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Neutrality and Neutralism and the Tactics of Soviet Diplomacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

George Ginsburgs
George Ginsburgs*
Affiliation:
University of California (Los Angeles)
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Extract

After a long period of considerable discrimination and abuse neutrality has now regained a semblance of legitimacy as a valid principle of international law and international relations. This recent transfiguration of a concept, which only fourteen years ago was being reviled as morally reprehensible, can be credited to a wide variety of diplomatic developments, such as, for example, Cold War tensions, the newly won independence of former colonial possessions, and others. In great part, too, it can be explained by the strenuous sponsorship lately exerted on its behalf in world affairs by the leaders of the Soviet regime. In effect, the latter now take the initiative, at every possible opportunity, in generously lavishing praise and support on the neutrality of the so-called “bourgeois” nations in all its various manifestations.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1960 , pp. 531 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1960

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References

1 Melnikov, D., “Neutrality and the Current Situation,” International Affairs (1956), No. 2, p. 75 Google Scholar (italics in the original). For an analysis of the U.S.S.R.'s policies as a neutral during the first two years of World War II, see the author's “The Soviet Union as a Neutral, 1939-1941.” Soviet Studies (July, 1958), No. 1, pp. 12–35.

2 In a conversation in July, 1935, between the Soviet Ambassador to Paris, Potiemkine, and the French Minister of War, Fabry, in answer to the latter's query on whether the Soviets were frightened of war, the former is reported to have replied: “Why should war frighten us? The Russia of the Soviets emerged from the last war, the Europe of the Soviets will emerge from the next,” Reynaud, Paul, La France a sauvd l'Europe” (Paris, 1947), I, 117 Google Scholar.

3 Stalin's answer to the questions of Mr. Alexander Werth of the Sunday Times, September 17, 1946: “I do not believe in a real danger of a ‘new war',” Izvestia, September 24, 1946.

4 Informacionnoe soveshchanie predstavitelej nekotorykh Kompartii v Polshe v konceSentjabrja 1947 goda (Moscow, 1948), p. 47 Google Scholar.

5 Thus reviving an earlier revolutionary idea which had even found embodiment in the first Constitution of the U.S.S.R. (1924): “From the moment of the birth of the Soviet Republics the States of the world have been divided into two camps: the camp of capitalism and the camp of socialism.” It is significant that this formula was left out of the 1936 Constitution which was drafted in very different international circumstances.

6 E.g., Krylov, S., “Neutrality in the Current War (The Swedish Practice),” Vojna iRabochij Klass (1943), No. 1, pp. 14–18 Google Scholar; Editorial, ibid. (1944), No. 18, p. 20; P. Kuzmin, “Concerning Sweden and the Swedes,” ibid,, pp. 21–26; Editorial, ibid., No. 23, p. 19; Rysakov, P., “The Balance-Sheet of Swedish ‘Neutrality’ during World War II,” NovoeVremja (1945), No. 8 (18), pp. 13–17 Google Scholar.

7 Vneshnjaja politika Sovetskogo Sojuza v period Otechestvennoj voiny (Moscow, 1946), II, 183 Google Scholar.

8 The Soviet Note of April 5, 1945, denouncing the treaty of neutrality, read in part: “Germany attacked the USSR and Japan, Germany's ally, is helping the latter in its war against the USSR. Moreover, Japan is at war with the USA and Great Britain who are allies of the Soviet Union,” Izvestia, April 6, 1945. See also the speech of the Soviet Prosecutor at the Tokyo Trials in which he charged that: “On April 13, 1941, the Japanese Government concluded with the Soviet Union a pact of neutrality. This pact was concluded for treacherous purposes for the Japanese Government did not intend to respect it … Even though Japan did not succeed in entering the war against the Soviet Union on Germany's side it did, during the whole period of the German-Soviet war, give active aid to Germany by immobilizing forces of the Red Army in the Far East,” Izvestia, February 19-20, 1948.

