The Yugoslav delegation has carefully studied the Secretary-General’s annual report [A/2141 and Add, 1] and statement [367th meeting] on the world situation and the United Nations.
15. In the report the world situation is shown as it really is, far from auspicious. International developments during the past year have introduced no new factor to encourage mankind’s hope that the peace may be safeguarded.
16. But there is one fact that needs to be emphasized. After the war, the world situation underwent a steady deterioration, reaching its nadir in 1949-1950. The Korean war has been the most striking example of the deterioration in the world situation. However, during the last two years, a state of balance of sorts has been established in these strained international relations. Although the outstanding questions that contribute to the international tension are still unsolved, we should note one positive fact; although the world situation has not improved during the last two years, it has not changed for the worse. This fact offers a glimmer of hope; there are still possibilities which must be used to halt the deterioration of international relations and thus to create a favourable basis for the solution of the outstanding international questions. In short, we may say that the international situation has improved, in that it has grown no worse.
17. The weakness of most analyses of the present situation, including the Secretary-General’s report, is that they pay insufficient attention to the causes of this situation and are chiefly concerned with its effects and results. At previous sessions of the General Assembly, the Yugoslav delegation has laid particular stress on the causes of the tension, because it believes that knowledge of those causes would give us a better insight into the problem as a whole and enable us to work more effectively towards the elimination of the bad practices that are gradually becoming the rule in international relations.
18. The Yugoslav delegation believes that the roots of the present tension between the Western countries, headed by the United States, on the one hand, and the USSR, on the other, are to be sought in the different points of view with regard to international problems — which were already apparent at Yalta, Teheran, Moscow and Berlin — and in a wrong approach to a number of specific issues discussed at those conferences which are still unsettled. I brought out this fact in my speech during the debate on the situation in Korea. This approach is based upon the policy of the division of spheres of interest among the great Powers, without regard.to the wishes of the small nations whose fate is at stake. The policy of dividing up the world into Spheres of interest, which was at one time rewarding to those who participated in it, is obsolete today. Any encouragement of this policy in the different circumstances of the present day can only breed new conflicts and new disputes. It is becoming more and more evident that the small nations will in the future offer increasingly determined resistance to any such policy.
19. Yugoslavia has learned from its own experience that the policy of the USSR is based upon this conception. Between 1935 and 1948, the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, as a result of arrangements based on the division of spheres of interest, achieved a series of successes resulting in the inclusion of a number of peoples and States in the Soviet sphere of interest. It is clear that those successes merely whetted the appetite. As I pointed out during the debate in the First Committee [520th meeting] on the Korean question, the conflict in Korea is in fact the consequence of the policy of dividing spheres of interest among the great Powers. The war in Korea, like the case of Yugoslavia, shows that today it is no longer possible to pursue such a policy.
20. In accordance with the wrong approach that was adopted during the course of the war, the great Powers alone can take decisions on the most important international problems, without consulting the nations concerned. As a result of this policy, there is an increasing tendency to solve the most important international questions outside the United Nations. This is one of the reasons why the Government of the USSR, for example, tirelessly advocates the conclusion of a pact among the five great Powers.
21. Yugoslavia has never denied the need for good understanding among the great Powers, since the maintenance of world peace depends, in the first instance, upon them; but it considers that that understanding must rest upon a democratic basis and must be achieved with the participation of all the peoples concerned. The Yugoslav delegation believes that the United Nations Charter is broad enough to make it possible to settle every problem of international life in conformity with the principles upon which the Organization is based. Any other method by discarding the principles upon which international cooperation and the United Nations Charter are based, not only would fail to lead us towards an agreement, but would deepen the disagreement and make possible a policy of domination and the shameless interference of one group of States in the domestic affairs of others.
22. In the introduction to his annual report, the Secretary-General said: “In the Balkans, the tension between Yugoslavia on the one hand and Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Albania on the other continues unabated because the latter have failed to respond to the General Assembly’s resolution adopted at its last session,”
23. That assessment of the situation is correct. I explained the reasons for this state of affairs a moment ago. So long as the Government of the USSR believes it need not pay attention to the resolutions of the United Nations and is entitled to violate the fundamental principles of international co-operation, we can expect no change in the situation in the Balkans.
