BobKKKindle$
28th October 2009, 22:53
Was the Sino-Soviet split the product of incompatible national interests or of ideological conflict?
The title of this essay is rooted in the assumption that, prior to the Sino-Sovet split, there was an alliance of some kind between the two countries, characterized by amiable relations. This is an assumption that needs to be critiqued, as evidence suggests that under both Stalin and Khrushchev there was constant friction between the two parties, primarily due to the perceived failure of the USSR to meet the PRC's demands and recognize the latter country's autonomy, as well as the PRC's leading role in the international Communist movement, such that the split cannot be seen as the result of a sudden change in the USSR's policy but was in some way connected with a broad policy that had already been in place for some time, even if that policy had not hitherto led to conflict. As a consequence of this, it will be argued that the split was not due to ideological disagreements, even if it was justified as such, as the PRC's ideological arguments in the sphere of foreign policy were always designed to obscure or justify the internal contradictions of that policy and cannot be seen to have any overall consistency or supporting rationale. The split was ultimately due to the Soviet Union's policy towards the United States and the impact this had on the PRC's ability to pursue its own aims and interests without coming into conflict with the Soviet Union, as well as the oppressive treatment exhibited by the USSR towards the PRC, and in taking this stance the essay aligns itself with Westad, Chang, and Zagoria, against authors such as Pleshakov who emphasize the role of the leaders' personalities, and those who have emphasized the role of ideology in a way that abstracts ideology from material conditions.
The first task of this essay, however, is to demonstrate that relations were always problematic. Whilst there was a long period characterized by manipulation of the CPC by the Comintern, the period of relations that is relevant to this essay can be said to have begun in 1945, when the USSR, having joined the war against Japan, occupied large expanses of Manchuria, and, in the Sino-Soviet treaty of 1945, conducted with the KMT government, agreed that this region would be transferred to the control of the KMT, albeit on the condition that the Soviet forces would be permitted to remain in place. Gittings also notes that the USSR participated in the three-power conference on the future of China which concluded that only the KMT would be permitted to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, whilst also calling on both the KMT and the CPC to participate in talks in Chongqing, with the USSR subsequently playing a major role in the joint declaration issued in December, which called for a “unified and democratic China under the National Government”, referring to the KMT. This indicates that the foremost objective of the USSR was to utilize the northern regions as a buffer zone, which also meant being opposed to the renewed outbreak of the civil war, and acting in a way that would dissuade the KMT from moving closer to the United States – the underlying theme here being that the USSR was conscious of its own interests before any commitment to the struggles of its ideological allies. As Niu notes, this concern also manifested itself in the form of deliberate attempts to constrain the activities of the CPC, as, in August of that year Soviet forces reportedly demanded that CPC troops provide them with proof of their status with the KMT when they met, and, in September, a military representative sent by the USSR to Yan'an requested that the party not allow its forces to openly enter the Northeast before the Soviets had left, and to withdraw the CPC units that had already occupied the cities. Whilst temporarily lending greater support to the CPC after September, this approach continued, as Niu reports that in November the Northeast Bureau of the CPC was informed that the Soviets had decided to transfer all cities located along the Changchun railroad to the KMT, with CPC forces being ordered to evacuate all areas within thirty miles of the railroad, and in the same month it was decided that CPC forces would not be allowed to enter areas where Soviet troops had been stationed or attack KMT forces in those areas before the Soviets had evacuated their own forces. The unwillingness of the Soviets to support the CPC was such that in April of 1947, Molotov, addressing himself to Marshall, noted that Stalin's suggestion of “a common policy”, made in December of the previous year, would amount to the 1945 joint declaration, and Stalin, even after acknowledging he had made mistakes in February 1948, called, in response to a proposal from the allies, for an end to the civil war. Nor was the constraining approach of the USSR limited to strategic questions. It is accepted by Shu and all others that Soviet forces proceeded to dismantle major enterprises as soon as they had established themselves in Manchuria and ship the machinery back to Russia. The agreement that was eventually decided upon in 1949 and then formally ratified in 1950 in the form of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, was largely based on the 1945 treaty and forced the PRC to make a number of concessions, such as recognizing the independence of Outer Mongolia, and the establishment of four joint ventures, eventually raised to six, in China's mineral-rich regions, as part of which the Soviet Union demanded that they be allowed to own as much as 50%, take 50% of the profits, and be responsible for general management. This was imposed in exchange for benefits such as low-interest credit amounting to $300 million, although much of this was subsequently spent on the Korean War, in which the USSR had no direct role, and refused to reimburse the PRC's expenditure and loss of infrastructure. Moreover, this credit was low in comparison to the $450 million that had been granted to Poland the previous year despite Poland's comparatively better position, and the devaluation of the ruble in February 1950 by about a quarter further reduced the value of this the sum. It is also significant that the talks leading up to the treaty were led by Liu Shaoqi, and that Stalin told Liu in no uncertain terms that the Soviet Union would not lend air and naval support to an attack on Taiwan due to the threat of war from the United States.
On this basis, we have every reason to question the nature of whatever alliance existed, and there is also evidence to show that the behavior of the USSR did evoke reactions from the CPC, albeit merely of a verbal nature. As early as 1946, Li Lisan admitted in a interview that “there were instances of faulty Soviet behavior in Manchuria”, and subsequently, Peng Zhen, who had served as chairman of the Politburo of the Central Committee's North-east Bureau, later to become secretary of the Beijing party committee, as well as Lin Feng, who was chairman of the North-east administrative committee, were both accused by the Soviets of having “distorted the role of the Soviet army, and spread slander about the USSR”. Even Mao acknowledged in his document 'On the Question of Stalin' that Stalin “had given some bad counsel with regard to the Chinese revolution” and after the 1950 treaty, Chen Yi implicitly criticized the treaty by noting that without “concrete action” it would become “just a scrap of paper”, indicating that throughout this period there was an undercurrent of criticism and tension. There are some historians, such as Whiting and Shu, who characterize the shift to Khrushchev as marking the start of a period of more amiable relations, using terms such as “honeymoon”. The perception that Khrushchev was more amiable towards the PRC is centered around the economic aid provided by the USSR in order to help the PRC industrialize, combined with other initiatives, such as Khrushchev's decision to make what had previously been joint enterprises solely Chinese owned and operated, the return of the naval based at Port Arthur in 1955, the reception of as many as 7,000 Chinese students for advanced training and education, the agreement to help the PRC develop its own nuclear weapons in 1957, and the creation of the Russia-China Friendship Association in the same year. However, other facts indicate the continuation of abusive treatment. Between 1950 and 1957, 8.1 billion rubles of industrial construction assistance were provided, covering a total of 211 projects, with 47 more being added in August 1958, followed by 78 more in February 1959, making a total of 291 after various projects had been combined, and yet sources indicate that there were conspicuous delays in construction to the extent that by the time Soviet experts were withdrawn in 1960, only 130 projects had been completed, many in poor condition. The story of Soviet military and economic advisers, who never numbered near the total of 10,000 claimed by the Soviets, exhibits similar themes, as the conditions imposed by Stalin concerning the treatment of these advisers remained in place throughout their time in China. These conditions included the requirement that China would guarantee the provision of “full living and working conditions”, which amounted to the advisers all being given “the best possible homes and offices”, and it was also required that their spouses would be given “a certain amount of stipend” when they visited China and that the Chinese government would be solely responsible for their travel and stay, as well as the further requirement that, in the event of any crimes or errors being committed, the advisers would remain within Soviet jurisdiction, such that the PRC would not have any legal authority over them. Kaple also reports problems concerning the work of the advisers, giving as an example a report dated July 15, 1857, relating to the work of scientific and technical personnel, who, being responsible for educational reform, were apparently simply copying Soviet textbooks without bothering to pay any attention to China's specific conditions, going so far as to abolish the traditional Chinese grading system in favour of the Soviet five-point system, which led to problems for those graduating, and those expecting to graduate.
