32

Solution of the
Frontier Problem

p The decisive role played by the Soviet Union in the Second World War and the presence of a socialist country among the victors created for the liberated European peoples the requisites for a just solution of postwar problems. The Soviet Union consistently pursued a policy of peace and defence of the national interests of all the peoples, and so became a big stumbling block to the imperialist plans of the US and British ruling circles.

p The United States and other Western powers, as related by John Campbell, secretary of the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, sought to wedge "a foot in the door of 33 Eastern Europe".  [33•1  They wanted to dictate to the peoples of Central and Southeast Europe their terms of a postwar peace settlement, to create a postwar system after the Versailles pattern, which would be spearheaded against the USSR and the revolutionary and democratic movement in the liberated countries.

p But the situation after 1945 radically differed from the one after the imperialist First World War. Since the Soviet Union had played a decisive part in the Allied victory and emerged powerful from the war, the United States, Britain and France were unable to turn the countries of Central and Southeast Europe against the first socialist state in the world as they did in the 1920s and 1930s. The peoples of Central and Southeast Europe were now able to solve national problems which for decades and even centuries had aggravated the international and internal positions of the countries in this area.

p For the first time in their history, the Polish people finally settled the question of frontiers and were able to reunite with their age-old lands in the West. In the struggle for the restoration of their rights the Polish people enjoyed the full support of the Soviet Government from the very outset. When the Krajowa Rada Narodowa, expressing the aspirations of the whole Polish people, early in 1944, proclaimed in its programme the aim of restoring a strong, independent, democratic Poland, the Soviet Government fully supported it. Thanks to the Soviet Union, Poland regained lands wrested from her by the German 34 invaders and a just eastern frontier was drawn. The Soviet Government stated that only in this way could confidence and friendship be established between the Polish, Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Russian peoples. The Soviet Government proposed the so-called Curzon Line, based on the ethnographic principle, as the eastern frontier of Poland.  [34•1  In the same statement the Soviet Government exposed the reactionary nature of the policy pursued by the London government-in-exile, which completely betrayed the interests of the people and by its actions in effect played into nazi hands.

p The question of Poland’s frontiers was discussed at the Yalta (Crimea) Conference of the heads of the three great powers in February 1945. The Western representatives attempted to change the course of events in Poland and, under the guise of defending Polish interests, they tried to impose their own decision of the frontier issue and the establishment of a Polish Government chiefly from among reactionary Polish emigres in London. Churchill, for example, demanded that the conference participants should not leave "without taking practical measures on the Polish question”. What he meant was the setting up of a Polish Government right there at the conference.  [34•2  The Soviet delegation, naturally, could 35 not agree with these proposals which, in fact, constituted a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of the Polish people. It declared that a Polish Government must not be set up without the Poles.

p Referring to the substance of the Polish question the head of the Soviet delegation stated that "for the Russians the question of Poland was not only one of honour but of security as well. It was a question of honour because in the past the Russians had greatly sinned against Poland. The Soviet Government was trying to atone for those sins. It was a question of security because the most important strategic problems of the Soviet state were connected with Poland. . . . Throughout history, Poland had always been a corridor for an enemy attacking Russia. . . . Why had enemies crossed Poland so easily until then? Chiefly because Poland had been weak. The Polish corridor could not be closed mechanically only by Russian forces on the outside. It could be reliably locked only from the inside, by Poland’s own forces. For that Poland must be strong. That was why the Soviet Union had a stake in creating a powerful, free and independent Poland. The question of Poland was a question of life and death for the Soviet state".  [35•1 

p As regards the Soviet-Polish frontier the Soviet delegation declared its acceptance of the Curzon Line with deviations from it in some areas in favour of Poland. At the same time the Soviet delegation demanded the return to Poland of her age-old Western lands, proposing that the frontier be established along the Western 36 Neisse. Not venturing openly to attack this Soviet proposal, Churchill confined himself to empty statements and pretended that he had the interests of Poland at heart. He said that Poland should take only as much territory as she could administer. "It would hardly be the proper thing to have the Polish goose so stuffed with German viands that it died of indigestion,” he rudely joked.  [36•1 

