Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1947-09-25
Up to Russia

The General Assembly as a whole, and
not merely its Steering Committee, has
now voted overwhelmingly on the side of
the United States in favor of trying to
make the United Nations an effective
instrument for peace. OF the fifty-fve
members, only six have persisted in say
ing mo" These constitute the so-called
Slav bloc. Two of them-the Ukraine and
White RusSia-are integral parts of the
U. S. S. r. Three-Poland, Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia-are satellites of Moscow.
The sixth. of course, is the Soviet Union
itself. Together they represent the sole
opposition to the idea of ending the
paralysis caused within the U. N. by the
Russian veto.
This opposition cannot be explained
simply on the ground of theological, cul
tural or historical differences between the
East and West. The members making up
the huge majority of the General Assem-
bly, come from all parts of the world and
vary greatly from each other In many
respects. Some of them, for example, are
not democratic in anything like the sense
that the United States is. Politically,
economically, culturally, racially linguis-
tically and otherwise, they are markedly
diverse, but by their words and their votes
they have made clear that they share this
one thing in common: An anxiety to
establish as good a peace as possible
through the kind of cooperation and
give-and-take the United Nations must
have to survive.
To that end. although not committing
HOY fo An hi
all but the six nay-saying members of the
General Assembly have agreed at least to
give full consideration to Secretary Mar
shalPs proposals to inject new life into
the U. N. Thus they have placed on the
agenda the proposals Cd to deal with the
Korean stalemate; CD to see what If any
thing can be done to pacify the Balkans
and safeguard Greece from its Soviet
Inspired neighborS; and 90 to establish
continuously sitting 55-nation committee
to serve the Assembly and the world as
kind of moral prod to the veto-ridden
Security Council. In the opinion of the
great majority, these and similar sug-
gested measures demand careful study and
debate and should be acted upon favor
ably If most members judge them to be
worthwhile. 1t is only the minority-a
decidedly weak one, numerically - that
insists upon letting the United Nations
limp along futilely =
1t is worth emphasizing that ordinary
theological and other differences cannot
adequately explain the stubbornness OF
the minority viewpoint. The minority, in
fact, boils down to the Soviet Union alone
for the bloc controlled by the Kremlin is
made up of puppets, not free agents. The
United Nation, in short, has come to
critical point, not because cooperation Is
impossible among diverse powers, but
primarily because the Stain government
wants to take all and give nothing, appar-
emily feeling that a sincere effort to
achieve basic meeting Of minds would
operate against its long-term detectives.
Such course can hardly be inter-
preted as anything but one designed to
promote chaos in order to encourage the
spread of Red totalitarianism. The veto
power has been Of great help to the Rus
slams In this sense, and hence their bitter
resistance to any move to circumvent or
modify 1t. Unless Affirmative action by
the General Assembly can force them to
change for the better collective security
will remain a dream. no matter how elo-
quently U. N Secretary General Trygve
Lie and other men of good will plead for
cooperation