Abstract
This chapter discusses the Sino-Soviet split in party-to-party relations and the deterioration of state-to-state relations from October 1961 to July 1964. With relative improvement in China’s domestic economic situation and its efforts to protect the Party of Labor of Albania, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was preparing a new round of struggle over ideology with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The temporary Sino-Soviet detente came to its end. The chapter explores the impact of the following events on Sino-Soviet relations: the Yili-Tashan incident, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. It also examines how the Sino-Soviet rupture affected China’s relations with the East European Communist states and deepened the schism in the International Communist Movement. Mao modified China’s policy toward the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—from compromise and detente to active attack and tit-for-tat struggle.
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- 1.
Leonid Gibianskii, “The Origins of the Soviet-Yugoslav Split,” in Norman Naimark and Leonid Gibianskii, eds., The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 291–312; Jeronim Perović, “The Tito-Stalin Split: A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,” Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 9, no. 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 32–63; Mark Kramer, “Stalin, the Split with Yugoslavia, and Soviet–East European Efforts to Reassert Control, 1948–1953,” in Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana, eds., Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Down the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), pp. 97–123.
- 2.
For Albanian archives on Sino-Albanian relations and the Sino-Soviet split, see Ana Lalaj, Christian Ostermann, and Ryan Gage, eds., “‘Albania is not Cuba’: Sino-Albanian Summits and the Sino-Soviet Split,” CWIHP Bulletin, Issue 16 (Fall 2007/Winter 2008), pp. 183–340.
- 3.
Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, p. 206.
- 4.
“The Diary of S.V. Chervonenko: Transcripts of the Conversations (Excerpts) With the General Secretary of the CC CCP Deng Xiaoping,” 1 March 1962, CWIHP Bulletin, Issue 10 (March 1998), p. 174.
- 5.
Ibid.
- 6.
“Cause of the Present Economic Difficulties and Methods for Overcoming Them,” 31 May 1961, in Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 2 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), p. 315; “Speech at an Enlarged Working Conference of the Central Committee of the Party,” 27 January 1962, in ibid., p. 398.
- 7.
For a study of Wang Jiaxiang’s 1962 foreign policy suggestions, see Yafeng Xia, “Wang Jiaxiang: New China’s First Ambassador and the First Director of the International Liaison Department of the CCP,” American Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (October 2009), pp. 147–53.
- 8.
In early 1962, in the wake of the disastrous Great Leap Forward, Mao resigned from the first line of responsibility in PRC affairs, leaving day-to-day operations to his senior associates—Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. On the second line, Mao focused on policymaking and theoretical research.
- 9.
When Wang Jiaxiang learned that Mao did not like his idea, he hurried to make a self-criticism and give up without a fight. See Xia, “Wang Jiaxiang,” pp. 148–49, n. 48.
- 10.
Ibid., pp. 150–53.
- 11.
Shen and Xia, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Partnership, pp. 297–98.
- 12.
At the 7000 Cadres Conference in early 1962, Liu Shaoqi once again blamed Peng Dehuai, accusing him of “having illicit relations with the USSR.” Liu Shaoqi’s accusation prompted Peng Dehuai to write to the CCP CC, asking for a reevaluation of his case. Nevertheless, Liu had made it clear that the rehabilitation of cadres excluded Peng Dehuai.
- 13.
Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, p. 222.
- 14.
Niu Jun, “1962: The Eve of the Left Turn in China’s Foreign Policy,” CWIHPWorking Paper, no. 48 (October 2005), p. 36.
- 15.
For how the CCP and CPSU managed their relations during the Cuban missile crisis and the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, see Li and Xia, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, pp. 63–67.
- 16.
At the Tenth Congress of the Italian Communist Party in December 1962, General Secretary Palmiro Togliatti and Soviet delegate Frol Kozlov censured the Chinese and defended Khrushchev’s record in Cuba. They also criticized the Chinese for the Sino-Indian border conflict. The Chinese delegate, Zhao Yimin, responded by attacking Tito (read Khrushchev). Lüthi notes, “Almost all delegates of the Italian party congress denounced Zhao’s speech.” For details, see Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, p. 230; Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, p. 43.
- 17.
“Note from the First Secretary of the SED CC, Walter Ulbricht, to the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong, on the Chinese Delegation’s Behavior at the Sixth SED Party Congress,” Berlin, 12 February 1963, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv, ZPA JIV 2/202/284, cited in W. Meissner, Die DDR und China 1945–1990: Politik - Wirtschaft - Kultur. Eine Quellensammlung (Oldenbourg: Wissenschaftsverlag GmbH, 1995), p. 138.
- 18.
Wu Xiuquan recalled that it was the Germans who tried to stop him.
- 19.
“Response from the CCP CC to the SED CC Concerning the Events at the Sixth SED Party Congress to the CC of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany,” Beijing, 27 March 1963, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv, ZPA NL 182/1222, cited in Meissner, Die DDR und China 1945–1990, p. 140.
- 20.
“Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Central Committee of the CCP,” Peking Review, no. 12 (22 March 1963), p. 9.
- 21.
Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, p. 47.
- 22.
William E. Griffith, ed., The Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964).
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Li, D. (2020). The Collapse of Party Relations and the Deterioration of State Relations, October 1961–July 1964. 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_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8641-1_16
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