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p The recognition that the ideological struggle is necessary and unavoidable by no means signifies that any propaganda and any activity directed towards influencing people are compatible with the principles of peaceful coexistence. It is one thing to engage in a battle of ideas, to argue about the understanding and assessment of various realities, about the ways of achieving the ideals of the majority of mankind, about the merits or demerits of a social system. Conducted in a proper manner, no matter how sharp the dialogue becomes, this struggle must not and cannot be a factor hindering peace and normal relations between socialist and capitalist countries. It is quite another thing to preach war and hatred between nations, to engage in slander, to incite sabotage and other crimes, and to spread rumours that can only sow confusion and discord in society. This sort of propaganda is not an ideological struggle but rather subversive activity tantamount to interference in the internal affairs of other countries, which is incompatible with peaceful coexistence.

p Yet this is the very kind of propaganda that comprises the substance of the psychological warfare conducted by 283 international reaction against the socialist countries. Stating; its “fundamental” premises in a paper entitled " Psychological Warfare Reconsidered”, Hans Speier, who was the wartime chief of the OWI’s German policy desk, wrote bluntly in those years when the foundations of US foreign political propaganda were shaped that it was useless to try to " convert" the peoples of socialist countries to the capitalist “faith”. The purpose of propaganda, he insisted, should be to "concentrate on selected groups whose self-interest, predisposition and organisation are conducive to deviation".  [283•* 

p A far-reaching programme of propaganda methods of this kind was outlined in the influential West German journal Aussenpolitik by Dr. Alard von Schack in an article headed "The Spiritual War in Coexistence”. He urged the "planned employment of the pertinent methods ... and all means of modern propaganda" in order to induce in the people in socialist countries "an indifference to the aims of the Communist leadership, and to utilise national distinctions, religious prejudices, and also human weaknesses such as curiosity, vanity in women, the pursuit of pleasure”. One of the chief objectives is to provoke the population into "passive resistance”, to prevail upon the people to "slow down their work and commit sabotage".  [283•** 

p We have confined ourselves to these two passages because we have already examined at length both the doctrine and methods of imperialist propaganda, including psychological warfare, which is its most aggressive variety. It is important to emphasise that this sort of propaganda is not the fantasy of individual theorists but a long-standing inalienable part of imperialist political practices. Witness the role played by imperialist propaganda in the events in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the intrigues systematically woven by Western radio stations (including official government radio stations) against the German Democratic Republic, the activities of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and other subversive centres.

p In the light of this policy it is not surprising that during the past two decades many people have grown accustomed 284 to identifying the ideological struggle with psychological warfare, which from the very beginning has indeed been inflicting considerable harm on the relations between countries and sowing distrust and hate. This is exactly what some adversaries of peaceful coexistence are today trying to turn to account.

p As understood by the Communists, the war of ideas has nothing in common with psychological warfare. There is the same fundamental difference between them as between peaceful coexistence and the cold war, of which they are correspondingly an inalienable component.

p By attacking peaceful coexistence, the imperialist leaders have in mind not the danger emanating from the cold war methods inherent in imperialist policy. They want concessions from the Communists in something else, requiring them to "show their good will" by renouncing their world outlook, compromising in the ideological sphere and manifesting tolerance for bourgeois ideas. These groundless demands were categorically rejected by the CC CPSU at its plenary meeting in April 1968, which underscored that peaceful coexistence in ideology was unacceptable.

p This approach is all the more well-founded since the imperialists themselves have no intention of disarming ideologically, no matter how much has been achieved on the road to peaceful coexistence. This was openly stated by Reuben S. Nathan, an American of German origin who headed Radio Free Europe’s planning department. In an article "Western Foreign Policy and Propaganda" in the journal Aussenpolitik, he stressed that even if Western diplomacy were to show a willingness to see international tension relaxed this act "would have to be reinforced by an increasingly aggressive use of the adversary’s psychological and ideological weaknesses and, correspondingly, of course, it may find itself hamstrung by limited propaganda”. "The ideological conflict,” he maintained, "is as much a life and death struggle as were the hottest wars of past years."  [284•* 

p The ideological struggle thus remains a vital element of the relations between the two social systems.

