APPROVED FOR RELEASE
DATE: MAY 2007

TS No. 196753
Copy No.7? 4¥-+
15 June 1967

DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE

Intelligence Report

THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE '
WITHIN THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA
(Reference Title: ESAU XXVIII)

; 7 — |

. ss ET

THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE .
WITHIN THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA

This working paper of the DDI Research Staff examines
the competition among the Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban Com-
munist parties for influence with Communist parties and -
Rech Genes ee oune in Latin America from mid-1963 through
March’ 1967

In terms of the period eavered it is a sequel to
the DDI/Staff Study titled "The Sino-Soviet Struggle in
Cuba and the Latin American Communist Movement" (Reference
Title; ESAU XXIII-63), dated 1 November 1963, which dis- |
cussed developments through the first week of August 1963..,
ESAU XXIII~63, as its title undicates, deals priucipally
with the growth of Cuban Communism in the early years of
the Castro regime, the intense Sino-Soviet rivalry to ex-
ploit Castro, the aftermath of the Cuban missile base
crisis, and, in an appendix, the growth of Chinese influ- |
ence in-some of the hemisphere Communist parties.

The present paper, overlapping somewhat the period
covered by ESAU XXIII-63, focuses mainly on the dramatic -
growth of Chinese Communist activities in Latin America
Since mid-1963 and on Moscow's reaction, and only on that
aspect of the Cuban Communist party's development which
concerns Castro's efforts to command for his experience
@ level of ideological influence in the world Communist
movement comparable with that of Russia and China. Be-
cause the General Introduction and the Appendix of ESAU
XXIII-63 include detailed background information on the-
Sino-Soviet struggle in Cuba no attempt is here made to
duplicate it. In line with the focus of the’ present paper,
there is included as an appendix a country-by-country in- -
ventory of the build-up of Chinese-oriented parties, fac-
tions, and movements in Latin America.

: This paper has not been coordinated with other
offices, but it has been reviewed by
OCI and by several DDP staff officers specializing in
its subject matter; and the author, Blair A. Moffett,.is
grateful for their review of the draft. The DDI/RS. would
welcome further comment on the paper addressed to
Secor to the Chief or Deputy Chief of the eta (all

sion [ |}.

TOP-SECRET

CONTENTS
Page
Summary and ConcluSions................ ire a
List of Abbreviations... 2... cere eee w cece ecw neces ree, a
I. The Communist Dispute in Latin America.........1
A. Peking's Dictum: The Party Must Lead...... 2.
B. The CPSU: The Bourgeoisie May Lead. sca 8
C. The Cuban Way: Guerrilla Warfare......... 12
If. Peking Becomes Activ@.......-....- cece eeeee ald
A. The Fruits: Some New Parties and
Loyal Factions.......... ccc cues sea! wiavievtasettanie 15
B. Efforts to Create a poeepnere Movement...17
C. The Break with Havana.......... 2 cece ewe 23
1. Operations Against" the Cuban Party....25
D. Chinese Experience with Latin
Revolutionaries. ......ceeeee lon dk exe
1. The Great Cultural Revolution and
Latin American Operations............34
2. Operations Research for Latin America.35
III. Castro; New-World Marxism-Leninism..... teeceveald
A. A Would-Be Latin American Lenin........... 37
lL. Havana: Center for New-World Marxist~
Leninist Theory....... 0. cece w cen were 43
B. The Tri-Continental: A Cuban Triumph.....48
1. The Main Arena: The Organization
: Committee..........20e008 oe 63a Dee alae eS
2. <A Hemisphere Guerrilla High Command ‘
ES “BOD 6 oo: i6:is-0: ei: ots co's 66:06 19 606 do opis od “Gale DO
3. The Outlook: for the AALAPSO.........-..57 _-
C. The Orthodox Communists Are Not Impressed. 59 —
l. Post-Havana Conference Developments. ..59
2. Post Tri-Continental Developments. ....63
D. -A Communist Third-Force Bloc?............- 69
1. The Cubans Flog Moscow's Front Groups.73
Iv. The Soviet Response.....2....0NececeeveccesseedO

A. Parrying the Chinese Thrust...........++.-76
1. Strengthening Moscow's Hemisphere

RESEPVES... cect cere racer cacseccces eld

IV.

-TerescRET_

Page

The Soviet Response (con't)
B. Cuba: A Special Case... eee cece ewe ee 82
1. The Sovietization of Castro...........84
2. The Andes: South America's Sierra.
MACS CPA 6 525205 eereseie sioceta aiereve aie ab Oe eia ee 86
3. The Havana Conference of November
1964 and the Proposed Moscow Meeting. 90

4. Venezuela: Another Maverick.......5... 99

C. Repercussions of the Tri-Continental..... 110
1. The Credibility Gap; Moscow's Latin ‘
American, Institute.......... ee were ede 114

2. Soviet-Cuban Confrontation......... 116

Appendix: Pro-Chinese Parties. and Groups. .. LD

1. Mexico, Middle America, and Panama...119
2. South America,.......... Se dcvegnh se ae bee
3. The Caribbean...... dca Pa eie alee ldse: a'erecere taco 164

| eee

THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE
WITHIN THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA

Summary and Conclusions

The central issue. of the Communist controversy.in-
Latin America is the "national liberation struggle” against
‘colonialism and imperialism. The. essential conflict is
whether evolutionary tactics or militant revolutionary
tactics by Communist parties are best suited to local con~
ditions and most likely to lead to the overthrew, of exist-
ing political regimes.

The Cuban revolution and its turn to Communism at
first facilitated both Chinese and Soviet efforts in Latin
America, but, by the time the Sino-Soviet conflict reached
an acute stage in mid-1963, Castroism had begun to emerge
as a competing "third" Communist influence that has com-
plicated the field for both sides; each has competed
strenuously for Cuban alignment with its position,

‘Because of basic similarities between Chinese and
Cuban national liberation theories, which led supporters
of Havana and Peking to cooperate in revolutionary enter-
prises that were deplored and often opposed by the orthodox
pro-Soviet Communist parties, this contest for several
years appeared to pit Cuba and China against Russia.

For its part, in spite of organized Soviet opposi-
tion and great time-space handicaps, Peking has been
able to establish a nucleus of supporting parties, factions,
and groups within or associated with the Latin American
Communist movement. This presently small nucleus, if it
continues to be given strong Chinese backing, has the po-
tential eventually to become a full-fledged movement which
could. compete on more equal terms with the orthodox parties
of the Latin American Communist movement.

However, the success of the Russians in effecting
a Sino-Cuban party split following the November 1964 Ha~ :
vana conference of Communist parties, compounded the ob-

stacles facing the Chinese, ane was a major Soviet victory in

sateen

Moscow's world struggle with China. Moscow thereby denied
Peking an important reservoir of support in Latin America
by forcing the Chinese to distinguish clearly between their
own supporters in the area and those Communist and aesso-
ciated extremist sectors loyal to Castro which had form-
erly been willing to cooperate. ‘Chinese bitterness over
this defeat reflects the importance of Latin America in
Peking's plans, and the Chinese party has reacted by re-
trenching and making preparations for a long-term

program within the area’s Communist move—
ment.

The Chinese leadership has, however, been careful
to.limit the magnitude of its break with Cuba and appar-.
ently sees it as different from the quarrel with the CPSU
in spite of the fact that Peking is seriously disillusioned
with Cuban "revisionism" and with what seems to the Chi-
nese to be Cuban cooperation with Russia against China
in the Sino-Soviet conflict. Castro's vicious personal
attack on Mao Tse-tung in March 1966 reflected Cuban re-
sentment of Chinese. pressures to get him to take the Chi-.
nese side, and marked the hottest point ‘of the Sino-Cuban
polemic. Peking's disengagement from this open polemic
reflected Chinese. interest in preserving future options
with Castro. The Cuban leadership has not since acted.
to carry the quarrel further, but Cuba is evidently re-
ciprocating Chinese coolness in the two sides’ state and
party relations,’ The Chinese appear fully prepared to
compete with the Cuban party as well as with the CPSU
. among hemisphere Communists so Long as there is. no change
in the Cuban stance. This Cuban stance of "a pox on both
your houses" was expressed by Castro in his regular anni-
versary speech in January 1965,

The Sino-Cuban rift was engineered by the Soviets
against Cuban will, and because of this has engendered
some negative effects from the Soviet point of view.
Moscow used great care in its handling of. the operation,
in view of the high stakes, employing a combination of
pressures compounded of a concerted demarche by the ortho-
dox hemisphere parties, the Russians' own overwhelming
economic leverage upon Cuba’s economic future, and superb
timing provided by a predictably high degree of Cuban

ie

jonalaner

-

uncertainty about the intentions of the Soviet leadership
which succeeded Khrushchev, Castro's old friend.

Far fron encouraging more manageable Soviet-Cuban
relations, however, the Russian operation has produced a back-
lash of Cuban wrath that.has been increasingly character-
ized by vigorous and more open Cuban opposition to Soviet
diplomatic overtures and Soviet party activities in the
hemisphere. In 1966 Cuban, opposition was extended even
to the CPSU-dominated international front organizations
and to Soviet party claims of doctrinal authority over
the course of Communist development in Latin America.

The hemisphere Communists and the Communist world in
general have thus become witness to the phenomenon of ‘a
Communist state practically wholly dependent on Soviet
subsidy for its current rate of economic activity respond-
ing to important wishes of its benefactor not with amen-
able accommodation but with a tough unwillingness to com-
promise that at times approaches the absolute intransig- ©
ence of the Chinese party toward the CPSU. Cuban indigna-
tion reflects Castro's resentment at being coerced by the
Soviets from his chosen position of abstention toward the
Sino-Soviet dispute because of the limiting effect this
would have on his room for maneuver between the two sides. |
But it has been caused also by another side of Castro's
attitude that may prove more basic over the tone term.

. Since about mid- 1966 there ‘has appeared a marked
effort by Havana to elevate the Castro revolution to a
status for Latin America comparable in historic signi-
ficance with the historical importance for Europe of Rent s
Bolshevik revolution, and to present Castro personally as.

a Marxist theoretician comparable in rank to Lenin bachiee.
of the impact of Castro's ideas on the present-day Communist
dialectic. Implicit in this newest Cuban trend is the
proposition that Castro’s transformation of Cuba as the
first socialist state in the new world is of such pri-
mordial value to the march of world Communism that the
Soviets and East Europeans have an unalterable obligation
to give Cuba economic and military support. In the Cuban
view, this subsidy has no necessary relationship with--and —
certainly requires no reduction of~--Cuban export to Latin
America and even elsewhere of the Cuban national liberation

~ili-

i
1
|

model, because that model is a new Marxian “'thesis" clash-
ing with an outmoded, orthodox, Soviet-Communist "“anti-

thesis”. —

So far the Soviet party, in its dealings with the
Cuban phenomenon, has had its eye principally upon the
Chinese party. ‘Since their confrontation with Cuba in
November 1964, the Russians have shown themselves unwill--
ing to be drawn into any similar showdown in spite of
recent Cuban challenges, and despite intermittent pres-
sure on the CPSU to do so from the orthodox Communist
parties: whom Castro continues to trouble. The Soviet
party's policy has been to ignore Cuban initiatives and
to counsel the orthodox parties to exercise patience in
helping the CPSU deal with Havana, strongly suggesting
a Soviet, preference for existing relations, bad as they.
may be, to even the remote possibility .of a Cuban-—Chinese
understanding at Russian expense. — . vs

Nevertheless, deliberate and open Castroist ‘support

of a dissident Communist guerrilla faction of the ortho-
‘dox Venezuelan PCV led the CPSU in March 1967 to issue’

an authoritative warning to Castro not to underestimate

or attempt to split orthodox Latin American Communist ,
parties. The CPSU has been working strenuously in Vene-
zuela for establishment of Soviet state relations with
that government. ... To that end it had been trying

since 1965 to return the PCV to a parliamentary role as

an acceptable opposition political party in preparation

for the country's national elections in -1968, a course
diametrically opposed to the objective of the Castro-backed
guerrilla faction--which is to disrupt those elections. ,
The prompt reply to the CPSU's warning, by Castro him-
self, questioning the Communist credentials‘ of the PCV,
may presage a Soviet-Cuban polemic, especially since it

is clear that Cuba intends to try, through the hemisphere
solidarity organization (LASO)--founded with strong Cuban
backing in Havana in January 1966--to dictate. future policy
within the Latin American Communist movement. , a

If, instead of conducting a limited polemic, Moscow
is goaded into accepting a broader ideological contest
with Cuba, the prospects will be stronger for a definite
organizational split between Castroist revolutionaries
and orthodox Communists’in.the hemisphere, like the existing

-iv-

: am

split between the Cubans and pro-Chinese Communists and
between the latter and the pro-Soviet Communists, which
would complete and formalize a three-way division of the
Latin American Communist movement. A reading of ‘all cur-
rent reporting bearing on CPSU policy toward Latin America
and Cuba makes this, however, appear less likely than some
very limited form of Soviet response, Soviet estimates -
of prospects for any meaningful Sino~Cuban rapprochement
will almost certainly decide the CPSU's course of action.
The events of the first LASO Conference, set for Havana

in late July and early August 1967, are likely to provide
‘some firm indicators of the Soviet decision, if none

have appeared in the interim.

Although national liberation moverents in the un-
derdeveloped areas take’ second place in Soviet estimates
of the most important phenomena of the time, and these
movements in Chinese Communist theory ocaipy first place,
the CPSU appears to be devoting more time and attention .
to their doctrinal support than do the Chinese. The Rus-
sians in the period since 1956 have made a relatively
much. more sophisticated effort than the Chinese to re~
appraise the facts and forces of "national liberation" .
in Latin America, After the 1956 20th CPSU Congress Soviet
historians and social scientists were asked to. prepare
new Marxist-Leninist evaluations of Latin American "wars
of liberation", formerly interpreted as expressions of
"bourgeois" goals but now seen'as broad “national” move-
ments of liberation from foreign political and economic
imperialism. Instead of territorial imperialism, the
study of economic imperialism. is now being emphasized,
and much more attention is being given to the possibil~
ities for splitting controlling strata of the national
bour geoisie, : :

v=

Decisions reached at the 21st and 22nd CPSU Con-
gresses, and the 1957 and 1969: Moscow meetings of world
Communist and workers' parties, led to establishment ‘in

1961 of a Latin American Institute within the USSR Academy

of Sciences, whose work guide'ines were laid down in 1962
in authoritative CPSU pronouncements. These made it clear
that: the traditional study of Latin-American history was
to remain in an existing Latin American sectimof the. In-
stitute of History, whereas the new Institute was to.
‘Specialize in contemporary economic, social, and political.
analyses of Latin American countries with a view to de-
veloping precise, factual data on which the CPSU can rely
to determine the best and most proper tactics for promot-—
ing national liberation movements there.

ecome an important operations

ute
research facility for the CPSU in its Latin American policy

formation. Institute activities and writings should re-
pay, careful surveillance by the United States government
in terms of accurate and authoritative forecasts of Soviet
intentions toward the area'’and its individual countries.

The Latin American Institute will doubtless be
called upon to help the CPSU leadership solye Moscow's
toughest current problem in the area. This is, to de-
velop a public line in Latin America that will, on one
hand, not appear so weak and revisionist (compared with
greater Cuban and Chinese militancy). as to invite ideo-
logical defeat for the Soviets among the rising Communist
and radical left-wing nationalist. youth that will compose
the region's Communist movement in the remainder of the

': Century. This line, on the other hand, must avoid provok-—

ing local governmental protest which’ would hurt and pos-
sibly defeat Soviet attempts to expand its state rela-
tions with Latin American countries--an effort that ap-

‘ pears to have first’ piace in current Soviet policy in
Latin America, This dilemma was brought into sharp focus
‘ after the Havana Tri-Continental Conference of January

- 1966. There the Russian delegation was forced to adhere
to a series of violent pronouncements with which it did
not agree and, in consequence, Soviet officials suffered

-vi-

considerable embarrassment in subsequent contacts: and re~-
lations with a number of Latin American governments.”

In spite of. the seeming intractability of this prob-
lem the CPSU has managed to achieve some success in coping
with it. Exploitation of Latin interest in trade and aid
prospects, the resort to considerable flexibility in its
ideological stance toward national liberation movements,
and frequent use of tactical retreats into positional
ambiguity, have marked the Soviet party's approach in
wrestling with the problem. A good example of Russian
opportunism was Moscow's subsequent official disavowal
of the actions of its delegation at the Tri-Continental
Conference. By otherwise muting their praise of tactics
of violence in the countries with which they have state
relations-~such as Uruguay, Brazil, and Chile--the Rus- -
Siang have since been able with some success to foster
a wide-spread popular view. that the USSR has become a
relatively compatible ‘bourgeois’. state that poses little

‘threat to the established order in comparison with the
disreputable, revolution-obsessed Chinese.

A striking example of Soviet flexibility is seen
in recent actions of Moscow in Chile. In early 1965,
the USSR, at the invitation of the new Frei government,
established an embassy in Santiago and began economic
aid negotiations which had by 1966 brought about a Soviet
aid agreement with Chile of a magnitude. reported to —
be second only in the hemisphere to the Russian program
of aid to Cuba. Castro, in contrast with this friendly
Russian "bear hug", has openly declared his enmity to the
Frei government and the "Revolution In Freedom" sapouaed!
by its ruling Christian Democratic Party.

Two governments-~the Venezuelan and Colombian—~.
burdened with serious Castm-supported guerrilla problems
being supported by local. Communist parties, have attempted
to halt further Russian gains through such straddling
tactics by telling the USSR that a condition for good
economic relations is that Communists under Moscow's in-
fluence refrain‘ from subversive activity within their ter-
ritories. Known by the name of its originator, Dr. Guil-
lermo Belt, a former Cuban ambassador to the U.S. and UN,

-vii-

=

this "Belt Doctrine” could offer an effective wedge with
which to exploit current Russo-Cuban differences to West-
ern advantage. Its usefulness will however depend upon
how firmly Latin American governments will maintain such
a stand once they have taken it.

Because of Russia’‘s far greater resources, its will-
ingness to make its liberation dectrine conform to the
circumstances in a much greater degree than its two rivals
are willing, and its readiness even to compete within the
framework of Western parliamentary procedures if neces-
sary to gain final victory for the Communist over the’ |
capitalist system, the USSR poses the clearest long-term
‘threat to United States' interests in the southern hemi-
Sphere. This threat is likely to continue, and its ef-
fects be felt, as an obstacle to the kind of political -
stability and ordered economic evolution in Latin America
that is the goal of U.S. policy, long after the Castro
phenomenon has waned.

However, because of its advocacy of armed violence
through "popular war" Castro’s revolutionary program-~like
its remoter but strikingly similar Chinese counterpart-~
poses a much more direct and immediate threat to the goals
of United States' policy in Latin America. So far, its
very visibility and comparatively simple doctrine have
made the Cuban effort easier to grapple with and deter
through local military action wherever the government and
armed forces have had the will to do so. But Castro’s
current effort to produce a distinctive Marxist-Leninist
revolutionary ideology for use in other areas of Latin
America could mupetply the threat from Havana and lengthen
its tern. ‘

Such an.indigenous Communism would appeal: strdngly
to the ambitions of many Latin Americans looking for an
ideological weapon to use against the political theories
of the United States. It would also be attractive to many
Communists and radical nationalists who, unwilling to sub- |
ordinate themselves either to Moscow or Peking, are other-
wise ready under an acceptable Latin banner to resort to.
violence to try to solve some of the region's pressing
economic and social problems.

-~viii-

Most of the ppeethineds Comnunist parties that came
into being in Latin America in the wake of Peking s cam-
paign in 1963, have suffered jurisdictional splits, and
China's more recent efforts to organize additional Com-
munist parties in the hemisphere have not produced any
significant increase in their number; The effect of China’s
current "cultural revolution” on its Latin American opera-
tions is not yet clear; but Peking continues to train :
groups of Latin radicals and to subsidize the parties and
many of the groups and movements in various countries
which champion its line, The pro~Chinese Communist parties
appear to be experiencing the same kind of political iso-
lation within the Latin American Communist movement as
China itself is experiencing in the world Communist move~
ment, because of Soviet and Castroist opposition to them.

‘~ix-

AALAPSO

AAPSO
CCP
CCP
, s , CLAE
4 CPB
FALN
* FARC
FIDEL

FLN
FRAP

Granma
: LASO
MAR
MIR 7
MLN
MR-134

PCA

Prensa Latina
Bp

* PURS

* " pyp
UJC
UFUCH

Petre rvetbrrerirarrtsrrerrrerages

List of Abbreviations

Afro-Asian-Latin American People's Solidarity
Organization .

Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization

Chinese Communist Party ;

Cuban Communist Party (after October 1965). See PURS.

Latin American Student Congress

Brazilian pro-Chinese Communist Party

Armed Forces of National Liberation (Venezuela)

Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces :

Leftist Liberation Front (Uruguayan Communist .
dominated political front)

National Liberation Front (various countries)

Popular Revolutionary Action Front (Chilean
Communist political coabition with Chilean
Socialist Party)

Official newspaper of the Cuban CCP

Latin American Solidarity Organization

Revolutionary Action Movemént (Uruguay)

Left Revolutionary Movement (various countries)

National Liberation Movement (Mexico, Argentina)
June 14th Revolutionary Movement (Dominican Republic) |

Continental Latin American Student Organization

Argentine Communist Party.

Brazilian pro-Soviet Communist Party

Bolivian Communist Party (until March 1965)

Bolivian pro-Chinese Communist Party (after March 196. °

Bolivian pro-Soviet Communist Party (after March 1965

Colombian pro-Soviet Communist Party

Colombian pro-Chinese Communist Party

Chilean Communist Party

Ecuadorean pro-Soviet Communist Party

Ecuadorean pro-Chinese Communist Party

Italian Communist Party

Mexican Communist Party

Peruvian pro-Soviet Communist Party

Peruvian pro-Chinese Communist Party

Venezuelan Communist Party ; ,

Panamanian Communist Party

Official Cuban news agency

Pre-Castro pro~Soviet Cuban Communist: Party

Cuban United Party of the Socialist Revolution
(transformed into the Cuban Communist Party
in October 1965) ‘

Costa Rican Communist Party

Cuban Union of Communist Youth

Chilean National. Student Organization

RET

aaa

THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE
WITHIN THE COMMUNIST. MOVEMENT IN LATIN: AMERICA

I. The Communist Dispute in Latin America

‘Among all the points of the international Communist
line in dispute, the area that is of most immediate con-
cern to Latin American Communists and extreme left revolu-
tionary groups, and has given rise to the sharpest differ~

ences among them over. tactics and atnatesy, is the "national

liberation struggle."

- An effect of the Sino-Soviet polemic, this contro-
versy has become three-sided as first the Castroist and
then the Chinese Communist party have added their inf tu-
ences to that of the CPSU, present in the hemisphere since
the 1920's. It is not only a contest for control of the
Latin American Communist movement. The problem of who.
will have ideological authority withih that movement is
more central, since the ultimate goal of all three sides
--destruction of United States' influence in and ties with
Latin American countries by the creation of Communist
regimes there-~is identical.

The three-cornered Communist struggle has seen a
corresponding proliferation of interpretations of the
"correct" Marxist-Leninist national liberation rationale.
Hence, if we want to acquire an understanding of the ac-
tivities of their respective supporters in Latin America
and the implications of their successes and failures for
United States' policy in the southern hemisphere, it is
necessary to examine comparatively the rival Cuban, Soviet,
‘and Chinese theories about national liberation. To that
end, this paper begins with a brief general description
of each of the three Communist views about "national Lib-
eration". and makes an effort to show its special refer-
ence to the Latin American area. The body of the -pzper
attempts to analyze and discuss the most significant events
of the three-sided dispute over the conduct of the national
Aiberation revolution in Latin America from about mid-1963
through the winter of 1967. No effort has been made to

-1~

give a strict blow-by-blow account or produce a box score

of each point made or lost. during that time. The intent

is that the episodic account here offered will shed further
light on some of the main features and the central thrust of
the current Communist dispute in the Latin American area.

A. Peking's Dictum: The Party Must Lead

Chinese Communist national liberation theory differs.
. from Soviet theory in major respects.

The Chinese party asserts that the real “storm
“centers” of the Communist world revolution lie in Asia,
Africa, and Latin America--the underdeveloped world of
former colonies~~and that the strategic objective of the
United States is to dominate this “intermediate zone’ ly-
ing between itself and the Communist bloc. For the Chinese
the whole cause of the ‘international proletarian revolu-
tion’ depends in large degree on the outcome of the revolu-
tionary struggles in those areas whose inhabitants, they -
“emphasize, constitute the overwhelming majority of the
world's population. Hence, they insist that the Libera-
tion movements in the underdeveloped world share top priority
with the consolidation and defense of the Communist bloc

as one of the "two great historical currents of our times,"
and that the Communist world must devote at least as much
attention. to those movements as it does to its own tasks

of ‘socialist’ consolidation and construction. ‘

The Soviet party, on the other hand, is only willing
to concede that the liberation movements constitute the
second-most important phenomenon of the times, and it main-
tains that the epicenter of the Communist world revolution
and the single most important historical current of our
times is the creation of the Communist bloc and its main
’ force, "the international workers class": the bloc Con-
munist parties and the worker movements in: countries out- .
side the bloc, a

The Chinese not only assign top priority to Communist
revolution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; their leaders

-2-

ees

declare that Maoist liberation theory has universal applic-
ability to the struggles of "all the oppressed nations and
peoples,” but particularly to revolutionary strategy in
those three areas. The Macist approach was summed up in
CCP Vice Chairman Lin Piao's authoritative article of 3
September 1965, titled "Long Live.the Victory of the Peo-
ple's War'’.* ;

First, say the Chinese, the seizure of power by
armed force, the settlement.of the issue by war, is the
central task and the highest form of revolution. The
actual liberation process: begins with the establishment
of rural revolutionary base areas, and the ultimate en~

circlement of the cities from.the countryside. The peasants

constitute the main force of the revolution, and, only the
countrySide can provide the requisite. bases from which the :
revolutionaries can go forward to final victory. The revo~
lution can only be led, and must be led, by the Communist
party: no other party can lead it. The first stage, the
national democratic revolution, is a necessary: prelude to
the second stage, the socialist revolution. It embraces

in its ranks not only the workers, peasants, and urban
petty bourgeoisie, but also the national bourgéoisie and
other "patriotic and anti~imperialist democrats.” This
united front is based.on a worker-peasant alliance; and .
the basic worker-peasant alliance can be achieved only if
the workers gain the leadership of the great peasant masses.

The united front creates a people's army, and, sup~
ported by the peasants, it carries out guerrilla warfare
against the enemy. Later, as the struggle approaches the
cities, this becomes mobile warfare as the people's army
swells in size. In the enemy-occupied cities and villages,
the Communist party allies in the front carry out legal

*[t was repeated in substance more recently by Chinese
Foreign Minister Chen Yi in an interview on 25 August 1966
for a group of visiting French and Swedish left-wing -stu-
dents in a wide-ranging discussion of Chinese policy vis-
a-vis the armed revolution. ,

a

struggle, while the party itself builds up an: underground,
“illegal urban support structure for attacking the eneny
from within during the final phase of capture of the cities.

<3 Thus, while both s‘des aver that Communist parties
muSt..'"'"master a11 forms of struggle", the Chinese acclaim
armed force as the "highest form" of struggle. The CPSU
for its part has in recent years consistently played down
armed: revolution as outmoded in all but a few circumstances.
:.The Chinese party advocates starting people's wars on prin-
-Ciple in the three underdeveloped areas to overextend the
forces of "U.S. imperialism" and weaken them. Soviet.writ-
: ings carefully limit to a select few the countries in these
' three areas where resort to armed action is recommended,
and display a much greater interest in relatively veaceful

political and’economic methods for prosecuting the national

democratic revolution, especially in Latin America.

Chinese writers are insistent that the Communist
party must maintain its role of leadership in the united
' front. Not only that, but it must also preserve its com-
plete organizational independence throughout the revolu-
tionary process, Soviet theory, on the other hand, admits
the possibility that the Communist party will not play the
leading role in the national democratic revolution, and
even that the Communist party can suffer basic organiza-
tional transformations in the process of producing a suc-
cessful Liberation revolution.

The Chinese emphasize that while the middle, or
national, bourgeoisie, may collaborate in the first demo-
cratic revolution (and even in the later socialist phase),
' because of its "weak and vacillating character" it can
never play a leading role. Soviet analysis of national
bourgeoisie leadership prospects in the revolutionary united
front are:not nearly so categorical, and in fact some
authoritative Soviet writings have conceded the possibility
that, at least in Latin America, the national bourgeoisie
can lead successful national liberation movements.

Chinese liberation theory is more urgently concerned
with Latin America, because the Chinese see it as one of
the three decisive areas of conflict with “imperialism’
-~that is, United States power. But Latin America, unlike

Se

Africa and some parts of Asia, has a well-developed Com- -
_munist movement, with parties existing legally or in various
degrees of illegality in all countries. With few excep~ —
tions, however, these parties have adopted the Soviet "re-

visionist" Line and are, in the Chinese view, unable to
effect true liberation revolutions. Thus, wherever ‘revi-
sionist’' parties exist it is first necessary to bring them
back to sound Marxism-Leninism--that is, to Maoist inter-
pretations of the liberation process--or, failing that,

to organize another, genuine Marxist-Leninist, party which
will persecute the revolution. Thé Chinese leadership
first publicly proclaimed its intention. to do this in ‘its
famous Letter to the CPSU of 14 June 1963, repeated the
message in December of that year, and‘’early in 1964 acknow-
ledged its preference for complete organizational separa- |
tion between the old Soviet-oriented parties and: the new,

‘revolutionary Marxist-Leninist’ parties it was sponsoring. -

Revisionism, say the Chinese, varies from party to
party and country to country, so that an analysis must be
made of each local situation to determine the proper :
course of action, Revisionist parties are not ‘alike, but
show "reciprocal contradictions", and the Chinese party
will concentrate on those contradictions and the degrees
of revisionism each party exhibits. Where the Local party.
is controlled by Marxist-Leninists (that is, pro-Peking
leaders) the question is not whether the liberation revo-
lution will be carried out, but if it will "continue to
the bitter end." Where Marxist-Leninist factions have the
upper hand in a party, "as in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, :
and Ceylon", they must expel the revisionists. Where
the Marxist-Leninist faction has been expelled from the
party, faction members must form a new party and continue —
the struggle outside the revisionist party, "as.in Brazil,
Belgium and Australia." But Marxist-Leninist factions
can and should be formed even though they do not go on to

establish their own party; in fact in some cases such groups —

should remain in revisionist parties to combat revisionism
from within, making efforts to win over to their side the

-5-

"revolutionary masses’ both in and outside the party. This
can be done because some parties are less revisionist than
others, and Chinese strategy calls for working on the con-
tradictions between the “incurables" and those who are not:
yet hopeless.

During February and March 1963, members of the Chi-
nese national leadership in Peking (not further identified)
discussed this tactic with two visiting leaders of the pro-
Chinese Communist Party of Brazil (CPB): The-Chinese ex-
pounded at length their view that all political bodies have
a right, a left, and a center, the majority of the member-
ship of any such group always gravitating to the center. —
This center element, according to their view, oscillated
between the leftist and rightist tendencies to a point
where the smaller elements of left or right were able to
exert influence on the center. Citing their own experi-
ence, the Chinese claimed that-leftists in their own party
who numbered only 5 millions of a total of 18 million mem-
bers, had succeeded in winning over the support of the
center, composed of between 7 and 10 million members. The
Chinese urged the CPB leaders never to lose sight of this
fact, and to work continuously to win over the central
majority of Brazilian Communists who, while then aligned:
with the "rightist" Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), could
be' persuaded eventually to join forces with the CPB. *

- *Some remarks of the Brazilian delegate to the "First
Conference of Latin American Pro-Chinese Parties", held
in Santiago, Chile, from 1 through 4 March 1966, give .
direct evidence of CPB application of these Chinese methods
for attacking pro-Soviet parties. At Santiago the CPB .-
delegate said his party did not attempt to draw its member-
ship out of the ranks of the PCB; instead its objective
was to win over as many PCB members as possible, but to
have them remain in the PCB and work for Marxist-Leninist
goals: within that party. He claimed that this tactic had
netted good results and that the PCB at that time was. ap-
proaching a very complicated crisis because it. had three -
well-defined sectors: the revisionists of the right, the
Marxist-Leninists on the left, and a third group which fol-
lowed neither of the other two.

‘

In September 1966 Peking in a review of the "present

excellent revolutionary situation’. announced a new era of

world revolution characterized by great political upheavals,

divisions, and reorganizations, and reaffirmed its line |
toward Latin America, : :

The Latin American people...have come to
understand more clearly than ever before
that armed struggle is the only way for
real...liberation, ...The patriotic guer-
‘rillas in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and
Guatemala have’ all registered new advances
since the beginning of this year... -The
Latin American revolutionaries have...real~
ized that armed struggle must be carried

., out under the firm leadership of a Marxist-

* Leninist party, and that people's war must

be waged with guerrilla bases sét up in
the rural areas, including rural areas

encircling the cities.

In a December 1966 NCNA commentary focussing on Latin America,

Peking added some further details of its viev:

U.S. imperialism has resorted to direct
armed suppression of the people's revo-
lutionary movements,.. ...the infiltra-
tion of American monopoly capital. has been
accelerated... Consequently, both the.
national and class contradictions in the
Latin American countries have sharpened...
Of vital significance is the fact that a
number of revolutionary vanguards. have
begun to accept Chairman Mao's great theory
of people's war. They have...repudiated
the line of not relying on the masses but
attempting to win an easy victory by: the
roving guerrilla actions of a handful: of
peopte,

The distinction between Maoist and Castroist armed struggle

theory was thus clearly drawn in this allusion to the: separa-
tion of Latin American pro-Chinese groups from pro~Cuban .

forces with which they had formerly associated.

-7-

B. The CPSU: The Bourgeoisie May Lead .
LL et a rg

The Soviet attitude toward national Liberation move-
ments was neatly summed up in the following Statement,
published in 1963, setting out the CPSU‘s theory of the
world revolution: :

The nature and content of the world revolu~
tionary process in our times are determined
by the merger of the struggle against im-
perialism by the peoples building socialism
and communism, the revolutionary movement
of the workers’ class in the capitalist.
countries, the national liberation struggles
of: oppressed peoples, and the general demo-
cratic movement into a single stream. ‘The
decisive role in this union of the var fous
revolutionary forces properly belongs to the
most progressive element in modern society
‘~-the international workers' class and its . ney
main outgrowth--the world socialist system.*

Thus, the center of world revolution in Soviet theory
is the Soviet-led bloc of Communist countries which emerged
after World War II, together with its supporting Communist:
parties in the capitalist countries, as leaders of the 'in-
ternational workers’ class', and not the liberation move-
ments.of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. According to
Soviet writers the era of the national liberation movement
would not. have emerged if it were not for the successful
establishment of this Communist bloc, and they assign the
national ‘liberation movement the status. of "the second
most important event in our times."** The CPSU condemns.

*Cf. article titled "The National Liberation Movement

in a New Stage," in Kommunist, No. 12, 1963, signed to the
press on 19 August 1963, pages 23-32. ; y
**Cf. article titled "The Soviet Position Vis-A-Vis. Pei-

ping" in Kommunist, No. 11, 1963, signed to the press on
31 July 1963, pages 3-36. ;

-8-

o

the Chinese view of the movement as not only incorrect;
it says that if carried through it will isolate the ‘op--
pressed peoples’ from their main source of support, the
Soviet Union and its Communist allies.

: Soviet national liberation theory calls for a two-
stage revolution whose first stage is a "people's, anti-
imperialist, anti-feudal" national democratic revolution

‘to be carried out by means of a Single liberation front - -
with as broad a political composition as possible. Ideally,
it could embrace not only the workers’ class and the peas~
antry, but also the petite, middle, and even big bourgeoisie
not, connected with monopolistic capitalism. The worker-
peasant alliance is crucial to-the success of the libera-—
tion front, but the main force in this alliance is the . |
workers' class, not the peasantry, say the Soviets.

Soviet writers have responded to Chinese insistence
on the need for armed violence in liberation struggles by
arguing that the national liberation movement has entered
a "new and higher developmental stage’ that involves "not
only national, but also social liberation tasks", which :
cannot be accomplished by armed struggle or partisan war-
fare and which demand “new approaches, other methods."
They ridicule rigid Chinese insistence on armed violence
as outmoded and wrong as regards the. "modern problems" in.
the national liberation movement. United States' economic
‘neo-imperialism' is the cause behind the need for the new
tactics, say Soviet writers, who see it not. only active _
in Latin America but expanding also into the newly~inde- ~
pendent states of Africa and Asia. Thus,: the new: tasks
facing the liberation fronts call for tactics of economic
and political rather than armed warfare. .This is especi-
ally true in Latin America because the majority of those
countries have not only gained political independence ‘but..

many of them have relatively developed capitalist economies

‘and class structures, according to the Soviet analysis, *

*As one writer puts it: ."The National Liberation Move~

ment in a New Stage," article by Ye. Zhukov in Komnunist,
(footnote continued on page 10)

-9~

‘The Soviets have, however, never abandcned: use of
armed methods in principle, and-in their discussions they
have endorsed its use in Latin American countries "dominated
by military dictatorships" and "puppets of the foreign , ,
monopolies" which they see to be characteristic of some ‘
Central American and Caribbean basin countries (such as ne
Venezuela, ‘Colombia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, etcetera).
and one or two others such as Paraguay, farther south. :
Soviet treatment of armed violence has emphasized its use’
to defend the Communist party from repression to a much
greater extent than its offensive use through partisan war-
fare and urban terrorism, This emphasis on creation of
self-defense groups of "workers and farmers" to resist

(footnote continued from page 9)
No. 12, 1963, signed to the press on 19 August 1963:

The positions of economic command in many

national states are retained, as before,

‘by the imperialistic. monopolies. The tasks:

of the national liberation revolution in

these countries cannot be carried out by

means of armed struggle. What is needed. is

a new approach, other methods. Economic as
tasks are on the daily agenda of the liberated |

and sovereign"countries. These tasks cannot. : .
be resolved by partisan methods. :

An insight into the CPSU's real reasons for concern over -
improper "wars of national liberation" is afforded by a
report from a middle-level Brazilian Communist source of

a meeting in August 1965 between a Soviet embassy official
in Rio de Janeiro and some PCB leaders in which--as part
of a review of world Communist prospects--he said the CPSU
believes local wars are a preferable policy for wearing
down and dissipating U.S, strength;: however, the “greatest
danger" being encountered was Chinese Communist preference
for all-out war which could lead to escalation of a local
war to "World War Three.” This line was parroted by Luis
Carlos Prestes in discussions with Sao Paulo PCB state
leaders in Decémber 1965. See page 162.

-10—

"landing of the U.S. marines" was repeated by the CPSU at . et
the important Thirteenth National PCCh Congress held in =| :
October 1965 in Santiago, Chile. Soviet writers also link

the wrong use of armed struggle in Latin America with at-

tempts at artificially speeding up the revolution regard-

less of "local conditions", which are destined to fail

and produce'a reaction that splits the united front and

weakens the whole Communist movement--e.g., the long-range

Soviet assets in the Southern hemisphere. This view has

formed the main Soviet criticism of Castro s revolutionary
theories and abortive overseas operations in Latin America.

