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p The CC’s attention has been constantly centred on questions of further cohesion and development of the world socialist system, and relations with the fraternal socialist countries and their Communist Parties.

p The world socialist system has a quarter-century behind it. From the standpoint of development of revolutionary theory and practice these have been exceptionally fruitful years. The socialist world has given the communist and working-class movement experience which is of tremendous and truly historic importance. This experience shows:

p • The socialist social system, which is firmly established in the states now constituting the world socialist system, 328 has proved its great viability in the historical contest with capitalism. (Prolonged applause.)

p • The formation and strengthening of the world socialist system has been a powerful accelerator of historical progress which was started by the Great October Revolution. Fresh prospects have been opened for the triumph of socialism all over the world; life has provided confirmation of the conclusion drawn by the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties that "the world socialist system is the decisive force in the anti-imperialist struggle".

p • The world socialist system has been making a great contribution to the fulfilment of a task of such vital importance for all the peoples as the prevention of another world war. It is safe to say that many of the imperialist aggressors’ plans were frustrated thanks to the existence of the world socialist system and its firm action. (Prolonged applause.)

p • Successes in socialist construction largely depend on the correct combination of the general and the nationally specific in social development. Not only are we now theoretically aware but also have been convinced in practice that the way to socialism and its main features are determined by the general regularities, which are inherent in the development of all the socialist countries. We are also aware that the effect of the general regularities is manifested in different forms consistent with concrete historical conditions and national specifics. It is impossible to build socialism without basing oneself on general regularities or taking account of the concrete historical specifics of each country. Nor is it possible without a consideration of both these factors correctly to develop relations between the socialist states.

p The experience accumulated over the quarter-century also makes it possible to take a more profound and more realistic approach in assessing and determining the ways of overcoming objective and subjective difficulties which arise in the construction of the new society and the establishment of the new, socialist type of inter-state relations. Given a correct policy of the Marxist-Leninist Parties, the common social system, and the identity of basic interests and purposes of the peoples of the socialist countries make it possible successfully to overcome these difficulties and steadily to 329 advance the cause of developing and strengthening the world socialist system.

p The past five-year period has seen a considerable contribution to the treasure-house of the collective experience of the fraternal countries and Parties. In the last five years, the economic potential of the socialist states has increased substantially, the political foundations of socialism have been strengthened, the people’s living standards have been raised, and culture and science have been further developed.

p At the same time, it is known that some difficulties and complications have continued to appear in the socialist world, and this has also had an effect on the development of relations between individual states and the Soviet Union. However, this has not changed the dominant tendency of strengthening friendship and cohesion of the socialist countries. On the whole, our co-operation with the fraternal countries has been successfully developing and strengthening in every sphere. (Applause.)

p The CPSU has attached special importance to developing co-operation with the Communist Parties of the fraternal countries. This co-operation, enriching us with each other’s experience, has enabled us jointly to work on the fundamental problems of socialist and communist construction, to find the most rational forms of economic relations, collectively to lay down a common line in foreign affairs, and to exchange opinion on questions relating to the work in the sphere of ideology and culture.

p The period under review was marked by important successes in co-ordinating the foreign-policy activity of the fraternal Parties and states. The most important international problems and events in this period were considered collectively by the representatives of socialist countries on various levels.

p The Warsaw Treaty Organisation has been and continues to be the main centre for co-ordinating the foreignpolicy activity of the fraternal countries.

p The Warsaw Treaty countries displayed the initiative of putting forward a full-scale programme for strengthening peace in Europe, which is pivoted on the demand that the immutability of the existing state borders should be secured. The Political Consultative Committee has devoted several of its sittings to formulating and concretising this programme.

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p The Warsaw Treaty countries can also undoubtedly count among their political assets the fact that the plans which had existed within NATO to give the FRG militarists access to nuclear weapons have not been realised.

p Joint efforts by the socialist states have also made it possible to achieve substantial progress in solving a task of such importance for stabilising the situation in Europe as the strengthening of the international positions of the German Democratic Republic. (Applause.) The so-called Hallstein Doctrine has been defeated. The GDR has already been recognised by 27 states, and this process is bound to continue. (Applause.)

p Active and consistent support from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries is vitally important for the struggle of the peoples of Vietnam and the other countries of Indochina against the imperialist interventionists. The steps taken by the socialist states in the Middle East have become one of the decisive factors which have frustrated the imperialist plans of overthrowing the progressive regimes in the Arab countries.

p In the United Nations and other international bodies, the socialist countries, acting together, have put forward many proposals of key international importance. These proposals have been at the focus of world opinion.

