C : North Vietnam and the Sino-Soviet Dispute
By a judicious combination of scattered reporting with information available in the public record, it is possible to reconstruct with a fair amount of accuracy the performance of the North Vietnamese party delegation at the Moscow Conference of November 1960. Numerous reports have indicated the key role played by Ho Chi Minh in conciliating the bitter disagreement u!5ich persisted between Khrushchev and Liu Shao-chi into the final days of the conference. From an intensive review of North Vietnamese materials bearing on this conference, it would appear that the essence of the reconciliation formula advanced by Ho Chi Minh at this time was the principle of bloc solidarity based on "voluntary" allegiance, a concept advanced by Peipirig during the troubles in Eastern Europe in 1956.
Far and away the most revealing single published source
detailing North Vietnam's role at this conference was the report of Lao Dong party 1st Secretary Le Duan appearing in the January 1961 issue of Hoc Tap. It was here that the principle of "voluntary" allegiance was discussed at some length in the section defining the nature of relations between Communist parties within the bloc. After repeating the ritualistic formula appearing in the Moscow Declaration that “all Communist and Workers Parties are independent and equal,'' Le Duan went on to add a significant formulation which did not appear in the Declaration--"and 'have the duty to support and help each other so that they will voluntarily respect the views and conclusion they have unanimously passed after democratic debates in delegates conferences." (Underlining supplied) . This statement would appear t o confirm the number of reports indicating that North Vietnam at the Moscow Conference, while generally evasive and conciliatory, supported Communist China on the key issue
of authority and discipline within the international Communist movement, rejecting t h e principle of majority rule which Khru-shchev sought t o impose on the movement