The CPSU sees the liberation struggle in the rela-|
tively developed Latin American’ countries. as essentially
a clash between the two opposing trends.of capitalism and
socialism. Because it is usually the "representatives of
the national bourgeoisie" who are.in power in these coun-.
tries, Soviet analysts since the early 1960s have taken
an increasingly closer look at this group, which they see
as capable of playing. a key role in achieving a national
decision to launch their country onto a “non-capitalist
path’ ultimately leading to. socialism. It is particularly
the middle strata of the national bourgeoisie that can
play an active. part in the ‘anti-imperialist' struggle,
according to Soviet writers, because of the basic contra-
dictions they see between its interests and those of ©
foreign capitalists. But they have optimistically pro-
claimed that the petite bourgeoisie and even representa-—
tives of the big national bourgeoisie, as well as its mid-
die elements, are more and more actively participating in
liberation movements in Latin American countries. - ;

It is clear from these writings that while the Soviets
have not abandoned their basic formula of achieving social-
ist victory through the urban and rural workers undér the - nS
direction of the Communist party, they now regard this formula !
to be not as completely applicable in Latin America because |
of the "bourgeois-nationalist influence upon broad sectors
of workers” there. This means that middle-class national-
ists, that is, bourgeois groups, must also participate in
the national Liberation movement. Not only. must’ they par-
ticipate, but in some cases bourgeois groups can actually.
play the leading role in the national democratic revolu-
tions which Soviet analysts visualize as the vehicle of
national. liberation. : : ; :

-ll-

Thus, the Castroist revolution in Cuba has received
intensive Soviet study not. because of its guerrilla phase,
but because of the astounding fact that Castro's bourgeois
revolutionaries not only led the island's ‘anti-imperialist
and democratic’ revolution to a successful conclusion, .but
they absorbed the local orthodox Communist party, made a
relatively peaceful transition te a full-fledged social |
revolution under their own banner, and only then transformed
themselves into a new Communist party.* Similarly, ana-
lytical study of the events of the Goulart administration
in Brazil, and of its overthrow by Castelo Branco, is being
made for any lessons the failure there of Soviet libera-
tion doctrine can provide to future CPSU. policy. ‘

C: The Cuban Way: Guerrilla Warfare

Cuban national liberation theory in a number of im-
portant respects bears a striking resemblance to Chinese
theory and differs markedly in other important respects
from that of the Soviets. Its exponents, principally
Fidel Castro and--until early 1965--Ernesto "Che" Guevara,
have however gone to great lengths to emphasize the origi- .
nality of its contents, Cuban independence from both Chinese
and Soviet models, and the specific relevance of Cuban
theory to conditions in Latin America.

1

. ae : : a,

*CE. World Marxist Review, August 1965, where a survey
of data collécted by the Latin American Institute of the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR, titled "Political Parties
in Latin America," has this to say: . .

The evolution of Cuba's July 26th Movement

has shown that revolutionary democratic trends
can in some cases assume the leadership of
anti-imperialist and democratic struggles

and go over to the position of the revolu:
tionary proletariat as the moverent progresses,
by concluding a solid alliance (or by merging)
with the Communist parties. both before: and
after the socialist revolution.

-12-

Although as early as 1960 Guevara forecast Cuba's
interest in linking Latin American liberation rovements
with those of Asia and Afxsica, the motive was then the
need for international support, and Latin America. con-
tinued to be the special field of attention of Cuban 1lib-
eration theory which, especially after December 1961, was
openly acknowledged to rest upon Marxist-Leninist thought.

In Cuban theory Latin America is the 'back yard’.
of the ‘colonial realm of North American monopoly,’ where
U.S. capitalism has replaced "some of the old capitalisms”,
and Cuba has assumed the leadership of the ‘anti-colonial
struggle in America'. In this underdeveloped America the
peasants, who form the overwhélming majority of the popula-
tion, are of decisive importance in the liberation revolu-
tion. But because of their isolation, they must be led
by the werking class and the revolutionary intellectuals.
The Liberation revolution is, therefore, agrarian, not ‘

urban, in essence; and its essential and fundamental tactic

is armed.\insurrection in the countryside; that.is, guer-
rilla warfare, in which the guerrilla acts as both the
politica guide and the fighting arm of the rural masses.

to destroy the existing forms of land ownership and make
the rural peasant the owner of the land that is. liberated.
Only later does this revolution extend to the cities. The
critical step in its success is the destruction of: the
country's professional army, and consolidation of the
revolution depends on the subsequent creation of a people's
army to replace the old professional army, .

In his little manual titled La Guerra de Guerrilias

(Guerrilla Warfare), published in 1960, Guevara set out
what the Cubans have asserted to be their most important
contribution to revolutionary theory for Latin America:
that creation of an ‘insurrectional focal point’ is often
enough to touch off mass popular struggle, so that it is:
not always necessary to wait until "all of the conditions
for making revolution exist."

; Cuban writers have stated categorical ly that in
Latin America the national bourgeoisie cannot. lead a lib~

eration revolution, even when its interests are opposed
to these of ‘Yankee imperialism,"' because in the’ hemisphere

~-13-

rater

the bourgeois societies lack the political courage to con--
bat that "imperialism", and the national bourgeoisie is.
the very group which appeals to the professional army as
the only force able to confront the revolutionary move-
ment with any real chance of success,

The Cuban high command has in various ways acknow-
_ledged its sober recognition that the original, simple,
“Cuban revolutionary model, formulated by Guevara in his
‘manual, needed revising within a few years after Castro’s.
triumphal descent from the Sierra Maestra. The "enemy":
simply had learned how to organize effective "counter-
“revolution” faster than the "revolutionary vanguards"
were able to learn how. successfully to apply the Cuban
example. "United States imperialism" rapidly trained
special units of Latin American armies in the techniques
for wiping out insurrectional forces in the countryside
. before they could establish themselves. Before his disap-
‘pearance early in 1965, Guevara had himself alludéd to
this in an article in a Cuban official journal; and since
. then other. pro-Cuban Marxist writers have’ discussed exten-
Sively these new "post-Cuban" conditions. Armed struggle
remains very much the center-piece, of Cuban doctrine, how-
ever, but more emphasis has recently been given to the
need to break away from slavish copying of the Cuban model,
and the need to invent new and different approaches to the
armed struggle in each country. The new approaches will
by’ definition avoid imitating either Soviet or Chiriese
models. Cuban interest has remained highest in Venezuela,
Guatemala, and Colombia.among hemisphere countries because
the guerrilla movements there have been able to survive
counter-guerrilla operations... As going concerns, these -
movements are laboratories for testing the new approaches.
and for learning new lessons, in the eyes of the hard-
liners in the hemisphere and elsewhere; They also give
the Cuban leadership something to ae to in justification
of id doctrine.

~14-

II. Peking Becomes Active

“ , A. The Fruits: Some New Parties and Loval Factions

: In its famous open letter of 14 June 1963 to the
CPSU, the CCP made public its intention to split Communist
parties wherever. possible and to unite party factions
favoring Peking. Later, on 26 December, the Chinese pub-
lished an October speech of a.CCP leader which called for
the establishment of new parallel Communist parties in
countries where "Marxist-Leninists” had been expelled
from the existing party. In a Red Flag and People's
Daily editorial on 4 February 1964, the Chinese again pro-
Claimed their intent to foster and to support Communist
partied opposed to Moscow, announcing their willingness

to accept a definite organizational] split in the interna-~.

tional Communist movement. *

This sequence reflected a definite Chinese offen-
sive in the hemisphere in early 1963 in the wake of the
psychological backlash from the Cuban missile base crisis of.
the previous October. The Soviet backdown under United
States' pressure on that occasion gave the Chinese. the.
leverage to challenge Soviet Communist leadership in
Latin America, and they made the most of.it. Early in
1963 Peking undertook a concerted effort to increase its
presence in the hemisphere in terms of NCNA outlets, trade
missions, delivery of printed propaganda, and the exchange

*Early and unwelcome support for the Chinese campaign
‘came from the Fourth International of Trotskyists who in
late summer came out for the Chinese thesis and issued
instructions to its adherents to back the Chinese attack
. On the Soviet Union, Charges of Chinese Trotskyism were
taken up and vigorously pursued in the second half of the
year by Moscow which identified CCP views on revolution |
£ and national liberation struggles with the Fourth Inter-
national. - :

————
Sar SF tet

‘of delegates between Latin America and China; and succeeded
during the year in doubling its presence over that of 1962,

‘The prospect of definite Chinese support, opened up
in the 14 June letter, galvanized pro-Peking factions or
sectors in practically all hemisphere Communist parties
to new and more concerted efforts to wrest control away
from dominant pro-Moscow. groups; and the Chinese proclama-—
tion was a source of acute concern to Moscow's supporters
as well as to the CPSU itself,

After June the policy of isolation of and quiet
expulsion for ‘factionalism', with as much official sil-
ence as possible about pro~Chinese dissidence, was no
longer effective as scattered dissident groups began seri-
ous organizational activity: and, prompted by the Chinese,
demanded full disclosure to the rank and file of both the
Chinese as well as the Soviet side of the international
dispute. Some organized pro-Chinese factionalism haa
already begun in earnest within a few parties, notably
the Mexican (PCM) and the Chilean party (PCCh) in the early
months of 1963, and internal power struggles variously
related to the Sino-Soviet dispute became general within
the Latin American Communist movement during the second
half of the year and throughout 1964.

The pro-Soviet party leaderships reacted by purging |
the dissidents as rapidly as local circumstances permitted,.

not only from party posts but also in most cases from party
membership. These actions, especially in Mexico, Chile,
and Central America, succeeded in eradicating pro-Chinese .
elements from within party ranks and in seriously delaying
their organizational efforts, in some cases for years.

But Peking's December pronouncement gave new encouragement
to the purged Communists, who had in any case a year ear]~
ler witnessed the formation in Brazil of .an independent
‘pro-Chinese Communist party (the CPB) that had not only
taken over the name of Brazil’s original Communist party,
but had successfully established itself alongside the pro-
Soviet party (the PCB). Chinese promises of backing in
setting up similar parallel Communist parties elsewhere

in Latin America, and active Chinese follow-up, support op-

erations there, were rewarded in early 1964 when Peruvian

~16-

roam

supporters of Peking split the Peruvian Communist party
(the PCP) and gained control of the major part of it; and
in Ecuador, when some months later pro-Peking leaders of
the powerful Pichincha Provincial Committee in Quito en-
gineered a de facto split in the Ecuadorean party (PCE).

- Peking was quick to report and approve claims of these
anti-revisionist parties and made continual use of their
existence in its printed and broadcast propaganda to show
that the "East Wind Prevails Over the West Wind.” . :

Elsewhere in the hemisphere a wide variety of groups,
many also identified with Havana until early 1965, came :
into temporary or permanent existence as centers of agita-
tion for the Maoist national liberation line and of pres- .
sure on "hard Line" sympathizers who remained in the
orthodox Communist parties waiting for more favorable cir-~
cumstances for their factions. Together with the several:
pro-Chinese parties that were set up,. these groups and .-
factions now form the legacy of .the.CCP’s 1963 campaign
in the hemisphere and constitute a new element in Communist
affairs in Latin America which, while not yet a powerful
or, unified hemisphere movement, has nevertheless established
itself as a definite threat to the Moscow-oriented Communist

“establishment” there.

Because this new increment of parties and factions
has, with Castroism, changed the balance of forces in con-
temporary Latin American Communist affairs, it was felt
‘an inventory of its components, as nearly as possible on
& country-by-country basis, would be useful to readers |
interested in the detailed material. An attempt is made
to do this as succinctly-as possible in Section V, begin-
ning with Mexico and moving progressively through Middle
and South America and closing with those Caribbean Island
countries where Chinese activities has been reported...

B. Efforts to Create a Hemisphere Movement

The evidence we have makes it plain that the Chinese
party’s interest in organizing its Latin American support-
‘ers as a movement has been geared primarily to the exigencies -

-17~

z TOP S8CRE T

of its struggle with the CPSU. at the world level, rather ;
than to the interests of the hemisphere pro-Chinese parties
and groups. For that very reason Peking regards the suc-
cess of the pro-Chinese parties in Latin America as of ;
"transcendent importance", in the words of one reliable’
report. : ;

. The Brazilian CPB made: the first effort to coordinate
with other pro-Chinese factions in Latin America when Calil
Chadde, a member of its executive commission, visited Uru-
guay, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile and possibly other coun-
tries in July 1963 for talks.with pro-Chinese Communists,
and helped set up liaison between the Uruguayan MAR (MIR)
and an Argentine pro-Chinese Communist group.

A year later, in July 1964, there were some liaison
arrangements in effect between the. South American vro-

Chinese parties--especially the PCC-ML, PCE-ML, and PCP-ML--

in which the Santiago, Chile NCNA mission, headed by a
Chinese, Li Yen-nien, played a continual and central role.
The years 1964 and 1965 saw an upsurge of Latin American
party visitors to Peking in search. of Chinese support for
their particdlar organizations-—~-sometimes two or three .
factions within the pro-Chinese movement in one country
vying among themselves for Chinese attention. The report-
ing reflects basic rivalries among leaders of the Colombian,
Peruvian, and Ecuadorean pro-Chinese parties for a lead~
ing role in a projected regional organization. Both intra-
and inter-party jurisdictional squabbles and rivalries,

the uncertain politial status of the hard line parties,
an increasing Chinese caution about large~scalé support

of: competing groups, appear to have been the main reasons
why a conference of pro-Chinese parties was not held until
March 1966. : ,

About mid-1964, after the Soviet party had launched
its public drive to convene a world conference in: December
of parties to excommunicate the CCP, the Chinese planned
a meeting of representatives of Latin /merican pro-Chinese
parties in Peking in early October to discuss "common aims
and problems"~-as part of the CCP campaign to line up sup-
porters throughout the world for a rival Chinese-sponsored
world meeting. On 19 August the Chinese hinted they would

=18-

TOP-SECRET
Lo

ian

hold such a “world” meeting if Moscow went ahead with its
‘plans. * :

A meeting of some hemisphere pro-Chinese party dele-
gates took place in Peking about mid-October 1964, appar-~ ‘
ently attended by representatives from Brazil, Colombia, 2
Ecuador and Venezuela.** A Chilean representative, also
invited, appears not to have participated, .It was decided
at Peking to hold a meeting of pro-Chinese parties in San-
tiago, Chile in May 1965, and also to invite the Bolivian
faction loyal to Peking. -The agenda was to include a status
report for each country, a report. on the “struggle against
revisionists", and planning for "future coordination. for
guerrilla warfare."

before then, in touch with the Venezuelan MIR. January

' 1965 reports of comments by PCC-ML leader Leon Arboleda

have Arboleda saying that the PCC-ML and "Venezuelans"

had: discussed "converting the MIR into the Marxist-Leninist

grouping of the Venezuelan PCV"; and that the PCC~ML was

also in touch with "the pro-Chinese group of the PCV and

the FALN." During at least the first half of. 1965 the

Colombian pro~Chinese party seems to have made a concerted

effort to gain MIR cooperation with the Latin American pro- :

Chinese parties by inviting its attendance: at meetings of !
the latter such as the projected Santiago hemisphere con- 6
ference... The plan failed, for there is no record of Vene- i
zuelan participation in subsequent pro-Chinese organiza- .
tional activities in the hemisphere, nor of any distinct . -
PCV sector loyal to Peking. . :

|
|
**The Colombian PCC-ML was, since its formation if not are

-19-

(naaeeeues

After the Moscow meeting had been postponed until
March 1965, the Chinese also deferred until then their
plans for a parallel conference. The Ecuadorean pro~
Peking party faction was’ in February told to advise its
Peru and Brazil counterparts of the projected Peking con-
ference in March, An official Australian service reported
that the Marxist-Leninist factions of the Australian and
New Zealand parties had also been invited to visit China
in early March. The Chinese held one or more gatherings
in March, but gave the matter relatively little publicity.
A Peruvian source reported Japan, North Korea, Albania,
Rumania, Cuba (sic), Indonesia, Pakistan, North: Vietnam
and Peru were represented in Peking for the March meeting.
In their discussions with the Latin Americans, the Chinese
promised additional financial support and training.

Plans for the regional pro-Chinese party meeting
in Santiago were modified after the November 1964° Havana
Communist Party Conference, which represented a critical
setback for Chinese aims in Latin America, In January
1965 representatives of the Colombim PCC-ML in meetings
, with the Ecuadorean PCE-ML had condemned Cuban sponsor- |
ship of the "revisionist": Havana Conference and proposed
that the hemisphere hardline parties organize to counter

the effects of the Conference.
ence 6 @ pro- nes@ parties o Olombia; Ecuador, :

Brazil and Peru to be held on 5 June in Lima, Peru. Invi-
tations were also to-be extended to Chile, Bolivia, and
probably Venezuela. The Lima conference was a modifica-
tion of the original plan for a Santiago meeting rather
than a new departure. .

Pro-Chinese Communist discussion of "revisionism"
now emphasized the position of the "hard-line" parties
toward the Cuban PURS and questions of the tactics needed
to offset the "new Cuban strategy" developed at the :
Havana Conference. The principle of armed struggle as
the fundamental precept of the pro-Chinese parties was
reasserted and a closer coordination of plans and acti-
vities among Latin American pro-Chinese parties was called
for to prevent the build-up of “irresponSible groups of
adventurers"--that is, Cuban-sponsored groups--that engaged

~20~

‘in guerrilla activities "which detract from the prestige
of legitimately sponsored” pro-Chinese groups,

The Lima gathering never took place apparéntly be-
cause of the impact on the internal political situation

in other hemisphere countries of the crisis in the Dominican

Republic, and an unfavorable political climate in-Peru it-
self respecting. activities of: hard-line Communists.

: A preparatory meeting was, however, held in Bogota,
on 2 June 1965, in conjunction with the national congress
of the PCC~ML. Colombian, Ecuadorean, and Chilean party
representatives met; two Peruvian representatives report-
edly arrived in Bogota but could not find the conference
site.. ‘

Venezuelar ad been invited 6 did not wat o attend." .

The delegates decided to transfer the site: of the confer--
ence back to Santiago, Chile and tentatively scheduled it
for October, when the Chilean pro-Chinese Espartaco organi-
zation planned to: hold a national congress to reorganize |
itself as a full-fledged Chilean Marxist-Leninist Communist

party. It was agreed that all the pro-Peking parties shotId

mount campaigns against the Havana Conference, and planning

was begun to agree on a regional secretariat at the Santiago

‘meeting. Because of a decision of the Espartaco leader-
ship, however, the congress. was postponed until January,
then to February, and finally to March 1966.

Firs are aTifi American Pr nese Communist
Parties", was held clandestinely in Santiago from”
1 through arch. Representatives from Bolivia, Brazil,
Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile attended.* Peruvian and
Argentine delegates were also invited; but the Peruvian
delegate did not participate because he was unable to ;
establish his bona fides before the conference ended, and
the Argentine emissary was not permitted to attend because
he did not represent a formal Marxist-Leninist party but
only “a Marxist-Leninist faction of the PCA." :

*There were a total of eight from the five countries.

~21-

oes

As an organizational exercise the Conference was
a relative failure. The Colombian delegate led in pro-
posing a basic definition of an acceptable Latin American’
Marxist-Leninist party which would permit nascent pro-Chi-
nese groups and factions to evolve into formal parties
and then join some form of permanent Marxist-Leninist
secretariat, He also. proposed a key thesis distinguishing
between armed struggle based on the masses as contrasted
with small, independent military operations without mass

- Support, to distinguish such Castroist deviations from
. genuine revolution. He was supported in general by’ Ecua-

dor and Chile.

The Brazilian and Bolivian delegates, however, flatly -

refused to commit their parties to any principles or formal:

resolutions or agreements. An Ecuadorean compromise ‘proposal

that all should accept the resolutions as a “suggested guide”
for further study by their parties was debated, but the
Brazilian and Bolivian delegates also objected strongly

to this and to suggestions of the other three favoring a

more formal organization empowered to handle inter-party
communications, Latin American fronts. and certain intra- -
party matters, such as propaganda. ; ‘

It was finally agreed that the Conference should.
serve only as a consultative gathering to discuss common
problems and exchange ideas and information. It was also
agreed to hold a Second: Conference in Brazil in May 1966
(there is no evidence it was held); to divide the Latin

American continent into two geographic organizational,

areas; the first consisting of all countries north of the
Ecuadorean-Peruvian border, and the other of all countries
south of that border; and not to recognize or associate
with any group not having the approval of the country's
Marxist-Leainist party. A joint declaration to this effect,
prepared at the Conference's termination, was, however,

not signed and was accepted only as a guideline for the
next Conference. .

°

~22-

Tor:secaer

£4 A

C. The Break With Havana

Chinese approbation of the Cuban regime reached its
peak coincident with. the 1962 miSsile base crisis, whén Chinese
support of Castro's belligerence and Chinese anger at the
Soviets were at crescendo. Cuba was extremely important
to the Chinese party as its fighting bridge for the spread
of -Maoism in Latin America and as a regional bellwether ‘
in the polemic with the Soviet party. Although the Chinese
party has severely reduced its ties with and support of
the Cuban regime, it has been careful to leave the door
open to a resumption of warmer relations, and it is clear
that Peking regards its differences with Havana as of a
different order from its quarrel with the: CPSU.

Because of the coincidence of his ideas on rural
armed struggle with those of Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese
leadership always had greater warmth for "Che" Guevara
than for Fidel Castro; and it is indicative that the Chi-~
nese did not decide that Cuba had gone over to the "revi~
sionist" camp until: after Guevara--heading a three~man .

_Cuban Communist mission--had gone personally to Peking in
early 1965 in an ill-fated effort to mediate between the
Chinese and Soviet sides and explain the Cubans’ role in
the Havana Communist party conference of the previous
November. Guevara was given a red-carpet welcome and
met with key CCP officials. But the two sides found it
impossible to agree during four meetings on 4, 6, 7 and.
8 February, and the visit ended in a:violent exchange
between Guevara and Liu Shao-chi, then Chairman of the
Chinese Republic.* . : :

*Liu reportedly made it clear to selected Latin Ameri-~
can delegates meeting in Peking in early March 1965 that
Peking "now" regarded Cuba as "revisionist" and "an enemy
of revolutionary struggle in Latin America."

-23-

TORSEGRET

" TOrSsscREr

Chinese suspicions about Castro, according to their

own statements, date back to his first visit: to the Soviet
Union in April and May 1963 as Khrushchev's personal guest.
Castro's glowing public praise of Khrushchev, whom he per-
sonally highly admired, irked the Chinese, But they par-
ticularly cite the joint 23 May Soviet-Cuban communique,
in which Castro gave at least lip service to every major
Soviet foreign policy position and to CPSU revolutionary ..
strategy--where Cuban and Soviet views differed the most
and where Chinese hopes for Cuban support were perhaps the
highest--as a document “which contained definitely revi-
sionist ideas". Castro's willingness to accept increased
dependence on the Soviet Union in the economic and defense
spheres, and his preservation of official neutrality in

the ideological controversy, only tended to confirm private’

Chinese evaluation of him as a "traitor" who straddled
rather than faced the "key" issues. This evaluation was
strongly reinforced by the 1964 Havana Conference where

in the Chinese view Castro had an opportunity to take a
stand more favorable to them, but instead acquiesced ,in
further Soviet-inspired limitations on his revolutionary
activities in the hemisphere. And after November they were
much less reticent about sharing their: contemptuous opinion
of the Cuban leader with visiting officials and members

of other Latin American Communist parties. At a March

1965 meeting in Peking of ranking CCP officials and Latin
American pro-Chinese party representatives, they announced
that Cuba had unquestionably aligned itself with the revi-
Sionists.* ~—— “aos

*In a very belated 22 February 1966 public blast at
Castro and the November CP conference in Havana, NCNA cited
the joint Castro-Khrushchev statement of January 1964 as
the point when the Cuban party "chose to identify itself
with the view of the. modern revisionists." This was Pek-
ing's first public reference to the 1964 meeting.

' =24~

Ll. Operations Against the Cuban Party

: The Chinese began to apply their party-penetration
theory to the Cuban party, then called the PURS, along

the same Lines they were using with other pro-Soviet area
parties. This activity was first reported in March 1965.

‘It included offers to Cuban party officials of trips to

China and intensified dissemination of oral and printed
Chinese anti-Soviet propaganda among Cuban civilian and
military officials, and was directly related to the changed
Chinese estimate of Castro's position resulting from Cuban
involvement in the Havana Conference and in the 19-party
Moscow conference in March 1965, ;

Castro, angered at Chinese proselytizing within
his party and China’s unwillingness to match its bellicose
posture toward United States’ bombing of North Vietnam
with any real action in the latter's defense, openly cri-
ticized the Chinese ambassador in Cuba at a meeting with
Havana University students early in 1965 and hit back at
the Chinese in carefully worded denunciations in a 13
March speech, which many observers at first interpreted
as directed at the Soviet Union. +

-25-

peas

: A full explanation of the reasons why Guevara dropped
from public view after a 20 March appearance’in Cuba (he

had returned to Cuba on 13 March after leaving that country —
in early December 1964) is still.to bé given; but it is

of interest and probably not completely coincidental that
his disappearance occurred just at ‘the time, or immediately
after, the Chinese relegated the Cuban party to the enemy

camp and launched operations to draw it to the left. Guevara’s’
known admiration:for Chinese foreign: policy, his disapproval .

of any Cuban alignment with the Soviets and of Castro's ;
willingness--more and more evident. since mid-1964--to soft-
pedal Cuba's direct role in Latin American and African :
revolutionary movements, taken together with the timing

of his disappearance, strongly suggest that his disappear-
ance formed an element in China's defeat within the Cuban
regime. The Chinese at least were not.unwilling to have
other Communists believe so; they have both publicly and-
privately ascribed Guevara's downfall to the fact that —
Castro had by then gone'over to the Soviet side and could
no longer tolerate Guevara's ‘genuine’ revolutionary stance, *

_ Abou anuary E astro had used e- agreement. to cease
open polemics--made at the Havana Conference--to get at

the Chinese. He then requested both TASS and NCNA in Cuba |

to refrain from distributing materials attacking either

Side in the dispute. TASS agreed, but NCNA did not. Cuban

authorities thereafter informed NCNA it would have to re-

strict the dissemination of its bulletins only to newspapers

and party leaders. . But the Chinese made ro effort to comply.

*A recent example of such a public statement was a state~
ment by Sanmugathasan, leader of the pro-Chinese wing of
the divided Ceylonese Comnunist party, carried by NCNA on
February 21, 1966, which called Guevara's exit from the
Cuban political scene a measure “of the degree to which
Cuba has departed from the revolutionary path."

-26-

ead eae

Castro's broad hints to the Chinese in March to
desist, were apparently ignored and early in September,
according to Cuban reports, Chinese official representa~
tives in Cuba were still conducting a systematic, wide-
spread propaganda campaign at all levels within the Cuban
armed forces reinforced with direct contact with some mili-
tary officers for propaganda and intelligence purposes.

An energetic 14 September protest to the Chinese charge

d'affaires was also ignored, large-scale shipments of
Chinese -propaganda continuing to be distributed. At year’s
end the Cubans were reported’ restricting NCNA publication -
and distribution activities through the Friends of China
societies in Cuba. : : :

Castro's anger at the Chinese appears in Large part
responsible for'a Cuban decision--after two years’ absence
from World Peace. Council (WPC) meetings because of reluct-.
ance to seem to be taking sides--to send a delegate to the
WPC meeting in Brussels on 3 and 4 April and in Helsinki from
July 10 to 15, 1965. Juan Marinéllo, the Cuban ambassador
to UNESCO in Paris and former president of ‘the old ortho-
dox Cuban PSP, was instructed to attend and to take his
lead from the policies adopted by the Havana Communist
Party Conference and Castro's "latest speech"--that is,
his March diatribes against Peking s interference.

‘In his January 2, 1966 anniversary speech Castro
complained mildly but openly that China had refused to sup-
ply more than half the rice Cuba: wanted from her that
year. This was on the very eve of the Tricontinental Con-
ference. The Chinese responded on 9 and 30 January with
pained statements that the Cuban leader had misrepresented
the situation, but Cuban spokesmen reiterated the charge
and a serious cut in the Cuban rice ration was announced.
At the end of January, a new statement issued by the Chinese
Ministry of Foreign Trade accused the Cubans of making ¢*
groundless assertions,

Finally, on 6 February, Castro publicly and openly
attacked the Chinese and their operations against the
Cuban party, accusing: them of flagrant violation of the
elementary norms of behavior between socialist states.
His wrath was so great that he drew a parallel between

-27-

Chinese blatant disregard for Cuban sovereignty and former
United States’ conduct in Cuba. Castro's denunciation of
Peking was said to have
been the equal in violence to any ng in ~Soviet
exchange, and its language approached the ultimate degree
_ of bitterness theretofore reserved only for the U.S,+#

After a delay of more than two weeks, People's Daily
on the 22nd published the text of Castro's 6 February state-
ment and in an editorial note accused Castro of adding his
voice to the "anti-Chinese chorus" composed of the imper~
lalists, reactionaries and "Khrushchev revisionists", openly
grouping Castro with the Soviets by reproducing Belgian
and Ceylon Communist pieces which stated unequivocably
that Cuba was then completely subservient to Soviet revi-.

- Sionism.** But the Chinese note withheld a full-fledged

*Of interest was the prompt and solid backing given
Castro in his dispute with the Chinese by the Chilean PCCh
and the Ecuadorean pro-Moscow PCE. This was followed in ; '
March by vigorous attacks on Castro's anti-Chinese line
by the Peruvian PCP-ML, and a bitter open letter to Castro
from the Brazilian CPB lamenting his attack on China and
his adoption of "revisionist" ties, ;

**In Warsaw in July 1965 two Chinese journalists had read
a prepared statement accusing Cuba of defending "modern
revisionists.” After the People's Daily note: of February
22nd, Chinese public description: of Cuba as revisionist
became routine, A notable instance of this was an inter~
view of Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi in Peking with
Uruguayan newspapermen Carlos Maria Gutierrez, published
in the Montevideo weekly Marcha in May 1966. On 8 March
Peking gave extensive helated publicity to a 15-16 Novem~
‘ber 1965 Conference of the Peruvian PCP-ML which denounced
Castro for allying with the CPSU and branded the 1964 Havana
Conference as a CPSU "production" that had excluded Marxist~
Leninist parties. This was Peking's first public reference -
to the November 1964 meeting. The PCP-ML’s statement of ;
November 1965 pre-dated any public. Chinese denunciation .
of the Cuban party and actually went further than the Chi-.
nese themselves had yet gone in branding the Cubans as
"revisionists." . ;

meee

-28—

ty

counterattack, reserving Peking’s right to make a systematic —
reply at a later date. :
this nuance evince in = wee:

tion tha e dispute.with Cuba was not on the same ideo—

logical basis as that with the Soviets and reflected Chinese |
wishes to. reserve options this important distinction might _

allow in the future--such as possibilities of picking up
the Cuban pieces in the event of an ultimate Cuban-Soviet
falling out. . :

Castro in his annual March 13 speech at Havana Uni-
versity followed up with a stinging derogation of, Mao Tse-
tung characterized by extensive personal invective, in. .
which he again accused the Chinese of cutting off his
vital rice supply solely as political “blackmail” because
of his refusal to swing Cuba to the Chinese side in the
dispute with the Soviets. :

Since that speech the Cuban leader has, however,
made no public reference to the Chinese situation, and in
international gatherings Cuban official delegations have
been unwilling to comment officially ont current develop-
ments in China or on the Soviet proposal: for a world Com-
munist party meeting. At the Bulgarian CP Conference in
November 1966, the Cuban delegation deliberately omitted
any reference to Zhivkov's call for such a world meeting,
and this noncommital attitude was repeated at the Hungarian
CP Conference in the same month.

In October 1966 three Havana dailies, El Mundo,
Juventud Rebelde, and Granma, correctly carried short
items congratulating Communist China on its 17th anniver-
sary. The theme of these items was that nothing could |
break the eternal friendship of the Chinese people and
the Cuban people. Nevertheless, in September Granma had
carried excerpts from NCNA materials featuring "Chairman -
Mao’s Thoughts", with commentary deeply critical of the
absurd lengths to which they went to the amusement of the
whole world. , ; :

In November 1966 pro-Chinese parties in Brazil, .
Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. sent delegates
to the Albanian Workers’ Party's Fifth Congress, but Cuba
did not attend. :

-~29.

renee

Sino-Cuban state relations apparently have weak~
ened.
é nese decision to éxpe oreign
students prompted Cuban authorties to ask for eitharaeat
by the end of the month of 45 Chinese students from the

University of Havana; and that the last five Chinese tech- .

nicians in Cuba left in early December, thus ending at
least temporarily another facet of the two countries’ rela~
tions. Reduction of Chinese embassy personnel in Havana -
from sixty to twelve also reflected this diminution.
Chinese rice shipments had diminished by half at the end
of the year, and other Chinese goods also became scarce

in Cuban markets in 1966. 3

D. _ Chinese Experience With Latin Revolutionaries

In the autumn of 1965 a Chinese party. official in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in discussing his views
on the world-wide revolutionary situation among Communist
parties, made special mention of the unusual juristictional
problems his party had found in its dealings’ with the
Latin American parties. His remarks reflected Chinese
disgust and disappointment in their experiences with the .
Latins, and they point up how those experiences have com-
plicated Chinese efforts in the RERABPRGES:. The Chinese
official”. said: :

The CPC believes there is a problem in South
America. Members were expelled there (sic)
and there was a split from which three anti-~
revisionist groups developed which are not,
however, united in their aims. Such groups
devote most of their attention to reciprocal
struggle and not to the struggle against re-
visionism! The CPC believes that Marxist-
Leninists have a unanimous goal: anti-revision-
ism and anti~-imperialism. On this account,
Marxist-Leninist forces must join together,
.+-Some groups are in contact wit e CP
and it is our international duty to support
these anti-revisionist and anti~imperialist

-30-

Torssceer

TOP-SECK SRET

groups. A number of these groups are, however,
inclined to say: ‘We have the right to China‘s
help and support but the others do not!' Others
maintain: ‘We have been recognized by China
and so our Marxist-Leninist group is permitted
by China.' Naturally we are grateful for this
support from abroad; but which group will be-
come the center:for Marxist-Lainist forces will
depend upon individual work among the masses -
for the latter. must be united. and educated;
this will not be in relation to any type of
‘contact with China!.. (Some) are now making
the mistake of claiming: ‘We are in contact
with China and so we are the only Marxist-
Leninist center for the anti~revisionist
struggle,. therefore we are. the only Marxist-

‘+ Leninists; everything depends upon China,’
This is not realistic! :

‘ ngs = y be put on a4 nh striz =

gent basis. That is, if. the recipibht organization lapses
into inactivity, support -has been reduced or withheld, —
and only resumed in accordance with Chinese judgments of
. the worth of any increased activity. This policy toward.
its Latin American Supporters reflects Peking’s disillu- .
Sionment with Latin inability to sink individual differ-
ences for the sake of united organizational effort. (Most
of the hemisphere’s pro-Chinese parties have suffered
Splits since their formation, because of internal juris-.
dictional rivalries.) This caution also reflects the Chi-~-
nese break. with Cuban-oriented groups after early 1965,
-and Peking's determination not to be played off against
Castro on the one hand and on the other, to separate the
incorrigible Castro-ites in Latin America from its own
loyal forces there. 2

The Chinese party continues to develop its ideological
and political strategy in the hemisphere among the two or- —
ganizational fronts common to its political operations in
other underdeveloped areas: (1) those Communist parties

-31-

rasa

naa

or Communist party factions in disagreement with the CPSU
line, and (2) those forces which in the past have been
mainly nationalist but whose revolutionary ambitions and
outlook are deemed to merit financial and other support.
This type of effort seems not only responsive to Peking's
assertion it will support any "Marxist-Leninist" group,
but also related to Chinese concepts of developing suit-
able militant united fronts that would be guided by the
local Marxist-Leninist party.* -Since the Sino-Cuban break,
Chinese judgements of the merits of individual movements
or groups have been mainly based on the recipients’ ability
to take serious action against both pro-Soviet and pro- — |
Cuban "revisionists’ rather than on any mere potential

for guerrilla warfare or Trotsky-style terrorist programs.
Such a course is implicit in the Chinese view of the dif-
ference betweén its revolutionary model and those of Cuba
and the “Soviet Union. Key emphasis ‘has increasingly been
placed on longer-term preparatory werk, and Peking is _
actively encouraging its Latin supporters to. become more
self-sufficient and less dependent upon Peking for vital
material resources, ;

. In the. face of the diplomatic rebuffs suffered in
Indonesia, Cuba, and some African countries, the Chinese
in April 1966 announced that Peking would no’ longer attempt
to "come to terms" with governments in power in Latin .
America, Asia, and. Africa, wheré it has suffered reverses,
and will not put great emphasis in the future on promoting —
all-embracing solidarity movements like AALAPSO and AAPSO.
Instead, it would divide nations into "those for China and

*For example, in April 1965 the Chinese invited Ecua-

- dorean radical socialists of the Socialist Revolutionary

Party (PSR) to visit China to discuss support and training;
and in March they reportedly had done the same with three
leaders of the Bolivian National Leftist Revolutionary

Party (PRIN), a revolutionary nationalist party. The PRIN
was one of Bolivia's three largest political groupings and
counted a heavy representation among the country’s important
tin miners. ; ;

-32-

| =

those against," and ‘act accordingly." At the same time,
China reaffirmed its intention to continue aiding those .
it considers true Communist revolutionary movements in the
underdeveloped countries, and to make greater use of propa-
ganda. Peking will encourage and train tough, well-dis-
ciplined revolutionary cadres to return to their own coun-
tries to wage the struggle Peking believes the Soviet "re-
visionists" have abandoned. These points were made in a
Speech given by Mei Yi, chief Chinese delegate to the
fourth plenary meeting of the Afro-Asian Journalists As—
sociation held that month in Peking.

Current Chinese support of the hemisphere parties

and related groups clearly em hasizes such a training con-.
cept. [Chinese training now
embraces more po ca ndoctrination of the type: cal-

culated to enhance trainees' skills in dealing with *re-
visionist" parties and doctrine, and

E aS upgraded political and
ideological indoctrination, is that it reflects a Chinese
decision to prepare its Latin assets for a much longer- .
term struggle for control of the Latin American Communist
movement than had been apparent several years ago before
Castroist notions of armed struggle had been clearly sep-
arated from those of Peking. * :

¥In February 1967 a leader of ‘the Uruguayan pro~-Chinese
MIR who. had: recently returned from training: in China said
the Chinese had “recommended" that the MIR avoid becoming
involved with the Uruguayan “terrorist” organization, which
they described ag lacking "Marxist-Leninist revolutionary
foundations". (The reference is to a sensational police
case in Uruguay in late December 1966 involving arrests
of members of a terrorist organization whose ramifications
and sponsorship are not. yet clear?) ;

~33-

_ PSRCRET

SS eh a pa i rr a hs

Peking has rarely relinquished willingly even the
smallest of footholds it has gained in Latin America in
spite of important problers it has had with some of them
because of. the Sino~Soviet dispute--such as its local NCNA
representatives or stringers who have customarily been
members of orthodox Communist parties. Not until December
1966, for example, did NCNA cancel its contract with its
correspondent in Costa Rica, a. PVP member who had served
as NCNA representative since late 1960 and who after the
turmoil of mid-1963 consistently responded to PVP direction
and the CPSU line. The NCNA is not currently represented
-in Costa Rica. In October 1966 the Chinese NCNA mission
in Mexico City closed down at the Chinese’: own initiative
in’ an unprecedented move, making Chile and Cuba the only
two countries in- the hemisphere where Peking still has
permanent Chinese-manned installations. ;

l. The Great Cultural Revolution and Latin

American Operations

We do not yet have sufficient information accurately
to judge what led to the Chinese withdrawal from Mexico.
The concern of mission members with the effect upon their
status that could come from the Maoist “cultural revolu-
tion” has been a reported cause of the action. . The critical
stages of this crisis, which clearly is the gravest to af- |
fect the Chinese party since it came to power in 1949, |
began about August 1966. Another effect of the crisis, ‘ |
the decision to send all foreign students--including Cubans ./ |
and other Latin Americans--home, at least on an interim .
Senet will curtail one. phase of Peking's contact with the |
i I
!

2. Operations Research for Latin American.

The information we have on the Chinese party-govern—
ment apparatus gives no: indication. they set up anything |
comparable to the CPSU's Latin American Institute established
within the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1961 for operational
research on Latin America, ha

OT A AP oe A

-35~

.

exper n Cu y 56 the Soviets knew the
Chinese were preparing important cadres of Spanish speakers
who would be well-versed in Latin American affairs.

said t

Liaison Department" under the Central Finance and Trade
Ministry, with responsibilities for the reception of Com-
munist delegates visiting China; and that a "political
department" has also been established under the Ministry.