9 Stalin's letter to Churchill, July 15, 1944, Churchill, Winston S., Triumph and Tragedy (Boston, 1953), p. 81 Google Scholar. For an elaboration of this theme, see also Vasiliev, N., “Who benefits from Turkey's neutrality?” Vojna i Rabochij Klass (1943), No. 7, p. 18 Google Scholar; idem, “Once more concerning Turkey's neutrality,” ibid., No. 10, pp. 14-17; Lenin, I. M., Vneshnjajapolitika Sovetskogo Sojuza v period Velikoj Otechestvennoj voiny(Moscow, 1947, pp. 26–27 Google Scholar.

10 Dranov, B. A., Chernomorskie prolivy (Moscow, 1948), pp. 213–34Google Scholar.

11 Gavrilov, E., “Hitler's Spanish partners under the mask of ‘neutrality',” Vojna iRabochij Klass (1944), No. 4, pp. 16–22 Google Scholar; F. Golubev, “More on Spain's ‘neutrality',” ibid., No. 20, pp. 10–14; Kumarjan, I., “Can Franco Spain's position in the present war be regarded as a neutral one?” Bolshevik (1943), No. 22, pp. 53–55 Google Scholar; E. A. Korovin, “The Second World War and International Law,” A.J.I.L. (1946), p. 753: “ … for others, like Spain, neutrality served as camouflage for the closest kind of collaboration with the aggressor.” In particular, see the speech delivered by K. V. Kiselev at the U.N. General Assembly, October 28, 1946: “In the Second World War, Franco Spain was a true ally of Germany and Italy, providing those countries with strategic materials, war information, and the use of its ports and other areas…. It is absolutely incorrect to say that Spain generally did not take part in the Second World War because it remained a’ non-belligerent country.’ If Spain did not enter the war, that occurred for reasons quite apart from the desires of the Spanish Government. But the fact of the participation of the so-called 'Spanish Blue Division’ side-by-side with German fascist troops in battle against Soviet troops is proof to the whole world of the existence of military cooperation between Franco Spain and the Axis powers against the countries of the democratic coalition.“

12 For Sweden's stand see Unden, O. B., Sveriges Utrikes-Politik (Stockholm, 1948), pp. 24–29 Google Scholar; with regard to Asia, Frankel, J., “Soviet Policy in South East Asia,” in Beloff, M., Soviet Policy in the Far East, 1944-1951 (London, 1953), pp. 208–12Google Scholar. For example, For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy, July 1, 1949, denounced Nehru's policy of terror in India. To this rule there was only one exception, Finland, whose status after the conclusion of the treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance of 1948 approximated that of a neutral since it took “into consideration Finland's desire to stay out of the conflicts of interests between the Great Powers,” Preamble to the treaty, Izvestia, April 7, 1948.

13 E. A. Korovin, op. cit. (note 11), p. 754. Also, Kozhevnikov, F. I., Uchebnoe posobie pomezhdunarodnomu publichnomu pravu (Moscow, 1947), p. 249 Google Scholar; and Korovin, E. A., Kratkij kurs mezhdunarodnogo prava, Chast II: Pravo vojny (Moscow, 1944), p. 111 Google Scholar.

14 Durdenevskij, V. N. and Krylov, S. B. (eds.), Mezhdunarodnoe pravo (Moscow, 1947), p. 538 Google Scholar; when a similar thesis was advanced in 1955 by Lisovskij, F. I., Mezhdunarodnoepravo (Kiev, 1955), p. 28 Google Scholar, it was unanimously denounced in Soviet legal literature as incorrect.

15 Action, October 9-15, 1950.

16 Vloroj Vsemirnyi Kongress Storonnikov Mira (Moscow, 1951), p. 102 Google Scholar.

17 See Salvin, M., International Conciliation (June, 1951), No. 472, pp. 285–318 Google Scholar.

18 W. Rochet, “La Classe Ouvriere, les Neutralistes, et l'Union pour la Paix,” Cahiersdu Communisme (February, 1951); also, J. Duclos, “La Lutte pour la Defense de la Paix et le Neutralisme,” Democratie Nouvelle (February, 1951).

