Message of Gratitude to the Soviet Leaders (November 21, 1957)  Dear Comrades Khrushchev, Voroshilov, and Bulganin [1]:  As we are about to depart from the soil of Great Soviet Union, on behalf of all members of the Chinese delegation, I once again express our heartfelt thanks to you and, through you, to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government, and the Soviet people. We are grateful for your invitation to attend the celebrations marking the fortieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution and to visit your great country; for the most cordial reception extended to us; and for the profound fraternal friendship shown to us and to all the Chinese people.  Permit me, on behalf of the Chinese delegation and all the Chinese people, as well as in my own name, to wish the leading comrades of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Government good health; to wish the Soviet people, under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ever more brilliant achievements in the cause of building communism and safeguarding world peace; and to wish that the great friendship between the peoples of China and the Soviet Union will be forever consolidated and continuously developed.  Mao Zedong  November 21, 1957, Irkutsk  Printed from the People’s Daily, November 22, 1957.

Notes [1] Khrushchev was then First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Voroshilov was then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Bulganin was then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.