The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) – CPSU(B)

Leader, teach, friend

Leader, teach, friend

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The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) – CPSU(B)

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) – CPSU(B) was a Party of a new kind. Based upon the principals of Marxism-Leninism it led the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union in the struggle to build a Socialist society in a sixth of the world’s land mass.

Further speeches and reports from other CPSU(B) (and its predecessors) conferences and congresses can be found in the collected works of VI Lenin and JV Stalin.

Report of the XV Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, CPGB, London, 1928, 415 pages.

From the First to the Second Five-Year Plan, a Symposium, J Stalin, V Molotov, L Kaganovich, K Voroshilov and others, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow, 1933, 490 pages.

The Revolutionary Crisis is Maturing, DZ Manuilsky, report to the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on behalf of the Delegation of the CPSU in the Communist International, Workers Library Publishers, New York, 1934, 48 pages.

On the Organization of Party Propaganda in connection with the publication of the History of the CPSU(B) Short Course, FLPH, Moscow, 1939, 1976 reprint, 23 pages.

On the Organisation of Party Propaganda, CPSU(B), 1939, e-format, 22 pages.

The Land of Socialism Today and Tomorrow, Reports and speeches at the 18th Congress of the CPSU(B), March 10-21 1939, FLPH, Moscow, 1939, 488 pages.

Report to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) on the Work of the Central Committee, JV Stalin, March 10, 1939, FLPH, Moscow, 1951, 108 pages.

The Growing Prosperity of the Soviet Union, N Voznesensky, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, USSR, delivered at the 18th All Union Conference of the Soviet Union February 18 1941, Workers Library Publishers, New York, 1941, 48 pages.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Syllabus for six lectures on the history of the CPSU, with notes on reading, CPGB, London, 1942, 31 pages.

History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) – short course, edited by a commission of the CC of the CPSU(B), Cobbett Publishing, London, 1943, 345 pages.

History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, FLPH, Moscow, 1945, 364 pages.

The structure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), FLPH, Moscow, 1951, 39 pages.

Report to the Nineteenth Party Congress of the work of the Central Committee of the CPSU(B), G Malenkov, FLPH, Moscow,1952, 147 pages.

Reports to the Nineteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Soviet Leaders Speak for Communism and Peace, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lavrenty Beria, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, New Century Publishers, New York, 1952, 49 pages.

Speech at the 19th Party Congress, JV Stalin, October 14, 1952, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, 20 pages. One of the last public speeches and appearances before his death in March 1953.

Report on the directives of the XIXth Party Congress relating to the Fifth Five-year Plan for the development of the USSR in 1951-1955, M Saburov, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, 72 pages.

50th anniversary of the CPSU, 1903-1953, FLPH, Moscow, 1953, 18 pages.

Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Volume 1, The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1974, 338 pages.

Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Volume 2, The Early Soviet Period, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1974, 396 pages.

Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Volume 3, The Stalin years 1929-1953, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1974, 339 pages.

Attempts to revive a Revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in Russia

Programmatic Proclamation of the Soviet Revolutionary Communists (Bolsheviks). (This programmatic proclamation has been distributed in the Soviet Union by the Soviet Bolshevik Communists.), originally Published by Red Star Press, London, 1975. November 8th Publishing House, Toronto, 2022, 102 pages.

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21st December – Anniversary of the birth of Comrade Stalin

At the Helm of State

At the Helm of State

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21st December – Anniversary of the birth of Comrade Stalin

‘Congratulating Stalin [on his birthday] is not a formality. Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, supporting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help.’ Chairman Mao, Stalin, Friend of the Chinese People, December 20, 1939, in Selected Works, Volume 2, pp 335-336.

The 21st December has long been the day when Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, throughout the world, have celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili – better known to history as Comrade Joseph Stalin.

The aim here is not to provide a biography of Comrade Stalin ( a number of biographies, memories and reminiscences more than adequately fill that gap in people’s knowledge) but to make a number of points why – 141 years after his birth and 67 years after his death – the life of this great leader of the working class deserves to be celebrated and his works and achievements studied to greater understand the difficulties of the task of achieving the Socialist revolution and the eventual construction of a Communist society.

