(SANITIZED)WORLD COMMUNIST AFFAIRS(SANITIZED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010009-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: September 26, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010009-9
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KLD COMMUNIST AFFAIKS ..:.-:::~:::::::.....
COMMUNIST CHINA
1. The Chinese "cultural revolution" which got under way early this summer
and which developed further in August and September has become a historic
phenomenon with effects reaching far beyond the borders of China. Some ob-
servers have compared the rampages of the "Red, Guards" with the Jew-baiting
of the Nazi SA in the first years of the Hitler regime. As with the SA, the
Red Guards have been encouraged or at least permitted to engage in pseudo-
revolutionary "action,"-which often amounts to licensed vandalism. But un-
like Hitler's storm troopers, the Red Guards aim their violence not only at
helpless minorities (theugh they do some of that too), but also at officials
of the party and government itself. One goal seems to be to terrorize and
purge the. party apparatus, somewhat as Stalin purged the CPSU in the 1930s.
2. But while Stalin relied on the NKVD, the secret police, which he ruth-
lessly kept under his thumb, Mao -- if it is not already Lin Piao who really
pulls the levers now -- uses teenage gangs,- apparently with some tie-ins
with the People's Liberation Army. The revelations of the defector Miao
Chen-pai (30 August) show that Mao acted a year ago to stifle criticism and
possible opposition, much as Stalin used to do. But unlike the NKVD, the
Red Guard movement as it now has developed is not a well-calibrated instru-
ment for purging senior party members; to a large extent, it seems to re-
flect Mao's desperate desire to keep the "revolution" alive and to relive
his revolutionary past. The Red Guard may also be part of a gamble for
op wer by Lin Piao as against possible rivals; he seems especially anxious
to direct it against party cadres (see 15 September), and he may be guiding.
it more closely through political advisers borrowed from the army.
3. Many questions about the "cultural revolution" remain unanswered at pre-
sent. But one thing has become quite clear; the Red Guards have caused fear
and unrest and have disrupted production. Increasingly, publications and
party leaders have told the Red Guards to use reason and not force, to show
discipline, and not to interfere with the workers and peasants (31 August,
15 September, 16 September, 18 September). Sometimes contrasting articles
in the same publication (e.g., Red Flag, 16 September) or speeches from the
same platform (Lin Piao and Chou En-lai, 15 September) suggest that a
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JC4Rt1
struggle may be going on between those (esp. Lin) who want to carry the
cultural revolution further, and those (esp. Chou) who want to restrain it
to avoid damage to production or even to avert local revolts. Those who,
like Chou, urge restraint run the risk of being themselves accused of
revisionism. In this respect the situation recalls the Reign of Terror in
the French Revolution in 1793.
~+. Mao's cult of continuing revolution, while so far largely "revolution
by order," is fundamentally anarchic. (Hostile Soviet propagandists may
yet compare Mao with Marx's old anarchist rival Bakunin as well as with
Trotsky; the epithet "anarchist" has already been applied by the East
German Politburo member Hermann Axen (~5 September)). Society cannot func-
tion properly under conditions like those created by the Red Guard; a
machinist cannot run his lathe efficiently if some teenager insists on
reciting the works of Mao in his ear. A manager cannot run his plant if he
has to listen to and follow the allegedly Mao-inspired ideas of some young
student. Some reports have indicated that local CCP leaders have been
ready to fight rather than submit to Red Guard dictation.
5. On the other hand, Mao is quite right in believing that party and govern-
mental officials, ii' left in peace, will become revisionist and bourgeois.
This is a basic contradiction in Communism: its adherents cannot both run
a country and remain revolutionaries. In China the violence will probably
be curbed eventually, and, as after the Great Leap Forward, Chinese leaders
will once again have to recognize that there are limits to what will power
and terror can accomplish -- in fact that these things are counter-productive.
And it is hard to see how this admission can be made without some damage to
Mao's reputation.
6. At present, however, it is possible that Chinese leaders think that the
cultural revolution is actually a way of strengthening China for a-war with
the United States. (See statement of Yoshui Furui, 7 September.) The
cultural revolution would seem to have the aim, among others, of eliminating
or silencing anyone who might conceivably argue for compromise in interna-
tional affairs, or for a negotiated peace. In any case, Chicom output has
established new records for sycophancy in its praise of Chairman Mao, and
Peking is obviously not at present a setting for calm, rational discussion.
