First Comment by the CPC
Communist Party of China
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
THE LEADERSHIP
OF THE CPSU
AND OURSELVES
Comment on the Open Letter of
the Central Committee
of the CPSU
by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao
(People's
Daily ) and Hongqi (Red Flag )
(September 6, 1963)
From the collection
The Polemic on the General Line of
the
International Communist Movement
FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS
PEKING 1965
pp. 55-114.
Prepared for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@cruzio.com (February 1998)
[Transcriber's Note: In the printed edition, quoted
passages of any length appear in the same
size type, but are indented as a
block. In the following on-line version, these passages are NOT indented as a
block, but appear in a smaller point font.-- DJR]
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Appendix I |
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page 55
page 56 [blank page]
page 57
Now Moscow, Washington, New Delhi and Belgrade are joined in
a love feast and the Soviet press is running an endless assortment of
fantastic stories and theories attacking China. The leadership of the CPSU has
allied itself with U.S. imperialism, the Indian reactionaries and the renegade
Tito clique against socialist China and against all Marxist-Leninist Parties,
in open betrayal of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, in
brazen repudiation of the 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Statement and in
flagrant violation of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and
Mutual Assistance.
The present differences within the international communist
movement and between the Chinese and Soviet Parties involve a whole series of
important questions of principle. In its letter of June 14 to the Central
Committee of the CPSU, the Central Committee of the CPC systematically and
comprehensively discussed the essence of these differences. It pointed out
that, in the last analysis, the present differences within the international
communist movement and between the Chinese and Soviet Parties involve the
questions of whether or not to accept the revolutionary principles of the 1957
Declaration and the 1960 Statement, whether or not to accept Marxism-Leninism
and proletarian internationalism, whether or not there is need for revolution,
whether or
page 58
not imperialism is to be opposed, and whether or not the unity of the
socialist camp and the international communist movement is desired.
How have the differences in the international communist
movement and between the leadership of the CPSU and ourselves arisen? And how
have they grown to their present serious dimensions? Everybody is concerned
about these questions.
In our article "Whence the Differences?"[1] we dealt
with the origin and growth of the differences in the international communist
movement in general outline. We deliberately refrained from giving certain
facts concerning this question, and particularly certain important facts
involving the leadership of the CPSU, and left the leadership of the CPSU some
leeway, though we were ready to provide a fuller picture and to thrash out the
rights and wrongs when necessary. Now that the Open Letter of the Central
Committee of the CPSU has told many lies about the origin and development
of the differences and completely distorted the facts, it has become necessary
for us to set forth certain facts in order to explain the matter in greater
detail.
In its Open Letter, the Central Committee of the CPSU dares
not state the truth to its Party members and the masses of the people. Instead
of being open and above-board and respecting the facts as Marxist-Leninists
should, the leadership of the CPSU resorts to the customary practice of
bourgeois politicians, distorting the facts and confusing truth and falsehood
in its determined attempt to shift the blame for the emergence and growth of
the differences on to the Chinese Communist Party.
Lenin once said, "Honesty in politics is the result of
strength; hypocrisy is the result of weakness."[2]
Honesty and respect for the facts mark the attitude of Marxist-Leninists.
page 59
Only those who have degenerated politically depend on telling lies for a
living.
The facts are most eloquent. Facts are the best witness. Let
us look at the facts.
There is a saying, "It takes more than one cold day for the
river to freeze three feet deep." The present differences in the international
communist movement did not, of course, begin just today.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU spreads
the notion that the differences in the international communist movement were
started by "Long Live
Leninism!" and two other articles which we published in April 1960. This
is a big lie.
What is the truth?
The truth is that the whole series of differences of
principle in the international communist movement began more than seven years
ago.
To be specific, it began with the 20th Congress of the CPSU
in 1956.
The 20th Congress of the CPSU was the first step along the
road of revisionism taken by the leadership of the CPSU. From the 20th
Congress to the present, the revisionist line of the leadership of the CPSU
has gone through the process of emergence, formation, growth and
systematization. And by a gradual process, too, people have come to understand
more and more deeply the revisionist line of the CPSU leadership.
From the very outset we held that a number of views advanced
at the 20th Congress concerning the contemporary international struggle and
the international communist movement were wrong, were violations of
Marxism-Leninism. In
page 60
particular, the complete negation of Stalin on the pretext of "combating
the personality cult" and the thesis of peaceful transition to socialism by
"the parliamentary road" are gross errors of principle.
The criticism of Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU was
wrong both in principle and in method.
Stalin's life was that of a great Marxist-Leninist, a great
proletarian revolutionary. For thirty years after Lenin's death, Stalin was
the foremost leader of the CPSU and the Soviet Government, as well as the
recognized leader of the international communist movement and the
standard-bearer of the world revolution. During his lifetime, Stalin made some
serious mistakes, but compared to his great and meritorious deeds his mistakes
are only secondary.
Stalin rendered great services to the development of the
Soviet Union and the international communist movement. In the article "On the Historical
Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" published in April
1956, we said:
After Lenin's death Stalin creatively applied and developed
Marxism-Leninism as the chief leader of the Party and the state. Stalin
expressed the will and aspirations of the people, and proved himself an
outstanding Marxist-Leninist fighter, in the struggle in defence of the legacy
of Leninism against its enemies -- the Trotskyites, Zinovievites and other
bourgeois agents. Stalin won the support of the Soviet people and played an
important role in history primarily because, together with the other leaders
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he defended Lenin's line on the
industrialization of the Soviet Union and the collectivization of agriculture.
By pursuing this line, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union brought about
the triumph of socialism in the Soviet Union and created the conditions for
the victory of the Soviet Union in the war against Hitler; these victories of
the Soviet people accorded with the interests of the working class of the
page 61
world and all progressive mankind. It was therefore natural that the name
of Stalin was greatly honoured throughout the world. It was necessary to criticize Stalin's mistakes. But in his
secret report to the 20th Congress, Comrade Khrushchov completely negated
Stalin, and in doing so defamed the dictatorship of the proletariat, defamed
the socialist system, the great CPSU, the great Soviet Union and the
international communist movement. Far from using a revolutionary proletarian
party's method of criticism and self-criticism for the purpose of making an
earnest and serious analysis and summation of the historical experience of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, he treated Stalin as an enemy and shifted the
blame for all mistakes on to Stalin alone.
Khrushchov viciously and demagogically told a host of lies in
his secret report, and threw around charges that Stalin had a "persecution
mania", indulged in "brutal arbitrariness", took the path of "mass repressions
and terror", "knew the country and agriculture only from films" and "planned
operations on a globe", that Stalin's leadership "became a serious obstacle in
the path of Soviet social development", and so on and so forth. He completely
obliterated the meritorious deeds of Stalin who led the Soviet people in
waging resolute struggle against all internal and external foes and achieving
great results in socialist transformation and socialist construction, who led
the Soviet people in defending and consolidating the first socialist country
in the world and winning the glorious victory in the anti-fascist war, and who
defended and developed Marxism-Leninism.
In completely negating Stalin at the 20th Congress of the
CPSU, Khrushchov in effect negated the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
fundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism which Stalin defended and developed.
It was at that
page 62
Congress that Khrushchov, in his report, began the repudiation of
Marxism-Leninism on a number of questions of principle.
In his report to the 20th Congress, under the pretext that
"radical changes" had taken place in the world situation, Khrushchov put
forward the thesis of "peaceful transition". He said that the road of the
October Revolution was "the only correct road in those historical conditions",
but that as the situation had changed, it had become possible to effect the
transition from capitalism to socialism "through the parliamentary road". In
essence, this erroneous thesis is a clear revision of the Marxist-Leninist
teachings on the state and revolution and a clear denial of the universal
significance of the road of the October Revolution.
In his report, under the same pretext that "radical changes"
had taken place in the world situation, Khrushchov also questioned the
continued validity of Lenin's teachings on imperialism and on war and peace,
and in fact tampered with Lenin's teachings.
Khrushchev pictured the U.S. Government and its head as
people resisting the forces of war, and not as representatives of the
imperialist forces of war. He said, ". . . the advocates of settling
outstanding issues by means of war still hold strong positions there [in the
United States], and . . . they continue to exert big pressure on the President
and the Administration." He went on to say that the imperialists were
beginning to admit that the positions-of-strength policy had failed and that
"symptoms of a certain sobering up are appearing" among them. It was as much
as saying that it was possible for the U.S. Government and its head not to
represent the interests of the U.S. monopoly capital and for them to abandon
their policies of war and aggression and that they had become forces defending
peace.
