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N0KFQ > TODAY 14.12.10 19:17l 46 Lines 2055 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 14
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Sent: 101214/1701Z @:N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA #:23549 [Branson] FBB7.00i $:23549_N
From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@WW
Dec 14, 1939:
USSR expelled from the League of Nations
On this day, the League of Nations, the international
peacekeeping organization formed at the end of World War I,
expels the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in response to the
Soviets' invasion of Finland on October 30.
Although the League of Nations was more or less the brainchild of
President Woodrow Wilson, the United States, which was to have
sat on the Executive Council, never joined. Isolationists in the
Senate--put off by America's intervention in World War I, which
they felt was more of a European civil war than a true world
war--prevented American participation. While the League was born
with the exalted mission of preventing another "Great War," it
proved ineffectual, being unable to protect China from a Japanese
invasion or Ethiopia from an Italian one. The League was also
useless in reacting to German remilitarization, which was a
violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the document that formally
set the peace terms for the end of World War I.
Germany and Japan voluntarily withdrew from the League in 1933,
and Italy left in 1937. The true imperial designs of the Soviet
Union soon became apparent with its occupation of eastern Poland
in September of 1939, ostensibly with the intention of protecting
Russian "blood brothers," Ukrainians and Byelorussians, who were
supposedly menaced by the Poles. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
were then terrorized into signing "mutual assistance" pacts,
primarily one-sided agreements that gave the USSR air and naval
bases in those countries. But the invasion of Finland, where no
provocation or pact could credibly be adduced to justify the
aggression, resulted in worldwide reaction. President Roosevelt,
although an "ally" of the USSR, condemned the invasion, causing
the Soviets to withdraw from the New York World's Fair. And
finally, the League of Nations, drawing almost its last breath,
expelled it.
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