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| United Nations membership | |
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| Membership | Former full member |
| Dates | October 24, 1945– December 24, 1991 |
| UNSC seat | Permanent |
| Permanent Representative |
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| Politics of the Soviet Union |
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 Soviet Unionportal |
The Soviet Union was a charter member of the United Nations and one of five permanent members of the Security Council. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, its UN seat was transferred to the Russian Federation, the successor state of the USSR.
The Soviet Union took an active role in the United Nations and other major international and regional organizations. At the behest of the United States, the Soviet Union took a role in the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. [1] Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin was initially hesitant to join the group, although Soviet delegates helped create the structure of the United Nations at the Tehran Conference and the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt actively worked to convince Stalin to join the UN. [2] The Soviet Union insisted that there be veto rights in the Security Council and that alterations in the United Nations Charter be unanimously approved by the five permanent members.
There was initially a Western majority in the United Nations immediately after its creation. With the decolonization process, however, and as all newly-independent states were accepted into the United Nations, many countries allied with the Soviet Union, as well as non-aligned countries, joined the organization. [3]
The USSR initially protested the membership of British Raj and the Philippines, whose independence was then largely theoretical. A demand by the Soviet Union that all then fifteen Soviet republics [lower-alpha 1] be recognized as member states in the UN was counter-demanded by the United States that all then 48 U.S. states be similarly recognized. Ultimately, at the Yalta Conference a compromise was made in which two Soviet republics (Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR) were admitted as full members of the United Nations. As such, between 1945 and 1991, the Soviet Union was represented by three seats in the United Nations. [2] [4] This was supported by British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden so that, in return, British dominions would be granted membership. Roosevelt agreed at Eden’s insistence, despite the U.S. State Department's objection. [2]
The Soviet Union had cast its veto 109 times by 1973, out of a total 128 vetoes used by the council. Even with all the vetoes used not all stuck. It is shown that for 75 percent of the vetoes cast by the Soviet Union, further actions were taken by United Nations. [5] [ page needed ]
The Russians believed strongly in the veto power, and insisted it be part of the United Nations Security Council. They voiced this option for the veto power to both the Security Council and the General Assembly. [5] The Soviet representative to the United Nation in 1950, Andrei Y. Vishinsky, declared that "the veto power is the paramount principle, which constitutes the cornerstone of the United Nations." [6]
The debate over China's representation with the United Nations began in 1949. The Chinese Communist Party took over the country's mainland in the Chinese Civil War, while the Nationalists retreated to the island of Taiwan, which it had received from Japan following its surrender in 1945. The United Nations seat of China was held by the Nationalist government of the Republic of China, but conflict arose on which the government should hold the China seat. The Soviet Union supported the Communist government of Mainland China, leading to conflict with the West. The Security Council sided with the United States and saw the Communist government of People's Republic of China (PRC) as illegitimate, and prevented it from entering the United Nations until 1971. Before the China seat was transferred to the Communist government of PRC in 1971, the Soviet Union was one of sixteen states that viewed it as being the legitimate government. [7]
A major turning point in the Soviet Union relation occurred in January 1950, when Soviet representatives boycotted United Nations functions in protest over the occupation of the seat of China by the Republic of China. [1] Yakov Malik was the sole Soviet representative that walked out of the United Nations, and announced that they would be boycotting further Security Council meetings. [8] In the absence of the Soviet representatives, the United Nations Security Council was able to vote for the intervention of United Nations military forces in what would become the Korean War. [1] This was a downside to the boycott that was unforeseeable to the Soviet Union at the time.
Nations questioned Soviet actions on relations with China, and how they acted on the issue of representation. The Soviet Union always voted for China's Communist Party to have the seat. [7]
For many years, the West played a guiding role in United Nations deliberations, but by the 1960s many former colonies had been granted independence and had joined the United Nations. These states, which became the majority in the General Assembly and other bodies, were increasingly receptive to Soviet anti-imperialist appeals. By the 1970s, the United Nations deliberations had generally become increasingly hostile toward the West and toward the United States in particular, as evidenced by pro-Soviet and anti-American voting trends in the General Assembly. [1]
Western media reported in 1987 that Eastern European and Asian communist countries that were allies or Satellite state#Soviet Unionsatellite states of the Soviet Union, had received more development assistance from the United Nations than what the Soviet Union had contributed. This contradicted communist states' rhetorical support for the United Nation's establishment of a New International Economic Order, which would transfer wealth from the rich Northern Hemisphere to the poor Southern Hemisphere states. The Soviet Union announced in September 1987 that it would pay back a portion of its debt to the United Nations. [9]
The Soviet Union did not, however, win support in the United Nations for its foreign policy positions. The Soviet Union and Third World states often argued that imperialism caused and continued to maintain the disparities in the world distribution of wealth. They disagreed, however, on the proper level of Soviet aid to the Third World. Also, the Soviet Union encountered fierce opposition to its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and received little support (as evidenced by Third World abstentions) for its 1987 proposal on the creation of a "Comprehensive System of International Peace and Security." [1]
After walking out of the United Nations in January 1950 known as the Chinese Boycott, the Soviet Union returned to various United Nations bodies in August 1950. The return brought with it a beginning of a new policy of active participation on international and regional organizations. [1] By the late 1980s the Soviet Union belonged to most of the special agencies of the United Nations. They did, however, resist joining various agricultural, food and humanitarian relief efforts. [9]
During the Mikhail Gorbachev era, the Soviet Union made repeated suggestions for increasing United Nations involvement in the settlement of superpower and regional problems and conflicts. Though these proposals were not implemented, they constituted new initiatives in Soviet foreign policy and represented a break with the nature of past Soviet foreign policy. This lessened world tensions. [9]
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, 11 Soviet republics—all except the Baltic states and Georgia—signed the Alma-Ata Protocol on 21 December 1991, establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The Protocol provided that the Russian Federation would assume Soviet Union's United Nation membership, including its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The resignation of Soviet President Gorbachev on 25 December 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet of the Republics the following day formalized the end of the Soviet Union.
