During the Cold War (1947–1991), when the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in an arms race, the Soviet Union promoted its foreign policy through the World Peace Council and other front organizations. Some writers have alleged that it also influenced non-aligned peace groups in the West.
Russian Revolution and the Polish-Soviet War The Bolsheviks aimed at spreading their revolution by the use of force, linking the revolution in Russia with an expected revolution in Germany and assisting other Communist movements in Western Europe. Poland, in particular, was the geographical bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to do so, and thus Soviets had been preparing their own strike against Poland even before the Polish Kiev offensive; they planned to take over Galicia, and use the conquered ethnic Polish territories as a springboard for the invasion of Germany and other European countries.Davies, Norman, White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 29THE REBIRTH OF POLAND . University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Retrieved 2 June 2006.Richard Pipes, David Brandenberger, Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, The unknown Lenin: from the secret archive, Yale University Press, 1999, ISBN 0300076622, Google Print, p.6-7Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508105-6, Google Print, p.106Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938, Oxford University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-19-502697-7, Google Print, p. 101
However, the Soviet propaganda, aimed at the international scene, would deny any visions of conquest and pro-Soviet sympathizers would stage various protests in Western European countries against their government actions which aimed to support Poland against the Soviet advance.Battle Of Warsaw 1920 by Witold Lawrynowicz; A detailed write-up, with bibliography. Polish Militaria Collectors Association. Retrieved 5 November 2006.EH Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, volume 3, p.165, London Eventually, the Soviets were defeated at the battle of Warsaw, but they learned from the war of the importance of foreign propaganda that could sway Western public opinion, and would continue to use similar strategies in the future.Giles Scott-Smith, The politics of apolitical culture: the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and post-war American hegemony, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415244455, Google Print, p.87
The World Peace Council
The World Peace Council (WPC) was set up by the Soviet Communist Party in 1948–50 to promote Soviet foreign policy and to campaign against nuclear weapons at a time when only the USA had them. The WPC was directed by the International Department of the Soviet Communist Party via the Soviet Peace Committee,Burns, J.F., "Soviet peace charade is less than convincing", New York Times, May 16, 1982 a WPC member. The WPC and its members took the line laid down by the Cominform that the world was divided between the peace-loving Soviet Union and the warmongering United States. From the 1950s until the late 1980s the Soviet Union used numerous organizations associated with the WPC to spread its view of peace. They included:
Christian Peace Conference International Federation of Resistance Fighters International Institute for Peace International Organization of Democratic Lawyers International Organization of Journalists International Union of Students World Federation of Democratic Youth World Federation of Scientific Workers World Federation of Trade UnionsCIA, Effect of Invasion of Czechoslovakia on Soviet Fronts Women's International Democratic Federation World Peace Esperanto Movement.Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, pp. 79–88, .U.S. Congress. House. Select Committee on Intelligence, Soviet Covert Action: The Forgery Offensive, 6 and 19 Feb. 1980, 96th Cong., 2d sess., 1963. Washington, DC: GPO, 1980.
In October 1981, the Danish authorities expelled Vladimir Merkulov, a Soviet Embassy second secretary and KGB operative, whom they charged with passing money to Arne Herløv Petersen, a member of the WPC's Danish affiliate, the Copenhagen-based Liaison Committee for Peace and Security, to finance a newspaper campaign calling for the establishment of a Nordic nuclear weapons-free zone.United States Department of State,The World Peace Council's "Peace Assemblies", Foreign Affairs Note, 1983
Other international peace organizations have been said to be associated with the WPC as well. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War is said to have had "overlapping membership and similar policies" to the WPC. The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and the Dartmouth Conferences were said to have been used by Soviet delegates to promote Soviet propaganda. Joseph Rotblat, one of the leaders of the Pugwash movement, said that there were a few participants in Pugwash conferences from the Soviet Union "who were obviously sent to push the party line, but the majority were genuine scientists and behaved as such".Rotblat, Joseph, "Russell and the Pugwash Movement", The 1998 Bertrand Russell Peace LecturesSee also Abrams, I., The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates
The main activity of the WPC was organizing enormous international peace conferences with thousands in attendance; they condemned western military action, armaments and weapons tests but refrained from criticizing Russian aggression. For example, in 1956 the WPC condemned the Suez Crisis but not the Russian invasion of Hungary.
