, the United Kingdom 127, France 69, and China 61. The figure for the USSR includes 2 from the Ukraine.