19 Stalin, J., Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (New York, 1952), pp. 26–30, at 29Google Scholar.

20 The notion of the “non-inevitability” of war, sometimes viewed as an innovation by Khrushchev, actually can be traced to Stalin, loc. cit. In that work, however, Stalin rejected the concept of war's inevitability between socialism and capitalism, while again emphasizing that “the inevitabilty of wars between capitalist countries remains in force.” Khrushchev's present stand is less precise, but it is still very doubtful whether he would mobilize the so-called forces of peace to prevent a war between two or more of his sworn enemies, the capitalist States.

21 G. Malenkov, Speech of August 8, 1953, Izvestia, August 9, 1953: ”…if today, in conditions of tension in international relations, the North Atlantic bloc is rent by internal strife and contradictions, the lessening of this tension may lead to its disintegration;“ Vyshinsky, A. Ja., “Some questions of the science of Soviet law,” SovetskoeGosudarstvo i Pravo (1953), No. 4, p. 12 Google Scholar: “If these contradictions increase, then there will be no guarantee that the struggle caused by these contradictions will not lead to a war [between the capitalist States]; this means that the Marxist-Leninist thesis concerning the fatality of wars among the capitalist countries remains valid.“

22 E.g., Kozhevnikov, F. I., Velikaja otechestvennaja vojna Sovetskogo Sojuza i nekotoryevoprosy mezhdunarodnogo prava (Moscow, 1954), p. 134 Google Scholar: “As is well known, the Soviet State was neutral in the armed conflict in Korea…. The Soviet Union completely satisfies the definition of a neutral State as given in para. 37 of the Armistice Agreement and its neutrality can in no way be gainsaid.” Cf. “Is your side now in a state of war with the Soviet Union?” asked North Korean delegate Ki Sok Bok, “If not, how can your side deny that the Soviet Union is a neutral nation apart from the two belligerents?” NewYork Times, October 30, 1953.

23 A. Ja. Vyshinsky, Speeches of December 5, 6 and 9, 1950, before the United Nations, Voprosy mezhdunarodnogo prava i mezhdunarodnoj politiki, 1950 (Moscow, 1952), pp. 325-28, 330, 333-35, 359-60.

24 See Komarnicki, T., “The Problem of Neutrality under the United Nations Charter,“ Transactions of the Grotius Society for 1952 (London, 1953), pp. 87– 90 Google Scholar.

25 The final composition of the Commissions included Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Czechoslovakia and India. Poland and Czechoslovakia were acceptable to the Communist bloc for obvious reasons, Switzerland because it was an internationally neutralized nation and India as the major neutralist power (only India had the right to maintain troops in Korea under the Armistice Agreement); Sweden was accepted presumably because it had abstained from voting in the United Nations when the resolution condemning Red China as an aggressor was adopted, Modzhorjan, L., Politika podlinnogo nejtraliteta —vazhnyifaktor borby narodov za mir i nezavisimost’ (Moscow, 1956), p. 12 Google Scholar.

26 Thus, Korovin, E. A. (ed.), Mezhdunarodnoe pravo (Moscow, 1951), p. 553 Google Scholar: “The policy of the Anglo-American bloc, aimed at undermining the United Nations Organization and at preparing new wars, prevents putting into full operation all of the mechanism of this Organization, as a result of which neutrality as a legal institution still preserves its significance.” The turmoil in Soviet thinking which marked this period of transition was vividly reflected in the acrimonious debate which took place at the time between the proponents of the double and the single standard of international law. It is noteworthy that, with the emergence of co-existence as the official line, it was the school of thought advocating a single code of international rules for all nations which emerged decisively triumphant over the rival school's thesis that there were two bodies of international law, a socialist and a capitalist one, a view transposing into law the now condemned political precept of the two-camps world. For the progress of that discussion, see Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo (1954), No. 6, pp. 34–44; No. 7, pp. 74–79; No. 8, pp. 89–92; (1955), No. 2, pp. 75–84.

27 Molotov, V. M., Statements at Berlin Conference of Foreign Ministers of U.S.S.R.,France, Great Britain and USA. (Moscow, 1954), pp. 101, 137Google Scholar.

