MARSHAL OGARKOV WRITES ON VICTORY ANNIVERSARY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90T00155R000500030018-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: November 21, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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III. 21 Nov 84 1 USSR
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MARSHAL OGARKOV WRITES ON VICTORY ANNIVERSARY
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PM201115 Moscow KOMMUNTST VOORUZHENNYKH SIL in Russian No 21, Nov 84 -(Signed to
Press 19 Oct 84) pp 16-26 -- FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
[Article by Marshal of the Soviet Union N. Ogarkov under the rubric: '-!OTT the 40th
Anniversary of the Great Victory": "Unfading Glory of Soviet Arms"]
[Text] The Soviet people, our foreign friends, and the entire progressive world
public are preparing to celebrate widely and triumphantly the 40th anniversary of
the Soviet Union's victory in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War. The victory was a
graphic and convincing demonstration of socialism's strength and indestructibility
and of the triumph of the cause of the Great October.
STAT
Objectively considering, from present-day positions, the importance of the victory
over fascist Germany, people of goodwill throughout the world are realizing more and
more distinctly and clearly that it was a truly historic frontier in the face of mankind
and had the most profound influence on the entire course of world development. Here
they express feelings of gratitude and thanks primarily to the heroic Soviet people
who, under the leadership of their Communist Party, in a struggle of unprecedented
scale and ferocity against imperialism's shock force -- Hitler's fascism -- not only
upheld their motherland's honor and independence but also saved the world from the
brown plague and defended the future of world civilization against this plague.
The path of the Soviet people and their Armed Forces toward victory in the Great
Patriotic War was long and hard. It lasted nearly 4 years and passed through
fierce, bloody fighting and battles, through the gravest ordeals. In 1941, exploiting
temporary advantages, the enemy succeeded in invading deep into our country.
But despite this, Soviet people were not demoralized and did not lose the will for
victory over the invaders.
In the extraordinarily complex situation, the Communist Party very rapidly mobilized
to the sacred war the powerful forces of Soviet society with which Great October
had provided it and turned the country into a monolithic fighting camp. In this hard
period, in bloody fighting, our Army, wearing down the enemy's crack divisions, destroyed
his manpower and equipment, staunchly defended itself, and delivered counterstrikes.
Especially hard fighting, which had determining influence on the further course of
the war, developed in the fall of 1941 near Moscow. At that time the peoples of
all countries of the world held their breath as they watched with alarm the historic
battle that developed on the fields near Moscow. A grouping of nearly 2'million
crack fascist troops descended on our motherland's capital.
In the hard defensive fighting from 30 September through 4 December, Soviet troops,
wearing down and draining the enemy units and formations, obliged the enemy to shift
to the offensive. Then the troops of the Western front and the Kalinin, and right
flanks of the southwestern fronts, virtually without an operational pause, moved
to a resolute counteroffensive on 5-6 December and by 8 January 1942 had driven
the enemy 100-250 km back from the walls of Moscow, destroying 11 armored
divisions, 4 motorized divisions, and 23 infantry divisions. At the concluding stage
of the Moscow battle, during the subsequent general offensive, Soviet troops, in
January through April 1942 defeated a further 16 enemy divisions and in the 4 months
of the offensive drove the enemy back a total of 150-400 km. Only the urgent dis-
patch from West Europe of over 12 new divisions saved the fascist group of "center"
armies from total defeat.
For fascist Germany, the Wehrmacht's unprecedented defeat was not simply a military
setback, as the bourgeois falsifiers of history try to depict it, but a real shock
to its entire military system.
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The Soviet Armed Forces had forced Hitler's "invincible" army into a strategic defense
all along the Soviet-German front and had confronted it with the prospect of waging a
protracted war. The "Blitzkrieg" plan had failed. The main idea of fascist Germany's
railitary doctrine was defeated.
The Soviet troops' victory near Moscow was an enormous inspiring incentive for the
entire Soviet people in the further struggle against the aggressor, raised the USSR's
international prestige still higher, eliminated the threat of a German invasion of
Britain, strengthened the foundations of the anti-Hitler coalition, and helped to boost
considerably the liberation movement of the peoples of occupied countries. It was here
that the dawn of our great victory broke. After the Moscow battle, fascist Germany
still, of course, possessed considerable economic and Lilitary potential. Nonetheless,
after the losses it had incurred it was no longer able, as in 1941, to conduct offensive
operations all along the Soviet-German front. And although in the summer of 1942,
exploiting the absence of a second front in Europe, fascist Germany, transferring addi-
tional forces from the West, again launched a major offensive, it was no longer able to
do this all along the Soviet-German front, but only on its southern flank.
In July 1942 the battle of Stalingrad -- the biggest battle of World War II -- began.
The fascists were storming Stalingrad ferociously, increasing their troops from 38 divi-
sions in mid-July to 69 in late August and over 80 divisions by late September, but,
having lost about 700,000 of their soldiers and officers killed and wounded, they were
still unable to break the resistance of the city's defenders. The heroic defense of
Stalingrad proved invincible.
