THE MOSCOW CONFERENCE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES (NOVEMBER 1960)

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• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79S00427A000600040002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 61
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 16, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 19, 1961
• Content Type: SUMMARY

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NOT RELEASABLE TO
19 May 1961
FOREIGN. NATIONALS
TS No. 104558/61
Copy No.
'22
THE MOSCOW CONFERENCE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES
(November 1960)
THIS MATERIAL CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECT-
ING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES
WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE ESPIONAGE LAWS,
TITLE 18, USC, SECTIONS 793 AND 794, THE TRANSMIS-
SION OR REVELATION OF WHICH IN ANY MANNER TO
AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON IS PROHIBITED BY LAW.
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THE MOSCOW CONFERENCE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES
(November 1960)
Most of the leaders of the world Communist movement gath-
ered in Moscow in November 1960 to discuss questions of world
Communist strategy and of authority and discipline in the move-
ment itself--and, if possible, to paper over the Sino-Soviet
dispute on the basis of an uncompleted draft declaration pre-
pared by a multiparty committee in October. There were dele-
gations from 81 Communist parties, of the 87 claimed to exist;
but they did not include Mao Tse-tung and Kim Il-sung.
As the delegates arrived in early November, they were re-
portedly given a copy of the draft declaration, plus a copy or
summary of the Soviet party's letter of 5 November to the Chi-
nese party, plus a briefing in which the Soviet party asked
for their support. In circulating the 5 November letter, the
Soviet party made clear to everyone that it had not abandoned
or appreciably modified its positions, i.e., that the agree-
ments reached thus far were nominal agreements. Beyond this,
the Soviet party, in reviewing the entire case against the Chi-
nese, seemed to be soliciting massive support for an effort to
get at least one hard agreement--on the principle of majority
rule for the world Communist movement.
The preparatory committee in October had devised accept-
able language, in the draft declaration, for almost all ques-
tions of Communist strategy--by stating both the Soviet and
Chinese positions or by evading the issues. The committee
had been unable to find acceptable language, however, on sev-
eral issues relating to authority and discipline in the move-
ment. the "cult of the individual," relevant to de-Staliniza-
tion and the status of both Khrushchev and Mao; endorsement
of the theses of the 20th and 21st CPSU congresses, entailing
the issue of whether the Soviet party could speak for the
world Communist movement; and of greatest importance, "unity"
and "factionalism" in the movement, these being the terms in
which the Soviet party sought to establish the principle of
majority rule. At the meetings of the 26-party preparatory
committee in October, the Chinese had led the dissidents on
each of these questions, supported on almost all points by
the Albanians and on others by various combinations of the
delegations of Australia, Indonesia, Japan, North Korea, and
North Vietnam. As the November conference developed, the
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Chinese also objected strongly, with some support, to certain
of the passages in the draft referring to "nationalism" or
"national Communism"--passages which the Chinese correctly
regarded as being aimed at them.
On 10 November, the first day of the conference, Khru-
shchev opened the discussion with a systematic defense of
Soviet positions, including all of the Soviet positions com-
promised in the draft declaration. (An authorized version
of this speech, although not presented as that, was to appear
as Khrushchev's 6 January report on the conference.) On 14
November, after some 18 speeches in support of the Soviet
party and only one speech (the North Korean) stating an
equivocal position, Teng Hsiao-ping of the Chinese delegation
spoke for four hours, replying both to the Soviet party's 5
November letter and to Khrushchev's 10 November speech.
Khrushchev had begun by expressing a. hope of resolving
differences. He had then reaffirmed the Soviet assessment
of the balance of power, contending that the balance was "in
favor of" socialism but that the West was still strong. He
had reiterated his belief in the bloc's increasing (not ab-
solute) ability to deter the West from initiating either a
world war or local wars which might lead to world war, and
he had contended that "peaceful coexistence" would favor so-
cialism.
In reply, Teng began by rebuking the Soviet party for
bringing up all of the issues again. He then defended Mao's
formulation of the balance of power in terms of the East Wind
prevailing--a figure used by the Chinese to imply a greater
degree of bloc superiority than asserted by Moscow. Teng
criticized the Soviet party for curbing "revolutionary strug-
gles" at the same time that it proclaimed bloc superiority,
and he defended Mao's concept of the Western "paper tiger"--
long used to disparage Western strength--as one necessary to
maintain revolutionary will. Teng recognized the possibility
of averting a world war, but he wanted equal emphasis on the
continuing danger of a Western-initiated world war. He ob-
jected to the Soviet interpretation of "peaceful coexistence,"
contending that this concept should include the building up
of the entire bloc as rapidly as possible and the provision
of the utmost possible support to revolutionary struggles
all over the world. Teng argued at one point that such strug-
gles would not increase the possibility of world war, and at
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another point that even if they did lead to world war the
imperialists would be wiped out in such a war.
Khrushchev had enlarged on the Soviet position on types
of wars--world war, local wars, and "liberation" wars. He
had given some detail on the disastrous consequences of nu-
clear war. He had stated his opposition to a world war--a
war necessarily involving the United States and the Soviet
Union--and his belief that the West would be wary of ini-
tiating such a war. As for local wars, i.e., small-scale
wars between states, wars also Western-initiated (e.g., the
Suez crisis), he had spoken of these as a diminishing pros-
pect, and he had said that the Communist objective should
be to deter such wars or to halt them before they could ex-
pand. As for "liberation" wars, i.e., wars by indigenous
forces against colonial powers or against their own inde-
pendent governments (he specified Algeria and Cuba), he had
agreed that such wars were "inevitable" and he had affirmed
an intention to support them, but he had evaded the ques-
tions of the kind and degree of support.
In reply, Teng denied that Peiping envisaged the triumph
of socialism through general war, but he reiterated that it
was a mistake to emphasize the dreadful consequences of nu-
clear war; he reaffirmed Mao's view that half the world's
population would survive a world war. He dissented strongly
from Soviet views on local and liberation wars. Reaffirm-
ing the inevitability of Western-initiated local wars, he
pointed to the Korean war again as a "just" local war which
had been not halted but fought, to the bloc's advantage. He
cited various liberation wars as having also been advanta-
geous; he was critical of Soviet evasiveness on the question
of support for liberation wars and uprisings, and he called
for much greater support.
In discussing the consequences of nuclear war, Khrushchev
had reaffirmed the value of the effort toward disarmament and
toward negotiations with "sober" forces in the West. Teng
was scornful of these views. He called for the bloc--includ-
ing China--to develop superiority in nuclear weapons, and he
contended that the "hope of peace" rested not on talks with
the West but on the progress of the revolutionary struggle
everywhere.
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With respect to the national liberation movement (colonial
areas and underdeveloped states), Khrushchev had contended--
contrary to Peiping--that the West was increasingly deterred
from military intervention and that its other coercive devices
were generally ineffectual, a line related to the Soviet posi-
tion on the decreasing importance (despite their inevitabil-
ity) 'of liberation wars. He had emphasized the importance--
minimized by Peiping--of.bloc aid to underdeveloped states
and he had invited attention to the new Soviet concept of
"national democracy" as a transitional stage to socialism
for these states. He had reaffirmed that Communist parties
in both underdeveloped states and developed Western countries
might sometimes come to power by non-violent means.
