The Sino-Soviet Split

Bryan Wong Jun Bin Ho Chih Young Class 4A3

Introduction

SinoSoviet split (19601989) denotes the worsening of political and ideological relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War (19451991). The doctrinal divergence derived from Chinese and Russian national interests, and from the regimes respective interpretations of Marxism : Maoism and MarxismLeninism. In the 1950s and the 1960s, ideological debate between the Communist parties of Russia and China also concerned the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West.

After Stalin 1953-1956

Tensions and suspicion had existed in the relationship of Mao and Stalin Chinese suggested that Stalin had deliberately delayed the of the Korean War to exhaust the PRC Truce signed after Stalins death in 1953

After Stalin 1953-1956

Sino-Soviet relations entered a honeymoon period New Soviet leaders appeared willing to supply further loans and technology to China Treaties were made more equal Facilitated easier credit for the PRC

Mao Khrushchev Split

Public: International allies Private: Ideological enemies

Mao Khrushchev Split

In 1956, Khrushchev made the Secret Speech He attacked Stalins crimes against the party, which included Stalins Cult of Personality Mao viewed it as an attack on his own style of leadership

Mao Khrushchev Split

The crushing of the Hungarian uprising Problems in East Germany and Poland Viewed by Mao as failures by the USSR to contain reactionary forces

Mao Khrushchev Split

Khrushchevs doctrine of peaceful coexistence with the West Implied that a global Communist revolution could be achieved by means other than armed struggle Mao viewed this as ideological heresy

Mao Khrushchev Split

Mao and the PRC considered such issues as a clear departure from Marxist doctrine As evidence that the Soviet Union was now dominated by revisionist (those who strayed from Marxism) Further compounded by the 1955 Geneva Summit and Austrian State Treaty of 1955

Conference of Communist Parties - 1957

Mao called on the USSR to abandon revisionism (Khrushchev had denounced Stalin) Mao declared that an international revolution could not be achieved by working along side class enemies (the Western Capitalists) Mao believed that the USSR was initiating dtente with the West, further isolating China

Conference of Communist Parties - 1957

Chinese spokesperson, Deng Xiaoping stated that the proletarian world revolution could only come about through force To him, Capitalism had to be crushed in violent revolution

Conference of Communist Parties - 1957

Deng had ultimately embarrassed the Soviets Out-argued Mikhail Suslov, leading Soviet theorist PRC presented themselves as the real leaders of the international revolutionary Communism

Khrushchevs Beijing Visit

In 1958, Khrushchev visited Mao Mao had apparently deliberately made Khrushchev feel uncomfortable 1) Khrushchevs hotel had no air conditioning and was plagued by mosquitoes 2) Mao had arranged for one round of talks in a swimming pool, embarrassing Khrushchev, who had to put on a rubber ring

Khrushchevs Beijing Visit

Deng attacked the Soviet policy, stating that: The Soviets had betrayed the international Communist movement (with peaceful coexistence) Soviets were guilty of viewing themselves as the only true Marxists Soviets had sent spies posing as technical advisers into China

Khrushchevs Beijing Visit

The talks were unproductive Further worsened pre-existing ideological differences of Mao and Khrushchev

Taiwan 1958
The PRC had bombarded islands off Taiwan, which it considered to be a break away province, in the early 1950s In 1958, Mao decided to test USs resolve by ordering a mass build-up of troops around the Strait of Taiwan The US responded by mobilizing However, Mao stopped short of attacking, citing the lack of Soviet support

Taiwan 1958
Khrushchev accused Maos regime of being Trotskyist pursing international revolution at any cost The Soviets perceived Maos actions as his tendency towards fanaticism Mao lacked understanding of political reality The Soviets withdrew their economic advisers and cancelled commercial contracts with the PRC

Taiwan 1958

The Great Leap Forward

In China, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution (196676) to rid himself of internal enemies and re-establish his sole leadership of party and country; To prevent the development of Russian-style bureaucratic communism of the USSR. Closed the schools and universities and organized the students in the Red Guard, a thought police politically commissioned to discover, denounce, and persecute teachers, intellectuals, and government officials who might be counter-revolutionaries and secret bourgeois. The political house-cleaning that was the Cultural Revolution stressed, strained, and broke Chinas political relations with the USSR, and relations with the the West.

