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p Dear Comrades,

p Allow me, first of all, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, to greet the world forum of Communist and Workers’ Parties, to convey our comradely greetings to the representatives of all fraternal Parties and to thank all those who helped to prepare and hold this International Meeting of Communists, above all to thank the Soviet and Hungarian comrades, who created exceptional conditions both for our preparatory sessions and for the Meeting itself.

p The delegation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia believes that the programme of this Meeting, whose attention is centred on ensuring joint action by Communist and Workers’ Parties in the struggle against imperialism, is in complete accord with the present demands and interests of the international revolutionary movement. On us rests the great historic responsibility and task of uniting all the Communist forces which are fully determined to strengthen both our mutual ties and alliance, and co-operation with those forces in the world with whom we have a common enemy—-imperialism, and a common goal—world peace and progress.

p We believe that such a broad Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties is a considerable contribution to these efforts. We must discuss together the most important problems of our day which are connected with the antiimperialist struggle, and seek common ways to frustrate all the anti-popular plans of imperialism and heighten the influence of the progressive revolutionary forces on world development.

p It is in the interests of all of us that the Main Document of our Meeting should contain the most precise answers to the questions which are uppermost in our minds and which we are to consider. This is a matter of making the Document a reliable basis for our joint activity on fundamental issues.

p We hold that the successes of the international communist and workingclass movement will be the more tangible the greater the unity of views we succeed in achieving, the greater the co-ordination of our Parties’ concrete political work. We must go over from declaring the principles of proletarian internationalism and solidarity of our movement to concrete action in our work.

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p Proceeding from this, our Party’s Central Committee, at its plenary meeting on May 29 and 30 of this year, examined the draft Main Document and unanimously approved the concept of its content and its structure. We hold that this Document offers a good basis for the work of our Meeting.

p Nine years have passed since the last International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. Profound changes have taken place and these must be analysed in order to assess them objectively. This also applies to modern imperialism, in which substantial changes have taken place in the sphere of politics, economy and ideology. On the whole the aggressive essence of imperialism virtually remains unchanged, but its policy—both in its content and forms—utilises a much wider arsenal, ranging from brute force to subtle methods of corruptive influence on the revolutionary and anti-imperialist movement.

p In the economic sphere, the capitalist countries are going through a period of accelerated growth of production and integration. At the same time, the economy is becoming increasingly state-monopolistic, there is a growing unevenness of economic development both between some advanced countries, and between the metropolitan and the economically backward areas.

p The scientific and technological revolution is beginning to tell in every sphere of human life and gives the advanced countries some fresh possibilities for development.

p In the ideological sphere, alongside the ultra-reactionary, overtly bellicose anti-communist ideology, ever more refined ideas are being incessantly pushed to the fore and these tag on to diverse progressive and popular theories as parasites so as to deform them from the outset and produce false conclusions. There has been a wide spread of bourgeois flirtation with socialism, and also of various revisionist-opportunist theories.

p The solution of all the problems of our day, including the prevention of a devastating thermonuclear, chemical and bacteriological war, the solution of the problem of hunger in many countries of the world should be sought not in a gradual convergence of capitalism and socialism with an automatic withering away of their mutual contradictions, as the proponents of the convergence theory insist, but above all in broad and strong unity of action by all the antiimperialist forces.

p All these questions were analysed on a high Marxist level by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Comrade Brezhnev. Our delegation highly appreciates the CPSU leadership’s sober, realistic and concrete approach to the basic problems of the modern world, the international communist movement and the socialist camp. We agree with the deductions and conclusions in Comrade Brezhnev’s report and will support them, because they accord with our own ideas and our views. That is why we shall deal only briefly with some questions.

p The closing third of this century—as the submitted Document declares—is characterised by a new balance of world forces, which on the whole develops in favour of socialism and progress. The common platform set out in the Document is an effective guide for the cohesion of the broad front of anti- imperialist forces. We cannot agree with the proposals which would run against the 404 logic of the Main Document and would induce us to adopt a structure and concept for it which would virtually emasculate it and deprive it of its main content and fundamental ideas.

p First of all, we believe that the Document correctly sets out the platform of the three great forces of our day and their common interest in the struggle against imperialism, for democracy, equality and peaceful coexistence. The Document gives a convincing set of arguments demonstrating what unites these forces, why they constitute a single whole as the world anti-imperialist movement, and also states the reasons why none of these component parts can be ignored or considered less important than the others.

