221. May I, Mr. President, on behalf of the Ukrainian delegation, congratulate you on your election to the high post of President of the sixteenth session of the General Assembly and wish you success in the discharge of your duties in guiding the work of this important Assembly.
222. The United Nations has never before seemed so unanimous in recognizing the extreme gravity of the present international situation. Differ though they may in their views and evaluation of the causes of the prevailing tension, all agree on one point: unless the development of events in Central Europe is arrested, it may approach a very dangerous brink.
223. The value of the general discussion—and the Ukrainian delegation is taking part in it, sharing the general feelings of anxiety—lies not only in the fact that the very pithy and profound ideas expressed from tills high international rostrum will exert a restraining effect on the instigators of war hysteria and the firebrands who are acting provocatively at the Brandenburg Gate. The discussion, at the plenary meetings of the United Nations General Assembly's sixteenth session of the most topical unsettled problems will enable us, from different points of view, to see from what source the international atmosphere is being charged with explosive matter and to ensure that the voice and conscience of the peoples will pass moral judgement on the atomic crusaders.
224. Happily, despite the clash of views, the wind of time is sweeping out of the Assembly hall the false conclusions about the policy of the Government of the Soviet Union and the other socialist States, more especially in regard to the question of concluding a peace treaty with Germany. It is no mere accident, I feel, that one of the speakers voiced his dissatisfaction at the fact that the Assembly, to put it plainly, is not dominated by anti-Soviet hysteria. He is convinced, or he feels (on this point I cannot be a judge), that the Assembly is impartial and objective only when it allows people to gamble on its authority for cold war purposes. The Assembly, he says, is biased and unfair if it tries to be objective in its judgement concerning the measures recently taken by the Government of the Soviet Union to strengthen peace throughout the world.
225. That, however, is merely a remark by the way. The delegation of the Ukraine would like to give its views on some highly important problems. Obviously, some of these are artificial levers in the hands of imperialist circles for the stimulation of a war psychosis, while others constitute the hub of an aggressive policy and of the maintenance of tension in the relations between countries and peoples.
226. In our complex and varied world the death of one man, regrettable though it be in itself, is regarded by Some as a tragedy and an irreparable loss. Yet the loss of millions in the Second World War is reflected only in the flat mirror of statistics. They now figure merely as basic data for comparisons with the possible terrors of a new war, and are not lamented by General Staffs. The children of the fathers whose graves are scattered all over Europe and Asia have not yet managed to grow up, before the shadow of a new and more terrible extermination of people has descended Upon them. Why and for whom?
227. Although the peace treaty with Germany proposed by the Government of the Soviet Union contains no secret threat either for the United States or the United Kingdom or for France, the President of the United States has declared that the proposals for a peace settlement with Germany involve provisions which Would be fatal to peace.
228. The Second World War ended sixteen years ago. The World which survived that war was bound to
change, and it has indeed become another world; we are living in a new era. After the collapse of fascism Germany, too, became a different place. Instead of the German Reich there arose two independent and sovereign States—the German Democratic Republic with the Federal Republic of Germany. Much has changed In the world, yet no peace treaty has so far been concluded with the legal successors of the German Reich; in other words, the account for the Second World War has not been finally closed. And whereas the peace-loving forces of the German people have correctly learnt the lesson of history and have expelled militarism for ever from their State—the German Democratic Republic—in the Federal Republic of Germany the Western Powers have revived militarism and irredentism, which have again begun to threaten peace not only in Europe but throughout the world.
229. The Bonn Government—as several speakers have already pointed out from this rostrum—has now created the biggest army in Europe, an army which by the spring of 1962 will consist of twelve modern divisions equipped with rockets.
