Mikhail Suslov
Source: Working Class Unity for Peace, Reports by M. Suslov, Palmiro Togliatti and Gh. Gheorghiv-Dej and Resolutions Adopted by the November 1949 Meeting of the Communist Information Bureau
Publisher: New Century Publishers, February 1950
Transcription/HTML Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2009). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
COMRADES:
A little more than two years have passed since the first Information Meeting of the representatives of a number of Communist Parties was held.
The Declaration issued by this Meeting gave a profound analysis of changes which had taken place in the international situation as a result of World War Two and during the first postwar years. It revealed the formation of two camps in the world arena and the contrast of their aims and tasks; it exposed the aggressive plans of the imperialist camp headed by the U.S.—plans aimed at establishing world domination of Anglo-American imperialism and destroying democracy; it laid bare the treacherous role of the chieftains of Right-Wing Social Democracy as accomplices of imperialism in all its anti-popular activities.
The entire course of events for the past two years has fully confirmed the correctness of the estimation of the international situation given by the first Meeting of the Information Bureau, and of the perspectives and tasks of the anti-imperialist camp as outlined by that Meeting.
Estimating the significance of the decisions passed by the first Meeting of the Information Bureau, and also of the Resolution concerning the “Situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia” passed by the second Meeting of the Information Bureau, it can be boldly said today that these decisions are really historical decisions; that they played an outstanding role in mobilizing, organizing and consolidating the ranks of the international working-class movement; in mobilizing the masses to rebuff world reaction and the instigators of a new war; in further increasing and strengthening the forces of democracy and Socialism throughout the world.
During the period that has elapsed since the first Meeting of the Information Bureau, considerable changes have taken place in the international situation.
For the past two years, two lines in world policy have become even more clear and sharp—the line of the democratic, anti-imperialist camp headed by the U.S.S.R.—the camp waging a persistent and consistent struggle against imperialist reaction, for peace between peoples and for democracy, and the line of the imperialist, anti-democratic camp headed by the U.S.—the camp which has as its main object the enslavement of other countries and peoples, the forcible establishment of Anglo-American world domination, destruction of the forces of democracy and the unleashing of a new war. The struggle between these opposite camps has sharpened. The aggressive nature of the imperialist camp has further increased.
Whereas the first Meeting of the Information Bureau stated that the U.S. and Britain were going over to the policy of preparing new military adventures, at present the ruling circles of the United States and Britain heading the imperialist camp openly pursue the policy of aggression—the policy of preparing and unleashing a new world war.
Having taken the path of military-political conspiracy against peace and the security of the peoples, the ruling circles of the U.S. and Britain drive at full speed preparing a new war and are declaring with increasingly cynical shamelessness and insolence, their claims for world domination, the “American leadership of the world,” reviving the insane plans of German fascism and forgetting the historical lessons given to crazy pretenders for “world domination.”
The entire policy of the Anglo-American imperialist bloc serves the aim of preparing a new world war. It finds expression in the unrestrained economic, political and military expansion carried out by the U.S. on all continents in an attempt to seize military-strategic raw materials and other resources essential for war preparations. The U.S. imperialists are netting the entire globe with military, naval and air bases, and are preparing springboards for a new war. The support rendered by the Anglo-American imperialists to all outmoded reactionary regimes (the Franco Government in Spain, the monarcho-fascist Government in Greece, Chiang Kai-shek in China, and so on), to the remnants of the destroyed exploiting classes, spies, saboteurs and murderers in the People’s Democracies, to reactionary forces all over the world-all this serves the aim of preparing a new war. U.S. imperialism has become the center and mainstay of world reaction.
Imperialist circles of the U.S. and of Britain have openly trampled under foot the decisions of the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, aimed at a just solution of the German problem and to transform Germany into a democratic peace-loving State. After pledging themselves to regard Germany as a single unit, they pursue a policy of splitting Germany, crowning this policy with the establishment of the puppet Bonn “Government.”
Instead of democratizing and demilitarizing Germany, the Governments of the U.S., Britain and France are restoring war industry in Western Germany and the dominant position of the reactionary monopolies, junkers, militarist elements who, in the past, were the bulwark of German imperialism and Hitlerism. At the same time, they frustrate in every way the preparations for a peace treaty with Germany, seeking to turn the temporary occupation into permanent and undivided colonial domination in Western Germany.
All honest people see that such a course in relation to Germany is determined by the desire of Wall Street magnates to use Western Germany for their imperialist ends and, above all, as a springboard, and to use its population as cannon fodder in the realization of their aggressive plans.
The insolent design of the U.S. imperialists to utilize the German people as cannon fodder was quite recently blurted out by [W. R.] Poage, member of the House of Representatives, who suggested that the U.S. should create 25 divisions of German mercenaries.
Not being sure that the Germans would shed their blood in the interest of the magnates of U.S. capital, this warmonger suggested that all ammunition of these mercenaries should remain “in American hands” and that the “entire senior officer staff should be composed of Americans.”
With boundless cynicism, Poage declared that in the event of war he does not intend to send American boys to fight since he hopes to buy cannon fodder at an extremely low price, paying for it, said this trader in blood, only a small share of the wages paid to American soldiers. Concluding, Poage said that the United States should try to create similar mercenary forces in Japan.
