The Secretary-General’s annual report shows us the wide range of activities in which the United Nations has been engaged during the past year. In many fields notable achievements have been recorded, and in others good foundations have been laid. This positive and constructive work constitutes the bright side of an otherwise distressing picture of the world, and we must acknowledge our debt to the councils, commissions and committees and to the host of experts and international civil servants of the Secretariat for their devotion and contribution.
87. In ordinary times the peoples of the world would watch the progress of the work of the United Nations along the various lines with almost equal interest, but we are not living in ordinary times. The attention of the world is concentrated on one question, whether there will be war or peace. Indeed, although the United Nations Charter provides a number of organs performing within its own field a particular line of duty, the primary purpose of the United Nations is the prevention of war, that means the prevention of aggression and the prevention of breaches of the peace.
88. The United Nations has met its first great test in Korea — and met it magnificently — with the Security Council resolutions of 25 and 27 June 1950. The decisions of those two days have received the support of fifty-three Member States. In the judgment of my delegation, what the Security Council has done in the Korean crisis represents the greatest achievement of the United Nations since its foundation five years ago.
89. In the debates of the Security Council on 25 and 27 June 1950, when the Council went as far as to apply sanctions against the aggressor, the most notable feature was the fact that no delegation thought the Korean crisis was a mere civil war, although in appearance it might be called a civil war. Every delegation discarded the appearance and seized on the reality, which is the aggression of international communism, led and nourished by the Soviet Union.
90. It was only in August that one delegation tried to foist upon world public opinion the idea of civil war in Korea. On 3 August 1950 the representative of the Soviet Union told the Security Council, and I quote from the verbatim record: “It is clear to anyone with a grain of impartiality that a civil war is in progress in Korea between the North and South Koreans. The military operations between the North and South Koreans are of an internal character; they bear the character of a civil war. There is therefore no justification for regarding these military operations as aggression.”
91. In advancing this theory, the representative of the Soviet Union was, of course, trying to lay down a basis for rejecting the deliberate judgment of the Security Council that Moscow’s North Korean puppet had committed aggression. In that matter, Mr. Malik was faithfully carrying out the Communist Party line laid down for him. On 6 August the official Soviet daily Izvestia elaborated on this theory of civil war in the following words: “Among the fundamental principles of international law, which regulate foreign policy relations between states, a principle that has gained universal acceptance in the inadmissibility of foreign intervention in the internal affairs of states. Contemporary international law views such intervention, in the form of an attack by one state on another, as a heinous international crime… There has never been a question of regarding a struggle within one state, a civil war, an internal conflict, as aggression. Conversely, intervention by foreign states in internal conflicts, in civil wars in any country whatsoever, has invariably been designated as a typical manifestation of aggression.”
92. Izvestia, tried to brand the United Nations in general, and the United States in particular, as the aggressors in Korea. The Kremlin town crier even went so far as to refer to the American Civil War as a case in confirmation of the communist thesis. It so happened that in the Civil War in the United States the parties engaged were the North and South. The coincidence of names has been exploited by Soviet propaganda.
93. Mr. Malik and his masters are suddenly professing loyalty to doctrines of international law which once held true and which should still hold true. But we are not living in the sixties of the last century. This is the middle of the twentieth century — more than three decades after the degeneration and the destruction of the great democratic revolution in Russia.
94. The emergence of totalitarian Russia, fascist Italy and nazi Germany, whose partnership with Moscow was the signal for the Second World War, has created an international situation entirely different from the one which prevailed in the nineteenth century. Then, international law meant something. Now, two new decisive factors and developments have appeared to divide history into different epochs. The international situation today is totally different from the international situation in the nineteenth century.
95. In the first place, there exists today a world-wide organization which is devoted solely to the promotion and preparation, the fostering, fomenting and financing of civil wars in all countries which are not ruled by a communist dictatorship subservient to the supreme dictator in the Kremlin. I refer to the Cominform, which is only an auxiliary of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the USSR.
96. The second great factor which characterizes the international situation today, as distinct from the< international situation in the nineteenth century, is the existence of a big Power which inspires, instigates, incites, organizes and orders civil wars in all countries which are not, or refuse to be, satellites of this big Power. I refer to communist Russia, the Government of which is the head and heart of a vast conspiracy to develop and direct civil wars in all lands not controlled by the Kremlin, with the purpose of turning those lands, through such civil wars, into dependencies of totalitarian Russia.
97. What the propagandists of Moscow call the Korean civil war is, of course, a part of this plan of world domination by Soviet Russia. The aggression of North Korea was organized, financed, directed and ordered by the Soviet Union Government. The so-called Korean civil war is not Korean at all; it is only a part of the Soviet campaign for world domination. This fundamental fact was well understood by all representatives in the Security Council in the last week of June and in the month of July. It was only on 3 August 1950 that the Soviet Union representative tried to becloud the issue. In spite of Soviet efforts, the essential nature of the Korean crisis remains clear to all the peoples of the world. Today, in the light of the two new factors which I have just mentioned, there are no more civil wars. Russian and communist preparation and intervention in the internal affairs in all free and democratic countries make of every civil war, in which the communists constitute one of the two fighting parties, an aggression threatening the peace and security of the world. In the hands of the rulers of the Kremlin and its world-wide quisling agencies, the Cominform and the World Federation of Trade Unions, the civil wars of today — in Korea, China, Burma, Indo-China, the Philippines — are only phases of Russian imperialism aiming at communist world subversion and Soviet world domination.