Border conflict
Since 1956, the SinoSoviet ideological split, between Communist political parties, had escalated to small-scale warfare between Russia and China; thereby, in January 1967, Red Guards attacked the Soviet embassy in Beijing. Earlier, in 1966, the Chinese had revived the matter of the Russo-Chinese border that was demarcated in the 19thcentury, and imposed upon the Qing Dynasty (16441912) monarchy by means of unequal treaties that virtually annexed Chinese territory to Tsarist Russia. The Chinese asked the USSR to formally (publicly) acknowledge that said border, was an historic Russian injustice against China This led to skirmishes along the Sino-Soviet Border

Border Conflict

In 1968, the Soviet Army had amassed along the 4,380 km (2,738 mi.) border with China especially at the Xinjiang frontier, in north-west China, where the soviets might readily induce Turkic separatists to insurrection. By March 1969, SinoRussian border politics became the Sino-Soviet border conflict at the Ussuri River and on DamanskyZhenbao Island; more small-scale warfare occurred at Tielieketi in August.

Border Conflict

PRC

USSR

Geopolitical pragmatism

In 1969, after the Sino-Soviet border conflict, the Communist combatants withdrew. In September, Soviet Minister Alexei Kosygin secretly visited Beijing to speak with Premier Zhou Enlai In October, the PRC and the USSR began discussing border-demarcation. By 1970, Mao understood that the PRC could not simultaneously fight the USSR and the USA, whilst suppressing internal disorder.

Geopolitical pragmatism
Mao perceived the USSR as the greater threat, and thus pragmatically sought rapprochement with the US, in confronting the USSR. In July 1971, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger secretly visited Beijing to prepare the February 1972 head-of-state visit to China by U.S. President Richard Nixon. Moreover, the diplomatically offended Soviet Union also convoked a summit meeting with President Nixon, thus establishing the WashingtonBeijingMoscow diplomatic relationship, which emphasized the tripolar nature of the Cold War, occasioned by the ideological SinoSoviet split begun in 1956.

Geopolitical pragmatism

Nixon visits China (1972)

Why did the Split Occur?

Beijing had begun trying to displace Moscow as the ideological leader of the world Communist movement. Mao (and his supporters) had advocated the idea that Asian and world communist movements should emulate Chinas model of peasant revolution, not Soviets model of urban revolution. The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung and the book Dawn Out of China stated that his intellectual accomplishment was to change Marxism from a European to an Asiatic form... in ways of which neither Marx nor Lenin could dream, which the Soviet government banned in the USSR.

Why did the Split Occur?

Mao thought that the Soviets were retreating ideologically and militarily from MarxismLeninism and the global struggle to achieve global communism, and by apparently no longer guaranteeing support to China in a SinoAmerican war; therefore, the roots of the SinoSoviet ideological split were established by 1959.

Why did the Split Occur?

The USSR was astonished by the Great Leap Forward, had renounced aiding Chinese nuclear weapons development, and refused to side with them in the SinoIndian War (1962), by maintaining a moderate relation with India actions deemed offensive by Mao as Chinese Leader. Hence, he perceived Khrushchev as too-appeasing with the West, despite Soviet caution in international politics that threatened nuclear warfare.

Why did the Split Occur?

Sino-Soviet split manifested itself indirectly; arguments between the CPSU and the CPC criticized the client states of the other; China denounced Yugoslavia and Tito, the USSR denounced Enver Hoxha and the People's Socialist Republic of Albania; but, in 1960, they criticized each other in the Romanian Communist Party congress. In October 1961, at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union they again argued openly. In December, the USSR severed diplomatic relations with the Peoples Socialist Republic of Albania, graduating the SovietChinese ideological dispute from between political parties to between nation-states.

The End