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

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CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240011-0
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RIPPUB
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S
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55
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November 11, 2016
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April 20, 1998
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11
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Publication Date: 
December 1, 1960
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REPORT
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Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-009158001200240011-0 THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE INTER-PARTY DEVELOPMENTS AT AND AFTER THE RUMANIAN WORKERS PARTY CONGRESS--BUCHAREST, 20-25 JUNE 1960 -` f FILE Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE INTER-PARTY DEVELOPMENTS AT AND AFTER THE RUMANIAN WORKERS PARTY CONGRESS--BUCHAREST, 20-25 JUNE 1960 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release.: CIA RDP78-00915RO01200240011-0 THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE INTER-PARTY DEVELOPMENTS AT AND AFTER THE _&UMANIAN WORKERS PARTY CONGRESS---BUCHAREST, 20-25 JUNE 1960 The ybackground of the dispute (1957-1960) 1. The present dispute between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Communist Party of China (CPC) has its origins in differences which date back at least three years-- that is, to the summer of 1957. On the Chinese side, antecendent resentments may date as far back as the formative period of the CPC in the twenties, when Stalin's policy of alliance with the Kuomintang drove the CPC to disaster, as well as to the war .and early post-=war peri :)d, when Soviet support for the Chinese Corn- munist cause was minimal and did not inhibit the stripping of Manchuria. There is clearly no single cause for the current .dispute. Rather, it would appear, an accumulation of Chinese policies and actions increasingly displeased and challenged Khrushchev and, presumably, a majo.ii.ty of the Soviet leadership, In the field of domestic policy, it is now known that Mao's "Let a hundred flowers bloom" program aroused Soviet doubts about its usefulness. The program for the "great leap forward" beginning in early 1958 and the communes program, adopted by the CPC in May 1958, were readily recognizable as a considerable irritant in Sino- Soviet relations by the silent treatment which they received in the Soviet Union, 2, Disagreement over foreign policy manifested itself in August 1958 when Khrushchev, after four days of discussion with Mao Tse-tung, publicly rejected, on 5 August, Western proposals for a summit meeting within the U. N. Security Council on the crisis in the Middle East--proposals which he had accepted in July. Nevertheless, on 23 August the Chinese began shelling of the off-shore islands.. On 23 May 1958 the Commander of the Chinese-'..&ir. Force puedicted that China would make atomic bombs "in the not too distant future" and the Chinese press ceased to Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 + refer to Khrushchev's earlier plan for an atom-free zone in Asia. Khrushchev revived his concept of an atom-free one for "the Far East and the entire Pacific Basin" at the 21st CPSU Congress in February 1959. Chinese reactions were not enthusiastic, and, from April 1959, on, reference to the plane disappeared altogether. In the light of these and other indications, it can be fairly assumed that Soviet unwillingness to deliver atomic weapons to Chinese control had become a serious issue. It is now known that the Soviets cited as the reason for their reluctance their apprehension over Chinese policies and pronouncements in the external field which were in conflict with Khrushchev's "peaceful coexistence" tactics, which affirmed that global or limited war need not be avoided, and which objected to Khrushchev's aid programs for "bourgeois" regimes in underdeveloped countries on the grounds that they would delay revolution. Chinese objections to peaceful coexistence tactics manifested themselves after 1957 in the deliberations of the International Communist Front organizations, especially within the World Peace Council and the International Union of Students--two organizations which were Most directly and in- tensely engaged in building their appeal on the unity campaign so typical of the peaceful coexistence period. They desired to involve bourgeois and nationalist groups in mass action and therefore advocated informal conversations, negotiations, and concessions to such groups. The Chinese refused to "sit around the table" with them except in formal meetings of designated representatives, and resisted Soviet efforts to broaden the scope of concessions on program and organization questions. Chinese resistance was particularly manifest after the Soviet decision of June 1959 concerning Ehrushchev's visit to the United States. 3. In August 1959, the Chinese overran the Indian border post at Longju and reopened the border dispute wMaIndia, after eight years of quiet. The Soviet position on this dispute signifi- cantly failed to give full endorsement to the Chinese claims, although earlier Chinese repressive actions in Tibet had been Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 promptly supported as just and as an "internal affair. " Khrushchev, as was known later, did not interpret the reopening of the dispute as a mere attempt to register opposition to his trip to the United States, but as an un-Marxist blunder which needlessly undermined Indian neutralist attitudes and potential value in the peace and disarmament campaign and impaired the appeal of CP India. When Khrushchev visited Peiping, after his trip to the United States, for the October anniversary cele- brations in 1959, the Sino-Inti.an dispute was one topic of discussion and it is virtually certain that Khrushchev presented his views on improving USSR-U. S. relations. Sino-Soviet