Workers World, Vol. 2 No. 16
In the UN debate on the RB-47 plane incident, the U.S. made a proposal that a so-called international court of justice be set up to investigate the incident – in the USSR. The U.S. also proposed that the Red Cross, as an impartial agency, should be empowered to enter the USSR for purposes incident to the investigation. The Soviet delegate correctly vetoed this proposal in the UN Security Council.
The ground on which he did so was that it would be a “flagrant violation of the national sovereignty” of the Soviet Union, “unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union,” and an imperialist maneuver to get foreign agents into the USSR under the mask of an international court – or of the Red Cross.
Now if the USSR regards the entry of mere legal personnel and Red Cross officials as an infringement on its sovereignty (and rightly so), then how, practically in the same week, could the Soviet delegate to the UN proclaim that the intervention of foreign troops into the Congo, under a UN imperialist commander, did not constitute an infringement of the sovereignty of the Congo Republic?
This is especially pertinent in view of UN delegate Kuznetsov’s own eloquent indictment of Belgium and its imperialist NATO partners, the USA, Britain and France. It is no answer to say that Premier Lumumba called for military intervention by the UN. By this time, Lumumba himself has learned the significance of UN military “help.”
“Everything Secretary-General Hammarskjöld has done thus far has helped Tshombe and Belgians,” he is quoted as stating in Leopoldville in the August 9 issue of the New York Times.
Yes indeed, everything that Hammarskjold has done has helped not only Tshombe and the Belgians – but Wall Street as well. For Hammarskjold is now, and always has been, an imperialist agent, and his international missions are calculated to bolster, not to destroy, imperialist domination of oppressed countries. The troops under his command have helped to strengthen the imperialist penetration of the Congo rather than to weaken it. Indeed, as Congo Deputy Premier Antoine Gizenga pointed out, “United Nations troops are disarming our soldiers and allowing Belgian forces to keep their arms. ...”
Nor is it an answer to state that the USSR was obliged to vote for UN military intervention because the African states were in favor of it, and the USSR did not want to antagonize them. Events have proven this to be false too. It is a deliberate falsification to lump all the African states into one category, without regard to their actual degree of independence – to put an equal sign between the U.S. colony of Liberia and the United Arab Republic, or to equate a Wall St. puppet like Tubman with Nasser.
As a matter of fact, the more militant nationalist leaders in Africa have taken an entirely different view. An AP dispatch on August 9 to the Herald-Tribune states, “Leaders of nationalist movements for Uganda, Kenya, Somaliland, Zanzibar and Cameroon who live in exile here met to discuss ways of supporting the Congo people.
“John Kale, secretary of the National party of Uganda, said: ‘We advocate immediate creation of a unified national African army to face imperialist conspiracies against the Congo people. The Ugandan people are ready to enter battle for the liberation of the Congo.’”
Lumumba himself has just toured the African states and has obtained an agreement from most of them that they will meet in Leopoldville on August 25 for the purpose of setting up independent military forces – that is, independent of the UN – for the purpose of driving out the Belgians if they are still there on that date.
This is a clear recognition on the part of some of the African states that the use of their soldiers by the UN command has not helped the liberation of the Congo, but on the contrary has enabled the Belgians and U.S. military personnel to retain their stranglehold. Why else would they want to set up an independent military command when a UN command is already in the Congo?
The Soviet delegate had several alternatives open to him at the UN when the question of the Congo came up. He could have introduced a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of the Belgian imperialist troops in the Congo and setting a time limit for it to be done. This actually was his original proposal. However, he withdrew this proposal in favor of something quite different – a resolution which empowered the UN to send in troops to the Congo under an imperialist commander.
The question still persists in some quarters as to whether this move helped the Congolese liberation movement – or helped cover up imperialist penetration of the Congo under the mask of the UN. The best testimony on which a conclusion can be based is the statement of the Soviet delegate himself, at the second UN Security Council meeting. It is instructive to carefully read the pertinent parts of Soviet delegate Kuznetsov’s remarks, as quoted in the official UN verbatim release:
“Such a daring position on the part of Belgium, it is quite clear, can be adopted only because it has the wide support of its partner in NATO who are, in fact, carrying out undermining tactics against the Republic of the Congo and are endeavoring to achieve its dismemberment. The policy being followed by the governments of the NATO countries in relation to Katanga, as well as in relation to the Congo as a whole, is nothing but a policy of the encouragement of aggression and an endeavor to assist the foreign monopolies, under one pretext or another, to exploit the Congolese as formerly.
“... In action thus, the Belgian Government is carrying out the will of the Belgian and American monopolies which have plunged their greedy hands into the treasure chest of the Congo – which is Katanga – and are hoping to deprive the Congolese people of the national freedom and independence which they have bought with their own blood.”
