League of Nations

League of Nations Société des Nations
1920–1946
Semi-official flag (1939) Coat of arms

The League of Nations (LoN) was an international organization founded on January 10th 1920 during the Paris Peace Conference that served as a precursor to the United Nations. The LoN's claimed mission was to maintain world peace but in practise operated as an instrument of the imperialist powers, in particular Britain and France, to exert their political will under the guise of peaceful cooperation.

History

Founding

The Covenant of the League of Nations drawn up by a special commission at the Paris Peace Conference was included in the Versailles peace treaty and other such peace treaties that ended the First World War. Initially it was signed by 44 states, these were: Great Britain, France, United States, Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, China, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Haiti, Hejaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Siam, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Paraguay, the Netherlands, Iran, El Salvador, Switzerland, Sweden, and Venezuela.

Although The United States signed the treaty it did not ratify the Covenant and did not join the League of Nations. Additionally, many of the signatories were colonial possessions of the imperialists powers and had little say over their entry into the League.

Imperialism

In 6 October 1932, the Chinese Soviet Republic had distributed a telegram to the workers that the LoN were a league of imperialists robbers.

On December 14 1939, the Council of the League expelled the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from the LoN during the Winter War.