p The Soviet government invariably followed a policy of peace. That was prompted by the very nature of the socialist state striving to spare the mass of the people the incalculable horrors and calamities that imperialist-bred wars bring with them. The Soviet people were anxious to preserve and strengthen peace also because, with the socialist country still encircled by hostile capitalist powers, a war could spell great danger to its very existence.

p To keep the peace was likewise an essential and, indeed, indispensable condition for continued progress in building a new type of society in the Soviet Union. Only in a peaceful environment, could the Soviet people concentrate their efforts on advancing the economy, science and culture. Therefore, to ensure this favourable international environment for the attainment of communism was the top priority of Soviet foreign policy.

p Setting off Soviet foreign policy against the policies of imperialist powers and exposing the slanderous inventions bourgeois propaganda was circulating about it, Litvinov said: "The Soviet state, which rejects chauvinism, nationalism, racial or national prejudice, sees its national priorities not as conquest, expansion, or extension of its territory, it sees the honour of the people not in educating them in a spirit of militarism and thirst for blood, but only in achieving the ideal it has emerged for and which it sees as the whole sense of its existence, namely, in the construction of socialist society. It intends, unless obstructed, to devote all of its national energies to this work, and this is the inexhaustible wellspring of its policy of peace".’^^6^^ The People’s Commissar emphasised that the USSR was in no need even of victorious wars.

p The Soviet government was guiding itself in its relations with other countries by the Leninist principle of peaceful coexistence of nations with differing social and economic systems. We have to build socialism, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs said, in one country, surrounded by capitalist countries which occupy five-sixths of the world’s area. Wo cannot ignore this fact and we do not ignore it and, therefore, we strive to discover and apply the methods of peaceful coexistence of both social systems.^^57^^

p While taking steps to safeguard peace on the Soviet borders, the Soviet government was showing concern for world peace in general. That is why Soviet foreign policy was meeting the interests of the Soviet people as well as those of the people of all nations.

p In its mud-slinging campaign against Communists and in an attempt to justify the unwillingness of the reactionary circles of the Western powers to co-operate with the USSR, bourgeois propaganda was claiming all the time that Moscow was dreaming of provoking a war between some capitalist countries. It argued that the Communists were interested in another world war because they believed that only from a war would another revolutionary situation arise.

p Yet that had nothing in common with the actual policy of the Soviet Union. Lenin emphasised on many occasions that "all our politics and propaganda are directed towards putting an end to war and in no way towards driving nations to war".^^58^^ The Communists have always proceeded from the fact that the working masses are the main war victims.

p The communist attitude to war was thoroughly examined at the Sixth Congress of the Communist International (1928). It was proved that the assertion that Communists were encouraging imperialist wars to expedite the revolution was sheer slander. It was stressed that "the Communists, in the interests of the masses of the workers and of all the toilers who boar the brunt of the sacrifice entailed by war, wage a persistent fight against imperialist war".^^59^^

p With the Nazis in power, this issue was re-examined in the new context at the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in December 1933. Speaking on behalf of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), I). Z. Manuilsky emphasised that it was a mistake to assume that "it is impossible to hinder the coming of imperialist war, that a real revolution will only begin as a result of a new imperialist war”. lie pointed out that it was necessary to do everything to prevent a new war. Thai was, notably, a clear piece of evidence to disprove the spurious assertion of imperialist propaganda that the Soviet Union was dreaming of nothing short of provoking war between imperialist slates.^^60^^

p The Comintern reverted lo the malter al its Seventli Congress in 1935. The position of Soviel Communists was set out by V. G. Knorin. "Although war will eventually produce 27 a revolutionary crisis in capitalist countries,” he stressed, "it will bring with it incredible hardship, death, hunger and suffering to the working people, wipe out the productive forces of all countries and destroy workers’ organisations. War imperils the life of millions of proletarians and the vestiges of democracy which in some countries still give the working people some opportunity to defend their interests under capitalism. War threatens the independence of small and weak nations. It is the greatest calamity for all peoples. Therefore, the Communists, who are defending the interests of the peoples, are the defenders of peace and must avert war.” ^^61^^ This position of Communists found expression in the resolutions of the Congress: "The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International most determinedly repudiates the slanderous contention that Communists desire war, expecting it to bring revolution."^^62^^

p The Soviet Communists, too, were in agreement with the guidelines worked out at the Comintern congresses on the issues of war and peace. The struggle of the USSR for curbing aggressors and safeguarding peace, a matter of vital concern to the mass of the people in all countries, was consistent, wholly and entirely, with the major principle of Soviet foreign policy—proletarian internationalism.