In reply, Teng emphasized the importance of armed strug-
gle in colonial areas and Western successes in preventing the
independent countries from achieving true independence. Con-
trary to the earlier Soviet emphasis on protracted coopera-
tion with bourgeois nationalist leaders in the independent
countries and the reflection of that line in the new concept
of "national democracy," Teng reaffirmed the Chinese line on
the importance of striving for early Communist domination of
independent governments, and he indirectly criticized the
concept of "national democracy" on grounds of ambiguity. He
reiterated that the Soviet party had grossly exaggerated the
prospects for peaceful accession of the Communist parties to
power, in both underdeveloped and developed countries, and,
referring to the Soviet formulation about not exporting rev-
olution, he again charged the Soviet party with failing to
give adequate support to revolutionary movements.
Early in his 10 November speech, clearly aiming at
the Chinese, Khrushchev had reviewed Soviet principles for
building socialism and Communism and had called for better
coordination of bloc economies. In reply, Teng defended
the Chinese practice of emphasizing "ideology and morality"
rather than material incentives, denied that Peiping was
trying to find a shortcut to Communism, praised the "leap
forward" and commune programs, and, reaffirming the Chinese
aim of autarky, observed that each country should develop
its own economy and could later cooperate on a voluntary
basis.
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Discussing the critical questions of authority and dis-
cipline in the movement--i.e., the most important of the un-
completed portions of the draft declaration--Khrushchev had
related the two offenses of "revisionism" and "nationalism,"
in effect turning the Chinese charge of Soviet revisionism
into, a Soviet charge of Chinese nationalism. He had reit-
erated the Soviet party's abjuration of leadership of the
world Communist movement, but he had strongly reaffirmed the
Soviet party's support of the principle of majority rule in
the movement, including the reflection of this principle in
the draft declaration's passages on unity and factionalism.
In reply Teng protested the Soviet effort to find a
"nationalist deviation" in Chinese policy, denied a relation-
ship between nationalism and revisionism, noted that the cam-
paign against "sectarianism" had been aimed at the Chinese
party and led by Moscow, contended that Sino-Soviet differ-
ences were a reflection of Soviet unconcern with revisionism,
reaffirmed Peiping's poor opinion of the Soviet handling of
de-Stalinization, and denied that the "cult of the individ-
ual" was a concept applicable to Mao. With respect to achiev-
ing unity, Teng expressed suspicion that the Soviet party had
not genuinely renounced leadership of the movement; he said
that Peiping recognized the Soviet party as the center, but
that there could be "no leaders and no led," no father-son
relationship, no interference in other parties, and no im-
position of views--such as the Soviet effort to make the
theses of the 20th and 21st CPSU congresses binding on otherrd
parties, and Soviet statements of support for leaders opposed
to the dominant leaders in the Chinese and Albanian parties.
Teng contended that unity must be achieved through consulta-
tions, prolonged to unanimity; decisions could not be taken
by majority vote. While the principle of major ti y rule was
applicable to the central committees of individual parties,
Teng said, it was not applicable to the world Communist
movement which had no such central committee; this being so,
it was improper to pose the question of factionalism.
Teng in his 14 November speech also took up issues be-
tween the Soviet and Chinese governments, as the CPSU's 5
November letter had done but which Khrushchev in his 10 No-
vember speech apparently had not done. Teng observed that
Sino-Soviet differences had become more serious after Khru-
shchev became the Soviet leader, and that the relationship
had deteriorated considerably in autumn 1957 when the USSR
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attempted to establish Soviet-controlled radio and radar sta-
tions in China and made other unspecified demands (reported-
ly for Soviet naval bases in China and/or a Sino-Soviet navy
or naval component). Teng gave a long list of instances of
unacceptable Soviet behavior in the period from autumn 1959
to the current conference, including Khrushchev's criticism
of Chinese policies and programs, Khrushchev's attribution
of decent motives to Western leaders, Soviet attacks on the
Chinese at the Bucharest conference and Soviet threats against
Peiping in the public press, the withdrawal of Soviet tech-
nicians, and a Soviet protest of Chinese border encroachment.
Teng contended that past Soviet aid, while helpful, was only
to be expected, had been repaid by Chinese sacrifices in the
Korean war, and was no greater than Chinese aid to other
countries. He held that Chinese criticism of Soviet "great-
nation chauvinism" was justified.
Almost all of the delegations which bad not spoken prior
to Teng's 14 November speech were drawn into the dispute in
the next seven sessions of the conference. The most interest-
ing of the speeches reported were: the Albanian (Hoxha's)
speech of 16 November, supporting virtually all Chinese po-
sitions and making some strong charges against the Soviet
party; the Polish (Gomulka's) speech and the Italian (Longo's)
speech of 17 November, both strongly supporting the Soviet
party; the North Vietnamese (Ho Chi Minh's) speech of 17 No-
vember,a. masterpiece of evasion and conciliation, but lean-
ing to the Chinese on the key question of majority rule; and
the Indonesian (Lukman's) speech of 19 November, generally
in support of the Chinese. Although the great majority of
the delegations had put themselves on record, by the end of
the 22 November session, as Soviet supporters, those parties
which had expressed themselves as favoring majority rule ap-
parently did not yet constitute a majority.
Khrushchev spoke again on 23 November in reply to Teng's
speech on 14 November and Hoxha's of 16 November. He again
defended the Soviet positions relating to world Communist
strategy--as he was again to defend them strongly in his 6
January report--which he had been forced to compromise or
qualify in the draft declaration. He chose to emphasize
the importance of the assessment of the balance of power and
the conclusion that the prevention of a world war was the
"main task." Rejecting Chinese charges, he affirmed that
this task would not entail surrender, submission to blackmail,
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failure to be vigilant or to build military strength, or re-
nunciation of armed struggle. He also gave considerable at-
tention to the liberation movement, insisting that Soviet
gradualist policies were correct and that the Chinese were
foolishly militant.
Khrushchev in this second speech emphatically reaf-
firmed Soviet favor for the principle of majority rule. Fur-
ther, citing the majorities which had developed at Bucharest,
and in the preparatory meetings in October, and now in this
conference, be strongly implied that concessions to the Chi-
nese--concessions made in the interest of unanimity--were
now at an end. He asked the Chinese to reconsider their
"dangerous" course and apparently asked them and their sup-
porters to sign the draft declaration as it stood. The
Chinese, the Albanians, and the North Koreans reportedly
remained seated during the standing ovation for Khrushchev?.s
speech.
Teng Hsiao-ping replied on the following day (24 Novem-
ber). With respect to questions of world Communist strategy,
he stated the essentials of the Chinese position as these:
the balance of power would permit an arduous struggle; such
a struggle could be waged within the terms of peaceful co-
existence; there was a possibility of avoiding world war
but it was neither possible nor desirable to avoid other
types of war; and peaceful accession to power was very rare.
He went on to defend Chinese actions during 1960 in pub-
licly criticizing Soviet actions. He stated that no Chi-
nese errors had as yet been revealed, and he defended Chi-
nese and Albanian behavior at this conference.
In this second speech, Teng reiterated that the Soviet
party could not expect other parties to support Soviet ac-
tions taken unilaterally, that the road to unity was through
consultation, and that consultation must lead to unanimity
and not to the imposition of majority will. As for those
portTonns of the draft which reflected these questions of
authority and discipline, Teng replied to Khrushchev's
ultimatum by stating flatly that the Chinese party would
"never" agree to an explicit endorsement of the theses of
the 20th and 21st CPSU congresses or to the references to
"nationalism" and "factionalism." If these passages were
excised, the Chinese would sign the document and the world
movement would "once again" be united.
