NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
Note: Aware that direct military conflict with the United States could be catastrophic, Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev opted instead for indirect conflict by helping nations in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America emerge from Western domination. Early in 1961, he spelled out his approach.
Professing that his goal of “peaceful coexistence” meant avoiding wars between the
superpowers, he nonetheless promised to support wars of national liberation. These wars, he
claimed, were revolutionary struggles by oppressed peoples against imperialist regimes like the
U.S. As a result, he supported such struggles in Vietnam, Cuba, Egypt, and elsewhere.
Assignment: Please answer the following questions after reading this speech by Nikita
Khrushchev. Your answers must be typed, spell-checked, and in complete sentences and must be
at least 2-3 pages.
1) Why and how did Khrushchev think Communists should support national liberation wars?
Why did he think such wars were inevitable? And what did he think were the potential benefits
and risks for the Soviet Union in supporting such wars?
2) Why did he identify capitalism with imperialism? Why did he see socialists and national
liberation movements as allies in a global struggle against capitalist imperialism? Why do you
think was he so interested in these nations?
Report by Soviet Premier Khrushchev on the Moscow Conference of Communist
Parties, January 6, 1961
Our epoch is the epoch of the triumph of Marxism-Leninism: The analysis of the world situation
at the beginning of the sixties can only evoke in every fighter in the great communist movement
feelings of profound satisfaction and legitimate pride. Indeed, comrades, life has greatly surpassed
even the boldest and most optimistic predictions and expectations. Today, it is possible to assert
that socialism is working for history, for the basic content of the contemporary historical process
constitutes the establishment and consolidation of socialism on an international scale.
There are a number of reasons which make the march of socialism invincible. In the first place,
Marxism-Leninism today dominates the minds of literally hundreds of millions of people and
thereby constitutes, if one is to apply Marx’s words, a mighty material force. Furthermore,
Marxism-Leninism now appears before mankind not only as a theory but as a living reality. The
socialist society which is being created in the boundless expanses of Europe and Asia today
epresents this teaching. Now a force does not exist in the world, nor can one exist, that can hold
ack the increasing tendency by which the masses see with their own eyes and, so to speak, feel
with their own hands, what socialism is like—no, not in books and manifestoes, but in life, in
practice. Another circumstance is of prime importance. If yesterday hundreds of millions of people
in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were suppressed by the yoke of the imperialist civilizers, today
the picture is radically changing. The revolutionary emergence of more and more peoples into the
world arena creates exceptionally favorable conditions for an unprecedented
oadening of the
sphere of influence of Marxism-Leninism. The time is not far away when Marxism-Leninism will
possess the minds of the majority of the world’s population. What has been going on in the world
in the 43 years since the triumph of the October Revolution completely confirms the scientific
accuracy and vitality of the Leninist theory of the world socialist revolution.
Socialist revolution has achieved victory in a large number of countries, socialism has become a
powerful world system, the colonial system of imperialism verges on complete disintegration, and
imperialism is in a state of decline and crisis. The definition of our epoch must reflect these
decisive events. The statement of the conference provides the following definition of our era : Our
era, whose essence is the transition from capitalism to socialism begun by the great October
Socialist Revolution, is an era of the struggle of two diametrically opposed social systems, an era of
socialist revolutions and national liberation revolutions, an era of the collapse of capitalism and of
liquidation of the colonial system, an era of the change to the road of socialism by more and more
nations, and of the triumph of socialism and communism on a world scale.
It is perfectly obvious that the establishment of the world system of socialism, the quick progress of
the disintegration of the colonial system, the unprecedented upsurge of the struggle of the working
class for its rights and interests—that all this undermines the support for capitalism, intensifies its
general crisis. The losses of capitalism as a result of these blows are i
eparable. This refers both to
the entire system of capitalism and to its main power, the United States. The mightiest power of
capitalism has found itself most affected by the general crisis. In the postwar years the blows of
economic shocks have fallen with particular frequency. In the postwar period, the United States
has experienced three critical production slumps: XXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXX, and particularly 1957-
1958. During the past year, according to estimates of the American press, U.S. industrial
production increased by only 2 percent. For 1961, American economists predict not an increase
ut a decline of about 3.7 percent in production, and maybe even more. In the U SSR production
increased about 10 percent in 1960.
