V M Molotov 1948
Written: By V. M. Molotov, 1948;
Source: For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy! Vol. 2, no. 22; November 15, 1948;
Transcribed: David Adams, March 2022.
Comrades,
We are today celebrating the 31st Anniversary of the Socialist Revolution in our country.
The working people of the Soviet Union meet this anniversary of the Great October Revolution with a glorious record of victories achieved in the third, decisive year, of the post-war five-year plan. Socialist emulation is spreading and developing among the working class, the collective farm peasantry and the Soviet intelligentsia, multiplying from day to day the achievements of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. in the work of building Communism. The constructive efforts of the Soviet people are concentrated on the realisation of the great plans for the advancement of industry and agriculture, plans of hitherto unprecedented scale and significance. The economic might of the Soviet Union is growing and the material welfare of our people steadily rising before our eyes. Friendship among the peoples of the USSR grows firmer and firmer. Inspired by Soviet patriotism and infused with unbounded confidence in and love for the Stalin leadership of our country.
he October Revolution marked the beginning of the collapse of the capitalist system but for nearly three decades the Soviet Union was the sole Socialist country. After the Second world war there fell away from capitalism such European countries as Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, Yugoslavia. In the dependent and colonial countries the movement for national liberation is making giant strides. In spite of all obstacles, the democratic forces are growing and becoming tempered in the struggle against the forces of reaction in the capitalist countries. The international prestige of the USSR is continuously growing as the main bulwark of the democratic and anti-imperialist camp opposed to the camp of imperialism and aggression.
Under the great banner of Lenin and Stalin our people are marching forward, looking back with satisfaction on the past years of heroic struggle and glorious victories and full of confidence in their future.
All efforts of our people since the victorious conclusion of the Great Patriotic War are guided by the well-known directing principles outlined by Comrade Stalin:
“Having terminated the war with victory over the enemies, the Soviet Union has entered a new, peaceful period in its economic development. At the present time the Soviet people are confronted with the task of advancing further ahead to a new economic upsurge after having consolidated the positions gained. We cannot limit ourselves to consolidating these positions, for that would lead to stagnation—we must advance further ahead in order to create the conditions for a new powerful upsurge in tee national economy. In the shortest possible time we must heal the wounds inflicted on our country by the enemy and restore the pre-war level of development of the national economy in order considerably to surpass this level in the nearest future, raise the material well-being of the peoples and still further strengthen the military and economic might of the Soviet state."
Everyone can now see that the Soviet people are successfully carrying out this Stalin program of firmly consolidating the position won and marching forward to new economic upsurge.
Whereas the program of the first year of the post-war five- year plan was not completely fulfilled, since in the first year after the war much effort was spent on the reconversion of industry from a war to a peace footing and also because of the additional difficulties, which arose in connection with the drought and crop failure of 1946, already in the second year of the five-year plan the position improved along the whole economic front. In 1947 our industry not only fulfilled out considerably exceeded its annual program. The effect of this was that the combined programs of the first two years of the post-war five-year plan were completely fulfilled. It must be reckoned as a great achievement of the Soviet people that already by the end of last year our industrial output had reached the level of the pre-war year of 1940.
Under these circumstances the present, third year is of decisive importance for the fulfilment of the post-war five-year plan. On the success of our efforts, on the efforts of the Party organizations, trade unions and Young Communist League depends the fulfilment of the five-year plan as a whole and what is especially important, the possibility of fulfilling it ahead of schedule. And we know that the idea of fulfilling the five-year plan ahead of schedule has taken a deep hold on the minds of the working class.
Last year the working men and women of Leningrad addressed an appeal to the working men and women of the whole country to fulfil the five-year plan in four years. This appeal met with the broadest response. Thanks to our efforts, in the first quarter of this year the usual decline of industrial output as compared with the last months of the previous year was not in evidence. This year our industry is steadily over fulfilling its programs from quarter to quarter. In the first nine months gross output of industry showed an increase of 27% as against the corresponding period of last year. This fact alone indicates how rapidly the post-war rehabilitation and economic progress of our country are proceeding. This is also borne out by the fact that in the current year industrial output is proceeding at a level 17% higher than that of the pre-war year of 1940. (Applause.)
Together with the recovery and growth of industry the material prosperity of the working class is also rising. This year the aggregate payroll of factory and office workers is nearly double that of 1940. The building of houses, schools, hospitals, rest homes and cultural institutions is proceeding on a broad scale. The program of improvement of the living and working conditions of the people adopted in the five-year plan is being effectively realised.
Of course we shall not rest content with the successes achieved. Nor shall we forget that a number of branches of heavy and light industry, where the aftermath of the destructive effects of the war period are still being felt, have not yet attained the pre-war level, and that not infrequently due effort is not being made to improve the quality of industrial output. Nevertheless, the achievements already available enable us to accelerate the progress of the lagging branches of industry and to insure the fulfilment of the post-war five-year plan for industry ahead of schedule. The Party calls us to advance—to organise and develop still better systematic struggle in factories and collective farms for the fulfilment of the five-year plan in four years.
In the Soviet Union we witness a general and steady expansion of industry directed by the Socialist state. Now the people’s democracies have also embarked on a similar course. But this cannot be said of the capitalist countries, although they suffered immeasurably less from the war than the U.S.S.R. and the new democracies.
