THE MEN IN THE SINO-SOVIET CONFRONTATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A004100040002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: REPORT

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NOW
040002-3
5 July 1963
OCI No. 0287/63A
Copy NO. 76
SPECIAL REPORT
OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
THE MEN IN THE SINO-SOVIET CONFRONTATION
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
N
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GROUP I Excluded from automatic
downgrading and declassification
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THE MEN IN THE SING-SOVIET CONFRONTATION
5 July 1963
The delegates chosen by the Chinese and the
Soviet parties for the bilateral talks--opening
today--provide proof, if any more is needed, that
the talks will be more bitterly acrimonious and less
productive than any that have gone before. Both
parties are being represented by top-level, uncom-
promising experts in dealing with hostile opponents.
men in each delegation are highly skilled ointhe
particularly nasty infighting that characterizes
Communist party life, and they can be counted on
by Khrushchev and Mao to convey forcefully the
antagonism each feels for the other.
The Chinese Team
The selection of Teng
Hsiao-ping and Peng Chen to head
the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) delegation means that the
Chinese are approaching the
talks in a truculent, uncompro-
mising mood. Both these men
at past conferences of Communist
parties have demonstrated that
they are tough, intelligent, and
unrelievedly hostile to Soviet
policies. Both have had occa-
sion to criticize Khrushchev to
his face and are therefore prob-
ablypersonally offensive to
him.. .
A review of recent activi-
ties of the Chinese leadership
suggests that Teng and Peng have
been Mao's chief lieutenants
in planning and executing strat-
egy in the anti-Soviet contest.
Since the Sino-Soviet dispute
surfaced in 1960, they have
tirelessly courted representa-
tives of Communist parties and
of Asian and African states,
soliciting support for revolu-
tionary Chinese views, attack-
ing Soviet policies, and trying
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to undermine Soviet influence.
In recent months, between infre-
quent public appearances, they
have probably been huddling with
Mao to plan Chinese strategy
and to help draft the voluminous
polemical material Peiping has
been issuing.
Teng Hsiao-ping
Teng Hsiao-ping, a hard-
driving and aggressive man,
appears to rank alongside Chou
En-lai in third place in the
Chinese Communist hierarchy.
One of the youngest of the seven
members of the politburo's
standing committee, who form
the inner circle of power in
China, he now holds two key
party positions which give him
formidable power. As a member
of the standing committee, he
helps formulate all major pol-
icies; as head of the secre-
tariat, he supervises their
day-to-day implementation. In
the latter role, he also con-
trols important personnel ap-
pointments and has often ex-
ploited the power this gives
to place his proteges. on the
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TYPICAL CHINESE VIEWS OF MOSCOW'S LINE
TENG HSIAO-PING:
"The Soviet party is opportunist and revisionist; it lacks
any deep knowledge of Marxism; its ideas about disarm-
ament are absurd; peaceful coexistence could mean no-
thing, except as a tactical weapon to deceive the enemy;
the Soviet idea of a division of labor among the countries
of the socialist camp is wrong, and China must go her
own way. (From his speech on 14 November 1960 at the
Moscow conference of 81 Communist parties)
KANG SHENG:
"Khrushchev's statements concerning Eisenhower's desire
for peace resulted in deluding the people of the world."
(Bucharest, 26 June 1960)
LIU NING-I :
"To sit down at the same table with imperialists means
a betrayal of all mankind." (2 June 1960, commenting
on the Soviet view that disarmament talks are necessary)
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secretariat and in other key
positions.
Teng's meteoric rise dates
from 1954 and is linked with
the purge that year of Kao Kang
and Jao Shu-shih, regional lead-
ers who attempted to seize su-
preme power. Probably as a re-
ward for the part he played in
exposing the conspiracy, he be-
came secretary general and a
politburo member in 1954. When
the standing committee was formed
in 1956, Teng was on it.
Since rising to eminence,
Teng has been associated only
with militant policies. One of
his chief and continuing concerns
has been discipline in the party.
He was an enthusiastic backer of
the radical Leap Forward and com-
mune movements. He did not as-
sociate himself with Mao's Hun-
dred Flowers movement of early
1957, which he probably regarded
as dangerously liberal, nor has
he made a major statement on
domestic policy since the return
to a moderate approach in late
1960.
