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p Throughout the centuries foreign policy has been perhaps the most jealously guarded realm of the exploiting ruling classes and has been shrouded by them in strict secrecy. Foreign policy has been zealously concealed and fenced off from the man in the street, from the working masses. This was by no means accidental. Closely-guarded secrecy was an indispensable condition for the diplomatic activity of the exploiting ruling classes and of the governments carrying out their will, for it enabled them to make their preparations for war, shamelessly sell the real interests, freedom and independence of peoples, and conclude monstrous bargains in which the profits of a handful of oppressors were paid for with the suffering and blood of the working masses, with the ruin of entire countries and continents. In particular, this is true of imperialist diplomacy, which Lenin compared with a labyrinth artificially built by "people, classes, parties and groups who like to fish in muddy waters, or who are compelled to do so".  [79•* 

To put an end to this situation it was necessary, first and foremost, to tear off the shroud of secrecy surrounding foreign policy and help the working people to understand politics and teach them to put up an effective resistance to the foreign policy adventures of the oppressors. This was made all the more necessary because objective conditions were facilitating the endeavours of the exploiting classes to isolate the people from foreign policy. These objective conditions were: first, the fact that up to a certain point foreign policy usually affected the direct interests of the working people less than internal policy; second, in foreign policy, as distinct from internal policy, class relations come to the fore not in a direct, undisguised, form but in a mediated form that is deliberately masked by categories such as national community, national and state interests, and so forth, which usually foster stable illusions and delude the people.

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p It was only when the working class appeared on the stage of history armed with a scientific teaching, which enabled it to understand the substance of internal and foreign policy acts correctly, that it became possible to demolish the wall of secrecy, lies, illusions and prejudices that had stood between the people and the realities of international relations for such a long time. In line with Marx’s precept, the foremost representatives of the organised working-class movement had long ago seen that one of their duties was to help the working class to unravel the secrets of international politics, watch the diplomatic activities of their governments and, when necessary, to oppose these activities with every possible means.

p This acquired vital significance in view of the criminal wars that the imperialists were organising and starting. The exposure of the preparations for such wars and counteraction to militarist propaganda grew into a major independent task of the workers’ parties, of their ideological, propaganda and political activities. The political parties of the working class were confronted with this task in its full stature when the threat of the First World War loomed large.

p Extensive work was accomplished in this sphere by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. When chauvinistic passions gripped the whole of Europe and spread to the USA, the Bolshevik Party’s attitude to the war and to imperialist foreign policy, its anti-war, anti-imperialist propaganda and its watchword that the imperialist war should be turned into a civil war gave the finest representatives of the proletariat and other working people an understanding of what was taking place and a clear-cut programme of action. Although in the situation obtaining at the time it did not prove to be possible to avert war, all this played an immense role several years later, when revolutionary upheavals began to shake one European country after another.

p The working-class movement will always cherish the names of Karl Liebknecht, Jean Jaures, Eugene Debs and many other ardent and dedicated fighters against militarist barbarism who tirelessly exposed imperialism’s foreign policy and were not daunted by slander, repressions and police terror.

p These efforts of the finest sons of the working-class movement unquestionably helped to organise mass opposition 81 to and fetter the predatory foreign policy of imperialism. But at the time the possibilities for such propaganda were limited. As long as the working class of at least one country did not have a foreign policy and diplomacy of its own it was extremely difficult to take a hand in international affairs in order to intervene effectively in the foreign policy activities of governments. The situation underwent a fundamental change with the appearance of the first socialist state, which moulded the new, socialist diplomacy.

p The key role in working out its underlying principles was played by Lenin. One of these principles was that the socialist state had the mission of turning government- to-government relations, to which the relations between countries had hitherto been reduced, into genuinely international relations.

p This was by no means a “tactic” prompted by the perilous position in which the Soviet Republic, surrounded on all sides by enemies, found itself. It was a matter of a principle, which subsequently became the guideline of the foreign policy and diplomacy of the first socialist state. Thus, this principle was not accidentally proclaimed in Lenin’s Decree on Peace, the first foreign policy document of the socialist state. "We do not want any secrets,” Lenin said in closing the debate on this decree at the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets. "We want a Government to be always under the supervision of the public opinion of its country."  [81•* 

p In this first foreign policy act the Soviet Government outlined a programme of steps designed to make it easier for the people, for the working masses, to intervene in foreign policy, which had hitherto been out of bounds to them. In the Decree on Peace it is stated: "The Government abolishes secret diplomacy, and, for its part, announces its firm intention to conduct all negotiations quite openly in full view of the whole people. It will proceed immediately with the full publication of the secret treaties."  [81•** 

p The publication of the secret treaties laid bare the dirty machinations that had led to the First World War, which the governments of all the belligerent countries had portrayed as a just, defensive war. To a huge extent this historic 82 step of the Soviet Government stimulated the growth of anti-war sentiments and played a major role in the antiwar struggle, which a year later forced the imperialists to stop the monstrous slaughter, which had cost the peoples many millions of lives.

