European Nuclear Disarmament

European Nuclear Disarmament (END) was a Europe-wide movement for a "nuclear-free Europe from Poland to Portugal” that put on annual European Nuclear Disarmament conventions from 1982 to 1991.

The founding statement of END was the European Nuclear Disarmament Appeal issued in April 1980 and circulated by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (http://www.russfound.org). It was provoked by NATO’s decision in December 1979 to respond to a Soviet upgrading of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe with its own nuclear modernisation – cruise and Pershing II missiles to be deployed in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.

The appeal began:

We are entering the most dangerous decade in human history. A third world war is not merely possible but increasingly likely . . . In Europe, the main geographical stage for the East-West confrontation, new generations of ever more deadly nuclear weapons are appearing.

The document was notable for two things in particular. First, it resolutely refused to take sides in the Cold War:

We do not wish to apportion guilt between the military leaders of East and West. Guilt lies squarely upon both parties. Both parties have adopted menacing postures and committed aggressive actions in different parts of the world. . .

Secondly, it argued not just for disarmament (a nuclear-free Europe "from Poland to Portugal”) but also for the destruction of the bloc system that had divided Europe since 1945 – a goal it envisaged being achieved by a novel strategy of “détente from below”:

The remedy lies in our own hands . . . We must commence to act as if a united, neutral and pacific Europe already exists. We must learn to be loyal, not to ‘East’ or ‘West’, but to each other, and we must disregard the prohibitions and limitations imposed by any national state . . . We must resist any attempt by the statesmen of East and west to manipulate this movement to their own advantage. . .

The main authors of the appeal were British – E. P. Thompson, Mary Kaldor, Dan Smith and Ken Coates – and it was launched at a press conference in the House of Commons. But their intention was to create a Europe-wide movement, and by summer 1980 it had been endorsed by an impressive list of supporters, mainly in western Europe but with a smattering from the Soviet bloc, among them former Hungarian prime minister Andras Hegedus and Russian dissident Roy Medvedev. Several other East European intellectuals signed later.

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