The delegation of the Ukranian SSR has pleasure in associating itself with those speakers who have expressed their satisfaction at the election of Prince Wan Waithayakon to the office of President of the eleventh session of the United Nations General Assembly.
2. We are happy to have this opportunity to welcome the nineteen countries of Asia, Africa and Europe which were admitted to the United Nations at the present or the previous session, and are now participating in the Assembly’s work. It will be remembered that for many years a solution of the problem of the admission of new Members was held up by systematic discrimination against certain States and favouritism for others. It is to be hoped that the question of admitting other countries which are still outside our Organization will be examined with due care, and that a lesson has been learnt from the complete bankruptcy of a policy of .prejudice: slamming the door of the United Nations in .the face of a country merely because its way of life, its system of government or its ideology are | not to someone’s 'liking.
3. Thanks to the patient and persevering efforts of the States which opposed that shortsighted policy, the United Nations has at last admitted nineteen new countries and thus strengthened its ranks. As a result of the changes in its membership, it is now in a position to act more effectively. It is nevertheless regrettable that the echoes of a policy of discrimination refuted by life itself were still heard at this session, when the representation of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations was discussed. The fact that the true representatives of China have not taken their place among us limits our Organization’s opportunities of solving international problems and reconciling existing differences.
4. A short while ago, it seemed as if a world tortured by anxiety and insecurity had given way to a world beginning to recover from such malignant ailments as the “cold war” which, according to Mr. James Warburg, the American financier, has cost the United States $350,000 million.
5. It is undeniable that the peace-loving policy of the Soviet Union and other European and Asian countries, both socialist and non-socialist, has had a beneficial effect on world developments. Owing to the persistent efforts and to the initiative of these States, a trend towards a radical relaxation of international tension has clearly emerged on the international scene. Resistance to policies incompatible with tile purposes of peaceful co-operation has grown. The development of international relations during the last few years has strengthened the conviction that war is not inevitable and that under modern conditions powerful social and political forces have very real opportunities of preventing it.
6. At the same time, aggressive elements have recently deliberately exacerbated the international situation in a most dangerous manner. On the eve of the eleventh session of the General Assembly, the world, which had not heard the thunder of war for two years (that is, since the end of hostilities in Indo-China) was shaken by the ruthless aggression of the United Kingdom, France and Israel against Egypt.
7. Although the flames of war at the meeting point of the Asian and African continents have now been extinguished, the danger of war in that area has not been entirely removed. That danger persists owing to the continued presence of the armed forces of the United Kingdom, France and Israel in Egyptian territory. At the same time we cannot but feel concerned at the dubious intrigues of certain groups against States friendly to Egypt. In addition, Israel announces aggressive designs on the Gaza Strip and other Arab territories. Such designs are reflected, inter alia} in the letter addressed by the Permanent Representative of Israel to the Secretary-General [A/3410]. Instead of immediately withdrawing its farces beyond the demarcation line, Israel now promises to withdraw them no further than fifty kilometres from the Suez Canal, retaining possession of what has been Egyptian territory from time immemorial.
8. The General Assembly has defined its attitude to the armed aggression in the Middle East in unmistakable terms. It has adopted three resolutions condemning the aggression and demanding the immediate withdrawal of the interventionist armies from Egypt.
9. Although the aggressors have suffered a military, political and moral defeat, we must not delude ourselves regarding their aims, which they have by no means abandoned. It is significant that at this session of the General Assembly we should have met with persistent attempts to justify and, what is more, to prove the legality of, the armed attack against Egypt.
10. We listened to Mr. Pineau’s statement [589th meeting] with care. He expounded the view that the United Kingdom, France and Israel, in launching armed aggression in the Middle East, did not do evil, but good, because they had thus prevented the outbreak of a third world war. Mr. Lloyd spoke in the same terms. He said: “We believe . . . that we have stopped a small war from spreading into a larger war.” [591st meeting, para. 94.]
11. With the use of such an argument, any aggression may be justified, as the achievement of certain economic and political aims or the suppression of a national liberation movement by force may always be camouflaged by the assertion that a small war was started to prevent a large war, and the victim of aggression may thus itself be accused of aggression.
12. The representative of France had a great deal to say about the weakness of the United Nations, about its inability to settle the problems of the Middle East; this, he said, had given Israel the “right” to start a preventive war.
13. This is not the first time that we have been treated to speeches justifying what is known as a “preventive war”. It will be remembered that those who prepared and launched the Second World War also claimed that they were acting in the defence of their vital interests which were threatened. Whenever certain groups have advocated the theory of preventive war in the United Nations, my delegation, in common with a number of others, has pointed out that this theory is used as a cloak to cover flagrant acts of aggression against freedom-loving peoples in the part of the world concerned.
