Sino-Soviet Split Document Archive
Source: Text released by New China News
Agency, 22 March 1966.
Transcription:
中国文革研究网 (http://wg1976.net/read.php?tid=18565)
HTML: Adjusted for marxists.org, April 2010.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Dear Comrades,
The Communist Party of China has received the letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dated February 24, 1966, inviting us to send a delegation to attend your Twenty-third Congress as guests.
In normal circumstances, it would be considered an indication of friendship for one Party to invite another fraternal Party to send a delegation to its congress. But around the time you sent this invitation, you distributed an anti-Chinese document in the Soviet Union both inside and outside the Party and organized a whole series of anti-Chinese reports from top to bottom, right down to the basic units, whipping up hysteria against China. Moreover, you sent an anti-Chinese letter to other Parties, instigating them to join you in opposing China. You wantonly vilified the Chinese Communist Party as being "bellicose" and "pseudorevolutionary," as "refusing to oppose imperialism" and "encouraging U.S. imperialist aggression," and as being guilty of "adventurism," "split-tism," "Trotskyism," "nationalism," "great-power chauvinism," "dogmatism," and so on and so forth. You have also been spreading rumors alleging that China "is obstructing aid to Vietnam" and that "China has been encroaching on Soviet territory." You have gone so far as to state that "China is not a socialist country." These anti-Chinese activities all go to show that your present invitation is merely a gesture and is sent with ulterior motives. In these circumstances, how can the Chinese Communist Party which you look upon as an enemy be expected to attend your Congress?
The Chinese Communist Party has attended many of the Congresses of the C.P.S.U. Also, we sent delegations to your Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Congresses, after the Khrushchev revisionist group usurped the leadership of the C.P.S.U. But at the Twentieth Congress of the C.P.S.U., you suddenly lashed out at Stalin. Stalin was a great Marxist-Leninist. In attacking Stalin, you were attacking Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union, Communist Parties, China, the people and all the Marxist-Leninists of the world. At the Twenty-second Congress, you adopted an out-and-out revisionist programme, made a wild public attack on Albania, and reproached the Chinese Communist Party, so that the head of our delegation had to leave for home while the Congress was only half way through.
Russia is the native land of Leninism and used to be the centre of the international working-class movement. After Stalin's death, the leaders of C.P.S.U. headed by Khrushchev gradually revealed their true features as betrayers of Lenin and Leninism and embarked on the old path of the German Social Democrats Bernstein and Kautsky, who betrayed Marx and Engels and Marxism. As a result, the leadership of the C.P.S.U. has become the centre of modern revisionism.
Over the last ten years, we have made a series of efforts in the hope that you would return to the path of Marxism-Leninism. Since Khrushchev's downfall, we have advised the new leaders of the C.P.S.U. on a number of occasions to make a fresh start. We have done everything we could, but you have not shown the slightest repentance.
Since coming to power, the new leaders of the C.P.S.U. have gone farther and farther down the road of revisionism, splittism and great-power chauvinism. The moment you came to power, you declared that you would resolutely carry out the Khrushchev revisionist general line of the Twentieth and Twenty-second Congresses. You told us to our faces that there was not a shade of difference between Khrushchev and yourselves on the question of the international communist movement or of relations with China. Far from publicly retracting the anti-Chinese Open Letter of July 1963 and the anti-Chinese report and resolution of February 1964, you have intensified your activities against China by more insidious tactics. Despite the tricks you have been playing to deceive people, you are pursuing U.S.-Soviet collaboration for the domination of the world with your whole heart and soul. In mouthing a few words against U.S. imperialism and in making a show of supporting anti-imperialist struggles, you are conducting only minor attacks on U.S. imperialism while rendering it major help. In following this tactic you very well know what you are up to, and so does U.S. imperialism. Your clamour for "united action," especially on the Vietnam question, is nothing but a trap for the purpose of deceiving the Soviet people and the revolutionary people of the world. You have all along been acting in coordination with the United States in its plot for peace talks, vainly attempting to sell out the struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. aggression and for national salvation, and to drag the Vietnam question into the orbit of Soviet-U.S. collaboration. You have worked hand in glove with the United States in a whole series of dirty deals inside and outside the United Nations. In close coordination with the counterrevolutionary "global strategy" of U.S. imperialism, you are now actively trying to build a ring of encirclement around socialist China. Not only have you excluded yourselves from the international united front of all peoples against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys, you have even aligned yourselves with U.S. imperialism, the main enemy of the people of the world, and the reactionaries of all countries in a vain attempt to establish a Holy Alliance against China, against the people, against the national liberation movement, and against the Marxist-Leninists. Disregarding the opposition of many fraternal Parties, you convened the divisive Moscow meeting of March 1965. This was an extremely grave step to bring about an open split in the international communist movement. We demanded that you openly admit that the convening of the divisive Moscow meeting was wrong and illegal. Up to now you have not done so.
We would like to inform you explicitly that since you have gone so far, the Chinese Communist Party, as a serious Marxist-Leninist Party, cannot send its delegation to attend this Congress of yours.
We are confident that in all parts of the world including the Soviet Union, the masses of the people, who constitute over 90 percent of the population, are for revolution and against imperialism and its lackeys. In the ranks of the international communist movement including the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, over 90 percent of the Communists and cadres will eventually march along the path of Marxism-Leninism. The revolutionary people of the world, the great international communist movement, the great socialist camp, and the great peoples of China and the Soviet Union will eventually sweep away all obstacles and unite on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. The Soviet people may rest assured that once the Soviet Union meets with imperialist aggression and puts up resolute resistance, China will definitely stand side by side with the Soviet Union and fight against the common enemy.
With fraternal greetings,
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China