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The Politics of the Danube Commission Under Soviet Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

David T. Cattell
David T. Cattell*
Affiliation:
University of California (Los Angeles)
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Extract

A case study of the Danube Commission is particularly interesting because the documentation on the Commission is more complete than for any other Soviet-controlled international organ and because within its operation have been reflected most of the basic political problems of Soviet policy in Eastern Europe. Beginning with the Soviet maneuvers to eliminate all Western influence in the area, the Danube Commission was involved in the feud between Stalin and Tito, the reduction of intersatellite relations to a minimum, except those dictated directly from Moscow, and the Soviet disinterest in the economic development of Eastern Europe. In the post-Stalin period it was in the Commission that the first signs of rapprochement with Tito and an interest in multilateral cooperation and long range development of the Soviet sphere became apparent. Finally the present operation of the Commission shows the current character of Soviet bloc relations with Tito, condemned as a revisionist.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1960 , pp. 380 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1960

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References

1 The Yugoslav press and writers reported extensively on the activities of the Commission. Cf. Milan, Dr. Bartos, Medunarodno Javno Pravo (Belgrade, 1956)Google Scholar; Andrassy Juraj, Medunarodno Pravo (Zagreb, 1954); and a manuscript by Ivan Pernar, “The Danube in German and Russian Diplomacy Since 1719, and especially from 1938 to the Present Time (1953) (in Serbo-Croation).” The protocols for all the sessions of the Commission are also available in French and Russian (Process-Verbaux de la Commission du Danube (Galatz/ Budapest), vols. I-XVI). The material in this article was supplemented with interviews by the author with officials of the Yugoslav Government.

2 Fred Hadsel, L., “Freedom of Navigation on the Danube,” The Department of State Bulletin, XVIII, No.468 (June 20, 1948), pp. 787ffGoogle Scholar, and Josef, Kunz L., “The Danube Regime and the Belgrade Conference,” The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 104ff.Google Scholar

3 Paris Peace Conference (mimeographed), October 10, 1946, Plenum/37.

4 Both the U.S.S.R. and the Ukraine S.S.R. were given membership in the conference. By not insisting on the inclusion in the Conference of Belgium, Greece and Italy as signatories of the 1921 Convention on the Danube the Western powers weakened their case against the 1948 Convention as not being valid because as members of the previous conventions they had not agreed to its abrogation. The three countries, however, at the time of the Belgrade Conference reserved their rights to validate any change (United States Department of State Documents and State Papers, Vol. I, Nos. 8 and 9, pp. 509fE.)Google Scholar

5 Some of the Russian works on the Danube Commission include: Durdenevskij, V. N., Dunajskaja problema (Moscow, 1947)Google Scholar; Fandikov, N. G., Mezhdunarodno-pravovoj rezhim Dunaja (Moscow, 1955)Google Scholar; Pochkaeva, M. V., Mezhdunarodno-pravovoj rezhim sudokhodstva na Dunae (Moscow, 1951)Google Scholar; Borarov, D. D., Dunajskaja konferencija (Moscow, 1948)Google Scholar; Baskin, Ju. Ja. and Ryzhikov, , Dunajskoe sudokhodstvo i evo pravovoj rezhim v XX veke (Moscow, 1958)Google Scholar; Logunov, V. D., Sovremennyi mezhdunarodno-pravovoj rezhim Dunaja (Moscow, 1958)Google Scholar; and Oltianu, , Nekotorye voprosy mezhdunarodnovo prava vo vzaimootnoshenijakh mezhdu gosudarstvami (Moscow, 1953), pp. 340ff;Google Scholar; Voshchenkov, K. P., “The role of the Soviet Union in the democratic regime of the Danube problem,” SSSR i strany narodnoj demokratii (Moscow, 1957), pp. 133ff;Google Scholar and Vyshinskij, A. Ja., “The Danube Conference and some questions of international law,” Gosudarstvo i pravo, 1948, No. 10, pp. 16ff.Google Scholar

6 Fandikov, op. cit., p. 150, and Pravda, August 2, 1948

7 See Commission internationale du Danube (Vienna, 1931); Hines, W. D., Report on Danube Navigation (Geneva, 1925)Google Scholar; and Duvernoy, J., he regime international du Danube (Paris, 1941).Google Scholar

8 Fandikov, op. cit., p. 245.

9 A third bilateral administration was set up between Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1950 on the Gabcikovo-Gönyii sector.

