On the Struggle for the Solidarity of the International Communist Movement

Mikhail Suslov, On the Struggle of the CPSU for the Solidarity of the International Communist Movement. February 1964

 

Original Source: Pravda, 3 April 1964.

1. The Background of the Rift

The new evaluations and conclusions worked out as a result of the collective efforts of the fraternal parties on the basis of the creative application of the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the conditions of our epoch – on the role of the world socialist system, on the paths of the construction of socialism and communism, on the possibility of averting a world war, on the peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems, on the necessity for a struggle against the ideology and practice of the cult of the individual, on the forms of the transition to socialism in the developed capitalist countries and the countries that have liberated themselves from colonialism-all this is being distorted and in effect cast aside by the Chinese leadership.

Having virtually cast aside the Declaration and Statement collectively worked out by the Communist and Workers’ Parties, the CPC [Communist Party of China] leaders are proposing to the fraternal parties their own notorious “25 points,” the true sense of which in effect reduces to: denial of the increasingly decisive influence of the socialist system on the course of world development; a disdainful attitude toward the struggle of the working class in the capitalist countries; the counterposing of the national-liberation movement to the world system of socialism and the international workers’ movement; adventurism in foreign policy and the maintenance of the atmosphere of the “cold war”; sectarianism and putschism in questions of revolution; the defense and preservation of the methods and practices of the cult of the individual that have been condemned by the Communist movement; and justification of the factional struggle within the Communist movement…

Whereas a short time ago Chinese propaganda aimed its attacks largely at the foreign-policy course of the CPSU, our internal policy is now being subjected to open attacks. The CPC leadership is endeavoring in every way to discredit the line of the 20th CPSU Congress (1956) on all questions, to declare the struggle against the Stalin cult a mistake and to cast aspersions on the Program of the CPSU

Reviving practices and methods already applied by the Trotskyites, the Chinese leaders are attempting to place the Soviet people, Soviet Communists, in opposition to the leadership of the Party, the leadership of the country. Matters have come to such a pass that the Chinese press and radio are appealing to Soviet people to fight against the Central Committee of our party and the Soviet government.

What is this? A struggle for the “purity” of Marxism-Leninism? No, it is the most outright rejection of the elementary norms of mutual relations between Communist Parties, rejection of Marxist-Leninist principles of relations between socialist countries, a transition to a position of open anti-Sovietism.

The CPC leaders no longer limit their actions to the sphere of ideology. They have carried over ideological differences to interstate relations, to the realm of the practical policies of the socialist countries and the Communist Parties. Striving to weaken the unity and solidarity of the socialist commonwealth, the CPC leadership is permitting itself every kind of maneuver and contrivance to undermine the economic and political relations between the socialist countries, to introduce discord into their actions in the international arena. The undermining, schismatic activity of the Chinese leaders in the world Communist movement has recently been sharply stepped up. There is no longer any doubt that Peking has plotted a course toward a split in the Communist Parties, toward the creation of factions and groups hostile to Marxism-Leninism…

…It is becoming increasingly clear that under the cloak of ultra-revolutionary phrases and slogans, the CPC leadership is now waging a furious attack upon the gains of world socialism, concentrating its main fire not against the imperialists but predominantly against the CPSU and other Marxist-Leninist parties…

They trumpet about unity, but all their actions pursue another purpose: To disorganize and split the socialist camp, to undermine the ideological foundations and the organizational and political principles that rally and unite the peoples of the socialist commonwealth. They are striving to impose on the socialist countries a “Sinicized” socialism, an adventurist course in foreign and domestic policy, and the ideology and practice of the cult of the individual…

An editorial in Jenmin Jihpao and Ching Chi on October 22, 1963, says: “The national-liberation revolution in Asia, Africa and Latin America is today operating as the most important force dealing direct blows at imperialism.”

The Marxist teaching about the historical role of the working class is obviously being revised here and the workers’ movement in the developed capitalist countries is being belittled. As for the world socialist system, the Chinese theoreticians assign to it the role of a mere “support base” for bolstering and developing the revolution of the oppressed nations and peoples of the whole world. It goes without saying that such a position can bring nothing but harm to both the socialist system and the national-liberation movement, the great cause of the struggle of the international proletariat.

According to the view of the Chinese theoreticians, it seems that the world socialist system is not only failing to render increasingly decisive influence on the entire course of world development but is not even playing an independent role in the revolutionary struggle of the masses against imperialism.

