THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE WITHING THE WORLD PEACE COUNCIL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R001400060004-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 30, 1998
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: January 15, 1962
• Content Type: REPORT

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5 JAN 1952
The Sino-Soviet Dispute within the World Peace Council
At the Stockholm session of the World Peace Council (16-20
December 1961) lines were again clearly drawn between the Soviets
and the Chinese on the organization's program. Basic issues in
the Sino-Soviet dispute were involved, and this fact, together with
the Soviet anti-Albanian campaign, was brought openly into the
World Peace Council dispute by an authoritative article published
in the French Communist daily L'Humanite on 28 December.'
The long-standing conflict over the program of the peace
movement is still based, as it was in 1960, on the Chinese re-
jection of the CPSU's concept of the proper basis, tactics, and
aims of the movement's activity. Th,: CPSU holds that the peace
movement should support Soviet forei;;;:i policy demands, such as
the Soviet position on the German question, on the single premise
that war must be averted at all costs. In the CPSU's view the
peace movement should characterize the Soviet foreign policy
demands as necessary precursors to general and total disarma-
ment, and should praise and publicize the Soviet promise to
employ peaceful methods, once these demands have been met,
in extending Communist influence throughout the world. The
Chinese, on the othe r hand, hold to their argument that a con-
tinuing militant class struggle requires the peace movement to
emphasize active support of national liberation movements and
the unqualified defense in anti-imperialist terms of the measures
taken by the bloc to strengthen its military forces (such as the
recent nuclear tests) if the peace movement is not to promote
pacifism in the bloc and in Communist parties throughout the
world. The speeches of Liao Ch'eng-chih and Liu Ning-i at
Stockholm made this position clear.
In the article in the 28 December 1961 issue of Humanite,
Raymond Guyot the newly designated "re sponsabl e" of the French
Communist Party for its national peace offensive, has spelled out
and summarized the line that the pro-Soviet Communist parties
and their cadres in the peace movement will undoubtedly take on
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the results of the WPC's Sto o1m -eF sion and the grogram out-
lined there. It embodies virtually at the main points of an impor-
tant and comprehensive CPSU condemnation of the Albanians and
demand for a simultaneous struggle against the left and the right
opportunists in the international Communist movement written by
F. Konstantinov and published in Kommunist in the first week of
December. This fact suggests that the CPSU will use extensively
such indirect attacks by non-Soviet spokesmen against both the
Chinese and the right-wing Communist dissidents within the peace
movement. An earlier Humanite article (21 December) on the
Stockholm meeting only criticized the behavior of the right-wing
d'Astier de la Vigerie, who had attacked the USSR for having
renewed nuclear testing. The need for the two-front attack pre-
sumably was made clear to the PCF in the time between the two
articles.
The key argument of Guyot's 28 December article is that the
desire for disarmament is the only force that can serve as a basis
for achieving world-wide unity among the groups the peace move-
ment is attempting to-influence, and the only common interest that
can enhance the cooperation the WPC has so far gained in working
together with other peace forces. Guyot declares: "It is precisely
in order to permit all the forces to express themselves effectively
in acting together that the Stockholm delegates retained as their
essential theme 'general disarmament. ' It is the main slogan of
our time, its appeal is universal. It is capable of uniting diverse
peoples organizations, movements, personalities, and govern-
ments of all continents, anxious to safeguard peace--the most
precious blessing of mankind."
By naming the organizations represented at the session-
beginning with the Christian Peace Conference headquartered in
Prague and including the International Federation of Resistance
Fighters, the World Federation of Scientific Workers, the World
Federation of Trade Unions, the Women's International Democratic
Federation, The Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization, the
World Federation of Democratic Women, the International Union of
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Students, and the All African Peoples Conference--Guyot suggests
the active role they are likely to play in future Soviet-organized
peace unity moves. All but the last named of these organizations
are well known, of course, as Communist front organizations, and
Communist influence is strongly established in the AAPC. Guyot's
failure to mention the absence of representatives of the many anti-
atomic-bomb organizations so carefully cultivated by the WPC
during the past two years (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
American Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, etc.) which the
WPC had announced would be represented, not only conceals a
setback to the movement.but suggests, since Guyot does not attack
those organizations in the article, that they are still prime targets
in the unity campaign.