Teng has been just as con-
cerned about the loss of revolu-
tionary momentum in the inter-
national Communist movement as
at home. In November 1957 he
accompanied Mao to Moscow, where
he helped present a stiffened
Chinese line at a meeting of
Communist parties. In May 1958,
at China's most recent party con-
gress, Teng blasted "modern re-
visionism," the Chinese term for
ideological backsliding.
Teng played a key role at
the second conference of the
world's Communist parties, held
at Moscow in November 1960,
after the Sino-Soviet dispute
had broken into the open. Al-
though Liu Shao-chi headed the
Chinese delegation, Teng made
the major speeches. In addi-
tion to the usual attacks on
the USSR for being too soft in
its policies toward the West
and underdeveloped countries,
Teng is reported to have de-
fended Mao against Khrushchev's
criticism of him for being an
ivory-tower theorist, to have
blamed Khrushchev for causing
the deterioration of relations
by insisting that other parties
accept his dictatorship, and to
have charged the Soviets with
attempting to subvert the Chi-
nese leadership.
Since 1960 Teng has devoted
much time to the task of solicit-
ing support from foreign Commu-
nists. In 1961 he led a CCP dele-
gation to North Korea, which is
now firmly in the Chinese camp.
He has received representatives
of many Communist parties which,
if not already sympathetic to
China, are believed to be sus-
ceptible to Chinese arguments
or to have factions that are sus-
ceptible. The recent growth of
Chinese influence in the world
movement may be attributed in
part to Teng's persuasiveness.
Peng Chen, a senior polit-
buro member but not on the stand-
ing committee, has a party back-
ground and a radical leftist
outlook very similar to Teng
Hsiao-ping's. Peng is on the
secretariat. He is also mayor
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TENG HSIAO-PING
Architect of Anti-Soviet
Strategy
KANG SHENG
Intelligence Specialist Who
Has Debated With Khrushchev
LIU NING-I
Pushes Anti-Soviet Line
Outside the Bloc
PENG CHEN
Held Bitter Face-to-Face
Debate With Khrushchev
YANG S HAN G- KU N
Mao's Aide
WU HSIU-CHUAN
Subjected to Catcalls at
European Party Congresses
PAN TZU-LI
Undiplomatic Diplomat
With a Tough Line
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of Peiping and first secretary
of the Peiping party committee,
but in recent years he has dele-
gated much of the responsibility
these positions entail in order
to devote full time to problems
of international communism.
Peng has attended several
international conferences where
Soviet and Chinese delegates
clashed. He presented the Chi-
nese line forcefully in June 1960
at a Rumanian party congress in
Bucharest, where he clashed bit-
terly with Khrushchev after the
Soviet leader had contemptuously
criticized Mao. There are re-
ports that Peng accused Khru-
shchev to his face of such things
as betraying Marxism-Leninism
and of thinking like a capital-
ist because he lived like one.
Peng was a member of the
CCP delegation to the November
1960 Moscow conference. He was
also in Chou En-lai's delegation
to the 22nd Soviet party congress
in 1961, and acted as delegation
chief after Soviet attacks on
Albania and the CCP caused Chou
to leave prematurely. Peng led
delegations to North Korea and
North Vietnam in 1962. Out of
the public eye from 24 April
until 15 June, Peng may well
have had a hand in drafting
Peiping's 25-point letter of
14 June attacking Soviet pol-
icies.
Other Members of
The Chinese Delegation
The five lower level members
of the Chinese delegation are
all party veterans and militant
revolutionaries who have been
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active recently in international
Communist affairs.
Kang Sheng is a Russian-
speaking specialist on intelli-
gence matters and an outspoken
participant in bloc meetings.
He was the leading Chinese
observer at a Warsaw Pact meet-
ing in February 1960, backed up
Peng Chen at Bucharest in June
1960, was a member of the high-
powered delegation at the Moscow
conference of 81 Communist
parties in November 1960, and
accompanied Chou En-lai to the
22nd Soviet congress in 1961.