Khrushchov declared: "We want to be friends with the United
States and to co-operate with it for peace and international security and also
in the economic and cultural spheres!"
page 63
This wrong view later developed into the line of "Soviet-U.S. cooperation
for the settlement of world problems".
Distorting Lenin's correct principle of peaceful coexistence
between countries with different social systems, Khrushchov declared that
peaceful coexistence was the "general line of the foreign policy" of the
U.S.S.R. This amounted to excluding from the general line of foreign policy of
the socialist countries their mutual assistance and co-operation as well as
assistance by them to the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed peoples and
nations, or to subordinating all this to the policy of so-called "peaceful
coexistence".
The questions raised by the leadership of the CPSU at the
20th Congress, and especially the question of Stalin and of "peaceful
transition", are by no means simply internal affairs of the CPSU; they are
vital issues of common interest for all fraternal Parties. Without any prior
consultation with the fraternal Parties, the leadership of the CPSU drew
arbitrary conclusions; it forced the fraternal Parties to accept a fait
accompli and, on the pretext of "combating the personality cult", crudely
interfered in the internal affairs of fraternal Parties and countries and
tried to subvert their leaderships, thus pushing its policy of sectarianism
and splittism in the international communist movement.
Subsequent developments show with increasing clarity that the
revision and betrayal of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism by
the leaders of the CPSU have grown out of the above errors.
The CPC has always differed in principle in its view of the
20th Congress of the CPSU, and the leading comrades of the CPSU are well aware
of this. Yet the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU asserts that
the Communist Party of China previously gave the 20th Congress full support,
that we "have made a 180-degree turn" in our evaluation of the 20th Congress,
and that our position is full of "vacillation and wavering" and is "false".
page 64
It is impossible for the leadership of the CPSU to shut out
the heavens with one palm. Let the facts speak for themselves.
On many occasions in internal discussions after the 20th
Congress of the CPSU, leading comrades of the Central Committee of the CPC
solemnly criticized the errors of the CPSU leadership.
In April 1956, less than two months after the 20th Congress,
in conversations both with Comrade Mikoyan, member of the Presidium of the
Central Committee of the CPSU, and with the Soviet Ambassador to China,
Comrade Mac Tse-tung expressed our views on the question of Stalin. He
emphasized that Stalin's "merits outweighed his faults" and that it was
necessary to "make a concrete analysis" and "an all-round evaluation" of
Stalin.
On October 23, 1956, on receiving the Soviet Ambassador to
China, Comrade Mao Tse-tung pointed out, "Stalin deserves to be criticized,
but we do not agree with the method of criticism, and there are some other
matters we do not agree with."
On November 30, 1956, on receiving the Soviet Ambassador to
China, Comrade Mao Tse-tung again pointed out that the basic policy and line
during the period when Stalin was in power were correct and that methods that
are used against enemies must not be used against one's comrades.
Both Comrade Liu Shao-chi in his conversation with leaders of
the CPSU in October 1956, and Comrade Chou En-lai in his conversations on
October 1, 1956 with the delegation of the CPSU to the Eighth Congress of the
CPC and on January 18, 1957 with leaders of the CPSU, also expressed our views
on the question of Stalin, and both criticized the errors of the leaders of
the CPSU as consisting chiefly of "total lack of an overall analysis" of
Stalin, "lack of self-criticism" and "failure to consult with the fraternal
Parties in advance".
page 65
In internal discussions with comrades of the CPSU, leading
comrades of the Central Committee of the CPC also stated where eve differed on
the question of peaceful transition. Furthermore, in November 1957 the Central
Committee of the CPC presented the Central Committee of the CPSU with a
written "Outline of Views on the Question of Peaceful Transition",
comprehensively and clearly explaining the viewpoint of the CPC.
In their many internal discussions with comrades of the CPSU,
leading comrades of the Central Committee of the CPC also systematically set
forth our views on the international situation and the strategy of the
international communist movement, with direct reference to the errors of the
20th Congress of the CPSU.
These are plain facts. How can the leadership of the CPSU
obliterate them by bare-faced lying?
Attempting to conceal these important facts, the Central
Committee of the CPSU in its Open Letter quotes out of context public
statements by Comrades Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping to show
that at one time the Chinese Communist Party completely affirmed the 20th
Congress of the CPSU. This is futile.
The fact is that at no time and in no place did the Chinese
Communist Party completely affirm the 20th Congress of the CPSU, agree with
the complete negation of Stalin or endorse the view of peaceful transition to
socialism through the "parliamentary road".
Not long after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, on April 5,
1956, we published "On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat"; then, on December 29, 1956, we published "More on the Historical
Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat". While refuting the
anti-Communist slanders of the imperialists and reactionaries, these two
articles made an all-round analysis of the life of Stalin, affirmed the
universal significance of the road of the October Revolution, summed up the
historical experience of
page 66
the dictatorship of the proletariat, and tactfully but unequivocally
criticized the erroneous propositions of the 20th Congress. Is this not a
widely known fact?
Since the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the Chinese Communist
Party has continued to display the portrait of Stalin along with those of the
other great revolutionary leaders, Marx, Engels and Lenin. Is not this, too, a
widely known fact?
It needs to be said, of course, that for the sake of unity
against the enemy and out of consideration for the difficult position the
leaders of the CPSU were in, we refrained in those days from open criticism of
the errors of the 20th Congress, because the imperialists and the
reactionaries of all countries were exploiting these errors and carrying on
frenzied activities against the Soviet Union, against communism and against
the people, and also because the leaders of the CPSU had not yet departed so
far from Marxism-Leninism as they did later. We fervently hoped at the time
that the leaders of the CPSU would put their errors right. Consequently, we
always endeavoured to seek out positive aspects and on public occasions gave
them whatever support was appropriate and necessary.
Even so, by stressing positive lessons and principles in
their public speeches, leading comrades of the Central Committee of the CPC
explained our position with regard to the 20th Congress of the CPSU.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU asserts
that in his political report to the Eighth Congress of the CPC, Comrade Liu
Shao-chi completely affirmed the 20th Congress of the CPSU. But it was in this
very report that Comrade Liu Shao-chi spoke on the lessons of the Chinese
revolution and explained that the road of "peaceful transition" was wrong and
impracticable.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU asserts
that in his report to the Eighth Congress of the CPC on the revision of the
Party Constitution, Comrade Teng
page 67
Hsiao-ping completely affirmed the "struggle against the personality cult"
conducted at the 20th Congress. But it was in this very report that Comrade
Teng Hsiao-ping discussed at some length democratic centralism in the Party
and the interrelationship between leaders and masses, explained the consistent
and correct style of work of our Party, and thus in effect criticized the
error of the 20th Congress concerning the "struggle against the personality
cult".
Is there anything wrong in the way we acted? Have we not done
exactly what a Marxist-Leninist Party ought to do by persevering in principle
and upholding unity?
How can this consistently correct attitude of the Chinese
Communist Party towards the 20th Congress be described as full of "vacillation
and wavering", as "false" and as representing "a 180-degree turn"?
In making these charges against us in the Open Letter,
perhaps the Central Committee of the CPSU thought it could deny the criticisms
we made because they were known only to a few leaders of the CPSU, and that it
could use falsehoods to deceive the broad masses of the CPSU membership and
the Soviet people. But does this not prove its own falseness?
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU loudly
proclaims the "splendid" and "majestic results" of the 20th Congress of the
CPSU.
But history cannot be altered. People not suffering from too
short a memory will recall that by its errors the 20th Congress produced not
"splendid" or "majestic results" but a discrediting of the Soviet Union, of
the dictatorship of the proletariat and of socialism and communism, and gave
an opportunity to the imperialists, the reactionaries and all the
page 68
other enemies of communism, with extremely serious consequences for the
international communist movement.