24. Last year, as we know, following the Yugoslav representative’s detailed report on the attitude of the countries of the Soviet bloc to Yugoslavia, the Assembly adopted a resolution [509 (VI)] appealing to the governments of the Soviet bloc to conduct their relations with Yugoslavia in accordance with the spirit of the United Nations Charter, to settle their differences by peaceful means and to settle frontier disputes by means of mixed commissions from the countries concerned.
25. What was the attitude of the governments of the Soviet bloc and of the Yugoslav Government towards the General Assembly’s recommendations? For its part, the Yugoslav Government considered that it was in duty bound to do everything within its power to implement the United Nations resolution, which, if the other party had done likewise, would have resulted in the immediate easing of the tension in the Balkans. However, it is clear that the States of the Soviet bloc have shown no desire or willingness to abide by the provisions of the General Assembly resolution, and that they have not treated that resolution with the respect due to it. Furthermore, there have been specific cases in which certain governments of the Soviet bloc have applied their methods of slander to the General Assembly resolution itself, which is, incidentally, quite in line with the attitude of certain delegations at the time when that resolution was adopted.
26. Thus the Hungarian Government, in its note No. 0024 of 18 January 1952, which was handed to the Yugoslav legation in Budapest, stated that the United Nations resolution "did not serve the interests of peace but, on the contrary, incited the Government of Yugoslavia to commit new acts of provocation”. The note also said: "That decision was imposed by the United States of America as compensation for the services the Yugoslav Government had rendered to American imperialist circles by placing at their disposal the natural resources, raw materials and armed forces of Yugoslavia.”
27. That was the Hungarian Government’s attitude to a resolution approved by almost all delegations except those of the Soviet bloc. That is the way in which a government that seeks to become a Member of the United Nations treats United Nations resolutions. But what can you expect? I imagine that the Hungarian Government can understand the position of other countries only in the light of its own experience. The Hungarian Government’s statement needs no comment and provides a striking illustration of the attitude of the governments of the Soviet bloc during the last year.
28. I do not intend to describe in detail all the forms of pressure brought to bear upon my country, among which the subversive activities of saboteurs and spies who have infiltrated from neighbouring Soviet bloc countries have lately taken a prominent place, though it might be necessary in view of the possible consequences of that policy, I shall confine myself, however, to one episode illustrating the general pressure exerted on Yugoslavia.
29. On 20 December 1951, the Hungarian frontier authorities occupied an island in the Mura River, thus taking by force a part of Yugoslav territory. Since the Hungarian Government did not see fit to comply with the Yugoslav request for the withdrawal of Hungarian soldiers from the island, the Yugoslav Government proposed, in the spirit of the General Assembly resolution, that a mixed Yugoslav-Hungarian commission should be set up to make a local investigation and settle the dispute. The Hungarian Government rejected the proposal with its usual insults to the Yugoslav Government.
30. In its note of 18 February 1952, the Government of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia renewed its original proposal and proposed that a mixed Yugoslav-Hungarian commission should be set up with a view to ensuring the earliest possible restoration of the frontier markers that had disappeared or been destroyed or damaged, for the most part by Hungarian occupation troops during the war.
31. In the same note, the Government of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia proposed the resumption of the negotiations, which had been interrupted through no fault of Yugoslavia’s on 19 February 1949, for the conclusion of a convention to settle all matters relating to arrangements for the restoration and regular maintenance of the frontier markers.
32. In addition, the Yugoslav Government proposed to the Hungarian Government that, in accordance with a procès-verbal signed by the representatives of the two countries in 1948, Hungarian and Yugoslav hydrologists should begin work on joint flood-control schemes on the Mura River. The schemes would benefit the economies of both parties. What was the Hungarian Government’s answer? True to its hostile policy towards Yugoslavia, it went so far as to stipulate, as a condition for any negotiations to normalize the situation on the Yugoslav-Hungarian frontier, that the Yugoslav Government must first declare that it was the guilty party and assume full responsibility for the abnormal situation on the frontier.
