Mr. KISELEV stated that more than three years had elapsed since the Charter of the United Nations had been signed in San Francisco and later ratified. That Charter had proclaimed that the primary aims of the newly created international Organization were the prevention of new wars, the maintenance of peace and security among nations, and the promotion and consolidation of international co-operation with a view to contributing to the economic and social progress of peoples. The obvious question was: what had the United Nations done during that period and what were the conclusions with which its Members had come to the third session of the General Assembly?
The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR was obliged to note that not one of the questions of any considerable international significance that were before the United Nations had been brought to a conclusion and that the recommendations which had been adopted were not being implemented. Mr. Kiselev stated that he desired to refer to the more important of those questions.
Everyone knew the important decisions taken by the General Assembly concerning the principles determining the general regulation and reduction of armaments, the creation of the Commission to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy, the measures to be adopted against war propaganda and the instigators of a new war, the problem of the future Government of Palestine and many other problems.
It was natural that the peoples of the world should wonder why those problems of great international importance had, mot been solved, why the decisions of the General Assembly were not being implemented and who was responsible. Those questions which troubled the whole world had to be answered.
Since the defeat of the fascist Axis Powers, preparations for a new world war had, for some time past, been carried on both openly and in secret. New pretenders to world domination were engaged in a Press campaign, their main mouthpiece being the Press of the United States of America and that of States obedient to it. War psychosis was being encouraged; it was becoming increasingly widespread and acquiring a threatening character. All possible means of ideological pressure on mankind — Press, radio and films — were being brought into action. The Press openly supported expansionist plans centred round the crazy dream of world domination. In the United States, a frantic armaments race, including the production of the atom bomb, was being justified and made the subject of propaganda. The Press was also encouraging all measures of a military mid strategic character and all measures of technical organization calculated to expand the network of naval and military bases; to increase the output of armaments; to intensify work for the perfection and unification of weapons and the re-allocation of the armed forces in accordance with plans of future military operations. Plans for a new war were being prepared in the general staffs, regional military blocs of the Benelux type were being formed and military alliances for purposes of so-called mutual defence were being signed. The Press openly proclaimed that it was necessary to make intensive preparations for a new world war, with USSR and the people’s democracies as the enemy.
He cited resolution 110 (II) adopted unanimously by the General Assembly, at its second session, on measures to be taken against propaganda and the inciters of a new war.
Unfortunately, it had to be noted that that resolution was not being implemented by certain members of the Organization. A number of foreign newspapers and periodicals, particularly in the United States, were continually proclaiming the possibilities of a new war and putting out floods of propaganda designed to intimidate the wide masses of the people. Those publications carried on a campaign of hatred against the USSR and the new peoples’ democracies; against well-known persons with progressive ideas and the opponents of a new war, inculcating the idea of the inevitability, and even the necessity, of a new war into the minds of ordinary men under cover of malicious theories about the aggressive policy of the Soviet Union and other countries of the new democracy. They knew full well that such lies were a vile slander of the USSR, which was directing all its efforts towards the rehabilitation of national economies in areas ravaged during the war.
Many facts led to the conclusion that certain countries were grossly violating the obligations assumed by them under the General Assembly’s decision condemning all forms of propaganda for a new war. That decision of the General Assembly and the basic principles of the United Nations as set forth in the Charter placed all Governments under the obligation to further by all the means at their disposal the development of friendly relations between peoples and governments. That demand was echoed by all progressive mankind whose goal was permanent peace and friendship among the nations.
Mr. Kiselev then turned to the request from certain Members of the United Nations, including Argentina, for a reconsideration of the principle of unanimity among the five great Powers, the so-called right of veto. He pointed out that, at the second session of the General Assembly, a strong attack had been made against that principle of unanimity, but it had been rejected by a majority of Members. In order to undermine the principle of the unanimity of the great Powers, the United States delegation had carried out a side-stepping manoeuvre and had succeeded in achieving the creation of the Interim Committee, the so-called «Little Assembly». That Committee was designed to take the place of the Security Council.
It was worthy of note that sixteen United States senators had formally introduced a draft resolution demanding a revision of the United Nations Charter and the abolition of the principle of unanimity among the five great Powers. That draft suggested that the President of the United States of America should be empowered to initiate a revision of the Charter. The sixteen senators held that, if possible, the revision of the Charter was to be accomplished with the approval of all the Member States of the United Nations, but that if any permanent member of the Security Council chose to veto the proposal for a revision, the United States would have to proceed on the basis of the revised Charter with the creation of what was described as a more effective international organization tor the mutual defence of the Member nations, without the participation of the abstaining countries.
The Senate had referred that draft resolution without discussion to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. The United Press agency had described the draft as a step towards the destruction of the United Nations and the creation of a direct military alliance. Thus, instead of strengthening international co-operation on a basis of respect for the independence and sovereign equality of peoples and of mutual observance of the rights and interests of all participants, measures were being taken towards the destruction of the United Nations.
