The day before yesterday the head of the delegation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Mr. Molotov, made in his speech a masterly analysis of the post-war world situation; he showed that, in world politics, there are two trends which have been reflected in this chamber during the debate in the General Assembly.
The representatives of one of these tendencies insist on the necessity of continued co-operation between the great Powers which won the war by their common efforts; they regard peaceful competition between two systems differing in their social and political foundations as essential and they consider it necessary to recognize the new democracies which have arisen in eastern Europe and particularly in the Balkans.
The representatives of the other tendency seek to establish world domination, domination over other peoples, over States which are their equals in rights; at the same time, by means of military and economic, penetration and political and economical pressure, they arc attempting to put into execution a programme which sometimes seems plausible in that the establishment of a sort of United States of Europe, or even of a world government, is contemplated.
The head of the Soviet delegation has shown that the clamour raised here in connexion with the. alleged “veto” forms an integral part of this offensive of the partisans of world domination.
In saying this, I allude to the proposal made by the delegations of Australia and Cuba on the necessity for reviewing Article 27 of the Charter of the United Nations.
What is the political essence of this Article? This Article establishes the principle of the unanimity of the five great Powers on problems relating to the maintenance of peace and security; furthermore, it implies the moral and, so to speak, legal obligation to reach, in regard to questions in dispute, solutions satisfactory to the five great Powers. It is quite obvious that without this the United Nations Organization cannot exist, or work, or solve the problems on its agenda.
It may be said that this Article crystallizes the experience of that war-time collaboration which led to the defeat of the enemy, to the restoration of peace and to the creation of the United Nations Organization.
There are those, however, who are dissatisfied with this situation and desire to change it, who would like disagreement in the place of unanimity, perpetual discussion in the place of concord, dispute in the place of co-operation.
These men cannot wage open warfare against the principle of the unanimity of the five great Powers without compromising themselves in the eyes of world public opinion. For this reason they adopt circuitous means. Nevertheless, their real intention is to sap the very idea of the collaboration of the five great Powers, the only guarantee of peace. They are engaged in a fight, a “democratic” fight, against the alleged principle of the veto. It is the policy of these people which the proposals of the delegations of Cuba and Australia are supporting.
Anyone who reads the Charter of the United- Nations will have no difficulty in seeing that nowhere does it mention the so-called right of veto. The term is not even to be found in the Charter.
How did this word come into our discussions? As we all know, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United States of America, the 1 United Kingdom, China and France have the same right, in the Security Council, to require that when a matter essential to the safeguarding of peace and security comes before the Council, the solution should be accepted by each of these five States.
At the same time, these great Powers are under the same obligation to seek an agreement before settling any problem.
Finally, none of the five great Powers is entitled to a privileged situation as compared with the other members of the Security Council.
Consequently, all that has been said about the veto is nonsense. It has no relation to reality and is pure invention from start to finish, for purposes which have nothing to do with safeguarding peace and security.
Nevertheless, the appearance of the proposals put forward by the delegations of Cuba and Australia does not seem to me to be accidental.
In recent months, and more particularly since the opening of the Peace Conference, the States which, in a certain sense, have met with defeat, have, with a view to revenge, set on foot a campaign which has had the effect of poisoning public opinion. Certain aspects of this campaign recall methods of propaganda which have been condemned by history and, more recently, by the Nürnberg tribunal.
Strange as it may appear, this propaganda is being carried on under the eyes of the United Nations, under the eyes of the Governments which declare themselves powerless to prevent it because freedom of the press and freedom of speech exist in their respective countries.
I said that this appears strange, because freedom of opinion, interpreted in this manner, amounts to a kind of immunity conferred on war-mongers and aggressors. To what does this interpretation of freedom of opinion lead? The experience of the war and of Fascism has already shown.
It appears strange for another reason, because this conception leads to the stifling of the voice of the advocates of peace, which is drowned by this militarist propaganda. This is proof that such propaganda is by no means fortuitous, that it is deliberate and organized.
Everywhere there is talk of a new war, and those who talk are not irresponsible persons. Ambassadors, former ambassadors, deputies, senators, professional soldiers and their military advisers, who express the opinion of their chiefs, all speak of a future war.
Should it be necessary, my delegation is prepared to lay before the General Assembly a remarkable file containing declarations of this kind. Therein you will find references to the necessity of using the atomic bomb in the next war, of keeping the monopoly of this weapon for a particular State. I would remind you that the Australian Foreign Minister, Mr. Evatt, stated at the Paris Conference that in the era in which we are living, the era of the atomic bomb, frontiers have lost their significance. These words at once caused alarm and anxiety among the small nations and particularly the populations under mandate.