On 24 December 1991, the Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations Yuli Vorontsov delivered to the Secretary-General of the United Nations a letter from the Russian President Boris Yeltsin. The letter stated that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, and that Russia would continue the Soviet Union's membership in the United Nations and maintain the full responsibility for all the rights and obligations of the Soviet Union under the United Nations Charter. The letter was circulated among the United Nations membership without any objection, [10] and Russia formally took over the Soviet Union's seat in the United Nations General Assembly, in the Security Council and in other organs of the United Nations. [11] The letter also confirmed the credentials of Soviet representatives to represent Russia, and Soviet representatives to the various United Nations agencies continued serving as Russian representatives without presenting new credentials. Ambassador Vorontsov continued serving as the first Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. [11]
On 31 January 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin himself was in the Russian Federation’s seat in the Security Council during the 'summit meeting' of the Council attended by heads of state and government. [11]
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and approving any changes to the UN Charter. Its powers include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing military action. The UNSC is the only UN body with the authority to issue binding resolutions on member states.
There are 193 sovereign countries that are member states of the United Nations. The UN is the world's largest intergovernmental organization and all members have equal representation in the UN General Assembly.
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference, or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization, was an international conference at which proposals for the establishment of a "general international organization", which was to become the United Nations, were formulated and negotiated. The conference was led by the Four Policemen – the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. It was held at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., from August 21, 1944, to October 7, 1944.
China is one of the charter members of the United Nations and is one of five permanent members of its Security Council.
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the great powers' opinions before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status dimensions.
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, or UkSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. In the anthem of the Ukrainian SSR, it was referred to simply as Ukraine. Under the Soviet one-party model, the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch, the Communist Party of Ukraine.
The history of the United Nations as an international organization has its origins in World War II beginning with the Declaration of St James's Palace. Taking up the Wilsonian mantle in 1944-1945, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed as his highest postwar priority the establishment of the United Nations to replace the defunct League of Nations. Roosevelt planned that it would be controlled by the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and China. He expected this Big Four would resolve all major world problems at the powerful Security Council. However the UN was largely paralyzed by the veto of the Soviet Union when dealing with Cold War issues from 1947 to 1989. Since then its aims and activities have expanded to make it the archetypal international body in the early 21st century.
The G4 nations, comprising Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan, are four countries which support each other's bids for permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. Unlike the G7, where the common denominator is the economy and long-term political motives, the G4's primary aim is the permanent member seats on the Security Council. Each of these four countries have figured among the elected non-permanent members of the council since the UN's establishment. Their economic and political influence has grown significantly in the last decades, reaching a scope comparable to the permanent members (P5). However, the G4's bids are often opposed by the Uniting for Consensus movement, and particularly their economic competitors or political rivals.
The Russian Federation succeeded to the Soviet Union's seat, including its permanent membership on the Security Council in the United Nations after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, which originally co-founded the UN in 1945. The succession was supported by the USSR's former members and was not objected to by the UN membership; Russia accounted for 75% of the Soviet Union's economy, the majority of its population and 75% of its land mass; in addition, the history of the Soviet Union began in Russia with the October Revolution in 1917 in Petrograd. If there was to be a successor to the Soviet seat on the Security Council among the former Soviet republics, these factors made Russia seem a logical choice. Nonetheless, due to the rather inflexible wording of the UN Charter and its lack of provision for succession, the succession's technical legality has been questioned by some international lawyers.
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Reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) encompasses five key issues: categories of membership, the question of the veto held by the five permanent members, regional representation, the size of an enlarged Council and its working methods, and the Security Council-General Assembly relationship. The Member States, regional groups and other Member State interest groupings developed different positions and proposals on how to move forward on this contested issue.
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The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), commonly known as the San Francisco Conference, was a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations that took place from 25 April 1945 to 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, California, United States. At this convention, the delegates reviewed and rewrote the Dumbarton Oaks agreements of the previous year. The convention resulted in the creation of the United Nations Charter, which was opened for signature on 26 June, the last day of the conference. The conference was held at various locations, primarily the War Memorial Opera House, with the Charter being signed on 26 June at the Herbst Theatre in the Veterans Building, part of the Civic Center. A square adjacent to the Civic Center, called "UN Plaza", commemorates the conference.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 82 was a measure adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on June 25, 1950. The resolution condemned the "armed attack on the Republic of Korea by forces from North Korea", while calling for "the immediate cessation of hostilities" and for "the authorities in North Korea to withdraw forthwith their armed forces to the 38th parallel". The measure was adopted by a vote of 9 support, none opposed, and one abstention. The resolution passed since the Soviet Union was boycotting the UN for recognising Republic of China as China.
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Ukraine was one of the founding members of the United Nations when it joined in 1945 as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; along with the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukraine signed the United Nations Charter when it was part of the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent Ukraine retained its seat.
A United Nations Secretary-General selection was held in 1953 after Trygve Lie announced his intention of resigning. Lie had been at odds with the Soviet Union since the outbreak of the Korean War, and the negotiations for an armistice offered the opportunity for a new Secretary-General to turn the page. The British delegation dragged out the selection process as they campaigned for Lester Pearson of Canada, but he was vetoed by the Soviet Union. Other candidates fell short of a majority in the Security Council. After two weeks of deadlock, France proposed Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden as a dark horse candidate. Hammarskjöld was acceptable to both superpowers and was selected Secretary-General for a 5-year term.
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This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain . Country Studies. Federal Research Division. – Soviet Union (May 1989).
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