-36~-

III, Castro: New World Marxism-Leninism
A. A Would-Be Latin American Lenin

In Latin America the Chinese and Soviet parties
have had to contend with a. third influence: a Cuba
determined.that its example should guide revolutionary
development in the hemisphere. The successful:.consolida~
tion of the Castroist regime there became both a facilitat-
ing and complicating factor for each in their | ideological
struggle. What is sometimes overlooked is that from the —
Cuban point of view the reverse was also true, While both
have been useful, and the USSR indispensable, to Castro
in helping him to achieve national security and the means -
for developing a viable economy, their power struggle. in
the hemisphere has greatly complicated his own drive to
make of himself the native-born ideologue and charismatic
leader of Latin Amer ican Communism,

In his now~famous assertion of December 1961 that
he was, had been, and would be, a "Marxist-Leninist" until
the day he died, Castro proclaimed his abandonment of a
capitalist economy for Cuba and acknowledged his intention
to build the future Cuban state on a foundation of Communist

’ doctrine,

What was less apparent in his statement was his
determination. to make independent use of Marxist-Leninist
theories in the process of applying them to Cuba and the
rest of Latin America. By declaring himself a Marxist-
Leninist, Castro--the leader of a revolution whose success
had. dazzled the Latin American left--was really announcing
to all that Latin America could henceforth dispense with
foreign revolutionary imports, all extra-~hemisphere models,
because through him it was developing its own Marxist-
Leninist methods and interpretations on the basis of its
own history, social formation, and character: a special
brand of Communism that was just Fight for the underdeve-
loped sector of the western hemisphere, and might even
have something to offer the rest of the undexsevesoped

world,

a a

Thus Castro would end Latin Amefica's “ideological

colonialism’. More than this, taking as-his example the
practical triumph of the Ctiban revolution, Castro would
in Latin America rehabilitate a Marxism which had been -
discredited by old "pre-Cuban” orthodox Communist party
leaders who had continued ideologically subservient to
the "European" (read Soviet~model) worker movement when
the latter's approach no longer responded to the "Latin
American-reality", and who had proved unable even after
many decades of effort to accomplish anything at all’ com
parable with what Castro achieved in Cuba in only a few

years. .

Castro has given. increased emphasis to this line
after he first tested it with some apparent ‘success at
the Tri-Continental Conference.* In his 1966 May Day speech,
he clearly stressed that Cuba should not blindly follow
any other revolution but should learn from its own exper i-~
ence how properly to conduct its own revolution. He :
coupled this with blame of other Communists for their mis~
guided advice to Cuba in the early stages of the revolu-
tion, citing the failures of the industrialization program
and the successes of his own agrarian reform program,

The Cuban ‘leader also decided, possibly also in’
the euphoria of Cuban successes at the Tri-~Continental
Conference, to convert the principal Soviet~controlled
front organizations to vehicles for active support of
revolutionary action in the underdeveloped areas by sub-
stituting Cuban leadership and influence for their tradi-~--
tYonal European Communist leadership. This Cuban enter-
‘prise is discussed below in this chapter, section D. 1. -

‘In claiming to be elaborating an original, intrin-
sically Latin American revolutionary theory to replace
foreign 'bourgeois' and Communist constructs, Castro has.-.
singled out a goal that is of authentic interest to large
numbers of Latin American intellectuals and political ‘
elites as well as the man in. the Street, because its ac-
complishment will signify that--in a way psychologically .-
important to the Latin mentality-~the area will have come
of age politically and able to confront the politically
dominant Anglo-Saxons with infinitely more self-respect |

*Held in Havana from 3 through 15 January 1966.

~38- é

than is presently possible... As a relatively successful
‘Jack the Yankee killer" Castro is doing what thousands

of envious Latin Americans would themselves like to do;
and if he can bring it off through use of the intellectual
arsenal furnished by Lenin-~a Slav--so much the better;
the "gringo’s” humiliation Byte bg that much greater and

deeper.

The effort to elevate ‘Rho Gan ni ticawes of Castro's
revolution to that of the Russian revolution and Castro
to the status of a Lenin, was.clearly outlined in two
editorials appearing in Granma, the official Cuban Com-
munist party (PCC) newspaper, on 5 and 7 November 1966*
and was summarized by Radio Havana several days later. =.
The first editorial is entitled “Crisis' of the Communist
Movement?" . The opening statement is remarkable:

The Cuban Socialist Revolution, direct-
ed by our Commander in. Chief Fidel Castro
is; without a doubt, one of the most important

*There were earlier indications of this trend. Accord-

ing to the 21 August 1966 issue of Verde Olivo, a "recently
held" ceremony .of the Cuban Armed: Forces, attendéd by a
group of Soviet technicians, was used to eulogize Castro
and compare his revolutionary exploits and valor with

those of Jorge Dimitrov, tried before a Nazi tribunal’ in
1933, and with Lenin’s historic guidance of the early
Russian bolsheviks. In September Armando Hart, the PCC's
organizational secretary and a leading Cuban party theore-
tician, was emphasizing that: the current situation facing
Latin American revolutionaries is "very similar” to that
which faced Lenin during the rise of the revolution in
Russia, when "insurrection and unity of the. revolutionary
forces served to define the revolutionaries," and he said
these two things define Latin American revolutionaries.
Hart significantly stated that the world Communist schism
is because "the surge of the revolution" has overturned
old concepts and habits of work and has made apparent a.
need for “new WOnRA NS methods and styles,”.

events in the universal history of the com-
munist movement.

The remainder of the article says that from the Cuban revo-
lution emerged a "correét” thesis--armed struggle as the. ;
way to liberation. "Others" offer the opposite thesis of.
peaceful transition. The former are backed up by history,
while the latter depend on ideas that have never been con-
firmed. From this difference there emerges a crisis which
.has alarmed revolutionaries who forget that “historical
crisés have a dialectical character." In the case of .
the crisis, caused by the Cuban thesis, the positive dialec~
tical value is Cuban denunciation of the “incorrect” thesis
which flouts historical experience, and is anti-socjalist
and anti-Marxist. The proper procedure is to put forward .
the correct thesis against the incorrect thesis. Refer-.
ence is made to recent talks by Armando Hart, which discussed
how the Third Communist International arose from the ashes
of the Second International, and how at the moment of birth
of the new Soviet state a crisis racked the Bolshevik party
and saw Lenin ranged against some members of its central
committee who opposed his "correct" thesis of armed insur-
rection. Then appears this sentence: “

The crisis posed, not by Fidel, but
by the reality of events, although Fidel .
is its firmest supporter, is a positive
crisis, because it is a necessary step
and essential for the real culmination of
a correct revolutionary strategy. é

In other words, plainly put, the Cuban doétrine- is the
thesis opposing a “revisionist” antithesis, from the clash .
of which will emerge a new’ synthesis, or stage, in -the
international Communist movement.

The second editorial is titled "Our Homage to the
October Revolution", and takes the form of a statement.
commemorating the 1917 Russian revolution. It makes no
reference at all to the current Soviet leadership. It
opens with this statement: - ;

~40~

We commemorate today the 49th anni-
versary of the triumph of the October
Revolution, that is, Lenin’s Revolution.
The triumph of the Russian revolution
was the victory of Bolshevism and the

‘ victory of Bolshevism is the victory
of Lenin. F . : “s

The article, a sort of paeanto Lenin and Leninism, asserts
that for two years before the revolution the bolsheviks
had to struggle against pseudo-revolutionaries as well as
feudalism and capitalism, and were marked down: as stupid,
not only by the reactionaries but also by the pseudo-
revolutionaries in the European social~democratic move-
ments. The editorial then says that it should be remen- __
bered that many leaders of the Second International, "the’
organism that brought together the Marxist and worker
parties of the epoch’, considered that a Socialist revolu-
¥ tion could not succeed in Russia. The bolsheviks, however,
succeeded, because their ideas led to correct solutions,
and because their leader was Lenin. Now, fifty years later,
. Lenin's analysis of conditions in Russia and Europe during
his time applies with "singular" precision to Asia, Africa,
and Latin America, The October Revolution was the preamble
of a much.broader and deeper national liberation struggle
now taking place on those continents, whose character is
exemplified in the Vietnam war. Because Cuba forms a
part of this struggle it stands for unconditional support
to the North Vietnamese. Then comes another remarkable
series of sentences: , :
Our Socialist Revolution forms part
of that great movement. For this reason
the Cuban-North Korean communique signed
in Pyongyang, could affirm that the Cuban
Revolution is the continuation in Latin

erica o he October Revolution, e~
: cause o s Cuba has a duty to fulfill
. . in the continent: to be ever faithful to

the traditions of the October Revolution
; and the ideals of Marxism-Leninism,
>, (italics added) :

The editorial concludes with the assertion that Lenin's
dictum, that to take power, armed insurrection is neces-
Sary, was not a passing fancy but a key point of Communist.
work; that the real Communists, the genuine defenders of -
Leninism in Latin America, will join the fight: those

who remain on the sidelines will cease to be Communists.*-:.

While Cuban spokesmen were emphasizing their vision
of Cuba as the continuation of Lenin's bolshevik revolu-
tion, the Soviet ambassador in Havana, in a television
broadcast commemorating the October Revolution, said.

“Revolutionary Cuba is the first State in America to set
out on the road of the Great October Revolution." The
ambassador quoted a 2 January 1964 statement of Castro's
that "Our Revolution forms part of that powerful world
revolutionary movement which began with the historic revo—
lution of the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union:
the revolution of Lenin, the revolution of Marx and Engels,"
and said further that Cuba "is in the community of the - .
Socialist states, which, based on the principles of pro-
letarian solidarity, are giving her all necessary politi-~.
cal, economic, and military aid." His emphasis was on -
the place of Cuba within the "socialist community" led —
by. the Soviet Union. It is interesting that the official
Cuban newspaper Granma did not mention the ambassador's
talk, whose reportage was relegated to the less important,..
non-official El Mundo. Implicit in Ambassador Alexseyev's.

That not all Cuban party members shared these views
was seen in the dismissal sometime in October 1966 of
five staff members of the editorial board of Granma be--
cause of their objections to Castro's stepped-up support
of armed subversion in Latin America, his subversion
against Chilean President Eduardo Frei, and. his continued
emphasis on economic centralism at a time when Liberman's -
concepts were gaining ground in the USSR and Eastern European
nations. _ Among the five were the secretaries of the PCC «-
organization and of the Communist youth organization at
the paper, although this was not announced, -

_-42-

CK E |

milder acclamation is an apparent Soviet willingness to
accept without comment this latest Cuban conceit as long
as Havana doesn't officially trace the source of its revo~
lution to the Yenan caves of Mao Tse-tung.

l. -Havana: Center For New-World Marxist~
Leninist Theory ; :

There is evidence, accumulating since 1966, of a °
Castro plan to make Havana ap influential center of Com-
munist theoretical. activity of the kind that will nurture
and support the grandiose role within world Communism which .
he clearly visualizes for himself and for Cuban libera-
tion doctrine. aa

A study of the activities of the Casa de las Ameri-

cas (House of the Americas), the Cuban-Latin American friend .

Ship organization, its journal of the same name, and the
group of radica’ intellectuals and -emigres from other hemi-
sphere countries who contribute to the Casa's programs

and form a part of its staff, lead almost inevitably ‘to
such a conclusion. The extent to which radical pro-Castro .
Latin American and other emigres connected with the. Casa
are,also active in the University of Havana, and recent
debates over doctrine between the philosophy department

of the University of Havana and the Schools of Revolution-
ary Instruction (EIR), the Cuban party's advanced ideolo-~
gical indoctrination school, headed by Lionel Soto Prieto,
a pre-Castro Communist of the Cuban PSP, reinforce it.

For example, the January-February 1966 issue of
the Casa bimonthly journal contains a lead article by |
Louis Althusser, a prominent French Marxist. attached to . -
the Ecole Normale Superieure ‘de Paris, titled "Theory, :
Theoretical Practice, and Theoretical formation, Ideology
and Ideological Struggle", In the March-April issue, the
lead article, by Ricardo Alarcon,* is titled "Latin America

*probably identical with Ricardo Alarcon Quezada, Cuban

permanent representative to the UNO.

‘Latin American participants.

and the Tricontinental Conference". A section of this
issue is dedicated to a roundtable discussion on “the ©
Role of the Intellectual in Movements of National Libera~
tion", with French, Italian, and a wide range of. prominent

: One ‘collaborator of the Casa, a youth French Marxist
who has studied under Althusser, named Jules Regis Debray,*
has lately assumed special prominente as an intellectual -
apologist of Castro and the Cuban revolution. .Debray's
activities are of interest because his interpretations :
of the place of the Cuban revolution in contemporary Marx~. .
ism-Leninism and of Castro's role as a revolutionary have
been endorsed by Castro himself. Since this is so, a _
perusal of Debray's writings on Cuba should help in under-
standing how Castro himself visualizes these matters.

Castro reécomniendeaz
reading of Debray's éssay in the July-August 1965 issue
of Casa-de las Americas, titled "Latin America: Some
Probiems of Révolutionary Strategy", for a better apprecia-—
tion of ‘over-all problems" of the Latin American libera~ .
tion movements and Cuba's relation to them. . Debray's
article portrayed Castro's Cuba as a catalyst that had
brought Latin American Communism into a new and irrever- |
sible phase. - :

Debray appears to have traveled extensively in Latin
America since 1961, and is known to have visited Uruguay;

*Debray turned up in Bolivia in ApZil 1967, in the re-~
mote guerrilla area near Camiri where he was arrested on
the 29th together with a British and an Argentine journalist
who had joined the guerrilla column. Debray's fate is
uncertain, . :

Venezuela and Cuba,

en in Montevideo, as a repre-
ative 6 evolution, a pro-~Chinese magazine put out
in Paris in French and English editions, which was then
planning a Spanish-language edition, Debray first at~
_ tracted Cuban attention and gained prominence in Latin
American Marxist circles when he published a long essay
in the Paris Marxist. review, Les Tempes Modernes, titled
"Castroism: The Long March of Latin America", in January
1965. His next important production was the essay first
described above. In January 1967 the official Cuban
press announced that a book by Debray, titled "Revolu-
tion Within the Revolution?", with an edition of 100,000
copies, was then going on sale as "Notebook Number 1" of
a series to be published under Casa de las. Americas auspices.
Debray received prominent attention in a number of articles
and interviews published in Granma and other Havana period-
icals and broadcasts over Radio Havana. He: was described
as a "professor of the History of Philosophy at the Uni-
versity of Havana'.* The 110-page book, a pithy, well-
written defense of. Castroist revolutionary experience,
attempts, among other things, to correct Debray's. earlier
emphasis on thé rapid outdating of the Cuban model for
revolution, by arguing that other Latin Americans who
tried without success to implement that model in their
own countries failed primarily because they had not made
the correct analysis of the Cuban experience whose lessons
still remain valid and of central importance to guerrilla
liberation warfare in the hemisphere. The titie of the
book is pitched to Debray’s discussion of the Cuban revo-
lution as a new Communist thesis clashing with an aged,
outmoded European-based, Soviet-oriented Communist anti-
thesis, along the lines already mentioned.. His book .
offers a systematic refutation of current Soviet liberation

*According to the introduction to "Revolution Within
The Revolution?", by Roberto Fernandez Retamar, Debray
returned to Cuba at the end of 1965 to remain there and
conduct an exhaustive study of the Cuban Revolution.

~45-

er

doctrine, and it can be expectéd to attract. very wide
attention among area Communists and revolutionaries of
all pursuasions. It can profitably be studied by any U.S,
official or scholar whose duties require an understanding
in depth of Castroism and its intentions.

An article by Saverio: Tutino titled "The Bearded
Caiman Talks of Philosophy”, published in the 31 December
1966 issue of Rinascita, the Italian Communist party's
theoretical journal, Contains additional evidence of a
Castro-directed movement taking shape in. Havana to produce
@ new approach to Communist philosophy and theory.- The
article says that "about three years ago" Castro "decided
that Marxism should reach Cuba by a different route" than
through the standard Konstantinov manual on Marxist Philo-
sophy which has been in use in Cuban.” EIR ‘classrooms,
Castro chose a group of “youngsters” to undertake to :
organize a school of philosophy free of any dogmatic in-
fluence of any kind whatever. After three years of effort,
this group began to publish a combative anti-conformist
magazine titled "The Bearded Caiman"* which has focused
on topics of the underdeveloped world, especially national
liberation movements-in ‘Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
As the result of. an attack against the new approach by
Lionel Soto in "Theory and Practice", the journal of the

EIR schools of revolutionary indoctrination, the confronta- |

tion of ideas that Castro desired has begun. Soto, a‘ pre-
Castro Oommunist, defended use of the Konstantinov and
other basic CPSU-prepared manuals, but in a later issue
of “Theory and Practice" Aurelio Alonso, a director of

“The Bearded Caiman" (El Caiman Barbudo) is a Spanish-
language monthly literary Supplement to Rebel Youth =;
(Juventud Rebelde), the daily-newspaper of the Cuban Com-
munist youth organization (UJC) ‘published in Havana. - Regis
Debray in his "Revolution Within The Revolution?" refers
frequently to material published in "The Bearded Caiman,"
Showing the sort of cross-fertilization of his ideas that
Castro is undertaking. The caiman or cayman is a type of
crocodile found in. Cuban and tropical U,S. marshes and.
rivers. ; . : oy

-46-

the "Bearded Caiman" project, refuted Soto and categorically
affirmed that the manuals "no longer fit into the Marxist
education effort which is part of our national culture,"

and they must be done away with. ;

Other good examples of the ideas being purveyed
by "The Bearded Caiman" are the following from an article
titled "Thought Exercise", in issue No. ll, February 1967:

In Latin America, Marxism has not completely
avoided producing distorted, sterile or even
monstrous resultants. The transfer of the
Marxist revolutionary position characteristic
of a developed proletariat...to a Latin Ameri-
can setting has. very often meant the forma-
tion of a.sect...that is ineffectual.

This article discusses the "prominent place.. -occupied by
the...mistakes and deceptions-in the history of the in-
ternational Communist movement,” notes that all too fre~
quently Communist "militancy implied the existence of an
ideological pre-concept opposed in general. to the creative
development of Marxism", and speaks of the necessity of
further reports on, among’ other topics, “the success and
the errors of the Third International"--timt is, the
CPSU-led Communist movement... - :

While the evidence is not complete, it is fairly
clear that Castro, feeling himself saddled with a party
educational apparatus. controlled by orthodox Communists
tied to Soviet interpretations of Marxism-Leninism, decided
to get rid of it and supplant it with an ideological fountain-
head for political education within the Cuban party more
in keeping with his own views, and elected to do so by.
setting up the "Bearded Caiman” group in Havana University's
Philosophy Department as his stalking horse to compete:
with and ultimately. defeat the orthodox Cuban Communists
now in charge of the party educational schools,

A February 1967 decision of the Cuban party's polit —
buro to discontinue publication of the party s theoretical

journal, Cuba Socialista, which began in 1961, is probably
a part of Castro's plan. . The editorial board of the monthly .

-~47=

TOP-SECRET |

| Torsucke 48% 4 |
{ 7: , *

magazine was composed of Castro, Dorticos, Blas Roca,

Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, and Fabio Grobart: three old,

orthodox Communists against two new Cuban Communists.

The announcement of the journal's termination said its

. publication “must be interrupted until the first congress
: of the party adopts décisions concerning some of those : ;

theoretical, strategic, and tactical problems of the : Pa
revolutionary movements of the world and some problems :
inthe. construction of socialism and Communism." It

appears likely that if the first PCC congress (which
should convene in October 1967) decides to issue a new
party theoretical journal, neither Roca, Grobart, nor

. probably Rodriguez, will figure in its editorship, and
that its offerings will consist of a more pure brand of
Castroist theory than the Cuban Premier evidently was able
to get printed in the pages of Cuba Socialista.

B. The Tri-Continental: A Cuban Triumph

The Castro Leadership early forecast Cuban inter-
est in Latin America's entry into the mainstream of the
national liberation movement, represented by the Afro--
Asian People's Solidarity Organization (AAPSO), and Cuban
eagerness for the role of area sponsor and spokesman,
Discussing the future of the Cuban revolution in his 1960
guerrilla warfare manual, Guevara said "Asia and Africa
joined hands in Bandung; Asia and Africa come to join
hands with colonial and indigences, America, through | Cuba,
here in savenase

That year a Cuban Sbacrvens the first Latin Ameri- .
can, attended the AAPSO conference in Conakry and--accord-
ing to Havana-~broached the idea of extending AAPSO to
Latin America. Cuban propagandists began to emphasize a
concepts of a tri-continental revolutionary movement. In y
February 1961 AAPSO extended observer status to all Latin ?
American “popular organizations", The first official a
impetus from AAPSO for the holding of the tri-continental :
conference was given at an April 1961 meeting of its .
executive committee at Bandung. Two years later, in 1963,- ‘
Castro invited the AAPSO to participate ina "First. ‘ . ‘

~48-

sien

o =

Conference of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa,
‘and Latin America" to be held in Havana; and his bid was
accepted,: . :

By 1960.the AAPSO, fallen virtually under the con~
trol of Communist countries, had been diverted from its
ostensible purpose as the expression of anti~imperialist
but uncommitted nationalism to the status of a quasi-front
group. Since the autumn of 1961 the AAPSO had been the
scene of open and bitter Sino-Soviet struggles obscuring | ;
the movement's original purpose. Because a Latin American
increment would tip the power balance in AAPSO, the Cuban
tri-continental proposal had been shelved. - In 1964 the
Morocco-Algeria axis thought it saw an opportunity to help
the independent nationalists regain control of AAPSO by
bringing Cuba and the other Latin Americans into an ex-:
panded organization, and the Algerian leader, Ben Bella,
proposed again to bring.in the western hemisphere con-
tingent. The USSR apparently did not fully consent to the °
idea until after the Cubans had attended the 19-party Moscow
conference in March 1965, when it felt more confident that.-
pro-Chinese Latin American groups would not be included
in the representation fror that region.

The first Tri-Continental Conference held in Havana
in January 1966 was the scene of a rajor Sino-Cuban-Soviet
organizational struggle. It saw (1) UAR hopes dashed as
the Chinese successfully but only temporarily defended
their investment in AAPSO and a proposed 1967 AAPSO con-~
ference in Peking; (2) an important. but fragile organiza-
tional victory won by the Cubans; and (3) the defeat of
Russian conference objectives, which forced the Soviet
delegation to play a passive, defensive game to preserve
important future options.

. The Soviets before the Conference worked out with
the VAR a joint strategy to achieve some common aims.
This was, to turn the AAPSO into a tri-~continental soli-.
darity organization--the AALAPSO--with no modification
except in title, to make Cairo its headquarters, and to
veto any meeting in Peking .in 1967. Because Cairo was
also the headquarters of the AAPSO, the Soviets could
argue compellingly for the irrelevance of an organiza-

. tion representing only Africa and Asia alongside a new

-49~

body representing a'l three continents, thereby bringing
about the dissolution of AAPSO into the larger body and
opening the way to cancel the Peking gathering. British
reports have Cuba's ambassador in Cairo giving Nasir
Castro's personal assurance that the Cubans were in full
agreement with the Soviet-Egyptian "plan and. wanted the
AALAPSO to be a development of AAPSO. According to re-
ported statements of Rashidov, head of the Soviet delega-
tion, a:CPSU group had visited Cuba a month before the
Conference and it. too had received Castro's assurances of.

agreement with this proposal, Thus the Soviets were con- -

fident. they: had the organizational outcome of the Con-
ference. locked in.. ot Poe

The main Chinese Conference objective was to pre-

vent AAPSO’s disbandment and the Soviets’ packing it with .

Latin American organizations~ loyal to Moscow. Peking was
also determined to use it asta forum to establish the:
United States as the entire Communist world's principal
enemy and further the Maoist’ guerrilla warfare line as
the answer to liberation struggle in Latin America as
well as Asia and Africa. That Peking judged its Confer-
ence actions a success was seen in‘a People's Daily edi-

torial, January 18,. 1966 titled "No One Can Stem The Tide.

of Anti~Imperialist Revolutionary Struggle of Asian,
African and Latin American Peoples", lauding the "great
successes" achieved by the Conference and emphasizing

Soviet inability to destroysAAPSO.

The Cuban aim was to..bring the Latin American lib-~
eration movement out of itskhemispheric isolation .by link-
‘ing it organizationally wita its counterparts in the AAPSO
on a basis of equality, and maintain the primacy of Cuban
leadership over the Latin American wing of the new tri-~
continental body. Castro wanted also to develop indepen-
dent Cuban relations.with potential allies in the other
‘regions that might be welded into some sort of bloc able
to resist both Soviet and Chinese pressures and ensure
the sort of effective voice in future international Com-
munist activities which he had in the past insisted upon
for Cuba with relative lack of success. The Conference
provided him with a glorious opportunity to further his
own line on guerrilla warfare not only among his fellow

~50-

ae

Latin Americans but also among African and ASian revolu-
tionaries.* The Cubans were therefore determined that

the Conference not be wrecked by the Chinese~Soviet polemic
nor by other side issues, and succeeded in this purpose

by dint of rough-shod treatment of many delegations.

Castro's victory in the Conference's principal is-
sue, the organizational one, came in large part from the
fact that the Cubans had succeeded in packing hemisphere
delegations with Castroist supporters to a much greater
extent than the Soviets appear to have reckoned with. **
The Latin American delegations varied in composition,
some representing principally local pro-Moscow Communist
parties, and others being led .by representatives of local
revolutionary groups responsive first to Cuban rather than
Soviet pressures even though they included Communist party
delegates. There is not space in this paper to inventory

Bw:

ba

o-
od

*Castro ambitiously declared at the Conference: "We
do not hide that any revolutionary movement anywhere in
the world can count on Cuba's unconditional and determined
help." ; a ,

_**The Cubans, instead of first consulting the.Latin
American countries, in a letter of 8 October 1964 to the
AAPSO Secretary General, unilaterally proposed Mexiico, :
Venezuela, Guatemala, Chile, Uruguay, and Cuba as ‘the six i
countries to represent the hemisphere in the tri-continental !
preparatory committee, Of the six national movements they |
nominated, four were clearly responsive first to Guba | i
rather than Soviet interests,.while the other two--the
FRAP in Chile and FIDEL in Uruguay--were already controlled
and manipulated by their respective Communist party leaders
‘but including pro-Cuban representation, The kidnapping
in Paris in October 1965 of Mehdi Ben Barka, the prepara-
tory committee's chairman, removed fror the Conference
leadership ‘the only influential, non-aligned personality
from AAPSO and left final preparations for the Conference
almost exclusively in Cuban hands. ‘

~51-

7 |

the hemisphere delegations. During the critical phase
of committee work on 12 January,
the Cubans could count on "19 of the ip AD
delegations to support their bid for Havana as a provi-~
Sional AALAPSO headquarters, and other reporting confirms
that on other key issues the Cubans were able to make

' their views prevail among their sister hemisphere delega-
tions. . Ea ; ! .

The Cubans also fully exploited their leverage as
hosts and played an intense, fast and loose game to
extract their Conference gains. Castro apparently fully
intended well before. January to make Havana the seat of
any new tri-continental organization if he could, and did
not hesitate to renege on his reported assurances to the
_Egyptians and Soviets. Nor did he hesitate to make tactical
alliance with'a basically cold and unfriendly Chinese dele-

gation* on matters he deemed important. ee eee
ears SSIES Hh made every effort to win African -
mises Oo

~inancial aid, arms and training to
liberation movements, apparently with such success that
the head of the UAR delegation made no secret of his dis«
appointment that so many Africans who had been supported
by Cairo had given in so easily to Castro's promises, even
after Nasir had sent:a special emissary to the Conference
to line up African support for UAR organizational proposals.
But an important reason for this Cuban success was the:
Africans' concern that their own regional interests would
suffer in consolidating the AAPSO with the AALAPSO (see
the following section). ‘
me: ,

wake

*The Cubans denied entrance to at least one Latin .Ameri-
- Can pro-Chinese party delegation:. the Peruvian PCP—ML
sent a group to the Conference but the credentials con-
mittee seated another delegation from Peru composed of
orthodox PCP and pro-Cuban representatives.

-52-

ae

2. The Main Arena: The. Organization Committee

The Organization Committee first met on 7 January,
and almost immediately. its chairman limited discussion .
to the point whether the proposed tricontinental organiza-
tion should be set up as a single group that would absorb
AAPSO. On the following day several crucial events oc~
curred, The Chinese delegation served hotice it would
walk out if AAPSO were abolished as.a separate organiza~
tion. The Algerian delegation proposed that AAPSO and
the projected Peking conference be preserved and a tem-
porary Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO) be ‘
set up until 1968 when the proposed Cairo tri-ccntinental
gathering would decide whether to merge AAPSO with the.
AALAPSO. Three Latin American delegations, the Mexican,
Venezuelan, and Puerto Rican-~all significantly led by ¢
pro-Cuban delegates-~sought to marshal{ support for a
separate Latin American organization with. headquarters
in Havana. : 5 eae

; That evening a Latin American caucus was held. It
was described by a religble non-Bloc source in Havana as
“probably one of the key meetings of the entire Conference."
It saw sharp disagreement between Communist party dele-~
gates favoring the establishment of one organizational
headquarters in Cairo-~the Soviet-UAR.plan--and "libera-
tion movement" delegates who favored & Mexican proposal
to set up LASO with a Havana secretarf%at and only at 2
later stage establish the AALAPSO. The Cubans swung their
Support to the latter, and "admonished" the orthodox: Com-
munists--whose leaders were the Urugdbyan, Chilean, and
Argentine delegates--for not thinkin# in ‘terms of Latin -
American regional interests. ‘In the next Committee meet-
ing on 9 January the pro-Cubans, particularly the Mexicans,.
Venezuelans, Puerto Ricans and Guatemalans, came out
‘strongly for a regional headquarters in Havana, while the
pro-Soviet Communist party delegates named above came
out for a tri-continental organization but significantly
did not reiterate their stand against the regional head-
quarters in Havana. The Cubans themselves asked for a
temporary secretariat in Havana to study ways of setting
up the new AALAPSO and preparing for its 1968 conference.

' The Chinese backed the Cuban proposal.

-53-

The Africans for their part were badly split between
the UAR's extreme. pro-Soviet stand and the opposing extreme
.pro-Chinese stand of South West Africa. But primarily
most Africans were concerned that a new organization cen-
tered on Latin America would witness the downgrading of
their own area interests, and for this reason most African
delegates opposed any step to abolish AAPSO. They there~ .
fore decided to follow the Cuban proposal to study the ;
.prospects for a new organization and to continue the AAPSO
centered in Cairo, A-sub-committee was formed to work out.
concrete proposals, The Africans and the Latin Americans . r
each met again in regional caucus. Strong Egyptian and - roa i
Soviet pressures were applied to Castro, but the Latin | :
American caucus hardened the Cuban determination to make
Havana the headquarters of an interim secretariat while
the future of the solidarity organization was being decided,
and on the llth Castro moved into the Havana Libre Hotel
and called delegation after delegation to pérsuade them a.
to support the Cuban view. He was only willing to have
the secretariat in Cairo after the 1968 conference,

On 12 January, the intense round of debate, proposal
and counter-proposal which had reached an impasse, was
dramatically affected when the Soviets let it ‘be known
they had decided on the matter of a headquarters site to
vote with the majority. Moscow had instructed. the Soviet
delegation to do its utmost to change Castro’s mind, but
to accept his proposals if he proved. adamant, |

ie UAR was: furious |

DEINE deserted +b hE Soviets, but on the 13th gave up its 7
debate. Meanwhile, on the 12th Castro had closed the } |
; j

I

Havana airport to all outgoing flights, and let it be known
that none would leave until the critical organizational
agreements had been hammered out. . ‘

Delegations from the three continents then met
separately to choose their delegates to the AALAPSO oy . ‘
secretariat, and to a "Committee for Assistance and Aid
to National Liberation and Fighting Movements Against . ‘
Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism", an operational body

~54~

solidarity with national liberation movements, implement~
ing practical action--including armed struggle--and giving
all necessary political and material aid to them. By the
14th the delegates had agreed the AALAPSO secretariat
would be temporarily located in Havana yntil the 1968
conference, but agreement on composition of the "Libera-
tion: Committee". bogged down because of Sino-Soviet argu-
‘ments over the original selections (both China and the
USSR had been nominated by the Laotians). At 2 a.m. on
the 125th the Conference ‘President, Cuban Foreign Minister’
Raul Roa, convened a meeting of heads of delegations, and.
read out a decision by the chairman of the previous days'
session to support the composition originally elected.
Roa gave none of those present an opportunity to demur
but peremptorily closed’ the meeting by announcing, | ___]
that "It shall be recorde :

There was no Opp ong’: That day the airport was
opened and the Conference delegations, led by the Chinese,
vegan to leave. re ue a

J

!

whose aims were to include promoting and coordinating : ae
|

a |
|

2. A Hemisphere Guerrilla High Command Is Born

Coincident with the closing of the Triscontinental ;
Conference, the Latin American delegates met and established
a separate hemispheric solidarity body (LASO) with head~ : .
quarters in Havana and a Cuban secretary-general. The o. Vie «4
only government represented was Cuba, whose delegation, .
headed by Castro himself ang composed of the entire Cuban
Communist party politburo, glearly dominated the proceed-
ings. The meeting named a nine-country, executive committee*
to function as a body to prepare the "First Solidarity ;

Conference of People's of Latin America" to be held in
Ravana from 28 July to 5 August 1967, and to work in co~
operation with national LASO committees: to be set-up in

*Of representatives from Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Guyana,
Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

ry ~55-

pe

(maaewencs

each country "to represent the most active anti-imperial-
ist sectors having the largest and most popular following
in each country. "+ :

Since at its formation AALAPSO existed in name only
as a resolution of the Tri-~Continental Conference, and
AAPSO had not been disbanded, Granma‘s announcement of
LASO did not dwell on the fact that it is intended to be-
come the Latin American regional member of the .tri-con-. ©
tinental solidarity organization if AALAPSO is confirmed -_
at its 1968 conference in Cairo. :

Cuban official reporting of LASO objectives and
methods of operation make it plain that this solidarity
body is intended to function as a hemispheric guerrilla
Internationale, along the: lines envisaged for the broader “3
AALAPSO "Liberation Committee", rather than primarily as
a propaganda or political action organization, and that
its principal target is. the United States’ presence in
Latin America. a, .

The announcement of the criteria to be used to
select future national LASO committees implicitly warned
the orthodox Communist parties they could be by-passed
in favor of larger, more militant revolutionary groups in
their countries. Significantly, no "old" Cuban Communists
were included in Castro’s delegation to the LASO meeting.
Obviously, then, LASO can afford Castro an additional and
collective means of prodding the Soviets and the orthodox _
. parties and even of forcing them to accept a greater degree
of Communist militancy in the future than they would like
in some Latin ‘American countries. :

*Worth mentioning here is the key organizational posi-~
tion in Cuban revolutionary planning that is occupied by
Haydee Santamaria de Hart, Armando Hart's wife. Mrs. Hart
is not only director of the Casa de tas Arericas, she is

‘also Secretary General of the LASO Secretariat; and she
is President of the Cuban national preparatory committee
for the coming July-August 1967 LASO Conference.

~56~

3. The Outlook For the AALAPSO

The Soviets, their strategy at the Conference hav-
ing failed miserably, subsequently went to great lengths
to play down its significance for Latin ‘American: Communist
strategy on the one hand, and on the other hand pursued .
other means to accomplish their central purpose in the —
solidarity game which is to wrest control of the Cairo-
based AAPSO from the Chinese and prevent the Peking AAPSO
conference: scheduled for 1967. (A detailed discussion
of the reactions of the OAS and its members to Soviet
participation in the Tri-continental Conference and Soviet
. Pst-Conference policy will be found in a later section
of this paper). R

After the Conference Soviet, Indian, UAR and other
like-minded AAPSO delegations met and worked out a pro-
visional plan to try to settle AAPSO's future status
through the latter s executive committee sessions in an
effort to undercut: Chinese plans. Chinese influence in
AAPSO waned later in 1966 after Sukarno’s downfall in
Indonesia, and after the Japanese Communist party shifted
away from Peking. : ;

- By February 1967 the pro-Soviet forces had succeeded
in convening the Eighth AAPSO Council session in Cyprus, |
which was boycotted and denounced by Peking before it began..
The Cyprus Council session shifted the Fifth AAPSO confer-
ence site from. Peking to Algiers... The Chinese’ principal
point was that the Cyprus "revisionist" gathering had no.
authority to make the change, and Peking now appears in-
tent on bolting the AAPSO and setting up its own rump
organization, :

The much~touted “Liberation Committee'-~composed
of delegates from Algeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Congo-
Brazzaville in. Africa; Guyana, Guatemala, Brazil, and Cuba
in Latin America; and Japan, Cambodia, China, and the USSR. -
in Asia-~set up in the final marathon phase of the Tri-.
continental Conference reportedly was the result of a UAR
attempt to give the Cubans something in return for Cuban
acceptance of a Cairo headquarters for AALAPSO. ‘Inclusion
of the Soviets constituted a formal recognition of the
_USSR as an Asian power, a point of considerable importance

—=57-

. oo oe .

to the Soviets in their polemics with the Chinese. It

also gave the Soviets the means for influencing any Com-
mittee activity and perhaps ultimately for gaining a eG i
controlling influence over the Committee. :

Sition of the AALAPSO secretariat which--as part of’ the
bargain to accept Havana as provisional secretariat head-

quarters--will serve future Soviet purposes better than .

some other composition.would have done. The fact that the
three principal contenders are members of this Committee
militates against any active role for it for the time being;
and, in fact, little has been heard of it or any delibera-
tions or meetings it may have held since January 1966.*

The twelve-nation AALAPSO executive secretariat
was officially constituted at a meeting in Havana in
May 1966, under the chairmanship of its Cuban Secretary-
‘general Osmani Cienfuegos, according to a Granma report..
The same month a Cuban was sent to Cairo to head an AALAPSO .
liaison office with the AAPSO headquarters. Since then
Havana has published and broadcast bulletins and resolu-

.tions issued by the AALAPSO Secretariat on a series of

topics implementing resolutions of the Tri-continental
Conference.

*A November 19, 1966 Radio Havana broadcast ‘reflected
some movement by the "Liberation Committee", however. a
This statement announced plans to set up a guerrilla train-
ing school in each of the three continents. It said Cuba
and North Korea had already. offered their territories for
such schools and that “other states” were soon expected
to follow suit. This may refer to a Cuban-operated guer-
rilla facility in Congo-Brazzaville which apparently has
grown rapidly since the Tri-continental Conference and

ga
S training cadres from Congo-Kinshasa,
Angola, Gabon and neighboring areas. : 7

7 -58-

ovietS gained some long-run advantages bo rom their : a)
_memberShip on the "Liberation Committee” and in the compo- fo

The complicated lobbying and political horse-trad-.
ing over organizational issues: which the Tri-continental
Conference entailed have been emphasized because they
clearly epitomized the lines of the three-way Communist
competition in Latin America, The fact that ‘Sino-Cuban~
Soviet and African disagreement over national liberation
matters was so strong as to require three postponements
and a Cuban tour de force to bring the Conference to an
orderly formal close, Speaks for itself despite portrayal
of the Conference in Communist media as‘an epoch-making
event. Like the secretariat established there, the vic-~ .
tories of the various sides were all provisional, and.at -
this writing it is not completely certain that the tri-
continental organization forced through at Havana will
survive its projected second conference in 1968. .

C. The Orthodox Communists Are Not Impressed |
mre SEC
1. Post~Havana Conference Developments
eer nen i ee SOPMCRES

The dissatisfaction of the orthodox Communist par-
ties with Castro's policies, which had been lulled in’ the
months immediately following the November 1964 Havana Con-
ference in the belief that the Cuban threat had been re-
moved, reappeared as it became increasingly apparent -in

1965 that in spite of "agreements" signed in Havana Castro .

had no intention of terminating his operations in several:
countries and that he clearly had put his own interpreta— ~
tion upon then.

area parties
presse e or Suppor nm Sponsoring another regional

meeting--again under the guise of dealing with pro-Chinese
influence in the hemisphere--to lay the Cuban ghost. The
effort of the CPSU delegation at the Chilean party's
Thirteenth National Congress to get general agreement on

a political line, was probably made in part to accommodate
the Latin parties. But the Soviets, having accomplished
their own objective at the Havana Conference, were Clearly

-59-.

