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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

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BOOK: Brothers in Arms
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ried that Chinese policy could lead to war, even though they never advised the People's Republic not to take military action.

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During Khrushchev's visit to Beijing in the late summer of 1958, the Soviet leader was on his diplomatic best behavior. After listening to Mao's monologues on how the countries of the world were turning against the United States, Khrushchev attempted to return to the plans for future military integration, which, he claimed, would be to the advantage of both allies. The Soviet leader believed that he had convinced the Chinese of the need to take great care not to involve the United States in any fighting around Taiwan, in return for a Soviet promise to take a tougher stand against American policies in the Middle East. Each leader came away from the meetings believing that he had convinced the other of the rectitude of his own view of international affairs, while refraining from criticizing the other's internal policies.
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The Chinese shelling of the GMD-controlled islands Jinmen and Mazu in the Taiwan Straits which began right after Khrushchev's return from Beijing set off a complex set of events that further undermined Sino-Soviet solidarity. The Chinese believed that the Soviet leaders had attempted to lessen their commitment to the defense of China after learning of the strong American response to the People's Liberation Army's attack, and that the Soviet offer of military experts, logistical support, and the use of Soviet bombers and artillery was an attempt to control the outcome of the crisis. The Soviets felt that the Chinese had been unwilling to coordinate policies with Moscow, even after the Soviet Union had publicly threatened the United States with nuclear retaliation if nuclear weapons were used against China. Khmshchev was particularly enraged that Mao had refused to comply with the notions of nuclear deterrence underlying Soviet messages to Washington. By claiming to be ready to absorb American tactical nuclear strikes without invoking the mutual defense obligations of the Sino-Soviet treaty, Mao had attempted to reduce Soviet influence on Chinese policy during the crisis and in effect poked his nose at the superpower status of the Soviet Union.
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The main issue for the Soviet leaders after the second Taiwan Straits crisis was not Mao's wish to confront the United States, a desire for which they had a great deal of sympathy, Khrushchev's "peace offensive" notwithstanding. The problem was the conspicuous and irresponsible Chinese behavior toward their Soviet allies during the crisis no consultations on tactics, declining additional Soviet military support, and the bizarre ending to the crisis, in which Mao simply declared the Chinese would stop shelling Jinmen and Mazu on alternate days. Khrushchev, Mikhail Suslov, and other Moscow leaders started questioning Mao's mental stability and instructed Ambassador Iudin to provide more materials on the chairman's private life.
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Mao's spectacular retreat in the last battle of the Taiwan Straits and the faltering of the Great Leap campaigns made the chairman dampen his diplomatic criticism of the Soviet Union in the spring of 1959. Driven on the defensive internationally and with mounting problems at home, Mao spent much of this time finding reasons for the decline in the fortunes of the revolution. Reading what is available of Mao's writings, it is reasonable to suggest.that toward the summer of 1959 Mao started seeing his problems as directly linked many of his colleagues within the CCP had failed the masses during the Great Leap campaigns because they were wedded to the Soviet path of development. If not checked, these people would destroy the Chinese revolution. From roughly May or June 1959, the Soviet alliance seemed to Mao to be a hindrance and not a support for the development of socialism in China.

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Based on the evidence we have, it is likely that Mao from mid-1959 on was aiming at a dramatic reduction in Sino-Soviet interaction, albeit within the framework of the alliance. Mao's increasing stress on self-reliance Was created out of political necessity Soviet advisors, Chinese studying in the Soviet Union, political and cultural delegations were all potential critics of the CCP's disastrous development policies. As the full effects of the Great Leap Forward became visible in the summer of 1959, Mao started circulating reports critical of Moscow to CCP leaders at all levels. "At the beginning of the construction of the Soviet Union, the speed of industrial development was very high. Later, the speed of industrial development has decreased. Soviet planners constantly lowered the speed of development. [This shows] their right-deviationist thinking," said one report.
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In the wake of the Lüshan conferences a series of meetings held by the Chinese leaders from early July to mid-August 1959 Mao accused his critics within the party, most notably Defense Minister Peng Dehuai, of conspiring with the Soviets to bring him down.
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Although the first Sino-Indian border incidents in the summer of 1959 probably were not instigated by China, Mao had no reason to seek a settlement of the conflict. For the Soviets, who had been building a close relationship with India during Khrushchev's time in power, both the timing and the character of the flare-ups indicated Chinese premeditation: The incidents came on the eve of Khruishchev's visit to the United States and were directed against India, a country that symbolized Soviet abilities to have a diplomatic impact outside the socialist world. Khrushchev was able to hold his temper on the American tour, although he had indicated to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman earlier that summer that relations with China were "special and delicate." But upon arriving in Beijing on September 30, straight from his meetings in Washington, Khrushchev was "furious."
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This time the Soviet leader spelled out his "proposals" so that the Chinese

 

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would be forced to respond. His first concern was Chinese policy on Taiwan; he called for restraint from Beijing in support of Soviet efforts to "ease international tension and eliminate war." He also accused the Chinese of aggressive behavior in the conflict with India and condemned Mao's allusions to the socialism that could be built after the Third World War as "irresponsible." China had to stop sabotaging the international policies of the Socialist bloc, Khrushchev said. As the Chinese responded with accusations of "sellouts" and "right-deviationism," the crucial meeting on October 2 deteriorated into a verbal slugging match.

