The Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

dated June 15, 1964

Source: International Meeting of Communists Is the Way to Unity. Letter of the CPSU Central Committee to the CC of the Communist Party of China June 15, 1964. Moscow: Novosti Press Agency, 1964.
Prepared for marxists.org: By Juan Fajardo, July 2020.

TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

Dear comrades, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has received your letter of May 7, which contains an answer to ours of March 7, last. In your letter you not only reject all the proposals of the CPSU and other Marxist-Leninist Parties aimed at overcoming the difficulties in the communist movement, but virtually refuse to meet with representatives of Parties, to hold talks and discuss with them common problems Oi concern to the Communists of the whole world. Never be! -e has the CC CPC so frankly expressed its scorn of the opinion of fraternal Parties, and its refusal to lend ear to them and take part in a joint search for ways of overcoming the differences. The entire content of your letter, as well as its rude tone, shows that for all the numerous CC CPC declarations to the effect that it is anxious to prevent a split and uphold unity, you do not want the differences to be overcome, and in practice oppose the unity of the world communist movement. You even make no attempt to deny that your aim is to have your hands free in order to carry on factional, splitting activities. This is the only way the Marxist-Leninist Parties that are concerned about the difficulties which have arisen within our movement can interpret your letter.

In sending you its letter of March 7, the CC CPSU believed that the situation in the world communist movement called for a collective examination, a collective formulation of advisable ways of overcoming the difficulties, and for unity of all the fraternal Parties. With these aims in view, we proposed an early calling of a CPSU-CPC meeting and a preparatory conference of delegates from twenty-six Parties, and the holding of a world meeting even this year, by agreement among the fraternal Parties. We felt that open polemics must be discontinued and all kinds of subversive, splitting activities within the socialist commonwealth and the communist movement—practices which had already done considerable harm to our cause—renounced if those measures were to succeed. We reckoned with the will of most of the fraternal Parties, insisting that CPSU and CPC delegates meet and that an international Communist forum be held to discuss the problems that had arisen in a comradely atmosphere, within the fraternal family of Communists, and remove the divergencies caused by the CPC leaders’ splitting activities.

The proposals put forward in the CC CPSU letter of March 7 were actively supported by the world communist movement. By now the overwhelming majority of the fraternal Parties have declared for convening a meeting without delay. Some Parties, while favouring a meeting in principle, make certain reservations as to the specific time when it should be called, bearing in mind your opposition to a meeting. But as far as we know no leadership of any Party, except that of the CPC and the Albanian Party of Labour, rejects the necessity for collective measures to overcome the difficulties in the communist movement and promote its unity.

The CC CPC letter of May 7 proposes postponing the meeting for “four or five years or more” and, moreover, declares that “it would even be better not to convene it than to convene it”. Once again you put off for a long time the bilateral meeting which the CC CPC proposed a short while ago to hold in October 1964, and make such reservations to your consent to it that give cause for doubt whether the Chinese side is interested in it at all.

We state, therefore, that the CC CPC is going back on its own proposals. The CPC leaders have for a long- time posed as initiators of an early meeting, making it appear as if the CPSU were against it. When, in the winter of 1962, the Communist Parties of Indonesia, Vietnam and New Zealand proposed a meeting, you supported their proposal. You wrote on April 7, 1962, that a meeting would be of “topical, positive significance in overcoming the differences existing among fraternal parties today”. At the end of 1962 that attitudej.of the CC^^CPC was publicly reaffirmed in the speeches made’ by your delegations at the congresses of the fraternal Parties of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Afterwards you declared for a meeting in your letters to the CC CPSU of March 9, 1963, and June 14, 1963. Lastly, your letter of February 29, 1964, said in black and white: “The Communist Party of China invariably favours a meeting of representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of all countries, and actively supports it.”

But hardly had the CC CPSU and other fraternal Parties put the question of a meeting on a specific basis that you made a volte-face. Anyone will be struck by the extremely contradictory and illogical position of the CC CPC. Until recently you enthusiastically supported the idea of a meeting, and were even proud of having been the first to support the proposal for convening it because you considered it useful. Today the CPC leaders say something different. It appears now that a meeting would be untimely and would, indeed, threaten the communist movement with all sorts of calamities. That wavering seems to be due solely to the fact that you have never before thought seriously of a meeting—any more than you do now—because you could not count on support of your ideological and political platform on the part of a world Communist forum. It is legitimate to presume that the CC CPC is little concerned about the problem of preserving and strengthening the unity of the communist movement and that it is turning the issue of a meeting into an object for an unseemly political game to breed more difficulties.