ICM AND "SOCIALIST CAMP" AFFAIRS
7. If Lin and Mao had laid careful plans for alienating Communists abroad,
they could hardly have done better than they have done with the cultural
revolution. Tr~a.e, some parties, such as the North Vietnamese, the Rumanian,
and (on the whole) the Polish, have abstained from criticism. Albania
remains faithful, as do of course such marionettes as the Belgian, Jacques
Grippa, and E, F. Hill of Australia. But the outlets of other parties --
even including North Korea -- reach a high pitch in denouncing the cultural
revolution and the Red Guards. They profess to believe that the chief
2
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Chinese "error" is the violation of "socialist unity" in the midst of the
Vietnam War. But it seems likely that in reality Peking's worst sin in
their eyes is the attack on party cadres. CP officials the world over have
strong views on this subject; they would not like to see the precedent fol-
lowed in their own bailiwicks.- Neither do they like the ridicule to which
Red Guard excesses expose not only China, but the. whole movement, (Note.
Soviet quotation of Cuban comment, 31 August.) Chicom attacks on western
culture have also run .afoul of the cultural aspirations of the European
parties,'and East German and Soviet citizens seem to have been physically
attacked by the Red Guards. Soviet output makes the most of criticism of
Peking from other parties, implicitly taking the line that the Chicoms have
read themselves out of the movement.
8. Peking seems to be aware of its isolation and makes ineffectual attempts
to answer the Moscow roundups of ICM criticism by quoting praise of Mao
from such sources as Grippa, Hill, the Chilean Revolutionary CP, and Afro-
Asian writers still lingering in Peking after the pro-Chicom writers' meet-
ing in July. (14, 17, 20 September) And the Chicoms are enraged when the
Japanese government refuses to issue passports to Japanese youths intending
to attend the Second Sino-Japanese Youth Friendship Festival, But on 2I
September Peking informs foreign embassies that all foreign students must
return home in two weeks a arentl because there will be no classes for .an
indefinite period 50X1-H U M
g. The pro-Soviet faction of the Afro-Asian Writers Organization meets in
Baku from 29 August to 1 September and issues a statement on Vietnam say-
ing: "Let the fiery words of the writers of the world arouse the conscience
of all honest people of the world and call them to a united struggle against
the imperialist aggressors." As the Chinese delight in pointing out, the
meet~.ng is not really an Afro-Asian meeting even in appearance; many of the.
non-Soviet delegates are not African or Asian (e.g., Hans-Magnus Enzens-
berger) and the full title of the gathering is "Enlarged Meeting of the
Soviet Committee for Relations with Afro-Asian Writers." But following .a
meeting of the "Afro-Asian Writers Executive Committee" on 25 September,
TASS announces plans for a 3rd Afro-Asian writers conference to be held in
Beirut in February-March 1967.
10. The Soviet attack on China (see also above) receives official expres-
sion in a diplomatic protest of 26 August (over events .connected with Chi-
com demonstrations before the Soviet Embassy in Peking -- see #5) and in a
31 August CPSU Central Committee statement, accusing the CPR leaders of
"again provoking a sharp deterioration of relations between the-USSR and
the CPR," and blaming them for damage to Communist unity and to the struggle?
3
SECRET (WCA Cont.)
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~ C 4 f+: In a 12 September report on. the visit to Belgrade
of Couve de Murville, French Foreign Pdinister, and on his talks with
tap Xugoslav officials, Radio Belgrade Domestic Service says that
"the views of the two countries were very close, particularly as regards
the construction of general European security, the solution of the
German problem, as well as regarding cooperation among the peoples of
the European continent." cCouve reportedly took the view that the two
preconditions for German reunification were: 1) Germany should recog-
nize present frontiers; and (2) Germany should renounce nuclear wea-
pons. Couve said that the Vietnamese problem could only be solved by
negotiation, but that the U.S. attitude did not approach apolitical
solution, on the contrary. (Couve left far Paxis on 14 September.)
September 12: TiTu ao, a Chinese sports newspaper, hails the opening
of selective trials fox "the first Asian dames of the new emer~r~i~
forces" at Peking, marking the Chicom assumption of control of Ganefo,"
once the propaganda child of Indonesian leader Sukarno. In Indonesia,
Sukarno states on September 13 that he has never deviated from the
source of the [Indonesian] national revolution; he had studied Marx
from the age of 16g "I am a nationalist, a theist, and a Marxist."