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Led by the French delegate (Thorez), some 23 delegations
called upon the Chinese to submit to the will of the majority.
Some 13 of these apparently had not previously declared their
favor for the principle of majority rule, and these 13 brought
the total to at least 43 parties which had so declared--a ma-
jority of the 81'parties represented. However, the next step
was apparently not that of a majority demand for an immediate
vote on . whether E e draft was to be signed as it stood. The
conference decided to refer those portions of the draft still
in dispute to a committee for a final effort to find accept-
able language. The conference adjourned to 1 December.
At the time of the conference's adjournment on 24 Novem-
ber, there were at least 62 delegations in the Soviet camp,
in terms of supporting Soviet positions--on questions of
world Communist strategy and/or on questions of authority
and discipline--either strongly or on balance. The only
strong supporter of the Chinese party had been the Albanian
delegation, but those who seem on balance to have been Chi-
nese supporters were the delegations of North Korea, North
Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, and Malaya, plus possibly Ghana.
Several others bad been too evasive to permit a judgment or
had represented split parties. In terms of areas: of theour
12 countries of the bloc, eight were in the Soviet camp, f
were in the Chinese camp (China, Albania, North Korea, North
Vietnam); of the parties of the European community, 21 were
in the Soviet camp, none was in the Chinese, and four were
apparently neutral; of the parties of non-bloc Far Eastern
countries, two were in the Soviet camp (India--the dominant
wing.--and Ceylon); three were in the Chinese camp (Indonesia,
Burma, and Malaya); and three were neutral (Japan, Nepal,
and Thailand); of the parties of the Near East and Africa,
12 were in the Soviet camp and one reportedly in the Chi-
nese (Ghana); of the countries of Latin America, 19 were in
the Soviet camp, none was in the Chinese camp, and two were
neutral (Panama and Peru).
Ho Chi Minh led the forces of conciliation after 24 No-
vember. He and like-minded figures arranged a conference be-
tween Khrushchev and Liu Shao-chi on or about 25 November.
Soon thereafter, evidently with new instructions from Khru-
shchev and Liu, Soviet and Chinese representatives worked
out some new formulations for the draft declaration.
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The 6 December declaration made pretty clear what took
place in the meeting between Khrushchev and Liu, at least
with respect to the draft declaration. In the critical final
section, relating to authority and discipline, the parties
compromised on the question of endorsing the theses of the
20th and 21st CPSU congresses--the 6 December declaration in
effect endorses those of the 20th but not of the 21st, while
nodding to the unspecified contributions of other parties;
and the Chinese won their case completely with respect to
omitting the references to "nationalism" in this context and
to "factionalism" in any context. With respect to the lat-
ter point, the Chinese held out for, and got, language which
can be plausibly presented by the Chinese as establishing
the principle of unanimity.
The 6 December declaration also gave an ironical cast
to the question of what concessions Khrushchev made to the
Chinese to induce them to agree to sign the declaration.
That is, it was primarily Khrushchev, not Liu, who was in-
duced to compromise. Nevertheless, there are unconfirmed
reports that the Soviet party had to make yet more conces-
sions--e.g., promising to hold another world Communist con-
ference within a year or two, and to return or to discuss
returning the Soviet technicians.
rushchev-Liu meeting answered the question, posed
in terms of the two parties playing "chicken,"
MOW e er either party would be willing to swerve at the
last moment. In fact both swerved, but the Soviet party
swerved much more.
We cannot be sure why Khrushchev swerved, after so
heavily committing his personal prestige against swerving,
on these key questions of authority and discipline, ex-
pecially that of majority rule. There are at least four
considerations; that there seemed no prospect of Chinese
agreement to the principle of majority rule, no matter how
long the conference continued; that the Chinese were not
isolated, their camp consisting of seven or eight parties,
possibly with additional supporters on the question of ma-
jority rule; that there was a significant amount of neutral-
ist sentiment; and that almost all of the parties hoped to
avoid the kind of showdown that would be expressed in a vote,
then revealed in the failure of the minority to sign the
declaration, which would formalize and tend to perpetuate
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the split in the movement. There is the possible fifth fac-
tor--about which nothing is known--of pressure on Khrushchev
by other Soviet party leaders. We think that Khrushchev,
having done his best, finally acted on his recognition of
a situation which, in general, he had anticipated.
When the conference reconvened on 1 December, Liu made
his only reported speech, expressing particular satisfaction
with the provision for further conferences of this type.
Khrushchev made the concluding remarks of the conference,
saying, in effect, that the conference had at least suc-
ceeded in preventing an open split in the movement but that
he did not know whether Sino-Soviet relations would improve.
As both the Soviet and Chinese parties had made clear during
the conference, and as both of them were to make clear in
their very different. presentations of the 6 December declara-
tion, the agreements were nominal agreements and the dispute
would continue.
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The Issues
Most of the leaders of the world Communist movement gath-
ered in Moscow in November 1960 to discuss questions of world
Communist strategy and of authority and discipline in the
movement itself--and, if possible, to paper over the Sino-
Soviet dispute on the basis of an uncompleted draft declara-
tion prepared by a multiparty committee in October.
There were delegations from 81 Communist parties,* of
the 87 claimed to exist. The Chinese delegation was headed
by Liu Shao-chi, and included Teng Hsiao-ping and Peng Chen.
Mao Tse-tung, who had attended the similar conference in No-
vember 1957, on this occasion chose to underline his dis-
agreement with and dislike for Khrushchev, and his unwilling-
ness to associate himself personally with any compromise with
Khrushchev, by staying home. Kim I1-sung was the only other
bloc party leader who did not attend.
As the delegates arrived in early November, they were re-
portedly given a copy of the draft declaration which had been
*The Soviet press identified 78 of the 81 parties which
sent delegations to the conference. These were the Communist
parties of: Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Canada, Ceylon,
Chile, Colombia, Communist China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus,
Czechoslovakia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador,
Eire, Finland, France, East Germany, West Germany, Greece,
Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, In-
donesia, Iran, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan,
Jordan, North Korea, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaya, Martinique,
Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands,New Zealand,
Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal,
Reunion, Rumania, El Salvador, San Marino, South Africa, the
Soviet Union, Spain, the Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria,
Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, Ven-
ezuela, and North Vietnam. Delegations of the parties of
Ghana and the United States were reported by other sources
as present. The 81st party has not been identified.
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left uncompleted by the preparatory committee when it broke
off its work on 22 October, plus a copy or summary of the
Soviet party's letter of 5 November to the Chinese party,
plus a Soviet briefing in which the Soviet party asked for
their support at the conference.
The Soviet party letter of 5 November had reviewed the
record of Chinese misbehavior and Soviet propriety, had re-
affirmed Soviet substantive positions in the dispute in
strong terms, and had demanded that the Chinese party re-
spect majority opinion.* It has sometimes been asked why
the Soviet party, in circulating this letter before the con-
ference began, brought up again the entire list of issues
in the Sino-Soviet dispute when there were only four or five
passages in the draft declaration yet to be worked out. One
part of the answer is easy: the Soviet party wanted to make
clear to everyone that it had not abandoned or appreciably
modified its positions, that the agreements reached thus far
were nominal agreements. The other part of the answer is
uncertain, but seems to be this: that the Soviet party was
working for At least one hard agreement within the welter
of nominal agreements. That is, the Soviet party, while
recognizing that it would have to settle for nominal agree-
ments on most questions of authority and discipline as well
as on questions of strategy, wanted badly to establish the
principle of majority rule--the need for which principle
was emphasized in the 5 November letter and in speeches by
Soviet delegates at the conference. By reviewing the entire
case against Peiping, Moscow might reasonably have hoped for
massive support for its effort to establish the principle of
majority rule--a principle which would be much less suscepti-
ble to subversion than were the equivocal and.evasive formula-
tions on strategy, and which, while not obliging the Chinese
to change their minds on questions of strategy, would oblige
them to refrain from public attacks on Soviet policy and
from other forms of "factional" activity. The record indi-
cates that the Soviet party did indeed have a hope of es-
tablishing this principle until the final days of the con-
ference, when, finding that a majority of parties supported
the principle of majority rule itself but a significant minor-
ity (led by the Chinese) did not, Moscow retreated from it.
