Posted on the right is a carefully cataloged list of the international treaties that the Soviet Union signed and agreed to abide by during the course of their first forty years (1920 – 1960). Printed next to these agreements are listed the dates the Soviets chose to violate the treaties and the direct results that ensued (not listed is their 1939 Non-Aggression Pact with the Nazis; the only agreement they didn’t violate).
“It would be mad and criminal to tie one’s hand by entering into an agreement of any permanence with anybody.” – V.I. Lenin
Published by the U.S. Government Printing Office for distribution within the American armed forces, this 11 page pamphlet is peppered with colorful quotes by Lenin, Stalin and G.E. Zinoviev that all illustrate the foolishness of keeping to any binding agreement with anyone.
On the last page appears a paragraph by President Kennedy’s Secretary of State, Dean Rusk (1909 – 1994), that served as a tidy legal disclaimer, pointing out that the Soviets hadn’t violated all their international agreements, just most of them. When the Soviet Archives opened in the early 1990’s it was discovered what the pessimists believed all along: the Communists cheated on every nuclear disarmament agreement.
Additional magazine and newspaper articles about the Cold War may be read on this page.
Click here to read an article about American public opinion during the early Cold War years
Click here to read about the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact.
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