This speech was delivered to the American-Soviet Friendship Committee at Rockland Palace, New York, on March 26, 1953. Du Bois begins the speech by debunking the idea of Soviet aggression, stating that the re-annexation of the Baltic states represented a regaining of historically-Russian territory, and that communist-led governments in Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, China and North Korea were not established by Soviet force. Conversely, the United States is guilty of compelling the expansion of capitalism through international development policy such as the Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine and Point Four program. Du Bois asserts that the emergence of a peace movement in the United States represents the true feelings of a majority of Americans, but that the government, backed by Big Business, suppresses any threat to American imperialism abroad through the use of the blacklist and the "new weapon of psychological propaganda" that keeps the population in the appearance of "unanimity for war and oppression." This is a heavily-marked early draft.
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