did not think to build a joint plant or a joint fleet. We do not need anything like this.

Mao Zedong: Yudin spoke not once about the creation of a joint fleet and said that the Black and the Baltic Seas do not have outlets, that to operate the Navy from Murmansk is not easy, that the road from Vladivostok is blocked by Japan, etc. He also pointed out that the Chinese coastline is very extended. According to Yudin, the USSR produces atomic submarines. His entire speech boiled down to the creation of a joint fleet.

N.S. Khrushchev: We build our Navy and can use it. This is a formidable weapon. It is true that it will be difficult to use it, but so will it be for the enemy. War in general is a difficult business.

Mao Zedong: I asked Yudin, who would have ownership of the fleet-the Chinese, the USSR, or both countries jointly[?] I also emphasized that under current conditions the Chinese need the fleet as Chinese property, and that any other ownership is out of question. In case of war we will deliver everything to the Soviet Union. Yet, Yudin insisted that the fleet should be a joint one. For the third time Yudin was received by cde. Liu Shaoqi and other comrades. At this conversation Yudin repeated what he said previously. Our comrades spoke against the joint fleet. He changed the formula and instead of a "joint fleet" started talking about "joint construction." Our comrades criticized this statement as well, and said that we understood this to mean joint ownership of the fleet. Then Yudin began to speak about "joint efforts" to create the fleet.

N.S. Khrushchev: This is also my fault. I should not have instructed Yudin, who does not command the issue, to inform you. But we did not want to write a letter on this question. We wanted to inform you orally.

Mao Zedong: We understood it as follows: if we want to obtain [Soviet] assistance, then we must build a joint fleet aimed primarily against the US. We understood that Khrushchev wanted to resolve the question about a joint creation of the Navy together with Chinese comrades, having in mind also to draw in Vietnam.

N.S. Khrushchev: I said that, when the war begins, we would have to use the coast widely, including Vietnam.

Mao Zedong: I already said that, in case of war, the Soviet Union will use any part of China, [and] Russian sailors will be able to act in any port of China.

N.S. Khrushchev: I would not speak about “Russian sailors." Joint efforts are needed if war breaks out. Perhaps Chinese sailors would act, perhaps joint efforts would be necessary. But we did not raise the question about any territory or our base there.

Mao Zedong: For instance, if there were 100 men-ofwar in the fleet, which part would be owned by you and by us?

N.S. Khrushchev: The fleet cannot be owned by two countries. The fleet needs to be commanded. When two are in command it is impossible to fight a war.

Mao Zedong: That is correct.

N.S. Khrushchev: You may disagree with us. We consider this, and we may say [now] that we are against it. If you had suggested this to us, we would have been against it as well.

Mao Zedong: If this is so, then all the black clouds are blown away.

N.S. Khrushchev: There were no clouds in the first place.

Mao Zedong: However, we spent a night without sleep. It turns out, that I missed my sleep in vain.

N.S. Khrushchev: How could Comrade Mao Zedong imagine that we might enforce this, going completely against party principles?

Mao Zedong: I even told my comrades that I could not understand this proposal from the principled point of view, and perhaps this was a misunderstanding. You eliminated the wrong that had been perpetrated by Stalin. I personally and some other comrades had doubts that perhaps this proposal might be one of the Naval Headquarters of the USSR. Your advisor (a sailor) advised us four times to send a cable asking for assistance in building the fleet. He assured us that this request would get a positive decision. N.S. Khrushchev: Such advisers must be thrown out. Mao Zedong: Advisers did not speak about a joint fleet.

N.S. Khrushchev: Anyway, they had no right. Their business is to give advice when they are asked for it.

Mao Zedong: The advisers suggested to ask the USSR for assistance. After this Zhou Enlai sent this request, having in mind the fleet with missile launchers.

N.S. Khrushchev: Yudin was not instructed to make this proposal. He was instructed only to pass an offer to discuss jointly the issue of constructing the submarine fleet. How could we have instructed Yudin to carry out negotiations on the construction of the submarine fleet? We know Yudin and trust him in party matters, but he is a poor fit for negotiations on atomic submarine fleet.

