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p Since it was formed, the WIDF has aimed to promote the preservation of peace and the avoidance of another world war. The Federation has held many mass campaigns and called upon women to actively strive for peace every time the international situation has become complicated to an extent which increased the threat of war. In its fight for peace the Federation uses such weapons as meetings, petitions, appeals to the UN, and campaigns for collecting protests and signatures.

p At the World Congress of Women in Budapest, in 1948, a time of increased international tension, the Federation adopted a Manifesto for the Defence of Peace. This document called upon women to take concrete action to preserve peace and emphasised women’s responsibility in preventing war. The resolutions of the Budapest Congress led to increased activity among the masses of women in supporting the preservation of peace.

p The WIDF was one of the conveners of the 1949 World Congress of Defenders of Peace against the Threat of a New War, which gave rise to a powerful union of supporters of the 320 peace movement. From that time the Federation and its national organisations have been taking an active part in peace campaigns, attending congresses and conferences on the peace struggle. Women played an especially important part in the world campaigns to collect signatures of support for the Stockholm appeal to ban atomic weapons, for the World Peace Council’s appeal urging the conclusion of a peace pact between the five Great Powers, and for the Vienna Appeal of the World Peace Council to avert the threat of nuclear war.

p In order to bring new women into the peace struggle, the W1DF tries to show the connection between the needs and problems of their everyday life and such great problems as disarmament and the creation of a system of collective security.

p The Federation has time and again appealed to the Disarmament Committee in Geneva to ban nuclear tests and to bring about universal and total disarmament and has attended all the major international meetings on peace problems.

p Considering war and peace to be the most vital questions of our times, the WIDF has constantly raised this topic at the meetings of its executive bodies and congresses, and has taken part in special international meetings on these problems. The most important of these were the European women’s meetings in Brunate, in 1959, and in Salzburg, in 1960, on the responsibilities of women in the atomic age, the World Assembly of Women for Disarmament in Vienna, in March 1962, the Consultative Meeting of European Women’s Organisations on European Security and Cooperation in the Swedish town of Ystad, 321 in 1970, and the Conference of representatives of European women’s organisations on cooperation in Europe held in Helsinki, in 1973, and attended by the representatives of nine international organisations and 26 countries.

p Among the questions discussed by the June 1969 World Congress of Women in Helsinki was that on the role of women in the struggle for national independence, democracy and peace. The commission devoted to this topic attracted more participants than any other.

p The Appeal to the Women of the World, one of the Congress’s main documents, expressed a profound concern and disquiet over the fate of the world and pinpointed the most thorny international problems of modern times. The document calls on the women of the whole world, workers and peasants, and all progressive organisations and movements to serry their ranks in creating a mighty front in the fight against imperialist and reactionary forces and in decisively rejecting their intrigues.

p An important event in the life of the WIDF was the World Congress of Peace Forces, held in Moscow, in October 1973, which brought together the most diverse political forces in calling for the elimination of war from the life of mankind, for a peaceful life on Earth and for cooperation between nations.

p The WIDF helped in the preparations for the Congress at all stages, was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Preparatory Committee and of the Steering Committee. The Congress brought about the strengthening of cooperation between peace-loving forces, and in particular, the strengthening of cooperation between the many international, regional and 322 national women’s organisations which Look part in the Congress.

The WIDF joined the International Continuing and Liaison Committee of the World Congress of Peace Forces, and has been working actively in it ever since.