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p A new stage in the world socialist system began after 1956 marked by a certain consolidation of forces both in the system as a whole and in individual states after the events of the mid-1950s, and by further economic, political and cultural co-operation.

p This was facilitated by both internal political factors and the international situation. The policy of aggression and war pursued by the United States and other imperialist powers, the policy of exporting counter-revolution, came to grief at the beginning of this period. All the People’s Democracies both in Europe and Asia successfully resisted the massive onslaught of world imperialism and, with Soviet help, upheld their socialist gains. They confidently made progress in building a new life with the support of the USSR and relying on the growing might of the socialist system as a whole.

p The hotbeds of war in various parts of the world were stamped out by the joint effort of the socialist countries. The defeat of the imperialist policy "from positions of strength" and of the cold war was so obvious that the ruling element 212 of the United States and other Western powers which had tried to dictate terms to the Soviet Union and other socialist countries found it necessary to undertake a "reappraisal of values”. It was becoming clear to imperialist leaders that all doctrines like the “liberation” of socialist countries (i.e., the forcible restoration of capitalism, the "rolling back" of socialism and threatening the Soviet Union with "massive nuclear retaliation" if it did not agree to abandon the fraternal countries to their fate) were quite at odds with the real situation and balance of powcr in the world.

p Lenin had shown that in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism the overthrown exploiting classes "inevitably cherish the hope of restoration, and this hope turns into attempts at restoration".  [212•1  The wars in Korea and Vietnam, the counter-revolutionary rebellions in Berlin and Hungary were attempts at such restoration by armed force. The entire cold war policy with its successively alternating variants like the policy of “containment” and of “liberation”, served as the ideological and political basis of such attempts and shaped their general trend.

p It would be wrong to assume that the imperialists, undertaking a “reappraisal” or “review” of the world situation intended to give up their main objective, namely, to abolish the world socialist system and restore the worldwide omnipotence of imperialism. But, while in the preceding period, the US ruling circles proceeded from the viewpoint formulated by President Truman as early as April 6, 1946, that owing to the monopoly 213 of atomic weapons there was no country stronger than the United States, at the end of the 1950s events made them realise the untenability of plans to achieve the results they wanted by force, blackmail and war. "Mr. Dulles (who was most intimately associated with the most aggressive forms of the cold war of American imperialism— Sh.S.} had been defeated by the will of the peoples to live, by the continued upsurge of the communist peoples he sought to confine, by his clinging to obviously untenable outposts at the recurrent risk of a world conflagration, and by his defence of the status quo,"  [213•1  so stated British scholar D. F. Fleming in The Cold War and Its Origins.

p As time went on, more and more American politicians (at least, those capable of sober thinking) arrived at the conclusion which perhaps has been expounded most exhaustively by Henry Kissinger, prominent theoretician of US foreign and military policy. He called for an end to illusions, stating in his book The Necessity for Choice: "We are not omnipotent. We are no longer invulnerable.”  [213•2 

p Such a conclusion was tantamount to admitting the complete failure of the Pax Americana concept conceived in the first postwar years, i.e., peace on American terms, peace imposed by the United States on all other countries. Yet it was this concept that underpinned US foreign policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

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p Talk of “reappraisal” was started, of course, not in order to bring the main aims of US foreign policy in line with world realities, but, on the contrary, to explore new methods for achieving the selfsame reckless objectives. Overwhelmingly the critics in the bourgeois press were troubled not by the aggressive nature of American policy but by the fact that it was pursued “ineptly”, it was insufficiently “dynamic” and “purposeful” and, therefore, produced no results.

p It was from this angle that at the end of the 1950s Washington arranged for a broad study of the world situation in which the ideological past masters of American imperialism took part. They prepared for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations a whole series of reports on diverse aspects of the international situation, the world balance of power and practically all the main aspects of American foreign policy. Although the reports laid claim to a profoundly scientific approach, they again revealed the inability of imperialism’s ideologists to study society from the standpoint of genuine science and to understand the essence of social development. They were marked by subjectivism, bias and arbitrary interpretation of events, and above all hatred for socialism and fear of it.

p At the same time, the reports reflected two features equally characteristic of foreign-policy thinking and practices of the US ruling circles. On the one hand, there were the deep differences in methods of pursuing foreign policy and, on the other, the obstinate refusal to give up its adventurist, unfeasible aims. Once again imperialism strikingly displayed how immutably aggressive it is.