In the United States industrial output is not even 80% of the level of 1943, when nourished by enormous war contracts, it reached its peak. In spite of this the profits of American corporations continue to grow. Whereas in 1939 they amounted to 6,400 minion dollars and at the height of the war they exceeded 24,000 million dollars per annum, last year the profits of the American monopolies reached nearly 30,000 million dollars. On the other hand, the wages of the American workers in these past years have been lagging heavily behind the rise of prices, which signifies a considerable deterioration in the condition of the working class. While according to official reports the number of unemployed in the United States barely exceeds 2,000,000, which, there is much data to show, is greatly underestimated, the actual figure being at least three times larger, the number of semi-unemployed, those not working a full week, already amounts, even according to official statistics, to over 8,000,000.
Or take France, where the condition of the working class is focusing general attention. The real wages of the French workers, owing to rising prices of commodities, have in post- war years fallen by one-half. It is known from published figures that in the first half of this year the profits of the French capitalists amounted to 43% of France’s total national income, whereas the wages of the workers and office employees comprised only 39% of the national income. These figures show that the profits of the French capitalists considerably exceed the total wages received by all the workers and office employees of France.
Whereas the progress of our industry is entirety based upon our internal resources and on the labour effort of the Soviet people, in the capitalist countries of Europe everything is based on the expectation of receiving credits from “Uncle Sam.”
Everybody is familiar with the stir raised in Europe over the Marshall plan. This plan is advertised as the factor of salvation for the post-war recovery of Europe’s economy. To listen to certain British or French statesmen, without American credits under the Marshall plan, economic recovery in the European countries is impossible. However, the American dollars which floated this year into the pockets of the European capitalists under the United States credit plan did not produce any real revival of industry in the countries of capitalist Europe. And they cannot produce that revival, since the American credits are not being given in order to restore and expand the industries of the European countries which compete with the United States but in order to provide a broader market for American goods in Europe and to place these countries in economic and political dependence on the capitalist monopolies which dominate the United States and on their aggressive plans, in disregard of the interests of the European peoples themselves.
In contradistinction to this, the post-war recovery and expansion of industry in the U.S.S.R. are not dependent upon any capitalist country and entirely serve to satisfy the needs of its own people.
Both industry and agriculture in the Soviet Union have entered a period of a new and powerful upsurge.
Here are a few facts:
This year the gross grain harvest has already reached the level of the pre-war year of 1940. We achieved this in spite of the fact that the crop area has not yet attained the pre-war level and that the heavy loss of tractors and farm machinery sustained in the period of enemy occupation has not yet been repaired in agriculture. Of all the greater significance is the fact that thanks to more efficient use of available machines and a considerable improvement in the organisation of the labour of the men and women collective farmers, the grain yield this year exceeded that of the pre-war year of 1940. We are now fully aware that our principal tasks in agriculture are to achieve a further increase in the yield of grain and other crops.
Everybody knows how successful were the grain deliveries this year, to which our Government has always attached the greatest significance. The competition which developed between region and region, district and district as well as between republic and republic, yielded valuable results. You know of this from the numerous letters addressed to Comrade Stalin which have been published in our press. In spite of the drought which afflicted a large part of the Volga area, the fulfilment of the plan for grain deliveries this year is successfully nearing completion. A whole number of regions and territories have delivered to the state far more grain this year than last year and more than they did in pre-war years.
Suffice it to say that 131 million poods of grain were delivered this year more than last year in the Ukraine, 77 million poods in the Northern Caucasus and 40 million poods in Siberia. Now not only is the current supply of the population with bread fully insured, but necessary government stocks have been built up for the future.
With a view to accelerating the further progress of agriculture—the production of grain, cotton, sugar beet and other crops—as well as to creating a base of fodder supply for the all-round advancement of animal husbandry, the state is initiating broad measures for advancing farming methods to a higher level in the collective farming and state farms, for the supply of chemical fertilizers and all necessary machines. With the support of the state the collective farms will now be in a position to advance all branches of collective animal husbandry and at the same time increase its productivity. This year the agriculture will receive from the state three times as many tractors, twice as many motor trucks and twice as many agricultural machines as in the pre-war year of 1940. The state is continuously initiating new measures for the all-round extension of the technical facilities of agriculture, for lightening the work of the collective farmers and for enhancing the productivity of their labour.
This year emulation on the collective and state farms attained especially wide scope, for which our Party organizations primarily deserve the credit. At the same time the collective farms have begun more effectively to combat idlers and disorganisers of collective labour, and this will contribute to a further improvement of the organisation of collective farm production and to the growing prosperity of the collective farmers. Last year’s decision of the Government to award decorations for outstanding achievements in agriculture was a powerful stimulus to the development of Socialist competition in the countryside. We now have thousands of Heroes of Socialist Labour in the collective farms and among state farm workers. Tens of thousands of men and women of the collective farms have been awarded Orders and medals for big achievements in agriculture. This year it has been decided to raise the requirements for those who will in the future be rewarded by the Government for their achievements in agriculture and stock breeding and in mastering agricultural technique. It need not be doubted that this year the number of recipients of decorations will not diminish but on the contrary greatly increase. This is indicated by the scope of competition and the growing labour enthusiasm on the collective farms.
