First of all I should like to greet, in the name of the Czechoslovak delegation, the French people who have so hospitably welcomed the General Assembly in Paris, the city connected with great progressive traditions which have made them famous in history. I am convinced that the French people, like the people of my country, will judge this session of the Assembly on the basis of what it will have done for world peace.
131. The General Assembly of the United Nations is meeting already for the second time in the period when the forces of imperialism have passed from the preparation of aggression to direct aggressive acts. For more than sixteen months the war in Korea has been going on, a war which the American-British interventionists carry on with a total lack of humanity. It subjects the heroically fighting people to boundless suffering, but it has not broken and cannot break their determination to bring the defence of their freedom and independence to a successful end.
132. The Czechoslovak Government and its delegation are fully aware of the seriousness of the tasks of this session and are fully determined to contribute to their fulfilment in the interest of peace and co-operation among nations. This follows from the substance of the policies of a country which is fully directed towards peaceful construction. In its international relations the policy of the Czechoslovak Government is led by the effort to maintain and strengthen peace, to expand and deepen peaceful co-operation among nations on the basis of full respect for their sovereignty, of non-intervention, of the recognition of their equality, and of the maintenance of contractual obligations.
133. The Czechoslovak delegation sincerely welcomes the peace proposals submitted by the delegation of the USSR to the General Assembly. These proposals consistently continue the ceaseless efforts of the Soviet Union to remove the threat of war and to secure lasting peace. They solve all of today’s burning problems and express the greatest desire of all the Czechoslovak people, as well as of peace-loving people all over the world. The Czechoslovak people have already adopted these proposals as their own. Wherever people work, they are analysed and discussed in a lively manner; they give everyone new incentive in his work of peaceful construction.
134. The development of the debate from the opening of this session to the present has clearly indicated the understanding which the United States and certain other delegations have of the tasks of this sixth session of the General Assembly and the methods which they unscrupulously use in an attempt to impose their conception on other delegations. In their opinion, the sixth session of the General Assembly should continue to move along the dangerous road on which the United Nations Organization, is being dragged, away from its original mission and from the spirit and Principles of the Charter, and on which it is being transformed into an instrument of imperialist aggression. The originators and advocates of this conception in their statements and proposals completely disregard what is expected from the sixth session of the General Assembly by the great majority of mankind, by the common people of all countries. They disregard the fact that their own people are greatly suffering under the constantly increasing burdens placed upon them by the policies of war preparation and aggression. They disregard the fact that the people of their country dread the policy of forming aggressive blocs and call for the return to the policy of understanding and peaceful co-operation among nations. They are not moved by the horrible bloodshed in Korea, a state of affairs wilfully prolonged by the United States military adventurers, who cynically cover their war crimes with the flag of the United Nations.
135. What we have so far heard in this general debate has shown us how far the Organization has already been led away from its path. The evaluation made by some delegations of the past year of United Nations activities gives an expressive picture of the imperialist policies of the United States. Their conclusions are intentionally based on the thesis that war is inevitable — a thesis which is necessary for the instigators of a new war. They openly aim at the liquidation of co-operation among the great Powers. Unconcealed, they follow the road of violating the foundations of the United Nations, so that it may adapt itself unreservedly to the needs of United States imperialism. In the period in which United States policy passed to a stage of directly aggressive acts, individual attacks — even the most violent ones — on the basic Principles of the Charter were not sufficient; that policy passed to a stage of a general offensive against the very foundations of the Organization.
136. During the fifth session of the General Assembly, the United States forced the adoption of an illegal resolution, hypocritically called “Uniting for peace”. That resolution has nothing in common with peace. Its purpose was to open the road for the extension of the aggression which had already begun, for further aggressive acts which had been planned and for a whole, permanent system of aggression.
137. What a road this is intended to be is expressively shown in the report of the Collective Measures Committee, which has been lauded to such a degree by the delegations of the American-British bloc. In this report we have before us a really wide selection, in a systematically grouped scale, of the most varied measures destined for the unleashing and conduct of an aggressive war — measures which are only very badly masked as means to ward off aggression.