Moving to a swift counteroffensive in November 1942, the Soviet troops inflicted on
Hitler's army here an even more crushing defeat that in the Moscow fighting. In just
6 and 1/2 months of constant fighting and hostilities during the battle of Stalingrad,
the enemy lost up to half a million men -- about one-fourth of his forces operating on
the Soviet-German front at that time. Of his divisions, 32 were totally destroyed or
taken prisoner and 16 were gravely defeated.
The defeat of the German fascist troops at the walls of the fortress on the Volga largely
helped the success of the allies in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Pacific and
at the same time sharply aggravated the crisis in the fascist camp and undermined the
confidence of the European satellites of Hitler's Germany in its ability to withstand
the strikes of the Soviet Armed Forces. Militarist Japan and Turkey definitively
renounced entering the war against the USSR.
The Soviet Armed Forces' victory on the volga made a decisive contribution to the
achievement of a fundamental breakthrough, not only in the Great Patriotic War, but also
in the entire world war. It convincingly showed the whole world the Soviet Union's
invincibility and its ability to defeat fascism by its own efforts. The battle of
Stalingrad laid the foundation to the mass expulsion of the Nazi invaders from Soviet
soil. After the battle of Stalingrad, Hitler's army could only prepare, 6 months later,
a major new offensive on one narrow sector of the front -- the Kursk Bulge. However,
even that plan was not destined to be realized.
In July 1943 the renowned Kursk battle began. In a desperate attempt to seize the
strategic initiative and come what may to change the course of the wear in its favor, the
German fascist command, with a view to carrying out operation "Citadel" to destroy the
grouping of Soviet troops at the Kursk Bulge, concentrated 50 divisions, including
15 armored and motorized divisions, in the regions of Orel and Belgorod.
In the gigantic battle at the Kursk Bulge, which became one of the most important sta^es
on the path to our great victory, the Soviet Armed Forces definitively broke the back of
Hitler's war machine.
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III. 21 Nov 84 3 USSR
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In less than 2 months our troops defeated 30 enemy divisions here. The fascist army
lost about 500,000 soldiers and officers, 1,500 tanks, 3,000 guns and mortars, and over
3,700 aircraft. Developing the offensive and delivering crushing strikes, the Soviet
troops cleared the Donbass and the left-bank Ukraine of the enemy and reached the Dnepr.
Hitler's Germany could no longer recover from this defeat before the end of the war.
If the battle of Moscow dispelled the myth of the fascist army's invincibility, if the
battle of Stalingrad heralded the Wehrmacht's decline, then the fighting at Kursk and
then on the Dnepr faced Hitler's Germany with a catastrophe and marked the conclusion
of a fundamental breakthrough in the Soviet Union's war against Hitler's Germany and
in World War II as a whole.
A correct understanding of the gist of the great battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and
Kursk won by the Soviet Armed Forces and an objective assessment of them are of not only
historical but also sociopolitical importance. The development of a unified understand-
ing of this question is important for scientific research and for a study of the history
of World War II. The role played by the correct assessment of the battles waged is also
important in the present keen ideological struggle against the bourgeois falsifiers.
The achievements of the Soviet people and their Armed Forces in 1943, at the front and
behind the lines, created favorable conditions for the complete expulsion of the German
fascist invaders from our country. This was done in 1944, which has gone down in history
as a year of decisive victories.
The Supreme High Command Headquarters and the General Staff embarked on the drafting
of a plan for military operations for 1944 during the fighting and hostilities in the
fall of 1943. On the basis of a profound, comprehensive analysis of the world military-
political situation and the position and correlation of forces of the warring sides,
it was concluded that there was a real possibility of the Soviet Armed Forces' conducting
a number of large-scale offensive operations in 1944 and not on one or two strategic
salients, as had been the case in previous years of the war, but all along the
Soviet-German front, from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, with a viewoto defeating
the main forces of fascist Germany and its allies, totally liberating the USSR's
territory, and moving hostilities beyond the USSR.
Continuing combat operations in secondary theaters (Africa, Italy, and the Atlantic),
the United States and Britain at that time adopted a temporizing stance and delayed
opening a second front in Europe.
Hitler's command, assessing the prevailing situation on the Eastern front, sought to
use strategic defense to exhaust the strength of the Soviet Army and deprive it of its
offensive potential. But these enemy plans were thwarted.
The Soviet Armed Forces' military operations during the year of decisive battles were
unleashed a week before the start of 1944 in the Right-bank Ukraine with an offensive
by the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th Ukrainian fronts under the command of Generals N.F. Vatutin,
I.S. Konev, R. Ya. Malinovskiy, and F.I. Tolbukhin. Despite the complex conditions of
the unsettled winter weather and the bad roads in the spring, the Soviet troops,
delivering consistent and one-time strikes, broke the enemy defense within a sector of
1,400 km from Pripyat to the lower reaches of the Dnepr and defeated about 100 enemy
divisions. By the summer of 1944 they had completed liberated the Right-bank Ukraine,
the Crimea, and a substantial part of Moldavia and had reached the border with Romania
and move hostilities to its territory. As a result of Soviet troops' successful
operations on the southwestern salient, an advantageous situation was created for
launching strategic offensive operations on other salients of the Soviet-German
front.