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The preparatory committee had made remarkable progress
in finding acceptable language for the draft. declaration with
respect to questions of world Communist strategy. It had
done this, as the declaration issued on 6 December was to make
apparent, by stating both the Soviet and Chinese positions on
the issue or by offering evasive formulations. As of 10 Nom
vember,'the only such substantive question for which accept-
able language had not been found related to the slogan of a
world without arms and without wars as a Communist objective--
a slogan opposed by the Chinese, Albanian, and Indonesian
parties, and perhaps also by the North Vietnamese.
The preparatory committee had been unable to find ac-
ceptable language, however, on several critical questions
relating to authority and discipline in the world Communist
movement. One of these was the declaration's treatment of
the "cult of the individual"--no language yet proposed had
been acceptable to the Chinese, Albanians and Indonesians.
Further, the Chinese and Indonesians had opposed the proposal
that the declaration endorse the theses of the 20th and 21st
CPSU congresses--a proposal more revelant to the question of
authority in the movement than to questions of strategy, as
the theses had already been endorsed, with Chinese qualifiers,
in discussions of particular questions in the draft declara-
tiono Finally, and of greatest importance, the Chinese par-
ty had opposed any discussion of "factionalism" in the draft;
the Chinese had been supported in this by the Albanians,
while the North Korean, North Vietnamese, Japanese and Aus-
tralian parties had wanted a different treatment of this
concept. The question behind this question was clearly that
of whether the world Communist movement was to operate on
the principle of majority rule, and a Cuban-Brazilian amend-
ment to the draft may have put it in just those terms--i.e.,
may have proposed that the declaration explicitly endorse
the principle of majority rule and condemn factionalism?
However, the weight of evidence indicates that the draft as
of 10 November did not contain an explicit endorsement of a
majority rule but rather made this point indirectly in dis-
cussing "unity" and condemning "factionalism."
The record shows that the Chinese, in the course of the
conference, objected strongly also to certain passages in the
draft concerned with "nationalism" or "national Communism."
The reporting of Khrushchev's 10 November speech indicates
that there were references to "nationalism" in the draft
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declaration at that time (just as there were in the declara-
tion issued on 6 December) in the section on relations among
bloc countries, and also further references to "nationalism"
or "national Communism" in the final section of the draft
declaration (which did not appear in the 6 December declara-
tion), the section dealing with authority and discipline in
the movement. Teng Hsiao-ping's speech of 14 November re-
ferred to "nationalism" in discussing this latter section,
but the Chinese had apparently not put on record their ob-
jection to this discussion as of 10 November.
Khrush.chev's 10 November Speech
The conference opened on 10 November with a welcoming
address by Khrushchev. The meeting was apparently scheduled
to occupy no more than 10 days, as several of the delegates
(including.Soviet leaders) had important engagements begin-
ning on 20 November. As it developed, the conference ran
through 1 December.
Following Khrushchev on 10 November, Suslov reported
on the work of the preparatory (drafting) committee. He
reviewed the draft declaration, which seems to have been
organized much as the 6 December declaration turned out to
be, discussing the nature of the epoch, the building of Com-
munism and the development of the bloc, questions of war and
peace, the national liberation movement (the colonial areas
and the underdeveloped states), the prospects for peaceful
accession to power, and question of authority and discipline
in the movement.
Suslov also reviewed the issues on which, as summarized
above, the preparatory committee had been unable to find ac-
ceptable language--relating to a world without war, the "cult
of the individual," the theses of the 20th and 21st CPSU con-
gresses, and "factionalism" in the movement. Of the 26 par-
ties represented on the preparatory committee, the CCP had
led the opposition on all these points, supported by the
Albanians on three of the four, by the Indonesians on three,
by the North Vietnamese on either one or two, and by the
North Koreans, Japanese, and Australians on one. As the
conference proceeded, as issues were re-examined and other
parties were heard from, these Chinese supporters turned out
to support the Chinese position on other issues as well, and
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the Chinese and their supporters picked up additional sup-
porters on various issues.
Khrushchev then returned to open the discussion. He be-
gan by expressing his satisfaction with the assemblage and
his hope that differences could be resolved. He described
the draft declaration as a sound Marxist document, and he
went on to offer comment on all parts of it.*
As for the Soviet assessment of the balance of power,**
Khrushchev reaffirmed the Soviet position that socialism
was gaining and the West declining, that the balance of
forces was "in favor of" socialism, but that imperialism
was still strong and in particular still possessed a power-
ful military establishment. One source has reported that
Khrushchev at this point reiterated, for Peiping's benefit,
that the West was not a "paper tiger."
Khrushchev went on to reaffirm the bloc's increasing
ability--deriving from its increasing strength-to deter the
West from initiating either a world war or local wars which
might lead to a world ware He argued again that the absence
rus c ev s January report is an authorized version
of this 10 November speech, although not presented as that;
the report and the speech are very similar in both structure
and detail. However, the 10 November speech, made to a gen-
erally qualified audience, contains a number of things Khru-
shchev was unwilling to state publicly.
**The question of assessing the balance of power has been
argued by Moscow and Peiping in terms of defining the nature
of the "epoch," terms which often tend to obscure the ques-
tion: of. the Soviet formulation that this is a new epoch,
an.epoch of.:the. disintegration of imperialism and the transi-
tion from capitalism to socialism, versus the (occasional)
Chinese formulation that'this is still the epoch of imperial-
ism, wars, and proletarian revolution. Such formulations might
suggest that the Soviets regard the West as weak and the Chi-
nese regard the West as strong; in fact it is the Soviets who
have emphasized continuing Western strength. The question
which derives from the basic assessment, and which is not
stated clearly in the formulations just given, is whether the
balance of power commends a strategy of steady progress pri-
marily by non-military means (the Soviet view) or of attempt-
ing to make spectacular gains primarily through violence (the
Chinese view.)
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of wars was not to the West's advantage, or, in positive terms,
that peaceful coexistence favored socialism, and not, as "some"
/the Chinese7 said, capitalism. In this connection and in con-
nection with his second topic, he reaffirmed the importance of
long-range economic competition with the West.
Khrushchev reviewed Soviet positions on principles of build-
ing socialism and Communism, reportedly rejecting certain Chinese
principles embodied in the "leap forward" and commune programs.
He evidently called for better coordination of bloc economies,.
in contrast to the Chinese aim of autarky.