138. This report leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind about who is supposed to use these measures and against whom they are directed. The aggressive plans. of American imperialism, the objective of which is the preparation and unleashing of a new war against the USSR and other peace-loving countries, can be clearly seen from the activities of United States foreign policy in every sector of international relations. A policy dictated by an effort to achieve world domination can have no need for any agreements on a basis of equality. This we have clearly seen over and over again at this session already during our consideration of the agenda.
139. I think it is necessary to think seriously of the lengthy discussion that took place throughout the whole of last Tuesday. The procedure used by the American-British bloc during the discussion on the agenda was a very conclusive answer to the call for tolerance which was supposed to be the crucial point that was made by the United Kingdom representative on the previous day.
140. Mr. Eden appealed to us to be moderate and tolerant. He laid great stress on respect for international law and international agreements. What proof of a serious and sincere desire for moderation and tolerance was it when Mr. Eden supported the absurd and provocative proposals which were carried through on Tuesday by a mechanical majority? Mr. Eden surely knows well that the so-called complaints of the Kuomintang or of the Tito clique against the Soviet Union and the countries of the people’s democracies lack any basis whatsoever, and are intended only to create and increase tension in this Assembly. What kind of respect for international law and international agreements is it when we see here the forcing through of a proposal for the .establishment of a special international commission for Germany, a proposal which is the continuation of a systematic violation of international agreements and which is in such flagrant contradiction of the Potsdam Agreement as well as of the Charter?
141. Mr. Eden said that it would be a tragedy if the United Nations Organization were to lose the character of universality and representativeness. Why, then, does his delegation contribute to this prejudice by supporting the proposal of the United States which is aimed at preventing the discussion of the question of the legal representation of China, and thus not only deny the largest nation of the world its natural right to be represented in the United Nations Organization but also prevents the Organization from successfully fulfilling its tasks?
142. Let the delegations which so irresponsibly voted for this shameful decision realize that by excluding this question from the agenda of this session they have not prevented, and will not prevent, the great Chinese people from playing their important part in the affairs of the world.
143. Mr. Acheson, and some other speakers in their statements, did not spare superlatives in relation to human rights. The sincerity of these statements is illustrated when they seek to prevent the airing of complaints against violations of the human rights of colonial nations. Already at this stage of this year’s session the representatives of the American-British bloc have given us a clear picture of their devotion to the Principles of the Charter and of the methods they apply in the United Nations Organization.
144. Mr. Acheson, in his speech, indulged in symbols. The United Nations for him is a symbol of peace, Korea a symbol of aggression, and Mr. Oatis a symbol of the freedom of the Press.
145. Yes, the United Nations is a symbol of peace but this is to be found only in its original spirit which is expressed in the Charter. It is precisely those policies of the Government of which Mr. Acheson is a representative which divert the Organization from its original mission and have led it so far away from it that this “symbol of peace” has already, for more than a year, covered up the brutal and criminal war against the Korean people.
146. Certainly, Korea is the symbol of aggression, the aggression of an imperialistic power against a small country which, with the assistance of the Soviet Union, had liberated itself from the yoke of the militaristic clique of Japanese imperialists and had started to lead an independent life. Mr. Acheson declares that the United States is proud of playing the leading part in the Korean war. Has he thought, in this connexion, of how the nations of Asia look upon this role of the United States, how they look upon the fact that the members of a small and heroic nation of Asia are dealt with as inferior members of the human race, whom American soldiers contemptuously call “gooks”, regardless of whether they come from the north or the south of Korea? Mr. Acheson is proud of the American bombs, of the mass barbarism, and of this war that is being fought in gross violation of all the rules of international law.
147. He can be really proud: according to data furnished by the Agent General of the so-called United Nations programme of assistance to Korea, Mr. Donald Kingsley, one million Koreans have been killed and the damages have reached the sum of two billion dollars. Mr. Acheson complained that the hopes of the civilized world that the mass persecutions of the Hitler regime would never be repeated have proved to be in vain. He could not have referred better to the acts committed daily under the alienated flag of the United Nations by the American heirs of Hitler in heroically fighting Korea.
