Secretariat. About participation of Soviet delegation in the International Youth Peace Forum in Helsinki; file includes 2 February report on the results. [R 6 January 1981, St 244-11] total 18 pp (excerpts).

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[pages nine to eleven,
request from B. Pastukhov, Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee]

Workers of all Lands, Unite!

All-Union Leninist Communist Union of Youth [Komsomol]
CENTRAL COMMITTEE

No. 01/1281

18 December 1980
Secret

To the CPSU Central Committee

Concerning participation in the World Forum of Youth and Students
for Peace, Detente and Disarmament

From 19 to 23 January 1981 the World Forum of Youth and Students
for Peace, Detente and Disarmament will take place in Helsinki (Finland). The proposal for it being held was made at the 18th Congress of the Komsomol and received wide support from internaational, regional and national organisations of youth and students of various political, ideological and religious tendencies.

[..] The preparations are has been helped by an intensification of joint protests for peace by youth and students at the national and international levels.

In Finland, the preparatory work is being carried out by the National Committee of Youth Organisations, supported by the President of the Finnish Republic, U.K. Kekkonen.

[…]

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[page ten]

[Up to 600 delegates were expected from more than one hundred countries, including the international youth organisations of young social democrats, liberals, centrists, Christian democrats and other political tendencies, as well as representatives of the UN, UNESCO and UNCTAD and other bodies.]

At the same time, because of the wide spectrum of political forces taking part in preparations for the Forum there have been attempts by individual organisations, above all conservative groups, to impose discuss during the Forum of the ‘violation’ of human rights in socialist countries, the situation in Afghanistan and Poland, etc., and to include among the participants several reactionary youth organisations. Such attempts did not receive the support of the overwhelming majority of organisations.

[…]

Taking into account the difficult material circumstances of a number of youth and student organisations which will take part as delegations of the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Students Union, the WFDY Secretariat and the Bureau of the ISU have appealed to the Komsomol Central Committee and to the fraternal youth unions of socialist countries

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[page eleven]

for help in transporting the participants to the Forum.

[…]

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[pages thirteen to eighteen –
report by B. Pastukhov, Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee]

Workers of all Lands, Unite!

All-Union Leninist Communist Union of Youth [Komsomol]
CENTRAL COMMITTEE

No. 01/118

6 February 1981
Secret

To the CPSU Central Committee

Concerning the results of the World Forum of Youth and Students
for Peace, Detente and Disarmament

 

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[page fourteen]

[…]

The overwhelming majority of speakers, including those representing social-democrat, centrist and liberal organisations spoke in favour of continuing the policy of détente, for the further limitation of strategic weapons, and gave a positive assessment of the contribution of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries

—————————————————————-

[page fifteen]

in assuring peace and security. They condemned NATO plans to deploy new medium-range nuclear missiles in several West European States and sharply criticised the concept of a ‘limited’ nuclear war. Many delegates declared that the hegemonist policy of the Peking leadership was a threat to peace. …

The behaviour at the Forum of representatives of the right-wing of the youth movement revealed their intention to undermine the cooperation that has grown up over the past decade between various political forces and, above all, to drag the social democrats and socialists away from joint actions with the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union of Students (IUS).

————————————————————-

[page sixteen]

[…]

Relying on the WFDY and the IUS, the Soviet delegation took measures to isolate the right-wingers and to consolidate the Forum on an anti-militarist basis. This work was made more difficult by the Komsomol of the ‘Eurocommunist’ tendency (Italy, Japan, Sweden, Spain) who spoke out in opposition to Soviet military aid to Afghanistan. Member organisations of WFDY and the IUS from Asian, African and Latin American countries played a positive role in this discussion.

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NOTES

General

1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
2. Text added by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been inserted
in a previously typed document it is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translation, JC

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