Such a treatment of the role and importance of the world system of socialism does not conform to the actual correlation of forces in the world and directly contradicts the conclusions drawn in the 1960 Statement of the fraternal parties…

While attaching great significance to the national-liberation movement, Marxist-Leninists hold at the same time that the chief content, the chief direction and the chief features of the historical development of human society in the modern epoch are determined by the world socialist system, the forces fighting against imperialism and for the socialist reorganization of society. It is precisely on this beachhead that the most highly organized class forces are concentrated, and primarily the basic masses of the working class-the most advanced class of modern society, the one that, as our teachers Marx, Lenin and Engels pointed out, is the gravedigger of capitalism…

It would not occur to a single Marxist-Leninist to assert that peaceful economic competition “can replace the struggle for liberation on the part of the peoples of different countries,” that the victory of socialism in economic competition will “automatically” lead to the downfall of capitalism and will save the peoples the need to wage a class and national-liberation struggle. Such myths are being circulated from Peking expressly to discredit the idea of economic competition between the two systems. In fact, Marxist-Leninists see the revolutionary importance of the victories of socialism in economic competition precisely in that they stimulate the class struggle of the working people and make them conscious fighters for socialism. Peaceful economic competition not only does not doom the masses to passive waiting but, on the contrary, kindles their revolutionary activeness. The imperialists are well aware of this; they are afraid of successes in the development of the socialist countries and strive to restrain their progress.

As you see, comrades, in essence the question of peaceful economic competition is far from being an economic one alone. It contains a profound political idea: To win out over capitalism economically means seriously to facilitate the struggle against imperialism by all revolutionary forces. And it now becomes a political question.

Our party sees its chief task to lie in strengthening the economic and defensive might of the USSR and the world socialist system as a whole, in intensifying its influence on the entire revolutionary process. We shall continue to pursue unswervingly and persistently a line aimed at fulfilling the CPSU Program for the construction of communism-the most just social system-in our country. Communist construction is the greatest contribution to the fulfillment of the internationalist duty of the Soviet people. This path was outlined by the great Lenin. Nothing and no one will ever turn us from this Leninist path…

The Chinese-Albanian alliance is not accidental. It arose on the soil of opposition to the Leninist course of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, on the soil of a hostile attitude toward the liquidation of the consequences of the Stalin cult. As in China, the Albanian leaders’ defense of the cult of the individual is linked with the fact that for many years they themselves have been implanting a cult of the individual and resorting to the most vicious methods of guiding the party and the country…

A comprehensive analysis of the correlation of forces in the international arena has enabled the Communist and Workers’ Parties to draw the highly important conclusion that it is possible to avert a world war even before the complete victory of socialism on earth and to emphasize once again that the Leninist principle of the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems is the unshakable foundation of the foreign policy of the socialist countries.

These postulates, as is known, were set forth in the Declaration and Statement of the 1957 and 1960 Moscow conferences. The experience of recent years not only has failed to shake but, on the contrary, has confirmed the vital need for a policy of peaceful coexistence. It is thanks to the persistent implementation of this policy by the socialist countries, supported by hundreds of millions of people throughout the world, that it has been possible to disrupt the schemes aimed against peace by imperialist reaction. The fact that mankind today enjoys the blessings of peace is not a gift from the gods. It is the real result of the persistent struggle of all peace-loving forces against attempts to unleash. a thermonuclear war, the result of the growth in the might of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, as well as of the correct policy of the Communist Parties, which have raised aloft the banner of the struggle for peace and have united all progressive mankind under this banner…

In waging their struggle against the Leninist course of peaceful coexistence and counterposing to it the path of “prodding” revolution through war, the CPC leaders have gone so far as to assert that war is an acceptable and even, in essence, the only means for resolving the contradictions between capitalism and socialism. Ignoring the experience of the whole world Communist movement, they are setting forth the path of the victory of revolution in China as an absolute, trying to elevate it to an immutable truth for all countries and peoples. Chinese propaganda, relevantly and irrelevantly, quotes Mao Tse-tung’s statements on questions of war and peace made as long ago as the 1930s, during the period of the civil war in China…

… Attempts to depict Marxist-Leninists in the role of pacifists of some kind look simply ridiculous. The 1957 Declaration noted that as long as imperialism exists, the soil for aggressive wars is preserved. However, the Communist Parties have not drawn from this the conclusion that a world war is fatally inevitable. They have shown that although the nature of imperialism, its predatory essence, remains unchanged, the correlation of forces in the world arena has changed, the place and role of imperialism in world economics and world politics has altered and the opportunities for its influence on the course of world events is diminishing. All this compels the imperialists to accede to peaceful coexistence.

