Sino-Soviet Relations

Stalin and Mao 1945-1953

 The key differences between the USSR and China were ideological.
 Stalin felt that Mao’s interpretation of Marxism, using peasants as the basis for revolution,
could not be genuine revolutionary Marxism, which should feature workers leading an
urban-based class war.
 Ideological difference wasn’t the only reason Stalin failed to support the CCP in the
Chinese Civil War. Stalin also:
 Feared Mao as a rival for the leadership of the Communist world.
 Didn’t want the Cold War to spread to Asia.
 Knew that Jiang Jieshi’s GMD would recognize Soviet claims to the disputed
border territory in Manchuria and Xinjiang.
 Underestimated the CCP
 Mao became convinced that Stalin wanted a divided and weak China to leave the USSR
dominant in Asia.
 Mao saw Stalin’s policies rooted in self-interest rather than true revolutionary doctrine.

The Sino-Soviet Treaty of Alliance

 Mao was invited to Moscow in 1950 and the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Alliance was made.
 The USSR was more enthusiastic about the CCP after its victory in the civil war.
 Chinese were offended by the “unfriendly” treatment they received.
 Soviet aid would be loans and the Chinese would have to repay with interest.

The USSR, the PRC and the Korean War

 When the UN forces came close to the Yalu River, Stalin encouraged Mao to send troops
into Korea.
 The Soviet gave material assistance to the one million Chinese troops engaged in battle.
 Despite the support, Mao complained when the Soviets demanded that China had to pay
for all weapons and materials the USSR had supplied.

Mao, Khrushchev and “the split”

Stalin died in 1953. Khrushchev was the new leader, but three issues undermined the potential for
easing relations between the USSR and PRC.

 The “Secret Speech” by Khrushchev attacking Stalin’s crimes against the party, including
comments about the “cult of personality” which Mao saw as an attack on his own style of
leadership.
  The crushing of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. Maw saw this, and Soviet problems in East
Germany and Poland, as failures by the USSR to contain reactionary forces.
 Khrushchev’s doctrine of peaceful co-existence with the West, which implied that global
revolution, could be achieved by means other than armed struggle. Maw saw this as
ideological heresy.
Mao believed the USSR was dominated by “revisionists”.

Conference of Communist Parties of 1957

 Mao attended the conference of the world’s Communist parties.
 He had hoped Josip Tito to be there, but he wasn’t.
 Mao called on the USSR to abandon revisionism.
 Mao believed that the USSR was initiating détente with the West to isolate China.
 Deng Xiaoping, Chinese chief spokesperson, put forward the PRC’s ideological stance and
was embarrassing for the Soviets.

The Great Leap Forward

 Soviets called the rapid industrial change of the GLF “faulty in design and erroneous in
practice”.
 Mao was furious at this criticism.
 It was rumored that the PRC Chief of Staff, Peng Dehuai gave information to the USSR
about the widespread starvation caused by the agricultural methods of the GLF.
 Soviet government declared that those concepts were “unorthodox” and Soviet press
denounced Mao.
 Mao was determined to strike back at the USSR for undermining the position of the PRC in
the eyes of the international Communist community.
 PRC would now back any Communist country that dissented from Moscow lead.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

 Sino-Soviet Relations reached new depths of division during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
 Mao was disparaging about Khrushchev’s handling of the crisis.
 Mao exposed to the Communist world the USSR’s lack of commitment to the
revolutionary cause.
 According to historian Immanuel Hsu, Mao considered Khrushchev a coward. However, it
could be argued that he applied Peaceful Co-existence and avoided a nuclear catastrophe.
 For Mao the idea of existing peacefully with Non-Communist states went against
everything their ideology dictated.

China, the USSR and Nuclear Weapons

  In 1957 it appeared that the USSR had gained superiority over the USA with the launch of
the Sputnik satellite.
 Mao saw this as a tool to engage the USA in brinkmanship and begin to undermine the
United States. Mao didn’t fear nuclear war, for him it was an unavoidable part of the
revolutionary struggle.
 Khrushchev wanted to use “his superiority” to convince the USA to pursue co-existence.
 The disagreement intensified over the Test-Ban Treaty of 1963. The treaty was an
agreement by USSR and Western nuclear powers to stop atmospheric testing of atomic
weapons.
 Mao viewed it as the USSR abandoning its role as revolutionary leader since they were
working with imperialist powers.
 Khrushchev responded to the PRC’s criticism accusing them of wanting to see the USSR
and USA destroy each other leaving the PRC as the number-one power.
 After that, the development of its own nuclear weapons was a huge achievement for
China.
 It meant that the PRC would have to be taken seriously as an international power, but also
demonstrated to the USSR that they don’t need Soviet support.

Sino-Soviet Relations and the Cultural Revolution

 Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was launched in May 1966.
 Mao created the Red Guards and the Little Red Book to spread his thoughts.
 Khrushchev left office in 1964. There was no reconciliation between the USSR and China.
 The Soviet leadership continued to attempt to isolate the PRC.
 Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to eliminate revisionists, but China descended into
internal crisis.
 Soviets denounced the revolution as total fanaticism and criticized Mao for creating a
state of anarchy.
 Also Soviets took the opportunity to attack the PRC on other propaganda.