230. Recently Chancellor Adenauer declared that "the 'Bundeswehr1 must have the right to dispose of atomic weapons", yet it may be remembered that only a few years ago he cloaked himself in the mantle of a "pacifist by principle". People in the West often refer to one or other public statement by ruling figures in the Federal Republic of Germany as evidence of their "love of peace". But Bonn has more than once gone back on its earlier declarations, with the gradual discarding of masks and changing of the wd6cor" on the political stage. In 1949, Adenauer said: "I resolutely reject any remilitarization of Germany", and Strauss, the Defence Minister, declared at the same time: "If any German takes up arms, may his hand wither". In 1951, the same Adenauer and the same Strauss loudly called for the speediest possible completion of the war machine in the Federal Republic of Germany and for atomic equipment.
231. Let us turn, though, to the actual draft peace treaty with Germany proposed by the Government of the Soviet Union. It stipulates the right of Germany to form national armed forces, but definite restrictions are imposed on the arming of the two German States which are the legal successors of pre-war Germany. Article 26 of the draft treaty prohibits the manufacture and acquisition of any kind of nuclear weapon and other means of mass destruction, or the conducting of experiments with them. There is also a ban on the manufacture of all types of rockets and guided missiles, of submarines, and of aircraft basically designed as bombers.
232. It may well be asked what is "fatal to peace" in this provision of the draft peace treaty. On the contrary, peace will be consolidated when limits are set to the remilitarization of the Federal Republic of Germany. .
233. German militarism has concentrated in its hands the material means of aggression. From the old roots, spiritual weapons too are springing up: irredentism and pan-Germanism. The militarist and neo-Nazi circles, Chancellor Adenauer and the members of his Government, evidently consider that the time has come to raise the question of revising the frontiers, of bringing back under their rule what they describe as all the "German lands". Germans are being imbued with a belief in their mission of conquest. Revision
of the frontiers of Czechoslovakia, Poland, the USSR— that is the subject now being discussed in the Federal Republic of Germany, and not in whispers either. In Bonn people cannot disabuse themselves of the idea that the policy of the Western Powers vis-à-vis of the ripening plans for a new "march to the East" under the flag of pan-Germanism is still as benevolent as it was in the not too remote past. I would venture to point out that in those days Western diplomacy considered even the Ukraine as part of the German race's "Lebensraum." On 6 December 1938, in connexion with the signing of a Franco-German treaty of friendship, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Bonnet, told Ribbentrop: "Leave us our colonial empire and you can keep the Ukraine for yourselves". On 1 January 1939, the German Ambassador in London, Dirksen, reported to Berlin that the United Kingdom Government would not oppose a German march on the Ukraine. A similar statement was made to Dirksen by the United States Ambassador in London, Joseph Kennedy, who agreed that Germany should have a free hand in Eastern Europe. The capitalist monopolies and financial manipulators turned the gaze of the fascist monster towards the East, and traded other peoples' lands and wealth in one place in order to hold on to what they had grabbed for themselves in another place.
234. The lessons learnt, and the sacrifices made, in the struggle against Hitlerism are too enormous for them to be forgotten. In this struggle the Ukrainian people lost as many of its sons and daughters as the present population of some of the States whose Governments are taking such an incredibly light-hearted view of the growth of irredentist cliques among the Bonn militarists. The fire of that struggle strengthened the Soviet peoples1 brotherhood and friendship between themselves and with other peoples that have developed still further in the field of peaceful construction and the consolidation of peace. There is no guarantee that the West German irredentists have learnt the lessons of history. But they can be quite sure—and we say this quite clearly—that, if they try to repeat the "Drang nach Osten", it will be measured not by the distance between Berlin and Stalingrad; it will be buried on the threshold of its own home.
235. Now about the frontiers of Germany. The Soviet draft peace treaty is based on the frontiers now actually existing in Europe, including the frontiers between the two German Spates. Under article Germany will renounce all rights to the former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, and under article 10 it will recognize the territory of the former Sudetenland as an integral part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Similarly, articles 11, 12 and 13 of the draft peace treaty proclaim Germany's renunciation of all territorial and political claims against Austria, France and other Western European States. Thus Germany's existing frontiers are legally guaranteed in the peace treaty . The question again arises—where is there here any threat of peace being violated or, as somebody said, destroyed?