“We must note with regret that the occupation of the Congo by Belgian troops, the atrocities and crimes committed by these troops against the Congolese people, the endeavors to dismember the young State, all this is being carried out in the presence of troops which were directed there on the basis of decisions of the Security Council and in full view of the Command of these troops. ... Instances have been known of the United Nations troops, instead of ensuring the speediest removal of the troops of the Belgian interventionists from the territory of the Republic of the Congo ... disarming the Congolese national armed forces and, in fact, entering into open conflict with them.”
Nevertheless, Soviet delegate Kuznetsov once again voted for UN military intervention under the control of the very same “monopolies which have plunged their greedy hand into the Congo,” and of the very same Hammarskjold who Pravda only the day before called a stooge of American imperialism and a “capitulator to the Belgians.”
The stand taken by the Soviet Union on Cuba is universally regarded by all genuine anti-imperialist and working class organizations as progressive and helpful in Cuba’s struggle against U.S. monopolist aggression. The timely military support offered by the USSR was a clear and unequivocal move to bolster the independent struggle of the Cuban revolutionary government, and at least for the time being, helped ward off U.S. military intervention. No UN maneuvers were involved here.
In the case of the Congo, the position is radically different. The Soviet Union offered help, but it did so in a manner which, reduced to practical terms, meant a cover-up for imperialist intervention in general and U.S. intervention in particular.
No one asks for unreasonable acts or military adventures on the part of the USSR. If the USSR felt that a military commitment to the Congo of the type offered to Cuba was too risky, or that the USSR was for any other reason incapable of taking on such a commitment at this time, under these circumstances it was its revolutionary duty and obligation to openly state so, and simply express political support to the Congolese.
Whatever the immediate motives of the Soviet leadership in the Congo situation, whatever aims or ends the Soviet leadership might have pursued, the objective result of their actions in this connection are clear for all who wish to see: the throttling of a revolution.
Let us review the sequence of the main events.
A monumental revolutionary situation developed in the Congo, in which for the first time in modern times, millions of Congolese openly, resolutely, and with dogged determination, attempted to free themselves from imperialist enslavement. The tidal wave of revolution was so strong and tempestuous, it went beyond the limitations originally set for it by its temporary leadership, headed by Lumumba.
Unable to stem the tide of revolution, bewildered by its magnitude, and panic-stricken by the revolutionary terror which the masses had unleashed upon their masters, the Congolese leadership unfortunately appealed to the UN for help. And the Belgian overlords attempted to utilize the confusion, vacillation and indecision within the Congolese leadership for their own imperialist ends.
This only compounded the original errors. It made confusion worse confounded. In the meantime, the Belgian imperialists utilized the time to set up a puppet regime in Katanga, and reinforced the separatist and secessionist tendencies (under the fraudulent name of “Confederation”) which they had long cultivated in the Congo.
A wise, tempered and revolutionary leadership, under these circumstances, would not have appealed to the imperialist-dominated UN. A wise, tempered and revolutionary leadership, faced with a situation where the mass movement was temporarily out of control, would have asked itself (as no doubt many are asking themselves now), is it better to have internal chaos, confusion, revolutionary excesses by the masses – yes, even anarchy – or is it better to have imperialist intervention? And the revolutionary answer, based upon centuries of oppression, is that it is much more preferable to go with the masses through all sorts of chaos, confusion, anarchy, starvation and destitution, rather than to again submit to imperialist domination.
If the Congolese people were able to survive the savagery, plunder and outright extermination by the Belgian slave-owners for as long as eighty years and still survive, certainly under present conditions they can survive the temporary disorder, inevitable chaos and suffering which accompanies the birth of every new, great social revolution.
This the new, young Congolese leaders did not know, and even less did they know the true role of the UN. But others in high and mighty places did know. But these others shamefully closed their eyes to it. They covered the hand of the imperialist aggressor.
In the critical hours of the evening of July 13, when the Security Council was still debating the Congo situation, and before the Soviet leadership had committed itself to the UN military intervention, Henry Cabot Lodge, the U.S. delegate, blurted out a revealing statement:
“Of course I have no objection to having the Republic of Congo invited, even though it doesn’t want to be (Liar! Liar!), provided that that is not made the pretext ... for delay and delay and delay. We are in a tremendous hurry in this matter.” (!!!)
Why the absolutely unprecedented haste? Because Mr. Lodge and his Wall street coterie were in a “tremendous hurry” to crush the Congo revolution.
Still, the Soviet delegate remained uncommitted until the wee hours of the morning of July 14. But then the final instructions arrived from Moscow to go along with the imperialist-inspired resolution for military intervention against the Congo revolution.
The whole responsibility for the Soviet decision lies upon Khrushchev and his ruling group in the Soviet Union.
Last updated: 11 May 2026