28 Izvestia, July 19, 1955. Cf. Molotov's subsequent statement at Geneva: “In many countries the desire to preserve a neutral policy is mounting, and this is one of the forms of a negative attitude to the policy of forming military blocs. As the Soviet Government has said, this tendency deserves every support, for it works in the interests of slackening international tension and strengthening peace.“

29 New York Times, Jan. 3, 1958, p. 5: “Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin promised in a recent letter to guarantee Iceland's neutrality if all foreign troops left the country. It was one of the many letters dispatched around the world by the Soviet Premier after he had sent ‘peace’ letters to the Big Western Powers.“

30 Lenin, V. I., Sochinenija (4th Russian ed.), XXVIII, 135–36Google Scholar: “But if we have been able to survive one year after the October Revolution, this we owe to the fact that international imperialism was split into two groups of marauders: Anglo-French-Americans and Germans, who were locked in mortal combat with each other, who had no time for us. Neither one of these groups could seriously commit its forces against us, and, of course, they would have done so if they could have. War, its bloody fog, blinded their eyes. The material sacrifices which were demanded by the war required a maximum increase in effort. They had no time for us, not because we were, by some miracle, stronger than the imperialists—no, by no meansl, but only thanks to the fact that international imperialism was split into two groups of marauders who were at each other's throat.“

31 Carr, E. H., “From Munich to Moscow,” Soviet Studies (June 1949), No. 1, p. 4 Google Scholar: “The Soviet regime owed its survival at the outset to divisions between the capitalist powers which were locked in mortal combat when the October Revolution occurred; had they been united, it would have been nipped in the bud. The lesson of this experience was not lost on the Bolshevik leaders. It was a condition of Soviet security that the capitalist world should remain divided, and that one part of it be in friendly relations with the Soviet power.“

32 V. I. Lenin, op. cit., XXXI, 411: “Brest is notable for the fact that for the first time, on a gigantic scale, in the face of insuperable obstacles, we succeeded in utilizing the contradictions between the imperialists in such a way that, in the final analysis, socialism won.” For Lenin's statements concerning the R.S.F.S.R.'s neutrality in the closing months of World War I, see his Doklad o mire (Moscow, 1956), pp. 21, 29.

33 Lenin himself viewed Brest-Litovsk as a “correct retreat ‘to gain time, to disintegrate the enemy and to accumulate forces in order to assume the offensive later',” Knorin, W. (ed.), Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a Short History (Moscow, 1935), p. 242 Google Scholar. As for the ostensibly neutral policy of the R.S.F.S.R., it included taking arms from the Entente and even an offer to the Central Powers to clear a corridor through Russia for the passage of German armies in order to permit them to engage in combat the British and French troops landing in North Russia, Fischer, L., The Soviets in World Affairs (New York, 1930), I, 96, 98, 128Google Scholar. A similar attitude was evidenced, too, at a later date. Thus, Korovin, E., Mezhdunarodnoe pravo perekhodnogo vremeni (2nd ed.; Moscow, 1924), pp. 136–37Google Scholar, wrote: “ … at the time of the Washington Conference, with the threatening conflict in the Far East between Japan and the United States pregnant with the nightmare of a new world w a r, … the Soviet Government” underlined “to all those who were making ephemeral plans for Russia that the latter would follow a policy of 'strict neutrality’ as the only one available to it,” adding, however, that “in the conflicts and bloody forceful settlements of large and small appetites, the hands of Soviet Russia are and will remain ‘free'.“

34 Lenin, V. I., Sochinenija (1st Russian ed.), XVII, 391–92Google Scholar: “What would have saved us still more would have been a war between the imperialist powers. If we are obliged to tolerate such scoundrels as the capitalist thieves, each of whom is preparing to plunge a knife into us, it is out direct duty to make them turn their knives against each other. When thieves fall out, honest men come into their own.“

35 Lenin, V. I., Doklad o mire, pp. 72–73, 144 Google Scholar. In the case of Poland, this neutrality was bought at the price of the Treaty of Riga, an almost exact repetition of the Brest-Litovsk maneuvre, L. Fischer, op. cit., pp. 270-72.

36 Two secondary tactics were also evolved to counteract the menace of hostile alliances: 1) subvert the united front, whether already formed or only in the process of creation, by widespread agitation, propaganda, the pressure of public opinion and large-scale demonstrations of Party followers everywhere, a method by its very nature restricted to times of confidence in the strength and influence of the Party and to cases of little urgency; 2) undermine any attempt at concerted action by a group of capitalist States by joining them and diverting their purposes to one's own advantage, also a rather leisurely process suitable for not too perilous occasions.

