At a time when the revolutionary storm is lashing imperialism with fury everywhere, certain persons are declaring that they want to reach a detente with imperialism so as to carry on their economic construction’ which they place above everything else. Whether they like it or not, such a policy can only check the growth of the revolution. (Comrade Le Duan, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, December 1963)
We have seen that Krushchev and other leaders of the C.P.S.U. seek to play down the importance of the colonial liberation movement, although they have been less able to do so openly since the statements of the Parties of China, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia and others began to expose their true policy.
Krushchev in his interview of 21st December 1963 speaks of “the collapse of the colonial system” and in his Moscow statement of the 27th December 1960, concerning the United Nations’ resolution on the independence of the colonial peoples, he announced that “the days of colonialism are over”. In a speech to an Algerian delegation on 27th December 1963 he asserted that “colonialism is a thing of the past”.
This is the setting in which the leaders of the C.P.S.U. would have us consider the question of the national liberation movement. The struggles of the peoples of Latin America, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East are consistently underplayed.