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As early as mid-January 1944, when the Hitlerite command's entire attention was focused
on the Right-bank Ukraine, the offensive of the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov
fronts began under the command of Generals L.A. Govorov and K.A. Meretskov in conjunc-
tion with the troops of the 2d Baltic front under the command of General M.M. Popov.
Delivering powerful strikes against the enemy, Soviet troops defeated the deeply eche-
loned defense of the armies of the "North" group and by late February had reached the
Narva-Godv-Pskov line. Advancing 220-280 km, they defeated 26 enemy divisions,
liberated Leningrad from the blockade, purged almost all of Leningrad Oblast and part
of Kalinin Oblast, and created favorable preconditions for offensive operations on the
Karelian Isthmus and the Baltic.
Simultaneously with the operations in the Right-bank Ukraine and near Leningrad, the
Soviet Army launched offensive operations on the central sector of the Soviet-German
front. The troops of the 1st Baltic, Western, and Belorussian (as of 17 February 1944
the 1st Belorussian) fronts under the command of Generals I.K. Bagramyan, V.D.
Sokolovskiy, and K.K. Rokossovskiy used their combat active operations to reliably tie
down the group of "Center" armies and prevented its forces and weapons from maneuvering
to the Right-bank Ukraine and Leningrad, where the troops of Hitler's reich were
suffering a grave defeat. Here our troops liberated part of Belorussia and improved
their operational position, capturing in depth the flanks of the group of "Center"
armies and creating favorable conditions for its defeat.
The June 1944 summer offensive was opened initially by the troops of the Leningrad and
Karelian (the commander was general K.A. Meretskov) fronts in Karelia with the
assistance of the Baltic Fleet under the command of Admiral V.F. Tributs. Having
broken the Finns' powerful defense on the Karelian Isthmus, the Soviet troops liberated
almost the entire territory of Karelia by late August. In early September the Finnish
Government asked for peace. Thus, after Italy, fascist Germany lost one more ally.
On 23 June 1944 there began in Belorussia the very large-scale "Bagration" operation by
troops of the 1st Baltic front (the commander was General I.D. Chernyakhoskiy), the 2d
Belorussian front (the commander was General G.F. Zakhorov), and the 1st Belorussian
front (the commander was General K.K. Rokossovskiy). Moving to the offensive on a
sector of over 1,100 km, the Soviet troops broke through the enemy defense with almost
simultaneous strikes on six sections on a front of 500 km and surrounded and destroyed
large fascist troops groupings in the regions of Vitebsk and Bobruysk. Developing the
offensive on converging salients, they surrounded a 105,000-strong enemy grouping east
of Minsk and soon annihilated it. During the further offensive, the Soviet troops lib-
erated Belorussia, almost all of Lithuania, part of Latvia, and the eastern regions of
Poland and reached Eastern Prussia. During the "Bagration" operation, 17 enemy divi-
sions and 3 enemy brigades were totally destroyed and 50 divisions suffered heavy
losses.
The successful development of the Belorussian operation created favorable preconditions
for conducting the Lvov-Sandomir operation to defeat the "North Ukraine" group of
a rnies. On 13 July 1944 troops of the 1st Ukrainian front under the command of Marshal
of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev delivered a powerful strike on the Rava-Russkaya and Lvov
salients and broke through the enemy defense within a 200-km zone. Developing the of-
fensive, on 27 July the troops liberated Lvov and in the first days of August they
forced the Vistula on the march and seized a bridgehead in the Sandomir region. In
their offensive operation the Soviet troops destroyed 8 enemy divisions and caused enor-
mous personnel losses to 32 divisions. West Ukraine and the southeast part of Poland
were liberated.
The echoes of the triumphal salutes in honor of the Soviet Army's victories in
Belorussia and the western oblasts of the Ukraine had not died down before a new strike
was delivered against the fascist invaders, this time in Moldavia. On 20 August troops
of the 2d and 3d Ukrainian fronts under the command of Generals R.Ya. Malinovskiy and
F.I. Tolbukhin began the Yassy-Kishinev operation.
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Delivering powerful strikes, by 24 August they had already completed the encirclement
of 18 of the 25 German divisions of the "South Ukraine" group of armies. A day before
troops of the left flank of the 3d Ukrainian front had surrounded the 3d Romanian Army
in the Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy region. During the Soviet Army's successful offensive
favorable conditions were created for the Romanian people's armed uprising, as a result
of which the country's antifascist forces, under the leadership of the Communist Party,
overthrew the dictatorship ruling the country. On 23 August the new Romanian Government
decided to withdraw from the alliance with Germany and declared war on it.