37 In order properly to understand the Soviet plans one must keep in mind their own evaluation and periodization of history. Thus, according to Bukharin, N. I., Mezhdunarodnoepolozhenie i zadachi Kominterna (Moscow, 1928), p. 3 Google Scholar, the years up to 1923 were a period of sharp revolutionary crises, becoming those of a rehabilitation of the productiveforces of capitalism and, after 1925, those of capitalist reconstruction.

38 In those days, for example, Litvinov dismissed treaties as “empty phrases” designed to deceive “broad masses of the population,” Dennis, A. L. P., The Foreign Policies ofSoviet Russia (New York, 1924), p. 135 Google Scholar. With regard to neutrality the Soviet attitude was equally discouraging: “Thus we have for a majority of the neutrals a fatal necessity to place their bets on the victory of one of the two belligerent coalitions, to bind themselves to it in economic interests and political destiny,” E. Korovin, op. cit. (note 33), p. 135. The Soviet Government did agree to tolerate Persia and Afghanistan as quasineutral buffer zones. In addition, at a time when Moscow expected a revolution to break out in Germany at almost any moment it “decided to prevent a possible catastrophe and offered Poland and the Baltic States … to conclude an agreement with them that in case of complications in Germany, they would maintain toward her a strict neutrality…”, Desjat let Sovetskoj diplomatii (Akty i dokumenty) (Moscow, 1927), p. 34.

39 Stalin, J. V., Leninism, I, 222–23, 227, 363Google Scholar.

40 Pravda, October 24, 1925: “ … t h e r e is not, in the U.S.S.R., a single person with a sane mind who does not understand that the edge of the Locarno agreement is directed against the U.S.S.R.“; even now the same thesis is expounded, International Affairs (1956), No. 7, p. 154: “it is obvious that the Locarno Pact was aimed against the Soviet Union and the countries of East and South East Europe. By its conclusion an anti-Soviet imperialist bloc was created.” See, also, Turok, V. M., Lokarno (Moscow, 1949), p. 3 Google Scholar: “It must be noted above all that at the Locarno Conference there was beginning to take solid shape the idea of a ‘Western bloc’ directed against the Soviet Union. In their attempts to bring about this criminal and reactionary idea the imperialistic participants in the Locarno Conference later returned to it more than once.“

41 The Conference of Genoa is sometimes treated as a prelude to Locarno, a minor united front disrupted by the Treaty of Rapallo: “By signing the Treaty of Rapallo, the Soviet Government not only split the united anti-Soviet front created by the Anglo- American imperialists, but also led Germany out of its isolation…”, Kobljakov, I. K., Ot Bresta do Rapallo (Moscow, 1954), p. 7 Google Scholar. On the next page the author adds: “Thus Soviet diplomacy made successful use of the conflicts and contradictions between the capitalist States in the struggle for peace.“

42 D. Melnikov, op. cit., p. 78; also, V. M. Turok, op. cit., p. 227: “Even more important was the success of the foreign policy of the U.S.S.R. in April, 1926. As a result of the fact that in March, 1926, the entry of Germany into the League, an admission guaranteed at the Locarno Conference, could not take place due to the disagreements at the League's March Assembly provoked by the behind-the-scenes activities of Briand, on April 24, 1926, was concluded the German-Soviet treaty of neutrality.“

43 Christian Rakovsky, “The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia,” Foreign Affairs (July, 1926), p. 582.

44 Taracouzio, T. A., War and Peace in Soviet Diplomacy (New York, 1940), p. 118 Google Scholar: “ … the Locarno treaties indicated a strengthening of the war-torn powers of Western Europe. Obviously… they could mean only one thing to the Soviets: the possibility of another aggression against the U.S.S.R. To forestall this, new devices had to be invented. To Soviet diplomacy this meant the establishment of its foreign relations on a definitely permanent basis, and treaties of non-intervention, non-aggression, and neutrality were used for building a political barrier against the feared capitalist designs upon Russia.” For an analysis of the Soviet security system, see ibid., p. 119ff.