p As a result of the collective formulation and implementation of a number of measures in recent years, the military organisation of the Warsaw Treaty has been further improved. The armed forces of the allied powers are in a state of high readiness and are capable of guaranteeing the peaceful endeavour of the fraternal peoples. (Prolonged applause.)

p In short, comrades, the socialist countries’ multilateral political co-operation is becoming ever closer and more vigorous. We set ourselves definite aims and work jointly to achieve them. This is naturally of tremendous importance, especially in the present conditions of the contest between the two world social systems.

p Of equal importance is co-operation in the economic sphere, and extension and deepening of national-economic ties between the socialist countries. The period under review has also been fruitful in this respect.

p Let us turn to the facts.

p The Soviet Union and the fraternal states seek to help each other in every way to develop their national 331 economies. In the last five years, over 300 industrial and agricultural projects have been built or reconstructed in the socialist countries with our technical assistance. We have been supplying our friends with many types of industrial products on mutually advantageous terms. The Soviet Union has met 70, and more, per cent of the import requirements in some key types of raw materials and fuel of the CMEA countries and Cuba, and also to a considerable extent those of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Korean People’s Democratic Republic.

p In the past five-year period, our national economy, for its part, has received from the CMEA countries equipment for 54 chemical plants. Over 38 per cent of the seagoing tonnage which our merchant navy has received in that period was made at our friends’ shipyards. The CMEA countries are taking part through their investments in developing raw material and fuel branches of the Soviet economy, and in enlarging the capacities for making metal, mineral fertilisers and pulp. We have also been receiving many consumer goods from the fraternal countries.

p The USSR and the other CMEA countries arrange their economic relations on a long-term basis. In particular, the fraternal countries have co-ordinated their nationaleconomic plans for 1971-1975. In the last few years, active work has been continued in developing the organisational structure and technical basis for multilateral economic cooperation.

p The second section of the Druzhba oil pipeline is being laid. In the first year of its operation, 1964, it carried 8.3 million tons of oil, and in 1975 the fraternal countries will receive almost 50 million tons of oil. A gas pipeline of unique dimensions is being laid to carry natural gas from Siberia to the country’s European part. This will also help to increase gas deliveries to Czechoslovakia and Poland, and to start supplying gas to the GDR, Bulgaria and Hungary. The Mir integrated power grids have been yielding great economies for the CMEA countries. The International Bank for Economic Co-operation has been operating successfully, and a common investment bank of the CMEA countries recently started operations. Other forms of multilateral ties are also being strengthened.

p All this has produced its results, helping to make social production more efficient, and to develop the national 332 economy of each of our countries at a rapid pace. In the past five-year period, the CMEA countries’ industrial production increased by 49 per cent. Trade between them has also been growing.

p However, like other members of CMEA, we believe that the possibilities of the socialist division of labour are not yet being fully used. Practice has led us up to this common conclusion: it is necessary to deepen specialisation and cooperation of production, and to tie in our national-economic plans more closely, that is, to advance along the way of the socialist countries’ economic integration. Comrades, this is an important and necessary endeavour.

p The economic integration of the socialist countries is a new and complex process. It implies a new and broader approach to many economic questions, and the ability to find the most rational solutions, meeting the interests not only of the given country but of all the participants in cooperation. It requires firm orientation on the latest scientific and technical achievements, and the most profitable and technically advanced lines of production.

p That is the approach the CPSU intends to foster among workers in our planning and economic bodies. In this connection consideration should also apparently be given to the steps that would provide every unit of our economic system with an incentive to develop long-term economic ties with the fraternal countries.

p In the period between the 23rd and the 24th Congresses, our Party has displayed much concern for strengthening bilateral relations between the Soviet Union and the socialist countries.

p Close and diverse co-operation, friendship and cordiality are characteristic of our relations with the Warsaw Treaty countries—Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Rumania and Czechoslovakia.

p New treaties of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance have been concluded with Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Rumania. Together with the treaties with the GDR, Poland and Mongolia, which entered into force earlier, together with the other bilateral treaties between the fraternal countries, these documents constitute a comprehensive system of mutual allied commitments of a new, socialist type.

p Our friendship with the Polish People’s Republic is 333 unshakeable. We note with deep satisfaction that the difficulties which arose in fraternal Poland have been overcome. The Polish United Workers’ Party is taking steps to have its ties with the working class and all other working people strengthened, and the positions of socialism in the country consolidated. From the bottom of their hearts, the Communists of the Soviet Union wish their Polish friends the very greatest of success. (Stormy, prolonged applause.}

p Our Party and the Soviet people have relations of socialist solidarity and strong and militant friendship with the Working People’s Party of Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. (Applause.) Following the precepts of Ho Chi Minh, great patriot and revolutionary, the Vietnamese people have raised high the banner of socialism and are fearlessly confronting the imperialist aggressors. ( Applause.) The Democratic Republic of Vietnam may be sure that in its armed struggle and its peaceful endeavour it can continue to rely on the Soviet Union’s fraternal support. (Prolonged applause.)

