(4 of 11)
The initial preparatory meeting, held in Budapest in February 1968, ended on an ominous note as the Rumanians, on orders from Ceausescu, walked out because they were criticized for not following the Soviet line of condemning Israel. An infinitely greater disruption came a few months later, when the forces of five Warsaw Pact nations, led by the Soviet Union, crashed into Czechoslovakia. Russia only outraged the majority of foreign Communists by stamping out a liberal experiment with which they sympathized and one that could have helped them win votes in the free world. At the same time, Russia once again ground under the tank treads one of Communism's dearest dogmas: Socialism brings everlasting peace among Socialist nations.
Foreign Communist reaction was an indication of both the Soviet Union's waning authority and the villainy of the deed. Twelve years earlier, in the much bloodier suppression of the Hungarian uprising, nearly every Communist Party in the world had supported the Soviet action. This time every major foreign party expressed disapproval, ranging from violent protest (Italy, Sweden, Yugoslavia) to distaste tempered by expediency (France and Cuba). Even Ru mania, a member of the Warsaw Pact, though it did not take part in the invasion, censured the action. Only in significant parties that depend on the Soviet dole (such as those in the U.S. and most in Latin America and the Middle East) endorsed the move.
Because of the uproar, the conference, originally set for November 1968, had to be rescheduled for May 1969; it was then postponed again to last week. One indication of the magnitude of the dis agreement was the formulation of the working document for the conference.
At Soviet instigation, a joint draft was drawn up by a committee of eight parties and submitted to a preparatory session attended by 65 parties in Budapest last February. Other parties offered some 300 amendments, at least 100 of which were incorporated in the text. In order to hold a conference at all, the Soviets had to scratch out the old claim, reaffirmed by the 1960 world conference, that they were the leaders of the world Communist movement. Further, they had to delete any critical reference to China or any wording that could be construed as approval of the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Socialist Commonwealth