The point, consequently, is not that the imperialists have become more “peace-loving” and more “complaisant” but that they cannot refuse to take the growing strength of socialism into account. The imperialists know that the Soviet Union and the socialist countries possess formidable weapons and are capable of giving a devastating rebuff to any aggressor. The imperialist cannot but reckon with the strength of the mighty workers’ and the democratic movements in the capitalist countries, with the enormous scale of the peoples’ national-liberation struggle. The truth that should the imperialist madmen unleash a world war capitalism would be swept away and buried is becoming increasingly clear in the camp of our class enemies…

By coming out on July 31, 1963, with hysterical attacks on the Moscow treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in three environments and thus turning up in the company of the most aggressive circles of imperialism, the Chinese leaders have even further exposed themselves as adversaries of the policy of the struggle for peace and peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. The enemies were heartened by this, and friends could not but condemn it.

The Chinese leaders sensed that they had gone too far, and in order to extricate themselves from this situation they began to turn their propaganda around, as they say, 180 degrees. A flood of “peace-loving” declarations has recently begun to gush forth from Peking, and the representatives of the Chinese government are hastening to sign documents having to do with the struggle for peace and fidelity to the policy of peaceful coexistence. This is precisely the nature of many of the statements made by Chou En-lai during his tour of the countries of Africa and Asia…

…Everyone knows the sharply negative reaction of the Chinese leaders to the efforts the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries have been making to normalize and improve economic and other relations with the capitalist countries, including the United States of America. The question arises involuntarily: why should the normalization of relations between the two great nuclear powers-the USSR and the USA, on whom the relaxation of international tension largely depends-evoke such opposition on the part of the Chinese government? With an obstinacy worthy of better application, the Chinese leaders are striving to prevent the improvement of Soviet-American relations, representing it as “collusion with the imperialists.” At the same time, the CPR government is exerting feverish efforts to establish relations with Britain, France, Japan, West Germany and Italy. It is obvious from all this that they would not reject an improvement in relations with the USA as well but cannot so far see suitable conditions for this.

Never before have so many businessmen, political leaders and statesmen from the capitalist countries come to Peking. CPR representatives have been conducting negotiations with them and concluding agreements on trade, credits, scientific and technical aid, and even political problems.

Do we want to reproach the CPC leaders for such activity? Of course not. This is a normal procedure, constituting an organic element of the policy of peaceful coexistence. All socialist countries will inevitably have to do business with people from the bourgeois states, including not only friends but representatives of the ruling imperialist circles. But the whole trouble is that the Chinese leaders feel that when they themselves develop such activity, it is the policy of true “revolutionaries,” while when other socialist countries do the same thing, it is allegedly “revisionism” and “betrayal. ” …

In the light of the Chinese leaders’ practical activities in recent years, the true political meaning of the slogan they have advanced-“The wind from the East is prevailing over the wind from the West”-has become especially clear. As long ago as the 1960 conference, this slogan was subjected to resolute criticism as being nationalistic, one that substitutes for the class approach a geographical and even a racist one. It plainly bespeaks a belittling on their part of the role of the world socialist system, the working class and popular masses of Western Europe and America…

The Chinese leaders attack the CPSU because it is pursuing a line toward raising the people’s well-being. They call the improvement of the life of the Soviet people “bourgeoisification”; the principle of material incentive, in their opinion “leads to people’s pursuit of personal profit, money-grubbing, desire for gain, the growth of bourgeois individualism, harm to the socialist economy and even its corruption” (Jenmin Jihpao, Dec. 26, 1963).

Is there not concealed beneath these strident words a profound contempt for man’s vital needs, for the principles and ideals of a socialist society? …

Yes, comrades, it must be said openly: The entire conglomeration of the theoretical and political views of the leaders of the Communist Party of China is largely a rehash of Trotskyism, which was discarded long ago by the international revolutionary movement.

What in fact are the Chinese leaders’ views on problems of war and peace? They are nothing but a restatement in new conditions of the Trotskyite slogan “Neither peace nor war.”

