Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
[SOURCE: by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) and Hongqi (Red Flag), Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1963.]
Contents
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 and Hongqi
(September 6, 1963)
Appendix I
Outline Of Views On The Question Of Peaceful Transition
(November 10, 1957)
Appendix II
(June 26, 1960)
Appendix III
(September 10, 1960)
On July 14, 1963 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union published an Open Letter to Party organizations and all Communists in the Soviet Union.
In a statement on July 19 a spokesman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China declared:
The open letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU is an appraisal of our letter of June 14. The Central Committee of the CPC considers that the contents of the open letter do not accord with the facts, and we cannot agree with the views it expresses. At the appropriate time, the Central Committee of the CPC will clarify matters and give its comments.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU was published in full on July 20 in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) and other national papers and in all provincial and municipal papers throughout China. It was also broadcast in full by Chinese radio stations.
In the Soviet national papers, the Open Letter was followed by nearly 300 articles attacking China. Renmin Ribao has published extracts from a number of these articles.
Starting today, the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and the journal Hongqi (Red Flag) are publishing a succession of articles commenting on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Editorial Department of Renmin Ribao
Editorial Department of Hongqi
September 6, 1963
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.
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 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?” (Renmin Ribao editorial, February 27, 1963), 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. and hypocrisy — the result of weakness.” Honesty and respect for the facts mark the attitude of Marxist-Leninists. 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 the three articles which we published in April 1960 under the title of “Long Live Leninism!” 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 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 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 Congress that Khrushchov, in his summary 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.
Khrushchov 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 cooperate with it for peace and international security and also in the economic and cultural spheres.” This wrong view later developed into the line of “Soviet-U.S. co-operation 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 subverted their readerships, 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 “vacillations and waverings” and is “false”.
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 Mao 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”.
In internal discussions with comrades of the CPSU, leading comrades of the Central Committee of the CPC also stated where we 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 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 Hsiao-ping completely affirmed the “combat 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 “combating 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 “vacillations and waverings”, 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 “wonderful” 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 “wonderful” 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 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”, they talked openly about using Khrushchov’s secret report as a “weapon with which to destroy the prestige and influence of the communist movement” and they took the opportunity to advocate “peaceful transformation” in the Soviet Union.
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”.
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 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 Between 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 event 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 a “tremendous role” 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 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 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:
“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 people’s 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 their reliable allies will either be impossible . . . or undependable. . . .” (See Appendix I.)
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 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 revisionism, 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 have 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.
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” and who “also worries about ensuring peace just as we do”. 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” and “a turning point in history”.
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, that universal and complete disarmament could “open up literally a new epoch in the economic development of Asia, Africa and Latin America”, 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 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 defence 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” and that China’s People’s Communes were “in essence reactionary”. By innuendo he maligned China as warlike, guilty of “adventurism”, 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 most ferocious 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 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 defence 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 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 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-China 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:
“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 news which run counter to Marxism-Leninism.” (See Appendix II.)
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 in the Soviet Union and of Su Chung You Hao (Soviet-Chinese Friendship) by the Soviet Union in China 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 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 reducing 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 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 vilifying 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 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 more than sixty thousand words, 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 arose of its full isolation”. This is another lie.
What was the actual state of affairs?
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.
Its wrong thesis about opposing the policy of “going it alone” on the part of the 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 under-estimating the serious danger of modern revisionism was rejected.
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 certain 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 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 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 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 “the CPC leaders were only manoeuvring when they affixed their signatures to the Statement of 1960”.
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 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 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 co-operation” and expressing the desire to work together with Kennedy to “set about building durable bridges of confidence, mutual understanding and friendship”. 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.
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 reflected 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 “reflected” 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”.
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 preposterous theories 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 slogans of “freedom”, “equality” and “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, when they were beginning to take 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 “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 “undertook new attempts” 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 Marxism-Leninism. 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 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”, and they call their revisionist programme the “real Communist Manifesto of our time” and the “common programme” of the “Communist and Workers’ Parties and of the people of countries of the socialist community”.
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 everything, 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, abandon its consistent line, which is in full 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 proposal made by the fraternal Parties of Indonesia, Vietnam, 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 30, 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 pre-condition 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” and “humanitarianism”. To this day this incident remains unsettled. 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 has been 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 has been bent on forming a reactionary alliance with the renegade Tito to oppose all Marxist-Leninist parties. After the 22nd Congress, it took a series of steps which 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 “new attempts” 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 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-China 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 Marxist-Leninist Parties. All this completely exposes the revisionist and splitting line which the leadership of the CPSU is following.