Khrushchev then offered a fairly full discussion of wars
--world war, local wars, and liberation wars--along the lines
of the Soviet party's 5 November letter and even closer to the
lines which were to appear two months later in his long 6 Jan-
uary,report.* As for world war, necessarily involving the
* t s necessary here to offer a tedious recapitulation of
Soviet and Chinese past positions on wars, becausetthe issue of
attitudes and policies toward different types of war is so impor-
tant in the dispute. Although we do not have a full account of
the Soviet party letter of 21 June, what we do know of that let-
ter indicates that the Soviet party tended to avoid making a sharp
distinction between "local" wars and "liberation" wars. While
Moscow affirmed its intention to support "just" wars in both
categories, it tended to emphasize the bloc's ability to deter
the West from "war" in general (not simply from world war), and,
while affirming its intention to support "just" wars among local
wars and liberation wars, it suggested a fear that wars of all
kinds could get out of control and a reluctance to become substan-
tially involved in wars of any kind. The Chinese apparently in-
terpreted Soviet pronouncements in much the same way: the Chinese
party's 10 September letter emphasized the need to distinguish
between types of war, insisted on the inevitability of local wars
and liberation wars, and called upon Moscow to adopt an appropri-
ate revolutionary attitude toward all types of war; the letter was
very scornful of what it took to be Soviet advice to the "people"
everywhere not to undertake%. actions which might develop into lib-
eration wars or local wars which might in turn develop- into a
world war. In. that letter and in the October preparatory meeting
for the November conference, the Chinese contended that some "lo-
cal" wars; and all "liberation" wars were positively to We wel-
comed, and thatfiere should be a 1es4,evasive statement of bloc
support for these "just" wars. Thus pushed into a corner, the So-
viet party in its 5 November letter agreed that it was necessary
to distinguish types of war, and it described liberation: wars in
colonial areas as both admissible and inevitable; however, the
letter did not concede that local wars were inevitable, it appar-
ently emphasized the bloc's ability to deter the West from local
wars and from a maximum effort in liberation wars, and it con-
tinued to evade the question of the kind and degree of bloc sup-
port for "just" wars in both categories.
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United States and the Soviet Union, Communists must abso-
lutely oppose world war, he said, and he reiterated that
the West would be wary of initiating a world war. As for
local wars, defined as small-scale wars between states, wars
also initiated by imperialism, Khrushchev said that Commu-
nists must also be opposed (he may have said "equally op-
posed") to local wars, owing to the danger of their expan-
sion; he conceded that the West might undertaken such wars,
but he did not concede that they were "inevitable," and in-
deed he contended that such wars would occur less frequent-
ly than in the past; citing the soviet action in the Suez
crisis of 1956, he affirmed the objective of deterring or
halting local wars before they could expand.* As for the
third category, wars of "national liberation" such as (he
specified) the Algerian war-i ..e o , `wars by indigenous forces
against colonial powers on their own independent governments
--Khrushchev agreed that such wars were "inevitable" as long
as.imperialism existed; he apparently described these wars,
as he did in his 6 January report, as beginning in "popular
uprisings" (he specified Cuba) and he reportedly went=.on,
as in the 6 January report, to observe that such wars must
not be equated (the verb used by Pravda is otozhdestvlytt")
with wars between states (i . e o , 1:ocal wars) ; an na ;-y, he
described these wars, both in their early stages as ""popular
*The implication remained that the Soviet party would
engage in local wars if necessary, e.g., to protect an in-
dependent government against a Western power if warnings
proved ineffectual; Khrushchev in his 6 January report al-
so left room for such intervention, noting that Communists
were "in general" opposed to local wars, iee., wars be-
tween states.
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uprisings,: and their later stages as full-blown "liberation"
wars, as "just" wars to which the bloc would give substantial
assistance, including material assistance.*
At this point, as in his 6 January report, Khrushchev
reportedly reaffirmed the Soviet position on the disastrous
consequences of general war, citing a Western scientist to
the effect that up to 700 million people would die within
two months of the first nuclear attack in a world war. He
reiterated that Communists had no right to put in jeopardy
the bloc and the world's working-class. In this connection,
he'reaffirmed the importance of "peaceful coexistence" (en-
visaging all forms of struggle except initiation of war) and
of the effort toward disarmament. He reportedly criticized
those (the Chinese and others) who rejected the "slogan" of
a world without arms and without wars. He also reaffirmed
the Soviet position that there were sober as well as irra-
tional forces in the West and that it was worth while to
meet with representatives of these sober forces--a position
he reiterated in his 6 January report.
in our discussion (pages 22-24) of, the
passag on war in rushchev's 6 January report, we treated
"popular uprisings" as a fourth category of,wars, i.e,. as
civil wars, wars by indigenous forces against their independ-
ent non-Communist governments. However, re-examination of
the 6 January report, of the Soviet party's letter of 5 No-
vember, and of Khrushchev's 10 November speech, indicates
that he has tended to describe these wars also as "libera-
tion" wars and to employ the term "popular uprising" to des-
ignate the earliest stage of a "liberation" war, whether in
a colonial country like Algeria or in a country like Cuba
regarded (until Castro's accession to power) as a semi-colo-
nial country, one indirectly controlled by the imperialists.
Perhaps Khrushchev will eventually make, in the interest of
clarity, the kind of distinction--a distinction of type rath-
er than one of degree of advance--which we originally thought-
he was making, We cannot tell whether Khrushchev means the
concepts of "popular uprising" and "liberation" warn. to ap-
ply also to civil wars in developed Western countries, coun-
tries not (not thus far, at:least) regarded as ^- -part of the
"national liberation movement"'; a distinction for the sake
of clarity would seem proper here too.
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Turning then to the national liberation movement, Khru-
shchev, as in his 6 January report, did not discuss here the
importance of armed struggle in the colonial areas; be had
said what he had to say in the earlier discussion of "libera-
tion" wars--namely, that such wars were inevitable and would
be supported. He made indirectly here his point that mili-
tary action was less important than other forms of action in
gaining independence, by contending that the West was increas-
ingly deterred from military intervention in the liberation
movement. as a whole--i.e., in both colonial areas and the un-
derdeveloped states--and that its other methods of seeking
to maintain domination were in general ineffectual. Giving
most of his attention in this section of the speech to the
independent states, he reportedly emphasized the importance
(minimized by Peiping) of bloc aid to these states, contend-
ing inter alia that such aid helped to develop the proletariat
there. He invited attention to the concept of "national dem-
ocracy" as a transitional phase for the underdeveloped states,
and,, pre-empting Chinese criticism of excessive cooperation with
and flattery of bourgeois nationalist leaders, he called for
"exposing" bourgeois leaders who progressive talk was only
talk.*
Taking up the question of prospects for peaceful acces-
sion to power in both underdeveloped and developed countries,
relating this question particularly to the question of tac-
tics for Communists in developed Western countries, ** Khrushchev
reaffirmed that the road to power might be either peaceful,
which was desirable, or non-peaceful if the imperialists re-
sisted by force.*** He went on to make the points, as he did
oviet party letters to the Chinese party had insisted
that Soviet policies toward bourgeois nationalist leaders had
been successful, that these leaders were serving the objec-
tives of bloc foreign policy, that they were not backsliding
toward imperialism, and that the world Communist movement
should not attempt to effect their early overthrow.
**This is also An issue as regards the underdeveloped
countries; Peiping holds that it is always necessary to "smash"
the bourgeois state machine.
***He is not reported to have maintained in this speech,
as the Soviet party had earlier, that there were increasing
possibilities for peaceful accession to power; but be firmed the latter position in his 6 January report.
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in his 6 January report, that the Communist parties in the
West faced great difficulties* and that these parties them-
selves were the best judges of what tactics to employ, al-
though he would advise them all to put more effort into at-
tracting youth.
