THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE INTER-PARTY DEVELOPMENTS AT AND AFTER THE RUMANIAN WORKERS PARTY CONGRESS - BUCHAREST , 20 - 25 JUNE 1960

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240024-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 60
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 20, 1998
• Sequence Number: 24
• Content Type: DISP

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THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE
INTER-PARTY DEVELOPI?NTS AT AND AFTER THE
RUMANIAN WORKERS PARTY CONGRESS--BUCHAREST, 20-25 JUNE 1960
The background of thd*-dispute (1957-1960)
1. The present dispute between the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union (CPSU) and the Communist Party of China (CPC) has its origins in
differences which date back at least three years,.r
that is, to 1957. On the Chinese side, antecedent
resentments may date as far back as the formative period of the CPC in
the twenties, when Stalin' s,tialliance olic with the Kuomintang drove the
CPC to disaster, as well as to the war and early post-war period, when
Soviet support for the Chinese Communist cause was minimal and did not
inhibit the stripping of Manchuria. If-- mingle cause for the
current dispute
-netowa. Rather, it would appear, was an
accumulation of Chinese policies and actions increasingly displeased.
and challenged Khrushchev and, presumably, a majority of the Soviet leadership.
In the field of domestic policy, it is now known that Mao's "Let a hundred
flowers bloom" program aroused Soviet doubts about its usefulness. The
program for the "great leap forward"hand the ccinmunesr adopted by the CPC
4rert
in May 1958, readily recognizable as a considerable irritant in Sino-
Soviet relations by the silent treatment which irCJreceived in the Soviet
Union.
2. Disagreement over foreign policy manifested itself in August 1958
when Khrushchev, after four days discussion with Mao Tse-tung, rejected,
on 5 August, Western proposals for a summit meeting within the U. N. Security
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Council on the crisis in the Middle East - proposals which he had accepted
in July. Nevertheless, on 23 August the Chinese began shelling of the
off-shore islands. On 23 May 19580 the Commander of the Chinese Air Force
predicted that China would make atomic bombs "in the not too distant future"
and the Chinese press ceased to refer to Khrushchev's earlier plan for an
atom-free zone in Asia. Khrushchev revived his concept of an atom-free
zone for "the Far East and the entire Pacific Basin" at the 21st CPSU Congress
in February 1959. Chinese reactions were not enthusiastic, and, from April
1959, on, references to the plan disappeared altogether. In the light
of these and other indications, it can be fairly assumed that Soviet
unwillingness to deliver atomic weapons to Chinese contro]j had become a
serious issue. It is now known that the Soviets cited as the reason for
their reluctance their apprehension over Chinese policiesgin the external
field which were in conflict with Khrushchev's "peaceful coexistence"
tactics, A affirmed that global or limited war need not be avoided and objected
to Khrushchev's aid programs for "bourgeois" regimes in underdeveloped
countries on the grounds that they would delay revolution. Chinese objectlions
to peaceful coexistence tactics manifested themselves i-~rbt 1957 .w
in the deliberations of the International Communist Front organizations,
especially within the World Peace Council and the International Union of
Students--two organizations which were most directly and intensely engaged
in building their appeal on the unity campaign so typical of the peaceful
coexistence periods they desired to involve bourgeois and nationalist
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groups in mass action and therefore advocated informal conversations, -
negotiations] ~iaw_ concessions to such groups.
The Chinese refused to "sit around the table" with them except in formal
meetings ubft designated representatives and Q~4 uaftwd to broaden the scope of
concessions on program and organization questions. Chinese spposi4ian
was particularly manifest after the Soviet decision of June 1959 concerning
Khrushchev's visit to the United States.