For, by celebrating the life of Comrade Stalin, the exploited and oppressed workers and peasants of the world are, to an extent, celebrating themselves, their struggles and their desire for a better life.

How different individuals react to the life and work of Comrade Stalin is a litmus test to their political viewpoint. He is constantly vilified by capitalist and imperialist representatives, by their toadying media, by the treacherous Social Democrats of the likes of the British Labour Party, the revisionists and ‘capitalist-roaders’ who have usurped power in the erstwhile socialist countries, and the Trotskyites – who exist within the working class movement (worldwide) as a ‘Fifth Column’ to undermine and betray any chance of a successful revolution. How you see Comrade Stalin puts you into either the revolutionary or the counter-revolutionary camp.

Many of those counter-revolutionary tendencies mentioned will argue they are more concerned about the ‘excesses’ made during the construction of Socialism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Whether those ‘excesses’ are at the level often claimed, were as a result of the intense class struggle taking place during the turbulent years after 1917 until Stalin’s death in 1953 or were caused by mistakes of judgement or policy (which did happen) is not really the point.

What Stalin, the Communist Party and the people of the Soviet Union were attempting to create was a new world order that was without the parasitical and destructive exploitative systems (culminating in capitalism) which had been causing unimaginable harm in every corner of the globe for centuries – and are still doing so till this day. All those systems have traversed the globe like the Angel of Death, leaving suffering and misery in its wake.

What Stalin was doing by establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union was to create a situation where the working class, in alliance with the poor peasantry, would be able to create the conditions where the seeds of Socialism would find fertile soil. Only a fool (and there are more than enough of them to go around) would have said that 100% of the population of the first ever Socialist State (here not forgetting the magnificent example of the Paris Commune of 1871) would immediately discard the ideological baggage of centuries of oppression and exploitation.

The first decrees penned by VI Lenin and then widely circulated on 8th November 1917 promised to fulfil the three demands that had been growing throughout Russia for more than a year – that of the end of the war, land to the peasants and food for the population in general. However, although these demands would benefit the vast majority of the population of the country there were still sizeable numbers who saw this as a threat to their own existence.

Monarchists, the large and small capitalists, the petite-bourgeoisie, the rich peasants (known as kulaks), gangsters, thieves and all those other sections of society who benefit from a capitalist society (willingly supported by the capitalist nations of the world who, ignoring their ‘differences’ of the previous four years which resulted in the slaughter of the war of 1914-1918) all joined together in an effort to strangle the nascent workers’ and peasants’ socialist state.

This led to a hugely expensive (in terms of lives and material) Civil War which the Soviets eventually won – but this did not mean that the enemy was totally defeated. Those counter-revolutionary forces changed tactics and continued to attempt to destroy the Socialist state through assassination, sabotage and various other tactics to undermine the construction of socialism.

Due to the fact that Comrade Lenin‘s life was shortened by an assassination attempt in 1918 the task of leading the country forward along the road to Socialism fell to Comrade Stalin. And he was faced with the problem of doing so in the face of numerous opposition forces within (and without) the country.

We should remember that it wasn’t Comrade Stalin who invented the concept of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. The term was coined by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels when they realised that the only way to overcome the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie was for the workers to construct a state form that was capable of defeating capitalism. This concept was further strengthened with their analysis of the defeat of the Paris Commune during ‘Bloody Week’ at the end of May 1871.

It was from his study of the successes and failures of the Paris Commune that Comrade Lenin then developed those ideas which were to be the guiding force for the October Revolution of 1917 and which are published in his important work State and Revolution. Lenin realised that any future revolution would be doomed to failure if it failed to learn from the experiences in Paris and determined that the fate of the revolutionary workers of Russia would not be that of their international comrades who died against the wall of the Père Lachaise cemetery in 1871.

Comrade Stalin was merely following the path signposted by the great revolutionaries who had preceded him. As he was always at pains to stress he was merely a pupil of these great theoreticians. But he was the pupil who had to put their ideas into practice in a country where the workers had the power to do so for the first time ever. (And those who argue that the situation would have been different if Comrade Lenin had lived further into the 1920s have obviously never read any of Lenin’s post-October Revolution writings.)