p However, this does not in any way reduce the specific unifying role of the world communist movement, whose world outlook—Marxism-Leninism— allows an objective analysis of the requirements of world development and, on that basis, a correct definition of tactics and strategy for achieving the optimal aims of the anti-imperialist movement.

p We regard as wrong views which underestimate the role of the international communist movement in the anti-imperialist process, and ignore the class content of this process and its contradictory nature. The principle of unity and equality of all the forces in the anti-imperialist struggle does not clash with the vanguard role of the international communist movement, as the Document defines it. Also taken into account is the fact that the main streams in this movement have their own specific interests, that there are different possibilities for fighting imperialism, and that in this struggle they have different tasks and weight.

p The experience of the world communist movement clearly confirms that the socialist world system is the main force of the anti-imperialist movement. This historical fact can be neither evaded nor ignored.

p The historic role of the socialist system, of which the Soviet Union is the mainstay, springs from the fact that it is a counterweight to modern capitalism in political, economic and military terms, and consequently that it is the mainstay of the anti-imperialist movement. Neither the present conditions of the struggle of the working class and other progressive forces in the capitalist world, nor the growing activity of this class struggle, which affects the changing world balance of forces, would be conceivable without the existence and development of the socialist camp.

p I should like in this connection to expound in a few words our concept of the Soviet Union’s role in the socialist camp. Those who worked in the communist movement before the last world war know very well how important the emergence and very existence of the world’s first socialist state was for the workingclass movement, for the international progressive forces, for the anti-colonial and democratic movement, what the Great October Revolution, Lenin’s name and socialist construction in the Soviet Union meant for the oppressed classes and peoples. Those who went through the Second World War and took part in the anti-fascist struggle will never forget the Soviet Union’s exceptional role in the battle for the freedom of nations, its sacrifices, and the heroism of its people and army. They will never forget that the Soviet Union’s struggle and sacrifices enabled many nations to regain their national freedom 405 and state independence, and also to start fighting for the working-class victory, for the way to socialism.

p Since some people today nevertheless forget about this, or merely pay lip service to the Soviet Union’s historical services in formal pronouncements, I think that a reminder should be given about the Soviet Union’s present material, economic, scientific, technical and manpower potential, about its importance for the socialist camp and the whole world in conditions of both the peaceful competition with capitalism and of possible crisis situations. The point is that we Marxists, when soaring on the wings of high words or sometimes of flights of fancy and rhetoric, and guided by narrowly national considerations, should not depart from the reality of the class-divided world, from its possibilities and dangers, and above all from the basic fact of reality, namely, that the strength of the socialist camp and the anti-imperialist movement, its hopes and possibilities for development depend primarily on the strength and development of the Soviet Union. In their politics and economics, the imperialist circles take a quite sober account of real factors. We would be daydreamers, and not proponents of scientific socialism, if we did not proceed from a factual assessment of reality.

p In art a person’s imagination has a legitimate place. In politics it has more than once led to irresponsibility and to tragedies for the peoples and progress, and we must not forget about this.

p The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, proceeding from principled Marxist-Leninist propositions and historical aspects and taking account of the future development of our peoples, regards the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as the chief bulwark of the socialist camp and the international communist movement.

p No new social formation has ever paved its way easily, painlessly, without difficulties and mistakes. This has been, and is, also the case in building socialist society. It has been said many times that the process of building socialism is not a freeway. The winning of state political power by the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party, is a complicated task. But the reconstruction of a whole society on a socialist foundation is even more complicated. All the socialist countries have learned this from their own experience. To blaze new trails to social progress is a much more difficult thing than to argue about this theoretically.

p In the long run people make politics, and they do not always possess only ideal traits. Problems of an objective and subjective nature emerge at the stage of transition to socialism; contradictions and divergences arise. It is necessary to distinguish where they are of a specific and where they are of a principled nature. It is possible to discuss, and argue about, specific questions. As for the principles of our theory and our policy, it is necessary to fight consistently for them. We think that this is also the necessary approach to contradictions in the international communist movement.

p The socialist countries are entering a new stage of internal development and international co-operation. They are entering a period marked by a much more intensive operation of the laws of the scientific and technological revolution and international socialist integration, for whose development wide scope can 406 be opened only under socialism, because it does not have limitations stemming from the class antagonism of bourgeois society.

