Soviet Actions, Past And Present, Reviewed

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31407, 28 June 1967, Page 10

Soviet Actions, Past And Present, Reviewed

(N.Z.P A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, June 27. The Kremlin on Sunday issued a new call to China’s Communists to cast aside the present “fatal course” of Mao Tse-tung and realign themselves with other Communist countries.

The call came in a series of theses—themes for discussion and propaganda by Russia’s Communists in the 50th anniversary year of the 1917 revolution published in a summary on Sunday.

The theses were approved by a two-day session of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party on June 20-21.

They assert that Socialism “is the today for hundreds of millions of people and the tomorrow for the whole of mankind.”

Other themes reported in the summary of the document issued by the Tass News Agency were: “The Soviet people will do all it can for the strengthening of the unity of the Socialist countries, to support the struggle of the peoples for national and social freedom. Vietnam Support “Soviet people firmly believe that the just cause of the Vietnamese people will win. “Soviet people completely

support the struggle of the Arab people against Israeli aggression.” The theses charged that the “adventurist course of the Mao Tse-tung group” had led to a weakening of the posp tion of the Communist Party and the working class of China.

It had brought about “the violence of petty bourgeois Anarchist elements,” and “a serious threat to the Socialist achievements of China had been created.

“The Soviet people always saw the great Chinese people as a friend and ally in the revolutionary transformation of society. “A break by the Chinese Communists with the present fatal course, a strengthening of relations between the Chinese People’s Republic and the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries would be in the interests of international socialism and above all of China itself.” Stalin's Role

In the section devoted to a survey of the 50 years of Soviet history, the theses had both praise and blame for Josef Stalin.

They declared that the State Defence Committee, set up

during the Second World War to direct the country’s war effort under the chairmanship of Stalin, played an important role in the Soviet victory. But, the theses added, “in pursuing the course towards the further development of Socialist Democracy,” the 1956 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party “resolutely condemned Stalin’s personality cult.” It was at the 20th Congress that Mr Khrushchev had delivered the “secret speech,” a stinging attack on Stalin and Stalinism, which rocked the Communist world. The speech has still not been published for the general public in the Soviet Union.

The document, as summarised by Tass, made no mention of Mr Khrushchev, who was dismissed in October, 1964, after more than 10 years’ leadership in the Kremlin. Nazi-Soviet Pact

The theses defended the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, which preceded the German attack on the countries of Western Europe and brought a storm of critisism from all round the world and a stream of resignations from European Communist Parties. Western politicians in the pre-war period, the theses said, “tried to direct Fascist aggression against the Soviet Union and join a pact with Hitler.

“The Soviet Union signed a’ non-aggression pact with Germany which upset the calculations of the Imperialists and allowed the country to win time to strengthen its defences. But it proved impossible to prevent war in those conditions.”

Many historians, both Soviet and non-Soviet, have charged that Stalin did not make enough use of the breathing space provided by the pact, believing the Germans

would not attack, and that the Soviet defences were in a weak state when the Nazi armies marched into Russia.

But the summary of the theses made no reference to these charges.

“The Soviet Union’s great patriotic war most convincingly demonstrated that there is no power on earth capable of crushing socialism and bringing to their knees a people dedicated to the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, loyal to the Socialist motherland and united around the Leninist party,” the theses said.

“These results are a stern warning to the imperialist aggressors, and a harsh and unforgettable lesson of history.