Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

in the 1957 Declaration and in the 1960 Statement, the documentsof the Communist parties worked out collectively andformulating the general political course of the communistmovement in the present era.But the CPC leaders have now advanced, as a counterweight,a different course; their positions are diverting more andmore from the general line of the communist movement onbasic issues.This applies, above all, to the question of war and peace.In the appraisal of the problems of war and peace, in theapproach to their solution, there can be no vagueness or reservations,for this is an issue in which the destinies of peoples,the future of all mankind, are involved.The CPSU Central Committee considers it its duty to tellthe party and the people with all frankness that on the questionof war and peace the CPC leadership has cardinal, fundamentaldifferences with us, with the world communist movement.Their essence lies in the diametrically opposite approachto such vital problems as the possibility of averting a worldthermonuclear war, peaceful co-existence of states with differentsocial systems, the interconnection between the strugglefor peace and the development of the world revolutionarymovement.Our party, in the decisions of its 20th and 22nd Congresses,and the world communist movement in the Declaration andStatement, set before Communists, as a vital and urgent task,the struggle for peace, the struggle to avert a world thermonuclearcatastrophe. We realistically appraise the balanceof strength in the world and draw the conclusion that, thoughthe nature of imperialism has not changed, and the danger ofwar breaking out has not been averted, in modern conditionsthe forces of peace, of which the mighty community of socialiststates is the main bulwark, can, through their joint efforts,prevent a new world war.We also soberly appraise the radical, qualitative change ofthe means of waging war and, accordingly, its possible con-540