At present, the “anti-China 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.
In the foregoing we have reviewed at some length the origin and development of the differences. Our aim is to clarify the facts which were distorted in the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU and to help our Party members and our people and also the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people of the world to see the truth.
The facts of the past seven years have amply proved that the differences between the Chinese and Soviet Parties and within the international communist movement have arisen solely because the leadership of the CPSU has departed from Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary principles of the 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Statement and pursued a revisionist and splitting line in leadership of the CPSU that has harmed the socialist camp and the international communist movement.
It is not just today that the Chinese Communists have begun to discover the errors of the CPSU leadership. Ever since the 20th Congress of the CPSU, we have watched with concern as the CPSU leadership took the road of revisionism.
Confronted with this grave situation, our Party has scores of times and for a long period considered: what should we do?
We asked ourselves, should we follow the CPSU leadership and suit all our actions to its wishes? In that case, the leadership of the CPSU would of course rejoice, but would not we ourselves then turn into revisionists?
We also asked ourselves, should we keep silent about the errors of the CPSU leadership? We believed that the errors of the CPSU leadership were not just accidental, individual and minor errors, but rather a whole series of errors of principle, which endanger the interests of the entire socialist camp and international communist movement. As a member in the ranks of the international communist movement, how could we be indifferent and keep silent about these errors? If we should do that, would not we be abandoning our duty to defend Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism?
We foresaw that if we criticized the errors of the leaders of the CPSU, they would certainly strike at us vindictively and thus inevitably cause serious damage to China’s socialist construction. But should Communists take a stand of national egoism and not dare to uphold truth for fear of vindictive blows? Should Communists barter away principles?
We took into consideration the fact that the CPSU was built by Lenin, that it is the Party of the first socialist state, and that it enjoyed high prestige in the international communist movement and among the people of the whole world. Therefore, over a considerable period of time, we were particularly careful and patient in criticizing the leaders of the CPSU, trying our best to confine such criticism to inter-Party talks between the leaders of the Chinese and Soviet Parties and to solve the differences through internal discussions without resorting to open polemics.
But all the comradely criticism and advice given to the leaders of the CPSU by responsible comrades of the Central Committee Of the CPC in scores of inter-Party talks did not succeed in enabling them to return to the correct path. The CPSU leaders went farther and farther down the road of revisionism and splittism. In return for the advice we gave in goodwill, they applied a succession of political, economic and military pressures against us and launched attacks which became increasingly violent.
The CPSU leaders have a bad habit: they indiscriminately stick labels on anyone who criticizes them.
They say, “You are anti-Soviet!” No, friends! The label “anti-Soviet” cannot be stuck on us. Our criticism of your errors is precisely for the sake of defending the great CPSU and the great Soviet Union and preventing the prestige of the CPSU and the Soviet Union from being badly damaged by you. To put it plainly, it is you, and not we, who are really anti-Soviet and who are defaming and discrediting the CPSU and the Soviet Union. Ever since the complete negation of Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, you have committed innumerable foul deeds. Not all the water in the Volga can wash away the great shame you have brought upon the CPSU and upon the Soviet Union.
They say, “You are trying to seize the leadership!” No, friends! It is not at all clever of you to make this slander. The way you put it, it would seem that some people are contending with you for some such thing as “the leadership”. Is this not tantamount to shamelessly claiming that some sort of “leadership” exists in the international communist movement and that you have this “leadership” ? It is a very, very bad habit of yours thus to put on the airs of a patriarchal party. It is entirely illegitimate. The 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Statement clearly state that all Communist Parties are independent and equal. According to this principle, the relations among fraternal Parties should under no circumstances be like the relations between a leading Party and the led, and much less like the relations between a patriarchal father and his son. We have always opposed any one Party commanding other fraternal Parties, and it has never occurred to us that we ourselves should command other fraternal Parties, and so the question of contending for leadership simply does not arise. What confronts the international communist movement now is not whether this or that Party should assume leadership, but whether to respond to the baton of revisionism or to uphold the revolutionary principles of the Declaration and the Statement and persevere in the revolutionary line of Marxism-Leninism. Our criticism of the leadership of the CPSU concerns its attempt to lord it over fraternal Parties and to impose its line of revisionism and splittism on them. What we desire is merely the independent and equal status of the fraternal Parties stipulated in the Declaration and the Statement and their unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
It is the leaders of the CPSU who have provoked and extended the present great debate in the international communist movement and forced it on us. Since they have levelled large-scale attacks and all kinds of unscrupulous slanders against us, and since they have openly betrayed Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and torn up the Declaration and the Statement, they cannot expect us to abstain from replying, from refuting their slanders, from safeguarding the Declaration and the Statement and from defending Marxism-Leninism. The debate is on, and right and wrong must be thoroughly clarified.
