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114-727: The Soviet Peace Committee was founded in August 1949. It was a member of the World Peace Council (an organization that was also founded in 1949). The inaugural meeting was called the First All-Union Conference of the Partisans of Peace or the all-Soviet Peace Conference. The Soviet Peace Committee supported anti-war campaigns against the wars or militarization of the non-communist, Western countries, but failed to condemn similar actions originating from

228-564: A coronary thrombosis , and died on 25 January of arteriosclerosis and diabetes at 16:05. His death is viewed as starting the battle to succeed Brezhnev, in which Andropov, who assumed Suslov's post as the Party's Second Secretary , sidelined Kirilenko and Chernenko during the last days of Brezhnev's rule. Suslov was buried on 29 January at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis , in one of the twelve individual tombs located between

342-548: A Lithuanian-born American M.D. , was once requested to see her in the Kremlin Hospital ; it was one of the few cases where a renowned foreign doctor was invited to visit the Kremlin Hospital. Suslov expressed his gratitude for Lown's work, but avoided meeting Lown in person because he was a representative of an "imperialistic" country. Yelizaveta and Suslov had two children, Revoly (born 1929), named after

456-691: A World Committee of Partisans for Peace, led by a twelve-person Executive Bureau and chaired by Professor Frédéric Joliot-Curie , a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, High Commissioner for Atomic Energy and member of the French Institute . Most of the Executive were Communists. One delegate to the Congress, the Swedish artist Bo Beskow  [ sv ] , heard no spontaneous contributions or free discussions, only prepared speeches, and described

570-659: A commission charged with purging the party in the Ural and Chernigov provinces. The purge was organised by Lazar Kaganovich , then Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission. Author Yuri Druzhnikov contends that Suslov was involved with setting up several show trials , and contributed to the Party by expelling all members deviating from the Party line , meaning Trotskyists , Zinovievists , and other left-wing deviationists. From 1936 to 1937, Suslov studied at

684-880: A large 1982 peace protest in New York City, but said that the KGB had not manipulated the American movement "significantly." International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War was said to have had "overlapping membership and similar policies" to the WPC. and 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

798-552: A letter to Andrei Zhdanov , accusing the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee of spying. Suslov's letter, which was well-received among Soviet leadership, would serve as the basis for prosecution of the committee during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign . After becoming head of the Agitprop, at the height of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign, Suslov also purged Jews from media and public institutions. In 1947, Suslov

912-617: A new international climate, new hopes, new confidence, new optimism among the peoples." In the 1980s it campaigned against the deployment of U.S. missiles in Europe. It published two magazines, New Perspectives and Peace Courier . Its current magazine is Peace Messenger . In accordance with the Comniform's 1950 resolution to draw into the peace movement trade unions, women's and youth organisations, scientists, writers and journalists, etc., several Communist mass organisations supported

1026-780: A permanent International Committee of Intellectuals in Defence of Peace (also known as the International Committee of Intellectuals for Peace and the International Liaison Committee of Intellectuals for Peace) with headquarters in Paris. It called for the establishment of national branches and national meetings along the same lines as the World Congress. In accordance with this policy, a Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace

1140-475: A teacher in 1931 to pursue politics full-time, becoming one of the many Soviet politicians who took part in the mass repression begun by Joseph Stalin 's regime. He was made First Secretary of Stavropol Krai administrative area in 1939. During World War II, Suslov headed the local Stavropol guerrilla movement. After the war, Suslov became a member of the Organisational Bureau (Orgburo) of

1254-459: A tenth of the delegates that its Soviet-backed conferences could attract ( see below ), although it still issues statements couched in similar terms to those of its historic appeals. The WPC first set up its offices in Paris, but was accused by the French government of engaging in " fifth column " activities and was expelled in 1952. It moved to Prague and then to Vienna . In 1957 it was banned by

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1368-754: A thing called the World Peace Council, which is bought and paid for by the Soviet Union", and Soviet defector Vladimir Bukovsky claimed that they were co-ordinated at the WPC's 1980 World Parliament of Peoples for Peace in Sofia . 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

1482-613: Is said to have successfully influenced their agendas, the terms of discussion and the orientations of their resolutions. It also cooperates with the African Union , the League of Arab States , and other inter-governmental bodies. The members of the Secretariat of the WPC are: The WPC awards several peace prizes , some of which, it has been said, were awarded to politicians who funded the organization. The highest WPC body,

1596-479: Is suppressed and never acknowledged in final resolutions or communiques. All assemblies praise the U.S.S.R. and other progressive societies and endorse Soviet foreign policy positions." The WPC was involved in demonstrations and protests especially in areas bordering US military installations in Western Europe believed to house nuclear weapons . It campaigned against US-led military operations, especially

1710-686: Is viewed as starting the battle to succeed Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary . Suslov was born in Shakhovskoye , Khvalynsky Uyezd , Saratov Governorate (today, a rural locality in Pavlovsky District, Ulyanovsk Oblast ), Russian Empire on 21 November 1902. Suslov began work in the local Komsomol organisation in Saratov in 1918, eventually becoming a member of the Poverty Relief Committee. After working in