33. This is an example of the way in which certain Soviet bloc countries deal in practice with the problem of normalizing their relations with Yugoslavia, The speeches of the Soviet Union representative and of the representatives of the Soviet bloc in the general debate — particularly the passages referring to Yugoslavia — offer the best proof of their intransigent attitude towards Yugoslavia. They have repeated the hackneyed phrases to the effect that Yugoslavia is a vassal State, a base of Anglo-American imperialism for an attack against our neighbours, the Soviet Union, and so forth.
34. Naturally there is need to refute these allegations, since everyone knows that Yugoslavia is neither a vassal nor a base of any kind and that the keystone of its policy is the maintenance of peace and the safeguarding of its national liberty and security. Everyone knows that Yugoslavia does not seek foreign conquests and that its only desire has been and is to live at peace with all its neighbours. Everyone knows that Yugoslavia is firmly resolved to co-operate with all countries which strive f or peace and against aggression.
35. Mr. Vyshinsky himself is well aware that this is true, for when the Soviet Union tried to transform Yugoslavia into a Soviet base and demanded that we should relinquish to it authority over our territory and people, we refused. Those who spread the slander that Yugoslavia is subservient to the Western Powers merely admit, and explain in a most unconvincing way, the failure of their own plans to dominate Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia has been and is the base of the Yugoslav peoples alone and as such is the friend of all the forces throughout the world which are trying to ensure human progress.
36. During the general debate, the representatives of Czechoslovakia and Poland once again docilely and unblenchingly played their unenviable parts and made slanderous attacks on my country. How should one answer them? The best answer is, the situation in their own countries, and their position as satellites of the Soviet Union. Mr. Vyshinsky’s statements regarding Yugoslavia should enable them to see what their own position is, for the denunciation of Yugoslavia as an alleged foreign base is intended to camouflage and justify all that the Soviet Union is doing in the countries of Eastern Europe.
37. Let us take one example of the transformation of these countries into Soviet bases, which continues every day. Who is violating the peace treaties concluded with Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary? Primarily it is the Soviet Union, for the governments of those countries have neither the strength nor the resources to violate the treaties in such a way.
38. Let us take Romania as an example. According to article 11, paragraph (a), of the peace treaty with Romania, the total strength of the army, including frontier troops, was not to exceed 120,000 men. In the summer of 1952, however, Romania had an army of 495,000 men, all trained and armed by the Soviet Union. According to paragraph (d) of the same article, the air force, including the naval air arm, was to have not more than 150 aircraft including reserves, of which only 100 were to be combat types. Last summer Romania had more than 320 aircraft; if we include the USSR air force division stationed in Romania, the total figure is 490.
39. Violations of the peace treaties have been committed on the same scale by the other satellite countries.
40. Under the peace treaties, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania were to have not more than 263,000 men in their armed forces. In the summer of 1952, the strength of the armed forces of those countries was 920,000. At this point I may mention that each of these countries has a division of jet aircraft, whereas the Yugoslav army still has not a single jet aircraft. Even the efforts of the Yugoslav Government, to obtain permission to manufacture foreign jet aircraft in Yugoslavia under license have been unsuccessful.
41. It may be asked why these countries are violating the peace treaties. Why are they arming to such an extent? Are they doing so in the interests of peace and peaceful international co-operation? Far from it. The whole purpose is to keep these countries in a subservient position, to exercise constant pressure against Yugoslavia and to maintain the tension in this area.
42. We are again compelled to say that our relations with our neighbours on the frontiers have not returned to normal, in conformity with the General Assembly recommendation; instead, the pressure against Yugoslavia has been continuously maintained in the most varied forms. One form of pressure, which was particularly intensified during 1952, was the activity of spies, saboteurs and terrorists who infiltrated Yugoslavia from neighbouring countries of the Soviet, bloc. Between the sixth session of the General Assembly and the end of September 1952, the Yugoslav authorities arrested 47 terrorists who had infiltrated Yugoslavia from Bulgarian territory; 24 were Bulgarian citizens and 23 were Yugoslav deserters. During the trials of the arrested terrorists and saboteurs, however, it was discovered from their statements that, during the period in question, 233 terrorists had infiltrated Yugoslavia from neighbouring countries of the Soviet bloc and that some of them had succeeded in returning to the countries from which they came. A number of Yugoslav citizens, including Lieutenant-Colonel Pane Djukic, a deputy and hero of the people, have been murdered by the terrorists.
