World Peace Council

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The World Peace Council (or World Council of Peace) was formed in 1949 in order to promote peaceful coexistence and nuclear disarmament. From the very beginning it has been alleged to be a front organization of Communist parties due to its advocacy of unilateral disarmament in western countries and the active participation and funding of the council by the Soviet bloc as well as the leading role taken in the WPC by Communists such as Frédéric Joliot-Curie, the WPC's founding president. Indeed, the documents of the former Communist bloc archives indicate that from its inception the WPC heavily relied on the Soviet government subsidies. The WPC itself admitted in 1989 that 90 per cent of its funding came from the Soviet Union (WPC, Peace Courier, 1989, No. 4).

In 1971 the World Peace Council contained some 600 people from 104 countries, recommended by national organizations of Peace followers, by the World Federation of Trade Unions, by the Women's International Democratic Federation, by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and other organizations. Its governing bodies were the Presidium and the Secretariat^[1]

It was involved in many demonstrations and protests from the late 1940s to the late 1980s and attempted to lead the peace movement though it was largely sidelined beginning in the 1960s by the New Left which distrusted the Soviet Union and its supporters in the "old left". The People's Republic of China resigned from the council in 1966 as a result of the Sino-Soviet split, a move which undermined the WPC's credibility among Maoists and their sympathisers who dominated the New Left in many western countries.

The WPC was especially active in those areas bordering U.S. military installations, in Western Europe, believed to house nuclear weapons. It waged large campaigns against US-led military operations, especially against the [war in Vietnam|Vietnam war]. At the same time, the Soviet-sponsored and Communist-dominated WSG did not condemn similar Soviet actions in Hungary, Afghanistan or elsewhere.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union the council has dwindled down to a small core group.

The WPC had its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, at Lönnrotinkatu 25 A, until the 1990s when the Council moved to Greece. In the past the WPC awarded the International Peace Prize. It published two magazines: the New Perspectives and the Peace Courier.^[1]

In May 2004, the Council held its world congress in Athens attended by representatives of 100 peace groups from around the world.

The covert support of the Council by the Soviet and Communist Bloc was matched by the covert operations directed against it by the Western agencies. For example, Phillip Agee noted in his book "Inside the company CIA Diary" that actions were taken to neutralize the groups propaganda campaigns against the US and it's allies. Efforts where made to prevent the organization from having meetings outside the communist block, and other forms of harassment were employed as well.