148. Mr. Acheson in his speech touchingly spoke of American policy as being directed towards expansion of opportunity for the pursuit of human happiness.
149. The Korean people know probably best what happiness American policy brings. The nations of Asia who know the American conception of happiness refuse it flatly, and the nations of Western Europe refuse it as well. _ To them the forced alliance with the United States brings already now a deterioration of their standard of living, the “ guns or butter ” of Goering, and an even worse outlook was indicated to them by Senator Taft and the former Secretary of Defense, Marshall, when these gentlemen at this year’s session of the Panama Canal Association and in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations declared that it was less expensive for the United States to conduct a war with soldiers of other nations, and that the American contribution was dollars rather than soldiers — other countries would supply the soldiers.
150. How does the United States Government care for the happiness and welfare of its own citizens? Nowhere in the world are there more unhappy people than in the United States; nowhere in the world is there so much war hysteria; nowhere in the world do young people resort to mass-consumption of drugs out of a panicky fear of their own future; nowhere in the world has crime grown to such a monstrous extent as in the United States; nowhere in the world are powerful criminal syndicates so closely interlinked with public administration as in the United States. Mr. Acheson must know all this quite well from documents which in the United States enjoy the greatest authority — from reports of the Kefauver Committee of the United States Senate.
151. When Mr. Acheson speaks here of the dangerous subservience which results from thought control and makes aggression possible, it sounds strange from the lips of the representative of a country where terror is spread around not only by the Ku-Klux-Klan, but also by the very official Committee on Un-American Activities.
152. The present atmosphere in the United States is, I think, well characterized by the Supreme Court Justice, William G. Douglas who, according to the New York Herald Tribune of 10 November, said to the students of Brandeis University: “We are drifting in the direction of repression, drifting dangerously fast. Fear has driven more and more men and women in all walks of life either to silence or to the folds of the orthodox (point of view). Fear has mounted — fear of losing one’s job, fear of being investigated, fear of being pilloried.”
153. Yes, such a thought control really makes aggression possible. In the United States, propaganda for peace is being punished as crime and war propaganda has an open road and receives full support.
154. In our country war propaganda, and thus also inciting to aggression, is being punished as a crime. If Mr. Acheson wants to care for human happiness he should begin with this worthy work first of all at home.
155. Another symbol of Mr. Acheson’s is Mr. Oatis. He is to Mr. Acheson the symbol of free journalism, and Mr. Acheson states clearly what is in his view the main purpose and sense of free journalism. After a proper training in a school — of course not in a school for journalists but an espionage school — Oatis “honestly sought” information on frontier security measures, on the disposition of armed forces and on other military matters, and this information he delivered to American military authorities. Mr. Oatis is really more than an individual victim of his employers: he is a serious reminder that for Mr. Acheson and for the ruling circles of the United States of America freedom of the Press means freedom to collect information on defence and security measures, and that therefore the American idea of free journalism is one where this activity would be subjected to the American C.I.C., which cares very little about the provisions of Article 14, paragraph 3, of the draft International Covenant on Human Rights prepared by a United Nations Committee which excludes from the activities of a journalist everything which concerns the defence of a country and its national security.
156. Mr. Acheson abounded with big words also when he spoke of peace. “We must work for peace, for understanding, for a reduction of tensions and differences” said Mr. Acheson. What does the United States Government do for understanding? That was clarified by President Truman when, on 20 September 1951, he declared at a press conference that the United States of America “must now rely on force rather than diplomacy”. The principal objective of the United States policy was declared openly by another of its spokesmen, Senator McCarran, on 17 August last, when he declared that the United States should “let the world clearly know in all it says and all it does that its objective is the overthrow of Soviet dictatorship by all means at its disposal”. He recommended the complete rupture of diplomatic and trade relations with all — as he calls it — “Communist States” and their expulsion from the United Nations Organization. He urged the United States of America to give all possible assistance and support to what he calls, and hopes to be, underground insurgent groups in Eastern Europe.
