The previous, fifteenth, session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted several sound and valuable resolutions regarding the settlement of international controversial problems which, unfortunately, because of the resistance shown by reactionary forces, were not complied with before the present session opened. Furthermore, the sixteenth session of the General Assembly is beginning its work at a time when international tension is increasing in various parts of the world.
35. For instance, the resolution on the abolition of colonialism [1514 (XV)] has not been implemented and however much the advocates of colonialism may try to claim that colonialism no longer exists, that it is measured in insignificant percentages, we are faced with a number of shocking facts. In Angola everything patriotic is being exterminated; a whole nation is being bereft of its leaders merely because it wants to achieve freedom and the executioners of the Angolan people, with extraordinary effrontery, are claiming that Angola is their province and so they can do anything they like there. Outrages are constantly being committed against the coloured population in the Republic of South Africa. Aggressive action has been taken against the people of Tunisia in Bizerta Colonial warfare is still being waged in Algeria. Military intervention has been undertaken against free Cuba-intervention that was organized and financed by the United States, and conducted from its territory. The enemies of peace are doing their utmost to disrupt the agreement for the formation of a government of an independent and neutral Laos. Fresh impetus has been given to the officious activities of the colonizers and their machinations directed against the unity and national sovereignty of the Congo—machination which cost the life of the distinguished fighter against colonialism, the hero of the Congolese people, Mr. Patrice Lumumba.
36. Impartial observers of the contemporary scene can give an unhesitating reply to the query; who is responsible for all these developments which exacerbate the international situation and are a threat to peace all over the world. The imperialistic foreign policy of some Western Powers which regard any evidence of progress as a threat to their selfish interests and which have made anti-communism the corner-stone of their foreign policy—this is what is responsible for the developments that constitute such a danger for the fate of the world. The guilty party is colonialism which is still alive both in its most overt, brutal form and also, more especially, in its covert but equally reactionary form—the political
and economic enslavement of the emancipated colonies.
37. And yet, all that is needed to end the present-day tension in international relations is the implementation
of the basic decisions of the United Nations , general Assembly, such as those concerning the abolition of colonialism, the accomplishment of general and complete disarmament, and the peaceful coexistence of all States.
38. Instead, however, of conscientiously implementing United Nations resolutions and heeding the desire of all the peoples for the safeguarding of peace, we find ourselves witnessing fresh threats' to world peace from imperialist circles. I have in mind, first and foremost, their attitude towards the problem of a peace treaty with Germany and a settlement of the abnormal situation in West Berlin.
39. The Government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria his declared that it considers it an intolerable state of affairs that, sixteen years after the end of the war, no peace treaty has yet been signed with Germany and the vestiges of the Second World War have not yet been eliminated. Together with all the socialist countries, the Bulgarian Government fully supported the proposals made over two years ago by Mr. N. S. Khrushchev, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, that an end should be put to the abnormal situation in which the lack of a peace treaty enables the surviving remnants of the Nazi militarists and irredentists to raise their heads again and threaten peace in Europe and all over the world.
40. The Bulgarian people her a had practical experience of the consequences of Germany's aggressive,
imperialist policy both in the more remote and in the quite recent past. The Bulgarian people have every reason, a keen desire and a firm intention to assist in the general task of preventing a repetition of the disasters caused by the aggressive policy of barman militarism. Accordingly, our country particularly welcomed the Potsdam Agreement, signed oil 26 July 1945, which was designed to eradicate : German militarism, destroy its economic foundations; in the shape of the German monopolies and denazify the whole of Germany—in a word, to make it impossible for German irredentists to rise up again and present their claims, claims that invariably involve the use of military force against other peoples.
41. It is common knowledge that, in the interests of all the peoples, i.e., on a completely democratic basis, the Potsdam Agreement made provision for certain "rights" to be denied to Germans: the "right" is to re-establish the Kaiser's and Hitler's General Staff, to rebuild the German aggressive war machine and allow the unhindered growth of German monopolies. So, nowadays some people, pretending to be naive or posing as defenders of theoretical democracy, talk about the " right of the Germans to self-determination", it would not come amiss to remind them of the Potsdam restrictions on German "rights". Self-determination in the framework of a peace-loving, democratic Germany which did not belong to military blocs, did not have an aggressive, irredentist army, did not advance territorial claims or threaten to I annex other peoples' territories, a Germany which once and for all ceased to be hotbed of conflicts in the heart of Europe and solemnly undertook to carry out a policy of peace and neutrality—there you have a goal for whose achievement no peace-loving nation would grudge an effort.