p In Marxist-Leninist understanding, socialism must combine the national and international interests of the working class and the other working masses. Any one-sidedness leads to mistakes. Therefore, anyone who wants to confine socialism solely to narrow national bounds of separate socialist countries, to counterpose their international and national interests, thereby acts contrary to the objective needs of socialist development in the world and to the national interests of individual countries.

p Our own experience and that of other fraternal Parties demonstrates that deviations of a dogmatic and revisionist nature inflict serious harm on the combination of national and international interests. A dogmatic, Leftist approach turns into an absolute the force of internationalist views and does not pay due attention to national specificity in the development of socialist society. Revisionist Right-wing opportunist concepts, on the contrary., one-sidedly give preference to so-called "national positions" and lead to a weakening of the joint struggle of the socialist countries. Both these extremes exert an undesirable influence on the activity and interests of each individual Party and socialist country and impair the efficiency and strength of the entire socialist community and also of the international communist movement.

p To understand the policy of contemporary imperialism and appropriately react to it one must avoid one-sidedness. To pay attention only to the extreme manifestations of the violence and plans of imperialism, to orient oneself only on an open frontal conflict and be unprepared for all the artful attacks from pseudo-democratic, pseudo-socialist and pseudo-humane positions, means lapsing into dogmatism. In just the same way, on the other hand, to overestimate and absolutise the new features in the political tactics of imperialism, to accept them as a final departure from its old intentions and methods, means indulging in false illusions, lapsing into opportunism and disarming one’s own front in face of the enemy’s offensive.

p If world imperialism shifts the emphasis in its efforts from preparing for a blitz destruction of socialism with the use of arms to a striving to erode and disintegrate it gradually, then this is not a sign of its strength, though it does not lessen the threat emanating from imperialism, should we fail to become aware of it, in good time, fully and in all seriousness.

p The new strategy and tactics of imperialism attach tremendous significance to ideologically and politically influencing socialist countries, to ideological and political intervention and, it may be said without exaggeration, to a wide range of acts of political and ideological subversion. Here we have some fundamental changes in the methods of imperialism’s activity.

p In this respect our Czechoslovak experience can be instructive. In the last year and a half Czechoslovakia has become an object of attention of the entire world, both of friends and foes. The development of events in our country in recent years, particularly in the very recent period, demands a deep-going and all-round analysis. This accords with the interests of the further development of Czechoslovak society and can serve as a lesson for other fraternal Parties. Today I should like to dwell only on some aspects.

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p Substantial achievements in socialist construction, in the development of our economy and culture and advance of the living standard have been scored in Czechoslovakia in the last 20 years.

p The fraternal Parties know that our country has been turned into an industrially developed state with a thriving agriculture, transformed on a socialist basis. We have built new branches of industry measuring up to the world technological standards. Production in the traditional sectors too has multiplied. Our science and technology have attained many notable results.

p The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia has scored a big success in the solution of basic social and, recently, also national problems and in the comprehensive economic and political development of the Slovak Socialist Republic within the framework of our one Czechoslovak socialist state.

p The level of education and general culture of all sections of our population has risen considerably. These and other results are part and parcel of the socialist transformations effected under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

p But socialist development in our country has not escaped mistakes, shortcomings and deformations. Many new problems which have arisen in the course of building socialism have not been appropriately solved. Socialist development in Czechoslovakia has slowed down in recent years, has not been based on a clear-cut concept of development, has suffered from a number of serious miscalculations in the economy, deviations in the development of socialist democracy and of Party life. First of all, political work among the masses and ideological educational work in the Party and society was substantially weakened; subjectivism prevailed in the solution of tasks; urgent problems were not solved in good time, and infrequently tasks were set out of conformity with the real possibilities.

p The leadership of the Party was to a certain extent aware that a critical situation had arisen and was looking for a way out. This was shown by a number of plenary meetings of our Central Committee and above all the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia held in 1966. But the Party leadership itself did not display sufficient persistence in implementing the adopted decisions, did not carry them out, and the drawn-out political crisis continued to grow deeper. Dissatisfaction and tension arose both in the Party and in society.