It is for putting the dictatorship of the proletariat into practice and attempting to crush any vestige of capitalism in the Soviet Union that Comrade Stalin is so vilified. That was in the past, during the present and will be in the future as capitalism seeks to undermine the confidence of the working class that they can build a new future and to create false fears for their ever trying to do so.

Comrade Stalin learnt very early on that, as Chairman Mao was to write in 1927, ‘a revolution is not a dinner party’, Chairman Mao, Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, p8.

As an illustration of this understanding of the revolutionary reality it’s worth referencing a short message he sent to the OGPU (the Joint State Political Directorate, i.e., the internal security forces) on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of their foundation, on 20th December 1932, where he described them as ‘the bared sword of the working class’. JV Stalin, Works, Volume 13, p160.

One of the other possible reasons for the hatred that capitalism has for Comrade Stalin was that, of all the great Marxist leaders, he was the only one who came from a background for whom revolutionary Marxism became the way out of their oppression and exploitation – became ‘the theory of the working class’.

He was born into poverty and in his early revolutionary activity he was able to establish an instant rapport with those workers with whom he came into contact. He wasn’t an intellectual who came from ‘outside’ to tell what workers had to do. He was one of them and had experienced what they were going through. This remained with him when he became the leader of the Party and the country – and was also one of the reasons he gained support within the Party when there were attempts by the Trotskyites and others, from the ‘Left’ or the ‘Right’ Oppositions, to stage a coup against the Marxist-Leninist leadership.

But, again, Comrade would have taken pride in being attacked by these odious entities. As Chairman Mao wrote in 1939;

‘To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing’. Chairman Mao, Selected Works, Volume 6.

In following this previously untravelled road did Comrade Stalin make mistakes or, on occasion, lose track of what were the main issues? The answer would have to be yes – but it is very difficult to quantify it even though Chairman Mao reportedly classified Comrade Stalin’s ‘record’ as ‘70% good to 30% bad’. And it’s always easy to criticise with the benefit of hindsight. If something was done incorrectly in the past then for any criticism to be valid there would have to be a suggestion of how matters could have been handled differently.

For most of its revolutionary existence (which I consider to be between 1917 and 1953) the Soviet Union was alone, completely alone. It was barely a year old before 14 capitalist nations who had spent the previous 4 years trying to destroy one another got together to invade the new Socialist state in support of the Old Regime ‘Whites’ – a bunch of marauding murderers who acted in the same way as the invading Nazis just over twenty years later.

Having defeated the reactionary forces the construction of a Socialist society was an uphill struggle, fraught with difficulties. But many of those difficulties were overcome and, at the time of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution the country was indistinguishable from what it had been under the yoke of Tsarism.

Stalin was very much aware of the threat from the Fascists (permitted to get to their position of strength due to the lack of purpose of the so-called ‘democratic’ capitalist states who saw the threat of Socialism/Communism as greater than that of militaristic fascism). The writings of Comrade Stalin from the 1930s clearly demonstrate that the threat to the Soviet Union from external, as well as internal, forces was very well understood. As a consequence of the need to be as fully prepared as possible and to put the threat as far into the future as could be managed – hence the 1939 Non-Aggression pact with the Hitlerites – he was always aware of the danger. That then determined domestic policy, with the collectivisation and industrialisation of the country.

Even anti-Communist anti-Fascists admit the contribution of the Soviet Union in the defeat of the Nazis in the so-called ‘Second World War’ but how effective would the Soviet Union had been without all that had developed in the politics, economy and culture from 1928 to 1941? And if Comrade Stalin is to take the blame for some of the things that happened in that period who is to take the credit?

This is where those who place so much emphasis on an individual over an extended period of time come a cropper. And if not careful they will just characterise the working class as mere pawns in a larger game rather than the movers and shakers of history since the dominance of capitalism in the economic sphere. The October Revolution wouldn’t have happened without Comrade Lenin but Lenin didn’t make the revolution. Likewise with the unique and rapid changes that occurred in, more or less, a ten year period in the late 1920s into the 1930s. Is the defeat of fascism conceivable without Comrade Stalin? Would it have happened if Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev or any of the other of the top pre-October revolution leaders of the Bolshevik Party had been at the helm?