He is an alternate member of
the politburo and a member of
the secretariat.
Yang Shang-kun was present
on three occasions in early 1963
when the Soviet ambassador to
Peiping was summoned for prepara-
tory talks on the forthcoming
meeting. Yang speaks Russian
and attended the 1960 Moscow
conference. He has appeared
with Mao at receptions for
African and Latin American
visitors. Only an alternate
member of the secretariat,
Yang's precise role is unclear.
He may be a sort of personal
aide to Mao Tse-tung.
Wu Hsiu-chuan heads the
CCP's international liaison de-
partment, which is responsible
for interparty relations. Be-
tween November 1962 and January
1963 he ably represented Pei-
ping at four Eastern European
party congresses, where he was
subjected to catcalls and harass-
ment. As China's last ambassa-
dor to Yugoslavia, a post dropped
in 1957, he can provide
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eyewitness support to Chinese
charges of Titoist "revision-
ism."
Liu Ning-i attended the
1960 Moscow conference and has
vigorously clashed with the So-
viets at Communist-oriented
meetings held outside the bloc.
For example, at the Afro-Asian
Solidarity Conference held in
Moshi, Tanganyika, early this
year, Liu Ning-i successfully
persuaded the conferees to
ignore Soviet advice and adopt
uninhibited anticolonialist
revolutions,
Pan Tzu-li, ambassador to
Moscow since last November,
earned. a reputation for tough-
ness during his tour as ambas-
sador to India from 1956 through
1962. One of his more difficult
responsibilities is to dissemi-
nate, in defiance of Moscow's
wishes., Chinese polemical tracts
to Soviet audiences. It was
this action that caused the
Soviets to declare five Chinese
personae non gratae, thereby
further straining state as well
as party relations.
The Chinese delegates will
find themselves face to face
with the most experienced and
hard-headed spokesmen the Krem-
lin can muster. The four
principal Soviet negotiators
are all secretaries of the
party central committee and
thus members of the top leader-
ship. They, like the Chinese,
have previously been the cen-
tral figures in earlier direct
meetings with their antagonists.
Their specialties--ideology,
propaganda, and liaison with
other Communist parties--make
it likely that they have played
the major role in drafting
ideological position papers
and the Soviet party's increas-
ingly vituperative answers to
Chinese attacks.
Mikhail Suslov
The team is headed by
Mikhail Suslov, member of the
party presidium as well as the
secretariat and long a leading
authority on doctrine. Now
60, he is sparce, dour, taci-
turn and, in the opinion of
one Western observer, looks
like "an embittered civil serv-
ant passed. over for promotion."
Despite his retiring and.
generally lackluster nature,
Suslov is one of the most power-
ful men in the Soviet Union.
He has been a central party
secretary since 1947, longer
than Khrushchev himself, and
his principal concerns through-
out this period. have been
ideology and relations with
foreign Communist parties. In
addition to his secretarial post,
he served Stalin as head of the
party's propaganda and agita-
tion department (Agitprop) dur-
ing 1947-1948, and later as
chief editor of Pravda. Because
his job was to push Stalin's
policies and programs, he created
the impression of being little
more than a hard-lining sycophant.
Suslov's performance since
March 1953 indicates, however,
that he was a Stalinist more
of necessity than of convic-
tion. Particularly since the
i onset of de-Stalinization at
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the 20th party congress in 1956,
he has rendered invaluable
services to the Khrushchev re-
gime. In 1956, for example.,
he teamed up with Khrushchev
to explain the denigration of
Stalin to the befuddled satel-
lite leaders who flocked to
Moscow in the wake of the 20th
congress. A year later, he
stood with Khrushchev against
the "anti-party" (and pro-Stalin)
group in the presidium, and
at the central committee plenum
which followed, he helped to
seal the fates of Malenkov,
Molotov, and Kaganovich by
manipulating the proceedings
so that none of their supporters
had a chance to be heard.
In addition to his stand.
against Stalin's "cult of per-
sonality," he has repeatedly
upheld those Moscow views which
have stuck deepest in Peiping's
craw: the correctness of So-
viet Marxist theory, the su-
periority of the Soviet method.
of building communism, and
Khrushchev's doctrine of peace-
ful coexistence with the West.