Having successfully completed the Yassy-Kishinev operation by the end of August, the
troops of the 2d Ukrainian front, with the participation of Romanian troop units,
liberated almost all of Romania in September and reached the border with Hungary and
Yugoslavia. The troops of the 3d Ukrainian front at the same time went into Bulgarian
territory. The people of Bulgaria, led by the Communist Party, overthrew the fascist
regime on 9 September and formed a democratic government which took up arms against
fascist Germany. Developing the success that had been achieved, the troops of the 3d
Ukrainian front moved hostilities to Yugoslav territory in late September and set about
liberating the country from Hitler's yoke. At the same time, troops of the 2d Ukrainian
front, carrying out the Debrecen operation, liberated the majority of Hungary's terri-
tory. Developing the offensive, by late December 1944 the troops of the 2d and 3d
Ukrainian fronts had encircled an enemy grouping of nearly 180,000 men near Budapest.
On 28 December 1944 the new Hungarian Government declared war on Hitler's Germany.
In late August 1944 an antifascist armed uprising erupted in Slovakia. To render fra-
ternal aid to the Slovak people, Soviet troops used the forces of the 4th Ukrainian
front (under the command of General I. Ye. Petrov) and part of the forces of the 1st
Ukrainian front to carry out the East Carpathian offensive operation. Having broken
through the enemy defense Soviet troops, together with General L. Svoboda's 1st
Czechoslovak corps, crossed the Carpathian mountains in the Dukla region in early
October and created conditions for Czechoslovakia's liberation.
In the fall of 1944, the troops of the Karelian front under the command of General K.A.
Meretskov, with the assistance of the Northern Fleet under the command of Admiral A.G.
Golovko, under the exceptionally difficult Arctic conditions defeated the 20th German
Mountain Army and reached the Norwegian borders.
The Soviet Armed Forces' crushing strikes in 1943 and early 1944, which essentially
presaged the fate of fascist Germany, compelled the U.S. and British ruling circles
to set about opening up a second front in Europe. On 6 June 1944 a large-scale allied
troops landing operation began in Normandy under the command of U.S. General D. Eisen-
hower. By late June the number of allied troops landed on French territory already
totaled about 900,000. The operation's success was largly helped by the fact that the
German fascist command had its main forces -- about 230 of the most combat-capable
divisions in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, including 18 divisions at the forma-
tion stage.
Western historians are making tremendous efforts in an attempt to prove today that when
the second front in Europe was opened up it became virtually the main front of World
War IT. Those stories are absolutely unfounded. The facts convincingly refute them.
Thus, for instance, in the summer and fall of 1944, U.S.-British troops destroyed 35
enemy divisions, while the Soviet Army destroyed and captured 96 divisions and 24
brigades, defecting 219 divisions and 22 brigades over the same period. Despite the
allied troops' offensive launched in France and Italy, Hitler's command kept the main
mass of its forces -- 185 divisions -- on the Eastern front in late 1944 and only 74
divisions on the Western front.
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Even after the second front had been opened up in Europe the Soviet Armed Forces thus
remained the main strike force of the anti-Hitler coalition and continued to make the
decisive contribution to the defeat of fascist Germany.
The year of 1944 was truly a year of decisive victories for the Soviet Union. As a re-
sult of the successful strategic offensive operations on the Right-bank Ukraine, in the
Crimea, and near Leningrad and Novgorod and in Karelia, Belorussia, the West Ukraine,
Moldavia, the Baltic region, and the Arctic, the Soviet Armed Forces totally purged the
Soviet land of Hitler's invaders and moved hostilities to the territory of the countries
of central and southeast Europe occupoed by the fascists. Educated by the Communist
Party in a spirit of proletarian internationalism, the USSR Armed Forces rendered tre-
mendous selfless aid to those countries' peoples in their liberation from the foreign
yoke. By late 1944 Romania, Bulgaria, a considerable part of Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, and Yugoslavia, and north Norway had been purged of German fascist occupiers by
Soviet troops.
One of the most important political results of the Soviet Union's imposing victories was
the collapse of the fascist bloc in Europe. Finland, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria
broke off their alliance with Germany and declared war on it. The flanks of its strate-
gic front in the east were exposed. A number of neutral states completely halted supplies
of strategic war materials to Germany. Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with it.
By late 1944 fascist Germany's only remaining ally was Japan. The struggle of the
enslaved countries' peoples against Hitler's fascism and Japanese militarism was kindled
with new force. The victorious completion of the peoples' imposing battle against the
forces of reaction and obscurantism became increasingly visible.
The USSR's military successes exerted decisive influence on the fundamental sociopoliti-
cal changes in the European countries it had liberated. Under the leadership of the
communist and workers parties the people's masses of these countries embarked on the path
of carrying out popular-democratic and socialist revolutions, which were the continua-
tion and development of the process of man's revolutionary transition from capitalism
to socialism, whose foundation was laid by the Great October.
