THE NEW COLD WAR HISTORY
John Lewis Gaddis, editor
CHEN JIAN
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill & London
and sabotage it from within.47 Indeed, when Mao justified the ccp's decision
not to pursue relations with the United States, his most consistent andpowerful
argument was that the decision would deprive the Americans of a means
of sabotaging the Chinese revolution.48
It is also important to point out that whileWashington's hostility toward the
Chinese revolution offended Mao and his comrades, the perceived American
disdain for China as weak and the Chinese as inferior made them angry. In the
anti-American propaganda campaign following the publication of the China
White Paper, Mao sought to expose the "reactionary" and "vulnerable" nature
of U. S. imperialism and to encourage ordinary Chinese people's national selfrespect.
In other words, Mao used anti-American discourse as a means of mobilizing
the masses for his continuous revolution, a practice that would reach
its first peak in 1950-53, during the "Great War of Resisting America and
Assisting Korea" (the Chinese name for China's participation in the Korean
War).49
The ccp's adoption of an anti-American policy in 1949-50 had deep roots
in both China's history and its modern experiences. Sharp divergences in
political ideology (communism versus capitalism) and perceived national interests
contributed to the shaping of the Sino-American confrontation; and
suspicion and hostility were further crystallized as the result of Washington's
continuous support to the GMD and the cCP's handling of events such as the
Ward case. But, from a Chinese perspective, the most profound reason underlying
the ccp's anti-American policy was Mao's grand plans for transforming
China's state, society, and international outlook. Even though it might
have been possible for Washington to change the concrete course of its China
policy (which was highly unlikely given the policy's complicated background),
it would have been impossible for the United States to alter the course and
goals of the Chinese revolution, let alone the historical-cultural environment
that gave birth to the event. America's "lost chance" in China must therefore
be regarded as a myth.
48 THE MYTH OF AMERICA'S LOST CHANCE IN CHINA
Fluttering high are the banners ofvictory,
shaking the earth and mountain is the singing ofmillions;
Mao Zedong-Stalin,
like the sun(s) shining in the heaven.
- "Song ofSino-Soviet Solidarity"
Never are there two suns in the heaven,
Never should there be two emperors on the earth.
-Age-old Chinese proverb
No other event during the Cold War contributed more to changes in
perceptions of the Communist powers than the rise and demise of the SinoSoviet
alliance. Emerging in the late 1940S and early 1950S, the "brotherly
solidarity" between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union was
claimed to be "unbreakable" and "eternal." But by the latter part of the decade,
serious disputes began to develop between Chinese and Soviet leaders,
causing the alliance to crumble and then, in the mid-1960s, to collapse. In the
years that followed, the hostility between the two countries grew so intense
that it led to a bloody border war in 1969.1 In the 1960s and 1970S, the complete
break in the two Communist giants' alliance became a basic element of
international affairs.
What, then, were the causes underlying the rise and demise of the SinoSoviet
alliance? Scholars may answer this question in many ways. This chapter
adopts a domestic-politics-centered approach. Without ignoring the merits of
other interpretations, especially those emphasizing the role played by China's
security concerns and international ideological commitments, this chapter argues
that China's alliance policy toward the Soviet Union was always an integral
part of Mao Zedong's grand continuous revolution plans designed to
transform China's state, society, and international outlook. While security
concerns and socialist internationalism conditioned the rise and fall ofthe alliance,
it was Mao's efforts to define and redefine the mission and scope of his
continuous revolution-which constituted the central theme of Chinese politics
during his era (1949 to 1976)-that had shaped Beijing's attitude toward
China's alliance with the Soviet Union.
The "Lean-to-One-Side" Approach
On 30 June 1949, Mao Zedong issued his famous "lean-to-one-side" statement.
In a long article titled "On People's Democratic Dictatorship," he announced
Communist China's special relationship with the Soviet Union. He
said that revolutionary China must "unite in a common struggle with those
nations of the world that treat us as equal and unite with the peoples of all
countries-that is, ally ourselves with the Soviet Union, with the People's
Democratic Countries, and with the proletariat and the broad masses of the
people in all other countries, and form an international united front.... We
must lean to one side." 2
Why did Mao choose these extraordinary terms? The statement was obviously
linked to the longtime revolutionary policy of the Chinese Communist
Party of attaching itself to the international "progressive forces" led by the
Soviet Union. By the late 1940s, ccp leaders clearly perceived the postwar
world as divided into two camps, one headed by the Soviet Union and the other
by the United States, and regarded their revolution as a part of the Soviet-led
international proletarian movement.3 It is apparent that Mao's statement was
consistent with this view of the postwar world structure.
The lean-to-one-side approach also grew out of the ccp's assessment of
the serious nature of the threat from Western imperialist countries, especially
from the United States, to the completion of the Chinese revolution. As the
ccp neared final victory in China's civil war in 1949, Mao and his fellow Chinese
Communist leaders became very much concerned about the prospect of
direct U. S. intervention in China.4 Although the American military did not
intervene directly during the latter phase ofthe civil war, the ccp chairman and
his comrades, given their belief in the aggressive and evil nature of Western
imperialism, continued to view the Western capitalist countries in general and
the United States in particular as dangerous enemies.S In the eyes ofMao and
his comrades, "it was the possibility of military intervention from imperialist
countries that made it necessary for China to ally itself with other socialist
countries." 6
Mao's lean-to-one-side decision cannot be viewed in terms of these ideological
commitments and security concerns only, though. It also must be un-
50 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
derstood in the context ofhis determination to maintain and enhance the inner
dynamics of the Chinese Communist revolution at the time of its nationwide
victory. The final goal ofMao's Chinese revolution, as the ccp chairman himself
repeatedly emphasized, was the transformation of China's "old" state and
society arid the destruction of the "old" world in which, as Mao and his comrades
viewed it, China had been a humiliated member during modern times.
Mao never concealed his ambition that his revolution would finally turn China
into a land of universal justice and equality, and that, simultaneously, through
presenting the experience of the Chinese revolution as a model for other "oppressed
nations" in the world, China would reestablish its central position in
the international community.?
In 1949, when the Chinese Communist revolution approached nationwide
victory, Mao and his comrades understood that the new China would have to
meet such challenges as establishing and consolidating a new revolutionary
regime and reviving China's war-worn economy. But what concerned the ccp
chairman the most was how to prevent the revolution from losing its momentum.
In his 1949 New Year's message, the ccp chairman called upon his party
"to carry the revolution through to the end," by which he meant not only the
thorough destruction of the Guomindang regime but also the promotion of
the revolution toward its higher, post-takeover stage.sThroughout 1949 Mao
repeatedly warned against imperialist plots to sabotage the revolution from
within either using the "sugar-coated bullet" to shoot down the weak-willed
Communists or dividing the revolutionary camp by applying the "doctrine
of means" to confuse the distinction between revolution and counterrevolution.9
He stressed that "after the destruction of the enemies with guns, the
enemies without guns are still there, and they are bound to struggle desperately
against us." The ccp chairman therefore warned his party: "If we fail to
pay enough attention to these problems, if we do not know how to wage the
struggle against them and win victory in the struggle, we shall be unable to
maintain our political power, we shall be unable to stand on our feet, we shall
fail." ID
Itwas primarily for the purpose ofcreating new momentum for the Chinese
revolution that the ccp leadership made three fundamental decisions on Communist
China's external relations, what Zhou Enlai referred to as "making a
fresh start," "cleaning the house before entertaining guests:' and "leaning to
one side." Il These three decisions were closely interconnected. While the first
two represented cCP leaders' determination not to be influenced by the legacy
of "old" China's diplomatic practice, the last one reflected their conviction
that an alliance with the Soviet Union would help destroy any remaining illuTHE
RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 51
sions among the Chinese people, especially the intellectuals, of the utility of
assistance from Western capitalist countries. Because the Soviet Union had
been the first socialist country in the world and had established the only example
for building a socialist state and society, Mao's continuous revolution
had to follow the example of the Soviet experience. In this regard, the argument
ofZhang Baijia, a leading Chinese scholar in Chinese diplomatic history,
certainly makes good sense: "Contrary to the prevalent view, Mao treated the
'lean-to-one-side' concept as a grand strategy to influence the party's foreign
and domestic policies. The key question Mao tried to answer by introducing
the lean-to-one-side approach was how to define the general direction of New
China's development." 12
Not surprisingly, despite the tortuous development of the ccp-Soviet relations
during the course of the Chinese revolution, Mao and the cCP leadership
made genuine efforts to strengthen their relations with Moscow when
the party was winning China's civil war. For example, as discussed in Chapter
2, Anastas Mikoyan made a secret trip to Xibaipo in early 1949 and Liu
Shaoqi met with Stalin in Moscow in the summer of 1949. The Chinese Communist
efforts to achieve a strategic alliance with the Soviet Union culminated
in December 1949-February 1950 when Mao personally visited the Soviet
Union. The ccp chairman's experience during the visit, however, was uneasy.
During his first meeting with Stalin on 16 December, the Soviet leader asked
him what he hoped to achieve from the visit. The ccp chairman, according
to his interpreter's recollections, first replied that he wanted to "bring about
something that not only looked nice but also tasted delicious"-a reference
to his wish to sign a new Sino-Soviet treaty.13 However, Stalin greatly disappointed
Mao by initially emphasizing that it was neither in Moscow's nor in
Beijing's interest to abolish the 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty the Soviet Union had
signed with the GMD.14 Mao's visit then hit a deadlock for almost three weeks
before the Soviets relented.IS Chinese premier Zhou Enlai arrived in Moscow
on 20 January to negotiate the details of the new alliance treaty, which
was signed finally on 14 February 1950. The Chinese, however, had to agree to
allow the Soviets to maintain their privileges in China's Northeast and Xinjiang;16
in exchange, the Soviets agreed to increase military and other material
support to China, including providing air-defense installations in coastal areas
of the People's RepublicY
Mao must have had mixed feelings when he left Moscow to return to China.
