While the World Peace Council (WPC) is active in more than one hundred countries, uniting peoples across the globe in the crucial struggle for peace, it is also true that the history of the organization is still not well known in Canada and Quebec. As we prepare for the upcoming meetings of the WPC, we at the Canadian Peace Congress want to highlight some of the great history of our parent organization.

At one of the very first meetings of the World Peace Council, held in Stockholm in 1950, we launched the groundbreaking effort to ban nuclear weapons known as the Stockholm Appeal. Headed by our first President, Dr. Frédéric Joliot-Curie, the WPC called for the absolute banning of the atomic bomb. By July 14, 1950, more than two million people from 72 countries had signed the appeal. The world wanted peace, and our organization answered the call.

The WPC has organized active opposition to imperialist wars and machinations dating back to the late 1940s and early 1950s. Examples include: the war against Korea from June 25, 1950, through July 1953; the struggle against French aggression in Vietnam; and U.S. imperialist support of France in Vietnam from February-March of 1950. Our solidarity with the heroic Vietnamese people was a major part of our work until the final expulsion of Yankee forces on March 29, 1973. Our mobilizations continued until the final liberation of Vietnam from US proxy forces with the liberation of Saigon on April 30, 1975. To this day, the World Peace Council stands in firm solidarity with Vietnam and the many victims of Agent Orange as they demand compensation for their immense suffering.

In Africa, the WPC opposed the barbaric apartheid regime of South Africa and launched the campaign to free Nelson Mandela from Robben Island. Similarly, the WPC mobilized to oppose efforts by the U.S. and the racist South African regime to overthrow revolutionary governments in Mozambique, Angola and Namibia. More recently, the WPC strongly opposed NATO aggression in Libya which was under the Command of Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard of the Canadian Forces. The aggressive NATO alliance massively destroyed civil infrastructure of the most prosperous African nation and played a direct role in allowing various war lords to divide the country. Today, open slave markets exist in Libya.

In West Asia, WPC chapters mobilized against both Gulf Wars and the war against the people of Afghanistan. The same is true for the war against Syria led by the U.S. and Zionist Israel using ISIS head choppers to do their dirty work.

Significantly, the WPC has stood shoulder to shoulder with the heroic people of Palestine in their ongoing struggle for national liberation. In Canada, this has included working directly with the Palestinian community and their allies in efforts to end the genocide, impose a two-way arms embargo, expand the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and stop Canadian diplomatic cover for Zionist war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In Europe, the devastating war of aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999 saw the WPC mobilize against the NATO bombings that killed more than 1,500 people and destroyed civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, industrial plants and cultural monuments along with military targets.

In the Americas, the WPC has a long history of mobilizing in support of national liberation struggles such as in Cuba and Nicaragua. In addition, the international peace movement was very active in organizing against wars of aggression and the numerous fascist military coups instigated and controlled by U.S. imperialism. Some examples include opposition to U.S. aggression against Grenada, Panama, and, of course, the long standing U.S. aggression against socialist Cuba – including the genocidal blockade aimed at toppling the revolutionary government of the island. Currently, the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela is under direct threat of a regime change war that will give imperialism access to the vast petroleum reserves of that country.

The peace movement understands that imperialism has a long history of terrorizing nations around the globe. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we vividly understand the horrors of U.S. “friendship”! Some examples include: pre-revolutionary Cuba, headed by “El Hombre,” Fulgencio Batista, the dictator who made Cuba the playground of the ruling classes of the imperialist core and the U.S. military; El Salvador, headed by U.S. protege “Blow Torch Bob,” Roberto D’Aubuisson Arrieta, who learned torture techniques at the infamous imperialist School of the Americas; Nicaragua, headed by “Tachito” Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who learned his torture skills at the U.S. Military Academy between the years 1943-1946; Chile, headed by Augusto Pinochet, the darling of neoliberalism, whose torture and disappearances of revolutionaries and progressives, made Chile safe for U.S. imperialism.

Two of the most serious dangers of war include the proliferation of foreign military bases around the globe and the expansion of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. After our initial efforts against nuclear weapons, we expanded our work to include other weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons. We proudly call for general disarmament efforts of all forms of weapons. From its inception, the WPC identified the role of peace movements to organize against nuclear weapons. Similarly, the WPC was the first peace organization to identify the dangers of foreign military bases and to organize opposition to these outposts of imperialism. Both of theses dangers remain integral aspects of WPC resistance.

Now is the time to educate our members and the general public about the immense role the WPC has played for 76 years. But we must go beyond history lessons and strengthen our struggle to mobilize for peace. This is more urgent today as the Canadian government is hell bent on forcing a massive expansion of its war budget. The ball is in our court now, so let’s make every day count in the struggle for peace. We must use our efforts to organize for the upcoming North American WPC meetings to build the Canadian peace movement in general and our Canadian Peace Congress in particular. 

Build the peace movement!
Build the Congress!
Build the World Peace Council!

 

Executive Committee, Canadian Peace Congress
December 21st, 2025