The development of the common crisis of capitalism has reached a new stage. The peculiarity of
this stage is that it emerged not in connection with the world war, but in conditions of
competition and struggle between the two systems; in the ever-increasing change in the co
elation
of forces to the advantage of socialism; in the acute aggravation of all the contradictions of
imperialism; under conditions when the successful struggle of the peace-loving forces for estab-
lishment and stabilization of world coexistence has prevented the imperialists from undermining
world peace with their aggressive actions; and under conditions of an increasing struggle by the
masses for democracy, national liberation, and socialism.
In modern conditions the following categories of wars should be distinguished: World wars, local
wars, liberation wars, and popular uprisings. This is necessary to work out the co
ect tactics with
egard to these wars. Let us begin with the question of world wars. Communists are the most
determined opponents of world wars, just as they are generally opponents of wars among states.
These wars are needed only by imperialists to seize the te
itories of others, and to enslave and
plunder other peoples. Before the formation of the world socialist camp the working class had no
opportunity to make a determining impact on the solution of the question of whether there
should or should not be world wars. In these conditions the best representatives of the working
class raised the slogan of turning imperialist wars into civil wars, or to exploit the situation that
had arisen to seize power.
Wars are chiefly prepared by imperialists against socialist countries, and in the first place against
the Soviet Union as the most powerful of the socialist states. Imperialists would wish to undermine
our might and thus reestablish the former domination of monopolistic capital. The task is to
create impassable obstacles against the unleashing of wars by imperialists. We possess increasing
possibilities for placing obstacles in the path of the warmongers. Consequently, we can forestall the
out
eak of a world war. Of course, as yet we are unable to completely exclude the possibility of
wars, for the imperialist states exist. However, the unleashing of wars has become a much more
complicated business for the imperialists than it was before the emergence of the mighty socialist
camp. Imperialists can unleash a war, but they must think hard about the consequences.
A word or two about local wars. A lot is being said nowadays in the imperialist camp about local
wars, and they are even making small- caliber atomic weapons for use in such wars; a special theory
of local wars has been concocted. Is this fortuitous? Of course not. Certain imperialist circles,
fearing that world war might end in the complete collapse of capitalism, are putting their money
on unleashing local wars. There have been local wars and they may occur again in the future, but
opportunities for imperialists to unleash these wars too are becoming fewer and fewer. A small
imperialist war, regardless of which imperialist begins it, may grow into a world thermonuclear
ocket war. We must therefore combat both world wars and local wars. As an example of a local
war unleashed by the imperialists, we may take the Anglo-French-Israeli aggression against Egypt.
They wanted to strangle Egypt and thus intimidate the Arab countries struggling for
independence, and also to frighten the other peoples of Asia and Africa. British statesmen,
including Eden, spoke quite openly of their desire to deal summarily with Egypt when we were in
London. We told them frankly: I f you start a war, you will lose it; we will not remain neutral.
When that war started, the United Nations formally condemned it, but this did not wo
y the
aggressors and they went on with their dirty deed and even thought they had almost achieved their
ends. The Soviet Union and the whole socialist camp came to the defense of Egypt. The Soviet
Government’s stark warning to Eden and Guy Mollet stopped the war. The local war, the venture
in Egypt, failed miserably.
Now a word about national liberation wars. The armed struggle by the Vietnamese people or the
war of the Algerian people, which is already in its seventh year, serve as the latest examples of such
wars. These wars began as an uprising by the colonial peoples against their oppressors and changed
into gue
illa warfare. Liberation wars will continue to exist as long as imperialism exists, as long as
colonialism exists. These are revolutionary wars. Such wars are not only admissible but inevitable,
since the colonialists do not g ran t independence voluntarily. Therefore, the peoples can attain
their freedom and independence only by struggle, including armed struggle. How is it that the U.S.
imperialists, while desirous of helping the French colonialists in every way, decided against direct
intervention in the war in Vietnam? They did not intervene because they knew that if they did
help France with armed forces, Vietnam would get relevant aid from China, the Soviet