“Dumbarton Oaks conference (1944) — towards the creation of the United Nations”

Abstract

The article provides a thorough analysis of the documentary materials of the important international conference in Dumbarton Oaks (1944), which was preparatory to the creation of the United Nations. It was possible to agree on many issues about the structure, bodies, main goals and principles of the Organization at the conference. But several fundamental issues at Dumbarton Oaks could not be resolved. These are questions about initial membership in the UN (primary membership) and about the composition and voting procedure in the UN Security Council (the “veto” right). The author provides interesting information about the particularly heated discussions that erupted regarding the admission of four countries to the founding states of the UN: Poland, with which the Second World War began, and where the composition of the new Polish government was not fi nally formed, and the new borders of the Polish states; Argentina, which remained formally neutral during the Second World War, but where a pro-fascist government came to power in 1943, and only in 1945 Argentina was one of the last countries to declare war on Nazi Germany; as well as two Soviet republics — the Ukrainian USSR and the Byelorussian SSR — whose international status was adjusted in 1944 in accordance with amendments to the Constitution of the USSR in 1936, and which made a huge contribution to the Victory in World War II. The author convincingly showed how fi rmly and consistently the USSR defended its position on recognizing the leading role of the Soviet state in the world. The important historical significance of the Dumbarton Oaks conference (1944) is that it created the model of the United Nations, a central global security and peacekeeping organization that has existed for 80 years.