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Psychologically, the U.N. has contributed a great deal to the gray swamp of demoralization — of cynicism, bitterness, hopelessness, fear and nameless guilt — which is swallowing the Western world. But the communist world has gained a moral sanction, a stamp of civilized respectability from the Western world — it has gained the West’s assistance in deceiving its victims — it has gained the status and prestige of an equal partner, thus establishing the notion that the difference between human rights and mass slaughter is merely a difference of political opinion.

The declared goal of the communist countries is the conquest of the world. What they stand to gain from a collaboration with the (relatively) free countries is the latter’s material, financial, scientific, and intellectual resources; the free countries have nothing to gain from the communist countries. Therefore, the only form of common policy or compromise possible between two such parties is the policy of property owners who make piecemeal concessions to an armed thug in exchange for his promise not to rob them.

The U.N. has delivered a larger part of the globe’s surface and population into the power of Soviet Russia than Russia could ever hope to conquer by armed force. The treatment accorded to Katanga versus the treatment accorded to Hungary, is a sufficient example of U.N. policies. An institution allegedly formed for the purpose of using the united might of the world to stop an aggressor, has become means of using the united might of the world to force the surrender of one helpless country after another into the aggressor’s power.

Who, but a concrete-bound epistemological savage, could have expected any other results from such an “experiment in collaboration”? What would you expect from a crime-fighting committee whose board of directors included the leading gangsters of the community?

“The Anatomy of Compromise”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 148

When an institution reaches the degree of corruption, brazen cynicism and dishonor demonstrated by the U.N. in its shameful history, to discuss it at length is to imply that its members and supporters may possibly be making an innocent error about its nature — which is no longer possible. There is no margin for error about a monstrosity that was created for the alleged purpose of preventing wars by uniting the world against any aggressor, but proceeded to unite it against any victim of aggression. The expulsion of a charter member, the Republic of China — an action forbidden by the U.N.’s own Charter — was a “moment of truth,” a naked display of the United Nations’ soul.

What was Red China’s qualification for membership in the U.N.? The fact that her government seized power by force, and has maintained it for twenty-two years by terror. What disqualified Nationalist China? The fact that she was a friend of the United States.

“The Shanghai Gesture”
The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 14, 1
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