Communist activities in the peace movement (Women Strike for ...

2064 COIVIMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN THE PEACE MOVEMENT
no peace because certain persons, groups, and nations in the world
even while they cry peace—foment war and unrest. They plot and
carry out military attacks on neutralist India, on anti-Communist
South Vietnam. They plot sabotage in the United States. They
dynamite electric power stations in Venezuela. In every nation, in
small and in big ways, they disrupt peace or make it impossible of
attainment.
There is good reason, unfortunately, to doubt Communist claims
that they desire peace, as others understand the term. Late in 1948,
Stalin launched a spectacular "peace" offensive. It was marked in
major nations of the world by so-called "peace" conferences and
congresses, which were supported and attended by the cream of the
Communist and fellow-traveling intellectual crop in those nations.
A Moscow-directed World Peace Council, still operating in Vienna,
was born of these gatherings. In June 1950, however, even as Stalin
was directing the creation of this so-caUed World Peace Council
(which was formally established about 5 months later), he launched
a military attack on South Korea. That attack marked the beginning
of 3 years' undeclared war between the forces of communism and
freedom. Over 33,000 Americans were killed in battle in that Communist
"peace" action. More than 123,000 other Americans were
casualties of it— ^20,000 of them also losing their hves.
These facts alone indicate that we must give careful consideration
to just what the word "peace" means to Communists. Studying
what they say about war will help us determine what they mean by
peace.
A pamphlet on basic Communist doctrine prepared by the National
Education Department of the U.S. Communist Party and sold in
Communist Party bookstores in the United States at the very time
Stalin's "peace" offensive was at its peak-—and during the Korean
conflict—made the follomng doctrinal statement:
Wars do not occur through accidents of history or tlie mistakes of statesmen.
They are the inevitable result of capitalism and its contradictions.
Volume 8 of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia {Bolshaya Sovetskaya
Entsiklopediya) , published in 1951, defines war as follows (p. 570):
War is a social phenomenon inherent in a society containing classes and antagonism.
Two pages later, in its discussion of war, the Encyclopedia states:
Wars will cease only with the destruction of capitalism and the victory of the
socialist system in all the world.
Again, the Small Soviet Encyclopedia (Malaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya),
third edition, volume 2, published in 1958, states:
The basic cause for contemporary wars is the capitalist economic system and the
irreconcilable internal contradictions in it.
In other words, according to fundamental Communist doctrine,
there wiU be wars—there can be no real peace—as long as capitalism
exists. To end wars, to achieve peace, capitaHsm must be destroyed,
according to the Communists.
According to their own words, Communists believe that there can
be no real peace until they have conquered the world, eliminating aU
other systems. They say to one another, and to those who will make
an effort to study their doctrine, that they reaUy do not believe in
peace in our time.
—