On l4 September, the Indonesian Academicians Action Front calls for his
resignation.
September 11+21: NCNA announces the arrival of a team from the Vietnamese
People's Army to take part in 1?friendly contests among fraternal
armies" in radio high-speed receiving and transmitting. According to
NCNA, a DPRK team is also to take part in the contests, which are to
begin on 21 September.
Se-ptember 11+: NCNA quotes "foreign friends who have been visiting
China~4'as endorsing the cultural revolution. Similar quotations appear
on 15 September. Qn September 17, P_eople's Dairy devotes a page to
acclamations for Mao's thought from various countries: it cites a
6 (WCA Chrono Cont.}
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Jacques Grippes wpro-Chicom leader in Belgium} editorial, a statement
of "boundless love" from the overseas Chinese in France, an alleged
pro-Chinese rally in Italy, and a statement by a representative of the
Japanese Trade Promotion Society. On 20 September People's Daily
carries statements of admiration for Mao's ideas from the Chilean
Revolutionary CP, Algeria, and :Burma; the next day the same 3ournal
prints a full page of tributes to Mao from Afro-Asian writers and from
Van~u.ardi a publication of Hill's Australian CP (M-L}.
September 15-17: The East German SED holds its 13th Central Committee
Plenum, which schedules a new party congress for 17-22 April 1967.
Hermann Axen, candidate member of the SED Politburo, sharply denounces
the Chinese:
"What goes on in China under the slogan of a great proletarian
revolution is na longer an internal Chinese matter. It is the
worst international discrediting of socialism, of Marxism-Leninism,
carried out by misusing revolutionary concepts which are dear to
us."
Axen says the slogans of the Chinese 11th plenum (August 1-12} are
reminiscent of the theses proclaimed by Trotsky ~+0 years ago on shaking
up trade unions and industrializing by military force. He continues:
"[The cultural. revolution] is the most extreme form to date
of what Lenin in his work 'Leftwing Communism -- An Infantile
Disorder' criticized most sharply as petit bourgeoisism [Klein-
buer~ertum] run wild, which he rejected and combatted as incom-
patible with Marxism and the proletarian class struggle.'"
Further on, Axen says:
"Instead of relying on the organized character and awareness
of the working class, the Chinese leadership is leaning an the
anarchist actions of pupils and students who have been subjected
to incitement."
Another speaker, Kurt Hager, says that the cultural revolution runs
counter to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and that it conjures up the
danger that the Chinese people will lose their socialist achievements.
The main speech, by Walter Ulbricht, touches only lightly on the sins
of Peking and concentrates on European security and the problem of the
two Germanies. Ulbricht states; '"Since the establishment of the two
German states, the situation has developed in such away and the power
balance in Europe is such that the extended coexistence of the two
German states must be anticipated."
September 15: Mao attends a huge Peking ra11y, with a claimed atten-
dance of one million, his third "meeting with the revolutionary masses"
in less than a mouthy again, he does not speak: only Lin Piao and
Chou En-lai do. Lin indicates that '"some people" have been creating
7 ~WC.A Chrnncz Cnnt_ )
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antagonism between the masses of workers and peasants and the revolu-
tionary students and says:
"The present movementys maim target of attack is those within
the party who are in power .and taking the capitalist road. Bom-
bard the headquarters and you bombard the handful of people in
power who are taking the capitalist road."
Chou, on the other hand, says:
"Comrades and students, to ensure the normal operation of indus-
trial and agricultural production, the Red Guards and revolutionary
students of various colleges and. middle schools at present should
pat go to factories, enterprises, $avernmental arganizatians
under county level, and rural people's communes to exchange
revolutionary experience."
He paints out that factories and rural areas do not have vacation like
the schools to suspend production for making revolution. Red Guards
and students should go to the countryside in an organized manner to
participate in productive labor. People's Daily also makes the point
made by Chau about the workers not having vacation, and says: "Pro-
duction must not be interrupted." In covering this rally, Pravda (18
September) does not report any remarks intended to restrain the Red
Guards, saying merely that they had been told that they:
"were actin; correctly and well, that they had shaken up the
entire society, produced panic, and had scored 'brilliant' mili-
tary successes in the liquidation of the old ideology, old culture,
old morals and customs.... Mao Tse-tong resolutely supported
their revolutionary acts..?."