Don’t matters have to be placed in context?

And unfortunately, tragically, those countries and regimes who subsequently criticised Stalin are no longer around to justify their stance.

When it comes to any discussion about Comrade Stalin it’s almost obligatory to talk about the so-called ‘personality cult’. That’s not because it’s important in itself, not because it has any real validity in the debate, it’s just that by repeating a lie so often and over so long a period of time it has became part of ‘Stalinist’ folklore.

The question of iconography in a Socialist society is a difficult one. Each Socialist society developed its public images and statuary in a different manner, depending upon the specific culture. And, due to adverse factors, this is a debate that is on hold for the moment as capitalism is presently in control of the public space.

One of the first decrees of the new Soviet Union was one relating to public monuments. This was dated 12th April 1918 and was signed by VI Lenin, A Lunarcharsky and JV Stalin. It decreed that all Tsarist related monuments be removed and monuments commemorating the recent (October) revolution be erected in their place.

However, over a period of time that erection of public monuments started to become slightly atrophied into the erection of statues to the great Marxist theoreticians or leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. That was probably a mistake but at the same time there’s an argument for it, as there was for the construction of the mausoleum for Lenin in Red Square in Moscow. As time went on that meant there were many thousands of public monuments to Comrade Stalin throughout the Soviet Union. A failing as it seemed to happen by default rather than design. Nonetheless what these statues are demonstrating is not just the individual but the political ideology they represent.

If we look at capitalist countries the iconography is often similar but with the same purpose – as a propaganda tool to try to sell the dominant ideology.

In Christian countries you couldn’t move before falling over a church and crosses. That changed when those buildings became too expensive to maintain and were either demolished or turned into flats. In Moslem countries you can’t move without falling over a mosque.

(In Albania, since the restoration of capitalism in the early 1990s, you can’t move for a new church (Catholic or Greek Orthodox) or a Mosque. I encountered some Albanians when I first visited the country who complained about the amount of concrete that went into the famous bunkers that existed throughout the country. The argument was that this was using concrete that could be used for houses – whether that argument was valid I have my doubts. However, in the last twenty of so years the amount of materials and general resources spent in building religious structures has far outweighed what went into a cheap form of national defence – and there’s not a dicky bird about taking resources away from other projects.)

In the United States every federal building, government office, post office, state school, etc., has a picture/s of the current President. The statue of Lincoln at the Memorial named after him in Washington DC is six metres high. There are faces of four past Presidents carved into the side of a mountain at Mount Rushmore. There are big bas reliefs of Confederate Generals in hills all over the southern states.

In Britain there are statues of the monarchy (i.e., the most vicious and powerful thugs and gangsters of their time) throughout the country, together with those individuals who had made their ‘fortunes’ out of the rape, theft and exploitation of peoples throughout the world, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

A similar situation will exist in other capitalist-imperialist countries and has been for many centuries. It’s only in recent times, especially in the last year, that the existence of some of these monuments and their existence is being challenged – mainly as more people become aware of the issues surrounding Trans-Atlantic slavery. That’s all well and good but there still will remain statues/buildings/streets named after those who became wealthy at the ‘legitimate’ trade of capitalism, those factory, mill and mine owners who sucked the blood from men, women and children in the expanding industrial centres throughout Britain.

This just goes to demonstrate that what goes on the streets is complex and fits in with the situation of a particular country at a particular stage of its development.

I, personally, favour the approach adopted by the Albanians which are documented in the monuments as part of the Albanian Lapidar Survey, conducted in the last ten years.

So we should put the ‘cult of the personality’ into context.

These are all important matters and should be studied and investigated by revolutionaries but in order to learn and not to denigrate Comrade Stalin – one of the greatest champions the workers and peasants of the world have ever had.

Long live the memory of Comrade Stalin!

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The Great Debate between Revolutionary China and the Revisionist Soviet Union

Mao Tse-tung and Enver Hoxha

Mao Tse-tung and Enver Hoxha

More on China …..