Mao Zedong: He said that we should send representatives for the negotiations about the joint creation of a navy. I asked him to inform that we cannot conduct such negotiations.

N.S. Khrushchev: He tried to give the correct account in essence [po suschestvu], but must have misperceived our instruction, misinterpreted it, and let it happen that we find ourselves in a mistaken relationship.

Mao Zedong: But Yudin said precisely this. And Antonov was present there. Whose pride is pricked now? N.S. Khrushchev: As I can see your pride was very much pricked.

Mao Zedong: That is why I lost sleep.

N.S. Khrushchev: Our pride is touched as well. How could you have misperceived our policy?

Mao Zedong: Your representative made such an account. And I told him that I would disagree with such a proposal, would not accept, and declared: "You wage the war on sea and in the air, and we will stay as partisans [guerillas] on land [mi budem na sushe partizanit].”

Deng Xiaoping: The issue stemmed from the analysis of the maritime coast of China and the Soviet Union. Yudin said that China has a good coast, and the Soviet Union's coast is bad, thus one needs a joint fleet. Then Mao Zedong said-is this a cooperative?

Mao Zedong: A cooperative consists of two parts. N.S. Khrushchev: Everything is absolutely clear. I expressed my opinion. I believed that Chinese friends held us in better esteem. Therefore I believed it was necessary to get united [ob'ediniatsia]. We did not encroach on the sovereignty of China. We had one approach in the Party. I believe that you adhere to the same principle.

Mao Zedong: In this case I cease to worry. [ia spokoen]

Another scenario would have been [to build] a joint fleet. If the fleet were not a joint one, then there would be no assistance.

N.S. Khrushchev: Did Yudin say that?

Mao Zedong: No, he did not. I am telling you the essence of his words.

N.S. Khrushchev: But this is your inference! Mao Zedong: And the third scenario means that we withdraw our request, because the second scenario does not suit us. Even if in the next ten thousand years we do not have atomic submarine fleet, we will not agree to build a joint fleet. We can live without it [oboidemsia].

N.S. Khrushchev: You did not write about the atomic submarine fleet in your letter.

Mao Zedong: Yes, we did not write about it. We posed the question about the equipment of the fleet with atomic weapons. Yudin spoke about the atomic submarine fleet.

N.S. Khrushchev: That is why I am saying: which kind of fleet to build, we have to discuss. Who will give you advice-[commander of the Soviet Navy Admiral Sergei] Gorshkov? I am not sure he gives you good advice. When he gives you advice, you may consider that it is we who are advising you. Then you sort it out and may say they gave the wrong advice.

Mao Zedong: For us there is no question of building a large-size fleet. We only spoke about torpedo boats and submarines with rocket launchers. This is laid out in our letter.

There is a second issue on the construction of a radar station in China.

N.S. Khrushchev: I would like to finish the business on the navy, and then [talk] about the station. I consider that this part of the instruction Yudin misrepresented. Perhaps he did not formulate it carefully and gave occasion to misinterpret him.

Mao Zedong: But there were 7 to 8 persons present. I said then that it was not a cooperative. Everyone just gasped with surprise when they heard this proposal. Because of that I lost my sleep for a night.

N.S. Khrushchev: And I-the next night. I agree to take upon myself part of the blame. I am the originator [pervoistochnik]. I explained to Yudin, he misperceived me

and misrepresented it. Yudin is an honest man and he treats China and you personally with a great deal of respect. We trust Yudin and believe he could not deliberately distort it. He is an honest member of the CC and does everything to strengthen the friendship between our countries. All this is a result of a misunderstanding flowing from his misperception of the instruction. I want to say that I had premonitions myself, and I repeated 2-3 times if all was clear, because I gave him instructions on a matter in which he was not involved at all. And I have a problem with you [ia k vam v pretenzii]. If you see that the matter goes beyond the boundaries of communist attitudes, then you should have had a good sleep, told yourself it was a misunderstanding, and tried to clarify this once again. (Jokingly.) You see, I am pressing you hard [na vas nasedaiu].

