UN General Assembly
1954

50. We can hardly term successful an analysis of world events in which the course of history is portrayed as a meaningless jumble of facts brought into being by the malignant will of certain people who, as some speakers claimed, are intent upon upsetting the world order and whose troublesome behaviour presumably compels representatives of other States to engage in such pursuits as the armaments race, the stockpiling of atomic and hydrogen bombs, the formation of new blocs, the installation of new military bases in foreign territories and the preparation of plans for a new world war. We need hardly say that in our opinion such a conception of the course of world events shows no real grasp of the process of prehistorical development of human society. Those who reason in this way truly cannot see the forest for the trees. They fail to realize that there are laws which govern the process of historical development. Yet only by adopting this guiding principle is it possible to gauge correctly the significance of world events — such as the widespread movement of national liberation in Asian countries — and to determine the position and the tactics of the United Nations which, in turn, should serve as a basis for its programme of action in relation to these events.