From the 18th Congress -1939

Stalin
Comrades! Five years have passed since the 17th Party Congress. .. During this time, the world has experienced significant changes. States and countries, their relations with each other, have become completely different in many respects...For the capitalist countries, this period was one of the most serious upheavals both in the field of economy and in the field of politics. In the economic sphere, these years were years of depression, and then, starting from the second half of 1937, years of a new economic crisis, years of a new decline in industry in the USA, Anglin, France, and consequently, years of new economic complications. In the political sphere, these years were years of serious political conflicts and upheavals. For the second year now, a new imperialist war has been going on..This is the general picture.

Let us consider concrete data on changes in the international situation.

1. A new economic crisis in the capitalist countries. Aggravation of the struggle for sales markets, for sources of raw materials, for a new redistribution of the world... starting from the second half of 1937, a new economic crisis began, which seized primarily the United States, and after them, England, France, and several other countries. Thus, not having yet had time to recover from the blows of the recent economic crisis, the capitalist countries found themselves in the face of a new economic crisis.

A characteristic feature of the new crisis is that it differs in many respects from the previous crisis, and differs not for the better, but for the worse.

In contrast to the previous crisis, the current crisis is not universal, but affects, for the time being, mainly economically powerful countries that have not yet switched over to the rails of a war economy. As for the aggressive countries, like Japan, Germany and Italy, which have already reorganized their economies on a war footing, they, while intensively developing their war industry, are not yet experiencing a state of overproduction crisis, although they are approaching it.

This means that while economically powerful, non-aggressive countries will begin to emerge from a period of crisis. Aggressive countries, having depleted their gold and raw material reserves in the course of military fever, will have to enter a period of severe crisis.

There can be no doubt that, barring something unforeseen, German industry will have to take the same downward path that Japan and Italy have already taken. For what does it mean to put the country's economy on the rails of a war economy?

This means giving industry a one-sided, military direction, expanding in every possible way the production of items necessary for war, not connected with the consumption of the population, limiting production in every possible way, and especially the release to the market of consumer goods, consequently reducing the consumption of the population and putting the country before an economic crisis.

Such is the concrete picture of the movement of the new economic crisis in the capitalist countries.

It is clear that such an unfavorable turn of economic affairs could not but lead to an aggravation of relations between the powers. Already the previous crisis mixed up all the cards and led to an intensification of the struggle over markets, over sources of raw materials. 

A new economic crisis is leading to a further intensification of the imperialist struggle. This is no longer about competition in the markets, not about a trade war, not about dumping. These means of struggle have long been recognized as inadequate. We are now talking about a new redistribution of the world, spheres of influence, colonies through military operations.

2. Exacerbation of the mixed-pastoral political situation, the collapse of the post-war system of peace treaties, the beginning of a new imperialist war.

After the first imperialist war, the victorious states, mainly Britain, France and the USA, created a new regime of relations between countries, the post-war peace regime.

The main foundations of this regime were in the Far East the treaty of the nine powers, and in Europe the Treaty of Versailles and a number of other treaties. However, the three aggressive states and the new imperialist war they started turned the whole system of the post-war peaceful regime upside down. Japan broke the Nine-Power Treaty, Germany and Italy the Treaty of Versailles.

The new imperialist war has become a fact.

In our time, it is not so easy to break free from the chain at once and rush straight into war, regardless of treaties of various kinds, regardless of public opinion. Bourgeois politicians know this well enough. This is also known to the fascist bosses. That is why the fascist bosses, before rushing into the war, decided in a certain way to manipulate public opinion, i.e., to mislead it, to deceive it.

A war against the interests of England, France, the USA? Trivia! "We" are waging war against the Comintern, not against these states. If you don't believe me, read the "anti-communist pact" concluded between Italy, Germany and Japan.

This is how the aggressors thought to manipulate public opinion... The war remained as a war, the military bloc of the aggressors as military bloc, and the aggressors as the aggressors.

A characteristic feature of the new imperialist war is that it has not yet become a general, world war. The aggressor states are waging war, infringing on the interests of non-aggressive states in every way, primarily England, France, the USA, while the latter are stepping back and retreating, giving the aggressors concession after concession.

Thus, we are witnessing an open redistribution of the world and spheres of influence at the expense of the interests of non-aggressive states without any attempts to fight back and even with some connivance on the part of the latter.

Unbelievable but true.

How to explain such a one-sided and strange character of the new imperialist war?

How could it happen that non-aggressive countries, which have enormous potentialities, so easily and without rebuff gave up their positions and their obligations in favor of the aggressors?

Is this due to the weakness of non-aggressive states? Of course not!

Non-aggressive, democratic states taken together are indisputably stronger than fascist states both economically and militarily.

How, then, can one explain the systematic concessions of these states to the aggressors?

This could be explained, for example, by a feeling of fear of a revolution that could break out if non-aggressive states enter the war and the war takes on a global character. Bourgeois politicians, of course, know that the first imperialist world war brought victory to the revolution in one of the largest countries. They fear that a second imperialist world war may also lead to the victory of the revolution in one or more countries.

But this is not the only or even the main reason. The main reason is the refusal of the majority of non-aggressive countries, and, above all, Britain and France, from the policy of collective security, from the policy of collective resistance to aggressors, in their transition to a position of non-intervention, to a position of "neutrality".

