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particularly vividly the role of Khrushchev's personality. Would any other Soviet leader have acted so rashly?

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Several times Khrushchev described Mao and the environment around him as "Asiatic," referring especially to the Chinese leader's reliance on "flattery and insidiousness." Describing politics as "a game," Khrushchev confessed his continuing frustration at the way Mao played it. “I believed him," the Soviet leader complained at one point, but "he was simply playing."25

When Mao boasted about Chinese uniqueness, recalls Khrushchev, "I was jolted by all that bragging." The true believing internationalist in Khrushchev was offended by Mao's "nationalism and chauvinism." But since no one was a bigger boaster than Khrushchev himself, surely there is an element of projection in criticizing Mao for sins. Khrushchev shared. Likewise when he charges that Mao's "putting his own person first created friction, and even more than friction in relations between our two countries."26

Granted, then, that the Sino-Soviet dispute was personal as well as political, and that Khrushchev let himself be provoked by Mao for the sorts of reasons I have cited. To fill out the picture further, we would need to know why Mao reacted to so negatively to Khrushchev. What was it about Khrushchev personally that Mao found so irritating? Did Mao deliberately go out of his way to provoke his Soviet counterpart? Or was he unaware of how Khrushchev perceived and reacted to him? Did aides of either or both leaders play on their bosses' sensitivities, either knowingly or unknowingly, so as intensify the antagonism between them? Or were they adept enough at outraging each other all by themselves?

Documents from still-closed Chinese archives, as well as additional materials from Russian archives, and not only memoir accounts, valuable as they may be, will be needed to address these and many other aspects of the Mao-Khrushchev relationship.

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14

Li Yueren, Waijiao wutai shang de xin Zhongguo lingxiu ["New China's leaders on the diplomatic stage"] (Beijing: Jiefangjun chuban she, 1989), 182-183.

15 Letter of CCP CC to CPSU CC, 29 February 1964, in John Gittings, ed., Survey of the SinoSoviet Dispute (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 139. See also Steven M. Goldstein, "The Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1937-1962: Ideology and Unity" (manuscript), forthcoming in Harry Harding, ed., Patterns of Cooperation in the Foreign Relations of China.

16

Gittings, Survey, 130-131; Goldstein, “The Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1937-1962."

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SUSLOV ON MAO continued from page 244

cannot accept that even our friends talk to us down their nose [svisoka razgovarivali s nami]"; later, after calling the discussions ultimately "quite useful," Suslov noted:]

One should not omit the fact that the aforementioned mistakes and shortcomings in the field of domestic and foreign policy of the Communist Party of China are largely explained by the atmosphere of the cult of personality of com. Mao Zedong. Formally the CC of the Communist Party of China observes the norms of collective leadership, but in effect crucial decisions are made single-handedly, and thus are often touched by subjectivism, and in some instances are simply not well thought through. Glorification of com. Mao Zedong is visibly on the rise in China. In the party press one can increasingly find such statements that “we, the Chinese, live in the great epoch of Mao Zedong," comrade Mao Zedong is portrayed as a great genius. They call him the beacon illuminating the path to communism, the embodiment of communist ideas. One equates the name of com. Mao Zedong with the party, etc. One presents the works of com. Mao Zedong in China as the last word of creative Marxism, of the same rank as the works of the classics [klassiki] of Marxism-Leninism. In effect, the works of com. Mao Zedong are put in the foundation of all educational work in the party and in the country. Even in PRC's colleges and universities the teaching of social sciences during the last two-three years has been reduced to the study of Mao's works. All this, unfortunately, pleases [imponiruiet] com. Mao Zedong, who, by all accounts, himself has come to believe in his own infallibility. This reminds of the atmosphere that existed in our country during the last years of life of I.V. Stalin. Of course, we could not talk with the Chinese comrades about it, but the Plenum should be aware of this, yet another aspect in the life of the Communist Party of China....