42. The fact remains, however, that the conditions laid down in the Potsdam Agreement have been complied with only in the German Democratic Republic, whereas in the Federal Republic of Germany they
have been systematically disregarded to the point of becoming dead letter.
43. The ruins of Warsaw, Lidice, Coventry and Caen were still smouldering when the. Western Powers grossly violated the agreements drawn up at Potsdam and Yalta. The Western Powers created a separate West German State and admitted it to NATO. Instead of "denazification", they took the line of overtly protecting the former Nazi leaders; war criminals of World War II are occupying responsible posts in the West German administration; former Nazi generals command the Bundeswehr; Nazi judges are in control of West German courts, persecuting and outlawing all the progressive forces in the country; ex-Nazis form the nucleus of the corps of teachers and professors in West Germany and spread Hitler's theories about revenge, the "Drang nach Osten" and "Greater Germany". Instead of decartelization, we are again witnessing the formation of big armament and other monopolies in West Germany. Instead of "demilitarization", the West German army is being feverishly expanded and equipped with modern weapons.
44. Thus, German self-determination has operated in such a way that two entirely different German States have emerged, of which one—the German Democratic Republic—for the first time in history is a peace-loving socialist State that threatens no one and is friendly with all the peoples of the world, whereas, west of the Elbe, dreams are again being cherished, and at official level too, of military campaigns.
45. There can be no doubt that today the chief ganger to European peace is the feverish rearmament of West Germany. Actively supported by the United States of America and its NATO allies, the West German militarists and irredentists have mobilized all the material resources and moral forces in West Germany for the preparation of a third world war.* The West German army is being called—it was recently hailed as such by the former Nazi General Speidel—the backbone of NATO in Europe. Its impending equipment with atomic weapons is an open secret and no attempt is made to conceal the purposes for whose achievement this army Is being prepared and trained.'
46. The peace-loving peoples of Europe who, barely' fifteen years ago, suffered enormous losses in battling to crush the Nazi beast are often being urged to believe that West Germany has broken with Nazism and its Nazi past, that Adenauer is not Hitler, that the Nazi generals who hold leading positions in the Bundeswehr -and NATO are merely officials performing their ordinary duties.
47. .Such assertions deceive no one, if only because, now and then, leading figures in the Federal Republic of Germany themselves drop their pose of peace-lovers.-If Hitler were alive, he could hardly put things better than Mr. Adenauer, the West German Chancellor, who, in a statement made as long ago as 1952 said: "Rearmament in West Germany should pave the way for a new order in Eastern Europe ..." and, further on: "We shall be able to seize the Soviet zone when the Western world is sufficiently powerful...". Were Goering alive, he could not have put things better "than the West German Minister of War, Mr. Strauss, who on his return from Washington last year, said: "If the plans for the expansion of our military equipment, which have been approved by the United States, are fulfilled, then in 1962 Moscow will again find
itself within the range of German weapons. And this time the weapons will be nuclear."
48. In the face of such assertions, together with the indisputable facts about the rapid rearmament of the West German irredentist army, no sensible person can possibly expect the socialist countries to fold their arms and wait while Mr. Adenauer calmly prepares a Nazi type of "new order" in Eastern Europe.
49. The United Kingdom Government may be trying to make the British public forget the time when Goering was "Coventrating" English cities and threatening to wipe the United Kingdom off the face of the earth, just flats the French Government is trying to induce the French people to forget the days when the Nazis marched under the Arc de Triomph and shot thousands of hostages. But the peoples cannot and will not forget, and the Bulgarian Government does not even intend to ask the Bulgarian people to forget, the tens of thousands who fell in 1941-44 in the fight against the Nazi invaders and their Bulgarian agents, or the tens of thousands who were killed in the war against Nazi Germany in 1944-45.
50. The Bulgarians, like all other peoples, are not vindictive. Today the struggle against nazism and all the evils it brought on our country is merely a heroic page in our most recent, history and the People's Republic of Bulgaria is ready to maintain, and does actually maintain, friendly relations with the German people. Nevertheless, along with the other countries which suffered countless losses because of the Nazi invasion, our country cannot remain indifferent to the serious menace to European and world peace that is now being created in West Germany and West Berlin.
