Workers World, Vol. 9, No. 14, July 7, 1967
The inevitable has happened once again at the UN. The world organization which has for all these many years been painted up as the “guardian of peace” and the “enemy of aggressive wars” has once again proved itself to be the pliable tool of U.S. imperialism. Again, as on so many other occasions, the paid publicists of imperialist finance, its flunkies and clients are crowing over the diplomatic victory which some of them describe as “almost as significant as the one on the battlefield.” (N.Y. Times, July 6, 1967)
The truth of the matter, however, is that the issue of condemning the aggression against the Arab people through a UN edict, and redressing the terrible harm done was never really in doubt for a single moment.
The shame of it all is that the leadership of the Soviet Union knew all along that the whole business of calling the General Assembly into special session was nothing but an exercise in futility. It was a cunning maneuver carefully stage managed to convey the aura of a great and dramatic fight but the outcome of it was absolutely beyond doubt. It was undertaken in the knowledge that it would be defeated only because some credible means was urgently needed to counteract the Soviet capitulation in joining with the U.S. to steamroll through the Security Council resolution calling for the infamous cease-fire which was imposed on the Arab People.
It is difficult to believe that any of the statesmen at the UN, no matter from what delegation and no matter how naïve, could avoid knowing the results beforehand.
As always the only parties that were deceived were the broad masses of the people, the millions upon millions who were led to believe, on the basis of Soviet policy, that the United Nations as presently constituted is a force for peace and a progressive factor in world relations. All this despite incontestable proof to the contrary, such as the UN experience in the Congo and Korea, as well as elsewhere.
It is also inconceivable that the Soviet leaders genuinely believed that the military aggression against the Arab People could be reversed by diplomatic means. The Soviet leadership today has more diplomatic contact throughout the world and an accumulation of experience in contemporary world affairs second to none, especially when one considers the giant impact of the Soviet state in the world arena today. It is therefore quite impossible that the Soviet leaders did not know in advance that the Assembly vote would go substantially the way it did. The Soviet leaders must also have known that if there was a real doubt about the outcome of the struggle in the UN, that is assuming that it was a genuine struggle, the U.S. government would never have permitted it in the first place. The U.S. would break the organization up long before it ever came to such a pass or would maneuver its way out in such a way as to completely paralyze the organization.
It must never be forgotten (and the Soviet leaders surely know this) that since the very day the UN was founded the U.S. has consistently maintained full and operative control of the UN machinery. It has never for a moment relinquished it. Furthermore, the infrastructure of the UN is built in such a way that if the U.S. does not maintain exclusive control it can certainly share it with the leading imperialist powers through control over the Security Council. That is where the U.S. scored its initial victory.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly that no one was asking the Soviet leaders to take reckless military adventures. No one demanded unreasonable acts of them. And the situation was not one that necessarily posed the threat of a direct confrontation with the U.S., which the leaders of the Soviet Union are continually using as a weapon of fear to cover up their betrayals.
The issue reduces itself to whether the Soviet leadership was obligated to accede to U.S. demands for a cease-fire in the Security Council and impose it on the Arab People. It is the imposition of this cruel surrender on the Arab People which is the crux of the matter.
All that was required of the Soviet Union as an ally of the Arab states in the existing circumstances was to vigorously oppose the attempt of the U.S. government to use the UN to impose a cease-fire on the Arab People, particularly at a time when the Israeli puppet regime had invaded much of the territory of the UAR, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Jordan. It was the solemn duty of the USSR delegation and the other socialist countries and their allies to vigorously fight this outrageous and flagrant attempt by U.S. finance capital to manipulate the world body and make it its willing tool.
In addition to such a diplomatic and political defense at the UN of the Arab liberation struggle against U.S.-Israeli aggression, the USSR was also obligated to continue an uninterrupted flow of economic and military assistance in accordance with its pledges to the Arab People. By acceding to the U.S. cease-fire demand it halted the struggle and left the aggressive Israeli forces with the fruits of their aggression and made it more difficult for the Arab people to resume the struggle. The fact that the USSR is resuming shipments now may lessen some of the difficulties but it is no substitute for the USSR not living up to its promises of giving fraternal aid and assistance to the Arab People in time of overriding need.
The most lamentable aspect of the Soviet role in the Mideast crisis, and in particular the UN debate, is the effort of the Soviet press to palm off the so-called Yugoslav or non-aligned resolution as a victory. “Never before in the history of the UN have so many states voted against the U.S. position on such an acute international issue.” This statement of Tass on July 5 is true enough. It further adds “that fifty-three countries voted for the non-aligned draft resolution and forty-six countries together with the U.S. voted against it.”
The Tass release fails to make plain that this vote was not a clear denunciation of U.S.-Israeli aggression. It merely called on Israel to pull back to the pre-war borders. The amendments to indict the U.S.-Israeli aggression submitted by Albania and also Cuba were defeated by a much larger margin. One merely has to look at some of the votes for the Yugoslav resolution to gauge its significance. Thus we find imperialist France and Japan as well as the fascist dictatorships of Indonesia, Spain and Greece and other dubious allies as supporters of the resolution. The deeper significance of having these allies in this covering resolution can scarcely be underestimated.
The fact of the matter is that in a showdown which would require positive action they would be on the other side of the fence. The votes of these dubious allies are dictated by interests and motivations which have little to do with the anti-imperialist struggle of the Arab and other peoples who are fighting for liberation. True friends, like the People’s Republic of China, are not listed in the UN vote tabulation as though this tremendous revolutionary ally of the liberation struggle did not exist.
Of course, the initiators of the Yugoslav resolution couldn’t stop anybody from voting for it, but if the resolution had any real anti-imperialist substance or teeth to it one can scarcely imagine Franco, DeGaulle, Suharto, the new fascist clique in Greece, the reactionary police dictatorship in Turkey and others of their ilk siding with the anti-imperialist cause. The character of a struggle that one initiates is often determined not only by the nature of the adversary but also by the character of the allies.
It is a gauge of the seriousness of the struggle put up by the Brezhnev-Kosygin-Tito leadership that they could gather this motley crew of reactionaries on the side of their resolution. It is proof of its innocuousness, rather than its effectiveness.
There are those who say that the Soviet leadership rendered a service to the anti-imperialist struggle by bringing the Mideast question to the UN because it helped expose the hand of U.S. imperialism in the Israeli aggression.
It is one thing to try to utilize any bourgeois parliamentary forum to expound a revolutionary position and to expose imperialism. (Certainly the Albanian and Cuban representatives did.) It is something else, however, to deliberately sow illusions, to practice deceit upon the masses and in the course of it all to embellish the UN as an instrument of peace instead of exposing it as a tool of imperialism.
Last updated: 11 May 2026