[Source: Excerpted from Suslov draft report to CC CPSU Plenum, 18 December 1959, Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD), Moscow, fond 2, opis 1, delo 415, listy 56-91; document provided and translated by V. M. Zubok.]

SOVIET EXPERTS continued from page 246

ment in June 1949 formalized the PRC's foreign policy framework, essentially establishing the "new China" as the Soviet Union's junior partner. Although never happy with such a relationship, Mao and his comrades believed that it had been necessary in order to promote China's economic reconstruction, safeguard the nation's security interests, and create momentum for the continuation of the Chinese revolution after its nationwide victory. The situation began to change, however, after Stalin's death in March 1953, and especially after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956. Mao and his comrades increasingly believed that it was the CCP, not the CPSU, which should play the central role in the international communist movement. This growing sense of China's superiority, which, in a historical-cultural sense, had a profound origin in the age-old "Middle Kingdom" mentality, combined with many other more specific problems (of the sort usually present in any alliance relationship) to create a widening rift between the Chinese and Soviet leaders. During Khrushchev's visit to China in September-October 1959, the potential tension that had long accumulated between Beijing and Moscow exploded. Indeed, during a long meeting between Khrushchev and Mao and other Chinese leaders on 2 October 1959, the two sides emotionally criticized the other's domestic and international policies, demonstrating that the Sino-Soviet alliance 4 was facing a real crisis."

The Soviet note recalling all Soviet experts from China further intensified the crisis. Beijing could see in it nothing but Moscow's evil intention of imposing new "inequalities" upon them. This became particularly true when Moscow, according to Chinese sources, turned down Beijing's request that the Soviet experts, at least some of them, should stay in China until they had fulfilled their assigned tasks.5

These developments virtually destroyed the foundation of the Sino-Soviet alliance. Mao would take the So

viet withdrawal of experts from China as strong evidence to claim that Beijing's struggle against Moscow was not just one for true communism but also one for China's sovereignty and national integrity. Khrushchev and other leaders in Moscow seemed also determined to meet Beijing's challenge to the Soviet Union's position as the indisputable leader of the international movement. In retrospect, the Soviet decision of July 1960 can be interpreted as a crucial step toward the complete breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance.

Note: The Soviet Embassy in Beijing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, 18 July 1960

Strictly confidential

The Embassy of the Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics in the People's Republic of China has been instructed to inform the Government of the People's Republic of China of the following:

In strict observation of the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance between the USSR and the PR of China, the Soviet Government sends, in compliance with the request of the Chinese Government, a considerable number of experts to work in China. For this purpose, the Soviet organizations have selected the best and most experienced experts, often bringing disadvantages to the national economy of the USSR. By taking part in the socialist construction of the PR of China, the Soviet ex

perts consider their activities as fulfilling their brotherly international obligations towards the friendly Chinese people. All the while, the Soviet people staying in the PR of China, in true observance of the instructions they have received, refrain from any statements or action that could be interpreted as interference in the internal affairs of the PR of China or as criticism of this or that aspect of the domestic or foreign policy of the Communist Party of China or the Government of the PR of China.

During the visit of Soviet leaders to the PR of China at the beginning of August 1958, the Chinese side expressed their dissatisfaction with some of the Soviet experts and advisors. This could be understood as a reproach directed at the Soviet Union. It is, however, well known that the Soviet Union had never forced its specialists and advisors on anyone. Already at the end of 1956 and the beginning of 1957, the Soviet Govern

ment presented to the PR of China and the other socialist countries the proposal to recall the Soviet experts, taking into consideration that these countries had by then trained their own cadres and were, in the opinion of the Soviet Government, well capable of solving by their own efforts the practical tasks they were encountering in the fields of economic and cultural developments. The majority of the people's democratic countries had at that time agreed to the proposal of the Soviet Government, and the Soviet experts were recalled from these countries to their motherland. After the Chinese leaders had expressed their critical attitude toward the Soviet experts in the year 1958, the Soviet Government once again presented to the Government of the PR of China the proposal to recall the Soviet experts. But this time, just as in the year of 1957, the Chinese side pronounced that it favored prolonging the stay of the Soviet experts by claiming that they were needed in the PR of China.

