Soviet Claims Communist Coup is Czech Affair Only

Grey River Argus, 27 March 1948, Page 8

Soviet Claims Communist Coup is Czech Affair Only

NEW YORK, March 24. A few hours after M. Gromyko had attacked Britain and America in the Security Council, the Soviet Ambassador to the United Suites’ (M. Alexander Panyushkin), ■''appealing for Soviet-American co-operation for peace, said that the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia was the Czech people’s internal affair. A'l. Panyushkin, giving his first public address in America, blamed the world crisis on “certain circles from the camo of international reaction”. Ho said the United States was filled with monstrous misinformation and slander about the Soviet Union. “These circles have gone so far that any desire for freedom by peoples of different countries and any intention by them to take the road of democratic reforms is immediately distorted and presented as an act of aggression by the Soviet Union”. M. i-anyushkin said that evidence of Russia’s desire for peace was her support of plans for the prohibition of war propaganda, the reduction of armaments, and the prohibition of the atomic bomb. Differences between the social systems of the Soviet and the United States were deliberately exaggerated. “'Lhe Soviet’s foreign policy oroceeds from tiie fact that Capitalism and Socialism not. only can co-exisr neacefully, but that between countries belonging to lhe two different social svstems, relations of fruitful co-op-eration directed towards mutual advantage are entirely possible, if. of course, goodwill is present”. M. Panyushkin added that the Soviet’s demobilisation plans would bo completed in a few days, and then the army would consist, basically, of contingents born in 1926 and 1927.