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[THE USSR AND THE ARAB LEAGUE] Liga arabskikh gosudarstv [i.e. The League of Arab States]

Lutskii, V.

Item #2283

Moscow: Pravda, 1946. 28 pp. 21,5х14 cm. In original printed wrappers. Minor foxing on covers, small water stain on lower edge of p.11-12, stamp of F.T. Kuminsky’s library on t.p., otherwise very good.

Feodor Timofeevich Kuminsky (1900-1966) was a well-known book collector who gathered thousands of Old Believers’ books, manuscripts, as well as numerous 20th-century books.

Transcript of a public lecture on the Arab League and Soviet foreign policy toward the organization given at the Lecture Hall in Moscow on March 5, 1946.
The lecture was performed by Arab historian Vladimir Lutskii (1906–1962). He is the author of more than 100 works on the national liberation movement of the Arab peoples, as well as the fundamental work “Modern History of the Arab countries”. The latter was translated to English (1966) and Arabic (1971) languages.
During his study in Rostov University Lutskii was arrested for zionist propaganda among students and was exiled from the USSR in 1923. For a couple of years Lutskii lived in Mandatory Palestine where he joined a local Communist party. In 1926, he came back to the USSR. He enrolled in the Arab Department of the Diplomacy Faculty in Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies in 1930. After graduation, Lutskii worked in various institutes and universities in the USSR, founding the modern school of Soviet Arab historians.
This lecture was held a year after the foundation of the Arab League. In the main tendency of ideologically controlled works, the lecture was mostly focused on the struggle for independence in Eastern counties. Lutskii said: “Understanding that the open struggle with this movement would only worsen its positions in the Arab East, England decided to support this movement in order to put it under its control, use it in its interests and goals, to give it the form that is most acceptable for its political plans.” He briefly overviewed the history of foreign affairs of Arab states, including annexation of territories by the Ottoman Empire, negotiations with European countries and 20th-century liberation movements. Lutskii elaborated on the foundation of the Arab League, its solutions toward Syria and Lebanon, Palestine, the Greater Syria Plan, and its relations with the United Nations.
Since this paragraph, the Soviet Union stood forward in the lecture. During the first session of the General Assembly, Syria and Lebanon were forced to turn to the Security Council, objecting to the location of the Anglo-French troops in their territories. “Their demand was energetically supported by the head of the Soviet delegation A. Vyshinsky. The powerful voice of the USSR stood in defense of Syria and Lebanon. With all its enormous international authority, immeasurably growing as a result of victory over Hitlerism, the Soviet Union defends the principles of sovereign equality and the rights of small peoples.” Then Lutskii turned to the diplomatic relations between the USSR and the Arab states.
Actions of the Soviet delegation at a session of the General Assembly had its effect on some Arab politicians, but not all. Lutskii ended the lecture with common position of Soviet officials. “We must not forget that along with progressive national elements that defend the freedom and independence of the Arab countries and show sympathy for the Soviet Union, the Arab states also have reactionary elements that participate in anti-Soviet conspiracies and intrigues and spread false provocative rumors about Soviet politics. Soviet official attitude toward the Arab League depends on the way the League will choose”.
Soviet jurist and diplomat Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) gained national infamy as a state prosecutor during the Great Purge. In the late Stalinist era, he was appointed Soviet foreign minister and became permanent representative of the Soviet Union to the United Nations.

Worldcat shows copies located in UC Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Brigham Young Universities, Ralph J. Bunche Library.

Price: $550.00