Recently, the Chinese side, when dealing with the Soviet experts working in the PR of China, began to pursue an apparently unfriendly line toward the Soviet Union, which was incompatible with the obligation of the treaty as well as with the norms prevailing between socialist countries. Following the instructions from their superiors, Chinese officials distribute specially compiled material in Russian language among the Soviet people propagating views directed against the position of the CPSU and of other brotherly parties. They make efforts to draw Soviet experts living in the PR of China into discussions on questions where certain differences of opinions exist between the CPSU on the one side and other

brotherly parties on the other; they make efforts to impose their viewpoints upon the Soviet experts and try to lead them into opposition to the CPSU and the Soviet Gov

ernment.

The leading officials at the Chinese institutions and enterprises where Soviet experts are working persistently try to draw them into discussions on the above-mentioned questions. So, for instance, on May 19, the office director of the Scientific Research Institute for Electric Industry of the PR of China in Guangzhou proposed to the Soviet experts working in the institute to discuss the questions raised in an anthology especially published in the Russian language under the title "Long Live Leninism," as well as to express their opinions on the articles included in this anthology. Among several groups of Soviet experts in Beijing and other cities of China, Chinese officials forced every Soviet expert to accept copies

of this anthology, which, as it was known, contained anti-Leninist theses to which the Soviet people cannot give their agreement. The deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Yang Zhengwu, and the head of the Propaganda Department of the General Political Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Fu Zhong, both used a consultation meeting attended by a group of Soviet military experts to propagate their views on questions about war and peace, as well as an assessment of the current international situation, that are incorrect, faulty and in contradiction to the basic theses of the [November] 1957 Moscow Declaration of fraternal [communist] parties. There exist also a whole series of other cases in which leading officials of Chinese institutions and enterprises endeavor to draw Soviet specialists into discussions, to put them under pressure, and to influence them by suggesting to them viewpoints quite different from the positions of the CPSU.

The Soviet experts working in the PR of China consider such activities on the part of the Chinese authorities as open disrespect of themselves and of their work, as activities intolerable in relations between socialist countries, and, in fact, as an open agitation against the CC of the CPSU and the Soviet Government.

The Soviet experts, taking into their consideration a variety of facts, have been compelled to conclude that they no longer have the trust of the Chinese side they need in order to fulfill the tasks put before them, not to mention the respect these experts have earned by providing assistance to the Chinese people for [China's] economic and cultural development and military build-up. There exist several cases in which the opinions of the Soviet experts were grossly ignored, or in which there openly existed no wish [on the part of the Chinese] to take their recommendations into consideration, despite the fact that these recommendations were based upon the well-founded knowledge and rich experiences of these experts. This even went so far that the documents prepared by the Soviet experts, which included respective recommendations and technical rules, were demonstratively burned.

This information leads to the conclusion that the Soviet experts in the PR of China are being deprived of the opportunity to fulfill their useful functions and to contribute their knowledge and experiences to the fullest degree. They are practically put into such a situation that their selfless work is not being appreciated, and that they are encountering ingratitude from the Chinese

side.

In view of these facts it is difficult not to believe the information provided by some [of our] experts indicating that they are being spied on. The meaning of these measures is at a minimum incomprehensible to the Soviet people who came to the PR of China with the deeply felt desire to help the Chinese people in building socialism.

Of course, all of this hurts the feeling of the Soviet experts and, even more so, it has caused such a just indignation that they, due to the fact that they are being denied the trust they need, are forced to present to the Soviet Government the request that they be allowed to return to their motherland.

