p The growth and consolidation of the world socialist community are changing the balance of power in the world in favour of socialism and making it possible to begin carrying out many of the historic tasks currently confronting the revolutionary movement.

p One of the most acute and urgent problems is to avert another world war and ensure world peace. Today peace is a vital and indispensable condition of progress and of the development of the worldwide revolutionary movement. In this connection substantial assistance is rendered to the revolutionary forces by the struggle of the socialist countries for the consistent implementation of the principle of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. This principle calls, above all, for the renunciation of war as a means of settling outstanding issues between states, for the settlement of all issues by negotiation. It stands for the equality of all states, for non-interference in their internal affairs, for the right of all peoples to decide their own problems, for the strict respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, and for the promotion of economic and cultural cooperation on the basis of complete equality and mutual benefit.

p The socialist countries are doing everything to achieve a relaxation of international tension and a peaceful settlement 221 of major problems. Much of their effort is directed towards ensuring peace and security in Europe. This can be appreciated, for Europe has been the arena of two world wars and today world peace depends primarily on the preservation of peace in Europe. Throughout all the years since the Second World War the guideline of the socialist countries has been that the inviolability of the European frontiers is the foundation of lasting peace in Europe. The inviolability of these frontiers is now unequivocally recognised in the treaties signed by the Soviet Union, Poland and the GDR with the Federal Republic of Germany.

p The socialist countries are consistently denouncing the policy of splitting Europe into opposing groups and urge the establishment of a system of collective security and the reduction of arms and armed forces in Central Europe.

p The struggle for peace in Asia and Africa, above all in Indochina, occupies a central place in the policy of the socialist countries. They did everything in their power to ensure the triumph of peace and justice in the countries of this region. The failure of the US military adventure in Vietnam has eloquently shown the power of the international solidarity of the socialist countries and of all revolutionaries and fighters for peace and progress.

p The socialist countries are concentrating much of their effort to achieve peace in the Middle East.

p The resolute struggle of the USSR and other socialist countries fdr peace and peaceful coexistence is showing results. It is the decisive factor in ensuring the shift in international relations from cold war to detente, to a healthier international climate and a reduction in the immediate danger of a new world war.

p An agreement on general and complete disarmament would be a radical means of ensuring lasting peace and deepening detente. Imperialism has foisted on the peoples the unparalleled burden of the arms race. Socialism sees its duty to mankind in delivering it from this senseless squandering of material and cultural wealth. For humanity the attainment of this goal would be of historic significance. The utilisation of the money now spent on the arms race would deliver many millions of people from poverty, starvation, disease and illiteracy.

p Thanks to the efforts of the socialist countries and other 222 peace forces some headway has been made in that direction: the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons has come into force, treaties have been concluded on banning the siting of nuclear weapons in outer space and also on the beds of seas and oceans, and the SALT-2 Treaty has been signed. But these are only the first steps. The attainment of general disarmament remains the cardinal objective of the socialist countries.

p The efforts of the socialist states to ensure world peace and security are strongly influencing all the peoples of the world and winning growing support for these countries and their governing Communist parties.

p The socialist community is a natural centre of attraction for all - peace-loving forces. More and more non-socialist countries are grouping around the socialist community in the struggle for peace and international security. The peoples of the capitalist countries are joining in the fight for peace. Popular anti-war movements are unfolding in the USA, Britain, France, Japan, West Germany, Italy and other capitalist states. This is giving rise to a peace front that can, if its actions are vigorous and united, disrupt the designs of the imperialists and prevent another world war.

p The problems of the struggle for peaceful coexistence of states of the two systems, for the deepening of detente, are today the subject of a bitter ideological struggle. Bourgeois and Right-reformist activists argue that the socialist countries’ policy of supporting revolutionary liberation forces is contrary to the principles of peaceful coexistence, is intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, and testifies to the “imperialist”, “aggressive” aspirations of the Soviet Union, etc. Leftist elements, on the contrary, argue that the policy of peaceful coexistence is a policy by which the Soviet Union refuses to support the revolutionary movement, a policy of “collaboration” and imperialism, of preserving the status quo, a policy which, they assert, hampers the development of the world revolutionary process and conflicts with the vital interests of the revolutionary movement.

However, the facts of life and of the struggle of the working class and all liberation forces in the non-socialist countries prove irrefutably that the policy of peace and peaceful coexistence is creating more favourable conditions for the struggle for democratic and socialist aims and is a 223 most important prerequisite for the further development of the world revolutionary process, the essential basis of all social progress.