and technicians, as well as tens of thousands of Chinese workers, came to the U.S.S.R. for training during those years.

Even though the Soviets may overstate their claim, it is difficult to quarrel with the importance of their support and experience (and "the aid of the Soviet people") in enabling China to overcome her economic difficulties and in laying the groundwork for a successful transition to planned Socialist construction.

B. The First Five-Year Plan (1953-57)

China's First Five-Year Plan was drawn up with the most active assistance of Soviet specialist and was "oriented to all-round Soviet material, scientific, and technological assistance." Throughout the 5-year period China and the Soviet Union continued to sign agreements detailing the nature and scope of the intensified Soviet aid. One of the more important of these agreements was signed in May 1953, committing the Soviet Union to the construction or modernization of 91 large industrial projects-in addition to the 50 agreed to in 1950. Although there are some discrepancies in Soviet literature as to the exact number of enterprises that were actually built, the differences are not very significant, especially since the orignial target figure was exceeded. During the First Five-Year Plan, the U.S.S.R. helped to start the construction of 156 enterprises, among these 12 coal, 29 electric power, 17 metallurgical, 8 petrochemical, 26 metalworking, 1 papermaking, 1 textile, and 1 food processing.

Some of the other agreements signed during the period of the First Five-Year Plan gave China long-term credit of 520 million rubles, provided for assistance in the construction of the Chi-ning-Ulan Bator and the Lanchou-Urumchi-Almi Ata rail lines (for strategic and other reasons the Chinese never saw fit to complete the Urumchi-Alma Ata leg), assured China of close scientific and technological cooperation, and resulted in a significant increase in the volume of Sino-Soviet trade. In addition to the more formal assistance provided by the U.S.S.R., Moscow was also prone to giving China annual anniversary gifts. For example, on the fifth anniversary of the creation of the PRC, the Soviet Union gave China a present of equipment and machinery for a graingrowing state farm, which included 98 tractors, 100 harvesting combines, and 39 trucks and cars.

Although at the time they were difficult to spot, it is now clear that the first signs of tension between the U.S.S.R. and the P.R.C. surfaced in 1956 and 1957. According to Soviet specialists, while Chinese sources were enthusiastically supporting "the correct policies of the Soviet Union," Mao's "special conceptions" about the direction of Chinese development were already being hatched. And while officially the Chinese supported the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for displaying "great determination and boldness in doing away with the cult of Stalin and in exposing the gravity of Stalin's mistakes"—a quotation from the People's Daily, cited by Moscow-Mao was building up his own cult of personality. Soviet sources are prone to long discussion about China's political infidelity during this period and her doubletalk about Stalin, Hungary, and about China's ulterior motives aimed at provoking a military conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. But let us not digress-back to economics.

Despite these harbingers of thing to come, the Soviet Union continued to help the Chinese people with an emphasis on people-in building socialism. As a matter of fact, in 1956-57 Soviet assistance to China increased. Among the numerous agreements and protocols that were signed, perhaps the most significant (April 1956) called for Soviet assistance in developing several industries and provided for the construction of 55 industrial projects in addition to the 156 projects that were being built under earlier agreements. These 55 projects included metallurgical, engineering, and chemical plants, synthetic fibers and plastics factories, electrical and radio engineering enterprises, a synthetics liquid fuel plant, and electric power stations, as well as research institutions for the aircraft industry. The total cost of equipment, design operations, and other technical aid was to reach 2,500 million rubles.

If the Soviets were to pick the one assistance agreement they regret the most, no doubt it would be the 1955 agreement to help China build her first experimental atomic pile and cyclotron. At that time, the Soviets referred to it as "a splendid expression of the Soviet Union's foreign policy of peace" and as "a new contribution to the great friendship between the two countries." But it was this assistance and the subsequent training of some of China's nuclear scientists at Dubna that launched China as a nuclear power. In 1956-57, the Soviet Union also continued to give China military aid to strenghten that country's defense capabilities. Not only were the Chinese armed with Soviet military equipment, but thousands of Soviet military advisers "shared their experiences with the Chinese People's Liberation Army."

