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uprising against capitalism. How can Social-Democrats allow themselves to be frightened by the militarization of the youth, etc., if they have not forgotten the example of the Paris Commune? This is not a "theory divorced from life." It is not a dream, but a fact. It would be very bad indeed if, notwithstanding all the economic and political facts, Social-Democrats began to doubt that the imperialist epoch and imperialist wars must inevitably bring about a repetition of such facts.

A certain bourgeois observer of the Paris Commune, writing to an English newspaper, said: "If the French nation consisted entirely of women, what a terrible nation it would be!" Women, and children of thirteen and upwards, fought in the Paris Commune side by side with the men. Nor can it be different in the forthcoming battles for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian women will not look on passively while the well-armed bourgeois shoot down the poorly armed or unarmed workers. They will take to arms as they did in 1871, and from the cowed nations of today-or more correctly, from the present-day labour movement, which is disorganized more by the opportunists than by the governments-there will undoubtedly arise, sooner or later, but with absolute certainty, an international league of the "terrible nations" of the revolutionary proletariat.

Militarism is now permeating the whole of social life. Imperialism is a fierce struggle of the Great Powers for the division and redivision of the world-therefore, it must inevitably lead to further militarization in all countries, even in the neutral and small countries. What will the proletarian women do against it? Only curse all war and everything military, only demand disarmament? The women of an oppressed class that is really revolutionary will never consent to play such a shameful role. They will say to their sons:

"You will soon be a man. You will be given a gun. Take it and learn to use it. The proletarians need this knowledge not to shoot your brothers, the workers of other countries, as they are doing in the present war, and as you are being told to do by the traitors to Socialism, but to fight the bourgeoisie of your own country, to put an end to exploitation, poverty and war, not by means of good intentions, but by vanquishing the bourgeoisie and by disarming it."

If we are to refrain from conducting such propaganda, precisely such propaganda, in connection with the present war, then we had better stop using highfalutin phrases about international revolutionary Social-Democracy, about the Socialist revolution, and about war against

war.

43. UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS: DRAFT RESOLUTION, 1 JUNE, 1954 1

The Disarmament Commission deems it essential that, as an important step towards achieving complete elimination from the armaments of all States of atomic, hydrogen, and other types of weapons of mass destruction, together with the simultaneous establishment of strict international control securing the observance of an agreement to prohibit the use of atomic energy for military purposes, the States concerned should assume a solemn and unconditional obligation not to employ atomic, hydrogen, or other weapons of mass destruction.

'UN Document DC/SC.1/7, 1 June 1954.

44. STATEMENT BY USSR COMMUNIST PARTY FIRST SECRETARY (KHRUSHCHEV) BEFORE THE 20TH CONGRESS OF THE SOVIET COMMUNIST PARTY, FEBRUARY 14, 19561 (EXCERPT)

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The Leninist principle of the peaceful coexistence of states with differing social systems was, and remains, the general line of our country's foreign policy.

It is alleged that the Soviet Union advocates the principle of peaceful coexistence exclusively from tactical considerations of the moment.

However, it is well known that we have advocated peaceful coexistence just as perseveringly from the very inception of Soviet power. Hence, this is not a tactical strategem but a fundamental principle of Soviet foreign policy.

The foes of peace still allege that the Soviet Union intends to overthrow capitalism in other countries by "exporting" revolution. It goes without saying that there are no adherents of capitalism among Communists.

But this does not at all signify that we have interfered or intend to interfere in the internal affairs of countries where a capitalist system exists.

It is rediculous to think that revolutions are made to order.

When we say that in the competition between the two systems of capitalism and socialism, socialism will triumph, this by no means implies that the victory will be reached by armed intervention on the part of the Socialist countries in the internal affairs of the capitalist countries.

We believe that after seeing for themselves the advantages that communism holds out, all working men and women on earth will sooner or later take to the road of the struggle to build a Socialist society.

We have always asserted and continue to assert that the establishment of a new social order in any country is the internal affair of its people.

Such are our positions, based on the great teachings of MarxismLeninism.

The principle of peaceful coexistence is gaining increasingly wider international recognition.

And this is logical, since there is no other way out in the present situation. Indeed, there are only two ways: either peaceful coexistence, or the most devastating war in history. There is no third alternative.

We presume that countries with differing social systems cannot just simply exist side by side. There must be progress to better relations, to stronger confidence among them, to cooperation.

As will be recalled, there is a Marxist-Leninist premise which says that while imperialism exists wars are inevitable.

While capitalism remains on earth the reactionary forces representing the interests of the capitalist monopolies will continue to strive for war gambles and aggression, and may try to let loose war. There is no fatal inevitability of war.

I New York Times, February 15, 1956.

Now there are powerful social and political forces, commanding serious means capable of preventing the unleashing of war by the imperialists, and should they try to start it of delivering a smashing rebuff to the aggressors and thwarting their adventuristic plans. To this end it is necessary for all the forces opposing war to be vigilant and mobilized. It is necessary for them to act in a united front and not to slacken their efforts in the fight to preserve peace.

In view of the fundamental changes that have taken place in the world arena, new prospects have also opened up with regard to the transition of countries and nations to socialism.

It is quite likely that the forms of the transition to socialism will become more and more variegated. Moreover, it is not obligatory for the implementation of these forms to be connected with civil war in all circumstances.

The enemies are fond of depicting us, Leninists, as supporters of violence always and in all circumstances. It is true that we recognize the necessity for the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into Socialist society.

This is what distinguishes revolutionary Marxists from reformists and opportunists. There is not a shadow of doubt that for a number of capitalist countries the overthrow of the bourgeoise dictatorship by force and the connected sharp aggravation of the class struggle is inevitable.

