Andrei Zhdanov

Andrei Zhdanov was a Soviet Politburo member and Communist Party leader who Western historians claim was instrumental in formulating an aggressive, anti-Western Soviet foreign policy. In 1947 he organized the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau), which coordinated efforts to spread communism in Europe. In the following viewpoint, excerpted from a report delivered on September 22, 1947, at Cominform’s first conference, Zhdanov stresses the ideological differences between the United States and the Soviet Union and the need to resist imperialist expansion.

According to Zhdanov, the Soviet Union is a peace-seeking nation that hopes to share its progressive, superior social system—communism—with the world. Unlike the Soviet Union, which respects the sovereignty of nations, imperialist nations such as the United States impose their capitalistic ideologies on oppressed countries worldwide, he...