1824-903: The Baltic states on their drive to Berlin in 1944. In 1946, Suslov was made a member of the Orgburo and immediately became the Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Central Committee. Within a year, Suslov was appointed Head of the Central Committee Department for Agitation and Propaganda . He also became a harsh critic of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the post-war years. On 26 November 1946, Suslov sent

1938-678: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament . At first, Communists denounced the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for "splitting the peace movement" but they were compelled to join it when they saw how popular it was. Throughout much of the 1960s and early 1970s, the WPC campaigned against the US's role in the Vietnam War . Opposition to the Vietnam War was widespread in the mid-1960s and most of

2052-660: The Great Purge in 1938, however writer Roy Medvedev has questioned this, stating that "we have no evidence of his personal involvement in the repressive campaigns of 1937–1938, though they certainly paved the way for his rapid rise." Suslov was made First Secretary of the Stavropol Krai Committee in 1939. On the Eastern Front in World War II, Suslov was a member of Military Council of

2166-662: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , Suslov, along with Anastas Mikoyan , operated in close proximity to Budapest in order to direct the activities of the Soviet troops and to lend assistance to the new Hungarian leadership. Suslov and Mikoyan attended the Politburo meeting of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party which elected János Kádár to the office of General Secretary. In a telegram to

2280-729: The Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall . Brezhnev expressed great sadness at Suslov's passing. Suslov was awarded several decorations and medals during his life; among them were two Hero of Socialist Labour awards, five Orders of Lenin , one Order of the October Revolution , and one first degree Order of the Patriotic War . The USSR Academy of Sciences awarded Suslov the Gold Medal of Karl Marx. Suslov

2394-695: The Machine and Tractor Stations (MTS), state organizations that owned and maintained the farm machinery used by kolkhozy . This reform had a particular significance in Soviet ideology. In Marxist-Leninist doctrine, cooperative ownership of property was considered a "lower" form of public ownership than state ownership. Khrushchev's proposal to expand cooperative ownership ran contrary to the Marxist theory as interpreted by Stalin. Suslov, who supported Stalin's economic policy, regarded Khrushchev's proposal as unacceptable on ideological grounds. In an election speech to

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2508-797: The North Caucasian Front and led the Stavropol Krai Headquarters of the Partisan Divisions (the local guerrilla movement) after the Germans occupied the area. Suslov spent much of his time mobilising workers to fight against the German invaders. The guerrilla movement he led was operated by the regional party cells; Suslov for his part maintained close contact with the Red Army . Suslov also supervised

2622-673: The Polish crisis . Members of the commission included such high-ranking Soviets as KGB Chairman Andropov , Minister of Defence Dmitriy Ustinov , Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko , and Brezhnev's long-time associate Konstantin Chernenko . On 28 August, the Commission considered Soviet military intervention to stabilize the region. Wojciech Jaruzelski , First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party,

2736-644: The Sino-Soviet Dispute and criticized Maoism in various ways under the Khrushchev administration, particularly its split from the Soviet leadership in the Socialist Camp , the rejection of the theory of Peaceful Coexistence , and Mao's support of anti-Soviet rival communist militant groups globally. In a report made on 14 February 1964 at a plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Suslov compared Mao's China to Trotskyism , and denounced

2850-691: The Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, the WPC convened a conference in Helsinki in December 1956. Although there were reportedly "serious differences" regarding the Hungarian situation within both the WPC and national peace movements, the conference passed a unanimous resolution blaming the Hungarian government for the Soviet invasion, citing "the faults of an internal regime as well as their exploitation by foreign propagandists". The resolution also called for

2964-470: The Stalinist old guard . There were also deep-seated divergences in foreign and domestic policy between Suslov and Khrushchev. Suslov opposed the idea of improving Soviet Union–United States relations and was against Khrushchev's attempts at rapprochement with Yugoslavia . Domestically, Suslov opposed Khrushchev's policy of de-Stalinisation and his economic decentralisation scheme . Suslov visited

3078-783: The Vietnam War , although it did not condemn similar Soviet actions in Hungary and in Afghanistan. On 18 March 1950, the WPC launched its Stockholm Appeal at a meeting of the Permanent Committee of the World Peace Congress, calling for the absolute prohibition of nuclear weapons. The campaign won popular support, collecting, it is said, 560 million signatures in Europe, most from socialist countries, including 10 million in France (including that of

3192-547: The deportations of Chechens and other Muslim minorities from the Caucasus during the war. According to Soviet historiography, Suslov's years as a guerrilla fighter were highly successful; however, testimonies from participants differ from the official account. These participants claim that there were a number of organizational problems which reduced their effectiveness on the battlefield. Suslov also suffered badly from tuberculosis, which he had contracted in his youth, that

3306-689: The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1992, remnants of the Soviet Peace Committee were reorganized into the Federation for Peace and Conciliation . Soviet Peace Committee had four chairmen: World Peace Council The World Peace Council ( WPC ) is an international organization created in 1949 by the Cominform and propped up by the Soviet Union. Throughout the Cold War, WPC engaged in propaganda efforts on behalf of