Because of the energetic propaganda of the WPC from the late 1940s onwards, with its big conferences and budget from the Soviet Union, some observers saw no difference between a peace activist and a communist. It was said by some that the peace movement in the West distinct from the WPC was influenced by or even led by it; for example, US President Ronald Reagan said that the peace demonstrations in Europe in 1981 were sponsored by the WPCE. P. Thompson, "Resurgence in Europe and the rôle of END", in J. Minnion and P. Bolsover (eds.), The CND Story, London: Allison and Busby, 1983, and Soviet defector Vladimir Bukovsky said that they were co-ordinated at the WPC's 1980 World Parliament of Peoples for Peace in Sofia.Vladimir Bukovsky, "The Peace Movements and the Soviet Union", Commentary, May 1982, pp. 25–41. The FBI reported to the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the WPC-affiliated U.S. Peace Council was one of the organizers of a large 1982 peace protest in New York City, but said that the KGB had not manipulated the American movement "significantly."John Kohan, "The KGB: Eyes of the Kremlin", Time, 14 February 1983.
In the heyday of the WPC, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, co-operation between western groups and the WPC was actually very limited, and because the non-aligned movement "was constantly under threat of being tarnished by association with avowedly pro-Soviet groups", many individuals and organizations "studiously avoided contact with communists and fellow-travellers."Russell, B., and A. G. Bone, Man's Peril, 1954–55, Routledge, 2003 As early as 1949 the World Pacifist Meeting warned against active collaboration with Communists. Western delegates at WPC conferences who tried to criticize the Soviet Union or the WPC's defence of Russian armaments were often shouted downLawrence S. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, Stanford University Press, 1997. and they gradually dissociated themselves from the WPC. Finally, after confrontation between western and Soviet delegates at the 1962 World Congress for Peace and Disarmament, organised by the WPC in Moscow, forty non-aligned organizations decided to form a new international body, the International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace, to which Soviet delegates were not invited.
Rainer Santi, in his history of the International Peace Bureau, writes that the WPC "always had difficulty in securing cooperation from West European and North American peace organisations because of its obvious affiliation with Socialist countries and the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. Especially difficult to digest, was that instead of criticising the Soviet Union's unilaterally resumed atmospheric nuclear testing in 1961, the WPC issued a statement rationalising it. In 1979 the World Peace Council explained the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as an act of solidarity in the face of Chinese and US aggression against Afghanistan."Santi, Rainer, 100 years of peace making: A history of the International Peace Bureau and other international peace movement organisations and networks , Pax förlag, International Peace Bureau, January 1991. It was suggested by a former secretary of the WPC that it simply failed to connect with the western peace movement. It was said to have used most of its funds on international travel and lavish conferences, to have poor intelligence on Western peace groups, and, even though its HQ was in Helsinki, to have no contact with Finnish peace organizations.Prince, R., "The Ghost Ship of Lönnrotinkatu", Peace Magazine, May–June 1992.
Wider Soviet influence In 1951 the House Committee on Un-American Activities published The Communist "Peace" Offensive, which detailed the activities of the WPC and of numerous affiliated organisations. It listed dozens of American organisations and hundreds of Americans who had been involved in peace meetings, conferences and petitions. It noted, "that some of the persons who are so described in either the text or the appendix withdrew their support and/or affiliation with these organizations when the Communist character of these organizations was discovered. There may also be persons whose names were used as sponsors or affiliates of these organizations without permission or knowledge of the individuals involved."House Committee on Un-American Activities, The Communist "Peace" Offensive, 1951.
In 1982, The Heritage Foundation published Moscow and the Peace Offensive, which said that non-aligned peace organizations advocated similar policies on defence and disarmament to the Soviet Union. It argued that "pacifists and concerned Christians had been drawn into the Communist campaign largely unaware of its real sponsorship."Barlow, J. G., Moscow and the Peace Offensive, Heritage Foundation, 1982.