14. The events in the Middle East bear out this view. Israel was cast in the role of the initial aggressor by the United Kingdom and France on the ground that it was entitled to start a preventive war. Tomorrow an attack may be made on Syria or Jordan on the same pretext, the aspirations of those countries to independent existence being presented as a threat to other Powers.
15. The representatives of what is called “Western democracy”, it appears, pay only lip service to peace and justice; in fact, they do not hesitate to use force in its most brutal form to attain their selfish aims of colonial domination.
16. Like many other nations of Asia and Africa, the Egyptian people defend what is theirs by right: their national independence and the full ownership of their national resources. Because it is determined to throw off the shameful yoke of colonialism, Egypt is accused of aggression. No, the mighty aspiration of formerly oppressed peoples to freedom and national independence, a force which is smashing the colonial system to bits like a great hurricane, is not to be confused with aggression.
17. No excuse will serve to make an armed attack appear as an acceptable means for the settlement of international disputes. Suffice it to refer to the Paris Pact of 27 October 1928, which was concluded on the initiative of France and the United States and is binding on more than sixty States. Article 1 of this pact says outright : “The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies . . .”
18. Another prohibition of the use of force will be found in the United Nations Charter. Under that instrument, the use of armed force is permissible only in pursuance of a decision of the Security Council or, as prescribed in Article 51, in the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence “if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations”. The United Nations was founded to save succeeding generations from the scourge and untold sorrow of war. The fact that, in the twelfth year after the United Nations was founded, an attempt is being made in this hall to justify war by calling it a proper means of settling international disputes, cannot but alarm us and set us on our guard. .
19. Sad to relate, such attempts to justify war have not disturbed certain delegations, known for their extreme sensibility. During the discussion of the so-called Hungarian question, on the other hand, that sensibility reached its peak and, in the case of some representatives, attained the stage of hysteria. The ink was hardly dry on the previous resolutions concerning the so-called Hungarian question, when the General Assembly yesterday adopted a new resolution [A/RES/413] intended to trample underfoot the sovereign rights of the Hungarian People’s Republic and to intensify the campaign of hostility against the Soviet Union. The resolution actually contains an ultimatum, unprecedented in the history of the United Nations, giving a sovereign Member State of the United Nations little more than twenty-four hours to agree to the admission of United Nations observers, and thus to permit gross interference in its domestic affairs.
20. Some speakers included in their statements violent attacks against the Soviet Union and the Soviet army, and thinly veiled threats against the Hungarian People’s Republic and its delegation to the General Assembly.
21. However, there is no concealing the indisputable fact that the events in Hungary were part of a general conspiracy of the imperialist forces against international peace and security. It is easy to imagine what dangerous consequences would have resulted from the victory of reaction in Hungary. A fascist Hungary would undoubtedly have become the right hand of the German Wehrmacht, which is again ominously rearing its head in Central Europe.
22. The Government and people of the Ukrainian SSR are deeply perturbed at the intrigues of fascism in Europe. Our people, who have lived through the horrors of Hitlerite occupation, know only too well the murderous ways of fascism, its base instincts and its hatred of humankind.
23. I should like to assure the Hungarian delegation from this rostrum that the Hungarian People’s Republic, now as always, has many friends who wish Hungary peace and success in the building of socialism. The Ukrainian people have been and remain the Hungarian people’s true friend and good neighbour.
24. The inflexible resolution to ensure a stable and lasting peace is something all the peoples of the world today have in common. What is the chief condition for the maintenance of peace? The answer is simple: that condition still is a reduction of armaments, the prohibition of atomic and hydrogen weapons and the cessation of tests of such weapons.
25. The United Nations has been discussing this difficult but urgent problem for many years. Unfortunately, however, we are today no nearer than we were ten years ago to a universally acceptable solution of this question. Let us be frank. The mountain of adopted or rejected resolutions on disarmament is still rising, while we return to our peoples every year almost empty-handed. This is happening because the same forces which have now exacerbated the international situation are obstructing, a solution of the problem of the reduction of armaments and the prohibition of atomic and hydrogen weapons.
26. While the Soviet Union is reducing its armed forces, the United States has thrown itself into an armaments race which furnishes a golden stream of profits to the capitalist monopolies.
27. On the pretext that there is a constant threat to its security, which will continue unabated for a long time to come, the United States is contributing to the support of about 200 divisions in the armies of its allies;, according to a statement by Mr. Wilson, the United States Secretary of Defense. In the words of the Chief of Staff of the United States, they have become a focus of military activity in many countries.
28. The opponents of disarmament and international co-operation assert that war can be prevented by making weapons so terrifying that they act as deterrents, and by forming military blocs. They represent these blocs as “shields of peace”, and as a means of achieving some sort of balance of power. In our time, however, when there are armaments capable of destroying the largest cities, the largest industrial and cultural centres, in a few seconds, the balance of power is a totally unreliable guardian of the peace.
29. To pursue a policy of balance of power is, particularly at the present time, tantamount to staking everything on the armaments race in order to ensure superiority in an atomic war.