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p This aggressiveness was particularly evident in the report on US policy towards the Soviet Union and other European socialist countries prepared by a group of experts from Columbia and Harvard universities.

p The experts admitted that the American public was weary of the cold war against the socialist countries. They also made another significant admission: arguments about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, its desire to rule the world and about communist conspiracy were oversimplified and insolvent. At the same time, they appreciated that socialism was exerting a tremendous influence on people by force of example. Many facts "reinforce the impression that the Soviet Union (meaning the socialist system— Sh. S.) represents the future”. The former policy of the United States, according to the experts, did not justify itself. The American bubble of confidence had burst. But the conclusions and recommendations of the experts boiled down to retaining the old policy. They did not consider it possible to end the cold war and asserted that the preservation of peace must not be the primary aim of the Western powers. ".. .The absolute pursuit of peace as the primary objective of policy would, under present world conditions, result in our surrender to Soviet domination.. .. We may have overdone the atmosphere of an imminent military crisis,” the experts admitted, but advised that it was necessary to continue acting in the same way. Under no circumstances must there be an "imbalance of military forces in favour of the Soviet Union”. Moreover, even if it is inexpedient to launch a preventive war against the socialist countries, the possibility of striking a pre-emptive 216 blow, which is essentially one and the same thing, should be considered.  [216•1 

p Such recommendations were also contained in other reports, like the report on the development of weaponry and its influence on the strategy and foreign policy of the United States, prepared by the Washington Centre for the Study of Foreign Policy Problems at John Hopkins University. Fifteen years after Truman’s statement quoted earlier, this report again declared that the United States had assumed the main share of responsibility in the struggle against Soviet “aspirations” and contained a call for an “all-embracive” cold war policy. The report "US Foreign Policy, Ideology and Foreign Affairs”, prepared by Harvard University’s Centre for International Affairs, recommended intensive actions from the outside to erode communist ideology in socialist countries, in other words, to launch extensive ideological subversion against them.

p The “reappraisal” of US foreign policy was thus reduced to an attempt to elaborate even more aggressive and cunning methods of applying the old policy of restoring imperialist world domination. The matter was not limited to theoretical arguments and verbal recommendations. In the new conditions the imperialists sought to step up their efforts, to prevent the consolidation of the world socialist system and make new attempts to exacerbate the international situation in Europe 217 and the Far East. Although the end of hostilities in Korea and Vietnam had helped to stabilise the situation in these areas, the American imperialists kept up their aggressive intrigues, constantly violating the Geneva and other international agreements. In Europe they accelerated the rearmament of West Germany and its conversion into a hotbed of war provocation and aggression. At the end of the 1950s the revanchist programme of the West German ruling circles began to be quite explicit, being combined with open demands for access to nuclear weapons and changes in legislation allowing the Federal Republic to possess such weapons. At " GermanAmerican talks" in Bad Godesberg in the autumn of 1959, A. Weinstein, a prominent ideologist of the West German military, openly expounded their programme and demanded that the Federal Republic be given strategic weapons, that a line of fortifications be built on the border with the German Democratic Republic and "guerrilla detachments" be set up for use against the German Democratic Republic and other socialist countries.  [217•1  In August 1960, the revanchist programme was spelled out in an even more insolent form in the "Memorandum of Generals”, a joint statement by a number of leaders of the Bundeswehr.  [217•2 

