Soviet Delegation Research Articles

Poland: The Small Leap Sideways

In September 1956, Ochab, then the First Secretary of the Polish C.P., visited Peking to attend the Congress of the Chinese C.P. When the Soviet delegate, the “liberal” Mikoyan, reproached him abusively for tolerating “anti-Soviet ideas,” the Pole received words of support from his host, Mao Tse-tung. According to Warsaw sources, this was later confirmed in a special letter from Mao and is supposed to have played an important part in inducing Ochab to switch to Gomulka. Thus, the Chinese attitude helped to stiffen Polish resistance when in October 1956 the Soviet delegation headed by Khrushchev landed in Warsaw and threatened to intervene militarily. It is also said that some Chinese leaders in Moscow had argued against the use of force in Poland even before this.

The Uses of the Uniting for Peace Resolution since 1950

The Uniting for Peace Resolution—or the Acheson Plan, as it was once popularly called—was adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 3, 1950. It is commonly conceded that its procedures were designed to help surmount an apparently major obstacle to the operation of the UN: the Soviet veto or its alleged abuse, and the concomitant stagnation of the Security Council. Its particulars were the product, at least in part, of both the accidents and the demands of the Korean War—for example, that the Security Council could and did adopt resolutions of substance pertaining to Korea up until the time (August 1, 1950) the Soviet delegate returned, after which it adopted no other; or that there was a UN commission already stationed in Korea which could and did report to the Security Council immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities in June of 1950. The resolution belonged to a longer evolutionary history, too: the general shift in emphasis away from the Security Council was manifested even before the Korean War by the creation in 1947 of an “Interim Committee” of the General Assembly. The Uniting for Peace Resolution was more or less a reflection of the immediate environment of the Korean crisis, but it was also part of the main stream of basic institutional change to which it at the same time contributed.

General Assembly

The third emergency special session of the General Assembly, summoned by the Secretary-Generall in accordance with a resolution adopted by the Security Council at its 838th meeting on August 7, 1958, 2 was held from August 8 through August 21, 1958 (732d–746th plenary meetings). Following the adoption of the provisional agenda,3 the Soviet delegate, Mr. Sobolev, opened the discussion, urging that the General Assembly take steps to ensure the immediate withdrawal of the United States troops from Lebanon and the United Kingdomforces from Jordan because their presence constituted a permanent threat to the peace and security of the peoples and was a violation of the UN Charter. Mr. Lodge (United States) replied to Mr. Sobolev's statement, saying that the Soviet Union, in calling for a special General Assembly session, sought to attack the United States, but that this was not the purpose of the Security Council in voting for the United States resolution under which the session of the General Assembly was being held. The aim of the United States in introducing its resolution was to promote a chance for constructive action on the Middle East.

General Assembly

The eleventh session of the General Assembly reconvened on September 10, 1957, to consider further for nine meetings the question of Hungary in the light of the report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary. Prior to the general debate Mr. Shann (Australia), rapporteur of the special committee, pointed out that the members of the committee, as instructed by the Assembly, had directed their attention to the situation created by the intervention of armed forces of the Soviet Union in Hungary on October 24, 1956. Stressing the judicial and fair-minded attitude of the committee, Mr. Shann commented on the converging nature of the evidence it had procured in the testimony of witnesses, documentation provided by Hungarian newspapers and radio reports issued during the uprising, statements of the present Hungarian government, and information provided by governments with diplomatic representatives in Budapest at the time of the occurrence. Speaking on a point of order, the representative of Hungary, subsequently endorsed by the Soviet delegate, asserted that the issue under discussion concerned measures taken by the Hungarian government to crush a counter-revolutionary attack, a domestic issue beyond the competence of an international organization to investigate. He concluded that the establishment of the special committee had been illegal and, therefore, requested the General Assembly to remove the item from the agenda. In accordance with a ruling of the President of the Assembly, however, it was decided to proceed with the debate.