Peer

$
!
i
;

not interested in sponsoring. another confrontation with

the Cubans, and tactfully desisted in the face. of Venezuelan,

Cuban and Dominican refusal to accept formulations favor-

ing peaceful national liberation methods. The CPSU delega-.

tion avoided getting embroiled in any controversial item .
during the general exchange at Santiago concerning the

best time and place for an area meeting, and counseled

that such discussions be postponed until later “when all -

were prepared for a full discussion." ;

The Venezuelan party. wanted a meeting in Havana
"as soon as possible’. Most of the other parties preferred
its convocation in Moscow in March 1966 at the time of
the 23rd CPSU Congress. A five-party committee was re-.
portedly chosen to work up an agenda for the gathering.
Some of the area parties did get together in Moscow for
discussions, but apparently no formal regional party meet-—
ing was held. ; ‘

; emphasized. a regional Communist
party 6. be he n Havana under Cuban sponsorship
in connection with the 1966 annual July 26 celebrations, ? ; 2

and severa tries prepared delegations to attend it.
eet bpoke of a week-long session to discuss
the Yollowing: :

A. Programs that Latin American CP's should
be carrying out; u
B. Programs of the Communist Party of Cuba;
C. A new means of helping Vietnam; :
D. The situation in the Dominican Republic; and
E. The military coup in Argentina, .

| | the
projec ing was no e ecause not a e area

parties were present in Havana’ and because the Cubans
~-anticipating its purpose--had invited “other pro-Castro
revolutionary groups" to participate, and the orthodox

parties backed down from full-dress discussions of adiffer-

ences with them in the absence of firm Soviet backing. --
A confrontation of sorts nevertheless took place between

Castro and some the party delegations. [| | ,
-60-

TOP-SECRET
ieee aed)

.
we

Hart heaped scorn upon the orthodox party representatives
for their incapacity to launch revolutions in Argentina,
Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela, where he asserted conditions
were already ripe for them. When the Chilean and Brazilian
delegates strongly demurred, Castro, who was present, re-
plied heatedly that had he been in the Brazilian PCB "Gen-
eral Castelo Branco would not be in power today." A don-
neybrook evidently developed, several delegates telling |

Castro to stay out of the affairs of Communist parties

in other countries and concentrate on solving Cuban, econo-
-wic problems. These delegates invoked Castro's own recent
charges against China of..interference in Cuban affairs. -

A Colombian PCC proposal for a party. meeting. lat

er

in the year, for discussion of ‘mutual problems," was vetoed

by the Cubans; but some parties continued without succe
to formulate plans for another regional conference. A

SS

forceful orthodox Venezuelan party protest in late August
against Cuban "factionalism' favoring the Douglas Bravo
dissident FALN, provoked more urgent expressions of inter-

est in a new conference by the Chilean, Brazilian, and
other parties. The Chilean PCCh noted Cuban influence

in the Chilean Socialist Party, its partner in the FRAP

electoral front*, while in Brazil PCB leader Prestes ca
out in favor of'a bloc of Communist parties to oppose i
discriminate Cuban influence in Latin American guerrill
operations.

In December the Costa Rican PVP leadership made
proposal for dealing with the Cuban problem which had n
been reported previously and about which more may likel
be heard in the future because of its obvious appeal to

me
n=
a:

a
ot
¥y

the Soviets, Prefacing a report on the Chinese problem,

PVP organization secretary Arnoldo Ferreto told a party

*In December 1966 Téading Socialist Senator Salvador

_Allende Gossens had become a behind-the-scenes partner
of a Cuban-sponsored biweekly magazine Punto Final, pri

Santiago, Chile, on a Socialist-controlled press, Prens

Latino: Americana.

~61=

nted in
a-

plenum that a serious problem existed in Latin America
because of Cuban policies. He said many of the parties
hoped that the next world Communist party meeting would
produce an agreement denouncing the. policy of armed revo-
lution in Latin America Cemphasis added) and that this
step wou ring. Castro to modify his operations. The —
PVP plenum agreed to support such a- proposal.

Barring some dramatic change of events in the hemi-
Sphere, it is unlikely .the CPSU will give up its position
that Castroist interference is primarily the responsibility
of the area parties, About the best the Soviets offer
their supporting parties. was summed up

in September 1966
been on the verge of:

openly criti ng Castroist meddling on several occasions _.

but had remained silent for the sake of unity, even though
his party expected further difficulties with Cuba.

Suslov,
ro} m that the Latin American Communist parties
“would have to have patience with Castro". Suslov said”

the USSR had experienced "very trying times” because of
Castro's intransigence, but by being patient the USSR had
been able to exert some influence over him.

at the
widespread attention was being given
a meeting of Latin American party delegates to the Bulgarian

national party congress of the previous November, which
was sponsored by the Venezuelan party delegation and at
which the problem with Cuba was discussed. The discussion
focussed on prospects for a Latin American party meeting
in Havana at the time of the. LASO conference scheduled for
late July-early August 1967. Delegates from Venezuela,
Chile, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, and
the Dominican Republic--aside from Cuba—~were reported

in Sofia for the: Bulgarian party congress. When approached
on the issue, the Cuban delegate sidestepped by saying the
proposal would have to be taken up directly with the Cuban
party's national leadership. . :

~62~

.

oceeeaaes

ambos

2. Post Tricontinental Developments

San the oan oad anaes - Moscow
ron arc

ough 9 April 1966, summarized in the
following two paragraphs, gives a good account of the
mounting difficulties Castro faces in his drive for uni-
lateral control of revolution in the hemisphere.

. . There was a noticeable coolness in Moscow between
the other Latin American delegations, who did not even
stay at the same hotel with the Cubans, and the Cuban
delegation composed of Armando Hart, his wife Haydee
Santamaria, Major Pedro Miret Prieto, and Leonel Soto. .
This was because of orthodox party resentment of the
undisguised Cuban determination to dominate the LASO
executive committee and LASO itself, the "negative atti-
tude" of the Cubans toward the established Communist
parties, and their efforts to impose a Cuban solution in
each country without reference to the local party's views.
Most Communist party delegates to the Tri-continental
Conference, according to this source, never gave whole-
hearted support to the creation of LASO and--under Cuban
pressure--only finally grudgingly endorsed it to avoid
division within the Latin American Communist movement.
Support for LASO and for Cuba came mainly from Guatemala
and Venezuela and to a lesser degree from Guyana and, the
Dominican Republic. The rest of the Latin American par-
ties are generally opposed to the Cuban concept of LASO
and what they regard as Cuban attempts to "meddle in
their affairs.”

Because of Cuban insistence that the majority of .
the LASO executive committee members represent non-Com-
munist parties, only two of the six (sic) countries con-
cerned have named representatives-—-the Chilean PCCh, -and
the Venezuelan MIR,* Communist determination that the
majority shall be regular party members in good. standing,
and mistrust of Cuban motives, have so far prevented the:
naming of the rest. If Cuban control proves absolute,

*The LASO executive committee is composed of nine coun-

try representatives (see page 55), not six, and they in-
clude Venezuela but not Chile.

-63—

.

"TOP-SEGRET
pee

it. is likely that most
parties will Sim Ww m-LASO and some

may actively oppose LASO.

. Reporting in 1966 of LASO progress confirms the ; ’ - _
information summarized above that the Cubans are having
real problems with the orthodox parties in their efforts
to establish a LASO organizational framework throughout.
Latin America. Since the Colombian PCC formed a "National
Committee for Solidarity with National Liberation Move-
ments Throughout the World" in February 1966, formation

of the additional projected national LASO committees has
been very slow, as most of the orthodox parties have
either dragged their feet or proved completely unwilling
to share national committee control with local Castroist

organizations. * : 4

In September 1966--after its falling out with
Havana because of Cuban support of Venezuelan Communist
dissident guerrillas--the Venezuelan PCV politburo stated
its views about Cuban domination within LASO: ;

Our party, in accord with several other
Latin American parties, holds that LASO
should be governed by the following: prin-
ciples: the organization of the national
committees should be the outgrowth of agree-
ment among the forces of the country, with-
out interference of the organizing commis-
sions. The organization...should not’ be a ee
Supranational organization providing direc- : d
tion, which would be impractical and possibly : :
lead to failure. ,

It also asserted that the Venezuelan delegation to the Tri- ;
continental Conference neither "gave expression to” nor

The Colombian dele gate to LASO, Manuel Cepeda Vargas, ; :
a member of the orthodox PCC, was deliberately selected’ :
to keep an eye on Castroist LASO efforts in Colombia. eo

}

~6§4—

.

TO T

defended "the political position of our Party"-—thereby
disowning even further orthodox PCV approval of LASO.

As late as December 1966 leftist groups in Uruguay

~-a member of the LASO executive committee--were disputing

the claim of the orthodox PCU s front organization, FIDEL,
that it constituted Uruguay's national LASO committee.
When Carlos Rafael Rodriguez was in Uruguay in mid-Decem-
ber 1966 as Cuban representative to the FAO, a group of
some five radical organizations, after meeting with him,
cited statements by Rodriguez that FIDEL was not the na-. -
tional committee but had responsibility for convening a
meeting of all interested groups to decide upon one. As -
of January 1967, ‘however, the PCU clearly had no intention
of sharing control of.its FIDEL-based national LASO com
mittee with the country's other "minority" left-wing
bodies, 2 = i

Formation of a Chilean LASO committee was stalled °
as of November 1966 because of Chilean PCCh unwillingness
to accede to demands by its Socialist party partner in
the FRAP* to include other Chilean revolutionary ‘groups,
such as the small MIR, in the national committee. On .
January 24, 1967 £1 Siglo, the PCCh newspaper, announced
that formation of the Chilean committee "was being post~
poned," : ; ; :

; *In July 1966 the secretary~general of the Chilean Soci-

alist party-~a consistent supporter of LASO--had this to |
say to the Chilean PCCh: “What do you think about this —
matter [the importance of an operative LASO]? In. our view,
it seems that the Chilean Communist party, like those in
Argentina and Uruguay, lacks any serious interest in pro-
moting this undertaking, or at least is seeking to limit
its action to a mere traditional form of solidarity. For
our part, we do not want the national organ of the LASO |
to be...a mere appendix of the FRAP..." (E1-Sol, No. 311,
Montevideo, 8 July 1966, pp. 4-5, 7) te Re ee

~65—

»

Torsscagr ;

Siaall

. Continued Cuban preference for the Mexican National
Liberation Movement (MLN)--led by Heberto Castillo Martinez*~-
over the Mexican Communist party (PCM) has caused ser ious
differences between the two Mexican groups. After learn-
ing: that the Cubans had given the MLN responsibility for
Mexican preparations for the 1967 LASO Conference, the PCM
ordered all organizations in which it had influence, and
which were cooperating with the MLN, to withdraw, in order
to show. up to the Cubans the actual small size of the MLN.
The PCM at its Eighth Plenum in September 1966 noted PCM
differences with the Cuban CP because of the latter's ties
with the MLN. As of February 1967 the MLN leadership had
begun to feel the effects of the PCM Campaign and was re~
portedly pessimistic about the future of the Movement.

The PCM is determined that unless.a PCM member controls
the Mexican LASO conimittee the PCM will dissociate itself
from LASO. .

In March 1966 a top director of the Brazilian PCB
talked in Prague with Carlos Rafael Rodriguez following
the 23rd CPSU Congress, and told Rodriguez that. the PCB
would offer "only outward Solidarity with LASO and the tri-
continental" development. The Brazilian strongly criti-
cized Cuban support of Leonel Brizola, a Brazilian revolu- -
tionary living in Uruguay, as worse than Cuban support of
the Brazilian peasant leader, Francisco Juliao Arruda de
Paula, in 1964. In-August the PCB Sao Paulo State Com-
mittee expressed its private conviction that the Tri-

continental Conference had harmed the cause of international ..

Communism more than it had helped it.

. A Prensa Latina report of 24 July 1966 noted forma-
tion of a national LASO committee by the Argentine Popular
‘Vanguard Party (PVP).of Abel Alexis Lattendorf, the National
Liberation Movement of Ismael Vinas,.a "Political Youth
Group" composed of youths of "several political parties"

*Castillo headed the basically pro-Cuban Mexican dele~

gation to the Tri-continental Conference,

-66-

ae

that included Peronists and Christian Democrats; the
Peronist Revolutionary Action group led by John William
Cooke--pro-Cuban Peronist who headed the Argentine dele-
gation to the Tricontinental--and the Buenos Aires Union
of Journalists. The announcement reported by Prensa |
Latina appeared in Socialismo de Vanguardia, official
organ of the PVP. Yt said further that the PCA and its
labor and youth fronts did not attend three preparatory
meetings to which they had been invited, and that it ;
was finally decided to organize the LASO committee without
them. The PCA was charged with using "every kind of argu-
ment" against PVP and national Liberation Movement attend-
ance at the Tri-continental Conference. This development
could presage an official PCA boycott of the coming LASO
conference, ae

. In October 1966 Granma noted a recent LASO execu-
tive committee meeting had approved a draft agenda for ~
the LASO conference, and published its outline, The. Con-
ference's central business, according to the outline,
Will be analysis of United States’ political and military
"intervention" and economic and ideological "penetration™
of Latin America; development of a common strategy for
all Latin American revolutionary movements to combat
these phenomena; .defense of the Cuban revolution; elabora-
tion of more effective ways for generating armed struggle
against U.S. "imperialism"; and agreement upon a LASO
Statute of organization. The executive committee had
according to Granma prepared and circulated throughout _
the hemisphere an extensive questionaire designed to
elicit broad categories of data about U.S. activities in
Latin America for use at the conference. ‘ :

‘Havana has‘continued to publish reports of LASO
committee proceedings in optimistic tones which give the
impression that conference preparations are proceeding

' without problems,* and that a fully structured: hemispheric

*For example, arrival of LASO delegates Hector Perez
Marcano and Silvia Moreno from Venezuela, Leopoldo Bruera
from Uruguay, Lall Bahadur from Guyana, and Aluizio Pal-
hano from Brazil, was announced in Granma on 27 January
(footnote continued on page 68)

-67-

.

Ne

a

‘organization will emerge from the 1967 gathering.

3 che e .conrer=
ence approaches, rely be predicted that th
struggle for control of national committees between the
orthodox Communist parties and the Castroist organiza-
tions will-intensify and Latin American Communist resist-
ance to the Cuban intent to employ LASO as a command
organization to dictate future revolutionary policy in
the hemisphere to stiffen. It -is possible that between
now and Conference time the. orthodox parties could even

- unite sufficiently to disrupt it or cause it to fail al-

together. But this is not likely in the absence da Soviet
directive or significantly greater backing from the -CPSU
than the, parties have been given thus far in their recent
moves to deal’with Havana. Soviet intentions toward the
AALAPSO and LASO's usefulness to them in such an expanded
solidarity body are not yet clear, and probably witl not

be until after Peking moves in the AAPSO framework. become
Clearer. It therefore seems more likely that the first
LASO Conference will bring together delegates from area
Communist parties and Castroist revolutionary groups, a
majority of whom will represent groups responsive to Havana.
The Communist party bloc will again be on the defensive,
Playing a moderating role and keeping its hand in the Cuban
game until the Soviets come to a decision. The Soviets

and the orthodox parties can in any case be expected to
play down the significance of the Conference and any militant
resolutions it may issue, as they did the Tri-continental
Conference, :

(footnote continued from page 67)

1967; and on the 13th of the month the Cuban newspaper
mentioned a declaration of a “Paraguayan National Soli-
darity Committee”, issued in Montevideo, greeting the
first anniversary of the Tri-continental Conference. On
8 March Guatemalan delegate Afmundo Palma made a state- .
ment over Radio Havana backing the LASO Conference.

” ~68-

.

. | ) , oe

D. A Communist Third-Force: Bloc?

The growing Cuban involverent in some African lib-
eration movements and new African nations and Cuban strength~-
ening of ties with some East Asian Communist regimes-~~largely
since the Tri-~continental Conference--are of interest here
because they suggest that Cuba is actively seeking some
kind of a third force of small powers within the world: Com
munist movement.* | :

Havana has regularly invited African revolutionary -
organizations to attend special Cuban events such as the
annual 26th of July celebration. Congolese dissidents
were among the first to get Cuban fuerrilla training and
to have Cuban advisors attached to their field units.

In 1965 the Angolan MPLA, one of two principal national-.

ist groups, began getting similar support. After the Tri- =.

continental Conference, where Castro personally paid great
attention to Amilcar Cabral, a-Portuguese Guinean rebel
leader, evidence turned up of probable Cuban military sup- .
port being extended to his group through Guinea. In Congo-
Brazzaville Havana has made a major contribution to main-
taining a radical regime in power. Cuba officially and
publicly confirmed its military support to the Brazzaville
regime for the first time in Granma on 29 June 1966.
Earlier, in Congo-Kinshasa, the Cubans were very active
with the rebels at the heights of the 1964-1965 rebellion,
especially .on the northwestern shore of Lake Tanganyika.

In Guinea Cubans are active in training pro-Nkrumah Ghanaian
exiles. There is some evidence of Cuban training of

*Castro and Guevara had been impressed with revolution-
ary prospects, in Africa at least since 1961 when they -of-
fered limited guerrilla training to several African extremn—
ist groups. The Cubans initially gained a strong foot-
hold in Algeria, and held it until Ben Bella‘’s downfall
in June 1965. Thereafter the foothold shifted to Ghana
until Nkrumah's regime disappeared, and itis currently
centered in Congo-Brazzaville.

~69-

Nigerians, Malians, Tanzanians, and--in February 1967--of
Burundi police and militia in Bujumbura.

The makings of a "Havana~Pyongyang-Hanoi Axis" began

to appear following a Dorticos-Led official Cuban visit
in Hanoi and Pyongyang during October and November 1966,
which featured red-carpet receptions of the Cuban delega-
tion by the North Vietnamese and North Korean top lLeader-
ship.. Earlier in the year North Korean and Japanese
Communists had joined Rumania in a neutral attitude to-
ward the Sino-Soviet struggle within the international
Communist movement, after a Rumanian shift to an indepen-
dent stance in the. CPSU's dispute with the Chinese party.
At the Bulgarian party congress thé Rumanian, Cuban,
North Korean and North Vietnamese delegates were silent
on the world conference issue floated by Zivkhov, *

It is clear that the Cuban build-up in Africa re-
Sponded to Castro’s interest in establishing his credénti-
als as a revolutionary. leader in the underdeveloped world.
He undertook this where it was easiest at the time. for ;
him to do so-~namely, in Africa, where he could count on

' full Algerian cooperation. African acceptance of ‘Cuban

aid would enlarge Cuban guerrilla experience and enhance
Castro's revolutionary luster in Latin America and Asia

as well. It would also help justify Cuba's claim that
Latin America deserved parity treatment in the AAPSO soli-
darity framework. His African relations helped Castro
break out of the diplomatic isolation his country was
increasingly facing in the western hemisphere and among -
NATO member countries.

*For a more detailed analysis of the Cuban, North

Korean, and North Vietnamese relationship, see ESAU XXX,

‘titled "The Sino-Soviet Struggle in the World Communist

Movement Since Khrushchev's Fall",

~70~

.

Srorsseasr

Castro early took a violent line toward U.S. in-
volvement in the Vietnam conflict and the lack of unified
Communist bloc response to it. On 3 March 1965 he delivered
a clear rebuke to the major bloc. powers for inaction in
Support of North Vietnam, professing regret that Cuba was
not closer to North Vietnam so that it could "help them
with whatever we could’, and asserting it a duty of all

Socialist countries to give all-out aid to the DRY. Three. -

days .later he announced with fanfare a Cuban donation of
10,000 metric tons of sugar to North Vietnam as a: "modest ‘
demonstration of Cuban militant solidarity, and. linked
Cuban interest in the DRV with Cuban full preparedness

to defend their island against U.S, aggression, as the
North Vietnamese were doing.* ‘In a 14 March speech Castro
sharpened his earlier criticism of the lack of bloc support

.for the.DRV, ascribing it to the Sino-Soviet division,

although he nowhere named either Moscow or Peking. Castro's
speech reflected thé essential Cuban :fear that in some
future situation in which Cuba might be the "imperialist"
victim it too would find itself unaided in spite of Soviet
and bloc commitments to do so. This speech also contained
Castro's famous contemptuous reference to the Sino-Soviet |
war of words as a "Byzantine discord" in which Cuba wanted
no part, and a reiteration of the point made in his earlier
January 1965 speech that "we are not and will never be ,
satellites of anyone." . » 4

*Castro has followed up with ‘an active Cuban program
of military aid to the DRV, Early in 1966 he was canvas- °
sing the Cuban armed forces for volunteers to serve in
Vietnam, notes
assignment of nine Cuban ary acnes to ban ;

- embassy in Hanoi, and appointment of one of Cuba‘s: top

missile experts, Major Julio Garcia Olivera, as Cuban
ambassador there.

-71-

TOP"SECRET . - a ; |

Official Cuban-North Korean relations warmed rapidly
during the spring and summer of 1966, Granma regularly
reporting the travels of Cuban and North Korean delega-
tions and mutually flattering exchanges between Cuban
leaders and the North Korean ambassador and other North
Korean spokesmen. By mid-year the relations of the two
countries were described as "never better."

In his 5 October report to. the Korean Workers Party
Conference, Premier Kim Il-sung. gave unusual attention
to Cuba,. describing it as "a continuation of the Great
October Revolution in Latin America" that had "brought
about a turning point in the revolutionary movement in
Latin America." Not only did he. thus employ terms to
‘describe the Cuban phenomenon which were identical with
those used by Castro himself, but his description of the
independent stance being taken by the North Korean Workers
Party toward both Chinese and Soviet pressures was remark- ie
ably like some of Castro's own assertions of Cuban inde- oe
- pendence in the dispute. The North Korean premier’ came :
explicitly to the defense of Cuba in its relations with
other "socialist countries": 7 ,

. +» The Communist Party of Cuba knows the
Cuban question better than anyone else, and
it is the Communist Party of Cuba and no one
else that can map out correct policies: to.
suit the factual conditions in Cuba. Every
socialist country is duty bound to respect
: the policies pursued by the Communist Party
i of Cuba and support the struggle of the Cuban
os ' people. No.attempt should be made. to exert : ” ; |
. pressure upon the Communist Party and people |
of Cuba and split the revolutionary forces :
in Latin America,

Kim effusively praised Cuba as. marching in the van-
guard of the anti-imperialist struggle, correctly leading
: revolution and construction in its country, and “correctly” . ‘
: striving for the unity of the international Communist . |
movement. Like Castro, he condemned Yugoslavia, refusing ' 1
to recognize it’ as a member of the international Communist
movement, and named U.S, "imperialism" as the principal * ‘
Communist enemy. ,

r

-72-—

The build-up in mutual admiration between Havana
and Pyongyang intensified with the Dorticos official visit.
Early in.1967 Kunrocha, organ of the Korean Workers Party ©
central committee, carried an article entitled "Cuba--
Standard-bearer of Socialism in the Western Hemisphere,"
which repeated Kim's assertion that the Cuban revolution
is a continuation in Latin America of the Great October -
Revolution.

.1. The Cubans Flog Moscow's Front Groups
sane Subans riog Moscow's Front Groups

Cuban determination to challenge-the "aged, out-
moded, European~based, Soviet-—oriented" Communist status- _
quo was made clear at the Seventh World assembly of the.
WFDY held in Sofia from 6 through 16 June 1966. The Cuban
Communist Youth (UJC) delegation, in an obviously care-
fully prepared presentation reportedly dictated by Castro
himself, attacked the WFDY for its narrow sectarianism,
complaining it had not approved the Tri-continental Con- ; ,
ference's declarations a "the basis for the work of the
Federation in those three continents"; of not bringing : m .
in the youth of "the armed fronts of Venezuela and Guate~- ; a
mala” although invitations had been extended to "organiza
tions of another nature"; and of opposing affiliation of
the youth section of the MR-1J4 with the WFDY, ‘

; The Cubans strongly argued for Havana as the site ee : |
of the next, twice-postponed, Ninth World Youth Festival,
against the obvious desire of the Soviet and. pro-Soéviet : .
delegations (including Brazil) to hold it in Sofia in
1968. The Cubans finally demanded that it be held in
some Asian, African, or Latin American country and not in
a European country, and: that a Cuban be named permanent :
WFDY secretary-general to replace the traditional selection .
of a French student for that post. The Cubans, in
the wake of the May 1966 invasion scare, also proposed ‘a
WFDY resolution pledging arms and men to Cuba similar to :
one voted for North Vietnam, but the proposal was rejected
by all except the Chinese, Israeli, and the pro-Boumedienne
Algerian delegations. Finally, the Cubans insisted that
the WFDY be radically decentralized on a tricontinental
basis, its present headquarters to serve merely to
1

ey i

. 7 ;
ae , .

‘coordinate activities of three WFDY presidencies to be

located respectively in Latin America, Africa, and Europe.

A clandestine Italian Communist party (PCI) report
of Cuban private statements at Sofia brought out Cuban
intentions to continue to insist on WFDY decentralization
and the decentralization of the other international fronts,
because those organizations have in the Cuban view suc-
cumbed to "bureaucratic immobilism" and are ignoring the
"real problems" of the "third world" and the emerging’
nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Ouban
delegate at Sofia noted with some surprise hostility by
the Soviet Komsomol representatives because of. implicit
Cuban criticism of Soviet efforts to disassociate them
selves from the militancy engendered by the Tri-continental:
Conference, : ‘

After*the IUS had agreed in February 1966 to attend
and support the Fourth Latin American Student Congress
(CLAE), which it believed would be held in Chile, the
Cuban FEU reneged on an apparent understanding to this
effect that it had with the Chilean. UFUCH and, ‘at a Cuban-
dominated preparatory committee meeting in.Havana in April,
managed to schedule the CLAE to be held in Havana from .
29 July through 9 August. The pro-Soviet forces in the IUS
wished to avoid holding the Havana CLAE because they saw
it as an attempt by the Cubans to make it a "junior" Tri-:
continental Conference that would push the Cuban line of
violent revolution in Latin America, and therefore detri-~
mental to Soviet aims in the hemisphere. In spite of
efforts to do so (the IUS vote on providing financial :
support to CLAE had deadlocked at 7 to 7) the Soviets by
Juné saw they could not block it without a great loss of
face for the Cubans. They adopted a strategy of attempt-
ing to "control" the Cubans and the orientation of the
CLAE proceedings by encouraging moderate student elements
to attend’. .Cuban success in achieving control of the CLAE
proceedings was in large part because of. the work of the
Cuban IUS Vice President, who apparently acted on his own
and in secret in Prague during February and March 1966
in arranging the Havana preparatory committee meeting.

He kept the pressure on by strongly criticizing the IUS ©
for what he termed its "anti-Latin Americanism".

-T4-

Te

; Soviet fears were fully justified. Even though
‘Chile did not. attend, the Bolivians were absent, and the
Brazilians arrived late, and there was far less Latin
American student support for the CLAE than there would
have been if the preparatory committee members had not
Split, the Cubans brought together a majority of Latin
American national student unions for the event. Not only
did Congress resolutions explicitly support the Tri-contin-
ental Conference, stress the need for armed struggle in
Latin. America, and urge students to take up arms against
"Yankee Imperialism"; it was also decided to hold a tri-
continental solidarity meeting of -students of the three -
continents under the auspices of the AALAPSO Executive
Secretariat then established in Havana, Moreover a Con-
tinental Latin American Organization of Students (OCLAE)
was formed with headquarters in Havana. to coordinate hemi- |
sphere student activities. A Cuban was selected: to head
‘the permanent OCLAE secretariat, withtrespresentatives of
Venezuela, Panama, Uruguay, Puerto Rico,Guadaloupe and

the Dominican Republic named as secretaries. It is signi-
ficant that the CLAE was ignored by the Soviet press -
except for a brief reference to the decision to establish
a permanent organization, On the.other hand, NCNA ‘(China
attended the CLAE as an observer) hailed the event as a
defeat of "pro~Soviet" delegates attempting to place the
OCLAE "into the orbit of the IUS"; but NCNA, coverage also
noted Cuban efforts to block Chinese initiatives at the
CLAE, Early in 1967 two Soviet Komsomol representatives
were reported in Chile as a result of a promise made by
Soviet IUS representatives the previous November to sup-
port the Chilean UFUCH against a prospective Cuban effort
to have UFUCH expelled from the IUS at the next IUS con
gress. , eh :

~75-

eS SE SS |

IV, The Soviet Response

A. Parrying the Chinese Thrust

During 1963 the CPSU's problems in Latin America
intensified and became more complicated under the pres-.
sure of the direct Chinese challenge to its.authority
within the Latin American Communist movement. The Soviets
had to cope with an unpredictable Cuban leadership whose
free-wheeling revolutionary tactics brought official
repression not of the pro-Castroists but in most cases
of the USSR'S own supporters in the area--the various
orthodox Communist parties. This was happening just
when Moscow was. demanding the use of strong measures
against the pro-Chinese factions emerging within the
area's Communist ovement, and more than ever required a
broader and more forthright defense of the CPSU line on
the part of the "old reliables" in the hemisphere,

Because individual party relations with the CPSU
varied, and because Moscow had never been able to -
establish the high degree of control over all the parties
that it had in other areas, the Soviet party mainly relied
on a number of veteran Communist party leaderships for its:
leverage on the rest. In middle America the Costa Rican
and Salvadoran parties, and in South America those of

‘ Brazil, Chile, Uruguay,* and Argentina, were among the
aI most important CPSU. bellwethers. These parties have
: traditionally maintained very close liaison on problems
i of interpreting and implementing shifts of the CPSU line
: _ among the area parties. Under the pressures of the grow-
; ing struggle with Peking, the Soviets resorted to more
: direct tactics. At the Czechoslovakian and Hungarian
‘ national party congress in late 1962, and especially the

*The PCU first jumped on the CPSU bandwagon on 12 Decem-
ber 1961 in a condemnation of Albania's party leadership

and the support given it by the Chinese Communists ratify-

ing the line taken by its delegation in Moscow.
~-76~

January 1963 East German SED national congress in Berlin,
the Soviets convened meetings of Latin American party -
delegates and attempted through Luis Corvalan, PCCh
secretary general, to force general acceptance of resolu-.
tions backing the anti-Chinese case, AL1 of the hemi-
Sphere party delegates present at the’ Berlin congress
except the Cuban and Venezuelan parties, signed these
documents, but some did So apparently only reluctantly
.because they lacked the information needed to make judg-
ments on the issues in contention, and had doubts abceut
whether their party's central committee would -approve -
taking sides (and, in the cases of those parties having
strong pro-Chinese sectors, whether the leadership could |
do so). ;

In its 14 July reply to’ the Chinese the CPSU made
very clear its desire that the parties should Side ~openly
and unequivocally with the Soviet position, Several. Latin
American parties, among them the Chilean and Nicaraguan,
had earlier issued acceptable statements of support and,
after July most of the others--again excepting Cuba and.
Venezué la~-responded with some official formulation.
condemning Chinese "splittism", supporting Soviet policy
during the Cuban missile. crisis, and Sometimes including —
statements supporting the partial nuclear. test-ban_ treaty--
which Peking had quickly condemned, The small Panamanian
party (PDP) notably did not issue any pro-Soviet state-
ment until October 1965, , ,

Soviet efforts to force the Latin American Communist
movement into line with its position were not completely
effective. Some party central committees could be induced
to do no more than issue heavily qualified formulations
whose main thrust.was basically an appeal to both China |
and the USSR to - negotiate their differences bilaterally
and not drag other parties into the quarrel. ‘Latin’ Ameri-.-
can inherent individualism and lack of discipline, and a
genuine conviction of many area Communists that taking
sides could only weaken further the main strength of the

ey i eos

Tescur, : "

international movement--its image of unity*--added to
Soviet suppression of general information about the dis- .
pute and. Chinese factionalism, to water down the response
to Moscow's initial anti-Peking drive in the hemisphere.

.. 1. Strengthening Moscow's Hemisphere Reserves

Besides instructing area parties to.stop support-. vet
ing Chinese propaganda operations in the hemisphere, the : o
Soviets began more extensive briefings of reliable Latin
American Communists through party central committees in :
1963. But Moscow's effort to conserve its authority and
prestige among area Communists was most evident in its
stepped-up dispatch of senior party officials to key. .
Latin American countries and in the increasingly high~
level composition of: the Soviet delegations sent to the. -
. area, ** ;

*AS early aS 1960 Cuba and Brazil had led the other

Latin American parties at the 8l-party Moscow Conference
in proposing formulations for the final communique. that
strongly emphasized this point. A report of August 1964
detailing the Mexican PCM"'s stand on the matter is a good
example of the implicit or tacit opposition of a good many.
of the area parties otherwise loyal to the CPSU. In it
the PCM's secretary general said the party had decided -
to send a delegation to the CPSU-proposed world conference,
and the delegation would support the CPSU, but it did not
favor expulsion of the Chinese from.the world Communist
movement, nor, did it. favor a break in party relations.
between the CCP and other parties.and would work to pre-
vent such a break and support any efforts among other
delegations to improve CCP-CPSU relations. This stand. by
the PCM hardened as it has become mpre apparent that neither
side seeks reconciliation. ;

**Further evidence that the.CPSU had run into Significant
resistance to its proposed world conference was the. fact
that A. P, Kirilenko, a: member of tthe CPSU Presidium, speak~
ing at the Thirteenth National Congress of the Chilean
PCCh in October 1965, carefully avoided any mention of ap
international meeting of Communist parties of the world.

The occasion, a congress of a pro-Soviet party, should ;
have called for a reference to it. : ce

-73~

aarnae|

In Bolivia, for example, a group of TASS newsmen
who arrived in La Paz on 27 September 1963 included Mikhail.
Kudachkin, ostensibly a correspondent for Problems of
Modern History, a Soviet magazine. Kudachkin met secretly
with Mario Monje Molina and other members of the PCB
national secretariat, describing himself as a representa-~
tive of the Latin American section of the CPSU Central
Committee's Foreign Department. He was mainly concerned
to learn if any organized Chinese factionalism was present

‘within the PCB, He also asked the PCB leadership whether

it had received and was Studying "information documents"
on the dispute, apparently furnished by the Soviets; and
he requested the PCB to select two central committee mem~
bers to go to Moscow for "detailed" study of the Sino-
Soviet differences.

. Kudachkin also plainly asked the Bolivians why the
PCB had failed to make a ‘public declaration upon the ideo-
logical dispute, that Monje
had some time before been insStructe y “a Communist party"
~-probably the CPSU--to notify the Chilean PCCh of the

date when it intended to issue such a statement. In late

. September Volodia Teitelboin Volosky, a PCCh Political

Commission member, went to La Paz to pressure the CPB
diplomatically to hasten its issuance and, with Monje's
approval, visited PCB regional committees where he proselytized
for the Soviet side. Monje took the position with Kudachkin
and with his Latin American colleagues, that the PCB would
make the required statement'at its next national congress,

then promised for October. But Monje, afraid such a con-
gress would be used to oust ‘him, kept putting it off.*

*Moscow's concern over the impact of Peking's militant
campaign upon the Latin American Communist movement was ;
also reflected in remarks made about September 1963 by a
Soviet diplomat to a. Cuban official in Geneva, acknowledg-
ing that there is “great danger that Latin America will
fall under Chinese Communist influence." [t was also
reflected in requests to the other Latin 4merican parties,
in the spring of 1963, to "lend full support". to the Sixth
(footnote continued on page 80) St ER fate 4S a

-79~

By December 1963, Ivan Ribeiro, described as a high offi- ;
cial in the Brazilian PCB, was in La Paz to apply more pres-
sure on Monje and the party national secretariat for the

’ promised pro-Moscow statement, arguing against the need

to wait for & national congress in.order to do so.

In September 1963, the Soviets sent four senior.
party officials to Uruguay on the occasion of the PCU's
43rd anniversary celebrations set for early October. The

(footnote continued from page 79) .

National Congress of the Brazilian PCB, then being scheduled
for late 1963, where a meeting of delegates might be used
to justify a hemisphere movement against the Chinese. :
Several CPSU leaders at that time told. the Colombian PCC’s
organizational secretary of their fears the Chinese sought
' ‘to try to organize a "Fourth Internationale" with the Al-
banians and other parties.
Monje was in part. unwz g to come ou or e
ecause he believed doing so would harm his relation-
ship with Havana. In May 1963 the Soviets had rebuked :
Monje for “interference in the internal affairs of‘ other
Communist parties" because: of his participation in a
Castro-inspired South American revolutionary plan, affect-
ing Peru and Argentina, that he had not coordinated with -
the Communist party leaderships in either of those countries.
This Castroist operation is discussed below. Soviet con-
cern over Monje's Castroist ties; as well as its desire
to line the PCB up on Moscow's side in the dispute. with
China, was very likely an important reason behind the un~
usual efforts made to commit the PCB in the international
polemic, The PCB's Second Congress was finally held from
30 March to 2 April 1964 and did issue a communique that
censured Chinese dogmatism and condemned Chinese splitting
activities. Monje managed to preserve his control, but
a year later, in April 1965, the PCB split and a parallel
pro-Chinese PCB emerged in Bolivia. . ;

~80-

members of the Soviet. delegation, all ideological and
propaganda experts, were led by Vasili P. Stepanov, a cen~
tral committee candidate member and chief editor of Kom
munist, the CPSU central committee's authoritative journal...

’ The others were V.G.Korionov, deputy head of the CPSU *s
central committee's section for Liaision with non-bloc ye
parties; P. A. Rodionov, chief editor of the CPSU’s - ~ ‘

’ propaganda journal, Agitator; and V.E.. Tikhmenev, a ~ wee

"journalist" who attended the PCU congress of 1962.

During their long three-week visit in Oruguay, the Soviet

delegation planned to visit various PCU units including

some outside Montevideo. Stepanov gave a radio address

in which he stressed the "completely. natural" exchanges

of fraternal delegations~-in other words, a custom was

being established. Korionov made a strong declaration

that the PCU and.CPSU stood "shoulder to shoulder" in the

fight against the Chinese, part of a major effort to bolster’

the BCU leadership just=then feeling the effects of an — :

internal party struggle based on the Sino-Soviet issue.,.