236. The Western Powers have artificially built up the so-called "Berlin crisis", and continue to assert that the Soviet Union is "threatening" West Berlin. In order to deceive public opinion they are deliberately and maliciously making no mention of the draft peace treaty, are trying to minimize its importance, and are
simultaneously stimulating war hysteria about West Berlin to a dangerous degree.
237. The delegation of the Ukrainian SSR would like once again to emphasize, from this rostrum, that the important thing is a German peace treaty, I repeat the main thing is a German peace treaty; and the USSR proposal to convert West Berlin into a Free City means nothing more than that the Soviet Union is ready to settle this problem on the basis of a German peace treaty.
238. It goes without saying that the question of the status of West Berlin will have to be decided, its social and economic structure and freedom of communications with all countries being maintained and respect for the sovereignty of the German Democratic Republic being ensured. West Berlin must contribute to peaceful coexistence in Europe, and not serve as a powder-keg or a place where a short-circuit might occur.
239. There is another trick whereby Adenauer and the Governments of the Western Powers hope to obstruct peace settlement with Germany. This is the speculation hazarded around the slogan of "self-determination for the German people". It is, however, an immutable fact that the German people has found its own self-determination in the form of two States" the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. To play about with the slogan of self-determination for the German nation when there already exist two independent German States is a very primitive trick. Today, the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany do not differ on the national issue; they are separated by profound differences in their internal ways of life; in other words, they are separated by deep social differences. To try to set the "self-determination" slogan up in reply to struggles within nations is to juggle with concepts. If it is a question of social structure— and this is precisely what is at stake in connexion with the formation of two independent German States-then these States have already made their choice. So far, however, the Western Powers have refused, or are still refusing, to recognize the existence of the German Democratic Republic, although it is a sovereign State, maintains diplomatic, trade and cultural relations with many countries in the world, and—a point to be specially emphasized—is practising a peaceful foreign policy. The reason for this, of course, is simply that the Western Powers feel no sympathy, or (to put it more correctly) cherish hostile feelings towards the new social system in East Germany; but this has no connexion with the problem of self-determination.
240. As Adenauer sees it, self-determination means the absorption of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany and the removal of the social structure built up in the German Democratic Republic. That is the view of the problem taken by those who subscribe to Adenauer's fallacious theories. The Foreign Minister of Ecuador made it quite clear to us that self-determination for Germans in the German Democratic Republic is to be interpreted as a change in "the special status in the Eastern zone"— in other words, the liquidation of the socialist system in Eastern Germany.
241. Like all the peoples of Europe, the Ukrainian people well know, from their own experience, the meaning attached by the German imperialists to the term "self-determination". The Germans had self-determination in regard to the composition of their
State on the eve of both world wars. Nevertheless Germany started those world wars, and in each of them aggression and the conquest of "liebensraum", as well as the notorious "Drang nach Osten", were presented as "self-determination of the German nation". Today people in Bonn talk of the "self-determination" of the German Democratic Republic; but tomorrow, as the experience of history shows, there will emerge a threat to the national sovereignty of Austria, Switzerland, Italy and other countries where a German-speaking population has "determined itself" outside the frontiers of Federal Germany.
242. The essence of the German problem, therefore, is to guarantee lasting peace in Europe—to prevent the German militarists from plunging the world, under any pretext whatsoever, into the gulf of a new nuclear war of extermination. This is what the Soviet Union and all our socialist countries call upon the Western Powers to do. In the words of the Head of the Soviet Government, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev:
"We want to clear away the remnants of the Second World War, to cleanse the atmosphere in Europe and so throughout the world, in Order that all peoples of the world may breathe clean air, that countries may live as good neighbours, establishing relations of peace with each other, and that the peoples may live free from the fear of war." .