Such a state of affairs did not exist after the war of 1914-1918. Doubtless, the importance of this propaganda should not be exaggerated. Those who know its mechanism, and those who, moreover, are aware of the state of mind of the masses who desire peace do not consider these rumours of a new war as a genuine expression of the public opinion of any one country. Only the blind, or the mad, or criminals can believe that after all the bloodshed suffered by the peoples in the course of the last war it is still possible to rouse the masses to undertake new wars. Such attempts have been made in the course of history, in particular after the war of 1914-1918; they ended in the discomfiture of those who initiated them, and their political prestige suffered greatly. But these attempts have left an unpleasant memory in the minds of the peoples.
May I again recall Marshall Stalin’s recent remarks, although they have already been quoted?
The rumours of a new war have been spread chiefly by military agents and find little credence among civilians. These rumours are employed:
1. To frighten with the spectre of war certain naive politicians from among their opponents and thereby help their Governments to wrest more concessions from them;
2. To make it difficult for some time to reduce the military budgets of their countries;
3. To check the demobilization of troops and thereby prevent a rapid increase of unemployment in their countries.
Nevertheless, propaganda of this land cannot be carried on without leaving some traces. It leads inevitably to the straining of relations between the Allies; it hampers the work of the United Nations and its various organs; it discredits this Organization and undermines the confidence of the widest circles of public opinion in it. At the same time, it creates a psychological atmosphere which enables certain irresponsible elements to put forward proposals and schemes which by fostering suspicion, mistrust and intrigue sow the seeds of disorder within the United Nations itself.
The proposal made by Cuba and Australia appears to us to be an echo of this war propaganda. This proposal is a fresh attempt, after so many which have failed, to bring pressure on the Soviet Government by creating the impression that the Soviet Union enjoys a privileged position in the Security Council, as a result of which it oppresses the majority and prevents the Council, so to speak, from taking decisions.
In reality, quite a different purpose is in view. The aim of the proposal is to form a group of States which desire to establish a monopoly within the United Nations and to place the States which are in a minority in such a situation that they are no longer able to defend themselves and resist the tyrannical policy of the majority.
It must be stated here that attempts are being made to mask this offensive by giving it a pseudo-democratic and pseudo-pacifist form by speaking of the sovereign equality of all the nations and of the necessity of efficacious measures for the defence of peace.
The problem of equality among nations cannot be treated in the abstract. In the first place it cannot be considered without taking into account the material destruction which each State has suffered and the sacrifies which it has accepted in order to take part in the war and the victory, and at the same time, to lay the foundations of peace. Moreover, it is generally recognized that the various States contributed to the war effort in differing degrees. And if the contribution of a State such as Cuba, for example, was not very large, it might be increased if Cuba refrained from opposing the application of the principle of the unanimity of the five Great Powers as the basis and guarantee of peace.
Secondly, when speaking of equality, account must also be taken of the size of a country’s territory and the number of its inhabitants. Mr. Molotov quoted the example of Cuba. Cuba has four and a half million inhabitants; Australia has seven million inhabitants; the United States of America one hundred and thirty million, the Soviet Union one hundred and ninety million, China four hundred million. If the system of equality is applied, the vote of one Cuban is equal, on the international plane, to the votes of one hundred Chinese. Does not all this remind you of certain out-of-date systems of electoral representation? Moreover, Mr. President, you are acquainted in your own country with the system of voting under which a privileged voter has at his disposal a number of votes. I really do not think that this is an ideal system.
In the third place, equality of rights pre-supposes equality of obligations; for example, it is obvious that Cuba and Australia cannot have the same responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security as each of the five Great Powers. Certain States possess equal rights in the United Nations Organization, but their obligations are too few, and the result is that they are in a privileged situation.
The representative of Belgium, who claims to be a pacifist, assured us that the experience of nine months' work in the Security Council had shown that the Great Powers were incapable, owing to interminable discussions amongst themselves, of safeguarding peace and security.
Arbitrators there must be. Small nations can play this part; nevertheless, the experience which we have gained during our work in the Security Council shows that the small and medium-sized countries represented in that Council have not performed this function. On the contrary, in the discussions and disputes between the great States they have always taken the side of one group of States against the others. This is sufficiently borne out by the statistics. For example, the Security Council has had to deal with eight political questions, and on all these eight questions the result of the voting was the same with mathematical regularity, namely nine to two. The assertion that the small and medium-sized States can play the part of arbitrators was contradicted by the experience of the League of Nations. The policy of the League of Nations proved incapable of saving the world from Munich and from war.