The Soviet Government deems it necessary to declare that the afore-mentioned actions on the part of the Chinese side are unfriendly towards the Soviet Union. They are in contradiction with the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance between the USSR and the PR of China, according to which both sides have committed themselves, in the spirit of friendship and cooperation and in accordance with the principles of equality and mutual interests, to developing and consolidating the economic and cultural relations between them. Such activities on the part of the Chinese side make it practically impossible for the Soviet experts to continue to stay in the PR of China.

The Embassy is instructed to inform the Government of the PR of China that the Soviet experts and advisors, including the military, will be, in accordance with their own wishes, recalled to their motherland. While coming to this decision, the Soviet side has also taken into consideration the fact that the Government of the PR of China itself, in the past, has raised the question of ordering a number of Soviet experts working in the PR of China to return to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Government expresses the hope that the Government of the PR of China will understand correctly the causes that have led to this decision.

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4

For an internal Soviet account of Khrushchev's visit to Beijing, see M. A. Suslov's report to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 18 December 1959, contained in the Storage Center for Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD), and excerpted in this issue of the Bulletin. 5 See Han Nianlong et al., Dangdai zhongguo waijiao [Contemporary Chinese Diplomacy,] (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press, 1989), 364-365.

6 In this regard, it is revealing that the Soviet note is found in the East German archives, a clear indication that Moscow was spreading its version of events to reassert its leadership role in the

movement.

Chen Jian is associate professor of history at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and, during the 1996-97 academic year, a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.

CULTURAL REVOLUTION ARCHIVE ESTABLISHED

The following item appeared in the China News Digest of 26 November 1996; it was posted on H-Asia by Yi-Li Wu, a doctoral candidate in the History Department at Yale University, and brought to CWIHP's attention by Odd Arne Westad, Director of Research at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo:

Documents of Cultural Revolution Moved to Archive

After nearly 37,000 documents, tape recordings, and exhibits of the Cultural Revolution era from 47 government ministries were moved to a new central Cultural Revolution archive in east Beijing, archivists said Tuesday that scores of them are either incomplete or in poor condition, United Press International reports from Beijing. A worker at the Beijing Municipal Government Archive said: "One of the biggest problems is there are no indices for the information and there is no way of knowing what is and isn't there." Many of the documents were issued by the late Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung. The new archive will not be open to the public or academics, and government archivists will spend a year or so studying the materials and indexing them in the hope of finding what are missing. They will also attempt to search for more documents although some concede that many of the most sensitive documents will never resurface." (Vic CHIN, YIN De An)

The Sino-Indian Conflict, the Cuban Missile Crisis,

and the Sino-Soviet Split, October 1962:
New Evidence from the Russian Archives

by M.Y. Prozumenschikov

The year 1962 was marked by a further intensification of the discord between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Chinese Community Party (CCP) and, correspondingly, between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC). Beijing's refusal to stay within the boundaries defined by Moscow, which was especially marked after the 22nd CPSU congress at the end of 1961, caused serious anxiety among Soviet officials who frequently spoke of the CCP leadership's deviation "from the generally fraternal countries and parties" and described Beijing's authorities as seeking "to more widely bring into the open their disagreements [with us], both in theory and in practice.

In the international arena, these disagreements touched on a wide circle of problems, including questions of war and peace, peaceful coexistence, evaluations of the character of the contemporary period, and others. Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev, who was trying (albeit inconsistently) to conduct a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West, could hardly agree with the declarations coming from Beijing to the effect that the aspiration "to achieve peace without wars is sheer nonsense," that impirialism "will never fall if it isn't pushed," and which characterized the atom bomb as a "paper tiger."2 Moscow reacted especially sensitively to Beijing's efforts to depreciate the role of the socialist countries and the international communist movement, having declared the decisive factor of the development of human society in the contemporary epoch to be the national liberation movements of the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In the USSR it was feared, not without reason, that one reason why the "wind from the East had come to prevail over the wind from the West," was the PRC's

desire to strengthen its influence in the “third world,” in the process squeezing the Soviet Union out.3

Unitl the fall of 1962, however, both countries succeeded in preserving a semblance of outward unity: the "cracks" in the Soviet-Chinese “monolith" were already apparent to the naked eye, yet it was still not clear whether they were leading to an outright schism. The events of October 1962, when new clashes on the Sino-Indian border and the Caribbean Crisis (Cuban Missile Crisis) broke out practically simultaneously, constitute a turning point in the development of Sino-Soviet relations and signified the beginning of the open split between the two countries.

