p The Communists have no need to advocate war as a factor of progress. A social ideal may induce its advocates to impose it by armed force only 255 when that ideal does not rest on a scientific theory of progress and runs counter to the law-governed course of the historical process. That is when voluntarism becomes the basis of policy, adventurism gives way to confidence in the law-governed course of the historical process, while the ideological struggle becomes no more than a concomitant of interference in the course of history “from positions of strength”.

p The communist ideals include the idea of peace and friendship of nations. Of course, peaceful coexistence includes the struggle of ideas, but that does not at all mean that the struggle of ideas contains within itself the seeds of war. The scientific conception of progress implies the confidence that the triumph of the new social system will ultimately be decided in the key sphere of human activity, in productive labour, and not on the field of battle. Man’s complete emancipation from every type of oppression, the development of all his capabilities in creative and productive labour—these are the key features of our social ideal, of communist society.

p Why build and create if all the fruits of one’s labour were going to be destroyed in the furnace of war? This idea must have occurred to the minds of all honest people as they observed the construction of communism. But the socialist system emerges and develops on the basis of creative effort and the development of the productive forces. Devastating wars would hamper the process instead of facilitating it.

p The Communists have been working to realise their social ideal, but this requires peace, not war. They reject the assertion that progress is advanced by means of wars; on the contrary, in our day wars and armed intervention are used by some in an effort to slow down progress. Of course, it is impossible to do so, but history shows that armed conflicts can multiply what may be called progress costs. What we want is to ease mankind’s advance along the path of progress. The scientific theory of progress in our day includes the demand for peace, the demand for political and ideological struggle, and not struggle with the use of atomic bombs.

p A key point at issue between Communists and bourgeois ideologists is the question of peace. Bourgeois views of social phenomena result in acceptance of war as an inevitable evil or even as a beneficial force in relations between nations. Marxism-Leninism alone shows the right approach to the question of war and teaches the working people consistently to work to eliminate the cause of the war. The elimination of the exploitative system on the globe will mean the complete elimination of these causes. The elimination of this system on sizable areas of the globe and the emergence and development of the world socialist system have resulted in a situation in which there are objective prerequisites for successful struggle by masses of men against war and against the imperialist plans of aggression. The world socialist system opposes preparations for a new war, making use for this purpose of its vast 256 economic resources, its political potentialities in the world arena, and the mighty power of communist ideology.

p In the “Inaugural Address of the Working Men’s International Association" (1864), Marx pointed to the duty of the working class “to master themselves the mysteries of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective Governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws of morals and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations.

p “The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes."  [256•47 

p Thus, when the working-class International was founded, Marx inscribed on its banner that it is the duty of the working class to struggle for the simple laws of morals and justice in the sphere of international relations. This has now become a plank in the programme of the Leninist Party. The CPSU Programme, adopted by the 22nd Congress of the Party, says: “Communism makes the elementary standards of morality and justice, which were distorted or shamelessly flouted under the rule of the exploiters, inviolable rules for relations both between individuals and between peoples."  [256•48 

p The Soviet Union and the socialist system now have all they need to work successfully to implement these principles. Therein lies the historic importance of the foreign policy pursued by the Soviet Union. In their relations with the socialist countries and the countries newly liberated from the colonial yoke, the imperialist countries will have to abide by the simple laws of morality and justice by which individuals are guided in their relations with each other. This the peoples will not owe to the good will of the imperialists but to the persistent efforts of the Soviet Union and the world socialist system, which have an ever greater role to play in world affairs, the active struggle for peace of the working class and all the working people of the capitalist countries and the developing national liberation movement.

p The theory of peaceful coexistence has nothing in common with the notorious metaphysical conception of the balance of strength, which starts from the concept of rest as the definitive moment, denying the primacy of motion and development. Need one say that peaceful coexistence cannot be a formula for social stagnation? It is a formula for society’s rapid advance, a formula expressing mankind’s progressive development in our epoch.

p The metaphysical, mechanistic conception of equilibrium is fundamentally antithetical to the principles of peaceful coexistence also 257 because it reduces all the relationships between the two systems to the concept of an external clash, like the clash of two spheres. This concept suggests the idea of war being fatally inevitable. That is why the West German idealist philosopher, Karl Jaspers, says that coexistence is possible only as strict isolation of the two systems, for any interaction between them is fraught with sanguinary wars.  [257•49 

p An equilibrium, upset and restored, as a scheme for relations between the two world systems can result in harmful political conclusions and help to justify the arms race and, consequently, preparations for war. Actually, this is a process of struggle and competition between the two systems, in which socialism will win out.

p Starting from the concept of rest as the definitive moment, some bourgeois philosophers and sociologists seek to prove that peaceful coexistence is the complete cessation of any struggle between the two systems. In other words, they want the two opposed systems to be converted into two similar-type systems, whereupon all struggle would cease. That is, in effect, the idea advocated by Raymond Aron, who holds that one of the key conditions for establishing peace on the globe is an end to the antagonism between the two prevailing ideologies, and recognition of the kinship which allegedly connects the different social systems.

p To back up this thesis, Aron had to invent the concept of “industrial civilisation”, which includes capitalism and socialism, obscuring their radical distinctions. The Communists allegedly support a “war of principles”, thereby destroying the unity of “industrial civilisation”. Because this “war of principles" cannot be stopped, we have now entered a period not of peaceful coexistence, but of ceaseless conflict and limited wars.

p This kind of “theory” can be seen as ideological justification of all manner of barriers in the way to establishing lasting peace, as theoretical “substantiation” of the imperialist policy aimed to erect various obstacles in the way of any further international detente.

p Bourgeois ideologists would very much like to have the theory of peaceful coexistence between the two systems mean a contemplative and passive attitude on the part of the socialist forces, a peculiar theory and practice of quietism and fatalism. That is exactly the view of the Catholic theorist, Gustaw A. Wetter, who has the reputation in the West of being an “expert in Soviet ideology”. He asks his readers this question: Does the policy of peaceful coexistence follow from the Marxist-Leninist doctrine? And without batting an eye he says: No.  [257•50 

p Wetter reaches the following conclusion: either the Communists of the USSR are true to Marxism-Leninism, and then they must be against the idea of peaceful coexistence; or they stand for peaceful coexistence, and then they have abandoned Marxism-Leninism. Welter’s view of Marxism-Leninism is similar to that of other bourgeois theorists, but he has no reason to worry: the Communists are true to Marxism-Leninism and that is precisely why they stand for the policy of peaceful coexistence. The Communists do not identify massive revolutionary activity and war.

The period of peaceful coexistence is a period of ever more active struggle by masses of men for peace, a growth of the role of the masses in deciding questions of war and peace, and consequently, of their ever more active intervention in the solution of the key political problems, and the rallying of ever broader sections of the working people round the working class and its Marxist-Leninist parties. This view of one aspect of present-day social life and this approach to the age-old questions of historical process—questions of war and peace—is a great achievement for social thought.