p The turning point came after the Central Committee plenums at the end of 1967, and especially that of January 1968. The essence and purport of the new post-January 1968 policy consisted in effecting changes facilitating passage from bureaucratic centralism to extension of socialist democracy, to creatively taking into account the concrete historical situation in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, to elimination of past mistakes and defects, to solving the urgent political, economic and national problems.

p The January course of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia did not connote any departure from socialism, let alone a return to the situation that had existed in our country before February 1948. Neither did it connote any weakening of our ties with the socialist world system and the world communist and working-class movement. This course was to be a turning point towards 408 restoring in full the Leninist norms in the life of our Party and society, towards a further advancement of socialism, a turning point initiated by the Central Committee of our Party. It was necessitated by the requirements of our socialist society and the demands of the overwhelming majority of the Party. That is why these efforts of our Party were met with broad approval in the country and were supported by fraternal Communist and Workers’ Parties.

p We do not deny that a correct appraisal of the class forces in the country was and remains the decisive precondition for the successful implementation of the policy charted in January 1968. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia based its analysis on the emergence in the country of conditions for the drawing together of classes and social strata arid for cementing their unity. We have no doubt even today that this analysis was correct, provided, of course, that the drawing together of classes is seen not as an automatic process but as a possibility in definite conditions, given correct politico-ideological guidance by the Party.

p However, the complicated course of events after January 1968 gave rise to substantial negative tendencies connected with an activisation of anti-socialist forces, which fact the leadership of our Party underestimated at the time.

p It turned out that defeated strata of exploiters, who had lost all political influence in the conditions of a normally functioning socialist state system, became active again politically and ideologically in the situation that arose after January 1968. That this became possible was due not only to the support rendered them by world imperialism, but also to the fact that beginning with spring 1968, the leading role of the Party was allowed to decline markedly, with a gradual weakening and partial disintegration of organs of our socialist state power. That section of the very numerous petty-bourgeois strata in our country which, in view of their objective social interests, could have been actively enrolled in the building of socialism, owing to their class substance and some of our mistakes merely subscribed to socialism and vacillated, and at a critical moment became proponents of an interpretation of socialism which distorted its Marxist-Leninist meaning and was ultimately aimed at its abolition.

p The content of socialism and its basic principles became an object of ideological and povtical speculation. Some associated the concept of socialism with pluralist bourgeois democracy and the reformist model of so-called democratic socialism from the programmes of Right Social-Democratic parties.

p In the prevailing situation, the ideological ferment developed into an ideological struggle expressive of a class conflict; socialist power based on the leading role of the Communist Party was gravely endangered.

p In these circumstances, imperialist pressure from outside was intensified, not only in the context of espionage, but above all along ideological channels. It was aimed at misleading the people in every way, weakening their socialist class consciousness and, especially, stirring nationalist sentiment and prejudice, coupled with anti-Sovietism. This is not the time to enumerate all the forms and methods employed by Western bourgeois propaganda round the clock to influence the minds and feelings of the people of our state.

p This ideological anti-communist influence on our country last year had new 409 features, unlike those of the 1956 events in the Hungarian People’s Republic. In the past imperialism waged an offensive directed against socialism, against the leading role of the Communist Party, against the ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism more or less openly. In contrast, the same offensive in post-January Czechoslovakia was camouflaged with socialist and, what is more, Marxist and Party phraseology. Bourgeois political and ideological centres also addressed themselves to Communists and Party cadres. Ostensibly analysing inner-Party problems from Marxist positions, they interfered openly in the matter of selecting Party cadres, in questions pertaining to the formulation of the Party Rules, in questions concerning forms of Party work, etc. Principally, it was and is their purpose to mislead our socialist society, to disrupt the Party, to deepen the political crisis in the country and prevent, or at least impede, restoration of the Party’s ideological unity and unity of action.

p The fact that Right opportunist and partly anti-socialist forces seized control of the bulk of the mass media tended to paralyse the influence of the Party, to mislead Communists and the population, and gradually vitiate the main values and principles of socialism. The threat from the anti-socialist and counter-revolutionary forces thus became more pronounced. Many fraternal Parties did not receive sufficiently objective information at that time. On the contrary, they had to proceed from evaluations that underplayed or obscured our class and internationalist duties as regards uncompromising struggle against the anti-socialist and opportunist forces in order to safeguard the revolutionary gains of socialism.