51. Regardless of the fact that West Berlin is not part of the Federal Republic of Germany, West German Government departments and institutions have been set up and are functioning there under cover of the occupation authorities and with the overt protection of the Western Powers; meetings of the Federal German are held and the application of Bonn legislature been extended to West Berlin. The Government of the German Federal Republic claims the right to represent West Berlin in its relations with the outside world. The most responsible leaders of the Bonn State organize irredentist rallies and provocative activities against the German Democratic Republic and other socialist countries. The Western Powers use West Berlin as a base for subversive activities against the German Democratic Republic and the socialist countries, send in their spies and subversive agents and foment a war psychosis,
52. In such circumstances, the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany is the only way of normalizing the situation in West Berlin and removing a source of friction and conflict in the heart of Europe. Only the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany can bar the road to German militarism and irredentism and strengthen peace in Europe and all over the world. The proposal of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the conclusion of a peace treaty with both German States accords with the interests of all countries; the implementation of this proposal will conduce to a healthier international atmosphere. The conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany, therefore, brooks no delay.
53. The lessons of history cannot be ignored, more especially when we are confronted with a repetition
of the same old policy of showing indulgence, and making concessions, to a potential aggressor. No one doubts, for instance, that if Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Daladier had made it clear to Hitler that they would go to war against Germany if he pushed matters to the point of military conflict, instead of allowing him to arm to the teeth and successively ceding him whole States in Central Europe there would never have been a Second World War. Western propagandists also realize that the lessons of Munich should not be forgotten, but they try to shift the blame from the guilty to the innocent party by accusing the socialist countries of non-existent aggressive intentions in face of which, they claim, the West must not retreat.
54. Yet hot one of the socialist States offers the slightest threat to anyone whomsoever; no socialist country claims even an inch of West German territory or wants to deprive the population of West Berlin of its freedom to work and live as it likes, provided only that it does no harm to others.
55. On the contrary, just as it did on the eve of the Second World War, the Government of the Soviet Union, this time with the backing of all the socialist States, is insistently reminding the Western Powers of the dangers connected with the rearmament of the German militarists and is proposing concrete measures for preventing a new war which might be kindled by the unbridled forces of German irredentism, encouraged by certain Western circles.
56. The policy of a "new Munich" is inherent in the continuous concessions being made to West German militarism, in disregard of the lessons of Munich, by the Western Powers, which periodically repudiate the so-called restrictive agreements concluded with Germany in the matter of armed forces and armaments, The danger of a "new Munich" lies in the fact that, just as in Hitler's time, the aggressive, irredentist and militarist forces, helped and encouraged by the West, have grown and are continuing to grow to such an extent in the Federal Republic of Germany that, unless they are checked in good time, unless they are kept within the strictly defined limit's and bounds laid down in a peace treaty, unless their appetites are curbed, they will assuredly unleash a third world war, if not today, then tomorrow.
57. An argument put forward against the immediate conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany is the fact that at present there is no single German State in existence. But can those who oppose the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany now tell the peoples when and in what form they think a single German State will emerge and is it realistic to expect this at the present time? Can they then say how long it will be necessary to wait for the signature of a peace treaty with Germany? Of course, they cannot, because the unification of Germany whose division is the fault of the Western Powers, can be a matter only for the Germans who live on both sides of the Elbe, and at the present moment they are evidently not ready for this. Unification imposed from outside Germany can only be effected by force, that is, by war, Consequently, we are left with one of two alternatives: either to put up with the situation of having no peace treaty for an indefinite period, or honestly to admit that the time is in fact long overdue for the conclusion of a peace treaty with the German States that actually exist and are completely different from one another, and that there can be no further procrastination.
58. The Government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, therefore, considers that in international life today there is no more pressing problem than that of concluding a peace treaty with the two German States, that the most important problem of today is that of offering timely resistance to the aggressive German militarism and irredentism that is now raising its head in the Federal Republic of Germany.
59. Against the background of the clearly defined situation in both German States and having regard to the peace proposals made by the socialist countries, what impression does the attitude of the Western Powers make? The United States and its NATO allies not only refuse to participate in concluding a peace treaty with the two German States; more than that, they try to deny the socialist States the right to conclude such a treaty.