Recent Developments in Disarmament

eminent American diplomat, Mr. Hugh Gibson, once referred to disarmament as being bogged in the soils of human nature that it is folly to expect a quick and simple solution. This may be an overly pessimistic view but it would certainly appear to be borne out by our experience at the United Nations. For while disarmament has been one of the main preoccupations of the world organization since its foundation, we must face the fact that today after ten years of almost continuous negotiation, we still seem to be a long way from achieving our goal. Everyone agrees in principle that something must be done to remove the threat of a war and to lighten the crushing burden of armaments, but so far no one has been able to devise an adequately safeguarded and practical programme which all the major states are prepared to accept. Nevertheless we cannot abandon these efforts to achieve disarmament. We must realize that there is an ever increasing element of urgency in this matter. As the stock of nuclear material increases and becomes more widely distributed, the possibility of devising an effective method of control becomes more remote and the prospects of a satisfactory settlement are increasingly impaired through the mere passage of time. This is a sobering thought which should induce us in all earnestness to do all we can to promote agreement as soon as possible. At the Ninth Session of the General Assembly in 1954, it seemed for a time that we might at last be on the road towards an agreement acceptable both to the Soviet Union and the major Western powers. The leader of the Soviet Delegation, the late Andrei Vishinsky, had announced his Government's acceptance of the Anglo-French proposals of June 11, 1954, as the basis for an international disarmament convention. A resolution embodying this measure of agreement and suggesting resumed meetings of the Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission was introduced by the Canadian Delegation, co-sponsored by the Delega-

Austria’s Permanent Neutrality and the United Nations Organization

In the Memorandum signed at Moscow, on April 15, 1955,1 the Austrian and Soviet Delegations came to an agreement binding the Austrian Delegation to carry out the following decisions and measures:1. Referring to the declaration made at the conference of Berlin in 1954 neither to join a military alliance nor to allow foreign military bases in its territory, the Austrian Government will make a declaration in a form which will obligate Austria internationally to practice in perpetuity a neutrality of the type maintained by Switzerland.2. After having ratified the State Treaty, the Austrian Government will submit this declaration to the Austrian Parliament for confirmation according to the Austrian Federal Constitution.3. The Austrian Government will take all suitable steps to obtain international recognition of this declaration.4. The Austrian Government will welcome a guaranty by the four Powers of the independence and territorial integrity of Austria.5. The Austrian Government will seek to obtain from the governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States of America such a guaranty.

Scientists Appeal for Abolition of War

AbstractThe statement below was drafted by Bertrand Russell with the approval of the late Dr. Albert Einstein. Dr. Einstein signed the plea two days before his death. Their combined interest was in an effort to make known to the peoples of the world what would happen in event of a nuclear war.As a consequence of this statement, a World Conference of Scientists was convened by the World Association of Parliamentarians in London, August 3–5. There were 130 delegates from 20 countries including the Soviet Union. The resolution drafted at the close of the conference was similar to the one reprinted here. In part, it read, “Since in any future war nuclear weapons will probably be employed, and since such weapons threaten to bring immeasurable suffering for humanity, and material destruction, and possibly even the end of mankind, we urge, therefore, the governments of the world to realize and to acknowledge publicly that their purposes cannot be furthered by world war.The statement further urged the “full and open examination of the implications of recent scientific developments for humanity as a whole and the promotion of peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of international dispute.”The Chief of the Soviet Delegation, Professor A. V. Topchiev, commented, “it is clear that this conference is only the first step in the big and very important task of strengthening peace, removing the danger of the use of nuclear weapons and of using atomic energy for the benefit of humanity…. We can assure you that Soviet scientists will take a most active part in these measures.”

Hobson, Lenin, and Schumpeter on Imperialism

In recent years the charge that capitalism is imperialistic has taken on new meaning. In the ideological being fought between the free world and Communism, this charge has become an important weapon in the Communist propaganda arsenal. As the cold war developed and lines were clearly drawn, the Communists have been beating the propaganda drums incessantly: Capitalism is imperialistic! Capitalism feeds on and aggression! capitalist countries are warmongers! Variations on this theme have been used doggedly by Communist writers and speakers. Whenever the Soviet delegate arises to speak in the United Nations, some variant of this theme appears. In numerous articles in Pravda, as reported in The New York Times in the last few years, the same charges have reappeared in one form or another. There is a determined attempt on their part to portray capitalism as imperialisticespecially to the countries of Asia and Africa. In view of this official position of the Communists, a study of has a modem flavor. The bases for such declarations need to be examined in an effort to place them in their proper perspective. The intellectual roots for these charges are found in the writings of Nicolai Lenin, who in turn borrowed heavily from John A. Hobson. In this paper the writings of Hobson and Lenin on will be examined, as well as those of Joseph A. Schumpeter, who has advanced, in the writer's opinion, the best counter-declaration to the Communist claim that capitalism is inherently imperialistic. It must be stated at the outset that this study does not purport to exhaust the subject, even as to the writers covered. Adequate research on a single item in the vast complex that constitutes would require more than a single lifetime. This should not discourage endeavors to relate the present phenomenon to its intellectual foundation in an effort to understand better one of the dominant issues in today's ideological battle. One difficulty in the study of has been to ascribe a meaningful definition to this term.1 It is certainly misleading to describe by the same word imperialism both the European statesman who plans ruthlessly to overrun a country in Asia or Africa and the American company building an automobile assembly plant in Israel. Because the term is so elusive and covers practices and procedures of such varying and ofttimes contradictory character, no attempt will be made to contribute to the confusion by spelling out another definition. The definitions used by the writers under consideration will be presented.