After the Congress, swollen with arrogance the imperialists
and reactionaries everywhere stirred up a world-wide tidal wave against the
Soviet Union, against communism and against the people. The U.S. imperialists
saw the all-out attack on Stalin by the leadership of the CPSU as something
that was "never so suited to our purposes",[1] they talked
openly about using Khrushchov's secret report as a "weapon with which to
destroy the prestige and influence of the Communist movement"[2] and they
took the opportunity to advocate "peaceful transformation" in the Soviet
Union.[3]
The Titoites became most aggressive. Flaunting their
reactionary slogan of "anti-Stalinism", they wildly attacked the dictatorship
of the proletariat and the socialist system. They declared that the 20th
Congress of the CPSU "created sufficient elements" for the "new course" which
Yugoslavia had started and that "the question now is whether this course will
win or the course of Stalinism will win again".[4]
The Trotskyites, enemies of communism, who had been in
desperate straits, feverishly resumed activity. In its Manifesto to the
Workers and Peoples of the Entire World the so-called Fourth International
said:
Today, when the Kremlin leaders are themselves admitting the
crimes of Stalin, they implicitly recognize that the indefatigable struggle
carried on . . . by the world Trotskyist movement against the degeneration of
the workers' state, was fully justified. The errors of the 20th Congress brought great ideological
confusion in the international communist movement and
page 69
caused it to be deluged with revisionist ideas. Along with the
imperialists, the reactionaries and the Tito clique, renegades from communism
in many countries attacked Marxism-Leninism and the international communist
movement.
Most striking among the events which took place during this
period were the incident in Soviet-Polish relations and the
counter-revolutionary rebellion in Hungary. The two events were different in
character. But the leadership of the CPSU made grave errors in both. By moving
up troops in an attempt to subdue the Polish comrades by armed force it
committed the error of great-power chauvinism. And at the critical moment when
the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries had occupied Budapest, for a time it
intended to adopt a policy of capitulation and abandon socialist Hungary to
counter-revolution.
These errors of the leadership of the CPSU inflated the
arrogance of all the enemies of communism, created serious difficulties for
many fraternal Parties and caused the international communist movement great
damage.
In the face of this situation, the Chinese Communist Party
and other fraternal Parties persevering in Marxism-Leninism firmly demanded
repulsing the assaults of imperialism and reaction and safeguarding the
socialist camp and the international communist movement. We insisted on the
taking of all necessary measures to smash the counter-revolutionary rebellion
in Hungary and firmly opposed the abandonment of socialist Hungary. We
insisted that in the handling of problems between fraternal Parties and
countries correct principles should be followed so as to strengthen the unity
of the socialist camp, and we firmly opposed the erroneous methods of
great-power chauvinism. At the same time, we made very great efforts to
safeguard the prestige of the CPSU.
At that time the leaders of the CPSU accepted our suggestion
and on October 30, 1956 issued the Soviet Government's Declaration on the
Foundations of the Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and
Co-operation Be-
page 70
tween the Soviet Union and Other Socialist Countries", in which they
examined some of their own past mistakes in handling their relations with
fraternal countries. On November 1, the Chinese Government issued a statement
expressing support for the Soviet Government's declaration.
All this we did in the interests of the international
communist movement, and also in order to persuade the leaders of the CPSU to
draw the proper lessons and correct their errors in good time and not slide
farther away from Marxism-Leninism. But subsequent events showed that the
leaders of the CPSU nursed rancour against us and regarded the CPC which
perseveres in proletarian internationalism as the biggest obstacle to their
wrong line.
The 1957 Meeting of Representatives of the Communist and
Workers' Parties took place in Moscow after the repulse of the heavy attacks
of the imperialists and the reactionaries of various countries on the
international communist movement.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU says
that the 20th Congress of the CPSU played an "immense part" in defining the
general line of the international communist movement. The facts show the very
reverse. The erroneous views of the 20th Congress on many important questions
of principle were rejected and corrected by the 1957 meeting of fraternal
Parties.
The well-known Declaration of 1957, adopted by the Moscow
Meeting, summed up the experience of the international communist movement, set
forth the common fighting tasks of all the Communist Parties, affirmed the
universal significance of the road of the October Revolution, outlined the
common laws governing socialist revolution and socialist
page 71
construction and laid down the principles guiding relations among fraternal
Parties and countries. The common line of the international communist movement
which was thus worked out at the meeting embodies the revolutionary principles
of Marxism-Leninism and is opposed to the erroneous views deviating from
Marxism-Leninism which were advanced by the 20th Congress. The principles
guiding relations among fraternal Parties and countries laid down in the
Declaration are concrete expressions of the principle of proletarian
internationalism and stand opposed to the great-power chauvinism and
sectarianism of the leadership of the CPSU.
The delegation of the CPC, which was headed by Comrade Mao
Tse-tung, did a great deal of work during the meeting. On the one hand, it had
full consultations with the leaders of the CPSU, and where necessary and
appropriate waged struggle against them, in order to help them correct their
errors; on the other hand, it held repeated exchanges of views with the
leaders of other fraternal Parties in order that a common document acceptable
to all might be worked out.
At this meeting, the chief subject of controversy between us
and the delegation of the CPSU was the transition from capitalism to
socialism. In their original draft of the Declaration the leadership of the
CPSU insisted on the inclusion of the erroneous views of the 20th Congress on
peaceful transition. The original draft said not a word about non-peaceful
transition, mentioning only peaceful transition; moreover, it described
peaceful transition as "securing a majority in parliament and transforming
parliament from an instrument of the bourgeois dictatorship into an instrument
of a genuine people's state power". In fact, it substituted the "parliamentary
road" advocated by the opportunists of the Second International for the road
of the October Revolution and tampered with the basic Marxist-Leninist theory
on the state and revolution.
The Chinese Communist Party resolutely opposed the wrong
views contained in the draft declaration submitted by
page 72
the leadership of the CPSU. We expressed our views on the two successive
drafts put forward by the Central Committee of the CPSU and made a
considerable number of major changes of principle which we presented as our
own revised draft. Repeated discussions were then held between the delegations
of the Chinese and Soviet Parties on the basis of our revised draft before the
Joint Draft Declaration by the CPSU and the CPC was submitted to the
delegations of the other fraternal Parties for their opinions.
As a result of the common efforts of the delegations of the
CPC and the other fraternal Parties, the meeting finally adopted the present
version of the Declaration, which contains two major changes on the question
of the transition from capitalism to socialism compared with the first draft
put forward by the leadership of the CPSU. First, while indicating the
possibility of peaceful transition, the Declaration also points to the road of
non-peaceful transition and stresses that "Leninism teaches, and experience
confirms, that the ruling classes never relinquish power voluntarily".
Secondly, while speaking of securing "a firm majority in parliament", the
Declaration emphasizes the need to "launch an extra-parliamentary mass
struggle, smash the resistance of the reactionary forces and create the
necessary conditions for peaceful realization of the socialist revolution".
Despite these changes, the formulation in the Declaration on
the question of the transition from capitalism to socialism was still
unsatisfactory. We finally conceded the point only out of consideration for
the repeatedly expressed wish of the leaders of the CPSU that the formulation
should show some connection with that of the 20th Congress of the CPSU.
However, we presented the Central Committee of the CPSU with
an outline of our views on the question of peaceful transition in which the
views of the CPC were explained comprehensively and clearly. The outline
emphasizes the following:
page 73
"In the present situation of the international communist
movement, it is advantageous from the point of view of tactics to refer to the
desire for peaceful transition. But it would be inappropriate to
over-emphasize the possibility of peaceful transition."
"They [the proletariat and the Communist Party] must be
prepared at all times to repulse counter-revolutionary attacks and, at the
critical juncture of the revolution when the working class is seizing state
power, to overthrow the bourgeoisie by armed force if it uses armed force to
suppress the peoples revolution (generally speaking, it is inevitable that the
bourgeoisie will do so)."
"To obtain a majority in parliament is not the same as
smashing the old state machinery (chiefly the armed forces) and establishing
new state machinery (chiefly the armed forces). Unless the
military-bureaucratic state machinery of the bourgeoisie is smashed, a
parliamentary majority for the proletariat and its reliable allies will either
be impossible . . . or undependable. . . ." As a result of the common efforts of the delegations of the
CPC and the other fraternal Parties, the 1957 Declaration also corrected the
erroneous views which the CPSU leadership had put forward at the 20th Congress
on such questions as imperialism and war and peace, and it added many
important points on a number of questions of principle. The main additions
were the thesis that U.S. imperialism is the centre of world reaction and the
sworn enemy of the people, the thesis that if imperialism should unleash a
world war it would doom itself to destruction, the common laws governing the
socialist revolution and the building of socialism; the principle of combining
the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of
revolution and construction in different countries, the formulation on the
importance of applying dialectical materialism in practical work, the
page 74
thesis that the seizure of political power by the working class is the
beginning of the revolution and not its end; the thesis that it will take a
fairly long time to solve the question of who will win -- capitalism or
socialism, the thesis that the existence of bourgeois influence is an internal
source of revisionlsm, while surrender to imperialist pressure is its external
source; and so on.