60. However, the most inadmissible features of the Western Powers' reaction to the proposals for the elimination of the remnants of the Second World War are the military preparations and the direct military threats aimed by the West at the socialist camp, threats which account for the present extremely tense international situation. For several months past, almost every day (even on days when the United Nations General Assembly is meeting) responsible leaders of the Western Powers have been threatening to use nuclear weapons to prevent the conclusion of a German peace treaty. As has already been stated from this rostrum, the West is responding to the Soviet peace proposals with preparations for war. Naturally, if the socialist countries are attacked, they will have no option but to defend themselves with all the means at their disposal. But it will then be clear at once to the world who are the attackers and who are the attacked; it will be clear what baseless pretexts are being used for unleashing a new war and on whose side the truth lies.
61. It is a matter for gratification that authoritative international organizations, with many millions of members, have spoken 'up in favour of concluding a peace treaty with both German States at the earliest possible date; an announcement to that effect was made recently by the world Confederation of Trade Unions at the close of its proceedings in Berlin. It can be noted with satisfaction that the majority of those who attended the Belgrade Conference of non-aligned countries II also recognized both the fact of the existence of two German States and the need for concluding a peace treaty with Germany. As we all know, facts are stubborn things and it is to be hoped that they will be reckoned with by everyone.
62. The United Nations can play its positive role at the present session only by adopting decisions aimed at effectively safeguarding peace all over the world. The decisions should deal principally with the problem of general and complete disarmament.
63. The agenda of the United Nations General Assembly at its current sixteenth session comprises more than ninety items. Most of these are important questions which will undoubtedly be given due attention by delegations. There is, however, one question which as Mr. N. S. Khrushchev, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, very aptly put it, is the "problem of problems of our time". This is the problem of general and complete disarmament, the problem
of abolishing the material means of waging war, since this would make war impossible and would eliminate it for ever as a way of settling controversial international problems.
64. It can be noted with satisfaction that the idea of general and complete disarmament has now achieved universal recognition. More and more States realize that general and complete disarmament is not only the shortest, but also the most realistic, way of removing the nightmare of a new world war.
65. The opening of the sixteenth session of the United Nations General Assembly was marked by the achievement of agreement between the Governments of the USSR and the United States on the principles on which the conduct of further disarmament discussions should be based (A/4879), These principles are founded not on partial measures of disarmament but on the idea of general and complete disarmament. The Joint Statement signed by the USSR and the United States is an important development in the long history of disarmament negotiations, possibly the most important one since the adoption by the General Assembly at its fourteenth session of the resolution on general and complete disarmament (resolution 1378 (XIV)), the basic provisions of which are confirmed in the
. Joint Statement,
66. The governmental delegations of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, together with the delegations of the other socialist States, sincerely strove both in the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament and during the fifteenth session of the General Assembly for the practical achievement of aims set by the resolution adopted at the fourteenth session on 20 November 1959. Let us hope that the day is approaching when the representatives of the Western Powers will announce that their Governments are ready to pass from oratory to the framing of a treaty on general and complete disarmament.
67. Even now, however, certain provisions in the plan [A/4891] for general and complete disarmament submitted by the United States bode ill for the success of future disarmament negotiations. The Bulgarian delegation will have occasion to express its opinion more fully when the Assembly begins to discuss the disarmament problem. The attention of the General Assembly should, however, be drawn forthwith to two important facts.
68. The first point which impresses one is that the plan proposed by the United' States, like the disarmament plans previously presented by the United States and the other Western countries, does not specify any time-limits within which the programme of general and complete disarmament is to be carried out. It is common knowledge that even the best pledge only really becomes a plan when a definite date is set for its fulfilment. Such a time-limit is provided for in the Soviet Union's proposals. If the time-limit seems to some countries to be short—that is another matter, but there is, and there can be, no plan without a time-limit. This is particularly clear at the present time when, as everyone believes, mankind may at any moment be swept into the abyss of a ballistic-nuclear war even as a result of a mistake, a miscalculation or a technical defect in a mechanism. Mankind cannot go on endlessly living in the atmosphere of a "balance of terror". After fifteen years of fruitless negotiations on disarmament the United Nations cannot phlegmatically offer the peoples nothing more than a new series of discussions and new negotiations
without fixing a definite time-limit. How long must we still wait for disarmament? Five, ten, fifteen or more years? And yet it is obvious that with the continuous perfecting of modern means of destruction any procrastination over the disarmament problem is fraught with ever greater dangers and at the same time augments the difficulties in the path of disarmament..