The Great Debate between Revolutionary China and the Revisionist Soviet Union

In just under three years after the death of Joseph Stalin (in March 1953) the Soviet Revisionists, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, had enough confidence in their strength to be able to denounce Stalin (but basically all the revolutionary developments in Soviet society since the October Revolution of 1917) at a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held in February 1956.

The calculated manner in which this denunciation was planned caused confusion in the International Communist Movement (obviously the aim) and allowed those cowards and social democrats who had been allowed to wheedle themselves into Communist Parties throughout the world to throw their hands up in horror and create even more confusion – with the result that the movement was weakened worldwide.

Khrushchev’s speech was just the start of the attack upon revolutionary Socialism, Marxism-Leninism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The lack lustre defence of those principles by the majority of the Communist and Workers Parties throughout the world (or at least in the majority of their leadership and a not inconsiderable number of the members) only served to encourage the Soviet revisionists to go further in their destruction of socialism and the restoration of capitalism in the first workers and peasants socialist state. One of the victims of that development was Khrushchev himself who was thrown out when he had done what was needed at the time. He quickly reached his sell by date.

Only two parties in the position of holding state power were united on the struggle against the revisionists – the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labour of Albania. Below are pamphlets produced by the Chinese Party which record what was to become known as the ‘International Polemic’ – an ideological battle between revolutionaries and revisionists which pleased capitalism and imperialism but which, ultimately, made revolutionary forces throughout the world stronger in that the issues of what separated revolutionaries from the rest were clearly delineated.

In China this ideological struggle was further developed during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 – initiated by Chairman Mao Tse-tung as the only opportunity for the workers and peasants to remain in control of the society they had been building since 1949. This debate was also carried on in the pages of the magazines produced at the time, principally the weekly political and informative magazine Peking Review but also in China Reconstructs and China Pictorial.

The standpoint of the Party of Labour of Albania can be read in the many documents they produced from the 1950s onwards (into the 1980s) as well as the pages of the monthly, theoretical magazine Albania Today and the writings of the Albanian leader, Enver Hoxha.

Prelude

The Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the response of the CPC to Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956. Published in Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] on April 5, 1956.

The Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, annotated.

More on the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship, a summary of a discussion at an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China focusing on the question of Stalin, which appeared in Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] on December 29, 1956. (London: CPGB, 1957), 32 pages.

Collections of Early Documents

In Refutation of Modern Revisionism, 7 major editorials and articles from May-June 1958. (Peking: FLP, 1958), 102 pages. Consists of the following documents:

  • Resolution on the Moscow Meetings of Representatives of Communist and Workers’ Parties, adopted May 23, 1958 by the 2nd Session of the 8th National Congress of the CCP.
  • Modern Revisionism Must Be Repudiated, Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] editorial of May 5, 1958.
  • Modern Revisionism Must Be Fought To The End, Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] editorial of June 4, 1958.
  • Yugoslav Revisionism — Product of Imperialist Policy, by Chen Po-ta, Hongqi [Red Flag], June 1, 1958 issue.
  • Yugoslav Revisionism Is Just What U.S. Imperialism Needs, by Kang Sheng, Renmin Ribao, June 14, 1958. In Refutation of Modern Revisionism’s Reactionary Theory of the State, by Wang Chia-hsiang, Hongqi, June 16, 1958 issue.
  • The More They Try to Hide, the More They are Exposed — On Tito’s Speech of June 15, by Renmin Ribao Commentator, June 26, 1958.

Whence the Differences? a large book containing most of the early English language articles and pamphlets in the condemnation of revisionism that were published in China. [This new title is on the photographic reprint of the volume done by New Era publishers in Bath, England around 1970. The original edition published in China is entitled Workers of All Countries, Unite, Oppose Our Common Enemy! (Peking: FLP, 1963)], 402 pages. Consists of the following documents:

Workers of All Countries, Unite, Oppose our Common Enemy!, Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] editorial, Dec. 15, 1962.

The Differences Between Comrade Togliatti and Us, Renmin Ribao editorial, Dec. 31, 1962. Leninism and Modern Revisionism, Hongqi [Red Flag] editorial, No. 1, 1963.

Let Us Unite on the Basis of the Moscow Declaration and the Moscow Statement, Renmin Ribao editorial, Jan. 27, 1963.

