Viktor Petrov | Russian Society for Friendship and Cultural Cooperation with the DPRK
Dear comrades,
What happened 73 years ago at Panmunjom demonstrated to the entire world that America, which had emerged immensely strengthened from the Second World War, was unable to crush a small state that had only just come out of war. This is an undeniable fact. The Americans understood this very well when they were, so to speak, dragged face-first through the mud. They remained silent for ten years—until the events in Vietnam, which began almost a decade later, when they once again bared their teeth.
I was fortunate to be one of the very few people who attended last year’s anniversary of the victory of the Vietnamese people, because I devoted twenty years of my life to the movement supporting Vietnam—from the final years of the war until quite recently.
Today we have heard outstanding presentations, but I would like to speak about what has remained outside the scope of our discussion. Practically from the very beginning of the Korean War, an international peace movement emerged—the World Peace Council, the youth movement, and the World Federation of Democratic Youth. All of this arose because peoples across the world were stirred into action. Recall the events in France, Scandinavia, and even in the United States itself—these countries were literally divided between those who supported the war and the righteous forces who opposed it.
I believe that people’s diplomacy, which unfortunately has now been somewhat forgotten, must draw tremendous lessons from what happened 73 years ago, when the world—and above all the communists, the communist movement, and the workers’ movement—united in support of the just struggle of the Korean people. For many years I worked in the Peace Committee and later in the Committee of Solidarity with the Countries of Asia and Africa. I still knew those people who admired the brilliant victories of the Korean people.
I believe that our principal task today—especially as we consider what conclusions should be drawn after the inevitable victory in Ukraine—is to understand how fascism was able to raise its head once again, and specifically in Ukraine, a country which, perhaps together with Belarus, suffered more than any other during the Second World War. We must think about how to mobilize the international movement of supporters of peace. God forbid that the malicious seeds of the claim that a Third World War is inevitable should fall upon fertile ground. Such a war would mean the destruction of all humanity—it would be a nuclear war, and what would become of Europe requires no further explanation.
It seems to me that we must once again reflect upon the historic mission of the World Anti-imperialist Platform as an international anti-war and anti-fascist platform. I would also like to add my own opinion: our platform should not simply be called a “platform,” but rather a “front”—perhaps a more serious name appropriate to the events of our time. We must think about the future and about our forthcoming victory in Ukraine. That victory will bring about a powerful unification of communist forces and supporters of peace. Nowadays it is hardly even customary to speak of the existence of a peace movement, because we stand for the victory of our people. I want to say once again that we must learn, learn, and learn from our Korean friends how to achieve victory and how to unite the people. Sergei Nikolaevich spoke very well here about how, in the course of just one year, it was possible to create throughout the country a complete understanding of who the struggle was against, what future awaited the country, and why the Korean people would never surrender.
I would like to emphasize once again: strength lies only in the unity of our patriotic, peace-loving, anti-terrorist, and anti-fascist forces. What happened in Ukraine is like the lesson in The Little Prince: every morning we must search our small plot of land for the seeds that may begin to sprout. We failed to notice, failed to recognize, overlooked the seeds of a savage and utterly bestial fascism that was reborn in Ukraine. It will have to be defeated, and the unity of all our patriotic and anti-fascist forces is the only condition for our victory.
Thank you for your attention.