p Over these years, the Central Committee has devoted constant attention to strengthening co-operation with the Republic of Cuba and the Communist Party of Cuba. As a result of joint efforts, considerable successes have been achieved in developing Soviet-Cuban relations. The peoples of the Soviet Union and of Cuba are comrades-in-arms in a common struggle, and their friendship is firm. (Prolonged applause.)

p For half a century now, the CPSU and the Soviet state have had bonds of strong and time-tested friendship with the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and the Mongolian People’s Republic. The Soviet Union is a true friend and ally of socialist Mongolia, and actively supports the efforts of our Mongolian friends aimed at solving major economic problems and strengthening their country’s international positions. (Prolonged applause.)

p In the last few years, our ties with the Korean People’s Democratic Republic and the Workers’ Party of Korea have grown, and this, we are sure, meets the interests of the peoples of both countries. The Soviet Union has supported and continues to support the proposals of the KPDR Government on the country’s peaceful, democratic unification, and the Korean people’s demands for a withdrawal of US troops from the south of Korea. (Applause.)

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p In the period under review, Soviet-Yugoslav relations have continued to develop. The Soviet people want to see socialism in Yugoslavia strengthened, and her ties with the socialist community growing stronger. We stand for SovietYugoslav co-operation, and for developing contacts between our Parties. (Applause.)

p About our relations with the People’s Republic of China. It will be recalled that the Chinese leaders have put forward an ideological-political platform of their own which is incompatible with Leninism on the key questions of international life and the world communist movement, and have demanded that we should abandon the line of the 20th Congress and the Programme of the CPSU. They unfolded an intensive and hostile propaganda campaign against our Party and country, made territorial claims on the Soviet Union, and in the spring and summer of 1969 brought things to the point of armed incidents along the border.

p Our Party has resolutely opposed the attempts to distort the Marxist-Leninist teaching, and to split the international communist movement and the ranks of the fighters against imperialism. Displaying restraint and refusing to be provoked, the CC CPSU and the Soviet Government have done their utmost to bring about a normalisation of relations with the People’s Republic of China.

p In the last eighteen months, as a result of the initiative displayed on our part, there have been signs of some normalisation in relations between the USSR and the PRC. A meeting of the heads of government of the two countries took place in September 1969, and this was followed by negotiations in Peking between government delegations on a settlement of the border issues. These negotiations are proceeding slowly, and it goes without saying that their favourable completion calls for a constructive attitude not only of one side.

p An exchange of ambassadors took place between the USSR and the PRC at the end of last year. After a considerable interval, trade agreements have been signed and trade has somewhat increased. These are useful steps. We are prepared to continue to act in this direction.

p But on the other hand, comrades, we cannot, of course, fail to see that the anti-Soviet line in China’s propaganda and policy is being continued, and that the 9th Congress of 335 the CPC has written this line, which is hostile to the Soviet Union, into its decisions.

p What can be said in this context?

p We resolutely reject the slanderous inventions concerning the policy of our Party and our state which are being spread from Peking and instilled into the minds of the Chinese people. (Prolonged applause.) It is the more absurd and harmful to sow dissent between China and the USSR considering that this is taking place in a situation in which the imperialists have been stepping up their aggressive action against the freedom-loving peoples. More than ever before the situation demands cohesion and joint action by all the anti-imperialist, revolutionary forces, instead of fanning hostility between such states as the USSR and China.

p We shall never forsake the national interests of the Soviet state. (Prolonged applause.) The CPSU will continue tirelessly to work for the cohesion of the socialist countries and the world communist movement on a Marxist-Leninist basis. (Applause.) At the same time, our Party and the Soviet Government are deeply convinced that an improvement of relations between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China would be in line with the fundamental, long-term interests of both countries, the interests of socialism, the freedom of the peoples, and stronger peace. That is why we are prepared in every way to help not only to normalise relations but also to restore neighbourliness and friendship between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China and express the confidence that this will eventually be achieved. (Prolonged applause.)

p Such is our principled stand. We have repeatedly stated it, are firmly committed to it, and are backing it up in practice. (Applause.)

p As regards Albania, we are prepared, as in the past, to restore normal relations with her. This would be beneficial to both countries and to the common interests of the socialist states.

p Comrades, the political crisis in Czechoslovakia has been fairly prominent in the international events of recent years. There is apparently no need here to set out the factual side of the matter, which is well known. Let us deal only with some of the conclusions drawn from what has taken place which we believe to be the most essential.

p The Czechoslovak events were a fresh reminder that in 336 the countries which have taken the path of socialist construction the internal anti-socialist forces, whatever remained of them, may, in certain conditions, become active and even mount direct counter-revolutionary action in the hope of support from outside, from imperialism, which, for its part, is always prepared to form blocs with such forces.

p The danger of Right-wing revisionism, which seeks, on the pretext of “improving” socialism, to destroy the revolutionary essence of Marxism-Leninism, and paves the way for the penetration of bourgeois ideology, has been fully brought out in this connection.

p The Czechoslovak events showed very well how important it is constantly to strengthen the Party’s leading role in socialist society, steadily to improve the forms and methods of Party leadership, and to display a creative MarxistLeninist approach to the solution of pressing problems of socialist development.

p It was quite clear to us that this was not only an attempt on the part of imperialism and its accomplices to overthrow the socialist system in Czechoslovakia. It was an attempt to strike in this way at the positions of socialism in Europe as a whole, and to create favourable conditions for a subsequent onslaught against the socialist world by the most aggressive forces of imperialism.

p In view of the appeals by Party and state leaders, Communists and working people of Czechoslovakia, and considering the danger posed to the socialist gains in that country, we and the fraternal socialist countries then jointly took a decision to render internationalist assistance to Czechoslovakia in defence of socialism. (Prolonged applause.) In the extraordinary conditions created by the forces of imperialism and counter-revolution, we were bound to do so by our class duty, loyalty to socialist internationalism, and the concern for the interests of our states and the future of socialism and peace in Europe. (Applause.)

p You will recall that in its document, "Lessons of the Crisis Development”, a plenary meeting of the CC of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia gave this assessment of the importance of the fraternal states’ collective assistance (I quote):

p “The entry of the allied troops of the five socialist countries into Czechoslovakia was an act of international solidarity, meeting both the common interests of the 337 Czechoslovakian working people and the interests of the international working class, the socialist community and the class interests of the international communist movement. This internationalist act saved the lives of thousands of men, ensured internal and external conditions for peaceful and tranquil labour, strengthened the Western borders of the socialist camp, and blasted the hopes of the imperialist circles for a revision of the results of the Second World War.” (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p We fully agree with the conclusion drawn by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Life has once again provided convincing evidence that the fraternal unity of the socialist countries is the most reliable barrier against the forces trying to attack and weaken the socialist camp, to undermine and invalidate the working people’s socialist gains. The peoples of the socialist countries have clearly demonstrated to the whole world that they will not give up their revolutionary gains, and that the borders of the socialist community are immutable and inviolable. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p We are sincerely glad that the Communists of Czechoslovakia have successfully stood the trials that fell to their lot. Today the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia is advancing towards its 14th Congress, which we are sure will be a new and important stage in strengthening the positions of socialism in Czechoslovakia. (Prolonged applause.)

p Comrades, the present-day socialist world, with its successes and prospects, with all its problems, is still a young and growing social organism, where not everything has settled and where much still bears the marks of earlier historical epochs. The socialist world is forging ahead and is continuously improving. Its development naturally runs through struggle between the new and the old, through the resolution of internal contradictions. The experience that has been accumulated helps the fraternal Parties to find correct and timely resolution of the contradictions and confidently to advance along the path indicated by Marx, Engels and Lenin, the great teachers of the proletariat. (Prolonged applause.)

p The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has regarded and continues to regard as its internationalist duty in every way to promote the further growth of the might of the world socialist system. (Applause.) Our stand is that the 338 co-operation between the fraternal countries should grow ever more diverse and gain in depth, that it should involve ever broader masses of working people, and that each other’s concrete experience should be more fundamentally studied at every level of state, social, economic and cultural life.

p We want to see every fraternal country a flourishing state, harmoniously combining rapid economic, scientific and technical growth with a flowering of socialist culture and rising living standards for the working people. We want the world socialist system to be a well-knit family of nations, building and defending the new society together, and mutually enriching each other with experience and knowledge, a family, strong and united, which the people of the world would regard as the prototype of the future world community of free nations. (Stormy, prolonged applause.}

Allow me to assure our friends, our brothers and our comrades-in-arms in the socialist countries that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will spare no effort to attain this lofty goal! (Prolonged applause.)