In 1944 the Soviet Armed Forces carried out 10 major strategic offensive operations
during which many dozen front and army operations were carried out. They graphically
showed the superiority of Soviet military art. Strategic operations like the Belorussian,
Yassy-Kishinev, Lvov-Sandomir, and other strategic operations which have considerably
enriched Soviet military science have been added as golden assets to its treasury.
In particular questions of preparing and mounting strategic offensive operations by the
fronts' groups, of selecting the avenues for a main strike and means of encircling and
defeating large enemy groupings, achieving rapid offensive rates, organizing interaction,
and so forth were further developed. Questions of the combat application of mobile army
groups and fronts, artillery and aircraft attack, and all-around backup for combat
operations were also creatively resolved.
Winning major new victories in 1944, the USSR Armed Forces again showed the whole world
the invincibility and tremendous potential of the socialist social and state system.
These victories were the result of the Communist Party's multifaceted organizational and
political work and the entire Soviet people's heroic efforts both at the front and behind
the lines. They raised still higher the international prestige and influence of the
world's first socialist state.
Developing the successes achieved in 1944, the Soviet Armed Forces in 1945 delivered new
crushing strikes against the enemy in 1945. The apotheosis of the Soviet people's Great
Patriotic War against Hitler's Germany was the imposing Berlin operation, during which
Soviet troops defeated a fascist troop grouping of almost 1 million.
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The scarlet banner of victory fluttered proudly over nazism's overthrown citadel, while
the standards of Hitler's "invincible" army lay at the feet of the heroic Soviet people,
the victorious people.
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During the war the Soviet Armed Forces were firmly and skillfully led by the Supreme
High Command Headquarters headed by J.V. Stalin and by its operational organ of con-
trol - the General Staff. They constantly felt the tense pulse of war, creatively
planned operations and led them precisely, trained strategic reserves in a planned
manner, and used them efficiently and skillfully, carefully considering the development
of events on the enormous expanses gripped by World War II. A great personal contribu-
tion to the victory over the enemy was made by representatives of the Supreme High
Command Headquarters and chiefs of general staff of the Great Patriotic War period:
G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevskiy, B.M. Shaposhnikov, and A.I. Antonov. The commanders,
staffs, and political organs of the fronts, fleets, armies, and flotillas invested a
great deal of labor in preparing and conducting operations.
During the war the mighty strength of our Communist Party, the great leader and
experienced and talented guide of the Soviet people, headed by its combat staff, the
Leninist Central Committee, was revealed in all its magnitude. The Communist Party
acted with Leninist wisdom and vigor and, as during the civil war, became a truly
fighting party. While early in the war every ninth serviceman was a Communist, by
the end of the war the figure was one in every four.
The Soviet people were the main creators of the victory. The victory was selflessly
forged at the front and behind the lines by Soviet people of all nationalities and pro-
fessions, by urban and rural workers, men and women, Communists, Komsomol members, and
nonparty people. It was truly an exploit of all the people. The profoundly just nature
of the Great Patriotic War generated the high morale of the troops, the unprecedented
scale of the partisan warfare, and the unrivaled labor enthusiasm of the county's
entire population.
The results of the Great Patriotic War convincingly showed yet again that imperialism
cannot halt the advance of socialism, that there have not been, are not, and will not be
forces in the world that can bring the great Soviet people to their knees. "June 1941
will not be repeated," Comrade K.U. Chernenko stresses. "Immediate retribution will
overtake any aggressor. Let everyone - our friends and our foes -- know that."
The Soviet Union's victory in the Great Patriotic War marked the start of a new stage
in world history and gave rise to the emergence of objective conditions and opportuni-
ties for the eradication of military cataclysms from the life of the world community.
K
The 40th anniversary of our great victory is approaching. In the grim war years the
invincible aspiration of millions of people throughout the world to gain victory was
inspired not only by the belief that they would soon be rid of fascist enslavement but
also by the hope that nothing of the kind would ever happen again. They could not allow
the thought that after 6 years of bloody nightmare there would be maniacs who would
resolve to trample on the memory of tens of millions of people who had given their lives
for victory and to push mankind into the abyss of a new war. People thirsted for peace
and had an indisputable right to it.
But World War II did not eliminate the source of constant military danger that imperial-
ism represents. Moreover, as a result of the continuing general crisis of capitalism
the aggressiveness of imperialist policy has increased.
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The new claimants to world rule -- the U.S. militarists -- have learned nothing from the
experience of their German fascist ideological predecessors and rivals and have seized
on their delirious designs. Growing very rich on the blood and suffering of millions,
blackmailing the world with the nuclear weapons created at the end of World War II, they
have considered it almost their natural right to win world dominion and eliminate all
those who are preventing them from establishing it.
There has been a particularly sharp increase in reckless bellicosity in the United
States in the eighties with the arrival in the White House of the administration of
R. Reagan, the stooge of the most reactionary and aggressive circles of U.S.
imperialism. It was to their advantage and in accordance with their scenario, in the
heat of this imperial ambitions that he deliberately broke off the talks in Geneva and
unleashed the unrestrained arms race and is thoughtlessly pushing the world toward
nuclear war. The U.S. President noisily declared a "crusade" against soicalism.