p As for the cold war it, naturally, presupposes an " ideological" struggle of a special kind—aggressive propaganda 285 designed to paralyse the resistance of the masses to imperialist policies, ensure imperialist expansion, serve as a means of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and subjugating their peoples, and sustaining tension and conflicts in international relations. The fact that by their objectives and very essence the cold war and its propaganda machine are military means is admitted by some bourgeois theorists. For instance Major-General J.F.C. Fuller of Britain (who preached a "push-button war" doctrine) writes that insofar as nuclear weapons had made conventional war meaningless, the concept of war had to be extended through cold war methods of psychological, economic and ideological warfare for the attainment of aims which today cannot be achieved by a hot war.  [285•* 

p This sort of psychological and “ideological” struggle organised by the imperialists is indeed substantially prejudicing peace, the normalisation of the international situation and the interests of the peoples. Naturally, this is alarming all who want peace, including people far removed from Marxism-Leninism who remain proponents of capitalism, of bourgeois ideals and institutions. One hears even these people more and more frequently strongly protesting against the theory and, in particular, the practices of imperialist psychological warfare, which is poisoning the international climate.

p As an example we can quote from May Man Prevail’?, a book by Erich Fromm, an American philosopher and psychologist. Of course, one cannot agree with many of the propositions offered in this book. Fromm is an idealist and in his explanations of political developments frequently ignores socio-economic factors and reduces matters to psychology. His views on Marxism-Leninism are also quite untenable. But all this does not detract from his criticism of imperialist policy and propaganda.

p He is convinced that the Soviet Union wants peace and that "the cliche of the Soviet offensive ... is rather a convenient formula to support further armament and the continuation of the cold war".  [285•**  Polemising with Hermann Kahn, 286 he aligns himself with the demand for disarmament, holding that this requires "psychological disarmament" as well. Elucidating his idea he writes that it means not a renunciation of the ideological struggle but that this struggle should "not be used to foster a spirit of war".  [286•* 

p Fromm is aware that any renunciation of psychological warfare would be resisted by influential circles in the West who dread a real ideological duel because of their "inner emptiness and deep-rooted lack of hope".  [286•**  Nonetheless, he feels that a return to thinking based on facts and the breaking of the resistance from "the material interests of the ruling and privileged groups"  [286•***  would result in psychological disarmament and that this would be in line with the efforts to safeguard peace and avert a thermonuclear war.

p Similarly categorical opposition to the propaganda practices of the US ruling circles comes from Professor Seymour Melman, who heads Columbia University’s Institute of War and Peace Studies. He writes indignantly about the methods used to regiment the thinking of the American population and produce "readiness to take human life without a sense of guilt”. "Robotism,” he writes, "becomes the necessary state of being when the major alternatives for our society are restricted to ... ‘dead or red’."  [286•**** 

p The Hard Way to Peace by Amitai Etzioni merits mention. Etzioni contends that the aim is to promote broad co- operation between states while preserving the different ideologies—communist and capitalist—in the world. This is undoubtedly a realistic approach, which rejects the absurd demand for "peaceful coexistence" in ideology. He is also realistic in seeing that psychological warfare is adversely affecting the international situation. Hence his recommendation that the USA put an end to the cold war hysteria and begin the "psychological phase" of normalising international relations by stopping anti-Soviet propaganda and generally halting propaganda calling on citizens of socialist countries "to reject their governments".  [286•*****  This, in his opinion, would 287 improve the situation and help reach agreement on disarmament and on other vital problems.