Only a few days ago a decision of the Party and the Government was published, adopted on the initiative of Comrade Stalin, introducing a plan for the planting of shelter belts, development of lea rotation and building of ponds and reservoirs for the purpose of insuring big and stable crops in the steppe and forest-and-steppe areas of the European part of the U.S.S.R. The objective envisaged is to utilise the great practical experience and achievements of agricultural science so that the collective farms and state farms of the steppe and forest-and-steppe districts, armed with advanced technique, may in the next few years make a big spurt in the further development of agriculture and animal husbandry. Particular importance is attached to the development of lea rotation and to the large-scale planting of wind screens to protect the fields. The realisation of this majestic state plan, with the adoption of which war has been proclaimed on drought and crop failure in the steppe and forest-and-steppe areas of the European part of our country, will lead our agriculture onto the highroad of big and stable crops, will render the labour of the collective farmers highly productive and will greatly enhance the economic might of the Soviet Union. Our confidence that this epoch-making plan will be fulfilled is indicative of the speed with which our strength is growing and of our achievements and our potentialities when we follow the path mapped out by the Communist Party, by the Great Stalin. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)
In view of the fact that the task of directing the national economy has become more complicated, we are faced with the new problems in the field of State planning, organisation of supply of materials and development of advanced technique in all branches of economy.
In the field of economic planning, special importance now attaches to the work of co-ordinating and expediting the development of the various branches of production. As you know, the plans of production and construction are now drawn up for plans on the basis of progressive technico-economic standards for the utilisation of equipment and materials which helps to accelerate the progress of industry, transport and other branches of the national economy. The purpose of control over the way plans are being fulfilled is not simply two ensure the total planned volume of gross output but also, and as an essential requirement, the fulfilment of programmes in respect to the main classes of goods assortment and improvement of quality of product.
Upon the proper organisation of supply of materials, the creation of the necessary material stocks and the economical utilisation of the State resources largely depends the speed of development of our economy. In view of the present vast scope of production and construction, efficient organisation of supply and control to ensure that the established standards of expenditure of materials are observed, are of paramount importance to the State.
The accelerated mechanisation of processes requiring great expenditure of labour and the introduction of up-to-date techniques in all branches of industry, transport and agriculture have always been considered a paramount task of the Bolshevik Party, Comrade Stalin has said in connection with our economic tasks that “...the mechanisation of labour processes is for us that new and decisive force without which it will be impossible to maintain our pace or the new scale of production.” Our potentialities in this respect have grown immensely. The industries of the Soviet Union can now produce any machine, and the scale of machine building has, moreover, already far surpassed the pre-war scale. The number of machine tools in our country has greatly increased as compared with 1940, and within a short period may be increased still further. The systematic introduction of up-to- date technique in all branches of the national economy is a powerful level for enhancing the might of the Soviet State.
One highly important measure introduced in our country since the Thirtieth Anniversary of the October Revolution was the currency reform coupled with the abolition of the ration system of supplying the population and the establishment of uniform and reduced State prices for manufactured goods and foodstuffs. This decision helped the rapid elimination of the pernicious effects of the excessive amount of money in circulation—a heritage of the war period—and created favourable conditions for accelerating the progress of the national economy. As a result of the reduction of State retail prices, for foodstuffs and manufactured goods and the accompanying reduction of prices in cooperative trade and in the collectives farm market, the purchasing power of the rouble increased twofold. Thanks to this and also to the growth of money wages, the real wages of workers and office employees have more than doubled as compared with last year. (Prolonged applause).
Thus the currency reform and the Government’s measures to improve trade have greatly contributed to raising the standard of living of the workers and office employees. These measures became already possible two years after the end of the war during which the fascist invaders had inflicted untold misery and ruin on our country. This fact is a demonstration to the world of the vast forces and internal potentialities inherent in the Soviet State.
At the same time, following the abolition of rationing, new tasks have arisen in all their urgency in the sphere of Soviet trade, both in town and country. Everything must be done to expand the production of consumers goods to the utmost and to improve their quality and assortment and also to improve service to the consumers by the trading organisations—both State and cooperative.
On the other hand, the favourable results of the currency reform can be ensured to the full only if we observe the strictest economy in everything, if we do not tolerate extravagance and spare Soviet copecks. Consciousness of the importance of these simple duties has now penetrated the broadest sections of the Soviet public.
This year has seen the birth of a new patriotic movement among the working masses—a movement for the mobilisation of internal reserves, for rendering our enterprises profitable and for accumulations in excess of plan. In the first nine months of this year total economies above plan resulting from reduction in the cost of production exceeded 4,000 million roubles. The emulation which has developed in this field permits us to hope that by the end of this year the total of accumulations above plan will have increased by at least 50 per cent. Emulation in this field, furthermore leads to more efficient utilisation of machines and of equipment generally at the plants, and facilitates better organisation of production, which deserves encouragement on the part of all our managerial bodies. This is a movement which now embraces thousands of the industrial enterprises and has acquired nation-wide significance, thanks to the initiative of the Communist organisation and the working people of our capital, Moscow, which once again has justified the high appreciation accorded to it by Comrade Stalin when he called it the “standard bearer of the new, Soviet epoch”. (Prolonged applause).
