Question by : Why did the Soviet Union not want Ireland to join the UN?
Ireland applied to join in 1945 but were prevented by the Soviet Union. Ireland became a UN member in 1955.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Rory~A’rebour
Ireland (politically) was more pro-American than pro-soviet.
Ireland had just gained Independence through armed revolution, not something the soviets wanted their satellite states to see as successful.
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Tim D says
Certainly Ireland's basic orientation was more western than soviet, but that was true of many UN members. And Ireland had already been independent for 20 years before 1945. I think the Soviets objected to Irish membership because the country was neutral in WWII, did nothing to help against the nazis, and might even have been a little friendly toward them e.g. it offerred its condolences to the German ambassodor upon hearing of Hitler's death.
EDIT: Ireland was FAR from being a puppet state of the UK at the time. Around 1939 it rejected British requests to use Irish ports as bases against U-boats.
Roy says
I did hear that Stalin objected to Ireland being made a member of the UN since it's basically (or it was back then) a puppet state of England. Churchill shut him up by replying that the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic were both puppets of the USSR and both of them were original members of the UN
“If the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for the world's people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?”
Kofi Annan (Ghanaian diplomat, seventh secretary-general of the United Nations, 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.)