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Two giants of the world. Initially united under their shared ideology, the Sino-Soviet relationship slowly deteriorated as Nikita Khruschev took a more revisionist approach in the Soviet Union (USSR) to communism which Mao Zedong continued to enforce in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Culminating in the Sino-Soviet split in 1963, this had significant and far-reaching consequences for global politics and their relationship only worsened from then on. This article will offer an overview of this convoluted and contentious relationship and how their disagreements would ultimately aid the fall of socialism in the late 20th century.
At the end of World War II, the USSR and China found themselves in vastly different circumstances. The USSR, along with the USA, emerged as one of the two global superpowers, while China was devastated by years of war with Japan and internal strife. Despite these differences, by 1949, the two countries shared a common ideological commitment to communism, which laid the groundwork for a strong bilateral relationship. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) viewed the USSR as a model for socialist development. Mao, well-versed in Marxism-Leninism, knew that for communism to be a success, it would have to be an international movement, and thus sought the approval of Stalin and the USSR. The USSR, under Joseph Stalin, saw an opportunity to expand its influence in Asia by supporting the CCP in its struggle against the Kuomintang (KMT) during the Chinese Civil War – the USSR terminated all diplomatic relations with the KMT on 2nd October 1949, a day after the PRC had been founded. Their support for the PRC was both ideological and material, with the USSR providing military aid, political advisers to the CCP, and even economic and agricultural resources which were crucial to China in order for them to rebuild and industrialise. The signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance on 14th February 1950 formalised their support for one another.
Whilst tensions between the two countries began to grow during the Korean War between 1950-1953, Stalin's death in 1953 marked a significant shift in the Sino-Soviet relationship. Khrushchev pursued a policy of de-Stalinization and sought to reduce tensions with the West. This approach collided with Mao's revolutionary vision of communism. Khrushchev’s negotiations with the USA particularly angered Mao as he saw them as the epitome of imperialism, something which Mao saw communism as its rightful exterminator. The growing ideological divergence between the two countries was further worsened by Khrushchev's attempts to assert the USSR as the primary leader of the global communist movement. Mao saw himself as the rightful leader of the revolution in Asia and thus resisted these efforts, and believed the USSR could not claim to be the communist leaders they said they were if they were revisionists. Additionally, Mao and the CCP were offended by Khrushchev's criticisms of Stalin, whom Mao still admired as a staunch defender of socialism and communism. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against Moscow particularly concerned Mao as the USSR had to use the military in order to suppress it, which weakened the legitimacy of the communist movement internationally, and therefore also for the CCP to be in government. ‘Monolithic communism’, the Western perception of absolute ideological unity in the Eastern Bloc, began to fracture from hereon and it was only further exacerbated when the USSR was critical about the initiatives of the Great Leap Forward launched by Mao in 1958 and their actions in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, also in 1958. This was reflected by their removal of Soviet experts from China in 1960 which dealt a severe blow to the Chinese economy.
The Sino-Soviet Split was publicly formalized in 1963 when the CCP issued a series of polemics criticizing Soviet revisionism and accusing the USSR of betraying the principles of Marxism-Leninism. The split itself caused controversial for many other communist countries, parties, and organisations: North Korea remained neutral whilst the Italian Communist Party was both critical and complimentary of Mao. In March 1964, the Romanian Workers’ Party announced that Bucharest would send authorities to mediate the conflict between the two nations, but this actually led to the forging of a Sino-Romanian rapprochement, further damaging the relationship between the two communist giants. Border conflicts arose as well in the late 1960s: the Soviet Army had massed along the Chinese border, particularly at the Xinjiang frontier, in north-west China, and so Lin Biao mobilised large portions of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in China to counter this. Nuclear threats and ‘spy wars’ were also prevalent.
In an ironic twist, Mao saw the USA as a weapon against the USSR and in February 1972, Richard Nixon travelled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, where he and Zedong established the Sino-American rapprochement. It was only after Deng Xiaoping began leading the country and moving towards a socialist market economy that relations between the USSR and China began to improve. After some moderate conflicts with the Sino-Vietnamese War and the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, both in 1979, China began to purse Realpolitik policies, diminishing the political importance of the Sino-Soviet split. With Gorbachev and Xiaoping both moving towards market economies in the 1980s, it seemed that the communist movement had lost its traction. The two met and shook hands in China in 1989, and two years later, the Soviet Union would cease to exist, bringing an end to the global communist movement.
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