Abstract
This chapter discusses the 1957 Moscow Conference of World Communist and Workers’ Parties. The idea of convening a conference and issuing a joint declaration was proposed by both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). During the conference, Mao played an important and unique role. However, Mao’s extemporaneous remarks at the conference shocked the Kremlin. His comments on the Soviet intra-party struggle, his outrageous comments on nuclear war, and his declaration that China would overtake Great Britain in 15 years created doubts and dissatisfaction in the minds of the delegates and cast a cloud over the conference. The Moscow Declaration revealed the Sino-Soviet disagreement, especially Beijing’s challenge to Soviet leadership of the socialist bloc. Thus, the Moscow Conference was a historical turning point in the Sino-Soviet relationship.
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Notes
- 1.
Of the 68 parties that attended the conference, 4 (including the American Communist Party) made no public appearance for fear of persecution back home. Although 81 parties attended the Moscow Conference in November 1960, Mao Zedong was not present because of growing tensions with Moscow. Soviet and Chinese officials at the 1960 meeting could present only a facade of unity to the outside world. Hence, the 1960 Moscow Conference cannot be compared to the 1957 conference.
- 2.
This view has been continuously recycled in the Chinese literature. See Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, p. 75.
- 3.
The Sino-Soviet relationship was at its friendliest stage (the “honeymoon period”) from October 1954 to late 1957. This periodization differs from the traditional view in Chinese academic circles.
- 4.
Stalin proposed the idea of convening a meeting of the Cominform in early 1951 and designated Italian Communist Party General Secretary Palmiro Togliatti as general secretary. But Togliatti declined, and no such conference was ever held.
- 5.
Goncharov, Lewis, and Xue, Uncertain Partners, Stalin, pp. 71–73, 232–33; for a recent study on the Asian Cominform, see Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia, “Leadership Transfer in the Asian Revolution: Mao Zedong and the Asian Cominform,” Cold War History, vol. 14, no. 2 (May 2014), pp. 195–214.
- 6.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry reported that China’s role in Soviet foreign relations became much more important after the Polish and Hungarian crises. The USSR adopted “a series of new approaches to strengthen Sino-Soviet friendship.”
- 7.
Mićunović, Moscow Diary, p. 294.
- 8.
Hu Qiaomu had been Mao’s political secretary since 1941 and was at that time director of China’s Information Agency and deputy head of the CCP Propaganda Department. He was also the chief drafter of many important CCP documents.
- 9.
For a detailed discussion of these three points, see Shen and Xia, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Partnership, pp. 249–62.
- 10.
The CCP opposed the following wording in the draft declaration: “The TwentiethCPSU Congress creatively developed Marxism. The EighthCCP Congress and the Congresses of the French Communist Party and the Italian Communist Party also showed loyalty to Marxism.” The CCP insisted it was unnecessary to mention the Eighth CCP Congress. The congress of an individual party was its own business and required no approval by the international conference.
- 11.
At the Moscow Conference in November 1960, the most controversial issue between the CCP and the CPSU was whether to mention the TwentiethCPSU Congress in the conference declaration.
- 12.
Mićunović, Moscow Diary, pp. 191–92.
- 13.
Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, p. 254. According to reports from the Chinese embassy in the USSR, the formulation “the socialist camp under the leadership of the USSR and China” first appeared in the USSR in February 1955 after Khrushchev’s visit to China in February 1954.
- 14.
Gomułka pointed out in his speech at the plenary session on 17 November that to recognize “the USSR as the head” was simply recognizing the historical reality.
- 15.
Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, p. 254.
- 16.
Later, during the Sino-Soviet polemics, the CCP CC argued that the reference to Moscow’s leadership role “means only that the CPSU undertakes more responsibilities and obligations.”
- 17.
Edvard Kardelj, Reminiscences: The Struggle for Recognition and Independence in the New Yugoslavia, 1944–1957 (London: Blond and Briggs, with Summerfield Press, 1982); Mićunović, Moscow Diary, pp. 314–18.
- 18.
On 31 January 1958, Soviet leaders asked for Beijing’s views on the prospect of starting a theoretical journal for the International Communist Movement. The CPSU suggested that the journal be a joint publication of all parties to publicize Marxism-Leninism and to exchange experiences. The CCP concurred. The resulting journal, Problems of Peace and Socialism, was published in Prague in 34 languages from 1958 to 1991 and distributed to 145 countries.
- 19.
The International Communist Movement subsequently held several conferences to try to resolve the problems. Major conferences included the December 1960 Moscow Conference, the March 1965 Moscow Conference, and the June 1969 Moscow Conference.
- 20.
In a reflection of Mao’s attention to the conference, the Chinese side prepared 396 separate gifts for Mao to take to the USSR. The gifts for the Soviet leaders occupied almost an entire railway car.
- 21.
Song Qingling was the widow of Sun Yatsen, the founding father of modern China. She was then a vice-president of the PRC.
- 22.
Mao explained that he once suffered from cerebral anemia and he felt great discomfort when speaking while standing.
- 23.
On Mao’s 18 November speech, see Shen and Xia, Sino-Soviet Partnership, pp. 263–70.
- 24.
Medvedev, Khrushchev, pp. 115–16.
- 25.
Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, p. 255.
- 26.
Vremya i my (Tel Aviv), no. 48 (1979), pp. 164–65, quoted in Medvedev, Khrushchev, p. 122.
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Shen, Z. (2020). Mao, Khrushchev, and the Moscow Conference, 1957. In: Shen, Z. (eds) A Short History of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1917–1991. China Connections. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8641-1_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8641-1_13
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