Suslov was a principal spokes-
man during the long and often
acrimonious debates at the 1957
and 1960 world Communist con-
ferences in Moscow. After the
latter meeting he apparently
took the rostrum at a good many
party meetings in order to ex-
plain the differences existing
between the Soviet and Chinese
parties. Speaking in Peiping
on the 10th anniversary of the
Chinese People's Republic in
September 1959--and immediately
prior to Khrushchev's arrival
there from the United States--
Suslov reminded the Chinese that
they are still "building social-
ism," in contrast to the USSR,
which had advanced to the higher
stage of "full-scale construc-
tion of a Communist society."
Suslov's point of view
in the Sino-Soviet polemic
emerged most clearly from his
speech to a national conference
of social scientists in Febru-
ary 1962. Addressing himself
to the Albanian party leader-
ship--and thus indirectly to
the Chinese--he attacked their
"dogmatism" and accused them
of hiding behind pseudorevolu-
tionary leftist slogans, of
being iinwilling or finable to
evaluate the "new historical
situation" and to apply Marx-
ism-Leninism under changed con-
ditions. Branding the Albanian
line as malicious, deviationist,
slanderous and anti-Leninist,
and overtly anti-Soviet, he
stated that the Albanian leaders
were deliberately undermining
the unity of the world Communist
movement. It is safe to as-
sume that Suslov took a similar
position in his remarks--as
yet unpublished--on the Sino-
Soviet dispute at a closed ses-
sion of the party plenum last
month.
Suslov will probably de-
liver the general Soviet posi-
tion and then rely on his three
principal teammates for extrap-
olation and debate on specific
bones of contention. Each has
responsibility for supervising
a key segment of Moscow's
ideological activity in his
day-to-day work as a central
committee secretary.
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THE SOVIET TEAM
MIKHAIL SUSLOV
The USSR's Chief
Ideological Spokesman
YURI ANDROPOV
Expert on Bloc
Communist Parties
LEONID ILICHEV
Sarcastic Debater on
Ideological Matters
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BORIS PONOMAREV
Expert on Parties
Outside the Bloc
STEPAN CHERVONENKO
Soviet Ambassador
to Peiping
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Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov has been
chief of the Soviet party's
department for relations with
bloc parties since 1957. He
is 49, a party careerist, and
a representative of the younger
professionals whom Khrushchev
has brought into the leader-
ship in increasing numbers.
During 1941-51 he worked as
a local-level official first
in the youth organization (the
Komsomol) and then in the party;
he subsequently served for two
years as head of a subsection
in the party central apparatus
and transferred to the diplo-
matic corps in 1953. Assigned
to Budapest as%counselor of the
embassy, he was named ambassa-
dor to Hungary in 1954 and
remained in that post until his
transfer back to the party ap-
paratus in 1957. He was elected
to the central committee sec-
retariat at the 22nd party con-
gress in November 1961.
As the Moscow official
in charge of relations with
bloc parties, Andropov is in
very frequent contact with satel-
lite representatives who visit
the Soviet capital; in addi-
tion, he travels widely through-
out the bloc, attending various
party conferences, congresses,
and celebrations. His personal
convictions are probably very
similar to those of Khrushchev
and Suslov. At least the Al-
banians see him as being firmly
in the opposing camp; last
October they described him in
the press as a "known proponent
of the sinister activities of
Khrushchev and his group...."
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Soviet party relations with
Communist parties outside the
bloc are the responsibility of
Boris Ponomarev, head of the
central committee's "interna-
tional department." A historian
by training, he has been one
of the Soviet Union's most
prolific writers on party his-
tory; since assuming control
of the international depart-
ment after the 20th congress in
1956, he has emerged as the
chief ideological spokesman
for Soviet foreign policy and
as Khrushchev's principal ad-
viser on the doctrinal aspects
of international relations.
Ponomarev is 58 and has
been a professional Communist
almost all his life. He joined
the party when he was 14,
fought in the civil war, and
has apparently been on the full-
time party payroll ever since.
He has worked in the central
apparatus in Moscow since 1944
and has been concerned with
international Communist party
liaison since at least 1950.
