The Soviet Perspective on the Drafting of the UN Genocide Convention

Abstract

This chapter provides a Soviet perspective on the United Nations (UN) Genocide Convention, by placing the drafting process into the broader context of the Cold War. It argues that the Soviet position towards the definition of genocide hardened as the division of the postwar world into two warring camps became a reality in 1947. The Genocide Convention was one of the first significant documents of international law negotiated within the pluralistic environment of the UN. Remarkably, historians have only recently joined in the debate on the applicability of genocide based on the political or social identification of victims. In the period 1945-47 the dominant view in Soviet foreign policy was that the wartime grand alliance had to be preserved, at least to a certain extent. The Greek Civil War assumed a potent ideological dimension, exploited by the great powers in advancement of their strategic interests. Keywords:Cold War; Genocide Convention; Greek Civil War; Soviet perspective; United Nations (UN)