p Some time later, touching on the significance of Soviet Russia’s first diplomatic steps, Lenin pointed out: "We frankly told the working people the whole truth. We exposed the secret imperialist treaties, the fruits of a policy which serves as a massive instrument of deception, and which in America today, the most advanced of the bourgeois imperialist democratic republics, is more than ever deceiving the people and leading them by the nose. When the imperialist character of the war became patent to all, the Russian Soviet Republic was the only country that completely shattered the bourgeoisie’s secret foreign policy."  [82•* 

p This was an invaluable contribution not only to the mass peace movement but also to the revolutionary struggle against imperialism. That is how it was assessed by Lenin. He said: "No matter how sound our conviction that a revolutionary force was being and had been created throughout Europe and that the war would not end without revolution, there were no signs at the time that a revolution had begun or was beginning. In these circumstances we could do nothing but direct our foreign policy efforts to enlightening the working people of Western Europe. This was not because we claimed to be more enlightened than they, but because so long as the bourgeoisie of a country have not been overthrown, military censorship and that fantastically bloodthirsty atmosphere which accompanies every war, particularly a reactionary one, predominate in that country.... We did everything possible for this when we annulled and published the disgraceful secret treaties which the ex-tsar had concluded with the British and French capitalists to the benefit of the Russian capitalists....

p "If we now make a general survey of the results gained by the exposure of German imperialism, we shall see that it is now obvious to the working people of all countries that they were made to wage a bloody and predatory war. And at the end of this year of war the behaviour of Britain and 83 America is beginning to be exposed in the same way, since the people are opening their eyes and beginning to see through the evil designs. That is all we have done, but we have done our bit. The exposure of these treaties was a blow to imperialism.”  [83•* 

p The emergence of open socialist diplomacy signified a rupture with the age-long diplomatic tradition established by the exploiting states. By going over to this diplomacy the Soviet Union ushered in a new phase in the history of international relations.

p Its open diplomacy had world-wide repercussions and that was why it was given a hostile reception by the enemies of socialism. Soviet Russia’s anti-imperialist propaganda provoked such fury in the imperialist camp that it was time and again the cause even of serious demarches, ultimatums, refusals to extend diplomatic recognition and so on.  [83•** 

p But the changes that had taken place in international relations under the impact of Soviet Russia’s open diplomacy proved to be irreversible. There was nothing that could stop, much less reverse, the course of events. When that became evident the imperialist powers tried to adapt themselves to these changes despite all their howls about violations of 84 the “traditions” and “practices” of international intercourse.

p Very indicative in this light was the story behind the Wilson’s notorious Fourteen Points. Today bourgeois theorists are trying to portray them as a milestone in the history of international relations, almost as the beginning of the age of "open diplomacy”. But there are many documents that shed light on how matters really stood. Among them are the memoirs of Edgar Sisson, who represented the Committee on Public Information (Creel Committee) in Russia.  [84•* 

p Sisson relates that soon after the October Revolution he telegraphed Washington recommending that the US President should re-state America’s "anti-imperialistic war aims and democratic peace requisites".  [84•**  This recommendation was undoubtedly made because Sisson realised that Soviet Russia’s peace-loving foreign policy and her open diplomacy, which had torn the mask from the instigators of the First World War, had profoundly impressed the working masses of all countries.

p Sisson’s recommendation was approved and a few. days later President Wilson stated his Fourteen Points in a message to the US Congress. As a matter of fact, even without the admissions of Sisson and other authorities, the very content of that document leaves not a shadow of a doubt about its real motivations and origin. Take the point stating that the USA was determined to put an end to secret diplomacy. Or the statement that foreign troops had to be withdrawn from Russian territory and that the attitude of countries to Russia was the touchstone of their goodwill. This is irrefutable testimony of the fact that the Wilson Fourteen Points were conceived as a reply to the challenge made by revolutionary Russia’s foreign policy and diplomacy. Walter Lippmann, dean of United States journalism, who had taken part in drawing up the Fourteen Points, frankly declared: "I think the Fourteen Points were an attempt—or 8 of the 14 points, to be more exact—to offset and uncommit the Allied forces from the secret treaties which had been found and 85 published by the Bolsheviks when they seized power in the revolution of 1917."  [85•* 

p In face of Soviet open diplomacy Washington could do nothing but accept the challenge, thus becoming the first in the history of imperialist diplomacy to make a direct appeal to world opinion and to make, in words at least, some concessions to it.