p This viewpoint, which is steadily gaining currency, is evidence of growing public understanding of the threat to peace from the slanderous propaganda of the warmongers, from the psychological warfare unleashed by the imperialists against the peoples. Indeed, the restriction and elimination of this propaganda has today become a major component of the general programme for normalising international relations and preserving and consolidating peace. The corresponding demands (the banning of war propaganda, the cessation of subversive propaganda and so on) are becoming an important objective of the struggle for peace, peaceful coexistence and international normalisation.

p Arthur Larson, John B. Whitton, John L. Martin and other Western researchers regard, the restriction of certain forms of propaganda by signing the pertinent international legal documents as the central problem of the "psychological normalisation" of international relations. True, they may be accused of a formal juridical approach to this important issue (the struggle against propaganda endangering peace cannot be reduced to the signing of international treaties because like the struggle for peace generally it is waged chiefly by socio-political and not juridical means). However, it would be wrong to ignore the importance of the juridical, international-legal mechanism, which could play a prominent role in regulating government-to-government relations and various aspects of the international activities of states, including activity linked with the ideological struggle, with the dissemination of ideas, with propaganda.

p The problem of restricting international propaganda by law is a relatively new one. For a long time this propaganda was conducted almost exclusively in time of war or in connection with war, when the right of might and not juridical restrictions, even if in the long run founded on this right, was predominant.

p No wonder there are so few historical precedents of lawenforced restrictions on what we today call foreign political propaganda. Of these precedents mention may be made of the treaty signed by France and Russia in 1801, Article 3 of which stated that the signatories would not permit their subjects to carry on correspondence "with the internal enemies 288 of the existing government of the two states" with the aim of propagating "principles contrary to their respective constitutions, or to incite disorders”. There was a similar provision in some other treaties, including the treaty signed by Austria-Hungary and Serbia in 1881.  [288•* 

p The problem of regulating and restricting foreign political propaganda by international law came to the fore only in the 20th century in connection with two different developments. The first was the socialist revolution, which made the ruling bourgeoisie resort to all means of limiting the spread of revolutionary ideas. The second was the two world wars, for whose preparation the imperialists used the weapon of propaganda, which in the ranks of the progressive, peace-loving forces gave rise to the striving to restrict the propagation of war, racial and national hatred, and so forth.

p This lays bare the problem’s complexity and also two conflicting approaches to it linked with different political developments and aspirations. Hence the obvious inadequacy of a formal approach calling for restrictive measures depending on the purpose they pursue.

p In the new and latest history of international relations the first attempts to regulate propaganda by legal means stemmed above all, from the counter-revolutionary aspirations of the reactionaries. This will be appreciated if it is borne in mind that right until 1917 the exploiting classes interested in preserving oppressor practices and fighting the revolution were the sole subjects of international law.

p That is why until recently the works of acknowledged authorities on international law dealt only with one aspect of the problem, an aspect that concerned revolutionary propaganda. Moreover, this problem was interpreted onesidedly, namely, that such propaganda was illegal. This is put in categorical terms, for example, by William 0. Manning, who wrote that a state has the right to declare war, "great as that evil is, rather than submit to that total ruin of the community which must result from the forcible provocation of anarchy".  [288•**  In the same spirit but perhaps not quite as categorically this problem is posed by Heinrich 289 Triepel, P. Quincy Wright, Paul Fauchille, Scipione Gemma, Hersch Lauterpach, Alfred Verdross, Lassa Oppenheim and many other Western authorities on international law.

p After the Great October Socialist Revolution this doctrine moved from theory to international practice. As we have already pointed out, one of the principal reasons for denying diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Government was the claim that it was conducting “subversive” propaganda.

p At first the imperialist powers tried to give an extended interpretation of the commitments of states with regard to propaganda hostile to the governments of other countries, including in this also the activities of non-government organisations and individuals, and the propagation of social ideas that contained no direct call for the overthrow of the existing governments.  [289•*  However, they had to reconsider this interpretation, especially as alongside subversive activities, economic embargoes and armed provocations the policy of the imperialist powers towards Soviet Russia included propaganda hostile to the socialist system.