Khrushchev then discussed "revisionism and dogmatism."
"Yugoslav revisionism" was presented as a continuing danger
(not, apparently as the "main" danger), "whlle'.?"doatiSm" and
"sectarianism" apparently as
Albanian and other7 could become /s
the Moscow declaration of November 1957 han said7 the "main
danger" at one time or another. As in his 6 January report,
Khrushchev related, through Yugoslavia, the two offenses of
"revisionism" and "nationalism," observing here that the
Yugoslav revisionists were using "national Communism" to
separate themselves from the bloc.**
Khrushchev gave most attention and emphasis to the need
for "'unity" in the movement. He criticized those. (the Chi-
nese and other!) who objected to''the emphasis on "unity" in
the draft declaration, He reaffirmed the Soviet party's sup-
port of the Cuban-Brazilian proposal on "factionalism" (no
report has made clear bow this proposal was stated), which
he immediately linked to the need for majority rule in the
world Communist movement, a principle which the Soviet par-
ty had been advocating strongly since the Bucharest confer-
ence in June; the principle of majority rule was certainly
the point, if not the manifest content, of the Cuban-Bra-
zilian proposal.***
*Earlier Soviet statements had emphasized that there were
not now revolutionary situations in the West, that the masses
must participatein'"democratic"' movements before being will-
ing to join the Communist parties in revolutions.
**It was the discussion of nationalism in this context
that the Chinese later objected to, believing that it was
clearly directed at themselves.
***Khrushchev did not directly discuss majority rule--
an issue on which he had been defeated--in his 6 January
report.'
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Khrushchev reiterated the Soviet party's abjuration of
leadership of the Movement,* specifying that the parties were
equal and independent, responsible to'the movement as a whole
--an indirect and rather ineffectual way of reaffirming the
principle of majority rule. He reportedly made this point
again indirectly in answering the question of how disputes
between the parties were to be decided; he said that such
decisions would be reached by discussions and exchanges of
opinions, after which the parties must abide by the deer
sions.** He reportedly made the point yet again'in declar-
ing that the parties must synchronize their watches (a fig-
ure he had used twice before an similar contexts, and was to
use again in his 6 January report), and that they must set
them according to the draft declaration which had been ac-
cepted by the majority of parties.
*The Soviet party had first stated its wish to eliminate
the concept of Soviet "leadership"--for tactical reasons--
during..a meeting with other parties before the 21st CPSU con-
gress in February 1959; Khrushchev had reaffirmed this posi-
tion in the preparatory meetings in October 1960.
**It may have been at this point that Khrushchev made
his reported reference to Lenin on the principle of "unity
in absentia," later (13 January) quoted by Red Star (see
p. 33). Lenin's point, in the origTnaT, was that
ovie party decisions were to have binding force on other
parties if they reflected the majority will of the world
movement, even if the Soviet party could not again consult
with those parties. The Soviet party at the November confer-
ence presumably used this quotation in the absence of any
statement by Lenin asserting more flatly that the world Com-
munist movement should operate on the principle of majority
rule, just as the Soviet:, party had used Lenin's statements
on the need for democratic centralism in individual. parties
to support the contention that democratic centralism applied
to the world movement as well. The Red Star presentation of
the Lenin quotation, in the context 6Tdiscussion of the Mos-
cow conference and the need for unity in the movement, made
it quite clear that the Soviet party continued to favor the
principle of majority rule, the principle it was unable to
establish in the 6 December declaration.
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The Chinese Response
The conference resumed on 11 November with a pro-Soviet
and anti-Chinese speech by the Canadian delegate (Buck), fol-
lowed by similar speeches (praising the Soviet party, crit-
icizing the Chinese, with occasional reservations) by the
Argentine delegate (Ghioldi), the Bulgarian (Zhivkov), the
Iraqi (DOuri), the Cypriot (Papaionnou), the Lebanese (Shawi),
the Swiss (Vincent), the Uruguayan (unknown), the Danish
(Norlund), the Mexican (unknown), and the Dutch (De Groot).
The pattern on 12 November was much the same, with all
of the speakers supporting Soviet positions in general and
most of them cirtici'zing the Chinese. Those speaking were
the Hungarian (Kadar), the Colombian (White), the Luxembourger
(Urbany), the Greek (Koligiannis), the Nepalese (Raimajhi),
the South African (?Khama?), and the Venezuelan (Faria).
There was apparently no meeting on 13 November, a Sunday.
On 14 November the first speaker was the North Korean
(Kim Ii), whose speech was the first which couldnn, not b
counted as one in support of Soviet positions; Kim was care-
fully balanced, praising both the Soviet and Chinese parties,
suggesting favor for one on some points and the other on
other points, and emphasizing the need for unity.* Kim was
followed by Teng Hsiao-ping of the CCP, with a hard-hitting
speech in his usual style.
Teng reportedly spoke for four hours, replying both to
the Soviet party's 5 November letter and Khrushchev's 10 No-
vember speech. After echoing Khrushchev's hope for eventual
agreement on a draft declaration, he observed that he would
be speaking in the name of the CCP central committee and Mao
Tse-tung, and he said that the Soviet party's action in dis-
tributing a 127-page document--the 5 November letter--on the
eve of the meeting, a document which he described as a "vio-
lent attack" on the CCP and Mao, had made it more difficult
to achieve unity. He added that the Soviet party was abusing
the circumstance that the conference was being held in Moscow.
*An assessmen of the positions of all of the delega-
tions whose speeches have been reported--79 of the 81 dele-
gations--will be offered later in this paper, in a discus-
sion of the situation which obtained at the conclusion of
the debate on 24 November, at which time the conference ad-
journed to permit the princips.ls to try to work out an agreed
declaration.
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Turning to the first substantive issue, the balance
of power, Teng defended Mao's past assessments of the world
situation, protesting that the views attributed to Mao in
the 5 November letter were not correct.* It was perhaps at
this point that the Chinese delegation distributed extracts
from Mao's speech to the Moscow conference of November 1957.**
Teng denied that the CCP looked on the epoch simplisti-
cally, i.e., "merely" as an epoch of wars and revolutions.
He reportedly said that Mao had "taught us" neither to under-
estimate nor to overestimate the enemy, that Mao had agreed
that world war was not inevitable and had "taught us" how to
prevent war. (He went on to make clear that Mao's teaching
was the exhortation to struggle.)
*The November letter had charged the CCP, rather than
Mao personally, with "erroneous views" on the nature of the
epoch (i.e., the balance of power), views deriving from
failure to recognize the strength of the camp, the profound
changes in the balance of power, etc., so that the CCP put
forth such mistaken theses as the thesis that war was inevit-
able so long as capitalism existed.; this section of the 5
November letter had charged Mao personally with offering a
useless definition of the epoch in his concept of the East
Wind prevailing over the West Wind,
**The principal points made in the extracts circulated by
the Chinese were reportedly these: there was a "new turning-
point" in the international situation (as of November 1957);
the West was in a "state of panic" over Soviet successes in
military technology; Peiping desired 15 years of peace, after
which the bloc would be invincible; general war should be
avoided if possible; however, half the people of the world
would survive a general war, and one must not be "afraid"
of war; revolutionary movements were justified in regarding
the enemy as a "paper tiger," considered strategically over
the long-term. (Other sources have reported that Mao did
indeed make these points in his November 1957 speech.)