3420-759: The right of peoples to sovereignty and independence , essential for the establishment of peace; non-interference in the internal affairs of nations; peaceful co-existence between states with different political systems; negotiations instead of use of force in the settlement of differences between nations. The WPC is a registered NGO at the United Nations and co-operates primarily with the Non-Aligned Movement . It cooperates with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), International Labour Organization (ILO), and other UN specialized agencies, special committees and departments. It

3534-462: The 1950s, congresses were held in Vienna , Berlin, Helsinki and Stockholm. The January 1952 World Congress of People in Vienna represented Joseph Stalin 's strategy of peaceful coexistence, resulting in a more broad-based conference. Among those attending were Jean-Paul Sartre and Hervé Bazin . In 1955, another WPC meeting in Vienna launched an "Appeal against the Preparations for Nuclear War", with grandiose claims about its success. Following

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3648-439: The Assembly, meets every three years. Under its current rules, WPC members are national and international organizations that agree with its main principles and any of its objectives and pay membership fees. Other organizations may join at the discretion of the executive committee or become associate members. Distinguished individuals may become honorary members at the discretion of the executive committee. As of March 2014,

3762-405: The Austrian government. It was invited to Prague but did not move there, had no official HQ but continued to operate in Vienna under cover of the International Institute for Peace. In 1968 it re-assumed its name and moved to Helsinki, Finland , where it remained until 1999. In 2000 it re-located to Athens , Greece. The WPC was receiving financial contributions from friendly countries and from

3876-469: The Brezhnev era, Suslov became increasingly hardline. Suslov was opposed to any sort of anti-Soviet policies attempted by the Eastern Bloc leaders, but voted against Soviet military intervention in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1968 during the Prague Spring . Suslov was regarded, according to Christian Schmidt-Häuer, as the "pope" for "Orthodox communists" in the Eastern Bloc. Throughout his political career, Suslov became increasingly concerned that

3990-429: The British Committee of 100 tried to demonstrate in Red Square against Soviet weapons and the Communist system, their banners were confiscated and they were threatened with deportation. As a result of this confrontation, 40 non-aligned organizations decided to form a new international body, the International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace , which was not to have Soviet members. From about 1982, following

4104-426: The British General Secretary of the International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace and a delegate to the 1969 assembly wrote ( Tribune , 4 July 1969): 'There were a number [of delegates] who decided to vote against the general resolution for three reasons (a) it was platitudinous (b) it was one sided and (c) in protest against restrictions on minorities and the press within the assembly. This proved impossible in

4218-404: The Central Committee in 1946. In June 1950, he was elected to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . From 16 October 1952 onwards, he was a full member of the 19th Presidium of the CPSU. In the ensuing shuffle of the Soviet leadership following Stalin's death, Suslov lost much of the recognition and influence he had previously earned. However, by the late 1950s, he had risen to become the leader of

4332-401: The Central Committee when Brezhnev rose to power. However, Suslov was never interested in becoming the leader of the Soviet Union , and was content to remain the man behind the scenes. During most of his term, Suslov was one of four people who had both a seat in the Secretariat and the Politburo; the three others were Brezhnev, Andrei Kirilenko and Fyodor Kulakov . A collective leadership

4446-495: The Chinese leadership as petty-bourgeois nationalists and left-deviationists : [...] the entire range of the CPC leadership's theoretical and political views are in many ways a rehash of Trotskyism [...] an examination of the sources of the present anti-Leninist dissentive policy of the CPC leadership leads up to the conclusion that the world communist movement faces a tangible danger of petty‐bourgeois nationalist deviation that disguises itself with "Left" phrase-mongering. In

4560-551: The Commission of Foreign Affairs in the years immediately following Stalin's death. Suslov recovered his authority in 1955 and was elected to a seat in the Presidium, bypassing the customary candidate membership. In the 20th Party Congress of 1956, Khrushchev delivered the famous Secret Speech about Stalin's cult of personality . In Suslov's ideological report on 16 February, he updated his criticism of Stalin and his personality cult: "(They) caused considerable harm to both organisational and ideological party work. They belittled

4674-407: The Communist cause. The formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain in 1957 sparked a rapid growth in the unaligned peace movement and its detachment from the WPC. However, the public and some Western leaders still tended to regard all peace activists as Communists. For example, US President Ronald Reagan said that the big peace demonstrations in Europe in 1981 were "all sponsored by

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4788-415: The Congress and was subsequently adopted as the symbol of the WPC. In 1950, the World Congress of the Supporters of Peace adopted a permanent constitution for the World Peace Council, which replaced the Committee of Partisans for Peace. The opening congress of the WPC condemned the atom-bomb and the American involvement in the Korean War. The WPC was used by the Soviet Union to promote baseless claims that

4902-410: The Congress as a "bogus forum of peace with the real aim of sabotaging national defence" and said there would be a "reasonable limit" on foreign delegates. Among those excluded by the government were Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Ilya Ehrenburg , Alexander Fadeyev , and Dmitri Shostakovich . The number of delegates at Sheffield was reduced from an anticipated 2,000 to 500, half of whom were British. The WPC

5016-409: The First Deputy Chairman of the KGB , had shielded Galina and Yuri , Brezhnev's children, from corruption investigations. When these facts were revealed to him, Suslov challenged Tsvigun to make a statement on the matter. Suslov even threatened Tsvigun with expulsion from the Communist Party, but Tsvigun died on 19 January 1982 before he could challenge Suslov's statement. Two days later, Suslov had

