CC CPSU International Department, Note on the China Problem Following the 9th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party

Confidential

The China Problem following the Ninth CCP Congress

The following information constitutes a joint study designated for internal use only, as a result of consultations of the international departments of central committees of the socialist parties of fraternal countries. The draft was prepared by the CC CPSU International Department, presented for consultation, after which some editorial corrections were carried out.

The CC PUWP International Department, March 1970

Introduction:

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Last year revealed new elements in China's domestic and foreign policies. The Ninth CCP Congress held in April 1969 ostensibly legalized the military-bureaucratic regime which was founded during the cultural revolution in the PRC. Without formally breaking with Marxism-Leninism, in reality, Maoism had transformed into a political trend which is hostile to the principles of scientific communism... The Maoists organized armed provocations on the Sino-Soviet border, they came out with a program of full preparations for war and further militarization of China's society. Given the above, we need to conduct deeper analysis of the Chinese events, their causes, sources, and possible prospects.

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The situation is all the more complex since the current stance of the Chinese leadership, which is pitting the PRC against the socialist commonwealth in military and political terms, forces us in many cases to exclude China's material and human potential from the world power of the socialist system. The following [factors] confirm this thesis:

a) Maoist China is blocking the resources of the socialist world (both in terms of numbers and military aspect), especially when ones takes into account armed provocations and war preparations by Beijing on the Sino-Soviet border. At the same time, this gives imperialism the opportunity to maneuver and carry out counterattacks against revolutionary forces;

b) China's current foreign policy is one of the most serious factors of maintaining and deepening the international tensions, and it enables hawkish circles of imperialism to intensify the arms race;

c) The Chinese leadership strives to pit the national liberation movement against the communist movement, it brings about a split to the anti-imperialist front and at the same time weakens and limits its capabilities in the liberation struggle;

d) Since the Maoists considered the USSR, on the par with the US, as the PRC's main enemy, then it should not be excluded that in case of a great conflict between imperialism and socialism, China could stay on the sidelines, while trying to take advantage of this as far as its nationalist goals...

Finally, Maoism continues to influence, exceptionally negatively, the balance of power in terms of ideology. First, while officially representing the banner of Marxism-Leninism, the Chinese leadership with its practice and reactionary concepts (especially inciting nationalism and hailing the views of chauvinism) discredits scientific communism and repels the masses of the capitalist world from socialism. Secondly, while hardly attacking socialist countries and communist parties, the CCP leadership in reality finds itself in the ranks of anti-communist countries...

In the 1970s, and especially in the far future, regardless of future developments in China's domestic events, China will exert influence on the balance of power in the world, on the anti-imperialist struggle, and the entire revolutionary process, and on the historical fate of mankind.

If the CCP leadership continues the current domestic and foreign policies, then the extent of danger, emanating from these polices, will be all the more greater to socialism.

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The China question is one of the greatest problems of the modern age. The communist movement very much wants that the CCP, revived on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, to return to the cooperation with fraternal parties, and for the PRC to follow the road of socialism in the alliance with all world countries of the socialist system. Of course, this will take great efforts, as well as, the extreme and, most likely, a long-term struggle of all communists, especially the Marxist-Leninist and internationalist forces within the CCP.

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Conclusion:

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The development of socialism in China (and in the Third World countries of similar conditions) inevitably leads to the establishment of the "barrack communism" with the extreme suffering and sacrifices of the masses. These arguments need to be critically examined.

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If the Soviet Union, which for thirty years had been the only socialist country in the world and whose proletariat and its communist avant-garde could ultimately rely on an ideology from the outside, then the Chinese working class, the Communist Chinese Party, before and especially after the revolution in 1949, could rely on the fraternal internationalist support of the USSR and other socialist countries. This support ensured the overwhelmingly proletarian tendencies, [posing] that by following a correct policy of the leadership, there would be no bases to leave the path of socialism and to embark on this historical "zigzag" [barrack communism]...

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The events in China are the result of a temporary victory of reactionary tendencies of petty bourgeoisie and one can call them, with full justification, a zigzag in the development of the Chinese society in the history of world socialism.

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While spreading war scare and using social demagogy, Mao Zedong succeeded in cheating the working class to a great degree... and to temporarily unite the most backward strata of society on the basis of nationalism. The opponents [to Mao's group] are split and devoid of any most basic conditions for a political struggle...

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The Marxist-Leninists have no doubt that the Chinese communists and the working class will ultimately put an end to the Maoist order and to bring life in China back based on the theory of scientific communism, and in cooperation with the communist movement and socialist countries.

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While decisively fending off the anti-Leninist political line carried out by Mao Zedong, by undertaking all possible means to thwart his provocations, the socialist countries favor normalizing state relations with the PRC... Precisely, such a policy will lead to the isolation of the Maoist group inside China and will contribute to the consolidation of real Marxist-Leninist forces within the CCP in the struggle for socialist China.

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...We need to carry out the task of thwarting the attempts [by apologists] who romanticize Maoism and justify the falsely understood definition of "the Chinese model of socialism."

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