Colonialism, Political Development, and the UN

The United Nations two decades after San Francisco is a very different body from the one which its creators fashioned, and it is a reasonable presumption that there were none or virtually none who presided over its creation who foresaw even dimly what it would become in the short span of twenty years. In particular, few could have believed at that time that the tidal wave of anticolonialism would sweep so drastically over the domains of the imperial powers and leave behind in its wake an organization so largely populated by the new Asian and African states which emerged from the deluge. It is also one of the significant elements in the situation that few could have imagined that the process of decolonization could be carried through with so little needed in the way of violent struggle by the colonial peoples and so much conceded in peaceful acquiescence by their colonial masters. One of the world's great revolutions has been accomplished with a minimum of revolutionary action and sacrifice.