5130-449: The French capital. A new permanent organization emerged from the April 1949 conclave, the World Committee of Partisans for Peace. At a Second World Congress held in Warsaw in November 1950, this group adopted the new name World Peace Council (WPC). The origins of the WPC lay in the Cominform's doctrine that the world was divided between "peace-loving" progressive forces led by the Soviet Union and "warmongering" capitalist countries led by

5244-427: The Industrial Academy. In 1931, he abandoned teaching in favour of the party apparatus. He became an inspector on the Communist Party's Party Control Commission and on the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate . His main task there was to adjudicate large numbers of "personal cases", breaches of discipline, and appeals against expulsion from the party. In 1933 and 1934, Suslov directed

5358-466: The Komsomol for nearly three years, Suslov became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (the Bolsheviks) in 1921. After graduating from the rabfak , he studied economics at the Plekhanov Institute of National Economy between 1924 and 1928. In the summer of 1928, after graduating from the Plekhanov institute, he became a graduate student (research fellow) in economics at the Institute of Red Professors , teaching at Moscow State University and at

5472-402: The No. 1 person he wanted to "eliminate". In June 1950, Suslov was elected to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . He was promoted to the CPSU Presidium (later known as the Politburo) in 1952 following the 19th Party Congress . He suffered a temporary reversal when Stalin died and was dismissed from the Presidium in 1953. He continued to work in the Supreme Soviet, even becoming Chairman of

5586-491: The People's Republic of China the previous year; instead, Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin led the opposition. In October 1964, Khrushchev was ousted. Suslov played a crucial role in the event. Suslov was, alongside Premier Alexei Kosygin and First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, one of the most influential Soviet politicians of the 1960s following the ousting of Khrushchev. Having led the opposition against Khrushchev for years, Suslov had acquired and wielded great power within

5700-543: The Postgraduate Course of the Economic Institute of Red Professors . He gained a reputation as an unsociable, modest, and serious student who carefully studied and memorized the works and speeches of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin and became known for keeping a complete record of their statements on economic and political issues in boxes of cards and file cabinets in his tiny room in a communal apartment. Somehow, Stalin urgently needed Lenin's opinion on one narrow economic issue and dispatched his secretary Lev Mekhlis to locate

5814-414: The Presidium's decision to intervene in Hungary militarily and replace the government's leadership there. In June 1957, Suslov backed Khrushchev during his struggle with the Anti-Party Group led by Georgy Malenkov , Vyacheslav Molotov , Lazar Kaganovich , and Dmitry Shepilov . Mikoyan later wrote in his memoirs that he convinced Suslov to support Khrushchev by telling him that Khrushchev would emerge

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5928-433: The Soviet Peace Committee developed bilateral international contacts "in which the WPC not only played no role, but was a liability." Gorbachev never even met WPC President Romesh Chandra and excluded him from many Moscow international forums. Following the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union , the WPC lost most of its support, income and staff and dwindled to a small core group. Its international conferences now attract only

6042-482: The Soviet Peace Committee during its history until 1991. After the year 2000 and the shifting of the Head office to Athens , its current finances derive exclusively from Membership Fees and contributions/donations by members and friends, based on the rules and regulations adopted in 2008, during the 19th Assembly of the WPC held in Caracas/Venezuela. The executive committee and Assemblies receive financial reports on income and expenses. The Congress for Cultural Freedom

6156-444: The Soviet Union ( perestroika ) in 1985–1991. In the last years of its existence, in the early 1990s, the organization's official publication, Vek XX i Mir ( 20th Century and Peace ), previously seen as a "reliable propaganda instrument", addressed issues controversial in the USSR, such as the death penalty , liberalism , human rights , totalitarianism and the Katyn Massacre . The Soviet Peace Committee ceased to exist with

6270-487: The Soviet Union's leading role in the communist movement would be compromised. Häuer, in his book Gorbachev: The Path to Power , argues that Suslov "was a Russian nationalist " who believed "Russia was the centre of the universe". It was during the Brezhnev era that Suslov was given the unofficial title "Chief Ideologue of the Communist Party". Suslov spent much time in memorializing the legacies of Vladimir Lenin , Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . However, Suslov followed

6384-562: The Soviet Union's unilaterally resumed atmospheric nuclear testing in 1961 , the WPC issued a statement rationalizing 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." Rob Prince, a former secretary of the WPC, suggested that it simply failed to connect with the western peace movement because it used most of its funds on international travel and lavish conferences. It had poor intelligence on Western peace groups, and, even though its HQ

6498-420: The Soviet Union, whereby it criticized the United States and its allies while defending the Soviet Union's involvement in numerous conflicts. The organization had the stated goals of advocating for universal disarmament , sovereignty , independence, peaceful co-existence , and campaigns against imperialism , weapons of mass destruction and all forms of discrimination . The organization's propagandizing for

6612-419: The Soviet Union. Until the early 1960s there was limited co-operation between such groups and the WPC, but they gradually dissociated themselves as they discovered it was impossible to criticize the Soviet Union at WPC conferences. From the late 1940s to the late 1950s the WPC, with its large budget and high-profile conferences, dominated the peace movement, to the extent that the movement became identified with