Mao Zedong: I said that perhaps it was a misunderstanding, and I hope this is a misunderstanding. N.S. Khrushchev: You should have gone to bed. Mao Zedong: Several times the conversation was exclusively about the joint fleet, therefore I then launched a counterattack. Now you are counterattacking me. But wait, I will still attack you back.

N.S. Khrushchev: There is a law in physics: action produces equal counteraction.

Mao Zedong (crossly): I had my reasons. I said then that we could give you the entire Chinese coast, but we disagree with a joint fleet.

N.S. Khrushchev: We have plenty of coastline of our own, God help us to cope with it.

Mao Zedong: There is a forth scenario-to give you the whole coast. There is a fifth one-I am accustomed to fight guerilla wars [ia privik partizanit].

N.S. Khrushchev: Times are different now. Mao Zedong: But we had no hope, having in mind that if we had given up on the coastline, we would have had only the hinterland [susha].

N.S. Khrushchev (jokingly): Well, let's trade our seacoasts, but better still let each of us stay with ours, we are accustomed to them.

Mao Zedong: I agree to give you the whole coast all the way to Vietnam.

N.S. Khrushchev: Then we should invite Ho Chi Minh. Otherwise he may learn about it, and would say that here Khrushchev and Mao Zedong plotted against him.

Mao Zedong: According to the fifth scenario, we would have given you Port Arthur, but we would still have had several ports.

N.S. Khrushchev: Now, do you really consider us as red imperialists?

Mao Zedong: It is not a matter of red or white imperialists. There was a man by the name of Stalin, who took Port Arthur and turned Xinjiang and Manchuria into semi-colonies, and he also created four joint companies. These were all his good deeds.

N.S. Khrushchev: You are familiar with my viewpoint. On the issue of Port Arthur, however, I think that Stalin

made the correct decision at the time. Then Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] was still in China, and it was advantageous for you that the Soviet Army was in Port Arthur and Manchuria. This played a certain positive role. But this should have been brought to an end immediately after the victory of People's China. It seems to me that in 1954, when we raised the issue about withdrawal of troops from Port Arthur, you expressed doubts whether it would be advisable, for you considered the presence of Soviet troops as a factor containing aggressive US ambitions. We asked you to study this issue. You promised to think. You thought and then agreed with us.

Mao Zedong: Yes.

N.S. Khrushchev: You then said that non-communists raised in your parliament the issue if this was in China's advantage. Did you speak about it?

Mao Zedong: Yes. But it was one side of the problem. Stalin not only committed mistakes here. He also created two half-colonies.

N.S. Khrushchev: You defended Stalin. And you criticized me for criticizing Stalin. And now-vice versa. Mao Zedong: You criticized [him] for different matters. N.S. Khrushchev: At the [20th] Party Congress [in February 1956] I spoke about this as well.

Mao Zedong: I always said, now, and then in Moscow, that the criticism of Stalin's mistakes is justified. We only disagree with the lack of strict limits to criticism. We believe that out of Stalin's 10 fingers, 3 were rotten ones.

N.S. Khrushchev: I think more were rotten. Mao Zedong: Wrong. The essential in his life-his accomplishments.

N.S. Khrushchev: Yes. If we speak of Stalin's accomplishments-we are also part of them.

Mao Zedong: This is fair.

N.S. Khrushchev: Stalin was and remains Stalin. And we criticized the scum and scab that accumulated, in particular when he became old. But when Tito criticized him, it's another thing. 20 years from now school-kids will search the dictionaries [to see] who Tito was, but everyone will know Stalin's name. And the dictionary will say that Tito was the splitter of the socialist camp who sought to undermine it, and it will say that Stalin was a fighter who fought the enemies of the working class, but committed grave errors.

Mao Zedong: Stalin's main errors regarding China were not on the issue of the semi-colonies.

N.S. Khrushchev: I know. He incorrectly assessed the CCP's revolutionary capabilities of the CCP, wrote courteous letters to Jiang Jieshi, supported Wang Ming.

Mao Zedong: Even more important is something else. His first major error was one as a result of which the Chinese Communist Party was left with one-tenth of the territory that it had. His second error was that, when China was ripe for revolution, he advised us not to rise in revolution and said that if we started a war with Jiang Jieshi that might threaten the entire nation with destruction. N.S. Khrushchev: Wrong. A nation cannot be

destroyed.