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Teng then listed a number of developments favorable to
the Communist cause since 1957, among them events in Iraq,
Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Algeria and elsewhere in Africa,
Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam, Argentina, India, Western
Europe and the United States. This was preliminary to de-
fending Mao's concept of the East wind prevailing, a con-
cept criticized on several grounds in the 5 November letter.
Teng derided the Soviet party for curbing "revolutionary;
struggles" out of fear of a world war, a fear which he ap-
parently dismissed as baseless.* He went on to defend Mao's
concept of the "paper tiger." In reply to Soviet criticism
of this concept in the 5 November letter, Teng reaffirmed the
CCP view that it was necessary to have such a concept if
revolutionary will were to be maintained. He said that the CCP
still held, as Mao had said in 1957, that the bloc should
*This is the real point of the Sino-Soviet dispute about
the nature of the epoch (balance of power). The Chinese had
previously argued, and may have argued again here, that there
is not a new epoch but a new situation, a situation of deci-
sive Communist superiority, a situation "unprecedentedly favor-
able" for proletarian revolutions; that the struggle must not
be renounced under cover of "prattle" about a new epoch; and
that an aggressive prosecution of the struggle, in view of
bloc superiority, will not lead to world war, The Soviet party
had not seemed to see a sTtuation of decisive superiority,
and for this reason its discussions of e epoch" (balance of
power) had contended both that (a) Soviet deterrent power
permits the world Communist program to advance and prosper,
and (b) the West is still strong enough so that the bloc
does have to fear the consequences of a world war.
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strive for 15 years of peace,* and he denied the charge that
Peiping envisaged the triumph of socialism through war. How-
ever, Teng continued, it was wrong to emphasize the dreadful
consequences of nuclear war, because the effect would be to
advocate surrender. Teng reportedly reaffirmed Mao's assess-
ment that half the population of the world would survive a
world war.**
Teng contended that it vas necessary in the declaration
to point out the continuing danger of a; world w, in the light
of .continued : Western preparations 'ifor war,*** ? $e , report:edlyy "
reiterated the CCP's'view' that' the bloc n us`?t '1.ncrease it's'
vigilance, strengthen its defenses, and refrain from encourag-
ing a fear of war.
Teng dissented strongly from the treatment of local and
liberation wars in the Soviet party letter of 5 November and
*One source reports That both Mao and Teng said. ."at'Jeast
ten ~mcre... ':?'
**Mao has offered this calculation several times since 1957.
He has also spoken sometimes of the survival capabilities of
China specifically, reportedly stating that two or three or
four., hundred million Chinese would survive.
***Peiping had previously argued, and may have again here,
that the west might launch a world war despite its weakness--
or even despite recognition of its weakness, as an act of
desperation, This argument is consistent, in the Chinese
view, with the concurrent argument that a much more aggressive
bloc strategy will not lead to world war: the Chinese
contend that the pass ility of world war derives from the na-
ture. of. imperial.isih. ngt from the . degree ?to which imperialism is
"provoked," so that an aggressive program does not increase the
existing possibility of world war.
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in Khrushchev's speech of 10 November. He denied that these
wars could lead to world war. Reaffirming the inevitability
(not just the possibility) of further local wars, Teng
reiterated that it was wrong to state an unqualified op-
position to local wars and to affirm the objective of
deterring or halting all such wars; he apparently cited again
the Korean war as an example of a "Just" local war which had
been not halted but fought, to the subsequent advantage of
the bloc,* As for "liberation" wars, Teng apparently reaf-
firmed the entire Chinese case, welcoming the Soviet agreement
that wars of this type were inevitable, pointing to the
Chinese, Indochinese, and Cuban wars as having turned out
very much to the advantage of the bloc, criticizing Soviet
evasiveness on the question of the kind and degree of bloc
support of such wars, and calling for a much more ambitious
program of bloc support of such wars.
Turning to Khrushchev's point that it was worth while
to try to negotiate with the West, Teng said that Communists
should rely for "peace" chiefly on the world revolutionary
movement (the bloc, the colonial and underdeveloped countries,
Communist parties and sympathizers elsewhere), not on a "few
bourgeois statesmen." He reaffirmed that while exchanges or
visits were acceptable, the "hope of peace" rested not on
negotiations** but on the positive progress of the revolu-
tibnary struggle everywhere, a struggle which would finally
"impose" peace. In this cbnnection,protracted struggles
might lead to "soave" disarmament,*** but the bloc must develop
*He may have gone on to state, as Red Flag was son to
contend publicly, that the Soviet party wasmuch exaggerating
the dangers involved in participation in a local war, as
such wars could be contained in the geographical area in which
they began and the danger of expansion would become operative
only if the West were permitted to win such wars.
**The Chinese view of negotiations had been stated
publicly: that the only legitimate use of negotiations with
the West was to play "revolutionary tricks."
***Thie was a slight advance on the earlier Chinese position
that Soviet disarmament proposals were useful only as a
stratagem to isolate the United States,
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superiority in nuclear weapons,* and in any case the slogan of
a world without arms or wars prior to the complete triumph of
socialism was nonsensical.
As for "peaceful coexistence," Teng went on, the Soviet
concept of it as a state of coexistence between countries
with different social systems was simply one of three
principal features of coexistence: the concept also
entailed building up the strength of the entire bloc as
rapidly as possiblb and providing Cab Peiping had long con-
tended)the utmost possible support to revolutionary struggles
all over the world. Teng reiterated that a "cold war" had in
fact existed since World War II, and he pointed out that any
conceivable coexistence with the West would be "war of a sort."
Whereas Teng had earlier dealt with the Soviet caveat that such
struggles should not lead to world war by reaffirming the
Chinese view iat such a struggle could not lead to world war,,
at this point he apparently argued-That even if an aggressive
program were to incite imperialism to'war ie impbrialis.ts.
would be wiped"out in-such a war and he applauded the,.i.nclu-
sion of this point in,the draft declaration.**
*As P had long contended that the USSR itself already
had superiority in nuclear weapons, Teng's formulation implied
that other bloc countries--especially China--must develop such
supery.
**Some of these points were made publicly in a People's
Daily commentary of 21 November on the November 1957 mee ing
the Communist parties. The editorial, illuminatingly en-
titled "Give Full Play to the Revolutionary Spirit of the
1957 Moscow Declaration," observed inter alia that the "famous
dictum of Comrade Mao Tse-tung three years ago--that 'the
East Wind prevails over the West Wind'--is perfectly
correct"; that "any view that overestimates the strength of
imperialism and underestimates the strength of the people. . .
is completely incorrect"; that peace can be safeguarded only
by "incessantly strengthening the socialist camp, the
hepnational
liberation movement, the people's struggles in
countries,. . and by waging a joint struggle"; that "views
which set in opposition the revolutionary struggles of the
various peoples to the struggle for defending world peace
are. . every wrong"; that "revisionists of different hues always
make use of a certain /upposed?7 new situation to distort
and adulterate Marxist=Leninist-revolutionary theory so as
to lure the working class away from the correct path of
revolutionary class struggle"; and so on. Pravda replied
to some of these points on 23 November.
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Turning to the national liberation movement, Teng
reportedly contended that if the Communist parties in both
colonial areas and underdeveloped countries could reach the
masses, they would be able to set up "people's regimes" ' there.
As for the colonial countries, he reaffirmed the importance of
"armed struggle" in those countries, although he did not deny
that other forms of action could be effective. As for the
politically independent countries, Teng apparently chose to
emphasize (contrary to the Soviet emphasis) Western success
in preventing these countries from achieving true independence.