Danube Commission

At the seventh regular meeting of the Danube Commission in December 1952 it was decided to extend the mandate of the special commission established in July 1952 to examine the Yugoslav proposal for amendment of the rules of procedure and the Statute until the eighth regular meeting. However, despite Yugoslav objections, the report of the special commission was not put on the agenda for the eighth meeting. Also discussed at the seventh meeting were the Yugoslav failure to pay dues for the preceding year, and the action of Yugoslavia in taking over control of the locomotive traction of the Sip Canal. Yugoslavia took the position that it had a right to defend its national interests in the light of previous breach of contract by other Commission members. With Yugoslavia objecting to both nominations, the meeting elected the Rumanian representative as chairman and the Soviet delegate as secretary of the Com-mission, the latter for a term of three years.

Economic and Social Council

The twelfth session of the Economic and Social Council met in Santiago, Chile from February 20 to March 21, 1951. Hernan Santa Cruz (Chile) was re-elected President of the Council and Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar (India) was elected first vice-president following an unsuccessful attempt by the Soviet delegate (Chernyshev) to unseat the nationalist Chinese delegate.

Obstructionism and the Rules of the General Assembly

The United Nations action against aggression in Korea was aided by a series of fortuitous circumstances which included the absence of the Soviet delegate from the Security Council in June 1950, the existence of a United Nations commission in Korea which was able to provide a timely and unimpeachable report of the facts, and the availability to United Nations forces of a base in Japan from which military operations could be, conveniently undertaken. For the purpose of assuring so far as possible that united resistance to further acts of aggression would not have to depend so largely on coincidence, the General Assembly, on November 3, 1950, gave its overwhelming approval to the “Uniting for Peace” resolution.

Allied High Commission for Austria

According to the report of the United States High Commissioner for Austria (Donnelly) covering the first quarter of the year 1951, the most significant political event of the period was the decision of the Austrian government to elect its new president, successor to Dr. Karl Renner who died on December 31, by popular vote instead of by parliamentary ballot. This new presidential election law, enacted by the Austrian parliament on January 16, was one of the subjects under discussion at the February 9 meeting of the Allied Council. Although the three western powers voiced their approval of the new law, the Soviet delegate contended that since the Austrian constitution of 1929 had not been approved by the Allied Council he saw no legal basis for the law and insisted on having it replaced by a “special constitutional law”, which would have been subject to the Soviet veto. The United States representative supported the validity of the Austrian constitution, pointing out that the Soviet Union had already approved many laws modifying the 1929 constitution —a slightly amended form of the 1920 constitution — which had been voided by the Nazis in 1938. The point at issue was the fact that instructions had been given to the Austrian government to prepare a new draft constitution by July 1, 1946, and the Austrian parliament, instead of attempting the task of formulating a constitution which would be acceptable to all members of the Allied Council as well as to Austria, had passed resolutions in April 1946 reviving the Federal Constitutional Law of 1929.