On the one hand, he had reasons to celebrate the signing of the Sino-Soviet
alliance treaty. The alliance would greatly enhance the PRC'S security, and,
more important, it would expand the ccp's capacity to promote the post-
52 TilE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
Josepb Stalin (center) and Mao Zedong at tbe celebration rally for Stalin's seventietb
birtbday, Moscow, 2I December 1949. At tbe far left is Cbinese interpreter Sbi Zbe.
Courtesy Sbi Zbe personal collection.
victory revolution at home. With the backing of the Soviet Union, Mao and
his comrades would occupy a more powerful position to wipe out the political,
economic, social, and cultural legacies ofthe "old" China and carry out "new"
China's state-building and societal transformation on the ccp's terms. It was
not just rhetoric when the ccp chairman, after returning to Beijing, told his
comrades that the Sino-Soviet alliance would help the party cope with both
domestic and international threats to the Chinese revolution.18
On the other hand, however, Mao could clearly sense that divergences persisted
between Stalin and himself. Stalin's raw use of the language of power
put off Mao. Mao's wish to discuss revolutionary ideals and the Communists'
historical responsibilities came to nothing. The ccp chairman never enjoyed
meeting Stalin face to face, and he was extremely sensitive to the way Stalin
treated him, the revolutionary leader from the Central Kingdom, as the inferior
"younger brother." 19 The Sino-Soviet treaty made the lean-to-one-side
approach the cornerstone of China's external relations, yet, because of the way
the agreement was designed, the future development of Sino-Soviet relations
was bound to be rocky.
The AlUance and China's Korean War Experience
The first major test for the Sino-Soviet alliance came just eight months
after it had been established, when, in October 1950, the ccp leadership deTHE
RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 53
cided to dispatch Chinese troops to enter the Korean War. From Beijing's perspective,
such a test not only allowed Mao and his comrades to define more
specifically the alliance's utility for China's national security; it also provided
them with a valuable opportunity to achieve a better understanding of how
the alliance would serve Mao's revolutionary projects. China's Korean War
experience, consequently, would profoundly influence both Mao's concerns
about the prospect of the Chinese revolution and the future development of
the Sino-Soviet alliance.
The Korean War, as revealed by new Russian and Chinese sources, was,
first of all, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung's war, which he initiated on the
basis ofhis judgment (or misjudgment) of the revolutionary situation existing
on the Korean peninsula.20 Stalin initially feared that such a war could result
in direct military conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States,
and he did not endorse Kim's plans of unifying his country by military means.
At the end of January 1950, however, U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson's
statement indicating that Korea would be excluded from America's western
Pacific defense perimeter appears to have convinced him that direct US. military
intervention in the peninsula was unlikely.21 In the months prior to the
outbreak ofthe Korean War, the Soviet Union provided large amounts ofmilitaryaid
to the Korean Communists, but Stalin never made the commitment to
use Soviet military forces in Korea, and he insisted that Kim travel to Beijing
to consult with Mao Zedong, so that the Chinese Communists would share
responsibility for Kim's war preparations.22
Mao and the ccp leadership faced a dilemma on the Korean issue. Mao and
his comrades were reluctant to see a war break out in Korea because they worried
that that might complicate the situation in East Asia and jeopardize the
cCP's effort to liberateTaiwan, which was still occupied by Nationalist forces.23
Yet, because Mao and his comrades were eager to revive China's central position
on the international scene through supporting revolutionary movements
in other countries (especially in East Asia), and because profound historical
connections existed between the Chinese and North Korean Communists, it
would have been inconceivable for Mao to veto Kim's plans to unify his country
through a revolutionary war.24 From 1949 to 1950, in meetings with North
Korean leaders (including Kim Il-sung in mid-May 1950), Mao made it clear
that the ccp supported the Korean revolution but hoped that the Koreans
would not initiate the invasion of the South until the PLA had seized Taiwan.zs
In the meantime, during Mao's 1949-50 visit to the Soviet Union, the ccp
chairman shared with Stalin his belief that it was unlikely for the United States
to involve itselfin a revolutionary civil war in East Asia, thus enhancing Stalin's
54 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
determination to back Kim'splans to attack the South.26
Furthermore, from
summer 1949 to spring 1950, the Chinese sent 50,000 to 70,000 ethnic Korean
PLA soldiers (with weapons) back to KoreaP As a result, Mao virtually gave
Kim's plan a green light.
The Korean War erupted on 25 June 1950, and US. president Harry Truman
promptly decided to come to the rescue of Syngman Rhee's South Korean
regime and to dispatch the Seventh Fleet to "neutralize" the Taiwan Strait,
a decision that turned the Korean War into an international crisis. Chinese
leaders quickly decided to postpone the invasion of Taiwan and to focus on
dealing with the crisis in Korea.28 On 13 July the ccp leadership formally established
the Northeast Border Defense Army (NEBDA), assigning it with the task
ofpreparing for military intervention in Korea in the event that the war turned
against North Korea.29 On 18 August, after over a quarter million Chinese
troOps had taken up positions along the Chinese-Korean border, Mao set the
end of September as the deadline for these troops to complete preparations
for military operations in Korea.3o
Beijing based its handling of the Korean crisis on the assumption that if
China entered the Korean War, the Soviet Union would honor its obligations
in accordance with the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty and provide China with all
kinds of support, including supplies of ammunition, military equipment, and
air cover for Chinese land forces. Early in July, when the Chinese leaders informed
Stalin ofthe decision to establish the NEBDA, Stalin supported the plan
and promised that if the Chinese troops were to fight in Korea, the Soviet
Union would "try to provide aircover for these units." 31 In the following weeks
the Soviets accelerated military deliveries to China, and a Soviet air force division,
with 122 MiG-I5 fighters, entered China's Northeast to help with air defense
there.32 These developments must have enhanced Beijing's belief that if
China entered the Korean War, the Soviets would provide them with substantial
military support.
When the course of the war reversed after US. troops landed at Inchon
on 15 September, however, Stalin's attitude regarding Soviet military assistance
changed. He became more determined than ever to avoid a direct military
confrontation with the United States. In a telegram to Chinese leaders
dated I October, Stalin pointed out that the situation in Korea was grave and
that without outside support, the Korean Communist regime would collapse.
He then asked the Chinese to dispatch their troops to Korea. It is noticeable,
however, that he did not mention what support the Soviet Union would offer
China, let alone touch on the key question of Soviet air support.33
At this moment, serious differences in opinions already existed among top
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 55
Chinese leaders on whether or not China should enter the war. Mao favored
dispatching troops to Korea, and on 2 October he personally drafted a long
telegram to respond to Stalin's request, informing Stalin that the Chinese
leadership had decided "to send a portion of our troops, under the name of
[Chinese People's] Volunteers, to Korea, assisting the Korean comrades to
fight the troops of the United States and its running dog Syngman Rhee."
Mao summarized the reasons for this decision, emphasizing that even though
China's intervention might cause a war between China and the United States,
it was necessary for the sake of the Korean and Eastern revolutions. Mao also
made it clear that in order to defeat the American troops in Korea, China
needed substantial Soviet military support.34 He used plain language to ask
Stalin to clarify "whether or not the Soviet Union can provide us with assistance
in supplying weapons, can dispatch a volunteer air force into Korea, and
can deploy large numbers of air force units to assist us in strengthening our
air defense in Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Shanghai, and Nanjing if the United
States uses its air force to bombard these places." 35
Mao, however, apparently did not dispatch this telegram, probably because
the opinions among top ccp leaders were yet to be unified and he also realized
the need to bargain with Stalin on the Soviet air support issue.36
According to
Russian sources, Mao met with Nikolai Rochshin, the Soviet ambassador to
China, later on 2 October, informing him that because dispatching Chinese
troops to Korea "may entail extremely serious consequences," including "provoking
an open conflict between the United States and China," many leaders
in Beijing believed that China should "show caution" in entering the Korean
War. Mao told Stalin that the Chinese leadership had not decided whether to
send troops to Korea.37
Over the ensuing two weeks, the Sino-Soviet alliance underwent a major
test. Before 7 October (when Stalin informed Kim ofMao's communication),
the Soviet leader cabled the Chinese leadership, advising Beijing that for the
sake of China's security interests as well as the interests of the world proletarian
revolution, it was necessary for China to send troops to Korea. Indeed,
Stalin even introduced a thesis that may be called the Communistversion
of the domino theory, warning Mao and his comrades that Beijing's failure
to intervene could result in grave consequences first for China's Northeast,
then for all China, and then for the entire world revolution. Ironically, Stalin
again failed to mention how the Soviet Union would support China if Chinese
troops did enter operations in Korea.38
By 7 October, Chinese leaders had already made the decision to enter the
war. From 3 to 6 October the ccp leadership held a series of strictly secret
56 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
The fiTSt and last pages ofthe handwritten draft ofMao Zedong's telegm111 to
Stalin, 2 October 1950. CCP Ce11tml Archives.
meetings to discuss the Korean issue. Although most ccp leaders had opposed,
or at least had reservations about, entering the war in Korea, Mao used both
his authority and his political insights to secure the support of his colleagues
for the decision to go to war.39 On 8 October Mao Zedong formally issued
the order to establish the Chinese People's Volunteers (cpv), with Peng Dehuai
as the commander,40 and informed Kim Il-sung of the decision the same
evening.41
In order to strengthen China's bargaining position in pursuing Soviet military
support, Mao found it necessary to "play tough with" Stalin.42 On IOIl
October, Zhou Enlai met with Stalin at the latter's villa on the Black Sea.
Zhou, according to Shi Zhe, Mao's and Zhou's Russian-language interpreter,
did not tell Stalin that China had decided to send troops to Korea but persistently
brought the discussion around to Soviet military aid, especially air support,
for China. Stalin finally agreed to provide China with substantial military
support but explained that it was impossible for the Soviet air force to
engage in fighting over Korea until two to two and a half months after Chinese
land forces entered operations there.43
Stalin's ambiguous attitude forced Mao again to order Chinese troops to
halt preparations for entering operations in Korea on 12 October.44 The next
day the ccp politburo met again to discuss China's entry into the Korean War.