Such are the shameless plans of the U.S. imperialists in relation to the peoples of Germany and Japan.
The policy of war preparations also found expression in the so-called Marshall Plan. The Information Meeting of the Communist Parties held in September 1947 revealed the real aims of the Marshall Plan as a plan for the economic and political enslavement of Europe by U.S. imperialism.
Life has been most unkind to those who believed in the beneficent role of the Marshall Plan.
As a result of nearly two years of Marshall Plan “assistance,” the economy of the Marshallized countries in Europe, instead of being revivified, has been reduced to a state of complete disorganization.
This has now become so obvious that it has been registered by the Secretariat of the United Nations Organization in the Report on the World Economic Situation in 1948, published in July 1949.
Even the most ardent supporters and troubadours of the Marshall Plan are today forced to recognize its failure.
Subordinating and placing the economy of the Marshallized countries in the service of the interests of U.S. monopolies, flooding the West-European markets with unwanted goods for which there is no sale in the U.S., imposing on these countries the disastrous policy of discriminatory trade relations with the countries of Eastern Europe—the Marshall Plan, in effect, accelerates and sharpens the economic crisis which increasingly grips the capitalist economy of Europe and America.
The onslaught of the United States of America on the disorganized economy of the Marshallized countries has recently intensified. Taking advantage of the devaluation of West-European currencies which was carried out on their orders, the U.S. imperialists strive to take the economy of the countries of Western Europe completely into their own hands.
Today, when life itself has ruthlessly cast the peacock attire from the Marshall Plan, this Plan appears in its true colors as an economic, political and military lever with the help of which U.S. imperialists subordinate the economy of Western Europe to their control and dictate, striving to turn it into a colonial adjunct of the United States of America.
The Marshall Plan was soon supplemented by military-political aggressive blocs of imperialist powers such as Western Union and the North Atlantic Bloc.
At present the North Atlantic Bloc is the main weapon of the aggressive policy of the ruling circles of the U.S. and Britain aimed at preparing a new war. As pointed out in the statement by the Soviet Government of January 29, 1949, which exposed the real military-political essence of the North Atlantic Pact, the aims of this Pact are to enable the ruling circles of the U.S. and Great Britain to take into their hands the reins of the greatest possible number of States, depriving them of the possibility to pursue an independent national foreign and home policy and utilizing these States as auxiliaries to realize their aggressive plans aimed at establishing Anglo-American world domination.
The North Atlantic Bloc is aimed at suppressing the resistance of the peoples of Europe to the U.S. onslaught against their vital rights, national freedom and independence, at turning Western Europe into a semi-colony of U.S. imperialism, into a base and springboard for preparing a new war.
The North Atlantic Bloc has in view direct aggression against the democratic States in Eastern Europe and, above all, against the Soviet Union as the main force in the democratic camp, a reliable mainstay of peace, security, freedom and independence of peoples.
Finally, one of the most important aims of the North Atlantic agreement and of its projected branches—Mediterranean, Near East and Far East agreements—is to prepare the destruction of the national liberation movement in colonial and dependent countries, and to combat the People’s Republic of China and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea which have won a great victory over foreign imperialists and home reaction.
Thus, the North Atlantic imperialist alliance under the aegis of the U.S. represents a menace for the whole of progressive mankind. And quite justly is this latest evil, imperialist conspiracy likened to the notorious anti-Comintern Hitler-Mussolini Pact signed before the fascist aggressors hurled themselves against the peoples of Europe to crush their freedom and independence.
Similar to the Anti-Comintern Pact, the North Atlantic agreement, clothed in the tattered banner of anti-Communism, is a program of aggression and war, a program of stifling national independence and democratic rights of peoples.
Thus, the facts show that with the imperialists of the United States in the forefront, the imperialists prepare a new world war into whose hell they are ready to throw the majority of peoples and countries of the world in order to achieve the selfish aims of a handful of multi-millionaires.
For the sake of these aims, U.S. ruling circles turn Western Germany into their military springboard in Europe and strive to draw the German people into the slaughterhouse of a new war.
For the sake of these aims they, with the direct complicity of British Labor leaders, turn Britain into their aircraft and naval base and intend to make the British people their cannon fodder.
A similar role is prepared by them for the peoples of France, Italy and other European States.
For the sake of their predatory aims, U.S. imperialists make Japan their springboard for aggression against the U.S.S.R., the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and the peoples of the Pacific basin, striving to utilize the Japanese people to this end.
In the Near East, U.S. imperialists create military bases and strong points in Turkey, Iran and Iraq, turning these countries into their satellites and striving to make the Turks, Persians and Arabs fight for the profits of U.S. monopolists.
In other words, the strategy of U.S. imperialism, as now quite clearly defined, is aimed at preparing the conflagration of war in all parts of the world and to make the peoples of all continents fight on the orders, and in the interests of, U.S. multi-millionaires.
The most outspoken of the U.S. chieftains, such as Congressman Poage, mentioned above, or General Bradley, openly and cynically declare their intention to “fight with other hands” and to use the soldiers of other nations as cannon fodder for the U.S.—which will supply only arms and rake in the profits.