p The resolution of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International stated that the peace policy of the USSR was not only directed towards the defence of the Land of the Soviets, "it also protects the lives of the workers of all countries, the lives of all the oppressed and exploited ... it serves the vital interests of humanity.” ^^63^^ Therefore, Soviet foreign policy was easy and clear for the great mass of the people to understand, and had the support of the masses and the progressive forces of all nations. And that gave it more opportunity for action to keep and strengthen the peace.

p The question was, however, how feasible the prospect of preventing war was. Fatalist concepts of the inevitability of wars were rather current in the communist movement on account of the experience of the First World War. But as a new alignment of forces shaped up in the world, a new approach to the problem of averting the war danger was being worked out and the conclusion made that the battle for peace was not hopeless. By the mid-1980s, the USSR had developed into a mighty power and its foreign policy 28 began to exercise a growing influence on the course of events. The forces of peace now had the consistent peaceseeking policy of the Soviet Union to rely on. Therefore, D. Z. Manuilsky pointed out in his report to the Seventli World Congress of the Communist International that "the Communists must abandon the fatalist view that it is impossible to prevent the outbreak of war, that it is useless fighting against war preparations.”^^64^^

p It was stressed in Manuilsky’s report on the outcome of the Congress that the new situation compelled a somewhat different view of the working people’s prospect in their struggle against war. It is beyond dispute that wars are inevitable as long as capitalism exists. But there are now more opportunities for effective opposition to imperialist wars than there had been before the First World War broke out. This is due, above all, to the existence of the peace-keeping Soviet Union. Small nations whose independence is threatened by war can join the effort to defend peace. Also the big states which do not want war for various reasons can take part in this action against war.^^65^^

p The Soviet Union’s persistent efforts for peace and its policy of peaceful coexistence had nothing in common with supine pacifism. While following a policy of peace, the Soviet government was determined to give a fitting rebuff to any aggressive encroachments by imperialist forces.

p The Soviet Union was taking whatever steps it could to discourage the aggressors from any war-like ventures across its borders. At the same time, considering that it was not the Soviet Union alone, but other nations as well that faced such a danger, the USSR attached tremendous importance to rallying as many countries as possible for resistance to aggressors. The greatest danger was hanging over some small or militarily rather weak nations. So the Soviet Union was prepared to lend them its support and assistance and to co-operate with them in action to deter aggression.

p The Soviet government took into consideration the fundamental contradictions between the two major alignments of capitalist powers. The plans for a repartition of the world, being hatched by the aggressive bloc with Nazi Germany and militarist Japan in the lead, were a threat to the other alignment of imperialist powers—France, Britain and the U.S. which had won the imperialist war of 1914-1918, divided the world at their own discretion as a result of that war, 29 and strove to retain their world positions. The Soviet government was far from regarding as jusl the terms of the Versailles-Washington system of peace treaties created by those powers in consequence ut their victory in the war. But that did not mean, of course, that it considered another world war necessary in order to have them changed. On the contrary, it was opposed to such a war. And this signified that, if there was a will, it was quite possible to find common ground for joint action by the Soviet Union and this alignment of powers to prevent war.

p A number of medium-sized and small nations would have joined such a peace front. The Soviet government deemed the co-operation of all those nations in peace-keeping not only quite possible but necessary as well. This viewpoint inspired the Soviet proposals for organising a collective security system in Europe to oppose aggression.

p In the circumstances that prevailed at the time the Soviet government thought it to be the most important task to prevent war by the collective efforts of all nations anxious to keep the peace. The Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( Bolsheviks) to the Seventeenth Party Congress pointed out that in an environment of "prewar jitters enveloping a wide range of countries, the USSR continued to abide ... firmly and unshakably by its positions of peace, opposed to the threat of war, acting to preserve peace, and anxious to meet halfway those nations which stand, in one way or another, for the maintenance of peace, exposing and unmasking those who prepare and provoke war."