p In reality the head of the British Government was concerned with entirely different interests. Even during the war the British and US ruling circles wanted Poland to remain a political pawn in the hands of the imperialists and a convenient bridgehead for anti-Soviet ventures. Such aspirations, which aroused the indignation of both Polish democratic opinion and the Soviet people, were worthily rebuffed by the Soviet Government. "It should be borne in mind,” Stalin wrote to President Roosevelt on December 27, 1944, "that the Soviet Union, more than any other Power, has a stake in strengthening a pro-Ally and democratic Poland, not only because it is bearing the brunt of the struggle for Poland’s liberation, but also because Poland borders on the Soviet Union and because the Polish problem is inseparable from that of the security of the Soviet Union.”  [36•2 

p Faced with the unyielding stand of the Soviet delegation, the representatives of the United States and Britain were compelled officially to 37 recognise Poland’s rights to the ancient Polish lands in the West and in the North. The Yalta Conference "recognised that Poland must receive substantial accessions of territory in the north and west.”  [37•1 

p Subsequently, the Western frontiers of Poland were discussed at the Potsdam (Berlin) Conference (July-August 1945). The Heads of Government of the USSR, the United States and Great Britain agreed that Poland should receive the former German territories east of the line passing from the Baltic Sea somewhat westward of Swinemunde and from there along the Oder River up to the confluence with the Western Neisse and along the Western Neisse up to the Czechoslovak frontier, including the part of East Prussia not placed under the administration of the USSR, in accordance with the decision of the Potsdam Conference, and including the territory of the former free city of Danzig. In addition, the Potsdam Conference decided to move Germans from Poland to Germany, which logically followed from the decision to establish a new Polish frontier in the West.

p The question of the Soviet-Polish frontier was finally settled by the signing of a treaty between the USSR and the Polish Republic in Moscow on August 16, 1945. In conformity with the decision of the Yalta Conference, this treaty established the frontier between the USSR and Poland along the Curzon Line, with deviations from it, in favour of Poland, of 5-8 km in some areas.

p The reunification of Polish lands wrought deep 38 changes in the ethnographical, geographical and economic pattern of Poland, extended her territory and strengthened her economy. The Polish Republic (it is the eighth in Europe in territory) became one of the economically developed European states.

p The position of another Slav state, Czechoslovakia, was substantially strengthened after the war. With the help of the Soviet Union the Czech and Slovak peoples removed all consequences of the disgraceful Munich pact and related acts. Czechoslovakia was re-established within the frontiers which existed on September 1. 1938, with some changes in her favour. By decision of the Potsdam Conference, the German population which had served as fertile soil for imperialist agents, was transplanted from Czechoslovakia to Germany. Altogether, more than three million Germans left Czechoslovakia.  [38•1 

p The question of reuniting the Trans-Carpathian Ukraine—part of the pre-Munich Czechoslovakia—with the Soviet Ukraine was justly settled, so that for the first time in their history the entire Ukrainian people were united in one state. The settlement of the question of the Soviet- Czechoslovak frontier offered a striking example of unbreakable friendship between the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Republic.

p Postwar changes radically improved the position of Czechoslovakia in Europe; now she was to border in the north on the German Democratic Republic; in the east and south, on the Polish 39 People’s Republic, the Soviet Union and the Hungarian People’s Republic and, only on a relatively small section, on the Federal Republic of Germany.

p Thanks to the stand of the Soviet Government the issue of Transylvania was also finally settled on a just basis. In the interwar period and after the outbreak of the Second World War this issue had been used by the imperialist powers as bait for luring the ruling circles of Rumania and Hungary to their side. The Transylvanian question was regarded by external and internal reactionary forces as a convenient pretext for fanning chauvinism in both countries and advocating fascism. After the war the Second Vienna Award of August 30, 1940, was annulled.  [39•1  Under that Award Northern Transylvania (an area of 43,492 sq km with a population of 2.4 million) had been incorporated in Hungary under the pressure of nazi Germany and fascist Italy, Now the Hungarian frontiers which had existed prior to January 1, 1938, were to be restored.

p Other frontier questions, too, were settled in the interests of peace and of the respective peoples. National minorities in several European People’s Democracies were constitutionally guaranteed all rights on a par with the other citizens.

Frontier changes in Central and Southeast Europe helped to turn them into frontiers of friendship between socialist countries.