The above is highly relevant to this essay because the mistreatment of the PRC represented the preconditions for the eventual deterioration of relations. In light of the prolonged nature of this mistreatment, what this essay should perhaps be concerned with is not why the alliance broke down as such, but why Mao was willing to put up with the Soviet Union for as long as he did, and why his reasons for doing so eventually ceased to exist, thereby allowing the split to occur. The first thing that can be said is that Mao's acceptance of the USSR's treatment was not the result of ideological sympathy as efforts were also made shortly after the CPC had come to power to gain the support of the United States. According to a report made public by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 21 January 1973, in May and June of 1949 the CPC had contacted the American ambassador to China, John Leighton Stuart, through one of his former pupils at Yenching University, Huang Hua, with Huang, later to serve as foreign minister, but then serving as director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the CPC Military Control Commission, going to see Stuart at Mao's request, in order to explore the possibility of future negotiations with the United States, including diplomatic recognition. It appears that this and other tentative moves such as the PLA's insistence on not harming foreign residents and embassy staff may have produced results, or that the United States was initially not interested in challenging the new government, as Acheson's defense perimeter speech in January 1950 announced the policy of non-interference in China and excluded Taiwan from the area that the United States would seek to defend, and it was arguably only due to the Korean War and the vicious anti-communism of Dulles that the two countries did not move closer together. At the same time, however, Mao did formulate his doctrine of “leaning to one side” in June 1949 and reportedly informed the Soviet Union of how the talks with Stuart were proceeding, and so it would be wrong to say that Mao was unsure of which superpower the PRC should have aligned itself with, even if his reasons for siding with the USSR did not have much to do with ideological solidarity. As Whiting notes, there was a danger in moving towards reconciliation with the United States in the late 1940s, as the Soviets and Americans were hostile towards each other over Berlin and the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, as well as the American support for the Greek government against the Communist partisans and the formation of NATO, such that Mao was uneasy about what would happen if Stalin saw him aligning himself with Stalin's enemies in what was increasingly becoming a Cold War of international dimensions. The most immediate cause behind the PRC's decision to side with the USSR however was the devastated condition of the country in 1949, as this created an imperative to receive economic aid by any means necessary. Shu suggests that in that year, China's industrial production was only 30% of the country's best record, the corresponding figure for light industry and agriculture being only 70%, and, as a result of more than a decade of military conflict, more than 5,000 miles of railroad had been destroyed or seriously damaged, less than 4,000 miles of vehicle road were usable, and air and maritime transport capability was “close to zero”. In this context, combined with the threat of a trade embargo from the capitalist countries, whereby, according to Chen Yun, the United States would pressure the rest of the word “not to buy from or sell to [Communist] China”, and Mao's belief that the United States might even “throw in their own forces to blockade China's ports”, the development of relations with the Soviet Union was unavoidable. There were also issues of territorial sovereignty at stake, because the 1945 treaty had allowed the USSR to retain Tsarist rights in Manchuria, such as the operation of the Changchun railway, the internationalization of Dairen, and the use of Port Arthur as a naval base, and Mao believed that a failure to develop relations would lead to these concessions remaining in place, with a negative impact on China's sovereignty. Mao's concerns over the USSR extending its influence in northern China were confirmed when Stalin invited Gao Gang, Chairman of Communist administration in the North east, in July 1949 to Moscow without asking of informing the national leadership and signed a trade agreement with him, applying only to Manchuria, and there are even reports that Gao suggested to the Soviets that Manchuria become a formal part of the USSR, in addition to passing confidential information to them for the duration of this period. The PRC's desire to align with the USSR is evident from the coverage of the latter country in national media, as a review of the People's Daily in 1949 indicates that there was not much coverage of Soviet affairs during the first half of the year but after a strong pro-Soviet declaration on the 1st of July the level of coverage increased to the extent that after the creation of the PRC in October there were a series of articles praising Stalin around December 9th, his 70th birthday.
If the alliance was made necessary by a number of conditions, it follows that when those conditions ceased to exist, the alliance was also liable to suffer, as the PRC would no longer have a good reason to subordinate itself to the USSR. Mao had managed to solidify his position within the government by the mid 1950s, particularly after the purge of Gao Gang in 1953, after Stalin's death, but the the main way in which conditions had changed was that the PRC had succeeded in developing a sound industrial base, and so no longer needed to rely on the USSR to ensure a basic level of economic stability and growth. As a result of the First Five-Year Plan, executed during the period 1953-1958, annual steel production reached 5.35 million tons, electrical power production had risen to 19.3 billion kilo-watt hours, 131 million tons of coal were being produced every year, whilst crude oil reached 1.46 million tons, making an average annual economic growth rate of around 9%, an industrial production growth rate of around 19%, and all of this taking place alongside an average annual increase in agricultural output of around 4%, the expansion of producers' cooperatives to more than 90% of rural households, and the extension of state control of the economy to around 70% of all urban enterprises. It was this performance that gave rise to the millenarianism of the Great Leap Forward, as, during his visit to Moscow in November of 1957, Mao boasted that China would soon be able to overtake Britain in iron, steel, and other heavy industries within fifteen years, and would beat the United States not long afterwards. Indeed, in March 1958, whilst in Chengdu, Mao, having criticized his colleagues for copying Soviet methods without alteration, announced that “we are now capable of undertaking the planning and construction of large enterprises”.
Although the removal of the preconditions for the alliance made deterioration of relations possible, it was due to a series of events that deterioration actually occurred. The first of the events that served to sour what up to that point had been a fairly amicable relationship was the USSR's military intervention in Hungary and Poland in 1956 shortly after the 20th CPSU Congress, as whilst the latter was seen as a case of another country's sovereignty being violated, with the PRC supporting Gomulka, the former was regarded as an example of the dangers of liberalization and was of special concern for the Chinese leadership due to them having initiated the Hundred Flowers campaign in the same year, which involved intellectuals being allowed to make criticisms of the government, and, due to the intensity and volume of those criticisms, as well as events in Hungary, ultimately ended in repression. Despite the initially positive reaction of the PRC towards Khrushchev's secret speech, the nature of which is discussed below, the USSR was seen as responsible for provoking dissent that had the potential to challenge socialist governments, and Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin was thereafter faulted for failing to draw attention to Stalin's positive achievements. As well as this point of friction, there were also a number of suggestions made by the USSR that the PRC interpreted as showing disrespect for China's standing within the Communist movement, and her national sovereignty. Two of these were concerned with military cooperation. Following a visit to the Soviet Union conducted by Peng Dehuai in November 1957, Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovskii proposed in April 1958 that the USSR and PRC should cooperate in the construction of a radio network on the Chinese coast over a four-year period so that the USSR would be able to communicate with its submarines in the Pacific ocean, with the initial plan being that the USSR would cover 70% of the construction costs, and yet, as Chen and Yang note, Mao accepted the plan only on the condition that the PRC should pay all the expenses and have exclusive ownership once the stations had been completed. The response of the USSR seems to suggest that there was some misunderstanding or that the USSR did not want the PRC to have full control, as, in a draft agreement published in July 1958, the USSR insisted that Soviet experts would help in construction and that it would be jointly owned and used by the two countries. This disagreement was followed immediately by a proposal from the Soviet ambassador Iudin that a joint submarine flotilla should be established in view of the Soviet Union's coastline not being suited to submarines, but Mao's response indicates hostility towards the plan, as he noted his opposition to a “military cooperative”, and, in a lengthier meeting taking place on the day after the proposal, Mao explained the historic course of relations between the USSR and China, going so far as to accuse the Soviets of “big power chauvinism”, and having “extended Russian nationalism to China's coast”, finishing his monologue with the request that Khrushchev be informed of his remarks. It is therefore clear that by early 1958 there was considerable suspicion of the USSR's motives towards China, much of it supported by history.
