Bolshevism1917
22nd March 2010, 04:04
Mao's linking of the polemic against Moscow to the inner-Party struggle in China further complicated the situation. In February and March 1966, a high-ranking Japanese Communist Party delegation headed by Miyamoto Kenji, the JCP's General Secretary, visited China and North Vietnam, attempting to promote an "anti-imperialist international united front" including both China and the Soviet Union. Learning that Hanoi had demonstrated great interest in this idea, the Chinese Party delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping managed to work out an agreement with Miyamoto, according to which China would virtually join this "international united front." However, Mao intervened suddenly at the very last moment, claiming that neither Liu Shaoqi nor Deng Xiaoping had been authorized to speak for the Chinese Party. He insisted that the Soviet Union had become the most dangerous enemy of the peoples of the world and called for the establishment of an "anti-imperialist and anti-revisionist international united front".From Chen Jian, China's Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964-69, The China Quarterly, No. 142 (Jun., 1995)
I think this could make for an interesting discussion about the origins of the Sino-Soviet split, its implications for national liberation struggles, whether members here think there was ever any possibility of it being resolved, the role of countries like Vietnam and Cuba, and so on. Are there any Maoists, for example, who agree that the Soviet Union was "the most dangerous enemy of the peoples of the world"? Personally I would argue that the Sino-Soviet split was a result of the Soviet Union pursuing a more conciliatory foreign policy in the 1950s but it also had its roots in the historic role played by the Soviet Union and its agents in China, including the role of the Comintern in the 1920s and 30s, not only in terms of the CPC being made to implement policies that had been developed without any knowledge of the conditions of China but also the dispatch of the Returned Bolsheviks in the 1930s, as well as the failure of Stalin to take the side of the CPC or provide meaningful support to the Chinese revolutionaries in the post-1945 period. In this sense I think the idea of capitalism being restored in the Soviet Union after 1953 was a justification that was cooked up by Mao to account for a worsening of relations that was ultimately tied to the ruling classes of the two countries having different geopolitical interests but at the same time I acknowledge that the split had important implications for the Communist Parties of individual countries (the Indonesian case is particularly interesting as the only example of an official Communist Party taking the side of the PRC, as oppossed to there being a split between pro-China and pro-Soviet factions, which was the normal course of events) and that the PRC was capable of occasionally playing a more consistently anti-imperialist role than the Soviet Union - if only because of its relative international isolation and not withstanding its important role in betraying anti-imperialist struggles as well, not least through its support for the Geneva Accords. I would also argue that Mao's moves towards the United States in the 1970s were motivated not only by geopolitical concerns but also by the fact that the PLA had grown more powerful during the first half of the Cultural Revolution and was able to justify its important role in the economy and Chinese politics by pointing to the fact that China was facing a threat from both imperialist powers - in the aftermath of Lin Biao's death it was therefore important for Mao to find a way of lessening military spending and the best way to do this from his point of view was seeking to overcome tensions between the PRC and the United States. As a general point it seems that the PRC's foreign policy can only be understood with reference to internal events, especially the power struggles of the Cultural Revolution, and the reverse is also true I think.
I think this could make for an interesting discussion about the origins of the Sino-Soviet split, its implications for national liberation struggles, whether members here think there was ever any possibility of it being resolved, the role of countries like Vietnam and Cuba, and so on. Are there any Maoists, for example, who agree that the Soviet Union was "the most dangerous enemy of the peoples of the world"? Personally I would argue that the Sino-Soviet split was a result of the Soviet Union pursuing a more conciliatory foreign policy in the 1950s but it also had its roots in the historic role played by the Soviet Union and its agents in China, including the role of the Comintern in the 1920s and 30s, not only in terms of the CPC being made to implement policies that had been developed without any knowledge of the conditions of China but also the dispatch of the Returned Bolsheviks in the 1930s, as well as the failure of Stalin to take the side of the CPC or provide meaningful support to the Chinese revolutionaries in the post-1945 period. In this sense I think the idea of capitalism being restored in the Soviet Union after 1953 was a justification that was cooked up by Mao to account for a worsening of relations that was ultimately tied to the ruling classes of the two countries having different geopolitical interests but at the same time I acknowledge that the split had important implications for the Communist Parties of individual countries (the Indonesian case is particularly interesting as the only example of an official Communist Party taking the side of the PRC, as oppossed to there being a split between pro-China and pro-Soviet factions, which was the normal course of events) and that the PRC was capable of occasionally playing a more consistently anti-imperialist role than the Soviet Union - if only because of its relative international isolation and not withstanding its important role in betraying anti-imperialist struggles as well, not least through its support for the Geneva Accords. I would also argue that Mao's moves towards the United States in the 1970s were motivated not only by geopolitical concerns but also by the fact that the PLA had grown more powerful during the first half of the Cultural Revolution and was able to justify its important role in the economy and Chinese politics by pointing to the fact that China was facing a threat from both imperialist powers - in the aftermath of Lin Biao's death it was therefore important for Mao to find a way of lessening military spending and the best way to do this from his point of view was seeking to overcome tensions between the PRC and the United States. As a general point it seems that the PRC's foreign policy can only be understood with reference to internal events, especially the power struggles of the Cultural Revolution, and the reverse is also true I think.