Whence the Differences? — A Reply to Thorez and Other Comrades, Renmin Ribao editorial, Feb. 27, 1963.

More on the Differences Between Comrade Togliatti and Us, by the editorial department of Hongqi, Nos. 3-4, 1963.

  • I. Introduction
  • II. The nature of the present great debate among communists
  • III. Contradictions in the contemporary world
  • IV. War and peace
  • V. The state and revolution
  • VI. Despise the enemy strategically, take him seriously tactically
  • VII. A struggle on two fronts
  • VIII. Workers of all countries, unite!

A Comment on the Statement of the Communist Party of the U.S.A., Renmin Ribao editorial, March 8, 1963.

A Mirror for Revisionists, Renmin Ribao editorial, March 9, 1963.

Documents of the Communist Party of China, The Great Debate, Volume 1, 1956-1963, Foreign Languages Press, Paris, 2021, 560 pages.

The Documents of the Great Debate, Volume 1, February 1956 – June 1963, Antararashtriya Prakashan, Saharanpur, India, 2005, 430 pages.

The Documents of the Great Debate, Volume 2, February 1956 – June 1963, Antararashtriya Prakashan, Saharanpur, India, 2005, 368 pages.

The Documents of the Great Debate, Volume 3, February 1956 – June 1963, Antararashtriya Prakashan, Saharanpur, India, 2005, 298 pages.

Individual Early Pamphlets

Long Live Leninism, (Peking: FLP, 1960) Consists of three parts:

  • Long Live Leninism!, by the Editorial Department of Hongqi.
  • Forward Along the Path of the Great Lenin!, by the Editorial Department of Renmin Ribao.
  • Unite Under Lenin’s Revolutionary Banner, by Lu Ting-yi. 58 pages

The Struggle Between Two Lines at the Moscow World Congress of Women, six statements, articles and reports. (Peking: FLP, 1963), 70 pages. [Our apologies for the darkened paper in the copy scanned, though it is still quite legible.]

The Truth About How the Leaders of the CPSU have Allied Themselves with India against China, by the Editorial Department of Renimin Ribao [People’s Daily], Nov. 2, 1963, and including an article reprinted from Pravda as an appendix. (Peking: FLP, 1963), 60 pages.

Formal Inter-Party Letters

A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement: The Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963, June 14, 1963, (Peking: FLP, 1963), 124 pages. Includes as appendices 3 letters from the the CC of the CPSU (Feb. 21, 1963; March 9, 1963; and March 30, 1963). This is one of the most important and most famous documents in the entire history of the world Communist movement.

Seven Letters Exchanged Between the Central Committees of the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, (Peking: FLP, 1964), 84 pages. Includes 4 letters from the CC of the CCP in 1964 (Feb. 20; Feb. 27; Feb. 29; and May 7) and 3 letters from the CC of the CPSU (Nov. 29, 1963; Feb. 22, 1964; and March 7, 1964).

Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Dated June 15, 1964, July 28, 1964, (Peking: FLP, 1964), 60 pages. (Includes the CPSU letter being responded to.)

Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Dated July 30, 1964, August 30, 1964, (Peking: FLP, 1964), 24 pages. (Includes the CPSU letter being responded to.)

Letter of Reply Dated March 22, 1966 of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, (Peking: FLP, 1966), 16 pages. (Includes the CPSU letter of Feb. 24, 1966 being responded to.)

The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement

The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement published in Peking by the Foreign Languages Press in 1965, 604 pages.

Individual articles in this collection, most of which are Comments on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and are jointly written by the editorial departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi, are also available here in individual pamphlet form:

Documents of the Communist Party of China, The Great Debate, Volumes I and II. 1956-1964, Foreign Languages Press, Paris, 2022, 1,154 pages.

Other Pamphlets from the Great Debate

A Comment on the March Moscow Meeting, by the editorial departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi, March 23, 1965, 42 pages.

A Great Victory for Leninism – In Commemoration of the 95th Anniversary of the Birth of Lenin, Hongqi [Red Flag] editorial, #4, 1965. (Peking: FLP, 1965), 19 pages.