Or take the active opposition of the leadership of the CPC Central Committee to economic competition with capitalism. Is this a new statement of the question? No, it is a reiteration of the old Trotskyite postulate about rejecting peaceful economic construction and going over to the tactic of “revolutionary war,” of “prodding” a world revolution with weapons in hand.

Everyone knows that the true sense of Trotsky’s theory of “permanent revolution” lay precisely here. The struggle against Trotskyism on this question was of historic importance. The destinies of the world’s first socialist country, the destinies of the entire world revolutionary movement depended on its outcome. What would have happened if our party had adopted such a course? It would have proved defenseless in the face of world imperialism, it would have been easy prey for it in the event of armed attack…

The facts indicate that nationalism is gaining increasing ascendancy in the entire policy of the Chinese leadership and is becoming the mainspring of their actions. This was manifested back during the period of the “great leap,” which was obviously conceived as an attempt to catch up to all the socialist countries “in one jump,” to seize a dominant position m the world socialist system. More recently these tendencies have become even more intense. This has found reflection in such acts of the Chinese government as the artificial stirring up of nationalist passions over border questions, the behavior of the CPC leaders during the Caribbean crisis and the Chinese government’s position on the nuclear question …

For many years now Chinese propaganda has been persistently suggesting to everyone that the ideas of Mao Tse-tung are the “supreme incarnation of Marxism-Leninism” and that our epoch is “the epoch of Mao Tse-tung.” Asserting that the generalization of the historical tasks of modern times has fallen wholly on the shoulders of Mao Tse-tung alone, Chinese propaganda is representing matters as though the ideas of Mao Tse-tung are the Marxism-Leninism of our epoch, “the scientific theory of socialist revolution and the building of socialism and communism.”

It is now perfectly clear that the CPC leadership is striving to spread the Mao Tse-tung cult to the entire world Communist movement, so that the CPC leader, like Stalin in his time, might be elevated like a god above all the Marxist-Leninist parties and might decide all questions of their policy and activities according to his whims. The ideology and practice of the cult of the individual largely explain the appearance of the Chinese leaders’ hegemonic schemes

However, history does not repeat itself. And what was once a tragedy can seem a mere farce the second time. The CPC leaders should know that the Communist movement will never permit a repetition of the practices of the cult of the individual, which are alien to Marxism-Leninism and for which it paid such a high price in the past. The Communist movement and the cult of the individual are incompatible…

But it can be seen that it is precisely this aspect of Stalin’s activity that has captivated the Chinese leaders; therefore they identify his incorrect methods of leadership with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Despite the fact that many instances of Stalin’s abuses of power during the period of the cult of the individual have become generally known and despite Stalin’s deviation from Leninist principles on a number of important questions, the Chinese leaders have put Stalin on a pedestal, representing him as the “great continuer” of Lenin’s cause. The Chinese leaders write and speak about the mass repressions during the cult of the individual as though they were merely a question of petty “excesses.”…

Marxist-Leninists and the peoples fighting for national independence consider it their task to bring the anti-imperialist, democratic revolution to completion, to create and consolidate the national front, and to struggle for the formation of national democratic states, for the non-capitalist path of development.

The Chinese leaders are sidestepping the essence of the present stage of the national-liberation revolution, do not see the differences in the situations of individual countries and are offering the peoples of all countries the same recipe-armed struggle and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Such postulates can lead in practice to the undermining of the national front and a strengthening of the positions of the colonialists and neocolonialists…

II. Soviet Aid to Red China

… Our party and the Soviet people know the scope and nature of the economic aid the Soviet Union has given China. The USSR helped the People’s Republic of China construct in a short time more than 200 major industrial enterprises, shops and other projects, furnished with the most modern equipment. With the Soviet Union’s help, entire branches of industry that did not previously exist in China have been created in the CPR: aircraft, motor vehicle and tractor building; power, heavy and precision machine building; instrument making; radio-technology; and various branches of the chemical industry.

Enterprises built or reconstructed with the aid of the Soviet Union provide China with 8,700,000 tons of iron, 8,400,000 tons of steel and 32,200,000 tons of coal and shale a year. Enterprises created with our country’s assistance account for 70% of the total output of tin, 100% of the synthetic rubber, 25%-30% of the electric power and 80% of the trucks and tractors. Defense enterprises built with the technical assistance of the Soviet Union were the basis for the creation of China’s defense industry.

During the period 1950-1960 more than 10,000 Soviet specialists were sent .o China for various periods. In the years 1951-1962 some 10,000 Chinese engineers, technicians and skilled workers and about 1,000 scientists underwent instruction, scientific training and practice in the USSR During this time more than 11,000 students and higher-degree candidates graduated from Soviet higher educational institutions.

