CDKW00630 - Canadians Respond to the Soviets

Although the ground war in Korea was fought with North Korean and Chinese troops, the most evident spot of tension within the United Nations in Ottawa’s view was with the Soviet Union. By November 1953, the Canadian delegation was openly speaking against the Soviet delegation in New York, arguing that there was a reason they were consistently voting alone against disarmament votes and that their “inflexible attitude” made progress nearly impossible on this front. In particular, the Canadian delegation was frustrated with the Soviet insistence that they desired to pursue disarmament, but resisted presenting any of their own plans or genuinely discussing nuclear controls with other UN members. External to the negotiations, however, this statement also indicates a number of fascinating views of Canadian diplomats on communism’s influence—namely that it was incapable of understanding different cultures and beliefs and could therefore shock various parts of the world into confusion and disorder. To this end, the Canadian delegation highlighted the religious persecution of groups within the Soviet bloc, indicating that their domestic actions were incongruous with their stated goals of international peace.