Cable from the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union, 'Some Practices of the Soviet Revisionists on the Vietnam Issue'

[Date stamp]: February 6, 1965

[Stamp] Foreign Ministry Soviet and East Europe Department

Soviet Union #2188

February 6, 1965

[Stamped] Request Soviet and European Department study

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Telegram

Priority: Normal Priority

From Moscow Station

Foreign Ministry (65) No. Si-33

Some Practices of the Soviet Revisionists on the Vietnam Issue

To the Foreign Ministry:

The Soviet Revisionists have been using the following methods to keep up the pretense of their phony support for Vietnam:

1. Fawning over the members of the delegation of the southern Vietnam National Liberation Front. Not only where they received by both Brezhnev and Ponomarev but never-ending rounds of activities have been organized for the permanent representative's office. They were invited to participate in mass rallies held at some Moscow factories to support Vietnam, organized press conferences for them, and took them for trips around the country. The Moscow television broadcasting station invited Dang Quang Minh to give a five minute talk. On the surface, the Soviet Union is allowing the Vietnamese to widely propagandize the Russian people about the struggle of the southern Vietnamese people but in fact is choking off the true voice of the delegation, taking advantage of the opportunity to falsely a supporting position, and to proclaim how the Soviet Union is helping Vietnam. The newspapers did not report the full text of the delegation's declaration. At the recent press conference, Dang Quang Minh spoke for over an hour but Pravda only reported four sentences from his speech and then only in a tricky and deceptive way, trying hard to create the impression that the Soviet Union was giving weapons to southern Vietnam. When the Vietnamese side was invited to participate in mass rallies, the press only printed photographs and news about the event with revealing just what the Vietnamese said.

2. They used “Support Vietnam Week” to boast about their assistance. The Soviet Revisionists recently kept their mouths shut and refused to discuss the Four Positions the Vietnamese side has on solving the Vietnam issue or the declaration of the southern Vietnam National Liberation Front. The Soviet press did, however, emphasize the Soviet Union – Vietnam communique with big headlines about the “big impact” of the Soviet Union's “internationalist support and many kinds of assistance” to Vietnam. They also used the occasion of inter-municipal relay races to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the victory over German fascism to hold a meeting on the margins of the event with peace campaigners from the Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia to hold a rally to propagandize for peace at which they strongly affirmed their support for Vietnam. The Soviet Revisionists recently also donated through the Red Cross some medicine that is in short supply in northern and southern Vietnam along with five jeeps and then boasted that this is their “fraternal assistance” to the people of Vietnam.

3. Their mouths say yes but their hearts say no. The loudly proclaim their support and hide just how phony their support really is and how what they are really doing is selling out. They say that “supporting the people of Vietnam is a vital responsibility of all the peoples of the world” and that to achieve peace and oppose war, “what is needed is an active struggle against U.S. imperialism that started the war” and said in the words of a thief calling out “Catch thief!” that “The people understand from their experience what will be the end result of appeasing an aggressor” and “There should be no more Munichs!” At that very moment, the Soviet Revisionists were warmly receiving the big British capitalist Eden and still continuing to say openly that there was no contradiction between openly proclaiming “peaceful co-existence” and supporting national liberation movement.

4. On the surface they keep saying their empty words about unifying in the face of the enemy while on the inside they continue to actively oppose China. The declaration of the March meeting to support Vietnam says something that the internationalist responsibility of Marxist-Leninist parties is to strive to unite as one to support Vietnam. Reports at some internal meetings continued to be anti-Chinese and to slander us, saying that we are just like the imperialists because we are making anti-Soviet propaganda on the Vietnam issue, deny that the Soviet Union is giving assistance to Vietnam, prevent Soviet material assistance from crossing the border from China into Vietnam, claiming that we are only speaking empty words opposing imperialism but are not assisting Vietnam at all.

[Chinese] Embassy Moscow

May 30, 1965

Distribution: Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen, Chen Yi, Lu Dingyi, Kang Sheng, Luo Ruiqing, Central General Office Confidential Department, Foreign Affairs Office, Central Propaganda Office; Central Liaison Department, Central Investigation Department, Hongqi Magazine, Wu Lengxi, Zhu Muzhi

Liu, Zhang, Luo, Zeng, Meng, Wang, Qiao, Han, Liu, Gong, Dong, Huan, The General Office, Research Department, Division of Soviet and European Affairs (2), Second Asian Division (2), Press, Ambassador, Confidential Office, Archive 56 copies printed

Received on May 31 at 21:18
Transcribed on June 1 at 10:00
Approved on June 1 at 12:00
Printed on June 2 at 11:30