p We are often asked whether we were strong enough internally to safeguard our socialist gains. Yes, we had enough strength. Where then was the source of the mistake? We know from the experience of Leninism the importance, especially in critical situations, of principled, purposeful and firm guidance by the Communist Party as the vanguard of the working class. At critical moments, that is the decisive link. However, after January 1968 the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia lacked unity in evaluating the situation and in the question of programme, aims and perspectives, and still less unity as regards concrete and vitally urgent measures. Naivety, political romanticism, cheap stances and slogans emasculated of class content about freedom, democracy, humanism and the so-called "will of the people" dominated the scene. The euphoria of “freedom” and cheap popularity relegated to oblivion the class roots and motives of the social conflicts and aims, the influence of the class enemy, of his ideology, inside and outside the country.

p That is why the working class and its Party were not mobilised in time to defend the gains of the socialist revolution in Czechoslovakia; quite the reverse, the Party leadership gave way before the increasingly aggressive pressure exerted by the anti-socialist and opportunist forces inside the country connected with Western bourgeois circles and supported by them in one form or another.

p Due to the corrupting activity of Right opportunist forces there was no unity in the Party leadership concerning the degree of danger presented by these phenomena and concerning the ways of eliminating them. Often we encountered the desire to thrash out by discussion matters that conflicted with 410 our socialist legality and required immediate intervention by government organs.

p As a result, the political crisis did not abate, but grew deeper. Vacillation by the leadership undermined the Party more and more, impairing its ideological unity and unity of action^ This process of disintegration spread to our internationalist ties and commitments and put in question even our political, economic and military alliances with our closest allies, all the more so because the bourgeois propaganda pressure was especially vicious in that particular direction.

p At the May plenum of the Central Committee of our Party last year, attention was rightly drawn to the gravity of the situation: "This reality exists now as a potential factor, which may at a definite time become more pronounced and create a grave danger." But no practical conclusions were made from the decisions of the May plenum.

p Regrettably, it was riot until a year later, in May this year, that the plenum of the Central Committee of our Party arrived at the conclusion that the innerpolitical development in our country which the Party leadership failed to counteract to a sufficient extent, was bound to create doubts, apprehension and anxiety not only among a considerable section of our citizens and Party members, but also among the fraternal Communist Parties in allied countries. Anti-communist and anti-Soviet incitement, coupled With the critical developments in our country, gravely impaired our Party’s international ties with fraternal Communist and Workers’ Parties and states. The leadership of Communist Parties in the neighbouring allied states gradually lost faith in the ability of the leadership of our Party to cope with this critical development in the existing situation. Then came the August events. In that situation, the Party leadership and the Central Committee found a Way out in signing the Moscow Protocol, logically linked with the Bratislava statement of August 3, 1968.

p The November (1968) resolution of the Central Committee became the main guideline for the home and foreign political activity of the Party. It seemed clear what our own mistakes had been in the post-January period, and it seemed clear that it was necessary to combat the corruptive influence of the antisocialist and opportunist forces. For this it was necessary to restore the unity of action and ideological unity of the Party, to consolidate its leading role and strengthen in every way the authority of the socialist state and its organs. Time and again, the Central Committee emphasised the urgency of these measures and adopted appropriate decisions. However, our words were not backed by action. Differences of opinion in the Central Committee and in its executive bodies continued and even grew deeper. Instead of a normalisation of the situation, instead of passing on to tranquil life and work, the crisis continued to deepen and more than once the Party and Society tottered on the brink of disaster, as stressed by the plenum of the Central Committee in April 1969. The reasons for the critical situation in the Party and in society after August 1968 were the same as before.

p The turning point in the development of the situation in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and in our country came with the April and May plenums of the Central Committee this year, the main meaning and main purpose of which was to lead the Party and the people of Czechoslovakia out of 411 the state of political, social and economic crisis. The fraternal Parties have been informed about the work and the decisions of these plenums of our Party. After the passage of not quite two months, we can say responsibly that the majority of our Party and of the working people of Czechoslovakia supports the new Party leadership and its political line, seeing it as the way out of the situation and as the perspective for the further socialist development of our country.

p The 1968 developments in Czechoslovakia, the August events and the subsequent process of development gave rise to diverse opinions in the international communist movement.