Mr. Kiselev then quoted Generalissimo Stalin as having said that the strength of the United Nations lay in the fact that it was founded on the principle of equal rights of States and not on the principle of the domination of some States by others, and that if the United Nations succeeded in maintaining the principle of equality in the future, it would certainly play a very important political part in ensuring world peace and security.
The activities of the opponents of the principle of unanimity had for some time back borne witness to a persistent effort on their part to destroy, directly or indirectly, the principle of the equality of peoples, a principle which was the very foundation stone of the Charter of the United Nations, and to establish the principle of the domination of certain countries by others.
It was quite clear that those activities struck at the very foundations of the young international Organization, which had been set up as a result of strenuous efforts and hard work by three great Powers.
Mr. Kiselev recalled that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Mr. Molotov, had stated on 29 October 1946 in the General Assembly, when analyzing the origins of the campaign against the principle of unanimity: « The dispute about the veto and the whole present discussion make it necessary to speak openly about the contradictions and the principal political trends existing in international affairs in our times... Two principal trends are struggling within the United Nations to gain influence over the main course of its work. One of those trends bases itself on the main fundamentals of the United Nations Organization and on respect for the principles underlying it. The other, on the contrary, is intended to shake the foundations on which the United Nations rests and to pave the way for the proponents of a different course. From these latter now come all kinds of onslaught both in the form of direct attacks and in the form of flanking manoeuvres.
Mr. Kiselev thought that the events of the past two years fully confirmed the profound political analysis made by Mr. Molotov. It had to be admitted that the clash between the two basic tendencies had reached full intensity, and that a split, therefore, existed in the United Nations. Those who sought to obtain the abolition of the principle of unanimity were in fact striving to destroy the United Nations, inasmuch as the principle of unanimity was the foundation stone of the whole Organization. The abolition of the principle of unanimity would mean immediate disaster for the United Nations, which was like a ship coursing near the Atlantic shores in stormy weather.
The creation of the Interim Committee at the second session' of the General Assembly and its subsequent work fully confirmed Mr. Molotov’s analysis. The reference to the Interim Committee of the problem of the unanimity of the great Powers could not be considered as anything but a step towards the abolition of that principle.
At the very first meeting of the Interim Committee (A/AC./18/SR.1), the representative of New Zealand had made a proposal to take the bull by the horns, as he said, and to start the work of the Committee by taking up the problem of the veto. That proposal had been supported by representatives of certain other countries. The representative of Argentina had submitted a proposal to call a general conference to consider the problem of the abolition of the veto (A/586), a question which had already been withdrawn once from the agenda of the second session of the General Assembly. Side by side with those overt attempts to ensure the abolition of the veto, there had also been the quasi-compromise proposal of the United States and the United Kingdom to restrict and modify the use of the veto. Actually, however, all those proposals had the same strategic aim; namely, the abolition of the right of veto, leading to the full mastery of certain Powers over others in the United Nations and in the Security Council, the central organ of the Organization.
The representative of Uruguay had made a very reasonable objection in the Interim Committee (A/AC.18/SR.15 and A/AC.18/SR.18) to those attacks against the principle of unanimity. In his speech he had most pertinently asked why the lack of efficiency in the work of the Security Council was attributed to the right of veto. No such right existed in the General Assembly, and yet its activity could not be considered to have been very effective. No answer had, however, been given to that argument.
It was interesting to recall an article in the New York Times of 6 May 1948 to the effect that the proposals for revision of the United Nations Charter were aimed at strengthening the United Nations as a result of the abolition of the veto and the formation of international police forces that would be independent of any strategic consideration. The newspaper had gone on to say that no one hoped that the Soviet Union would agree to all that, so that the exclusion of the USSR and its satellites from the United Nations was already a foregone conclusion.
Mr. Kiselev stated that such was the purpose of those who wished to bring about a split in the Organization and of the inciters of a new war. The well-known French journalist, Pertinax, had written in the newspaper, France-Soir, that the Interim Committee had been conceived as the embryo of an anti-Soviet coalition. That statement was both frank and correct. Analysis of the work of the Interim Committee led to the conclusion that the Committee was the destructive force which was undermining the foundations of the laboriously erected edifice of the United Nations in order that it might collapse as soon as possible. The Committee had adopted a number of recommendations and resolutions designed to amend the Charter and change the structure of the United Nations in the interests of certain Powers.
The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR was sure that at the present session the majority of the General Assembly would once again speak against revision of the Charter; favour the observance of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and support effective co-operation among small and large Powers which would best correspond to the interests of peace-loving peoples and that they would act in the name of peace and security throughout the world.