p The Seventeenth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party brought out the factors the USSR counted on in its hard and involved battle for peace:

p a) its growing economic and political strength;

p b) moral support from millions of working people of all countries vitally interested in the maintenance of peace;

p c) the common sense of the nations which are not interested, for some reason or other, in a disruption of peace;

p d) the Soviet Armed Forces prepared to defend the nation against attacks from outside.^^66^^

p Soviet foreign policy combined an earnest determination to maintain peace with a readiness to offer a determined resistance to aggression. It guided itself by the immutable principle that "peace must not be waited for, but fought 30 for”. All that made for the high international prestige of Soviet foreign policy.

p The subsequent consolidation of the international positions of the USSR and of its influence on the development of international events were directly connected with the growth of the strength and power of the Soviet Union.

p Having rebuilt the national economy devastated during World War I, the Civil War and foreign intervention, the Soviet Union had fulfilled its first five-year economic development plan ahead of schedule, by 1933. That was a giant leap forward. Once an agrarian country, the Soviet Union became a modern industrialised nation. It had 1,500 industrial projects launched due to the heroic labour effort of the Soviet people. From now on the Soviet Union could produce most of the industrial plant and equipment it needed at its own enterprises. The second five-year plan (1933- 1937), still more sweeping in its scope, began to be carried out.

p All that combined created the necessary conditions for the country’s defence capability to be strengthened.

p As stated in the new Constitution of the USSR, adopted in 1977, the Soviet Armed Forces are called upon to defend the socialist homeland and socialist gains, the peaceful work of the Soviet people, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State and its security.^^67^^ Under the most complicated conditions of those times when the Soviet Union was in a hostile capitalist encirclement, and when imperialist powers went on planning to destroy the world’s first socialist state and some of them openly embarked on the path of aggression, the Soviet Armed Forces were effectively discharging these functions.

p Urgent steps were taken to bolster the Soviet Far Eastern defences in the face of an imminent danger of armed attack by Japan. The Soviet Pacific Fleet began to be built in 1932. The building up of the Soviet Air Force in the Far East had a sobering effect on the Japanese aggressors.

p The Soviet government did an enormous amount of work to strengthen the international position of the USSR. Back in the 1920s, the Soviet Union managed to normalise relations with almost all the neighbouring states through all kinds of treaties. Diplomatic relations were established with all the Great Powers, except the U.S___The changes in the alignment of forces of the imperialist powers by the 31 early 1930s presented further opportunities for more vigorous Soviet diplomatic activity.

p With the Soviet Union having become one of the world’s strongest nations, a number of capitalist countries had to revise much of their earlier policies towards it. While in earlier days, back in the 1920s, the imperialist powers often attempted to settle various international issues without the USSR and contrary to its interest, now more and more nations, also facing a threat from aggressors, were coming to look at the Soviet Union as a nation capable of making a sizeable contribution towards strengthening peace and international security.

p The resurgence of aggressive German imperialism and its plans to redraw the map of Europe and of the rest of the world could not but provoke some grave concern in France and, along with that, some of the well-known changes in her foreign policy. The most striking indication of those changes was the revision of the position France held in respect of a non-aggression treaty with the USSR. While in previous years, France had repeatedly declined the relevant proposals of the Soviet government, in 1931 she declared herself willing to conclude such a treaty with the USSR. In 1932 the Soviet government succeeded in concluding non-aggression pacts not only with France, but also with Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland which took France’s stand on the matter as their guide.

p The Soviet-French treaty of non-aggression provided the ground for the subsequent improvement of relations between the two countries. The re-emergence of a danger of aggression from Germany brought with it some objective premises for co-operation between the USSR and France in action to keep the peace in Europe. The Soviet government clearly saw the danger from Nazi Germany that was hanging over Europe.

p The Nazi Reich, possessing fairly large economic and manpower resources, could create large armed forces in a matter of years and begin to carry out its foreign policy programme of aggrandizement. The danger of war in case of a fusion of the forces of the aggressor powers would have been particularly great.

p The Soviet government was consistently and tirelessly pressing for effective measures to deter the aggressors. It found it necessary to raise a reliable barrier in the way of 32 the aggressors, rallying togetiier the forces of the nations that wanted to prevent war.

Certain possibilities for a collective peace-keeping front lo be formed in Europe did exist. But those possibilities had to be translated into a reality.