Introduction

The Third Congress of the Rumanian Workers’ (Communist) Party was held in Bucharest from 20–26 June 1960. Delegates from the other ruling Communist parties in Eastern Europe joined visitors from the Soviet Union and China as fraternal observers. As such, the Bucharest Conference both reflected and exacerbated the emerging *Sino-Soviet split, being the venue for explicit differences to be publicly aired between the Soviet and Chinese delegations in often heated language.