However, these adventurous calculations are made without the master. The peoples of the countries which the U.S. and British imperialists want to force to fight are not the least interested in war, which cannot bring them anything but heavy sacrifices, desolation and the destruction of their countries.
The peoples neither need nor want war. Nor is war needed by the mass of the people in the United States, whose monopoly circles stand out as the main instigators of war.
Despite the stream of false propaganda circulated by the imperialist aggressors and their accomplices, the common people in the U.S. are becoming increasingly aware that war, if unleashed by the warmongers, would bring to them, the common people, only soldiering and death in far-off countries, that war would come also to the American continent, bringing with it the horrors of modern bombing and the destruction of the results of the labors of many generations.
Having taken the open course of unleashing a new world war, the organizers of the North Atlantic agreement disrupt international cooperation and, above all, cooperation with the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Democracies. They try to undermine the United Nations Organization, seeking to turn it into an instrument of their predatory designs and frustrate the decisions of the U.N.O. General Assembly concerning prohibition of the atomic weapon and reduction of armaments.
The policy of disrupting international cooperation led to the notorious “cold war,” to whipping up war psychosis and hysteria, to an artificial development of international tension which is utilized by the arms manufacturers and by licentious warmongers.
The Budapest trial of the Rajk-Brankov espionage gang revealed a large-scale international conspiracy organized by the Anglo-American imperialists against the People’s Democracies and the Soviet Union, against peace and democracy.
This imperialist conspiracy was aimed at realizing far-reaching plans: to overthrow the democratic system in Hungary and other People’s Democracies with the help of the fascist, espionage Tito clique which has become an agency of international reaction; to wrest these countries from the camp of peace and democracy; to restore there reactionary fascist regimes; to turn the countries of South-East and Central Europe into puppets of the imperialists and springboards for aggression.
A direct result of the policy of aggression and preparation for a new war is the unrestrained armament race which falls as a heavy burden on the shoulders of the working class and on all the working population in the capitalist countries.
It is sufficient to say that U.S. military expenditures in the next fiscal year will amount to 22 billion dollars, that is, twenty times more than before the war.
According to E. Nourse, former Chairman of the Economic Council under the auspices of the U.S. President, the weekly military allocation of the U.S. Federal Government exceeds the annual allocation for education. The sum appropriated for military purposes each week would fully cover Federal annual expenses for the public health service.
Thus, engaged in a fierce armament race, the Truman Government spends annually 26 times more on war preparations than on the country’s education and public health services put together.
In Britain, military expenditure is now three times greater than in 1939. The policy known as the Hitler slogan of “Guns before butter” is carried out also in other Marshallized States.
It stands to reason that this policy, accompanied by an exorbitant growth of taxation, leads to a sharp deterioration in the economic conditions of the working people in all capitalist countries.
Preparing for war, the capitalist monopolies undertake a violent onslaught against the living standards of the working class and all working people. This finds expression in increased exploitation of workers by the intensification of labor, in the reduction of wages and in mass dismissals of workers in non-military branches of industry.
The preparations for war are also accompanied by increased attacks on the democratic rights of the working people.
To pave the way for their foreign-policy ventures and for unleashing war, the imperialists try to strangle the working-class and general democratic movement, to open the way for fascization and complete militarization of the internal regime.
As far back as 1927, Comrade Stalin said imperialism could not prepare a new war without suppressing the opposition against war, without suppressing the masses.
To wage war, said Comrade Stalin, it is not sufficient to pile armaments and organize new coalitions. It also calls for strengthening the rear in the capitalist countries. Not a single capitalist country can, wage a major war without preliminary consolidation of its own rear, without curbing “its” workers, without curbing “its” colonies. Hence, a gradual fascization of the policy of bourgeois governments. (J. Stalin, Selected Works, Volume 10, p. 282. Russian Edition.)
The “crusade” against Communism, the persecution and open terror against Communist Parties (the U.S., France, Australia, India, countries of Latin America and of the Middle East, etc.), anti-labor and anti-trade-union laws (the U.S., Greece, Turkey, and others); the creation in the Marshallized countries, at the behest of Washington, of reactionary regimes kow-towing before dollar imperialism; revival of fascism in Western Germany; the utilization of the espionage fascist Tito clique to carry out subversive work in the People’s Democracies—all these are links in one and the same chain of preparing war.
Under the flag of anti-Communism, the warmongers form a kind of “holy” alliance of the forces of imperialism, fascism, the Vatican and Right-wing Socialists.
Simultaneously, the imperialist camp has unfolded, on a great scale, the ideological preparations for a new war. New means are sought to prepare public opinion, to stupify the masses with rabid propaganda of racial and misanthropic ideas, and fomenting atomic psychosis and war hysteria.
All means of psychological influence have been brought into operation: press, literature, radio, cinema, Church.
The ideological make-up of the propaganda of the warmongers and their accomplices is extremely simple. This, however, does not mean that it does no harm.
In the main, it consists of boosting the “American way of life” and bourgeois democracy; of propagating the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race; of erupting streams of unbridled lies and slander against the U.S.S.R. and other peace-loving States; of propagating cosmopolitanism and the abandonment of national sovereignty which is aimed at undermining the will of people to resist the encroachments of the Anglo-American imperialists.