157. The discriminatory policies in economic relations, the limitations and rupturing of trade relations, the arbitrary violations of treaties, the cutting of transportation links, the systematic violation of frontiers and of the air space, the support of revanchist groups in Western Germany, the broadcasting of American radio stations inciting to criminal actions, the sending of spies, saboteurs and terrorists — all these concrete manifestations of American policy prove that Senator McCarran was not only expressing his personal desires, but that he authentically expressed the real objectives of the United States Government and the means for their achievement.
158. This is the real face of the work for peace, for understanding among nations and for a reduction of tensions and differences of which Mr. Acheson spoke. This is its real face as we in Czechoslovakia know it from first-hand experience.
159. Under such a conception of work for peace it is not surprising when Mr. Acheson boasts of the conclusion of the so-called “peace” treaty with Japan as a positive achievement of American peace policy. The so-called “peace” treaty with Japan is in fact a foundation for a military alliance with the resurrected Japanese militarism which is represented by the circles which have been condemned as war criminals by international military tribunals with the participation of the United States itself. In reality they create by this treaty and its supplement, the Pacific Pact, a base for their aggressive policies in the Far East.
160. This treaty of which Mr. Evatt, known to many delegates here, declared, as reported by The Times of 5 September last that it was “an obvious and shameless abandonment of all principles of international justice and a danger to the physical as well as economic security of the nations of the Southern Pacific”, is thus in the opinion of Mr. Acheson a model act of peaceful policy.
161. San Francisco has at the same time become a symbol for new American methods in international relations and an expression of the unscrupulous enforcement of the objectives of United States foreign policy. As the statesmen of the Western Powers and their Press openly declare, the spirit of San Francisco is to be extended to Europe as well.
162. The resolutions adopted at the conference of the foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom and France in Washington and at the Conference of the NATO Council in Ottawa prove that United States imperialism speedily completes the transformation of Western Germany into the main base of imperialist aggression in Europe.
163. For the acceleration of the complete re-militarization of Western Germany the American military circles enlist as their assistants notorious generals and officers of the Nazi army including the worst war criminals. This is a fact that we must constantly keep in mind when we hear Mr. Acheson speak of peace, defence and human rights.
164. In the New York Times of 24 January of this year we read: “The Supreme Commander [Eisenhower] today before his departure to Paris has again made a statement which should convince the Germans, especially the soldiers, that the West is ready to recognize them as their honourable comrades in arms if they will carry out the tasks of the restoration of European military power.”
165. This statement of General Eisenhower is especially important when we note his statement made before the arrival of new American troops in Germany that for him there is no difference between Nazis and other Germans. This General Eisenhower declares in 1951. The development of the United States policy in Germany will stand out best and more clearly when we read what he said in the first issue of the Neue Zeitung, the newspaper of the American armed forces published in Munich on 18 October, 1945. He wrote: “The denazification will be carried out by us by all available means. It will not affect only party members, but everyone who in any way enjoyed privileges from the Nazi regime. There will not be any indispensable national socialists. In addition to national socialism also German militarism must be destroyed.”
166. Today, however, not only General Eisenhower and the United States Government, but also the British and French Governments find the former Nazi criminals “indispensable” — indispensable for the preparation of war against the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies.
167. Against the will of the peoples of all countries which had suffered immeasurably under the hitlerite occupation, whose best men died on Nazi scaffolds, in prisons and concentration camps, the United States Government did not hesitate at least to pardon the already-condemned hitlerite war criminals. The sentence of the armaments king and the main support of the hitlerite regime, Alfred Krupp, was annulled and all his property was returned to him. According to his own statement Mr. Krupp now works “in the old traditions of his family” and with him also the other hitlerite gun-makers.