Carry the Struggle Against Khrushchov Revisionism Through to the End – On the Occasion of the Second Anniversary of the Publication of ‘A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement’, by the editorial departments of Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) and Hongqi [Red Flag], June 14, 1965, 24 pages. [Our apologies; we were unable to remove part of the underlining in this pamphlet.]

Refutation of the New Leaders of the CPSU on ‘United Action’, by the editorial departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi, Nov. 11, 1965, 44 pages.

The Leaders of the CPSU are Betrayers of the Declaration and Statement, by the editorial department of Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily], Dec. 20, 1965, 16 pages.

Confessions Concerning the Line of Soviet-U.S. Collaboration Pursued by the New Leaders of the CPSU, by Commentator in Hongqi [Red Flag], Feb. 11, 1966, (Peking: FLP, 1966), 24 pages.

Some Questions Concerning Modern Revisionist Literature in the Soviet Union, by Hsiang Hung and Wei Ning. Also includes Selected Statements by Sholokhov, the Renegade Author, compiled by Chang Chun, and The True Features of the Renegade Sholokhov, by Tsai Hui. (Peking: FLP, 1966), 72 pages.

Smash the Big U.S.-Soviet Conspiracy! by Observer of Renmin Ribao, Feb. 20, 1967, about collusion and joint attempts by the U.S. and the Soviet Union to end the revolutionary war in south Vietnam. (Peking: FLP, 1967), 22 pages.

Advance Along the Road Opened Up by the October Socialist Revolution: In Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, by the editorial departments of Renmin Ribao, Hongqi and Jiefangjun Bao [Liberation Army Daily], Nov. 6, 1967, 40 pages. Includes also Comrade Lin Piao’s Speech at the Peking Rally Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution, Nov. 6, 1967.

How the Soviet Revisionists Carry Out All-Round Restoration of Capitalism in the U.S.S.R., reference material from articles in Renmin Ribao and from Hsinhua News Agency, (Peking: FLP, 1968), 88 pages.

Total Bankruptcy of Soviet Modern Revisionism, six articles including two speeches by Chou En-lai, August-September 1968. (Peking: FLP, 1968), 92 pages.

Ugly Performance of Self-Exposure, by Chung Jen, originally published in Chinese in Renmin Ribao, August 14, 1969. (Peking: FLP, 1969), 24 pages.

An Outspoken Revelation, Hsinhua News Agency, April 16, 1970 dispatch. (Peking: FLP, 1970),  22 pages.

Leninism or Social-Imperialism? – In Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of the Great Lenin, by the editorial departments of Renmin Ribao, Hongqi and Jiefangjun Bao, April 22, 1970, 78 pages.

Cheap Propaganda, 5 commentaries by Hsinhua Correspondent about hypocritical calls by the Soviet Union for disarmament, August-December 1973, 40 pages. (Peking: FLP, 1974)

Ghost of Confucius, Fond Dream of the New Tsars, 3 commentaries by mass criticism groups and by a Hsinhua correspondent. (Peking: FLP, 1974), 49 pages.

Ugly Features of Soviet Social-Imperialism, a collection of articles from 1973-1975 exposing the Soviet Union as an imperialist power and international exploiter. (Peking: FLP, 1976), 96 pages. Includes:

  • The Superpower Label for Soviet Revisionism Cannot be Removed, by Fan Hsiao
  • The Brezhnev Clique is Following in Hitler’s Footsteps, commentary by Hsinhua Correspondent
  • A Black Line Running Through Two Dynasties — on the new tsars justifying old tsars’ aggression and expansion, commentary by Hsinhua Correspondent
  • Soviet Union — Superpower and Super-Exploiter, commentary by Hsinhua Correspondent
  • C.M.E.A. — Soviet Revisionism’s Instrument for Neo-Colonialism, commentary by Hsinhua Correspondent
  • Sinister Programme of Neo-Colonialism — Soviet revisionists’ vicious motives in peddling theory of ‘international division of labour’ in Third World, by Chai Chang
  • Honey on Lips, Murder in Heart — Social-imperialist nature of Soviet revisionists’ ‘military aid’ to Egypt exposed, by Fan Hsiu-chu and Chung Tung
  • Where is the ‘Dawn of Peace and Co-operation’?, by Mei Ou
  • Warsaw Treaty Organization — Soviet Social-Imperialism’s Tool for Aggression, by Ming Sung
  • Essence of Soviet Revisionists’ ‘All-Europe Economic Co-operation’, by Cheng Wei-min
  • Outright Deceit, Ulterior Motives — On Soviet revisionists peddling ‘Asian collective security system’ in Southeast Asia, commentary by Hsinhua Correspondent
  • Repulse Wolf at Front Gate, Guard Against Tiger at Back Door, by Jen Ku-ping

