First Published: The Call, Vol. 6, No. 36, September 19, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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“Chinese Wine and Dine U.S. Reds” was the headline on right-winger Victor Riesel’s syndicated column August 22.
A month earlier, the Chicago Sun-Times and other papers carried an Agence France-Presse release headed, “Photo of Yank Red on Page 1 of China Paper.” A front page Washington Post article only last week by China-watcher Jay Matthews was titled, “China’s Ideal American–Red Leader Gets Red Carpet Treatment.”
All these stories referred to the July meeting between the leadership of the recently-founded Communist Party (M-L) of the U.S. and Chairman Hua Kuo-feng of the Chinese Communist Party.
The bourgeois writers are scratching their heads trying to figure out why a “relatively unknown” figure like Michael Klonsky, chairman of the CP(M-L), was, to use their words, “given the warmest reception ever given an American by the new Chinese leader.”
They are trying to figure out the meaning of this event in light of the fact that Chairman Hua Kuo-feng did not attend the banquet for U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance during his recent visit and that the arrival of Leonard Woodcock, the new Chief Liaison Officer in Peking, went virtually unnoticed.
As Riesel put it, “Our ambassadorial mission chiefs to Peking have been sitting ducks awaiting a call for personal talks with Communist Party Chairman Hua Kuo-feng.. .Yet on July 20. Chairman Hua took time out from world revolution to talk privately with leaders of something called the Communist Party U.S.A. (Marxist-Leninist), the chairman of which is the young American neo-revolutionist Mike Klonsky.”
The French press agency reported that Klonsky “is being feted here (Peking) in a way that not even former President Richard M. Nixon was received.” The Washington Post pointed out that Vance “got a good reception . . . but nothing like the red carpet treatment received ...by Michael Klonsky.”
Why is it hard for these “experts” to understand the reception and fraternal relations shown in the meeting of the two parties?
The answer is simple. Unlike the Marxist-Leninists, who know that history is made by the masses of people, the voices of big business are convinced that it is made by “great men,” whose greatness is largely created in the pages of their own newspapers. Because the Chinese don’t buy this conception, hack writers like Riesel and Co. are sent scurrying to explain Chairman Hua’s meeting with such “unknowns” and with such a “small party.”
It was only a few decades ago that these same papers were cynically looking down their noses at the little band of guerrilla fighters who reached Yenan or at the small group of freedom fighters in the jungles of Indochina.
Who were the U.S. secretaries of state when the great Bolshevik Party of Russia was born in the early 1900s? Who were the ambassadors when the Communist Party of China was being founded in 1921? Does anyone remember? Does anyone care?
The U.S. press has always underestimated the revolutionary movement toward socialism and has always blown up the capitalist leaders way out of proportion to their contribution.
The meeting between the Chinese Communist Party and other genuine Marxist-Leninist parties are signs of China’s consistent proletarian internationalism. The U.S. press can only understand the pragmatic “unity” of capitalists, who will try to get together when there is profit to be made and then slit each others’ throats for the same reason. Unity between communist parties is unity based upon principles, unity that doesn’t depend on whether parties happen to be large or small at any given moment in history.
This type of unity seems incomprehensible to capitalism’s columnists.
Finally, it is important to note that, while the CP(M-L) delegation was warmly received by Chairman Hua Kuo-feng, all friendly guests are given the best hospitality the Chinese people can give, provided they treat China with respect.
China carries out relations with countries of different social systems based upon the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence.
It is not China that has denied warm hospitality to the U.S. government’s representatives. Rather, it is the U.S. government that has historically tried to blockade and isolate China. The U.S. still refuses to normalize state-to-state relations based on the conditions in the Shanghai Communique, which President Nixon signed in 1972.
So let Victor Riesel write his anti-communist drivel about “toasts in Peking to the victory of world revolution.” Let the China “experts” write in wonderment about our “insignificant” Party meeting with Hua Kuo-feng. After all, if the communist movement is so “insignificant.” why are they using up all that headline space to attack and misrepresent it?
Even if it offends the mouthpieces of big business in this country, the communist parties around the world will continue to heighten their unity based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism.