Hidden Currents during the Honeymoon: Mao, Khrushchev, and the 1957 Moscow Conference

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 74-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhihua Shen ◽  
Yafeng Xia
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Joint Declaration ◽  
The Soviet Union

The Conference of World Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow in November 1957 was the largest gathering of world Communists since the birth of Marxism. Scholars have long assumed that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) dominated the conference. Newly declassified archival records and memoirs indicate that the idea of convening a conference and issuing a joint declaration was proposed by both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CPSU. During the conference the CCP leader, Mao Zedong, played an important role. Mao's extemporaneous remarks at the conference shocked the leaders of the CPSU. His comments on the Soviet intraparty struggle, his blunt remarks about nuclear war, and his declaration that China would overtake Great Britain within fifteen years created doubts and dissatisfactions in the minds of the delegates and cast a cloud over the conference. The Moscow Declaration also revealed incipient Sino-Soviet disagreements, portending Beijing's challenge to Soviet leadership in the socialist bloc. Thus, the Moscow Conference was a turning point for Sino-Soviet relations.

Jockeying for Leadership: Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, October 1961–July 1964

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danhui Li ◽  
Yafeng Xia
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese Leader ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Relationship

In October 1961 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted a policy of tacit struggle against the program of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The CPSU's resumption of de-Stalinization alarmed the Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, but he did not yet want to discard a limited rapprochement with Moscow. However, when high-level Sino-Soviet talks in July 1963 collapsed, the relationship between the CPSU and the CCP became irretrievable. Through the subsequent great polemics, the CCP intended to project itself as the spokesman of true Marxism-Leninism and the natural leader of world Communism. After the CCP attacked the top leaders of the CPSU by name, hostility between the two parties intensified. The breakdown of the CCP-CPSU organizational relationship was only a matter of time. Relying on a large array of Chinese-language sources, including records of Chinese leaders' speeches and comments at secret party meetings, this article reassesses the most critical period in the Sino-Soviet split from October 1961 to July 1964.

Communism in China, 1900–2010

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Kuisong ◽  
Stephen A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
May Fourth Movement ◽  
Fourth Movement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Great Leap Forward

The article examines the rise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from its foundation in the May Fourth Movement, through the first and second united fronts with the Guomindang to victory following the Sino-Japanese War in 1945. It examines land reform and the campaigns against counter-revolutionaries and the attempt of Mao Zedong to leap into communism through the Great Leap Forward. It shows how Mao concluded from the ‘revisionism’ in the Soviet Union that advance from ‘undeveloped’ to ‘developed’ socialism depends on continuous class struggle against those who would take the capitalist road. The postscript traces China’s rise to the world’s second largest economic power, via policies of export-led and investment- led growth initiated by Deng Xiaoping. It shows that this has bought unprecedented prosperity but also unprecedented inequality. It concludes that rising social conflict does not at present threaten the stability of the CCP.

Did the Soviet Union instruct Southeast Asian communists to revolt? New Russian evidence on the Calcutta Youth Conference of February 1948

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larisa Efimova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents

This article uses recently declassified archival documents from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) concerning the Calcutta Youth Conference of February 1948. This evidence contradicts speculation that ‘orders from Moscow’ were passed to Southeast Asian communists at this time, helping to spark the rebellions in Indonesia, Malaya, Burma and the Philippines later that year. Secret working papers now available to researchers show no signs that the Soviet leadership planned to call upon Asian communists to rise up against their national bourgeois governments at this point in time. This article outlines the real story behind Soviet involvement in events leading up to the Calcutta Youth Conference, showing both a desire to increase information and links, and yet also a degree of caution over the prospects of local parties.

scholarly journals USSR and Germany: on the Way to June 22, 1941

2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (6) ◽  
pp. 202-213
Author(s):  
Vladimir Schweitzer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Bilateral Agreements ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
The Way

The article deals with the Soviet-German relations in the period of 1939‒1941. It is shoun that after signing of the Munich agreements in September, 1938, Germany generally defined its strategy of pressure on countries that fit into the Hitler’s concept of "Push to the East". Its victims in 1935 were Czechoslovakia and Poland. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and France sought to review the "policy of appeasement" of Hitler and were ready to join the USSR in the search for ways to prevent Hitler's expansion. However, the inconsistency and contradictoriness of this "change of milestones" strengthened the position of the Soviet leadership in favour of reaching agreements with Germany. The summer of 1939 was the apotheosis of fruitless negotiations between the "Troika" (the USSR, Great Britain and France), which objectively prompted Moscow to accept the German proposal for fundamentally new bilateral agreements (the Pact of August 23, 1939). Subsequent events up to June 22, 1941 showed the unreliability of agreements with Nazism, facilitated the fleeting victory of Germany over Poland and France, and the actual isolation of Great Britain. Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union did not remove from the Soviet leadership the historical guilt of being unprepared for war with fascism, for the colossal human and territorial losses of the first stage of the Great Patriotic War

scholarly journals Lost Chance for Peace: The 1945 CCP-Kuomintang Peace Talks Revisited

