READING THE REDS

OVER the months, the feud between Russia and Red China has grown from petty bickering over minor matters to mighty blasts of anger on the basic tenets of Marxist-Leninist practice. Now Peking's outright challenge to Moscow's leadership of Marx's world has become a momentous family feud that threatens to split the world Communist movement. Last week the rift was there for all to see, laid out in plain words in Mao Tse-tung's Red Flag and People's Daily, followed by a paragraph-by-paragraph retort in Khrushchev's Pravda.

Mao

ON CAPITALISM

No matter what kind of teeth imperialism may have--whether guns, tanks, rocket or nuclear teeth--its paper-tiger nature cannot change. Those who attack this proposition have obviously lost every quality a revolutionary ought to have and have instead become shortsighted and timid as mice.

ON CUBA

We neither called for the establishment of missile bases in Cuba nor obstructed their withdrawal. What we oppose is the sacrifice of another country's sovereignty in order to compromise with imperialism. This is 100% appeasement, a Munich pure and simple.

ON WAR

History has not witnessed a single example of peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. Those who no longer distinguish between just and unjust wars have lapsed into the position of bourgeois pacifism. A war would inevitably end in the destruction of imperialism and the victory of socialism.

ON REVOLUTION

They do not like the sparks of revolution fanning among the oppressed nations; they say a tiny spark may lead to a world war. In the final analysis, their stand boils down to this: the people of capitalist countries should not make revolutions; the oppressed nations should not wage struggles to win their liberation; the people of the world should not fight against imperialism . . . Revisionism is the opiate of the people. It is a beguiling music for the consolation of slaves.

ON THE SPLIT

All those who dare to uphold truth are never afraid of being in the minority for the time being. On the other hand, even those who are temporarily in the majority cannot avoid their own ultimate bankruptcy. They may . . . bluster noisily, but their majority is only a fictitious, superficial phenomenon. We will never submit to the dictates of any anti-Marxist-Leninist bludgeon. Unreasonable abuse is entirely useless; curses have not done us the least harm.

Khrushchev

ON CAPITALISM

What we need are not paper definitions stubbornly thrust upon us, but a genuine analysis of contemporary imperialism, including its huge atomic and other military potential. The expression "paper tiger" actually leads to the demobilization of the masses, because it conditions them to the thought that the strength of imperialism is a myth.

ON CUBA

Now that the crest of the crisis is over, "leftist phrase-mongers" are striving slanderously to present the case as if the Soviet Union capitulated. The authors of the term "second Munich" are obviously at odds with elementary history and don't know what they are talking about.

ON WAR

A nuclear war would complicate exceedingly the building of a new society on the ruins left after a world conflict. After all, the aim of the working class is not to die "spectacularly," but to build a happy life. Communists cannot act like these irresponsible scribblers in their cynical gamble with human lives.

ON REVOLUTION

It must be said that since the time of Trotskyism no other opportunist trend has ever resorted to such a monstrous method, which completely distorts truth. It hides its capitulatory essence behind "ultrarevolutionary" slogans, playing on the feelings of the masses. It would be extremely harmful to try to fit revolutionary processes in this extremely varied world into ready molds, as the dogmatists are trying to do. Far from advancing the cause of world revolution, they are throttling it.

ON THE SPLIT

Communists cannot but feel gravely concerned over the thesis that there is a "temporary majority" in the international Communist movement which "persists in its mistakes," and a "temporary minority" which "boldly and resolutely upholds the truth." This thesis banks on disunity in our ranks, on splitting them. What Communists need is not division into "majority" and "minority," but unity, unity, and once more unity.

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