45 E.g., “the imperialists were calculating to begin an armed intervention against the U.S.S.R. in 1927,” Viskov, S., SSSR v avangarde borby za mir (Moscow, 1952), p. 49 Google Scholar, and ibid.: “During the world economic crisis of 1929-1933 … the imperialistic States renewed their maddened preparations for an armed intervention against the U.S.S.R. which was scheduled for 1930-1931.” It was also written that: “Toward the end of the said ten years [1917-1927] the international position of the Soviet Union undoubtedly deteriorated as compared to the previous years,” as a consequence of which, “the principles of nonaggression and neutrality became a part of the constructive peace policy of the Soviet State and served as a basis for its continued activity in the field of international relations,“ Desjat let Sovetskoj diplomatii, pp. 35, 37. The Treaty with Lithuania, Sept. 29, 1926, was specifically credited with Soviet diplomacy's success “in frustrating the plans of the imperialists who had calculated on creating a ‘Baltic Locarno’ with the inclusion of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland in order to utilize the armed forces of these nations and their territory for organizing a war against the U.S.S.R.,” Vygodskij, S. Ju., Borba za mir i bezopasnost’ narodov—generalnaja linija vneshnej politikiSSSR (Leningrad, 1954), p. 42 Google Scholar.

46 In the meantime had taken place the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, whose conclusion the Soviet authorities greeted as another “aspect of the policy for the encirclement of the U.S.S.R.” (Izvestia, August 5, 1928). The threat of the Pact was eliminated, it was claimed, by the Soviet Union's adherence thereto and its sponsorship of the provisions thereof in Eastern Europe, S. Viskov, op. cit., pp. 52–53; J. Stalin, V., Sochinenija, XII, 260–61Google Scholar, and Sobakin, V. K., Kollektivnaja bezopasnost’ v Evrope (Moscow, 1956), p. 15 Google Scholar.

47 Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey) (Moscow, 1948), p. 26: “This was a declaration of mutual non-aggression on the part of France and Germany. Essentially, these agreements meant that both Britain and France had concluded pacts of non-aggression with H i t l e r …. In this way the political conditions necessary for ‘uniting Europe, without Russia’ were created. The objective was the complete isolation of the Soviet Union.” Also, Stalin's statement: “ … the districts of Czechoslovakia were yielded to Germany as the price of an understanding to launch war on the Soviet Union,” Problems of Leninism (11th ed.; Moscow, 1953), p. 756.

48 Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941, ed. by Sontag, R. J. and Beddie, J. S. (Washington, D.C., 1948), p. 34 Google Scholar: “What could England offer Russia? At best participation in a European War and the hostility of Germany, but not a single desirable end for Russia. What could we offer on the other hand? Neutrality and staying out of a possible European conflict and, if Moscow wished, a German-Russian understanding on mutual interests which, just as in former times, would work out to the advantage of both countries.“

49 Strausz-Hupé, R. & Possony, S. T., International Relations (New York, 1950), pp. 776-84Google Scholar.

50 The treaty of neutrality signed in 1941 with Japan must, in the long run, be considered as even more successful than the one with Germany. According to Grew, J. C., Ten Years in Japan (New York, 1944), p. 382 Google Scholar: “The pact will tend to stimulate and support the Japanese extremists who advocate a vigorous prosecution of the southward advance because it guarantees Soviet neutrality in case Japan gets into war with a third country (i.e., the United States).” This is exactly what happened, diverting Japan's interest from the Soviet Far East and preventing it from coming to Hitler's assistance in his invasion of Russia.

51 In this case the World Peace Movement; see Statement by Pietro Nenni at Paris, 1949: “A united front is indispensable in order to render null and void the obligations the Governments assumed by signing the Atlantic Pact and to reduce it to a scrap of paper,“ Pervyi Vsemirnyi ﹛Congress Storonnikov Mira (Moscow, 1950), p. 36.