43. Acts of provocation in the form of frontier incidents, many of them very serious, continue unabated. As a result of these incidents, six Yugoslav citizens have lost their lives while protecting their country’s frontiers and many more have been wounded some of them seriously.
44. In view of this situation, the Yugoslav delegation wishes to emphasize that to foster illusions with regard to pacification — where unfortunately no such thing exists — can only harm the cause of peace, weaken aspirations to peace and serve the interests of a potential aggressor. Closely linked with these illusions are the more than transparent insinuations which emanate from a definite source, to the effect that the dispute between the Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia is a sharp, a mere staged performance. We mention this point because it represents a new form of attack on Yugoslav independence and is part of the aggressive campaign against Yugoslavia. It is relatively easy to see the real purpose of these rumours, which have the same origin as all the aggressive and hostile plans against Yugoslavia. An attempt is being made to isolate and weaken Yugoslavia by new methods in order to increase the pressure against it and to put into effect the aggressive plans which so far have failed.
45. These are only a few examples of the general policy of the Soviet bloc against Yugoslavia. In spite of this state of affairs, the Yugoslav Government will continue to do everything in its power to ensure that its relations with its neighbours are as normal as possible. Yugoslavia will do everything to safeguard its independence and peace in this area, for in our view the struggle for national independence is inseparable from the struggle to safeguard world peace,
46. Yugoslavia’s struggle to safeguard its national independence is of special significance in the present international situation; it proves that, if it is compact and united, a small country can successfully resist aggressive pressure. I should like to make a number of remarks regarding the lessons that are to be drawn from our struggle for independence. We know that the theory is widely held that national frontiers are obsolete in the middle of the twentieth century and should be gradually eliminated. The events of our times show, however, that the right of self-determination is one of the most essential conditions for the safeguarding and strengthening of democratic relations among nations. This is also illustrated by the struggle of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples for their national rights. Greater understanding of the demands of these peoples would have a beneficial effect on the present world situation; moreover, the Charter enjoins that every effort shall be made to bring the Trust Territories and the Non-Self-Governing Territories to complete independence as soon as possible.
47. Yugoslavia’s experience shows that, in the present circumstances, it is not only necessary but imperative that national, economic and social development should be left in the hands of the people of the country concerned and that any interference in the domestic affairs of States, small or medium-sized, should be avoided. Our experience shows, furthermore, that a State like Yugoslavia, whose social system is based on socialist principles, can co-operate successfully with other States whose social system is based on different principles. Such co-operation is made possible, in the first place, by the fact that Yugoslavia is not seeking territorial conquests, that it does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other States and that it is eager to intensify its political and economic co-operation with any State that welcomes such co-operation.
48. In the opinion of the Yugoslav delegation, economic co-operation and the settlement of economic questions are basic conditions for the achievement of political co-operation among peoples and States. The Brazilian representative made some pertinent remarks on that subject a short while ago. The development of the world political situation, with all its repercussions, profoundly affects the world economy, and is the cause of serious dislocation.
49. In the first place, there is the heavy burden of expenditure on armaments, which, to a greater or lesser, degree, affects the economy of practically every country, hampering the economic development of the world and lowering living standards. The weight of this burden and its economic effects cannot be calculated by simple arithmetical addition of all the sums the various countries spend on armaments; in addition, there are the economic and financial disturbances in national markets and in the world market caused by the gap between supply and demand in the case of certain types of commodities and the wholly unpredictable fluctuations in demand.
50. All countries have been feeling this for the last three years, but these disturbances have dealt a particularly heavy blow to the economically under-developed countries, whose economic well-being depends to a large extent on general conditions on the world market and on the movement of the prices of commodities that are most sensitive to such disturbances.
51. These facts, however, important as they are — and they are certainly deserving of the greatest attention — do not provide an adequate explanation of the present economic difficulties of mankind; they cannot constitute an adequate basis for the solution of these difficulties by the United Nations. The extremely low standard of living — or, to put it more plainly, the poverty and want in which the great mass of men live today — cannot be explained away by the expenditure on armaments; poverty will not disappear automatically as soon as that expenditure ceases.