168. Released are not only generals and officers but also criminals who carried out Hitler’s foreign policy of conquest, his war propaganda, who condemned people to death and served as hangmen, who were in charge of concentration and extermination camps, who enslaved occupied countries and who committed their hideous crimes in all sectors of the Nazi system. These criminals committed their crimes not only on citizens of the Soviet Union, which made the greatest sacrifices and which crushed the hitlerite fascism, not only on my countrymen and the citizens of other occupied European countries, but also on members of other nations, Among the criminals who had been sentenced to death and now freed is Joachim Peiper, the commander of a military unit which bestially murdered 142 unarmed American soldiers who had been captured by the Germans at the battle of Malmedy in Belgium. How will the United States Government justify to the American people and to the relatives of these murdered men the pardoning of their murderer?
169. The British High Commissioner for Germany, Kirkpatrick, already today speaks of amnesty for Hess, Raeder, and Donitz.
170. The American imperialists refuse to extradite these War criminals for punishment to the countries where they committed their bestial crimes condemned by all civilized mankind.
171. For American pay Nazi generals, officers and strategists of Hitler’s marauding war, such as Haider, Guderian, von Manteuffel, and others, now work.
172. The worst representatives of Prussian militarism which for several generations had been terrorizing Europe have been chosen by American imperialism as an ally. To the mercy of these people it would like to deliver Germany and, with the aid of the so-called Schuman and Pleven Plans, also the countries of Western Europe and their peoples.
173. The illegal three-Power proposal [A/1938] for the establishment of a so-called impartial international commission for Germany, which so grossly violates the Potsdam Agreement as well as the Charter, is also a part of this policy. If the western occupation Powers and their German helpers would really want the unification of Germany on a democratic and peaceful basis, for which the policy of the Soviet Union ceaselessly strives, they would not prevent the German people from holding free elections, as proposed by the People’s Assembly and by the Government of the German Democratic Republic, which truly fulfils its obligations and effectively contributes to the maintenance of world peace.
174. After the Washington and Ottawa decisions, the United States Government has already begun openly to incorporate Western Germany into its Atlantic aggressive system.
175. This aggressive system has today been fully joined by the Tito clique. This act was demonstrated to us also at the General Assembly, right at the beginning when it came with the provocative so-called complaint slandering the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies. It is not necessary to deal with the substance of these invented and completely absurd lies and slanderous statements; their real meaning was unmasked by yesterday’s Press reports announcing the signing of a special pact concerning American deliveries of arms and inspection of the Yugoslav army by United States army officers. They were disclosed by the leader of the Tito delegation himself yesterday in this Assembly hall when he spoke of the necessity of foreign aid to his Government. This aid is a wage for the treason the Tito clique has committed on its people, when it placed its independence and sovereignty under the dollar protectorate.
176. Mr. Acheson, Mr. Eden, and certain other delegates in the general debate lauded the organization of the aggressive Atlantic bloc and its methods as a solid bulwark of peace built in harmony with the Charter.
177. In reality, it is an organization which is to mass the armed forces of all the Western European countries in one European army under United States command. In the interests of this aggressive plan which the United States, in contradiction to Article 51 of the Charter, cynically pretends to be a regional defence plan, all Western European countries have been forced to let America order them to adopt a tremendous armaments programme.
178. Simultaneously, the United States exerts a merciless political, economic and propaganda pressure on Western European governments, and even on such a great Power as the United Kingdom; it threatens them with stopping economic or military aid each time the European countries do not show sufficient disposition to increase military expenditures or to lower the living standard of their people. At the same time the United States tries to spread the methods of the Committee on Un-American Activities all over its sphere of influence. It sees to it that everywhere the administrative and police machinery properly work for the interests of Wall Street and suppress all progressive, democratic and peace movements.
179. This is the real meaning of the Atlantic Treaty, the aggressive aim of which during the past year has become even more apparent. After the inclusion of Italy, the admission of Greece and Turkey and the extension of the Pact thousands of miles from Atlantic shores completely unmask the falsity of all argumentation about the regional character of the pact. Such argument is as false as the long ago unmasked arguments about its defensive character, and thus the word “Atlantic” ceases to be a geographical term and becomes a synonym for aggressiveness. By artificially whipped up war hysteria the “security” lines of the United States are to be projected to places thousands of miles distant where military bases could be built against the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and the people’s democracies.