3. In August 1959, the Chinese overran the Indian border post at
Longju and reopened the border dispute with India, after eight years of
quiet. The Soviet position on this dispute significantly failed to give
full endorsement to the Chinese claims, although pseeg Chinese repressive
actions in Tibet had been promptly supported as just and as an "internal
affair." Khrushchev, as was known later, did not interpret the reopening
of the dispute as a mere attempt to register opposition to his trip to the
c"United States, but as an un-Marxist blunder which needlessly undermined
Indian neutralist attitudes and potential value in the peace and disarmament
campaign and impaired the appeal of CP India. When Khrushchev visited Peiping,
after his trip to the United States, for the October anniversary celebrations
in 1959, the Sino-Indian dispute was one topic of discussion and it is
virtually certain that Khrushchev presented his views on improving USSR-U.S.
relations. Sino-Soviet discussions were,( however, unsatisfactory and no
communique was published. According to three widely separated and reliable
sources, in October 1959 the CPSU sent a letter to at least the bloc parties,
holding fast to Khrushchev's views on USSR-U.S. relations. In November 1959,
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of CPSU, published an article in Problems
tlw
of Peace and Socialism that justified the policy of peaceful coexistence
as "class struggle on the international plane" and significantly noted
Lenin's criticism of "Left Communists." It is known that the Chinese have
since been accused of criticizing the November 1959 joint program of the
european parties, which is clearly based upon the same premises as the
article. In December 1959, Khrushchev warned the Chinese in stating at
the Hungarian Party Congress that "we must all synchronize our watches."
the
L. In January 1960, the Chinese positions hardened. At/Rome meeting
of the Presidential Committee of the World Peace Council in January 1960 it
transpired that the Chinese had charged the USSR with seeking to isolate
China in the interest of achieving a modus vivendi with the U. S. A
? /reliable source states that the USSR in January 1960 informally broached ~to j
the idea that the Sino-Soviet differences required discussion, only to be
told by the Chinese that the differences were between the parties and shpul
not be mentioned. The CPC appears to have reached important decisions during
January'thich had a major effect on the dispute. On 21 January the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress adopted a resolution concerning
disarmament which specified that China would
bound,,by treaties it
takes part in framing; and in February 1960, at the meeting of the foreign
ministers of the Warsaw Pact countries, the Chinese observer, Mang Shengo
incorporated the statement in his speech, broadening it to include "all
international agreements." The contrast between the descriptions of the
world situation in K'ang Sheng's speech and those given by the European bloc
speakers was striking.
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5. It is at this point that the 1957 Moscow declaration first began
to be quoted to support the conflicting positions, when the People's Daily
of 6 February 1960 asserted that "the development of the international
situation has borne out the correctness of the declaration." It appears
likely, therefore, that the Chinese decided in late January to take the
initiative in broadening the debate. But also on 6 February a verbal message
from the Central Committee of the CPSU was reportedly delivered in Peiping,,
0-4
sking the CPC to attend a meeting to discuss outstanding,pro_b7, ;
6. In mid-April 1960 the Chinese took advantage of the 90th anniversary
of Lenin's birth to make their most serious public attack on the theoretical
innovations developed by the CPSU at and after the XXth Party Congress in
January 1956. Using oblique but unmistakable arguments, the Chinese challenged
the premises underlying Soviet foreign policy and by implication disparaged
Khrushchev's stature as,a Communist theorist. The Chinese attack comprised
three major statements: two articles in the party's theoretical monthly
Red Flag (issues no. 7 and 8, 1 and 16 April), the first entitled "On
Imperialism as the Source of War in Modern Times" and the second entitled
Ltio- U
"Long Live Leninism," axid-an editorial on 22 April in the authoritative
newspaper ,the People's Daily.
7. The Soviets replied in the speech delivered in Moscow on 22 April
by Otto Kuusinen of the CPSU Central Committee and Secretariat. A very
strong defense of current Soviet foreign policy and of the general lines
endorsed at the XXth and XXIth CPSU Congresses, his speech confined its
critical comments to general statements condemning "dogmatic positions
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as backtiard positions." On the same day a Chinese Politburo alternate,
Lu Ting-i, gave a speech in Peiping which incorporated many of the arguments
of the "Long Live Leninism" article. The divergences between the two speeches
were so great that when one Communist party seriously affected by the dispute,
the Indian party, published both speeches side by side in the 8 May issue of
its newspaper New Age, without comments, its action aroused considerable
comment and created confusion among party members.