One of the important means of ideological preparation in the “Americanized” countries is the flooding of these countries with American crime literature and Hollywood films, in which gangsters, murderers, sadists, corrupters, bigots and hypocrites invariably appear as the main heroes. Such “art” and “literature” poison and stupify both reader and spectator.
The propaganda of a new war streams widely from the columns of the U.S. press and from the reactionary press of other countries. Although the second session of the U.N.O. General Assembly passed a special decision condemning war propaganda, the ruling circles of the U.S. and Britain, far from taking measures to bridle the warmongers and war propagandists, are, on the contrary, obviously inciting them. Alongside the venal hackwriters of the reactionary press and radio, a whole cluster of official statesmen—members of the Truman Government, Congressmen, Generals, Admirals, and British peers—now appear, openly calling for war.
Thus, similar to the fascist aggressors before World War Two, the Anglo-American imperialist bloc prepares a new war in all directions: military-strategic measures, political pressure and blackmail, economic expansion and enslavement of peoples, ideological stupification of the masses and intensification of reaction in all spheres of public life.
Ruling circles in the U.S. and Britain cherish the crazy idea of subordinating the entire world to their domination by military means, threatening mankind with a new world slaughter.
That is why the aggressive, military-political conspiracy of the Anglo-American imperialists constitutes a tremendous menace for the destiny of the world, for the life and welfare of millions of ordinary people, for the national independence and democratic gains of all peoples.
It would, however, be profoundly wrong to think the feverish activity displayed by the imperialist camp is evidence of its strength, evidence of the impossibility of preventing war. The past two years were years of the further weakening of the camp of imperialism, of the dropping out of new links from its chain, of the sharpening of all its internal and external contradictions.
At the same time, the forces of the camp of peace, democracy and Socialism steadily grew in number and strength during this period. That is why, despite such wide preparations for war by the imperialist camp, there now exists a powerful and daily growing barrier in the way of the warmongers.
While the camp of imperialism, led by the U.S., prepares for military adventures, the anti-imperialist camp consolidates all its forces to render a resolute rebuff to the bellicose imperialist aggressors, and it persistently fights to isolate the instigators of a new war and to foil their monstrous designs.
The democratic forces of the world grow incomparably faster than the evil forces of the warmongers. The correlation of forces in the international arena has radically changed and continues to change in favor of the camp of peace, democracy and Socialism.
The growth and consolidation of this camp are evident, above all, from the further growth of the might of the Soviet Union which marches at the head of the struggle for a stable peace. Consigned to oblivion are the hopes of imperialist circles that the U.S.S.R., which bore the main brunt of the war, would not overcome the difficulties caused by the war and the destruction wrought by the German fascist invaders on a part of Soviet territory.
The Soviet Union is experiencing a powerful upsurge in all spheres of national economy and culture. Let Messrs. Imperialists give thought to the data on the fulfilment of the postwar Five-Year Plan, data published in the Soviet Union.
Last October output of Soviet industry exceeded the average monthly output of the prewar year 1940 by over 50 per cent and surpassed the average monthly level of production envisaged by the Five-Year Plan for 1950.
Whereas the economy of the capitalist countries presents the picture of maturing crisis and decline, increasingly aggravated by the burden of exorbitant military expenditure, the economy of the Soviet Union is steadily on the upgrade, year after year, month after month.
During the ten months of 1949, the increased targets for industrial output were surpassed. Gross industrial output went up 20 per cent compared with the corresponding period of last year.
Agriculture also marches confidently forward. In the current year, the gross crops of cereals are greater than 1948 and surpass those of prewar 1940. Crops of cotton, flax and many other industrial crops are better than last year and exceed the prewar level. Socially-owned cattle breeding has considerably extended. On the basis of the development of the national economy, the material and cultural level of the life of the Soviet people rises further, which, in turn, inspires them to achieve new successes.
It is quite clear today that the selfless work of the free Soviet people, the work of the millions of Stakhanovites, will ensure the carrying out of the postwar Five-Year Plan to develop the national economy of the U.S.S.R. ahead of schedule.
This will mean, not only a further consolidation of the might of the Soviet State, but also the strengthening of the entire camp of the champions of peace and democracy.
The great vitality of the Soviet Socialist system finds expression also in considerable technical progress achieved in the Soviet Union. New technique is being developed, mastered and put into operation.
One example of this technical progress and of the development of science in our country is the mastery of the secret of atomic energy in a short period of time, depriving the United States of America of the monopoly of the atomic weapon.
The Tass statement of September 25, 1949, that the Soviet Union had mastered the secret of the atomic weapon and had this weapon at its disposal as early as 1947, reduced to ashes the “prophecies” of the ruling circles of imperialist powers-and of the bourgeois scientists kow-towing before them—who, more than once, declared that the Russians would not have the atomic weapon earlier than 1952.
This Tass report caused bewilderment and confusion in the camp of the imperialists and warmongers, weakened this camp, and delivered a crushing blow at the Truman and Churchill “atom diplomacy” based on monopoly of the atom bomb and on blackmail of weak-nerved people by this weapon.
At the same time, all peace supporters enthusiastically welcome the Soviet Union’s possession of the atomic weapon as a victory in the cause of peace, for they know that the Soviet Government is faithful to its peace policy and, despite the fact that it possesses the atomic weapon, it adheres to its former position of unconditional prohibition of its use.