Whilst the above factors accelerated the collapse of the alliance, it is ultimately in the Soviet Union's relations with the United States that the cause of the split can be found. There is some level of debate over the extent to which the creation of divisions within the Communist bloc was deliberate or merely the cumulative outcome of maneuvers that were designed to achieve benefits in the short term, and yet there is certainly evidence to show that there were at least some individuals within the American establishment who believed that a policy of detente towards the Soviet Union whilst continuing the exclusion of China would ultimately split the bloc and therefore be beneficial. Dulles, for example, confided to Roger Makins of the British Foreign office in February 1955 that the ultimate aim in Asia was to make the PRC and USSR independent of each other and to achieve a balance of power, so that the United States would not be forced to devote excessive resources to the region in order to protect its interests. There were also a number of other reasons behind the United States' refusal to respond positively to the PRC's signals of interest in rapprochement during the period 1955-7, such as, according to Chang, domestic dislike of the PRC, racial prejudice amongst the American population and political elite, and the growing strategic importance of Southeast Asia. The process of rapprochement itself was gradual, beginning with Khrushchev and Bulganin's visit to the U.S. embassy in 1955 in order to celebrate Independence Day with the American officials, developing as a result of the amicable relations between American and Soviet officials at the Geneva talks, where Zhukov reportedly suggested to Eisenhower that he must have observed the “respect and good feelings” displayed by the Soviet delegation to the president, and then culminating in Khrushchev and Eisenhower's meetings at Camp David in September 1959, where, according to archival evidence, both sides discussed the question of China, and released a joint communique expressing their commitment to “a better understanding of the motives and position of each” and “the achievement of a just and lasting peace”. In spite of the lack of concrete proposals emerging from the process, rapprochement was highly significant, in that it established that the USSR would not support the PRC when the latter came into conflict with the United States, and similarly gave Khrushchev a motive to restrain the PRC when its pursuit of national interests threatened his own project of detente. Khrushchev's commitment to detente did have practical impacts, not only as far as the PRC was concerned, but also in the way the USSR acted towards other countries, as exemplified by the events of 1958, when, in response to the Anglo-American landings in Lebanon, the Soviet Union convened a summit meeting between the heads of the four wartime allies as well as India and the UN Secretary General, with both the PRC and the UAR being excluded in order to avoid offending western sensibilities, something that the PRC did not fail to recognize, as Gittings notes.
The process itself gave rise to tensions which were expressed in an ideological form, as whereas both the USSR and the PRC agreed that American imperialism was declining as a political force, mainly due to Soviet weapon developments, the former argued that this should be used as an opportunity to make peace on the grounds that in an age of rival power blocs and nuclear weapons it was easy for a localized conflict to transform into “a large sale conflagration”, whilst the PRC journal Shijie Zhishi argued that although there was an unstoppable tendency towards peace, there could still be “tensions developing in certain localities”, hence there remained a need to challenge imperialism militarily, a view that was affirmed in Mao's speech at the Moscow Meeting in November 1957, the Soviet version of which shows that Mao wanted “a military solution of the contradictions between socialism and capitalism”. It was not until the Taiwan Crisis of 1958, intended to complete the task of national unification, that what had previously been a period of building tension and disagreement became an open conflict between the two powers, as although Khrushchev subsequently informed Eisenhower in a private letter once the crisis had eased that “we shall fully honour our commitments”, in private talks with the leadership of the PRC he was reportedly angry that he had not been informed in advance and was aware that the moves of the Chinese government were likely to challenge the alliance he had carefully built up with the United States, and, given the strong military reaction, which involved the United States moving a large naval force to the area, even provoke war. As a result of this incident, Soviet military advisers were significantly reduced, and the totality of Mao's efforts to defuse the situation was to only launch artillery strikes on alternate days. The perception that the USSR was seeking to interfere with the PRC's affairs was subsequently confirmed by the publication of what Mao perceived as intrusive and disrespectful criticism directed against the creation of People's Communes and initiation of the Great Leap Forward in 1958, as whilst the initial reaction of the Soviets was not to mention the communes at all, the view of the leadership was elaborated at the 21st CPSU Congress, in February 1959, where Khrushchev argued that the transition from capitalism to a classless society required a socialist phase of development that could not “be violated or bypassed at will”, such that progress towards communism could only be made “step by step”. The implication of these remarks was that the elements of communism embodied in the communes such as the use of an open system of distribution and the establishment of collective canteens and dormitories were foolhardy, and yet it was only at his speech in Poland in July of the same year that Khrushchev explicitly targeted the PRC in his criticisms by asserting that China had shown a “poor understanding” of how to build communism, and the leader further insulted the Chinese when he visited Beijing by failing to mention either the communes or the achievements of the Great Leap Forward.
It has also been argued by Chen and Yang that the emergence of radicalism within the PRC in the form of the Great Leap Forward gave support to a more radical and confrontational policy towards the USSR, although given the absence of evidence of a line struggle within the CPC at that point, as well as the fact that the PRC was able to improve relations with the United States at the height of the Cultural Revolution, this approach is problematic. Whilst Westad suggests that there was an easing of relations at the 21st CPSU Congress, on the grounds that Zhou Enlai reportedly did not issue criticisms of US-Soviet rapprochement, the unfolding of the dispute over the Great Leap Forward, combined with the Soviet Union's decision in June 1959 to scrap nuclear cooperation in order to ensure a nuclear-free zone in East Asia (this decision resulting from talks with the United States in Geneva) as well as the 1959 border conflict with India during the period July-October (in which the Soviet Union remained neutral, and argued that India was a neutralist country who could be released from the grip of imperialism by the provision of aid and building of relations) made the split unavoidable. What all of the above factors and events have in common is that in every case the PRC felt that its national integrity was coming under attack. From late 1959 onwards the open split began to unfold as is evident from the PRC's behavior at the Bucharest conference of Communist parties in 1960, where the CPC sought to gain allies by convincing other delegates of the shortcomings of the Soviet Union's foreign policies, as well as the publication of polemics on both sides, such as Red Flag's publication of 'Long Live Leninism!'. The breakdown of relations was couched in ideological terms, however, and so it is useful to evaluate the role of ideology.