The representative of the United States of America, Mr. Austin, dealt in his speech with Article 27 of the Charter. He stated that he was opposed to the revision of this Article because he considered that a revision would be premature. But the United States delegation, according to its own statements, reserves the right to place the question of the revision of the Charter at the first opportunity on the agenda of the General Assembly. Mr. Austin stated that many misunderstandings could be obviated if the voting procedure accepted at San Francisco were defined more clearly and with a broader scope.
The United States delegation well remembers that the text of Article 27 was the result of an agreement between the Great Powers, arrived at after the lively discussions of the San Francisco Conference. There is nothing in this Article which is not perfectly clear. Moreover, should any point be obscure, proper provision has been made in the declaration of the four States, including France, which laid down the voting procedure for the reference of any question to the Security Council. It would appear that the proposal of the Cuban and Australian delegations is intended to prepare the way for a further discussion of this most embarrassing question of the revision of the Charter, which is taking up so much time.
We hope that the United States delegation will dissipate certain doubts and explain its point of view more clearly in the Committee which will examine the question of Article 27.
All is not going well in the Security Council. But if the situation there is really abnormal, Article 27 of the Charter is not the cause; the cause is that every reasonable proposal submitted by the minority comes up against the stone wall of the majority.
Between February and October 1946, eight major political problems were submitted to the Security Council. In all these political questions the majority always voted against the minority. This was a defense line which it was impossible to cross with the Iranian, Greek, Spanish, Lebanese and other questions.
Now, after this experience in which the majority dictated its will to the minority, the Anglo-Saxon majority desires to go even further. It wishes to create a monopoly for its own benefit in the Security Council. It is because tendencies of this kind exist that Article 27 must not be revised and must remain as it now is. It creates an obligation for the majority to seek a solution in agreement with the minority.
Moreover, one cannot fail to emphasize that the proposal to revise Article 27 also affects the interests of the small and medium-sized countries. Can you imagine for one instant the situation in which these nations might have found themselves if Article 27 had been abolished and if the group of the great Powers had dominated the Security Council?
Obviously this situation might have weighed very heavily on the state of affairs in the small and medium countries, which would have been obliged to accept all the proposals submitted. There is no need to search far for examples.
Thus, the General Assembly will be called upon perhaps to deliberate on the treatment of the Indian population in its territory by the Government of the Union of South Africa. The delegation of India well knows that the Soviet Republics, which have solved the problems of nationality in accordance with the principle of self-determination, cannot take up any position other than that of the defence of the Indian population.
To take another example, the General Assembly is about to consider the proposal of the delegation of the Union of South Africa for the annexation of the territory of South West Africa.
It has already been pointed out that this proposal is in contradiction with the Charter of the United Nations, which enjoins the Members of the Organization to help the Governments of Non-Self-Governing Territories in their progress towards self-government and independence.
Naturally, the Soviet Union voted also against this extraordinary proposal which is a breach of the elementary rights of a coloured population, on the sole ground that it is not a white people.
You will also remember that a few days ago the delegation of the Philippines raised a violent objection to Article 27 of the Charter. Allow me to remind you of one fact: it was not the delegation of the Philippines which asked that the question of the employment of Japanese troops against the population of Indonesia should be placed on the agenda of the Security Council. It was the Soviet Union that requested this. In spite of this, if one day the General Assembly is faced with the problem of the real independence of the Philippines, the Philippine delegation may rest assured that the Soviet delegation will uphold the Philippine people in their just and legitimate claims.
It is not Cuba, but the Soviet Union which demands the rupture of diplomatic relations with Franco. The representative of Cuba, that great democrat who says that he demands the revision of the right of veto, made a speech here in which he defended Franco and, allow me to say, some passages in his statement recall the scandalous speeches of certain defenders in the Nürnberg trials. This situation is not due to chance. The Soviet delegations are not under the political or economic dependence of any State whatsoever. They act freely in conformity with their principles and convictions.
We are told that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is making excessive use of Article 27 and that, consequently, it is necesary to consider placing restrictions on the exercise of the rights derived from this Article in the Security Council.
It is even desired to deprive the Soviet Union of the right to express its dissent from proposals which infringe its interests or those of other friendly or allied States. It is desired, at least, to give this dissent a form so innocuous, so platonic, that it will no longer be able to prevent a certain group of States from making themselves masters of the United Nations.
Since we are on the subject of abuses, the most flagrant in my opinion, is the attempt to place on the agenda of this Assembly the revision of Article 27, which is requested by the majority.
It is clear that a discussion of this subject would sap the very foundations of our Organization. Moreover, Article 109, paragraph 2, says clearly that the Charter adopted at San Francisco may not be altered without the unanimous consent of the permanent members of the Security Council. The authors of this proposal for the reviewing of Article 27 know perfectly well that they cannot obtain such a revision without destroying the United Nations Organization. Therefore, no practical result can be expected from placing this question on the agenda except the poisoning of the atmosphere of the work of our General Assembly.