Mao Zedong: But that is how Stalin's cable read. Therefore I believe that the relationship between the Parties was incorrect. After the victory of our Revolution, Stalin had doubts about its character. He believed that China was another Yugoslavia.

N.S. Khrushchev: Yes, he considered it possible.

Mao Zedong: When I came to Moscow [in December 1949], he did not want to conclude a treaty of friendship with us and did not want to annul the old treaty with the Guomindang [Kuomintang]. I recall that [Soviet interpreter Nikolai] Fedorenko and [Stalin's emissary to the PRC Ivan] Kovalev passed me his [Stalin's] advice to take a trip around the country, to look around. But I told them that I have only three tasks: eat, sleep and shit. I did not come to Moscow only to congratulate Stalin on his birthday. Therefore I said that if you do not want to conclude a treaty of friendship, so be it. I will fulfill my three tasks. Last year, when I was in Moscow, in a conversation where [Soviet Premier Minister Nikolai] Bulganin was also present, we heard that Stalin had bugged us back then.

N.S. Khrushchev: Yes, I said it at that time. He had bugged us as well, he even bugged himself. Once, when I was on vacation with him, he admitted that he mistrusted himself. I am good-for-nothing, he said, I mistrust myself. Mao Zedong: What kind of a fleet to build-this question does not exist for us. We will not build a fleet along the plans of Admiral Kuznetsov.

N.S. Khrushchev: We have not decided on the fleet ourselves.

Mao Zedong: We would only like to obtain assistance in the construction of the submarine fleet, torpedo boats and small-size surface ships.

N.S. Khrushchev: I agree. We should have a powerful submarine fleet armed with missiles, and torpedo boats armed not with torpedoes, but with missiles.

Mao Zedong: This was what we asked for in our letter. N.S. Khrushchev: We believe one needs destroyers armed with missiles. We believe one should build a merchant fleet with the view of using it for military goals. We are building several rocket-carriers. We believe that we also should have guard-ships armed with rockets, minesweepers. And most important-the missile-carrying air force. I think that you need this in the first instance. You have further shooting range from the air. In the first instance we will need maritime defense. Artillery in Port Arthur makes no sense. Its capacity is severely limited. One needs coastal rocket launchers and rocket-carriers, or a mobile coastal defense. This is the direction we are taking in the fleet construction.

Mao Zedong: This is the right direction.

N.S. Khrushchev: I would suggest that rocket-carriers are needed in the first place. A submarine fleet is more expensive. With the help of rocket-carriers we can keep the enemy at a very respectable distance from our shores.

Mao Zedong: Absolutely correct. We already spoke about it in Moscow [in November 1957].

N.S. Khrushchev: Aircraft have more potential. We are ready to give China what we have. TU-16s have lost their significance as bombers, but they are still good as rocket-carriers for sea approaches [na morskikh podstupakh]. In general, the bombing aviation is in crisis. The military is confused. And for fighters there is a substitute-rockets.

Mao Zedong inquires about missile armaments of the USSR, America, England, its combat specifications and types.

N.S. Khrushchev gives answers to the questions by Mao Zedong.

Mao Zedong says it would be good to avoid war.

N.S. Khrushchev: That is why we keep the enemy in fear by our missiles. We wrote to the Turks that with 3 to 4 missiles there would be no more Turkey. 10 missiles suffice to wipe out England. In England they debate: some say that 9 missiles are needed to destroy England, others say, no, 7 to 8. But nobody doubts that, in case of nuclear war England will be destroyed. They only debate how many missiles one needs for this. When we wrote letters to Eden and [French Prime Minister] Guy Mollet during the Suez events [in November 1956], they immediately stopped the aggression. Now, that we have the transcontinental missile, we hold America by the throat as well. They thought America was beyond reach. But this is not true. Therefore, we must use these means to avoid war. Now we should save Iraq.

Mao Zedong: In my opinion, the US and England gave up on attacking Iraq.

N.S. Khrushchev: I think this is 75% true.