Pushed by Mao, the politburo confirmed that entering the war was in the fundamental
interests of the Chinese revolution as well as the Eastern revolution.45
Mao then authorized Zhou Enlai, who was still in Moscow, to inform
Stalin of the decision. At the same time, Mao instructed Zhou to continue to
"consult with" the Soviet leaders, to clarify whether they would ask China to
lease or to purchase the military equipment that Stalin agreed to provide, and
whether the Soviet air force would enter operations in Korea at alJ.46
On 17 October, the day Zhou returned to Beijing, Mao again ordered the
troops on the Chinese-Korean border to halt their movements to give him
time to learn from Zhou about Stalin's exact position.47 The next day, when
Mao was convinced that the Soviet Union would provide China with all kinds
ofmilitary support, including air defense for major Chinese cities and air cover
for Chinese troops fighting in Korea in a later stage of the war, he finally
ordered Chinese troops to enter the Korean War.48
The concerns over China's physical security certainly played an important
role in convincing Beijing's leaders to enter the war. Yet factors more complicated
than these narrowly defined "security concerns" dominated Mao's conceptual
world. When Chinese troops entered the Korean War, Mao meant to
pursue a glorious victory over the American-led United Nations (UN) forces.
58 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SI NO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
The triumph, he hoped, would transform the challenge and threat posed by
the Korean crisis into added political energy for securing Communist control
of China's state and society as well as promote the international prestige and
influence of the People's Republic.
These plans explain why, at the same time Mao and his comrades were
considering entering the Korean War, the ccp leadership started the "Great
Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea," with "beating American arrogance"
as its central slogan. The party used every means available to stir
the "hatred of the U.S. imperialists" among common Chinese, emphasizing
that the United States had long engaged in political and economic aggression
against China, that the declining capitalist America was not as powerful as it
seemed, and that a confrontation between China and the United States was
inevitable.49 When the Chinese troops were crossing the Yalu River to Korea
late in October 1950, a nationwide campaign aimed at suppressing "reactionaries
and reactionary activities" emerged in China's cities and countryside.50
All of these developments must be understood as part ofMao's efforts to mobilize
the Chinese population to promote his grand programs for carrying on
the Chinese revolution.
Mao's already ambivalent feelings toward Stalin must have been even more
uncertain during the first three weeks of October. If Mao intended to use the
Korean crisis as a new source of domestic political mobilization, it would follow
that he would have welcomed Stalin's constant push for China to enter
the war as well as his promise, however late, to provide China with ammunition,
military equipment, and eventual air cover. In turn, Mao would be in
a prime position to persuade the party leadership to approve his decision to
enter the war. But Stalin's behavior of always putting Moscow's own interests
ahead of anything else demonstrated to Mao the limits of the Soviet leader's
proletarian internationalism. Meanwhile, Mao's decision to rescue the Korean
and Eastern revolution at a time of real difficulties inevitably heightened the
ccp chairman's sense of moral superiority-he was able to help others out,
even if the Soviet "elder brother" could not. As a result, in conceptual and
psychological terms, the seed for the future Sino-Soviet split was sown.
During the three years of China's intervention in Korea, the practical aspect
of the relationship between Beijing and Moscow intensified. Mao consulted
with Stalin on almost all important decisions. In December 1950 and January
1951, when Mao and his comrades were deciding to order Chinese troops to
cross the 38th parallel, Beijing maintained daily communication with Moscow
and received Stalin's unfailing support.51 In May-June 1951, when Beijing's
leaders were considering shifting their policy emphasis from fighting to negoTHE
RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 59
tiation to end the war, they had extensive exchanges of opinions with Stalin
and did not make the decision until Moscow fully backed the new strategy.52
After 1952, when the armistice negotiations at Panmunjom hit a deadlock on
the prisoner-of-war issue, Beijing consulted with Moscow and concluded that
the Chinese/North Korean side would not compromise on this issue until its
political and military position had improved.53
As far as the foundation of the Sino-Soviet alliance was concerned, Mao's
decision to send Chinese troops to Korea seemed to have boosted Stalin's
confidence in his comrades in Beijing as genuine proletarian internationalists.
During the war years, the Soviet Union provided China with large amounts
of ammunition and military equipment. Units of the Soviet air force, based
in Manchuria, began to defend the transportation lines across the ChineseKorean
border as early as November 1950 and entered operations over the
northern part of North Korea in January 1951.54 In the meantime, Stalin became
more willing to commit Soviet financial and technological resources to
China's economic reconstruction - during the war years, as a consequence, the
Soviet Union's share in China's foreign trade increased from 30 percent (in
1950) to 56,3 percent (in 1953).55 In retrospect, it would have been virtually
impossible for China to have fought the Korean War without the strategic
alliance with the Soviet Union.
Soviet support also played a crucial role in bolstering Mao's plans for continuing
the revolution at home. Indeed, China's involvement in the Korean
War stimulated a series of political and social transformations in the country
that would have been inconceivable during the early stage of the new republic.
In the wake of China's entrance into the war, the Communist regime
found itself in a powerful position to penetrate almost every area of Chinese
society through intensive mass mobilization under the banner of "Resisting
America and Assisting Korea." 56 During the three years of war, three nationwide
campaigns swept through China's countryside and cities: the movement
to suppress counterrevolutionaries, the land reform movement, and the
"Three Antis" and "Five Antis" movements.57 When the war ended in July
1953, China's society and political landscape had been altered: organized resistance
to the new regime had been destroyed; land in the countryside had
been redistributed and the landlord class had been eliminated; many of the
Communist cadres whom Mao believed had lost the revolutionary momentum
had been either "reeducated" or removed from leading positions; and the
national bourgeoisie was under the tight control of the Communist state and
the "petit-bourgeoise" intellectuals had experienced the first round of Communist
reeducation. Consequently, the ccp effectively extended and deepened
60 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
. rganizational control of Chinese society and dramatically promoted its
Its 0 .
authority and legitimacy in the minds of the Chinese people.
These domestic changes were further facilitated by the fact that during the
Chinese troops successfully forced the U.S./UN forces to retreat from
war,
the Chinese~Korean border to the 38th parallel, a development that allowed
Beijing to call its intervention in Korea a great victory. Mao and his comrades
believed that they had won a powerful position from which to claim
that international society-friends and foes alike-had to accept China as a
Great Power.58 This position, in turn, would allow Mao, as the mastermind of
the war decision, to enjoy political power inside China with far fewer checks
and balances than before. His view of China's international victory in Korea
made him more confident and enthusiastic to undertake a series of new steps
to transform China. Mao had good reason to be thankful for the Sino-Soviet
alliance during the Korean crisis.
Yet, on another level, the Chinese experience during the Korean War also
ground away at some ofthe cement that kept the Sino-Soviet alliance together.
The extreme pragmatism Stalin had demonstrated in his management of the
Korean crisis, especially in his failure to commit Soviet air support to China
during the key weeks of October 1950, revealed the superficial nature of the
Soviet dictator's proletarian internationalism. What really offended Mao and
his comrades, however, was the Soviet request that China pay for much of the
military support Beijing had received during the war, which added to China's
long-term economic challenges.59 To the Chinese, Stalin's stinginess made the
Soviets seem more like arms merchants than genuine Communist internation-
alists.
Consequently, although China's Korean War experience made Beijing more
dependent on Moscow, psychologically Stalin's attitude bolstered Mao's and
his fellow Chinese leaders' sense ofmoral superiority in relation to their Soviet
comrades. Stalin's death in March 1953 further hardened this feeling. As will
be discussed later, this subtle change in Mao's and his comrades' perception of
themselves and their comrades in Moscow would leave a critical stamp upon
the fate of the Sino-Soviet alliance.
The Alliance's Golden Years
For a period of several years immediately after Stalin's death, Sino-Soviet
cooperation developed smoothly. The Soviets offered the Chinese substantial
support to assist the PRC'S economic reconstruction, as well as to promote
its international status. From 29 September to 12 October 1954, Nikita
Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 61
(Cpsu), led a top-level Soviet delegation to visit China to participate in the
PRC's fifth anniversary celebrations. During this visit, the Soviets signed a
series of agreements with the Chinese. They agreed to return to China Soviet
military bases in Lushun (Port Arthur), together with its equipment, to give
up Soviet shares in four Sino-Soviet joint ventures,60 and to provide China
with loans totaling 520 million rubles. In addition, they offered technological
support to China in initiating or upgrading 156 key industrial projects for the
PRC's first five-year plan.61
In April 1955 the Soviet Union and China signed
an agreement under which Moscow provided Beijing with nuclear technology,
purportedly for peaceful purposes.62 It appeared that Khrushchev and the new
Soviet leadership were willing to establish a more productive and cooperative
relationship with their Chinese comrades.63
Chinese leaders in Beijing also demonstrated solidarity with Khrushchev
and the new Soviet leadership on a number of important domestic and international
issues. When the Soviet leaders made the decision to purge Lavrenty
Beria, Stalin's chief of the secret police, and when Khrushchev became the
cpsu's first secretary, the ccp leadership quickly offered its approval. In the
meantime, on pivotal Soviet foreign policy decisions such as the formation of
the Warsaw Pact Organization, the establishment of diplomatic relations between
the Soviet Union and West Germany, the signing ofa peace treaty with
Austria, and the improvement of relations with Yugoslavia, Beijing provided
Moscow with timely and firm support.64
On important international issues, Chinese and Soviet leaders carefully
consulted with each other to coordinate their strategies and policies. A revealing
example in this regard was Beijing's and Moscow's management of the
Geneva Conference of 1954. Before the conference, Zhou Enlai twice visited
Moscow to hold a series of meetings with Soviet leaders, which resulted in
well-coordinated Sino-Soviet strategies toward the Korean and the Indochina
questions that were to be discussed at the conference.65 At Geneva, the Chinese
and the Soviet delegations exchanged opinions and intelligence information
on a daily basis. When the Vietnamese Communists hesitated before accepting
the temporary division of their country along the 17th parallel, both the
Chinese and the Soviets pressured the Vietnamese, convincing them that such
a solution was in the interests of both the Vietnamese revolution and the cause
of world peace. In this sense it is fair to say that the conference's settlement
of the Indochina issue should be attributed to the cooperation between Zhou
Enlai and Vyacheslav Molotov.66
The 1954-55 period shined as a golden age
of the Sino-Soviet alliance.
