861.032/23: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State

740. The speech of the President of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR,81 A. N. Kosygin, at the fifth session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR proposing the creation of Union [Page 835] Republican People’s Commissariats for Defense and for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR closely followed the lines of Molotov’s speech on the same subject at the tenth session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. With reference to the establishment of a Union Republican Commissariat for Defense Kosygin pointed out that this proposal was in line with the Lenin–Stalin nationality policy and gave all the nationalities included in the Soviet Union an opportunity to participate as national groups in the Red Army. He emphasized the importance of the new commissariat in the field of military training and military schools and stated that the new commissariat would work closely with the People’s Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR and the Soviet of People’s Commissars and Commissariats of Education in the autonomous republics as well as with the Oblast82 and municipal executive committees. He emphasized the experience which these organizations had already had in the field of civilian defenses and the organization of anti-aircraft and anti-gas defenses.

With reference to the formation of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR Kosygin stated that this step would strengthen international relations and asserted that it was necessary since the conduct of all international relations through the Central Commissariat for Foreign Affairs had been shown not to satisfy the specific economic and cultural needs of the peoples of the constituent republics which require a more complicated and developed organization of these ties. This will be achieved only on the basis of the rights granted to the Union Republics for the establishment of independent foreign relations.

Kosygin emphasized that the constituent republics of the Soviet Union were sufficiently large, well developed and economically endowed [to] justify the granting to them of the right to conduct their own foreign affairs and drew comparisons between the RSFSR and various European states.

Full summary follows by air mail.83

Harriman
  1. Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.
  2. Region.
  3. Not found in Department files.