September 15: In Albania, a Zeri I___ Po~ullit article gives full support
to Peking, saying;"the Khrushchevite revisionists... do not hesitate
to collect and exploit all the slanders and the sordid stories put out
by the hotbeds of bourgeois propaganda in order to present China's
cultural revolution in a false light, to denigrate the CCP, and to
besmirch and offend the great Chinese people."
September 16: General P. P. Kumaramangalam, Chief of Staff of the
Indian Army, arrives in Moscow at the invitation of Marshal M. V.
Zakharov. He sees Zakharov and Marshal Rodion Malinovskiy on lfi
September.
September 16: An editorial in Red Flag (theoretical Chicom ,journal)
says:
'"The great proletarian cultural revolution is not aimed at
struggling against all leading cadres, nor is it aimed at strug-
gling against the masses in any form or under any pretext....
8 (WCA Chrono Cont.)
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Any method of forcing a minority holding different views to sub-
mit is impermissible, The minority should be protected, because
sometimes the truth is with the minority. Even if the miniority
is wrong, it should still "be allo~,red to argue its case and reserve
its views, Every revolutionary comrade should conscientiously
implement the above mentioned decision drawn up under the personal
guidance of Chairman Mao...."
But another article in the same issue of Red Flag, by `'Commentator,"
lauds the Red Guards and glories in"~sccusations that the Red Guards
are young fanatics, violators of hump dignity, and destroyers of
social tradition, "Frankly speaking:, we should not only violate.their
'dignity,' but knock them down sa t the can never rise u a ains.1?
(Nate that this may be a reference tc~ the Soviet protest note of 2
August9 see under August 31 above.} In answer to a reported statement
of Pape Paul that the Red Guards are~'a ''sign of death and not of life,"
Commentator agrees that the Guards she a "sure sign of final destruc~~
tian for class enemies at home and abroad,`' but adds that they are
also a sign that the revolutionary. cause is "infinitely alive."
September 18: NCNA says that over 100,000 Fekin~; Red Guards and reva-
lutianaxy teachers and students are now helping with the harvest in
the outskirts of Peking. Another story says that this is happening in
many parts of the country. NCNA on September 19 seeks to identify the
workers and peasants with the cultural revolution, and cites examples
of increases of production due to the great revolution. "Members of
the people's communes were filled with enthusiasm when the happy news
about Chairman Mao's meeting witl~f the revolutionary young people {on
1~ September] spread through the villages.''
September 18: Sweden holds local elections: the Swedish Communist
Party, which under Carl?Henrik Iiermanssan has been trying to project
a progressive, national-oriented image, increases its vote by 2.~+
percent, raising its total to 6.6 percent. At the same time, the
Social Democratic vote drops from 51 percent to X2.8 percent.
September 18: In North Korea, Ro_ d_ong Shinmoon (according to Pravda}
publishes an editorial an "Trotskyism,: stating that the Trotskyites
"claimed that the improvement of material and cultural conditions of
the people under socialism would lead to corruption and degradation
of the society and create the danger of the restoration of capitalism,"
that they "emphatically objected to combining violent and non violent
methods in the revolutionary struggle," and that they "tried their
utmost to unite their supporters in various countries by inciting them
to engineer a split in the ranks of the international Communist move-
ment." The views ascribed here to the ~otsky"ites appear to be those
currently attributed (at least by the Soviets) to the CCP leaders.
September 19-26: After only two days advance public notice, Leonid
Brezhnev and CPSLT CC Secretary yuriy Andropov leave for a visit to
9 (WCA Chrono Cont.)
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it
Bulgaria. From there they depart on September 22 far Belgrade, and
cantinue an to Budapest on 25 September. Very little is disclosed
about any of these meetings, but the Budapest communique (26 September)
conveys a sharp anti,-American tone and says that bath sides "hold the
same views on the need to insure beace and security 3n Euro$e in accor-
dance with the measures set out ire the Buda est declaration of the
Warsaw Fact states."
September 19: Granma, leading Cuban CP newspaper, publishes a speech
by Armando Hart, made earlier in the month (exact date unknown) at a
secret conference at Santiago de Cuba, charging that Cuban officials
are indecisive and unaggressive, that they are "enclosed in a vicious
circle of constant party reunions" instead of keeping in touch with
the masses, and that farm managers are often dismissed by political
officials who know even less than the men dismissed about agricultural
matters. Hart also says:
"It is not a secret to any Cuban Communist that the world Com-
munist movement is oin thro h a tremendous crisis... This
crisis is not confined., of course, within a polemic between two
parties or a group of parties, but is something deeper and broader.