69. Secondly, if we scrutinize more closely the plan presented by the United States, we cannot fail to notice that in one respect it represents a substantial step backwards as compared with the Joint Statement by the USSR and the United States. The United States plan is still based on the old concept of controlled armaments, not controlled disarmament. It need hardly be emphasized that the socialist countries are no whit less interested than other States in the most conscientious implementation of a disarmament agreement. All the proposals made by the Soviet Union concerning general and complete disarmament contain detailed and concrete provisions for the control and inspection of disarmament.
70. In order, however, for international control to be really effective, control measures must be indissolubly linked with concrete disarmament measures and must conform to such measures. If reservations are again advanced which in substance are tantamount to control before disarmament, i.e., while there is still no disarmament, which is nothing else but control of armaments, there seems to be little prospect of finding a way out of the impasse created by the Western Powers.
71. It has correctly been pointed out here that in 1941 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was subjected to a treacherous surprise attack by an imperialist coalition, which is precisely why the Soviet Union, and nobody else, is morally entitled to refuse to disclose all its military secrets before general and complete disarmament is achieved. And yet the authors of Western disarmament plans would like-evidently as a reward for condescending to make some reduction in their conventional armaments—to be given the right of wide control, i.e., to put it bluntly, the right to gather intelligence information by exploring all the territory under control; in so doing, they might try to find out not only what is left of the armaments to be reduced, but also, for example, how it comes about that Soviet super-rockets manage to make such accurate hits on targets at a distance of 15,000 kilometres, where those rockets are located, how many there are of them, etc.
72. We are quite sure that ultimately everybody will realize what a mistaken attitude this is. We recollect, after all, how two years ago seemingly serious people asserted here, in referring to general and complete disarmament, that war could be waged with sticks and knives and so there was no sense in talking of disarmament. Such childish ideas now sound laughable. It seems as if the forces working for peace will still have to do a lot of work to prove the correctness of the very simple truth that there can be, and there will be, no control without disarmament and no control over armaments.
73. It appears quite obvious that in the present international atmosphere only disarmament can lead to confidence among States. Naturally, if the idea
is to carry out in the first stage quite insignificant, or even fictitious, reductions of armaments and armed forces, this will hardly help to create confidence. If, however, right at the outset of a programme of general and complete disarmament, steps are taken towards a substantial reduction of armaments and armed forces, towards abolishing all foreign bases and adopting other measures which will remove the threat of a surprise attack, then it will undoubtedly be possible to talk of a gradual but real establishment of confidence between States.
74. The peoples of the world and the Members of the United Nations waited nearly a year for the new
United States Government to be able to "finalize" its disarmament programme and now it has to be admitted that some of the basic principles underlying this "new" programme are very reminiscent of the previous United States programme and policy which also provided not for the control of disarmament but for the control of armaments.
75. I shall be giving away no secrets if I point out v/hose interest is served by this kind of policy, a policy which, far from hindering, serves, on the contrary, to screen the arms race, We all know very well that the prices of shares on the New York Stock Exchange fall every time there is any likelihood of a relaxation of the tension prevailing in international relation s and rise at the prospect of an international crisis. In 1955, after the summit conference at Geneva, the Wall Street Journal in an outburst of frankness stated that the danger was of peace breaking out all over the world. It is this "danger"—a danger for the armament monopolies, not for the peoples—with which the new United States Government evidently has to contend. There is no other possible explanation for the efforts it, as well as its allies in aggressive alliances, is making to exacerbate any dispute that arises for its endless sabre-rattling, its attempts to create a war psychosis, to menace the socialist countries with atomic bombs, while hypocritically protesting against the measures taken for their security by those who are being threatened.
76. With truly unparalleled hypocrisy, those who are preparing to involve mankind in thermonuclear war make a pretence of being concerned about its health. Three years ago nuclear weapons tests were discontinued but this was preceded by prolonged appeals by the USSR and all the peace-loving States; unilateral discontinuance of tests by the Soviet Union; full completion of the projected and prepared programmes of explosions by the United Kingdom and the United States. During this, three-year period the latter States dragged out fruitless negotiations, prated about the inevitability of an atomic war, prepared for the resumption of tests and without exhibiting the slightest indignation, watched the tests of atomic weapons being made by their ally.
