The government of the U.S.S.R. shares the general principles laid down in the declaration of the governments of ............. but is unable to sign it, not being at war with one of the states of the Tripartite Pact. The Government of the U.S.S.R. declares that it considers the chief enemy of freedom-loving peoples, and the center of the axis, to be Hitlerite Germany, against which the Soviet Union is fighting and now bearing the brunt in the war against Hitlerite tyranny.(2)
(1) The source text is an annex to Savage's memorandum of December 29, ante, p. 133. The Soviet Government had proposed to make this unilateral statement on the assumption that the joint declaration would be signed only by those governments that were at war with all three original signatories of the Tripartite Pact of September 27, 1940. Hull assured Litvinov that the alternative Soviet amendments to the draft joint declaration would probably be found acceptable and that if such proved to be the case, the need for a separate soviet statement would be obviated. see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. I, p. 18. Back
(2) On the source text the word ยท tyranny', is written in by hand as a substitute for the word "Germany" . Back
| Source: Foreign Relations of the United States The Conferences at Washington, 1941-1942 and Casablanca, 1943 Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1968 |