We are living at a time when our factory and office workers and the collective farm peasants throughout the country are taking pant in socialist emulation. There are not, and there should not be now, any plants, or factories or collective farms which do not take part in emulation or do not strive to increase the number of those participating in socialist emulation in the enterprises or on the collective farms. “Emulation is a Communist method of building Socialism”, Comrade Stalin has said, And now we see that this Communist method of building Socialism has been adopted by the entire mass of working people of our country. This is an achievement of the October Revolution, the greatness of which cannot be overrated.
The immortal Lenin said:
“Socialism, far from extinguishing competition, for the first time creates the possibility of developing it on truly broad, truly mass lines, of truly enlisting majority of the working people in endeavours where they may display their ability, develop their capacities and reveal their talents of which there are inexhaustible wellsprings among the people and which capitalism mutilated, crushed and stifled by the thousand and million.“Our task now that a Socialist Government is in power is to organise competition."
Lenin further said:
“The creation of the opportunity, in a broad and truly mass scale, for the manifestation of enterprise, competition and bold initiative is appearing only now. Every factory from which the capitalist has been ejected, or at least curbed by real workers’ control, every village where the exploiting landlord has been smoked out and his land taken away is now, and only now, a field in which the man of labour shows what he is worth, can unbend his back a little, can straighten up, can feel himself a man. For the first time after centuries of working for others, of compulsory work for exploiters, there appears the possibility of working for himself and working with all the backing of all the achievements of up-to-date technique and culture.”
Lenin wrote these lines in December 1917, that is, more than thirty years ago. Everyone can now see for himself the fundamental and practical significance of the great postulates of Lenin.
The scope and profundity of socialist emulation show that the entire Soviet people has become a closely knit family of working people, regardless of national religious distinction. The reports addressed to Comrade Stalin daily published in our newspapers, telling of the labour achievements of factories and collective farms, construction jobs and scientific institutions, districts and cities, whole branches of industry and transport, regions, territories and Soviet Republics—all this testifies that our country closely knit family of nations which displayed its unbreakable solidarity and invincibility in the years of the Patriotic War and is now from day to day, by its participation in the front of labour, demonstrating the growing power of moral and political unity and socialist consciousness of the Soviet people. (Applause)
In our country all are workers, there are no idlers or parasites, nor should there be. It is sometimes said abroad that by dislodging these gentry from their nests we acted not quite democratically. But the results have not proved to be bad. Just because we are a state of working people where there is no room for idlers or parasites we today constitute a closely-knit multi-national labouring family and at the same time a strongly organised, mighty and invincible army. (Stormy, prolonged applause)
Lenin and Stalin teach us to avoid becoming conceited and not to rest content with what we have achieved. Comrade Stalin never tires of explaining the importance of the method of criticism and self-criticism for our progress and for workers of all ranks without exception.
The work of our organisations on the cultural front is steadily growing in scale end significance. We have 730,000 university students and in addition 270,000 university correspondence course students, and over 34 million secondary, elementary and secondary technical school pupils. Our press and our cultural organisations are carrying on immense work of scientific education among the masses. Where is the capitalist state that would like to come forward and compare with the Soviet Union in the field of cultural progress! (Applause)
We have the right to be proud of the accomplishments of the Soviet arts and, especially of late, of Soviet literature which represent no small achievement of the guidance and direction given by the Party. Our literature, cinema and other arts are being increasingly enriched with productions which in their characters reveal the ideological substance of events and the endeavours of the people of the Soviet epoch. True art appeals to the people and leaves an indelible impression in their minds; hence the great significance of the present advance of the Soviet arts for the successful development of the Communist education of the Soviet people Soviet art penetrates far beyond the borders of our country, telling of the life and deeds of our country, which the capitalist press strive to conceal from, and distort in, the eyes of the working people.
Of great fundamental and practical importance for the promotion of scientific theory was the recent discussion in scientific circles on questions of biology. The discussion on the theory of heredity raised profound and fundamental questions relating to the struggle of genuine science founded on the principles of materialism against reactionary idealistic survivals in science such as the Weissmann doctrine of the immutability of heredity which denies that acquired characteristics can be transmitted to offspring. This discussion stressed the creative significance of materialist principles for all branches of science, and this should help to accelerate the progress of scientific theory in our country. We should recall the task set our scientists by Comrade Stalin, the task of “not only overtaking but outstripping in the near future the achievements of science outside our country”. (Prolonged applause)
The discussion on biological questions was also of great practical significance, especially for the further advancement of our socialist agriculture. It is not fortuitous that this struggle has been headed by Academician Lysenko, whose services in our common effort to promote socialist agriculture are well known. The keynote of this discussion was Michurin’s famous motto: “We cannot await favours from Nature, we must wrest them from her”. This injunction of Michurin’s, it may be said, is infused with the Bolshevik spirit and is a call out only to scientific workers but also to the millions of practical farmers to engage in active creative work for the benefit and glory of our people.
Scientific discussion on biological questions was conducted under the guiding influence of our Party. Here, too, Comrade Stalin’s guiding ideas played a decisive part, opening new and broad vistas in scientific and practical work.