The continuous enhancement of the alliance during this period reflected,
62 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
to some degree, Moscow's and Beijing's coinciding strategic concerns. From
a soviet perspective, these were the years that Khrushchev and his colleagues
slowly began to rid themselves of Stalin's shadow. Khrushchev, who had just
emerged as the top Soviet leader and needed time to consolidate his leadership
role, certainly understood that the support from China was indispensable to
him.67
Beijing, on the other hand, also needed Moscow's assistance. The cCP leadership
was adjusting China's internal and external policies after the end of
the Korean War. Domestically, in 1953-54 the Central Committee was contemplating
the introduction of the first five-year plan as well as liberating the
Nationalist-controlled Taiwan either by peaceful or, if necessary, by military
means.68 After five years of being excluded from the international community,
Beijing's leaders (including Mao at that time) were eager to escape China's
isolation.69 Under these circumstances, especially considering that China's socialist
reconstruction had to be modeled after the Soviet example, political,
military, and economic support from the Soviet Union became highly valuable.
In other words, the specific needs of Mao's continuous revolution at this
stage were well served by the Sino-Soviet alliance.
A vague undercurrent of disagreement and distrust, however, lingered between
Chinese and Soviet leaders. Even during the heyday of Sino-Soviet solidarity,
Mao and his comrades were never comfortable with the junior partner's
role they had to play in China's relations with the Soviet Union. As they would
explain later, Mao and his comrades felt a deep sense of inequality in their
dealings with the Soviets, and particularly with Stalin. Making Beijing a real
equal partner with Moscow was the constant aim of Mao and his fellow Beijing
leaders.?o After Stalin's death, as we shall see, Beijing's pursuit ofan elusive
"equality" would eventually cause friction with the new Soviet leadership.?!
Related to the Chinese discomfort over "inequality" were the potential tensions
between Moscow's dominance in the international Communist movement
and Beijing's aspiration for recognition as a central part of the "world
revolution." Such international recognition would, among other things, further
legitimate Mao's plans for bringing the Chinese revolution to deeper
levels. When Stalin was alive, Mao and his comrades had to respect his authority
and yield to his reputation; with Stalin gone, Mao became increasingly
reluctant to acknowledge the authority of Stalin's much younger and, in Mao's
eyes, less sophisticated successor, Nikita Khrushchev.
One outstanding example of the problems existing between Beijing and
Moscow during this time can be found in Mao's management ofthe Gao Gang
affair. Gaowas a ccp politburo member and the vice chairman of the PRC CenTHE
RISE AND DEMISE OF TilE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 63
tral People's Government. Mao and other politburo members believed Gao
had been a close friend of Moscow since his days as the cCP leader in the
Northeast. Beginning in December 1953, Gao became the target of a series
of escalating attacks from the ccp leadership. He was labeled as a "conspirator
who intended to split the party" and removed from his position. He was
reported to have committed suicide in August 1954.72
It is now believed that Gao Gang's purge was the result of a long-standing
conflict between him and other top CCP leaders, especially Liu Shaoqi and
Zhou Enlai, and probably was not directly related to his presumed close ties
with the Soviets. However, the timing of the purge was important and revealing.
Although the tensions between Gao Gang and Liu Shaoqi had existed for
years, Mao did not decide to take Liu's side to criticize Gao until after Stalin's
death. Despite Gao's close relations with the Soviets, the ccp did not keep
Moscow abreast of what was happening to him. Gao died two weeks before
Mao informed the Soviet leaders officially that Gao had committed "serious
crimes in trying to split the party" on 1September 1954.73 Ignoring Moscow's
"right to know" -if not "right to lead" -in this way would have been inconceivable
if Stalin had been alive, or if genuine trust had existed between the
Chinese and Soviet leaders.
Accumulated Tension
A turning point came in February 1956, when the cpsu held its Twentieth
Congress. Toward the end of the meeting, Khrushchev delivered a lengthy
speech criticizing Stalin and his personality cult at a secret session, to which
the ccp delegation to the congress had not been invited. The Soviets did provide
the Chinese delegation with a copy of Khrushchev's speech afterward,74
but the fact that they failed to consult Beijing in advance greatly offended Mao
and his fellow cCP leaders.75
Khrushchev's speech shocked Mao and the cCP leadership. From midMarch
to early April 1956, top CCP leaders held a series of meetings to discuss
Khrushchev's speech and formulate strategies to deal with the situation it
created.76 At the first of such meetings, convened on the evening of 17 March,
Mao set the tone for the discussion, pointing out that Khrushchev's speech
not only "exposed the problems" (jie le gaizi) in Stalin's Soviet Union but also
"made a mess" (tong le louzi).77
Mao and his comrades believed that Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin's mistakes
had shattered the myth that Stalin and the Soviet Union had always been
correct and would thus contribute to "correcting Stalin's mistakes as well as the
erroneous tendency of treating other parties as inferiors within the interna-
64 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
tional Communist movement." 78 Within this context, Mao detailed the mistakes
Stalin had made during the Chinese Communist revolution. He stated
that during the early stage of China's War of Resistance against Japan, Stalin
supported Mao's chief rival Wang Ming's "rightist" policy of "putting the
interests of the united front above the interests of the Communist Party," and
that after the end of the War of Resistance, he "forced" the CCP not to fight
against the Guomindang's anti-Communist civil war plot. The ccp chairman
also recalled that during his visit to the Soviet Union from December 1949 to
February 1950, Stalin was reluctant to sign a new alliance treaty with the PRC.
Not until after Chinese volunteers entered the Korean War, he observed, did
Stalin begin to regard the ccp as a genuine Communist party devoted to true
proletarian internationalism.79
Despite Stalin's mistakes, Mao emphasized, he should still be regarded as
a "great Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader." He told his comrades that
Stalin should be evaluated on his historical merit: "The realization of Communism
is an extremely difficult task since there exists no example [for the
Communists] to follow.... During the process of fulfilling this arduous task,
it is impossible that mistakes would not be committed. This is because what we
are doing is something that no one has tried in the past. I thus always believe
[the Communists would] inevitably commit mistakes. The fact that Stalin has
committed many mistakes should not be taken as a surprise. Comrade Khrushchev
will commit mistakes. The Soviet Union will commit mistakes. And
we will also commit mistakes." 80 Therefore, Mao concluded, in making an
overall assessment of Stalin as a historical figure, it was necessary to adopt
a "seventy-thirty ratio" methodology-that is, acknowledging that achievements
should account for 70 percent of Stalin's career and mistakes for only
30 percent.8I
As a result of these discussions, Mao and his comrades decided to make
public China's view on de-Stalinization, in order to control the confusion
prompted by Khrushchev's speech. Considering that the Soviets had not formally
published Khrushchev's speech and that de-Stalinization was still a developing
process, the ccp leadership decided to promulgate the party's official
view through the editorial board of Renmin l'ibao (People's Daily). On 5 April
1956, Renmin ribao published a lengthy editorial, titled "On the Historical Experience
of Proletarian Dictatorship," arguing that Stalin, in spite of all his
"serious mistakes," still needed to be respected as a "great Marxist-Leninist." 82
Mao and his comrades defended Stalin, first and foremost, for defending
the cCP's own experience of building socialism in China. Since the early days
of the People's Republic, the experience of Stalin's Soviet Union had served
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 65
as a model for the ccp's own designs for China's state-building, societal transformation,
and economic reconstruction. While it is true that Mao and his
comrades never intended to copy completely the "Stalin model," they found
in the Soviet experience basic strategies and tactics highly useful for promoting
China's "socialist revolution and reconstruction." In particular, they
were more than willing to learn from the Soviet practices of establishing a
highlycentralized economic planning system, controlling the rural population
through collectivization movements, putting emphasis on developing heavy
industry and defense industry, and entrenching the top party leader's authority
over the party and the state. In exploring a Chinese path toward socialist modernization,
Mao criticized the "Stalin model" in many respects, but he also
found that it offered him valuable grounds on which to establish basic understandings
of several fundamental relationships with which he and his party
had to deal in China.83 Therefore, for Mao and his comrades to negate Stalin
completely would mean to repudiate Mao's grand enterprise of continuous
revolution.
Mao's reluctance to embrace de-Stalinization also reflected China's changing
domestic political situation and his perception of it in the mid-1950s. In
1955-56, Mao's great enterprise had reached a pivotal point, creating tension
between the ccp chairman and many of his prominent colleagues. On the one
hand, the inauguration of the first five-year plan, the successful completion of
agricultural cooperativization in the countryside, and the advancement of the
socialist transformation of industry and commerce in the cities combined to
convince Mao that the continuous revolution should be elevated to a higher
stage, one that would accelerate China's economic development and its growth
into a socialist and Communist society.84 On the other hand, however, many
members of the ccp leading elite-Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun in particularbelieved
it essential to maintain balanced economic development and societal
transformation, and that "rash advance" (maojin) should be opposed.85 Although
this difference in opinion between Mao and his colleagues would not
surface fully until late 1956 and 1957, the ccp chairman already had realized
by early 1956 that China's Communist elite did not always understand the direction
of his train of thought, let alone follow it.86 As a result, he increasingly
felt that one of the best guarantors of his continuous revolution was further
consolidation and expansion of his own leadership role.
These developments, in turn, conditioned the Maoist rhetoric on de-Stalinization
in two important respects. First, Mao's criticism of the Soviet leader
focused on the (re)construction of a grand narrative about his unfailing resistance
to Stalin's erroneous interference in the Chinese revolution, creating
66 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
and enhancing the myth that he himself had been the symbol of eternal correctness.
