Moscow Declaration (1957)
모스크바 선언 (1957)
The joint declaration signed by twelve ruling parties at the Moscow conference of representatives of the communist and workers' parties of the socialist countries, 14–16 November 1957, held alongside the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution and followed on 16–19 November by a wider meeting of 64 parties that adopted a "Peace Manifesto". Meant to reaffirm communist unity after the denunciation of Stalin and the Hungarian and Polish upheavals, it backed different national paths to socialism, peaceful coexistence and the possibility of transition by combining parliamentary elections with mass struggle. Yugoslavia refused to sign, objecting among other things to the phrase "with the Soviet Union at the head". With the 1960 Statement of the 81 parties it was the common document both parties invoked in the Sino-Soviet dispute of 1963.
In depth
The meeting
The meeting came after the CPSU's Twentieth Congress denounced Stalin and after the revolts in Hungary and Poland. Reaffirming communist unity, it drew a line both against the revisionism represented by the Yugoslav party and against hardliners resisting de-Stalinisation. Mao Zedong argued for a centralised world movement, the Italian Togliatti for the autonomy of individual parties. The Chinese party signed both the declaration and the peace manifesto after some hesitation. Poland's Gomułka lobbied in vain to remove the words "with the Soviet Union at the fore", and Tito cancelled his trip to Moscow after seeing the draft.
The issue in 1963
In its Proposal Concerning the General Line the Chinese party said that the Moscow meetings of 1957 and 1960 had adopted the Declaration and the Statement by consensus, and that these were the common programme of the international communist movement; the issue was whether one accepted their revolutionary principles. In its Open Letter the CPSU retorted that the Chinese leadership was arguing against the foundations of the 1957 Declaration, which Mao Zedong had signed on behalf of the CPC.