p N. Kapchenko

p The evolution of the political line of the Mao group, which is currently ruling the destiny of a country with a population of 700 million, has entered a new phase. This is evident from numerous facts relating to the Maoists’ domestic policy and to their activities on the international scene. The principal indicator and cardinal feature reflecting this qualitatively new stage of Peking’s policy are that the attacks against the Soviet Union have become the basic line of its international policy. Here it is not a case of an accidental or isolated phenomena, but of the logical expression of GreatPower, expansionist ambitions intrinsic to the Maoist plans.

p The development of the Maoist political platform has been very symbolical over the past decade. Initially, the Maoists made believe that their clash with the international communist movement and, above all, with the CPSU was over the interpretation of various theoretical propositions relating to the most pressing problems of the world revolutionary movement. The impression was thus created that the differences were primarily of an ideological and theoretical nature. However, as time passed, it became increasingly evident that here it was not a case even of considerable divergences on questions of theory. Mao Tse-tung and his supporters started a political struggle against socialist countries, steadily fanning it, and in the end putting forward a chauvinistic, expansionist foreign policy programme. Thereby they strikingly demonstrated their intention to steer the differences into a new channel—the channel of inter-state relations.

Thus, the moral and political degradation of the Maoist renegades ran from the proclamation of a special stand on individual questions of theory to territorial claims and the organisation of armed provocations against the Soviet Union. For some time it was yet possible to regard the divergences with the Peking splitters as a divergence within the socialist community and the world communist movement, but Mao Tse-tung and his supporters pilloried and exposed themselves as accomplices of imperialism and reaction when they started shattering the CPC and openly embarked on a course 180 of turning China into a force hostile to the socialist countries. Whatever the tactics employed by them today or in future they will not change the main content and direction of their policy on the international scene.