But there are different forms of social revolution and the allegation that we recognize force and civil war as the only way of transforming society does not correspond to reality.

Leninism teaches us that the ruling classes will not relinquish power of their own free will.

However, the greater or lesser degree of acuteness in the struggle, the use or not of force in the transition to socialism, depend not so much on the proletariat as on the extent of the resistance put up by the exploiters, and on the employment of violence by the exploiting class itself.

In this connection the question arises of the possibility of employing the parliamentary form for the transition to socialism. For the Russian Bolsheviks, who were the first to accomplish the transition to socialism, this way was excluded.

However, since then radical changes have taken place in the historical situation that allows an approach to this question from another angle.

Socialism has become a great magnetizing force for the workers, peasants and intelligentsia in all lands. The ideas of socialism are really conquering the minds of all toiling mankind.

At the same time, in a number of capitalist countries, the working class possesses in the present situation realistic opportunities of welding under its leadership the overwhelming majority of the people and of insuring its transition of the principal means of production into the hands of the people.

The Right-Wing bourgeoise parties and the governments they form are becoming bankrupt more and more often.

In these conditions, by rallying around itself a toiling peasantry, the intelligentsia and all the patriotic forces, and by meting out a determined rebuff to opportunistic elements incapable of abandoning a policy of conciliation with the capitalists and landlords, the working

class has the possibility of inflicting a defeat on the reactionary antipopular forces and of gaining a firm majority in Parliament, and converting it from an organ of bourgeoise democracy into an instrument of genuinely popular will.

In such an event, this institution, traditional for many highly developed capitalist countries, may become an organ of genuine democracy, of democracy for the working people.

The winning of a stable parliamentary majority, based on the mass revolutionary movement of the proletariat and the working people, would bring about for the working class of a number of capitalists and former colonial countries conditions insuring the implementation of fundamental social transformations.

Of course in countries where capitalism is still strong and where it controls an enormous military and police machine, the serious resistance of the reactionary forces is inevitable.

There the transition to socialism will proceed amid conditions of an acute class revolutionary struggle.

The political leadership of the working class, headed by its advance detachment, is the indispensable and decisive factor for all the forms of the transition to socialism. Without this, the transition to socialism is impossible.

Such are the considerations the Central Committee of the party deems necessary to set forth with regard to the questions of the forms for the transition to socialism in present day conditions.

*

Nuclear Weapons Tests

45. LETTER FROM THE REPRESENTATIVE OF INDIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL, APRIL 8, 19541

1. I am directed by the Government of India to request you to place before the Disarmament Commission and its special Sub-Committee the views of the Government of India on the hydrogen bomb contained in a statement in Parliament on 2 April 1954 by the Prime Minister of India.

2. This statement, a copy of which is enclosed for your information and that of the Commission, sets out the approach and the concern of the Government of India in respect of the problem, and makes certain proposals. The Government of India request that these proposals may be examined by the Commission. They believe that these proposals are practical and capable of application and without prejudice to any of the issues in regard to control, inspection, prohibition, stockpiling, etc., which the Commission is seeking to resolve.

3. The Government of India further submit with confidence that the widespread concern the world over and the various suggestions made should presently receive active study and consideration by the Commission.

4. The people and Government of India are disturbed and moved by the after-effects of the hydrogen bomb explosions on the people of Japan which, they submit, deserve special consideration of the Commission. Japan is not represented at the United Nations and it is not one of the parties principally concerned in this problem.

1 UN Document DC/44, 8 April 1954.

5. The Government of India also consider that informed world opinion as to the known and unknown but probable effects and implications of the explosions of these weapons of mass destruction are an important and perhaps a decisive factor in the solution of the problems to which the Commission is addressing itself.

6. The Government of India make these proposals and request their immediate consideration by the Disarmament Commission in the sincere belief and the earnest hope that they will make a useful beginning in the fulfilment of the earnest desire which the General Assembly affirmed last year in its resolution No. 751 (VIII), paragraph 1.

7. The Government of India are fully aware that any effective consideration and solution of this problem can be reached only by the Powers principally concerned, and by agreement among them. In the crisis that humanity faces and where the issue is the future of mankind, they have ventured in all humility to make this contribution to the collective thinking and action in which those in whom responsibility has been vested by the United Nations are presently engaged.

8. I request that this communication and its annexure may be circulated to the members of the Disarmament Commission as a United Nations document.

(Signed) Rajeshwar DAYAL
Permanent Representative of India

to the United Nations

EXTRACTS FROM THE STATEMENT MADE BY THE PRIME MINISTER of INDIA IN THE HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE, ON 2 APRIL 1954, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE HYDROGEN BOMB

"The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, we are told, possess this weapon and each of these countries has during the last two years effected test explosions, unleashing impacts which in every respect were far beyond those of any weapons of destruction known to man.

"A further and more powerful explosion than the one of 1 March has been effected by the United States and more are reported to have been scheduled to take place.

"We know little more about the hydrogen bomb and its disastrous and horrible consequences than have appeared in the Press or are otherwise matters of general knowledge or speculation. But even what we do know, and the very fact that the full facts of the effects of these explosions do not appear to be known or are not ascertainable with any certainty even by scientists, points to certain conclusions. A new weapon of unprecedented power, both in volume and intensity, with unascertained and probably unascertainable range of destructive potential in respect to time and space, that is, both as regards the duration and extent of the consequences, is being tested, unleashing its massive power for use as a weapon of war. We know that its use threatens the existence of man and civilization as we know it. We are told there is no effective protection against the hydrogen bomb and that millions of people may be exterminated by a single explosion and many more injured and

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