p As regards official propaganda directed at the governments of other countries, Soviet Russia declared its willingness to refrain from such propaganda on the basis of equality and reciprocity, in response to similar commitments by the governments of the capitalist countries. This was recorded in the very first treaties signed by the Soviet Government: the Brest Treaty (1918), treaties with Britain (1921), Poland (1921), Norway (1921), Italy (1921), Czechoslovakia (1922) and other countries, right until the letters exchanged in 1933 between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Maxim Litvinov on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the USA.  [289•** 

At the same time, the Soviet Government categorically dismissed the attempts of the Western powers to force it to commit itself to halt the revolutionary propaganda conducted by the world communist movement and the fraternal Communist parties.

290

p The first attempts to restrict propaganda prejudicial to peace were made in the period between the two world wars. They were made chiefly by non-government or “semi”-official organisations (usually international), which for various reasons adopted a bourgeois pacifist stand. However, nothing came of these attempts: the pertinent recommendations were not translated into life and did not receive the force of law. This is understandable because underlying them were attempts to deceive public opinion or groundless and Utopian pacifist programmes that had no link with and did not rely on the mass peace movement.

p But as foreign political propaganda grew into an increasingly important instrument of government-to-government relations, more frequent diplomatic attempts were made to regulate it in the conventional relations between countries with similar social systems. Somewhat more noteworthy results were achieved in this sphere. The history of diplomacy of the period between the two world wars provides many examples of a settlement of this issue by bilateral and multilateral treaties. These include an agreement signed in 1923 by Spain, France and Britain in Tangier placing a ban on propaganda from Tangier hostile to the practices in French and Spanish Morocco. A similar agreement was signed in 1928 by Spain, France, Britain and Italy.  [290•*  Actually, these agreements were an ancillary means consolidating the colonial partition of some areas of the world.

p Typical of that period were the agreements under which bourgeois powers pledged to refrain from hostile propaganda against each other. Such were the gentlemen’s agreement signed by Italy and Great Britain in 1938, the FrancoItalian treaty of January 7, 1935, and the 1938 “Press- Non-Attack Pact" between Poland and Lithuania.  [290•** 

p In short, the period between the two world wars saw the imperialist powers show a heightened interest in regulating foreign political propaganda, for by then they had seen both its dangers and its new possibilities as an instrument of diplomacy. Noting the efforts that were made in that direction, Martin writes: "Besides putting all this money into international propaganda, states have gone out of their 291 way to sign treaties, especially since World War I, making important concessions to other states in exchange for a vague freedom from propaganda. Legislative bodies have drafted hundreds of statutes in an attempt to keep propaganda in check. Diplomats have cajoled, pleaded, threatened, and bargained to ward off the propaganda activities of other states. Publicists have argued vigorously on whether international propaganda, public or private, is admissible in international law."  [291•* 

p One of the major changes introduced by the Second World War into the problem of restricting international propaganda by law was that it opened people’s eyes to the danger of an aggressor using propaganda as a political weapon. This was one of the lessons taught the world by fascism. The criminal responsibility for such propaganda was considered at the Nuremberg trial. The International Tribunal found Julius Streicher, publisher of the Jew-baiting leaflet Strürmer, guilty of incitement to murder and exterminate Jews. The propagation of nazi doctrines was one of the key counts against Rudolf Hess and Rosenberg. True, the Western judges found no corpus delicti in the activities of Hans Fritzsche, one of the heads of nazi Germany’s propaganda machine, notably in his radio broadcasts. This elicited a legitimate protest from Nikitchenko, the Soviet representative.  [291•**  However, even though Fritzsche was not sentenced, the Nuremberg trial set an important precedent under which certain forms of propaganda may and must be regarded as a crime against peace and mankind, as being part of genocide, and as such subject to prosecution.

p The cold war started by the imperialists has turned war propaganda into one of the major threats to peace. The subversive propaganda of the imperialist powers against socialist countries, which has become a notable factor of international tension, is conducted on a large scale.