Two years later, in early October 1965, the CPSU
sent a delegation headed by Vladimir I. Stepakov, Chair-
man of the CPSU Central Committee's Section for Agitation
and Propaganda, to the PCU's 45th anniversary celebration,
demonstrating considerable continued relatively high~
level CPSU interest in the PCU. Soviet journalists D.P,
Goryenov and V.I. Chernyshev also attended. The Soviet
press featured extensive, laudatory coverage, unlike :
former routine notices of congratulations. But the Soviets.
were unable to use this occasion for a meeting of Latin
American Communist ‘party leaders, as they reportedly hoped
to do. erg

d Most impressive of all was Soviet participation in
‘the PCCh's Thirteenth National Congress in October 1965, -
A 17-man delegation, headed by Andrey P. Kirilenko, CPSU ave
Politburo member and secretary of the CPSU central committee,
that included five Soviet "staff members" was flown to
Sentiago in a special Soviet aircraft. Kirilenko was '
° almost constantly in attendance and discussed at length
many aspects. of the Communist movement with Latin American
party delegations, both in Congress sessions and privately. ©
2 One of the Soviet delegates was Nikolay V. Mostovets,

_ 781-

res setae
(ieee et a

en eae

chief of the Latin American section of the CPSU central
‘committee's foreign department. This was the first time:

a CPSU Politburo member is known to have attended a Latin
American Communist party congress. At Santiago the Soviets
finally convened the parallel: meeting of Latin American
delegates they had been trying to hold. The Soviets widely
expressed in private their continuing concern over pene-
trations "of other forces" in Communist ranks. One reli-
‘able source said this referred to pro-Chinese Communist
groups, but it probably also referred to Castroist opera —
tions. * ; . ‘ :

B. Cuba: A Special Case.

; The Castro phenomenon is not the first time the
Soviets in Latin America have had to cope with an out-
sider crashing into the international Communist moverent
over the heads of regular pro-Moscow Communist party lead-
erships. In 1932 Luis Carlos Prestes, then a rebellious
Brazilian army captain, was invited to Moscow and made a
member of the Comintern executive without ever having

carried a Brazilian Communist party card. Ahout 1940

*Kirilenko and Mostovets chaired the meeting of the
Latin American delegates to the Congress on 14 October .
where they clearly hoped a common policy of support for
the CPSU line on the "continental revolution" could be
developed. When this proved impossible because of Cuban,
Venezuelan and Dominican refusal to adhere to the "peace-
ful" line, the discussion moved to the question of when.
and where "the next meeting of. Latin American Communist:
Parties" should take place. See page 59

~§82-

the Soviets were cultivating Lombardo Toledano, a key
trade union figure in Mexico and in hemisphere labor
activities, even though he had never been and. never. be-
came a member of. either of Mexico's two small Communist
parties with both of which Moscow then retained relations.
Later in the decade Moscow allowed Toledano to build up
his own Marxist -party in Mexico. ‘

There are of course important differences. between
Castro and the Prestes and. Toledano cases. Castro is
the effective leader of a state. He has important
charismatic influence over some of the Communists in
other Latin American countries. And, he joined the
socialist "club" just when the emerging Sino-Soviet split
brought the world Communist movement into new circumstances
favoring his independent stance and policy bf maneuver.
* The most urgent Soviet task in these new circum-
‘stances was to’ prevent Castro from joining forces with
Peking, with which he had much greater affinity in terms
of revolutionary stance; and to deny him use of the emerg—
ing pro-Chinese Communist movement in Latin America as
a revolutionary. base. Because Castro's own revolutionary
operations had direct disruptive effects upon Moscow's
own hemisphere movement, the Soviets had to deal with
this additional complicating factor in ways that would
soften if not terminate the Castroist impact--but without
pushing Cuba into the waiting arms. of the Chinese. . In
the first endeavor Moscow has been successful, but not
enough that it can yet afford to rélax. Nor has Soviet
success proved effective enough to ensure control by
their Communists in all Latin American countries vis-a-
vis the Castroists. As of this writing, the CPSU is at~
tempting to.gain a fuller measure of control in Guatemala
than it has enjoyed for years, after the recent violent
death under unexplained circumstances of Luis Turcios
Lima, a pro-Castro guerrilla leader. With the formation
in Colombia of the FARC, a guerrilla arm under the poli-
tical direction of the regular PCC, the Soviet party is.
in a better position to influence a Colombian guerrilla
movement’ too heavily penetrated by and responsive to

~83-

Cuban direction for Soviet liking.* But in Venezuela, the

main Cuban revolutionary target since the beginning, Soviet

efforts to bring the Cuban-supported FALN under the control |

of the pro-Moscow wing of the PCV leadership have so far

failed, . The CPSU has not even been able to maneuver this .._

wing back into control of the local Communist movement. ** -
The case of Venezuela will be examined at the end of this
section of the paper,

‘1. The Sovietization of Castro -

Castro's surprise visit to the USSR in April and
May 1963 at the invitation of Khrushchev was a milestone
in the Sino-Soviet struggle. In Moscow Castro was given
an unprecedented red-carpet reception, and the flattering
attention and treatment “accorded him during his stay es
made clear this was a political courtship of major import—'
ance to the Soviet leadership. Castro's personal ‘admira~
tion for Khrushchev was played to the hilt by the Russians.
The visit occurred in the midst of the 1963 Chinese Spring
offensive, shortly after the Cubans had taken a strong
neutral stand in East Berlin in response to concerted
Soviet efforts to commit all the Latin American parties
to join a chorus of denunciation of the Chinese, Its
timing, before the formal Soviet-Chinese meetings set for

*AS O arch 1 » however, Castro appeared still.to
be in effective control of an important. Colombian guer-:
rilla force, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and was
using it as a means to compete strenuously with the PCC
for authority over the FARC, apparently with some success,
for clandestine reporting reflected PCC difficulties in
achieving clear-cut control of the FARC. ‘

**But see page 110for indications the Russians may now

have achieved some effective measure of control in the
PCV itself. . °

-84-

te 4

‘July, gave the Soviets the maximum benefits of any support

. they could get from Castro. for their position.

On 23 May, toward the end of his visit, Castro signed

a joint Soviet-Cuban communique that endorsed every major
Soviet foreign policy position, including the Soviet line
on revolutionary. strategy, where Cuban and Soviet views
probably differed the most. Even though after his return
to Cuba Castro emphasized his independence in an ageres~
Sive 26 July speech featuring a militant call for Guevara-
style armed revolt in the "inevitable" Latin American revo-
lution which Cuba would lead, Moscow had-stolen a march

on Peking and obtained public Cuban support that it had
been unable to get at a party-to-party level in East Berlin.
As noted earlier, the evidence is clear that private Chi-
nesé concern over the Sovietization of Cuba increased
dramatically following the issuance of the May communique.

An important follow-up victory in the Soviet effort
to split Castro off from’ Peking came in January 1964 when
Castro again went to Moscow, this time with his hat in ;
his hand because of the gravity of the Cuban sugar harvest
failure. Included in the 23 January Soviet-Cuban communi- —
que was a Cuban endorsement not only of the Soviet policy '
of peaceful coexistence as the "general line of foreign
policy of socialist countries", but also an explicit _
‘condemnation of "splitting activities", Cuban approval of
CPSU measures to end differences within the world Con-.
munist movement; and-~finally--Cuban approval of Soviet
adherence .to the Moscow limited test ban treaty of the
previous summer. The much stronger economic leverage
gained as a result of the long-term sugar purchase agree-
ment (for the period 1965-1970) concluded in January in-
creased Moscow's capacity for disciplining Cuba and formed
a major element in Soviet pressures increasingly exerted
upon the Cuban leadership as the year progressed, pressures
that culminated in tough economic aid talks and the crucial

. Havana Conference of Communist parties in November. .

-85-

.

2. The Andes: South America's Sierra Maestra
ne eee ere aan VOLTA MACStra

Castro has mainly confined his export of armed revo- -
lution to Middle America and the Caribbean basin countries
of South America, most likely because of economic and
logistics restrictions rather than lack of interest. There
is good evidence that as early as 1962-the Cuban leader
had prepared a "master plan" for launching *spontaneous' -
revolutions in at least three South American countries-—
Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru--from a central base in the
Bolivia highlands, and that the Cubans made strenuous
efforts in 1963 and 1964 to put this plan into effect.

Its existence was forecast in Castro's public boast that
he would convertthe Andean plateau into the "Sierra Maestra °
of. South America." * :

The major elements*of the plan were deals made, on
the one hand with Mario Monje Molina, first secretary of |
‘the Bolivian PCB, and with Bolivian President Victor Paz
‘Estenssoro, through the Cuban Embassy in La Paz, for use.
of Bolivian territory as a guerrilla safe haven anda stag-
ing area; and on the other, intensive negotiations, through
the Cuban embassy in Montevideo, with certain. left-wing
Peronists to enlist Peron's support in creating an Argen-
tine movement along the lines of the Venezuelan FALN rural-
urban guerrilla~terrorist force. The plan failed primarily
because of CPSU and orthodox Latin American Communist
party opposition; withdrawal of support by Peron--whose
principal interest in it was its possible aid for his
political campaign in the July 1963 Argentine national
elections; the decimation and capture of the guerrillas
themselves; and the loss of Cuban diplomatic bases in
Bolivia and Uruguay in August and September 1964. /

; There is no real evidence Castro has ever fully
abandoned his Andean dream because of his initial failure.
In fact, in November 1966 Monje reportedly traveled to
Cuba to discuss guerrilla warfare plans with the Cuban
government; after his return late in December he set about
hand-picking his own guerrilla force, obviously with full
Cuban backing, without consulting the PCB, an indication
that Castro may feel the time has arrived for another try

: mm

'~86-

at implementing his insurrectionary theory of national
liberation in the area. Repeated but unconfirmed reports
during 1966 of the presence of Guevara in the Andean
plateau may be related to this development. In March
reports of a Cuban-trained Bolivian guerrilla band clash-— 7
ing with Bolivian army units were received, and the situa-
tion there was unclear at this writing...

Some time in 1962, to recapitulate the first Andean
project, the Cuban embassy in: La Paz approached President
Paz Estenssoro with a request for’ support in affording
use of Bolivia as a staging area for a guerrilla force to
invade Peru; Paz Estenssoro promised his cooperation, .
Even as Castro was visiting the USSR in May 1963, a small
group of about twenty to forty guerrillas crossed fron
Bolivia into Peru at Puerto Maldonado and near Cobija. —
They. had arrived in Bolivia in December 1962, after train-
ing in Cuba. Bolivian Communist involvement through Monje,
who acted independently of other PCB leaders, was-.an agree-—
ment to do nothing to affect the Stability of the Paz
Estenssoro regime. The Cuban embassy gave the PCB money
‘to support, arm, and launch ‘the guerrilla invasion into
Peru. Instead, the party held the funds and, using .
various pretexts, Kept many of. the guerrillas in Bolivia.
for months until they ceased to be a cohesive force.
President Paz Estenssoro reportedly double-crossed the
Cubans by informing the Peruvian authorities when and where
the guerrillas entered Peru, for they were all either
killed or swiftly captured by Peruvian army units.

: About August 1962 Castro began talks with a Peronist
delegation to explore prospects for a combined Cuban-
Peronist insurrection in Argentina. Between July and
December a group of 30 to 50 assorted Argentine left-wing.
extremists were trained in guerrilla warfare in Cuba, and —
then sent to Montevideo for infiltration into Argentina.

In February 1963 Peron is reliably reported to have named

one of his lieutenants in Argentina, Hector Villalon, as -

his liaison with the Cubans in Support of Peronist revolu-
tionary preparations, then primarily focused'on the national.
Argentine -elections scheduled for.7 July. By mid-1963 a
number of commandos had been established in some northern
provinces, notably Tucuman and Cordoba, and several “training

-87~—

TO

camps" directed by "foreign technicians" (presumably Cuban) -
had begun: operations in Bolivia and Argentina.* It was’
expected that’ the terrorist campaign would begin early in
1964 after the necessary organization, recruitment, and —

‘training had been accomplished. But in February and March

1964 Argentine police rounded up several guerrilla groups
in Salta Province and nothing came of the plan, As late
as mid~1965. Argentine authorities captured Bolivian guer~
rillas in the northern border province of Salta. Early :

n mid-October a Cuban ambassador (a
old guard" PSP member) remarked that a Cuban guer-

rilla group had been sent to Argentina under Jorge Ricardo
Massetti Blanco, a protege of Guevara. pea coal
that Havana believed Massetti had died of hunger in e

Argentine mountains. In late 1964 Guevara was reported .
to have remarked to a* PCA central committee member visit-
ing Havana that he (Guevara) did not understand why the
guerrilla operations in Argentina had failed since the
groups had been adequately equipped and financed by Cuba,

The CPSU learned of PCB involvement in the Cuban
plan late in 1962, probably in December. . When it was
learned that the PCB had. not informed the Communist parties
in two target countries (Argentina and Peru) of the project,

' the Soviets specifically instructed the PCB to do so im-

mediately, particularly to advise the Argentine PCA, but
the PCB did not respond until several months later. In .
March or April 1963 a PCB representative finally visited
Argentina and advised PCA Secretary General Victor Codovilla

*At some point early in the game an unidentified confidant

of Castro, presumed to be Cuban, left Cuba and settléd on
a large rural estate on the Bolivian side of the Argentine
border, set up radio contact with Havana, collected arms,
and waited for D-Day. In Cuba this person was in contact .
with John William Cooke, another left-wing Peronist revo-
lutionary with close contacts with the Castro regime. .

~B8-

TOF-SEGR _ . :

of the matter.’ A PCA emissary went immediately to Bolivia
to investigate the situation, and discovered that the Cuban
plan called for training in Bolivia of guerrilla forces
from Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, and Venezuela, who were to

PS begin coordinated armed action on a date set for mid-1963.
When PCB leaders refused to accept PCA admonishment against
such unilateral revolutionary planning outside of regular’
Communist party channels, the Bolivians and the Argentine

envoy reportedly almost came to blows.

PCA reaction to its envoy's report was so strong
that Codovilla went himself to Moscow to air the matter
with Khrushchev and Castro. Significantly Monje .and two
other PCB leaders, Alfredo Arratia and Jorge Ibanez, were
in Moscow in May "to discuss the Sino-Soviet dispute with —

me . ' members of the CPSU central committee". Unidentified CPsu
officials berated Monje for involving the PCB in the Cuban-
‘Sponsored venture, particularly in Peruvian guerrilla acti-
vities (then largely sponsored by Peruvian Trotskyites),
Monje was told the CPSU had received an official complaint
from the Peruvian PCP of PCB interference in internal PCP
affairs. , ; ’ :

After this meeting, according to Monje's own report;
he was visited in his Moscow hotel room by Codovilla who
also lectured him "like a father", Infuriated, Monje
excoriated Codovilla and the Argentines as cowards, but
Arratia censured Monje and pointed out Codovilla's great
prestige in the international Communist movement. On the
following day a CPSU foreign department functionary, Igor. |
Ribalkin, tried again to convince Monje and his two com-
.panions of the correctness of PCA censure of their guer-
rilla policy, apparently with little success. In. Codovilla'’s
report of his talks with Castro. and Khrushchev, Castro is
made to have professed his unawareness of the extent to
whith his independent planning was creating ill-will among
area Communist parties, and to have promised to suspend .
the project on his return to Havana. fc

. ip OH . In contrast to restrained Cuban comment about Chile's
11 August 1964 diplomatic break with Cuba, after Bolivia
followed suit a few days later Havana struck out viciously

° at Paz Estenssoro, denouncing him as a "corrupt politician"

2 | oe —

.

. TOP-SECRET .

.

2 “ et

A

who had’ "compromised with imperialism", While considerable
Cuban comment was directed at the role.of U.S. influence

in Bolivia's decision (and that of Uruguay, which severed
relations on 8 September), the bitterness directed at Paz
Estenssoro personally appears to. have reflected Cuban
chagrin at his double-cross of Castro's Andean guerrilla
venture. a8 ;

3. The Havana Conference of November. 196
and the Proposed Moscow Meeting :
cree nae eee eee ceemeeneteene Bema eee aR ne EEO,

The new Soviet leadership~--determined to reassert
its authority among a group of parties moving toward poly-
centrist positions, as part of its strategy of preparing
for possible renewed confrontations with China after the
projected Moscow preparatory meeting--was handed a good

: opportunity to deal with the key Cuban party through -
complaints by many Latin American parties of Castroist
interference in their affairs and territories, that had
become stronger since early 1964 and taken more concrete
form in calls for a meeting of the parties to get Cuba.
to, halt its actions.* : . :

Soviet stakes in the Havana Conference were high,
and the Conference worked so well for the CPSU that it can-
fairly be called the Soviet party's "clean-up" operation
on Cuba in terms of the Sino-Soviet struggle because--against
the Cuban leader's will--it led to final Chinese loss of
confidence in Castro and it set the Latin. American pro- .
Chinese Communists against Havana. By taking advantage of

‘ *The OAS resolution of July 1964 condemning Cuban sub-
versive action in Venezuela had led directly to the break
in diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba in August
and September by the several Latin American countries
(Bolivia, Uruguay, and Chile) still maintaining them,
leaving only one exception--Mexico-~and almost completely

‘isolating Cuba. y

-90-

TO

Castro's unease over Premier Khrushchev's removal and un-
certainties about the new Kremlin leaders, and placing Cuba
on the defensive among its sister parties, the Conference
gave the CPSU one more pressure point to use in persuading

* Cuba to revise its opposition to the proposed Moscow pre-
paratory conference-~a matter of extreme importance to the
Soviets. The "extra Conference dividend" was a temporary

. crimp in Castro's operations in the ‘hemisphere, but this
consideration was not Moscow's reason for sponsoring the
meeting. :

The CPSU’s instrument for separating Castro from the
Chinese and their supporters in Latin America was a Conference
document addressed to the Cuban PURS and the Chinese CCP
(and also to the CPSU, at least in its final form), request-
ing. the addressees not to support groups or activities
not recognized or sanctioned by the "official" Communist
‘party in. each Latin American country. The descriptions
of this agreement ;
are varied enough to show a e ree sides--the Sov ;
Castro, and the other Communist: parties~-each had a. dis-
tinct conception of what it was intended to do. The fac-
tionalism which concerned the Soviets was that of the Chi-~
_ hese. The factionalism bothering the Latin American party
chiefs was not only Chinese but also Cuban. On the other
hand, Castro is reliably reported to have expressed serious’
concern with Soviet factionalism in the hemisphere.* Ac-
cording to clandestine reports of the Havana discussions _
by Bolivian PCB secretary general, Monje Molina, Castro .
developed the thesis that all factional activities regardless

the Cuban and Venezuelan delegates
[s) @ Latin American CP meeting with the CPSU delegation
at. the 13th PCCh national congress in October 1965 insisted
again with greater success on a resolution avowing the

: complete independence of each party from. "directives" from
Moscow or Peking. efile resolution
was passed, but it also provide or independence from

« directives from Havana,

-91-

FO eae ay a Se ia Se a A Be ee ee i eae Ae a sieve’

Do ails (Bs eae ots ge

of their source must be condemned. The Cuban leader took
the line that the Cubans, as well as the Chinese, had been
guilty of factionalism, and therefore it had. become neces= -
sary to denounce such activity from any source.* Castro's .
unspoken point-~that Soviet "factionalist" activities among
Latin America's "independent" parties was just as pernicious
as that of Cuba’ and China--was grasped by the Argentine,
Chilean, and. Brazilian delegates who said they couldn't
Support the Cuban:thesis before they consulted their par~ -
ties, because "it appeared that they would be condemning |
an action of the CPSU,"** : . ;

Castro's conception of the agreement Clearly was”
not shared by most of the. other Latin American parties
represented in Havana, but it is probable that the CPSU
was also asked at Cuban and possibly Venezuelan insist--
ence--to, assent to the agreement (perhaps as. the price
for Cuban adherence to it), because Moscow Signed it before
it was taken to Peking. ,

*Monje’s report of Conference activities are especially .

interestin
u onje appears to have -
p in gé ng Cuban agreement to.
hold the Conference, perhaps because of. his confidential
relations with the Cuban party developed the previous
year in the joint guerrilla warfare planning discussed
above.

**The Cuban position reflected Castro's stubborn insist-
ence upon parity treatment of both sides and his deter-
mination to preserve his party's neutral Stance in matters
concerning the world dispute. But it ‘also offers good’
evidence of Castro's resentment toward any outside. influ~
ence over the hemisphere Communist movement, especially
any that would diminish Cuban ideological proprietorship
thereof, and it is of a piece with our estimate of Castro's
ideological objectives made in the earlier section of
this paper. ne

N

The Cuban leader, who even before the. meeting could
have had few illusions about widespread acceptance of
his non-conformist ideas, bowed to the pressure of the
majority of participants and, albeit unwillingly, agreed
to a formulation against factionalism that he knew was -
directed at the Chinese. To make the blow less drastic,
the CPSU promised increased Latin American support for ._
Cuba and increased Communist armed militancy in a few.
areas. In his 2 January 1965 anniversary speech, Castro
was careful to assert strongly his refusal to be dictated:
to from abroad--an obvious reaction to the Soviet squeeze.
The Soviet delegation to the victory anniversary was of —
a notably low level.

Cuban response to increasing Soviet pressures for
Havana's attendance at the Moscow meeting was to try to
retain a definition of impartial neutrality toward the
CCP and CPSU by offering formal mediation with China.
This policy was broached to the. Soviets by Cuba's ambas-

‘sador in Moscow toward the end of September after Cuba

had earlier in the month signed a scientific and technical

‘ cooperation agreement with Albania in an obvious move to

avoid siding too openly with Moscow, an action which the
Cubans knew would weaken their position in future negotia- -
tions with the Soviets.*

*In analyzing the reporting of the Cuban-Soviet-Latin
American aspects of this period, it is useful to bear in
mind what was happening in the main arenas of the dispute.
Following the U,S, attack on the North Vietnamese in the
5 August 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident, Pravda on 10 August
published a 30 July CPSU letter to the Communist parties
that offered a concrete plan for a world meeting. This |
move broke protocol inasmuch as Moscow had not received
answers from all its respondents. The Chinese replied in-
their 30 August Letter whose pitch was intended to block
the proposed December preparatory meeting and designed to
convince leaders in other parties that cooperation with |
Moscow's proposal. would bring a formal split in the world
movement. Peking did not say clearly in the letter that
{footnote continued on page 94) ; ;

~93~-.

The Conference delegation that left for Moscow and
-Peking in early December after the Havana gathering ended, .
was led by the Cuban orthodox Communist, Carlos Rafael
'.Rodriguez, whom Castro had Selected as his envoy to per-
suade the Soviets to allow him to make a personal media-
tion effort with the Chinese. We lack details of Rodriguez’
activities in Moscow but have, however, good reporting
on his conduct in Peking with the Latin Amer ican Communist
party delegation seeking Chinese assent to the agreement
against factional activities in the hemisphere. Rodriguez
took a very provocative. stance toward the Chinese and ap-
pears to have led others, notably the Venezuelan party
representative, in disputing their arguments. When the
Chinese leadership recognized that the Havana document
was really directed against their position, they refused
to sign it, saying that the factionalists represented

°

(footnote continued from page 93)

it would boycott the preparatory meeting, but on 19 August.
it had hinted it would hold its own meeting if Moscow’ went:
ahead. By 17 September only eleven of the nineteen parties
expected to support Moscow had accepted the invitation

to attend a preparatory meeting. Cuba was not among them,
On. 22 September, after a hurried trip to Havana, Ambas—
sador Carlos Olivares Sanchez and an unnamed secretary of
the Cuban PURS were received by Khrushchev and told him
that Cuba had a “more positive view" about attending the |
conference, but was planning to assume the role of “inter~
mediary" and not take a stand against the Chinese party.
On 12 December Pravda announced plans to postpone the -_
proposed meeting from December to 1 March 1965, and the
objective of the meeting was downgraded from a prepara-—
tory gathering for a future conference to a "consultative"

meeting. Cuba for its part was just then (December) negotiat-.

ing a vital trade agreement with the Chinese--the famous
' Sugar-rice deal that a year later was to become the cause~
celebre of the Sino-Cuban polemic.

-94-

“true Marxist-Leninists" who had a. right to form parties
if they wished; and they bitterly condemned Cuban adher-
ence to the agreement. This made it possible for Rodriguez’
heated exchanges with the Chinese to seem a defense of
Cuban rights and Cuban unwillingness to take sides. In
view of Rodriguez’ background, his known direct links with
the Kremlin, and his strong support of the CPSU line with-—
in Castro's government councils, it is impossible not to
Suspect that he played a deliberate role in Peking to
further exacerbate Sino-Cuban relations.* Castro had
personally seen Rodriguez off at the Havana airport on

5 December, a sign of the importance he assigned to Rod-
riguez' mission. It is not altogether reasonable to
believe that Castro intended or would have countenanced
Rodriguez’ inflammatory actions with the Chinese.** On
the other hand, he would probably disapprove also of any~
thing: like Cuban truckling to the Chinese Leadership.

The final communique of the Havana Communist Party
Conference was not issued until 18 January 1965,. when it
‘was released simultaneously in Moscow and Havana. The
agreement on factionalism.in the final paragraph merely
‘Says: a I

Thus, also, the conference feels that the
unity of each party isa necessary condi-
tion to carry on ‘the revolutionary process
in each country and thus, every factional
activity must be categorically repudiated.

Obviously this. language allowed the three sides the lee-
way each needed to interpret the intent of the agreenent

+The delegation of Latin Americans that travelled to

China went at the suggestion and request of the CPSU.

**On 15 February 1965 Castro dismissed Rodriguez from
his post of Director of INRA, assumed the post himself,
and kept Rodriguez on as minister without portfolio.

-95- Bo ae

as it saw fit. In the outcome the real winner of the Con-
ference was the CPSU, not Castro or the Latin American
orthodox parties, *

A major reason for the delay in making the communi-.
que public was the Conference mission in Peking. Talks
there did not terminate until close to 21 December, when

Rodriguez, in China since 12 De-
cenber, left there to return to Havana, Also involved
was probable disagreement over the text, and Castro's
mediation demarche was almost certainly an additional .
reason. There is some evidence that Castro hoped to be
able to speak in this sense in the name of all the Com-
munist parties of Latin America.

*At least one hemisphere party recognized that the out—
come of the Conference had resulted in no fundamental changes
in Cuban-orthodox party relations or Cuban intentions to
continue supporting: Latin Americans interested in violent
revolution. In mid-March 1965 Jiocondo Alves Diaz, number-.
two man in the Brazilian PCB, admitted this and complained
of, continued Castro support for Lional Brizola, a radical
leftist and former federal deputy in exile in Uruguay,

then planning an invasion of southern Brazil.

**Some such meeting was held in Havana in February 1965,
but it apparently was not at all what Castro visualized.
In Bolivia Monje was reliably reported late in January to
have been instructed to return to Havana "urgently". ae
he left La Paz on 9 February and returned on
re - Monje said a meeting of a "political bureau”
formed after the Havana Conference was convened in Havana
in February; its purpose was to take action because of a
Cuban decision not to attend the Moscow meeting then scheduled
for 1 March. a ;
(footnote continued on page ; !

-~96~

The strictly Cuban mission to Peking of February
1965, for which Ernesto "Che" Guevara was diverted. from
his African trip and joined by two key Cuban Communists,
was probably Castro's attempt to rectify his error in
sending Rodriguez, in hopes that Guevara--who of all those
composing Cuba's top leadership he knew to be the most
acceptable to the Chinese and most admired by them--could
get across Castro's neutral and if anything anti-Soviet
interpretation of the Havana document, thereby reopening:
prospects that the Cuban leader might serve as a link
between Peking and Moscow. The Guevara visit also failed,
and the information we have makes it likely that it was
only after Guevara's visit terminated that the Cubans.
decided to attend the Moscow 19-party conference in early
March, : . :

(footnote continued from page 96)

leader of the PVP enroute to Moscow attended a meeting of
Latin American Communist leaders: in Cuba in early Febru-
ary, and spoke of the February
meeting w astro, an e ct that Guevara was not
present. In mid-January Emilio Aragones Navarro, PURS
organization secretary, had been reliably quoted as saying
that "for the present” the Cuban government had decided
not to attend the March meeting.

ndication a uba wou atten e Moscow meeting.
The important 1965 Cuban-Soviet trade protocol was not
signed until 17 February, and then only after very pro-
tracted negotiations;
strong suspicion the delay was cause y viet economic
pressure'on the Cubans because of their holdout regarding
the Moscow meeting. Finally,
the Guevara mission, which arrived in na on
ebruary, have the talks ending on 8 February. Guevara -
returned to Algeria on 11 February, but not to Cuba, until
early March. - ony ;

~97~

==,

To’ sum up, the evidence strongly suggests that
Castro was subject to a variety-of intensified pressures.
from his erstwhile hemisphere and Soviet comrades, but he
held out and only made the décision that the Chinese were
hopelessly intractable after the results had been received
from Guevara. Sometime {In December the Soviets downgraded
the Moscow gathering from a meeting to prepare a world con-—
ference to a meeting of consultation, in an attempt to
conciliate the British and Italians--but also perhaps the
‘Cubans--to get them to attend. This clearly made it --
easier for the Cubans to give last-minute assent to send
a delegation in March and still maintain their formal
neutrality.

. the Cubans have continued to maintain their formal

neutrality in the matter. In October 1966 Raul Castro

. and President Dorticos--Number Two and Number Three man

respectively--attended the Moscow assembly of bloc leaders
that included all the bloc states represented at the March
1965 Moscow meeting, plus Rumania. But on the 19th, .;
after its close, Granma expressly denied that it was “ained
at adopting any kind of agreement against any. socialist
state". TASS' brief uninformative communique on the
gathering mentioned neither China nor Vietnam, nor an
international conference. The Cubans left Moscow for
Pyongyang~-the first high-level Cuban visit to North
Korea--where they arrived on 26 October. ;

-98-

, *The fact that Jesus Faria and other party old-guard

‘TOP-SECRET
a

4. Venezuela: Another Maverick

After the overthrow of the Perez Jimenez dictator-
ship in. 1958 the PCV regained legal status, created a
paramilitary defense organization against future right-
wing repression, and rapidly picked up significant numerical
support and parliamentary representation. In the spring
of 1960 a radical pro-Castro left wing of the ruling AD
‘party of Betancourt was expelled and formed a revoLution—
ary group with ties to Havana called the MIR. With the -
MIR, the PCV that year went over’ to a policy of militant
opposition to the Betancourt government marked by civil —
strife and violence, Many of the younger Communist nation~
alists active in the party's military organization were
greatly impressed with the nearby Cuban revolution, and
developed close relations and contacts with the Castro
regime. By 1962 conversion of PCV defense units to an
active terrorist organization had taken place, and the
PCV in May and June played a key role in two abortive.
revolts of disaffected military officers. *

After the October missile base crisis, these younger
Communists took a stronger hard-line stance, but were just:
as adamant in their insistence that this did not mean they
favored the Chinese side in the polemic. By December 1962
they had for all practical purposes taken over the PCV.

pro~Soviet leaders acquiesced in, if they did. not encour-'
age, this trend strongly suggests Moscow had given the

PCV the green light to disrupt Betancourt's representa-
tive democratic government at all costs, even including
armed insurrection. Cf. OCI Intelligence Study No. 3089/65,
titled "Foreign and Domestic Influence on the Venezuelan
Communist Party, 1958-mid-1965", dated December 65, for

a good detailed account of the PCV and MIR during this
period, especially in relation to domestic Venezuelan
political developments.

-99~

In a central committee plenum that month they committed the-
party to a strategy of armed urban and rural violence on
the Cuban model which evidently had wide support among the
party rank and file and even enough support among party °
moderates to render impotent those few who wanted the PCV
to endorse CPSU liberation. policy. The party’s principal
task was defined as the formation of a “people's army"

On the hasis of the PCV's paramilitary organization the
Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN). ‘It was ;
decided that legal forms of liberation struggle, although
"not to be abandoned", were to be subordinated to armed
struggle. The soft-line-faction had thus lost any real.
control over the party. : oa

This controlling group took a highly independent,
firmly neutralist policy toward the Sino-Soviet dispute,
publicly, and at the party-to-party level, emulating that

of Cuba, and has maintained it essentially unmodified right .

up to the present. The Venezuelan party was the only
Latin American Communist representation aside from the - ;
Cuban which in early 1963 refused to submit to CPSU pres- |
sures--reportedly exerted by Khrushchev himself--to sign
CPSU-sponsored documents denouncing the Chinese party.

And it has since avoided issuing any official statement
favoring either side in the world dispute, *

The example of China's revolutionary dynamism un-
questionably had considerable appeal among PCV youth,

*The VI PCV Plenum in April 1964 proclaimed the party's

official neutrality in the Sino-Soviet dispute, and resolved:

to work toward the unity of a world Communist movement —
based on "autonomous" parties. Shortly afterward, a PCV |

1 delegation led by Eduardo Gallegos Mancera began a lengthy

‘ tour of Communist capitals (Havana, Moscow, Pyongyang, oe
Sofia, Prague, Peking, Hanoi, and East Berlin) to gain
Support and understanding for the Venezuelan party's posi-
tion and its armed methods. But see page 110 for evidence
the PCV may issue a statement in 1967 Supporting the CPSU
in the world dispute. ; ;

~100-

ceases

and Chinese doctrinal materials were freely Studied and
used by the party's new leadership. Venezuelan Communists
as early as 1959 were getting paramilitary training in
China and by mid-1963 at least three such training courses
had been given to Venezuelan visitors, Peking has con-
Sistently supported the armed struggle in Venezuela pub-
licly and in private statements to other Latin American ~-
Communists. The PCV has maintained liaison with the Chi-
nese as well as with the Soviets and Cubans, and has in

the past accepted Chinese aid and Support. But there is

no evidence that Chinese Communist policy within the
international Communist moverent has gained any signifi-
cant Support among Venezuelan Communists, nor that the
Chinese party has ever exerted an influence with the PCV
comparable with that of the CPSU or the Cuban Cormunist
party. . ; os ;

- In fact Chinese party relations with the Venezuelan
FALN leadership appear to have worsened. ‘In June 1966
Said the FALN had "many problems"

Wi na; for S reason ‘the FALN preferred to send

its trainees to Vietnam rather than China, After visiting

Moscow and Peking about October 1966, a FALN commander

said the Chinese had. made an unacceptable offer. to supply

"every necessity" to the FALN in return for an open anti-

Soviet stand.* The terrific polemics that have racked the

PCV have never--as they did elsewhere in the hemisphere--

caused any Significant threat of formation of a parallel.
]
|

1

pro-Chinese Communist party; the cleavages have always
formed on clear Cuban-versus-Soviet lines. The PCV there-
fore poses more special problems for the CPSU than it does
for the Chinese, not-only becatise of Venezuelan iconoclasn,
but also because of Cuban involvement in the Venezuelan
liberation rovement and~-since nid~-1966--heightened Soviet
hopes for reestablishing diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

*In August OF September 1966 a MIR delegation seeking
support visited Peking; the Chinese cordially received it
and gave encouragement to its armed objectives, but made

no firm offer of material or financial Support.

-101-

After June 1963 the CPSU s overriding concern was
to avoid pushing the Venezuelans: toward Peking. The in-
fluence of Moscow sympathizers had' diminished within the
PCV. The Soviet leadership also had to take into account
the special Cuban interest in Venezuela and ‘the many: af-
finities between the Cubans and the new PCV leadership.
There is some evidence that the Venezuelans and probably
the Culans had convinced the Soviets before the FALN
fiasco of November 1963 that the terrorist campaign. had
a real chance of disrupting the December Leoni election.
In any case Soviet publications, which liad been playing
up the advantages of peaceful methods in the Venezuelan
liberation struggle, after June reversed themselves and
printed only loud praise of the FALN: and the armed path
in Venezuela. :

Most of the soft-line PCV congressional leaders,
and some’ hard-line PCV leaders in the congress, were ar-
rested between September 1963 and January 1964, the party-
was reduced to little more than a clandestine skeleton.
organization and regular party activities practically -
ceased. On the armed front, government successes brought
great losses and setbacks to the FALN, and this, added
to its stark failure to disrupt the election, brought
pressures for some modification of the armed struggle
policy, both from within the domestic revolutionary move-
ment and from abroad. Cuban support of the FALN had
dropped off after the mch-publicized discovery in November
on a Venezuelan beach of a Cuban arms cache valued in
millions of dollars. Early in 1964 the MIR leadership

‘split, producing a soft-line faction responsive ‘to impri-

soned Domingo Alberto Rangel, and weakened but did not
destroy the MIR guerrilla force. :

Rangel's supporters were actively encouraged by
Pravda during 1964, and high-level PCV sources began
admitting difficulties in financing even reduced FALN
operations--an indication that if Soviet subsidy of the
Venezuelan guerri'la experiments: had not been terminated,
it had been reduced. The leaderless pro-Moscow PCV ;

' minority, complaining bitterly earlier in the year over
. CPSU failure to support its position against the hard-

line faction, began to pull itself together. and by October

-102-

FO eR eS SSS he SSSR

(ioEaeRET

was holding its own secret formal meetings. The catalyst
was the then-imminent (December) Moscow preparatory con~
ference,* which the soft-liners suspected would bring a
world Communist split and a corresponding PCV split for.
which they wished to be prepared. At the same time the
hard-line PCV leadership had not been immune to the ef-
fects of the great debate ‘over the armed versus peaceful
struggle that had. been taking place within Venezuelan
revolutionary circles. ; ; :

It was only after the November 1964 Havana Communist
Party Conference, however, that the Soviet leadership took
a firm line toward the Venezuelan situation and CPSU handl-
ing of the revolutionaries began to assume greater clarity.
The Soviets, to appease Castro and the Venezuelan guerrilla
chiefs, directed the other area parties to approve the
Venezuelan guerrilla: "freedom fighters" and inserted in
the Conference communique a commitment to Support them,
something the PCV had not previously been able to get
from its sister parties.+** But they were evidently able
to insist’ on greater FALN subordination to PCV. political
direction and--more important--to work out a new division
of labor with the Cubans that shifted responsibilities for .
financial subsidy of the FALN from Havana to Moscow. It .
will’ be recalled that the Bolivian delegate to the Havana

*This appears to have been behind reported strong Soviet
pressures, including Khrushchev's personal insistence that

the PCV take sides with the CPSU position in the Sino~-Soviet
dispute

**Because of its armed policy the PCV was widely regarded
by leaders of the South American Communist parties as "a
party with leftist and pro-Chinese deviations’, and as a
result was refused expressions of Communist solidarity |
which it then sought when Alberto Lovera, political secre-
tary of the PCV’s Federal District Regional Committee, visited
a number of South American parties to explain the PCV's
position, In particular, we have a reliable report that
in April Corvalan of the PCCh plainly refused Lovera sup-
port from the Chilean party. -

~103~-

Conference, Monje Molina, said that Cuba and the CPSU made
"certain secret agreements at the meeting for Cuban and
Soviet assistance to the Latin American liberation move-

‘ments, which he could not discuss." Not only does sub-

sequent reporting show Soviet insistence that aid'to active
revolutionary movements in certain Latin Amerian countries
be channeled through the local Communist parties, but in
the case of Venezuela it makes clear that the 1965 subsidy
to the FALN--totaling about one million dollars--was to

he delivered on Soviet behalf by Italian and other European
couriers directly to the PCV, which would in turn parcel
out the money to the FALN leadership in the mountains.

In December, with Soviet blessing, the Italian Com-
munist Party's foreign section assumed responsibilities
for rehabilitating the PCV party structure and rebuilding
the soft-line faction to a position of influence within
it. The CPSU was aiming for.a dual’ policy in which the
armed struggle would not be completely abandoned but would

be played down, and main PCV emphasis, shifted to the tradi- .-

tional mass political action in which the PCV would seek -
alliances with other political parties in a united front,
and the FALN, as the party's paranilitary arm, would be

‘ subordinated to PCV political direction. Surprisingly,

the hard-line PCV leadership in its December talks with

a PCI representative admitted errors in pursuing terrorist
methods, agreed to halt urban terrorism and reduce the
FALN guerrilla force, and offered plans for reviving party
political activities. Early in 1965 the PCV politburo

did order a halt to urban operations, and in April the” -
PCV Seventh Plenum restored mass political action through
a refurbished FLN as a principal party objective in creat-
ing a "government of democratic peace." Although refer-
ence was made in plenum resolutions: to armed struggle as
the ‘supérior" form, the Seventh Plenum had in fact accepted
a dual policy of action that conformed essentially to the |
CPSU’s recommended strategy for the Venezuelan liberation
movement. , i

Opposition to this new strategy by FALN field con-
manders and the dominant MIR hard-line faction, was swift.
the MIR hard-line faction blocked PCV efforts to get a
political action campaign started by refusing to cooperate

-104-

in the FLN. The PCV itself developed three recognizable
factions: an uncompromising hard-line left wing led by —
Douglas Bravo and other nationalist, pro-Cuban guerrilla
leaders in the FALN; the majority "center’ faction com-

- posed of the existing party central committee and polit-
buro leadership; and a soft-line old guard right wing
flatly opposed to the armed struggle. Government security

. services intercepted and confiscated two of the quarterly
subsidy. payments from Europe--about $325, 000-~in March .
and October, and the PCV leadership controlled and appar-
ently reduced the amounts forwarded to the FALN from the
other two payments that got through, What was in effect
@ stalemate set in between the center and left-wing faction

\ and persisted throughout the year. , ;

Toward the end.of 1965 Bravo, supported by some’
other commanders, organized a FALN revolt against the ,
"center" PCV leadership because of the cut-off of funds.
The BRAVO group informed the CPSU, the Cuban party, and
the CCP of its intentions to seize control of the PCV
and appealed for support. Bravo's move failed when German
Lairet, the newly-appointed FALN chief, backed the PCV,
but his campaign badly shattered the still feeble PCV
organization. In January 1966 the PCV politburo met, '
reaffirmed the dual policy of the Seventh Plenum, and .
announced a "middle of the road" policy toward both extreme
party factions. In March, after three years in prison,
soft~liner Jesus Paria was exiled to the USSR, where he
was accorded'a hero's welcome on his arrival in Moscow.
In his speech to the 23rd CPSU Congress some days later,
Faria solidly supported the Soviet line of a "broad
patriotic front” to bring about the “government of demo- :
cratic peace." Nevertheless, in April when a presumably . : |
loyal FALN commander, Alfredo Maneiro Gonzalez, went to ,
Moscow to defend the Venezuelans’ armed line against
Faria's point of view, he was diplomatically received
"warmly" by a delegation of Soviet military officers.