Our country is in the midst of a new upsurge. This is borne out by the labour enthusiasm and improved wellbeing of the Soviet people, by the achievements of scientists and artists and by the accomplishments of Socialist construction which we observe daily, in which we share, each according to his strength and ability, and of which we have the right to be proud. Only yesterday our enemies were attempting to convert vast areas of our country into a “desert zone”, demolishing and destroying everything in their path. We have still not healed many of the wounds of war, have not rebuilt a number of cities, have not erected all the buildings and houses we need in order to eliminate the aftermath of the invasion of the fascist barbarians. But we are conducting this work successfully and are advancing ever more rapidly and confidently and have already left behind many of the achievements of pre-war days.
Remarkable progress is being made by our country where the family of Soviet nations is cemented by friendship and common effort for the benefit of the fatherland, displaying examples unparalleled in history of co-operation and fraternity among the peoples of the multi-national Soviet Union. (Applause)
We are united and inspired in this struggle and are led forward by the Bolshevik Party and the great leader of the Soviet people, Comrade Stalin. (Great ovation)
Four years ago Comrade Stalin, defining the tasks of the post-war period, said:
“To win the war against Germany consummating a great historical cause. But winning the war does not yet mean ensuring the peoples a durable peace and a reliable security in the future. The task is not only to win the war but also to prevent the outbreak of fresh aggression and another war, if not for ever then at least for a long time to come.”
In order to assist the effective realisation of these aims, the U.S.S.R. took an active part in the elaboration of a number of international agreements while World War Two was still in progress.
Everybody will recall how agreement was elaborated between the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain, to which China and France adhered, and which later was taken as a basis for the Charter of the United Nations Organisation. Of utmost importance were the agreements between the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain on the German question adopted at Yalta and Potsdam. We also know that the Potsdam decisions defined the general line of the post-war settlement not only in Europe. The special Potsdam Declaration on Japan, together with the Cairo Declaration and the Yalta Agreement, should serve as the basis for the peace settlement in the Far East as well. It should not be forgotten that these international agreements were sealed with the blood of our peoples who bore countless sacrifices and made it possible for us victoriously to end the war against fascism and aggression in Europe and Asia. Since then the Soviet Union has invariably insisted that the obligations undertaken under these agreements must be sacredly adhered to and carried out in practice by all the states.
It cannot be said that these obligations have remained only on paper. It is sufficient to recall that the international organisation of the United Nations has been created and is functioning, although not infrequently attempts are made to guide it into channels which diverge from its fundamental purposes. Five peace treaties have been concluded—with Italy, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Finland—which are an important contribution to the Peace Settlement in Europe.
On the other hand we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the peace treaty with Germany is making no headway. At the same time in the American, British and French zones of occupation in Germany, which contrary to the agreements between the Soviet Union, United States, Britain and France have been placed outside four-power control, people who were prominent under the fascist regime are being restored to key positions in industry and administration. Moreover, many democratic organisations are deprived of the opportunity of functioning normally, which the Soviet Union considers arbitrary and impermissible.
Nor is the peace treaty with Japan making any headway. Naturally, the Soviet Union is insisting that the work of framing the peace treaties for Germany and Japan be expedited in conformity with what was envisaged in Allied agreements. This means that it must be the purpose in framing the said peace treaties to prevent the resurgence of Germany and Japan as aggressive powers, and, consequently, it must help to promote the demilitarisation and democratic reconstruction of these countries. In conformity with this the Soviet Government insists upon the complete disarming of Germany and on the implementation of the well-known plan of international control of the industrial region of the Ruhr as the principal base of Germany’s war industry. In conformity with this, too, the Soviet Government insists that the war industry be completely banned in Japan and that proper international control be established to prevent the restoration of war industry in that country. But at the same time the Soviet Government considers that peace industry must not be stifled either in Germany or Japan. Both the German and Japanese peoples must be given the opportunity to secure everything that their own industries, serving peace needs, can provide.
If we want to be true to the obligations we assumed with regard to the peace settlement with Germany and Japan, this is the course we must follow. Only those who want endlessly to protract the occupation of Germany and Japan, disregarding the legitimate interests of their peoples, can evade fulfilling the aforementioned international agreements.
Such is how matters stand regarding the chief tasks of the post-war peace settlement.
Another fundamental point in the foreign policy of the U.S.S.R. is the struggle against new forces of aggression and consequently against the propaganda for 6 new war and instigators of a new war.
With this aim in view, the Soviet Union as far back as 1946 submitted to UNO its well-known proposal for a general reduction of armaments and prohibition of the atomic weapon. Despite the resistance of the aggressive elements the proposal was, in the main, accepted by UNO.
Last year the Soviet Union submitted a proposal to the General Assembly for the adoption of measures against war propaganda and the instigators of a new war. After all sorts of reservations and limitations had been introduced into our draft, UNO adopted a decision on this matter. The General Assembly’s resolution was so thoroughly washed and scrubbed that it contained not a word of reference to the instigators of a new war. Only in the title of the resolution did there remain any mention that it was aimed against the instigators of a new war. Nevertheless, even this resolution is of positive value in the eyes of all honest supporters of inter national security, since it condemned all forms of propaganda aimed at creating, or capable of creating, or at accelerating a threat to peace, violation of the peace, or active aggression.
