Stalin Peace Prize - Definition

The International Stalin Peace Prize (renamed Международная Ленинская премия «За укрепление мира между народами», the International Lenin Peace Prize as a result of destalinization) was the Soviet Union's answer to the Nobel Peace Prize. It was awarded by an international panel appointed by the Soviet government to notable individuals who the panel felt had "strengthened peace among peoples". The renamed Lenin Peace Prize is apparently still being awarded by the Russian government.

The Stalin Peace Prize was created in 1949 by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in honor of Josef Stalin's seventieth birthday. Unlike the Nobel Prize, the Stalin Peace Prize was usually awarded to several people a year rather than to just one individual. Following Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held in 1956 the prize was renamed the International Lenin Peace Prize. All previous recipients were asked to return their International Stalin Peace Prize so it could be replaced by the renamed International Lenin Peace Prize.

There was also a Stalin Prize created in 1941 which was awarded annually to leading Soviet writers, composers, artists and scientists.

List of recipients

• Halldór Laxness (1949)
• Jorge Amado (1949)
• Pablo Picasso (1950)
• Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1951)
• Anna Seghers (1951)
• Hewlett Johnson (1951)
• Soong Ching-ling (Madame Sun Yat-sen) (1951)
• Martin Anderson Nexo
• Rev. James Gareth Endicott (1953)
• Eliza Branco (1953)
• Johannes Becher (1953)
• Sayfuddin Kichloo (1953)
• Ilya Ehrenburg (1953)
• Yves Farge (1953)
• Pablo Neruda (1953)
• Paul Robeson (1953)
• John Desmond Bernal (1953)
• Michael Sadovyany
• Leon Kruczkowski (1953)
• Nina Vasilevna Popova (1953)
• Andrea Andreen (1953)
• Isabelle Blume (1953)
• Andrew Gaggiero (1953)
• Sir Sahib-singh Sokhey (1953)
• Howard Fast (1953)
• Leon Kruczkowski (1953)
• Saifuddin Kitchlew (1954)
• Bertolt Brecht (1954)
• Joseph Wirth (1954)
• Felix Iversen (1954)
• Danilo Dolci (1958)
• W.E.B. DuBois (1959)
• Cyrus Eaton (1960)
• Fidel Castro (1961)
• Jorge Amado de Faria (1962)
• Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1962)
• Nelson Mandela (1962) ¹
• Kwame Nkrumah (1962)
• Olga Poblete de Espinosa (1962)
• Istvan Dobi (1962)
• Manolis Glezos (1963)
• Oscar Niemeyer (1963)
• Dolores Ibárruri (1964)
• Miguel Ángel Asturias (1966)
• Linus Pauling (1967)
• Rockwell Kent
• Carlton Goodlett (1970)
• Eric Henry Stoneley Burhop (1972)
• Sam Nujoma (1973)
• Seán MacBride (1977)
• Angela Davis (1979)
• Mahmoud Darwish (1983)
• Mikis Theodorakis (1983)
• Dorothy Hodgkin (1987)
• Lady Valerie Goulding
• Martti Ahtisaari

1. Mandela was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962 but, due to his trial and imprisonment in South Africa, was unable to accept the prize until 2002.

External links

• Thoughts on winning the Stalin Peace Prize (http://www.mltranslations.org/Miscellaneous/RobesonSPP.htm) by Paul Robeson
• On Receiving the Stalin Peace Award (http://www.trussel.com/hf/plots/t590.htm) by Howard Fast
• Address by Nelson Mandela on receiving the Lenin Peace Prize (http://www.russianembassy.org.za/bilateral/text/bilateral%20281002.html)
• Soviet Prize Medals (http://www.russian-medals.net/sprmeds.htm) pictures of the medals and accompanying certificates