Stockholm Appeal

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1951 Soviet stamp with the full text of the appeal.

The Stockholm Appeal was an initiative launched by the World Peace Council on 19 March 1950 to promote nuclear disarmament and prevent atomic war.

Background[edit]

On 15 March 1950,[1] the World Peace Council approved the Stockholm Appeal, calling for an absolute ban on nuclear weapons. The appeal was initiated by the French physicist, communist and 1935 Nobel laureate in Chemistry Frédéric Joliot-Curie. About two weeks after the start of the Korean War, the initiative's first publication called Peacegram claimed that the appeal has already earned 1.5 million signatories.[2] The total gathered petitions were allegedly signed by 273,470,566 persons (including the entire adult population of the Soviet Union). The appeal was also signed by many prominent public figures, artists, and intellectuals.[3] The text of the appeal read:

We demand the outlawing of atomic weapons as instruments of intimidation and mass murder of peoples. We demand strict international control to enforce this measure.

We believe that any government which first uses atomic weapons against any other country whatsoever will be committing a crime against humanity and should be dealt with as a war criminal.

We call on all men and women of good will throughout the world to sign this appeal.

Anti-Communist responses[edit]

The United States dismissed the Stockholm Appeal, with the U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson branding it as "a propaganda trick in the spurious 'peace offensive' of the Soviet Union."[2][4] Liberals in the United States, led by W.E.B. Du Bois established the Peace Information Center (PIC) to publicize the Stockholm Appeal, but the U.S. Justice Department alleged that the PIC was acting as an agent of the Soviet Union, and thus required the PIC to register with the federal government.[5] Du Bois and other PIC leaders refused, and they were indicted for failure to register.[6]

Anti-communists in France responded to the Stockholm Appeal (French: L'Appel de Stockholm) by setting up the Paix et Liberté group to counter the Communist propaganda with their own: one of their first posters was La Pelle de Stockholm ("The Spade of Stockholm") digging the graves of the countries in Eastern Europe that had been subjugated by the Soviets.

Notable signatories[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Stockholm Peace Appeal". In W.E.B. Du Bois: An Encyclopedia. Gerald Horne; Mary Young eds. (2001). Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 301–302.
  2. ^ a b Bass, Amy (2009). Those about Him Remained Silent: The Battle Over W.E.B. Du Bois. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press. p. 43. ISBN 9780816644957.
  3. ^ Amiard, Jean-Claude (2018). Military Nuclear Accidents: Environmental, Ecological, Health and Socio-economic Consequences. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. p. 195. ISBN 9781786303332.
  4. ^ Eperjesi, John R. (15 April 2015). "The Unending Korean War: W.E.B Du Bois, Ko Un, and the Women's Peace Walk". HuffPost. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  5. ^ Schneider, Paul, "Peace Movement", in W. E. B. Du Bois: An Encyclopedia, Gerald Horne and Mary Young (Eds.), Greenwood, p 163.
  6. ^ W. E. B. Du Bois, Lewis (2009), p 690.
  7. ^ "Jacques Chirac, sabre au clair". Archived from the original on 8 June 2008. Retrieved 17 December 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). L'Humanité. 8 May 1995 (in French).
  8. ^ "Frank Marshall Davis" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 July 2009. Retrieved 29 December 2009.
  9. ^ Gewertz, Ken (12 April 2007). "Albert Einstein, Civil Rights activist". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
  10. ^ Zecker, Robert M. (2018). A Road to Peace and Freedom: The International Workers Order and the Struggle for Economic Justice and Civil Rights, 1930–1954. Temple University Press. p. 212. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  11. ^ Jeannine Verdès-Leroux. "Qui a signé l'appel de Stockholm ?".
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