98. The Security Council has treated the Korean crisis as a case of aggression. I have no doubt that the General Assembly will do likewise.
99. The world has unfortunately experienced aggressions and breaches of the peace throughout its history. Roughly, we can divide aggressions into two types; one type is the brutal and open marching of the armies of one country into the territory of another. This is direct aggression. The most recent practitioner of this type of aggression was Hitler. We therefore can very well call this type of aggression Hitlerite aggression. I do not need to discuss this type at all, for it is a frankly brutal armed attack on one country by another.
100. We have reached a point in the world’s history when the Hitlerite type of aggression is made more difficult by world public opinion and, at the same time, made less necessary by certain new devices of political and military infiltration. With a Communist Party implanted in almost every country, eager to overthrow the legally constituted government by violence and sure to receive the material aid of communist parties of other countries, particularly of the Soviet Union, the technique of indirect aggression has been perfected. We have seen that technique used in Greece, China and now in Korea. Every civil war in which the communists participate as one of the antagonists, no matter in what country such civil war occurs, is aggression. This type of aggression should be named after its own master as I have named the other type after its master. This is Stalinist aggression. I warn the United Nations that it must adjust its mind and its machinery as quickly as possible to meet Stalinist aggression. For this reason, my delegation supports the programme of the United States delegation for united action for peace [A/1377].
101. The objectives of Stalinist aggression are clear to all. Ultimately, the objective is world domination. Stalinist aggression spares no country, whatever its political and social organization may be. It has already victimized countries of different political and social regimes.
102. The immediate objective of Stalinist aggression is the consolidation of its Eurasian power base. It has done well. Northern China, including Manchuria, Mongolia and Sinkiang, is virtually Soviet territory. Other parts of the Chinese mainland are partly controlled by Moscow’s obedient puppets. Korea, were it not for the prompt and effective aid given by the United Nations, would have fallen under Soviet control.
103. The basic fact in the world today is this huge Eurasian Power. Countries of Western Europe and Southeastern Asia are all on the fringe of this huge bloc. Today, to speak of Europe and Asia as two different and separate continents, is totally unrealistic. There is no longer this division between Europe and Asia. Western Europe and Southeastern Asia face the same enemy. Any gain by the new imperial Power in one area will be utilized for conquest in the other area. I fear that unless this fundamental truth is recognized, and recognized clearly by all, we will fail to meet this menace.
104. Political and military strategists have in the past made the mistake of keeping in their minds this division of Europe and Asia. In connexion with it there is another false distinction, namely, that of the industrialized and non-industrialized nations. Some people still think that the industrialized nations have a high military potential and are therefore decisive in the world’s struggle, whereas the non-industrialized nations have a low military potential and will therefore play a rather indifferent role in that struggle. This distinction disappears if we understand the meaning of the campaign in Korea correctly. Northern Korea is among the relatively under-developed areas of the world. Within the brief space of five years the Soviet Union, by giving to Northern Korea modern military machines and the technical knowledge that goes with these machines, managed to establish in Northern Korea a military power of considerable strength. What has been achieved in Northern Korea could be easily duplicated in other parts of Asia.
105. Under such circumstances, plans of defense based on any particular region of the world are bound to fail. Global aggression must be met with global defence.
106. In estimating the nature of Chinese communism, one section of world public opinion has passed from one error to another. The earlier error was to the effect that the Chinese communists were simple agrarian reformers. That error was propagated for an obvious purpose. Unfortunately, it was accepted by certain circles and has naturally and inevitably done great damage to the cause of world peace and world freedom.
107. At present that error, without being repudiated, is replaced by another error, namely, that Chinese communism will become “Titoist”. I doubt that the spread of totalitarianism would promote the freedom and happiness of mankind. I warn this General Assembly that in the case of China there is no possibility of Mao Tse-tung’s becoming a second Tito. The Kremlin finds that one Tito is one too many. We can be sure that the Kremlin has taken and will continue to take effective measures to prevent the rise of another Tito. On the part of the Chinese communists, their outlook upon world affairs has always been identical to that of Moscow. In the twenty-nine years of the existence of the Chinese Communist Party there has not been a single occasion when the Chinese communists differed from their masters at Moscow on a question of world policy.
108. In domestic matters, Moscow is not demanding and has no reason to demand an identical time-table of sovietization. As to ultimate aims in the ordering of society, the puppet regime in Peiping has always been and is today in agreement with the Leninist-Stalinist ideology. To practise appeasement in the belief that Mao Tse-tung might be another Tito is as vain a hope as that indulged in by many people that Munich might be the final settlement with Hitler.
109. In the discussions in the United Nations, several speakers have mentioned the 450 million people of China, as if the speakers knew for certain what the 450 million Chinese really desired. I can assure the General Assembly that the Chinese people regard the setting up of the puppet regime in Peiping not as a revolution but as another instance of foreign conquest, that is, Russian conquest. That regime accepts the Russian ideology, serves Russian interests, and pledges itself to fight side by side with Russia. It is indeed amazing to find that several delegations in the General Assembly should consider that regime as able or willing to promote the aims of the United Nations and to act as representative of the Chinese people. In fact, that regime is neither able nor willing to promote the aims of the United Nations. In fact, that regime is totally un-Chinese. The Chinese people have not accepted and will never accept the communist regime. Given a moderate measure of moral and material aid, the 450 million Chinese will and can prove to the world that they remain a mighty contingent among the forces fighting for world freedom today.