The ideological justification given for the break was elaborate, and yet the central theme was revisionism, which, in Mao’s eyes, meant that the USSR had fallen under the control of a group within the state who, either consciously or unconsciously, had deviated from the central principles of Marxism, by arguing that it was now possible for socialist and capitalist countries to exist without coming into military conflict with one another, otherwise termed the doctrine of peaceful coexistence, and that, in the latter, it would be possible for capitalism to be overthrown by peaceful and democratic means, without any need for revolution. For the PRC's leaders, revisionism also came to be associated with a failure to support national liberation in the developing world. Mao explained the USSR's foreign policy as resulting from the victory of revisionism during the period 1953-6, as it was during this period that Khrushchev came to power, and, according to Mao, restored capitalism, transforming the Soviet Union into a state under the control of a “monopoly bourgeoisie”, to the extent that, in 1964, Mao would argue that the Soviet Union “is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the grand bourgeoisie, a fascist German dictatorship, and a Hitlerite dictatorship”. During the early stages of the split, and just after the split had become open, criticism of revisionism at meetings of Communist parties from around the world, such as the Sixth Socialist Unity Party Congress in January 1963, was directed against the “Tito clique”, with the Soviet Union's anger being directed against Albania under Enver Hoxha.
There are a number of reasons to believe that this justification was post-hoc in nature, and not representative of a genuine ideological conflict in the sense of such a conflict being distinct from national interests. The initiation of de-Stalinization in 1956 in the form of Khrushchev's secret speech at the 20th Party Congress, to which no foreign parties were invited, was not condemned as revisionist by the PRC when it was first published, but was in fact celebrated in light of the way Mao had been treated by Stalin in the past, with Mao's only criticisms being that he was not informed in advance of the speech's content, and that it did not include specific references to Stalin's crimes concerning China. As already noted, the PRC had also made overtures towards the United States, and, most surprisingly of all, even after relations between the USSR and the PRC had deteriorated, and at the height of Mao's rhetoric concerning self-reliance, the PRC was still willing to accept the military assistance on offer, as the Soviet Union continued to help the PRC build its air-force by sending instructors and assisting in the production of MiG-21s, as well as providing the PRC with military intelligence relating to the United States, cooperating in setting in military communications in northeastern China, and providing the PRC with advanced air-to-ground missiles amongst other forms of technology, all of this taking place as late as December 1962, or shortly before Mao condemned the Soviet Union as fascist. This is confirmed by the limited efforts to resolve the dispute in 1962, which were initiated by the North Vietnam Workers party, and involved polemics being ceased for some time even if they continued in a hidden form, being directed against historic revisionists such as Bernstein and Kautsky, and were published again in larger numbers than ever before after the Soviet Union informed China in August that she had agreed along with the United States not to disseminate nuclear weapons. If Mao had believed his rhetoric, it seems unlikely that these forms of cooperation would have continued, hence an ideological explanation is suspect.
The same is true in the geopolitical sphere, as when the victory of a national liberation movement was not to the PRC’s advantage it was perfectly willing to remain neutral or line up alongside the USSR and even the United States in opposing that movement. There are two case studies that make this clear, both of them situated in South-east Asia and hence in close proximity to the PRC. The first of these is Vietnam, as during the Geneva talks in 1954, conducted between France and Pham Dan Vong, both the USSR and the PRC urged the Vietminh to enter into a peace agreement and accept the temporary division of their country along the 19th parallel despite the superior military strength and morale of the Vietminh (when the treaty was signed the Vietminh had in fact occupied almost the whole of what would later become Vietnam and whilst they were forced to withdraw as result of the treaty, and allow southern Vietnam to fall under the control of a right-wing regime, it would have been strategically possible for them to inflict a critical defeat on NATO’s regional interests by establishing a unified state, such was France’s lack of support amongst the working population) as well as the opposition to this conciliatory move amongst the leadership of the organization. The second of these is Laos, where, following the victory of the Communists in May 1958 in elections supervised by the International Supervisory and Control commission, and the neutralist leader Souvanna Phouma’s subsequent demand that the ICC withdraw, Laos fell under the control of the anti-communist government of Phoui Sananikone, who accepted Taiwan’s offer to establish a consulate in the country, and declared that the Geneva Accords were no longer binding, allowing Laos to enter into an alliance with the United States. A period of escalating tension culminated in civil war in May of 1959 after two battalions under the command of the Pathet Lao were ordered to disarm, and at this point the PRC began to cooperate with North Vietnam in supplying advisers, training, military aid, and recruitment to the left-wing insurgency, whilst also condemning a joint statement issued by the Laotian and Thai foreign ministers, which permitted Laos to join a regional organization such as SEATO. A further change of government in late 1959 resulting in the emergence of what the PRC described as a “fascist and military dictatorship” under Phoumi Nosavan might have been expected to result in the PRC giving greater support to the left in order to prevent Laos from moving firmly into the orbit of the United States and yet a meeting in May 1960 between the PRC and North Vietnam merely called for the resumption of ICC activity and faithful adherence to the Geneva Accords, and even after the United States committed advisers, tanks, and artillery in support of Nosavan’s government, the PRC’s position was still characterized by what Whiting rightly calls “relative passivity”. The PRC’s call that international brigades be sent to Iraq in 1958 to defend the revolution might be taken as evidence that there was a serious commitment to anti-imperialism and an ideological break with the USSR and yet in light of the above as well as the fact that the PRC was not exactly in a position to act on its rhetoric, it seems that this may simply have been an attempt to undermine the credibility of the USSR and to obscure the shortcomings of the PRC’s own foreign policy.
In conclusion, this essay has shown that there were always problems associated with the way the Soviets treated the PRC, and that the emergence of an alliance between the two countries was the outcome of necessity for the PRC, such that once the alliance was no longer necessary, its deterioration was rapid. The process of deterioration was both the result of historic and ongoing factors such as what the PRC perceived to be unwarranted interference in their affairs and the subordination of their economic interests, as well as the specific process of detente between the United States and Soviet Union, as this, in light of the policy of exclusion exhibited towards the PRC, brought the two countries into direct conflict with each other. In this sense, the split was fundamentally about national interests, and it has been shown that the ideological justification for the split is without merit as the PRC consistently failed to act in accordance with its avowed ideological principles, especially when its national interests were not at stake. Thus, when national liberation movements did triumph, as in Vietnam and Algeria, they had no reason to thank the PRC.