52. The building up of armaments and the economic dislocation it produces merely worsens the situation, which is the result of the uneven economic development of the world, and makes it even more difficult to take any action to eliminate the present differences in the levels of economic development of the developed and under-developed countries. Moreover, the economic dislocation caused by the building up of armaments has in fact reached its present degree of intensity precisely because the basis of the world economy has been weakened by the division of the world into developed and under-developed countries.
53. World political tension, which brings in its wake additional expenditure on armaments and the consequent economic difficulties, has shown how serious this weakness is and how urgent it is that the United Nations should take action in the matter. It is no mere chance that the problem of the development of under-developed countries has become one of the most important questions during the very years in which a heightened political tension prevails throughout the world.
54. In the opinion of the Yugoslav delegation, there is another very serious reason for this state of affairs. The main task of the United Nations is the maintenance of world peace and the halting of aggression. The fulfilment of this task calls for the strengthening of the forces which desire peace and the discouragement of any possible aggressor; if that end is to be fully achieved, on a world-wide basis, special attention must be given to the development of under-developed countries, for only thus will it be possible to bring about co-operation among peoples, on an equal footing, and only thus will the peoples of the world possess the moral and material strength to stand up to all aggression and to thwart the plans of all those who are carried away by dreams of world domination. The more rapid development of the under-developed countries is an indispensable condition for the stabilization of the world political situation, and in that sense the activity of the United Nations in the political field may, if properly directed, establish a solid basis for the achievement of political aims.
55. The Yugoslav delegation will, therefore, as hitherto, support any effective action by the United Nations to hasten the development of under-developed countries, and, first and foremost, any action to promote, the establishment of a United Nations fund for the financing of under-developed countries. I hope that the great majority of delegations' will do the same, for it is clear from what I have said that, in the world of today, there can be no prospect of economic progress in the developed and under-developed countries unless the development of the latter is accelerated.
56. Assistance for the development of under-developed countries must be provided in entirely new forms, for the old forms might serve to accentuate the contrasts between the developed and the under-developed countries. The present state of the world market makes such new forms essential. That situation results from the contraction of the market owing to the political cleavage and the increasingly important role of the State in the economy of nearly every country. Such assistance, even if it could not eliminate the existing contrasts would help to speed up the social development and strengthen the independence of the under-developed countries and would mitigate the results of their long exploitation. Compared with the present situation, that would be a big step forward in world economic development and co-operation.
57. The question of the struggle for world peace is inseparable from that of the part the United Nations must play in the settlement of outstanding questions. The maintenance of peace depends on the settlement of these questions, as also upon the influence the United Nations can exert to facilitate a solution. What is the situation today? We must state quite openly that in this matter the United Nations is not playing the role it should, although it has been able to exercise an enormous influence up to the present in so far as it has prevented world tension, which has been increasing year by year, from becoming any worse. Had it not been for the political action of the United Nations, world peace would have been in greater jeopardy today.
58. We cannot remain satisfied while certain Members of the United Nations systematically violate the spirit and letter of the United Nations Charter. Nor can we be complacent about the fact that the many contrasts in the world have a negative effect on the work of the United Nations, the results being the aggravation rather than the lessening of these contrasts.
59. We are also opposed to the tendency to have certain disputed questions examined outside the United Nations, for although this tendency has hitherto been confined to a few particular cases, it constitutes a precedent and a very dangerous phenomenon which cannot fail to harm the prestige of the United Nations and destroy the faith of peoples in its power. The Yugoslav Government attaches great importance to this question of principle. The fact, for instance, that colonial and semi-colonial peoples apply to the United Nations for the settlement of their vital problems is of positive value.
60. The Yugoslav Government is convinced that today, more than ever before, mankind wants a strong United Nations that can play a major part in the solution of the question which is of the utmost importance at the present moment for the whole world — the maintenance of peace.
61. It is because the Yugoslav Government is so well aware of the importance and the tasks of the United Nations that it will continue to give the Organization every assistance within its power as a small country, for it sees in the strength and power of the United Nations a real safeguard for its own security and peaceful development, and a better prospect for world peace.