Reference Library
Peace Treaties from Basel to Amiens
A thematic collection of primary sources. Individual editorial notes identify authors, dates, editions and the scope of each translation.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsTwo Documents of the Formation of the USSR: the RSFSR–Ukrainian union treaty (1920) and Lenin's 'On Autonomisation' (1922)
The union treaty of December 1920 in which Russia and Ukraine recognised each other as independent states while merging seven commissariats, and Lenin's dictation of December 1922, in the week the USSR was founded, calling Stalin's 'autonomisation' plan 'administrative intoxication' and proposing a union limited to defence and foreign affairs. Two documents of the debate over how the federation was to be designed.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe Peace of Riga: the treaty between Russia and Ukraine and Poland (1921)
The twenty-six-article treaty that ended the Polish–Soviet war of 1919–1920, with the additional protocol to Article II fixing the frontier in detail. It settled the border (Western Belarus and Western Ukraine to Poland), non-interference, the option of nationality, minority rights, the waiver of reparations against 30 million gold roubles, the return of cultural property and archives, and of railway rolling stock. The frontier held until September 1939; Articles V, VII and XI remained matters of dispute for twenty years.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, its Secret Protocol, and the 1989 assessment
The non-aggression treaty signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop on 23 August 1939 and the secret additional protocol of the same day that divided the Baltic region, Poland and Bessarabia into 'spheres of interest' — together with Resolution 979-1 of 24 December 1989, in which the Congress of People's Deputies first officially acknowledged the protocol's existence and declared it 'legally void from the moment of signing'.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe Moscow Peace Treaty between the USSR and Finland (1940)
The treaty of 12 March 1940 and its protocol that ended the 105-day Winter War. Finland cedes the Karelian Isthmus with Viipuri, Ladoga Karelia, Salla and the islands of the Gulf of Finland and leases the Hanko peninsula for thirty years; the USSR withdraws from Petsamo. The new border cost Finland a tenth of its territory and displaced 400,000 people; it lay behind the Continuation War the following year and was confirmed by the 1944 armistice and the 1947 Paris treaty.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsPacific War Documents: from the Tripartite Pact to the Instrument of Surrender (1940–1945)
The Tripartite Pact (1940), the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact with the 1945 declaration of war, the Imperial Conference's 'Outline of National Policy in View of the Changing Situation' of 2 July 1941, the Hull Note (1941), the Potsdam Declaration, the Sino-Soviet Treaty and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender (1945): seven documents that opened and closed the Pacific War, in order.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThree Italian Surrender Instruments (1943–1945)
The twelve-article 'short armistice' signed at Cassibile on 3 September 1943, the forty-four-article Instrument of Surrender (the 'long armistice') signed by Badoglio and Eisenhower aboard HMS Nelson off Malta on 29 September, and the Instrument of Local Surrender signed at Caserta on 29 April 1945 by the plenipotentiaries of the German Commander-in-Chief Southwest, with its land, naval and air appendices. The authentic English texts of the three documents that run from Italy's exit from the war to the end of the Italian campaign.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsAllied Documents: the Tehran Military Conclusions, Eisenhower's D-Day Documents, the Yalta Declaration, the Potsdam Protocol (1943–1945)
The Tehran military conclusions of December 1943 that gave the second front a date and a structure; Eisenhower's Order of the Day and his unsent 'in case of failure' note (1944); and the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe of February 1945 promising free elections in liberated Europe. And the Potsdam Protocol of August 1945, which settled the occupation of Germany, reparations, Poland's frontier and the transfer of Germans in twenty-one sections. Four Allied documents, from the second front to the post-war settlement.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe Varkiza Agreement (1945)
The agreement between the Greek government and EAM that ended the December 1944 fighting in Athens (the Dekemvriana): nine articles on liberties, the raising of martial law, amnesty, hostages, the national army, the demobilisation of ELAS, the purge of the civil service and security services, and a plebiscite and elections. The scope of the amnesty in Article III and the disarmament in Article VI became the tinder of the Greek civil war. Translated from the State Department's English version.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe North Atlantic Treaty
The full text of the twelve-nation founding treaty signed in Washington in 1949: Article 4 on consultation when threatened, Article 5 treating an armed attack on one as an attack on all while leaving each Party "such action as it deems necessary", Article 9 establishing the Council, plus NATO's three footnotes.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe Warsaw Treaty
The full text of the eight-nation treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance: the Article 4 mutual-assistance clause mirroring NATO's Article 5, the Joint Command and Political Consultative Committee, and Article 11's promise to dissolve into an all-European security treaty.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsTwo Détente Agreements: the SALT I Interim Agreement (1972) and the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War (1973)
The SALT I Interim Agreement signed in Moscow in May 1972, which froze ICBM and SLBM launcher numbers and left verification to 'national technical means', and the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War signed in Washington in June 1973, in which a Soviet draft pledge of mutual nuclear non-use became, after a year of negotiation, an obligation to consult urgently whenever nuclear war threatened. The two documents at the core of Soviet–American détente. Appended at the end is President Carter's letter of 3 January 1980 to Senator Byrd asking that Senate consideration of the SALT II Treaty be delayed in light of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: a short document on how the détente treaties ended.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe Helsinki Final Act (Excerpt): the Declaration of Principles and the Confidence-Building Measures Document (1975)
The security section of the CSCE Final Act signed by thirty-five heads of state on 1 August 1975: the Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States, with its ten principles from sovereign equality and the inviolability of frontiers to respect for human rights and the self-determination of peoples, and the Document on confidence-building measures providing for prior notification of major military manoeuvres. The economic and humanitarian baskets are omitted.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsSALT II: Treaty, Protocol, Joint Statement and Backfire Statements (1979)
The 18 June 1979 treaty limiting US and Soviet strategic offensive arms, with agreed statements and common understandings, the protocol, guidelines for subsequent negotiations, and the Backfire statements. Korean translation of the US government text reproduced by FAS; the memorandum data tables are omitted.
Read the full text → Treaties & agreementsThe Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987)
The treaty signed in Washington on 8 December 1987 on the elimination of Soviet and US intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. Korean translation of the Russian treaty text; the memorandum of understanding and the elimination and inspection protocols are not included.
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