Bibliography:
Chang, 'Friends and Enemies: the United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972' (1990)
Gaddis, 'We Now Know. Rethinking Cold War History' (1997)
Gittings, 'Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute' (1968)
Harris, 'The Mandate of Heaven: Marx and Mao in Modern China' (1978)
Nakajima, 'Foreign Relations: From the Korean War to the Bandung Line' in eds. MacFarquhar and Fairbank, 'The Cambridge History of China Vol. XIV' (1987)
Whiting, 'The Sino-Soviet Split' in eds. MacFarquhar and Fairbank, 'The Cambridge History of China Vol. XIV' (1987)
Spence, 'The Search for Modern China' (1991)
Westad, 'Brothers in Arms' (1999)
Zagoria, 'The Sino Soviet Conflict 1956-1961' (1962)
The title of this essay is rooted in the assumption that, prior to the Sino-Sovet split, there was an alliance of some kind between the two countries, characterized by amiable relations. This is an assumption that needs to be critiqued, as evidence suggests that under both Stalin and Khrushchev there was constant friction between the two parties, primarily due to the perceived failure of the USSR to meet the PRC's demands and recognize the latter country's autonomy, as well as the PRC's leading role in the international Communist movement, such that the split cannot be seen as the result of a sudden change in the USSR's policy but was in some way connected with a broad policy that had already been in place for some time, even if that policy had not hitherto led to conflict. As a consequence of this, it will be argued that the split was not due to ideological disagreements, even if it was justified as such, as the PRC's ideological arguments in the sphere of foreign policy were always designed to obscure or justify the internal contradictions of that policy and cannot be seen to have any overall consistency or supporting rationale. The split was ultimately due to the Soviet Union's policy towards the United States and the impact this had on the PRC's ability to pursue its own aims and interests without coming into conflict with the Soviet Union, as well as the oppressive treatment exhibited by the USSR towards the PRC, and in taking this stance the essay aligns itself with Westad, Chang, and Zagoria, against authors such as Pleshakov who emphasize the role of the leaders' personalities, and those who have emphasized the role of ideology in a way that abstracts ideology from material conditions.
The first task of this essay, however, is to demonstrate that relations were always problematic. Whilst there was a long period characterized by manipulation of the CPC by the Comintern, the period of relations that is relevant to this essay can be said to have begun in 1945, when the USSR, having joined the war against Japan, occupied large expanses of Manchuria, and, in the Sino-Soviet treaty of 1945, conducted with the KMT government, agreed that this region would be transferred to the control of the KMT, albeit on the condition that the Soviet forces would be permitted to remain in place. Gittings also notes that the USSR participated in the three-power conference on the future of China which concluded that only the KMT would be permitted to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, whilst also calling on both the KMT and the CPC to participate in talks in Chongqing, with the USSR subsequently playing a major role in the joint declaration issued in December, which called for a “unified and democratic China under the National Government”, referring to the KMT. This indicates that the foremost objective of the USSR was to utilize the northern regions as a buffer zone, which also meant being opposed to the renewed outbreak of the civil war, and acting in a way that would dissuade the KMT from moving closer to the United States – the underlying theme here being that the USSR was conscious of its own interests before any commitment to the struggles of its ideological allies. As Niu notes, this concern also manifested itself in the form of deliberate attempts to constrain the activities of the CPC, as, in August of that year Soviet forces reportedly demanded that CPC troops provide them with proof of their status with the KMT when they met, and, in September, a military representative sent by the USSR to Yan'an requested that the party not allow its forces to openly enter the Northeast before the Soviets had left, and to withdraw the CPC units that had already occupied the cities. Whilst temporarily lending greater support to the CPC after September, this approach continued, as Niu reports that in November the Northeast Bureau of the CPC was informed that the Soviets had decided to transfer all cities located along the Changchun railroad to the KMT, with CPC forces being ordered to evacuate all areas within thirty miles of the railroad, and in the same month it was decided that CPC forces would not be allowed to enter areas where Soviet troops had been stationed or attack KMT forces in those areas before the Soviets had evacuated their own forces. The unwillingness of the Soviets to support the CPC was such that in April of 1947, Molotov, addressing himself to Marshall, noted that Stalin's suggestion of “a common policy”, made in December of the previous year, would amount to the 1945 joint declaration, and Stalin, even after acknowledging he had made mistakes in February 1948, called, in response to a proposal from the allies, for an end to the civil war. Nor was the constraining approach of the USSR limited to strategic questions. It is accepted by Shu and all others that Soviet forces proceeded to dismantle major enterprises as soon as they had established themselves in Manchuria and ship the machinery back to Russia. The agreement that was eventually decided upon in 1949 and then formally ratified in 1950 in the form of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, was largely based on the 1945 treaty and forced the PRC to make a number of concessions, such as recognizing the independence of Outer Mongolia, and the establishment of four joint ventures, eventually raised to six, in China's mineral-rich regions, as part of which the Soviet Union demanded that they be allowed to own as much as 50%, take 50% of the profits, and be responsible for general management. This was imposed in exchange for benefits such as low-interest credit amounting to $300 million, although much of this was subsequently spent on the Korean War, in which the USSR had no direct role, and refused to reimburse the PRC's expenditure and loss of infrastructure. Moreover, this credit was low in comparison to the $450 million that had been granted to Poland the previous year despite Poland's comparatively better position, and the devaluation of the ruble in February 1950 by about a quarter further reduced the value of this the sum. It is also significant that the talks leading up to the treaty were led by Liu Shaoqi, and that Stalin told Liu in no uncertain terms that the Soviet Union would not lend air and naval support to an attack on Taiwan due to the threat of war from the United States.
On this basis, we have every reason to question the nature of whatever alliance existed, and there is also evidence to show that the behavior of the USSR did evoke reactions from the CPC, albeit merely of a verbal nature. As early as 1946, Li Lisan admitted in a interview that “there were instances of faulty Soviet behavior in Manchuria”, and subsequently, Peng Zhen, who had served as chairman of the Politburo of the Central Committee's North-east Bureau, later to become secretary of the Beijing party committee, as well as Lin Feng, who was chairman of the North-east administrative committee, were both accused by the Soviets of having “distorted the role of the Soviet army, and spread slander about the USSR”. Even Mao acknowledged in his document 'On the Question of Stalin' that Stalin “had given some bad counsel with regard to the Chinese revolution” and after the 1950 treaty, Chen Yi implicitly criticized the treaty by noting that without “concrete action” it would become “just a scrap of paper”, indicating that throughout this period there was an undercurrent of criticism and tension. There are some historians, such as Whiting and Shu, who characterize the shift to Khrushchev as marking the start of a period of more amiable relations, using terms such as “honeymoon”. The perception that Khrushchev was more amiable towards the PRC is centered around the economic aid provided by the USSR in order to help the PRC industrialize, combined with other initiatives, such as Khrushchev's decision to make what had previously been joint enterprises solely Chinese owned and operated, the return of the naval based at Port Arthur in 1955, the reception of as many as 7,000 Chinese students for advanced training and education, the agreement to help the PRC develop its own nuclear weapons in 1957, and the creation of the Russia-China Friendship Association in the same year. However, other facts indicate the continuation of abusive treatment. Between 1950 and 1957, 8.1 billion rubles of industrial construction assistance were provided, covering a total of 211 projects, with 47 more being added in August 1958, followed by 78 more in February 1959, making a total of 291 after various projects had been combined, and yet sources indicate that there were conspicuous delays in construction to the extent that by the time Soviet experts were withdrawn in 1960, only 130 projects had been completed, many in poor condition. The story of Soviet military and economic advisers, who never numbered near the total of 10,000 claimed by the Soviets, exhibits similar themes, as the conditions imposed by Stalin concerning the treatment of these advisers remained in place throughout their time in China. These conditions included the requirement that China would guarantee the provision of “full living and working conditions”, which amounted to the advisers all being given “the best possible homes and offices”, and it was also required that their spouses would be given “a certain amount of stipend” when they visited China and that the Chinese government would be solely responsible for their travel and stay, as well as the further requirement that, in the event of any crimes or errors being committed, the advisers would remain within Soviet jurisdiction, such that the PRC would not have any legal authority over them. Kaple also reports problems concerning the work of the advisers, giving as an example a report dated July 15, 1857, relating to the work of scientific and technical personnel, who, being responsible for educational reform, were apparently simply copying Soviet textbooks without bothering to pay any attention to China's specific conditions, going so far as to abolish the traditional Chinese grading system in favour of the Soviet five-point system, which led to problems for those graduating, and those expecting to graduate.
