sacrifices, to forget their ruined towns and villages, for the
restoration of which they are now straining every effort.
This is one of the great tasks included in our new Stalin
Five-Year Plan, which we have begun to carry out this
year. And we are confident that the time is not distant
when our industry and agriculture, our transport
system and cultural institutions, our towns and villages
will completely recover from the consequences of war
and once more begin to thrive, thus demonstrating toother
peoples, too, the power and the tremendous possibilities of a
liberated people and of the working (people's state they
have created. Among our people there is no disbelief in
I he peaceful road of progress, no such imcertainty as
arises in countries where the economic and political situ-
ation is unstable; for we firmly maintain the .positions won
by the Soviet Union, and we have the most profound faith
in the growing strength of the Soviet people. There is a
great desire among our people to participate in a peaceful
competition among states, and social systems, in which in-
dividual peoples may not only display their inherent possibi-
lities, but establish closer and more all-embracing mutual co-
operation..
Our people aspire to stable peace; they believe thai
only peace can guarantee economic welfare and real pros-
perity for long years to come, and, together with this, a
free life for the ordinary people and for all mankind. The
Soviet Union is a stranger to the aspirations of those
strong Powers and of those influential groupings in other
countries which are infected with imperialist dreams of
world supremacy. The Soviet Union sees its best friends
in those states which truly desire peace. We regard it
as our most important task to consolidate international co-
operation in the name of peace and progress. The newspa-
pers here today publish J. V. Stalin's replies on cardinal
263