At the same time, the delegation of the CPC made some
necessary compromises. In addition to the formulation on the question of
peaceful transition, we did not agree with the reference to the 20th Congress
of the CPSU and suggested changes. But out of consideration for the difficult
position of the leadership of the CPSU at the time, we did not insist on the
changes.
Who could have imagined that these concessions which we made
out of consideration for the larger interest would later be used by the
leadership of the CPSU as an excuse for aggravating differences and creating a
split in the international communist movement?
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU
constantly equates the resolution of the 20th Congress of the CPSU with the
Declaration of 1957 in its attempt to substitute the wrong line of the 20th
Congress for the common line of the international communist movement. We
pointed out long ago and now deem it necessary to reiterate, that in
accordance with the principle that all fraternal Parties are independent and
equal, no one is entitled to demand of fraternal Parties that they accept the
resolutions of the Congress of one Party or for that matter anything else; and
the resolutions of a Party Congress, whatever the Party, cannot be regarded as
the common line of the international communist movement and have no binding
force on other fraternal Parties. Only Marxism-Leninism and the documents
unanimously agreed upon constitute the common code binding us and all
fraternal Parties.
page 75
After the Moscow Meeting of 1957 with its unanimously agreed
Declaration, we hoped that the leadership of the CPSU would follow the line
laid down in the Declaration and correct its errors. We regret to say that
contrary to the expectations we and all other Marxist-Leninist fraternal
Parties entertained, the leadership of the CPSU perpetrated increasingly
serious violations of the revolutionary principles of the Declaration and the
principles guiding relations among fraternal Parties and countries, and
departed farther and farther from the path of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian
internationalism. The revisionism of the leadership of the CPSU grew. This
development aggravated the differences in the international communist movement
and carried them to a new stage.
In complete disregard of the common conclusion of the 1957
Declaration that U.S. imperialism is the enemy of all the people of the world,
the leadership of the CPSU passionately sought collaboration with U.S.
imperialism and the settlement of world problems by the heads of the Soviet
Union and the United States. Particularly around the time of the Camp David
Talks in September 1959, Khrushchov lauded Eisenhower to the skies, hailing
him as a man who "enjoys the absolute confidence of his people"[1] and who "also worries about ensuring peace just as we
do".[2] Moreover, comrades of the CPSU energetically
advertised the so-called "spirit of Camp David", whose existence Eisenhower
himself denied, alleging that it marked "a new era in international
relations"[3] and "a turning-point in history".[4]
page 76
Completely disregarding the revolutionary line of the 1957
Declaration, in statements by Khrushchov and in the Soviet press the leaders
of the CPSU vigorously advocated their revisionist line of "peaceful
coexistence", "peaceful competition" and "peaceful transition", praised the
"wisdom" and "goodwill" of the imperialists, preached that "a world without
weapons, without armed forces and without wars" could be brought into being
while the greater part of the globe was still ruled and controlled by
imperialism,[1] that
universal and complete disarmament could "open up literally a new epoch in the
economic development of Asia, Africa and Latin America",[2] etc., etc.
The CPSU published many books and articles in which it
tampered with the fundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism, emasculated their
revolutionary spirit and propagated its revisionist views on a whole series of
important problems of principle in the fields of philosophy, political
economy, socialist and communist theory, history, literature and art.
The leadership of the CPSU actively endeavoured to impose its
erroneous views on the international democratic organizations and to change
their correct lines. An outstanding case in point was the behaviour of the
Soviet comrades at the Peking session of the General Council Of the World
Federation of Trade Unions in June 1960.
Completely disregarding the principles guiding relations
among fraternal Parties and countries which were laid down in the 1957
Declaration, the leaders of the CPSU, eager to curry favour with U.S.
imperialism, engaged in unbridled activities against China. They regarded the
Chinese Communist Party, which adheres to Marxism-Leninism, as an obstacle to
their revisionist line. They thought they had solved their internal problems
and had "stabilized" their own
page 77
position and could therefore step up their policy of "being friendly to
enemies and tough with friends".
In 1958 the leadership of the CPSU put forward unreasonable
demands designed to bring China under Soviet military control. These
unreasonable demands were rightly and firmly rejected by the Chinese
Government. Not long afterwards, in June 1959, the Soviet Government
unilaterally tore up the agreement on new technology for national defense
concluded between China and the Soviet Union in October 1957, and refused to
provide China with a sample of an atomic bomb and technical data concerning
its manufacture.
Then, on the eve of Khrushchov's visit to the United States,
ignoring China's repeated objections the leadership of the CPSU rushed out the
TASS statement of September 9 on the Sino-Indian border incident, siding with
the Indian reactionaries. In this way, the leadership of the CPSU brought the
differences between China and the Soviet Union right into the open before the
whole world.
The tearing up of the agreement on new technology for
national defence by the leadership of the CPSU and its issuance of the
statement on the Sino-Indian border clash on the eve of Khrushchov's visit to
the United States were presentation gifts to Eisenhower so as to curry favour
with the U.S. imperialists and create the so-called "spirit of Camp David".
The leaders of the CPSU and Soviet publications also levelled
many virulent attacks on the domestic and foreign policies of the Chinese
Communist Party. These attacks were almost invariably led by Khrushchov
himself. He insinuated that China's socialist construction was "skipping over
a stage" and was "equalitarian communism"[1] and that
China's People's Communes were "in essence reactionary".[2] By innuendo he
page 78
maligned China as warlike, guilty of "adventurism",[1] and so on
and so forth. Back from the Camp David Talks, he went so far as to try to sell
China the U.S. plot of "two Chinas" and, at the state banquet celebrating the
tenth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he read
China a lecture against "testing by force the stability of the capitalist
system".
The line of revisionism and splittism pursued by the
leadership of the CPSU created serious confusion in the ranks of the
international communist movement. It seemed as though U.S. imperialism had
ceased to be the sworn enemy of the people of the world. Eisenhower was
welcomed by certain Communists as a "peace envoy". Marxism-Leninism and the
Declaration of 1957 seemed to be outmoded.
In the circumstances, in order to defend Marxism-Leninism and
the 1957 Declaration and clear up the ideological confusion in the
international communist movement, the Communist Party of China published "Long
Live Leninism!" and two other articles in April 1960. Keeping to our
consistent stand of persevering in principle and upholding unity, we
concentrated on explaining the revolutionary theses of the 1957 Declaration
and the fundamental Marxist-Leninist theories on imperialism, war and peace,
proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The views in
these three articles were totally different from the series of erroneous views
that were being propagated by the leaders of the CPSU. However, for the sake
of the larger interest, we refrained from publicly criticizing the comrades of
the CPSU and directed the spearhead of struggle against the imperialists and
the Yugoslav revisionists.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU spends
much energy distorting and attacking "Long Live Leninism!" and the two other
articles, but is unable to support its attacks with any convincing arguments.
We should
page 79
like to put this question: In those circumstances, should we have kept
silent on the wrong views and absurd arguments which had become current? Did
we not have the right, and indeed the duty, to come forward in defense of
Marxism-Leninism and the Declaration of 1957?
A week after the publication of "Long Live Leninism!" and our
two other articles, an American U-2 plane intruded into Soviet air space and
the United States aborted the four-power summit conference. The "spirit of
Camp David" completely vanished. Thus events entirely confirmed our views.
In face of the arch enemy, it was imperative for the
Communist Parties of China and the Soviet Union and the fraternal Parties of
the whole world to eliminate their differences, strengthen their unity and
wage a common struggle against the enemy. But that was not what happened. In
the summer of 1960 there was a widening of the differences in the
international communist movement, a large-scale campaign was launched against
the Chinese Communist Party, and the leadership of the CPSU extended the
ideological differences between the Chinese and Soviet Parties to the sphere
of state relations.