180. The Atlantic bloc, however, threatens not only the security and independence of nations against which it is aimed, but also the freedom and sovereignty of the nations which are being forced into it. For instance, The Times well expressed the meaning of the term “mutual cooperation” in the American concept when it said in August last that the United States “taking Western Europe by the scruff of the neck and shaking her from time to time... is now pressing a rifle into her hands”.
181. What the picture of the sovereignty of the Member States of the Atlantic Pact actually is was shown clearly in the American Harper's Magazine of last May in an article by James Reston. It is there stated: “Before the public we maintain that the North Atlantic Pact Organization is based on equality of the bond of twelve countries. Secretly, however, we have created an organization of such a kind as to have all the power concentrated in the hands of a narrow military committee. In this committee not all the twelve members are represented, but only the representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom and France. However, even the decisions of the three usually take place outside the framework of the organization between us and the British. This the French do not like.”
182. When the reluctance of the Western European States had especially clearly appeared at the Ottawa Conference, as, for instance, reported by Anne O’Hare McCormick in the New York Times of 19 September 1951, the newly created North Atlantic Treaty Organization Committee was formally extended to twelve members, but only to have its activities immediately concentrated as usual in the hands of the three great Powers and more specifically in the hands of its American Chairman.
183. The North Atlantic Treaty is, therefore, neither regional nor defensive and is moreover the prototype of an unequal treaty. It is an aggressive war pact which is contrary not only to the provisions of Article 51 of the Charter, but also to the basic principles and objectives to maintain international peace and security and to the principle of sovereign equality of all the Members of the Organization.
184. If there were further need of evidence it was given to us by Senator Taft himself who, according to a Reuters report published in the Paris Press yesterday, declared that the Atlantic Treaty was a denial of all principles included in the Charter of the United Nations. Similarly this was indirectly confirmed here on Wednesday last by the representative from the Union of South Africa when he declared the so-called Middle East Command to be a logical extension of the Atlantic Pact. In this Command are represented the governments of countries from all parts of the world except from the area which this supposedly “regional organ” tries to rule, and which, as the representatives of Syria and Egypt pointed out, do not intend to accept it.
185. The North Atlantic Pact was expanded to an all-inclusive international organization with its own economy, powerlessly subjected to Wall Street, with its own army commanded by an American general, with its own navy commanded by an American admiral. The United States thus aims at supplanting as soon as possible the United Nations Organization for all practical purposes by another organization under tile leadership of the United States with completely concrete war objectives similar to the objectives of defeated Hitler, that is, world domination. The Atlantic Treaty — that is the American conception of uniting nations.
186. How sincere the politicians of the Atlantic bloc are in their assurances of peace we can find out now in this place. As a mockery of the General Assembly, as a mockery of their own proposal for limitation of armaments, they call to Paris conferences of generals and economic experts who prepare further increases in armaments, they plan the calling of a special conference of the Atlantic bloc, they invite to Paris the Chancellor of the puppet Bonn Government.
187. The Czechoslovak delegation warmly welcomed the fact that the Soviet Government, through its Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Vyshinsky, submitted to this General Assembly the proposal [A/1944] that the General Assembly declare the membership in the aggressive Atlantic Pact, and the construction of military, naval and air bases on foreign territory, incompatible with membership of the United Nations Organization. The declaration of the incompatibility of Atlantic Treaty membership with United Nations membership is an essential prerequisite for the United Nations Organization to return to its mission as expressed in the Charter. The American-British bloc already, before having submitted its proposals [A/1943] to this General Assembly, announced them as a planned big “peace offensive”.
188. When we heard those proposals it was clear that we had here only a worse edition of previous proposals, which had been already many times unmasked before the world, as a means for achieving the aggressive imperialistic objectives of the United States Government. They are in no way aimed at the preservation and maintenance of peace. On the contrary, they wish us to take the illegal existence of the Atlantic Treaty and the armaments race as a basis for our work.