The Prague Spring (1968)

 In the Brezhnev Doctrine, the USSR stated that to maintain order in Eastern Europe, the
satellite states had to accept Soviet leadership.
 Soviets tanks were sent in 1968 to crush the period of liberalization in Czechoslovakia.
 Mao condemned the use of force against Czechoslovakia.
 For him, the Soviet Union was no longer behaving in a truly socialist manner.
 Mao was worried that Soviet military might and the Brezhnev Doctrine could be turned
against China.
Sino-Soviet Border War (1969)
 The hostility between the USSR and PRC came to a head in violent clashes along their
mutual border.
 In 1962, border disputes increased to a new level along the Xinjiang frontier and the Amur
and Ussuri Rivers.
 Both sides increased the number of troops facing one another across the border,
 In 1969, the frontier dispute erupted in war.
 By August there was a possibility of all-out war between them, there was a danger of the
conflict turning nuclear.
 Mao feared a Soviet invasion and possible nuclear strikes, so he ordered that tunnels be
dug and supplies stored in preparation for this.
 In the end, there was no escalation to all-out nuclear war, but it had brought the world’s
two most powerful Communist countries to the brink.
 Some historians view 1969 as the lowest point of Sino-Soviet relations because
 Serious border incidents threatened to turn into full-scale war.
 The PRC and the Soviet Union realigned missiles to face one another.
 There was an intensification of the rivalry to be the leading Communist nation.

The PRC, the USSR and Indochina (Vietnam War, Cambodia)

 The PRC was not directly involved in the Vietnam War, but gave moral and diplomatic
support to Ho Chi Minh.
 A struggle between the USSR and the PRC developed to win the Vietnamese Communists
to “their side” in the ideological split.
 The PRC refused to allow the USSR to use Chinese airports for Soviets airlifts to Vietnam.
 The USSR eventually won by keeping a steady supply of aid and arms in the war.
 In 1978, relations were formalized in the Soviet-Vietnamese Treaty of Peace and
Friendship.
 Having lost influence over Vietnam to the Soviets, Chinese attempted to form closer ties
with Cambodia.
 Cambodia became Communist in 1975 under Pol Pot’s party.
 Pol Pot’s regime was modeled on Maoism, he had a brutal regime and 2.5 million
Cambodians died.
 Vietnam invaded Cambodia on 24 December 1978; they wanted to overthrow Pol Pot.
 Vietnamese began to expel all Chinese people from the territory they occupied.
 Pol Pot appealed to the United Nations.
 China decided to come to the defense of Pol Pot’s regime, arguing that Vietnam’s invasion
of Cambodia was “Soviet Expansionism”.
 On February 17 1979, China invaded Vietnam; they wanted to draw Vietnamese/Soviet
forces out of Cambodia.
  In response, the Soviet increased their backing for the Vietnamese.
 Vietnam had won the war; the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had suffered heavy
casualties and was forced to withdraw.
 The war was a setback for PRC propaganda against the USSR.

Sino-Soviet Rapprochement (1982-1991)

 There were a number of key reasons for the relaxation of tensions between the Soviet
Union and the People’s Republic of China.
 Mao Zedong’s death in 1976
 The overthrow of the anti-Soviet Gang of Four in China
 Deng Xiaoping, a more tolerant leader in relations with the USSR and the West.
 Brezhnev’s death in 1982.
 During the leadership of Andropov and Chernenko attempts were made to improve
relations with China.
 But for most of the 1980s, there were three key issues dividing the PRC and the USSR:
 The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
 Soviet troops on the border with China.
 Soviet support for the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia.
 China condemned the invasion of Afghanistan as Soviet “imperial expansionism”. The PRC
didn’t see the invasion as a “defensive move” as the Soviets claimed.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping

 When Gorbachev assumed the Soviet Leadership and Deng led the PRC, there was a
chance of improving relations.
 It was a primary objective of Gorbachev.
 In 1986, new trade agreements were drawn up, and procedures for full diplomatic
relations restored.
 In November 1987, Gorbachev asked to meet Deng, but the Chinese refused as the Soviets
had not managed to get Vietnam out of Cambodia.
 In May 1988, the PRC and the USSR signed a cultural exchange agreement.
 Relations improved further when in 1989 the Soviets began their withdrawal from
Afghanistan.
 With that, Gorbachev was finally invited to Beijing.

Tiananmen Square
 Tiananmen Square highlighted the fundamental differences that developed between
Communist China and Gorbachev’s Soviet Union.
 Gorbachev created Perestroika, which addressed economic restructuring, and glasnost,
which suggested more political freedom and reform.
  However, Deng brought some economic reforms, but there wasn’t a political openness.
Deng believed that economic reform was only possible under the control of the CCP.
 On May 13 1989, 3000 students began a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. It was
embarrassing for the PRC because Gorbachev was going to arrive two days later.
 Protesters welcomed Gorbachev as a hero of reform, chanting his name and incorporating
glasnost and perestroika in their slogans.
 On May 20, martial law was declared and on June 4 troops were sent to disperse the
crowd.

The Fall of the Soviet Union

 When Gorbachev’s reform brought his downfall, it seemed to Deng and the CCP that their
hard-line stand against the pro-democracy protests had been the right one.
 With the political freedoms came the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe.
 This included the ending of the monopoly of the Communist Party of the USSR in 1990.
 The following year the USSR was dissolved.
 The PRC no longer had a competitor for the leadership of the Communist world; however,
the PRC didn’t seize the international revolutionary initiative.
 The regime looked to enhance China’s position as a major world player and continue its
economic modernization.

Source
Rogers, K., & Thomas, J. (2015). The Cold War: Superpower Tensions and Rivalries. London:
Pearson Baccalaureate.