p The leaders of the Bonn military, elaborating and advertising the "forward strategy" which was to become the official strategy of NATO, demagogically claimed that it would facilitate "a solution of the German problem”, in other words, the annexation of the German Democratic Republic 218 by the Federal Republic of Germany by force. But the initiators of the new "strategic concept" made no secret of the fact that they had in view something much bigger. Paul Wengler, editor- inchief of the Rheinischcr Merkur which is close to the Christian Democratic Union, the party which was in office at that time, wrote that "the German question is a specific case of liberating the population of 100 million in Bolshevised Central and Eastern Europe".  [218•1 

p The line of restoring West German militarism and utilising it in the campaign against the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies, adopted by the United States and other Western powers after the Second World War, strongly resembles their policy towards Germany in the interwar years, the Munich policy which led to disastrous consequences. On the eve of the Second World War Germany had a gigantic war machine and represented a formidable threat to Europe, while its manpower, material and other resources were sufficient to absorb many European countries one after the other. It is this that partly explains the military successes of nazi Germany during the initial period of the war, when she occupied many countries, threatened to invade the British Isles and endangered the security of America.

p At that time, the encouragement of nazi aggression by the ruling circles of Britain, France and the United States played a decisive part. Hoping to steer the German war machine eastward, that is, against the first socialist country in the world, they deliberately closed their eyes to the threat 219 presented to their own countries and peoples by the reinforcement of German militarism. Here is how their position was described by William Dodd who at that time was US Ambassador in Berlin and personally favoured a united stand against nazi Germany and co-operation with the Soviet Union. In his Diary he wrote about a letter received early in May 1935 from Lord Lothian, a leader of the so-called Cliveden set of reactionary British politicians who enjoyed quite substantial influence in the Conservative Government. "He indicated clearly that he favours a coalition of the democracies (that is the Western imperialist powers—Sh. S.) to block any German move in their direction and to turn Germany’s course eastwards. That this might lead to a war between Russia and Germany does not seem to disturb him seriously."  [219•1  Another British reactionary, Lord Lloyd of Dolobran, stated that Hitler could lay claim to a defence of general European interests against a world revolution.  [219•2 

p For its part the Soviet Union, following its peace-loving policy, worked to build up an effective collective security system in Europe. In particular, the Soviet Government exerted great efforts to conclude an Eastern pact which could seriously hamper nazi aggression. The ruling circles of the Western powers frustrated the conclusion of this treaty and resorted to a direct compact with nazi Germany.

p Archive documents relating to negotiations about an Eastern pact shed additional light on the 220 extent the rulers of Britain and France were blinded by their hatred for the USSR and also by fascist demagogy and how they betrayed the national interests of their own states.

p At the end of March 1935 Anthony Eden, who at that time was Lord Privy Seal in the British Government, visited Moscow and had talks with Soviet officials concerning the conclusion of a mutual assistance treaty with the participation of a number of European countries (that is how the Eastern pact was called officially). On March 30 Eden had a conversation with Soviet leaders. The Soviet side, demonstrating the need for the treaty, emphasised that Germany should participate in it. "We do not want to surround anyone, we do not seek to isolate Germany. On the contrary, we want to maintain friendly relations with Germany. The Germans are a great and brave people. We never forget this. They cannot be kept fettered by the Versailles Treaty for long. Sooner or later the German people have to be free of the Versailles chains. But the forms and circumstances of liberation from Versailles are such as to evoke our serious alarm, and definite guarantee is necessary to prevent any unpleasant complication. Such guarantee is the Eastern Mutual Assistance Pact, of course, with Germany if there is any possibility for it.”  [220•1 

p In the same conversation it was intimated to Eden that Hitler was playing a double game. The Soviet leaders pointed out that "odd people" were in office in Berlin, who are engaged in "petty politics": they were frightening the British by 221 the war bogy of the USSR, but at the same time they were expressing readiness "to deliver to us on credit such products of which it is even inconvenient to speak openly—armaments, chemicals, and so on".  [221•1 