In order that the resolution on reduction of armaments and prohibition of the atomic weapon should not remain a dead letter, the Soviet Union this year submitted concrete proposals to further this decision of UNO.
The Soviet Union proposed a reduction by one-third within one year of all the existing armed forces and armaments of the United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union, France and China— the live countries which, as the permanent members of the Security Council, bear the chief responsibility for the maintenance of international security. This proposal directly affects only the Great Powers and does not apply to the armaments of any other state. Furthermore, the Soviet Union proposed that the atomic weapon be prohibited as a weapon designed for aggressive purposes and not for purposes of defence. In order to exercise supervision and control over the implementation of the measures for the reduction of armaments and armed forces, and the prohibition of the atomic weapon, we proposed that an international control body be set up within the framework of the Security Council to which the United States, Greet Britain, the U.S.S.R., France and China would have to submit full official data relative to the state of their armaments and armed forces.
This question was debated in the General Assembly and its committees for over a month. The Great Powers resorted to every excuse not to agree to a reduction of their armed forces and armaments or to the prohibition of the atomic weapon and secured the passage by the General Assembly of a resolution which suited their wishes.
Particularly unfriendly was the reception the representatives of the United States and Great Britain gave to our proposal to prohibit the atomic weapon. They cannot deny the indisputable statement that the atomic bomb is a weapon of aggression and not of defence, that it is designed for the mass destruction of peaceful citizens and, chiefly, of big cities, and that only fascist fiends and not representatives of free nations can dream of employing such a weapon. But those whom Comrade Stalin called obedient “Churchill disciples in aggression” are seeking every excuse to prevent the prohibition of the criminal atomic weapon.
In this connection two major camps of public opinion are becoming more and more clearly defined.
In the United States the recently-formed Progressive Party headed by Henry Wallace, has come out in favour of prohibiting the atomic weapon, as also have quite a number of American scientists and public figures, not to mention the millions of working people whose voice is not reflected in the mercenary organs of the yellow bourgeois press. In the summer of last year, in the so-called Working Committee of the Atomic Commission of the Security Council, the majority of the states, including Great Britain, pronounced in favour of destroying atomic bombs although owing to the pressure of the United States they did not adhere to this position very long. It has long been known that many British scientists consider the position of the Soviet Union in this matter to be correct. There can be no doubt that in any country the supporters of prohibition of the atomic weapon constitute the overwhelming majority of the people, although this does not find reflection in the General Assembly.
The more stubbornly the aggressive elements resist the prohibition of the atomic weapon, the wider will become the split between the forces of aggression and imperialism on the one hand, and the forces standing for the promotion of general peace and democracy on the other. From this it follows that the partisans of the atomic weapon will, with every day, become more and more isolated from world public opinion. From this it also follows that in leading the struggle for the prohibition of the criminal atomic weapon the Soviet Union stands at the head of all peace-loving nations, of all progressive men and women throughout the world. (Prolonged applause).
Until the Second World War, the capitalist world was divided into bourgeois-democratic countries and fascist countries. At that time the chief instigators of aggression were the fascist and militaristic countries—Germany, Italy and Japan—which formed the so-called anti-Comintern bloc. It was they who unleashed the Second World War which ended in the ignominious fiasco of all fascists.
Long before the Second World War, the Soviet Union called upon all non-aggressive countries to unite in order to resist fascist aggression and always condemned deals by individual great powers with aggressive fascist countries at the expense of other peace-loving nations, such as the shameful Munich deal at the expense at Czechoslovakia.
When the Second World War broke out the Soviet Union did not have to change its policy upon entering the anti-Hitler coalition together with Great Britain and the United States. This was a natural sequence to the foreign policy the Soviet Government had been pursuing before the Second World War as well.
The dangerous threat hanging over Europe, and not only Europe, which emanated from fascist Germany and aggressive Japan with their lunatic plans for world domination and of crushing all states that opposed them, compelled the ruling circles of Great Britain and the United States to unite with the Soviet Union against the forces of aggression and of fascism.
Thanks to this alliance between the U.S.S.R. and the democratic countries, the aggressive powers were vanquished and important agreements were concluded with regard to the post-war settlement.
The Soviet Union to this day adheres to these agreements which were designed to protect the interests of democracy and to prevent new aggression. The Soviet Union lawfully demands that these agreements be carried out in practice and that new questions which may rise in connection with this be also settled by mutual agreement between the interested powers. No one can deny the consistency of the Stalin foreign policy of the Soviet Government, nor that it fully accords with the interests of international security.
The whole point is that since the end of World War Two, changes have taken place in the policy of the ruling circles of the United States and Great Britain which virtually imply the renunciation of the agreements conducted jointly with the U.S.S.R., aimed at the establishment of a stable, democratic peace after the war and which reflect the desire of these circles to impose their peace—an imperialist peace—upon other countries, which is incompatible with the liberating aims of the anti-Hitter coalition of the powers.