243. Unfavourable critics of the Soviet draft peace treaty describe it as "fatal to peace", as I have already said; but, strangely enough, they themselves put forward no proposals of their own for a peace settlement with Germany. The Ukrainian delegation cannot but view the attitude of the Western Powers as one of deliberately maintaining a dangerous situation in Europe, an attitude that is alien to the interests of peace,
244. The Soviet proposals on the German problem are calculated to ensure the existence of the two German States and, not to put it too highly, the peaceful co-existence of States with different social and political systems in Europe and throughout the world. It is no mere chance that the opponents of a peace settlement with Germany are, at the same time, the opponents of the ideas and principles of peaceful coexistence and of their translation into practice.
245. Chancellor Adenauer, for instance, calls peaceful coexistence an illusion and is even worried because the idea has been "too widely disseminated". Certain other political leaders in NATO countries, attacking the principles of peaceful coexistence, refer to it irritably as "the most sterile and negative conception of international life". These are the words used by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom.
246. What was it he did not like about peaceful coexistence? According, to him, one-third of the world— and here he apparently means the socialist countries-was devoting itself to destroying the way of life of the other two-thirds—meaning, apparently, the capitalist countries. He affirmed that he had re-invented" (to use his own words) this piece of nonsense but had found it in the Declaration of a Congress of Representatives of Communist and Workers Parties held at Moscow. He did not, however, quote this Declaration; he did not, that is, give the reference on which* he based on conclusions. And this is no mere coincidence, for in fact there is nothing even remotely similar in the Declaration. As regards the aims of the socialist countries, the Congress of Representatives of Communist and Workers' Parties, in its appeal to the peoples of the world, defined those aims in the following terms:
"The goal of each socialist country individually, and of the socialist community as a whole, is to ensure a lasting peace for all peoples. Socialism has no need of war. The historic struggle between the old and the new system, between socialism and capitalism, must be settled not by world war but by peaceful competition—competition to determine which social system achieves the higher level in the economic, technological and cultural fields and ensures the best living conditions for the people at large."
247. From this there is only one, and possibly even quite a small, moral to be drawn: if you wish to avoid finding yourself in an embarrassing situation, you should treat important documents, and quote and interpret them, with a sense of responsibility.
248. The reluctance of the NATO States to base their relations with other countries on the principle of peaceful coexistence continues to exert a negative influence on United Nations activities also. The Western Powers, with the United States at their hand, are trying to turn this Organization into a tool of their own foreign policy. j
249. In so doing, they sometimes reach a point of such Absurdity that policy becomes no more than petty intriguing, a complete mockery of common sense, 'is there, for instance, one single person, even in the governing circles of the Western countries, who believes that the Chiang Kai-shek faction represents a great Power and should sit here in the United Nations? Yet that is a fact which vividly depicts the attitude of the Western Powers, and especially the United States, to the People's Republic of China and, in point of fact, to the United Nation? itself. We categorically declare that there can be no further toleration of such a violation of the United Nations Charter. The great People's Republic of China must be represented here by its lawful Government, the sole expression of the will of China's 700 million people.
250. At this session the Mongolian People's Republic too, should be admitted to membership of the United Nations.
,251. Another example of the way in which the United States defies the principles of peaceful coexistence is its aggressive policy towards revolutionary Cuba. Economic blockade, arson and subversive acts, the landing of mercenaries—such are the practical instruments of this policy. The Government of the United States must, therefore, be called upon to respect, not in words but in deeds, the will of the people.
252. For the Government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, as for the Governments of all the socialist countries, general and complete disarmament is an international problem which must be solved without further delay.
2153, Nowadays, this problem can be described not only as an important and urgent one but also as a problem which is obviously ripe for solution. Although the last General Assembly session could not, because of the stand adopted by the West, take a positive step forward, it did show an increase in the strength and activity of those forces which favour the issue of clear and precise directives for negotiations on a treaty of general and complete disarmament.