On the subject of Soviet nuclear testing, Guyot repeats the
Soviet justification for resuming nuclear testing, quotes Khrush-
chev, and declares that the WPC understands and approves the
USSR's action. It is with this argument that Guyot attacks the
right wing of the WPC in the person of d'Astier de la Vigerie,
who had earlier figured prominently in a split between the PCF
and its allies in the French peace movement. Guyot declares
that, when d'Astier contested the reference to testing the Stock-
holm resolution, insisting that there was no justification for the
Soviet resumption of tests, he spoke for himself alone and was
completely isolated. Guyot supports this statement by quoting
other nominally right-wing figures (Bernal of the UK, Endicott
of Canada, and Yasui Kaoru of Japan), who apparently satisfied
Soviet requirements at Stockholm by speaking of the small per-
centage of people in general who blamed the Soviet Union for its
actions.
At Stockholm the Chinese-led anti- colonialist delegates
(including Albanians, Algerians, Guineans, and a few others so far
unidentified) resented the Soviet determination to base the proposed
world congress in 1962 upon the sole issue of disarmament, de-
claring that it should be concerned equally with other aspects of
the anti-imperialist peace struggle, such as national liberation,
and that preoccupation with disarmament alone would paralyze
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peoples struggling for their inlepenlence. This fact gave Guyot
the opportunity to attack the whole left through a distorted attack
on Albania--"some delegates, for example those of Albania, oppose
the convocation of a disarmament congress." He justifies this
attack in the same terms the Soviets used to justify their attack
on Albania at the ZZnd CPSU Congress in October, and in doing so
Guyot took up a basic issue in the Sino-Soviet dispute.
Guyot argues that these delegates refused to "acknowledge
the important changes that have come about in the international
situation" and, in effect, to admit that Soviet short-term policies
have a chance of success. He draws heavily upon Khrushchev's
speeches at the 22nd CPSU Congress, saying, for example, that
"for us, war has ceased to be inevitable and the imperialist tiger,
while still a tiger, can no longer unieash war with impunity...
The war-mongers fear the socialist giant, his strength, his peace
policy, and also the national liberation movements which are turn-
ing the countries of Asia, Africa anu Latin America, former re-
serves of raw materials and soldiers, into independent countries
actively taking their place in the struggle for peace.
Here Guyot emphasizes the Soviet concept of the proper role
of the national liberation movements and anti-colonial governments,
as supporters of Soviet peace policies. He then returns to his main
theme, the disarmament campaign, and describes the peace move-
ment as a bridge between the Soviet bloc, the anti-imperialists,
and those everywhere who reject Communism for ideological or
class reasons. He say's that the peace movement "unites men of
all opinions, all religions, all social classes, to the other forces
for peace." If all these forces work together, the Humanite article
asserts "war will not occur and the cause of peaceful coexistence,
of general and total disarmament, will advance inexorably. " Guyot
rejects Liao Ch'eng-chih's charges at Stockholm against right oppor-
tunism, saying that "contrary to statements heard, we have no illusions
that the war-mongers will voluntarily abandon their weapons. It
will be necessary to compel them to do it;" and "the struggle for
disarmament is a bitter, difficult fight.... But it is the decisive
struggle of our time."
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Guyot refers to the other two general resolutions adopted
at Stockholm that embodied other major Soviet-supported pro-
grams and relates these to the proposal for a disarmament con-
gress. About the first, he says that the struggle for national
independence must be supported by the Communist parties and
their allies in the major Western countries, and notes that the
WPC has decided to support a conference for national sover-
eignty, national independence, and peace which will bring to-
gether representatives from the three continents of Asia, Africa,
and Latin America. Proposals for such a conference have been
made by several front organizations since the beginning of 1961.
The Sino-Soviet differences at Stockholm included a private
clash over the site for the three-continent conference. This diver-
gence, which first became apparent: at the executive committee
meeting of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization in Gaza
in early December, almost led to blows at Stockholm, where the
Soviets suggested that the meeting be convened in Cuba rather
than in Africa, as the Chinese had suggested at Gaza. The USSR
had apparently outmaneuvered the Chinese at Gaza, for, without
agreeing on an African site, she succeeded in getting the AAPSO
executive to authorize a consultative meeting of four organizations--
the AAPSO, the Latin American Conference for National Sover-
eignty, the All Africa Peoples Conference, and the Peace Liaison
Committee of the Asian and Pacific Regions. Predominant Soviet
influence in such a consultative meeting seems assured.