discussions were unsatisfactory, however, and no communique was published. According to three widely separated and reliable sources, in October 1959 the CPSU sent a letter to at least the bloc parties, holding fast to Khrushchev's views on USSR-U. S. relations. In November 1959, V. Ilyitchev, Chief of the Agitprop Department of the CPSU, published an article in Problems of Peace and Socialism that justified the policy of peaceful coexistence as eblass struggle on the international plane" and significantly noted Lenin's criticism of "Left Communists. " It is known that the Chinese have since been accused of criticizing the November 1959 joint program of the European parties, which is clearly based upon the same premises as the article. In December 1959, Khrushchev warned the Chinese in stating at the Hungarian Party Congress that "we must all synchronize our watches. " 4. In January 1960, the Chinese positions hardened. At the Rome meeting of the Presidential Committee of the World Peace Council in January 1960 it transpired that the Chinese had charged the USSR with seeking to isolate China in the interest of achieving a modus vivendi with the U. S. A reliable source states that the USSR in January 1960 informally broached to the Chinese the idea that the Sino-Soviet differences required discussion, only to be told by the Chinese that the differences were between the parties and should not be mentioned. The CPC appears to have reached during January important decisions which had a major effect on the dispute. On 21 January the Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240011-0 ten'.-& " - Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted a resolution concerning disarmament which specified that China would be bound only by treaties it takes part in framing; and in February 1960, at the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Warsaw Pact countries, the Chinese observer, Wang Sheng, incorporated the statement in his p.peech, broadening it to include "all international agreements. " The contrast between the descriptions of the world situation in Wang Sheng's speech and those given by the European bloc speakers was striking. 5. It is at this point that the 1957 Moscow declaration first began to be quoted to support the conflicting positions, when the People's Daily of 6 February 1960 asserted that "the development of the international situation has borne out the correctness of the declaration." It appears likely, therefore, that the Chinese decided in late January to take the initiative in broadening the debate. But also on 6 February a verbal message from the Central Committee of the CPSU asking the CPC.to attend a meeting to discuss outstanding problems was reportedly delivered in Peiping. 6. In mid-April 1960 the Chinese took advantage of the 90th anniversary of Lenin's birth to make their most serious public attack on the theoretical innovations developed by the CPSU at and after the 20th Party Congress in January 1956. Using oblique but unmistakable arguments, the Chinese challenged the premises underlying Soviet foreign policy and by implication disparaged Khrushchev's stature as a Communist theorist. The Chinese attack comprised three major statements: two articles in the party's theoretical monthly Red Flag (issues no. 7 and 8, 1 and 16 April), the first entitled "On Imperialism as the Source of War in Modern Times" and the second entitled "Long Live Leninism, " as well as an editorial on 22 April in the authoritative newspaper, the People's Daily. 4 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 7. The Soviets replied in the speech delivered in Moscow on 22 April by Otto Kuusinen of the CPSU Central Committee and Secretariat. A very strong defense of current Soviet foreign policy and of the general lines endorsed at the 20th and 21st CPSU Congresses, his speech confined its critical comments to general statements condemning "dogmatic positions as back- ward positions." On the same day a Chinese Politburo alternate, Lu Ting-i, gave a speech in Peiping which incorporated many of the arguments of the "Long Live Leninism" article. The divergences between the two speeches were so great that when one Communist party seriously affected by the dispute, the Indian party, published both speeches side by side in the 8 May issue of its newspaper New_Ae, without comments, its action aroused considerable comment and created confusion among party members. 8. The Chinese then began to carry their case to the other parties. "Long Live Leninism, " the Lu Ting-i speech, and the People's Daily editorial of 22 April were translated and published in the widely circulated English language Peking Review of 26 April. At the same time, the first edition of a book containing the three articles was produced by the Foreign Languages Press in Peiping in many languages for distribution abroad. Two further editions of this book were produced, one in May and the other, after the Bucharest confrontations, in August. The book is known to exist in English, Spanish, French, the Eastern European languages (including Russian), and Vietnamese. It has been distributed in India and in certain countries at least of Latin America and Western Europe. It appears that the Chinese later at- tempted to circulate the articles in the USSR in one of their two Russian language publications, Druzhba, an action which the Soviets protested. The magazine was in fact suspended from circulation in the USSR after the publication of the June issue. Earlier instances of Soviet refusals to circulate Chinese doctrinal writings in the USSR have recently been reported by reliable sources, who heard the details during party discussions of the Sino-Soviet differences. 