p Incidentally, these concessions aroused discontent with the Fourteen Points among the ruling elite of the Entente countries and in influential circles in the USA itself.  [85•** 

p In a number of books published in the West it is acknowledged that the Wilson programme was an attempt to give a direct reply to the Leninist Decree on Peace. One of these books is by the American historian Arno J. Mayer, who writes that by including some of the propositions of the Decree on Peace and of the Soviet proposals at the Brest peace talks in his Fourteen Points "Wilson praised the Bolshevik diplomacy".  [85•***  A bourgeois historian, Mayer in effect bears out Lenin’s assessment of the Fourteen Points further by the fact that he regards the "liberal-progressive ideology" enunciated in them as an attempt to divert the working masses from the revolution.

p The story behind the Wilson Fourteen Points is indicative in yet another aspect. It quickly revealed the vulnerability, the Achilles heel of the pseudo-open diplomacy adopted by the imperialist powers after socialism had appeared on the world scene. This was the discrepancy between the words and actions of the bourgeois politicians—it will be remembered that all the basic points of the Wilson programme remained only on paper: not only the points concerning Soviet Russia (the withdrawal of foreign troops and so on) but also the post-war peace generally. Small wonder that the Wilson Fourteen Points are remembered as an evasive diplomatic manoeuvre.

p Beginning with the Wilson Fourteen Points this glaring discrepancy between words and deeds has always been 86 ultimately self-destructive in the attempts of the bourgeois governments to adopt new methods of diplomacy. The enormous strength of the open diplomacy initiated by Lenin, and of the Soviet power generally, lies in the fact that its words and declarations have always been backed up with action.

p Was it due solely to its wording that the Decree on Peace had such a great impact on public opinion? Lenin later noted that "all over the world there had been an inordinate amount of pacifist talk, an unusual number of pacifist phrases and assurances, and even vows against war and against peace, although there is usually little preparedness on the part of the majority of states, especially on the part of the modern civilised states, to take any realistic steps, even the most simple, to ensure peace. On this, and on similar questions, we should like to see a minimum of general assurances, solemn promises and grandiloquent formulas, and the greatest possible number of the simplest and most obvious decisions and measures that would certainly lead to peace, if not to the complete elimination of the war danger."  [86•* 

p This was the line pursued by the Soviet Government. It renounced all of tsarism’s Great-Power claims, consistently pursued a policy based on the self-determination of nations (an example being its policy towards Finland and Poland) and took effective and concrete steps (the Brest Treaty) to withdraw from the war. That was what mainly impressed public opinion and made open diplomacy something much bigger than propaganda. It was a policy which exposed the imperialists not with words but by action and roused the masses against the imperialists.

p In his analysis of the sequel and significance of the Brest Treaty Lenin emphasised: "The terms of the peace treaty which we were compelled to conclude proved to be a powerful weapon of propaganda and agitation; we did more with them than any government or nation has done.... We said that we had no intention of allying ourselves with robbers and becoming robbers ourselves; no, we expected to arouse the proletariat of the enemy countries. We were jeered at and told we were preparing to arouse the German proletariat 87 which would strangle us while we were preparing to launch a propaganda attack. But facts have shown we were right to assume that the working people in all countries are equally hostile to imperialism."  [87•* 

p The same significance was acquired by other foreign policy acts of the Soviet Government which won to its side not only the proletariat but, in a number of cases, also bourgeois public opinion in countries which had experienced imperialist oppression. A striking example of this is the peace with Estonia. Here is Lenin’s assessment of its significance: "What was it that enabled us to prevail over the combined forces of world imperialism in regard to Estonia, a country which had always suffered violence at the hands of the Russia of the tsars and landowners? It was our proving our ability to renounce, in all sincerity, the use of force at the appropriate moment, in order to change to a peace policy, and so win the sympathy of the bourgeois government of a small country, regardless of all the support given it by international capital.... The entire pressure of international capital was overcome in that area where our rejection of the use of force was recognised to be sincere."  [87•** 

p And further: "I state that this victory is of gigantic historical significance, because it has been gained without the use of force. This victory over world imperialism is a victory that is bringing the Bolsheviks the sympathy of the whole world. This victory by no means denotes that universal peace will be concluded immediately; but it does show that we represent the peace interests of the majority of the world’s population against the imperialist warmongers."  [87•*** 

In this lies the substance of the open diplomacy charted by Lenin and pursued by socialism. Naturally, it does not rule out certain political secrets—in the struggle against imperialism one cannot divulge to the enemy all of one’s plans, intentions and tactical moves. But it begins where the fundamental political aims of the state and the very essence of foreign policy are such that they need not be hidden from the peoples. On the contrary, knowing these aims the working masses give them not only moral support but also take an active part in their implementation.