77. The present hypocritical reaction of the Western Powers towards the resumption of nuclear tests by the Soviet Union reminds one of the long past days of the early years of the Soviet regime. It was then that intervention was organized against a socialist State and it 'did not suit the interventionists when the Soviet communists, whose programme had in fact hitherto called for the disbandment of the regular army, created the Red Army and defeated their enemies. The defensive military measures forced upon the Bolsheviks at that time saved the young Soviet Republic—and much later, the USSR, the first
socialist country. The anti-communists, who had resorted to arms to achieve their aims, were beaten. Their successors should surely realize that they cannot count on a weak USSR or a weak socialist camp. World peace can only benefit from being defended by powerful forces. At this session too the Soviet Union is putting forward the most realistic, the most concrete and comprehensive proposals for ensuring world peace through general and complete disarmament under strict control.
78. While it agree on the need for the preparation and conclusion of a comprehensive treaty on general and complete disarmament, the Bulgarian delegation considers that, even before general and complete disarmament has been actually realized, it would be possible to adopt separate measures, including measures of a regional character, which would create more favourable conditions and a better atmosphere for reaching agreement regarding general and complete disarmament. The measures proposed in the Soviet Government's •memorandum, such as the freezing of military budgets, a renunciation of the use of nuclear weapons, the prohibition of war propaganda, the conclusion of a non-aggression pact between the NATO countries and the Warsaw Treaty countries —these would result in practical progress towards the lessening of international tension and would thereby diminish the danger of war.
79. It would be especially helpful in lessening tension in international relations if the proposal for the creation of a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe and also the proposals for transforming the Balkans into a zone of lasting peace and good-neighbourly relations were put into effect.
80. The Government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria has more than once put forward its own, and supported other peoples', proposals for the transformation o£ the Balkans and the Adriatic region into an atom-free zone, a zone free from ballistic weapons, for the settlement of outstanding problems by negotiation and for the conclusion of a series of agreements such as are usually adopted between neighbours.
81. We note, with regret, that some of our neighbours, instead of meeting halfway the proposals for transforming the Balkans into a peace zone, are continuing to follow in the wake of the NATO bloc's aggressive policy. As you know, the military command of this organization recently carried out manoeuvres on an unprecedently large scale Wit' the participation of the Turkish and Greek armies, the United States Sixth Fleet, United States and British parachute and other military detachments. These manoeuvres took place on Turkish and Greek territory in immediate and dangerous proximity to Bulgaria's borders.
82. There can be no doubt that these acts of military provocation are directly aimed at the security of our country, as wall as of other socialist countries. It is, therefore, more than obvious that, as was stated on 18 September 1961 by Mr. Todor Zhivov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party: "The Bulgarian Government cannot close its eyes to all this ... it is taking and will, with the help of the USSR and other Warsaw Treaty countries, take all the necessary steps that circumstances require with a view to strengthening still further the defensive power of our country."
83. In taking steps to defend itself, the Bulgarian Government has no intention whatsoever of threatening
anyone; but it would not be justifying the immense confidence placed in it by its people if it did not take all necessary steps to safeguard the peaceful activities, national independence and sovereignty of our country in the face of threats and encroachments.
84. Lasting peace is an essential condition for the successful implementation of the Bulgarian Government's programme for the speedy completion of the country's industrialization and the steady improvement of the population's standard of living. Within the short period of fifteen years, the People's Republic of Bulgaria—one of the most backward countries in Europe at the close of the Second World War—has left its capitalist neighbours far behind in the economic, cultural and social welfare fields. Shoulder to shoulder with all the socialist countries, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, will, in the next one or two decades, overtake a number of developed capitalist countries in per caput production and in living standards.
85. It goes without saying that, if this programme is to be carried out successfully, lasting peace As essential. Hence, the policy of peace which is an intrinsic feature of people's government.
86. Everyone who has had an opportunity- in recent years of observing the relations between Bulgaria and her neighbours will clearly realize that the Bulgarian Government has invariably sought in every way to improve, strengthen and widen its relations with those countries.
87. We welcome the initiative taken by people active in Greek public life—people whom, incidentally no one can suspect of being pro-communist—as a result of which in most of the Balkan countries the friends of peace and of the peaceful coexistence of States have now organized committees for inter-Balkan co-operation.
88. It cannot be denied that this initiative corresponds far more closely to the interests of the Balkan countries than the ties of alliance some of them have with the successors of the German imperialist conquerors who in their day attempted to eliminate the Balkan States altogether.