Second, he adopted a unique approach toward the "cult of personality"
issue. In his initial response toward de-Stalinization, Mao generally
avoided sharp criticism of Stalin's personality cult. With the radicalization of
China's political and social life in 1957-58, he would make it clear that he had
no intention of opposing personality cults in general and his own personality
cult in particular. It is not surprising that Ke Qingshi, a ccp politburo member
with close ties to the chairman, would openly argue that "it is all right to worship
Chairman Mao to the extent ofhaving a blind faith in him." 87 Mao agreed,
saying that he favored distinguishing "correct" from "incorrect" personality
cults.88
Mao's specific response to de-Stalinization also revealed his new perception
ofBeijing's more superior position in the international Communist movement
in the post-Stalin era. Indeed, now Mao, consciously or unconsciously, behaved
with a stronger sense of moral superiority. On 31 March 1956, he gave
one of the first of his many long monologues to Pavel Yudin, the Soviet ambassador
to China, in which he systematically presented his overall view on
criticism of Stalin. Again, the ccp chairman reviewed the history of Stalin's
relations with China, emphasizing that the late Soviet leader had committed
serious mistakes during all stages of the Chinese revolution; in particular, Mao
said, Stalin had failed to treat his Chinese comrades as equals. In a more general
discussion about how to evaluate Stalin, though, the chairman argued that
"the simple fact that the population of the Socialist Camp had grown from
200 million to 900 million speaks for itself" - that is, overall, "Stalin, without
doubt, is a great Marxist, a good and honest revolutionary." 89 One week later,
in another long monologue-style conversation with Anastas Mikoyan, the cCP
chairman again discussed the "serious mistakes" Stalin committed in regard
to the Chinese revolution but argued that in general, "Stalin's achievements
surpass his mistakes" and that it was thus necessary to "concretely analyze"
and "comprehensively evaluate" the Stalin issue.90
Through these talks, Mao meant to deliver several crucial messages. First,
he conveyed to Khrushchev and the other Soviet leaders his conception of the
proper tone for criticizing Stalin. Despite all of Stalin's "serious mistakes,"
the chairman advised his Soviet comrades that it was wrong to condemn him
completely and that continuing to praise him was in the fundamental interests
of both the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.
Second, by criticizing Stalin's wrongdoings toward the Chinese Communist
revolution, especially his failure to treat his Chinese comrades as "equals,"
Mao was reminding Khrushchev and his fellow Soviet leaders that they should
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SI NO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 67
not repeat the same mistake and that a new pattern of Sino~Sovietrelations,
one based on the principle of "equality"-as Mao himselfdefined the terrrishould
be established between Beijing and Moscow. Third, in a more funda~
mental sense, Mao revealed his new mentality in handling relations with Mos~
cow-after Stalin's death, Mao already felt that he should have a greater voice
on questions concerning not only matters between Beijing and Moscow but
also the fate of the entire international Communist movement. When Mao
spoke about Stalin's mistakes and achievements, he was asserting that he, not
the Soviet leaders, now occupied the morally paramount position to dominate
the cause of the world proletarian revolution.
Within this context Mao endeavored during 1956 to make known his views
on the Stalin issue to Communist leaders from other parts of the world. On
28 June 1956, in a conversation with Romania's ambassador to China, Mao re~
iterated that Communists should not be surprised by Stalin's mistakes. "After
all," the chairman said, "good things exist in the world together with bad
things. This has been so since ancient times, and will continue to be so in the
future. This is why we need to, and can, transform the world." 91 In September
1956, in a meeting with a Yugoslav Communist Union delegation attending the
ccp's Eighth National Congress, Mao repeated his views about the "serious
mistakes" Stalin had committed toward the Chinese revolution, yet he again
announced that achievement should be regarded as the main Soviet experience
during Stalin's era.92 On these occasions, indeed, the ccp chairman acted as
if he had become the "new emperor" of the international Communist move~
ment.
Consequently, by late 1956, China's relations with the SovietUnion changed
significantly. Although in public Mao continued to maintain that Moscow re~
mained the center of the socialist camp, he really believed that it was he who
was more qualified to dictate the principles underlying the relations between
and among socialist countries. This shift in Mao's view of the relationship be~
tween Beijing and Moscow was demonstrated most clearly in Beijing's man~
agement of the Polish and Hungarian crises in late 1956.93
As Mao and his fellow cCP leaders viewed them, the crises emerging in
Poland and Hungary were not of the same nature. While they believed that
both crises had resulted from Soviet "big~power chauvinism," they saw the
crisis in Poland as basically anti~Soviet and the one in Hungary (after initial
uncertainty) as essentially anti~Communist.Therefore, when Beijing learned
that Moscow was planning to intervene militarily in Poland on 19-21 Octo~
ber, ccp leaders held several urgent meetings to discuss the situation. They
concluded that if the Soviets were to use military force to solve the Polish
68 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF TilE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
issue, they would be intervening in Poland's internal affairs?4 Mao twice summoned
Ambassador Yudin to his quarters and requested that he inform Moscow
urgently that China would publicly protest ifMoscow were to launch any
military intervention in Poland.95
On 23-31 October a high-ranking ccp delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi and
Deng Xiaoping traveled to Moscow to consult with the Soviet leaders about
the Polish (and, it turned out, Hungarian) crisis. Largely because of the pressure
from the Chinese, reportedly, Khrushchev and his fellow Soviet leaders
not only decided not to use force to solve the Polish question but also agreed,
on 30 October, to issue the "Declaration on Developing and Enhancing the
Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist
Countries," in which Moscow promised to follow a pattern of more equal exchanges
with other Communist states and parties.96 Mao and his comrades
regarded this as Beijing's victory.
Beijing's attitude toward the Hungarian crisis was very different. Although
Mao and his fellow ccp leaders initially believed that the origins of the crisis
lay in Moscow's failure to treat the Hungarians as equals, they were alarmed
when reports came in that anti-Communist riots began to spread all over Hungary.
On 30 October, after receiving Liu's and Deng's report from Moscow
that the Soviet leaders were planning to withdraw their troops from Hungary,
Mao chaired a meeting of top CCP leaders, which decided to oppose Moscow's
abandonment of Hungary to "reactionary forces." 97 Liu, following instructions
from Beijing, met with Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders on the same
day, informing them that it was the Chinese leaders' belief that Soviet withdrawal
would be a betrayal of the Hungarian people and that it would put the
Soviet leaders on the stand as "historical criminals." The next day, on their
way to the airport, Khrushchev told Liu and other members of the Chinese
delegation that the Soviet leadership would use military force to suppress the
"reactionary revolt" in Hungary.98 Four days later the Soviet Red Army began
its attack on Budapest.
Beijing's intransigent attitude toward the Hungarian crisis reflected Mao's
persistent belief that reactionary elements and class enemies had been one of
the main causes of the turmoil. Drawing lessons from the Hungarian crisis,
Mao argued that the continuous revolution in China should be further enhanced,
especially in the fields of politics and ideology.99 In the wake of the
Hungary crisis, an Anti-Rightist movement swept across China in summer
1957; as a result, over 300,000 Chinese intellectuals were branded as "rightists,"
a label that would effectively silence them and ruin their careers, and Mao
and the ccp established absolute control over China's "public opinion." lOO
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 69
Along with the Anti-Rightist movement, Mao initiated an equally important
yet less well known (at least in the West) political offensive within the
ccp leadership aimed at those of his comrades who had opposed "rash advance"
in handling China's economic development in 1956 and early 1957. The
main target was Premier Zhou Enlai. Beginning in late summer 1957, Mao
claimed that Zhou had been seriously mistaken in emphasizing the utmost importance
of achieving balanced development in China's economic reconstruction.
The chairman told his comrades that he favored "rash advance," despite
its risks, because it would accelerate China's transformation into a socialist and
Communist society. The chairman distrusted the premier to such an extent
that he even considered removing Zhou and replacing him with Ke Qingshi,
whom the chairman regarded as more faithful to his continuous-revolution
programs.101 The outcome of the Hungarian incident complicated Chinese
politics at the same time that it pushed Mao's continuous revolution onto a
more radical stage.
The conviction that the Chinese had made a significant contribution toward
the "correct resolution" of the Polish and Hungarian crises also facilitated
Mao's belief in Beijing's more prominent position in the international Communist
movement. Beijing's leaders thus felt more justified to adopt a critical
attitude toward the seemingly less sophisticated Soviet leadership. On 7-
18 January 1957, Zhou Enlai visited the Soviet Union, Poland, and Hungary.102
In his report summarizing the visit, he commented extensively on how the
Soviet leadership lacked sophistication in managing the complicated situations
both within the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe. What this report
epitomized, indeed, was China's new self-image as the most qualified candidate
to be the leader in the Communist world.I°3 Not surprisingly, when Mao
discussed in several internal speeches in 1957 how the ccp diverged from the
Soviet leaders on de-Stalinization, he charged that Khrushchev and his comrades
had abandoned not only "the sword of Stalin" but also, to a large extent,
"the sword of Lenin." The subtext of the statement was that the sword was
already in Mao's hands.I°4 In the wake of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization and
the Polish and Hungarian crises, the tension between Beijing and Moscow was
escalating.
Yet, in the public eye, Sino-Soviet relations seemed to be proceeding
smoothly in 1956-57. While the Soviet Union continued to provide China
with extensive economic and military assistance, China openly endorsed the
Soviet Union's leading position in the international Communist movement.
In November 1957 Mao Zedong visited Moscow to attend celebrations for the
fortieth anniversary of the Russian Bolshevik revolution of 1917. At a meeting
70 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SI NO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
Mao Zedong (center) and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchevat the celebration rally for the
fortieth anniversary ofthe Russian Bolshevik revolution, Moscow, 6 November 1957. Xinhua
News Agency.
of leaders of Communist and workers' parties from socialist countries, Mao
called upon the whole socialist camp to recognize the Soviet Union's leadership
role. On one occasion the ccp chairman used a metaphor to compare himself
with Khrushchev, saying that the flower of Khrushchev was more beautiful
than the flower of Mao Zedong.105
But Mao's high-profiled rhetoric should be read critically. By endorsing the
Soviet Union's leading position in the international Communist movement,
the ccp chairman virtually had placed himself in the capacity of a judge from
a higher court, implying that it was he who now occupied a morally superior
position to his comrades in Moscow, and that the legitimacy of Moscow's
leadership role lay in his approval.
