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The Cry of National Liberation: Recent Soviet Attitudes Toward National Self-Determination
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
Extract
“You know,” Khrushchev characteristically proclaimed in a message to the African People's Conference meeting in Accra in December 1958, “that on the national question the Soviet Union is invariably guided by the principle of the right of nations to self-determination, and that it has always supported and still supports the struggle of peoples to obtain or strengthen their national independence and freedom.” The idea of national self-determination, fathered by political theorists like Mazzini and Wilson, is, of course, Western in origin. But in an age of nation-building in the Afro-Asian world, skillful Soviet use of this concept presents Western diplomacy with a formidable and continuing challenge in the East. The purpose of the present inquiry is to examine briefly how Soviet spokesmen have attempted to manipulate this Western idea, particularly in the great assembly halls of the UN where representatives of East and West constantly intermingle.
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References
1 Pravda, 12 5, 1958.Google Scholar
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4 General Assembly Official Records (3d session), Document A/784, Annexes, Part I, 1948, agenda item 58, P. 545.
5 As a result of a decision of the sixth General Assembly (1951–1952), there eventually emerged from the Commission on Human Rights two Draft Covenants, one on civil and political rights, the other on economic, social, and cultural rights.
6 “Every people and every nation shall have the right to national self-determination. States which have responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing Territories shall promote the fulfillment of this right…” (Economic and Social Council Official Records (9th session), Supplement No. 10, p. 29).
7 When the 1950 meeting of the Third Committee of the General Assembly failed to mention “self-determination” as a human right, the Soviet Union protested and submitted an amendment to the Draft Covenant to correct this omission (General Assembly Official Records (5th session), Document A/1576, Annexes, 1950, agenda item 63, p. 35). As this amendment failed of adoption, the Soviet delegate tried, again without success, to reintroduce “self-determination” in the Draft Covenant when it came under consideration by the plenary session of the fifth General Assembly, meeting in December 1950 (General Assembly Official Records (5th session), 317th Plenary Meeting, December 4, 1950, p. 553, 564).
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