Council of Foreign Ministers

the international body established in 1945 by decision of the Potsdam Conference to draw up peace treaties with the former members of the fascist bloc and to review other matters entrusted to it by agreement of the member states. The Council of Foreign Ministers was composed of the foreign ministers of the USSR, China, the USA, Great Britain, and France. Between 1945 and 1949 it met six times.

In the first two years after the end of World War II, the Council of Foreign Ministers accomplished much toward the drafting of peace treaties with Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, and Finland (only the member states signatory to a state’s terms of surrender took part in the preparation of the peace treaty with that state). The Western powers on the council, especially the USA, sought to impose imperialist terms of peace upon the defeated countries and to restore reactionary regimes in those countries. Their plans came to nothing, owing to the firm stand of the USSR, which consistently upheld the principles of a democratic peace settlement. However, the obstructionism of the Western powers did not allow the council to accomplish its main task—the drafting of a peace treaty for Germany. The USA and Great Britain, with the support of France, also allowed the council no part in the drafting of a peace treaty with Japan. As a result of the Western powers’ policies, the Council of Foreign Ministers ceased to function in 1949.