Decolonization as a Cold War Imperative: Early Soviet International Law as a Precursor to Bandung

Abstract

To speak of Interwar ‘Soviet international law’ as a precursor to Bandung in even the most general terms suggests an inquiry into the dual role that Soviet international legal doctrine played in enabling independence movements that culminated in statehood and recognition for former colonies, while simultaneously constraining internal self-determination movements within its vast territory. This type of argument could be developed in at least four ways: (1) by exploring various realist justifications for exploitative Soviet state practice despite high-minded decolonization doctrinal talk; (2) it can rest on critical lines of thought that suggest the indeterminacy of international legal argument more generally, without distinguishing between Soviet or ‘Western’ positions; (3) by revisiting settled historical episodes (such as ‘exclusion’ of the Soviets from Bandung) through new empirical or archival research; (4) by tracing the evolution of Soviet decolonization discourse through the writings of several leading theorists in effort to understand, as much as possible, the types of constraints and anxieties these scholars labored under, and the actual effect of their work on particular emancipatory projects. Despite the inherent intellectual merit and policy-relevance of these research questions, the Soviet experience remains an often overlooked dimension of the intellectual, institutional and professional development of the discipline of international law. Typically, histories of international law treat Soviet approaches to international law as anomalous, as aberrational moments in the continuous teleological development of liberal international law doctrines and institutions. More recent attempts to rethink the place of Soviet approaches to international law vis-a-vis ‘Western’ international law either describe the Soviet experience in terms of a ‘civilizational dialogue’ with Europe or as an integral part of a longer historical narrative dating back to Russia’s imperial era. Furthermore, in the contemporary moment, when Russian aggression or economic expansion is frequently, if erroneously, labeled ‘Soviet’, any attempt to explore fractures in Soviet modes of argumentation on decolonization may appear revisionist and/or trivial, akin to an aesthetic study of the monumental grace of Werner March’s 1936 Olympiastadion in Berlin as a proxy for understanding Nazi ideology. Without suggesting the resurrection of Soviet-style critiques or political postures, this chapter seeks to reframe our understanding of Soviet participation in particular anticolonial projects by focusing on the writings of early Soviet international lawyers Evgeny Korovin and Evgeny Pashukanis, and, later, fragments of recollections by the late Soviet ambassador to Indonesia during the Bandung Conference. Revisiting this history is important for, at least, two main reasons. First, it adds to the growing empirical account of decolonization generally, and Soviet participation (direct and indirect) in particular decolonization projects. Second, it helps to understand the complex role of the Soviet Union as both a peripheral post-imperial subject and neo-colonial actor in its own right. For lack of space, this chapter does not engage with many of the questions it poses, particularly with respect to the contemporary relevance of Bandung for Russian and post-Soviet international lawyers and international relations specialists. But as the essence of this volume suggests, even encyclopedic efforts to capture the complexity and far-ranging consequences of Bandung are but preliminary ultimately attempts to approximate the true nature of a rapidly evolving contemporary frame of reference.