They evidently consider that since for them the danger of war has passed they can afford to ignore the old agreements with the U.S.S.R., disregard their existence. Among the ruling circles of these countries there are many hankering to realise their predatory plans, plans aimed at establishing the world domination of the Anglo-American bloc. They believe that with victory over Germany and Japan the ground has been cleared for the realisation of their plans of domination over all other nations, although they cannot say so openly. The press of the imperialist circles attacks our country with ever mounting ranting and screaming, for it is known to all that the Soviet Union is an irreconcilable foe of imperialist predatory plans.
In view of this it is clear why major international agreements concluded with the participation of the Soviet Union are being violated at every step and why the Berlin question for instance, in spite of the agreements reached between the U.S.S.R., the U.S., Britain and France still remains unsettled.
Comrade Stalin gave a profound explanation of this policy of the ruling circles of the U.S.A. and Great Britain:
“The point is that the inspirers of the aggressive policy of the United States and Britain are not interested in agreement and cooperation with the U.S.S.R.. What they want is not agreement and cooperation, but negotiation about agreement and co-operation so that after nullifying the agreement, they can put the blame on the U.S.S.R. and ‘prove’ that co-operation with the U.S.S.R is impossible. The instigators of war who are striving to unleash a new war dread above all, agreement and co-operation with the U.S.S.R. for a policy of agreement with the U.S.S.R. undermines the position of the warmongers and renders the aggressive policy of these gentlemen futile.”
Comrade Stalin defined this policy when he said that “The policy of the present leaders o the United States and Britain is policy of aggression, a policy of unleashing a new war”. From this viewpoint it is clear why new American military bases are being created in all parts of the globe, why the American authorities want to maintain their troops in so may countries and why the American military budget has been inflated this year to war-time dimensions and to eleven times the size it was, for instance, in the pre-war year of 1940. From this viewpoint it is also clear why, in Washington, there is preserved to this day the Anglo-American military staff which was set up during World War Two and which is now working on new plans of aggression secretly from both the American and British peoples.
There is much ado of late about the creation of all sorts of “alliances” and “blocs” of Western states though they are not being threatened by any other states. All this fuss about the formation of “Western unions”, “Atlantic alliances”, “Mediterranean blocs” and the like is camouflaged by defensive declarations by which only exceedingly naive people can be taken in. In reality these “alliances” and “blocs” have as their purpose preparation for new aggression and the precipitation of new wars in which definite ruling groups are interested, but certainly not the peoples of the United States, Britain or any other country. In the case of Britain and France they are at variance with the pacts of friendship, and mutual assistance which these countries have with the U.S.S.R.
Comrade Stalin has also pronounced his weighty word on how the policy of the instigators of a new war is likely to end. He said:
“The outcome can only be the ignominious failure of the instigators of a new war. Churchill, the chief instigator of a new war, has succeeded in losing the confidence of his own country and of the democratic forces of the world. A similar fate awaits all the other war mongers. The horrors of the recent war are too fresh in the minds of the people, and the social forces standing for peace an too great for the Churchill disciples in aggression to overcome them and turn them toward a new war.”
Comrade Stalin’s statement should have a sobering effect. It shows that the anti-Soviet intrigues in which various agents of the war instigators of a new war are now engaged are under the vigilant observation of the Soviet Union and the democratic forces of the whole world. Everyone knows that such things do not love the light. But the time has passed when the peoples were blind tools of one or another ruling clique. (Applause)
The elections in the United States on November 2 resulted in a victory for the Democratic Party and President Truman. The failure of the Republican Party and Dewey who came forward in the elections with a frankly reactionary and most aggressive programme indicates that the majority of the American people reject this programme.
World War Two, which ended with the defeat of fascism, led to substantial changes in Europe and not only in Europe. The weight of the strengthened Soviet Union in international affairs has been further enhanced. A number of new democracies to which the U.S.S.R. is bound by bonds of friendship and mutual assistance have taken the road of Socialism. The treachery of the leading nationalist group in Yugoslavia has done great damage to her people but there can be no doubt that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, relying on its internationalist traditions, will find the way which will enable Yugoslavia to rejoin the closely-knit family. which embraces the U.S.S.R. and the new democracies. (Applause)
The Communist Parties in the European countries have grown in strength and numbers. The destruction of fascism has opened broad perspectives for the growth and cementing of all the forces of the democratic and anti-imperialist camp.
The situation in Asia has likewise radically changed since World War Two.
The population of Asia comprises one thousand two hundred million of the two and a quarter billion people of the globe. The peoples of Asia are in motion in which an ever greater part is played by the forces of national liberation. Only sworn enemies of the progress of mankind can put a spoke to the wheel of this national liberation movement. Such is the onward march of history.
Too pillars of imperialism are steadily crumbling and becoming unreliable. At the same time the forces of democracy, peace and Socialism are growing and cementing their ranks.
In this situation the imperialist forces more and more frequently base their plans on intensifying the aggressiveness of their policy, on creating an atmosphere of war hysteria and so on. These methods are well known.
The noisier the warmongering gentry become, the more they will repel the millions of common folk in all countries and the sooner will they become internationally isolated. And at the same time, the international camp of the supporters of peace and democracy, in the van of which stands the U.S.S.R., is growing stronger and stronger and becoming a great and invincible force. (Prolonged applause).