It was at the Moscow meeting that Mao emphasized that the Communists
should not be frightened by the prospect of a nuclear war started by the imperialists
but should realize that such a war, although carrying a high price,
would bring the imperialist system to its grave.106 Mao's statement was a deliberate
challenge to Khrushchev's emphasis on the necessity and possibility of
"peaceful coexistence" with Western imperialist countries, and it inevitably
worried Moscow's leaders. Were Khrushchev and his colleagues ready to yield
to such Maoist discourse? If not, a storm would be gathering in the relationship
between Moscow and Beijing.
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 71
From Tension to Crisis
The year 1958 was pivotal in the history of the People's Republic as it witnessed
one of the most radical episodes of Mao's continuous revolution: the
Great Leap Forward. In January 1958 Mao chaired two meetings attended by
central and provincial party leaders in Hangzhou and Nanning. At both meetings
the chairman continued his criticism of Zhou Enlai's opposition to "rash
advance" in previous years, labeling it "a mistake concerning principles, which
has damaged the revolutionaryvigor of 600 million [Chinese] people." He further
warned Zhou that he was "only fifty meters" from becoming a rightist.107
Facing Mao's repeated criticism, Zhou Enlai acknowledged at the Nanning
conference that "as far as the mistake of 'opposing rash advance' is concerned,
I should take the main responsibility." 108
On 31 January, Mao summarized the discussions in an important document
titled "Sixty Articles on Work Methods"; in it he attempted to be as explicit as
the political situation allowed in defining the mission of his continuous revo-
lution:
Our revolutions come one after another. The seizure of political power in
the whole country in 1949 was soon followed by the antifeudal land reform.
As soon as the land reform was completed, the agricultural cooperativization
followed. Then the socialist transformation of privately owned
industry, commerce, and handicraft occurred.... The socialist revolution
in the field of the ownership of means of production will be completed by
1958, and will be followed by the socialist revolution on the political and
ideological fronts.... [We are] now preparing to make a revolution in the
technological field, so that [we may] overtake Britain in fifteen or more
years.I09
This text was one of the foundation statements Mao made at an important
juncture of his continuous revolution. Through a typical Mao-style review of
history, the chairman revealed his deep-rooted postrevolution anxiety; that is,
if he failed to push the revolution forward constantly, the revolution would
die. By conceptualizing what needed to be done in order to bring his revolution
to a higher stage, he defined the mission of the Great Leap Forward, which, in
a few short months, was to sweep across China, dramatically radicalizing the
country's domestic and external policies.
Dominated by a profound revolutionary fever, Mao chaired another Central
Committee working conference in Chengdu, from 8 to 26 March, and further
escalated his criticism of "opposing rash advance." The chairman claimed
that "rash advance is a Marxist way and 'opposing rash advance' is an anti-
72 TilE RISE AND DEMISE OF TilE SI NO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
Marxist way." He announcedthat "we shall continue to commit to rash advance
in the future." On 19 and 25 March, Zhou Enlai, on the verge of a total
political defeat, made a more comprehensive self-criticism.I1O
In addition to
dealing with his mistakes on domestic issues, Zhou devoted a large portion of
his self-criticism to his "conservative and rightist tendency" in handling the
PRC'S foreign relations. He admitted that the Foreign Ministry's work under
his direction had neglected the necessary struggle in dealing with nationalist
countries, had maintained a kind ofwishful thinking concerning imperialism
(especially toward Japan and the United States), and had failed to conductnecessary
criticism of the revisionist policies of other socialist countries. He particularly
mentioned that while it was reasonable to learn from the experience
of the Soviet Union, it was a mistake to copy it completely.1II
Zhou's self-criticism clearly showed that profound connections existed between
the domestic and international aspects of Chinese politics in the late
195os. Following Mao's ideas, the cCP leadership at the Chengdu conference
decided to revise boldly China's economic development plans, so that China
"would catch the right opportunity to surpass Britain in a period even shorter
than fifteen years." 112 When the Great Leap Forward was implemented, not
surprisingly, Beijing's external policy became dramatically radicalized.
It was against this backdrop that the tensions between China and the Soviet
Union became a political problem in China. In November 1957, during the
visit of China's defense minister, Peng Dehuai, to the Soviet Union, the two
sides reached an agreement that they would cooperate closely on developing
naval and air forces in East Asia.1I3
In a letter dated 18 April 1958, Soviet defeuse
minister Rodion Malinovskii proposed to Peng that, in order to communicate
with the Soviet Union's submarines in the Pacific area, the Soviet high
command and the Chinese Ministry of Defense cooperate over a four-year
period in constructing a long-wave radio transmission center and a long-wave
radio receiving station specially designed for long-distance communication.
The Soviet Union would cover 70 percent of the construction costS.114 Mao
immediately considered these plans a threat to China's sovereignty and integrity.
He decided that China would accept the proposal only on the condition
that China would pay all the expenses and would retain exclusive ownership of
the station. Following Mao's instructions, Peng responded to Malinovskii on
12 June, proposing that the two governments sign a formal agreement along
these lines.115
On II July, the Soviet Union provided a draft agreement for the construction
of the radio stations. Without a proper understanding of the nature of
Beijing's request for exclusive ownership, the Soviets still insisted that the staTilE
RISE AND DEMISE OF TilE SI NO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 73
tions be jointly constructed and managed by China and the Soviet Union."6
Beijing responded with several suggestions for revision: China would take the
responsibility for constructing the stations and they would belong to China;
China would purchase from the Soviet Union the equipment it was unable
to produce and would invite Soviet experts to help construct the station; and
after the station's completion, it would be solely owned by China but jointly
used by China and the Soviet Union.ll7
Before the radio station issue was settled, a second dispute in the military
field emerged, this one concerning the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese
submarine flotilla. In late 1957, Soviet military and naval advisers in China had
indicated to the Chinese that they should purchase new naval equipment from
the Soviet Union.I18 On 28 June 1958, Zhou Enlai wrote to Khrushchev requesting
that the Soviet Union provide technological assistance for China's
naval buildup, especially the designs for new-type submarines.119
On 21 July,
Ambassador Yudin called on Mao Zedong. Speaking on behalf ofKhrushchev,
Yudin proposed that China and the Soviet Union establish a joint submarine
flotilla. Yudin explained that unlike the geography of China, with its long
coastal lines and good natural harbors, the Soviet Union's made it difficult for
the Soviet navy to take full advantage of the new submarines. Mao was offended
by the proposal. "First, we should make clear the guiding principle,"
he told the ambassador, asking, "[Do you mean that] we should create [the
fleet] with your assistance? Or [do you mean] that we should jointlycreate [the
fleet], otherwise you will not offer any assistance?" Mao emphasized that he
was not interested in creating a Sino-Soviet "military cooperative." 120
The next day Mao summoned Yudin to his quarters for a lengthy and very
emotional conversation. Once again, the ccp chairman surveyed the history of
the relations between the ccp and the Soviet Union, charging that the Soviets
had always treated their Chinese comrades from a posture of"big-power chauvinism."
He then stressed that behind the Soviet proposals for establishing
long-wave radio stations and a joint submarine flotilla was Moscow's attempt
to control China. The chairman said angrily, "[Y]ou may accuse me of being
a nationalist or another Tito, but my counterargument is that you have extended
Russian nationalism to China's coast." As was the case during many of
Mao's meetings with Yudin, the chairman presented a near monologue and the
Soviet ambassador had few opportunities to respond. If an observer did not
know the nature of the two officials' relationship, Yudin could have been the
head of a "barbarian" tribute mission who was receiving the teachings of the
Chinese "son of heaven." As the conversation approached its end, Mao told
74 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
Yudin to "report all my comments to Comrade Khrushchev," emphasizing that
"you must tell him exactly what I have said without any polishing." 121
Alarmed byYudin's report, Khrushchevvisited Beijing from 31 July to 3August,
meeting four times with Mao and other Chinese leaders. At the first
meeting, Khrushchev explained to Mao that the Soviets had no intention of
controlling China. On the radio station issue he emphasized that it was the
"personal opinion" of Malinovskii, rather than the decision of the Central
Committee of the CPSU, to construct "jointly" the long-wave station. He
agreed that the Soviet Union would provide financial and technical support
for establishing the station but would let the Chinese own it. On the joint fleet
issue, Khrushchev explained that Yudin might not have accurately conveyed
the message from Moscow, stressing that the Soviets were more than willing
to treat their Chinese comrades as equals. Mao Zedong, however, would not
easily accept Khrushchev's explanations, claiming that "big-power chauvinism"
did exist in the Soviet attitude toward China, and that the two issues were
just the two most recent examples.I22
On 3August, after four days of intensive
meetings, Malinovskii and Peng, representing the Soviet and Chinese governments,
signed an agreement on the construction of long-wave stations and
the dispatch of Soviet experts to China.l2J Yet the psychological rift between
the Chinese and Soviet leaders, and especially between Mao and Khrushchev,
persisted and intensified.l24
Mao would later recall that "the overturning of
[our relations with] the Soviet Union occurred in 1958; that was because they
wanted to control China militarily." 125
Mao's harsh reaction to these two issues reflected his increasing sensitivity
regarding China's sovereignty and equal status in relation to the Soviet Union.
Underlying this sensitivity, though, was a strong and unique "victim mentality"
that characterized Chinese revolutionary nationalism during modern
times. This mentality had been informed by the conviction that the political,
economic, and military aggression of foreign imperialist countries had
undermined China's historical glory and humiliated the Chinese nation. Consequently,
it was natural for the Chinese Communists, in their efforts to end
China's humiliating modern experiences, to suspect the behavior of any foreign
country as being driven by ulterior, or even evil, intentions. Although the
Soviet Union was a Communist country, when Mao claimed that Khrushchev
and his Kremlin colleagues intended to control China, he apparently equated
them with the leaders of Western imperialism.
