Towards a Peace Pact

After the onset of the Cold War and the formation of NATO on April 4, 1949, the USSR launched the Peace Movement. Alongside its allies in the socialist bloc, it sought to present itself as the primary advocate for peace, positioning itself as the key opposition to the Western “warmongers.”

The World Peace Council was founded in 1949 in Paris during the World Congress of Peace Partisans. The Romanian delegation, led by writer Mihail Sadoveanu (vice-president of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly), included notable figures such as future diplomat and minister Mircea Malița (head of the Student Section of the Union of Communist Youth), prose writer Zaharia Stancu, ideologist Leonte Răutu, historian Mihail Roller, and others.

The Peace Pact, launched at the Berlin Conference in late February 1951 by the World Peace Council, was frequently featured in the newsreels of the early 1950s—such as “International Women’s Day”, from News in Pictures No. 12/1951. Here we have a topic dedicated to the signatures of support for the world movement of the Partisans of Peace. We see images from several such rallies and public presentations, in locations strategically selected to represent diversity: the “Grivița Roșie” workshops,  the “23 August” plant in Bucharest, the oil fields of the Prahova Valley, the National Theater-Studio in Bucharest, and the “C. I. Parhon” University (now the University of Bucharest). Particularly significant for Romania’s political stance was the inclusion of the “Serbian working peasantry” from Banat in western Romania; the voice-over commentary makes a pointed reference to the “Titoist viper’s nest in Belgrade,” alluding to Yugoslavia’s president, Josip Broz Tito.

In the spring of 1951, when this newsreel segment was filmed, Romania and the rest of the Eastern Bloc were still grappling with the aftermath of the Stalin-Tito split. This rift had led to Yugoslavia’s expulsion from Cominform (the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties), due to the clash between Tito’s nationalist stance and the Soviet Union’s position. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Yugoslavia was gradually reintegrated into the international community of socialist states, though never fully restored to its previous standing. As the newsreels progress through the 1950s and 1960s, we come across the various phases of this complex relationship with Yugoslavia, both before and after the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in 1961. (MB, AB)