Formally, the policy of non-intervention could be characterized as follows:

“Let each country defend itself against aggressors as it wants and as best it can, that is not our business, we will trade with both the aggressors and their victims.”

In reality, however, the policy of non-intervention means condoning aggression, unleashing a war, and consequently turning it into a world war.

In the policy of non-intervention, there is a desire, a desire not to prevent the aggressors from doing their dirty work, not to prevent, say, Japan from getting involved in a war with China, or even better with the Soviet Union, not to prevent, say, Germany from getting bogged down in European affairs, getting involved in a war with by the Soviet Union, let all the participants in the war get bogged down deep in the mire of war, encourage them to do so on the sly, let them weaken and exhaust each other, and then, when they are sufficiently weakened, come onto the stage with fresh strength, come out, of course, "in the interests of peace”, and dictate their conditions to the weakened participants in the war.

Cheap and nicely!

I am far from moralizing about the policy of non-intervention, talking about treason, betrayal, and so on. It is naive to read morality to people who do not recognize human morality. Politics is politics, as old, seasoned bourgeois diplomats say. It must be noted, however, that the great and dangerous political game begun by the supporters of the policy of non-intervention may end in a serious failure for them.

D. MANUILSKY

Comrades, in the five years that separate the Eighteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) from the Seventeenth Congress, big changes have taken place in the life of classes, peoples and states, changes which testify that all the contradictions of the capi­talist system have grown more acute and that the gulf be­ tween the world of socialism and the world of capitalism has grown wider.

Analyzing the capitalist economic situation at the Seventeenth Party Congress, Comrade Stalin said that the depres­sion which had set in after the crisis of 1929-33 would not be an ordinary one, but a depression of a "special kind."

Describing the international situation, Comrade Stalin said that the growing acuteness of the imperialist contradictions had already created the ground for military conflicts, and that things were clearly moving towards a new imperialist war. This analysis has been completely confirmed.

The economic crisis, the increased unevenness of development of the capitalist countries, and the growing profundity of the general crisis of capitalism, have rendered all the existing contradictions among the imperialist states acute in the extreme.

They are making skillful use of the complaisance of the ruling classes of Great Britain and France and are turning them into accomplices of their nefarious deeds, thus om­ promising and discrediting them still further, and endeavor­ing by this rascally maneuver to divert the indignation of the masses from themselves.

They resort to bribery, deception, blackmail, and threats of furtherance of their aims of conquest. Before hurling their armies of occupation into foreign   territories, they first send an   army of spies. They send them everywhere-to America, England, France, and other countries. In France they maintain the Cagoulard bands, through whom they engineer a series of explosions. They are forming gangs of diversionists in Rumania for the commission of terrorist acts; they are conducting extensive disruptive activities in Poland, in preparation for her dismemberment; they are forming secret companies of armed men in the Baltic countries, in Finland, Hungary and Slovakia, and in the Balkan countries. They stage internal "rebellions," as was the case not only in Austria and the Sudeten region, but in Mexico, Brazil, and Peru.

The aggressive bloc of fascist powers, which is interested more than all others in a new forcible redivision of the world, is plunging the nations into a new imperialist war. 

Would this have been possible if the capitalist governments of the other big powers had not connived at the aggression of the German and Italian fascists and of the Japanese fascist militarists? Of course not.

The United States, the biggest capitalist power in the world, anxious to defend its interests in the Latin American countries from- Germany, Italy and Japan-which are straining towards and rapidly penetrating these countries-and its positions in the Philippines, China, and the Pacific from Japan, is working for a bloc with the South American states to resist fascist expansion. The United States is thereby stimulating resistance to the aggressive plans of the fascists in other parts of the world, including Europe.

The British and French capitulators cherish the dream of diverting German fascism to the East. This is also called preservation of peace in the language of these gentlemen. 

The capitulators of the neutral countries, the Scandinavian, for instance, propose to weather the storm of war in a refuge of "neutrality" and to help their bourgeois enrich themselves on military contracts, as they did in 1914-18. But times are different now. Today the fascist aggressors will not leave a single neighboring state in peace until they have drawn it into the orbit of their military adventures.

 The naval forces of France, Britain and the United States are twice as strong as the naval forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan. If the so-called democratic states pursued a firm policy of resistance to the fascist aggressors, combined with economic pressure, this would be a quite effective means of forcing the fascist states to retreat. This would be a real policy of peace. It would be supported by all the peoples. 

But in order to bring about such a turn in the policy of the so-called democratic states, it is necessary that the working class also bring the forces of material   pressure to bear on the bourgeois governments. The weapons of the working class are strikes, mass demonstrations, and popular movements against wars of plunder. The use of these weapons will be the more effective the sooner the working class establishes international unity of action. To combat wars of plunder there must be joint action by the prole­tarians of all countries.

"A distinguishing feature of the second imperialist war is that so far it is being waged and extended by the aggressor powers, while the other powers, the 'democratic' powers, against whom in fact the war is directed, pretend that it does not concern them, wash their hands of it, draw back, boast of their love of peace, scold the aggressors, and... surrender their positions to the aggressor bit by bit, at the same time asserting that they are preparing to resist."

MLG- Ukraine