Informational Note II from the meeting of CC Secretaries for International Affairs in Moscow [held on September 14, 1976]

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3. The Issue of Convening a Meeting on the China Question

It was decided that a confidential meeting of fraternal parties that was to be held in Berlin in September for the purposes of assessing the situation in China (such meetings at the level of deputy heads of International Departments and experts take place every year) will have to be postponed until December due to the need for assessment of the situation following Mao Zedong's death.

Soviet comrades informed that during the mourning period in China, they will only include purely chronicle [kronikalne] news from China in the Soviet press.

They are preparing a positive article for China's national day on October 1, emphasizing that the doors for normalization of relations are still open.

Sending condolences was the right move since it proved that our countries are ready for normalizing relations with China.

According to the Soviet comrades, there is no reason to believe that the Chinese policy will change and that China will depart from the great-power chauvinism following Mao's death.

Some parties, (for example, the Communist Party of France) either in ignorance or out of spite, are talking too much about Mao and his achievements.

We will have to continue to fight the main points of Maoism. However, the issue of how to renew this struggle and how to conduct it, is another problem. We will have to examine it. Of course, we are not giving up our aspirations for normalizing relations with China.

Currently, the USSR does not foresee, at least not in the near future, any new steps toward China.

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