Soviet Union and the United Nations

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

United Nations membership
Membership	Former full member
Dates	1945 (1945) – 1991 (1991)
UNSC seat	Permanent
Ambassadors	Andrei Gromyko 1946–1948 Yakov Malik 1948–1952 Valerian Zorin 1952–1953 Andrey Vyshinsky 1953–1954 Arkady Sobolev 1955–1960 Valerian Zorin 1960–1963 Nikolai Fedorenko 1963–1968 Yakov Malik 1968–1976 Oleg Troyanovsky 1976–1986 Yuri Dubinin 1986 Alexander Belonogov 1986–1990 Yuli Vorontsov 1990–1991 (last)

The Soviet Union was a charter member of the United Nations and one of five permanent members of the Security Council. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, its UN seat was transferred to the Russian Federation.

The Soviet Union took an active role in the United Nations and other major international and regional organizations. At the behest of the United States, the Soviet Union took a role in the establishment of the UN in 1945. The Soviet Union insisted that there be veto rights in the Security Council and that alterations in the United Nations Charter be unanimously approved by the five permanent members.

From the creation to 1955, there was a Western majority in the UN. Other nations joining the UN were limited. 1955 marked the end of American hegemony over the General Assembly, because as more nations became states, they were accepted into the UN. The new states were often just beginning to understand what being their own state meant as they were pushed into the organization where they were often asked to pick between the West and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union made many new allies this way.

The USSR initially protested the membership of India and the Philippines, whose independence was then largely theoretical (being basically colonies of the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively, in all but name). A demand by the Soviet Union that all fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics be recognized as member states in the UN was counter-demanded by the United States that all then 48 states be similarly recognized. Ultimately two Soviet Republics (Ukraine and Byelorussia) were admitted as full members of the UN, so between 1945 and 1991, the Soviet Union was represented by three seats in the United Nations.

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