Member states of the United Nations the membership of the USSR in the Security Council and all other UN organs was being continued by the Russian Federation with the support of the 11 member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The other fourteen independent states established from the former Soviet Republics were all admitted to the UN: Both Egypt and Syria joined the UN as original members on 24 October 1945. Following a plebiscite on 21 February 1958, the United Arab Republic was established by a union of Egypt and Syria and continued as a single member. On 13 October 1961, Syria, having resumed its
Status of the Union Act, 1934 ratification from its Parliament (unlike the case in Australia and New Zealand), so the Status Act was not legally necessary to establish South Africa's sovereign independence. It was, however, seen as a symbolic action by the Pact government of Prime Minister JBM Hertzog, coming as it did shortly before the merger of his National Party with Jan Smuts's South African Party to form the United Party. The Status of the Union Act was repealed by the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1961, which ended South Africa's membership of the Commonwealth of Nations and transformed it into a republic. The