MIA: History: International: Sino-Soviet Split
Background
The term "Sino-Soviet Split" refers to the gradual worsening of relations between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, and between their respective Communist Parties. While discomfiture between them had long roots, reaching back to civil wars in China prior to the establishment of the People's Republic, the disagreements gained momentum in the decades after China's liberation and would eventually lead to the Soviets referring to the Chinese as "splittists", "left-wing adventurists", "anti-Marxist" enemies of Socialism "in league with Imperialism", while the Chinese came to regard the Soviets as "revisionists" and "social-imperialists", or "socialist in words, imperialists in deeds", and as "the principal danger in the world today." Graduating from words to deeds, the conflict was expanded from an ideological one between two political parties to a conflict between nation states as relations between the USSR and the PRC were severed and, in 1969, their troops clashed across their common border.
Though various authors place emphases differently, its pretty generally agreed that the main issues separating the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) revolved around the questions of evaluation of Stalin, "Peaceful Coexistence", "Peaceful Transition to Socialism", and War and Imperialism. Briefly:
1. On Stalin: The CPC objected to the CPSU de-Stalinization campaign, arguing that the general line of the International Communist Movement (ICM) had been correct during Stalin's tenure, that he was not just a Russian or Soviet leader, but a leader of world stature with a world-wide legacy which could not be swept aside by the CPSU leadership, and that overall, his successes outweighed his failings.
2. On War: Whereas the CPSU recognized the power of the imperialist coalition arrayed against the socialist bloc and saw disastrous consequences for the world as a whole from nuclear war, the CPC tended to disparage the imperialists, a sentiment echoes in Mao's famous aphorism that "Imperialists are paper tigers", and instead spoke of turning world war into revolutionary war.
3. On Peaceful Coexistence: Deriving from its views on the dangers of nuclear war, the CPSU saw coexistence with the West as in the mutual interest of both systems. The Chinese saw this as capitulation.
4. Peaceful Transition: The CPSU and its allied parties advocated using democratic and peaceful means to advance the struggles of the working class and toward winning state power wherever those means were available. The CPC, on the other hand, disparaged such methods and proposed that the need for revolutionary war in order to seize power was a universal law of class struggle.
The conflict wound down after the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution in China. In the 1980s, relations between the two countries were normalized, and any remaining conflicts were more or less rendered moot by the dissolution of the USSR. Nonetheless, thanks in part to the Chinese flooding the world with pamphlets outlining their views, and mainly to the importance of the two countries and the issues they brought up, for a large portion of the latter half of the Twentieth Century whether one was "Pekingese" or "Muscovite" was pretty much the question for the world's non-Trotskyist Left.
Points of Departure
In 1956, at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a report criticizing Stalin. This report caused quite a stir internationally when it’s text was released. The CPC quickly expressed its disagreement with Khrushchev’s report. As part of these exchanges, the CPC published “On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (April, 1956) and “More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (December, 1956), seeking to refute several points made in Khrushchev’s report.
- Speech by Nikita Khrushchev to the 20th Congress of the CPSU (February 24, 1956)
- On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (April 5, 1956) by the Editorial Department of Renmin Ribao
- More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (December 29, 1956) by the Editorial Department of Renmin Ribao
In this context of growing dissent, a series of meetings of the world’s Communist Parties were staged. The two principal such meetings were those held in Moscow in 1957 and 1960. Though ostensibly to build the unity of the Communist Movement, they were dominated by the widening rift between the CPSU and the CPC, and at each both sides fought to have their views incorporated into the final documents. Although China could count on the unqualified support of only the Albanian delegation, it reportedly managed to have some important amendments included in the documents issued from the conferences. The documents of those meetings were among the last efforts made to compromise on several major issues between the two parties and themselves became reference points in the polemic that followed.
- Declaration of the Twelve Communist and Workers' Parties of the Socialist Countries Meeting in Moscow, USSR, 1957
- Statement of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties Meeting in Moscow, USSR, 1960
Rival Views Propounded
Up to this time the CPC and the CPSU took care to not criticize each other openly by name, instead referring obliquely to "revisionists" (from the Chinese side), or to "splittists" (from the Soviet side), in the International Communist Movement (ICM), or using the issue of Titoism and Yugoslavia as a stand-in for the larger issue of conduction of the ICM. Nonetheless, tensions were often high. In June 1960, Chinese officials -including Zhou Enlai- had pointedly criticized Soviet policies in front of the Soviet delegates (some would say "attacked" the Soviet delegation). The Soviets attempted to bring the CPC to heel by suspending distribution of Chinese periodicals in the USSR, and in July of that year, all Soviet technical assistants -some 3,000 in all- were withdrawn from China. Nonetheless, later in 1960 things were still cool enough that the CPC could proclaim "Eternal, Unbreakable Sino-Soviet Friendship" (Peking Review,No. 49/50 of 1960).
