It is evident that the bitter lessons of the murderous war have been lost on certain Western statesmen, who are once again dragging out the notorious Munich policy of inciting German militarism against the Soviet Union, their recent comrade in arms.
The legitimate question arises as to whether the very promoters of the present Western policy with respect to Germany can guarantee that the German militarism nurtured by them will not once again turn against its present partners and that the American, British, and French peoples will not have to pay with their blood for the violation by the governments of the Three Western Powers of the Allied agreements on the peaceful and democratic development of Germany. It is doubtful whether anyone can give such guarantees.
The policy of the USA, Britain, and France with respect to West Germany has led to the violation of those provisions of the Potsdam Agreement designed to ensure the unity of Germany as a peace-loving and democratic state. And when a separate state, the Federal Republic of Germany, was set up independently [of the Soviet Union] in West Germany, which was occupied by the troops of the Three Powers, East Germany, where forces determined not to allow the German people to be plunged once again into disaster assumed the leadership, had no alternative but to create in its turn an independent state.
Thus, two states came into being in Germany. Whereas West Germany, whose development was directed by the United States, Britain, and France, established a government with representatives who do not conceal their hatred for the Soviet Union and who often openly advertise the similarity of their aspirations to the plans of the Hitlerite aggressors, East Germany formed a government that has irrevocably broken with Germany's aggressive past. State and public affairs in the German Democratic Republic are governed by a constitution fully in keeping with the principles of the Potsdam Agreement and the finest progressive traditions of the German nation. The rule of monopolies and Junkers has been abolished forever in the GDR. Nazism has been eradicated and a number of other social and economic reforms have been carried out, which have destroyed the basis for the revival of militarism and have made the German Democratic Republic an important factor of peace in Europe. The Government of the GDR has solemnly proclaimed that it will fulfill, to the letter, its commitments under the Potsdam Agreement which, incidentally, the Government of the FRG obstinately evades.
The inclusion of the FRG in the North Atlantic bloc compelled the Soviet Union to adopt countermeasures, in as much as the commitments binding the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, and France were broken by the Three Western Powers, which united with West Germany, and previously with Italy, against the Soviet Union, which had borne the brunt of the struggle against the Fascist aggressors. That closed military alignment created an equal threat to other countries as well. Such a situation compelled the Soviet Union, as well as a number of other European countries that were victims of aggression by German and Italian Fascism, to establish their own defensive organization, concluding for this purpose the Warsaw Treaty, to which the GDR also acceded.
There is only one conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing: The Potsdam Agreement has been grossly violated by the Western Powers. It is like the trunk of a tree, once mighty and fruitful, but now cut down and with its heart taken out. The lofty goals for which the Potsdam Agreement was concluded have long since been renounced by the Western Powers, and what they are actually doing in Germany is diametrically opposed to what the Potsdam Agreement had envisaged. The crux of the matter is not, of course, that the social and political systems of the GDR and the FRG are basically different. The Soviet Government considers that the solution of the question of social structure of both German states is the concern of the Germans themselves. The Soviet Union stands for complete noninterference in the internal affairs of the German people or in those of any other people. But the GDR's movement towards socialism has given rise to the enmity and profound hostility of the Federal Government toward it – which finds full support and encouragement by the NATO members, and, above all, the United States.
The Government of the FRG, encouraged by the Western Powers, is systematically fanning the “cold war,” and its leaders have repeatedly stated that the FRG would pursue the policy “from a position of strength,” i.e., a policy of dictation to the other German state. Thus, the Government of the FRG does not want a peaceful unification of the German people, who are living in two states under different social systems, but is nurturing plans for abolishing the GDR and strengthening at the latter's expense its own militaristic state.
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