40

Armistice Agreements

p The defeat of nazi Germany, in which the soviet Union played the decisive part, created an entirely new situation and new possibilities for the peoples of the defeated states. All the foreignpolicy actions undertaken by the Soviet Union or with its participation from the first days of the liberation of the European countries, including’ the former allies of nazi Germany, were aimed at ultimately ridding their peoples of all traces of fascism and helping them to embark on a democratic road of development. This was evident in the signing of armistice agreements with Rumania (September 12, 1944), Bulgaria (October 28, 1944), and Hungary (January 20, 1945).

p In the drawing up of these documents the Soviet Government was not guided—and because of the nature of socialism could not be guided— by a feeling of revenge. It aimed to ensure future peace in Europe and this was inseverably linked with creating conditions for democratic development in the countries which participated in the war against the peace-loving peoples. The Soviet Union vigorously rejected attempts by the imperialist powers to intervene in the economics and politics of these countries, to violate their sovereignty and infringe upon their national dignity.

p The armistice agreements reflected the interests both of the victorious states and of the peoples of the defeated countries. They provided for the disbandment of all pro-nazi political, military, para-military and similar organisations within Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and elsewhere. This provision was important in uprooting the remnants of fascism in the defeated countries and 41 in strengthening the democratic forces. In addition, the armistice agreements enabled the peoples of the former allies of nazi Germany actively to campaign during the closing stages of the war for the defeat of the fascist aggressor, for their own liberation; this was crucial in restoring their national independence and state sovereignty.

p The armistice agreement with Rumania, for example, noted that Rumania, having terminated hostilities against the USSR in all war theatres on August 24, 1944, withdrew from the war against the Allies, severed relations with Germany and her satellites, rejoined the war on the side of the Allies against Germany and Hungary with the object of restoring her own independence and sovereignty, for which she would put up not less than 12 reinforced infantry divisions.

p In the final stages of the war, the Bulgarian Army and Hungarian units fought against the nazis, while their governments declared war on Hitler Germany.

p These circumstances greatly eased the armistice terms, specifically those related to compensation of losses inflicted on the Soviet Union and other Allies. Since Rumania and Hungary not only withdrew from the war but also declared war on Germany, the Soviet Union agreed to accept partial compensation of the losses inflicted by these countries upon it during the war. Rumania had to pay $300 million over six years in goods (oil products, grain, timber, sea-going and river vessels and diverse equipment). Hungary had to pay a similar sum over six years in goods ( industrial plant, river vessels, grain, cattle). Of this sum, the USSR was entitled to $200 million and Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia to $100 million. 42 These amounts represented an insignificant part of the losses inflicted on the USSR by the Rumanian and Hungarian fascists during their temporary occupation of Soviet territory.

p Soon after the signing of the armistice agreements Hungary and Rumania received considerable privileges in the payment of reparations. The term of payment was extended to eight years, and in 1948 the outstanding sum of reparations was cut by half.

p Reparations paid by Rumania, Hungary and other former allies of nazi Germany were nowhere near as onerous as they were after the First World War when the victors—the United States, Britain and France—utilised reparations to fetter the defeated states economically and to restore the aggressive might of German imperialism. The desire to strangle the defeated countries economically was alien to the Soviet reparations policy, which was based on realistic economic possibilities of Germany’s former allies. The payment of reparations, connected with the operation of the key industries, facilitated the early restoration of a number of industrial enterprises with the direct assistance of the USSR which supplied the necessary raw and other materials.

The armistice agreements, thanks to which several of important international problems were solved, greatly helped to create the prerequisites for the victory of the democratic forces in Central and Southeast Europe.

Preparation and Signing of Peace Treaties

p At the wartime Yalta Conference, the Soviet Government succeeded in getting decisions adopted which corresponded to the interests of 43 the liberated European peoples, and to the establishment of a lasting peace. In the "Declaration on Liberated Europe”, approved at the Conference, the governments of the USSR, the United States and Great Britain declared their agreement to assist the peoples liberated from the domination of nazi Germany and "the peoples of the former Axis satellite States of Europe" in solving by democratic means "their pressing political and economic problems".  [43•1  The governments of the three powers proclaimed their readiness to ensure "the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations".  [43•2 

p Thus, at Yalta the governments of the United States and Britain had to agree to accept democratic principles of a postwar peace settlement, though this did not conform to the aims they had pursued during and after the war. This was largely attributable to the outstanding victories of the Soviet Army in the war against the fascist aggressors, the enhanced prestige of the USSR and the growth of the revolutionary and democratic movement the world over. The same circumstances basically explain the consent of the Western governments to adopt joint decisions on a number of questions at the Potsdam Conference.