In early June 1960 the Central Committee of the CPSU made the
proposal that the Third Congress of the Rumanian Workers' Party to be held in
Bucharest later in June, should be taken as an opportunity for representatives
of the Communist and Workers' Parties of all the socialist countries to meet
and exchange views on the international situation following the miscarriage of
the four-power summit conference caused by the United States. The Chinese
Communist Party did not approve of this idea of a hasty meeting nor of the
idea of a representative meeting of the Parties of the
page 80
socialist countries alone. We made the positive proposal that there should
be a meeting of representatives of all the Communist and Workers' Parties of
the world and maintained that adequate preparations were necessary to make
that meeting a success. Our proposal was agreed to by the CPSU. The two
Parties thereupon agreed that, in preparation for the international meeting,
the representatives of the fraternal Parties attending the Third Congress of
the Rumanian Workers' Party could provisionally exchange views on the date and
place for the meeting, but not take any decision.
At Bucharest, to our amazement, the leaders of the CPSU went
back on their word and unleashed a surprise assault on the Chinese Communist
Party, turning the spearhead of struggle against us and not against U.S.
imperialism.
The Bucharest meeting of representatives of fraternal Parties
took place from June 24 to June 26. It is a plain lie for the Open Letter of
the Central Committee of the CPSU to describe that meeting as "comradely
assistance" to the Chinese Communist Party.
Indeed, on the eve of the meeting, the delegation of the CPSU
headed by Khrushchov distributed among the representatives of some fraternal
Parties, and read out to those of others, a Letter of Information dated June
21 from the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Central Committee of the CPC.
This Letter of Information groundlessly slandered and attacked the CPC all
along the line; it constituted a programme for the anti-China campaign which
was launched by the leadership of the CPSU.
In the meeting, Khrushchov took the lead in organizing a
great converging onslaught on the Chinese Communist Party. In his speech, he
wantonly vilified the Chinese Communist Party as "madmen", "wanting to unleash
war", "picking up the banner of the imperialist monopoly capitalists", being
"pure nationalist" on the Sino-Indian boundary question and employing
"Trotskyite ways" against the CPSU. Some of the fraternal Party
representatives who obeyed Khrushchov and
page 81
followed his lead also wantonly charged the CPC with being "dogmatic",
"Left adventurist", "pseudo-revolutionary", "sectarian", "worse than
Yugoslavia", and so on and so forth.
The anti-China campaign launched by Khrushchov at this
meeting was also a surprise to many fraternal Parties. The representatives of
a number of Marxist-Leninist fraternal Parties took exception to the wrong
action of the leadership of the CPSU.
At this meeting, the delegation of the Albanian Party of
Labour refused to obey the baton of the leaders of the CPSU and firmly opposed
their sectarian activities. Consequently the leaders of the CPSU regarded the
Albanian Party of Labour as a thorn in their side. Whereupon they took
increasingly drastic steps against the Albanian Party.
Can this dastardly attack on the CPC launched by the
leadership of the CPSU be called "comradely assistance"? Of course not. It was
a pre-arranged anti-Chinese performance staged by the leadership of the CPSU;
it was a serious and crude violation of the principles guiding relations among
fraternal Parties as laid down in the 1957 Declaration; it was a large-scale
attack on a Marxist-Leninist Party by the revisionists, represented by the
leaders of the CPSU.
In the circumstances, the Communist Party of China waged a
tit-for-tat struggle against the leadership of the CPSU in defence of the
positions of Marxism-Leninism and the principles guiding relations among
fraternal Parties as laid down in the Declaration. For the sake of the larger
interest, the CPC delegation in Bucharest signed the Communique on the
meeting, and at the same time, on June 26, 1960 distributed a written
statement upon the instructions of the Central Committee of the CPC. In this
statement, the CPC delegation pointed out that Khrushchov's behaviour at the
Bucharest meeting created an extremely bad precedent in the international
communist movement. It solemnly declared:
page 82
"There are differences between us and Comrade Khrushchov on a
series of fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism." "The future of the
international communist movement depends on the needs and the struggles of the
people of all countries and on the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, and will
never be decided by the baton of any individual." ". . . our Party believes in
and obeys the truth of Marxism-Leninism and Marxism-Leninism alone, and will
never submit to erroneous views which run counter to
Marxism-Leninism." The leaders of the CPSU did not reconcile themselves to their
failure to subdue the Chinese Communist Party in Bucharest. Immediately after
the Bucharest meeting, they brought more pressure to bear on China by taking a
series of steps to extend the ideological differences between the Chinese and
Soviet Parties to the sphere of state relations.
In July the Soviet Government suddenly took a unilateral
decision recalling all the Soviet experts in China within one month, thereby
tearing up hundreds of agreements and contracts. The Soviet side unilaterally
scrapped the agreement on the publication of the magazine Druzhba
(Friendship ) by China for Soviet readers and of Su Chung You
Hao (Soviet-Chinese Friendship ) by the Soviet Union for Chinese
readers and their distribution on reciprocal terms; it took the unwarranted
step of demanding the recall by the Chinese Government of a staff member of
the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union; and it provoked troubles on the
Sino-Soviet border.
Apparently the leaders of the CPSU imagined that once they
waved their baton, gathered a group of hatchet-men to make a converging
assault, and applied immense political and economic pressures, they could
force the Chinese Communist Party to abandon its Marxist-Leninist and
proletarian internationalist stand and submit to their revisionist and
great-power chauvinist behests. But the tempered and long-tested Chinese
Communist Party and Chinese people could neither,
page 83
be vanquished nor subdued. Those who tried to subjugate us by engineering a
converging assault and applying pressures completely miscalculated.
We shall leave the details of the way the leadership of the
CPSU sabotaged Sino-Soviet relations for other articles. Here we shall simply
point out that on the subject of Sino-Soviet relations, the Open Letter of the
Central Committee of the CPSU falsely charges China with extending the
ideological differences to the sphere of state relations and with curtailing
trade between the two countries, while deliberately concealing the fact that
the Soviet Government withdrew all its experts from China and unilaterally
tore up hundreds of agreements and contracts, and that it was these unilateral
Soviet actions which made Sino-Soviet trade shrink. For the leadership of the
CPSU to deceive its members and the Soviet people in such a bare-faced way is
truly sad.
In the latter half of 1960, a sharp struggle developed in the
international communist movement around the Meeting of Representatives of
Communist and Workers' Parties. It was a struggle between the line of
Marxism-Leninism and the line of revisionism and between the policy of
persevering in principle and upholding unity and the policy of abandoning
principle and creating splits.
It had become evident before the meeting that the leadership
of the CPSU was stubbornly persisting in its wrong stand and was endeavouring
to impose its wrong line on the international communist movement.
The Chinese Communist Party was keenly aware of the gravity
of the differences. In the interests of the international communist movement
we made many efforts, hoping
page 84
that the leadership of the CPSU would not proceed too far down the wrong
path.
On September 10, 1960 the Central Committee of the CPC
replied to the June 21 Letter of Information of the Central Committee of the
CPSU. In its reply which set forth the facts and reasoned things out, the
Central Committee of the CPC systematically explained its views on a series of
important questions of principle concerning the world situation and the
international communist movement, refuted the attacks of the leadership of the
CPSU on us, criticized its wrong views and put forward to the Central
Committee of the CPSU five positive proposals for settling the differences and
attaining unity. (For the five proposals, see Appendix III. )
The Central Committee of the CPC subsequently sent a
delegation to Moscow in September for talks with the delegation of the CPSU.
During these talks, the delegation of the CPC pointed out that, while
prettifying U.S. imperialism, the leadership of the CPSU was actively opposing
China and extending the ideological differences between the two Parties to
state relations, and was thus treating enemies as brothers and brothers as
enemies. Again and again the delegation of the CPC urged the leaders of the
CPSU to change their wrong stand, return to the principles guiding relations
among fraternal Parties and countries, and strengthen the unity between the
Chinese and Soviet Parties and between the two countries in order to fight the
common enemy. However, the leaders of the CPSU showed not the slightest
intention of correcting their errors.
Thus a sharp struggle became inevitable. This struggle first
unfolded in the Drafting Committee, attended by the representatives of 26
fraternal Parties, which prepared the documents for the meeting of fraternal
Parties, and later grew to unprecedented acuteness at the meeting of the
representatives of 81 fraternal Parties.