Counter to sanity, using the short-sightedness of the ruling circles of a number of
NATO countries, he began to deploy first-strike nuclear weapons in West Europe; he
allows himself to juggle irresponsibly and cynically with "jokes" about nuclear bomb
attacks on the USSR.
You ask: How should all these threats be understood? Do they mean that the destiny of
war and peace is wholly in the hands of the U.S. "hawks" and that all that is left for
mankind is to bow its head in submission and wait for its fate to be decided by
madmen? Do they mean that there is no force in the world capable of twisting the arms
of the maniacs who have raised the sword of death over the world? No, that is not
what they mean. War can and must be prevented. The lessons of history demand it.
As is well known, World War I began a decade after the 1904-1905 Russio-Japanese war --
one of the first major armed clashes of the era of imperialism. At the time it was
virtually impossible to avert it. It was unleashed under conditions when capitalism
was the only all-encompassing system, when the leading capitalist states' political
course was wholly determined by the bourgeoisie which ruled the international arena
undivided. The peace-loving forces were still extremely weak and uncoordinated while
the leaders of the social democratic parties of the majority of European countries,
betraying their peoples'?interests, had embarked on the path of chauvinism and open
support for the bourgeoisie's militarist policy. World War I continued 4 years and
took 10 million human lives.
An interval of 20 years spearated World War II from World War I. And although in that
time capitalism was no longer an all-embracing system, the threat of war was nonetheless
not successfully averted. In the prewar years the world's first and at that time only
socialist state, the Soviet Union, pursuing a consistent policy of peace resolutely
advocated curbing the fascist aggressors and creating a system of collective security.
However, all the USSR's efforts to preserve peace encountered the short-sighted
anti-Soviet policy of the United States, Britain, France, and a number of other
capitalist states which encouraged the Nazi aggressors to unleash war in East Europe
and to undertake a "crusade" against the USSR. World War II lasted 6 years and took
over 50 million lives.
Nearly 40 years have elapsed since World War II. The political map of the world has
now been fundamentally transformed. The defeat of fascist Germany and militarist
Japan in 1945, the implementation of socialist revolutions in a number of countries,
and the formation of a world socialist system, the building of developed socialism
in the USSR and the successful building of a new society in other fraternal countries,
the upsurge of the national liberation movement and the complete collapse of the
colonial system have fundamentally altered the nature of the world and the correlation
of class and sociopolitical forces in the international arena in favor of socialism.
[Annex continues on back pages of report]
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:II. 21 Nov 84 9 USSR
ANNEX
I ver new states are dropping from the capitalist system, now in one part of the
world, now in another. Capitalism's sphere of influence in narrowing inexorably.
Capitalism, U.S. capitalism in particular, despite its still considerable reserves,
has ceased to be an economic, political, and military force monopolizing the present-
day world and cannot determine the fate of mankind on its own.
In our day the imperialist bourgeoisie has become the "declining, decadent, inter-
nally dead, reactionary" class. (V.I. Lenin: "Complete Collected Works," Vol 26,
pp 145-146) That is why the unprecedented impudence of its monopolist ruling clique
which is threateningly and ostentatiously brandishing its "atomic stick" and noisy
declarations of "crusades" against socialism is by no means a sign of strength, but
a;manifestation of weakness, of the historical futility of the capitalist system.
The correlations of forces in the international arena has changed irreversibly in
favor of the forces of peace and social progress. Real objective preconditions have
formed for the elimination of war from the life of society.
On the historical plane the theoretical and practical activity of the leader of the
world proletariat, V.I. Lenin, and his creative development of K. Marx' teaching
under new historical conditions serve as a classic example of a profoundly scientific
approach to the solution of questions of society's develppment, including the vitally
important problem of war and peace. On the basis of a profound, all-around
analysis of capitalism and its supreme stage -- imperialism -- Lenin scientifically
substantiated the possibility and inevitability of the victory of socialism, initially
in a few or even just one individual capitalist country. Lenin's brilliant scientific
perspicacity was fully confirmed by the victory of socialist revolution in Russia
and by the entire course of subsequent historical development.
Can our time the Communist Party, guided by the theory of Marxism-Leninism and creatively
developing and-enriching it with application to the present situation, has drawn the
conclusion that war is not fatally inevitable. Although the class nature and aggres-
sive essence of imperialism remain unchanged, the deepening of the overall crisis
of capitalism and the intensification of socialism's role in international life, the
formation and steady development of the world socialist system, the raising of the
socialist community countries' defense capability to the level of the guaranteed
destruction [sokrusheniye] of any aggressor, and the increase in the cohesion and
activation of the Nonaligned Movement and of other peace-loving forces and movements
considerably restrict imperialism's opportunities for unleashing aggressive wars,
especially against the socialist countries, and create sociopolitical and-military
- pr?
technical preconditions for preventing a new world war. Here, o course, fh-etheatt 1
The socialist communist countries headed by the Soviet Union, which knows better than
any other state the true price of the horrors of war and is therefore waging a tireless
struggle against it with particular persistence, are the decisive factor in preventing
war and the main bulwark of the world's peoples in the struggle for peace. The
Soviet Union's Leninist foreign policy has for nearly 7 decades now been subject to
no considerations of expediency and is aimed at the all-around consolidation of peace.