That Mao's suspicion and distrust of Soviet "chauvinist intentions" toward
China came to a head in the summer of1958, rather than earlier or later, should
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 75
Mao Zedong greets Nikita Khrushchev at the Beijing airport, ]I July [958.
Xinhua News Agency.
be understood in the context of the chairman's criticism of "opposing rash advance"
within the ccp leadership. Reading the transcripts of Mao's talks with
Yudin and Khrushchev, one gets an impression that they were quite similar to
many of the chairman's inner-party speeches throughout late 1957 and 1958.
In both circumstances, Mao believed that he had absolute command of the
76 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
truth; and, in these monologues, the chairman became accustomed to teaching
others in critical, often passionate, terms. Indeed, since Mao was turning his
own revolutionary emotion into the dynamics for the Great Leap Forward, it
is not surprising that he adopted the same challenge-oriented stance in dealing
with his Soviet comrades.
When Khrushchev arrived in China at the end of July 1958, the leaders in
Beijing already had decided to begin large-scale shelling of the Nationalistcontrolled
Jinmen (Quemoy) islands off the coast of Fujian province.I26 In determining
the timing of the shelling, the chairman hoped not only to confront
international imperialism and call attention to the issue of Taiwan being part
of the People's Republic, but also to help stimulate the rising tide of the Great
Leap. The shelling would be accompanied by an anti-Jiang Jieshi and antiU.
S. propaganda campaign- with "we must liberate Taiwan" as its central slogan.
Mao, however, did not have an established plan to invade Taiwan or to involve
China in a direct military confrontation with the United States.l27 What
he needed was a sustained and controllable conflict, one that would enhance
popular support for his radical transformation of China's polity, economy, and
society. As the chairman pointed out at the peak of the Taiwan Strait crisis,
"[B]esides its disadvantageous side, a tense [international] situation could mobilize
the population, could particularly mobilize the backward people, could
mobilize the people in the middle, and could therefore promote the Great
Leap Forward in economic construction." 128
Mao did not inform Khrushchev of his tactical plans during their meeting
in Beijing.129
When the PLA began an intensive artillery bombardment of the
islands on 23 August, the Soviet leaders were at a loss to interpret China's aims.
In the following six weeks, several hundred thousand artillery shells exploded
on Jinmen and in the waters around it. The Eisenhower administration, in accordance
with its obligations under a 1954 American-Taiwan defense treaty,
reinforced U. S. naval units in East Asia and used U. S. naval vessels to help the
Nationalists protect Jinmen's supply lines.
The Soviet leaders, fearing that Beijing's actions might cause grave consequences,
sent Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on a secret visit to Beijing
in early September to inquire about China's reasons for shelling Jinmen.
At this time the Chinese leaders said that the shelling was designed to attract
the world's attention to the Taiwan question and to divert American strength
from other parts of the world (especially the Middle East), but not as a step
leading to the invasion of Taiwan, let alone to provoke a direct confrontation
with the United States.no Only after receiving these explanations from Beijing
did the Soviet government issue a statement on 8 September to show its
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 77
solidarity with the Chinese.l3l Nonetheless, the fissure between Beijing and
Moscow widened.l32
On the domestic front, the Great Leap Forward was progressing rapidly. In
the fall and winter of 1958, tens of thousands of people's communes appeared
in China's countryside and cities, which, with their free supply system, were
supposed to form the basic units of an emerging Communist society. In the
meantime, hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese were mobilized to produce
steel from small backyard furnaces in order to double the nation's steel
production in oneyear's time.133
Khrushchevand his colleagues were confused
by what was occurring in China. Thousands of Soviet advisers there issued
warnings about the possible negative economic consequences of the Great
Leap, but the Soviet media avoided making any public reference to the Chinese
plans. During a meeting with U. S. senator Hubert Humphrey, according
to Western sources, Khrushchev even dismissed the people's communes as
"reactionary." 134 The Soviets' reaction offended Mao deeply, intensifying his
belief that the Soviet leaders, and Khrushchev in particular, lacked political
wisdom and revolutionary vigor.I35
Further Deepening of the Crisis
In early 1959, a number of events combined to further stress the relations
between Moscow and Beijing. First, the negative effects of the Great Leap
Forward began to be felt in the Chinese economy. Beginning in the spring
of 1959, the rural population increasingly resisted the slogan of a "continuous
leap forward," and, in urban areas, China's industrial production began to
decrease.J36
What made the situation more complicated for Beijing was that
in March, an anti-Chinese and anti-Communist rebellion erupted in Tibet.
Although the rebellion itself was quickly suppressed, it caused new tensions
between China and India, who, since the early I950s, had maintained friendly
relations. International pressure on Beijing mounted.'37
Although Mao Zedong's continuous revolution was facing its most serious
challenge since the establishment of the People's Republic, Khrushchev and
the other Soviet leaders were willing to add to Beijing's misfortune. On 20 June
the Soviets informed the Chinese that because of the Soviet-American negotiations
at Geneva to ban nuclear weapon tests, it was difficult for Moscow to
provide China with assistance on nuclear technology. If the Western countries
learned that the Soviet Union had agreed to share its nuclear secrets with
China, the Soviet leaders explained, "it is possible that the efforts by socialist
countries to strive for peace and the relaxation of international tensions would
be jeopardized." The Soviets thus told the Chinese that they would no longer
78 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
honor some of their obligations that had been set up in the agreement they
signed with the Chinese on 15 October 1957, and would not provide Beijing
with atomic bomb prototypes and technical data for producing the bomb.Bs
M.ao regarded this turn of events as an indication ofMoscow's attempt to put
pressure on the ccp and especially on himself to change the course of Chinese
policy,139 which further contributed to the distrust and tension between
Beijing and Moscow.
The escalating crisis in the Sino-Soviet alliance coincided with the growing
tensions within the ccp leadership in the wake ofthe Great Leap. In July 1959,
top cCP leaders gathered at Lushan to discuss the consequences of the Great
Leap Forward and strategies to deal with them.l4o Peng Dehuai, who had just
returned from a formal visit to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries,
wrote to Mao on 14 July to propose that the party leadership "overcome
petit bourgeoisie enthusiasm" and carefully evaluate the "losses and achievements"
of the Great Leap.I41 The chairman, sensing that Peng's letter might
pose a serious threat to both his continuous revolution programs and his position
as China's indisputable leader, responded fiercely. He claimed that Peng
had long been a careerist and that his "total negation" of the Great Leap aimed
to overturn the party's general plan for socialist reconstruction and to overthrow
the party's top leadership. Using his authority and power, the chairman
converted the Lushan conference into a denunciation of Peng's "antiparty
plot." Peng, in turn, lost his position as China's defense minister.142 In
terms of its historical significance, the Lushan conference represented Mao's
crucial first step toward initiating the disastrous "Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution," of which the "Soviet revisionism and social imperialism" would
become a major target.
It is notable that when Peng Dehuai became the main target ofcriticism and
denunciation during and after this conference, many ccp leaders connected
the defense minister's letter to his visit to the Soviet Union and his meetings
with Khrushchev. Those who supported Mao asked repeatedly whether
Peng's "intentional attack" against Mao and the party had an "international
background," that is, the support of the Soviets. Although Peng categorically
denied any such connections, Mao and other party leaders, including Liu
Shaoqi-who himself would later be labeled "China's Khrushchev" -persistently
claimed that at Lushan, Peng acted as a "Soviet agent." 143
The contention between China and the Soviet Union was made public for
the first time in August 1959, when a border conflict occurred between China
and India. In spite of China having maintained friendly relations with India
throughout the I950s, New Delhi's acceptance of the Tibetan Dalai Lama's
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 79
exile government in the spring of 1959 caused severe discord between the two
countries, making the tensions that had accumulated along the Sino-Indian
borders more difficult to control.I44 On 9 September the Soviet media issued
a statement expressing "regret" at the conflict between India and China. To
Mao and his comrades, this statement, which failed to express that the Soviets
stood clearly on Beijing's side, indicated that Moscow "had virtually adopted
a policy to support India's position." 145
On 30 September 1959, Khrushchev, after extensive conversations with
President Dwight Eisenhower in the United States, arrived in Beijing to participate
in celebrations of the People's Republic's tenth anniversary. The same
evening he made a forty-minute speech at the state banquet held by Chinese
leaders at the newly completed Great Hall of the People. Without paying
any attention to the mood of his Chinese hosts, Khrushchev emphasized the
"Camp David" spirit, which, according to him, would contribute to the relaxation
of tensions between East and West.146 In Mao's eyes this was a real
offense-how could the Soviet leader bring such a topic to an occasion that
was supposed to be devoted to celebrating the victory of the Chinese revolution?
