chimx
26th March 2007, 21:00
In the late 60s, the Soviet Union began building up troops along the sino-soviet border. By this time, relations between China and Russia had already began to turn sour. In 1967, students stagged a demonstration in Moscow at Lenin's tomb denouncing Soviet revisionism. The Soviets responded by attacked the Chinese Embassy in Moscow. China, in turn, attacked the Moscow embassy. This alone nearly resulted in cut of trade relations with both countries.
Earlier, border talks had already come to a deadlock. The Soviet Union was insisting on using the borders defined during the period of Czarist imperialism. China denounced these treaties as being nothing short of imperialist "unequal treaties" meant to exploit a weak China. Talks turned to islands found on the Amur and Ussuri rivers. The Soviets went so far as to go beyond the claims made by the imperialist czars and claim ownership of all the islands. Chinese officials responded that this soviet claim represented "new territorial claims in violation of the treaty stipulation" that "even the old czars dared not advance."
Czarist Russia had annexed roughly 1.5 million kilometers of Chinese territory through unequal treaties. China began viewing the USSR as "social imperialists" due to their insistence on upholding these treaties, as well as their actions in Czechoslovakia.
The result was that the USSR escalated troop presence on the border, moving in 1967 about 100,000 troops into Mongolia. In 1967, Mao was quoted as saying "sSoviet ground forces are on the move. . . . Chinese troops in the north must be on guard and in a state of preparedness." China literally felt that a war with the USSR was twice as likely as a war with the US. This fact is justified considering the Chinese claim that from 1964-1967, the USSR provoked 4,189 border incidents.
My question for all you Sino-Soviet historians out there, is why did this troop escalation and conflict come during the late 1960s? China and the USSR had been disputing borders ever since the 1950s when the PRC came to power.
Some people look to the fact that at the time, China was facing domestic turmoil due to the civil war caused by the Cultural Revolution. In fact, at the onset of the Cultural Revolution, the Soviet Central Committee wrote that "recent events in China [the cultural revolution]" shows that "the great power, anti-Soviet policy of Mao Tse-tung and his group has entered a dangerous new phase." The CC would claim that "the plenary session considers in necessary to unmask resolutely the anti-Leninist views and great-power nationalistic policy of the present Chinese leaders and to intensify the struggle to defend Marxism."
China was all too well aware of this "unmasking". In 1968, the People's Daily wrote, "For a long time, U.S.-led imperialism, modern revisionism with Soviet revisionism as its centre and the reactionaries of all countries have ceaselessly carried out subversive plots and sabotage activities against our country. . . . Particularly since the launching of China's great proletarian Cultural Revolution, the class enemies at home and abroad have feverishly intensified their espionage and sabotage activities. This is because they . . . imagine this great Cultural Revolution to be an opportunity for them to fish in troubled waters."
The actual border dispute notwithstanding, does this argument hold water? Did border disputes intensify between the USSR and the PRC because of the internal instability of China during the Cultural revolution? Did the USSR try to exploit the cultural revolution so as to weaken the Maoist faction prior to the consolidation of power after the Cultural Revolution, or was this simply what was being perceived as happening within China?
Still, other historians propose a different explanation. Along with the cultural revolution, Communists in the PRC, particularly Mao and Zhou, had been preferring to ease tensions with the United States. Now, Lin Biao was openly opposed to such talks, feeling that it was right to ultimately side with the USSR over the US. Some propose that China engineered the border conflicts to discredit Lin Biao, thus setting the stage for the Nixon visit years later. Its an interesting idea, but does this stance have any evidence to back up the conjecture?
Lastly, why was the USSR so adamant about maintaining imperialist treaties? How can a defender of the USSR justify this policy?
Earlier, border talks had already come to a deadlock. The Soviet Union was insisting on using the borders defined during the period of Czarist imperialism. China denounced these treaties as being nothing short of imperialist "unequal treaties" meant to exploit a weak China. Talks turned to islands found on the Amur and Ussuri rivers. The Soviets went so far as to go beyond the claims made by the imperialist czars and claim ownership of all the islands. Chinese officials responded that this soviet claim represented "new territorial claims in violation of the treaty stipulation" that "even the old czars dared not advance."
Czarist Russia had annexed roughly 1.5 million kilometers of Chinese territory through unequal treaties. China began viewing the USSR as "social imperialists" due to their insistence on upholding these treaties, as well as their actions in Czechoslovakia.
The result was that the USSR escalated troop presence on the border, moving in 1967 about 100,000 troops into Mongolia. In 1967, Mao was quoted as saying "sSoviet ground forces are on the move. . . . Chinese troops in the north must be on guard and in a state of preparedness." China literally felt that a war with the USSR was twice as likely as a war with the US. This fact is justified considering the Chinese claim that from 1964-1967, the USSR provoked 4,189 border incidents.
My question for all you Sino-Soviet historians out there, is why did this troop escalation and conflict come during the late 1960s? China and the USSR had been disputing borders ever since the 1950s when the PRC came to power.
Some people look to the fact that at the time, China was facing domestic turmoil due to the civil war caused by the Cultural Revolution. In fact, at the onset of the Cultural Revolution, the Soviet Central Committee wrote that "recent events in China [the cultural revolution]" shows that "the great power, anti-Soviet policy of Mao Tse-tung and his group has entered a dangerous new phase." The CC would claim that "the plenary session considers in necessary to unmask resolutely the anti-Leninist views and great-power nationalistic policy of the present Chinese leaders and to intensify the struggle to defend Marxism."
China was all too well aware of this "unmasking". In 1968, the People's Daily wrote, "For a long time, U.S.-led imperialism, modern revisionism with Soviet revisionism as its centre and the reactionaries of all countries have ceaselessly carried out subversive plots and sabotage activities against our country. . . . Particularly since the launching of China's great proletarian Cultural Revolution, the class enemies at home and abroad have feverishly intensified their espionage and sabotage activities. This is because they . . . imagine this great Cultural Revolution to be an opportunity for them to fish in troubled waters."
The actual border dispute notwithstanding, does this argument hold water? Did border disputes intensify between the USSR and the PRC because of the internal instability of China during the Cultural revolution? Did the USSR try to exploit the cultural revolution so as to weaken the Maoist faction prior to the consolidation of power after the Cultural Revolution, or was this simply what was being perceived as happening within China?
Still, other historians propose a different explanation. Along with the cultural revolution, Communists in the PRC, particularly Mao and Zhou, had been preferring to ease tensions with the United States. Now, Lin Biao was openly opposed to such talks, feeling that it was right to ultimately side with the USSR over the US. Some propose that China engineered the border conflicts to discredit Lin Biao, thus setting the stage for the Nixon visit years later. Its an interesting idea, but does this stance have any evidence to back up the conjecture?
Lastly, why was the USSR so adamant about maintaining imperialist treaties? How can a defender of the USSR justify this policy?