We Chinese Communists persevere in principle and uphold unity; we did so in the past, we do so now and we shall continue to do so in the future. While engaging in polemics with the leaders of the CPSU, we still hope they will realize that they have taken a most dangerous road by abandoning revolution, abandoning the revolutionary people of the world, abandoning the unity of the socialist camp and of the international communist movement and eagerly collaborating with the U.S. imperialists, the reactionaries of all countries and the renegade Tito clique.
The interests of the Chinese and Soviet peoples, of the socialist camp, of the international communist movement, and of the people throughout the world demand that all Communist and Workers’ Parties should become united and oppose the common enemy.
We hereby appeal once again to the leadership of the CPSU to correct its errors and return to the path of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, the path of the 1957 Declaration and the 1960 statement.
The international communist movement is going through an important period. The present debate has a vital bearing on the future of the proletarian world revolution and the destiny of mankind. As history will prove, after this great debate Marxism-Leninism will shine forth more brilliantly and the revolutionary cause of the international proletariat and the people of the world will win still greater victories.
November 10, 1957
I. On the question of the transition from capitalism to socialism, it would be more flexible to refer to the two possibilities, peaceful transition and non-peaceful transition, than to just one, and this would place us in a position where we can have the initiative politically at any time.
1. Referring to the possibility of peaceful transition indicates that for us the use of violence is primarily a matter of self-defence. It enables the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries to sidestep attacks on them on this issue, and it is politically advantageous — advantageous for winning the masses and also for depriving the bourgeoisie of its pretexts for such attacks and isolating it.
2. If practical possibilities for peaceful transition were to arise in individual countries in the future when the international or domestic situation changes drastically, we could then make timely use of the opportunity to win the support of the masses and solve the problem of state power by peaceful means.
3. Nevertheless, we should not tie our own hands because of this desire. The bourgeoisie will not step down from the stage of history voluntarily. This is a universal law of class struggle. In no country should the proletariat and the Communist Party slacken their preparations for the revolution in any way. They 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 people’s revolution (generally speaking, it is inevitable that the bourgeoisie will do so).
II. 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. The reasons are:
1. Possibility and reality, the desire and whether or not it can be fulfilled, are two different matters. We should refer to the desire for peaceful transition, but we should not place our hopes mainly on it and therefore should not over-emphasize this aspect.
2. If too much stress is laid on the possibility of peaceful transition, and especially on the possibility of seizing state power by winning a majority in parliament it is liable to weaken the revolutionary will of the proletariat, the working people and the Communist Party and disarm them ideologically.
3. To the best of our knowledge, there is still not a single country where this possibility is of any practical significance. Even if it is slightly more apparent in a particular country, over-emphasizing this possibility is inappropriate because it does not conform with the realities in the overwhelming majority of countries. Should such a possibility actually occur in some country, the Communist Party there must on the one hand strive to realize it, and on the other hand always be prepared to repulse the armed attacks of the bourgeoisie.
4. The result of emphasizing this possibility will neither weaken the reactionary nature of the bourgeoisie nor lull them.
5. Nor will such emphasis make the social democratic parties any more revolutionary.
6. Nor will such emphasis make Communist Parties grow any stronger. On the contrary, if some Communist Parties should as a result obscure their revolutionary features and thus become confused with the social democratic parties in the eyes of the people, they would only be weakened.
7. It is very hard to gather forces and prepare for the revolution, and after all parliamentary struggle is easy in comparison. We must fully utilize the parliamentary form of struggle, but its role is limited. What is most important is to proceed with the hard work of gathering the revolutionary forces.
III. 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 their reliable allies will either be impossible (because the bourgeoisie will amend the constitution whenever necessary in order to facilitate the consolidation of their dictatorship) or undependable (for instance, elections may be declared null and void, the Communist Party may be outlawed, parliament may be dissolved, etc.).