The above is highly relevant to this essay because the mistreatment of the PRC represented the preconditions for the eventual deterioration of relations. In light of the prolonged nature of this mistreatment, what this essay should perhaps be concerned with is not why the alliance broke down as such, but why Mao was willing to put up with the Soviet Union for as long as he did, and why his reasons for doing so eventually ceased to exist, thereby allowing the split to occur. The first thing that can be said is that Mao's acceptance of the USSR's treatment was not the result of ideological sympathy as efforts were also made shortly after the CPC had come to power to gain the support of the United States. According to a report made public by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 21 January 1973, in May and June of 1949 the CPC had contacted the American ambassador to China, John Leighton Stuart, through one of his former pupils at Yenching University, Huang Hua, with Huang, later to serve as foreign minister, but then serving as director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the CPC Military Control Commission, going to see Stuart at Mao's request, in order to explore the possibility of future negotiations with the United States, including diplomatic recognition. It appears that this and other tentative moves such as the PLA's insistence on not harming foreign residents and embassy staff may have produced results, or that the United States was initially not interested in challenging the new government, as Acheson's defense perimeter speech in January 1950 announced the policy of non-interference in China and excluded Taiwan from the area that the United States would seek to defend, and it was arguably only due to the Korean War and the vicious anti-communism of Dulles that the two countries did not move closer together. At the same time, however, Mao did formulate his doctrine of “leaning to one side” in June 1949 and reportedly informed the Soviet Union of how the talks with Stuart were proceeding, and so it would be wrong to say that Mao was unsure of which superpower the PRC should have aligned itself with, even if his reasons for siding with the USSR did not have much to do with ideological solidarity. As Whiting notes, there was a danger in moving towards reconciliation with the United States in the late 1940s, as the Soviets and Americans were hostile towards each other over Berlin and the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, as well as the American support for the Greek government against the Communist partisans and the formation of NATO, such that Mao was uneasy about what would happen if Stalin saw him aligning himself with Stalin's enemies in what was increasingly becoming a Cold War of international dimensions. The most immediate cause behind the PRC's decision to side with the USSR however was the devastated condition of the country in 1949, as this created an imperative to receive economic aid by any means necessary. Shu suggests that in that year, China's industrial production was only 30% of the country's best record, the corresponding figure for light industry and agriculture being only 70%, and, as a result of more than a decade of military conflict, more than 5,000 miles of railroad had been destroyed or seriously damaged, less than 4,000 miles of vehicle road were usable, and air and maritime transport capability was “close to zero”. In this context, combined with the threat of a trade embargo from the capitalist countries, whereby, according to Chen Yun, the United States would pressure the rest of the word “not to buy from or sell to [Communist] China”, and Mao's belief that the United States might even “throw in their own forces to blockade China's ports”, the development of relations with the Soviet Union was unavoidable. There were also issues of territorial sovereignty at stake, because the 1945 treaty had allowed the USSR to retain Tsarist rights in Manchuria, such as the operation of the Changchun railway, the internationalization of Dairen, and the use of Port Arthur as a naval base, and Mao believed that a failure to develop relations would lead to these concessions remaining in place, with a negative impact on China's sovereignty. Mao's concerns over the USSR extending its influence in northern China were confirmed when Stalin invited Gao Gang, Chairman of Communist administration in the North east, in July 1949 to Moscow without asking of informing the national leadership and signed a trade agreement with him, applying only to Manchuria, and there are even reports that Gao suggested to the Soviets that Manchuria become a formal part of the USSR, in addition to passing confidential information to them for the duration of this period. The PRC's desire to align with the USSR is evident from the coverage of the latter country in national media, as a review of the People's Daily in 1949 indicates that there was not much coverage of Soviet affairs during the first half of the year but after a strong pro-Soviet declaration on the 1st of July the level of coverage increased to the extent that after the creation of the PRC in October there were a series of articles praising Stalin around December 9th, his 70th birthday.
If the alliance was made necessary by a number of conditions, it follows that when those conditions ceased to exist, the alliance was also liable to suffer, as the PRC would no longer have a good reason to subordinate itself to the USSR. Mao had managed to solidify his position within the government by the mid 1950s, particularly after the purge of Gao Gang in 1953, after Stalin's death, but the the main way in which conditions had changed was that the PRC had succeeded in developing a sound industrial base, and so no longer needed to rely on the USSR to ensure a basic level of economic stability and growth. As a result of the First Five-Year Plan, executed during the period 1953-1958, annual steel production reached 5.35 million tons, electrical power production had risen to 19.3 billion kilo-watt hours, 131 million tons of coal were being produced every year, whilst crude oil reached 1.46 million tons, making an average annual economic growth rate of around 9%, an industrial production growth rate of around 19%, and all of this taking place alongside an average annual increase in agricultural output of around 4%, the expansion of producers' cooperatives to more than 90% of rural households, and the extension of state control of the economy to around 70% of all urban enterprises. It was this performance that gave rise to the millenarianism of the Great Leap Forward, as, during his visit to Moscow in November of 1957, Mao boasted that China would soon be able to overtake Britain in iron, steel, and other heavy industries within fifteen years, and would beat the United States not long afterwards. Indeed, in March 1958, whilst in Chengdu, Mao, having criticized his colleagues for copying Soviet methods without alteration, announced that “we are now capable of undertaking the planning and construction of large enterprises”.
Although the removal of the preconditions for the alliance made deterioration of relations possible, it was due to a series of events that deterioration actually occurred. The first of the events that served to sour what up to that point had been a fairly amicable relationship was the USSR's military intervention in Hungary and Poland in 1956 shortly after the 20th CPSU Congress, as whilst the latter was seen as a case of another country's sovereignty being violated, with the PRC supporting Gomulka, the former was regarded as an example of the dangers of liberalization and was of special concern for the Chinese leadership due to them having initiated the Hundred Flowers campaign in the same year, which involved intellectuals being allowed to make criticisms of the government, and, due to the intensity and volume of those criticisms, as well as events in Hungary, ultimately ended in repression. Despite the initially positive reaction of the PRC towards Khrushchev's secret speech, the nature of which is discussed below, the USSR was seen as responsible for provoking dissent that had the potential to challenge socialist governments, and Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin was thereafter faulted for failing to draw attention to Stalin's positive achievements. As well as this point of friction, there were also a number of suggestions made by the USSR that the PRC interpreted as showing disrespect for China's standing within the Communist movement, and her national sovereignty. Two of these were concerned with military cooperation. Following a visit to the Soviet Union conducted by Peng Dehuai in November 1957, Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovskii proposed in April 1958 that the USSR and PRC should cooperate in the construction of a radio network on the Chinese coast over a four-year period so that the USSR would be able to communicate with its submarines in the Pacific ocean, with the initial plan being that the USSR would cover 70% of the construction costs, and yet, as Chen and Yang note, Mao accepted the plan only on the condition that the PRC should pay all the expenses and have exclusive ownership once the stations had been completed. The response of the USSR seems to suggest that there was some misunderstanding or that the USSR did not want the PRC to have full control, as, in a draft agreement published in July 1958, the USSR insisted that Soviet experts would help in construction and that it would be jointly owned and used by the two countries. This disagreement was followed immediately by a proposal from the Soviet ambassador Iudin that a joint submarine flotilla should be established in view of the Soviet Union's coastline not being suited to submarines, but Mao's response indicates hostility towards the plan, as he noted his opposition to a “military cooperative”, and, in a lengthier meeting taking place on the day after the proposal, Mao explained the historic course of relations between the USSR and China, going so far as to accuse the Soviets of “big power chauvinism”, and having “extended Russian nationalism to China's coast”, finishing his monologue with the request that Khrushchev be informed of his remarks. It is therefore clear that by early 1958 there was considerable suspicion of the USSR's motives towards China, much of it supported by history.