p This is the situation in which the two opposing attitudes to the problem have crystallised. One of them, adopted by the socialist countries, is that barriers should be erected to war propaganda and to interference in the affairs of other 292 countries hy means of propaganda. This approach found expression in the efforts of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries to secure the banning of war propaganda. Under pressure from public opinion the pertinent resolutions were passed in 1947 by the UN General Assembly’s Political Committee and in 1950 by the General Assembly.  [292•*  But unlike the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the imperialist powers did not adopt the relevant criminal law recognising only the moral aspect of these resolutions.

p This is a manifestation of the general approach of the imperialist countries to this problem. By their all-out resistance to any restriction on the dissemination of war propaganda, racial hatred and nationalism, and by giving free rein to subversive propaganda against socialist countries they are seeking not only to legalise this activity but also to deny to other countries the right to protect themselves against such propaganda.

p This is the purpose of the ”freedom of information" demanded by the imperialist powers, notably by the USA.

p Their drive for "freedom of information" began long ago, during the First World War, and the efforts of government agencies were reinforced by those of the largest monopolies, which saw not only a political but also an economic advantage in the abolition of all restrictions on ideological expansion (news agencies, newspapers, book-publishing trusts, and so on). In a book devoted to this question, the American journalist Herbert Brucker relates that on the insistence of the Associated Press Colonel House, adviser to President Wilson, applied pressure to compel the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to include guarantees for "the free exchange of news" in the text of the peace treaties.  [292•**  In 1934 the Associated Press, the United Press and the leading US newspapers started a campaign for a "world freedom of information”. This campaign had the backing of the US Government.  [292•*** 

p However, the campaign reached its highest pitch during 293 and immediately after the Second World War. This time its sponsors were the directly interested American organisations. Early in 1943 the pertinent resolution was passed by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, which soon afterwards sent a delegation abroad to enlist foreign supporters for the idea.  [293•*  The US Senate joined this campaign in 1944, when it passed the Connally Resolution on "the world-wide right of interchange of news by news-gathering and distributing agencies, whether individual or associate, by any means, without discrimination as to sources, distribution, rates or charge; and that this right should be protected by international compact".  [293•** 

p In 1945 the US delegation raised the question of "freedom of information" at the Pan-American Conference in Mexico, and in 1948 this question was put on the agenda of the corresponding UN agencies when the draft Declaration of Human Rights was debated. In 1949 the General Assembly passed a resolution, which was soon afterwards supplemented with other resolutions, condemning censorship and also the practice of deporting foreign correspondents breaking the laws of the countries they are accredited to.  [293•*** 

p The real objectives of this pressure for "freedom of information" were exposed through various channels also by some bourgeois authors. In particular, commenting on Barriers Down, a much-talked-of book by the Associated Press chief Kent Cooper, the British journal The Economist wrote: "Mr. Cooper... experiences a peculiar moral glow in finding that his idea of freedom coincides with commercial advantage. In his ode to liberty there is no suggestion that when all barriers are down the huge financial resources of the American agencies might enable them to dominate the world."  [293•**** 

p In this connection Brucker indicates some of the political aims pursued by the corresponding monopolies in their campaign for "freedom of information”. "These agencies of information,” he writes, "plead public service..., but they serve the ends of private profit. Even wprse, they propagate the private political and economic notions of their owners.... 294 Here is the old gag of the profit-motive industry demanding complete freedom from government control."  [294•* 

p However, it is quite evident that Brucker does not divulge the whole truth. Today it is no longer a question of the policy of individual monopolies but of the state policy of the leading imperialist powers, which are seeking to remove the barriers to their ideological expansion and psychological warfare. Moreover, the drive for unrestricted "freedom of information" abroad pursues the aim of facilitating espionage under the guise of news gathering. No wonder that during the debate on the Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 of which speaks of freedom "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”,  [294•**  the US delegation flatly refused to add the words "within limits not threatening the security of states”.

