Soviet Boycott of the UN Security Council (1950)

The Representation Dispute: Kuomintang or People's Republic

On 18 November 1949 the People's Republic of China demanded that the United Nations recognize it as the government of China and expel the Kuomintang representatives; the Soviet Union seconded the request the same month. On 8 January 1950 Zhou Enlai wrote to the Security Council asking it not to recognise the Kuomintang, and on 10 January the Soviet Union formally moved to exclude the Kuomintang delegation. Moscow tied the victory of the Chinese revolution directly to the Chinese seat on the Security Council.

The Walkout of 13 January and the Boycott

On 13 January 1950, when the Soviet motion to seat the People's Republic of China in place of the Republic of China (Taiwan) failed to win the required majority of seven, the Soviet ambassador, Yakov Malik, walked out of the chamber. He said he would not return so long as Tsiang Tingfu, the representative of the Kuomintang, held the Chinese seat; the boycott covered not only the Security Council but other UN bodies in which Kuomintang delegates were seated. It ran from 13 January to 1 August 1950.

The Empty Seat and Resolutions 82 to 85

On 25 June 1950 the army of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea crossed the 38th parallel and moved south. With the Soviet delegate absent, the Security Council passed Resolutions 82 to 85, providing military and civilian support to South Korea; the Soviet Union could not veto them. A manoeuvre intended to block Council action until it gave way on Chinese representation instead opened the way for the dispatch of UN forces, and cemented South Korea's survival as a member of the Western Bloc.

The Legal Battle and Malik's Return

The Soviets questioned the legality of Resolution 83, arguing that a vote taken without the USSR and the PRC could not be valid and that all five permanent members had to take part in decisions on important matters. The International Court of Justice held that the absence of a Council member counted as an abstention, and therefore the resolution was legal. In late July the Soviet Union informed the Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, that on 1 August Malik would return to the Council to assume its presidency, and he did so on that day.

How the Boycott Was Decided

The documentary record shows how the tactic was chosen. Shortly before Resolution 84 passed, Andrei Gromyko advised Stalin to return Malik to the Council; Stalin refused and ordered the boycott maintained. Stalin's letter to Klement Gottwald of 27 August 1950 remains the key surviving document setting out his reasons for the absence. The boycott was thus a calculated instrument of pressure on the Council and on Washington, and the unintended military consequences were an error in that calculation, not its purpose.

What Remains Contested

It is clear that Resolutions 82 to 85 could not have passed had the Soviet Union been present. That does not make the boycott the sole cause of the outbreak of the Korean War or of Moscow's decisions in it, and arguments about the war's origins and Stalin's intentions continue. After the episode the UN had to confront the problem of a permanent member's absence, and the People's Republic of China took the Chinese seat only in 1971.