6726-425: The Soviet leadership, Suslov and Mikoyan acknowledged that the situation had become more dire, but both were content with the dismissal of Ernő Gerő as General Secretary and the choice of Kádár as his successor. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet criticised Suslov's and Mikoyan's concessions to the new government in the People's Republic of Hungary . Despite his initial reservations, Suslov eventually supported

6840-488: The Supreme Soviet in March 1958, Suslov refused to recognise the ideological significance of Khrushchev's reform, preferring instead to focus on the reform's practical benefits in improving productivity. Unlike other Party leaders, Suslov avoided mentioning Khrushchev as the MTS reform's initiator. The 21st Party Congress convened in January 1959. Khrushchev wanted to consider the draft of a new Seven-Year plan. Suslov cautiously demonstrated against Khrushchev's statement that

6954-410: The USSR led to the decline of its influence over the peace movement in non-Communist countries. Its first president was the French physicist and activist Frédéric Joliot-Curie . It was based in Helsinki , Finland from 1968 to 1999, and since in Athens , Greece . In August 1948 through the initiative of the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) a " World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace "

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7068-414: The USSR or its allies. For example, in 1962 during a World Peace Council conference in Moscow , the Committee strongly objected to criticism of Soviet resumption of nuclear testing and threatened with deportation non-aligned activists who wanted to distribute leaflets. In the early 1980s, it criticized the European Nuclear Disarmament (END) for its portrayal of the Soviet Union on the same level as NATO and

7182-435: The United Kingdom in 1959 as a parliamentarian for the Supreme Soviet . The visit was a success, and Hugh Gaitskell , the Leader of the Labour Party , travelled to the Soviet Union later that year as a guest. Sino–Soviet relations had long been strained and, as Suslov told the Central Committee in one of his reports, "The crux of the matter is that the Leadership of the CCP has recently developed tendencies to exaggerate

7296-467: The United States used biological weapons in the Korean War . It followed the Cominform line, recommending the creation of national peace committees in every country, and rejected pacifism and the non-aligned peace movement. It was originally scheduled for Sheffield but the British authorities, who wished to undermine the WPC, refused visas to many delegates and the Congress was forced to move to Warsaw. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee denounced

7410-408: The United States, arguing that while NATO deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe was "an aggressive policy", the Soviet Union had the right to deploy such weapons defensively. Some even saw the Committee as a front for the KGB . Independent peace movements in the USSR which operated without permission of the Committee were seen as suspect. It gained some independence during the liberalization of

7524-535: The United States, declaring that peace "should now become the pivot of the entire activity of the Communist Parties", and most western Communist parties followed this policy. In 1950, Cominform adopted the report of Mikhail Suslov , a senior Soviet official, praising the Partisans for Peace and resolving that, "The Communist and Workers' Parties must utilize all means of struggle to secure a stable and lasting peace, subordinating their entire activity to this" and that "Particular attention should be devoted to drawing into

7638-435: The WPC lists the following organizations among its "members and friends". Mikhail Suslov Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (Russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов ; 21 November [ O.S. 8 November] 1902 – 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War . He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial chief ideologue of

7752-559: The WPC's Stockholm Appeal. In 1953, the International Liaison Committee of Organizations for Peace stated that it had "no association with the World Peace Council". In 1956, a year in which the WPC condemned the Suez war but not the Russian suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the German section of War Resisters International condemned it for its failure to respond to Soviet H-bomb tests. In Sweden, Aktionsgruppen Mot Svensk Atombomb discouraged its members from participating in Communist-led peace committees. The WPC attempted to co-opt

7866-461: The WPC, for example: The WPC has been described as caught in contradictions as "it sought to become a broad world movement while being instrumentalized increasingly to serve foreign policy in the Soviet Union and nominally socialist countries." From the 1950s until the late 1980s it tried to use non-aligned peace organizations to spread the Soviet point of view, alternately wooing and attacking them, either for their pacifism or their refusal to support

7980-407: The WPC. It brought about such a crisis in the Secretariat that in September that year only one delegate supported the invasion. However, the Soviet Union soon reasserted control, and according to the US State Department, "The WPC's eighth world assembly in East Berlin in June 1969 was widely criticized by various participants for its lack of spontaneity and carefully orchestrated Soviet supervision. As

8094-480: The Wroclaw conference of 1948, and in 1949 the World Pacifist Meeting warned against active collaboration with Communists. In the same year, several members of the British Peace Pledge Union , including Vera Brittain , Michael Tippett , and Sybil Morrison , criticised the WPC-affiliated British Peace Committee for what they saw as its "unquestioning hero-worship" of the Soviet Union. In 1950, several Swedish peace organizations warned their supporters against signing

8208-603: The aftermath of the Great Patriotic War. From 1944 to 1946, he chaired the Central Committee Bureau for Lithuanian Affairs. Anti-Soviet samizdat literature from the height of his power in the 1970s would accuse him of being personally responsible for the deportation and killings of nationalist Lithuanians who became political opponents of the Soviets during the course of Soviet re-entry into