Latin Americans in the World Peace Council have called for
a Latin American Peoples Conference, for national sovereignty and
non-intervention, to convene in Cuba on 22 January, just prior to
the 2nd National Assembly of the Cuban People, 28 January 1962.
This conference is apparently a sequel to the conference convened
in Mexico City in March 1961. Since international front leaders from
Europe, Africa, and Asia--including the bloc--may also be in Havana
for the assembly, it is possible that a call for the three-continent
conference will be issued and an international preparatory com-
mittee be set up. But the development of the Sino-Soviet dispute
may influence the preparations for the three-continent conference,
and the Chinese and other Afro-Asian response to any such Latin
American initiative cannot be predicted.
*Now postponed to 4 February.
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At Stockholm the Chinese tried hard to enlist the support
of the Cuban delegates. The Cubans, however, managed to
sidestep the Chinese demand by consulting with other Latin Amer-
ican delegates and agreeing that none of them had a mandate that
would permit them either to accept or reject the Chinese proposals.
Since the end of the Stockholm meeting the Chinese have sent a
delegation led by Chu Tzu-chi, their representative on the Cairo
secretariat of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization, to
West Africa, presumably to enlist African support. The delegation
went first to Guinea, whose Stockholm delegate, Seydou Diallo, had
supported the Chinese position on the disarmament question; but,
with Soviet deputy premier Mikoyan also seeking to influence govern-
ments and political parties of the area, the Chinese delegation's
chances for success are not considered good. It has also been
reported that a group of leading French Communists, including
a politburo member and a specialist in Afro-Asian affairs, is
planning to go to Africa in mid-January. With whatever contacts
it may make this group too can be expected to support Soviet views
on how the peace struggle should be carried on in Africa.
Guyot points out that the last of the general resolutions at
Stockholm dealt with the struggle against German militarism and
offered solutions, such as a peace treaty and negotiations on West
Berlin, which would contribute to relaxation in Europe, facilitate
disarmament, and reduce the danger of war. He adds that only a
mass organization advocating these solutions can ward off the dan-
ger of war. This call by Guyot for a mass campaign, mainly in
Europe, is more than a mere endorsement of the idea that the
peace campaign has only to organize and coordinate already exist-
ing forces; it encompasses attempts to generate new groups and
public concern as well. In October 1961 Guyot had told the PCF
Central Committee that, "if one can note in our ranks an under-
rating of the danger of war, a state of tranquility which we must
break, one can understand that the same type of tendencies exist
in the peace movement." Thorez at that time instructed the entire
party apparatus to use every form of indoctrination--petitions,
strikes, manifestations, meetings, protests against foreign troops
and bases, etc. --in defense of peace in order to convince public
opinion of the need to struggle for. peace. Guyot's treatment of
this topic in his 28 December article probably embodies the
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conclusions reached at a conference of European Communist parties
on problems of European security which was convened in Weimar,
East Germany, at the end of November. At present no information
is available concerning the events of this meeting.
Guyot, in ending his article, reveals that no real agreement
was reached at the Stockholm meeting on the specific plans for the
main project of the WPC for 1962. He says that "the convocation
of a great world congress by the WPC naturally caused a great deal
of discussion as to its character, conception, and preparation." He
further shows the fundamental importance of the problems created
by the Sino-Soviet dispute to the w foie future of the WPC when he
says that "these problems, by reason of their importance for the
extension, authority, and efficacy of the movement--in a word its
entire future--merit further treatment. We will return to that."
This statement suggests that a failure to resolve the renewed Sino-
Soviet conflict may eventually lead to the dissolution of the peace
movement, a possibility that has been reported as imminent on a
number of occasions since 1956 and, most recently, in the period
just before the Stockholm meeting. For the present, however,
the USSR's desire to keep the World Peace Council intact is
apparent, both in Soviet action and in Guyot's article.
The Albanian Communists, at least, recognized the signifi-
cance of the Guyot article, for three days after it appeared they
honored it with the same kind of direct attack and refutation that
they have otherwise reserved recently for important Soviet attacks.
They said Guyot misrepresented their position on the question of
the projected disarmament conference, as he indeed did and they
rejected his charge that they failed to recognize the changes that
had taken place in the international situation, but acknowledged
frankly that they had no confidence that the current Soviet policies
would succeed. Employing a well-known Chinese argument against
these policies, the Albanians stated that it is Guyot and those like
him who by their actions promote the very illusions they disclaim
in their speeches.
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