254; Now, as the upshot of an exchange of views between the Soviet Union and the United States on disarmament problems, we have before us the "Joint statement of agreed principles for disarmament negotiations" [A/4879]. That is a small but good beginning; but this infant project may wither away, even before the first step is taken, and the structure of disarmament outlined in these joint principles may turn out to be a mirage. That is the real danger; it lies in the fact that during the discussions it was impossible to eliminate the basic difference—whether negotiations were to be about general and complete disarmament with effective control, or about control of armaments. The Soviet Union advocates the former and the United States the latter cause. The United States' insistent demand that control should guarantee not only that the agreed limitations or reductions are carried into effect, but also that the remaining armed forces and armaments would never at any stage exceed the agreed levels, left an unfavourable impression. According to the statement of the United States representative, this thesis constitutes the key factor in the position of the United States. But in this demand we discern only one thing—that control of armaments is still the key element in the position of the United States.
255. Our delegation is making a study of the new American disarmament programme [A/4891] which the President of the United States, Mr. Kennedy, has tabled for consideration at this session. We would like, for the present, to make a few preliminary comments. To begin with, may I refer to The New York Times of 1 October. This paper wrote, with reference to the new United States programme, that its novelty resided mainly in its terminology—in other respects this plan calls for more or less the same approach as that called for by previous Western disarmament proposals—many people in this hall know very well that that approach was basically wrong, for it meant control without disarmament, control before disarmament, control over armaments. It is quite understandable that such an approach could not contribute to an agreement on general and complete disarmament. You can control armaments as much as you like without thereby lessening, in the slightest degree, the threat of war; on the contrary, that threat will even grow since control of armaments,, control without 'disarmament, will become espionage, a weapon for intelligence activities, and merely play into the hands of those contemplating and making ready for aggression.
256. We have also noticed that no dates are set, in the programme, for tile execution of the various measures. It might be that the first stage (where it talks, in particular, of reducing the armed forces of the USSR and the United States to 2.1 million men, and mentions other obviously not very important measures) would be protracted for an indefinitely long period and then nothing more would happen. In the meantime we, once we have agreed to these extremely limited and, to be quite frank, illusory measures of the first stage, are" Invited to accept the principle of control over the remaining armaments and armed forces. In other words, we are, figuratively speaking, offered 5 per cent disarmament with 100 per cent control. Yet in the agreed principles it is stated that "the nature and extent of such control depend... on the requirements for verification of the disarmament measures being carried out in each stage"; in other Words, the scope of control should be in strict conformity with
the character of the disarmament measures executed, But the very first stage of the United States programme shows that, in it, this very important and agreed principle is not taken into account.
257. Or, let us look at another agreed principle: that all disarmament measures should be balanced "so that at no stage of the implementation of the treaty could any State or group of States gain military advantage and that security is ensured equally for all". Is this provided for in the new United States programme? We are convinced that it is not. On the contrary, the programme in fact provides for unilateral military advantages of the United States. What other interpretation can be placed on the fact that the ban on the sending into orbit, or the placing in space, of weapons of mass destruction is included in the first stage, and the abolition of military bases in the second?
258. Moreover, the question of liquidating intercontinental ballistic missiles and cosmic rockets, and establishing control over them, cannot be considered apart from the question of liquidating military bases on foreign territories. It is quite understandable that, if States came to an agreement on liquidating the means of delivering atomic weapons but some of them objected to liquidating their bases on foreign territories, suspicion might be engendered that they really had no intention of fulfilling their obligations concerning destruction of the means of delivery and were expecting to abstract those means from control in order to use them for aggressive ends.
259. All this cannot but serve to make us alive to the fact that, in agreeing to disarmament principles, the United States is trying to interpret these provisions so as to give them a content alien to genuine disarmament.
260. The aggressive policy of the Western Powers, which has recently received unprecedented strengthening placed the USSR and the other socialist countries before an inescapable choice. It was a harsh choice, but the only possible one. The Soviet people endorsed the step taken by our Government. There was only one thing to do: to take all the necessary steps to be fully prepared, militarily, to render an aggressor impotent if he tried to engage in an attack. One such measure is the decision, which has been taken, to carry out experimental explosions of nuclear weapons. The resumption of nuclear weapon tests was a necessary step, if the world was not to fall a victim to war.