The Partisans of Peace

W X tHAT I have to say falls into four parts: first, the origins of the remarkable movement now called The Partisans of Peace; secondly, its skilled, in some ways brilliant, technique; thirdly, its place in Stalinist strategy; and lastly, some general comments. The press and radio output and comment on the movement-most of it by Communists-has been considerable, as can be proved by consulting the material on the subject in the Press Library at Chatham House. For the immediate history of the movement-the roots of which lie in Leninist teaching and in the anti-Fascist movements of the nineteen-thirties--I think one should refer to the Congress of Intellectuals for Peace which was held at Wroclaw (formerly Breslau) in Poland on 25 August I948. That promised to be a quite remarkable meeting; over five hundred artists, musicians, dramatists, scientists, writers, journalists, attended from some forty-four countries. Among the delegates were many who went under the impression that the discussions would be useful and constructive and would lead to genuine intellectual co-operation for peace; I still think that they might have been so. Unfortunately, the meeting started off with an introductory speech by the Soviet delegate, Fadeyev, in which he descended to what one can only call, by any standard of reasonable criticism, vulgar abuse. His speech developed quickly into a sustained attack on Western culture, Western ideas, and particularly on American civilization. In one of the classic phrases of the speech, Fadeyev said that American culture gave off the stench of decay. He then paraded the names of several wellknown writers, for example, T. S. Eliot, Sartre, Eugene O'Neill, Dos Passos, and said of these writers, 'If hyenas could type and jackals could use a fountain pen they would write such things' as were produced by these men. One can have all sorts of opinions about those writers, but this was not the way to open a congress of intellectuals who had been summoned from the ends of the earth for the very important purpose of discussing how intellectuals could co-operate for peace. At the end of the congress a liaison bureau was formed to continue its work on an international basis. At this point three things were really quite clear. One was that the peace campaign was strongly anti-American: that was almost its leading note. In so far as the peace campaign was directed against the only Power which Communists represent as aggressive, and a Power which has, or had, the monopoly of the atomic bomb, it was logical that any movement of this kind should be strongly anti-American-unless it aimed at overcoming rather than stimulating bitterness and fear. The next feature discernible at this point is that the movement was

Crisis in Korea: Second Phase

Research Article| November 22 1950 Crisis in Korea: Second Phase Miriam S. Farley Miriam S. Farley Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Far Eastern Survey (1950) 19 (20): 214–219. https://doi.org/10.2307/3024506 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Miriam S. Farley; Crisis in Korea: Second Phase. Far Eastern Survey 22 November 1950; 19 (20): 214–219. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3024506 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Council of Foreign Ministers

The deputies of the Council of Foreign Ministers resumed negotiations on the Austrian treaty in London on June 10, 1950. The meeting ended in deadlock with the Soviet delegate declaring that so long as violations referred to in the Soviet note of July 8 on Trieste continued, there could be no guarantee that the western powers would not similarly violate the Austrian treaty. After the western delegates denied the allegations on Trieste and maintained that they were irrelevant to the Austrian treaty, it was agreed to hold a further meeting on September 7 subject to the approval of the Soviet government.

The Course of the Controversy on Freedom in Science

THE movemennt against pure science and against freedom in science was first brought to Great Britain by the Soviet delegation to the International Congress on the History of Science held in London in 1931. Before that time it was accepted as a matter of course that the pursuit of pure science by independent research was a worthy and admirable thing, that it was desirable for qualified people to devote their lives to the increase of knowledge as an end in itself, and that research workers at universities should have full liberty to choose the -subjects of their own investigations. One may search the literature in vain for any contrary view, and no such view can have been held by more than a minute fraction of the scientific world.

Multiple Representation in International Assemblies

When the representatives of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States met at Yalta in February, 1945, the Soviet delegation raised the question of giving separate representation in the Assembly of the United Nations to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The United States delegation agreed to support this claim at San Francisco, but reserved the right of the United States to put in a similar claim for three votes for itself and its possessions. The Soviet delegation raised no objection to the latter claim and the British delegation agreed to support both claims. No agreement was reached at the time with respect to the question of the participation of the two Soviet Republics at the San Francisco Conference itself. When the Yalta agreement was disclosed at the end of March objections were raised in different quarters against the principle of plural votes itself and very vehemently against the secrecy attached to the agreement. In order to pour some oil on the troubled waters the Government of the United States announced that the United States would not request for itself additional votes in the General Assembly. The United States delegation was directed, however, to cast the vote of the United States in favor of the admission of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian Republics and on April 27, 1945, the San Francisco Conference unanimously invited these Republics to become initial members of the United Nations. On April 30, 1945, it permitted them to take seats at the Conference immediately. The delegates of these republics at the Conference generally voted with the Soviet delegation but in a few instances their votes diverged. One might recall in that connection that while in the early days of the League of Nations the British Dominions followed quite closely the lead of the British delegation, twenty-five years later, at San Francisco, the British delegation found the Dominions sometimes among its most bitter opponents. It is quite possible that the position of the Soviet Republics might evolve along similar lines, though it might take some time.