p But London and Paris did not heed the Soviet warnings, which was hardly surprising. The ruling classes of the Western countries who assigned to nazi Germany the role of Europe’s policeman wanted to use the hands of the nazi butchers to strangle the USSR and the European revolutionary movement. At the same time they hoped that during the war against the Soviet Union, German imperialism itself would be weakened and that would rid them of a dangerous competitor. Therefore, they encouraged German aggression, and concluded a compact with Hitler. Even previously, on November 19, 1937, Lord Halifax, who acted as special envoy of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (shortly afterwards to become foreign secretary), told Hitler at a meeting in Obersaltzberg that he and other members of the British Government were aware that the Fiihrer had accomplished much not only in Germany herself, but, by destroying communism in his own country, he had blocked its path in Western Europe and therefore Germany could rightly be considered the bastion of the West against Bolshevism.  [221•2 

p The postwar policy of the Western powers with regard to German militarism is, in fact, a 222 direct continuation of Munich, with its class roots manifest even more. But today the policy, whose insolvency and danger were already evident in the 1930s, can lead to even greater miscalculations and create an even bigger danger.

p Despite all the exertions of the Western ruling circles, the Western German militarists and revanchists are presently deprived of the favourable opportunities they had in the past. First, the power of the imperialists does not extend to all Germany: the first socialist state of German workers and peasants is successfully developing in the Eastern part, and it is consistently applying a policy of peace and friendship with all nations.

p Furthermore, profound changes have taken place throughout Europe. The rise in the East, alongside the Soviet Union, of other socialist states has radically changed the balance of power in favour of socialism and created an entirely new situation. The balance of power has tilted in favour of democracy and socialism more than on any other continent. The might of the Soviet Union has grown immeasurably as compared with the prewar period: now, together with the European part of the Soviet Union, European socialist countries take up 62.7 per cent of the continent’s territory, and contain more than half its population. European socialist states now contribute a considerable part of Europe’s industrial output.

p The revolutionary changes in Europe after the Second World War have also altered the position of German imperialism. In Eastern Europe it has to contend not with countries disunited and weak militarily and economically, not with an isolated socialist island, as in the past, but with a single 223 socialist community that has a mighty military and economic potential.

p For all the class blindness of the ruling Western circles, they have not been able fully to ignore realities, the mounting role of the socialist system in international relations, the fundamental changes in the world, above all the world revolutionary process of our time that has encompassed all continents, including Asia. Africa and Latin America. The disintegration of imperialism’s colonial system is one of the primary factors of international postwar development. This process has gained momentum especially since 1957, stimulated by the existence of the world socialist system which has gained in strength and become the bulwark of the freedom and independence of the peoples. While the United Nations admitted on the average one new independent state each year between 1946 and 1955, the number increased more than fourfold between 1955 and 1960. In I960 alone more young states became members of the United Nations than during the entire period from 1947 to 1959.

p Towards the end of the 1950s the relationship of political forces tilted even more towards world socialism. Its advantages over capitalism were displayed more visibly. "The world socialist system, which is growing and becoming stronger,” it was noted by the Moscow Meeting of Representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries in 1957, "is exerting ever greater influence upon the international situation in the interests of peace and progress and the freedom of the peoples.”  [223•1 

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p The economic, scientific and technological progress of the socialist countries, particularly the Soviet Union, was of great importance for the consolidation of the world socialist system, for strengthening its international positions and prestige. The launching of the first artificial earth satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, was the first step in space exploration. This great scientific achievement at once reverberated on international relations, facilitating further great change in the alignment of class and political forces in favour of world socialism. The American Communist leader William Z. Foster pointed out in an article in the American The Worker that "the launching of the man-made satellite by the USSR is, by common agreement, an event of stupendous scientific importance, marking a new era of scientific accomplishment. It is also a splendid demonstration of the superiority, technically and otherwise, of the Socialist system over that of capitalism.”  [224•1 

p It is not surprising that the international situation at that time was evaluated primarily in the light of the initial Soviet step in space exploration. "The launching of a sputnik into international space has completely staggered the Western world,"  [224•2  so wrote Le Monde diplomatique. Even American journalist Harry Schwartz, a rabid anti-Communist, had to admit that it would be necessary to discard "the consistent tendency to underestimate Soviet capabilities”, engendered by hatred for the USSR "that results in wishes being substituted for facts".  [224•3 

