The

World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization created in 1949 by the Cominform and propped up by the Soviet Union. Throughout the Cold War, WPC engaged in propaganda efforts on behalf of the Soviet Union, whereby it criticize ...

(WPC), a pro-Soviet non-governmental organization, has awarded a number of prizes, beginning in 1950. These have been awarded to individuals, organisations, peoples, and places. Typically, several winners would be voted at one WPC congress; these, or their representative, would receive their prize at a later congress, or from a WPC delegation. Extra prizes were awarded in 1959 and 1964, to mark the WPC's 10th and 15th anniversaries. The awards include: *International Peace Prize established at the first World Congress of Peace held in April 1949, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. The original 1949 regulations envisaged prizes for art, literature, film, or industrial work which advanced the cause of peace among nations. In 1951, the WPC recategorised three distinct awards: **International Peace Prize, last awarded in 1957. **Honorary International Peace Prize, for posthumous award. **Medal of Peace, renamed in 1959 the Joliot-Curie Medal of Peace, in honour of

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were t ...

, who led the WPC till his death in 1958. This medal has been awarded in silver, but the highest WPC honour is the gold medal. *Ho Chi Minh Award, a leadership award established in honour of

Ho Chi Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...

(not to be confused with the Ho Chi Minh Prizes awarded by the Vietnamese government). *Amilcar Cabral Award, established in 1973 in honour of

Amílcar Cabral Amílcar Lopes Cabral (; – ) was a Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, political organizer, and diplomat. He was one of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders. He was also a pan-Africanist and intellectual nationalist ...

, for contributions to "the struggle against

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

and

colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...

". (The Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau governments also award Amilcar Cabral prizes.) The WPC was allied with the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and followed its foreign policy line during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. Some recipients of its prizes have also won the

Lenin Peace Prize The International Lenin Peace Prize (, ''mezhdunarodnaya Leninskaya premiya mira)'' was a Soviet Union award named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel ...

, a separate prize awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government.

List of award winners

In 2002, the WPC denied news reports that it had given a prize to

Meles Zenawi Meles Zenawi Asres ( Tigringa and ; ), born Legesse Zenawi Asres (8 May 1955 – 20 August 2012) was an Ethiopian politician and former rebel militant commander who served as president of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995 and as prime minister from 19 ...

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:World Peace Council Prizes Peace awards Lists of award winners World Peace Council