Important cooperation continued in the field of science and technology. Joint exploration and research agreements were signed to identify China's natural resources and to study the prospects for developing the productive forces in a number of China's border areas, most significantly in the Amur River basin. In 1956, the Soviet Union sent a large group of scientists to China to help draw up the extensive 12-year plan on science and technology, which was to be closely coordinated with economic planning and was to insure that scientific development would serve the needs of the state. A 1957 meeting of the Sino-Soviet Commission of Scientific and Technical Cooperation decided to further encourage direct contacts between related Government departments, ministries, and research and design centers, in order to focus on the key scientific and technical, problems facing China's industry and agriculture. That same year an agreement was signed for scientific cooperation between the two academies of sciences, providing for joint research and expeditions and coordination of work on the key problems of science and technology. It was during these last 2 years of the 5-year plan when, according to the Soviets, their assistance was at its peak, that China made her greatest breakthroughs in economic and scientific development. Once again, the Soviet claim is essentially valid.

C. 1958-59

Using buzz phrases that have special meaning to the Russians, the Soviet Union blames voluntaristic methods of leadership, the cult of the individual alien to Marxism-Leninism, and China's petty bourgeois

nationalistic policies for Peking's parasitic attitude toward the U.S.S.R. and for its denigration of Soviet experience and prestigeattitudes that began to be evident in 1958 and that have continued since then. As in the past, however, the Soviet Union is proud of remaining loyal to its internationalist responsibilities and of continuing to give China assistance in the development of her economy, science, technology, and culture.

In August 1958, for example, an agreement was signed in Moscow for Soviet technical aid in the building and expansion of 47 industrial enterprises and power stations. And even in 1959, when despite growing tensions, the Chinese still came out with occasional assurances of loyalty to Sino-Soviet friendship, an agreement was signed for Soviet assistance in building 78 big projects in the steel, chemical, coal, oil, engineering, and building materials industries, as well as in the construction of power stations. By this time, the total value of Soviet equipment deliveries, design work, and other technical assistance neared 5,000 million rubles. As in the past, this aid was to be repaid with Chinese exports under the terms of the operating Sino-Soviet trade agreement, but licenses to manufacture products, blueprints, and other technical documents were handed over to China free of any charges.

Cooperation also continued in the scientific and technical fields. In January 1958, a Chinese delegation headed by then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Kuo Mo-jo, completed a 3-month visit to the Soviet Union. The delegation held discussions with over 600 leading Soviet scientists and experts and left with yet another signed agreement for Soviet aid in scientific and technological research and training and in the supply of equipment, instruments, and materials which the Chinese felt they needed for the execution of their TwelveYear Plan on Science and Technology. The agreement also provided for joint research on 122 key scientific and technological problems of fundamental importance to China, that was to run through 1962.

In summarizing their aid to China between 1949 and 1959, the Soviets claim that of China's total production in 1960, the share of products manufactured at enterprises built with Soviet technical assistance was as follows: cast iron, 30 percent; steel, about 40 percent; rolling stock, over 50 percent; trucks, 80 percent; tractors, over 90 percent; synthetic ammonia, 30 percent; electricity, 25 percent; steam and hydraulic turbines, 55 percent; generators, about 20 percent; aluminum, 25 percent; heavy machine-building industry products, over 10 percent. It was Soviet assistance in the 1950's that formed the backbone of modern industry and secured future possibilities for implementing the entire program of industrialization in China. A similar impact of Soviet aid is claimed in science and technology and in the training of specialized manpower and education in general.

D. The Break

While Soviet specialists working in China began to experience sharply worsening relations with Chinese personnel by the latter half of 1958, the Soviet government seemed to close its eyes to some of these problems. They apparently hoped that the Great Leap was a temporary aberration and that the Chinese leadership would soon come to its senses. Furthermore, their relative tolerance during that

period was sustained by some contradictory vibrations that emanated from Peking-contradictions that are not at all uncharacteristic of Chinese policies during the past two decades. While slogans urged workers to fight "blind faith in foreign experience," which at the time were directed specifically against the Soviet Union, Chou En-lai and other top leaders continued to praise the Soviet Union for "the brilliant example of Socialist and Communist construction" and to express "profound gratitude to the government and the people of the Soviet Union" for their "all-round assistance in socialist construction." Some of these comments were made as late as October 1959 at the 10th anniversary of the P.R.C.

