Towards the XXVII Congress of the CPSU (LATE 40's-MID 80's) "The question of peace is a burning question, a painful question of our time." 1 These Leninist words, uttered on November 8, 1917, and today, in the mid - 80s, accurately characterize the core problem of the international situation, as well as the situation of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Historical conditions have changed, new generations of people have entered active life, but the problem of ensuring peace, the struggle for peace, and therefore for the preservation of life on Earth, remains the most urgent for humanity. The social movement for peace - a complex political phenomenon of our time, which has an ever-increasing impact on international relations-in turn depends on the international situation. In the 1980s, it took on an unprecedented scale and became one of the leading factors determining the situation in the world. The study of the history of the anti-war movement of the Soviet public is necessary to understand and objectively assess the current stage of the World Peace Movement. The political urgency of studying this problem is dictated by the acute struggle around it, attempts by militaristic forces to bring discord into the ranks of fighters for peace. Imperialist anti-Soviet propaganda, on the one hand, tries to belittle and silence the facts of the mass social movement for peace in the U.S.S.R., and on the other, it insists on Moscow's "leadership" of the World Peace Movement. Bourgeois authors, especially Sovietologists, as well as representatives of various schismatic organizations such as the" non-aligned " peace movement, claim that the movement of Soviet public opinion for peace is not independent and artificial, and portray it as an instrument of Soviet power .2 The history of this movement is a convincing argument in favor of the Marxist - Leninist position on the decisive role of the masses of the people in the progress of mankind, on the right and duty of peoples to decide the fate of ... Read more