p That did not mean that the Western ruling circles really wanted to establish a democratic peace or to resolve questions of a postwar settlement justly. Despite their hypocritical statements about freedom and democracy and declarations 44 that they did not pursue any other aim except delivering the peoples from fascist tyranny, they actually tried to set up a system that would make all the European countries economically and politically dependent on them. In the United States and Britain, some statesmen had been quite explicit on this point even during the war. Expressing the viewpoint of influential circles Neil MacNeil, an American journalist, wrote outright as early as 1944 in his book An American Peace that the US Government should "effect a peace based on American principles. . . . We should insist upon an American peace. We should accept nothing less".  [44•1 

p Even earlier, Henry Luce, well-known spokesman of American imperialism, in his book The American Century referred to the United States as "the most powerful and vital nation”, and urged Americans "to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit".  [44•2 

p Immediately after the war their imperialist plans logically led Britain and the USA to renounce the jointly-adopted decisions on a postwar settlement, the principles elaborated and adopted as guidelines by the Big Three at the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences. They exerted much effort to impose an imperialist peace on the peoples of the defeated countries.

p A keen struggle arose over the framing and adoption of peace treaties with the former allies 45 of nazi Germany—Italy, Finland, Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria—and over the German problem; on one side stood the Western imperialist powers and, on the other, the Soviet Union supported by all peace-loving peoples and democratic world opinion.

p The Potsdam Conference of the Heads of Government of the Great Powers set up an ad hoc agency—the Council of Foreign Ministers— to do preparatory work for a peaceful settlement and discussion of other major questions; it was charged with the urgent task of drawing up peace treaties for Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland and the framing of proposals for settling outstanding territorial issues which had arisen out of the war in Europe.

p The first session of the Council of Foreign Ministers opened in London on September 11, 1945. It was attended by the ministers of five Great Powers—the USSR, the United States, Britain, France and China. The London session was to prepare draft peace treaties with Germany’s former allies, but owing to the truculence of the Western governments who sought to impose their will on the Soviet Union, the session was unable to cope with the tasks before it. The failure of the London session was regarded by the US and British ruling circles as a victory for their diplomacy. Nevertheless, afraid of a further rise in Soviet authority among Germany’s former allies and an even greater advance of the democratic movement in Europe, they had to agree to hold a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of three powers (the USSR, Britain and the United States) in Moscow to discuss questions of vital mutual importance. The Moscow meeting 46 (December 16-26, 1945) was a major step in preparing peace treaties with the former allies of nazi Germany. It elaborated the procedure for preparing the draft treaties, the composition and dates of the future peace conference.

p “In the drawing up by the Council of Foreign Ministers of treaties of peace with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland,” it was pointed out in the decision of the Moscow meeting, "only members of the Council who are or under the terms of the agreement establishing the Council of Foreign Ministers adopted at the Berlin conference are deemed to be signatory of the surrender terms, will participate unless and until the Council takes further action under the agreement to invite other members of the Council to participate on questions directly concerning them.”  [46•1 

p The Moscow meeting of the three Foreign Ministers laid down that the terms of the peace treaties for Italy would be formulated by the US, British, Soviet and French Foreign Ministers, and for Rumania and Bulgaria by the Soviet and British Foreign Ministers. It was further agreed that, after the drafts were prepared, a conference would be convened for considering the peace treaties with the above countries and that the conference would consist of the five members of the Council of Foreign Ministers and all members of the United Nations which had contributed substantial military force in the war against European enemy states. Representatives of 21 states were to participate in the peace 47 conference. It was also laid down that the conference would adopt recommendations, not decisions, and these would have to be examined by the signatories to the armistice terms for Italy, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland in drawing up the respective final texts of the peace treaties.

p As a result of persistent Soviet efforts to apply democratic principles in framing the peace treaties for the former nazi allies, draft treaties, just and democratic in the main, were submitted to the Paris Peace Conference which opened on July 29, 1946. With few exceptions on fundamental questions of their content, the Foreign Ministers of the great powers had adopted agreed decisions. This, however, did not deter the Western delegates from attempting to spurn the joint decisions and, with the support of delegates from capitalist countries dependent on them, to push through recommendations which violated the previously agreed decisions. They sought to impose on the defeated countries terms which would make them fully dependent on US and British monopoly capital. Such imperialist terms were especially pressed on Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.

