ABSTRACT
After the Second World War, Soviet policy towards the Middle East was designed to end British hegemony in the area and to fill the vacuum as soon as conditions would allow. Soviet doctrine for the area had already been shaped by the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in 1928, and its implementation had taken place soon after the Second World War. The first significant political dialogue between the Soviet Union and the Arab governments occurred at the beginning of 1946. In an attempt to increase their influence in the Middle East, the USSR approached the President of Lebanon, Bishara al-Khuri, on 10 January 1946 with a proposal to negotiate a secret treaty. The Palestine issue had absorbed the attention of the Soviet Union since the autumn of 1946. At that time, Soviet delegates to the UN General Assembly stressed the need for an immediate solution to the Palestine issue, which had been purely a consequence of British imperialist policy.