Our country is in the midst of a new upsurge. This is evident in the economic achievements, in the scale and content of cultural endeavour, in the moral and political unity of the Soviet people, which has risen to a new and higher level. The strength of the Soviet people grows from year to year. The international prestige of the U.S.S.R. and its influence on world affairs become ever stronger, confirming the correctness of the policy of our Party. And accordingly, the Stalin foreign policy is imbued with steadfast consistency and calm confidence in the morrow.
We owe our achievements to the Bolshevik Party, to the guidance of Lenin and Stalin. (Stormy, prolonged applause). In the summer of 1917, in the days of military defeats and economic dislocation when our opponents declared that there was no political party in Russia that would consent to take the entire political power into its hands, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin at once retorted that there was such a party, that “our Party does not refuse to do so: it is ready at any minute to take over the entire power”. That very year the Bolshevik Party, which then numbered only 240,000 members, headed the October Socialist Revolution and led our country to the triumph of people’s rule, Soviet rule. (Stormy, prolonged applause)
Then the Bolshevik Party led the country out of the imperialist war, turned over the landed estates to the peasants and put down the attempts at resistance of the capitalists and landlords. Then, too, we defeated the forces of foreign intervention, which had formed a puppet “alliance of 14 states” and which were beaten in their attempts to restore bourgeois and landlord rule in Russia.
After this the principal task of the Bolshevik Party was to repair the economic dislocation caused by the protracted Civil War. Our enemies declared: “The Bolsheviks only know how to destroy. How often did they affirm that without the landlords and capitalists the national economy could not be restored. The Party of Lenin and Stalin replied to these assertions with the Bolshevik plan of socialist industrialisation, with the triumphant Stalin Five-Year Plans which transformed our country. (Applause)
After this they prophesied that “the Bolsheviks with break their necks over the peasant question”, that the socialist reconstruction of agriculture was impossible. Guided by Comrade Stalin, the Bolshevik Party solved this problem, too, having eliminated the kulaks as a class, brought about the collectivisation of millions of peasant farms and created unprecedented conditions for the progress of agriculture and radical improvement of the conditions of the peasantry. The outcome of these far reaching changes was that we were able to secure the elevation to a new level of the alliance of workers and peasants which turned into the moral and political unity of socialist society, no example of which had been known to world history. (Stormy applause)
In accomplishing these tasks the Party time and again encountered the resistance of agents of the class enemy, especially of the Trotskyites and Bukharinites. Having purged itself of these elements the Bolshevik Party became still stronger and rallied around Comrade Stalin. (Stormy applause)
The events of the Great Patriotic War are fresh in the minds of all. Stalin headed the defence of our country and took over the direction of the country’s armed forces—and the Soviet people vanquished German fascism and its allies. It was thought that the U.S.S.R. would be impoverished and weakened, but actually it grew stronger than ever in the course of the Great Patriotic War. It was expected that after the war the Soviet Union would be dependent on the leading capitalist states, but the Soviet State is continuing as heretofore to pursue its independent Stalin foreign policy, guided by the interests of the Soviet people and international security. (Stormy, prolonged applause)
The war ended. And we were able to return to our peaceful, labour. The Soviet Union is overfulfilling its new post-war Five-Year Plan. Progress is likewise being made in the other countries which have taken the road of Socialism. Now, in the ruling bourgeois circles all sorts of absurd “fears” are rife— they are scared by our achievements, they are afraid of the gathering tempo of the U.S.S.R.’s economic progress.
Naturally, this will not induce Soviet people to relax their labour efforts but on the contrary will spur the millions of labouring people of our country, our workers, collective farmers, intellectuals, our youth, to still greater efforts.
What is the foundation of our growing successes? This question can be answered briefly. The foundation of our, successes is the guidance of the Bolshevik Party, of the great Stalin, which has welded together the working class and the working peasants in their struggle for the triumph of Socialism. (Stormy, prolonged applause).
There are capitalist countries where much wealth and human experience have been accumulated. Where there are natural resources and much else. But the obsolescent capitalist system itself, with its private ownership and anarchy of production, and the social and political antagonisms and crises which rend it, dooms these countries to instability and catastrophic slumps, to periodical shocks and revolutionary upheavals.
Different is the situation in the Soviet Union, where the socialist social system stands firmly on its feet and is the inexhaustible source of the growing strength of our State, of the labour enthusiasm and spiritual progress of the Soviet people. In our country, in big things and in small can be seen the directing and mobilising will of the Communist Party which recognises no insuperable obstacles. (Prolonged applause)
The October Revolution tested and steeled the Lenin-Stalin leadership of our Party which enjoys the boundless confidence and love of the Soviet people. Our people have come to occupy an honourable and historic place among the nations and have demonstrated that, led by the Communist Party and the great Stalin they are capable of performing ever new great deeds. (Stormy, prolonged applause)
Long live our Soviet country—home of friendship of our peoples and shrine of their glory! (Stormy, prolonged applause)
Long live the great Bolshevik Party, the party of Lenin and Stalin the battle-steeled vanguard of the Soviet people, the inspirer and organiser of our victories! (Stormy, prolonged applause)
Under the banner of Lenin. under the leadership of Stalin, forward to the triumph of Communism!