189. We are only expected to take a note of these illegal acts, file them and register them. On that basis we should then begin to reduce armaments, starting with the least important types. As regards the most important, the most dangerous and the most dreaded weapons — the atomic ones — they present us again with the old Baruch-Lilienthal-Acheson plan, a plan which tries desperately to keep the supposed monopoly in atomic weapons in the hands of the United States; a plan which, even from the viewpoint of these criminal purposes, is today worn out and absurd, since the recent clear words of Generalissimo Stalin crushed the last remnants of the fictitious illusion of United States atomic monopoly.
190. The American-British bloc, however, does not intend to liquidate the war where it rages today, and where the danger of the extension of aggression is greatest — Korea. On the contrary, it subjects all its proposals to its aggression and postpones them till the time when, as it vainly hopes, it will have accomplished its aggressive aims. We know very well that those who were entrusted with the conduct of aggression in Korea do today everything to delay even the so-called programme of Mr. Acheson as much as possible. Already more than four months have passed since the peace appeal of the Soviet representative, Mr. Malik, and for all this time the commanders of the United States interventionists and their aides have been inventing the most varied pretexts to obstruct the armistice negotiations to which they had been forced by public opinion and the desire for peace of the people of their own country. And right now, in recent days, we have been witnessing how in this criminal effort they resort even to the basest slanders of the heroic people whom they, after the example of the fabricated Goebbels propaganda, falsely charge with murdering prisoners of war. To such repulsive means they must resort to keep up the sinking spirits of their soldiers and their fighting morale, which has been shaken by the realization of the injustice of the aggressive war, as well as by its unsuccessful duration and who want to go home.
191. The proposals presented to the General Assembly in the name of the Soviet delegation by its head, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Vyshinsky, express the consistent peace policy of the Soviet Union. They aim as always at the very core of the fears and worries of the present-day world. They answer all the burning problems of the international situation. They find response in the hearts of millions of common people. The proposals of the Soviet Union are dictated primarily against the policy of blocs, which is so dangerous to world peace. Their objective is a just and immediate end of the war in Korea. The Soviet proposals further point out the effective way to an early reduction of armed forces and armaments, and to the prohibition of atomic weapons and their international control. The proposal for the conclusion of a peace pact amongst the five Great Powers is aimed at eliminating the present international tension and the strengthening of world peace.
192. The proposals of the Soviet delegation speak for themselves. Their strength is their own inner logic. Their basis is a deep conviction of the possibility and necessity of peaceful coexistence of nations regardless of their different economic and social systems; the constructive desire to create at any time real conditions for a lasting peace; respect for the sovereignty of all nations, both large and small; respect for international obligations.
193. Behind the Soviet proposals there is the desire, the strong will and the active support of the great majority of mankind. Vain are the attempts of certain representatives in this Assembly to cover up these facts. Their efforts are only a proof of how great an obstacle to their plans they see in the great peace movement. This is why they speak of an “artificially created mass movement”, although they know from experience that a world mass movement cannot be artificially created. How many billions of dollars have been expended for various broadcasting stations, for a flood of publications, for the purchase of souls, for the corruption of leaders of various groups, parties and midget parties, and how many attempts to create international organizations have collapsed with empty, miserable and sorrowful results.
194. To speak face to face to an elemental movement of its artificial character is an old worn-out argument which has been used against progress from time immemorial. We know, after all, that the great revolutions also, of which precisely this city has given many times an example to Europe and the whole world, have always been described by reactionaries as a war of a few agitators. If you charge the Soviet proposals with being propaganda it means you do not like the fact that they have been understood by hundreds of millions of people all over the world who grasp their whole meaning and actively support them. Thus you only underline their strength. Your proposals lack it. The Soviet proposals express the desires of the common man no matter where in the world he lives and works. We are convinced they are welcomed by all peace-loving people in the world as sincerely as they are welcomed by the people of Czechoslovakia.
195. The Czechoslovak delegation appeals to all delegations who cherish world peace and the security of nations to support the peace proposals of the Soviet Union.