Soviet-Chinese cooperation achieved its greatest development after 1953, when, on the initiative of the CPSU and Comrade N. S. Khrushchev personally, the elements of inequality on the mutual relations between our countries that had been one of the phenomena of the Stalin cult were eliminated. In 1957 Mao Tse-tung said, “The credit for eliminating all the unpleasantness and accretions in the Chinese question belongs to N. S. Khrushchev.”

In 1959 the extent of Soviet-Chinese economic ties was almost double the 1953 figure, and the volume of deliveries for construction projects grew eightfold during this same time. In the period 1954-1963 the Soviet Union gave China more than 24,000 complete sets of scientific-technical documents, including designs for 1,400 major enterprises. This documentation embodied the enormous experience of the Soviet people and its scientific and technical intelligentsia. All this scientific and technical documentation was, in essence, given to China free.

The Soviet Union granted the People’s Republic of China 1,816,000,000 rubles in long-term credits on favorable terms.

The CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet government exerted strenuous efforts in order that China might firmly occupy the position of a great socialist power in the international arena, and they unswervingly strove for the restoration of the CPR’s rights in the United Nations. We kept the CPR leadership constantly informed of all the Soviet Union’s most Important foreign-policy actions and strove to coordinate the foreign policies of our countries…

In 1950 a treaty of friendship, alliance and mutual aid was signed between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, and it became an important factor not only in the development of multifaceted relations between our countries but in the strengthening of peace in the Far East…

Unfortunately, however, starting in 1958 the CPR government began with increasing frequency to take various steps toward undermining Soviet-Chinese friendship, and through its uncoordinated actions in the international arena to create difficulties not only for the Soviet Union but for other socialist countries as well.

Soviet-Chinese relations became especially bad after the CPC leaders went over from individual unfriendly acts to the sharp curtailment of economic and cultural ties with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Even on the eve of the 1960 Moscow conference of fraternal parties, the Chinese government demanded from the USSR a revision of all the previously concluded agreements and protocols on economic and scientific-technical cooperation, refused a considerable part of the planned deliveries of Soviet equipment and reduced the volume of Soviet-Chinese trade to a minimum.

Although the Soviet government knew that by such a course the Chinese leaders would bring harm to the friendship and cooperation between the USSR and the CPR, it had no choice but to consent to this. As a result, by 1962 the total volume of economic cooperation between the Soviet Union and the CPR (including trade and technical assistance) had fallen to 36.5% of the 1959 level, while deliveries of sets of equipment and materials stood at only one-fortieth the 1959 figure. The volume of economic cooperation and trade declined even further in 1963…

Now, having apparently “forgotten” its earlier explanations, the CPR government is asserting that the Soviet-Chinese ties were curtailed on the initiative of the Soviet Union and that precisely this is the reason for the grave situation in which the Chinese national economy has found itself in recent years.

Now the Chinese leaders are bending over backwards to prove that, in general, Soviet aid to China never existed, that there were only ordinary trade operations. Striving to erase Soviet aid from the memory of the people, the Chinese are not even shrinking from knocking the plant trademarks from Soviet machine tools and machines and from concocting the slander that the Soviet Union allegedly delivered obsolete equipment to China. And this is said despite the fact that not only the Chinese themselves but even the foreign press has asserted that such enterprises as the Changchun Motor Vehicle Plant, the Harbin Electrical Equipment Plant, the Loyang Tractor Plant and many others that were built with the aid of the Soviet Union are excellent examples of modern industry…

Despite the openly hostile actions of the CPC leadership, our country, conscientiously fulfilling its earlier commitments, even now continues to assist China in the construction of 80 industrial enterprises, and engineering and technical workers, scientists and students from the CPR are undergoing production practice and instruction in the USSR as before. The Soviet Union responded in a fraternal way to the economic difficulties that arose in China in 1960 and 1961. During the period when the CPR was experiencing an especially acute food shortage, the CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet government offered the CPC leadership a loan of 1,000,000 tons of grain and 500,000 tons of sugar. At that time the Soviet Union granted the CPR five years to liquidate 288,000,000 rubles of its indebtedness in commercial accounts….

Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XVI, No. 13 (April 22, 1964), pp. 3-16; No. 14 (April 29, 1964), pp. 3-17.

 

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