Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 6. June 7, 1951

Calendar up to Stockholm

Calendar up to Stockholm

There followed a series of international conferences under a perplexing array of names. (Victoria played a part in some of these). For the record, they were:—

April, 1949. Paris: Peace Conference called by the International Liaison Committee of Intellectuals and the Women's International Democratic Federation. Visa trouble set in early, and an overflow conference was held simultaneously at Prague. (Victoria was represented by Messrs. Hollyman and Scoones).

A permanent World Committee of Partisans of Peace was set up, including representatives of all the chief Communist-controlled international organisations, including the World Federation of Democratic Youth, to which Victoria was then affiliated.

June-July, 1949, Milan: World Federation of Trade Unions urged its supporters to take active part in the work of the World Peace Committee.

October, 1949, Rome: World Peace Committee had its first plenary meeting when Yugoslavia was formally expelled and Communist China was welcomed to membership. The Soviet delegates to this meeting publicly showed their displeasure at slow progress.

November 6, 1949, Moscow: Malenkov, a member of the Politbureau, reported to the Moscow Soviet on the great importance of the International Communist bodies in the Peace Movement, especially WFTU, WFDY and IUS.

November 29, 1949: Cominform Resolution stated:—

"The struggle for a stable and lasting peace, for the organisation and consolidation of the forces of peace against the forces of war should now become the pivot of the entire activity of the Communist Parties and democratic organisations."

(Note here that "democratic" has the special meaning as in WF Democratic Youth.)

December, 1949, Paris: Bureau of World Peace Committee decided to send delegations (of persons whose Communist affiliations were not generally known) to approach Western Governments with this programme:
(a)That they should end the armaments race by the reduction of their war budgets and their military effectives;
(b)That atomic weapons should be banned;
(c)That wars of "intervention" should be stopped, "specially those in Indonesia, Malaya and Viet Nam";
(d)That repressive measures against the Partisans of Peace should cease; and
(e)That the war of nerves should end by the conclusion of a pact between the Great Powers.

This scheme was successful only to a very small extent.

March 15th-18th, 1950, Stockholm: The second plenary Committee of the World Peace Congress met and passed the resolution which we know as The Stockholm Appeal. Total affiliations at that time were 52 national Peace Committees.

This marks [unclear: the] end of the first phase of the Peace Campaign, and the beginning of a far more successful phase. An international organisation had been established with a permanent nucleus under Communist control. To this Committee national Committee with large numbers of non-Communists who gave their support either through sympathy with, or ignorance of, the Communist aims were affiliated.