Qld concepts and habits of revolutionary work are being destroyed.
Many of the erroneous notions [prevalent in Cuba] about Communist
organizational methods are not foreign to this crisis."
September 20-22; The Warsaw Pact powers conduct the highly publicized
Vltava maneuvers in Czechoslovakia, with much propaganda emphasis on
the unity of the Warsaw Pact powers and their military strength. On
2~ September, following the active maneuvers, ceremonies are held at
Ceske Budejovice with speeches by Czech President Pdovotny and Soviet
Marshal Grechko.
September 20: Czech Premier Lenart flies to North Vietnam. His dele-
gation includes the Minister-Chairman of the State Commission for
Technology, Dr. Vlasak, suggesting that aid will be discussed.
September 2O: President Aden Abdullah Osman of Somalia arrives in
Moscow and is met at the airport by Nikolay Podgorniy. The makeup of
the Somalian delegation and remarks made by Podgorniy at a reception
on 22 September suggest that Soviet aid for Somalia forms the main
topic of discussion,
September 22: People's Daily (Peking) shows rage over the refusal of
the Japanese government to grant passports to Japanese youths intending
to take part in a Second Sino-Japanese Youth Friendship Festival;
The Sata government's unreasonable decision is in fact a 'united
action' against China by the U.S. imperialists, the Japanese reactionaries,
and the Soviet modern revisionists plus their followers." Chicom out-
lets cantinue to fulminate against the Japanese decision in succeeding
days.
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September 22: Kamsomolskaya Pravda (daily of the Soviet Communist
Youth League, Moscow reports that Chicom leaders are advising the
Red Guards against interrupting production. (This is the first Soviet
mention of this we have noted.) But KP puts this in the context that
the Red Guards are being told not to attack the bourgeoisie, making it
appear that the CCP leadership is "trying to protect the bourgeoisie
while making no attempt to stop raids an party committees.
September 23: Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko addresses the
United Nations General Assembly in New York. After denouncing U.S.
policy in Vietnam, Gromyko turns his main attention to German and
European security matters, saying: "Europe still remains the barometer
of the world's 'political weather.?' Gromyko admits" that West Germany
could not hope to defeat the USSR and its allies, but says, "if the
Federal Republic cannot win the war it can unleash it, if political
recklessness drives it over the brink." .Among other things, Gramyko
urges that East Germany be admitted to the United Nations.
Se_,,,~tember 23: The Rumanian Vice Minister of Armed Forces, Lt. Gen.
Vasili Ionel arrives in Peking with his wife; according to NCNA they
were invited to spend their vacation there.
September 2~+: A New York Times story from Hong Kong says reports
indicate that the Red Guard reign of terror has been costly in lives
and property. One European diplomat is reported as having seen lynch
mobs in action in the outskirts of Peking and other cities "'systema-
tically beating their victims to death'"; he adds: "'If what i saw
is a sample of what has been happening all over China, then hundreds
of thousands of ~aeonle must have been killed."' Another European, who
had been in central China, said that he saw Red Guards lead "'literally
thousands'" of people out Wuhan and neighboring villages; when the
Red Guards later returned alone, nobody would tell him what had hap-
pened to the people. The Times (25 September) adds, however, that
"Washington analysts" are skeptical about reports of large-scale
killings.
September 25: Foreign trade statistics made public in Moscow indicate
that Soviet non-militar~r exports to North Vietnam came to 67.1 million
rubles in l9 5,~as compared with 42.9 million rubles in 196+. Exports
to China also increased to 172.5 rubles, 50 million rubles (to 203
million rubles) from the 196+ figure. Only 5000 rubles worth to an
export of 860,000 rubles worth of films in 1960.
September 26: East German SED leader Walter Ulbricht arrives in Bel-
grade and is met at the station by Tito, Kardel~, Popovic and Petar
Stasetbvlic. In his reply to Tito's welcoming speech, Ulbricht says:
"We welcome the Yugoslav initiative [in thefield of peace] and in
particular regarding the safeguarding of European security." A TANYUG
release suggests that the Yugoslavs expect to discuss trade relations
as well as political matters.
11 ~I
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