Secretariat. Preparations for a meeting of central committee secretaries with responsibility for international affairs in the fraternal parties of socialist countries. Discussion of international peace movement (12 pp). [R 9 June 1980, St 214-74] Excerpts.
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[page one of twelve]
Workers of all Lands, Unite!
COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION. CENTRAL COMMITTEE
[Text along left-hand margin]
Return to the CPSU Central Committee
(General Department, sector 1) within 15 days of receipt
(Central Committee Resolution of 17 June 1976, St 12/4)
Top Secret
No St 214/74, 9 June 1980
Excerpt from item 74 of Minutes No. 214 of the Central Committee Secretariat
Holding a meeting of the central committee secretaries responsible for international issues in the fraternal parties of socialist countries
1. Consider it expedient to hold a meeting of the central committee secretaries with responsibility for international affairs in the fraternal parties of socialist countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, GDR, Poland, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia – from 7 to 9 July 1980. They will consider the tasks linked to the expansion of work among the popular masses to implement the resolutions of the Warsaw meeting of the Political Consultative Council of the Warsaw Pact members and the Paris meeting of Communist and Workers’ parties; the international significance of the meeting in Warsaw between General Secretary L. Brezhnev and French president Giscard d’Estaing; the problems faced by the international trade union movement and further imporovement in the work of the World Federation of Trade Unions and of the world movement of supporters of peace; measures to counteract the present activities of the Chinese leadership with regard to the communist movement.
2. Instruct the CPSU Central Committee Department and International Department to work together on this issue, and to confirm the venue for this meeting with the Central Committees of the Bulgarian Communist Party, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, the German Socialist Unity Party, the Polish United Workers’ Party and the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Confirm the CPSU delegation of Comrades B.N. Ponomaryov and K.V.Rusakov. Instruct the delegation to decide on the aides and accompanying persons.
SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
[page two repeat of one]
[page three]
Top Secret
Draft
RESOLUTION
of the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat
Holding a meeting of the central committee secretaries responsible for international issues in the fraternal parties of socialist countries
1. Consider it expedient to hold a meeting of the central committee secretaries responsible for international issues in the fraternal parties of socialist countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, GDR, Poland, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia – from 7 to 9 July 1980. They will consider the tasks linked to the expansion of work among the popular masses to implement the resolutions of the Warsaw meeting of the Political Consultative Council of the Warsaw Pact members and the Paris meeting of Communist and Workers’ parties; the international significance of the meeting in Warsaw between General Secretary L. Brezhnev and French president Giscard d’Estaing; the problems faced by the international trade union movement and further imporovement in the work of the World Federation of Trade Unions and of the world movement of supporters of peace; measures to counteract the present activities of the Chinese leadership with regard to the communist movement.
2. Instruct the CPSU Central Committee Department and International Department to work together on this issue, and to confirm the venue for this meeting with the Central Committees of the Bulgarian Communist Party, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, the German Socialist Unity Party, the Polish United Workers’ Party and the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Confirm the CPSU delegation of Comrades B.N. Ponomaryov and K.V.Rusakov. Instruct the delegation to decide on the aides and accompanying persons.
SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
[hand written signatures:
Suslov, Kirilenko,
Chernenko, Gorbachev,
Ponomaryov, Dolgikh,
Zimyanin, Rusakov – For]
[page four – 4 June note from Brutents, deputy head of International Department, proposing such a meeting]
[page five]
Please add to the Central Committee Resolution 214/74, 9 June 1980.
The meeting of central committee secretaries of fraternal parties in socialist countries responsible for international issues was held on 14-16 July in Budapest.
A. Balmashov
22 July 1980
[page six]
Translation
For Politburo candidate member,
Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee
Comrade B.N. Ponomaryov
Moscow
Dear Boris Nikolaevich!
[…]
[page nine – from a letter to the CPSU from the East German Socialist Unity Party]
Supplementary to point 3, letter to Comrades Rusakov and Ponomarev
[…] We think it would be appropriate for our parties to reach agreement on the key issues of strategy and tactics of the world peace movement. […]
[page ten]
Of course, we accept that the World Peace Council must retain and further increase its important role. However, it is universally recognised that the WPC reaches far from all the political forces that are ready to fight for peace, détente and disarmament. Numerous reformist trade union organisations, religious groups of the Christian, Muslim and Buddhist confessions, and many national action committees representing millions of people are not ready to join the WPC or work with the council.
It is a fact that a great many important protests (the Dutch “No to the neutron bomb!” movement, the Brussels demonstration against NATO missiles, the international peace marathon) have taken place without the participation of the WPC and often against the initial opposition of its individual leading figures. […]
[page eleven]
[Events such as the 1980 “World Parliament of Peoples for Peace” in Sofia, wrote the East Germans, would undoubtedly be very important, however]
The preparatory committee … is composed for the most part of representatives from the WPC. The fact that the Dutch “No to the neutron bomb!” movement, the British Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Belgian ‘Committee for Peace and Cooperation’ and also the Danish ‘Committee for Cooperation’ have still not become involved in the preparation of the event is evidently linked to their well-known position of not cooperating directly with the WPC. Meanwhile the World Parliament of Peoples for Peace is still unambiguously referred to as an event organised by the World Peace Council. […]
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NOTES
General
1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
2. Text added by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been added
to a previously typed document it is indicated by underlined italic script.
Translation, JC
The Bukovsky Archives 