89. For centuries past the Balkan peninsula was a focal point where hostile interests clashed and a' hotbed of dissension among the Great Powers; it was the theatre of several wars even in the twentieth century. Bulgaria has nowadays become a meeting-place for scores of economic, cultural, athletic and other delegations from different countries, for tens of thousands of tourists from all over the world. The Government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria will do its utmost to see that the old reputation of the Balkan peninsula as a hotbed of world conflicts disappears.
90. The policy of peace and peaceful socialist construction followed by the Bulgarian Government is unanimously supported by the whole Bulgarian nation. The delegation of the People's Republic of Bulgaria cannot, therefore, but rebut indignantly the slanderous remarks we have heard at the present session of the General Assembly with reference to the peoples' democracies, whose peoples were liberated as a result of Soviet military victories and which, after their liberation, were unwilling to tolerate their capitalist exploiters any longer and struck out on a socialist course.
91. May I in this connexion remind those who, in furtherance of the "cold war", seek to slander socialist Bulgaria that the leading social force in our country, the Bulgarian Communist Party, was founded seventy years ago and enjoyed the sympathetic support of the bulk of the Bulgarian nation even in the days when, .under that Party's leadership, it fought against Bulgarian involvement in the First World War and when, later on, in 1923 it rose up in the first anti-fascist insurrection in the world.
92. Let me point out that, in the interval between the two wars, tens of thousands of progressive men and women in Bulgaria passed through fascist prisons and concentration camps just because they were fighting for the triumph of the Bulgarian Communist Party's ideal of a free and independent Bulgaria. The Bulgarian people suffered many serious losses in waging an armed struggle against capitalism and fascism.
93. Those are the historical facts. Like all facts, they are inexorable. They are certainly harsh for those who dream of restoring the capitalist system in our country which has once, and for all, forsworn capitalism. But these facts are the people's achievement; they are completely in accordance with the wishes of the Bulgarian nation which, with outstanding energy and enthusiasm, is building a communist future for coming generations. We must, therefore, decline to take lessons in freedom, democracy and equal rights from a world in which the mere utterance of such words results in persecution, arrests, imprisonment and death for "ordinary people".
94. One of the most important problems of our time is the abolition of colonialism and the cessation of imperialist interference in the affairs of independent States.
95. The representatives of colonial Powers try to minimize the significance of this problem and to create the impression that colonialism is already dead and not worth talking about. Thus, the representatives of the Western Powers who have already spoken here have said nothing about last year's General Assembly resolution on the abolition of colonialism; nor have they mentioned the situation in the colonial countries that have not yet been liberated or in those recently liberated where so-called neo-colonialism is .creating complications that are a danger to international peace.
96. Lord Home told us that the United States is "prosperous" because it was once a British colony, though it is common knowledge that the United States embarked on a course of rapid economic development precisely after it freed itself from colonial dependence. But neither the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs nor the other responsible representatives of colonial Powers touched on the question of the situation in those countries which only quite recently obtained their national independence and which certainly do not look prosperous. The speakers made no mention of Algeria, Angola, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland or of other territories and countries where there are acute colonial problems that are disturbing all mankind.
97. Colonialism has been condemned but it has not yet disappeared from the face of the earth. The General Assembly would be taking the right course if it noted this fact and fixed a specific time limit for the abolition of colonialism. We consider that
that time-limit should be the end of next year, 1962, Pending the expiry of this time-limit, the primary need is to end all colonial wars immediately and to grant all colonial and dependent countries forthwith the requisite freedoms to ensure their independent development and the creation of an independent State administration.
98. It is essential that colonialism should be eliminated in more than a formal sense. An end must be put to all manifestations of colonialism such as interference in the domestic affairs of former colonies that have attained independence. Compelled by the irresistible desire of colonial peoples for freedom and independence to cede many of their political positions in the former colonies, the imperialist States are doing their utmost to preserve at least their economic domination over these countries. It is precisely this policy of neo-colonialism which led to the attempts to separate Katanga and to the crisis in the Congo with all its tragic consequences, By attempting to induce the new African States to join the European Common Market, by increasing their capital investments in Africa, the capitalist countries of Europe and the United States, having been ejected by the colonial peoples, are trying to enter their former possessions through the back door. The danger of the new form of economic slavery threatening the countries recently liberated from colonialism should not be underestimated, more especially as the imperialist States are not making capital investments without an eye to profits, but are making such investments contingent upon political conditions and, in the final analysis, on political dependence; in addition, they are trying to expand in the under-developed countries not so much industrial production as the output of raw materials.