The Communist Party has always been opposed to militarism and the export of revolution.
War does not accord with the nature of socialism. It is well known that right up to
the Great `Octover Socialist Revolution the party's Program made no provision at all
for the creation of a regular army. The Russian working people had sufficient
volunteer formations -- the Red Guard and the revolutionary units of the old army --
to overthrow tsarism and the bourgeois provisional government in 1917. Only the
danger of military intervention, the actions of the internal counterrevolution supported
by foreign capital, and the threat to the existence of Soviet power obliged Lenin
and the Communist Party to set about creating the regular Red Army for the sole
purpose of "protecting the gains of the revolution... against all the enemies of the
people..." (V.I. Lenin: "Complete Collected Works," Vol 35, p 216)
STAT
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III. 21 Nov 84 10 USSR
ANNEX
The consistent struggle for peace and the consolidation of international security
comprise the general line of the foreign policy activity of the Communist Party and
Soviet state. And the economic and military might of the Soviet Union and all
countries of the soda t community and their armed forces constant high combat
readiness are the main restraining factor and insurmountable barrier to an aggressor
in his attempts to kindle the conflagration of a new wor war. It is for that reason
that our defense potential, as Comrade K.U. Chernenko pointed out, "is not only a
guarantee of the Soviet people's constructive labor but also a guarantee of universal
world peace."
To attempt to break the established military equilibrium and to seek military super-
iority over the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries is an undertaking no less
futile than nurturing hopes of a victory for the aggressor in nuclear war. The Soviet
people and their allies in the Warsaw Pact are not seeking military superiority
over other countries and our military doctrine has always been and is of a strictly
defensive orientation. But they have sufficient forces and potential to prevent
superiority over themselves.
The international communist and workers movement has become a powerful, influential
present-day political force in the struggle for peace and social progress. It now
numbers about 100 parties in its ranks. Reflecting the feelings and aspirations of
the peoples' broadest masses, the communist and workers parties advocate the conservation
of the cause of disarmament and raise the people's masses to the all-around activation
of the antiwar movement and the struggle to spare mankind from the threat of a nuclear
missile war. The organized working class' participation in the antiwar movement is
growing. This imparts a more resolute nature to the entire movement and increases
its degree of organization. C
An important factor in the struggle for the prevention of war and for peaceful coexist-
ence is the national liberation movement and the enhanced role of the Nonaligned
Movement. By the early eighties there were over 110 developing states that had achieved
national independence in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and of these about 20 have
chosen a path of socialist orientation.
As a component of the peace movement, the peoples' struggle for independence and social
progress invariably leads to the steady weakening of world imperialism's positions,
the narrowing of its social base, and the further intensification of its overall
crisis. All this as a whole helps to prevent wars.
The world's peoples are responding to the stepping up of the threat of war by the
broad scope of the antiwar movement and the struggle for peace. The populations of
Britain, France, Italy, and many other countries greeted the deployment of U.S.
Pershings and cruise missiles in West Europe with mass, unceasing protest demonstrations.
These demonstrations have encompassed literally all social strata -- from workers and
scientists to clergymen, parliamentarians, and housewives. The peoples' struggle
gainst U.S. acts of aggression in the Near East and Central America has acquired broad
scope. All the attempts of the Reagan administration and its vassals to undermine
or at least weaken the pitch of this movement are proving futile.
The growing scope of the antiwar, anti-imperialist struggle throughout the world is
'a reflection of a common natural historical law of social development: the enhancement
of the people's role as the makers of history. The working masses are intervening
increasingly persistently and vigorously in the world's destiny and in the solution
of the most important and urgent problem of the present day, the prevention of a
nuclear catastrophe. There is no doubt that as the masses become even more deeply
aware of the menacing danger of the pernicious consequence of a thermonuclear conflict
and of its true sources, the scope of this movement will grow steadily. It cannot
be ignored even now. Of course, of itself the antiwar movement does not fully resolve
the problem of war and peace. However, it can considerably restrict the freedom of
action of the unbridled bourgeois rulers and their masters.
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III. 21 Nov 84
11 USSR
ANNEX
(-,,e strength of the working masses' pressure and awareness, Lenin pointed out, has fre-
quently "snapped off the spearhead of the imperialists' bellicose policy." ("Complete
Collected Works," Vol 42, p 134) Under present conditions the influence of this force
has increased by many times and it is becoming dangerous to ignore it.
Alongside the above-mentioned sociopolitical factors there are now other purely ili f
tare preconditions restri-citing imperialism's opportunity for unleashing new wars.