5 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 9. After the Kuusinen rebuttal of Chinese charges, the CPSU took advantage of the 40th anniversary of the publication of Lenin's book Leftwing Communism, an Infantile Disorder (10 June 1960) to carry the public ideological debate with the Chinese to new heights, including the use of the charge of "deviation." Two Soviet articles published on 10 June, one by D. Shevlyagin in the newspaper Soviet Russia and one by N. Matkovsky in the party newspaper Pravda, expressed this criticism by attacking "contemporary left-wing deviationism" in terms which referred to the positions held by the Chinese party. Both articles highlighted the significance of the 12 Party Declaration of November 1957. Matkovsky characterized it as a "programmatic document of the international Communist movement," and as a validation of the general line expressed by the CPSU. Shevlyagin, on~the other hand, referred parti- cularly to the declaration as authorizing and requiring a struggle against "leftist opportunism" as well as against "rightist opportunism" such as that of the Yugoslavs. In discussing manifestations of left opportunism he made the significant point that " Oyonly groups of Communists but the leadership of individual parties have veered into leftist deviationism." Neither of the articles explicitly identified the Chinese as the target of criticism, but their relevance to the dispute was unmistakable. 10. The timing of this intensification of the Soviet attack on the Chinese views coincides with a CPSU letter on the Summit Conference which was circulated, shortly after KQirushchev's return home following the collapse of the con- ference, to the Communist parties of the bloc and those of France and Italy. Although the text of this letter is not available, it seems likely to have been unacceptable to the Chinese, Who emphasized from mid-May on that the course of events before and at Paris proved the validity of the Chinese arguments concerning imperialism and the illusory and fruitless character of negotiation. Perhaps the worst offense of the Chinese, in Soviet eyes, was their argument 6 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240011-0 that the only value of Communist participation in such peace negotiations was the purely tactical advantage that came out of their eventual exposure of the true character and intentions of the enemy. This observation was precisely the kind of statement which the CPSU was most eager to avert. 11. It is likely too that the CPSU decided at this time to send a sharp letter of criticism to the CPC. One prominent Free World Communist who visited Moscow in late May stated that he learned from a member of the CPSU Secretariat that a "sharp" letter was being sent to the CPC. CPSU letters calling for a conference v= e reportedly sent to the Chinese on 2 Jufle and on 7 June, and it appears likely that the letter of 2 June was the "sharp" one. It is also worth noting that the CPC leaders went into closed conference in Shanghai on 8 June, a move which may well have been prompted by the receipt of the two CPSU letters. They were in fact still meeting when the Chinese delegation left for the Bucharest party congress. 12. The Chinese too made a major move in the now rapidly developing dispute. They did this in early June at the Xlth General Council meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions in Peiping. On 2 June they presented an ultimatum on the official WFTU report to the chief Soviet representative, who rejected it. The Chinese claimed that the report contained objectionable features, including attacks on the communes. At this meeting, which opened on 5 June after a five-day delay, in the presence of both WFTU affiliates and representatives of some twenty-five unaffiliated national trade union federations, the leading Chinese figures Chou En-lai, Liu Shao-ch'i, Liu Ningri, Teng Hsiao-ping, and Liu Chang-sheng publicized the Chinese views on the peace struggle, t1 .e threat of imperialism, and the "illusions" aroused by the campaigns for peaceful co- existence and by programs for giving substantial economic aid to bourgeois-led underdeveloped countries. Using a tactic they had employed earlier in April, the Chinese leaders accompanied Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240011-0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240011-0 those criticisms with fulsome expressions of approval of the Soviet posture towards the U. S. at the time of the collapse of the Summit Conference. This approval of the Soviet actions was accompanied by expressions of solidarity with the USSR in its stand against U. S. acts of aggression. It was learned that the CPSU was particularly stung by the speeches of Liu Ning-yi and Liu Chang-sheng. 13. When the Chinese convened a private meeting of Communist party members among the delegates to hear a statement of the Chinese criticisms of CPSU doctrines, rep- resentatives of the CPSU promptly opposed the continuation of the talks and made the ominous charge that the Chinese action was violation of the terms of the 12 Party Declaration of November 1957. This Soviet appeal to the authority of the Moscow declaration paralleled the similar appeal in the Shevlyagin article published in Moscow, and the charge has since figured prominently in the CPSU's presentation of its case. According to credible reports, during the WFTU session Teng Hsiao'p'ing, general secretary of the CPC, accused the CPSU in turn of "throwing the Moscow declaration over- board." 14. Soviet representatives in Peiping not only criticized the Chinese actions in ,r`eiearndldiscussions with foreign Communist rep- resentatives but by 9 June took concrete steps to enlist the support of other CP's against the Chinese. The representative of one Free World CP was told, by a representative of the Soviet All Union Central Council of Trade Unions, that the Soviet embassy in Peiping was interested in knowing if he could stop over in Moscow after the end of the conference. 