STAGE IN CHINESE-SOVIET RIFT
With the publication of a long editorial in the February 27 People's Daily and a 100,000 word “Reply to Comrade Togliatti," subi ished In Sous installments in Red Flag, the Chinese Communist party leadership brought their differences with the Khrushchev grouping to a new and sharper stage.
Recent moves in Moscow suggesting that the Chinese proposal for an international conference of all Communist parties might be acceptable, provided that preliminary bilateral discussions were held, had led to speculation that Khrushchev might proffer some kind of economic concessions and that the Chinese might agree to | a bargain which would again cover up the main differences. Peking’s move puts an end to these speculations.
While the Chinese leaders do not reject out of hand Khrushcheyv's demand for "bilateral contacts" prior to a world conference, they demand a series of concessions that could not be accepted by Khrushchev without a retreat of such proportions as to concede to Peking the paramount ideological role in the Chinese-Soviet alliance. —
The demands include accepting the Albanians as equals while excluding the Yugoslavs as "traitors” and agreeing that the 1960 Declaration, which both Peking and Moscow signed, is still correct in maintaining that ideologically the “main danger" that faces the Communist movement today is "revisionism" and not “sectarianisn."
Until we receive the texts of the new documents, we will not ‘attempt a rounded appraisal of this new development in the dispute. However, it is apparent even from the sketchy summaries in the daily press that one accusation is of far-reaching import: the charge that the shchev leadership resorted to economic reprisais against revolutionary China.
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"Certain comrades,” the editorial in the Peopie's Vaiiy is reported to have said, “lost no time after the Bucharest conference {June 1960] in mounting economic and political pressure against China, in breaking unilaterally and in a perfidious way, hundreds of Se pouente ae contracts which had been made with a friendly country.
It will be recalled that in 1960 the bourgeois press was filled with stories about the sudden withdrawal of Soviet technicians from China and the abrupt abandonment of hundreds of important projects throughout the country, some of which were nearing comple~ tion. No confirmation of these stories was available at the time iin either Peking or Moscow.
The substantial accuracy of the accounts is now eyident. This, however, casts new light on the great difficulties and ever sethacics “ 1 2 in China which have just as consisten, 4, been reported in the bourgeois press the past couple of years. Peking has ascribed ths eauses primaridy to catastrophic weather conditions.
To the surmises that the difficulties were due to bad plamning and to mismanagement, as well as such things as floods and droughts. must now be added what amounted in effect to sabotage from Moscow. In a delicately poised balance, this factor alone could have been decisive in tripping up China's "great leap" forward.
The Khrushchev faction has not yet offered a xeply to Peking’‘s extremely grave charge. It would seem quite difficult to avoid answering, however. A number of underdeveloped countries will want to lImow the truth about what really happened and above all whether there ‘was the slightest shred of justification for such punishment as abruptly ending aid to a socialist country.
L'Humanité, daily newspaper of the French Communist party and a strong supporter of Khrushchev, did rush into print February 28 ‘with a summary of an article on Sino-Soviet trade which appeared in the Soviet magazine oor ate Trade. This curious article offsrs a balance sheet on aid given by the Soviet Union to China, but it carefully refrains from giving an annual breakdown of the statistice. It publishes only the over-all figures for the entire period from 1955 to 1960.
The next issue of Quatri ine Internationale, official publication of the Internationa cutive Committee of the Fourth International, which is now on the press, will carry an article by E. - Germain on economic developments in China for the past five years. Figures compiled by Germain would confirm the charge that economic reprisals were undertaken by the Kremlin.
: Germain shows that the total volume of Sino-Soviet trade fell '. from 8.2 billion rubles in 1959 to 6.7 billion in 1960 and 3.3 . billion in 1961.
Total Soviet sxports of wechinery and equipment to Chine wore cus by move than four-fifths, falling from $597 million in 1958 to $108 million in 1961.
NEW ZEALAND COMMUNIST PARTY