Although you vigorously flaunt your indifference to the opinion of other Parties and declare that you do not fear a “resolute rebuff” from them, in fact you are afraid to attend a world communist meeting because you are anxious to evade a fair and straightforward discussion, and a comparison of your erroneous platform and the line of the world communist movement.

Your objections to a conference are utterly groundless. You contend that a world meeting, like a CPC-CPSU meeting, would merely “end in a quarrel and in all Parties going away without achieving any results”, and that “there will be an open split and everyone will go his own way”.

No one can pose the issue like that or predict a split as a result of a meeting unless he himself has decided on a split. Indeed, if at a meeting the line pursued is one of aggravating differences and if its purpose is seen as one of condemning someone, slapping on offensive labels and making irresponsible charges, the result may be further dissociation rather than greater unity.

But the CPSU and those fraternal Parties who at every stage of the differences have consistently favoured a new international meeting emphatically reject such a line, the very idea of such an approach to a meeting. As far as we are concerned, the issue of a meeting is inseparable from the problem of maintaining and promoting the unity of our movement. We believe that in view of the differences which the communist movement has come up against, it is necessary, first and foremost, to concentrate on revealing what the fraternal Parties have in common and what unites them, on seeking ways of overcoming the difficulties that have arisen. Fraternal Parties have no better method for overcoming differences and formulating common positions than a collective exchange of views at an international forum that would enable each Party to fully retain its sovereignty and yet take an active part in formulating the common line of the world communist movement.

The differences and disputes which have broken out in the communist movement and are causing it considerable harm affect the interests of every single Party. That is why each Party is entitled and obliged to contribute to the discussion and solution of urgent problems and to the common cause of promoting unity. It is precisely a meeting that would give each Party an opportunity to hear all opinions and state its point of view frankly and seriously, so that it could subsequently be taken into consideration when a common line and common decisions were formulated.

As regards the CPSU, in proposing a meeting, its aim is—in full accordance with the principles established within the communist movement after the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU and the Moscow Meetings of 1957 and 1960—to pursue at it a line for unity, the normalization of the situation in our movement, and a serious discussion of disputed issues, such as will make for greater unity on the basis of principle, and not for an aggravation of differences. It is our deep conviction that there are no insurmountable obstacles to this. All that is necessary for every participant in an international meeting is to show at least a minimum of goodwill, to listen carefully to other opinions and understand them, and seek for ways to unity and not to dissociation. If the representatives of every Party show an interest in overcoming the difficulties, and if the CPC delegation attends the proposed meeting with a desire to seek mutual understanding with the other participants, and with a constructive programme, which the CPSU and other Parties think necessary, then the meeting may become a turning point in the struggle for greater unity.

The CC CPSU is perfectly aware that the divergencies between the CC CPC and other fraternal Parties are very serious and have gone far. In the course of public polemics a good deal of extraneous matter, of artificialities which hinder mutual understanding, has accumulated in the relations between the two Parties. A whole series of fundamental differences over highly important problems of today and of the policies of world communism have emerged and become acute. It is possible, therefore, that whatever the efforts the Marxist-Leninist Parties would make, the meeting may not fully succeed in arriving at a common view on all matters. The CC CPSU is convinced, however, that even such an outcome of the meeting will not amount to a split, which the CPC leaders persistently forecast. Even in a case like that, we think it possible at the meeting to reach an agreement binding on the Communist Parties to take account of the opinions of all the meeting participants, all the Marxist-Leninist Parties, to co-operate conscientiously in those fields where their positions and interests coincide, and refrain from any further action aggravating the difficulties and gratifying none but the class enemy. One may well ask; given this approach, why should a meeting lead to a split or so much as worsen the situation in the communist movement?

We consider that the procedure for the meeting which is suggested by us fully accords with the standards and principles of relations among Communist Parties and is perfectly realistic. It is a question of really showing elementary concern for unity, tolerance and good faith, which the communist movement has a right to expect from any of its detachments. There can be no doubt at all as to the success of a meeting provided every fraternal Party and its leaders are aware of their historic responsibility for the destinies of our movement and realize the gravity of the situation and the possible consequences of a split.

In upholding the idea of a new international meeting, the CC CPSU maintains that it is indispensable not only for overcoming the differences, important as this task may be in itself. Communists should not for one moment forget their responsibility in the struggle against imperialism, for peace, democracy and national independence, for a successful advance along the road of socialism and communism.

About four years have passed since the last world meeting. In this period, many important changes have taken place in the world which require study, generalization and conclusions. The world socialist system has made notable progress in the past years. Its economic power has increased, and so has its political and ideological impact on world development. Most of the socialist countries are completing an important period of their development and are approaching new heights in the construction of a new society. Their further advance to socialism and communism makes it increasingly imperative to improve the forms of co-operation and mutual assistance, exchange of experience, and coordination of political and economic activities.

Two opposed world policies are in evidence today, more clearly than ever before. One is directed towards preserving peace and promoting peaceful co-existence; it is pursued by the socialist countries and is supported by the majority of mankind. The other is aimed at increasing international tension and the war menace; it is pursued by the imperialist reactionaries led by the wildmen of the US and other imperialist powers. The past years have shown how correct were the Communist Parties’ conclusions regarding the possibility of averting war and isolating and defeating the forces opposed to peace.

The recent period has seen even more obvious signs of an aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism, of the growth of the social and political antagonisms rending the capitalist system both within bourgeois society and internationally. There is now much that is new in the forms of organization and the methods used by the working class of the capitalist countries in fighting for its immediate and ultimate goals. The disintegration of imperialism’s colonial system has entered its closing stage. The newly free nations’ irresistible desire for socialism, and their effort to take the non-capitalist road of development have become particularly evident in recent years.

The revolutionary movement, and the champions of peace and socialism now have new great opportunities, and we Communists should think of the best ways of using these opportunities in the interests of the working class and all nations.

We are firmly convinced that a meeting would be just the place to make a collective analysis of new economic and socio-political developments and processes, co-ordinate appraisals and positions, and enrich and specify the common political line accordingly. We state with satisfaction that the general line of the world communist movement, as defined in the 1957 and 1960 documents, has been proved by reality to be perfectly correct and has brought fraternal Parties further success. On the other hand, there is now a pressing need to meet in order to sum up the progress made, exchange experience, review the problems confronting world communism and, in keeping with the changes that have occurred in the international situation, supplement and elaborate the ideas of the Declaration and Statement, and creatively examine and solve new problems.

In the light of all these tasks, the CC CPC proposal for putting off a new world meeting for a long time is particularly unacceptable. All indications are that the meeting is indispensable and the question of convening it cannot be shelved.

The most important thing, however, is, as the CC CPSU sees it, for every Marxist-Leninist Party to contribute even today, regardless of the specific date of a new world meeting, to the cause which the meeting is to serve, that is, to the unity of the Communists of the world, and to the effort towards attaining common goals. At the moment it is important for every fraternal Party to fight for these goals still more actively. Every fraternal Party is faced with tasks brooking no delay; it must make a thorough study of the situation that has developed in the communist movement, participate constructively in the discussion of difficulties and in the search for ways of overcoming them and subordinate its everyday activities to the interests of strengthening the international unity of our ranks. This is the practical method for proving one’s loyalty to the principles and exigencies of proletarian internationalism and to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism. It is also the surest way to convene and successfully carry through a world communist forum. We are emphatically against making the issue of the date of a meeting a pretext for further argument and a stumbling-block to the solution of the main tasks confronting the communist movement. However, we are emphatically against postponing a meeting for “four or five years or more”, which is what the CC CPC proposes.

Such is our position on the main issue raised in the latest letters which the CC CPSU and the CC CPC have exchanged concerning the aims and prospects of a new world meeting.

The CC CPC letter of May 7 deals with a number of other problems, both concerning- a world meeting and having no direct bearing on it. Among them is, for example, the question of the procedure of convening the meeting.

The CC CPC asserts that in present-day conditions no one has a right to call a world conference since there is no permanent body of the Comintern type. Proceeding from the democratic principles on which the communist movement is based, it must be recognized that any Party or group of Parties is free to take such an initiative. In that event it is the duty of the other detachments of the communist movement to carefully examine and support that initiative, provided it benefits our common cause. As for the CPSU, it will be recalled that the fraternal Parties have placed on it a special responsibility with regard to the convening of world meetings. The decision adopted by the 1957 Meeting- reads: “Entrust the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with the function of convening meetings of the Communist and Workers’ Parties in consultation with the fraternal Parties.” This decision was passed unanimously, with the CPC delegation participating. What is more. Comrade Mao Tse- tung, who spoke at the afternoon sitting of November 14, 1957, said that “it is necessary to recognize the CPSU as the Party which should take the initiative in calling meetings”.

We are citing these facts to establish the truth and prevent the issue of the initiative in calling a meeting from being made a new object of argument and a pretext for delaying a world forum of fraternal Parties, which has become urgent.

The CC CPC, raising one obstacle after another to a meeting, writes that there is a need of “great preparatory work”. Our Party has always considered that the meeting has to be prepared for carefully if it is to succeed. It is with this aim in view that we have proposed time and again to stop public polemics and renounce the methods of factional activity within the world communist movement.

Everything suggests that the CC CPC, in speaking of “preparatory work”, means something that is the exact opposite of it, namely, the intensification of factional, disruptive activities, and the utmost exacerbation of polemics. Frankly speaking, that is, in effect, the true reason for the Chinese leaders’ stalling. At a time when the struggle is becoming more and more acute, you count, as everything seems to indicate, on forming a bloc of Parties and groups subservient to Peking. Another fact indicating this is that you are now openly trying to secure the invitation to the meeting for fellow-thinkers you have recruited in various countries.

Since the CC CPC is turning the question of the composition of the meeting into another point of difference, we consider it necessary to state our attitude to it. We are of the opinion that all those Parties which took part in the Meetings of 1957 and 1960 and signed their documents are entitled to attend. This is all the more so because the differences in the communist movement concern the interpretation of the Declaration and Statement. Obviously, only a forum of the Parties which formulated and signed those documents can interpret them correctly. Only the meeting itself has a right to decide whether any new participants should be invited. In the years that have passed since the last world meeting there have arisen in several countries (including some African countries) Parties which agree with and implement the general line of the communist movement expressed in the Declaration and Statement and are the recognized spokesmen of the working-class movement of their countries. Naturally, those Parties are entitled to expect an invitation to attend the new international meeting.

But when the CC CPC poses the question of inviting- new participants to the meeting, it is thinking not of those Parties but of the anti-Party factional groups which it has brought into being and which it designates by the high- sounding name of “Parties”. However, those groups do not represent the working-class movement of their countries but have been artificially set up from without. It is no chance coincidence that the anti-Party groups in Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Ceylon and some other countries sprang up just when the CC CPC launched its factional activities within the world communist movement. Secondly, those groups do not adhere, either in theory or in practice to the general line of the world communist movement defined in the Declaration and Statement. On the contrary, the views they advocate betray them completely as opponents of this line. Thirdly, they are made up of anti-Party opposition elements expelled from Marxist-Leninist Parties and fighting against lawfully elected central committees, against those tested Parties’ leaders who enjoy prestige. It is indicative of the political character and composition of those groups that they have been joined by Trotskyists, anarchists and all kinds of renegades and apostates. It should be said that this type of adherents to the Chinese leadership’s line is no credit to it. No matter how hard you try to represent those impostors as “true revolutionaries”, they are outside the communist movement, and no power on earth can drag them into its ranks.

The CC CPSU cannot overlook the attempts the letter from the CC CPC of May 7 makes to defame the tested Marxist-Leninist Parties of Australia, Brazil and India. We emphatically reject the unworthy methods by which the leaders of one Party, the Communist Party of China, lay claim to a special position in the communist movement, to the right to pass judgment on Parties as a whole and their leaders and arbitrarily decide issues that are only for the working class of the given country to decide.

If you persist in this sort of ‘‘preparatory work” for the meeting, i. e., strive to extend factional activity, you will only confirm the established opinion that the CPC leadership is taking matters directly towards a split.

The striving of the CC CPC to aggravate the open polemics in the communist movement has long become obvious. The propaganda campaign started by it has gone beyond the framework of any ideological polemics and developed into an open political struggle against Marxist-Leninist Parties. It has nothing in common with an elucidation of the truth, with the working out of pressing problems of the theory and policy of our movement. The content, methods and tone of your statements show that you deliberately try to expand the range of disputed issues, distort the real stand of the Marxist-Leninist Parties, slander their leadership and turn the masses against it. It is patently clear to everybody that this is not polemics any longer but a fomenting of differences and enmity. It shatters friendship among the peoples of the socialist countries, sows confusion and distrust in the ranks of the revolutionary working-class and national-liberation movement and compromises world socialism. The CPC leaders thereby bring grist to the mill of the aggressive circles of imperialism, who, as everybody knows, are eagerly helping to circulate Chinese propaganda materials.

We approach the preparations for the meeting differently. The CC CPSU has always held that in the course of the preparations there should be a creative discussion of important problems of the communist movement on the basis of comradely exchanges of opinion as provided for by the 1960 Statement. We regard a discussion of urgent problems of Marxism-Leninism, of problems of the strategy and tactics of our movement, normal and useful. Such discussions help to advance Marxist thinking, to bring the activity of the Communist Parties closer to the requirements of reality and to work out a common policy in course of preparations for meetings and conferences. However, the CC CPC’s propaganda campaign, which is hostile to the communist movement in no way serves this purpose.

You threaten that you intend answering “the more than two thousand anti-Chinese articles and materials’’ allegedly published in the Soviet press as well as “the numerous decisions, statements and articles of several dozens of fraternal Parties’’. In other words, you plan to carry on the public polemics endlessly. That, evidently, is one of your objectives. You started polemics, forced the fraternal Parties to give a rebuff to your erroneous views and now, under the guise of “answers”, you intend to extend the political struggle against the Marxist-Leninist Parties still further.

The CC CPC’s proposal, contained in its letter of May 7, for concluding an agreement between the two Parties to publish materials of the other side in their press unambiguously exposes your design, which is to fan the polemics to even greater proportions.

We should like to note, in this connection, that while there was hope that the discussion would not go beyond a debate on theoretical and political issues we reprinted some Chinese materials in our press. But when it became clear that it was not a principled discussion but hostile propaganda we had to change our approach to this question. No Communist Party has ever undertaken to reprint, circulate and publicize slanderous materials that are alien to socialism. No matter who such materials come from, they help only the reactionary circles of imperialism in their struggle against world socialism.

The reprinting of articles in which our country is accused of “plotting with US imperialism”, “betraying the revolution” and “restoring” capitalist practices would have served no other purpose than to undermine our people’s feeling of friendship and fraternity for the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, who, of course, cannot bear the responsibility for the present actions of their leaders. By printing a succession of such articles, the Soviet press would have had to answer each one of them. The polemics with the Chinese leadership would have thus become the prime content of our country’s entire ideological life. This would have meant distracting the attention of the Party and the people from the cardinal tasks, namely communist construction, the struggle against imperialism and aid to the revolutionary working-class and national-liberation movement. It is clear that this is something our Party will not do.

It must be reiterated that all your thoughts are directed towards further aggravating the polemics, intensifying factional activity and rejecting any collective discussion of the problems facing the communist movement. On all questions worrying Communists throughout the world, the CC CPC has taken a stand that runs counter to the common interests of our movement, to the interests of strengthening the unity of its ranks.

In this light, facts gainsay the claim that the CC CPC “consistently defends unity and struggles against a split” and that it is “making unflagging efforts to remove differences”. Under present conditions, as never before, the struggle for unity requires practical constructive action. However, your actions are aimed at hindering the settlement of the differences and worsening the situation in every possible way. The negative approach which runs through the CC CPC letter of May 7, and the utter unwillingness to meet the initiative of the fraternal Parties half way can have only one explanation, namely, that the Chinese leaders do not wish to take into consideration the opinions and interests of the overwhelming majority of the Communist Parties, that they are waging a bitter struggle against them and deliberately seeking to split the communist movement.