8. The Chinese then began to carry their case to the other parties.
"Long Live Leninism," the Lu Ting-i speech, and the People's Daily editorial
of 22 April were translated and published in the widely circulated English
language Peking Review of 26 April. At the same time, the first edition of
a book containing the three articles was produced by the Foreign Languages
Press in Peiping in many languages for distribution abroad. Two further editions
of this book were produced, one in May and the other, after the Bucharest
confrontations, in August. The book is known to exist in English, Spanish,
French, the Eastern European languages (including Russian), and Vietnamese.
It has been distributed in India and in certain countries at least of Latin
America and Western Europe. It appears that the Chinese later attempted to
circulate the articles in the USSR in one of their two Russian language
publications, Bruzhba, an action which the Soviets protested. The magazine
was in fact suspended from circulation in the USSR after the publication of
the June issue. Earlier instances of Soviet refusals to circulate Chinese
doctrinal writings in the USSR have recently been reported by reliable sources,
who heard the details during party discussions of the Sino-Soviet differences.
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9. After the Kuusinen rebuttal of Chinese charges, the CPSU took
advantage of the 40th anniversary of the publication of Lenin's book
Leftwing Communism, an Infantile Disorder (10 June 1960)to carry the public
ideological debate with the Chinese to new heights, including the use of
the charge of "deviation." Two Soviet articles published on 10 June, one
by D. Shevlyagin in the newspaper Soviet Russia and one by N. Matkovsky in
the party newspaper Pravda, expressed this criticism by attacking "contemporary
left-wing deviationism" in terms which referred to the positions held by the
Chinese party. Both articles highlighted the significance of the 12 Party
Declaration of November 1957. Matkovsky characterized it as a "programmatic
document of the international Communist movement," and as a validation of
the general line expressed by the CPSU. Shevlyagin, on the other hand,
referred particularly to the declaration as authorizing and requiring a struggle
against "leftist opportunism" as well as against "rightist opportunism" such
as that of the Yugoslavs. In discussing manifestations of left opportunism he
made the significant point that "not only groups of Communists but the leader-
ship of individual parties have veered into leftist deviationism." Neither of
the articles explicitly identified the Chinese as the target of criticism,
but their relevance to the dispute was unmistakable.
10. The timing of this intensification of the Soviet attack on the
Chinese views coincides with a C1'SU letter on the Summit Conference which
was circulated, shortly after Khrushchev's return home following the collapse
of the conference, to the Communist parties of the bloc and those of France
and Italy. Although the text of this letter is not available, it seem4ikely
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to have been unacceptable to the Chinese, who emphasized from mid-May on
that the course of events before and at Paris proved the validity of the
Chinese arguments concerning imperialism and the illusory and fruitless
character of negotiation. Perhaps the worst offense of the Chinese, in Soviet
eyes, was their argument that the only value of Communist participation in
such puce negotiations was the purely tactical advantage that came out of
their eventual exposure of the true character and intentions of the enemy.
This observation was precisely the kind of statement which the CPSU was most
eager to avert.
11. It is likely too that the CPSU decided at this time to send a
sharp letter of criticism to the CPC. One prominent Free world Communist
who visited Moscow in late May stated that he learned from a member of the
CPSU Secretariat that a "sharp" letter wa~-:~ being sent to the CPC. CPSU
1,.A 04
l}-etter$calling for a conference was reportedly sent to the Chinese on 7
June1o.
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It is also worth noting that the CPC leaders went into closed conference in
Shanghai on 8 June, a move which may well have been prompted by the receipt
of the CPSU letters. They were in fact still meeting when the Chinese delegation
left for the Bucharest party congress.
