When is War Not Inevitable?

Stalin

For Peaceful Coexistence: Post War Interviews

[Excerpts from an interview with correspondent of Pravda, February 16, 1951)

Question: Do you consider a new world war inevitable?

Answer: No. At least at the present time it cannot be considered inevitable.

Of course, in the United States of America, in Britain, as also in France, there are aggressive forces thirsting for a new war. They need war to obtain super-profits, to plunder other countries. These are the billionaires and millionaires who regard war as an item of income which gives colossal profits.

They, these aggressive forces, control the reactionary governments and direct them. But at the same time, they are afraid of their people who do not want a new war and stand for the maintenance of peace. Therefore, they are trying to use reactionary governments in order to enmesh their peoples with lies, to deceive them, and to depict the new war as defensive and the peaceful policy of the peace-loving countries as aggressive. They are trying to deceive their people in order to impose on them their aggressive plans and to draw them into a war.

Precisely for this reason they are afraid of the campaign in defense of peace, fearing that it can expose the aggressive intentions of the reactionary governments.

Precisely for this reason they turned down the proposal of the Soviet Union for the conclusion of a Peace Pact, for the reduction of armaments, for banning the atomic weapon, fearing that the adoption of these proposals would undermine the aggressive measures of the reactionary governments and make the armaments race unnecessary.

What will be the end of this struggle between the aggressive and peace-loving forces?

Peace will be preserved and consolidated if the people take the cause of preserving peace into their own hands and will defend it to the end. War may become inevitable if the warmongers succeed in entangling the masses of the people in lies, in deceiving them and drawing them into a new world war.

That is why the wide campaign for the maintenance of peace as a means of exposing the criminal machinations of the warmongers is now of first-rate importance.

As for the Soviet Union, it will continue in the future as well firmly to pursue the policy of averting war and maintaining peace.