When Khrushchev mentioned that "it is unwise to use military means to
test the stability of the capitalist system," Mao believed that the Soviet leader
meant to insult him and revolutionary China.J47
It was within this framework that Khrushchev and other members of the
Soviet delegation had an important meeting with Mao and other Chinese
leaders on 2 October.148 This meeting was supposed to offer an opportunity
for Chinese and Soviet leaders to find ways to remedy the divergence between
them, but it quickly degenerated into vitriolic debate. At the beginning
of the meeting, Khrushchev delivered a message from President Eisenhower
to the Chinese leaders, requesting that China release five American
"prisoners of war," including two American pilots, who had been detained by
the Chinese. While Zhou Enlai argued that these Americans were not pows,
Mao Zedong categorically denied the request, telling Khrushchev that these
Americans would be eventually released but certainly not immediately after
the Soviet leader's visit.149
The meeting then turned to the Taiwan issue. Khrushchev criticized the
Chinese for having adopted a policy of adventurism in handling the Taiwan
crisis in 1958 and was particularly upset with Beijing's failure to inform Moscow
of its intentions in shelling Jinmen. To show Mao and his fellow Chinese
leaders that it was necessary to make compromises with the enemy, Khrushchev
lectured about history, citing as an example Lenin's establishment of
the Far Eastern Republic as a buffer between Soviet Russia and Japan. He
80 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
proposed that Moscow and Beijing consult with each other on the Taiwan
issue in the future. The Chinese leaders angrily rebutted Khrushchev's criticism,
claiming that not using force in Taiwan had been an American position
and that Khrushchev wanted to acquiesce in Washington's plot to create "two
Chinas." ISO
Khrushchev then shifted the conversation to Beijing's policy toward India
and Tibet. He declared that Beijing was wrong in trying to solve their disputes
with New Delhi by military means. He also challenged the sovereignty
claim of the People's Republic over certain areas along the unsettled ChineseIndian
border, calling Beijing unwise to be competing with India over "a few
square kilometers of barren land." Concerning Tibet, Khrushchev ridiculed
the Chinese for "having committed the mistake of allowing the Dalai Lama
to escape to India." In response, Zhou Enlai ridiculed Khrushchev for his "inability
to tell right from wrong." Marshal Chen Yi, China's foreign minister,
angrily reproached Khrushchev, saying that while it was necessary for socialist
countries to unite with nationalist countries, it was a mistake for the former to
yield to the latter's wrongdoings. Chen singled out in particular the Soviets'
statement of 9 September that indicated their belief that the Chinese-Indian
border conflict was "a huge mistake." While Khrushchev told the Chinese that
he would never accept the Chinese claim that the Soviets had sided with India,
Mao announced that the Chinese would never accept the Soviet stand on India
and Tibet either.l5l
At this point the meeting deteriorated into complete disorder as leaders of
both sides attacked their alliance partners. On one occasion Khrushchev complained,
"Mao Zedong sternly criticized our party face-to-face with Comrade
Yudin last year, and we tolerated it, but we will not tolerate [it] now." The
meeting ended in discord.152
During his stay in Beijing, according to several Chinese sources, Khrushchev
also advised Mao that the ccp's criticism of Peng Dehuai was groundless,
and he urged Mao to restore Peng to his former position. This advice, as
can be imagined, did Peng no good. Instead, Mao was further convinced that
Peng's "antiparty plot" was instigated by the Soviets. In an inner-party speech
two months later, Mao identified Peng's action at Lushan as "a coup attempt
supported by [his Soviet] friends." 153 The ccp Central Committee formally
declared that Peng's antiparty activities were related to a foreign "plot" to
overthrow the party leadership headed by Mao Zedong.154
Khrushchev left China on 4 October 1959. On his way back to Moscow,
he stopped at Vladivostok and made a public speech there on 6 October. He
talked about his recent visits to the United States and China, and praised the
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SI NO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 81
"brotherly solidarity" between Moscow and Beijing as a cornerstone for world
peace. It was difficult at the time for a general audience to detect thatserious
discord had developed between Chinese and Soviet leaders.155 Mao and
his comrades in Beijing, however, carefully read the message contained in the
speech, and found that Khrushchev had claimed that "it was unwise to behave
like a bellicose cock and to long for war." The Chinese leaders believed that
Khrushchev was preparing to go public in his criticism of them.J56 Mao now
saw little chance to avoid a serious confrontation with the "revisionist traitors"
in Moscow.
Breakdown
As the 1960s began, the chasm between Beijing and Moscow deepened.
The prospect of future amicable Sino-Soviet relations was further damaged by
Khrushchev's belief that putting more pressure on the Chinese would enable
him to take advantage of the potential differences between Mao and his comrades,
forcing Mao to change his domestic and international policies. With
no understanding of Mao's confrontational, challenge-oriented character,157
Khrushchev recalled all Soviet experts from China and drastically reduced material
and military aid to Beijing in July 1960, just as China was being deeply
affected by the disastrous aftermath of the Great Leap Forward.158
Moscow's decision to recall the Soviet experts hindered Beijing's ability to
deal with the extraordinary difficulties brought on by the Great Leap. Still,
Khrushchev's order was not necessarily unwelcome from Mao's perspective.
The disastrous consequences of the Great Leap Forward had shaken the myth
ofMao's infallibility, weakening for the first time the chairman's leadership of
the party and state. Beginning in 1960 the ccp leadership-with Mao having
relegated himself to the "second line" -adopted a series of moderate and flexible
domestic policies designed for economic recovery and social stability. Mao
could clearly sense that both his grand revolutionary enterprise and his own
indisputable position as the party's paramount leader were at stake.
Thus Mao used the recall of Soviet experts as a convenient excuse to make
the Soviets the scapegoat for the Great Leap Forward's disastrous consequences.
The chairman also found in the conflict with the Soviets a longterm
weapon he badly needed to enhance the much-weakened momentum of
his continuous revolution. In the early 1960s Mao repeatedly used the conflict
with Moscow to claim that his struggle for true Communism was also a
struggle for China's national integrity. And as far as Chinese politics was concerned,
the growing confrontation with Moscow made it more difficult for
82 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
those of Mao's comrades who disagreed with some of the chairman's radical
ideas to challenge him.159
There is a striking similarity between the new patterns that emerged in
China's domestic politics and in its external relations in the early and mid-
1960s. On the one hand, Mao, especially after 1962, repeatedly argued that in
order to avert a Soviet-style "capitalist restoration," it was necessary for the
Chinese party and people "never to forget class struggle," pushing the whole
country toward another high wave of continuous revolution. On the other
hand, Mao personally initiated the great polemic debate between the Chinese
and Soviet parties, claiming that the Soviet party and state had fallen into the
"revisionist" abyss and that it had become the duty of the Chinese party and
the Chinese people to hold high the banner of true socialism and commu-
nism.160
Mao's wrecking of the Sino-Soviet relationship did not happen without
challenge from other members of the ccp leadership. Beginning in February
1962 WangJiaxiang, head of the ccp's International Liaison Department, submitted
to the party's top leadership several reports on China's international
polices. He argued that the strategic goal of China's foreign policy should be
the maintenance of world peace, so that it would be able to focus on socialist
construction at home. He particularly emphasized that "it is necessary [for
China] to carry out a foreign policy aimed at easing international tension, and
not exacerbating" it.161
Wang's views seemed to have received the consent (if not active support) of
several party leaders, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Mao, understandably,
was upset. The ccp chairman characterized Wang's ideas as an attempt
to be conciliatory toward imperialists, revisionists, and international
reactionaries, and to reduce support to those countries and peoples fighting
against the imperialists. Mao stressed that this policy of "three reconciliations
and one reduction" came at a time when some leading ccp members (as it
turned out, he had Liu and Deng in mind) had been frightened by the international
reactionaries and were inclined to adopt a "prorevisionist" policy line
at home. He emphasized that his policy, by contrast, was to fight against the
imperialists, revisionists, and reactionaries in all countries and, at the same
time, to promote revolutionary developments at home and abroad.162
Those of
Mao's colleagues who may have had doubts about the chairman's ideas yielded
to his argument without a fight.
With the continuous radicalization of China's political and social life, the
relationship between Beijing and Moscow rapidly worsened. By 1963-64,
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SI NO-SOVIET ALLIANCE 83
when the great Sino-Soviet polemic debate escalated in highly emotional and
confrontational language, the alliance between Beijing and Moscow had virtually
died. On several occasions, Mao even mentioned that China now had to
consider the Soviet Union, which represented an increasingly serious threat
to China's northern borders, as a potential enemy.163 Even Khrushchev's fall
from power in October 1964 could not reverse the trend of deteriorating relations.
In November 1964, Beijing sent a delegation headed by Zhou Enlai
to Moscow to discuss with the new Soviet leadership the prospect of stopping
the Sino-Soviet polemic debates and improving Sino-Soviet relations. Zhou's
visit, however, completely failed in reaching these goals, especially after Soviet
defense minister Malinovskii reportedly asked the Chinese to take action to
overthrow Mao Zedong as the ccp's top leader.J64
In 1965-66, the rhetoric centering on preventing a Soviet-style "capitalist
restoration" from happening in China played an essential role in legitimizing
Mao's efforts to bring the whole Chinese party, state, and population
into the orbit of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." When the Cultural
Revolution officially began in summer 1966, the cCP chairman linked his
Widespread domestic purges to the "antirevisionist" and "anti-social imperialist"
struggles on the international scene, labeling Liu Shaoqi, the major target
of his purge during the Cultural Revolution, "China's Khrushchev." Consequently,
until the last days of his life, Mao made the rhetoric of antirevisionism
(and, after the Sino-Soviet border clashes in 1969, anti-social imperialism)
central to mobilizing the Chinese people to sustain his continuous revolution.
The Soviet Union, accordingly, became China's worst enemy throughout
the 1970s. Not until the mid- and late 1980s, when Mao's continuous revolution
had long been abandoned in China and Deng Xiaoping's "reform and
opening" policies had dominated Chinese politics, would Beijing and Moscow
move toward normal state relations.
84 THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
Resist America! Assist Korea!
Defend our nation! Defend our home!
Beat American A1Togance!
- Chinese slogans during the Korean T¥tnWhen
China entered the Korean War in October 1950, Mao Zedong
and the Beijing leadership intended to win a glorious victory by driving the
Americans out of Korea.l Nine months later the cruel reality of the battlefield
forced the Beijing leadership to adjust this goal. On IQ July 1951, negotiations
to end the Korean conflict began at Kaeson. Although neither Chinese nor
American combat forces subsequently demonstrated an ability to overwhelm
the other side and, in reality, the military lines between the two sides never
changed significantly, fighting would not end until July 1953.
Military conflict, as Karl von Clausewitz puts it, is the continuation ofpolitics
by other means. In this sense, how the Korean War ended is as important
as how it began. However, because of the political sensitivity involved in the
origins ofthe Korean War, scholars, as well as the general public, have devoted
much of their attention to the war's beginning rather than to its end. Scholars
who do realize the importance of the war's conclusion have long encountered
another obstacle: the lack ofreliable sources for exploring the Communist side
ofthe story. While plausible studies about U.S./UN strategies to end the war do
exist,2 our knowledge of the Chinese Communists' handling of negotiations
leading to an armistice remains in short supply.3
This chapter offers a critical review of the changing Chinese Communist
strategies to end the Korean War. It first analyzes the implications of
the Korean crisis for Beijing and the perceptions pertinent to and the goals
pursued in Beijing's management of the war. It then presents a discussion of