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Khrushchev Hits Communist China

Dec. 12, 1962 - Premier Khrushchev declared today the Soviet Union would resist the pressure of “dogmatists” within the Communist world who wanted to risk nuclear war with the West. In a major foreign policy speech before the Supreme Soviet (the Parliament) broadcast to the nation, Mr. Khrushchev condemned only the Albanian Communists by name as “dogmatists,” but the Premier was clearly alluding to the Chinese Communists as well. Mr. Khrushchev struck back at accusations by the Chinese and Albanian leaders that Moscow had retreated on the Cuba issue in face of a U.S. military challenge. He said the understanding he reached with President Kennedy on Cuba represented “a triumph of sanity” that had prevented nuclear war. In one obvious reference to Red China’s description of the U.S. as a “paper tiger,” Mr. Khrushchev declared: “If now it is a paper tiger, then those who say so must know that it has atomic teeth.”


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