It is clear to all the participants in the communist movement that by postponing a world meeting to a remote date, the CC CPC hopes meanwhile to increase the number of its supporters, turn them into obedient tools of its policy and thereby attempt to create favourable conditions for itself at this future meeting. One does not have to be a prophet to forecast the complete failure of these calculations. We have not the least doubt that as time passes life will prove with increasing force the insolvency of the ideological and political platform and tactical line the CPC leaders are trying to impose upon the communist movement. The unseemly objective pursued by the Chinese leadership will become increasingly clear and those who have been temporarily deluded will see the light. It goes without saying that the splitting activity of the CC CPC can inflict and has already inflicted harm on the communist movement, particularly on those of its detachments that are waging a struggle for the cause of the working class, against imperialist reaction in the capitalist countries under the difficult conditions. But each step forward in the struggle of the working class and each new success in the development of the world socialist system will deal a blow at the erroneous and unrealistic propositions of the Chinese leaders and will prove the correctness and vitality of the Leninist line of the communist movement.

In its letter the CC CPC touches upon certain points of its ideological and political differences with the CPSU and other Marxist-Leninist Parties. Our Party has repeatedly set forth its stand on these points. We therefore do not find it necessary to return to them again in this letter, especially as your letter contains nothing new. For a long time you have subsisted on outright abuse and on the slapping on of labels, substituting this for an honest discussion of questions on which the CC CPC has its own special opinion. The CC CPSU emphatically rejects as patent slander your irresponsible assertion that the CPSU “strives for an alliance with US imperialism with every fibre of its body”, “opposes the national-liberation movement and the proletarian revolution” and is “plotting a major conspiracy, an open split of the socialist camp and the world communist movement”. Statements of this kind only discredit those who make them, those who take the liberty of making such malicious attacks against the first country of victorious socialism, a country that carries the main burden of the struggle against imperialism. Who are these clumsy fabrications intended for? Do you seriously hope to find simpletons who would believe such slander? The real purport of your assertions is that you want to delude the people of China, set them against the Soviet people, who are the friend and brother of the Chinese workers and peasants. All this benefits only the imperialist reaction, whose cherished hope is to split the peoples of the socialist countries, sow enmity among them and bring them into conflict with each other.

With these acts you are trying to screen the real essence of the differences that you actually have with the present political line of the world communist movement. Throughout the world, Marxists-Leninists have long ago realized that the Chinese leaders have drifted away from the communist movement in such questions as war and peace, the peaceful co-existence of states with different social systems, the ways of accomplishing the socialist revolution, the role and ways of furthering the national-liberation movement, the struggle against the ideology and practice of the personality cult and the methods of building socialism and communism.

From all the rooftops you claim that you are irreconcilable adversaries of the ideas put forward by the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU. There is nothing to be proud of, comrades! For this, more than anything else betrays you as the people who today adhere to outdated positions, which have long been discarded by life, by the practice of the entire world liberation movement. The Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, as is recognized by the entire world communist movement and officially affirmed in the Declaration and Statement, initiated a new stage in the development of our movement. It has become the symbol of the creative spirit of Leninism, of a new line of the entire world communist movement, a symbol of the change from the ideology and practices of the Stalin’s personality cult to Leninist principles and norms.

It was this change that laid the foundation for further successes in the struggle against imperialism, for peace and socialism, for an enhancement of the prestige and influence of the world communist movement, for its transition to a fresh offensive against the forces of reaction and war. The bitter attacks against the decisions of the Twentieth and Twenty-Second Congresses of the CPSU, against the propositions and directives of the Declaration and Statement are nothing more than the reaction of conservative forces in the communist movement to the creative Marxism-Leninism of the modern epoch.

Evidently you do not even notice the extent to which the letter of the CC CPC of May 7 is permeated with the ideology of the personality cult. Your demonstrative disregard of the will of the fraternal Parties, your undisguised attempt to avoid a collective discussion of the problems that have arisen and your methods of conducting polemics by piling up all sorts of political insinuations, of the most fantastic accusations, your intolerance and bitterness with regard to comrades-in-arms bear the indelible imprint of personality cult practices.

