PEIPING FIGHTS FOR SUPPORT IN THE WORLD COMMUNIST MOVEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A001300040014-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: August 1, 1963
• Content Type: IM

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PANEL DRAFT
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OCI No. 1590/63
1 August 1963
MEMORANDUM: Peiping Fights for Support ,in- the . Wof!ld
Communist Movement
1. The now naked display of enmity and con-
flict between the Soviet and Chinese Communist par-
ties, and the obvious futility of their recently
concluded talks, have brought into sharp focus their
unremitting contest for leadership of the interna-
tional Communist movement. In the talks, neither
side showed any interest in finding a formula-that
would allow for a gradual subsidence of their bitter
contest, but rather attempted to turn this tactical
phase of their deepening conflict to advantage. With
an eye to the most interested audience and the major
prize to be won--the world Communist parties--each
side during the talks turned its massive propaganda
apparatus to the to k of blackening the other. Each
attempted to turn even the rank and file of the other
party against its own leaders. The Chinese have been
particularly active around the world in openly dis-
tributing their polemical material to other parties
in hopes of sparking revolts where the leadership is
pro-Soviet.
2. With the smokescreen behind which they
have attempted to camouflage their activities now
dissipated, each side is now courting support from
other Communist parties with intensified ardor. The
impact of their invigorated competition is corre-
spondingly increasing.
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The Asian Parties
3. Of most significance in this area has
been the increased drift of the North Vietnamese
party away from neutrality and toward fuller sup-
port of Peiping's views. The North Vietnamese may
have been propelled by.a combination of external
and internal pressures to weight the delicate bal-
ance they had maintained in Peiping's favor. Mos-
cow's recent moves toward apparent closer coopera-
tion and partial detente with the US probably have
been influential in causing the change in tone in
Hanoi's discussions of the issues in the Sino-Soviet
dispute. Hanoi probably fears that any Soviet-US
political agreements (as, for example, the nuclear
test ban.) would seriously undercut external Commu-
nist support of the Viet Cong insurrection in South
Vietnam--the success of which is one of its prime
national objectives. The shift toward the Chinese
probably also reflects a growth in the influence of
the extremist wing of North Vietnamese party leaders.
The pro Peiping views of this faction have become
increasingly open during the last few months, while
the wing of the party that is inclined to favor So-
viet views has largely fallen silent.
4. The North Vietnamese traditionally have
demonstrated a strong concern over the potentially
dire effect of a bloc split on world communism, and
such fears doubtless continue to play a major role
in their thinking. They have shown a penchant for
temperate language, and it is likely that the tone
of their propaganda on the dispute will remain less
harsh than North Korea's blatantly pro-Chinese com-
ments. The North Vietnamese will attempt to main-
tain their independent position as long as possible.
Recent developments, however, have made firmer the
tentative conclusion, reached in our earlier paper--
if the North Vietnamese have to face up to the neces-
sity for a final choice they will opt for the Chinese
side.
5. In two small Asian Communist parties out-
side the bloc, pro-Moscow leaders are facing an in-
creasingly serious challenge from Peiping-supported
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activists in the lower ranks. In Ceylon, the Com-
munist Party politburo has reportedly suspended
enrollment of new party members for fear that left-
wing efforts to oust the present leadership were
gaining momentum among junior party members. Dis-
sension in Ceylon's Communist Party is apparently
on the increase, and party leaders postponed last
December's party congress indefinitely to avoid an
airing of Sino-Soviet differences.
7. After the Cuban crisis in October, the
tone of Cuban-leaders' speeches was deliberately
favorable to the Chinese. Whether this reflected
disenchantment with the treatment they had received
at Soviet hands, or was an attempt to pressure new
commitments from Khrushchev, or was a bubbling to
the surface of views which many Cubans hold but re-
press out of consideration of their dependence on
the Soviet Union for economic and political support
is not known. It probably rose out of the inter-
mingling of these three, and other complex, reasons,
In any event, Castro's month-long May visit to the
USSR, where he was accorded an unprecedented public
display of good will, seems to have had the effect
desired by Khrushchev. Castro's hurt pride,was
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clearly assuaged, and, more importantly, Cuba ap-
parently received economic and military commit-
ments from the USSR sufficiently great to induce
it to support Soviet positions on many issues.
Although Cuba now is supporting the Soviet Union,
the volatile and unpredictable nature of Castro's
personality makes it unsafe to assign this as its
permanent role,and we do not expect to hear Cuban
echoes of direct Soviet attacks on the Chinese,
8. Efforts by the Chinese to exploit long-
standing factional strife within Communist parties
is best exemplified on the Latin American scene in
Ecuador, where since May a new open split has de-
veloped in the party.
lit
The recent seizure of power in cua-
or by a mi
ary junta and the subsequent outlawing
of the Ecuadorean Communist Party will probably be
of considerable assistance to the militant faction
in the internal party struggle,
9. Elsewhere in Latin America the Chinese
are stepping up their efforts. In Brazil and Mexico,
where splits in the parties were noted in our 8 May
memorandum, the situation continues to deteriorate.
In other parties, particularly in Uruguay, Chile,
and Peru, continuing problems of minority rank and
file dissatisfaction plague the pro-Soviet leader-
ship.
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Western Europe
10. The Chinese have been as active in West-
ern Europe as in other areas which would be thought
to hold greater promise for their efforts. Pei-
ping's optimism concerning its present and future
prospects in the world movement was given impetus
recently by the tactical victory it scored in Bel-
gium Provided with money and support by the Chi-
nes
11. The factions and splinter groups which
Peiping is so busily encouraging and supporting have
an importance out of proportion to their size. The
Chinese appear to be contemplating, with increasing
complacency, the prospect of a formal split of the
international Communist movement into two parts.
Small though the pro-Peiping factions of various
national parties might be, the Chinese could then
invite all "true Marxist-Leninists" to the founding
conference of a new International, claiming "world-
wide support" against the revisionist and discredited
group led by the Soviet Union.
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