In the meetings of the Drafting Committee in Moscow during
October, the leaders of the CPSU attempted to force
page 85
through their own draft statement, which contained a whole string of
erroneous views. As a result of principled struggle by the delegations of the
CPC and some other fraternal Parties, the Drafting Committee after heated
debates made many important changes of principle in the draft statement put
forward by the CPSU. The committee reached agreement on most of the draft.
However, in their determination to continue the debate, the leadership of the
CPSU refused to arrive at agreement on several important points at issue in
the draft and, moreover, on Khrushchov's return from New York, even scrapped
the agreements which had already been reached on some questions.
The meeting of the representatives of the 81 fraternal
Parties was held in Moscow in November 1960. Ignoring the desire of the
Chinese and many other delegations to eliminate the differences and strengthen
unity, on the eve of the meeting the leadership of the CPSU distributed among
the representatives of the fraternal Parties gathered in Moscow a letter of
127 pages, which attacked the Chinese Communist Party more savagely than ever,
thus provoking still sharper controversy.
Such was the most unnatural atmosphere in which the meeting
of the representatives of the 81 fraternal Parties was held. By their base
conduct, the leaders of the CPSU brought the meeting to the brink of rupture.
But the meeting finally reached agreement and achieved positive results,
because the delegations of the Chinese Communist Party and some other
fraternal Parties kept to principle, persevered in struggle and upheld unity,
and because the majority of the delegations of the fraternal Parties demanded
unity and were against a split.
In its Open Letter, the Central Committee of the CPSU
declares that at this meeting the delegation of the CPC "signed the Statement
only when the danger of its full isolation became clear". This is another lie. What was the actual state of affairs?
page 86
It is true that, both before and during the meeting, the
leadership of the CPSU engineered converging assaults on the Chinese Communist
Party by a number of representatives of fraternal Parties, and relying on a
so-called majority endeavoured to bring the delegations of the Chinese and
other Marxist-Leninist Parties to their knees and compel them to accept its
revisionist line and views. However, the attempts by the leaders of the CPSU
to impose things on others met with failure, both in the Drafting Committee of
the 26 fraternal Parties and in the meeting of the representatives of the 81
fraternal Parties.
The fact remains that many of the wrong theses they put
forward in their draft statement were rejected. Here are some examples:
The wrong thesis of the leadership of the CPSU that peaceful
coexistence and economic competition form the general line of the foreign
policy of the socialist countries was rejected.
Its wrong thesis that the emergence of a new stage in the
general crisis of capitalism is the result of peaceful coexistence and
peaceful competition was rejected.
Its wrong thesis that there is a growing possibility of
peaceful transition was rejected.
It's wrong thesis about opposing the policy of "going it
alone" on the part. of socialist countries, which in effect meant opposing the
policy of their relying mainly on themselves in construction, was rejected.
Its wrong thesis concerning opposition to so-called "cliquish
activities" and "factional activities" in the international communist movement
was rejected. In effect this thesis meant demanding that fraternal Parties
should obey its baton, liquidating the principles of independence and equality
in relations among fraternal Parties, and replacing the principle of reaching
unanimity through consultation by the practice of subduing the minority by the
majority.
Its wrong thesis of underestimating the serious danger of
modern revisionism was rejected.
page 87
The fact remains that many correct views on important
principles set forth by the delegations of the Chinese and other fraternal
Parties were written into the Statement. The theses on the unaltered nature of
imperialism; on U.S. imperialism as the enemy of the people of the whole
world; on the formation of the most extensive united front against U.S.
imperialism; on the national liberation movement as an important force in
preventing world war; on the thoroughgoing completion by the newly-independent
countries of their national democratic revolutions; on support by the
socialist countries and the international working-class movement for the
national liberation struggle; on the need for the working class and the masses
in the advanced capitalist countries under U.S. imperialist political,
economic and military domination to direct their chief blows at U.S.
imperialist domination and also at the monopoly capital and other reactionary
forces at home which betray their national interests; on the principle of
reaching unanimity through consultation among fraternal Parties; against the
revisionist emasculation of the revolutionary spirit of Marxism-Leninism; on
the betrayal of Marxism-Leninism by the leaders of the League of Communists of
Yugoslavia; and so on -- all these theses are in the Statement as a result of
the acceptance of the views of the Chinese and some other delegations.
It is, of course, necessary to add that after the leaders of
the CPSU agreed to drop their erroneous propositions and accepted the correct
propositions of other Parties, the delegations of the CPC and some other
fraternal Parties also made certain concessions. For instance, we differed on
the questions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU and of the forms of transition
from capitalism to socialism, but out of consideration for the needs of the
CPSU and certain other fraternal Parties we agreed to the inclusion of the
same wording on these two questions as that used in the 1957 Declaration. But
we made it plain at the time to the leaders of the CPSU that this would be the
last time we accommodated ourselves to
page 88
such a formulation about the 20th Congress; we would never do so again.
From all the above it can be seen that the struggle between
the two lines in the international communist movement dominated the 1960
Moscow Meeting from beginning to end. The errors of the leadership of the CPSU
as revealed at this meeting had developed further. From the draft statement of
the leaders of the CPSU and their speeches during the meeting, it could be
clearly seen that the main political content of the wrong line they were
attempting to impose on the fraternal Parties consisted of the erroneous
theories of "peaceful coexistence", "peaceful competition" and "peaceful
transition", while its organizational content consisted of erroneous sectarian
and splitting policies. It was a revisionist line in fundamental conflict with
Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. The delegations of the
Chinese and other fraternal Marxist-Leninist Parties resolutely opposed it and
firmly upheld the line of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
The outcome of the struggle at this meeting was that the
revisionist line and views of the leadership of the CPSU were in the main
repudiated and that the Marxist-Leninist line gained a great victory. The
revolutionary principles embodied in the Statement adopted at the meeting are
powerful weapons in the hands of all fraternal Parties in the struggles
against imperialism and for world peace, national liberation, people's
democracy and socialism; they are also powerful weapons in the hands of
Marxist-Leninists throughout the world in combating modern revisionism.
At the meeting the fraternal Parties which upheld
Marxism-Leninism earnestly criticized the erroneous views of the leadership of
the CPSU and compelled it to accept many of their correct views; in doing so
they changed the previous highly abnormal situation, in which not even the
slightest criticism of the errors of the leadership of the CPSU was tolerated
and its word was final. This was an event of great
page 89
historical significance in the international communist movement.
The Central Committee of the CPSU asserts in its Open Letter
that the delegation of the CPC was "completely isolated" at the meeting. This
is merely an impudent attempt on the part of the leadership of the CPSU to
represent its defeat as a victory.
The principles of mutual solidarity as well as independence
and equality among fraternal Parties and of reaching unanimity through
consultation were observed at the meeting and the mistaken attempt of the
leaders of the CPSU to use a majority to overrule the minority and to impose
their views on other fraternal Parties was frustrated. The meeting
demonstrated once again that in resolving differences among fraternal Parties
it is highly necessary for Marxist-Leninist Parties to stick to principle,
persevere in struggle and uphold unity.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU asserts
that "in appending their signatures to the 1960 Statement, the CPC leaders
were only manoeuvring". Is that really a fact? No. On the contrary, it was the
leaders of the CPSU and not we who were manoeuvring.
The facts have shown that at the 1960 meeting of fraternal
Parties the leaders of the CPSU agreed to delete or change the erroneous
propositions in their draft statement against their will and they were
insincere in their acceptance of the correct propositions of fraternal
Parties. They did not care two hoots about the document which was jointly
agreed upon by the fraternal Parties. The ink was scarcely dry on their
signature to the 1960 Statement before they began wrecking it. On December 1
Khrushchov signed the Statement on behalf of the Central Committee of the
CPSU, and twenty-four
page 90
hours later, violating what the fraternal Parties had agreed on, the same
Khrushchov brazenly described Yugoslavia as a socialist country at the banquet
for the delegations of the fraternal Parties.
After the meeting of the 81 fraternal Parties, the leaders of
the CPSU became more and more blatant in wrecking the 1957 Declaration and the
1960 Statement. On the one hand, they took as their friend U.S. imperialism
which the Statement declares to be the enemy of the people of the world,
advocating "U.S.-Soviet cooperation" and expressing the desire to work
together with Kennedy to "set about building durable bridges of confidence,
mutual understanding and friendship".[1] On the
other hand, they took some fraternal Parties and countries as their enemies
and drastically worsened the Soviet Union's relations with Albania.