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p The New America, written by Adlai Stevenson, a leader of the Democratic Party, was published in New York, in 1957. Stevenson for a long time was instrumental in shaping Washington’s foreign policy and in the last years of his life was the permanent US delegate to the United Nations. Examining Soviet influence on the world, Stevenson arrived at conclusions which were not pleasing for capitalist ruling circles. "Everywhere people seeking a short cut to raise their own standards of life,” he wrote, "are told that the Soviet Union alone has mastered the secret of converting a peasant economy into a modern industrial state in a single generation.... Today the peoples of the proud, poor, new nations can find little in official United States policy which seems addressed to them and their problems... . Much of the world has come to think of us as militarists, and even a menace to peace.”  [225•1 

p The socialist system continued to gain in strength, unity and cohesion in this international political situation which was marked, on the one hand, by greater aggressiveness of world imperialism and, on the other, by a further shift in the balance of power towards socialism, the national liberation movement, democracy and peace. Both objective and subjective factors thus acted in favour of socialism. New forms of unity of the socialist countries arose and new important events occurred in the history of world socialism.

p A Meeting of Representatives of Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries, held in Moscow on November 14-16, 1957, played an 226 important part in consolidating the socialist forces and strengthening the international communist and working-class movement.

p The Declaration adopted at the Meeting pointed out that the cohesion and unity of the socialist countries was the true guarantee of the national independence and sovereignty of each of them. "Stronger fraternal relations and friendship between the socialist countries call for a MarxistLeninist internationalist policy on the part of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, for educating all the working people in the spirit of combining internationalism with patriotism and for a determined effort to overcome the survivals of bourgeois nationalism and chauvinism. All issues pertaining to relations between the socialist countries can be fully settled through comradely discussion, with strict observance of the principles of socialist internationalism.”  [226•1 

p The Meeting stressed the need for stepping up the struggle against opportunist trends in the working-class and communist movement and eliminating revisionism and dogmatism in the Communist and Workers’ Parties. It emphasised that the Parties of the fraternal countries must firmly adhere to the principles of combining the general truth of Marxism-Leninism with the practical activities of socialist revolution and socialist construction in conformity with each country’s conditions.

p The 1957 Moscow Meeting was of great importance for mobilising all forces for solving 227 economic, political and cultural problems of the world socialist community.

p Reciprocal visits of socialist Party and Government leaders helped immensely to strengthen unity and political co-operation among socialist states. Such visits, exchanges of opinion on basic problems of foreign policy and international relations facilitated the solution of burning issues, the co-ordination and working out of a common policy on major international issues. They became not only an important means for solving political problems arising in relations between the socialist countries, but also a medium for exchanging know-how.

The late 1950s were marked by another historic triumph for world socialism: the Cuban revolution of January 1, 1959. The birth of the first socialist state in the Western Hemisphere on the doorstep of the citadel of world imperialism, the United States, ushered in a qualitatively new stage in the liberation struggle against US diktat in Latin America. It visibly demonstrated the weakening of the world positions of US imperialism. But significance of the Cuban revolution is not conlined to that; it demonstrated the unity of the world revolutionary process inasmuch as the national liberation revolution had directly grown into socialist revolution. This became possible only when a world socialist system already existed, when the united actions of its members had created an international situation in which the world revolutionary process, all anti-imperialist movements—whether on a global or local scale— could proceed rapidly, at minimal cost and in the most favourable way.