99. In discussing the foreign economic policy of the capitalist Powers, one inevitably calls to mind the case of the Latin-American States which have been figuring in the United Nations technical assistance lists year after year as under-developed countries, although most of them gained their national independence 100 or even 150 years ago; United Nations official statistics show that in the period 1946-1954 for every dollar of new investments made by United States companies in Latin America three dollars seventeen cents were brought back in the shape of profits.
100. Closely connected with neo-colonialism is the practice of the major Western Powers of intervening in the domestic affairs of other countries. It is the duty of the United Nations categorically to denounce this dangerous practice. The agenda of the present Assembly session contains an item concerning the aggression which the United States is preparing against Cuba. One act of aggression against Cuba was committed by the United States this last spring. Instead of learning a lesson from that failure, the United States is trying to justify a right that it does not possess and to dictate to the people of Cuba, regardless of their own wishes, the kind of domestic regime they should have. And when the Cuban people refuse to listen to the advice of their big neighbour, preparations are begun for fresh aggression with a view to a further attempt to impose a particular political regime and social system upon it. The way United States leaders are behaving towards Cuba is an excellent example of how widely the imperialists' fine talk about respect for other peoples' sovereignty differs from their ugly deeds. But the sympathies
of the whole progressive world are with the independent Cuba and the aggressors will have to reckon with this fact. If the General Assembly wishes to avoid international complications, it will take a definite stand against all anti-Cuban intrigues and the aggressive action contemplated.
101. I now pass on to matters connected with the re-establishment of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations and the need for structural changes in the Organization itself.
102. The Bulgarian Government and its delegation have had frequent occasion to express the opinion that those who are preventing the People's Republic of China from taking its seat in the United Nations are, in reality, taking a line which will disrupt the United Nations itself. There would be no sense in having the United Nations as a club for a "meeting of minds" and it is not such a club. Yet the great People's China is not being admitted to the United Nations because it is communist. Such a disgraceful state of affairs cannot be tolerated any longer, though it does not in actual practice prevent China from successfully organizing its own life. It is the United Nations and its effectiveness that suffer and some of its decisions may prove to lie built on sand. That is why we must go on repeating the demand that the real China should be given its own seat at this present session of the General Assembly.
103. As regards the structure of the United Nations, the need for its improvement is accepted by the majority of delegations. It is necessitated by the fact that in the world of today there are three groups of States which must be taken into consideration, more especially in connexion with the task of achieving a more satisfactory organization of the executive organs of the United Nations, particularly the Secretariat. We must resolutely rebut the charge levelled at the socialist countries that, in demanding the formation of a collective secretariat, they are seeking to destroy the United Nations itself. It is being destroyed by inaction, by impotence in the face of aggression, by passivity towards the destroyers of its own resolutions. The foundations of the United Nations are undermined when acts are committed such as those we have witnessed in the Congo. When such acts become impossible, when the Secretariat ceases to function in the interests of one group of States and to tolerate action detrimental to the interests of any other group of States, then the authority of the United Nations will rise to unprecedented heights.
104. One of the characteristic features of the situation in which the sixteenth session has begun its work is the fact that international political problems concern millions of people all over the world as they have never done before in history. The peoples have risen up to wage k determined struggle for the maintenance of peace. In this Hall, we cannot but be conscious of the Will of the peoples who are thirsting for peace. It will greatly facilitate the work of the Assembly at the sixteenth session if it can resolutely go forward and meet the desires of the peoples. True, attempts are still being made here to foment the "cold war", inter alia, by asserting that the representatives of eighty-one communist and workers' parties meeting in Moscow were concerned with world conquest, whereas they were in fact engaged in evaluating the prospects of world development; the domestic regimes of States are the business of those who inhabit them. What is true, however, is
that the idea of the proper role and real possibilities of the United Nations is making an increasingly powerful impact,
105. We take pride in the fact that at this session, too, the socialist countries, and, mote especially, the country which sent the heroes Gagarin and Titov into outer space and brought them back again—the mighty Soviet Union—are consistently defending the peaceful coexistence of all States and are facilitating the work of the Assembly by their proposals. The adoption of these proposals will remove the danger of military conflicts both now and in the future. Accordingly, the Bulgarian delegation will support them in the firm conviction that they correspond to the interests of all the peoples of the world.