10 Duvernoy, op. cit., pp. 130ff.

11 The Yugoslav line was as follows: “In place of a Danube Commission which represents first an international body of representatives exclusively from socialistic states, and which respects as a principle, the equality of peoples, Soviet diplomacy is governed by revisionist politics of the leaders of the U.S.S.R. (and in an understanding with the delegates of the Cominform countries) a pre-conceived plan is materializing at the conference at Galatz, in order that the administration of navigation of the Danube fall to the U.S.S.R., and at the expense and detriment of all remaining Danubian countries…. “ … the Soviet delegation… is striving to obtain that position, which earlier was held by the large imperialist powers” (Borba, November 17, 1949).

12 Process-Verbaux de la Commission du Danube, I, 189ff.

13 Ibid., II-VII, and Borba, June 7 and 14, November 13, 1950.

14 Process-V'erbaux de la Commission du Danube, IV, 262.

15 For example, Yugoslavia was apprehensive concerning the Soviet draft rules on fluvial supervision, seeing in them an opportunity for the Soviet authorities to intervene in Yugoslavia by permitting in case of damage the country whose flag the damaged ship is flying to investigate even though it is on the territory of another state. Yugoslavia wanted it to be the exclusive right of the state in which the damage occurred to investigate according to it own laws. Concessions were made to Yugoslavia mainly by omitting the most controversial part of the draft, but this still did not satisfy Yugoslavia and she voted against the draft (Process-Verbaux de la Commission du Danube, IV, 251ff, 273ff). For subsequent Yugoslav editorial comment on this controversy see Borba, June 23, 1952.

16 Process-V erbaux de la Commission du Danube, VII, 406.

17 Logunov, op. cit., pp. 115–16.

18 Even in the international mouths the U.S.S.R. played a major role: Tonnage and number of vessels using the Sulina entrance of the international mouths of the Danube:

19 The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), known as the Molotov Plan, came into existence in 1949 but from November, 1950, to March, 1954, it did not hold a meeting, and under Stalin served as merely a statistical clearing house.

20 Process-Verbaux de la Commission du Danube, VIII, 250ff.

21 On August 31, 1953, Hungary became the first of Yugoslavia's Communist neighbors to follow the lead of the Soviet Union, and resume full diplomatic relations with Belgrade. By the end of the year, further steps were taken to normalize relations with the other Cominform states. A report, presented to the Yugoslav National Assembly by the Executive Council on January 28, 1954, spoke of favorable developments in relations with Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania.

22 From 1953 to 1956 the U.S.S.R. was not included in the elected officers and even in the elections of December, 1956, the U.S.S.R. assumed only the post of Vice-President. The distribution of the top staff posts was: Director—M. Halatcheff of Bulgaria; Assist. Director—M. Gorbatchov of U.S.S.R.; Assist. Director—M. Malovecky of Czechoslovakia. The four section chiefs were from Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the U.S.S.R.

23 Process-Verbaux de la Commission du Danube, X, 181

24 The Yugoslavs fear that these new organs are an attempt to bypass the Danube Commission.

25 See my article “Multilateral Cooperation and Integration in Eastern Europe,”Western Political Quarterly, March, 1960.

26 During the spring of 1956 the Commission sent representatives to: Geneva (January-March) to elaborate a convention on a standard transportation contract for merchandise in inland navigation; Bale (January) to study standard signals for inland navigation; Geneva (May) for a special meeting of the Commission on Inland Transportation of the Economic Council for Europe.

27 As early as 1954 the Austrian government signed agreements with Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia concerning the use of the Danube by ships under her flag. Beginning in 1957 France became the first non-riparian power to have ships of its flag use the Danube in the Soviet sphere (Logunov, op. cit., pp. 117–18).