Election as a candidate
member of the central committee
at the 19th party congress in
1952 marked the beginning of
Ponomarev's rise into the top
hierarchy. By 1955 he had im-
pressed the Soviet Union's new
leader sufficiently to be taken
as an adviser when Khrushchev
and Bulganin went to Yugoslavia.
At the 20th congress, less than
a year later, Ponomarev was
elevated. to full central com-
mittee membership and in addi-
tion to his assignment as head
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SOVIET VIEWS OF PEIPING'S DEFIANCE
MIKHAIL SUSLOV:
"The present Albanian (i.e., Chinese) leaders, having slipped
into a quagmire of nationalism, are ever more openly going
over from dogmatic positions to those of an open struggle
against the CPSU and the world communist movement.... Their
political line has an undisguised anti-Soviet trend and is of a
malicious, slanderous nature." (From a speech on 5 February
1962 to Soviet social scientists)
BORIS PONOMAREV:
"Attempts . . . on the basis of quotations out of context and
far-fetched designs, to teach the Communist parties, headed
by their tempered Marxist-Leninist leaders, are not only ludi-
crous but harmful." (in Pravda, 18 November 1962)
LEONID ILICHEV:
"The ideological struggle of our party on two fronts-- against
revisionism and against dogmatism and sectarianism--is a
struggle for a fundamentally correct solution of the questions of
theory and practice, for a creative development of Marxism-
Leninism.... We must therefore protect and develop it
together, in a single rank; for if Communists disperse to their
little national corners and each starts to blow his own national
trumpet, without regard for the radical, fundamental principles
of Marxist-Leninist doctrine, this will only hamper the final
victory of Communism." (Address to the central committee on
18 June 1963) 630701 sB
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of the international depart-
ment, he was appointed to the
editorial board of the party
theoretical journal Kommunist.
He was named a central comet -
tee secretary at the 22nd party
congress in November 1961.
Ponomarev's duties have
gained him wide experience in
dealing with foreign parties.
He has maintained extensive
contacts with nonbloc Commu-
nist leaders and has frequently
visited. them abroad. He is
also reported by several sources
to have played an important
role in the polemics with Pei-
ping; certainly a large part
of his activity in this regard
has involved angling for sup-
port among foreign--and par-
ticularly West European--Com-
munists.
The chief Soviet asset in
give-and-take argumentation
with the Chinese will probably
be Leonid Ilichev, veteran
propagandist-ideologist-journal-
ist, chairman of the Soviet
party's ideological commission
and a strong proponent of the
Khrushchev line. Regarded by
most Russian intellectuals as
the "Soviet Goebbels," he is
stubborn, hard-headed, quick-
witted, and sharp-tongued.
He has a marked. flair for de-
bate and is a master of dead-
pan sarcasm.
paper Izvestia for four years.
He became deputy chief of Agit-
prop in early 1948, editor of
Pravda in 1951, and a candidate
member of the central commit-
tee in 1952.
Immediately thereafter,
however, Ilichev went into
political decline. He was re-
placed as Pravda chief and
dropped from a editorial
board of Kommunist. He clearly
had incurred talIn's wrath.
In the shake-up which fol-
lowed Stalin's death, Ilichev
received the relatively minor
post of chief of the Foreign
Ministry's press department.
He held the job for five years,
editing foreign news published
in the USSR and handling press
and public relations for Khru-
shchev on his travels abroad;
he has accompanied Khrushchev
on almost all his foreign visits
since 1954, including his trip
to the United States in 1959.
Ilichev performed well as
press chief and by 1958 he was
named to head the vast Soviet
propaganda machine. At the
22nd party congress, he was
elevated to membership on the
party secretariat--perhaps
as an understudy to Suslov--
and was made chief of the party's
ideological commission on its
formation last November.
Stepan Chervonenko
Ilichev is 57; he once
taught philosophy but made his
career in journalism. He
served on the staff of Pravda
early in World War II, an
then ran the government news-
Moscow's ambassador to Pei-
ping, the fifth member of the
Soviet delegation, was probably
included for purely protocol rea-
sons and is unlikely to have a ma'
role in the discussions.
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