This article does not attempt to illuminate the causes or recount the courses of the border conflict or the Cuban crisis, but rather, on the basis of archival documents in the former Central Committee (CC) of the CPSU stored in the Storage Center for Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD) in Moscow, to analyze the influence of these dual conflicts in the fall of 1962 on Sino-Soviet relations.

Armed conflicts on the Sino-Indian border first occurred in August 1959 and already caused at that time a mutual lack of understanding between the PRC and USSR. Moscow, having supported Beijing during the suppression of the uprising in Tibet in early 1959,4 refused to stand so unequivocally on China's side in the border incident. Soviet leaders believed that in many ways the flareup was provoked by the Chinese themselves, in order to demonstrate in practice their refusal to accept the McMahon line (a 1914 boundary agreed on by British and Tibetan officials which Indian accepted as the correct Sino-Indian frontier) as the state border between the PRC and India. Moscow clarified its stance in a September 1959 TASS statement calling on both warring sides to resolve the conflict by peaceful means.

The fact that the USSR did not take a clear "class" position in a conflict between a socialist state and a bourgeois state provoked indignation in China. In a 13 September 1959 letter to the CC CPSU, the CC CCP accused the Soviet government (although in a veiled form) of "accomodation and compromise on important matters of principle" and noted that "the TASS statement showed to the whole world the different positions of China and the Soviet Union in regard to the incident on the IndianChinese border, which causes a virtual glee and jubilation among the Indian bourgeoisie and the American and English imperialists, who are in every way possible driving a wedge between China and the Soviet Union.”5

The border conflict placed the USSR in a complicated position for a number of reasons. First of all, Mao Zedong persistently tried to confer on this conflict the character of an important question of the class struggle on an international scale and, accordingly, sought support for their actions from all "fraternal" parties. This did not at all correspond to Khrushchev's views, neither in principle nor in the specific concrete case; while the Soviet leader earnestly desired to preserve good relations with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, for Mao Nehru was "half man, half devil" and the task of communists was to "wash off his face so that it won't "6 be frightening, like a devil's."

Secondly, the Soviet Union could not act as a peacemaker between socialist China and bourgeois India without violating the principles of proletarian internationalism. Not wishing simply to embrace the Chinese position in the border dispute, the USSR remained deaf to numerous Indian requests to act as a mediator. In this question, Moscow displayed extreme caution; the CC CPSU, for example, categorically rejected a proposal of the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Acad

emy of Sciences, P. Gafurov, to organize in Moscow a meeting with the participation of Chinese and Indian scholars on questions connected with the history and mutual influences of Chinese and Indian cultures. 7

Third, the border conflict sharply worsened the position of the Communist Party of India (CPI): subjected to attacks from the bourgeois parties of India, the CPI also itself split between those who felt that only India was at fault in the conflict and those who suggested that responsibility could be divided between both countries. At the 6th CPI Congress in 1961, Soviet representative M. Suslov exerted consid

erable effort so that, on the one hand, militant pro-Beijing party members who felt the CPI must always align itself with the CCP would not prevail, and on the other hand, to block discussion at the Congress of a resolution proposed by a number of prominent Indian communists criticizing the PRC and backing Nehru. These Soviet actions could hardly pass unnoticed in Beijing; in a talk with Soviet ambassador S. Chervonenko, CC CCP secretary Deng Xiaoping made a point of referring indignantly to "some Indian communists, who are even praising Nehru."8

Finally, another relevant aspect of the problem was the fact that Moscow clearly grasped that Beijing's bellicose method of resolving border questions with India could also be repeated in other disputed portions of the Chinese border, and not necessarily only with countries liberated from colonial dependence. As early as 8 September 1959, two weeks after fighting broke out on the Sino-Indian border, the CC CPSU received from the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs a detailed report "On the Question of the Soviet-Chinese Border." The preparation of such a report at a time when Sino-Soviet relations, at least on this question, were ostensibly satisfactory strongly suggests that at least some Soviet officials already foresaw the danger of border problems with China.