p In the light of the debate round the problem of restricting anti-peace propaganda attention is drawn by Propaganda, Towards Disarmament in the War of Words, a fundamental work by John B. Whitton and Arthur Larson,  [294•***  and a number of publications brought out by a research centre headed by Larson at Duke University, USA. This attention is attracted by the circumstance that Arthur Larson, an ardent proponent of restrictions on this sort of propaganda, at one time headed USIA and is able to give an expert judgement.

p Stressing that "unrestrained propaganda can sometimes make the difference between peace and war”,  [294•****  he pinpoints three types of propaganda that are particularly dangerous in this respect: war propaganda, subversive propaganda and slanderous (defamatory) propaganda. His conclusion is that with regard to all these types of propaganda " international law already contains substantive principles and rules making such propaganda illegal".  [294•*****  To back up this 295 conclusion he cites some provisions of international treaties (including the UN Charter), the norms established by the Nuremberg trial, the provisions of US common law and the opinion of leading legal experts.

p In this context, Larson speaks of the obvious illegality of US Government actions such as, for instance, the annual Presidential message on the occasion of the so-called Captive Nations Week, which is, essentially, incitement to counterrevolution, to uprising against the governments of socialist countries officially recognised by the United States.

p Professor John B. Whitton of Princeton University, who, like Arthur Larson, advocates the restriction of anti-peace propaganda, gives the following argument to show the urgency of the problem: "Propaganda can generate tensions by promoting subversion and arousing deep-seated feelings. It also threatens escalation of conflicts, and, because it is primarily irrational in its appeal, it tends to widen the basis for international hatred and ideological confrontation and thus to infuse issues with "emotional content.... International efforts must continue towards finding methods of inhibiting propaganda’s function as a means of creating and exacerbating conflicts among nations."  [295•* 

A sharp struggle thus rages round the important problem of restricting and banning foreign political propaganda that menaces peace. In this struggle opposition to restricting propaganda, which serves as one of the sources of tension and one of the obstacles to peaceful coexistence between states, comes not from the socialist countries or the Communists but from the imperialist powers. The attempts of reactionary theorists to justify this attitude of the imperialist powers and to prove the legality of subversive propaganda and its methods and means are untenable even from the standpoint of the international law that took shape when 296 the exploiters held undivided sway and then when they attacked emergent socialism. The numerous facts and the considerable evidence we have cited show that the existing law and traditions of international relations contain some fundamentals of the mechanism that may be used to regulate both the content and methods of foreign political propaganda in order to restrict propaganda directed against peace, peaceful coexistence and the normalisation of the international situation. This is the attitude of the socialist countries, which are confident in the strength of their ideological position and are prepared to wage an open ideological struggle. But the imperialists are not prepared to adopt the same attitude. They seek to compensate their ideological weakness by making wide use of the methods of psychological warfare, which has become an instrument of their policy of aggression and of interference in the affairs of other peoples.

p The approach of the socialist countries and of the Communists to peaceful coexistence includes an uncompromising struggle against bourgeois ideology and, whichever way international relations develop, it will always be the duty of the Communists to defend the purity of their teaching and to enlarge on it creatively.

p There neither is nor can be room for compromise between the bourgeois and the proletarian world outlook. There can be no middle course in key issues like private or public ownership, bourgeois or socialist democracy, and bourgeois individualism or socialist collectivism. In propounding the principle of peaceful coexistence, the Communists do not require the bourgeoisie to play false to itself on any ideological issue. But they emphatically reject any attempt to force them into betrayal of their own ideals and principles.

The uncompromising ideological stand of the Communists is by no means a hindrance to the movement for peace and friendship among nations. On the contrary, the principled and determined ideological struggle is one of the conditions for the successful defence of peace, for a major and inalienable part of that struggle has been and remains the exposure of the enemies of peace, the unity of millions of people against the threat of another war and the defence of peace and friendship among nations.