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Mao's thinking on international affairs in late 1959 was finding the shape that it would maintain until the end of the 1960s. In a fascinating series of notes for a speech in December, Mao found that Soviet "revisionism" could "last for a long time (over ten years, for example)." He reminded himself of the mingled history of his contacts with Moscow, in which he underlined the many attempts by Stalin and Khrushchev to undercut him. "We resisted the fallacies of our friends . . ., [but now] our friends together with the imperialists, the counter-revolutionaries, and Tito's revisionists organize an anti-China chorus." He noted that China would be isolated for a long time but that it would "get support from many Communist parties, countries and peoples." And even in isolation, ''in eight years, China will have finished the initial construction of [its] industrial system. . . . The Chinese flag is bright red."
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The reason why the full collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance did not come as early as the winter 1959-1960 lies in Mao's perception of Chinese politics. Mao felt that his political position within the party leadership was still weak as a result of the failures of the Great Leap Forward, and none of the other leaders although they all shared much of Mao' s resentment against the Soviets had yet arrived at a point in which he envisaged an open conflict.
Mao moved very cautiously to instigate public dissension between Beijing and Moscow, possibly hoping that the Soviets through some dramatic action would take the first visible step. "Long Live Leninism," the April 16, 1960, article in the Chinese journal
Honggi
that for the first time made the split perceptible to a general audience, centered its attack on Soviet unwillingness to admit that the danger of war went with the existence of capitalism. As Mao expected, the Soviet press shot back, saying that
present-day leftists regard the policy of achieving peaceful coexistence, stopping the arms race, and friendship between the peoples of capitalist and socialist countries as a retreat from Marxism-Leninism. They take the slightest deterioration in the international situation as proof of the correctness of their sectarian views.
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Even though in public both sides still attributed "errors" to "Yugoslav revisionists" or ''certain leftist elements," the foundations of the alliance were rapidly deteriorating.
Breakdown, 1960-1963
The congress of the Romanian Workers' Party from June 20 to June 25, 1960, in Bucharest provided the stage for the first public display of the split in the Communist movement. The Chinese delegation, headed by Peng Zhen, went there with a set of alternative instructions from Mao Zedong. Peng should listen carefully to the speech of the head of the Soviet delegation. If Peng deemed the speech to be an outright attack on the CCP, he should respond in style. Most important, however, the Chinese delegation should spend its time trying to convince members of the other party delegations of the correctness of the Chinese views. As Mao had expected that winter, "[Khrushchev] is afraid that the Communist parties in Eastern Europe and others countries of the world will not believe in them, but in us."

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The Soviets attempted to use the Romanian congress to surprise the CCP. Convinced of his personal ability to persuade and influence others, Khrushchev at the very last moment decided to lead the Soviet delegation himself and to deliver an overall defense of his perception of the international situation and Chinese behavior. "In present conditions," Khrushchev said, "when there are two world systems, it is imperative to build mutual relations between them in such a way as to preclude the possibility of war breaking out. . . . One cannot mechanically repeat what Lenin said many decades ago on imperialism, and go on asserting that imperialist wars are inevitable until socialism triumphs throughout the world." In order to illustrate Chinese fallacies, the Soviets circulated among the delegations a letter addressed to the CCP Central Committee setting out the Soviet case and complaining of Chinese factionalism.
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The Bucharest meetings ended with Sino-Soviet relations in tatters, as Khrushchev lost his temper at a small session of party heads, calling Mao "an ultra-leftist, an ultra-dogmatist, indeed, a left revisionist."
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In the weeks following the Bucharest meetings, Mao's strategy produced even more dramatic results than the chairman had expected. On July 16 the Soviet government informed Chinese President Liu Shaoqi that it had ordered all Soviet technicians working in China to return home by the end of August. No Soviet act could have been better suited to unify the Chinese leadership and make it rally to Mao Zedong, as it always did during times of crisis (even those that Mao himself had created). "This is a big event, which will shake the whole of China," Foreign Minister Chen Yi told the Soviet ambassador on August 4.

 

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