261. The bitter experience of history teaches us that mere pacifist appeals for peace have never halted the aggressors. The socialist countries consider it their sacred duty to point out, not only that we are wholeheartedly striving for peace, but that we are ready to defend it with all our might. And the strengthening of this might is in the interests not only of the peoples of the socialist community but of all those who have the cause of peace at heart.
262. The measures taken by the socialist countries as a riposte to the aggressive threats of the United States, the United Kingdom and France help, us to feel confident that the militarists will not utterly lose their common sense but will come to a halt, since they will be faced with the probability of nuclear destruction-for a grave is not the life aim even of inveterate atomic enthusiasts.
263. We would like to hope that the anxiety about the resumption of tests, which has been voiced here by a number of speakers, will be converted into a useful
propellant force aimed at achieving agreement on general and complete disarmament. In present circumstances, the proposal to solve the problem of the suspension of nuclear tests on the basis of complete and general disarmament is the only correct and realistic one.
264. The resolution, adopted at the fifteenth session of the United Nations General Assembly, containing the Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples [A/1514 (XV)] was an expression of the demand of all mankind that an end be put to the most shameful phenomenon of our time— Colonialism—in all its forms and manifestations. That decision was evidence of the desire of an absolute majority of countries that the United Nations should move with the times and help the peoples in their struggle against the colonial slavery set up by the imperialist Powers.
265. The powerful wave of national-liberation revolutions is sweeping the colonial system away. After the Second World War, the peoples of more than fifty countries gained national independence. The year 1960 was rightly called the "year of Africa". In the course of it, the number of independent African States more than doubled. Recently, the former British colony of Sierra Leone entered the family of that continent's liberated States. On behalf of the Ukrainian Government, I congratulate the people of Sierra Leone on the creation of its own independent State and its entry into the United Nations.
266. Nevertheless, colonialism in its " classical form" still exists on territory more than twice as large as that of the United States. Fifty million Africans, 10 million people in Asia, 7 million people on the American continent and more than 3 million inhabitants of Oceania await the hour when the last colonial shackles will fall.
.267. Events since the fifteenth session of the General Assembly have shown that the bloc of the Western Powers is doing everything possible to prolong the life of stricken colonialism. France continues, as before, the war of extermination against the heroic Algerian people. Encouraged by the moral and material backing of their NATO allies, the Portuguese colonizers have organized orgies of bloodshed in Angola. British bombs are raining down on the heads of the inhabitants of Oman and Hadramaut. Reprisals continue to be taken against the fighters for freedom and independence in the Belgian Trust Territory of Ruanda-Urundi, in Mozambique, in South West Africa, in Uganda and in other colonial possessions. The local government in the Federation of Rhodesia is following a policy of completely transforming the country into a State of white colonizers on the model of South Africa.
268. What is the conclusion to be drawn from the intensifying of military preparations and the strengthening and expansion of the military bases of the colonial Powers in Africa and Asia, where more than half the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom, as well as United States troops, are now stationed? it hardly means that they are preparing in this way to help the peoples of these continents to attain and consolidate their national independence! The artificial accentuation of international tension, in addition to justifying the arms race in the eyes of the world, makes it easier for the colonial Powers to delay the c disintegration of the colonial system and the implementation of the Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples. The
capitalist monopolies still hope that, as before, they will be able to exploit the wealth and toil of the peoples of the countries which are being liberated from foreign domination.
269. The real reason for the still unfinished tragedy of the Congo lies precisely in the efforts being made to preserve the sources of the big foreign monopolies' wealth and to safeguard their privileges. The Belgian and other foreign colonizers have now concentrated their efforts in Katanga and are trying, with the help of their mercenary and hanger-on Tshombe, to grab from the Congolese people that very rich storehouse of Africa.
270. In West Irian, the Netherlands is trying to achieve the same objective though in another way, as eloquently described from this rostrum by the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs. Under the plausible pretext of "self-determination", it is preparing to snatch from Indonesia an original, integral part of Indonesian territory. Nevertheless, whatever kind of oxygen masks may be used for prolonging the life of the colonial world, nothing will avail to avert its inevitable collapse.