The General Assembly resolution 41 (I) on the prohibition of atomic weapons had not been implemented. Mr. Bevin, speaking on that matter at the 144th plenary meeting, had stated that «... if the black fury, the incalculable disaster of atomic war should fall upon us, one Power, by refusing its co-operation in the control and development of these great new forces for the good of humanity, will alone be responsible for the evils which may be visited upon mankind. »
Mr. Bevin did not leave any doubt as to which Power he had in mind. Actually, he was attempting to transfer the responsibility for the failure of the Atomic Energy Commission from the guilty to the innocent party. Everyone knew the position of the USSR, which insisted upon the immediate prohibition of the atomic weapons and the establishment of strict effective international control in order that that prohibition might be enforced and atomic energy used only for peaceful purposes. The necessity for such prohibition of the atomic weapon derived from the very nature of the weapon, which was one of aggression, designed for attack, for the destruction of towns and the mass extermination of peaceful populations. Mr. Bevin, when he announced that the Soviet Union was opposing any agreement on the establishment of international control in connexion with the prohibition of the production of atomic weapons, was trying to distract the attention of public opinion from the responsible parties. Actually, those really responsible for the fact that so far no decision had been reached were those who stubbornly rejected the USSR proposal. That was particularly true of the United Kingdom and the United States. The policy of reactionary circles in certain countries had been to prevent the prohibition of the production of atomic weapons and the establishment of effective international control of atomic energy and to expand the production of atomic weapons. Increasing financial allocations were being made for that purpose, a fact which was hound to increase anxiety and instability in international relations and aggravate the war psychosis from which many people were already suffering.
Mr. Bevin must know that those were the basic reasons why, since the Atomic Energy Commission had been created two years previously, the United Nations had not reached an agreement either on the prohibition of atomic weapons or on the control of atomic energy.
The peoples of the whole world demanded that that problem should be resolved at the earliest possible moment. With that idea in mind, the representative of the Soviet Union had submitted for the consideration of the third session of the General Assembly a proposal (A/658) for the prohibition of the atomic weapon intended for aggressive and not for defensive purposes, and for the creation, within the framework of the Security Council, of an international control agency for the supervision and control of the implementation of measures for the reduction of armaments and armed forces and for the prohibition of the atomic weapon.
The delegation of the Byelorussian SSR would wholeheartedly support that proposal.
In his statement, Mr. Bevin had said that according to the Marxist-Leninist conception there could be no real agreement between the USSR and non-Communist States, and that the proposals of the Soviet Union for good-neighbourly relations between States; for the reduction of armaments; for the prohibition of the atomic weapon, etc., were simply definite tactical moves. He had obviously distorted a speech of Lenin made in 1918, at a time when the young Soviet Republic was repelling the attacks of British and other foreign armies of intervention. If his approach to history had been more conscientious, the United Kingdom representative might have found many facts completely refuting his contention that Marxism and Leninism denied the possibility of establishing good-neighbourly or friendly relations between the USSR and, for instance, Great Britain or France. Lenin had stressed that possibility in a number of his statements, in particular in his interview with Mr. Farbman, the Observer and Manchester Guardian correspondent. It was quite clear, therefore, that Mr. Bevin’s conception was devoid of all foundation. Mr. Bevin had quite consciously ignored quotations from Lenin and Stalin which spoke of the possibility of peaceful co-operation and of the co-existence of the USSR with capitalist States.
In that connexion, he wished to quote an excerpt from the works of Generalissimo Stalin, one of the closest friends and collaborators of Lenin:
«The foreign policy of the Soviet Union is clear and evident:
« 1. We favour peace and the consolidation of business relations with all countries. Our position is and will remain such as long as these countries have the same relations with the Soviet Union and do not try to violate the interests of our country.
«2. We favour peaceful, close and good-neighbourly relations with all countries.»
That excerpt was from the selfsame book by Generalissimo Stalin, Problem of Leninism, to which Mr. Bevin had referred in his speech (page 574 of the eleventh Russian edition). There were many other statements of Generalissimo Stalin’s on the same subject, but Mr. Kiselev would mention only the conversation between the Generalissimo and Mr. Harold Stassen. In reply to Mr. Stassen, Generalissimo Stalin had emphasized the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of countries with different social and economic systems. As a clear example, he had pointed to the close collaboration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a socialist country, with the capitalist countries of the United States of America and the United Kingdom, during the war of liberation against fascist Germany and imperialist Japan.
The whole thirty years’ history of the foreign policy of the USSR — and he hoped that Mr. Bevin was familiar with that history — was an eloquent confirmation of Generalissimo Stalin’s statements on the essence of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.
The proposals made by the representatives of the USSR in the former League of Nations and in the present United Nations pursued one single purpose: to ensure peace and security throughout the world; to prevent new wars; to consolidate international co-operation and to promote friendly relations between all nations. It was with that purpose in mind that the Soviet Union delegation had made its proposals at the present session recommending that, as a first step along the road to a reduction of armaments and armed forces, the permanent members of the Security Council should undertake to reduce by one- third during one year all land, air and naval forces, and also that they should prohibit atomic weapons as weapons intended for aims of aggression and not for those of defence, and, finally, that they should create within the framework of the Security Council an international control agency that would supervise and control the implementation of measures for the reduction of armaments and armed forces and the prohibition of atomic weapons.
The delegation of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics wholeheartedly supported thé proposals with regard to the reduction by one-third within the coming year of all armaments of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Those proposals showed a sincere desire on the part of the peoples who had suffered from the horrors of war to consolidate an enduring and firm peace.
He expressed the hope that the third session of the General Assembly would carry out its work of establishing peace and security throughout the world.