POLITBURO. In 1989, due to the failure of East European parties to make contributions,  the “International Fund to aid Left-wing and Labour Organizations” (22 million dollars) will rely entirely on the Soviet donation.

Includes 5 January report (pp. 3-4) from International Department [R 28 Dec 88, Pb 144-129]. 4 pp (excerpt).

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[page three]

To the CPSU Central Committee

Issue raised by the CPSU Central Committee
International Department

The International Fund to Aid Left-wing Workers’ Organizations has consisted, for many years, of voluntary contributions from the CPSU and a number of other Communist parties in socialist countries. By the end of the 1970s, however, the Polish and Romanian and (from 1987) Hungarian comrades ceased to participate in the Fund, citing difficulties with finance and hard currency. In 1988 and 1989, the Socialist Unity Party of [East] Germany and the Communist parties of Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, without offering an explanation, declined to make the contributions expected of them, and the Fund consisted entirely of sums apportioned by the CPSU. In 1987 the share paid by the above-mentioned three parties constituted $2.3 million, i.e. around 13 percent of the total contributions.

[…]

Parties which have regularly received specific sums of money from the Fund over many years rate this form of international solidarity very highly. They do not believe it could be replaced

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[page four]

by any other form of assistance. The majority of these parties have already submitted substantiated applications for aid in 1990; some requested that the amount be increased substantially.

[…]

Head of the CPSU Central Committee
International Department

[signed] Falin

5 December 1989

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NOTES

The Fund to Aid Left-Wing Workers’ Parties was established in the late 1960s: see 8 January 1969* (Pb 111/162*, IF1). For a list of recipients in 1981 and the amounts they received, see 29 December 1980* (Pb 230/34, IF2).

See 30 November 1987* (Pb 95/21, IF3) and 5 December 1989* (IF4), for decisions and discussion of CPSU contributions to the Fund in 1988 and 1990.

*

GENERAL

1. Notes by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
2. text written by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been inserted in a previously typed document this is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translation & Annotation, John Crowfoot

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