The peace-loving foreign policy of the Soviet Union, as well as the foreign policy of the People’s Democracies, is a powerful factor strengthening the camp of peace and democracy. Corresponding to the vital interests of the common people all over the world, it inspires and consolidates the ranks of all fighters for the cause of peace and strengthens their will for victory.
The peaceful policy of the Soviet Government arises from the very essence of our Socialist society in which there are no classes interested in wars.
The Soviet State is a resolute enemy of the policy of national and racial oppression, and its foreign policy is based on respect for the rights and independence of all peoples of the world, large and small.
The Soviet people are imbued with the great idea of building Communism and are directly interested in preserving peace. Our people are deeply confident that the Socialist system of society created by them insures victory in peaceful competition with the capitalist system.
The foreign policy of the Soviet Government in its relations with capitalist States proceeds from the possibility of the co-existence of the Socialist and capitalist systems and of peaceful cooperation between them. As far back as 1934, Comrade Stalin outlined this policy with complete clarity and precision:
Our foreign policy is clear. It is a policy of preserving peace and strengthening commercial relations with all countries. The U.S.S.R. does not think of threatening anybody—let alone of attacking anybody. We stand for peace and champion the cause of peace. But we are not afraid of threats and are prepared to answer the instigators of war, blow for blow.
The proposals made by the Soviet Government at the recent session of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization to condemn preparations for a new war being carried out in a number of countries, particularly in the United States of America and in Great Britain, to take practical measures to prohibit: unconditionally the atomic weapon and also to sign a Pact of Five Great Powers to strengthen peace—these proposals constitute a valuable contribution to the struggle for peace, a new blow at the camp of the instigators of war.
The growth and consolidation of the forces of the camp of peace, democracy and Socialism are also evident from the great successes achieved by the People’s Democracies, which have firmly taken the path of building Socialism.
The rapid economic and cultural advances in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Albania; the successful realization of national economic plans; the improvement in the material welfare of the people; the consolidation of the internal forces in the People’s Democracies; the formation of united Marxist-Leninist workers’ parties marching in the vanguard of the struggle for Socialism; the strengthening of friendship and mutual political, economic and cultural cooperation and mutual assistance between the peoples of South-Eastern Europe; the strengthening of their economic and cultural relations with the U.S.S.R.—all these are major contributions to the common cause of consolidating the might and unity of the forces of the anti-imperialist, democratic camp.
The economic, political and cultural successes of the People’s Democracies serve as a clear example to other peoples how, without resorting to enslaving bargains with imperialism, but by relying on their own forces, on mutual cooperation and fraternal help from the Soviet Union, and by preserving economic and national independence, it is possible to heal in a short period of time the wounds caused by war and fascist domination and to secure a rapid advance of industry and other branches of economy and culture.
The exposure of the treacherous Tito clique at the Budapest Rajk-Brankov trial, and the failure of the insidious calculations of world reaction to restore capitalism in the People’s Democracies, testify to the strength and firmness of the people’s democratic systems.
The growth and consolidation of the anti-imperialist forces are further borne out by the great successes of the national liberation movements in colonial and dependent countries.
A historic victory was won by the Chinese people, who overthrew the Kuomintang regime of national betrayal, colonial exploitation and feudal oppression.
The creation of the People’s Republic of China strikes the most severe blow at the predatory designs of U.S. imperialism which planned to make China its colony and a springboard for new military aggression; it makes another huge breach in the system of imperialism and opens a new chapter in the national-liberation struggle of all peoples oppressed by imperialism.
The inclusion of China in the family of democratic, peace-loving States signifies a further change in the correlation of forces in the international arena in favor of the camp of democracy and peace and extends and consolidates the front of peace.
A great success for the camp of peace and democracy and a new defeat for the imperialist camp is also the formation of the German Democratic Republic, described by Comrade Stalin in his message of greetings to Wilhelm Pieck and Otto Grotewohl as a turning point in the history of Europe.
This historical act expresses the growth and consolidation of the democratic forces of the German people, forces which struggle for a united, democratic and peace-loving Germany, forces which draw correct conclusions from the two world wars and no longer wish to be used as pawns by the pretenders for world domination. The victory of the democratic forces in Germany, who are taking the destiny of the country into their hands, strikes a new defeat at the Anglo-American warmongers.
As Comrade Stalin points out, “there can be no doubt that the existence of a peace-loving, democratic Germany, side by side with the existence of a peace-loving Soviet Union, excludes the possibility of new wars in Europe, puts an end to bloodshed in Europe and makes impossible the enslaving of the European countries by the world imperialists.”
The growth of the forces of the democratic camp and the weakening positions of imperialism are also proved in striking fashion by the advance of the democratic, and particularly of the working-class, movement headed by the Communist Parties—an advance observed everywhere.
Proof of this is the increased influence of Communist Parties among the people, despite the rabid anti-Communist witch-hunt carried on by the entire camp of world reaction, and also the increase in the strike movement of the working class in all capitalist countries of Europe, America and Australia.
The ever-growing and consolidating strength of the camp of peace and democracy is vividly borne out by the powerful movement of the partisans of peace, which has already embraced hundreds of millions of people.