30. This concept has wide currency and influential adherents in official quarters in the United States. It underlies the well-known doctrine of “teetering on the brink of war”. However, history teaches us that an armaments race inevitably leads to a world conflict. To teeter on the brink of war is as dangerous for universal peace as it is dangerous for a man to teeter on the top cornice of a New York skyscraper.
31. Mankind may be freed from the fear and danger of universal war and the whole international atmosphere may be radically changed if we carry out a comprehensive programme for the reduction of armaments and armed forces, the prohibition of atomic weapons and the establishment of effective international control.
32. The road leading to the attainment of this object is hard and strewn with obstacles, but the cost of war with all its horrors and sufferings is too high for us to be deterred by obstacles and difficulties. New and very real prospects on this road are opened up by the Soviet Government’s proposals of 17 November 1956 [A/3366] on disarmament and the lessening of international tension submitted to the eleventh session of the General Assembly.
33. Without wishing to discuss all the aspects of the comprehensive and detailed disarmament programme proposed by the Soviet Union, I would draw the Assembly’s attention to the fact that the Soviet Government has taken a new and important step to meet the Western Powers half-way by expressing its willingness to consider the question of aerial photography to a depth of 800 kilometres east and west of the demarcation line between the armed forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Treaty countries stationed in Europe.
34. The proposals provide that the armed forces of the USSR, the United States and China should be reduced to 1,500,000 men each in the course of the next two years; those of the United Kingdom and France to 650,000 each, and those of the remaining States to 150,000 to 200,000 each. It is also proposed, among other things, that nuclear weapons should be prohibited and that in 1957 the armed forces of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France stationed in German territory should be reduced by one-third, and that military bases in the territories of other States should be dismantled.
35. In addition, a non-aggression pact between the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the countries participating in the Warsaw Treaty is suggested. “Such a pact,” says the Soviet Government’s statement, “considering that the participants would include the Soviet Union and the United States — that is countries which possess the most powerful armed forces — would result in radical changes in the entire international climate and would help to lessen international tension and to create confidence between States.”
36. The Soviet Government’s proposals are an acceptable basis for an agreement on disarmament. The United Nations and its organs, which have so far failed to achieve any real result in the matter of armaments reduction and the prohibition of atomic weapons, must not continue to maintain an attitude of patient inactivity, while the armaments race absorbs enormous material resources, places a heavy burden on the workers’ shoulders and threatens the world with a new and catastrophic war.
37. Alongside the problem of disarmament, international economic relations are coming to be of prime importance in our world. Neither individual nations, nor groups of nations, can fail to be interested in developing to the greatest possible extent the exchange of the products of their toil and their scientific, technical and cultural achievements, in the peaceful progress of mankind.
38. The Ukrainian SSR, which plays an important part in producing Soviet export goods, uses a considerable proportion of the goods and services received by the Soviet Union from other countries. As a country with a highly advanced economy, the Ukraine is, of course, interested in the development of international trade on an equitable and mutually advantageous basis.
39. Our Republic occupies a large territory and possesses vast and varied natural resources. Under the socialist system, its economy has attained a high level of development. A few figures will suffice to illustrate this: in 1955, more than 16 million tons of cast iron were produced in the Ukraine, almost 17 million tons of steel, 13,600,000 tons of rolled iron and 126 million tons of coal. The area under cultivation comprises almost 33 million hectares, including 8,600,000 hectares under wheat, more than 2 million hectares under potatoes and 1,260,000 hectares under sugar beet.
40. Every year sees a rise in the output of industrial and food products designed to satisfy consumer needs and to raise the standard of living.
41. In fraternal co-operation with all the peoples of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian people are carrying out a new five-year plan, which provides for a considerable growth of the Republic’s economy from 1956 to 1960. This opens up great prospects for participation in international trade in accordance with the Soviet practices of producing goods for export and consuming imported commodities.
42. All over the world there is a growing desire for the expansion of trade and other economic relations and the removal of the artificial obstacles still hampering trade between the West and the East. Yet the possibilities for establishing normal trade and economic relations between countries are not being fully used. The USSR delegation’s proposal that a world economic conference be convened in 1957 [589th meeting] should therefore be most attentively studied by the General Assembly, At such a conference the representatives of all countries would be able to have businesslike discussions and to exchange their views on ways and means for solving urgent international economic problems. We fully support this promising initiative of the USSR delegation.
43. The General Assembly’s agenda contains items concerning a whole series of political, economic and social problems which are of great importance for the maintenance of peace and the strengthening of confidence among nations. We must patiently and realistically seek opportunities for the solution of these problems in a spirit of co-operation and mutual understanding
44. The worsening of the international situation is causing alarm among millions of people and calls for vigilance on their part. In the circumstances, it is important that the present session of the General Assembly should fulfil its duty towards the nations and contribute to a lessening of international tension and a strengthening of peace and security.