p These concerned the complicated question of our internal development over a number of years, the evaluation of its separate elements and forces, the situation in our Party and society, the results and the assessments of our development by the socialist camp and the international revolutionary movement. Imperialism and bourgeois propaganda exploited the Czechoslovak developments to whip up anti-eonimunist hysteria and heap slander on the Soviet Union and the international working-class movement. We in Czechoslovakia are farthest from the thought of simplifying matters 5 we shall have to return to these questions and search for a truthful, honest, Marxist appraisal of the situation of that period from the standpoint of our national and international interests and obligations.

p We want to resolve these problems with courage and honesty; that is in our own interests and in the interests of the international Working-class movement. Our analysis is not sufficiently deep yet to provide a clear answer to all questions today. We want to prepare all that as soon as possible for the next statutory 14th Congress of our Party which we plan to convene next year.

p We are all the more surprised, therefore, that here, too, at the International Meeting, some fraternal Parties draw hasty conclusions, in relation to the Czechoslovak problem though their knowledge of the state of affairs and of our development is extremely superficial. Objectively speaking, this goes against our interests and in substance against the Soviet Union and the socialist countries, with which our Party, our Czechoslovak socialist state and our people, have been linked for decades by the bonds of international Communist brotherhood and by the vital requirements of the freedom and independence of the peoples of Czechoslovakia.

p All of us know, after all, that simplification emasculates the problem and is alien to a Marxist-Leninist analysis. We do not conceal that we tried to present our point of view to some fraternal Parties in personal conversations and in writing, and we asked them to display understanding and to refrain from hasty conclusions about the so-called "Czechoslovak question". We regret that they have not heeded our request.

p We are aware of the fact that pressure is being exerted on some fraternal Parties in capitalist countries by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois propaganda and that in this case they are being prodded to cssume positions we cannot all accept. Each Communist Party has its national and international obligations of solidarity with the struggle of the working class and the common struggle fought by the communist movement against the imperialist forces.

p As we see it, any country where the working class has triumphed and there 412 exists the socialist power of the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party, that Party is entitled to determine the forms and methods of building socialism in conformance with national conditions and the common laws of socialism. In our case, in the case of a state which is—and in the interest of its further national existence, freedom and independence intends to remain—a staunch member of the socialist camp, in the case of a state linked with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries in both Party and government contexts, we cannot ignore the unity of forces, the cohesion and strength of the entire socialist camp as the backbone of the anti-imperialist front.

p We" no more wish to drift to an opportunist and nationalist platform than unilaterally to cease defending the national interests of our people and state. We said that in the process of Czechoslovakia’s post-January development, imperialist forces operating from abroad and anti-socialist and opportunist forces operating at home tried in every way, under slogans of national freedom and sovereignty, not only to impair our internationalist ties and commitments, but also to subvert the leading role of the Communist Party in our society and the very foundations of socialist society in our country. The opinion has been voiced here that once the Party has triumphed and socialist construction has gone on for a few years, society becomes unshakable and is immune to any danger. We consider this a big delusion, as we have learned from our own experience.

p Combination of national and international interests, the concern of every Communist Party, especially if it is responsible for the destiny of a socialist state, may be expressed in an abstract declaration with relative ease and flourish. It is more difficult to accomplish it in political practice, especially if we want that our deeds should conform with our words. And it is doubly difficult if the Party and society are in a critical situation due to pressures from internal and external anti-socialist and opportunist forces. This is conclusively demonstrated by the recent experience of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the earlier experience of other fraternal parties.

p Our experience of the past eighteen months confirms the fact that the sovereignty of a Communist Party and socialist country includes the right to determine the forms and methods of building socialism in accordance with the national conditions, as well as the obligation to bear full responsibility for this before its people. However, securing the sovereignty of each Party and socialist country carries with it the obligation to uphold and safeguard the power of the working class and all working people, as well as all the revolutionary gains of the socialist system. In that sense the class content of the sovereignty of a socialist state is linked unbreakably with its internationalist responsibility to the community of socialist countries and the world communist and revolutionary movement.

p Our own experience shows that the slogan of sovereignty devoid of class content is a refined and very effective weapon of the Right opportunist, revisionist and anti-socialist forces. That is what happens when the Party does not carry forward a consistently Marxist-Leninist policy and backs out of a resolute, consistent struggle .in all spheres against all manifestations of bourgeois nationalism. That is why we reject the various quasi-theories of limited 413 sovereignty, artificially concocted by our class enemies, and look upon them as perfidious manoeuvres of modern anti-communism.