The experience of the Paris Conference showed how the attempts to revise the decision of the four Foreign Ministers respecting the necessity of a two-thirds majority in a vote on a recommendation disturbed the atmosphere of that Conference and prolonged its work unnecessarily.
It is inadmissible to take advantage of a certain majority to infringe the Charter and change it as one changes a pair of gloves. Such an attitude towards the sanctity of obligations contributes to the creation of a state of anarchy in relations between States. It is playing with fire and can entail the most serious consequences.
As an example of the abuse of the majority, let me quote the question of Iran. Even in the annals of the League of Nations, it would be impossible to find a situation so absurd as the one created by the majority of the Security Council in dealing with the question of Iran. Two neighbouring countries, the Soviet Union and Iran, reached a friendly agreement for the settlement of their dispute, which had, moreover, been envenomed by the former reactionary government of the latter country. Both countries requested that the question should be withdrawn from the agenda. This request was embodied in a telegram, dated 15 April, in which the Government of Iran notified the Security Council that it withdrew its complaint.
The Secretary-General, Mr. Trygve Lie, on his side, was anxious not to place the majority of the Security Council in a position which would not only be awkward, but I may even say ridiculous. He wrote at that, time, that strictly in accordance with the law, it was not possible to leave on the agenda a question which both parties had decided to withdraw. He quoted Articles 33, 36, 37 and 38. In spite of this, the majority of the Security Council decided otherwise; it abused its position as a majority. Contrary to logic, to the facts and to law, the Council left the question of Iran on the agenda.
There are, doubtless, many among you who are lawyers. What would you think of a judge who, in the presence of two parties who declared that they had settled their dispute by a friendly agreement, nevertheless insisted on a continuation of the action? It would of course be one way of increasing the number of cases in his court and thus adding to his importance. In international relations, however, such an attitude on the part of a judge might have the most serious consequences. Such judges cannot inspire confidence in peaceful nations, which would be justified in harbouring suspicions with regard to decisions which appeared to be dictated by considerations having nothing in common with the maintenance of peace and security.
In the face of such objectivity, Mr. Noel- Baker had the temerity to take the Soviet representative in the Security Council to task because he voted against the dispatch of a commission to investigate the situation on the northern frontier of Greece. Mr. Noel-Baker knows as well as we do that the question on the agenda of the Security Council concerns the provocative action of Greek monarchist elements along the Greek- Albanian frontier.
The majority, however, desired to justify the actions of Greece; by means of circuitous manoeuvres, by creating a diversion, it wished at all costs to indict Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, although those countries were not represented. The majority submitted a proposal in this sense, but the representative of the Soviet Union was unable to vote for it, and did not vote for it, because the motion concerned third parties which were not represented at the meeting.
The majority has been guilty of a number of abuses and has drawn considerable advantage from its position. None of the representatives who spoke on Article 27 mentioned those abuses, although the President of the United States, Mr. Truman, in his speech of 23 October at the opening of the Assembly, stressed, very cautiously it is true, the difficulties which the Security Council was encountering in its work.
We have not heard any positive proposal for restricting somewhat the abuses of the majority. Some say it matters little whether we have a United Nations Organization or not. But since we desire this Organization to live and grow, since we desire that it should become a genuine organ of co-operation between States, both great and small, for safe-guarding peace and security, we cannot but give our support to the proposal made by the head of the Soviet delegation for the reduction of armaments and the outlawing of atomic weapons.
By their common efforts, the United Nations have brought the greatest war in history to a victorious conclusion. This war has been the most terrible ever known to humanity. It has caused innumerable casualties and the most frightful destruction man has ever witnessed. The aggressive forces of nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Japan have been crushed.
Now, in many parts of the world the man in the street is asking himself this question: Why after the conclusion of hostilities must we continue to build up new armaments? Why must there be further military expenditure? The military budgets have long been a very heavy burden on all States. They have engulfed the greater part of the national incomes. During the whole period of the war the peoples bore these burdens without a murmer, but now that peace has returned, the common people desire an improvement in their economic situation and their cultural level; they desire a reduction in military budgets. The outlawing of the atomic weapon would inevitably entail a reduction of expenditure and allow the Governments to use the moneys thus saved for other purposes, for example, to raise the standard of living of their populations.
The time has come for the United Nations to take this step and meet the wishes of the masses who demand peace and prosperity. Every human being desires a house, clothing, food; he desires to be able to bring up his children, guarantee their future, make provision for his old age and that of his descendants.
The Ukrainian delegation hopes that the reasonable proposals of the Soviet delegation will meet with a favourable and unanimous support.