8322-531: The answer. Mekhlis, Suslov's classmate at the institute, approached him and instantly found the necessary quote. An amazed Stalin asked how he managed to find the quote so quickly, upon which Mekhlis introduced Stalin to Suslov. Stalin immediately had Suslov promoted to a secretary of the Rostov Regional Committee in 1937. Suslov has been linked to political repression in Rostov as part of

8436-555: The anti-war activity had nothing to do with the WPC, which decided, under the leadership of J. D. Bernal , to take a softer line with non-aligned peace groups in order to secure their co-operation. In particular, Bernal believed that the WPC's influence with these groups was jeopardized by China's insistence that the WPC give unequivocal support to North Vietnam in the war. In 1968, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia occasioned unprecedented dissent from Soviet policy within

8550-592: The atmosphere there as "agitated", "aggressive" and "warlike". A speech given at Paris by Paul Robeson —the polyglot lawyer, folksinger , and actor son of a runaway slave —was widely quoted in the American press for stating that African Americans should not and would not fight for the United States in any prospective war against the Soviet Union ; following his return, he was subsequently blacklisted and his passport confiscated for years. The Congress

8664-598: The central Party daily Pravda . In 1949, Suslov became a member, along with Georgy Malenkov , Lavrentiy Beria , and Lazar Kaganovich, of a commission created to investigate charges levied against Moscow's local Communist Party First Secretary, Georgy Popov. Russian historian Roy Medvedev speculates in his book, Neizvestnyi Stalin , that Stalin had made Suslov his "secret heir". Lavrentiy Beria , who hated Suslov, evidently felt so threatened by him that after his arrest, documents were found in Beria's safe labeling Suslov as

8778-619: The chair of UNESCO , chaired the meeting in the hope of bridging Cold War divisions, but later wrote that "there was no discussion in the ordinary sense of the word." Speakers delivered lengthy condemnation of the West and praises of the Soviet Union. Albert Einstein had been invited to send an address, but when the organisers found that it advocated world government and that his representative refused to change it, they substituted another document by Einstein without his consent, leaving Einstein feeling that he had been badly used. The Congress elected

8892-543: The cold war by claiming that both NATO and the Warsaw Pact bear equal responsibility for the arms race and international tension. Zhukov denounced the West Berlin Working Group for a Nuclear-Free Europe, organizers of a May 1983 European disarmament conference in Berlin, for allegedly siding with NATO, attempting to split the peace movement, and distracting the peaceloving public from the main source of

9006-411: The congresses as follows: "The majority of participants in the assemblies are Soviet and East European communist party members, representatives of foreign communist parties, and representatives of other Soviet-backed international fronts. Token noncommunist participation serves to lend an element of credibility. Discussion usually is confined to the inequities of Western socioeconomic systems and attacks on

9120-502: The country had developed from the socialist state of development to the higher state of communist development. He saw Khrushchev's view as flawed, and countered that his view had not been approved by the Party. To discredit Khrushchev's assertion further, Suslov invoked Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin : "Marx and Lenin teach us that communism doesn't appear suddenly, but comes into existence, matures, develops, passes in its development through definite stages or phases.... The new period in

9234-566: The deadly threat posed against the peoples of Europe-the plans for stationing a new generation of nuclear missiles in Europe in 1983." In 1983, the British peace campaigner E. P. Thompson , a leader of European Nuclear Disarmament , attended the World Peace Council's World Assembly for Peace and Life Against Nuclear War in Prague at the suggestion of the Czech dissident group Charter 77 and raised

9348-491: The degree of maturity of socialist relations in China... There are elements of conceit and haughtiness. [These shortcomings] are largely explained by the atmosphere of the cult of personality of comrade Mao Zedong ... who, by all accounts, himself has come to believe in his own infallibility." Suslov compared Mao's growing personality cult with that seen under Joseph Stalin. Suslov was highly critical of Maoist China, as he led

9462-410: The development of Soviet society will be marked by the gradual drawing together of two forms of socialist property – state and kolkhoz... The process of these social changes will be long, and understandably, cannot end in the course of a seven-year period." Suslov was becoming progressively more critical of Khrushchev's policies, his political intransigence, and his campaign to eliminate what was left of

9576-590: The eminent peace campaigner Bertrand Russell , much to his annoyance, and in 1957 he refused the award of the WPC's International Peace Prize. In Britain, CND advised local groups in 1958 not to participate in a forthcoming WPC conference. In the US, SANE rejected WPC appeals for co-operation. A final break occurred during the WPC's 1962 World Congress for Peace and Disarmament in Moscow. The WPC had invited non-aligned peace groups, who were permitted to criticize Soviet nuclear testing, but when western activists including

9690-713: The end for no vote was taken.'" Until the late 1980s, the World Peace Council's principal activity was the organization of large international congresses, nearly all of which had over 2,000 delegates representing most of the countries of the world. Most of the delegates came from pro-Communist organizations, with some observers from non-aligned bodies. There were also meetings of the WPC Assembly, its highest governing body. The congresses and assemblies issued statements, appeals and resolutions that called for world peace in general terms and condemned US weapons policy, invasions and military actions. The US Department of State described

9804-484: The following year the authorities banned it. Rainer Santi, in his history of the International Peace Bureau , said 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