The Growth of Thought in Society

A MOVEMENT denying the justification of pure science was started in England in 193I by a group of Soviet delegates, including Bucharin and Hessen,2 at an International Congress of the History of Science, held in that year in London. It has been carried on since with considerable success by a number of able writers, mostly Marxists, under the leadership of L. Hogben, J. D. Bernal, and J. G. Crowther. As a result the idea of pure science is considered to-day as obsolete and reactionary by most of the scientists who take an active interest in the position of science in society. Though such scientists form a comparatively small minority, they have now brought considerable influence to bear on important organisations and publications dealing with scientific policy. The doctrine of this school can be summed up in three points. (i) Pure science, as distinct from scientific technology, has no real existence. All science, pure or applied, arises in response to the specific practical needs of contemporary society. The ideals of a disinterested search for truth and of the cultivation of science for its own sake are unsocial and futile.3 (2) Modern science in the last 300 years pursued this wrong tendency, which must now be replaced by a social control of science in the interests of the community.4 It follows that resistance of scientists to social control of research and their claim for freedom of research is unreasonable. (3) Instead of urging such claims, scientists ought to join in the struggle for the establishment of the right kind of political power, which may be expected to advance science in the right direction.5

The German Occupation of the Ukraine in 1918

IN NOVEMBER, 1917, when the Bolsheviks came into power in Russia, there already existed in the Ukraine a separate government called the Central Rada, i.e., Council. This government was a coalition of left-wing parties which cherished radical political and economic views and a general aspiration to see the Ukraine established as an autonomous or even an independent republic. The Bolsheviks had no part in this government and in fact regarded it with distrust and contempt. They had proclaimed on November 15, 1917, that the nationalities of the old Russian Empire had the right of self-determination, but it soon appeared that this generous declaration was not all it seemed. According to the Bolsheviks, the existing governments in the Ukraine and elsewhere in Russia did not truly represent the people, whose will, they maintained, could be expressed only by the Bolsheviks themselves or those who accepted their program. The application of this interpretation of self-determination proceeded in the Ukraine along two lines. First, the Bolsheviks held a congress of Soviets in Kiev and later set up in Kharkov a People's Secretariat as a rival government to the Rada. The second, and more efficient line was an attack on the Ukrainian Rada with the Red Guards from Soviet Russia. It began with an ultimatum in which the Bolshevik government denounced the Rada for its refusal to recognize the Soviets and the Soviet power in the and was followed by an advance of the Red Guards.l The Central Rada replied by proclaiming the independence of the Ukraine, but its forces were too weak to uphold it, and on January 26, 1918, after a severe bombardment, Kiev fell to the Soviet forces. While these events were taking place in the Ukraine, peace negotiations were going on at Brest-Litovsk between Germany and her allies and Soviet Russia. The Rada had also sent representatives to this meeting, where, to the great annoyance of the Soviet delegates, they negotiated separately with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. These negotiations produced on February 9, I918, a treaty by which the Central Powers recognized the independence of the Ukraine with the Central Rada as its government. The

Japan: A Clinical Note

EVER since the Manchurian incident, Japanese foreign policy has been ? reaping the world's condemnation. Unlike an individual, a nation cannot admit itself in error; so Japan's only answer has been to tell herself that her judges are wrong and she is right. To strengthen this contention she has built up the belief that she acts from the purest motives which her fellow nations willfully misunderstand. more they disapprove, the more adamant grows Japan's conviction that she is right. This conviction of righteousness, and its corollary, the feeling of being mis understood, finds daily expression in the speech and press of the country. An example is the following passage from an editorial on the Ethiopian conflict: There must be some reasons that justify Italy in attempting to solve the Ethiopian situation by force, but Premier Mussolini seems to have been mis understood by the other Powers. . . . Our country through bitter ex periences as a result of such misunderstanding at the time of the Manchurian Incident. . . . world attributed that Incident to the Japanese military and denounced it harshly. This was the outcome of lack of correct knowledge about the situation on the part of the other Powers.1 Not only are other nations delinquent in understanding. next most fre quent charge made against them by the Japanese is that they fail to show sincerity. An instance is the stand Japan takes concerning her refusal to sign a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. She justifies her position by carry ing the attack into the enemy camp. The Soviet Union is laboring under a mistaken notion about Japan, says an Army spokesman. If they really want peace in the Far East they should show us the sincerity of their intentions . . . before seeking to conclude a non-aggression pact with this country.2 Injured innocence is an attitude which Japan frequently assumes in answer to foreign disapproval. Last summer when the League Council adopted a reso lution condemning Germany's denunciation of the Versailles Treaty, the Soviet delegate suggested that a similar resolution might be applied to the Far East. A Japanese editorial on the subject stated: It is clear that the Soviet representative had Japan in mind, and then asked blandly, Has Japan done anything in contravention of international treaties?3 Needless to note, the editorial made no mention of the Nine-Power Treaty. Again, Japan points with fine indignation at one of her foreign critics who, during the Man churian Incident went so far as to charge Japan with occupying Chinese territory?4