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B
O
AC
Do we unders tand the major
concerns of the Soviet peop/e
and their leaders today? Plain
Truth editors report surprises
on a recent trip to the U. S. S. R.
Here is Part One of their
report.
' 'WE
NOW
have the first gen–
eration of Soviet people
who did not live during
the war period. We want our chil–
dren to be able to say, 'War, what's
that?' "
With these words, Communist
Party chief Leonid
l.
Brezhnev set
the tone for his third annual summit
conference with the President of the
United States, which was held in the
Soviet Union this past summer. But
do we understand what Brezhnev
meant?
2
At War With the Past
To Americans and Britons, World
War 11 ended nearly three decades
ago. In 1945, the United States au–
tomotive industry could get back to
the business it was supposed to be
engaged in - producing automo–
biles and trucks instead of tanks,
jeeps and half-tracks.
But the terrible events of the early
1940's are not so easily forgotten
among the 250,000,000 people of
the Union of Soviet Socialist Re–
publics. Along with
Plain Truth
Washington, D. C. regional editor
Dexter Faulkner, I was privileged to
visit key areas of the western Soviet
Union earlier this year. As we
toured
in
and around the great cities
of Leningrad, Kiev and Moscow
with other members and guests of
the National Press Club of Wash-
ington, D.
C.,
we felt at times as if
we were being transported back–
wards in a time capsule. In this
strange mental metamorphosis, it
began to appear to us as though
World War Il - or as the Soviets
proudly call it, the "Great Patriotic
War" - had ended only a few
months ago. For the horror of that
epic struggle, in which 20 rnillion
Soviet citizens sacrificed their lives
in defense of their beloved mother–
land, is still deeply etched on the
collective Soviet soul.
ldeology or Security?
lt is only within the context of a
recent tragic European history that
one can come to understand sorne
very basic reasons why the Soviet
people and their leaders act and re–
act the way they do.
To be sure. ideology still plays a
PLAIN TRUTH October-November 1974