9918-511: The individualistic assertiveness of Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation policy. A strong supporter of democratic centralism , Suslov prevented Brezhnev from taking over Kosygin's post as head of government in 1970. Kirilenko, Brezhnev, and Suslov were members of an unofficial Troika within the Communist Party leadership . Suslov was ranked fourth in the Politburo hierarchy behind Brezhnev, Podgorny and Kosygin, ahead of Kirilenko. Throughout

10032-515: The issue of democracy and civil liberties in the Communist states, only for Assembly to respond by loudly applauding a delegate who said that "the so-called dissident issue was not a matter for the international peace movement, but something that had been injected into it artificially by anti-communists." The Hungarian student peace group, Dialogue, also tried to attend the 1983 Assembly but were met with tear gas, arrests, and deportation to Hungary;

10146-556: The leaders of the Pugwash movement, said that although a few participants in Pugwash conferences from the Soviet Union "were obviously sent to push the party line ... the majority were genuine scientists and behaved as such". As the non-aligned peace 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." Some western delegates walked out of

10260-522: The military and foreign policies of the United States and other imperialist, fascist nations. Resolutions advocating policies favored by the U.S.S.R. and other communist nations are passed by acclamation, not by vote. In most cases, delegates do not see the texts until they are published in the communist media. Attempts by noncommunist delegates to discuss Soviet actions (such as the invasion of Afghanistan ) are dismissed as interference in internal affairs or anti-Soviet propaganda. Dissent among delegates often

10374-456: The party line and supported the retreat from some of the beliefs of Marxism-Leninism . Examples of ideological retreat include the end of single, Party-approved natural science versions of biology , chemistry and physics . There still existed, on the other hand, a tight ideological control over literature. This included not only literature critical of Soviet rule, but according to Robert Service , much of Lenin's work: an unpublicised ban on

10488-542: The party opposition to First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev . When Khrushchev was ousted in 1964, Suslov supported the establishment of a collective leadership . He also supported inner-party democracy and opposed the reestablishment of the one-man rule as seen during the Stalin and Khrushchev eras. During the Brezhnev era, Suslov was considered to be the party's chief ideologue and second-in-command. His death on 25 January 1982

10602-548: The party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and power separation within the Communist Party. His hardline attitude resisting change made him one of the foremost orthodox communist Soviet leaders. Born in rural Russia in 1902, Suslov became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1921 and studied economics for much of the 1920s. He left his job as

10716-405: The peace movement trade unions, women's, youth, cooperative, sport, cultural, education, religious and other organizations, and also scientists, writers, journalists, cultural workers, parliamentary and other political and public leaders who act in defense of peace and against war." Lawrence Wittner , a historian of the post-war peace movement, argues that the Soviet Union devoted great efforts to

10830-678: The proclamation of martial law in Poland , the Soviet Union adopted a harder line with non-aligned groups, apparently because their failure to prevent the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles. In December 1982, the Soviet Peace Committee President, Yuri Zhukov , returning to the rhetoric of the mid-1950s, wrote to several hundred non-communist peace groups in Western Europe accusing the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation of "fueling

10944-606: The promotion of the WPC in the early post-war years because it feared an American attack and American superiority of arms at a time when the US possessed the atom bomb but the Soviet Union had not yet developed it. This was in opposition to the theory that America had no plans to attack anyone, and the purpose of the WPC was to disarm the US and the NATO alliance for a future Soviet attack. The World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace met in Wroclaw on 6 August 1948. Julian Huxley ,

11058-415: The role of the masses and the role of the Party, disparaged collective leadership, undermined inner-party democracy, suppressed the activeness of party members, their initiative and enterprise, led to lack of control, irresponsibility, and even arbitrariness in the work of individuals, prevented the development of criticism and self-criticism, and gave rise to one-sided and at times mistaken decisions." During

11172-577: The sale of Lenin's Collected Works existed from the late 1970s onwards, although no such decree has been uncovered. At the beginning of the 1980s, the political and economic turmoil in the Polish People's Republic had seriously eroded the authority of the Polish United Workers' Party . Suslov's position on this matter carried particular weight as he chaired a Politburo Commission, established on 25 August 1980, on how to deal with

11286-540: The winner even if he did not have enough support in the Presidium. The following October Suslov accused Georgy Zhukov , the Minister of Defence , of "Bonapartism" at the Central Committee plenum that removed him from all party and government posts. The removal of Zhukov had the effect of firmly subordinating the armed forces to party control. In a speech on 22 January 1958, Khrushchev officially proposed to dissolve

11400-481: The withdrawal of Soviet troops and the restoration of Hungarian sovereignty. The WPC led the international peace movement in the decade after the Second World War, but its failure to speak out against the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the resumption of Soviet nuclear tests in 1961 marginalised it, and in the 1960s it was eclipsed by the newer, non-aligned peace organizations like

11514-611: The years following the failure of the Anti-Party Group, Suslov became the leader of the faction in the Central Committee opposed to Khrushchev's leadership, known as the "Moscow faction". Khrushchev was able to hold on to power by conceding to various opposition demands in times of crisis, such as during the 1960 U-2 incident and the Cuban Missile Crisis . In the aftermath of the U-2 Crisis Suslov