For the first time in the history of mankind, an organized front of peace emerged, a front which aims to save mankind from a new world war, at isolating the clique of the instigators of a new war and securing peaceful cooperation between peoples.
This movement reflects those cardinal changes which took place in the world as a result of the liberation war waged by peoples against the menace of fascist enslavement. It also signifies an unprecedented growth of the political consciousness of the masses, and the fact that peoples have drawn lessons from the bitter experience of two world wars and are firmly determined to prevent a new war, to defend the cause of peace, to frustrate the evil designs of the warmongers.
Peoples who passed through the severe experience of the past decades now take the cause of defending peace into their own hands—this is one of the important characteristic features of the movement of the partisans of peace.
No matter how the warmongers and their accomplices rave, the historical situation today differs radically from that in which World Wars One and Two were prepared.
The horrors of the recent war are too fresh in the minds of the people, and the social forces standing for peace are too great for the Churchill disciples of aggression to overcome them and turn them toward a new war (J. Stalin).
Saving the world from another war is not a Utopian dream but a real possibility under present concrete historical conditions.
If peoples are vigilant, active and united in their struggle for peace, if they display steadfastness and tenacity in defending the cause of peace, the warmongers will fail to realize their sanguinary design of lighting the fires of a Third World War.
The strength of the movement of peace supporters lies in the fact that it embraces hundreds of millions of people from among the working class, peasantry, intelligentsia and middle urban strata, irrespective of race, nationality, religious or political convictions.
The strength and power of the peace movement lies further in the fact that it has assumed an organized character. The champions of peace increasingly consolidate and organize themselves on a local, national and international scale.
The movement of the partisans of peace came into being as a movement of protest of the masses against the Marshall Plan and the aggressive Western and North Atlantic Unions. Millions of people in France, Italy and other countries raised their voices against the policy of U.S. imperialism, taking part in protest strikes and demonstrations and collecting signatures for peace petitions.
Of great significance in unfolding the movement of the fighters for peace was the Wroclaw Congress of Cultural Workers in Defense of Peace; the World Congress of the Democratic Women’s Federation held in Budapest (autumn 1948), and particularly the World Peace Congress, held in Paris and Prague on April 20-25, which represented 600 million organized fighters for peace.
The movement for the defense of peace constantly extends and consolidates. The Second World Trade Union Congress, held in Milan early in. July, approved the Manifesto issued by the Paris Congress and drew up a concrete program of action for the 72 million trade unionists organized in the World Federation of Trade Unions.
National peace congresses were held in a number of countries. The wave of strikes, popular demonstrations and meetings of protest against the ratification of the North Atlantic agreement swept the whole of Western Europe.
In many countries, national committees in defense of peace were formed, and the organization of peace committees in towns, factories and offices began.
The movement of the fighters for peace also gains ground in the United States of America and Great Britain, whose peoples increasingly experience the burden of the disastrous, aggressive policy pursued by their ruling circles.
Thus, comrades, a short review of the international situation shows that, in the struggle against imperialism and war, the forces of peace, democracy and Socialism have grown in number and strength.
The further growth of the might of the Soviet Union; the political and economic strengthening of the People’s Democracies which have taken the path of building Socialism; the historical victory of the People’s Revolution in China; the formation of the German Democratic Republic; the strengthening of the Communist Parties and the growth of the democratic movement in capitalist countries; the great scale of the movement of the partisans of peace—all these signify a great extension and consolidation of the anti-imperialist and democratic camp.
At the same time, the imperialist and anti-democratic camp loses one position after another.
The victories of the camp of democracy and Socialism, the oncoming economic crisis, the further sharpening of the general crisis of the capitalist system, the sharpening of all external and internal contradictions of this system—testify to the increasing weakening of the imperialist camp and to the historical doom of the entire capitalist system.
Contradictions between imperialist powers in the camp of world reaction itself are sharpening and cannot but sharpen, no matter how these contradictions are camouflaged by unity of anti-Soviet and anti-Communist policies of these powers.
The colonial nature of the U.S. policy in relation to the “Marshallized” countries; the policy of enslaving Western Europe and other capitalist countries by U.S. imperialism; the fierce competition for markets and for the exploitation of colonies, particularly under conditions of economic crisis—aggravate the contradictions between the capitalist countries and, above all, the contradictions between the U.S. and Great Britain.
Contradictions inside the capitalist countries also sharpen and cannot but sharpen. Contrary to all prophecies of the bourgeois “quack-curers of economic storms,” an economic crisis inevitably matures both in America and Europe.
Output is falling, exports and home retail trade decline. Unemployment is steadily creeping higher. The number of fully and partially unemployed in capitalist countries reaches the enormous figure of 40 million.
In view of the armament race, the working people shoulder an overgrowing tax burden. The wages and entire living standards of the working class are progressively going down.
Devaluation of currencies, carried out in the majority of capitalist countries, constitutes a new plunder of the working people, for with their already meager wages they can now buy even less of the necessities of life. The material conditions of the working people become unbearable.
Such a situation cannot but lead to the sharpening of internal political conditions in capitalist countries, cannot but give rise to serious class battles.