Whilst the above factors accelerated the collapse of the alliance, it is ultimately in the Soviet Union's relations with the United States that the cause of the split can be found. There is some level of debate over the extent to which the creation of divisions within the Communist bloc was deliberate or merely the cumulative outcome of maneuvers that were designed to achieve benefits in the short term, and yet there is certainly evidence to show that there were at least some individuals within the American establishment who believed that a policy of detente towards the Soviet Union whilst continuing the exclusion of China would ultimately split the bloc and therefore be beneficial. Dulles, for example, confided to Roger Makins of the British Foreign office in February 1955 that the ultimate aim in Asia was to make the PRC and USSR independent of each other and to achieve a balance of power, so that the United States would not be forced to devote excessive resources to the region in order to protect its interests. There were also a number of other reasons behind the United States' refusal to respond positively to the PRC's signals of interest in rapprochement during the period 1955-7, such as, according to Chang, domestic dislike of the PRC, racial prejudice amongst the American population and political elite, and the growing strategic importance of Southeast Asia. The process of rapprochement itself was gradual, beginning with Khrushchev and Bulganin's visit to the U.S. embassy in 1955 in order to celebrate Independence Day with the American officials, developing as a result of the amicable relations between American and Soviet officials at the Geneva talks, where Zhukov reportedly suggested to Eisenhower that he must have observed the “respect and good feelings” displayed by the Soviet delegation to the president, and then culminating in Khrushchev and Eisenhower's meetings at Camp David in September 1959, where, according to archival evidence, both sides discussed the question of China, and released a joint communique expressing their commitment to “a better understanding of the motives and position of each” and “the achievement of a just and lasting peace”. In spite of the lack of concrete proposals emerging from the process, rapprochement was highly significant, in that it established that the USSR would not support the PRC when the latter came into conflict with the United States, and similarly gave Khrushchev a motive to restrain the PRC when its pursuit of national interests threatened his own project of detente. Khrushchev's commitment to detente did have practical impacts, not only as far as the PRC was concerned, but also in the way the USSR acted towards other countries, as exemplified by the events of 1958, when, in response to the Anglo-American landings in Lebanon, the Soviet Union convened a summit meeting between the heads of the four wartime allies as well as India and the UN Secretary General, with both the PRC and the UAR being excluded in order to avoid offending western sensibilities, something that the PRC did not fail to recognize, as Gittings notes.
The process itself gave rise to tensions which were expressed in an ideological form, as whereas both the USSR and the PRC agreed that American imperialism was declining as a political force, mainly due to Soviet weapon developments, the former argued that this should be used as an opportunity to make peace on the grounds that in an age of rival power blocs and nuclear weapons it was easy for a localized conflict to transform into “a large sale conflagration”, whilst the PRC journal Shijie Zhishi argued that although there was an unstoppable tendency towards peace, there could still be “tensions developing in certain localities”, hence there remained a need to challenge imperialism militarily, a view that was affirmed in Mao's speech at the Moscow Meeting in November 1957, the Soviet version of which shows that Mao wanted “a military solution of the contradictions between socialism and capitalism”. It was not until the Taiwan Crisis of 1958, intended to complete the task of national unification, that what had previously been a period of building tension and disagreement became an open conflict between the two powers, as although Khrushchev subsequently informed Eisenhower in a private letter once the crisis had eased that “we shall fully honour our commitments”, in private talks with the leadership of the PRC he was reportedly angry that he had not been informed in advance and was aware that the moves of the Chinese government were likely to challenge the alliance he had carefully built up with the United States, and, given the strong military reaction, which involved the United States moving a large naval force to the area, even provoke war. As a result of this incident, Soviet military advisers were significantly reduced, and the totality of Mao's efforts to defuse the situation was to only launch artillery strikes on alternate days. The perception that the USSR was seeking to interfere with the PRC's affairs was subsequently confirmed by the publication of what Mao perceived as intrusive and disrespectful criticism directed against the creation of People's Communes and initiation of the Great Leap Forward in 1958, as whilst the initial reaction of the Soviets was not to mention the communes at all, the view of the leadership was elaborated at the 21st CPSU Congress, in February 1959, where Khrushchev argued that the transition from capitalism to a classless society required a socialist phase of development that could not “be violated or bypassed at will”, such that progress towards communism could only be made “step by step”. The implication of these remarks was that the elements of communism embodied in the communes such as the use of an open system of distribution and the establishment of collective canteens and dormitories were foolhardy, and yet it was only at his speech in Poland in July of the same year that Khrushchev explicitly targeted the PRC in his criticisms by asserting that China had shown a “poor understanding” of how to build communism, and the leader further insulted the Chinese when he visited Beijing by failing to mention either the communes or the achievements of the Great Leap Forward.
It has also been argued by Chen and Yang that the emergence of radicalism within the PRC in the form of the Great Leap Forward gave support to a more radical and confrontational policy towards the USSR, although given the absence of evidence of a line struggle within the CPC at that point, as well as the fact that the PRC was able to improve relations with the United States at the height of the Cultural Revolution, this approach is problematic. Whilst Westad suggests that there was an easing of relations at the 21st CPSU Congress, on the grounds that Zhou Enlai reportedly did not issue criticisms of US-Soviet rapprochement, the unfolding of the dispute over the Great Leap Forward, combined with the Soviet Union's decision in June 1959 to scrap nuclear cooperation in order to ensure a nuclear-free zone in East Asia (this decision resulting from talks with the United States in Geneva) as well as the 1959 border conflict with India during the period July-October (in which the Soviet Union remained neutral, and argued that India was a neutralist country who could be released from the grip of imperialism by the provision of aid and building of relations) made the split unavoidable. What all of the above factors and events have in common is that in every case the PRC felt that its national integrity was coming under attack. From late 1959 onwards the open split began to unfold as is evident from the PRC's behavior at the Bucharest conference of Communist parties in 1960, where the CPC sought to gain allies by convincing other delegates of the shortcomings of the Soviet Union's foreign policies, as well as the publication of polemics on both sides, such as Red Flag's publication of 'Long Live Leninism!'. The breakdown of relations was couched in ideological terms, however, and so it is useful to evaluate the role of ideology.
