The Unity of Peace and Socialism? The World Peace Council on a Cold War Tightrope Between the Peace Struggle and Intrasystemic Communist Conflicts

Bibliographic Data

ID11219158
AuthorsGünter Wernicke (Cal Poly Humboldt, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume26
Issue3
Pages332-351
Publication date2001-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePeace & Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0149-0508 • E-ISSN: 1468-0130
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/0149-0508.00197
OpenAlexW2099352321
LanguageEN
Citations received3

The paper explores the theoretical unity between socialism and peace that motivated the communist‐dominated World Peace Council (WPC) in the Cold War. Within the broad WPC spectrum, intrasystemic conflicts were tangibly expressed around the Hungarian events of 1956. With growing differentiation in world communism, especially Sino‐Soviet conflict, tensions escalated when Warsaw Treaty states marched into Czechoslovakia in 1968. Instrumentalization of peace councils to serve state and party interests provides a second analytical focus on the link between peace and socialism. As Third World states emerged and national liberation movements consolidated political ideologies, the concept of just war acquired new meaning within anti‐imperialist discourse. Examples are the Arab‐Israeli wars, unconditional advocacy of armed struggle, and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The World Peace Council danced a tightrope during the Cold War between Soviet security interests, systemic ambitions, and underlying communist postulates

Communism · Ideology · Peace and conflict studies · Peace economics · Peace treaty · Peaceful coexistence · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Socialism · Sociology · State (computer science · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law

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