Maneiro may have told his Soviet contacts about a
* second effort by Bravo, supported by Fabricio Ojeda and
unidentified MIR leaders, to "restructure" the FALN and
FLN, which took place in April 1966, This proposal was
ee made to the PCV, the MIR and the Nationalist Popular

7
i pte aasl

Vanguard (VPN), the three parties that originally formed

the FLN and FALN,* The MIR and VPN accepted the proposal;
the PCV, which did not reply, suspended Bravo in May from —
his membership in the politburo, expelled a PCV guerrilla ’
commander who supported Bravo, and began its own reorganiza- ——
tion of the FALN. aad tee

m In February the
Soviets were "at odds” with the Bravo.. -
faction xo) @ dual line of both mass political ‘":

action through the PCV and armed struggle threugh the FALN -
in Venezuela, but insisted that the FALN, as the PCV's ;
paramilitary arm, be subordinated to the party's political
leadership and accept politburo control of its funding.” -

But significantly his Soviet contacts told Maneiro
in June that if and when a formal split took ‘place between
the Bravo FALN group and the PCV leadership, they would .
support both sides financially, "in order not to repeat:.
,their error in Cuba where initially they neglected Castro
and gave all their support to the orthodox Cuban Communists";
but their major support would go: to the party, rather than ~
to the guerrillas. In August a MIR delegation seeking
aid in Moscow was coldly received and no Soviet support
was offered.#* _ . Pete

‘Three of the five guerrilla front commanders accepted

the Bravo plan.

; **Throughout 1966 the PCV complained of lack of funds” |
and by January 1967 had been forced to discontinue many - i
routine party activities, suggesting Soviet caution in : |

handling Cuban aspects of the problem until the dust had . :

settled.. But Soviet interest in the brighter prospects -

for a resumption of state relations with venezuela almost

certainly were involved. The Venezuelan government had”

insisted that such relations with Moscow were precluded - ; z

by the continuation of Communist efforts, to overthrow it.:

Diplomatic relations between Venezuel and Rumania had been

resumed on 29 January 1967. On 29 January 1967 a PCV polit- |

buro member said-the PCV “is now" in favor of re-establishing

(footnote continued on page 107) a A

-106-

On 11 June Granma published a manifesto in the form

- of a letter addressed to Fidel Castro; signed by Ojeda,

Americo Martin (the MIR acting secretary-general), and
Douglas Bravo. It denounced "those who would abandon the
armed struggle" and announced formation of the "Unified
Command of the FLN and the FALN," with Ojeda as the Front’s
president, Martin as its secretary general, and Bravo as
its commander-in-chief,

The Havana announcement signified an open break _
between the PCV and its extremist partner, the MIR, and
brought a new crisis of authority to the “center” PCV
leadership and the orthodox FALN headed by German Lairet.
It also made clear that the dissidents had. Cuban not Soviet
backing, although if forced to, the CPSU might countenance ~
them solely to keep its hand: in the game. Punctuating the
development was a successful landing near Tucacas in Falcon
State on 24 July 1966 of some 40 guerrillas (including j
some Cubans) led by Luben Petkoff, Bravo’s second in con-
mand, that had obviously originated from Cuba. Petkoff’s

‘footnote continued from page 106)

diplomatic relations between the two countries, and that
"Soviet officials" were being so notified in response to
an earlier request for the PCV’s opinion. |

the PCV in February 1967 began again to receive -
monthly sums "from abroad" amounting to $30-40,000, “after
a two-year discontinuation of outside economic support”,
offer clear evidence of CPSU use of its financial club ‘to
Swing the Venezuelan party into line.
received only after the PCV had said it ¥avore resumption
of Russian~VeneZuelan state relations, and in the period
when it was feverishly attempting to hold a new plenum--
despite the many security hazards--to clarify its position

regarding -"(A) Cuba; (B) the USSR; and (C) the armed revo-
lution in Venezuela" That is,
it was going to resp n pressure a the way

by renouncing the armed path and accepting CPSU~favored
parliamentary national liberation methods, if at all possible.

-107-

group included Venezuelans trained in North Vietnam, and
he carried a large sum of money~-reportedly between two .-
and three hjindred thousand dollars--for use: by Bravo's
dissidents. There was an unconfirmed report of a second
landing in November. of an.estimated 70 armed men at a
point on the north-east coast of Venezuela. .

The PCV's reaction was an angry protest sent to

Cuba in late July over Cuban ‘moral" support of the Bravo
dissidents, to which Castro gave an "unsatisfactory" reply,
and apparently made declarations unfavorable to the PCV
and repeated some of Bravo's accusations against it.
Castro withdrew recognition of the PCY's central committee
representative in Havana, and accorded recognition to the.
parallel Bravo leadership group there. The PCV appealed
to "sister parties" for help in normalizing its relations ;
with the Cuban party, and undertook extensive consultations

' with Castro to that end. PCV contact with "other Latin
American Communist parties" was in part to promote a meet-
ing of all hemisphere parties to condemn Cuban “factional
ism" and unite against Castro. By September relations
between the PCV and the Cuban party had apparently been
virtually suspended, Bravo had clearly stated his inten-
tion to disrupt the next national election in Venezuela,
and he had reportedly stated the orthodox Latin American
Communist parties should be “destroyed” because they are
run-by middle-class bureaucrats who really fear a genuine

_ Communist revolution on the continent.

In the same period Pedro Medina Silva, titular
Supreme FALN commander, issued a series of communications
condemning Bravo's factional activities against the
orthodox FALN, and reaffirming the positions of German
Lairet as FALN political director and its real commander-
in-chief, and of other orthodox FALN leaders, Medina
also said he was resuming his role as supreme commander.
By this action he countered what appears to have been a
precipitate Cuban attempt in June to name him as successor
to Ojeda* as president of the dissident Bravo’ FLN. In

*Who reportedly died on June 21 under mysterious circum
stances after his capture four days earlier by Venezuelan
security forces, - ‘ .

~108-

.

ee

(eae

October Castro reportedly reassured the PCV politburo of
continued Cuban support,.but the PCV had to accept a
Castro decision to divide Cuban aid between the Bravo
group and the PCV proper. Castro thereby adopted a stance
identical with that of the CPSU, except that primary

Cuban aid would go to Bravo whereas major Soviet aid would

go to the PCV. This ploy had the merit of being unas-~
sailable by Moscow: which had adopted it first!

. , Growing’ discontent with the "center" leadership be~
came apparent in December, when eleven of Caracas' 16
active ward committees issued a manifesto to the polit-
buro demanding “unified support for the armed revolution,”
This followed a series of successful terrorist acts in-

cluding several assassinations of police officials carried’ ~

out in the federal district by Bravo and MIR forces. At
the same time a delegation of the dissident FLN-FALN ar-
rived in Havana, where with extensive publicity Granma
announced that it had set up a permanent FLN-FALN mission
in Cuba under Gaspar Rojo. ,

Moscow ignored Bravo's dissidents, but publicized
statements by PCV secretary-general Faria disclaiming

PCV involvement in the renewed urban terrorism and castigat-

ing them as ‘contrary to Marxist-Leninist principles."
PCV leaders' statements carried by Radio Moscow have .
ignored the party's dispute with Bravo and.Castro. But
Castro made no effort to hide his support of Bravo whom
he lauded for saving Venezuela's "revolutionary standard’
in his January 2 anniversary speech, obliquely censuring -
the PCV for abandoning guerrilla warfare. Since October
Radio Havana had given extensive time to interviews with
the principal Bravo lieutenants in which the Venezuelans
expounded their views on armed struggle as the only path
to Venezuelan liberation. a , a

After a sensational jail-break in February of three
top orthodox PCV political directors imprisoned since 1964,
the PCV began feverish efforts to convene an @ighth party
plenum in April despite the enormous security risks this
entailed, indicative of the intense pressures it was ex~
periencing--probably in good part from the CPSU--for an

-109~

ies, ST SS SS SA

authoritative party clarification of its stand against
Castro's initiative, for an even greater disavowal of the
armed insurrection policy, and for the party to go on
record in favor of "the USSR s position in international
affairs." - This last point was being reported in terms of .
a “desire” of the PCV politburo to support the USSR pub-
licly. If this is true, after the Venezuelan party's many
years of firm refusal to take such Sides, it indicates
clearly that the CPSU has, managed finally to regain some
measure of effective control within the PCV in the after-
‘math of the Cuban-Venezuelan party Split. (See footnote

on page 107 for additional information on this. develo ment).

C. Repercussions of the Tri-Continental

' The Soviet dilemma in Latin America was laid bare
in the aftermath of the Tri-Continental Conference.* The
horns of the dilemma are formed by Moscow's commitment to
& policy of peaceful coexistence with non-Communist states
on the one hand, and on the other by its commitment to
Support national liberation movements against "imperialist"
and "colonialist" regimes. Unwilling in the first place —
to support such a conference, the Soviets finally agreed
to do so only because they believed it could be used to
isolate the Chinese in the world solidarity movement. But
they seriously underestimated Cuban initiative at the con-
ference, were out-maneuvered by both the Cubans and the
Chinese, and found that, in order not to. be shown less
“revolutionary” and less interested in national libera-
tion struggles than the Chinese or the Cubans, their dele-
gation had to adhere to a series of conference resolutions
strongly endorsing resort to violence to achieve political

*Held in Havana in January 1966.

-110~

: * ,

? .

'

‘

‘

‘ x . :
! .

i e

ta eee

change in the hemisphere and elsewhere, A Soviet effort
to defend the CPSU-line on peaceful coexistence, and have
it read into the conference's general. declaration, was
resoundingly defeated as the Chinese and Cubans refused
to let Moscow have it both ways. aS

The CPSU's delegate, Sharaf Rashidov, told the
conference; :

First of all I wish to stress that the Soviet

delegation has come to this conference with:

the objective of facilitating in every way the

unification of the anti-imperialist forces ;

of the three continents [in] our common struggle I
‘against imperialisr and neo~coLlonialism--headed

by the United States of America. Our attitude

is clear to all and we do not intend to enter

into polemics. ;

We believe that relations between sovereign
states with different social structures should
be based on peaceful coexistence. However, |
it is quite clear that there is no peaceful
coexistence, nor can there be peaceful coexist-
ence between the oppressed peoples and their
oppressors~-the colonialists and the imperi- .
alists, between the imperialist aggressors and
their victims. ;

The Indian delegate moved to include a Soviet resolution

on peaceful coexistence in the Conference's General Declara- j
tion, but Cuban and Chinese influence was running strong. —§ . i
enough to prevent this, and it was only finally published

as a "special" and separate resolution. It declared:

Peaceful coexistence applies only to relations ©
between states with different social and poli-
tical systems. [t cannot apply to relations
between social classes, between the exploited
and the exploiters within separate countries,
‘or between the oppressed peoples and their ;
oppressors. aa i

-Tll- |

Even this, which was about as far as the CPSU was
willing to go in watering down its "peaceful coexistence"
line, was not satisfactory to many of the Communists and
revolutionaries present in Havana, * ;

If Moscow had miscalculated the revolutionary temper
of the conferees, it also seriously understimated Latin
American official reaction to its participation in the con-

ference.** Russian ambassadors in Brazil and Uruguay were
’ early confronted with strong official criticism of the
Soviet role in Havana. In Brazil the Soviet ambassador

*The Soviets were reliably reported at the conference
to have. privately encouraged their preferred "united front"
tactics which they had pushed so hard at the Chilean PCCh's
‘Thirteenth National Congress and the little-publicized: 30th
anniversary celebrations of the Seventh Comintern Congress .
held several months previously in October 1965 in Eastern
Europe, : ‘ :

**#In the OAS the Peruvian delegate on 25 January condemned
Rashidov's speech'as an intervention in: the American Repub-
lics' affairs and as contrary to a UN resolution on. non-
intervention (Number 2131) signed the previous December
by the USSR. On 2 February the OAS by a vote of. 19 for,
none against, and with two abstentions (Mexico and Chile)
formally denounced the Tri-Continental. Conference's policy
of intervention and aggression, and the open participation
by official and unofficial delegations from UN member states
that had voted for Resolution 2131. The OAS resolved to
prepare a full report of the Conference, which was issued
in December 1966, Meanwhile, led by Brazil, the Latin
American group in-the UN met to prepare a letter to the
Secretary General asa Security Counc il document; and it

.was signed by all the delegates, except Mexico, and delivered
to the Secretary General on 8 February. It characterized

the Conference as a flagrant violation of the Charter and

the first deliberate violation of Resolution 2131, and
Singled out Cuba as particularly delinquent. me

~112-

: Fr Ss SS

took the position that Rashidov had spoken at ‘the confer-
ence, not as an official of the Soviet government, but .
only as a Communist party member, Brazilian. concern with
the "serious implications" of the.conference led to the

ry creation in April 1966 of a special section within the
country's national intelligence service to be responsible
for international Communist matters, ranking as one of

: the service's four major organizational components.

In Uruguay the Soviet ambassador, already smarting
under’ Uruguayan charges of ‘embassy. interference in internal
Uruguayan trade union affairs, had on 28 January submitted
a formal Russian offer of $30 million in erédits on ex-
tremely favorable terms, as a peace gesture. The next day
he was called to the foreign ministry where: the Uruguayan
Foreign Minister demanded to know whether Rashidov had
Spoken at the conference for himself or for. the Soviet
Sf government. The Soviet envoy refused to reply, and was
warned Moscow could expect grave consequences to its rela-
tions if a satisfactory explanation of Rashidov's state-
ments was not produced. The Soviets in February delivered
a note verbale which claimed Rashidov's delegation repre~
sented only "Soviet social organizations," The official
Uruguayan reply, published in the Montevideo press, ridi-
culed this explanation, showing the government had no il-
lusions about the duplicity of the Soviet position.

In the face of the strong adverse reaction from
these and other Latin American capitals, the Soviet Foreign
Ministry later in the month took the unusual step of of~ -
ficially disavowing Rashidov's statements to the confer-
ence, and, visibly embarrassed, Soviet and East European
officials both in Moscow and in the hemisphere went to
great lengths in private talks and meetings arranged for
the purpose, to play down to Latin American officials the
significance of conference talk about armed violence,
Venezuelan President Leoni soon after the conference stated
privately that he had assurances from local representa-
tives of "Eastern European countries’ that Moscow wanted

be Communists to disengage from the FALN terrorist - campaign -
there,, 4 a

: : -113-

1. The Credibility Gap; Moscow's Latin American
: nstitute : : ,

Moscow's Tri-Continental Conference experience brought
out the difficulty, if not the impossibility, inherent in
the Soviet effort to take a public line toward the under-
developed world that will avoid provoking additional pro-
tests-~in our case, in Latin America--but at the same time ©
will not seem so weak and revisionist compared with the
greater militancy of the Chinese and Cuban Communists ‘and

their. supporters'as to become an invitation .to ideological :.-

defeat among the new Communists.

In Latin America Moscow faces more complex problems
attending this endeavor than it does in some other under-~
developed areas, Here it has responsibilities to some
twenty-odd Communist parties, originally spawned during
the 1920s, many of them existing in various: degress of
illegality, whose existence imposes limitations on CPSU
maneuverability in the area. It. has regular state rela-
tions with a number of non-Communist Latin American govern—

. ments, and is actively seeking to expand such ties with
others.* It must take into account not only Chinese com-
petition, but also Cuban competition of a novel order.
that has steadily grown since 1963. Finally, it must .
Cope with these problems in the very back yard of the
United States' power ‘sphere. The previous low level of
Soviet commitment in the hemisphere was dramatically raised

'to a near-~strategic level after Moscow accepted Cuba into
its bloc in 1960; and the potentially explosive consequ-
ences to the USSR of this commitment were rudely brought —
home to the Soviet leadership in October 1962. ,

All this took place as the fundamental quarrel with
Peking, in train since 1956, was reaching its critical

¥As of January 1967, there were strong indications of

Soviet interest in establishing missions in Costa Rica,
Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

~114-

stages, and in fact probably helped to exacerbate the dis-
pute. The Soviet party had begun the. creation of its cur-
rent credibility gap in 1956, when it revised the Commun—
‘ist revolutionary line by announcing that’ in certain con-
ditions socialism could be achieved through use of peace-
ful, even parliamentary methods, and that resort to armed
violence was not absolutely necessary in every case in

the class struggle: As we have seen, differences over
this point of doctrine in application to the national lib-
eration movement in Latin America have become the focus

of Chinese and Cuban differences with Moscow in the area,
and have led to repeated embarrassment for the Soviet
party in Latin America during the 1960s, .

Soviet policy-makers' need for more reliable data
on the Latin American area and more competent representa~
tives .to deal effectively with-the new situation is no- .
where more clearly seen than in the establishment in 1961
of a Latin American Institute within the USSR's Acadeny ..
of Sciences, as a full-time research facility for special-
ized study of the area's contem orary economic and politi-
cal problems. The traditional Study of Latin American
history was left to the existing Latin American Section
of the Academy's Institute: of History. ;

Published guidelines for the type of research and
writing to be carried out by the new Latin American Insti-
tute were established in 1962 in a series of pronounce- —

‘ments of S.S, Mikhailov, then its director, and B.N. Ponomazov

secretary of the CPSU central committee. ‘These made it
clear that the Institute's central function was to gener- _—
ate new ideas and proposals for effective national libera~
tion tactics, and rationales that ‘could be applied in Latin
America by the Soviet leadership. : ,

Institute personnel were in part drawn from indivi-
duals who had served in Soviet diplomatic posts or missions
in Latin America. Since its establishment, Institute pro~
fessional officers have become a pool from which the CPSU
draws its key ambassadors, mission chiefs, and other foreign
service officers for assignments in the area. & recent
example was assignment in September 1965 of Mikhailov, |
hedd of the Institute, as Soviet ambassador in Brazil--the —

-115-

principal Soviet target in Latin America.

Writings of Institute members have not only appeared
in increasing numbers in. Soviet theoretical economic and

political journals, :but also in authoritative CPSU policy a

publications such as: the magazine Kommunist, the organ

of its central committee; and the results of their research
are becoming more apparent in contacts of Soviet party

and government officials with Latin Americans, - One Ameri-
can student of Soviet historiography who specializes in
Soviet-Latin American writings, in a recent analysis of
the subject* noted the "dramatic increase" in the Soviet
post-1956 effort to conduct systematic Marxist re-evalua—
tions of, Latin American history. In illustration, he
offers statistics developed by the Slavic and Central
European Division of the Library of Congress in ‘1965 show-
ing that, whereas 51 historical books and articles devoted.
to Latin America were produced between 1945 and 1959,

the total produced between 1959 and 1965 jumped to 300
titles. He emphasizes. that the focal point of these ‘'his-
torical' studies is the evaluation of problems connected

Latin America,

‘with the Marxist-Leninist "national liberation wars" in

2. Soviet-Cuban Confrontation

The evidence through the end of 1966 tends to con-
firm that Moscow considers Cuba a unique situation, a chal-
lenge which must be accepted no matter how much it costs.
Soviet unhappiness with the economic burden is clear enough,

¥G. Gregory Oswald, Department of History, University

of Arizona, in a paper on Soviet Historical. Writing on
Latin America since 1956, presented to the American His-
torical Association meeting in. San Francisco, on December
28, 1965. ot :

-116-

.

Tors scar

but there is no indication of Soviet intentions over the
near future: to do anything about it, other than to screen
each year's arrangements in minute detail’ to ensure as

“nearly as possible that desired results will be. obtained,
The lengthy annual Cuban-Soviet trade protocol negotia-—
tions in 1965, 1966, and 1967-~averaging several months-- -
-make this.clear, :

On the political side the Soviet party and govern-

‘ment intend to make major efforts to convince Castro to

be more patient during Cuba's present stage of develop-
ment; and the CPSU has requested the other Latin American
Communist parties to help them influence Castro's atti-
tude~-chiefly the Brazilian, Argentine, Chilean, Colombian,
and Venezuelan parties. Moscow has been manifestly unwill-
ing to repeat its November 1964 confrontation with Castro

in spite of pressures from its Latin American party support-
ers to do so.

To the contrary, the record strongly suggests the
Soviets are willing to go to unheard~of lengths, for a
long period of time if need be, to capture the Cuban comet
and settle it into a normal orbit around the Soviet sun,
as they did with the movement of the Mexican Toledano and
the Brazilian Prestes in an earlier era. To that end. the
CPSU appears content to ride with the pendulum swings of
Cuban action, avoiding major public squabbles with Castro,
and use its economic and military leverage to attain the
partial and reluctant Cuban concessions necessary for it
to minimize any critical impact Castro may seek to have
in areas of high-priority, CPSU concern. This stance.
appears to include Soviet willingness to put up with a
Sizeable, if embarrassing, Cuban independent role in the

‘international Communist movement,

However, open Cuban criticism of Soviet doctrine

and attacks on the credentials of the pro-Soviet. orthodox
area parties had by the winter of 1967 become sharp enough
to produce an authoritative Soviet reply that could presage
a Cuban-polemic, Pravda in early March issued an exten-
Sive statement, Moscow's first on Latin America in almost

a year, indicating clear disapproval of the Cuban position
and warning that underestimation of the role of the local

-117-

—

Communist parties in the.national liberation struggle would
be a mistake, and any attempts to split them would bring
"irremediable" damage. A prompt retort by Castro specifi-
cally denouncing the mild stance of the orthodox Venezuelan
PCV--his first such completely open attack on a hemisphere
Communist party--appears to have laid bare Soviet concern
over Cuban interference in its long-term operation to
regain control of the PCV and reconstruct it as a politi-.
cal: entity free of its FALN guerrilla incubus. The Soviet
announcement could also apply to,similar Castroist inter-
ference in the affairs of the Guatemalan PCG and elsewhere,
and could conceivably presage not merely a polemic, but
a more robust Soviet opposition to the Cuban attempt,
' through the hemispheric solidarity body, LASO, to achieve :
greater control over the course of Communist revolution : ;
in the southern hemisphere. The projected July-August ‘ ‘
LASO First Conference in Havana is. likely to witness a ;
confrontation between orthodox pro-Soviet Communists and
the more militant Castro Communists whose sharpness will)
probably largely depend upon the CPSU, But in view of
its past extreme patience and care in its dealings with
the Castro regime, the CPSU is most likely to try to limit
or discourage any’ such split, and restrict itself at most
to a polemical defense of its area party supporters.

Vv. Appendix: Pro-Chinese Parties and Groups

1, Mexico, Middle America, and Panama
Mexico

A Chinese ‘Communist trade mission which had been
in Brazil visited Mexico in January 1963, seeking to con-
clude a trade pact and hold a trade fair there later in
the year. members of this
mission were in contact wi sone eaders and offered
the latter financial aid in return for PCM support of the ©
Chinese in their dispute with Moscow. This: contact
catalyzed long-simmering Sino-Soviet differences within
the PCM central committee, and soon after the Chinese mis-
Sion departed dissidence tied to the dispute mushroomed
rapidly.

The crisis also involved a PCM directive statement
that the PCM completely supported the lLine'of the CPSU, —
circulated among the membership after a.9 January meeting

of the party's central committee and political commission. |

The ninth PCM plenum in February 1964, was concerned
entirely with a wrangle over the PCM's stance toward the
polemic. Clandestine reports of this plenum reflected a
basic split within the central committee and the political
commission. Several voting rounds were required before
the céntral committee could get a majority for a pro-
Soviet statement, and even then the final vote reportedly

was eight against four with four others remaining ‘neutral.'

By March an important Mexico City cell had begun to attack
the central committee's "arbitrary stand" and to demand
that Chinese documents be furnished all party members.

In April the first of the four pro-Chinese central commit-
tee members was sidelined, and at a 17-19 July party

plenum the other three were suspended. from their posts.

The expellees formed a défense group but it never had an
Opportunity to function. The pro-Soviet PCM leadership 7
quietly held the party's Fourteenth National Congress on

19 December without troubling to notify the dissidents,

-119-

’

packed the Congress, rigged its agenda, and thereby achieved
‘unanimous’ endorsement of the Soviet line and ratified

the expulsion of the four leaders and .other pro-Chinese
members, ; :

The Chinese evidently were not prepared to back a
separate party in Mexico, at least at that time, and were
clearly disappointed that their supporters. inside the PCM
-had been expelled before they Could win control of the:
party. Even though members of the Chinese mission were -
in close touch with sympathizers who were still‘ in the
PCM or in the Popular Socialist Party (PPS) of Vicente
Lombardo Toledano, the group expelled from. the PCM were
reportedly unable to effect contact. with the Chinese.
Efforts of a number of pro-Chinese splinter groups to
organize an effective opposition during 1964 and later
have been unsuccessful. o , <7

The Chinese used their trade fair presence in Mexico ,
to set up a permanent Chinese-manned NCNA mission in the ;
country which flourished until October 1966. Mexico's .
trade with China in 1965 had been halved from that of
1964 and there was no sign that the small trade exchanges
would increase because the countries appeared.unable to
agree on financial terms, the Chinese wanting better terms
and Mexico refusing them. . The Mexican government late
in 1965 rejected visa applications for both a cultural
and a trade group Peking had been trying to get into
Mexico, and maintained a policy of tight surveillance of
the limited Chinese presence in the country. The small
NCNA mission was finally closed down at the Chinese's own.
initiative--perhaps the only instance where Peking has
apparently given up a bridgehead in the -hemisphere when
not absolutely forced to do so, coe

In March 1964 Mexican pro-Moscow Communists, largely
‘of the PPS, won control of the Mexican Society of Friend-
ship with People's China (SMACP) from pro~Peking forces.
The latter got Chinese support in setting up a separate

friendship society, the Society of Friends of China (SACP), poe,

in November 1964, but it has never achieved real growth.
In 411, Chinese experience since 1963 with sharp factional
rivalries typical of the Communist movement in Mexico, :
appears to have discouraged Peking's hopes for. any early
successes there.

-120-.

In January 1964 the Communist parties of Mexico,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa
Rica issued a communique after the "Third Conference of
Communist and Workers’ parties of Mexico and Central
America," reportedly held in Mexico, which took a stand
on the world dispute in. essential agreement with that . |
of the CPSU. It called for an end to the public polemic,
appealed strongly for unity within the international move-
ment, and implied that another international conference
should be held to settle the matter. This Mexico meeting
of party representatives appears to have been only one
of several which were hurriedly convened to hammer out some:
acceptable accord among the Central American parties on
the dispute in the face of the Chinese campaign in the
hemiSphere. There is evidence that they were. inspired
by direct Soviet pressure from Mexico City. - ,

The communique reflects the fate of pro-Chinese
factions simmering in each of the Central American parties.
They have never been able to gain effective control in,
or even split, any of the parties despite their campaigns
against local party pro-Soviet leaderships: The emergence
of any significant pro-Peking Communist moverent in Central
America. remains a thing of the future. .There is some
evidence of Chinese training of Central American Communists
and extremists who return to their homelands, and of the |
presence of small numbers of illegal mainland Chinese Com-
munists in .some Central American countries. The major
threat to the orthodox Communist parties in this region
since 1963 has come from Cuban unilateral operations in
Support of the various “hard line" sectors, and-not from
China, . ;

Panama

The Panamanian PDP was not a signatory of ‘the "Third

'. Conference" communique because in 1963 the PCP central com-

mittee was so divided that its President, Ruben Dario
Souza, was unable.to bring his party into line in support

-121-

of the Mexico. City regional pronouncement, Not until two
years later did the PDP sign a "Fourth Conference" com-
munique, in October 1965. This one included an explicit
statement backing the CPSU line and condemned "all mani- .
festations" of factionalism in the international movement.
But the PDP took a more definitely neutral stance on the
matter than did other Central American parties because

Souza was not able to expel pro-Chinese ayare voters from.
the PDP. .

The Chinese party has always taken a special inter-—
est in Panama because of the strategic relation of the
Canal Zone. Following the Panama disorders of January
1964, Mao Tse-tung issued one of his rare personal pro-
nouncements of condemnation of the U.S., and of. support

for the Panamanians. Peking claimed a cumulative total

of more than 16 million Chinese participated in massive
demonstrations for Panama in China, and Chinese official
propaganda gave unusually ‘sustained attention ‘to the af-..
fair,

The PDP pro-Chinese faction, led by Chang Marin,
has not been able either to split or to dominate the party.
Evidence is clear of Chinese-Cuban competition for control
of the Panamanian Revolutionary Union (URP), a radical
left-wing organization formed toward the end of 1964 to
promote a prolonged "people's war" in Panama, which was
set up by dissidents from another revolutionary group,
the Vanguard of National Action (VAN), an inactive pro-
Cuban organization which the PDP had bitterly opposed::
This competition heightened after thé Tri-Continental Con-
ference. A Chinese offer to train a group of URP members ;
was withdrawn after a leader of the URP student arm (MUR). |
had accepted a similar offsetting Cuban offer. URP leaders.
who traveled to China in the spring of 1966 were told
Panamanian "rivalries" among revolutionaries would have
to be buried, and an agreement to form a new pro~Chinese
Marxist-Leninist Communist party would have to be achieved,
before Peking would resume its support.

\

In June-July 1966, a small Panamanian Marxist~Lenin-

ist Party (PMLP) was formed--large ly on paper--by URP
leader Alvaro Menendez Franco on the basis of. provisional

“122-0 : ee

Chinese training offers, This led to more clear-cut dis-
cussions between the pro-Cuban and: pro-Chinese elements
in the URP. A pro-Cuban faction led by Floyd Britton
Morrison, got the nod from Havana; but the Cubans, like -
- the Chinese, were demanding united action by the URP as
' the price for further support. Menendez turned up in
; Peking in August as a delegate to the Chinese~sponsored
. twelfth rally against the atomic and hydrogen bombs,
where he attacked Soviet "revisionism." On his return
to Panama Menendez claimed Peking had given official
recognition to the PMLP, authorizing its contact with the
overt China Peace Committee and PMLP use of funds previously
advanced to the URP. Peking recommended the PMLP put it-
self as much as possible on a self-sustaining basis. But
the PMLP, like the other factions of the URP, boasted'no §-
more than several dozens of members. By the end of the
year Ménendez, Britton, and Jorge Turner—~leader of the
defunct VAN--were reported seeking a formula under which
the three groups could form a united revolutionary front.
; without giving up their individual organizational status.
{ eo oa) It was clear that this move was a reaction to Cuban: and
Chinese withholding of desired large-scale subsidy until
f . the dust settled enough for each to see what real assets.
: it had in Panama, ;

2. South America

Colombia

' After the Colombian Communist party (PCC) plenum
of October 1963, pro-Chinese ferment forced its orthodox
leadership to resort to widespread suspensions and expul-
Sions of dissidents. Among those dropped with central
committee member Pedro Vasquez and candidate member Carlos 3 |
Arias were Hector Bogota Rubiano, NCNA representative in
Colombia, Luis Carlos Miranda, a leader of the important :

foe PCC-controlled Federation of Workers of Valle (FEDETAYV),
and Francisco Garnica Narvaez, PCC youth secretary in
Valle, . ‘ “a
~123-

.

‘In March 1964, according to their own statements,
a convention of 29 representatives of Colombian pro-Chinese
groups, formed largely of the PCC expéllees, set up a |
“provisional executive committee," named Vasquez as its
political secretary, and decided to form a new Communist
party, the PCC-Marxista-Leninista (PCC-ML).

Vasquez, Bogota, and Luis Villar Borda traveled
to China in search of backing and were successful in spite
of evidence the Chinese were less than completely happy
with their heterogeneous supporters in Colombia. As one
Source then put it, "Until the differences between these
-potential leaders are resolved, or until the Chinese CP
hierarchy selects a leader, the chances of forming a mono-
lithic party appear to be slight." In: addition to the
expelled dissidents a well-defined pro-Chinese sector re-
mained in the PCC because of reluctance to leave until —
another party had been formed and had been given official
recognition and support by the Chinese party.
Bogota continued to be funde rom

na w abou O per month, and Vasquez, after his

return in August 1964, with about $1000 per month.

At the PCC's 30th Plenum in June 1964, PCC Secretary
General Guillermo Vieira White acknowledged that the party |
was suffering greater internal stresses and strains than
it had in the last 34 years. He disclosed that open splits.
existed in the majority of the party's 21 regional commit-
tees, especially in Bogota and the departments of Antioquia,
Valle, Atlantico and Meta, and that the entire Magdalena
regional committee had gone over to the pro-Chinese side.*

, A "plenary" of the embryonic PCC-ML met in early
September near Medellin, bringing together 32 representatives

*For a detailed account of Communisn in Colombia see
OCI Intelligence Study No. 0627/67, titled "Foreign and
Domestic Influences on the Colombian Communist Party, 1957-
August 1966, dated March 1967. :

-124-

from eight of the country's 17 departments, representatives
of dissident PCC=ML youth units which had split from the _
regular JCC in February, and seven members of the “provi-
sional executive committee". Vasquez told this assembly

that he had been promised Chinese financial: aid and that :
as‘soon as the PCC-ML openly declared itself against Moscow.
it would qualify for greater Chinese support. . The "plenun”
re-elected Vasquez as secretary of a new executive com- ‘ds
mittee charged with preparing a national congress within .«

six months, ‘

t

' This congress met’ in May 1965. Like the Peruvians,
the Colombians decided to appropriate the name of the :
existing PCC and termed the gathering the "Tenth Congress’.
of the Colombian CP". It expelled Vieira and several - .
other PCC leaders. Attending were representatives of
pro-Chinese parties in Peru and Ecuador, and also Venezuelan
pro-Chinese Communists; and it called for a common line --
against Castroist "revisionism." The Congress' resolu-
tion echoed Peking's opposition to future "schismatic"
international’ Communist meetings, condemned (Cuban). *neu-.

.tralism" in the struggle against modern revisionism, and

praised new Marxist-Leninist groups springing up every-
where. The resolution was carried by the NCNA in August.
The PCC-ML had a numerical strength estimated at 2-~3500,

compared with 7-800 in the PCC:

_ Vieira and his party called central committee meet~
ings of the PCC in July and August to condemn the. "Chinese
splitters” and reaffirm PCC alignment with Moscow. -- --

. The PCC-ML boasted some control over a small guer—
rilla band in Santander, but the previous year the PCC
had shifted to a line accepting guerrilla Struggle as a
"natural evolution" of Communist military "self-defense".
activities* in certain areas (i.e., the five or six .

*The official PCC journal Yoz Proletaria, carried a.
cember 156:

statement to this effect on 17 December 4. It was |
followed by an article in the January 1965 issue of the
PCC's theoretical journal, Documents Politicos, where -
self-defense was called an "intermediate" stage, and "the
natural development of self-defense,-. its subsequent step,
its conclusion, is the guerrilla struggle". This line
was confirmed several months later by a PCC plenun,

-125-

me eetenet nme 8 oe

. principal guerrilla redoubts of Marquetalia, Riochiquito,

Bl Pato, Guayabero, Sumapaz and Ariari) while "peaceful"

methods would continue to be applied elsewhere in the
country, : : ;

The PCC however effectively blunted PCC-ML efforts |

to expand its guerrilla assets'and operations through
"Plan Aurora'-~a PCC-ML plan for alliance with-the MOEC
and ELN to create pre-election disorders early in 1966

by opening guerrilla fronts in Santander, North Santander,
Antioquia, and Guajira, at the Venezuela-Colombia border.

Its PCC-ML planner appears to have been Alfonso Romero |
Buj.. : i

The PCC-ML had at Least one member (Romero Buj)

in the provisional national United Front (UF) organization
formed by Camilo Torres Restrepo, in the autumn of 1965.

But here also the PCC quickly gained control and main-
tained it until Torres' death in February 1966 brought
the collapse of the UF. :

The Tenth PCC Congress in January 1966, decided
the party should actively prepare for armed insurgency,
Communist guerrilla leaders attended this Congress. In
April and May, the Cuban-backed ELN quit the PCC-ML's
"Plan Aurora" and there were reports of limited ELN
cooperation with the PCC's guerrillas, (The Cuban-__
trained ELN lost its support: organization when the JURL

had disbanded in mid-1965.) There is evidence this con-

solidation of PCC with ELN guerrilla forces was ordered
by the CPSU in line with "Specific instructions" PCC
delegate Diego MontamCuellar brought from the Tri-

continental gathering for the PCC leadership in February. .

Between 25 April-5 May the various ‘guerrilla forces

met in a "second conference of the Southern Guerrilla
Bloc" and created the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), announced as under PCC direction. PCC

youth secretary Manuel Cepeda Vargas, a member of the party’s”
Tri-Continental' Conference delegation and of the Colombian . ,

national LASO committee announced in February, played ©
an active role in creation of the FARC.. ine

~126-

re

‘ ganizational strength would. be improved-:::By.the end:of -> -.:
“the .year -the: PCC-ML“national executive: committee:had ~:~ -----
oi: ..moved to the countryside; the majority:.to a\guerrilla train-
- /ing™camp in Cordoba ‘province where..they hoped.to be able
" to attract Chinese financial -support which appeared to

By February 1966 PCC-ML secretary~general Vazquez .
admitted that his party did not have the strength to carry
out "Plan Aurora", and would concentrate on anti-election ot
propaganda. He also acknowledged a party split and expul-~
sion of Fred Kaim Torres, Alfonso Cuellar. Solano, Bogota,
and at least four others, Vasquez stressed that the party
had to be strengthened and politically consolidated before | mo
guerrilla insurgency could begin. The split was along &
familiar lines of the "Young Turks" against the entrenched a
party bureaucracy. Kaim had accused the PCC-ML leadership . ra
of spending 45 percent of monies received from China on ee
trips of the leaders and other bureaucratic expenses. Among .
the expelled was Uriel Barrera, secretary of the PCC-ML's
military apparatus for rural areas: A Vasquez delegation
flew to China in April but apparently failed to convince ° i
Peking to disown the dissidents. Unable to discredit the i
‘dissidents in Peking, Vasquez continued to work with armed
groupS in-Magdalena’and Bolivar departments‘which he - - «: ~~
boasted were the PCC-ML's best assets. .

The PCC-ML had then lost 50 percent of its strength,
and its activities had come to a standstill... Chinese-line
Communists, however, gained control of the National Federa-
tion of University Students (FUN) at its 3rd National
Congress on 27-30 May 1966. .In'May the party reportedly
had decided to postpone insurgency until August 1967 -be-
cause it -believed popular expectations centered on the
new Restrepo’ government ..would have waned .and PCC-ML or-

have withered away.: But the PCC-ML had disintegrated: for
all practical purposes and there wag evidence of renewed
Chinese interest in MOEC... Five members of. that organiza~
tion returned to Colombia in Decémber 1966 after training
in China, and had been given some funds by the Chinese.

‘Ecuador

In Ecuador, Peking, encouraged by the fact that the
Seventh Congress of the Ecuadorean Communist party (PCE)*
had adopted an armed insurrectionary line at the insist-
ence of an influential "hard Line” faction, took early
and positive steps to use the latter to gain control of
the local Communist movement. : :

In March 1963 Alejandro Roman Armendariz, a PCE
‘member and the NCNA representative, secretly extended a
.direct offer of Chinese financial aid to PCE central com-
mittee members Jose Maria Roura Cévallos and Rafael
Echeverria Flores. Both Roura and Echeverria, the secre-
tary-general of the important PCE Pichincha Provincial
Committee based in the capital city of Quito, were con-_
vinced hard-liners interested in armed revolution. Roura
and Armendariz traveled to London, and Roura went on to
China. In Peking Roura met with CCP central committee
members who urged his group to "split the PCE", ‘The Chi-
hese argued that when Communist discipline and unity no
longer helped produce revolution, then anything which would
do so was good, Roura was given U.S. $25,000'and told to
set up a printing establishment to publish the "real pam
phlets" (the CCP's polemical materials) on the Sino~Soviet
dispute, Any money left over was to be used to organize
the revolution, Roura, however, was arrested in May as
he reentered Beuador; the funds and.a revolutionary plan -
he was carrying were confiscated, and his visit with Chi-
nese Communist leaders was given wide publicity.