- Long Live Leninism! (April 16, 1960) by the Editorial Board of Hongqi
- Statement of the Delegation of the Communist Party of China at the 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (December 8, 1962)
- Workers of All Countries Unite, Oppose Our Common Enemy (December 15, 1962), editorial in Renmin Ribao
- The Differences Between Comrade Togliatti and Us (December 31, 1962), editorial in Renmin Ribao
- A Comment on the Statement of the CPUSA (March 8, 1963), editorial in Renmin Ribao
- Let Us Unite on the Basis of the Moscow Declaration and the Moscow Statement (January 27, 1963), editorial in Renmin Ribao
- Whence the Differences? - A Reply to Thorez and Other Comrades (February 27, 1963), editorial in Renmin Ribao
- Leninism and Modern Revisionism (1963) by the Editorial Department of Hongqi
- Letter of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. to the Central Committee of the C.P.C. (February 21, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the C.P.C. to the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (March 9, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committe of the C.P.S.U. to the Central Committee of the C.P.C. (March 30, 1963)
The Chinese Proposal Concerning the General Line of the ICM
In June of 1963 the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in response to its letter of March 30, 1963. In it, the CPC took the offensive and, reasserting that "revisionism" was the main danger within the socialist camp, spelled out its differences with the leadership of the CPSU and made a number of proposals. The Chinese quickly translated it into several languages and published it, along with the texts of the CPSU letters of February 21 and March 30, 1963, and the CPC letter of March 9, 1963, as A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement.
- A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement. The Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963. (June 14, 1963)
Soviet Response to the Chinese Proposal
The CPSU responded to the publication of the CPC's Proposal by publishing an Open Letter detailing its position on the matter and holding the CPC responsible for the divisions in the ICM. Having made its point, the CPSU followed by proposing -e.g. in a letter to the CPC, dated November 29, 1963- that the polemic be taken out of public view, as well as advancing a set of counterproposals which, it claimed, would "normalize" relations.
- Open Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to all Party Organisations, to all Communists of the Soviet Union (July 14, 1963)
- Reply to Peking (September 21, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Central Committee of the CPC (November 29, 1963)
Chinese Commentaries on the Soviet Open Letter
- The Origins and Development of the Differences Between the Leadership of the CPSU and Ourselves (September 6, 1963) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- On the Question of Stalin (September 13, 1963) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- Is Yugoslavia a Socialist Country? (September 26, 1963) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- Apologists of Neo-Colonialism (October 22, 1963) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- Two Different Lines on the Question of War and Peace (November 19, 1963) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- Peaceful Coexistence - Two Diametrically Opposed Policies (December 12, 1963) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- The Leaders of the CPSU are the Greatest Splitters of Our Times (February 4, 1964) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- The Proletarian Revolution and Khrushchov's Revisionism (March 31, 1964) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
- On Khrushchov's Phoney Communism and its Historical Lessons for the World (July 14, 1964) by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
Further Commentaries
- Fidelity to Principles of Marxism-Leninism (April 3, 1964), Pravda leading editorial
- Certain Aspects of the Inner Life of the Communist Party of China (1964), by the Novosti Press Agency
- Why Khrushchov Fell (November 21, 1964), editorial in Hongqi
- The Leaders of the CPSU are Betrayers of the Declaration and the Statement (December 30, 1965) by the Editorial Department of Renmin Ribao
- The Anti-Soviet Policy of Mao-Tsetung and His Group (February 16, 1967), editorial in Pravda
Letters Between the Central Committees of the CPSU and the CPC
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Central Committee of the CPC (February 21, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of February 21, 1963 (March 9, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committe of the CPSU to the Central Committee of the CPC (March 30, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of March 30, 1963 (June 14, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Central Committee of the CPC (November 29, 1963)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of November 29, 1963 (February 29, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC to the Central Committee of the CPSU (February 20, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU in reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC of February 20, 1964 (February 22, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of February 22, 1964 (February 27, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committe of the CPSU in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC of February 27, 1964 (March 7, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of March 7, 1964 (May 7, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC of May 7, 1964 (June 15, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Central Committee of the CPC (July 30, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of July 30, 1964 (August 30, 1964)
- Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of February 24, 1966 (March 22, 1966)
Some Reactions Abroad
- The Revolutionary Communists Expect China to Come Out Openly Against Krushchevite Revisionism (3 April, 1962), Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania
- Marxists-Leninists, Unite! (15 August 1963), resolution of the Brussels Federal Committee of the Belgian Communist Party
- Statement on the Sino-Soviet Dispute (22 April, 1964), statement of the Romanian Workers' Party
- Thwart the Manoeuvres to Split the International Communist Movement (April 1964), statement of the Korean Workers' Party
- The Sino-Soviet Conflict and the Crisis of the International Communist Movement (1965), statement of the 8th World Congress of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International
- Documents of the CPI and CPC: Role of Stalin as the CPI(M) Views It (1970s), pamphlet by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)