Again,-"although he did not assert that Communist cooperation
with bourgeois nationalist leaders was a mistake, he reaffirmed
the Chinese line on the importance of striving for early Com-
munist domination of the movement in this "democratic"' stage.*
In this connection, while he is not reported to have explicitly
criticized the ambiguous concept of "national democracy," he
reiterated the Chinese emphasis on the unreliability of the
national bourgeoisie, and he sought a clear distinction between
progressive and reactionary bourgeoisie /at any stagW.and be-
tween Communist alliance with the bourgeoisie in early stages
and organization of an alliance against the bourgeoisie later.
Further, he apparently cited the n onesian Communist party as
having the right attitude toward the bourgeois nationalist
Sukarno government (i.e., the party was participating in a
united front with the national bouregoisie while "exposing"
the reactionary bourgeoisie and supporting solidarity with
Communist China), and he specified the Soviet party
*The nese have- -a so held' that the Communists should if
possible attain hegemony of the movement even before political
independence is achieved, and, indeed, have emphasized the im-
portance of armed struggle in achieving independence in part
because such struggle affords the Communists the best oppor-
tunity to take over the movement; the reporting of Teng's 14
November speech does not indicate that he reaffirmed this posi-
tion here, although he might have touched on it in his early
remarks on Communist; prospects for setting up "people's regimes"
in colonial areas.
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Nor
and Indian party as having the wrong attitude toward the bour-
geois nationalist Nehru government, which was anti-Communist
and anti-Chinese and had regrettably been supported by the So-
viet and Indian parties in the border dispute with Peiping.
Taking up the question of prospects for peaceful acces-
sion to power and the related question of tactics for Com-
munists in the West, Teng conceded that the circumstances
of the parties in the West were difficult, and he apparently
retreated from the Chinese call for revolutionary overthrow
of Western governments. He stated the CCP's favor, however,
for a more aggressive effort within the united fronts to ad-
vance Communist goals and to educate the proletariat for the
coming struggle. In this connection, he said, the Soviet
party had grossly exaggerated the prospects for peaceful ac-
cession to power, prospects which if anything were diminish-
ing,.
The Soviet letter of 5 November at this point had linked
the prospects for peaceful accession to power with the asser;4
tions that bloc power would increasingly deter imperialist
"export" of counter-revolution-and that Communists for their
part had no need to export revolution. Teng at this point
charged the Soviet party with taking refuge in the formula
of not exporting revolution and, consequently, with failing
to give adequate support to revolutionary movements everywhere.
Teng then turned his attention to an earlier portion
of Khrushchev's 10 November speech in which the Soviet lead-
er, discussing the balance of power, had offered some remarks
on principles of building Communism and socialism and had
criticized some Chinese views. Teng defended the Chinese
practice of emphasizing "ideology and morality" rather than
material incentives, denied that Peiping was "skipping stages"
in its program, defended the "leap forward" and commune.:. -
grams, and demanded that the Chinese not be regarded as if
they had the "plague." Replying to Khrushchev's call for
betterncoordination of bloc economies, Teng observed that
each country must develop its own economy* and could later
cooperate on a "voluntary basis."
ne source reports that Teng said: "We will continue
to count on ourselves."
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Teng began his discussion of authority and discipline
in the movement with a protest against Soviet efforts to find
a "nationalist deviation" in Chinese policy. This remark ap-
parently reflected passages in the draft declaration to
which Teng later was to make strong objectiofl.
Moving from the denial of Chinese "nationalism" to an
attack on "revisionism," Teng derided those who tried to
"prove that Marxism-Leninism is outmoded," and he maintained
that "any ambiguity" on these principles was dangerous.
Taking note again of an effort by "some" to turn the Chinese
charge of Soviet revisionism into a Soviet charge of Chinese
nationalism, Teng denied that nationalism was a feature of
revisionism; revisionism, he said, was simply the effort to
disarm the proletariat and conciliate imperialism.*
Teng conceded that the movement must also combat dogmat-
ism and sectarianism, took note that campaigns against sectar-
ianism were actually aimed at the Chinese party, alleged that
the Soviet party had led this anti-Chinese "struggle," and
contended that Sino-Soviet differences had in fact arisen
when the Soviet party eased its struggle against revisionism.
Teng went on to review Mao's long struggle against dogmatism
in the Chinese party, and he apparently r.gpl ie;d. to the charge
in the 5 November letter of "Chinese Marxism" by contending
that Mao had creatively adapted Marxism-Leninism to China,
in line with Lenin's own observation that Marxism had not
been completed.** As for Mao himself, the Chinese opposed the
"cult of the individual" but continued to believe that the
Soviet party had handled
totrecognizeuthe?meritSAtl~.eadersly'
that it was only proper
and that parties needed leaders with prestige.
*The CCPfs-10 September letter had observed that revision-
ism was still important in the bloc, in the form of bourgeois
influence in internal affairs and fear of imperialism in foreign
affairs.
**The Chinese had sometimes gone beyond? this to assert that
Mao's thought was Marxism-Leninism in its "most fully developed"
form.
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Finally, Teng had a good deal to say, as had the Soviet
party in its 5 November letter and Khrushchev in his 10 November
speech, on the question of achieving and maintaining "unity,"
Unity was to be achieved, Teng said, through consultations,
prolonged until unanimity could be reached; decisions could
not be taken by a ma or ty vote. The Soviet party was mis-
i en, Teng went on, in regarding Chinese criticism of So-
viet positions and actions as a threat to unity; such critic-
ism aimed at strengthening unity.*
Returning to the question of majority rule, the ques-
tion given the greatest emphasis in both,-.the 5 November letter
and Khrushchev's 10 November speech, Teng observed that the
principle of majority rule was correct for individual parties,
as the parties operated by democratic centralism and the
inferior organs must obey the central committee, which could
reach its decisions by majority vote. However, the world
Communist movement was not hierarchical, all parties were
equal, there was no central committee for the movement. In
this connection, Teng pointed out, the Soviet party's 5
November letter had falsely attributed to Lenin the view that the
principles for the conduct of intraparty affairs applied also
to the world movement.** Teng said that the Soviet party should
criticize itself for this distortion.
Teng reiterated that, if the parties could not reach
agreement at this conference, they could leave the verdict
to history. In the meantime, while history was in the pro-
cess of vindicating the righteous, the parties should con-
tinue to consult, and perhaps within a "few months" the move-
ment could affirm a new program. In this connection, con-
sultations should be conducted like the November 1957 Moscow
conference, not like the vicious and rude" Bucharest conference.
s was aC so ew a t more polite way of 'reaffirming, the
Chinese position that unity could be achieved if the Soviet
party would renounce' its erroneous views;
**Teng was correct in this charge; however, Teng ignored
the text from Lenin which Khrushchev had used on 10 November,
one which did imply Lenin's favor for majority rule in the
world movement; moreover, the Comintern in its early years
apparently did operate on the principle of majority rule.
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%W VOW
The Chinese party had agreed to the (uncompleted) draft
declaration produced by the preparatory committee in October
because the movement seemed to be approaching "unity,"
but then the Soviet party had launched another "vicious
attack" on the Chinese party (in the 5 November letter and
subsequently).
Reaffirming other positions taken in the CCP's 10 Septem
ber'.letter,. Tong, 5aid_ that, no party could be permitted to im-
pose its views on another, and,c?*herd-."bdu:ld..#be :flo:,,father