52 As set down by Stalin, the practical goals of Soviet foreign policy were: “1) to utilize all the contradictions and conflicts among the capitalist groups and governments which surround our country, with the object of disintegrating imperialism; 2) to stint no forces and resources to assist the proletarian revolution in the West; 3) to take all measures to strengthen the national-liberation movement in the East; 4) to strengthen the Red Army,“ Sochinenija (Moscow, 1953), V, 113.

53 The term is not deemed to apply to the Warsaw Pact since it is not a bloc, according to Soviet claims. Thus, V. M., Molotov, The International Situation and Soviet ForeignPolicy (New York, 1955), p. 33 Google Scholar: “But the Soviet Union and the other countries of the socialist camp have never created military blocs directed against other countries. Nor will they do so in the future. But they will be obliged to unite their efforts in safeguarding their security “ To re-enforce its claims, Moscow has, on the other hand, surrendered its military base at Porkkala-Udd in Finland and its privileges at Port-Arthur and Dairen in China.

54 Nehru and other statesmen of neutralist leanings were addressed by Khrushchev and Bulganin as allies during their tour of South-East Asia (see Bulganin, N. A. & Khrushchov, N. S., Visit of Friendship to India, Burma and Afghanistan, Speeches and OfficialDocuments (Moscow, 1956)Google Scholar; the U.S.S.R. has supported India's demands for Goa and Kashmir, Afghanistan's pretensions to Pushtunistan, Indonesia's for West Irian, etc., see, also, for example, “Soviet Farm Aide Wooing Pakistan,” New York Times, Jan. 31, 1958, p. 2, on the uses of trade and aid offers to promote neutralism. In order to increase neutralism's confidence in its own importance for world peace, Soviet sources have claimed that: “The process of disintegration of the imperialist system serves as another proof of the fact that war is not at all inevitable. In conditions of such rapid disintegration of the colonial system, it is dangerous for the imperialists to enmesh themselves in war, risky for them to start one,” Oleshchuk, F., Neizbezhna li vojna? (Moscow, 1956), p. 50 Google Scholar.

55 However, see footnote 20 supra.

56 Austria's neutralization was viewed in Moscow as only the first step, since the Kremlin hopefully counted on “the interest the Austrian Treaty aroused in Western Germany, also in Italy and other West-European countries,” “The Significance of Austrian Neutrality,” New Times (1955), No. 21, p. 8. As for the various Soviet and Sovietsponsored proposals to conclude bilateral treaties of non-aggression and neutrality between members of the Warsaw and North Atlantic pacts, they must be evaluated in the light of the Kremlin's own standards. Thus, the Soviet characterization of the Germano-Polish Treaty of 1934 applies perfectly, mutatis mutandis, to Moscow's offers: “Soon after, in 1934, Britain and France helped Hitler to take advantage of the hostile attitude toward the U.S.S.R. of their allies, the gentry of Poland, the result of which was the conclusion o£ the German-Polish non-aggression pact, which was an important stage in the preparation of German aggression. Hitler needed this pact as a means of disrupting the ranks of the adherents of collective security and as an example to show that what Europe needed was not collective security but bilateral agreements. This enabled the German aggressor to decide for himself with whom and when to conclude agreements, and whom and when to attack. The German-Polish pact undoubtedly constituted the first serious breach in the edifice of collective security,” Falsifiers of History, p. 11.

57 See Khrushchev, N. S., Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party ofthe Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress (Moscow, 1956), pp. 16–19 Google Scholar. There is, too, a striking similarity between the terms used at the present time by the Soviet statesmen and the language employed by Stalin and Molotov in 1939 with regard to restricting the zone of war, strengthening the Soviet Union's international position, broadening the so-called zone of peace, etc.

58 Co-existence itself is not looked upon as total abandonment of all rivalry; it merely shifts the struggle from the realm of military conflict to one of political and ideological warfare. Thus, N. S. Khrushchev, op. cit., pp. 39-40; Shepilov, D. T., Voprosy mezhdunarodnogopolozhenija i vneshnej politiki Sovetskogo Sojuza (Moscow, 1957), p. 14 Google Scholar.