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-114
Author(s):  
Sergey Radchenko
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
The Road ◽  
Chinese Civil War ◽  
On The Road ◽  
North And South ◽  
Lost Opportunity

This article reconsiders the 1945 Chongqing peace talks between the Kuo-mintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a key turning point on the road to the Chinese civil war. The article shows that the talks represented a lost opportunity to avert the slide into fratricidal warfare. The CCP leader, Mao Zedong, under pressure from Iosif Stalin, was prepared to compromise with his rival Chiang Kai-shek on the basis of dividing China into two separately administered territories (roughly, north and south). Chiang was unwilling to consider such a step, which from his perspective was unpatriotic. His resistance to the division of China doomed the talks and precipitated the outbreak of war.

Latin America and the Soviet-Chinese Conflict (the 1960s – mid-1970s)

2021 ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Andrey Schelchkov
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
New Left ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

The disagreements and rupture between the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) were the most important event in the history of the International Communist Movement in the 60s and 70s of the 20th century, which had a huge impact on the fate of communist parties around the world. Latin America has become a place of fierce rivalry between Moscow and Beijing for influence on the political left flank. Moscow's tough opposition to any attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to increase its influence in the continent's communist parties without resorting to splitting them caused a backlash and a change in the policy of criticism within the parties to a policy of secession of independent “anti-revisionist” communist parties. Maoist communist parties emerged in all countries of the continent, opposing their policies to the pro-Moscow left parties. Maoism was able to penetrate not only the old communist movement but also the ranks of socialists, leftist nationalists and even Christian democrats. It often became the ideological and political basis for a break with the “traditional” left parties, a kind of transit bridge towards the “new left”. The ideas of Maoism were partly accepted by the trend of the “new left”, which gained special weight among the intelligentsia and students of the continent. This article is devoted to the emergence and development of the Maoist Communist Parties, the reaction of Moscow and Havana in the political circumstances of Latin America in the 60s of the 20th century.

Problems of Liberalization and the Succession at the Eighth Party Congress Roderick MacFarquhar

1973 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 617-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderick MacFarquhar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Private Industry ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Industry And Commerce ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Chinese Diplomacy ◽  
Party Congress

The eighth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) met on 15 September 1956 in an atmosphere of some triumph. In the 11 years that had elapsed since the seventh Congress, the Communists had defeated the Kuomintang, taken over the country and set up a strong administration that had given the country the peace and unity so desperately lacking over the previous century. They had restored and developed the economy, substantially collectivized agriculture – without the drastic consequences suffered by the Soviet Union – and they had nationalized or semi-nationalized private industry and commerce. The People's Liberation Army had fought impressively in Korea, engendering a healthy respect abroad for the new Chinese regime. More recently, especially since the 1955 Bandung Conference, Chinese diplomacy had won new friends in Asia. China had stood up, Mao had said in 1949, and by 1956 it was clear to all that it had.

The Chinese Communist Party and the Collapse of Soviet Communism

1993 ◽  
Vol 133 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Garver
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
20Th Century History ◽  
Soviet Communism ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Impact

The collapse first of Communist rule of the USSR and then of the USSR itself was without question one of the pivotal events of the era. Since China's 20th-century history has been so deeply influenced by Soviet developments, it is important to examine the impact of these events on China. This article asks, first, whether the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), had a deliberate policy towards the decline of Soviet Communism, and if so, what was the nature of that policy? Did the CCP attempt to assist their comrades in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as the latter battled for survival during 1990 and 1991?

Leonid Brezhnev and Edward Gierek: The Making and Breaking of an Uneven Friendship

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-286
Author(s):  
Jakub Szumski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
General Secretary

The article examines the relationship between the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, and the First Secretary of the Polish United Worker’s Party, Edward Gierek, during the 1970s and contributes to the understanding of relationships between Brezhnev and other leaders of the Eastern Bloc. In order to fulfill his foreign policy goals, Brezhnev needed active and willing cooperation from the Eastern Bloc and its leaders benefited from this endeavor. Gierek responded to this demand by entering into an “uneven friendship” with Brezhnev that was established according to the Soviet “friendship code.” This privileged relationship was dependent on the inner situation within the Soviet leadership, the progress of détente, Poland’s domestic stability, and ultimately did not counterbalance Poland’s structurally disadvantageous status in the Eastern Bloc.

The 1971 Soviet Central Committee: An Assessment of the New Elite

1972 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
The West ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Business As Usual

On March 30, 1971, as the Twenty-fourth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union opened, the prediction was widely voiced in the West that no surprises were in the offing. Basing their judgments on the aura of “business as usual” which had emanated from the Soviet leadership in the months prior to the Congress, Western specialists predicted a dull gathering, keynoted by signs of stability and ostensible unity—a far cry from the lively Congresses, full of unanticipated developments, over which Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev had presided.

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