The myth of Soviet expansionism after WWII(3)
When the framework of United Nations was being prepared in the state Department, The Soviet-Union was one of its founding members met at the Dumbarton Oaks conference on August 21, 1944. the most important and difficult issue discussed in the debates between the Russian, British and Americans was the veto power and the conditions of its implementation. The principle of the great -power veto was not under discussion at Dumbarton Oaks but only the extent to which it should be used when a great power is a party to a conflict. On December 5, 1944, the State department forwarded a compromise proposal to Russia and britian providing that only the greta powers should have the right to veto any sanctions or other action against themselves but not to prevent the discussion of a dispute with another member of the UN, little or big. this was accepted and became the permanent provision in the UN charter. It was agreed that the United States must retain a veto over the ultimate use of force and the same weapon was conceded only to the other great powers. This was a real gain since in the League of nations every member had had a veto in both the Assembly and the Council.
During the San Francisco Conference, Molotov in his opening address that the Soviet Governement was ” sincere and firm champion of the estabslshment of a strong international organization of security” andthat in “our country During the San Francisco Conference the Russians fully cooperated with West. Among these concessions there were Russian opposition to any autonomy for regional security systems unless directed at a renewal of German aggression, accepted three important modifications of the veto power acquiesced in strong outlawry war proposals after opsoing them earlier compromised with the Unietd states on the trusteeship , made two important concessions to the middle-sized nations in connection with the Security council agreed finally to an amendment on peaceful change agreed at last that the Security council should have real power to recommend terms for the settelement of disputes.
This was certainly not the recod of an expansionst and domineering government vetoing everthing right and left and refusing to play except on its own terms on the contrary that was the recod of a government willing to make real and important concessions which might be used gainst later in order to get agreement for a greta undertaking in cooperation. Compared with these concessions made at san Francisco Conferenced ended on June 26, 1945, it might be unfair to label the Soviet government an aggressor nation. the Soviet Union played a key role in the creation of the UN as a new organization devoted to preserve peace and security in the aftermath of the Second World War. The United Nations was an improvement on the old, rejected League of Nations in many details notably the curtailment of the veto right to the greet powers. at every Allied conference the Russians made known their conception of the UN it should be a body led by the greet powers preferably by the USA and the USSR
As it was the case with the League of nations, the United Nations was conceived by the Soviet Union as a bulwark against future aggression and future aggressive powers. That was the real meaning of the veto right insistently claimed by the Soviet Government aiming at containing irresistible inclination of the United States for her quest for hegemony and imperialism after the collapse of the two old colonial empire, the British and the French;