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Document No. 84: Speech by Brezhnev at the Political Consultative Committee Meeting in Moscow, November 22, 1978 ——————————————————————————————————————————— Addressing his fellow Warsaw Pact leaders, Brezhnev reflects an increasingly dour view of the world situation, deploring the deterioration of détente with the United States. He notes that among other things the Western allies are increasing their military spending, which he ascribes to the correlation of forces turning against them. He is troubled by indications that China and NATO may be starting to develop closer economic and military cooperation, and he invokes the socialist camp’s “sacred duty”—not to disturb the equilibrium of military power. As the decade of the 1970s came to a close, Brezhnev was not alone among Soviet and other Warsaw Pact leaders in his concern for the direction of events, particularly the arms race and the hardening of U.S. policy, but he has no clear answer at this point for what to do. The meeting decided to press for a statute for command in war time. ____________________ The strengthening of the positions of socialism in the world in recent years is an incontrovertible fact. Our countries’ defenses have become even stronger. Today we are not weaker than the imperialist powers and their main military alliance, which is aimed at the socialist world—neither on land, nor in the air, nor on the high seas. Others might not, but you and I know well that the countries of the Warsaw Treaty have not done anything and are not doing anything [presently] above what is called for by the requirements of a reliable defense of the borders of socialism. However, even the tentative parity in armaments and armed forces is perceived quite nervously in the ruling imperialist circles. In those circles—especially in the USA and in the ruling leadership of NATO—they obviously do not want to let go of the hope of achieving some kind of breakthrough, of overturning the existing correlation of forces, and of gaining an opportunity to impose their will [and] their ways on the rest of the world. Washington’s defense budget is 130 billion dollars in the current financial year. They are working on new systems of weapons of mass destruction—we know this very well—in closed American engineering and construction offices. I have in mind not only the neutron bomb, but also laser weapons, genetic, infrasound weapons, and so on. The Americans are pushing their allies toward the path of unrestrained growth of military expenditures. The Washington session of the NATO Council is a clear expression of that. The NATO bloc presented a certain “gift” to their people, who had been following the special U.N. session on disarmament with hope—an additional program to increase armaments over ten years. They earmarked an additional 80 billion dollars over and above the gigantic military outlays that had been planned before. 418 The Western politicians are practically beside themselves also because the sphere of the imperialist dominance is shrinking as a result of the victories of the revolutionary movements in the former colonial countries. […] The situation in the developed capitalist countries does not make the bosses of imperialism any happier. […] In this atmosphere, one could anticipate a massive attack against détente, against the policies of the socialist states. The U.S. government is doing everything possible to discredit and to conceal the successes of socialism, to push back the positions of the socialist commonwealth. […] In their efforts to counter the growing ideological influence of socialism with something , the Carter administration unfolded a hypocritical campaign around imaginary “violations of human rights” in the socialist countries. This campaign represents an attempt at an impudent interference in the internal affairs of the socialist countries. It was calculated to sow mistrust, and to impede mutual understanding between countries with opposing social systems. The firm and principled position of our states has undermined their calculations considerably. Unfortunately, imperialism has now acquired an ally—today’s China. Beijing’s policy, directed against the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist commonwealth , makes it a very attractive partner for world imperialism. They have already begun to feed today’s China, to supply it with weapons, and to push it toward hostile excursions against the socialist countries, as was done some time ago in Europe during the years of the shameful Munich policies. TheeconomicandmilitarycooperationbetweenNATOandChina,directedagainst the socialist commonwealth and the progressive forces of the entire world, is taking on more and more real dimensions...

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