All this weakens and will continue to weaken the forces of the imperialist camp, the forces of the warmongers. The adventurous foreign policy of Wall Street and the City imperialists, in its turn, further weakens the anti-democratic camp.
This policy suffers defeat after defeat. The fiasco of the “atomic diplomacy”; the failure of the Marshall Plan; the failure of the imperialist subversive plans in South-East Europe and Central Europe; the bankruptcy of U.S. policy in China: these are but an incomplete enumeration of the failures suffered by the foreign policy of the imperialists.
Certainly, the sharpening of all contradictions of capitalism and the weakening of the forces of the imperialist camp are inherent in the very nature of capitalism. And the adventurous foreign policy of the Anglo-American imperialists accelerates this process.
The weakening of the antidemocratic, imperialist camp should not lead to the conclusion that the danger of war is lessened. Such a conclusion would be profoundly erroneous and harmful.
Historical experience teaches that the more hopeless the position of imperialist reaction, the more it rages, the more danger of military adventures on its part.
The change in the correlation of forces in the world arena in favor of the camp of peace and democracy provokes new outbursts of rabid fury in the camp of imperialism and the warmongers.
The Anglo-American imperialists hope, by means of war, to alter the course of historical development, to solve their external and internal contradictions and difficulties, to consolidate the positions of monopoly capital and to gain world domination.
To frustrate the plans of imperialist aggression the greatest vigilance by the peoples is essential, also the further extension of the front of peace and the further consolidation and active struggle of all forces standing for peace.
The present anti-war movement testifies to the will and readiness of the broadest masses of the people to safeguard peace and to prevent the aggressors from plunging mankind into the abyss of another slaughter.
The task now is to turn this will of the masses into active, concrete actions aimed at foiling the plans and measures of the Anglo-American instigators of war.
The entire historical experience of the anti-war movement on the eve of World War One, and particularly of World War Two, shows that it is not sufficient to desire peace, it is necessary actively to fight for it, to operate all forces and levers counteracting the preparations for unleashing war.
Under conditions of the growing menace of a new war, the Communist and Workers’ Parties bear a great historical responsibility. The Communist and Workers’ Parties must utilize all means of struggle to secure a stable and lasting peace, subordinating their entire activity to this, which is now the central task.
It is necessary to work even more persistently to consolidate and extend the movement of the partisans of peace, drawing new sections of the population into this movement and making it the universal and irresistible movement of the day.
This movement can and should embrace all who treasure peace, honor, national freedom and the sovereignty of their country, regardless of their political convictions, religious views or party affiliation.
Particular attention should be devoted to drawing into the peace movement trade unions, women’s, youth, cooperative, sport, cultural-education, religious and other organizations, and also scientists, writers, journalists, cultural workers, parliamentary and other political and public leaders who act in defense of peace and against war.
Of decisive significance for further development of the movement of the partisans of peace is the ever more active participation of the working class in this movement, its consolidation and the unity of its ranks.
That is why the cardinal task of the Communist and Workers’ Parties is to draw the broadest sections of the working class into the ranks of fighters for the cause of peace; to effect firm working-class unity; resolutely to combat the Right-wing Socialist disrupters and disorganizers of the working-class movement; to organize joint actions of various sections of the proletariat on the basis of a joint platform of struggle for peace and for the national independence of their countries.
The trade unions of the working class already hold an honorable place in the camp of the fighters for peace, against the warmongers.
The World Federation of Trade Unions emerges as an active champion of peace and international cooperation, and the organizer of millions of factory and office workers for the struggle against the instigators of a new war.
Trade-union bodies affiliated to the W.F.T.U. play a great role in organizing peace supporters. In many countries they are the initiators of the national peace movement and of the formation of national committees in defense of peace.
Trade unions have taken a leading role in the organization of strikes and demonstrations of protest against the aggressive North Atlantic agreement, and also in the organization of popular petitions and other mass measures in defense of peace, national independence and freedom of peoples.
Trade unions, however, can do much more to develop the universal struggle against the instigators of a new war and to further the activity of the camp of the partisans of peace.
Peace committees at factories and offices, for the formation of which the Paris Peace Congress and the Milan Trade Union Congress call, can and should become the central link in the activity of trade unions in this sphere. Such committees have already been set up in many enterprises in France, Holland, Britain and other countries.
Rallying factory and office workers, irrespective of their nationality, party or trade-union affiliation, the peace committees must become centers of struggle for universal unity of the working people in defense of peace, democracy and the vital interests of the mass of the people exploited by capitalism.
Numerous facts, such as the petition to the U.N.O. General Assembly in support of the proposals to prohibit the atomic weapon and to reduce armaments of the great powers—a petition carrying signatures of eleven million women from Italy, Czechoslovakia and the Eastern Zone of Germany—also the participation of women’s organizations and of the World Federation of Democratic Women in the Paris and Prague Congresses, show what a serious force in the struggle for peace are women and their organizations.
The democratic youth of all countries demonstrated its will for peace and the readiness to struggle for it at the World Conference of Working Youth held in Warsaw in 1947 and at World Youth congresses and festivals in 1948 and 1949 The World Federation of Democratic Youth, rallying in its ranks over 60 million young men and women, actively champions the cause of peace.
The task of the working class, of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, is to head the peace struggle of all mass public associations, to give it purposeful and effective direction.
