Abstract
This chapter discusses the split in the International Communist Movement. By 1965, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had entered a new round of conflict over the March Moscow Conference and over the issue of providing aid to Vietnam. The March 1965 Moscow Conference thus came to symbolize the official split in the International Communist Movement. The Soviet Union and China maneuvered to win the Asian Communist parties over to their respective sides, quarreled over aid to the Vietnamese Communists, and competed for influence in other Third World countries. It was in 1965 that Beijing suffered a stunning defeat in Asia and Africa in terms of its competition with Moscow for leadership of the world revolution.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In its no. 21–22 issue of 1964, Red Flag published an editorial entitled “Why Did Khrushchev Step Down?” Thereafter, People’s Daily reprinted a number of articles and speeches by fraternal parties on Khrushchev’s removal, criticism of modern revisionism, and queries on the convening of an international conference.
- 2.
For a contemporaneous study, see CIA Intelligence Report, “The Sino-Soviet Struggle in the World Communist Movement Since Khrushchev’s Fall,” Part I, September 1967, ESAU 34, pp. 15–35, CIA unclassified documents, https://archive.org/stream/ESAU-CIA/The%20Sino-Soviet%20Struggle%20in%20the%20World%20Communist%20Movement%20Since%20Khrushchev%27s%20Fall%20%28Part%201%29#mode/2up
- 3.
For an English translation of Mao’s conversation with Kosygin on 11 February 1965, see “Memorandum of Conversation, A. N. Kosygin and Mao Zedong,” in Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, pp. 227–34.
- 4.
CIA Intelligence Report, “The Sino-Soviet Struggle in the World Communist Movement Since Khrushchev’s Fall,” Part I, p. 118.
- 5.
Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, p. 157.
- 6.
The declaration censured American military intervention in Vietnam and expressed support for the Vietnamese people, the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, which were fighting against imperialist aggression.
- 7.
CIA Intelligence Report, “The Sino-Soviet Struggle in the World Communist Movement Since Khrushchev’s Fall,” Part I, p. 122.
- 8.
Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, pp. 149–50.
- 9.
Lorenz Lüthi, “The Origins of Proletarian Diplomacy: The Chinese Attack on the American Embassy in the Soviet Union, 4 March 1965,” Cold War History, vol. 9, no. 3 (August 2009), pp. 411–16.
- 10.
For details, see Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, pp. 166–71.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 163.
- 12.
“Zhou Enlai and Pham Van Dong, 9 October 1965,” and “Zhou Enlai and Le Duan, 23 March 1966,” in Odd Arne Westad, Chen Jian, Stein Toonesson, Nguyen Vu Tung, and James Hershberg, eds., “77 Conversations between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964–1977,” CWIHP Working Paper, no. 22, pp. 89–90, 93–94.
- 13.
Thomas Christensen, Worse than a Monolith: Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplomacy in Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), p. 184.
- 14.
CIA Intelligence Report, “The Sino-Soviet Struggle in the World Communist Movement Since Khrushchev’s Fall,” Part III, September 1967, ESAU 36, p. xviii, https://archive.org/stream/ESAU-CIA/The%20Sino-Soviet%20Struggle%20in%20the%20World%20Communist%20Movement%20Since%20Khrushchev%27s%20Fall%20%28Part%203%29#mode/2up
- 15.
Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, p. 335.
- 16.
CIA Intelligence Report, “The Sino-Soviet Struggle in the World Communist Movement Since Khrushchev’s Fall,” Part II, September 1967, ESAU 35, pp. 94–95, https://archive.org/stream/ESAU-CIA/The%20Sino-Soviet%20Struggle%20in%20the%20World%20Communist%20Movement%20Since%20Khrushchev%27s%20Fall%20%28Part%202%29#mode/2up
- 17.
Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, p. 155.
- 18.
CIA Intelligence Report, “The Disintegration of Japanese Communist Relations with Peking,” December 1966, ESAU 33, pp. 30–38, https://archive.org/stream/ESAU-CIA/The%20Disintegration%20of%20Japanese%20Communist%20Relations%20with%20Peking#mode/2up
- 19.
Christensen, Worse than a Monolith, p. 182.
- 20.
For a detailed analysis of Sino-Soviet disputes on military aid and its transport to Vietnam, see Li and Xia, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, pp. 202–12.
- 21.
Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 217–19.
- 22.
AVPRF f.0100 o.48, p. 203 Por. 37, d. KI–722, 201, cited in Jeremy Friedman, “Soviet Policy in the Developing World and the Chinese Challenge in the 1960s,” Cold War History, vol. 10, no. 2 (May 2010), p. 257.
- 23.
Friedman, Shadow Cold War, pp. 31–32, 62–63.
- 24.
Yafeng Xia, “Mao Zedong,” in Steven Casey and Jonathan Wright, eds., Mental Maps in the Early Cold War (Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 168–69.
- 25.
Friedman, Shadow Cold War, p. 13.
- 26.
Cited in Friedman, “Soviet Policy in the Developing World,” p. 261.
- 27.
Friedman, Shadow Cold War, p. 119.
- 28.
The United Arab Republic was a short-lived political union, from 1958 to 1961, between Egypt and Syria. Egypt continued to be officially known as the United Arab Republic until 1971.
- 29.
Friedman, Shadow Cold War, pp. 117–18.
- 30.
Cited in Friedman, “Soviet Policy in the Developing World,” p. 258.
- 31.
Chinese sources reveal that Mao and other CCP leaders encouraged Aidit to take up arms to seize political power in Indonesia.
- 32.
Friedman, Shadow Cold War, p. 142.
- 33.
For an analysis of Sino-Soviet competition in the Third World, see Li and Xia, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, pp. 213–19.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Li, D. (2020). The Schism in the International Communist Movement and the Collapse of the Alliance, 1965. 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_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8641-1_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-8640-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-8641-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)