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From its beginnings in 1922, the foreign policy of the Soviet Union has pursued one overriding objective : the preservation of the empire. This policy's dialectic is in conformity with the Soviet doctrine which holds that international relations are but relations of production. Soviet foreign policy has always sought international legal guarantees to protect the conquests of empire and socialism. Ideologically, the U.S.S.R. has always been opposed to the idea of European unity. European integration has traditionally been viewed by the Soviet empire as the ultimate endeavour of capitalism prior to the latter's final crisis. This basic policy option had been adopted by the socialist countries of Europe.From 1922, when the Soviet Union had accorded the E.E.C. de facto recognition, several countries of Eastern Europe had expressed their respective attitudes with regard to European integration. The Helsinki and Belgrade C.S.C.E., the final result of which was only a diplomatic declaration, emphasized the idea of East-West cooperation. European cooperation, deriving from a compromise between economic "necessity" and political "illusion," should provide practical results rather than ideas. De jure recognition of the E.E.C. by the U.S.S.R. and the Eastern Europe countries also constitutes an important element of East-West relations. The 1980s will reveal whether or not the hostility of the countries of Eastern Europe with respect to European integration has definitely been replaced by cooperation free from ulterior ideological motives.
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This survey deals with the problem of linguistic diversity in Europe. In what way does the Council of Europe react to what is commonly called there the « new minorities » composed of immigrants and refugees ? The Director for Human Rights at the Council of Europe first covers guarantees provided to members of minorities under the European Convention on Human Rights (article 14), then describes attempts made by the Council of Europe to protect minorities as such. As for the new minorities, the Council is taking action to favour intercultural education. Its policy aims a both preserving European languages in their diversity and encouraging multilingualism which is of such nature as to facilitate communication and understanding between different peoples
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What the United Nations brought to the International Community during its forty years of life cannot be assessed only by referring to the working of the institution and the success or failures it encountered in dealing with specific questions or crises. The profound and lasting changes in the International Community itself in which it contributed in bringing about must also be taken into consideration. Undoubtedly, the most considerable of these changes, a mutation, in the real sense of the word, was the passage from an international society centered around Europe and North-America in 1945, to a truly world society in 1985, through the process of decolonisation. The United Nations decisively contributed to the spreading of the ideology of decolonisation, to the enactment of an international law of decolonisation and to the use of multilateral diplomacy against colonial powers. Eventually, admission to the United Nations became the visible sign as well as the final step of the attainment of political independence. Another remarkable new feature of the international society of today, closely related to the preceding one, is the importance of groups of states, like the Seventy Seven and the Non Aligned, acting as pressure groups. This new setting was made possible only with the existence of the United Nations, where "group diplomacy" was able to deploy itself and to make the "power of the number" felt. Eventually, the whole present diplomatic game, which is played at the level of the world rather than on a bilateral or regional basis in an always growing number of fields, is a product of development of multilateral diplomacy within the United Nations. It is specially true of the so-called North-South dialogue - or confrontation. The World Organization is now an irreversible fact of international life and a reflection of the present structure of the International Society that it helped to build up. But on the other hand, it is a very novel experiment in a historical perspective. Much is y et to be learned in order to be able to make the best use of the instruments it affords for managing the world community.