12. The Chinese too made a major move in the now rapidly developing
dispute. They did this in early June at the XIth General Council meeting
of the t?wworld Federation of Trade Unions in Peiping. On 2 June they presented
an ultimatum on the official THTU reporttID the chief Soviet representative,
who rejected it, The Chinese claimed that the report contained
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attacks on the communes. At this meeting, which opened on 5 June after a
five-day delay, in the presence of both WFTU affiliates and representatives
of some twenty-five unaffiliated national trade union federations, the leading
Chinese figures Chou En-lai, Liu Shao-ch'i, Liu Ning-i, Teng Hsiao-ping,
and Liu Chang-sheng publicized the Chinese views on the peace struggle, the
threat of imperialism, and the "illusions" aroused by the campaigns for
peaceful coexistence and by programs for giving substantial economic aid to
bourgeois-led underdeveloped countries. Using a tactic they had employed
earlier in April, the Chinese leaders accompanie
these criticisms with
fulsome expressions of approval of the Soviet posture towards the U.S. at the
time of the collapse of the Summit Conference. This approval of the Soviet
actions was accompanied by expressions of solidarity with the USSR in its
stand against U.S. acts of aggression. It was learned that the CPSU was
particularly stung by the speeches of Liu Ning-i and Liu Chang-sheng.
13. When the Chinese convened a private meeting of Communist party
members among the delegates to hear a statement of the Chinese criticisms
of CPSU doctrines, representatives of the CPSU promptly opposed the continuation
of the talks and made the ominous charge that the Chinese action was a violation
of the terms of the 12 Party Declaration of November 1957. This Soviet appeal
to the authority of the Moscow declaration paralleled the similar appeal
in the Shevlyagin article published in Moscow, and the charge has since
figured prominently in the CPSU's presentation of its case. According to
credible reports, during the WFTU session Teng Hsiao-ping, general secretary
of the CPC, accused the CPSU in turn of "throwing the Moscow declaration
overboard."
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representatives in Peiping not only criticized the Chinese actions in
personal discussions with foreign Communist representative s but by 9 June
took concrete steps to enlist the support of other CP's against the Chinese.
The representative of one Free 'World CP was told, by a representative of the
Soviet All Union Central Council of Trade Unions, that the Soviet embassy in
Peiping was interested in knowing if he could stop over in Moscow after the
end of the conference.
15. When a group of European and African delegates to the WFTU
meeting arrived in Moscow on 13 June, a number of CPSU officials conferred
with members of this group. One of the delegates in the group is known to
have talked privately with a top official, V, Tereshkin, of the CPSU Foreign
Section, concerning the Sino-Soviet dispute. The delegate was informed of
the interpretation the CPSU placed on recent Chinese actions, and Tereshkin
asked that he have a plenum of his party's central committee convened after
his return home to discuss the Chinese actions at Peiping and to condemn them
as violations of the Moscow declaration. A second person, tentatively
identified as L. I. Brezhnev, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet,
was also reported present at this meeting. According to a statement broadcast
while the Bucharest congress was in session, representatives of the French
and Spanish Communist parties held a meeting on 1 and 15 June, at which they
reaffirmed their adherence to the 12 Party Declaration. Si:-as the leadership
of both these parties was represented in the group of WFTU delegates in
Moscow at this time, it appears possible that the meeting in question took
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place there and that the reaffirmation was a reaction to the Peiping events.
16. In contrast to these cryptic endorsements of the Moscow declaration,
on 19 June 1960 a statement by Agostino Novella, a leading Italian Communist
and president of the WFTU, was published in the Italian Party newspaper
Unita. In this statement, which was also broadcast in Italian from Czechoslovakia
on 20 June, Novella described the Chinese criticism of the resolutions
proposed at the WFTU Council meeting in Peiping and, like the 10 June Soviet
articles, characterized the Chinese views as "deviations." So far as can be
determined, this was the first instance in which a Free World Communist party
publicized this charge against the Chinese. The appearance of the statement
coincided with the opening of the 3rd Con,7ress of the Rumanian Workers Party
in Bucharest, where the next phase of the dispute developed.