The 22nd Congress of the CPSU in October 1961 marked a new
low in the CPSU leadership's efforts to oppose Marxism-Leninism and split the
socialist camp and the international communist movement. It marked the
systematization of the revisionism which the leadership of the CPSU had
developed step by step from the 20th Congress onward.
The leadership of the CPSU unleashed a great public attack on
the Albanian Party of Labour at the 22nd Congress. In his speech Khrushchov
went so far as openly to call for the overthrow of the Albanian leadership
under Comrades Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu. Thus the leadership of the CPSU
established the vicious precedent of a Party congress being used for public
attacks on other fraternal Parties.
Another great thing the leadership of the CPSU did at the
Congress was the renewed concentrated onslaught on Stalin five years after the
complete negation of him at the 20th Congress and eight years after his death.
page 91
In the final analysis, this was done in order that the
leaders of the CPSU should be able to throw the Declaration and the Statement
overboard, oppose Marxism-Leninism and pursue a systematically revisionist
line.
Their revisionism was expressed in concentrated form in the
new Programme of the CPSU which that Congress adopted.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU says
that the line of the 22nd Congress was "approved at the meetings of
representatives of the Communist Parties and set out in the Declaration and
Statement". Is it not very careless of the leaders of the CPSU to make such a
statement? How can they describe what happened in 1961 as having been
"approved" or "set out" at the meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties
in 1960, or as far back as that in 1957?
But leaving aside such silly self-commendation for the
moment, let us first see the kind of stuff the Programme adopted at the 22nd
Congress is made of.
Even a cursory study of the Programme and the report on it
made by Khrushchov shows that it is an out-and-out revisionist programme which
totally violates the fundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism and the
revolutionary principles of the Declaration and the Statement.
It runs counter to the 1957 Declaration and the 1960
Statement on many important questions of principle. Many of the erroneous
views of the leadership of the CPSU which were rejected at the 1960 meeting of
fraternal Parties reappear. For instance, it describes peaceful coexistence as
the general principle of foreign policy, one-sidedly stresses the possibility
of peaceful transition and slanders the policy of a socialist country's
relying mainly on its own efforts in construction as "going it alone".
The Programme goes a step further in systematizing the wrong
line pursued by the leadership of the CPSU since its 20th Congress, the main
content of which is "peaceful coexistence", "peaceful competition" and
"peaceful transition".
page 92
The Programme crudely revises the essence of
Marxism-Leninism, namely, the teachings on proletarian revolution, on the
dictatorship of the proletariat and on the party of the proletariat, declaring
that the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer needed in the Soviet
Union and that the nature of the CPSU as the vanguard of the proletariat has
changed, and advancing fallacies of a "state of the whole people" and a "party
of the entire people".
It substitutes humanism for the Marxist-Leninist theory of
class struggle and substitutes the bourgeois slogan of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity for the ideals of communism.
It is a programme which opposes revolution on the part of the
people still living under the imperialist and capitalist system, who comprise
two-thirds of the world's population, and opposes the carrying of revolution
through to completion on the part of the people already on the socialist road,
who comprise one-third of the world's population. It is a revisionist
programme for the preservation or restoration of capitalism.
The Communist Party of China resolutely opposed the errors of
the 22nd Congress of the CPSU. Comrade Chou En-lai, who headed the CPC
delegation to the Congress, stated our Party's position in his speech there,
and he also frankly criticized the errors of the leadership of the CPSU in
subsequent conversations with Khrushchov and other leaders of the CPSU.
In his conversation with the delegation of the CPC,
Khrushchov flatly turned down our criticisms and advice and even expressed
undisguised support for anti-Party elements in the Chinese Communist Party. He
openly stated that after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, when the leaders of
the CPSU were beginning to take a "road different from that of Stalin" (that
is, the road of revisionism), they still needed the support of the fraternal
Parties. He said, "The voice of the Chinese Communist Party was then of great
significance to us", but
page 93
"things are different now", and "we are doing well" and "we shall go our
own way".
Khrushchov's remarks showed that the leaders of the CPSU had
made up their minds to go all the way down the road of revisionism and
splitting. Although the Chinese Communist Party has frequently given them
comradely advice, they have simply ignored it and shown not the slightest
intention of mending their ways.
In the Open Letter the leaders of the CPSU try hard to make
people believe that after the 22nd Congress they "made fresh efforts" to
improve relations between the Chinese and Soviet Parties and to strengthen
unity among the fraternal Parties and countries.
This is another lie.
What are the facts?
They show that since the 22nd Congress the leadership of the
CPSU has become more unbridled in violating the principles guiding relations
among fraternal Parties and countries and in pursuing policies of great-power
chauvinism, sectarianism and splittism in order to promote its own line of
systematic revisionism, which is in complete violation of MarxismLeninism.
This has brought about a continuous deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations and
grave damage to the unity of the fraternal Parties and countries.
The following are the main facts about how the leaders of the
CPSU have sabotaged Sino-Soviet unity and the unity of fraternal Parties and
countries since the 22nd Congress:
1. The leaders of the CPSU have tried hard to impose
their erroneous line upon the international communist movement
page 94
and to replace the Declaration and the Statement with their own revisionist
programme. They describe their erroneous line as the "whole set of Leninist
policies of the international communist movement of recent years",[1]
and they call their revisionist programme the "real Communist Manifesto of our
time"[2] and the
"common programme" of the "Communist and Workers' Parties and of the people of
countries of the socialist community".[3]
Any fraternal Party which rejects the erroneous line and
programme of the CPSU and perseveres in the fundamental theories of
Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary principles of the Declaration and the
Statement is looked upon as an enemy by the leaders of the CPSU, who oppose,
attack and injure it and try to subvert its leadership by every possible
means.
2. Disregarding all consequences, the leadership of the
CPSU broke off diplomatic relations with socialist Albania, an unprecedented
step in the history of relations between fraternal Parties and countries.
3. The leadership of the CPSU has continued to exert
pressure on China and to make outrageous attacks on the Chinese Communist
Party. In its letter of February 22, 1962 to the Central Committee of the CPC,
the Central Committee of the CPSU accused the CPC of taking a "special stand
of their own" and pursuing a line at variance with the common course of the
fraternal Parties, and even made a crime out of our support for the
Marxist-Leninist Albanian Party of Labour. As pre-conditions for improving
Sino-Soviet relations, the leaders of the CPSU attempted to compel the CPC to
abandon its Marxist-Leninist and proletarian internationalist stand,
page 95
abandon its consistent line, which is in lull conformity with the
revolutionary principles of the Declaration and the Statement, accept their
erroneous line, and also accept as a fait accompli their violation of
the principles guiding relations among fraternal Parties and countries. In its
Open Letter, the Central Committee of the CPSU boasted of its letters to the
Central Committee of the CPC during this period, of Khrushchov's remarks about
his desire for unity in October 1962 to our Ambassador to the Soviet Union and
so on, but in fact these were all acts for realizing their base attempt.
4. The Central Committee of the CPSU rejected the
proposals made by the fraternal Parties of Indonesia, Viet Nam, New Zealand,
etc., that a meeting of representatives of the fraternal Parties should be
convened, as well as the five positive proposals made by the Central Committee
of the CPC in its letter of April 7, 1962 to the Central Committee of the CPSU
for the preparation for the meeting of fraternal Parties. In its reply of May
31, 1962 to the Central Committee of the CPC, the Central Committee of the
CPSU went so far as to make the demand that the Albanian comrades abandon
their own stand as a precondition for improving Soviet-Albanian relations and
also for convening a meeting of the fraternal Parties.
5. In April and May 1962 the leaders of the CPSU used
their organs and personnel in Sinkiang, China, to carry out large-scale
subversive activities in the Ili region and enticed and coerced several tens
of thousands of Chinese citizens into going to the Soviet Union. The Chinese
Government lodged repeated protests and made repeated representations, but the
Soviet Government refused to repatriate these Chinese citizens on the pretext
of "the sense of Soviet legality"[1] and
"humanitarianism".[2] To this day this incident remains
unsettled.
page 96
This is indeed an astounding event, unheard of in the
relations between socialist countries.
6. In August 1962 the Soviet Government formally
notified China that the Soviet Union would conclude an agreement with the
United States on the prevention of nuclear proliferation. This was a joint
Soviet-U.S. plot to monopolize nuclear weapons and an attempt to deprive China
of the right to possess nuclear weapons to resist the U.S. nuclear threat. The
Chinese Government lodged repeated protests against this.