p Imperialist circles conducted this diplomatic offensive to carry out their plans which had been hatched vis-a-vis Eastern Europe during the war and had been foiled by the swift advance of the Soviet Armed Forces. Winston Churchill’s "Balkan plan" held a prominent place among them; he wanted to invade the Balkans instead of opening a second front in Western Europe. William Neumann, an American historian, wrote subsequently that "a Balkan invasion would have 48 built a military barrier against Russian expansion and have given Britain and the United States a lever by which Eastern Europe’s orientation could have been turned westward".  [48•1 

p Thus, at the Paris Conference the imperialist states endeavoured to trample underfoot the national independence of the liberated peoples and restore on the Western frontiers of the USSR the old, prewar order by which neighbouring countries would become adjuncts of international imperialism.

p By contrast with the period after the First World War when Great Britain, France and the United States had been the main architects of the postwar system, the Soviet Union now played a paramount part in the peace settlement. It opposed the Western policy with a policy of democratic peace and equality of the nations, implacably exposing all the artifices of imperialist diplomacy and upholding to the end both its own interests and the interests of all the peoples.

p Georgi Dimitrov, speaking about the fundamental difference in the two postwar situations, noted at the enlarged Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ (Communist) Party of Bulgaria in August 1946: "There is a big difference between the situation today and that after the First World War. Today the Soviet Union is powerful and invincible.. .. Today the terms of the peace treaties are discussed not in secret chancelleries and offices. Today international democracy is able to influence the 49 decisions taken with regard to the future peace. This is a fact of exceptionally great importance.”  [49•1 

p Two opposing tendencies clashed on the question of peace treaties with former enemy states: on the one hand, the Western desire to impose imperialist terms of peace on the defeated countries; on the other, the Soviet struggle to prepare for the former enemy states democratic, just peace treaties, and to establish stable international co-operation based on recognition of the equality and legitimate interests of all countries and peoples, big and small. The proceedings of the Paris Peace Conference were marked by obstinate struggle of these two tendencies developing from the outset on a number of major territorial, economic and political issues directly linked with the draft peace treaties.  [49•2 

p The Soviet delegation, for example, opposed the unjustified claims on age-old Bulgarian and Albanian lands made by the Greek Government and backed by Anglo-US imperialist circles. The Greek Government laid claim to one-tenth of Bulgaria’s territory and a considerable part of Albania. It demanded, supposedly for rectifying frontiers, the valley lying to the north beyond the Rhodope Mountains in the interior of Bulgaria. Satisfaction of these demands would have shifted the northeastern frontier of Greece considerably to the north and brought it nearer to Bulgaria’s vital areas.

50

p The Greek Government backed its claims on Bulgarian territories by “strategic” considerations, the desire to “defend” its frontiers from the Bulgarian side. Needless to say, Bulgaria because of her peaceable policy did not and could not threaten anyone, Greece included.

p The US and British ruling circles supported the Greek demands, thereby violating the decisions agreed in the Council of Foreign Minister!; which left the Bulgarian frontiers unchanged. Thus, Warner, Britain’s representative in the committee on political and territorial questions for the peace treaty with Bulgaria, peremptorily declared that the Greek claims to part of Bulgarian territory were justified and that the reasons given for them were based on “strategic” considerations and were weighty. The Western powers could not find another reason for the Greek claims since Bulgarians have been living since times immemorial within this territory.

p In their support for the unjustified Greek demands, the US and British Governments were prompted by a desire to bring pressure to bear on the Bulgarian Government and to prevent radical economic and political changes. This is demonstrated in particular by the statement made by the US delegate on October 1, 1946, to the political committee of the conference to the effect that some delegations had several times mentioned the progress of democratic institutions of the Bulgarian Government and noted that the Bulgarian Government intended to maintain friendly relations with Greece. The US delegation had not been impressed by these arguments; 51 on the contrary, the US delegation entertained serious doubts concerning the development of democracy in Bulgaria as it understood it.  [51•1 

p The Soviet delegation revealed the underlying reason for the Greek claims on Bulgarian lands. In a bitter struggle in the political committee on the peace treaty with Bulgaria it succeeded in upholding the proposal of the Council of Foreign Ministers to preserve the former Bulgarian-Greek frontier. The overwhelming majority of the delegations, including those of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, voted in the committee for the proposal to retain the existing frontier. This notwithstanding, at the plenary session of the conference, the leader of the British delegation headed a group of delegations which abstained from voting on the question of preserving the Bulgarian-Greek frontier; as a result the conference took no decision at all. This was explained by the desire of the Western powers to deepen the dispute by supporting Greece’s unjustified demands, and to turn it into an instrument of pressure on Bulgaria.