Mao Zedong: About 90%.

N.S. Khrushchev: This is the Chinese way. Here are our "disagreements."

Mao Zedong: They are afraid of a big war.

N.S. Khrushchev: Yes, they are very afraid. Particularly in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan. The revolution in Iraq stirs up these people [in these countries], and they may repeat the events in Iraq.

Mao Zedong: We will talk about the international situation tomorrow. I consider that on the maritime matters the question is resolved.

N.S. Khrushchev: Yes, without a fight and defeat for either side.

Mao Zedong: There will be no joint fleet?

N.S. Khrushchev: Yes, and we never posed this question.

Mao Zedong: But three Soviet comrades still spoke about a joint fleet.

N.S. Khrushchev: Here are four Soviet comrades. And we are saying that there will be no joint fleet.

Mao Zedong: Let's not return to this question. N.S. Khrushchev: This question does not exist. This was a misunderstanding.

Mao Zedong: Agree. Let's write it down-withdraw the question.

N.S. Khrushchev: I agree. Let's write it down: there

was no such issue; there is no such issue; and there will not be any. This was the result of misunderstanding, misinterpretation of this issue by Yudin. I consider that the matter is exhausted.

Mao Zedong: Now I am calm.

N.S. Khrushchev: I am calm, too. Let us have sound

sleep.

Now I would like to talk about the radar station. There was no CC decision on this question. Our military comrades say that one should have a radar station, so that, when needed, one could command Soviet submarines in the Pacific. I think these considerations are correct. I thought that on this issue we could get in contact with Chinese comrades in order to build such a station. It would be better that Chinese comrades agreed that we participate in the construction of this station via credit or in some other way. The station is necessary. We need it, and you will need it, too, when you will have a submarine fleet. The issue is exploitation [ekspluatatsiia]. I think that two cannot be masters at this station. Therefore we could agree on the basis of equality, so that you could via this station maintain communications with your submarine fleet. There is no question about ownership. It should be Chinese. I would like to reach an agreement on its exploitation on equal terms. You might exploit our stations in Vladivostok, in the Kuriles, the northern coasts. If there is no objection from your side, I think that our military should consider this matter. If the PRC disagrees, we will not insist.

Mao Zedong: This station may be built. It will be the property of China, built with investments of the Chinese government, and we could exploit it jointly.

N.S. Khrushchev: Not jointly, but only partially. For us it will be needed only in case of war and for training in peacetime.

Mao Zedong: Then we must change the formula in Malinovsky's letter.

N.S. Khrushchev: I did not see the letter. We did not discuss it in the CC.

Mao Zedong: Another cooperative venture [kooperativ]. The Chinese share is 30% and Soviet share70%. We gave answer to Malinovsky in the same spirit you heard.

N.S. Khrushchev: I am not familiar with the correspondence on this issue. Perhaps this occurred as a result of the contacts between our military, and the contact went awry.

Mao Zedong: The second letter from Malinovsky, in July, contained a draft treaty on this issue. If in the first letter the Chinese share was 30%, in the second one the whole belonged to the Soviet Union.

N.S. Khrushchev: I suspect good intentions on the part of our military. We need this station. This is an expensive project. So they just wanted to help. But they ignored the political and legal aspects of the issue.

Mao Zedong: We sent our answer on behalf of Peng Dehuai, in which we said that we would build it, and the USSR may exploit it.

N.S. Khrushchev: The military told me that they thought they reached complete agreement with the Chinese comrades.

Mao Zedong: Here, you can see, the entire correspondence.

N.S. Khrushchev: I have not seen it. If it had gone through the CC then perhaps it would have not allowed such foolishness and would have offered to build it at our expense, but in the CC, we did not discuss it. But if you do not wish us to pay for it, then so be it.

Mao Zedong: But we represent socialist countries. We will build the station ourselves, and it should be exploited jointly. Do you agree?

N.S. Khrushchev: We do not need the station now. It costs many millions. Do not repudiate the money. Don't let friendship interfere with work. Under conditions of socialism we should carry the burden together. We may give credits for the construction. Part of it you can pay back, and part of it not, since you also need the station. Mao Zedong: It is possible to build the station without any credit.