15. When a group of European and African delegates to the WFTU meeting arrived in Moscow on 13 June, a number of CPSU officials conferred with members of this group. One of the delegates in the group is known to have talked privately with a top official, V. Tereshkin, of the CPSU Foreign Section, concerning the Sino-Soviet dispute. The delegate was 25X1X6 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240011-0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 informed of the interpretation the CPSU placed on recent Chinese actions, and Tereshkin asked that he have a plenum of his party's central committee convened after his return home to discuss the Chinese at Peiping and to condemn them as violations of the Moscow declaration. A second person, tentatively identified as L. I. Brezhnev, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, was also reported present at this meeting. According to a statement broadcast while the Bucharest congress was in session, representatives of the French and Spanish Communist parties held a meeting on 14 and 15 June, at which they reaffirmed their adherence to the 12 Party Declaration. Because the leadership of both these parties was represented in the group of WFTU delegates in Moscow at this time, it appears possible that the meeting in question took place there and that the reaffirmation was a reaction to the Peiping events. 16. In contrast to these cryptic endorsements of the Moscow declaration, on 19 June 1960 a statement by Agostino Novella, a leading Italian Communist and president of the WFTU, was published in the Italian Party newspaper Unita. In this statement, which was also broadcast in Italian from Czechoslovakia on 20 June, Novella described the Chinese criticism of the resolutions proposed at the WFTU Council meeting in Peiping and, like the 10 June Soviet articles, characterized the Chinese views as "deviations." So far as can be determined, this was the first instance in which a Free World Communist party publicized this charge against the Chinese. The appearance of the statement coincided with the opening of the 3rd Congress of the Rumanian Workers Party in Bucharest, where the next phase of the dispute developed. The B'ucharest debates (20-27 June 1960) 17. The Chinese determination to press at Bucharest for Soviet adoption of a militant line is suggested by an C T / T T' rn Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 article in the 16 June issue of Red Flag, which, in an obvious reference to the CPSU?s earlier justification of its views on peace and peaceful coexistence, observed that "one cannot separate oneself from the revisionists merely by stating that the forces of socialism predominate over the forces of imperialism." The Chinese delegation to the congress of the Rumanian Workers Party stopped in Moscow for an exchange of views on 17 June. It presented a letter from the CPC which limited its powers to agreeing on a date for a party conference to discuss Sino-Soviet differences and ex- changing views, without, however, adopting any formal resolution. The CPSU representatives were not successful in obtaining an admission from the Chinese delegation of the errors of the CPC. The Chinese, however., reportedly expressed a willingness to correct their positions if in an exchange of views with the delegates at Bucharest a majority should prove them wrong. The CPSU, justifying its action by invoking the November 1957 Peace Manifesto (not the 12 Party Declaration adopted at the same time), insisted that the views of all the Communist parties should eventually be ascertained before attempting a meeting to reach a final solution. In this context, the Bucharest session should presumably have involved nothing but *n exchange of views. The Chinese stated at Bucharest that in Moscow the CPSU had first made the proposal that other parties be brought into the debate, but had wished to confine the group to delegates from the bloc parties only. The Chinese said that they had rejected this proposal. It would appear, then, that the Chinese adherence to their instruction forced the Soviets' hand. 18. Athough there are reports that the CPSU intended by the end of May to attack the Chinese at Bucharest, the Soviet decision to make a major effort there to enlist the support of other parties appears to have been reached as a result of the Chinese stand on 17 June, Virtually none of the major Free World parties sent top-level delegates to the Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 congress,. The fact that Khrushchev was to lead the Soviet delegation was announced only on June 18, the day of his departure. All the European satellite delegations except Albania were led by persons of national stature equal to that of Khrushchev, but the late arrival of Gomulka of Poland and the early departure of Novotny of Czechoslovakia suggest that this top-level representation was organized on short notice. The leader of the Chinese delegation, Pteng Chen, was clearly outranked by this group. Fifty parties were represented at the congress. Twenty-five of the thirty-five ilon--bloc fraternal delegations identified as present were composed of second and third echelon party leaders and none of the more significant Free World parties, except Chile and Syria, were represented by their leaders. 19. The Soviet delegation to Bucharest included B. Ponomarev and Y. A, Andropov, the heads of the two Central Committee sections for relations with the non-bloc pa-tties and bloc parties, respectively. During the first days of the congress they and their colleagues concentrated on briefing fraternal delegates, It is known that a group of English-speaking delegates and a second group comprising those who spoke Spanish were called together separately and briefed from a long letter which the CPSU intended to issue to all parties. The letter had apparently been either com- pleted or revised at the last moment, for it contained the Soviet account of the Moscow exchanges of 17 June and explained the Soviet view of how the inter-party discussion should be handled. The inclusion of Wu Hsiu_chtuan, the deputy director of the CPC's International Liaison Depart- ment, as one of the four Chinese delegates suggests that the Chinese too planned to exploit their supporters and acquaintances among the delegates. 20. The reporting on the sequence of events at Bucharest concerning the Sino-So:riet dispute is in some respects contra- dictory. The following probable chronology, however, emerges Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915RO01 200240011 -0 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP78-00915R001200240011-0 from an analysis of the available information.