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a letter from the CPC which limited its powers to.rO agreeing on a date
for a party conference to discuss Sino-Soviet differences and.-exchanging
views, without however, adopting any formal resolution. The CPSU
representatives were not successful in obtaining an admission from the
Chinese delegation of the errors of the CPC. The Chinese, however,
reportedly expressed a willingness to correct their positions if in an
exchange of views with the delegates at Bucharest a majority should prove
them wrong. The CPSU~ justifying its action by invoking the November 1957
The Chinese delegation to the congress of the Rumanian Workers Party
stopped in Moscow for an exchange of views on 17 June. It presented
~at1u
The Bucharest debates (20-27 June 1960)
17. The Chinese determination to press at Bucharest for Soviet
adoption of a militant line is suggested by an article in the 16 June issue
of Red Flag, which, in an obvious reference to the CPSU's earlier
justification of its views on peace and peaceful coexistence, observed that
"one cannot separate onQelf from the revisionists merely by stating
that the forces of socialism predominate over the forces of imperialism."
Peace Manifesto (not the 12 Party Declaration adopted at the same time),
insisted that the views of all the Communist parties should eventually be
0 ascertained before attempting a meeting to reach a final solution. In this
context, the Bucharest session should presumably have involved nothing
but an exchange of views. The Chinese stated at Bucharest that in Moscow
the LYbU had first made the proposal that other parties be brought into
Ryer?" the debate, but had wished to confine the group to delegates from the bloc
parties only. The Chinese said that they had rejected this proposal. It
would appear, then, that the Chinese adherence to their instruction forced
the Soviet!4)hand.
, 18. Wye ere are reports that the CPSU intended by the end of
r E,
1-0-' May to attack the Chinese at Bucharest, the Soviet decision to make a major
i 1"1 `t t
e; t Li `" ` effort there to enlist the support of other parties appears to have been
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reached as a result of the Chinese stand on 17 June. Virtually none of
the major Free World parties sent top-level delegates to the congress.
The fact that Khrushchev was to lead the Soviet delegation was announced
only on June 18, the day of his departure. All the European satellite
delegations except Albania were led by persons of national stature equal
to that of Khrushchev, but the late arrival of Gomulka of Poland and the
early departure of Novotny of Czechoslovakia suggest that this top-level
representation was organized on short notice. The leader of the Chinese
delegation, Pteng Chen, was clearly outranked by this group. Fifty--
parties were represented at the congress. Twenty-five of the thirty-five
non-bloc fraternal delegations identified as present were composed of
second and third echelon party leaders and none of the more significant
Free World parties, except Chile and Syria, were represented by their
leaders.
19. The Soviet delegation to Bucharest included B. Ponomarev and
Y. A. Ai4 opov, the heads of the two Central Committee sections for
relations with the non-bloc parties-"respectively, During the first days
of the congress they and their colleagues concentrated on briefing fraternal
25X1A6c_ (delegates. It is known that a group of English-speaking delegates and a
second group comprising those who spoke Spanish were called together
25X1A6c
separately and briefed from a long letter which the CPSU intended to issue
to all parties. The letter had apparently been either completed or revised
at the last moment, for it contained the Soviet account of the Moscow
exchanges of 17 June and explained the Soviet view of how the inter-party
discussion should be handled. The inclusion of Wu Hsiu-chtuan, the deputy
director of the CPC's International Liaison Department, as one of the
four Chinese delegates suggests that the Chinese too planned to exploit
their supporters and acquaintances among the delegates.
20. The reporting on the sequence of events at Bucharest concerning
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the Sino-Soviet dispute is in some respects contradictory. The following
probable chronology, however, emerges from an analysis of the available
information.
a. On 21 June the Rumanian party congress began its open