World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace

The Congress was officially proposed by Polish communist Jerzy Borejsza, member of the Polish Workers' Party, based in Warsaw, Republic of Poland, and conceptualized by Andrei Zhdanov, Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, based in Moscow, Soviet Russia. ==Program==

The Congress was part of Stalin's goal of slowing down the nuclear weapon program under development by the United States and its NATO allies, by influencing the world public opinion through framing of the communist members of the Eastern Bloc as supporters of world peace, and on the opposite side, portraying the Western Bloc as a threat to world peace. At that time, the Soviet Union did not have nuclear weapons of its own, although it was engaged in a crash program to develop them. Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg then gave a conciliatory speech on behalf of the Soviet delegation, and Borejsza convinced almost everyone to remain at the Congress. A number of other speeches shared much of the anti-American rhetoric proposed by the Soviet delegation. ==Delegates==

, Minnette de Silva, Jo Davidson, and Mulk Raj Anand attending the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace A large number of notable individuals, primarily supportive of left-wing and progressive policies, participated to the conference. They included: • George Abbe • Alexander Abusch • Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz • Sibilla Aleramo • Jorge Amado • Feliks Topolski • Mirzo Tursunzoda • Julian Tuwim • Roger Vailland • Karl Vennberg • Samad Vurgun • Jean Wahl • Colston Warne • Ella Winter • Friedrich Wolf • Kazimierz Wyka • David Zaslavsky • Jerzy Zawieyski Albert Einstein did not attend the conference but sent a letter which was read to the delegates, although only after it had been censored to remove the call for a world government that would safeguard the uses of nuclear energy. Henry A. Wallace, former Vice President of the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Progressive Party's candidate in the 1948 U.S. presidential election, also sent a message of support. Overall, the Congress was attended by about 600 individuals from 46 countries. Julia Pirotte, a photojournalist known for her work in the French Resistance, covered the event. ==Aftermath==

The conference was one of the precursors to the Soviet-dominated World Peace Council organization, which for decades would attempt to influence the world's peace movement to support a more pro-Soviet and anti-American stance. In reaction to the Congress, a pro-American and anti-Soviet Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace was held in New York City, United States in March 1949. ==See also==