After the April plenum, the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia embarked firmly on restoring the confidence and strengthening the fraternal relations between our country and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other Parties of the socialist countries. This conforms with our long-standing Party, national and state traditions, and, we are convinced, with the Marxist-Leninist teaching and the internationalist solidarity of our movement, with the fundamental national interests of the people of Czechoslovakia and those of the entire world communist movement. We are firmly convinced that in an atmosphere of comradely, fraternal and friendly relations with other socialist states we shall find solutions for questions that are still open and not completely resolved. We are deeply convinced that this standpoint of the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia is consistent with both our vital Party and national interests and with the interests of the international communist and working-class movement.

p We trust that the political line of our Central Committee will meet with the understanding and support of the fraternal Parties.

p Our delegation also wants to express its positive attitude to the other documents on the agenda of our Meeting. This applies above all to the address on the centenary of V. I. Lenin. We regard this centenary as the common cause of the whole communist movement and all progressive mankind. It is not only a question of marking the outstanding role played by the founder of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "and the Soviet state, the outstanding leader of the world’s working class, but also of giving deep thought to all his ideological legacy, to the international character and power of Leninism as the universal revolutionary ideology of our day. We shall have not only to sum up the results of die way traversed by world revolutionary development but above all to look into our future and to define our tasks and prospects.

p We have repeatedly seen from our own experience that any violation of the basic Leninist principles of building socialism and of Party activity inflicts enormous harm whose elimination demands concerted effort and work by the whole Party.

p That is why we want the adopted Document to become for us a basis for systematic ideological and educational work, with the creative development of Lenin’s ideas in the forefront as a way to consolidate the situation in our Party and our country, to strengthen and develop all the socialist values in our life.

p Our attitude to the document on Vietnam which has been adopted and to the Appeal in Defence of Peace springs from the very nature of our Party as an internationalist Party. We shall continue in the future as well to give the Vietnamese people all-round support in its just struggle against US aggression and for implementation of the just demands of the government of the Democractic Republic of Vietnam and the South Vietnam National Liberation Front. We are happy to note that both documents give a convincing elaboration of the 414 ideas contained in the Main Document of the Meeting and explain their political and other significance in a form understandable and acceptable to the broade st masses.

p We also have a special interest in the solution of European security problems. Together with other socialist states, we shall follow an agreed policy meeting the common interests of the European socialist states, oppose the aggressive actions of imperialists, primarily their attempts to change the established relations in Europe, as the militaristic and revenge-seeking circles of West Germany are trying to do. That is why we agree with the formulations on this problem contained in the several documents and regard them as obligatory for our foreign policy activity. In this situation, the Budapest Appeal of the Warsaw Treaty countries on safeguarding European security and co- operation between countries with different social systems is an important proposal, and we fully support it.

p In our efforts to safeguard European security we want to make active use of some of the favourable conditions which spring from our geographical situation in the heart of Europe, traditions, and possibilities for maintaining active ties. We have in mind chiefly the possibilities for purposeful development of allEuropean co-operation, above all in the sphere of the economy, science, technology and culture, widening the prospects for stability and security on the European continent. At the same time, such co-operation helps to concentrate all efforts and forces on combating tendencies which maintain tensions in Europe and nourish the hopes of the West German revanchists for starting another armed conflict.

p In this sense, we have common international interests uniting us with the German Democratic Republic, the first German socialist state, whose peaceloving and principled policy is an important contribution to the peaceful consolidation of the situation in Europe. That is why we also support the just demands for the final confirmation of the post-war boundaries not only along the Sumava and the Oder-Neisse, but also between the two German states. International legal recognition of both German states as equal representatives of the German people would be an important step in strengthening peaceful coexistence between European countries.

p We are convinced that implementation of the European security project as proposed in the ^Budapest Appeal of the Warsaw Treaty countries would help to isolate all the bellicose circles of European reaction, help to stabilise the situation in Europe, and promote the peaceful economic development of European countries and an advance in the living standards of their peoples. Our Party will do everything it can to realise the idea of European security.

We want to make an active contribution to organising a world anti-imperialist congress which would reflect our principled and open policy with respect to all the anti-imperialist forces of our day, and our desire to seek and find Common standpoints with those who are united with us by common anti-imperialist interests.