p But the Soviet Union firmly upheld the interests of the Bulgarian people. The next session of the Council of Foreign Ministers in New York (November 4-December 13, 1946), having examined the recommendations of the Paris Conference, finally approved a decision on the strength of which it was recorded in the Treaty of Peace 52 with Bulgaria that "the frontiers of Bulgaria . . . shall be those which existed on January 1, 1941".  [52•1 

p The imperialist claims of the Greek ruling circles to part of Albanian territory were similarly turned down thanks to the principled stand of the USSR.

p At the Paris Conference and then at the New York session of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Soviet Government also upheld the only democratic decisions consolidating peace in Europe on other territorial questions recorded in the armistice terms (annulment of the decisions of the Vienna Awards in 1938 and 1940, and others).

p A keen struggle was fought at the Paris Conference on the economic aspects of the peace treaties with Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria. The Soviet delegation championed the decisions recorded in the armistice agreements with Rumania and Hungary, taking into consideration the privileges gained by these countries from the USSR.

p The Soviet Government frustrated the attempts of US imperialism to utilise, as a means of blackmail and pressure on the Hungarian Republic, the property removed from Hungary into the American occupation zones of Germany and Austria. The United States made a settlement of the question of this property conditional on a change in the composition of the Hungarian Government and its renunciation of close economic and political co-operation with the USSR and other People’s Democracies. The Soviet 53 Union succeeded in having the Paris Conference and the New York session of the Council of Foreign Ministers approve the reparations terms recorded in the armistice agreement with Hungary.

p The USSR also defended the Bulgarian Republic from the excessive reparation demands made by the Greek Government. First Greece demanded reparations of $985 million, a sum it subsequently reduced to $708 million, while at the Paris Conference it abandoned the astronomical figure and reduced its reparation claims still further to $125 million. Yet even this sum was greatly exaggerated. Just as in its territorial claims, the Greek Government was energetically supported by the United States, Britain and other capitalist powers which sought to exert political pressure on the Fatherland Front Government. Thanks to the efforts of the Soviet Union, the peace treaty with Bulgaria incorporated just decisions on reparations which did not infringe upon Bulgaria’s national independence and sovereignty. The sum of reparations was fixed at $70 million to be paid over eight years. Greece was to receive $45 million and Yugoslavia $25 million.

In an effort to restore their positions in the countries of Central and Southeast Europe the Western governments employed a favourite old method—reference to the so-called equal opportunities principle. On October 10, 1946, Ernest Bevin, the head of the British delegation, introduced in the commission on economic questions for Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland, the proposal that the "equal opportunities principle" be applied on the territory of former enemy 54 states for trading, industrial and enterprising activity of "all the United Nations”, that is, all states which not only actually but even formally belonged to the anti-Hitler coalition. This in effect would have meant licence for imperialist plunder in these countries and deprived them of the right to decide their own affairs. The imposition of such an approach to defeated small countries weakened by the war would actually have destroyed their economic independence and subordinated their economies to the interests of the imperialist powers.

Solution of the Danubian Problem

p Solution of the Danubian problem, which for a long time had been utilised by the imperialist states for fanning hostility among countries of the Danubian area and consolidating their control in it, was of great importance for the young People’s Democracies.

p After the war the United States, with the active support of Britain and France, took every measure to restore the old imperialist regime on the Danube, to bar the Danubian countries from settling the question of shipping on the Danube which is of vital importance for them, and to reintroduce the privileged position of the Western powers in the Danube basin. To achieve this end, the Western powers raised the question of internationalising the Danube, hoping to settle it by means of the "voting machine”, the bloc of capitalist states mainly dependent on the USA and created by it at the Paris Conference.

