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ITALIANS BLOCKED KREMLIN AT MARCH 1 MOSCOW MEETING
Among the leading circles of the 19 Communist parties who sent representatives to the March 1 meeting in Moscow [see World Outlook March 5] information is now being passed on as to what occurred there,
Before the delegates left, the participating parties received two documents drafted by the leaders of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. One was a resolution written in accordance with the Kremlin's line of severe condemnation of the Chinese; the other was a proposed letter convoking a conference of all the Communist parties.
Although a number of parties were not enthusiastic about the line proposed by the Russians, it was only the Italian Communist party that undertook to oppose it. The Italians criticized the political document and reaffirmed their well-known position against any early convocation of an international conference.
As usual, it was the French delegates, especially Jean Kanapa, who took a hard line, attacking the Italians, and even permitting some of the Soviet delegates to appear as moderates. At one point, a Soviet leader went so far as to remind Kanapa about the internal difficulties in the Italian Communist party and the prob-— lems posed by the existence of a strong Socialist party in Italy.
Before the end of the meeting a particularly virulent attack was launched against the Italian Communist party by one of the Polish delegates.
The Italians even declared that they would not sign any document without authorization from their leadership.
Finally a compromise was reached, favoring the Italian view. The political document was considerably modified before being made public and the idea of a letter calling for a conference was dropped. After waiting two days, a favorable reply was received from Rome to sign the document (with the reservation that the Italian leadership issue a parallel declaration).
The Cubans, it is reported, did not decide to attend until the last minute. It was quite clear that they were interested in only one thing, to get the situation in Vietnam placed on the agenda. The document finally adopted on this was the one they proposed. They considered all the rest to be useless arguments in which they did not seriously participate.