The orthodox PCE pro~Saviet forces headed by PCE
Secretary general Pedro Saad of the coastal city of Guaya-
quil, had agreed to a policy of armed insurrection at the
Seventh Congress, but had done so under pressure and only
reluctantly, as a necessary tactic to keep the Saad-con-
trolled national executive committee in command of .the

*He rom 9 to larch 1962 in Quayaquil. «4

-128-

3
ar |

party organization. Subsequently Saad watered down the
insurrectionary line enough to justify his not pushing
actively for early armed action, . In May Saad convened

the central committee, expelled Roura for his unauthorized
trip abroad, removed Echeverria as head of the Pichincha
Committee, and dissolved that Committee, which was to be
replaced by one loyal to him. Echeverria and his organi-
zation, however, refused to accept Saad's verdict,. and

the two factions were soon exchanging formal accusations
and were busy throughout June soliciting support from
party provincial organizations for-their Side, Echeverria.
called for a national-party assembly to expel Saad on-
grounds he had obstructed accelerated revolutionary pre-~
parations. ; ‘ .

A military doup d'etat in July brought Saad's ar-
rest_and imprisonment for more than a year.* The coup
forced both factions to go underground, but Echeverria
remained at large and his group was largely untouched.
Echeverria used the opportunity to reorganize the PCE on
pro~Chinese lines, -A provisional Guayas Provincial Com-'
mittee was formed to replace imprisoned ° pro-Saad pro-

vincial leaders. Echeverria announced that "recent develop-_

ments" in the international Communist movement (Peking's
June letter) had "given the Chinese Communists a free hand
to support dissident movements" and he said that a de.
facto split existed im the PCE. Echeverria however, also |:
failed to gain control over all sectors of the PCE, and
through the year Ecuador had in effect two warring Commun-
ist parties, each claiming the PCE banner. ae

In December 1963, Echeverria set up a ‘provisional
national party directorate’ to prepare a congress, and
the split was formalized in August 1964, when he convened
an “extraordinary party congress" of some 18 members from
the principal provinces of Pichincha, Guayas, Loja, Azuay,
and Esmeraldas, This congress expelled Saad and three —

*Until 30 December 1964.

-129-

pro-Soviet leaders from the party, approved a greeting ;

to the CCP, proclaimed PCE solidarity with the Cuban
revolution, and approved a policy decision to put the
armed insurrection line of the Seventh Congress into ef-
fect in a "correct, Marxist-Leninist manner." A united
“Patriotic Front of Liberation” was to be organized, and

emphasis was given to "the norms for open and secret work". a
by the party. The Saad faction was quick to announce the- ate

illegality of the congress, but the Echeverria party soon
gained organizational control of the major part of.the
local CommuniSt movement,

One PCE provincial committee, that in Esmeraldas,
‘headed by Wilson Burbano, took a position independent of
both the Saad and the Echeverria parties, and refused to
align his provincial Communist organization with either
or to participate in either's programs, although he per-

Sonally ‘favored the harder stance of the pro-Chinese forces. -

After the formation of the PCE~ML, Echeverria sent
a nine-man training group to China, and both he and Roura
traveled there, In October Teng Hsiao-ping met with |
Echeverria, accepted and approved a pro-Chinese party plat-
form for 1965 which was submitted by the latter, and
pledged Chinese moral support and financial aid of $50,000
to help carry it out. Roura returned to Ecuador in December,
when dissension for leadership of the PCE-ML broke out
between the acting secretary-general, Hugo Salazar Tamariz,
and Jorge Arellano Gallegos. , Echeverria had gone from.
China to Cuba, where he was hospitalized, underwent major —
Surgery, and remained until August 1965, when he returned
to Ecuador. ; : : ;

There are indications the Cubans used Echeverria's

absence to attempt to gain control of the PCE-ML after
the Sino-Cuban break early in 1965. In March 1965 a PCE-ML

“Gallegos was arrested and in December 1965 exiled to

Europe from where he went to China, and did not return: to
Ecuador until June 1966.

/ =130-

cia

supporter who had been in China during most of the previous
year returned to Ecuador and attacked the acting party: ‘
leadership, ostensibly on behalf of Echeverria, who he
said had realigned himself with Cuba and the USSR against
China. But the party's executive committee stood its
ground and issued a long document on "The Central Tasks: —
of the Party" in May which drew a clear distinction |
between unwanted Castroist guerrilla adventures on the

one hand, and the authentic Maoist concept of the long-
term “people's war" in the country accompanied by secret
clandestine cadre action in the cities. The PCE-—ML had
been continually importuned throughout. 1965 by two small
Castroist terrorist groups, the "Victory or Death" (V/M)
and the Detachment of Secret Organization (DOS), to begin
active guerrilla operations; but its leadership withheld
any commitment, The. May document reflected the growing.
‘divisions within the PCE-ML between those advocating im-
mediate revolutionary action and those dedicated to the
more orthodox, longer-term Maoist program.

After his release from prison in December 1964

Saad could only described his "soft-line"™ PCE as "desti- -
tute.” But he quickly began a drive to undercut the .
PCE-~ML by open appeals for reunification and defining the .
party's central task as "preparation for armed: struggle.”
Mid-year talks between provincial~level leaders of the

two parties broke down, but a Saad maneuver to go around
leadership echelons to bring Ecuadorean Communists at the
rank-and-file level undex his domination affected the -
-PCE-ML. In August a small PCE-~ML dissident ‘splinter-group
had appeared in Guayaquil whose local PCE-~ML organization |
was in chaos, ; : a:

Echeverria returned to Ecuador that month with a

substantial Cuban donation and had clearly taken a pro-
Cuban position. He made strenuous efforts to revitalize
the PCE-ML by setting up an active guerrilla organization
with a wiew to an early offensive. When Echeverria. went
to Guayaquil in October to round up support, he and
several of his principal PCE-ML Lieutenants were arrested :
and held until early spring of 1966. Significantly Echeverria. |
reverted to his former pro-Chinese stance after his re-
lease. The timing strongly suggests his decision was

ling-out which took
place after the Tri-Continental Conference.

influenced by the public Sino-Cuban fal

- It was apparent at the end of 1965 that the Saad —
PCE had staged a successful comeback at the PCE-ML's-ex- - .
pense, The Saad party had not suffered serious persecu-
tion since the 1964 crackdown, and had since operated ;
relatively openly. Saad had spoiled PCE-ML courtship of
the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR); a radical left-
wing party with which the PCE-MI. hoped to form a Maoist
popular opposition front and oust the ruling military -
junta, The PCE-ML had been instrumental in getting a
PSR delegation to visit China, but the PSR proved wary of
Chinese offers of financial backing, and. by. mid~1966 had.
swung about and was coyly toying with Saad's proposals —
that it join a PCE-led political front.*

The public. Sino-Cuban dispute of early 1966 led
to further dissidence within PCE~ML ranks, as efforts by
Roura to get the party to take a clear-cut stand against
‘Cuba were resisted by a number of members and leaders
within the party's Guayaquil organization, reflecting
the covert struggle taking pace between Havana and Peking.
for the loyalty of the hard-liners in the Ecuadorean
Communist movement. :

By the year's end the PCE-ML executive committee,
based in the highland capital city of Quito, was deeply
at odds with the iggastal Guayaquil provincial committee . .
leadership, and also contending with jurisdictional prob- |
lems being posed ‘by the party's other principal unit, the -
Pichincha provincial committee. The PCE-ML was in fact
on the verge of complete disintegration into a series of

*Saad's success very likely wag because of new injections
of funds from the CPSU. The swing of the PSR leaders to
Saad's party and away from the’ PCE-ML--with whose ideological
stance they had much greater affinity--reinforces this like-
lihood in the opinion of the writer of this paper.

-132-

ineffectual splinter groups. But Echeverria had apparently
not given up his hopes to preserve effective control over
the rebellious party provincial organizations, which were
then trying to convene a party congress to oust him.

Peru .

The Peruvian party (PCP) was one of the first to
Split in the wake of Peking’s June letter, the division
following the pattern of a pro-Chinese "young Turk" faction
rebelling against an orthodox pro-Soviet “old guard." The
pro-Chinese faction gained some key posts in the powerful
Lima Regional Committee at the party’s Seventeenth Plenum -
in May 1963, and--over old guard objections~-began pub-.
lishing Bandera Roja (Red Flag), a pro-Chinese newspaper.
Several months later the .PCP’s youth arm (JCP) convened
a national conference that demanded that the party news-
paper, Unidad (Unity), publish "the documents of the ccp,
since this party publication has published documents of ta?
the Soviet and Italian parties." The old guard reacted
at the party's Eighteenth Plenum, in October, by railroad-
ing in a new party political commission loyal to itself.
When the Lima regional committee refused to recognize the
results of the plenum, an.open dispute broke out. Saturnino
Paredes Macedo, peasant secretary of the PCP political
commission, emerged as leader of the pro-Chinese faction, -
the old-guard ‘clique’ being led by Jorge del Prado. and
PCP secretary general Raul Acosta. ,

The Lima committee, citing provisions of the party
statutes, demanded an extraordinary congress within three
months, asserting that until the congress could be held
the former political commission (named at the Seventeenth
plenum), which it controlled, was the only authorized
commission. Claims and counter-claims. ensued until the
Paredes group literally took over the PCP. by convening a
“Fourth National Conference" of a majority of the party's
central committee, representatives of 13 of its 17 regional

. ~133-

ae

committees, and observers from the JCP, on 18 and 19
January 1964, * a 7

This conference expelled nine pro-Soviet PCP lead-
ers for revisionism, elected Paredes as first secretary.
of the party, and announced a "Marxist-Leninist" policy
and support of Cuba. A resolution of the conference con--
demned the revisionist theorieés.of Tito and his followers,
and stressed the "correct" stand of the Chinese Communist
party in the ideological controversy with the CPSU.
Several days later, pro-Chinese Communists stormed the
office of Unidad and wrecked its equipment; but the news~
paper remained in the hands of the pro-Moscow Communists,
who had convened their own "Fourth Lima Regional Confer-
ence" on the 25th and 26th claiming “the attendance of
64 of the 75 base organizations," and support from all
over the country, : : ,

~

‘The Paredes group's’ "expulsion of the revisionists":
was given prominent NCNA play on 31 January. On 6 April
TASS replied with a strongly anti~Chinese statement fron.
Unidad. On 13 May 1964 NCNA published an extensive review
of the PCP~ML congress' political report,

The Chinese also maintained contact with the Peru-
vian Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), a-revolu-
tionary group dedicated to active guerrilla warfare in
the country, whose leader, Luis de la. Puenta Uceda, had
Spent most of his time from 196% until early 1964 in France
and China. De la Puente apparently visited Peking about
November 1963, and was received by Mac. Some 20 MIR men-
bers were in training in China and in North Korea early
in 1964. De la Puente claimed to the Chinese that the MIR

™|
the - 6s group first contacte e nese embassy in
Bern, Switzerland about November 1963, to enlist Chinese
backing. Two delegates then went to Peking, where the -
Chinese agreed to provide the dissidents with extensive:
Support, and returned in time for the "Fourth Conference,"

-134-

was cooperating fully with the PCP-ML, whose leaders Mao
had encouraged him to invite to go to China; but in fact
De la Puente did not favor this invitation, and there is
no evidence that the MIR. ever genuinely collaborated with
the: PCP-ML.

The MIR also was getting Cuban financial assist-
ance; but later in the year the Cubans were reported dis-~
illusioned with De .la Puente and had greatly reduced their -
Support. De la Puente reported Chinese insistence that
the Peruvian revolutionary groups. unite, and in September
1964 appointed Hector Cordero Guevara, a member of the
MIR central committee just back from China, as MIR Liaison
officer with other leftist groups. The MIR spent 1964 in
nation-wide preparations for a projected guerrilla offen- °
Sive in 1965, : . .

After the split, the PCP-ML emerged as the dominant s :

of the two Communist parties, and proceeded rapidly to
consolidate itself. in that position. The two parties oy
developed parallel local and regional committee structures
in parts of the country. The’ orthodox PCP retained con-
siderable strength in the important central area centered
on Junin, a town north of Lima. In a number of other
areas, local Communists proved unwilling to make clear~
cut choices between the two sides. The orthodox PCP suf-
fered the heaviest interim organizational losses, however,
and much of its local activity came to a halt during the
year... : oe te ga he . P

Initially both sides lost out to the APRA in the
important Peruvian university student field. At the Uni- -
versity of San Marcos in Lima, the Communists for the
first time in five years were defeated in student govern~
ment elections when a fight between pro-Chinese and pro-
Soviet Communists opened the door for the APRA candidate.
But by the end of the year the pro-Chinese student sector
had emerged as stronger than its pro~Soviet counterpart
in university student organizations, especially in Cuzco
and Huancayo, .

The growing MIR guerrilla preparations and those
of other extremist groups did much to dilute Peruvian rank-

-135-

| ws

_

_ ‘awe “vis

and=-file Communist interest in the two parties. The sus-
pension of guarantees, and widespread arrests of Communists,
in the wake of guerrilla campaigns in central Peru in 1965,
added to the passivity and disorganization of the orthodox

’ PCP. Continued PCP-ML disinclination to take an active

_ Suerrilla role led to defections and formation of a small
splinter group within its youth organization in the autumn.
of 1965. .. ; :

Some gains were made by the pro-China student fac-
tion during 1965 at the expense of their pro-Soviet rivals.
Only one top post in the May 1965 San Marcos University
student elections was won by a pro-Soviet Student, as
compared to 11 gained by the pro-Chinese students, and
three. by APRA. In early April 1966 the pro-Soviet faction
withdrew from the San Marcos Student Federation (FUSM)
and formed its own rump organization. Pro-~Chinese inter-
nal rivalries helped defeat the pro-Chinese slate in
October elections at the University of Arequipa, where a

‘pro-Soviet slate won.

In November 1965 the PCP-ML split because of a
power struggle that ensued at its Fifth National Confer-
ence. The dissidents were led by Jose Sotomayor Perez
in alliance with an Arequipa sector loyal to Enrique Zapater
Ballon. But Paredes retained an estimated 80 percent of
the party's approximately 4,000 members. In early March
1966, Peking belatedly publicized the PCP~ML’'s November
Conference-in a propaganda campaign whose timing gave
strong support to Paredes.

The Sotomayor faction, with its estimated 20 percent
of PCP-ML strength, left the PCP-ML early in 1966 and
formed a party which it called the Marxist-Leninist Com-
munist Party of Peru (PCMLP), whose strength is centered
in the mountain towns of Cuzco and Puno. But Zapater,
having failed to unseat Paredes, soon quarreled with
Sotomayor and broke away from the PCMLP. Peking pronounce-
ments continued to evince Chinese backing of Paredes. —

In Jily pro-Chinese university students at. the Uni-

versity of San Marcos, generally responsive to PCP-ML |
directives, again won the FUSM election with 37.5 percent

-136-

Pee oe ei wee nee Fem en ee A Lae ee SF ne ee pe

of the vote as compared with 16 percent for their pro-
CPSU rivals, after they had both combined in 1965 to win
FUSM control from an APRA student ticket with an election
victory of 51.1 percent of the vote. This was followed
by a rump victory for pro-Chinese students in elections
in November of a national university student governing
board at the Eleventh Congress of the Federation of Peru-
vian Students (FEP) where an anticipated pro-Chinese
Student victory led several delegations to walk out be-
fore the pro-Chinese students could name their own "Tran-.
Sitional Directive Board.” NCNA and PCP-ML propaganda
hailed this event as a resounding. victory, NCNA- noting a
decision of the "revolutionary students" to “greet and
support the great Chinese cultural proletariat revolu~
tion" and student emphasis on "Yankee Imperialism": as

the "fundamental enemy" of Asian, African, and Latin’
American students. 2 ia

ws: .

At the end of the year the PCP-ML was claiming to
be "the first party on the American cohtinent to expel .
revisionist agents", noting how its ‘Fourth Conference had
“boldly broken" with and expelled the revisionist clique
and its Fifth Conference had consolidated the party by
"cleaning out the Sotomayorists." . The: party newspaper
‘was stressing the secret and clandestthe nature of party
activities. . . ;

‘Bolivia .. .. hi

si-

A power struggle within the Bolivian Communist
party (PCB), based on personal rivalries rather than any
well-defined pro-Chinese sympathies, led to a party split
in 1965 that produced a second Bolivian Communist party,
the PCB/C* which has since aligned itself with Peking.

-137-

During this struggle against an entrenched pro~-Soviet
group led by PCB first secretary Mario Monje. Molina, only
one dissident central committee member, Hilario Claure,
emerged as a genuine ideological supporter of Peking.
Claure, and Raul Ruiz Gonzalez, Alfredo Arratia Tellez,
and Atilio Carrasco--personal rivals of Monje--were ex-
pelled from the party by a PCB central committee plenun
in August 1964, a. .

In December anti-Monje forces and Peking sympathizers
gained control of the PCB Sant@ Cruz Regional Committee,
In March 1965, after Monje had postponed the regular Oruro
Regional Congress to frustrate a similar attempt, the dis-
Sidents held an independent congress and elected their
own Oruro regional committee. This procedure was repeated’
in April in the Llallagua region, another mining center.
The same, month the dissidents convened an “extraordinary
national party congress," in a third mining region, the —
Siglo Veinte mines, and set up the PCB/C. The original
factionalists, Claure’, Ruiz, and Arratia, dropped out of
the leadership picture, and the central committee of PCB/C
was.formed of 30 persons who included Federico Escobar
Zapata, a mining leader, Oscar Zamora Medinacelli, a for- -
mer student leader, and Justiniano Ninavia as first,
second, and third secretary respectively.* The new party
initially announced that it was not pro-Chinese but in-
dependent, and that its formation had become necessary
because the PCB/M had fallen into an “opportunist and
vightist" Line whichéhad "condemned" the Chinese party. -

“TR =

Pravda on 9 April published a detailed but mild
account of the split, which favored the Monje side. The
U.S. Embassy in Moscow commented that such a detailed dis—
cussion in Pravda of differences within a fraternal party
was a relatively rare action for the Soviets, and reflected
unusual concern over the fortunes of their supporters in
the remote Bolivian plateaus, = a : ;

*Escobar died in November, 1966.

-138-

.

ry

The PCB/M held its Seventh National Conference early
in April, expelling all who had gone over to the PCB/C,
reaffirming the policy of a "peaceful road to power," and
taking steps. to retrench organizationally. But the report
of the PCB/M leadership to the Conference acknowledged the
seriousness of the split the Bolivian Communist movement
had suffered. * a . .

A political crisis in May severely disrupted all
the country's political parties producing widespread dis-
agreement: over how to respond to the new military junta.
The Communist party split took’ place amid the general
national political turmoil and to,some extent was produced
or triggered by it,

The PCB/C did not cooperate with the PCB/M when
the latter assumed control of a national miner's strike
in May.. Trade Union leader Simon Reyes Rivéra, a member
of the PCB/M National Secretariat, took over direct super~
vision of strike forces. After government forces broke
the armed strikers, Reyes and Escobar, head of the PCB/C,
were among many extremist Bolivian labor leaders exiled.

In June it was reported that the PCB/C had established
& party structure, but that its organization was incomplete - :
and lacking capable leadership. This statement also held
true for the PCB/M for the rest of the year, because the
]

*"A factionalist movement, joined by nine of the 44
members of the national leadership, led to the split. This
movement...has set up parallel organizations in 6 (Santa
Cruz, Oruro, Tarija, La Paz, Cochabama, and Senore) of the
14 regions where there are regional committees of the Party.
The factionalist organizations in La Paz, Santa Cruz and
Cochabamba departments are but tiny groups....In the three -
other regions, however, this is not the case. Some time
will be needed to get’ the considerable groups there...to
change their mind and return to the Party." --World Marxist
Review, July 1965, page 49; article by Jorge Kolle Cueto,

ed "Communist Party Conference."

-139-

- year.-

leadership of both parties, down to and including second- .
. echelon levels, was in exile, and only a few among them
had returned clandestinely to Bolivia by the end of the

The PCB/M however wasted no time in sending Jorge
Kolle Cueto abroad. In Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, -
he obtained joint communiques affirming the solidarity .
of the other parties with PCB/M and upholding the validity -
of the anti~factionalist agreements made at the Havana
CP Conference,

- Kolle visited Mosow in July-August on CPSU invi-
tation. He was received by Ponomareyv, and Pravda gave
full CPSU support to Monje's party in a 3 September. arti-
cle. commenting on the visit and condemned the factionalism
of the RCB/C. Kolle at least attempted to prevent the ;
PCB/C from entrenctiing itself in the IUS and Problems of
Peace and Socialism staffs in Prague, and managed to ;
circumvent recognition of a PCB/C delegate by the Rumanian
party congress. :

The PCB/M came out victorious in a clandestine
national miners conference of the FSTMB in Oruro in late
December, when the’ two PCB's agreed to collaborate at the
mining level. .The pro-Soviet PCB/M also excluded the PCB/C
from a Bolivian "national liberation front" being formed
of left-wing groups to attend the Tri-Continental Confer— |
ence. Nevertheles®S a composite delegation sponsored by the
PCB/C went to Havagaj but was rejected by the conference's
credentials committee after an altercation with the PCB/M
delegation, Following the conference the PCB/C delegation
reportedly went to China. .

The PCB/C sustained further defeats in 1966. In
May PCB/M national leaders were able to regain strong
influence in the Second National Congress of Communist
youth (JCB). In the July national elections the PCB/C
called for voter abstention. The PCB/M, which had joined
a left-wing party coalition (FLIN) to contest the elections, ..
emerged with some 30,000 votes for the PCB-FLIN coalition. -
Response to the PCB/C abstention campaign was insignificant,

-140-

There was some indication in January 1967, that
Peking wanted temporarily to discontinue regular training
visits of the PCB/C members. NCNA.on the other hand con-
tinued regular use of PCB/C materials in support of the
Chinese cultural revolution and in opposition to the
"revisionist" FLIN-PCB/M front. The death of Escobar, and
official harrassment of Medinacelli and Ninavia, had left
the PCB/C leaderless by March 1967.

Chile ; :

. In early 1963 a few pro-Chinese Communists expelled
from the Chilean Communist party (PCCh) had formed a group
around Luis Cares called the Marxist Revolutionary Vanguard
(VRM). The pro-Chinese CPB in Brazil mentioned the VRM°

in October, noting a VRM letter to the Chinese party back
ing Peking in the world dispute. . &

But the real Chinese thrust was directed at the
PCCh, and it began seriously to trouble the orthodox party
soon after NCNA opened a Chinese-manned Santiago office
in mid-March. Not only did the Chinese, Li Yen-nien, staff
his office with sympathetic PCCh members; he used them and
dissident Socialist party members to set up a printing
and publishing establishment, Espartaco Editoras Ltda.,-
next door to the NCNA office, and began to distribute
Spanish-language editions of Chinese pamphlets criticizing
the policies of the CPSU and the Italian and French Com-
munist parties, te , : ;

The PCCh, alarmed, officially complained to the
CCP, and published a declaration in El Siglo, the party
newspaper, noting circulation in Chile of documents "pre-
tending to be Marxist-Leninist” which attacked several. ; i
"brother" parties as well as the line of the international
Communist movement. The declaration asserted that the
PCCh line was incompatible with that of the documents-~a
reference to the via pacifica (peaceful way) policy. which
had been defined in March [962 at the party's Twelfth
National Congress, PCCh leaders began to press the members !
connected with NCNA to dissociate themselves from the Chinese —

-141-

tiiohe

vity 90 Ovie eadership to the. events
of the Sino-Soviet polemic and the degree of their depend-
ence upon the CPSU for guidance and instruction.

News of the coming visit of a CCP delegation to
Moscow led PCCh secretary-general Corvalan to extend the -
period during which offending PCCh members could sever -
connections with the NCNA mission. A party plenum in
June again put off definite action against the offenders
pending the outcome of the Sino-Soviet talks in July. On
25 July Corvalan left for Moscow to get instructions and
report the disruption of the PCCh's election campaign
because of discussions and uncertainties about the inter~

national dispute among party rank-and-file, | Only thereafter,

in October, did the party begin actual suSpension and sub-
sequent expulsion of recalcitrant members, and even then
it did so cautiously. The catalyst was open participa-—
tion of about 20.members in the October celebrations

of the Chinese People's Republic anniversary. Those sus-
pended included Jorge Palacios Calmann, David Banquis
Jacard, and Oscar Vasquez, all actively involved in the

_ NCNA. office and the Espartaco publishing house. Their

dissident circle became Known as the Espartaco group.

In April the PCCh political commission had appointed
@ special committee to investigate in depth the impact the
Chinese campaign was having upon party members, members
of other parties allied with:the PCCh in the Frente de
Accion Popular (FRAP), and on the general Chilean. public.
eports to this committee from all over the country showed
that a high proportion (30 to 40 percent) of PCCh merbers

actively sympathized with the Chinese line on armed struggle

and only tolerated Corvalan's "peaceful way" Line because
of party discipline. The real constraint on PCCh action
against the pro-Peking element was Corvalan's fear of
jeopardizing the prospects of the FRAP presidential candi-~
date, Socialist party senator Salvador Allende--the un-
disputed choice of the Chilean extreme left--for victory
in i national elections set for a year hence (September
1964). : :

-142-

_ ald ie

Late in October Palacios, in contact with VRM lLead-
ers, was considering forming anew Chilean Communist party
like the Braziltan CPB. But he desisted because the pros-
pects of an Allende election victory-—then optimistically
expected--cut both ways, so that any call for a more revo-.
lutionary path appealed only to a small fringe of the

extreme left. Palacios hoped to form a broad pro-Chinese .

front after the elections. It is likely also that he was
constrained by the Chinese themselves from any early action
to form a new party... ; :

In January 1964, the Espartaco group issued a pub-
lication titled Principios, Marxista-Leninistas (a deliber-
ate imitation of the official PCCh theoretical journal, .
Principios) a pro-Chinese magazine highly critical of the -
via pacifica policy as "revisionist" and "conciliatory."
The new publication was launched at.a meeting of 60 "Marx-
ist-Leninist militants of the Chilean Communist party." .
In April Peking widely reported the January Espartaco meet-~
ing and a resolution hailing the CCP as the "true heir
of the revolutionary organization, which should never be
abandoned." Peking's comment on the January’ conference -
made clear that it wanted the Chilean "Marxist~Leninists"
to first make a determined effort to throw out the "re-
visionist" PCCh leadership and replace it with pro-Peking
revolutionaries before it decided to set up a parallel,
rival Communist’ party.

* The Chilean Socialist party (PSC), FRAP's other
principal member, also felt the impact of the polemic,

A pro-Chinese dissident PSC sector grouped around Deputy
Clodomiro Almeyda emerged within. the party. The PSC dis-
sidents included a:strong pro-Castro element as well.

The Almeyda faction opposed PSC leader Raul Ampuero.

. The Espartaco group campaigned: hard within and
against the PCCh through the year. By autumn it had "re-
gional committees" in nine or ten of the country's most
populous central provinces (Chile has 24 provinces in all)
from Valparaiso southward to Concepcion, and counted an |
estimated 2000 supporters. :

~143-

Allende's defeat in September. produced much Commun. -

ist rank-and-file dissatisfaction and led. to the resigna-~
tion of several prominent PCCh members; one of these,
Senator Jaime Barros, went over to Espartaco, becoming an
important asset to its efforts to penetrate the PCCh and
gain wider support within the Chilean Communist movement.
A measure of Corvalan's concern over the safety of his

party was his toleration of the many pro-Chinese sympathizers

‘still in the party. The ban on discussion of the world
dispute in party cells--instituted in 1963-~continued to
be enforced in spite of demands for such debate in many
party cells, Complaints of pro-Chinese competition were
made at an April 1965 PCCh plenum by PCCh delegates from
Iquique, Bio-Bio, Cautin, and other areas of the country.
The head of the party's National Control Commission warned
the plenum that pro-Chinese members were being allowed to
continue in the party, and openly demanded their expulsion.

The Chinese~manned "commercial information office,"
with the approval of the new Frei government, was upgraded
to a permanent trade office early.in 1965. A new three-
man Chinese commercial mission, accompanied by two wives
and a cook, entered Chile on diplomatic rather than spe-
cial passports, with no time limit on their entry visas.
NCNA personnel who formerly handled commercial matters were
freed to work on propaganda.and related operations. The
Chinese presence. in Chile was expanded even further by
an agreement with the Frei government to allow a small
number. of Chinese students to enter and study at Chilean
universities. * : . :

A Chilean project to open a commerical office in
Peking was seriously considered by the Frei: government,
but was finally postponed and has not yet been implemented.
During President Frei"s triumphal post-election trip to’
Europe in July, there were reliable reports from Paris

*The new Soviet ambassador in Santiago reportedly pro~
tested firmly against this student entry arrangement, with-
out any apparent success,: ,

~144-

lle Be

of direct Chinese diplomatic appedls to Frei for estab- :
lishment of diplomatic relations between Chile and China;
but Chile has continued to avoid recognizing the Peking
government and maintains. diplomatic relations with the

’ GRC, ;

Peking maintained some contact with the VRM as well
as the Espartaco group. VRM head Cares, and another move-
‘ment official, Visited China in the spring of 1965. Members

of both organizations were sent to China .for training.
Toward the end of ‘the year the Chinese National Women's
Federation, through Cares' VRM, extended an invitation to
ten Chilean women to visit China in early 1966 for a two -
month stay. Cares' selections included a number of Socia t+
ists and members of a pro-Chinese off-shoot of the PSC
called the Popular Socialist Party (PSP).* Cares, perhaps
buoyed by these Chinese attentions, expressed hopes at

the Second VRM National Congress which met late in the
year’, that the VRM would become the "focus" of the Latin
American pro-Chinese Communist movement. But the Espartaco
organization continued as the favored pro—Chinese organiza—
tion in ‘Chile,

In March 1966, the Espartaco group merged with the -
URB at a "First Marxist-Leninist Congress" held clandes-
tinely in Santiago to become the Revolutionary Communist
party (PCR). The first regional meeting of pro-Chinese

Communist parties, discussed above, had convened immediately

before. Public announcement of the international gather-
ing, and of the formation of the PCR was withheld until -
May, and Chinese media waited until August before giving
it wide publicity. Peking in July had used materials from
a VRM publication, and the same month Cares expressed
interest in merging the VRM with the PCR; but nothing came
of this. The new party, like other pro~Chinese groups in
Chile, appears. to have little real numerical strength and
consists mainly of a leadership RISTacchy: :

*Another oxtreme Left-wing pro-Chinese micro-group
worth mentioning was the Communist Rebel Union (URB),
composed largely of students.

~145-

re er 1

The general Chilean reaction of revulsion and dis-

may to the cultural revolution could be seen in the sparse
attendance at the October 1966 celebrations of Chinese Com-

munist accession to power. In former years this anniver-
sary had been heavily intertwined with Chilean leftist
politics and the Sino-Soviet dispute, and well attended.
Only a few diplomats, and some extremists--mostly from
the Socialist party~-attended the 1966 events.

Argentina

The Communist party of Argentina (PCA), one of
the staunchest in the hemisphere in its.support of the
CPSU in the international dispute, was not spared from
troublesome pro-Chinese dissidence. But the China
Sympathizers have not been able even to effectively
challenge the iron control over the PCA exercised by old-
line pro-Soviet PCA President~founder Victorio Codovilla:
and his associates. Unlike Corvalan, Codovilla did not
‘tolerate dissidents within the party, and 1963 and 1964
witnessed major purges of them from PCA ranks.*

PCA loyalty to the CPSU became apparent at the,
party's Twelfth National Congress, held in Buenos Aires
from 22 February to 3 March 1963, when the PCA sent of-
ficial greetings to the CPSU but refrained from extending
this courtesy to the CCP; and a’ long-time party leader,
Rodolfo Araoz Alfaro, was dropped from the newly-elected
central committee because of his ideological stand. In
September the PCA reportedly had to reorganize its Entre
Rios Provincial Committee because the majority of its ;
members favored the Chinese side--the only party provin-
cial organization known to have been so badly split--and

¥As early as October 1961 Codovilla took the CPSU side

in the ideological dispute; in January 1963 the PCA pub-

licly condemned the Albanian and Chinese parties and gave .

its "unconditional support" to the CPSU.

-146- if

1 fake ll.

in October expulsions of a number of Chinese sympa chieors
occurred.

Peking's supporters in Argentina--then largely un-
distinguishable from the Castroites--have not been able.
to achieve any unity, and offer the spectacle of repeti-~
‘tive minor splits, purges, and jurisdictional disputes
among themselves. Their efforts to establish unified
organizational bases had its beginnings in mid~1963 about
the time the Chinese party issued its June letter. The —
strongest organized dissidents were then a group calling
themselves the Movement of Revolutionary Action (MAR).
‘Some sixty expelled PCA members formed a second movement -
known as the "Luis E. Recabarren Study Center", and were
reported considering founding of a second, pron thi dese :
Communist © party. :

By early 1964 the MAR was in touch with a Uruguayan
counterpart, the pro-Chinese MIR, to perfect arrangements
for regular future delivery of Chinese Communist publica-
tions and propaganda materials from Uruguay to Argentina,
- @ perennial problem because of effective preentanen offi-
cial mail surveillance,

A June decree-law declaring the. PCA illegal and
prohibiting all Communist activity, and two supplementary
decree-laws which became effective in July 1963, dampened
down the evolution of the conflict within the. Argentine
Communist movement until after November 1964, when Commun~
ists regained a measure of Pega ety and emerged con
hiding.* —

In October 1964 two other groups which fad emerged
from a four-way break-up of the Vanguard Socialist. party,
publicly sided with the Chinese Communist party--the only

*In mid-June, for example, the NCNA stringer and his
two assistants in Buenos Aires were arrested and their -
office closed. .The Ongania coup of June 1966 led to a
renewal of official repression of all Communist activities.

-147-

.

_ TOP-SECRET
[eg

Argentine groups aside from the PCA to take such a public
stand on the Sino-Soviet polemic. The two pro-Peking fac-:.
tions were known as the Vanguard Socialist party section
headed by Elias Seman,* which published the magazine No :
Transar (No Retreat); and the Labor Party of Andres Aldao_
and Gustavo Andrade, publishing Democracia Popular. Both ..
independently defended the Chinesé "battle against revi-
sionism" and attacked the PCA leadership as "spokesmen ‘
of revisionism." A third group, the David Tieffenberg wing
of the Vanguard Socialist party, also favored the Chinese:
line, but it did not join in thé others’ public stand. :
Other groups worth. mentioning here are one led by Juan
Carlos Portantiero, a former PCA member expelled in October.
1963; another directed by Ismael Vinas, known as the "Na~ ©
tional Liberation Movement" (MLN);.and a "Committee of

‘Friendship with China" whose: principal figure was Bernardo:

Kordon, “expelled from the PCA in April 1964, The Marxist.
Leftist Revolutionary Movement of Argentina (MIRA), formed
in 1962 for guerrilla activities, remained basically a
pro-Castro body until after the November 1964 Havana CP
Conference, when it began to be described as pro-Chinese.

_ After their Cuban backing had dried up,** leaders
of the Peronist Revolutionary Movement (MRP) and some
associated Peronist radical groups, turned to China for
support, From December 1964 through February 1965 Hector -
Villalon, head of the MRP, and Joe Baxter, a leader of
Tacuara, an Argentine anti-Semitic terrorist organization,
traveled to Peking, Hanoi, and other overseas capitals,
In Peking Villalon dutifully mouthed a pro-Chinese line.
In April, after returning to’ Montevideo, Uruguay, Baxter :
and Villalon again traveled to Hanoi for North Vietnamese
guerrilla warfare training. Reporting of Villalon's a

’

*Seman, an attorney and formerly secretary-general of

the Vanguard Socialist party's youth organization, attended

Oe warfare course in Cuba‘sometime before October :
1963. . '
**See pages 86 and 87. . “si _
-148-

sau cube

Chinese activities during this period indicates Peking

extended the MRP some financial and other support; at

least on a provisional basis, In July Villalon led a

MRP delegation to the World Conference Against the Atomic

and Hydrogen Bomb in Tokyo. Villalon there denounced

the policy of peaceful coexistence adopted by a "majority"

of Latin American Communist parties and said that Cuba,

“under the influence of the USSR", favored peaceful co-
existence and sought a rapprochement with the U.S... Vil-

' lalon was invited to visit Peking and did so in August, *

. There were indications throughout 1965 of continued
PCA concern over pro-Chinése and Castroist pressures inside
the party, In April the PCA central committee discussed
expulsion of the Montevideo Prensa Latina representative,
an Argentine, and other PCA members associated with La
Rosa Blindada (The Armored Rose), a Buenos Aires intel~
Lléctual magaZine which was a rallying point for pro-Chinese
Communists and whose editors refused to accept PCA dis~
cipline. Juan Gelman, former NCNA stringer in Buenos
Aires, was its poetry editor. The staff of La Rose Blindada
were in close contact with the Casa de las Americas in
Havana, ’

In June the PCA was worried about the pro-Chinese
activities, in Mendoza Province, of Antulio Lencinas, who
until his expulsion in May 1964 had been a member of the
PCA's Provincial Committee. .In the same month reports re~
flected PCA concern over pro-Peking attitudes of. party
leaders in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, and in San Nicolas,
Buenos Aires Province,

About mid-August leaders of MIRA, the Workers Party,
and the Communist Vanguard party (PCV)-~a Marxist-Leninist

i ome member ent

to China for guerril' 5 inter-
est in the MRP included its use to get Chinese propaganda
into Argentina by clandestine means. Coe

~149-

.

party formed by the Tieffenberg and Seman groups in April--

met to seek to create a common front which could be used

to "reconstitute" the PCA.* The talks were unproductive Lt
because the PCV insisted that no Marxist-Leninist movement - ‘
in Argentina could ignore the "international movement" too
headed by ‘the Chinese party, whereas the other two conferees

were just.as adamant that an Argentine movement could be
developed on a strictly national basis independent of any
international involvement, This. exchange reportedly
strengthened PCV resolve to demonstrate that other pro- —

Chinese groups in Argentina were not genuine Marxist-Leninist
parties, : :

The PCV began to emerge as the Argentine organiza-
tion having Peking's confidence after Seman was in Peking
in September and October 1965. Seman, PCV political
secretary, had become the driving force behind the magazine
No Transar, which he edited and regularly furnished with
doctrinal articles, and had developed as the real PCV
leader, Tieffenberg having become its titular head. In
February 1966 NCNA broadcast a lengthy review of a No
Transar article describing the magazine as the "organ of
the Communist vanguard group in Argentina.” In March an~
officer of a pro-Chinese Latin American Communist party

‘quoted Chinese officials of the foreign department of the’
CCP central committee as saying that the Chinese were pre- -
paring to support the PVC, which they described as "the
organization having the best doctrinal base and potential
for organizational growth in Argentina", because of the

*There is a large, constantly changing assortment of
left extremist parties and groups in Argentina, whose ~
memberships may range from four or five to perhaps several
hundreds, favoring "Chinese Communist" tactics over Soviet

tactics. But the PCA and the Soviet line still dominate \

Communist activity in Argentina, and it is impossible ac~ ;
curately to estimate the aggregate numerical strength of. °
the dissidents. : ,

-150-

NCNA in Peking broadcast material from No Transar on 5

April, when Seman was named as its author; on 8 April,

10 July, and 24 September; and published an ‘article by

Seman titled "China in. the Forefront of the Struggle Against
Imperialism and Revisionism" in the Peking Review on 15 .
April 1966. But, as noted elsewhere, a PCV delegate was
refused permission to participate in the March 1966 regional
pro-Chinese party gathering in Santiago, Chile.

The Chinese, trying since 1960 to establish a ful 1-
fledged NCNA office in Buenos Aires, were being represented

in early 1966 by Bernardo Kordon, secretary general of

the "Argentine-Chinese Cultural Association," and by other,

members of that Association, who were active in efforts

through sympathetic Argentine newspaper editors to extract
official recognition of NCNA from. the Argentine Govern-

ment's Press Secretariat. Kordon was
in June 1965 to have been in touch wi
representative in Chile, Li Yen-nien.

e

rnese

*The CCP officials also expressed "disappointment” in

the "Leftist Peronist Movement"--essentially the MRP of
Villalon--as lacking a proper doctrinal base and there-

fore as incapable of moving beyond the Level of trade

union influence to that of political. influence.