271. The Ukrainian Government regards it as one of the most important tasks of the United Nations to secure, the immediate implementation of the Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples. We are confident that, when it discusses the situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration—a question placed on the agenda of the present session at the proposal of the Soviet Union delegation—the General Assembly will work out and approve the measures required to help the peoples put a speedy and final end to the colonial order of things.
272. The world is full of alarms, anxieties, exciting achievements and projects. When the time comes to compute the results of the stormy year of 1961, mankind will note that its progressive development has been raised a step higher and that its horizons for the future have broadened.
274. Most of the people on earth are directly interested in peace. That is why, in the Assembly, every means must be used to paralyse aggressive movements in those countries where monopolies are closely associated with war industry and for which the arms race is nothing but an enormous and continuing business deal.
275. The international situation is heated and fraught with dangers. But peace can, and must, be preserved— if all those on whom the fate of the world depends will 1 display common sense and an understanding of their responsibility to mankind to those who are alive today and will be alive tomorrow.
276. As Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev has said, the Soviet Government has been doing, and will do, everything possible to ensure that the Soviet people and the peoples of all countries emerge from this difficult time without war.
273. The different peoples of the world have one very lofty aim in common—the maintenance of peace. The extremely bitter struggle that reactionary and aggressive forces are waging against peace, against freedom and independence, is a reminder that the struggling peoples have one common enemy: imperialism and. colonialism.
277. The purpose of man's life is not war and ruin, but peace and construction. The socialist republics of the Soviet Union, following the new programme drafted by the Communist Party, will erect the mighty structure of communism—a society of freedom and equality, of peace and labour. The Ukrainian people is one of the builders of this society of brotherhood and true friendship between nations and peoples. Its flowing energy is directed towards creative construction, towards peace, the greatest blessing in the world and in life.
278. Today the Ukraine is in the economic sense one of the most highly developed countries. I would like to give you just a few figures. By the end of 1963, the first year of the twenty-year development plan of the Soviet Union, the metallurgical industry of the Ukraine will produce 28 million tons of steel and 26 million
* tons of pig Iron, while the pits and mines will have an output of 170 million tons of coal and 64 million tons of iron ore. Our industry manufactures almost all types of modern machinery. We have gathered in a very fine harvest from our fields.
279. That is the fundamental basis from which we shall embark on implementing the twenty-year plan for laying the foundations of a communist society in which every man will labour according to his abilities and receive according to his needs.
280. That is a programme holding out—I would say . embracing—prospects. For instance, by 1980 the
Ukraine will be producing 75 million tons of steel, 62 million tons of pig iron and 60.5 million tons of rolling mill products; it will have an output of 160 million tons of iron ore and 290 million tons of coal. The volume of industrial production will increase six fold, and the output of the machine industry thirteen-fold. The grain crop will be 2.5 times, meat production 3.6 times and milk production 2.7 times greater.
281. Of course, figures are a little boring, but these particular ones are as music to our ears and reflect the majestic rhythm of our progress towards the building of a communist society.
282. We are firmly convinced that shoulder to shoulder with the other peoples of the Soviet Union, we shall succeed in coping with all the .tasks we have set ourselves. As the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, N. V. Podgorny, said at the twelfth congress of the Party;
"We are proud of the fact that our successes go to swell the single mighty current of the great victories of the entire Soviet people in the building of communism, that they add to the glory and power of the whole socialist camp...
283. The programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is not only a great document of work for the happiness of man; it is also a manifesto for peace. It solemnly proclaims that "... the Communist Party of the Soviet Union regards it as the main aim of its foreign policy to guarantee peaceful conditions for the construction of a communist society in the USSR and the development of a world system of socialism and, together with all the peaceful peoples, to free mankind from a world war of extermination".
284. Work produces all that is needed for human life. Peace preserves all the wealth created by man, and mankind itself, from the conflagration of war. We call upon all countries and peoples to unite their efforts in the struggle for peace, the struggle for out happy future.