N.S. Khrushchev: It would be wrong. You do not need it now.

Mao Zedong: We will need it.

N.S. Khrushchev: But above all we need it. Deng Xiaoping: We have already answered that we will build it ourselves and will exploit it jointly.

N.S. Khrushchev: Perhaps because of this our military told me that the Chinese agreed, but they ignored the Chinese nuance. They are wondering-what's the problem[?] Full agreement seemed to have been reached.

Mao Zedong: We agree to build at our expense, but exploit it jointly.

N.S. Khrushchev: I would suggest that credit is needed, assistance from our side.

Mao Zedong: If you insist on assistance, then we will not build the station at all.

N.S. Khrushchev: Now the issue about [Anastas] Mikoyan. We were surprised by your declaration, for all are convinced that you have the best possible relations with cde. Mikoyan. We do not think he could be suspected of disloyalty towards China, of some kind of attitudes that stand in the way of our friendship. He never mentioned it himself and we never saw anything like this. His speech at your [Party] Congress [in September 1956] was discussed at the CC Presidium and raised no objections. He was advised to show the speech to you, to introduce your remarks and proposals as an obligatory matter. In 1954, when I spoke here, I also sent you my report and asked for your remarks.

Mao Zedong: We welcomed your speech, for it reflects [the spirit of] equality. The speech of cde. Mikoyan was not so bad either, but the ratio of good and inappropriate was 9 to 1. This concerns the tone of the speech that was somewhat didactic [pouchitelnim]. Some delegates of the Congress expressed dissatisfaction, but we were too shy to tell cde. Mikoyan about it. When we say that the Chinese

Revolution is the extension of the October Revolution— this is the unquestionable truth. But there are many things that the Chinese themselves should speak about. There was something in Mikoyan's speech resembling the relationship between father and son.

N.S. Khrushchev: I did not re-read recently these speeches, but I recall that I told him that a great deal of attention was devoted to international affairs. Perhaps he should not have done it, but Mikoyan provided some kind of explanation, and I agreed with him. If some unnecessary points crept into it, he was not the only guilty one. Then all of us overlooked them.

Now the issue of the displeasure about his stay in Xibaipo [in February 1949].

Mao Zedong: All that he did there was good, but his behavior was a bit haughty. He was like an inspector. N.S. Khrushchev: I am surprised.

Mao Zedong: I am surprised as well. But to some degree it looked like lecturing of father to son.

N.S. Khrushchev: It is hard for me to explain this. You should have told him. Mikoyan knows how to listen, how to pay attention and draw conclusions.

Mao Zedong: Yes, he is a good comrade. We are asking him to come back to us.

N.S. Khrushchev: He is now on vacation.

Mao Zedong: We would welcome a trip by him to China at any time. We thought it necessary to state what we found inappropriate in his speech.

N.S. Khrushchev: His stay in China then [in 1949] was caused by Stalin's order. Stalin demanded from him reports every day, instructed him to sniff out everything, whether there were spies around you. Stalin was motivated by good intentions, but in his way, in Stalin's way. Then Stalin insisted on arresting two Americans, and you arrested them. After Stalin's death Mikoyan said that they were not guilty. We wrote you about it and you released them. You should keep in mind that, at that time, Mikoyan did not do what he wanted, but what Stalin wanted. For instance, [US journalist Anna Louise] Strong was evicted from Moscow, then she was rehabilitated. I believe Stalin did it to prevent her from going to China since he took her for a spy. Now Strong is going to visit China and the USSR. We have no objections, although she wrote stupid things about Stalin and your newspaper published them.

Mao Zedong: I did not read it, but people talk about it. N.S. Khrushchev: I read and hear that this was the newspaper of the Chinese capitalists.

Mao Zedong: Yes, this newspaper was in the hands of the rightists.

N.S. Khrushchev: The article was directed against the USSR. We even thought to write to you about this, but then decided it was not worth it, if it was a capitalist newspaper.

Mao Zedong: The newspaper belonged to the rightists, now it is in our hands.

N.S. Khrushchev: We have no problems with this, but Strong was mistaken.