11628-467: The young Jacques Chirac ), and 155 million signatures in the Soviet Union – the entire adult population. Several non-aligned peace groups who had distanced themselves from the WPC advised their supporters not to sign the Appeal. In June 1975 the WPC launched a second Stockholm Appeal during a period of détente between East and West. It declared that, "The victories of peace and détente have created

11742-571: Was able to persuade the Commission that a Soviet military intervention would only aggravate the situation. Suslov agreed with Jaruzelski's argument, stating that "if troops are introduced, that will mean a catastrophe. I think that we all share the unanimous opinion here that there can be no discussion of any introduction of troops". Suslov was able to persuade Jaruzelski and the Polish leadership to establish martial law in Poland . In January 1982, Yuri Andropov revealed to Suslov that Semyon Tsvigun ,

11856-479: Was able to remove, and replace, several of Khrushchev's appointees in the Politburo with new anti-Khrushchev members. Khrushchev's position was greatly weakened further after the failure of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Suslov's power greatly increased. A campaign to oust Khrushchev from office was initiated in 1964. Although leader of the opposition, Suslov had fallen seriously ill during his trip to

11970-787: Was awarded the highest state awards of the German Democratic Republic , the Mongolian People's Republic , and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic . Suslov married Yelizaveta Alexandrovna (1903–1972), who worked as the Director of the Moscow Institute for Stomatology. In her life, she badly suffered from internal diseases, especially diabetes in a severe form, but ignored her physician's recommendations. Bernard Lown ,

12084-927: Was directed by the International Department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party through the Soviet Peace Committee , although it tended not to present itself as an organ of Soviet foreign policy, but rather as the expression of the aspirations of the "peace loving peoples of the world". In its early days the WPC attracted numerous "political and intellectual superstars", including W. E. B. Du Bois , Paul Robeson , Howard Fast , Pablo Picasso , Louis Aragon , Jorge Amado , Pablo Neruda , György Lukacs , Renato Guttuso , Jean-Paul Sartre , Diego Rivera , Muhammad al-Ashmar and Frédéric Joliot-Curie . Most were Communists or fellow travellers . In

12198-460: Was disrupted by the French authorities who refused visas to so many delegates that a simultaneous Congress was held in Prague." Robeson's performance of " The March of the Volunteers " in Prague for the delegation from the incipient People's Republic of China was its earliest formal use as the country's national anthem. Picasso's lithograph, La Colombe (The Dove) was chosen as the emblem for

12312-477: Was founded immediately after the ousting of Khrushchev, consisting of Brezhnev as First Secretary, Kosygin as head of government, and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny ) as head of state, who formed an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika ). From the beginning, Suslov was a vocal critic of one-man rule such as that seen under Joseph Stalin and Khrushchev. While he condemned Stalin's one-man rule, he equally criticised

12426-725: Was founded in 1950 with the support of the CIA to counter the propaganda of the emerging WPC, and Phillip Agee claimed that the WPC was a Soviet front for propaganda which CIA covertly tried to neutralize and to prevent the WPC from organizing outside the Communist bloc. The WPC currently states its goals as: Actions against imperialist wars and occupation of sovereign countries and nations; prohibition of all weapons of mass destruction; abolition of foreign military bases; universal disarmament under effective international control; elimination of all forms of colonialism , neo-colonialism , racism , sexism and other forms of discrimination; respect for

12540-455: Was further exacerbated in the dense partisan forests and hampered his ability as an effective combatant. Fearing further relapses, for the rest of his life, he continued to wear galoshes on his shoes as well as a hat and raincoat at all times, even in the hot summer weather, which made him the subject of jokes among his colleagues in Brezhnev's Politburo. Suslov later purged the Baltic region in

12654-713: Was held in New York City in March 1949 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel , sponsored by the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions . The World Congress of Partisans for Peace in Paris (20 April 1949) repeated the Cominform line that the world was divided between "a non-aggressive Soviet group and a war-minded imperialistic group, headed by the United States government". It established

12768-752: Was held in Wroclaw , Poland. This gathering established a permanent organisation called the International Liaison Committee of Intellectuals for Peace—a group which joined with another international Communist organisation, the Women's International Democratic Federation to convene a second international conclave in Paris in April 1949, a meeting designated the World Congress of Partisans for Peace (Congrès Mondial des Partisans de la Paix). Some 2,000 delegates from 75 countries were in attendance at this foundation gathering in

12882-425: Was in Helsinki, had no contact with Finnish peace organizations. By the mid-1980s the Soviet Peace Committee "concluded that the WPC was a politically expendable and spent force", although it continued to provide funds until 1991. As the Soviet Peace Committee was the conduit for Soviet direction of the WPC, this judgement represented a downgrading of the WPC by the Soviet Communist Party. Under Mikhail Gorbachev ,

12996-486: Was transferred to Moscow and elected to the Central Committee Secretariat ; he would retain this seat for the rest of his life. Suslov had the full confidence of Stalin and in 1948 he was entrusted with the task of speaking on behalf of the Central Committee before a solemn meeting on the twenty-fourth anniversary of Vladimir Lenin 's death. From September 1949 to 1950, he was editor-in-chief of

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