Carrillo in Peking
Socialist Press1980 1980-11-19Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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E THIS WINTER!
Available, price 45p including postage from WSL, BM Box 5277, London WCIN 3XX Few things could illustrate the break-up of the Stalinist monolith better than the recent visit of Santiago Carrillo to China.
Carrillo, leader of the Spanish Communist Party, sat at the Peking banquets in seats still warm from the imprint of Enrico Berlinguer, his Italian "Eurocommunist" counterpart.
The visit consisted of a few days of flattery on both sides as had been the case with Berlinguer.
Five years ago Mao's government used to revile the Italian and Spanish Eurocommunists as even worse than the Russian "social imperialists"
Now, Mao's successors see Berlinguer and Carrillo revered allies against the Soviet Union.
The Chinese press has had feature articles on "post-Francoist" Spain congratulating the Spanish CP on its fight against "unemployment, pornography and anarchistic tendencies The Chinese CP and Carrillo agreed that "Aggressions like in Vietnam, Cambodia, Czechoslovakia. and Afghanistan are absolutely intolerable in the modern world." the errors of the past pass enois ol une bas This gave Hu Yaobang, the Chinese CP Secretary General, the chance to declare that after 1957 Mao Tse-tung had "committed numerous ultra-left errors" —one of the most explicit criticisms yet of Mao by the new leadership.
Both sides in the sought to emphasise differences between the USSR and the other Eastern European countries.
This was part of the effort of the Chinese, which Carrillo went along with, to give the visit a strongly anti-Soviet character.
The accord between the Spanish and Chinese CPs against Soviet domination should not, however, be allowed to obscure another basic fact.
For although the USSR is hostile to Carrillo's independence from Moscow, the Kremlin leaders totally support (as do the Peking Stalinists) the long-term policy of the Spanish CP which centres on collaboration with the Spanish bourgeoisie. A brand new pamphlet, spelling out programme and perspective for struggle to oust the Tories.