59 E.g., Kozhevnikov, F. I. (ed.) Mezhdunarodnoe pravo (Moscow, 1957), p. 428 Google Scholar.

60 For example, according to Soviet lawyers, member-States could actively cooperate in collective action yet not be involved in hostilities either because they were not called upon to help with force of arms or because they were not required to do since no agreements on national contingents to an international police force (Art. 43) have so far been signed. E. Korovin, “The Problem of Neutrality Today,” International Affairs (1958), No. 3, p. 36-40; Durdenevskij, V. N., “Neutrality in a System of Collective Security,” Sovetskoe Gosudarstvoi Pravo (1957), No. 8, p. 81–91 Google Scholar.

61 Lately Soviet legal treatises have been unanimous in urging the compatibility of a State's neutralized status with its membership in the United Nations. O. Afanasjeva, “Swiss Neutrality in History,” International Affairs (1956), No. 1, p. 82: “It should be noted, however, that the perpetual neutrality of one or another country cannot be regarded as an obstacle to membership in the U.N.“; Durdenevsky, V., “Swiss Neutrality,” New Times (1955), No. 22, pp. 28–30 Google Scholar.

62 Modzhorjan, L. A., Subekty mezhdunarodnogo prava (Moscow, 1958), pp. 82–83 Google Scholar: ” … the legal basis for and legal consequences of a policy of neutrality arise not only, in fact generally not, in periods of war but in times of peace, and the policy of neutrality in times of war is, as a rule, the continuation and logical result of neutrality in peace.” Concerning the inseparability of the basic principles of war and peace, see, idem, op. cit. (note 25), p. 4: “The concept of neutrality has begun to denote a policy of neutrality in time of peace and a condition of neutrality in time of war;” and, Lazarev, M., “A Violation of the People's Sovereign Rights (US Military Bases Abroad),” International Affairs (1956), No. 10, p. 80 Google Scholar: “At the same time the creation of foreign military bases violates the right of neutrality in its classical form, since their presence virtually deprives a country of the possibility of being neutral in peace and war.“

63 E.g., editorial in International Affairs (1956), No. 12, pp. 137-38: “To avoid responsibility for violating their obligations, the Austrian ruling circles claimed that their attitude toward the ‘Hungarian question’ was simply one of ‘moral’ support for the enemies of people's democracy and did not violate Austria's neutrality…. In one of his statements Herr Raab asserted that ‘Austria does not violate her duty and will not allow herself to be diverted from the chosen path.’ But in the same speech he said that 'this does not mean colourless neutralism.’ Is this not an attempt to reject as ‘colourless neutralism’ the strict observation of Austria's neutral status which her international obligations demand?“

64 E. Korovin, op. cit. (note 60), p. 39. Cf. V. N. Durdenevskij, op. cit. (note 60), p. 91: “Neutrality and the system of collective security may complement each other in a given historical situation. Neutrality prevents the spreading of war's conflagration, the international security organization devotes itself to actively extinguishing this conflagration; but to keep the fire from spreading already means to contribute to its extinction.“

65 See, Statement by Hungary's Foreign Minister, Imre Horvath, East Europe (July 1957), p. 47: “We approve of the neutrality of certain capitalist countries since it signifies that they do not join the imperialist blocs created with a view to starting a w a r …. While a true neutrality on the part of a capitalist country means standing apart from the conquerors and those ready to go to war, the neutrality of a Socialist country represents an underhanded attack on the cause of peace and Socialism and its betrayal.“

66 E.g., V. N. Durdenevskij, op. cit. (note 60), p. 91: “In our days the slogans of neutralism and neutrality have become a means to counteract the policy ‘from a position of strength’ and the engineering of military aggressive groupings and blocs.” It is significant that the current Soviet successes in the field of scientific endeavor have injected Khrushchev's regime with a new optimism which has already expressed itself in the harsher tone that may be detected in the Kremlin's most recent line with regard to even such prominent neutralists as Nehru.

67 Gauss, Christian, Preface to Machiavelli, The Prince (Mentor edition, New York, 1952), p. 8 Google Scholar.

68 V. I. Lenin, Doklad o mire, p. 91.

69 Interview with James Reston, New York Times, October 10,1957, pp. 10-11.

70 Time, August 4, 1958, p. 25.

71 D. Melnikov, op. cit., p. 77.