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p This is what makes open diplomacy a weapon by no means suitable for any policy or any social system. It is essentially a party political instrument that reliably serves solely a policy upholding the interests of the masses. Open diplomacy emerged as the only possible diplomacy of the new social system that came into being as a result of revolution, a system whose fundamental interests are shared by the masses not only of its own country but also of all the other countries in the world. This system does not conceal its foreign policy aims and actions from the masses. On the contrary, it desires to give the masses access to foreign policy and enhance their influence on international relations.

p Lenin’s line of orienting the foreign policy of the first socialist state on the working masses of all countries and of helping them to intervene actively and exercise an influence on international affairs underlie all subsequent Soviet diplomacy and later the diplomacy of other socialist countries.

p To a considerable extent socialist diplomacy has been instrumental in strengthening the influence of the people on foreign policy and international relations.

p If we examine the period preceding the Second World War we shall find that it was namely Soviet foreign policy and the USSR’s consistent efforts to safeguard international security, and its exposure of the fascist policy of aggression and war and also of the Western powers’ “appeasement” of the aggressors that helped public opinion to see the threat hanging over mankind. It was largely owing to Soviet foreign policy that the political atmosphere was created that led to the establishment of the anti-fascist coalition, which represented not an agreement "at the top" but an invincible alliance of peoples who had risen against fascist barbarism.

p Soviet foreign policy helped the working people of many countries to see the real causes of the Second World War, the unseemly or criminal role played by their ruling bourgeoisie in precipitating the war, and this became one of the factors of the socio-political changes that took place in the world after the war.

p In the post-war period the foreign policy of the USSR and other countries of the socialist community helped to mobilise the masses of the whole world against the preparations of the imperialists for a thermonuclear war and to 89 launch a global peace campaign. In this light immense significance attaches to the Peace Programme and the foreign policy decisions adopted by the 24th Congress of the CPSU. The consistent implementation of these decisions has already led to major, tangible successes and helped to activate the mass struggle for peace in other countries. Socialist foreign policy has become a key factor allowing the national liberation movement to gain strength and stimulating world condemnation of colonialism.

p The socialist countries’ consistent exposure of imperialist aggression and of its inspirers and accomplices was unquestionably of vital significance to the struggle against the criminal US war in Indochina and remains of vital importance in opposing the imperialist intrigues in ihe Middle East.

The entire latest history of international relations shows that socialist diplomacy has been a powerful factor awakening the political awareness and activity of the masses, who are coming out more and more energetically against imperialism and reaction, for peace and international security.

p The new possibilities which the people now have of defending their interests as a result of the working class’ emergence on the stage of history, the unparalleled growth of the people’s interest in foreign policy owing to the changes that progress in armaments has introduced into the nature of warfare, and the people’s considerably greater awareness of their foreign policy interests and the ways and means of fighting for them, an awareness that has been fostered largely by the open diplomacy of the socialist countries, are the principal factors that have increased the influence exercised by the masses on international relations. Following the world’s division into two systems and the formation of the world socialist community, and also the downfall of imperialism’s colonial system, this increased influence has largely accounted for the changes that have taken place in modern international relations.

This is strongly affecting the alignment of forces in the contemporary world, undermining the position of world capitalism and, at the same time, strengthening the might 90 and international influence of socialism, for the two social systems, whose collision forms the main content of the modern epoch, have different interests and different sources of strength. As was noted by Lenin: "According to the bourgeois conception, there is strength when the people go blindly to the slaughter in obedience to the imperialist governments. The bourgeoisie admit a state to be strong only when it can, by the power of the government apparatus, hurl the people wherever the bourgeois rulers want them hurled".  [90•*  Socialism draws its strength from a diametrically opposite source. "Our idea of strength,"Lenin said, "is different. Our idea is that a state is strong when the people are politically conscious. It is strong when the people know everything, can form an opinion of everything and do everything consciously".  [90•**  This is the basic distinction between the two systems and the reason for their different attitudes to the people’s growing role in international relations and other spheres of social life.