The ideological justification given for the break was elaborate, and yet the central theme was revisionism, which, in Mao’s eyes, meant that the USSR had fallen under the control of a group within the state who, either consciously or unconsciously, had deviated from the central principles of Marxism, by arguing that it was now possible for socialist and capitalist countries to exist without coming into military conflict with one another, otherwise termed the doctrine of peaceful coexistence, and that, in the latter, it would be possible for capitalism to be overthrown by peaceful and democratic means, without any need for revolution. For the PRC's leaders, revisionism also came to be associated with a failure to support national liberation in the developing world. Mao explained the USSR's foreign policy as resulting from the victory of revisionism during the period 1953-6, as it was during this period that Khrushchev came to power, and, according to Mao, restored capitalism, transforming the Soviet Union into a state under the control of a “monopoly bourgeoisie”, to the extent that, in 1964, Mao would argue that the Soviet Union “is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the grand bourgeoisie, a fascist German dictatorship, and a Hitlerite dictatorship”. During the early stages of the split, and just after the split had become open, criticism of revisionism at meetings of Communist parties from around the world, such as the Sixth Socialist Unity Party Congress in January 1963, was directed against the “Tito clique”, with the Soviet Union's anger being directed against Albania under Enver Hoxha.
There are a number of reasons to believe that this justification was post-hoc in nature, and not representative of a genuine ideological conflict in the sense of such a conflict being distinct from national interests. The initiation of de-Stalinization in 1956 in the form of Khrushchev's secret speech at the 20th Party Congress, to which no foreign parties were invited, was not condemned as revisionist by the PRC when it was first published, but was in fact celebrated in light of the way Mao had been treated by Stalin in the past, with Mao's only criticisms being that he was not informed in advance of the speech's content, and that it did not include specific references to Stalin's crimes concerning China. As already noted, the PRC had also made overtures towards the United States, and, most surprisingly of all, even after relations between the USSR and the PRC had deteriorated, and at the height of Mao's rhetoric concerning self-reliance, the PRC was still willing to accept the military assistance on offer, as the Soviet Union continued to help the PRC build its air-force by sending instructors and assisting in the production of MiG-21s, as well as providing the PRC with military intelligence relating to the United States, cooperating in setting in military communications in northeastern China, and providing the PRC with advanced air-to-ground missiles amongst other forms of technology, all of this taking place as late as December 1962, or shortly before Mao condemned the Soviet Union as fascist. This is confirmed by the limited efforts to resolve the dispute in 1962, which were initiated by the North Vietnam Workers party, and involved polemics being ceased for some time even if they continued in a hidden form, being directed against historic revisionists such as Bernstein and Kautsky, and were published again in larger numbers than ever before after the Soviet Union informed China in August that she had agreed along with the United States not to disseminate nuclear weapons. If Mao had believed his rhetoric, it seems unlikely that these forms of cooperation would have continued, hence an ideological explanation is suspect.
The same is true in the geopolitical sphere, as when the victory of a national liberation movement was not to the PRC’s advantage it was perfectly willing to remain neutral or line up alongside the USSR and even the United States in opposing that movement. There are two case studies that make this clear, both of them situated in South-east Asia and hence in close proximity to the PRC. The first of these is Vietnam, as during the Geneva talks in 1954, conducted between France and Pham Dan Vong, both the USSR and the PRC urged the Vietminh to enter into a peace agreement and accept the temporary division of their country along the 19th parallel despite the superior military strength and morale of the Vietminh (when the treaty was signed the Vietminh had in fact occupied almost the whole of what would later become Vietnam and whilst they were forced to withdraw as result of the treaty, and allow southern Vietnam to fall under the control of a right-wing regime, it would have been strategically possible for them to inflict a critical defeat on NATO’s regional interests by establishing a unified state, such was France’s lack of support amongst the working population) as well as the opposition to this conciliatory move amongst the leadership of the organization. The second of these is Laos, where, following the victory of the Communists in May 1958 in elections supervised by the International Supervisory and Control commission, and the neutralist leader Souvanna Phouma’s subsequent demand that the ICC withdraw, Laos fell under the control of the anti-communist government of Phoui Sananikone, who accepted Taiwan’s offer to establish a consulate in the country, and declared that the Geneva Accords were no longer binding, allowing Laos to enter into an alliance with the United States. A period of escalating tension culminated in civil war in May of 1959 after two battalions under the command of the Pathet Lao were ordered to disarm, and at this point the PRC began to cooperate with North Vietnam in supplying advisers, training, military aid, and recruitment to the left-wing insurgency, whilst also condemning a joint statement issued by the Laotian and Thai foreign ministers, which permitted Laos to join a regional organization such as SEATO. A further change of government in late 1959 resulting in the emergence of what the PRC described as a “fascist and military dictatorship” under Phoumi Nosavan might have been expected to result in the PRC giving greater support to the left in order to prevent Laos from moving firmly into the orbit of the United States and yet a meeting in May 1960 between the PRC and North Vietnam merely called for the resumption of ICC activity and faithful adherence to the Geneva Accords, and even after the United States committed advisers, tanks, and artillery in support of Nosavan’s government, the PRC’s position was still characterized by what Whiting rightly calls “relative passivity”. The PRC’s call that international brigades be sent to Iraq in 1958 to defend the revolution might be taken as evidence that there was a serious commitment to anti-imperialism and an ideological break with the USSR and yet in light of the above as well as the fact that the PRC was not exactly in a position to act on its rhetoric, it seems that this may simply have been an attempt to undermine the credibility of the USSR and to obscure the shortcomings of the PRC’s own foreign policy.
In conclusion, this essay has shown that there were always problems associated with the way the Soviets treated the PRC, and that the emergence of an alliance between the two countries was the outcome of necessity for the PRC, such that once the alliance was no longer necessary, its deterioration was rapid. The process of deterioration was both the result of historic and ongoing factors such as what the PRC perceived to be unwarranted interference in their affairs and the subordination of their economic interests, as well as the specific process of detente between the United States and Soviet Union, as this, in light of the policy of exclusion exhibited towards the PRC, brought the two countries into direct conflict with each other. In this sense, the split was fundamentally about national interests, and it has been shown that the ideological justification for the split is without merit as the PRC consistently failed to act in accordance with its avowed ideological principles, especially when its national interests were not at stake. Thus, when national liberation movements did triumph, as in Vietnam and Algeria, they had no reason to thank the PRC.
Bibliography:
Chang, 'Friends and Enemies: the United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972' (1990)
Gaddis, 'We Now Know. Rethinking Cold War History' (1997)
Gittings, 'Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute' (1968)
Harris, 'The Mandate of Heaven: Marx and Mao in Modern China' (1978)
Nakajima, 'Foreign Relations: From the Korean War to the Bandung Line' in eds. MacFarquhar and Fairbank, 'The Cambridge History of China Vol. XIV' (1987)
Whiting, 'The Sino-Soviet Split' in eds. MacFarquhar and Fairbank, 'The Cambridge History of China Vol. XIV' (1987)
Spence, 'The Search for Modern China' (1991)
Westad, 'Brothers in Arms' (1999)
Zagoria, 'The Sino Soviet Conflict 1956-1961' (1962)