IV. Peaceful transition to socialism should not be interpreted in such a way as solely to mean transition through a parliamentary majority. The main question is that of the state machinery. In the 1870’s, Marx was of the opinion that there was a possibility of achieving socialism in Britain by peaceful means, because “at that time England was a country in which militarism and bureaucracy were less pronounced than in any other”. For a period after the February Revolution, Lenin hoped that through “all power to the Soviets” the revolution would develop peacefully and triumph, because at that time “the arms were in the hands of the people”. Neither Marx nor Lenin meant that peaceful transition could be realized by using the old state machinery. Lenin repeatedly elaborated on the famous saying of Marx and Engels, “The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.”
V. The social democratic parties are not parties of socialism. With the exception of certain Left wings, they are parties serving the bourgeoisie and capitalism. They are a variant of bourgeois political parties. On the question of socialist revolution, our position is fundamentally different from that of the social democratic parties. This distinction must not be obscured. To obscure this distinction only helps the leaders of the social democratic parties to deceive the masses and hinders us from winning the masses away from the influence of the social democratic parties. However, it is unquestionably very important to strengthen our work with respect to the social democratic parties and strive to establish a united front with their left and middle groups.
VI. Such is our understanding of this question. We do hold differing views on this question, but out of various considerations we did not state our views after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Since a joint Declaration is to be issued, we must now explain our views. However, this need not prevent us from attaining common language in the draft Declaration. In order to show a connection between the formulation of this question in the draft Declaration and the formulation of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, we agree to take the draft put forward today by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as a basis, while proposing amendments in certain places.
June 26, 1960
(1) The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China maintains that at this meeting Comrade Khrushchov of the Delegation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has completely violated the long-standing principle in the international communist movement that questions of common concern should be settled by consultation among fraternal Parties, and has completely broken the agreement made prior to the meeting to confine it to an exchange of views and not to make any decision; this he has done by his surprise attack of putting forward a draft communique of the meeting without having consulted the fraternal Parties on its contents beforehand and without permitting full and normal discussion in the meeting. This is an abuse of the prestige enjoyed by the CPSU in the international communist movement, a prestige which has been built up over the long years since Lenin’s time, and it is, moreover, an extremely crude act of imposing one’s own will on other people. This attitude has nothing in common with Lenin’s style of work and this way of doing things creates an extremely bad precedent in the international communist movement. The Central Committee of the CPC considers that this attitude and this way of doing things on the part of Comrade Khrushchov will have extraordinarily grave consequences for the international communist movement.
(2) The Communist Party of China has always been faithful to Marxism-Leninism and has always steadfastly adhered to the theoretical positions of Marxism-Leninism. In the past two years and more, it has been completely faithful to the Moscow Declaration of 1957, and has firmly upheld all the Marxist-Leninist theses of the Declaration. There are differences between us and Comrade Khrushchov on a series of fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. These differences have a vital bearing on the interests of the entire socialist camp, on the interests of the proletariat and the working people of the whole world, on the question of whether the people of all countries will be able to preserve world peace and prevent the imperialists from launching a world war, and on the question of whether socialism will continue to score victories in the capitalist world, which comprises two-thirds of the world’s population and three-fourths of its land space. All Marxist-Leninists should adopt a serious attitude towards these differences, give them serious thought and hold comradely discussions, so as to achieve unanimous conclusions. However, the attitude Comrade Khrushchov has adopted is patriarchal, arbitrary and tyrannical. He has in fact treated the relationship between the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union and our Party not as one between brothers, but as one between patriarchal father and son. At this meeting he has exerted pressure in an attempt to make our Party submit to his non-Marxist-Leninist views. We hereby solemnly declare that 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. We consider that certain views expressed by Comrade Khrushchov in his speech at the Third Congress of the Rumanian Party are erroneous and in contravention of the Moscow Declaration. His speech will be welcomed by the imperialists and the Tito clique and has indeed already been welcomed by them. When the occasion arises, we shall be ready to carry on serious discussions with the CPSU and other fraternal Parties on our differences with Comrade Khrushchov. As for the Letter of Information of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Communist Party of China, which Comrade Khrushchov has distributed in Bucharest, the Central Committee of the CPC will reply to it in detail after carefully studying it; the reply will explain the differences of principle between the two Parties, setting forth the relevant facts, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will hold serious, earnest and comradely discussions with fraternal Parties. We are convinced that in any case the truth of Marxism-Leninism will triumph in the end. Truth does not fear contention. Ultimately, it is impossible to portray truth as error or error as truth. 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.