The Chi-

nese said they had no intention of inviting John William
Cooke to China, apparently because of his obvious primary -

loyalties to Castro. This and

the Chinese will Limit but not completely stop bringing
selected leftist Peronists to China, and will work with

iT
demonstrated abilities of Seman as a political organizer.*. :

But they apparently have chosen and intend to back the PCV
as a political organization that can ultimately challenge

them to preserve influence in the Argentine labor movement. — |
)

PCA control over the Argentine Communist movement.

~151-

Uruguay

In May 1963 a three-man delegation of the Communist
Party of Uruguay (PCU), headed by party secretary-general
Rodney ‘rismendi, went to Moscow to discuss the dispute
with top CPSU officials. . After his return Arismendi told
the party executive commission that the. CPSU was convinced
its projected talks with the Chinese would fail. There-
fore, said Arismendi, the PCU must prepare to purge its
ranks of Chinese supporters "to prevent a coup". ;

Arismendi's report reflected the active concern of
the PCU's pro-Soviet hierarchy over discontent within
the party because of the Sino-Soviet struggle.. Early in
1962 the PCU ordered its principal Montevideo bookstores —
to destroy all materials being received from China and —
to cease importing Chinese publications. The PCU itself..
had erroneously distributed the Chinese pamphlet Viva
21 Leninismo before its anti-Soviet content--which "caused
much comment in the party'--had been noticed. Pressures
on the PCU hierarchy for explanations were great, reflect-
ing in part "fall-out" from the missile crisis of the
previous October, for in February 1963 Arismendi was’
talking about "sending the necessary documents" from the
PCU central committee to party cells, PCU concern over
the possibility of a “coup" in FIDEL, the leftist electoral
front it openly controlled, led to a May decision that
PCU manipulation of FIDEL was to be strengthened by
creation of a secret party fraction within the front, which
could stiffen party control but hide it from public view.
PCU members selected to work in this FIDEL fraction were
told they must thoroughly master "the ideological dif-
ferences between the Chinese and Soviet parties".

Throughout the spring of 1963, national party lead-
ers held indoctrination sessions with departmental and
sectional committee members to enforce the Soviet line.
‘Nevertheless, the existence inside the party of a definite
pro-Chinese faction was reported in May. This faction was
largely composed of members of the party's youth organiza-
tion, whose leaders, Julio: Arizaga and Mario Echenique, had
been suspended from the party because of their pro~Chinese

~152-,

stance. By July, expelled PCU dissidents and some Con-
munists still in the party--numbering about 200 persons-~ .
had organized a ‘Movement of Revolutionary Action" (MAR) -
in Montevideo, Tacuarembo, Colonia del Sacramento, and

“\ Carmelo on the southern coast, where the MAR was composed
of almost the entire former PCU city organization. MAR
members made early contact with the Brazilian CPB and

- pro-Chinese groups in Argentina, This liaision was pri--..
marily concerned with ensuring. the continued flow of Chi- =:
nese publications among the three countries by legal and
illegal means, The PCU intensified its efforts to restrict
discussion of the polemic and to emphasize the CPSU line ..
within party circles.

There is good reporting on Chinese sponsorship of
the MAR. In July Li Yen-nien and Tan Tai-sheng, two NCNA
representatives in Santiago, Chile, began visits to’ Monte.
video which continued into September. They met clandes-
tinely with MAR representatives, who decided to change
the name of their organization “to the Left Revolutionary
Movement (MIR). In September Li advised the MIR about a
series of "revelations" of Soviet "violations" of agree—
ments to be published in Red Flag, requesting the MIR to
replay this material. He said the Chinese party leader-
ship.was “informed of the situation of the MIR, salutes
it, wishes it great success and offers it support" in the
form of free political literature and travel to China.

Because of its location and official Uruguayan
tolerance of Communist activities, Montevideo has long
been used by Moscow, Havana, and Peking as a principal
distribution point for their respective propaganda pro-~
duction to other South American countries. Although their
own propaganda activities in Uruguay were small compared
with those of the CPSU, the: Chinese party's initial interest
in the MIR was clearly its value.as a means to protect
Peking's growing distribution activities in South America.
The MIR arranged for replaying Chinese material attacking‘:

tapos er She

~153~

the PCU, in Epoca, a major Marxist Montevideo daily, in
the autumn of the year.* : . on

Other pro-Chinese groups formed after 1963 from
Uruguayan Communist, Socialist party and pro-Castro ele-
ments. In early 1964'a composite "guerrilla command" of
MIR, Socialist, MAC,** and other extremists: had grown: up
around Raul :Sendic, a radical Socialist labor leader who
the year before had carried out an audacious bank robbery.
But by mid-year the MIR leadership was opposed to Sendic's
erratic revolutionary tactics,*** and was.devoting its
energies to preparing and publishing a pro~-Chinese Marxist
magazine, By the end of the year the MIR had begun to
issue this magazine, Liberacion, as its official journal.
Another journal supporting the Chinese line, Barricada,
sponsored by an independent group of Uruguayan intellectuals,
had also made an appearance. ; ‘

The year 1965 was characterized by MIR efforts to
unite the country's various pro-Chinese groups and sectors
within one new Marxist-Leninist party. The MIR had some
success in coordinating its program with those of the MAC

*The Chinese terminated advertisements in Epoca, in
September 1966, because of an editorial severely critical
of the "Red Guard" phenomenon. Epoca, génerally sympathetic
in its treatment of China, had.served as virtually the only
advertising medium for Chinese books, magazines, ard pam-
phlets, in Uruguay since 1963. : ; ; ;

**The Movement of Agrarian Action (MAC) was formed in
1963 by ‘persons who, because of their pro-Chinesé posi- -
tion, broke away from the Uruguayan Revolutionary Move- |
ment (HRO), a pro-Castro partner of the PCU in FIDEL.

***Sendic was responsible for fire bombs thrown against .
houses of members of the Uruguayan National Council of

Government. in: September. 1964 after Uruguay broke rela~
tions with Cuba. 7, Ge :

~154-

.

and. Socialist pro-Chinese sectors, but the desired unity
was not achieved in spite of the fact that an apparent
agreement to form one party had been reached at a series
of meetings held in March.

A more direct Chinese effort to evolve the MIR from
a revolutionary movement to a Marxist-Leninist. party appears
to have begun -in mid-1966 when several MIR leaders went |
to Peking. A.four-man MIR leadership group went to China.
in September for a four-month training program, and in
September and October Peking replayed MIR statements sup-
porting China’ Ss cultural revolution.

In January 1967 Eduardo Mariani, a MIR executive
committee member who was one. of the trainees, described
the experience as “extremely useful". Mariani said the
Chinese expressed satisfaction with the MIR as an organ- .
ization and with MIR officers as potential leaders of the
Uruguayan revolution. The Chinese said they foresaw no
Significant problems in converting the MIR from a "Marx~

. ist-Leninist Movement" into a "Marxist-Leninist Party".
They contrasted thé MIR favorably with various Argentine
left-wing Peronist organizations which they described as
"not politically mature'’ and "having no real understand-~
ing of the science of Marxism-Leninism". The Chinese
promised to receive a second MIR training group of five
persons in February or March 1967. But it was made-clear
that Chinese financial support would be limited during
the "probationary" period-when the MIR would be attempt~.
ing to make of itself a Marxist-Leninist party "able to
deal seriously with revisionism in Uruguay", and would
thereafter be proportionate to MIR success.

Paraguay

In February 1963 the pro-Soviet piceeuavel Communist
party (PCP), headed by Secretary General Oscar Creydt,
then headquartered in Montevideo, Uruguay, expelled some
_ thirty-three PCP members allegedly for their support of
the Chinese line. Among those expelled was Alfredo Alcora,
described as the leader of the pro-Chinese faction, and
three members: of the PCP's hierarchy. In. July, PCP members

-155~

in Montevideo were getting pro-Soviet indoctrination, and.
in early September about twenty-four more PCP members in-
side Paraguay were declared expelled for "fractionalism,".
About the same time Timoteo Ojeda and Antonio Camarra, two
PCP labor leaders, were reported trying to organize a
“Leninist" Communist party which would look for its lead-.
ership to Peking rather than to Moscow. Ojeda and Camarra,
were active among Paraguayan exiles in Argentina. . “ge

By December the Paraguayan Leninist Communist party

(PCLP) had been formed by the former PCP members. Its |. *:
leaders included Ojeda, Alfonso Guerra, Sebastian Querey,,-
and Jose Asuncion Flores, one of Paraguay's best-known. .
musical composers, ' Guerra, Ojeda, and a third dissident, -
Communist met visiting Chinese Communist representatives
then in Montevideo; the Chinese--probably NCNA officers
from Chile--promised to help the PCLP conduct an organiz-
ing campaign, and: they invited Flores to visit China to
consult on the matter,: Soon thereafter the PCLP drew up
'& document which rejected Creydt's authority over the

PCP. In February 1964, the PCLP held a "Third Congress

of the Paraguayan Communist Party" at Chanelones, Uruguay,
. where a PCLP “central committee" "nullified" Creydt's
direction of the PCP and resolved that the. PCLP would con-
. duct activities inside Paraguay in competition with the

_ PCP. About March Flores and several other PCLP members
went to China to seek financial aid, but there is no firm
evidence such aid was ever furnished them by Peking,

| | the
failure o e Chinese to follow up eir in al offers.

i
|
'
of support was because they realized the PCLP split was |
essentially a reaction against the Creydt leadership of .
the PCP and had no real basis in any ideological sympathies . }
in the PCLP for the Chinese position or party. At a PCLP.
meeting in Asuncion in October 1966 Alfonso Guerra, a. : ss
PCLP central committee member, noted that the founding :
document of the party had placed the PCLP in agreement with
the CPSU. ; a
|
1
|

These facts had begun to come to light earlier in

the year in connection with a CPSU—backed campaign to drop
Creydt and replace him with Obdulio Barthe as PCP Secretary :

~156-

“y

General.* The Barthe forces had begun careful preparations
for the long-deferred "Third Party Congress" which would
properly oust Creydt, but were being slowed down by an
equally careful counter~campaign directed by Creydt. The
PCLP, seeing & chance to get rid of Creydt, made several
overtures to the Barthe group in 1965 and 1966, and has
shown itself willing to attend and participate in such a
Congress. Flores went to the Tri-Continental Conference

as an invited guest of the Cuban government, and the PCP
delegation including both Creydt and at least one member

of the Barthe group. But the PCP delegation to the Twenty~
Third .CPSU Congress included Flores and Barthe supporters,
with no Creydt-supporters present.

Since 1959 the PCP--kept off-balance by the tough
Stroessner dictatorship and reduced essentially to exiled
groups in surrounding countries--has endorsed the line
that the only possible path to revolution in Paraguay is
through armed action. It has, however, insisted on care-.
ful preparation of the rural peasantry beforehand and co-
ordinated use of legal and guerrilla tactics in its ef-
forts. References to the Paraguayan Communist movement
in official Chinese publications have been almost non-
existent since the initial 1963-1964 contact with the PCLP.
The PCP represents no real force inside Paraguay nor has
any real political prospects there, and Paraguayan Comnun-
ists are already working along lines of action with which
Peking can sympathize, Paraguay apparently ranks very’
low in the Chinese order of priority and is probably viewed
by Peking as a special case, ;

- ¥A Likely catalyst was the fact that Creydt had gone

to Moscow in April 1965 to arrange a trip to North Viet- ; |
nam. He obtained Moscow's approval for the trip on the ‘ . :
grounds that he wanted to study North Vietnamese guerrilla
methods in order to apply them in his own country. But,

after visiting Hanoi, he went on to Peking where he talked

to Chinese party leaders. -This probably did the trick.

-157-

Brazil ~ I

Late in 1961 a Sino-Soviet ideological rift in the
Brazilian Communist party (PCB) led to the expulsion for
fractional activities of Joao Amazonas, Pedro Pomar;
Mauricio Grabois, .and Calil Chadde and others. In Janu-
ary 1962 this group, naming itself the Communist Party of
Brazil .(CPB), published a manifesto calling for a people's
government and revolutionary struggle using armed as well
as legal means. In February, triggered in part by a PCB
resolution supporting the decisions of the 22nd CPSU Con-
‘gress and Khrushchev’s attack on Albania, the left-wing
Communists held a national conference of some 50-70 dele-.
gates from nine states in south and central Brazil and the
Federal District. The conference called on Brazilians to
overthrow the existing regime by: violence, affirming that
only armed revolution could solve the country's. problems.
It supported the Castro regime, and announced the forma-.
tion of the CPB as the “legitimate"’ Communist party in
Brazil, because the Prestes leadership not only had changed
the name of the party, but had revised its statutes and —
program without .being authorized to -do-so oe a party con-
gress, *

In April Havana informed the PCB that it approved
the CPB's "revolutionary character", and two top CPB lead-
ers went to Cuba for.meetings with Cuban and Chinese repre-
sentatives, hoping to go also to China. As a result of
an invitation extended in Havana, Joao Amazonas and
Lincoln Oeste went to Peking in February-March 1963 where
they had extensive discussions with high CCP officials. -
They were told that Peking supported the CPB but could
not then break publicly with the PCB because such. official

*Thée roots of the split went back to 1957 when Prestes-
adopted a "revisionist" peaceful way policy inspired by
the 20th CPSU Congress of the previous year. In August
1957 four militant opponents of this line had been expelled
from the party central committee.

-158-

eg: te,

¢

‘Chinese recognition of the CPB would-add fuel to CPSU.

charges that the CCP was sowing disunity within the world
Communist movement. In March NCNA representatives in

.Rio de Janeiro concluded an agreement with the CPB for

the latter to handle distribution of Pekin Informa. CPB.
officials of ‘the party's Sao Paulo State Committee were
invited and visited North Korea and Albania in May 1963,
As of June 1963, CPB membership was reported at about
900, with some 3000 to.4000 sympathizers.

After the Chinese-Soviet exchange of letters in June
and July 1963, the PCB national executive committee sent
a letter to Peking referring to reception in China of
CPB officials and to Chinese press and radio replay of
articles from the official CPB newspaper Classe Operaria.
An explanation of Chinese support of the “dissident” CPp
was pequested, the letter asking if this implied ciiseee
recognition of the CPB over the PCB. An early meeting
of party representatives was requested to clarify the
matter. This came to nothing and by October China, Albania,
North Korea, and Cuba had extended tacit if-unofficial
recognition to the CPB, and CPB documents and speeches
were being regularly yepz tated in Chinese and Albanian
media, .

éistole had gone to Peking in late December 1963
and was given additional, more elaborate Chinese advice on
the conduct of the revolution in Brazil. and the proper
methods for fighting against the PCB "revisionists".

(See the first. section of this paper for material from -
these discussions on the Chinese theory of Penetre ting
and controlling pro-CPSU Communist parties).

“ The April 1964 revolution brought a draetic cates
to CPB prospects, as well as those of the PCB; and an
abrupt end to the growing official Chinese presence in
Brazil, where a strong NCNA office as well as a trade. dele-
gation were flourishing.*

*Nine Chinese NCNA and trade mission personnel were
imprisoned and convicted and sentenced for espionage and -
subversion in December. Peking responded with a world-
wide campaign of denunciation of the convictions, and in
January sent wives of four of the convicts to Brazil. The
whole group was deported from Brazil in April 1965.

-159-

In September 1964 the CPB was involved in an abor-
tive guerrilla operation in Sao Paulo state, and it con-.
tinued to issue periodic resolutions clandestinely. In
August it had issued a scathing denunciation of the PCB's:
failure to,act at the time of the April revolution, which
was reprinted in La Voix du Peuple, the French-language
weekly newspaper of the pro-Chinese Communist party of .
Belgium and replayed by NCNA in May 1965 in Peking Review. . .,
Its central committee met in May 1965 for the first time :
since the revolution. The plenum reaffirmed the line. of
armed revolution, a broad united front based on worker-
peasant. alliance, and special emphasis on rural struggle.
A resolution encouraging recruitment of pro-Chinese PCB
members was also issued. During the next several months,
reports of increased CBP infiltration in the PCB multi-
plied, but there is no evidence of any expansion of CPB
membership or activities. The Second Institutional Act
of ‘October 1965, intensified official harrassment of
Brazilian Communists and further dampened all Communist
operations. But a training group of about 14 CPB members
who had gone to China in May had returned to Brazil by -
February 1966. .

In mid-1965 Leonel Brizola sought Chinese support
through the Chinese Embassy in Paris, through ah aide, .
Paul Schilling, who may in fact have visited Peking. ‘
Several months later, reliable clandestine sources were : ,
saying the Chinese had given Brizola "some" financial
backing to begin guerrilla operations in Brazil's southern
tier of states, and had promised more after successful ._
guerrilla action, Reported contacts of Brizola and the
CBP in 1966 were sparse, and there were firmer indications
that Chinese interest had dried up and Brizola was getting
Cuban help, *

t

*Drying up of Chinese support of Brizola, and debate
over immediate revolution versus. a longer-term build-up
within the CPB were coincident in time with the public . ue
Sino-Cuban dispute that began in January and extended
through March 1966, and which led to divisions: between
Chinese and Castroist supporters who formerly had cooperated ”
in radical movements in a number of Latin American countries. ,

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areas

By mid-1966 violent debate had sprung up between —.
CPB leaders advocating immediate commencement of programmed
terrorism and those contending that the party's basic
task was "the organization of the massés".* The former. ...

were led by Joao Amazonas and Lincoln Cordeiro QOest. This —

hard-line faction prevailed at the CPB's Sixth National -.
Conference, held in Sao Paulo from 26 June to 1 July 1966.
The Congress’ political ‘report attacked Soviet revisionism
more than imperialism, Its political resolution emphasized
organization of the peasants, and formation of a clandes- .
tine united front of workers, peasants, and discontented: -
members of the middle class and the military; and each
state committee of the party was put in charge of its own

military organization and each was committed to begin some

action.

* This three-sided political resolution, assigning
equal priority to all three objectives, was designed to
accommodate both the hard line and. the moderate factions,
leaving it pretty much up to each state party chief to
emphasize whichever obiestive seemed best within his SPALE:,

The August. 1966 diecee of several members of a 13-
man CPB training group returning from China, ‘brought: new —
dismay to the party. Six of the trainees. were diverted
to Albania for safe-haven until new means. could be devised
to infiltrate them into Brazil... A state of emergency with-
in the party was declared to minimize official penetration
and apprehension of other members. Party concern was great

¥*The internal CPB debate was doubtless sharpened by the
CPB's famous open letter to Castro of March, whose contents
was given wide publicity when the Albanian party published
its text the following May in Zeri i Popullit, Tirana. —
Aside from defending the Chinese party and condemning
Castro's attacks: against it, the CPB letter ridiculed
Castro's dreams of applying Cuban liberation theory to
Latin America and castigated Cuban refusal to seat the
six Latin American pro-Chinese parties or allow them to.
have observers at the Tri-Continental Conference.

~161-

tenement ot,

because the 1966 class was the largest of three training
groups sent to China since 1964. In December ‘the arrested
CPB members escaped and took refuge in. the Uruguayan
Embassy, but activities and operations of the party had
been thrown into disarray because of extensive informa-
tion the authorities had gained from them. f

Brazil - II: Pro-Chinese Continue Within the Orthodox PCB

As reported by the CPB delegate to the Santiago meet-
ing of pro-Chinese parties in March 1966, a minority of.
the national PCB leadership sympathetic to Peking's theses
continued to'favor a harder line for the PCB. Among these
were Mario Alves dad Sousa Vieira, member of the party's
national’ executive committee (CEN), The differences between
those favoring a peaceful line of. party reconstruction
and those wanting prompt violent action against the Branco
government were to some extent sectional, In August 1965,
for example, pro-Chinese dissidents brought about plans to
‘reorganize the PCB Recife Municipal Committee. The PCB
Pernambuco State Committee decided in 1965 that because of
tight Fourth.Army control over northeast Brazil only a
peaceful policy made sense, The PCB State Committee in
Rio Grande do Sul, an area traditionally rebellious to the.
central authority, called, however, for-preparation for
armed fighting in. alliance with the Brizola and any other —
‘popular’ movement in a united opposition. front as a basic
party task. For its part, the influential PCB Sao Paulo

‘State Committee (CESP), disagreed with the parliamentary
- line of the majority of the national leadership, mainly

in terms of emphasis, its differences originating essentially
from dissatisfaction with Prestes' domination of the central
committee. A CESP delegation met with Prestes in December

to propose a moderate line of support for the official op-
position party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB),
while Prestes advocated open opposition to the government,,.
repeating Soviet-line arguments of concern with a newly-
active U.S, imperialism willing to engage in small wars

in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam.

A "Political Resolution" which had been issued in.
May 1965 by the central committee meeting for the first

~162-

TOP-SEGRET
bee ee

. eine. since the April saboiutions had reaffirmed the line,
adopted at the 1960 Fifth Congress, of alliance with the
national bourgeoisie in a united political front of "na-
tional-progressive" forces, a policy of civic protest
(strikes, demonstrations, agitation) and of participation
in local and national elections. The 3l-member central
; committee passed it by a vote of 24 against five objections
“. and two abstentions. The Latter seven "pro-Chinese" ob~
jected to the resolution's half-way: stance of reliance on
the bourgeoisie rather than a front of the urban proletariat
with the rural peasants to prepare for armed struggle.
Three of. them--Manuel Jover Teles, former head of the
Guanabara State Committee, Sergio Holmos, and Antonio
Ribeiro Granja--were then removed from the CEN. Teles,
the strongest proponent of PCB cooperation with the CPB,’
. had discussions for that purpose with CPB representatives.
The May plenum resolved that conditions in Brazil were
not suitable for arming the masses, but advocated self- +
defense training. It also called for preparing a Sixth
’ Congress to be held in 1967. ‘ “

Disagreement and lengthy bitter debate over draft
position papers for the projected Sixth Congress in January
1966 revealed three definite PCB factions:. a hard-line
group led by Alves, a moderate~line sector led by Prestes,
and an even less violent Sao Paulo group advocating close . 4
cooperation with the Branco government. The left-wing ©
group under Teles, Alves, and Jacob Gorender of Rio Grande
do Sul sought to build up its support in key states with
a view to unseating the Prestes leadership at the Sixth
Congress. A moderate paper substantially in accord with .

Prestes' views was, however, finally approved in early.
June 1966 for presentation to the Congress. The paper
sharply attacked the "coup d'etat mentality of ‘the petty
bourgeois group" of the central committee (the six or
seven pro-Chinese hardliners), upheld the CPSU line in the
world dispute, and criticized China.

-163-—

3. The Caribbean _

The Dominican Republic : aA

Since 1963 the Chinese party has worked. with-two . :
Dominican extremist groups, the Dominican Popular Movement wr
(MPD) and the l4th of June Revolutionary Movement (MR-1J4), ‘
in efforts to create reliable Marxist-Leninist assets in
the Dominican Republic. . Chinese support has taken the.
usual form of substantial money subsidies from time to
time, periodic training of members of both groups, and - - :
important propaganda support of Dominican revolutionary ig i
activities, especially during the 1965 revolution. : :

Both the MPD and the MR-1J4 were, however, origin-
ally formed under Cuban inspiration, always maintained -
close ties with the Castro regime, and have been the.
recipients of substantial Cuban financial support. The
overlapping metibership and objectives of the two groups,
as well as their fierce no~holds-barred competition for
foreign subsidy, appear to have discouraged Chinese hopes,
especially after the Sino-Cuban dispute in 1966, and in ‘
the autumn of that year the CCP was reliably reported to : i
have suspended its financial support of both organizations,
in effect bowing out in the face of resurgent Cuban influ-~
ence over an MPD which was then incorporating into its

‘ranks the major part of the former MR-1J4 leadership and,

by the end-of the year, had become a newly-organized body.

Indications of underlying pro-Chinese sympathies in ;
the MPD appeared following Peking’s June 1963 letter and the
July Sino-Soviet talks. The MPD newspaper mildly defended
Peking's position in the talks against attacks by the’
orthodox, pro-Soviet: Dominican Communist party (PSPD);

and the MPD, among the country.'s extremist groups, was

singled out for its heavy receipt and use of Chinese ropa— ‘
ganda materials. (_samrreu Gaver ae ane
sna er | ewdly remarked, however, that while :

: Td: surely harbors Chinese sympathizers [it
could] be expected to avoid open avowal of the pro-Chinese
line as long as Fidel does." : ;

-164-

TORS | sc <

MPD contacts with Peking expanded during the second
half of 1964 when MPD leader Lopez Molina and other promin- .
ent party directors visited China. Lopez' contacts appear
to have been largely confined to the China Peace Committee,
and none of the MPD visitors seem to have been directly
received by the top CCP leadership.

\
iY

On the other hand, there is stronger evidence that
Mao Tse-tung himself received several MR-1LJ4 representa-
tives who visited China about the same time; and of the
two groups, apparently the MR-1J4 got the firmer nod from
the Chinese, who promised “unlimited support" and training
for its members. The MR-1J4 also got, offers of guerrilla
training from the North Koreans and North Vietnamese.
Tangible proof of this came when one of the two visitors,

‘ Fidelio Despradel Roques, was given US $20,000 by the:

Chinese Embassy in Paris on his return trip to the Dominican
Republic. The number of MR-1J4 members going to China

for training increased after August, as did the amounts

and types of Chinese doctrinal materials received, which

had by December reached marked proportions. Chinese

.official mention of Dominican revolutionary progress was

almost exclusively confined in 1964 to the MR-1J4 and
almost no mention of the MPD is to be seen, Chinese pre-

. ference for the MR-1J4, a less ‘Communist’ and more nation-—

alist body than the MPD, was probably because of the Move-
ment's impressive numerical strength compared with that

of the MPD, and because the MR-1J4 had played a leading
role in an actual, if ill~fated, guerrilla operation in~
Side the Dominican Republic in November and December 1963.

Havana also kept its ties with the MR-1J4 active
during this period. A group of MR-1J4 members were given
extensive guerrilla warfare training in Cuba in 1964 and
returned clandestinely to the Dominican Republic that autumn.

Both the MR~1J4 and the MPD early assumed leading
roles in the April 1965 revolution, and both quickly re-
ceived from the Chinese embassy in Paris substantial sums
which were brought into the Dominican Republic to aid the
rebels, The U.S. landings touched off a full-scale Chinese
propaganda blast highlighted on 12 May by one of Mao's ;
relatively rare personal anti-U.S. pronouncements. The

-165~

I if SS

Chinese leader compared the landings to actions of the
World War II dictators and pledged "firm support” of the
rebels. A'mass rally in Peking, and a People's Daily
Commentator article rounded out the causoet Chinese at-
tention to the Dominican conflict. Soviet UN action in
June supporting a permanent cease-fire in the Dominican
Republic was bitterly attacked by Peking as a betrayal
of the Dominican people. * ;

, Although the MPD had no more than 300 members in~
volved in the fighting--a relatively small contribution
compared with that of the MR-1J4 and other recognized
groups-~there is better evidence of MPD use of Chinese
doctrine within rebel councils than there is for the

'. MR-1J4, Just when the OAS was negotiating a cease-fire

with the Caamano government ‘late in June as the first
step toa permament settlement of the conflict, the MPD
was pressuring the other rebel factions to agree instead
to a prolonged’ armed struggle which, it argued, would
lead to establishment of the. second socialist regime in
the hemisphere. When the others demurred, the MPD- de-
cided to continue armed opposition alone,** Both the .MPD
and the MR-1J4 set up their ,own training. schools for guer-
rilla and ideological training, but the latter's effort
was much more extensive and-gained official recognition
as the rebel’s multi-party training facility. The MPD’s

training effort developed along open Chinese doctrinal lines.

*Peking played up a second commemorative rally of Chi-
nese people held a year later, on 26 April 1966, which
was addressed by a leading regime spokesman on. non—bloc
affairs, and formed part of a "week of solidarity with
the Dominican people" decreed by the Tri-Continental Con-
ference. =: :

**Both the PSPD and a controlling MR-1J4 faction gener-
_ ally approved negotiations on grounds that only a politi-
cal solution offered any hope for the rebel cause. But
already the MR-1J4 was beginning to split along Communist
versus nationalist lines. :

- -166—

saiasanette Mil,

The MPD, and a militant faction of the WR-1J4, built up
some guerrilla assets in the interior and collaborated in
abortive raids on interior towns toward the end of June.

MPD favor in Peking increased dramatically after
mid-1965 for several reasons. One was the Movement's.
: frank adoption of Maoist ideas and doctrine during the
we revolution. Another was a letter that_MPD President _
Maximo Lopez Molina had sent to the Cuban party's central
committee in July from his place of exile in Paris, in
which he strongly criticized Castro for not extending
greater support to the rebels during the fighting.* Lopez
sent a copy of his letter to the CCP. In August the MPD
held a ten-day "Preparatory Congress" which adopted a mili-
tant progran of opposition along Maoist lines calculated
to make the Dominican Republic "the Vietnam of the Carib-—
bean’, and sent: Mao a message of full support against
“modern revisionism", describing. itself as a Marxist-
Leninist party. Lopez himself had visited China and -North:
Vietnam since he was exiled by the Dominican government
in May 1964, The Congress named him as president of a
r ' provisional executive committee; in his absence the Move-
ment was actually run by Cayetano Rodriguez del Prado. ‘
After this Congress the MPD took the lead in mounting a :
terrorist campaign against U.S. troops; and early in 1966 ;
it was publishing a theoretical Maoist journal, Bandera
!
|
}

Roja. :

“There is good evidence that Castro's interest in pro-
moting revolution in the Dominican Republic was high even.
: before’ 1963, and after that year the Dominican Republic
- became a priority Cuban target.

NCNA, for the first time since the inception of the
Dominican crisis, mentioned the MPD in a 30-.August report’
that 46 Dominican political parties and social organiza-
tions, including the MR-1J4, had proclaimed their readiness
to form a united front to fight for withdrawal of the inter-
American force and restoration of the 1963 constitution.
Thereafter, NCNA mention of the MPD began to displace
Peking's.former emphasis on the MR-1J4. In September the

MPD accepted an offer from Peking to train a group of its
members in guerrilla warfare in China,

Havana continued its contest with Peking for control
of the MPD, also offering the Movement training slots.
At the end of the year a five-man MPD group was selected
for eight months' ‘training in Cuba. For its part, a mili-
tant faction in the MR~-1J4 continued to work hard to re~
tain Chinese attention,. issued a training manual that
embodied quotations from Mao and Lenin and recommended °
that sympathizers become Communists. A group of MR-1J4
members who left the Dominican Republic in November and
. December*1965 for political and military training in China,
began to return in May 1966; and MR-1J4 militants continued
active armed harrassment of the Inter-American troops.
Both the*MPD and MR-1J4 boasted leadership elements in
the Communist-run labor confederation, FOUPSA-CESITRADO,
and both were in contact with the All China Federation
of-Trade Unions which was supporting them with some funds
and propaganda. ; :

Byt by the beginning of 1966 the Chinese had ‘sus-
pended the regular subsidy they had been furnishing the
MR-1J4,reportedly because Peking disapproved of MR-1J4
plans for urban terrorism that countered the Maoist doctrine
that revolution should begin in the countryside. The MR-1J4
financial secretary was sent to China to make amends; he
returned in May with new funds and apparent Chinese ap- .
proval of new MR-1J4 plans for "popular war." For its part,
Havana cut off its regular funding of the MR-1J4 after the
1 June national elections (in which the MR-1J4 had thrown
its electoral support to Bosch), accusing the MR-1J4 of
“not knowing how to work properly in the 1965 revolution.”
(The real reason was probably because of MR-1J4 acceptance
of the Chinese aid.) In mid-July the MR-1J4 convened its -

~168-

ene

we

"Second Congress" where the Sino-Cuban duel produced a

sharp division between those on the one hand who wished

its open identification as a Communist party, led by

Fidelio Despradel Roques and almost all other MR-1J4

leaders who had traveled to China; and on the other hand,
those who favored retention by the movement of a non-Com-
munist nationalist character following MR-1J4 Secretary
General Rafael Francisco "Fafa" Taveras Rosario. £

In September Peking reportedly again suspended all
further financial support to the MR-1J4, pending an authori-
tative accounting by the movement of funds already received,
which were reliably estimated to have amounted to US $137.,000
during the previous year. Because of the serious financial
crisis this occasioned, a militant MR-1J4 group in October
robbed the Dominican National Lottery of U.S, $83,000.

The movement had also begun selling its tools and equip-
ment, including cars stolen during the revolution, to raise
necessary operating funds. But. the sensational robbery

led to important leadership defections in November and
served to further the split between the es factions.

Cuban victory over China for control of the MPD
had its beginnings at the January 1966 Tri-Continental
Conference, where Cayetano Rodriguez del Prado, the MPD
delegate, claiming MPD central committee authorization,
officially disavowed Lopez Molina.'s July letter to Castro,
According to Rodriguez, the Chinese were contemplating
using the letter and its contents in their polemic with "ide
the Cubans, until Rodriguez was assigned by the MDP central Zi
committee to disavow it. Castro was reported very ap-
preciative of Rodriguez' official action, and after it
was taken told Rodriguez that from then on the MPD could
count on his backing and support. As an earnest of this,
he gave Rodriguez U.S. $25,000 to take back to the Dominican
Republic. Rodriguez reportedly traveled to China to try
to explain his actions before re-entering the Dominican
Republic. : :

Lopez Molina, who had returned Clandestinely to the
Dominican Republic late in 1965, counter-attacked an April
MPD decision to remove him from the MPD presidency and
reduce him to a simple member. When the Rodriguez forces

-169~

IS

expelled him on 21 April, Lopez Molina countered by "“resign-

ing" several days later, defending the Marxist-Leninist
soundness of his July letter to Castro, accusing Rodriguez

and one other of being CPSU penetrations, and announcing

he intended to form a new Marxist-Leninist party, the :
Orthodox Communist Party (PCO). ‘He formed the PCO in June, :
and in mid-July sent a. letter to the Peking Peace Committee
attacking MPD collusion with Cuban "revisionism." ~~ :

' In that month the MPD itself suffered a further
Split, the Rodriguez faction remaining the stronger of
two groups. The new dissident group was largely a nucleus
of former MR-1J4 members whose leader was Narciso Gonzalez.
But the split was grave enough to bring MPD activities to ;
.a halt in a flurry of charges and counter-charges highlighted:
by assertions of each faction that the other had been ex-
pelled, and "Red Guard"~style youth raids by Rodriguez sup-
porters against both Gonzalez and Lopez Molina. Compound-
ing this chaos was the fact that a Rodriguez emissary to :
China, whose mission was to ask that Chinese funds going.
to the MR~1J4 be withdrawn and applied ‘to the MPD because
of MR-1J4 shortcomings, was refused a visa by the Chinese |
and in September the Chinese again suspended funding of |
Rodriguez' MPD faction, Rodriguez, who had backed Castro
and had never fully subscribed to Chinese hostility toward
the Cuban regime, probably rightly ascribed the termina-
tion of Chinese aid to the fact that Peking had learned
of a subsidy the MPD regularly received from Havana, and
wished to express its displeasure at, Rodriguez' ties with
Castro and Cuba. . a ;

-

In October the Gonzalez faction of the MPD also
split, and a new (and fifth) Communist party, calling it-
self the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic (PCRD),
was formed by Luis "Pin" Montes Gonzalez and Alfredo’
Toussent Jean, and immediately attacked the Rodriguez and
Gonzalez groups. The PCRD, claiming a Marxist-Leninist
pro~-Chinese line, made no mention of Lopez Molina's PCO,
whose theoretical stand was practically identical with its ;
own, But by this time the MPD no longer existed as an
organized Communist movement, Gonzalez resigned in November
and with others formed.a Marxist study group outside of :
the parties, and Rodriguez also resigned that month, :

-170-

o—

‘ ostensibly because of worsening health, amidst increas-

ing signs of Cuban control of a "special organization"
within the MPD.for carrying out certain terrorist acti-
vities in collaboration with MR-1J4 extremists. ;

In December the Taveras ("non-transformist") MR-1J4
group began to leave the MR-1J4 en masse to join the MPD
group of Rodriguez,* The Taveras group, which had custody
of the funds stolen from the National Lottery and MR-1J4
equipment: and vehicles, turned everything over to the

Despradel. ("transformist") group, which then assumed direc-_

tion of the MR-1J4. A.newly-elected MPD central committee
headed by Marino Nazario (aka Maximiliano Gomez), in Janu-
ary. 1967, favored MPD ideological and international align-.
ment with Cuba, reflecting the influence of its new,. pro-
Cuban MR-1J4 members. Nevertheless, pro-Chinese, sympathies
persisted among the lower-class worker membership of the
MPD, . Lek : 7

Sr

Haiti : . : *

. as
The first real evidence of serious Chinese support
of the. Haitian Communist movement concerned a visit to
Peking by Fred Baptiste, a pro-Chinese Haitian Communist
living in exile in Paris, in the spring of 1966. Follow-
ing his return to Paris, carrying $2000, he reported a

a

*This split involved a majority of the MR-1J4 central
committee and a large number of its members who left to
join the MPD at least partially because of ideological é
reasons: The Tavernas. group believed that because of the
bourgeois background of its membership the MR-1J4 could -
never transform itself into a party of the working class;

' while the "transformists" of Despradel believed this could

be done after it completed its historic task of carrying
out the "democratic bourgeoisie revolution" as a party

of "many classes." The Taveras "non-transformists" joined
the MPD because they described it as "the party of the
working class in development."

-171-

ante cene _. meee nee ED,

ce hen, em meges

Chinese promise of arms for an. organization to be known

as the Armed Forces of Haitian Liberation (FALH), which

Baptiste and three other exiles representing both pro-~

Peking and pro-Soviet Haitian Communist factions, were.

attempting to organize for an invasion of Haiti. . But ’

friction between the four soon developed on Sino-Soviet : ‘

ideological as well as racial grounds, Baptiste and Paul

Arcelin--the other Chinese sympathizer--being Negro, and

the two pro-CPSU Communists being mulattoes. Baptiste.

had played a key role in the organization of an invasion.

of Haiti from the Dominican Republic in the summer of

1964. He escaped to, the Dominican Republic and led the

Haitian commando group that joined the rebels in the

April 1965 revolution in the Dominican Republic. ;
Further evidence of Chinese activity was the crea-

tion in-Europe in May 1966 of a’ new, Peking-oriented Haitian

revolutionary group, with assistance from the Chinese and

the Belgian pro-Peking dissident Communist, Jacques Grippa.

The Haitian group, -headed by exile Garard Duplessis, held

its first "congress" in June in the Paris home of a Profes-—

sor Joseph Marchiso, then teaching French to members of os

the Chinese Communist diplomatic mission in Paris. With

the aid of Grippa the Haitians began publishing a French-

language periodical, La Manchette, in Belgium in May 1966.

The new group maintained Iiaison with the Paris represen—

tatives of the Dominican MR-1J4 revolutionary movement,

and with Cuban representatives.* Duplessis, who had visited

Peking several times=-the Last in early 1966--left for

Peking again in late July with two companions, and the.

‘three were still in training in China in late September

1966. ; :

As of mid-December 1966 Haitian Communist Jacques
Dorcean -had reportedly moved to Brussels to become editor

* that the Cuban =’

ambassador to ance ha en commissions o enlist the -
cooperation of the Duplessis group in a Cuban~backed in-
vasion operation then in preparation.in Cuba. 7 4 2 ‘

. 2172-

| eee, a
fae j

(oo

of La Manchette, after supporters of the eluent ton:
financially backed by Grippa, had searched for several
months for someone to take over the non-paying editorial
post. At. that tire. Duplessis. was expected to return to
Paris from China, .

Jamaica

ri

Some evidence of: Chinese interest in ‘training young
Jamaicans was provided in an official Jamaican service —
report of June 1965. A member of the Communist-infiltrated

delegation attending the January 1965 victory anniversary

in Havana, reported a private meeting he had with the
Chinese ambassador’ in Cuba at night after his two fellow-
delegates were asleep. This youth, Levi Wellesley Stevens,
said the Chinese ambassador had told him the Chinese govern-

wy. F ment was willing to train 30 Jamaicans in China. ‘Twenty.
‘ of this number would come from the YSL and ten from the
: Unemployed Workers Council (UWC), a Jamaican left-wing

group. Transportation costs would be mailed from London. ©
Stevens allegedly discussed with the ambassador problems
of leaving and re-entering Jamaica illegally because of
the authorities’ practice of seizing passports.

Aunt

-173-.

Youth Socialist ‘League (YSL), who was a member of a Jamaican ~