The CC CPC tries to cover up its departure from the general line of the communist movement with the flag of revolution and struggle against imperialism, which is sacred to all Communists. But the real worth of this “revolutionary spirit” is shown by the practical deeds of the CPC leaders, by their entire activity aimed at splitting the revolutionary forces of modern times. Recently, for example, the meaning that the CPC leaders attach to their notorious theory of a so-called “intermediate zone” embracing, besides China, the imperialists of Japan, the Federal Republic of Germany, France and Britain, became especially clear. The extent to which manifestations of a split in the communist movement, in the socialist camp, bring joy to the imperialists is seen by their attempts to find some way of effecting a rapprochement with those who are causing this split. Have the CPC leaders paid attention to the fact that namely today when Chinese propaganda is shouting loudest of all about “revolution” and a “struggle against imperialism”, the ruling circles of these powers are displaying special readiness to establish closer relations with Peking. Even the US imperialists, as can be seen from many statements by US officials, declare that despite the bellicose tone of Chinese propaganda China is behaving “moderately” and that therefore the United States must “keep the door open” should there be changes in relations with China.

Today it is becoming increasingly clear to Marxists- Leninists throughout the world that “Leftist” phrases on the lips of the CPC leaders mean nothing but a screen for great-power designs and claims to hegemony which manifest themselves with growing clarity in their practical actions in the world and in the communist movement. We should like to warn you, comrades, that the road you are taking is extremely dangerous, that you are gambling with the destiny of the people of China and with their revolutionary gains.

You are trying to portray criticism of your anti-Leninist views and stand as an “anti-Chinese campaign”. You know perfectly well that in all of our Party’s documents special emphasis is laid on the heartfelt friendship of Soviet Communists for the Chinese people, to whom we have rendered and are prepared to continue rendering the utmost aid in the building of socialism., The CC CPSU is no engaged in stirring up among our people distrust and hostility towards China, toward? its great people and towards the peoples of other countries.

It is precisely because we cherish the friendship between the Soviet and Chinese peoples, the unity between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China and the solidarity of the entire world liberation movement that we are not relaxing our efforts to normalize relations with the CPC despite the fact that the Chinese leadership is demonstrating with increasing clarity its unwillingness to improve these relations. Our long enduring patience and,restraint are explained by the fact th^t we are devoted,to the Leninist principles of internationalism, have our eyes on the future and believe in the ultimate-triumph of these principles in the socialist community and the communist movement.

We reaffirm our stand with regard to the need for convening a world meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties as a reliable and tested method of securing the unity of Marxist-Leninist Parties. We suggest that in the immediate future we should agree in principle that a meeting must be convened and that it should not be put off for long, and that agreement on its specific date as well as on its agenda and composition should be reached through further consultations with the- fraternal Parties.

The CC CPSU. considers that at the present stage the main effort should be concentrated on holding a preparatory, conference. We reiterate our proposal that a preparatory conference should be convened and attended by representatives of the 26 Parties nominated by the World Meeting of Communist Parties as members of the Drafting Commission in 1960 and representing the interests of Communists in all the main regions of the world. We consider it necessary to reach agreement with the fraternal Parties on the specific date of such a conference in the immediate future.

As before, the CC CPSU expresses its readiness to Iiolcl a bilateral meeting of representatives of the CPSU and CPC on any agreed date. This question can be decided at any time by agreement between the CPSU and CPC.

A collective examination of problems of the communist movement is at present the only correct method recognized by all Communist Parties. Therefore no Party can, without breaking with internationalism, hinder the convocation of the meeting or unilaterally dictate terms under which such a meeting must be held. All Parties are equal and, on the basis of the democratic principles proclaimed in the Declaration and Statement, jointly decide questions concerning our entire movement.

In conclusion the CC CPSU considers it necessary to emphasize that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will continue firmly to follow the Leninist course laid down by the Twentieth and Twenty-Second Congresses and consistently implement the general line of the world communist movement as set forth in the 1957 Declaration and 1960 Statement. Our Party and the entire Soviet people are faced with the epochmaking task of building a communist society. Together with all peace-loving forces we bear the responsibility for averting a world thermonuclear war, for the triumph of the cause of peace, democracy, national independence and socialism. We shall spare no effort in the struggle for the attainment of the great goals of the modern epoch.

Such, too, is the position from which we approach the matter of surmounting difficulties in the world communist movement, and strengthening the unity of its ranks. We place the interests of world communism above all else and are guided by them in our relations with the Communist Party of China as with any other Party.

The CC CPSU hopes that the CC CPC will study the proposals made in this letter with all seriousness, once again weigh all the possible consequences of the stand taken by it and, on its part, take steps that would lead to unity with all Marxist-Leninist Parties rather than to a split.

With fraternal greetings,

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

June 15, 1964