(3) We, the Communist Party of China, have always striven to safeguard the unity of all Communist Parties and the unity of all socialist countries. For the sake of genuine unity in the international communist ranks and for the sake of the common struggle against imperialism and reaction, we hold that it is necessary to unfold normal discussions on the differences and that serious questions of principle should not be settled in a hurry by abnormal methods or simply by vote. Nor should one impose on others arbitrary views which have not been tested in practice or which have already proved to be wrong in such tests. Comrade Khrushchov’s way of doing things at this meeting is entirely detrimental to the unity of international communism. But however Comrade Khrushchov may act, the unity of the Chinese and Soviet Parties and the unity of all the Communist and Workers’ Parties is bound to be further strengthened and developed. We are deeply convinced that, as the international communist movement and Marxism-Leninism develop, the unity of our ranks will constantly grow stronger.
(4) If the relations between our two Parties are viewed as a whole, the above-mentioned differences between Comrade Khrushchov and ourselves are only of a partial character. We hold that the main thing in the relations between our two Parties is their unity in the struggle for the common cause; this is so because both our countries are socialist countries and both our Parties are built on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and are fighting to advance the cause of the whole socialist camp, to oppose imperialist aggression and to win world peace. We believe that Comrade Khrushchov and the Central Committee of the CPSU and we ourselves will be able to find opportunities to hold calm and comradely discussions and resolve our differences, so that the Chinese and Soviet Parties may become more united and their relations further strengthened. This will be highly beneficial to the socialist camp and to the struggle of the people of the world against imperialist aggression and for world peace.
(5) We are glad to see that the Draft Communique of the Meeting put forward here affirms the correctness of the Moscow Declaration. But the presentation of the Marxist-Leninist theses of the Moscow Declaration in this draft is inaccurate and one-sided. And it is wrong that the draft avoids taking a clear stand on the major problems in the current international situation and makes no mention at all of modern revisionism, the main danger in the international working-class movement. Therefore, this draft is unacceptable to us. For the sake of unity in the common struggle against the enemy, we have submitted a revised draft and propose that it be discussed. If it is not possible to reach agreement this time, we propose that a special drafting committee be set up to work out, after full discussions a document which is acceptable to all.
September 10, 1960
Striving to settle the differences successfully and to attain unity, we put forward the following proposals in all sincerity:
(1) The fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and the principles of the Declaration and the Manifesto of the 1957 Moscow Meeting are the ideological foundation for the unity between our two Parties and among all fraternal Parties. All our statements and actions must be absolutely loyal to the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and the principles of the Moscow Declaration, which we should use as the criteria for judging between truth and falsehood.
(2) The relations among the socialist countries and among the fraternal Parties must strictly conform to the principles of equality, comradeship and internationalism as stipulated by the Moscow Declaration.
(3) All disputes among the socialist countries and among the fraternal Parties must be settled in accordance with the stipulations of the Moscow Declaration, through comradely and unhurried discussion. Both the Soviet Union and China, and both the Soviet and Chinese Parties, bear great responsibilities regarding the international situation and towards the international communist movement. They should have full consultations and unhurried discussions on all important questions of common concern in order to have unity of action. If the disputes between the Chinese and Soviet Parties cannot be settled for the time being in consultations between the two Parties, then unhurried discussions should be continued. When necessary, the views of both sides should be presented completely objectively to the Communist and Workers’ Parties of all countries so that these Parties may make correct judgements after serious deliberation and in accordance with Marxism-Leninism and the principles of the Moscow Declaration.
(4) It is of the utmost importance for Communists to draw a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves, between truth and falsehood. Our two Parties should treasure and value our friendship and join hands to oppose the enemy, and should not make statements or take actions liable to undermine the unity between the two Parties and the two countries and thus give the enemy the opportunity of driving a wedge between us.
(5) On the basis of the above principles, our two Parties, together with other Communist and Workers’ Parties, should strive through full preparation and consultation to make a success of the meeting of representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of all countries to be held in Moscow in November this year, and, at this meeting, should work out a document conforming to the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and the principles of the 1957 Moscow Declaration to serve as a programme to which we should all adhere, a programme for our united struggle against the enemy.