To unite broad sections of the population in the fight for peace, various forms and methods should be used: mass demonstrations, meetings, rallies, drawing up of petitions and protests, questionnaires, formation of peace committees in towns and in the countryside, which, for example, is widely practiced in France and Italy.
In carrying out measures in the struggle for peace it is obviously impossible to act according to standard. It is necessary to, proceed from the concrete conditions in each country, skillfully combining various forms and methods of the movement with the general tasks.
Having no support among the masses, the warmongers, as we have seen, seek to deceive peoples with all manner of slanderous propaganda. Because of this, the exposure of the warmongers’ propaganda and the circulation of truthful information concerning their anti-popular activity, should not be in the nature of a short campaign but should be conducted day in and day out.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties should counteract the false and misanthropic propaganda of the aggressors and their hired gangsters of the pen with the broadest propaganda of a stable and lasting peace between peoples, ceaselessly exposing the aggressive blocs and military-political alliances.
It is necessary widely to explain that a new war would bring enormous disasters and unprecedented destruction to the peoples, that the struggle against war and the defense of peace is the cause of all peoples of the world.
The forces of peace, and above all, the Communist Parties, should seek to secure that the propaganda of war and the advocacy of race hatred and enmity between peoples carried out by the agents of imperialism, should meet with sharp condemnation from all sections of democratic public opinion; that not a single act of the provocateurs of a new war should remain unanswered in any of their various forms—including mass boycott of films, newspapers, books, journals, radio companies, organizations and leaders propagating war.
The preparations for a new war are indissolubly linked with the enslavement of the countries of Europe and of other continents by U.S. imperialism.
The Marshall Plan, Western Union, the North Atlantic Pact—all these links in the evil conspiracy against peace are, at the same time, links in the chain placed by transatlantic monopolists around the neck of other peoples.
The duty of Communist and working-class parties in capitalist countries is to merge the struggle for national independence with the struggle for peace; tirelessly to expose the anti-national, treacherous nature of the policy of bourgeois governments which have become direct lieutenants of U.S. imperialism; to rally and consolidate all democratic, patriotic forces in each country round the slogans of eliminating the shameful U.S. bondage, and the adoption of an independent foreign and home policy corresponding to the national interests of the peoples. The Communist and Workers’ Parties should carry high the banner defending the national independence and sovereignty of their countries.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties should also rally broad masses to defend democratic rights and liberties, tirelessly explaining to them that the defense of peace is indissolubly linked with the defense of the vital interests of the working class and of all working people, that the struggle for peace is, at the same time, the struggle against poverty, hunger and fascism.
Particularly important tasks confront the Communist Parties of France, Italy, Britain, Western Germany and other countries whose peoples the U.S. imperialists wish to use as cannon fodder in realizing their aggressive plans.
Their duty is to develop, with even greater energy, the struggle for peace to frustrate the criminal designs of the Anglo-American instigators of war.
Alongside the exposure of the imperialist warmongers and their accomplices, the Communist and Workers’ Parties in the People’s Democracies and the Soviet Union face the task of further consolidating the camp of peace and Socialism in defending peace and the security of peoples.
A complete exposure of the leaders of the Right-wing Socialist Parties continues to be the urgent task of Communist Parties. The course of events has fully confirmed the correctness of the estimate by the first Meeting of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties, of Right-wing Socialists carrying out the foul role of imperialist agents, accomplices of the instigators of a new war, betrayers of the national interests of the people, traitors covering their despicable activity with socialist phrase-mongering and cosmopolitan rubbish.
That is why, while tirelessly fighting for peace, the Communist and Workers’ Parties should daily expose the Right-wing Socialist chiefs as the worst enemies of peace.
At the same time, it is necessary to develop and consolidate, by all means, both cooperation and united action in the struggle for peace with the basic organizations and rank and file of the Socialist Parties; to support all genuinely honest elements in the ranks of these parties, explaining to them the disastrous nature of the policy pursued by reactionary, Right-wing leaders.
A significant role in realizing their aggressive plans, particularly in Central and Southeastern Europe, is assigned by the Anglo-American imperialists to the Yugoslav Tito clique in the espionage service of the imperialists.
Therefore the task of defending peace and combatting the warmongers calls for further exposure of this clique which deserted to the camp of the worst enemies of peace, democracy and Socialism, to the camp of imperialism and fascism.
Comrades, during the war against fascism, the Communist Parties were the vanguard of the people’s resistance to the invaders. In the postwar period the Communist and Workers’ Parties constitute the vanguard fighters for the vital interests of their peoples, for the cause of peace throughout the world.
Guided by them, all the opponents of a new war, people of labor, science and culture, rallied in the powerful front of peace, are capable of frustrating the criminal designs of the imperialists.
The forces of democracy and the forces of the partisans of peace are vastly superior to the forces of reaction.
The task is now to consolidate and develop, even more, the powerful movement of the partisans of peace, to try to make this movement universal and ceaselessly to increase the vigilance of peoples in relation to the machinations of imperialist aggressors.
It is necessary to mobilize all forces of the people for active defense of peace and for the struggle against the warmongers. To solve this task means finally to win the sacred battle for a stable peace and for the security of peoples throughout the world.