7. The leadership of the CPSU has become increasingly
anxious to strike political bargains with U.S. imperialism and has been bent
on forming a reactionary alliance with Kennedy, even at the expense of the
interests of the socialist camp and the international communist movement. An
outstanding example was the fact that, during the Caribbean crisis, the
leadership of the CPSU committed the error of capitulationism by submitting to
the nuclear blackmail of the U.S. imperialists and accepting the U.S.
Government's demand for "international inspection" in violation of Cuban
sovereignty.
8. The leadership of the CPSU has become increasingly
anxious to collude with the Indian reactionaries and is bent on forming a
reactionary alliance with Nehru against socialist China. The leadership of the
CPSU and its press openly sided with Indian reaction, condemned China for its
just stand on the Sino-Indian border conflict and defended the Nehru
government. Two-thirds of Soviet economic aid to India have been given since
the Indian reactionaries provoked the Sino-Indian border conflict. Even after
large-scale armed conflict on the Sino-Indian border began in the autumn of
1962, the leadership of the CPSU has continued to extend military aid to the
Indian reactionaries.
9. The leadership of the CPSU has become increasingly
anxious to collude with the Tito clique of Yugoslavia and is bent on forming a
reactionary alliance with the renegade Tito to oppose all Marxist-Leninist
Parties. After the 22nd Con-
page 97
gress, it took a series of steps to reverse the verdict on the Tito clique
and thus openly tore up the 1960 Statement.
10. Since November 1962 the leadership of the CPSU has
launched still fiercer attacks, on an international scale, against the Chinese
Communist Party and other Marxist-Leninist Parties and whipped up a new
adverse current in order to split the socialist camp and the international
communist movement. Khrushchov made one statement after another and the Soviet
press carried hundreds of articles attacking the Chinese Communist Party on a
whole set of issues. Directed by the leaders of the CPSU, the Congresses of
the fraternal Parties of Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Italy and the
Democratic Republic of Germany became stages for anti-China performances, and
more than forty fraternal Parties published resolutions, statements or
articles attacking the Chinese Communist Party and other Marxist-Leninist
Parties.
The facts cited above cannot possibly be denied by the
leaders of the CPSU. These iron-clad facts prove that the "fresh efforts" they
made after the 22nd Congress of the CPSU were aimed, not at improving
Sino-Soviet relations and strengthening unity between the fraternal Parties
and countries, but on the contrary, at further ganging up with the U.S.
imperialists, the Indian reactionaries and the renegade Tito clique in order
to create a wider split in the socialist camp and the international communist
movement.
In these grave circumstances, the Chinese Communist Party had
no alternative but to make open replies to the attacks of some fraternal
Parties. Between December 15, 1962 and March 8, 1963 we published seven such
replies. In these articles we continued to leave some leeway and did not
criticize the leadership of the CPSU by name.
Despite the serious deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations
resulting from the errors of the leadership of the CPSU, the Chinese Communist
Party agreed to send its delegation to Moscow for the talks between the
Chinese and Soviet Parties, and, in order that there might be a systematic
exchange of
page 98
views in the talks, put forward its proposal concerning the general line of
the international communist movement in its letter of reply to the Central
Committee of the CPSU dated June 14.
As subsequent facts have shown, the leaders of the CPSU were
not only insincere about eliminating differences and strengthening unity, but
used the talks as a smokescreen for covering up their activities to further
worsen Sino-Soviet relations.
On the eve of the talks, the leaders of the CPSU publicly
attacked the Chinese Communist Party by name, through statements and
resolutions. At the same time, they unjustifiably expelled a number of Chinese
Embassy personnel and research students from the Soviet Union.
On July 14, that is, on the eve of the U.S.-British-Soviet
talks, while the Sino-Soviet talks were still in progress, the leadership of
the CPSU hastily published the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the
CPSU to Party organizations and all Communists in the Soviet Union and
launched unbridled attacks on the Chinese Communist Party. This was another
precious presentation gift made by the leaders of the CPSU to the U.S.
imperialists in order to curry favour with them.
Immediately afterwards in Moscow, the leadership of the CPSU
signed the treaty on the partial halting of nuclear tests with the United
States and Britain in open betrayal of the interests of the Soviet people, the
people in the socialist camp including the Chinese people, and the
peace-loving people of the world; there was a flurry of contacts between the
Soviet Union and India; Khrushchov went to Yugoslavia for a "vacation"; the
Soviet press launched a frenzied anti-Chinese campaign; and so on and so
forth. This whole train of events strikingly demonstrates that, disregarding
everything, the leadership of the CPSU is allying with the imperialists, the
reactionaries of all countries and the renegade Tito clique in order to oppose
fraternal socialist countries and fraternal
page 99
Marxist-Leninist Parties. All this completely exposes the revisionist and
divisive line which the leadership of the CPSU is following.
At present, the "anti-Chinese chorus" of the imperialists,
the reactionaries of all countries and the revisionists is making a lot of
noise. And the campaign led by Khrushchov to oppose Marxism-Leninism and split
the socialist camp and the international communist ranks is being carried on
with growing intensity.
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
OF THE DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN THE LEADERSHIP OF
THE CPSU AND OURSELVES
Comment on the Open Letter of
the Central Committee
of the CPSU
by the Editorial Departments of Renmin
Ribao
(People's Daily ) and Hongqi (Red Flag
)
(September 6, 1963)
IT is more than a month since the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union published its
Open Letter of July
14 to Party organizations and all Communists in the Soviet Union. This
Open Letter, and the steps taken by the leadership of the CPSU since its
publication, have pushed Sino-Soviet relations to the brink of a split and
have carried the differences in the international communist movement to a new
stage of unprecedented gravity.
[1] Renmin
Ribao editorial, February 27, 1963.
[2] V, I. Lenin. "Polemical Notes", Collected
Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1963, Vol. XVII, p. 166.
20TH CONGRESS OF THE CPSU
[1] The
Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Eng. ed.,
Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1964, p. 7.
20TH CONGRESS OF THE CPSU
[1] Radio talk by
T. C. Streibert, Director of the US. Information Agency, June 11,
1956.
[2] "The Communist
Crisis", New York Times editorial, June 23, 1956.
[3] J. F. Dulles, Statement at the Press
Conference, April 3, 1956.
[4] J. B. Tito, Speech Made in Pula, November 11, 1956.
FRATERNAL PARTIES
OF THE CPSU LEADERSHIP
[1] N. S.
Khrushchov, Speech at the Mass Meeting in Moscow, September 28,
1959.
[2] N. S. Khrushchov,
Press Conference in Washington, September 27, 1959.
[3] A. A. Gromyko Speech at the Session of the
Supreme Soviet of the USSR, October 31 1959.
[4] New Year message of greetings from N. S. Khrushchov
and K. Y. Voroshilov to D. D. Eisenhower, January 1, 1960.
[1] N. S.
Khrushchov, Replies to Questions by Roberto J. Noble, Director of the
Argentine paper Clarin, December 30, 1959.
[2] N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at the U.N. General
Assembly, September 18, 1959.
[1] N. S.
Khrushchov, Report to the 21st Congress of the CPSU January 1959.
[2] N. S. Khrushchov, Conversation with
the U.S. Senator H. H. Humphrey, December 1, 1958.
[1] N. S.
Khrushehov, Report to the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, October
1959.
THE LEADERSHIP OF THE CPSU
1960 MEETING OF
FRATERNAL PARTIES
BECOMES SYSTEMATIZED
[1] Message of
greetings from N. S. Khrushchov and L. I. Brezhnev to J. F. Kennedy on the
185th Anniversary of the Independence of the United States, July 4, 1961.
MARXISM-LENINISM AND IS
SPLITTING
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST
MOVEMENT
[1] J. Y.
Andropov, "The 22nd Congress of the CPSU and the Development of the World
Socialist System", Pravda, December 2, 1961.
[2] N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at the Conference
of the Agricultural Workers of the Uzbek and Other Republics, November 16,
1961.
[3] "Unity Multiplies
Tenfold the Forces of Communism", Pravda editorial, August 25, 1961.
[1] Memorandum
presented to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Soviet Embassy in
China on August 9, 1962.
[2]
Memorandum presented to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Soviet
Embassy in China on April 29, 1962.