The situation became intolerable in 1960. Soviet specialists began to be regarded with even greater suspicion, were subjected to surveillance, their personal belongings were searched, and their letters were censored. All Soviet protests about the treatment of their citizens fell on deaf ears. According to the Soviets, the Chinese not only began to curtail cooperation in all fields, but guided by political considerations, they abstained from the official commissioning of many enterprises built with Soviet assistance. By August 1960, the harassment of Soviet specialists, increasing obstacles in the operation of the Soviet Embassy, and other provocative actions of the Maoist leadership forced the Soviet Union to recall the 1,600 specialists who were still in China at that time. The result was an inevitable and rapid decline in economic, scientific, technical, and cultural cooperation between the U.S.S.R. and the P.R.C. Thus, the Soviets reject outright all Chinese accusations that the withdrawal was initiated by the U.S.S.R., thereby causing the failure of the country's economy. It was China who created the conditions that forced the withdrawal of the specialists, and in any case, because of the conditions that prevailed following the Great Leap, Chinese industry failed to fulfill its plan even before the specialists were withdrawn.

But even at the nadir of relations between the two countries, a constant theme was heard in all Soviet sources: out of concern for the Chinese people, and with varying degrees of success, the U.S.S.R. continued to extend assistance-while the Chinese continued to hinder and frustrate such efforts. In view of her food shortages, the Kremlin, on its own initiative, relieved China of her arrears in 1961 for food deliveries in 1960 and "abstained" from purchasing almost all of the foodstuffs which had been traditional items of Chinese export. The Soviet Union also gave China great assistance by lending her 300,000 tons of grain and flour and, to help with the shortage in foreign exchange, agreed to buy from China 1,000 tons of silver to be paid for in hard currency.

As for assistance in industrial development, even after China's "demand" for a sharp reduction in the implementation of earlier agreements and protocols for economic, scientific and technical cooperation and her rejection of further Soviet assistance in the construction of 1,100 million rubles worth of industrial and other projects, the Soviet Union intended to keep its commitments to provide technical assistance in building 66 projects of key importance for the development of both the civilian and defense industries. By mid 1961, the Chinese authorities no longer blamed the Soviets for China's economic problems (they resumed such accusations just a year or two later), but explained the drastic reduction in deliveries of Soviet

equipment and in the volume of trade, by pointing to natural disasters in agriculture and stressing the need to be more self-sufficient. No doubt this very temporary lull in rhetoric facilitated the signing of an agreement in June 1961 for technical assistance in building some new projects and even raised the hope of the return of Soviet engineers and technicians to China. This relaxation was short-lived, however, because just 6 months later the Chinese announced their absolute refusal to import Soviet complete plants and equipment and "arrogantly declared" that the P.R.C. was no longer in need of developing scientific and technical exchanges with the Soviet Union.

E. 1962 to the Present

By the end of 1962 the volume of economic cooperation between the Soviet Union and China had dwindled to about 5 percent of the 1959 'volume. Supplies to China of Soviet equipment, materials, technical facilities and documents dropped to 41 to 42 million rubles as against 428 million in 1960. Supplies of complete plant and equipment amounted to 7.8 to 8.0 million rubles as compared with 336.5 million in 1959. But even as the situation between the two countries continued to deteriorate and attacks against the Soviet Union for damage to the Chinese economy accelerated, Moscow proudly proclaims that the U.S.S.R. continued to abide by its commitments and in 1964 supplied equipment and materials for 31 industrial projects under the agreements then extant.

Soviet sources tend to go into some detail about the fraudulent methods used by the Maoists to discredit Moscow's assistance, such as disassembling Soviet machine tools and then assuring foreign visitors the equipment was delivered in an unfit condition, and displaying broken down locomotives which the Chinese implied were delivered without spare parts. One interesting tale pertains to Sino-Soviet trade talks which took place in 1964-the year trade between the twocountries dropped back to the 1950 level. As the Soviets tell the story, they wanted to continue to import tin, zinc, beryllium and other commodities which had been traditional items of Chinese export to the U.S.S.R. The Chinese, however, "pressured and blackmailed" the Soviets to import foodstuffs from China, including items thatChina found difficult to sell on the world market. The Chinese then. spread the fabrication that the Soviet Union was importing "hundreds of thousands of tons of meat products" from China, whereas the actual Soviet meat imports in 1964 totaled little more than 40,000 tons. It is not altogether clear whether the Soviet sensitivity to China's accusations stems from the implied meat shortage in the Soviet Union or from the implied deprivation suffered by the Chinese people as a consequence of these exports.

It would appear that in 1965-66, with the exception of some very limited trade activity, there were no economic relations between the two countries. In April 1965, the P.R.C. finally cancelled all work on projects agreed to in June 1961 and Soviet supplies of completed. plants and equipment to China diminished to less than one-hundredth of the 1959 level. Furthermore, the Chinese deliberately played down the political importance of trade by proposing that in the future it should be developed not on an intergovernmental but on a ministerial