For the previous three years a situation of unstable equilibrium had been maintained on the Sino-Indian border, threatening the outbreak of new armed

conflict. From time to time Moscow cautiously attempted to influence Beijing to take a more moderate position and agree to compromise with India. At that time, Soviet officials believed that such a change in China's approach could occur only “as a result of review by the leaders of the PRC of their foreign policy conceptions as a whole," but this "in the near future is extremely problematic."9 In contrast to the diplomats, Khrushchev, displeased by the Mao's refusal to heed Moscow's advice, stated in a much sharper way that when he converses with Mao, when he listens to him, he gets the impression that he is speaking with Stalin, is listening to Stalin.10 From their part, the Chinese persistently told Soviet representatives that resolving the border dispute required influencing India, not the PRC; that “Nehru is the central figure in the anti-Chinese campaign in India, that he does not in any case want to resolve the question of the Sino-Indian border, even in some

fixed period."11 Moscow listened to these statements in silence, leaving them without commentary.

Concurrently with the Sino-Indian border conflict, Soviet and Chinese attention was drawn to events in the Western hemisphere, where in 1959 the Cuban revolution triumphed. The chance to spread their respective understandings of Marxism among the Cuban revolutionaries sparked a lively competition between the two communist giants for ideological influence in Cuba.

Initially, Moscow seized the leadership in this "contest for Cuba," which was in many ways determined by Soviet military and economic aid to Havana. By contrast, although Chinese leaders welcomed the Cuban revolution, if they took a wait-and-see approach with regard to its leader Fidel Castro, in part to preserve diplomatic communications with Taiwan via Cuba. In this regard, noted Soviet representatives in China, who closely monitored the development of Chinese-Cuban relations, in its propaganda during this early period the CCP leadership made no attempt to counterpose their policy toward Cuba to that of the CPSU.12 The situation changed after Beijing and

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Considering that the Chinese revolutionaries' militant language in many respects echoed the Cubans', Moscow tried by all means to lessen Chinese influence. These efforts did not go to waste. During a visit to China at the end of 1960, Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in a joint Chinese-Cuban communique expressed approval of the PRC policy of "three red banners"; but one year later, Cuban President Oswaldo Dorticos, in a visit to the PRC, did not once touch on this question despite considerable Chinese efforts. 14

In Cuba itself, authorities generally tried to minimize the disagreements that had arisen in the communist world. Havana even specially appealed to Moscow and Beijing with a request not to publish anti-Soviet and anti-Chinese materials in TASS and Xinhua bulletins distributed in Cuba, for this could, the Cuban leadership feared, damage the unity of the Cuban people and create additional political difficulties within the country.15 The Cuban press carefully "filtered" all statements by Chinese leaders critical of Soviet policy (in particular, most newspapers excised such remarks from the speech of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai at the CPSU 22nd congress); at the same time the Cubans politely but firmly suppressed Soviet attempts to distribute literature in Cuba that enunciated Moscow's point

of view on the dispute. 16

Both the Soviet Union and China naturally counted on extracting advantages from the "special relations" they hoped to establish with Cuba. However, if Beijing embarked on a path of propagandistic expansion through Cuba onto the Latin American continent, then in the USSR a plan took shape to use the island as an unsinkable nuclear base near the shores of the USA. Khrushchev preferred not to let Mao Zedong know about this plan, not only because of the existing disagreements, but also, perhaps, out of a wish to reap future laurels himself and at the same time to strengthen the Soviet position in the

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