These preconditions are caused by the rapid scientifc and technical progress -which has
led to a dialetical leap, to-a veritable revolution in military matters. The appear-
ance of nuclear weapons, with their unbelievable strike power, in 1945 and their rapid
subsequent improvement posed a new way the question of the expediency of war as a
means of achieving a political enc,,. Th, grim reality of our days that, in contrast~~
to the past, the very correlation of important categories e "war" and policy
has changed. Only when you have definitely lost your sense of reason can you try
to-find arguments or to define a goal that would justify unleashing a world nuclear
war, thus confronting human civilication with the threat of destruction. "Hence,"
Comrade K.U. Chernenko has indicated, "the irrefutable conclusion that it is criminal
to view thermonuclear war as a 1, almo 'legitimate' continuation of policy."
Through the fault of the United States, which has paunched an unbridled arms race,
stockpiles of nuclear weapons have been accumulated in the world today which, from --' the
military viewpoint, are already truly absurd. Thus, for instance, in just one
first strike, U.S. strategic nuclear forces can now use about 12,000 nuclear charges
with a total yield hundreds of times in excess of the total yield of all explosives
and ammunition employed by all the world's states in the entire 6 years of World War II.
And that is just for the above-mentioned forces in the United States alone. Yet if you
nsider that there is approximate parity in the sides' nuclear arms, you do not need
o be a military specialist to understand that the further stockpiling of these arms
becomes simply pointless. Excessively large stockpiles of nuclear weapons- not only do
not guarantee security and impunity for any aggressive state but rather the reverse:
They increase the danger that it will be subjected to crushing retribution from the
victim of aggression.
Thus, for the first time in historythemain sides confronting each other have created
a surplus of military potentials, primarily nuclear potentials. And this alters the
qualitative aspect of the phenomenon in military matters. As a result a paradox
arises: On the one hand there would seem to be a process whereby a nuclear state's
potential for destroying an enemy and safeguarding its own security is steadily
increasing and on the other there is just as steady and one might say an even sharper
reduction in the potential for aggressors to deliver a so-called "disarming strike"
against their main adversary.
The point is that with the quantity and diversity of nuclear missile weapons now ,
achieved it is already simply impossible for an aggressor to totally destroy the oppo-
site side's similar weapons in a single strike. And an immediate.; crushing response
using even the limited quantity of nuclear weapons remaining to the defending side --
a response making it imRossihl.eor the app re-ssor subsequently to. gaga--war or to
IJ conduct any serious o -2erati,ens.-..-'4ecomes inevftalilei d rpreeent._?conditions.`T1i '
to
tegists' counting on the possibility of waging a "limited" nuclear
tran~tYarif-icstra -
war has no foundation whatsoever. Any limited use of nuclear weapons will inevitably
lead to the irimiediate use of the sides', entire nuclear arsenal. That is the grim logic
of war. The Pentagon's dreams of the possibility of a so-called "unanswered limited
nuclear strike" against the enemy's main centers and control points are all the more
nsound. These strictly bureaucratic and militarily incompetent arguments are
absolutely unfounded and dangerous. The propaganda of these ignorant arguments must
be exposed.
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III. 21 Nov 84 12 USSR
ANNEX
All this is evidence that Lenin's conclusion that the danger of war "will not cease
as long as world imperialism exists" ("Complete Collected Works," Vol 42, p 173)
undoubtedly retains its topicality even today. However, the ualititively new histori-
cal, sociopolitical, and military-technical preconditiong ces whic ave
fotnrt-Tn a presen -ay world create conditions for eliminating wars as--a-sociopoli-
tical phenomenon and primarily word wars-which contain the t rea of the destruction
of all world civilization.
x x
Nearly 40 years separate us from the spring of 1945, which announced the Soviet Union's
victory in the Great Patriotic War. It was great victory for the sake of peace and
life on earth, for thetriumph of freedom, democracy, and social progress. The year
of 1944, the year of the Soviet Armed Forces' decisive victories over fascism, was of
special importance on the path toward this bright and joyous holiday.
The lessons of the past war are of abiding significance today. ?And "the main lesson,"
the CPSU Central Committee resolution "On the 40th Anniversary of the Soviet People's
Victory in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War" stresses, "is that war must be combated
before it begins." And the opportunities and forces, considerable forces, for doing
this now exist. Today the aggressive circles of imperialism can no longer fail to
consider the growing weight and influence of these forces or the might of the Warsaw
Pact Joint Armed Forces. And, as Comrade K.U. Chernenko noted, "as long as military
and political tension exists, as long as the numclear missile threat from the United
States and the NATO states looms over our country, wemust_keep our powder dry,
always be on guard to ensure that the correlation of forces does not change in
imperialism's favor and that we do not prove to be the weaker."
These instructions from the CPSU Central Committee general secretary and chairman of
the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium accord with the aspirations of the Soviet people
and the peoples of the whole world. At the same time they are a program for the
activity of the Soviet Armed Forces whose sacred duty, together with their combat
allies in the Warsaw Pact, the armies of the other socialist community countries, is
to reliably defend the gains of socialism and peace on earth.
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