p The Western powers wanted to impose their will not only on the defeated Danubian states— Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria—but also on Danubian countries which belonged to the anti- 55 Hitler coalition and were present at the Paris Peace Conference among the victorious countries (the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia). But the firm policy of the Soviet Union completely foiled the schemes to utilise the Paris Conference for imposing an imperialist navigation regime on the Danubian countries. The New York session of the Council of Foreign Ministers, which examined the recommendations of the Paris Conference, accepted the Soviet proposal and recorded it in the following wording in the treaties of peace with Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania: " Navigation on the Danube shall be free and open for the nationals, vessels of commerce, and goods of all States, on a footing of equality in regard to port and navigation charges and conditions for merchant shipping. The foregoing shall not apply to traffic between ports of the same State.”  [55•1 

p Moreover, the Council of Foreign Ministers decided to convene a conference to frame a new convention on the navigation regime on the Danube. The conference was to be attended by representatives of the Danubian states (the USSR, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Hungary) and also representatives of member states of the Council of Foreign Ministers—the United States, Great Britain and France. Delegates of Austria were invited to the conference with an advisory vote.

p The Danubian Conference in this composition 56 opened in Belgrade on July 30 and ended on August 18, 1948.

p The United States, Britain and France came to the conference with the selfsame imperialist plans. In contrast to this, the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies demanded the establishment of a navigation regime which would be based on the principle of equality of the Danubian states and prevent a revival of domination by the imperialist powers. The Soviet delegation vigorously rejected the Western efforts to impose their will on the Danubian states by threats and ultimatums.

p The exertions of the Western powers which referred to their “acquired” rights with regard to the Danube, were unsuccessful. Having taken as a basis the Soviet draft, the delegations of the Danubian countries, after a persistent three-week struggle against the imperialist encroachments, drew up and signed a new convention on the navigation regime on the Danube which fully met the interests of all the riparian states. It was based on the principle of protecting the sovereign rights of countries in the Danube basin.

p The Danubian Conference proclaimed that free navigation on the Danube should be effected "in conformity with the interests and sovereign rights of the Danubian countries and also for the purpose of strengthening the economic and cultural ties of the Danubian countries among themselves and with other countries. . . .”  [56•1 

p Article 1 of the Convention fully reproduces the respective articles of the peace treaties with Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary concerning 57 freedom of navigation on the Danube. But the Convention precludes any possibility for utilising this freedom for intervention in the domestic affairs of Danubian states. It extends the international regime only to the navigable part of the Danube (and not to the territory along the river banks)—from Ulm to the Black Sea, through the Sulin Mouth, with an outlet to the sea through the Sulin Canal (Article 2).

p The Convention envisaged the setting up of a Danubian Commission from representatives of the Danubian countries, one from each. The Soviet Union ceded second place in the commission in favour of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The competence of the Danubian commission includes: supervision over the implementation of the decisions of the Convention on the navigation regime on the Danube; drawing up of a general plan of main work in the interest of navigation on the basis of proposals and projects of Danubian states and also the compilation of a general estimate of the expenditure for these jobs. In special cases the Commission acts as an economic organisation which performs work on the Danube when a riparian state is unable to do it itself. The Commission offers consultations to Danubian states and authorities concerning the performance of jobs, establishes a single system of navigation management, unifies the rules of river supervision, keeps navigation statistics, issues manuals, sailing directions, navigation maps and atlases, draws up the budget and collects duties from vessels (Article 8).

p The principle of observing the sovereign rights of the riparian countries thus permeates all the articles of the Convention. In contrast to the old 58 Danubian Commission, the new one does not stand above state bodies of Danubian states and is not the unlimited master in the basin of the Danube. It is an agency of the riparian states which carries out their will and is subordinate to them in all respects.

p The Convention was adopted at the Belgrade Conference by representatives of all Danubian states and signed by them on August 18, 1948. The Western powers—the United States, Great Britain and France—refused to recognise the democratic navigation regime on the Danube; their representatives voted against the Convention and refused to sign it.

p In May 1949, the Convention came into force. It put an end to the unjust regime on the Danube which had existed for about 100 years. For the first time a democratic status was instituted in the legal regime of a major international waterway, a status which met the sovereign rights of all the riparian states, precluded any possibility for the imperialist monopolies to penetrate the basin of the Danube, and conformed to the radical changes in this area after the Second World War.

The new regime, instituted by the Danubian Convention, is fully based on the principles of equal rights and mutual: non-interference of countries in each other’s affairs. It opened up big prospects to the Danubian countries (at present Austria, too, belongs to the countries represented on the Danubian Commission) in using this waterway. The Convention on the navigation regime on the Danube promoted the strengthening and development of economic co-operation and cultural ties between the USSR and European socialist countries.