Social Imperialism: The Soviet Union Today, a collection of articles from Peking Review from 1975-1976, 148 pages. (Berkeley: Yenan Books, 1977).

The Soviet Union Under the New Tsars, by Wei Chi, 100 pages.

Documents from Parties and Individuals in Other Countries Critising Soviet Revisionism (Published in China)

Raise Higher the Revolutionary Banner of Marxism-Leninism, 3 articles by the Korean People’s Worker’s Party from 1962 and 1963 opposing revisionism, 44 pages. [Note: Our apologies for the condition of the pamphlet we scanned, which was literally falling apart. We scanned it in color to increase the contrast of the black print with the yellowed pages.] (Peking: FLP, 1963)

Certain International Questions Affecting Malaya, from the Malayan Monitor, Jan. 31, 1963. (Peking: FLP, 1963), 24 pages.

Reply to Khrushchov – Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil, including the abridged text of the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil of July 27, 1963, and also the article The Great Theory of Marxism-Leninism is Bound to Triumph on Our Continent, by José Duarte, originally from the Brazilian journal A Classe Operária, Aug. 16-31, 1963. (Peking: FLP, 1964), 32 pages.

Statement of Ten Central Committee Members of the Ceylon Communist Party, October 27, 1963. Also includes To All Marxist-Leninists Inside the Ceylon Communist Party (Nov. 17, 1963). (Peking: FLP, 1964), 44 pages.

‘Theory’ and Practice of the Modern Revisionists, by Jacques Grippa, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belgium, a speech delivered at the Higher Party School fo the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on June 10, 1964. (Peking: FLP, 1965), 60 pages. [Note: Although Grippa initially supported China during the Sino-Soviet Split, he then began to oppose China during the GPCR, and in 1968 actually gave a speech in support of Liu Shaoqi!]

Malayan People’s Experience Refutes Revisionist Fallacies – Sixteenth Anniversary of the Malayan People’s Armed Struggle, June 30, 1964, 24 pages. (Peking: FLP, 1965)

On the Intrinsic Nature of N.S. Khrushchov’s Peaceful Co-Existence Line, an article by Observer in Akahata, organ of the Communist Party of Japan, Nov. 22, 1964. (Peking: FLP, 1965), 62 pages.

On Interventions in and Subversive Activities Against the Democratic Movements of Our Country and Our Party by the CPSU Leadership and the Institutions and Organizations Under its Guidance, an article in Akahata, organ of the Communist Party of Japan, June 22, 1965. (Peking: FLP, 1966), 54 pages.

Border Disputes and Military Confrontations and Incidents Between China and the U.S.S.R.

Down With the New Tsars! a collection of statements and articles condemning the incursion of military forces of the revisionist Soviet Union onto China’s Chenpao Island in the Wusuli River in Heilungkiang Province. (Peking: FLP, 1969), 78 pages.

Down With the New Tsars! – Soviet Revisionists’ Anti-China Atrocities on the Heilung and Wusuli Rivers, photo-filled pamphlet, (Peking: FLP, 1969), 76 pages.

Statement of the Government of the People’s Republic of China (May 24, 1969), regarding the border dispute with the Soviet Union. Also includes the Note of the Hsinhua News Agency on the Publication of the Full Text of the Soviet Government’s Statement of March 29 (May 24, 1969). (Peking: FLP, 1969), 48 pages.

Statement of the Government of the People’s Republic of China (October 7, 1969), regarding the border dispute with the Soviet Union. Also includes the Document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC—Refutation of the Soviet Government’s Statement of June 13, 1969 (Oct. 8, 1969), (Peking: FLP, 1974), 2nd printing, 40 pages.

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