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p With all the Communist and Workers’ Parties devoting maximum attention to strengthening the unity and cohesion of all progressive anti-imperialist forces, it is a matter of special regret that the Communist Party of China is not taking part in this effort.

p We have no intention of dealing here with the internal problems of the Chinese People’s Republic, or of interfering in its internal affairs.

p At all previous consultative meetings we avoided any mention of the policy of the Communist Party of China.

p Before April of this year, it was still possible to refrain from commenting on Chinese developments, in the expectation that time would provide answers to many of the questions. But today, when we know the political line of the 9th Congress of the CPC, that can no longer be done. Above all, we cannot be silent about the fact that the present Chinese leadership has enshrined as official party and state doctrine explicit anti-Sovietism, a course aimed at splitting the unity of the international communist movement.

p The results of the 9th Congress of the CPC completely negate the line approved by the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1956. Everything shows that the Mao Tse-tung group has effected the so-called "great proletarian cultural revolution" precisely for the purpose of making this fundamental turn in the policy of the Communist Party of China and that the recent Chinese armed provocations on the border with the Soviet Union had the same purpose.

p It is impossible to be silent about the fact that the main report at the CPC Congress contains absurd charges against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, which are accused of establishing a bourgeois dictatorship and restoring capitalism, with the latter designation being applied to the socialist countries’ efforts to raise the working people’s living and cultural standards. It is also necessary to reject the gross attacks on the Soviet Union, which has made such sacrifices in the struggle for socialism and the cause of progress throughout the world, and which is the mainstay of the anti-imperialist struggle, but which the Chinese documents abusively call a “social-imperialist” state and put on the same footing as US imperialism.

p Nor is it possible to consider an internal affair of the CPC the Mao group’s efforts to undermine relations between the socialist countries, to maintain and extend separatist nationalistic tendencies and anti-Soviet feelings, weaken and disrupt friendly and allied ties between the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

p In view of this, we condemn the actions of the Maoist leadership, which urges our people to wage armed struggle against the Soviet Union, to overdirow the present leadership in Czechoslovakia and promises this struggle—as it has said itself—support from the "revolutionary people of the whole world". This gross interference in the internal affairs of our Party and country has nothing in common either with Marxism-Leninism or with proletarian internationalism.

p The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia has always worked to develop friendship and solidarity with the Chinese Communists and the Chinese people. But it cannot but express its fundamental disagreement with the political programme, ideology and above all the splitting activity now being conducted by the Mao group, which harms the vital interests of all socialist countries and world 416 communism, and weakens the progressive revolutionary anti-imperialist movement. At the same time, we express full solidarity with the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, against whom the CPC’s Maoist leadership directs its campaign of hatred in the first place. We highly value the stand of the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet state, who in their efforts not to aggravate the differences have displayed tremendous patience over the Mao group’s provocative actions. However, the Chinese leadership’s activity gravely injures the cause of socialism and the tasks of the anti-imperialist struggle throughout the world, objectively doing harm to the Chinese people and playing into the hands of imperialism. It is impossible to keep silent about this, it is impossible not to raise one’s voice against actions incompatible with communist ideals.

p The whole history of the international working-class and communist movement shows that unity and conscious discipline are the most important requisite for the working-class struggle against capital, and now such unity and class discipline are doubly necessary.

p Nominal unity without principle, compromise on questions of principle is something out of the question for us. The wealth of experience gained by the international communist and working-class movement, our Czechoslovak experience of the distant and recent past teach us that opportunist compromises do not resolve anything and sooner or later turn against the revolutionary movement and the working people.

p Our task is to pool the international efforts of our Parties on the basis of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, applying it to the present day and its problems, of the principles of proletarian internationalism. It is necessary and possible on this basis to co-ordinate and unite the standpoints and political actions of the world-wide army of the communist and working-class movement, rallying round it masses of working people in their millions, and all progressive strata.

p In this context, we consider the present Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties a great success for our international movement. The work of this Meeting shows that it will become a landmark in the history of our movement, in the struggle against imperialism.

p In this spirit the delegation of the Communist’Party of Czechoslovakia will support the submitted documents and, once they are adopted, will regard them as a component part of the political line of our Party.

p For our part, we express readiness and consider it to be our duty to promote in every way unity of views and actions in the communist movement, to develop and strengthen co-operation with other anti-imperialist, democratic, progressive and peace-loving forces throughout the world.

Thank you.