The Sino-Soviet Split
Bryan Wong Jun Bin
Ho Chih Young
Class 4A3
Introduction
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Sino–Soviet split (1960–1989) denotes the worsening
of political and ideological relations between the People's
Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR) during the Cold War (1945–1991).
The doctrinal divergence derived from Chinese and
Russian national interests, and from the regimes
respective interpretations of Marxism : Maoism and
Marxism–Leninism.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, ideological debate between
the Communist parties of Russia and China also
concerned the possibility of peaceful coexistence with
the capitalist West.
After Stalin 1953-1956
Tensions and suspicion had existed in the
relationship of Mao and Stalin
 Chinese suggested that Stalin had
deliberately delayed the of the Korean
War to exhaust the PRC
 Truce signed after Stalin’s death in 1953
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After Stalin 1953-1956
Sino-Soviet relations entered a
“honeymoon” period
 New Soviet leaders appeared willing to
supply further loans and technology to
China
 Treaties were made more equal
 Facilitated easier credit for the PRC
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Mao – Khrushchev Split
Public: International allies
 Private: Ideological enemies
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Mao – Khrushchev Split
In 1956, Khrushchev made the “Secret
Speech”
 He attacked Stalin’s crimes against the
party, which included Stalin’s “Cult of
Personality”
 Mao viewed it as an attack on his own
style of leadership
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Mao – Khrushchev Split
The crushing of the Hungarian uprising
 Problems in East Germany and Poland
 Viewed by Mao as failures by the USSR to
contain reactionary forces
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Mao – Khrushchev Split
Khrushchev’s doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” with the West
 Implied that a global Communist
revolution could be achieved by means
other than armed struggle
 Mao viewed this as ideological heresy
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Mao – Khrushchev Split
Mao and the PRC considered such issues
as a clear departure from Marxist doctrine
 As evidence that the Soviet Union was
now dominated by revisionist (those who
strayed from Marxism)
 Further compounded by the 1955 Geneva
Summit and Austrian State Treaty of 1955
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Conference of Communist
Parties - 1957
Mao called on the USSR to abandon
“revisionism” (Khrushchev had denounced
Stalin)
 Mao declared that an international
revolution could not be achieved by
working along side “class enemies” (the
Western Capitalists)
 Mao believed that the USSR was initiating
détente with the West, further isolating
China
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Conference of Communist
Parties - 1957
Chinese spokesperson, Deng Xiaoping
stated that the proletarian world
revolution could only come about through
force
 To him, Capitalism had to be crushed in
violent revolution
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Conference of Communist
Parties - 1957
Deng had ultimately embarrassed the
Soviets
 Out-argued Mikhail Suslov, leading Soviet
theorist
 PRC presented themselves as the “real”
leaders of the international revolutionary
Communism
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Khrushchev’s Beijing Visit
In 1958, Khrushchev visited Mao
 Mao had apparently deliberately made Khrushchev feel
uncomfortable
1) Khrushchev’s hotel had no air conditioning and was
plagued by mosquitoes
2) Mao had arranged for one round of talks in a swimming
pool, embarrassing Khrushchev, who had to put on a
rubber ring
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Khrushchev’s Beijing Visit
Deng attacked the Soviet policy, stating
that:
 The Soviets had betrayed the international
Communist movement (with peaceful coexistence)
 Soviets were guilty of viewing themselves
as the only true “Marxists”
 Soviets had sent spies posing as technical
advisers into China
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Khrushchev’s Beijing Visit
The talks were unproductive
 Further worsened pre-existing ideological
differences of Mao and Khrushchev
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Taiwan 1958
The PRC had bombarded islands off
Taiwan, which it considered to be a break
away province, in the early 1950s
 In 1958, Mao decided to test US’s resolve
by ordering a mass build-up of troops
around the Strait of Taiwan
 The US responded by mobilizing
 However, Mao stopped short of attacking,
citing the lack of Soviet support
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Taiwan 1958
Khrushchev accused Mao’s regime of being
“Trotskyist” – pursing international revolution at
any cost
 The Soviet’s perceived Mao’s actions as his
tendency towards fanaticism
 Mao lacked understanding of political reality
 The Soviets withdrew their economic advisers
and cancelled commercial contracts with the
PRC
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Taiwan 1958
The Great Leap Forward
In China, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural
Revolution (1966–76) to rid himself of internal enemies and
re-establish his sole leadership of party and country;
 To prevent the development of Russian-style bureaucratic
communism of the USSR.
 Closed the schools and universities and organized the
students in the Red Guard, a thought police politically
commissioned to discover, denounce, and persecute
teachers, intellectuals, and government officials who might be
counter-revolutionaries and secret bourgeois.
 The political house-cleaning that was the Cultural Revolution
stressed, strained, and broke China’s political relations with
the USSR, and relations with the the West.
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Border conflict
Since 1956, the Sino–Soviet ideological split, between
Communist political parties, had escalated to small-scale
warfare between Russia and China; thereby, in January
1967, Red Guards attacked the Soviet embassy in Beijing.
 Earlier, in 1966, the Chinese had revived the matter of the
Russo-Chinese border that was demarcated in the 19thcentury, and imposed upon the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912)
monarchy by means of unequal treaties that virtually annexed
Chinese territory to Tsarist Russia.
 The Chinese asked the USSR to formally (publicly)
acknowledge that said border, was an historic Russian
injustice against China
 This led to skirmishes along the Sino-Soviet Border
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Border Conflict
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In 1968, the Soviet Army had amassed along the 4,380
km (2,738 mi.) border with China — especially at the
Xinjiang frontier, in north-west China, where the soviets
might readily induce Turkic separatists to insurrection.
By March 1969, Sino–Russian border politics became
the Sino-Soviet border conflict at the Ussuri River and
on Damansky–Zhenbao Island; more small-scale warfare
occurred at Tielieketi in August.
Border Conflict
PRC
USSR
Geopolitical pragmatism
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In 1969, after the Sino-Soviet border conflict, the
Communist combatants withdrew. In September, Soviet
Minister Alexei Kosygin secretly visited Beijing to speak
with Premier Zhou Enlai
In October, the PRC and the USSR began discussing
border-demarcation.
By 1970, Mao understood that the PRC could not
simultaneously fight the USSR and the USA, whilst
suppressing internal disorder.
Geopolitical pragmatism
Mao perceived the USSR as the greater threat, and
thus pragmatically sought rapprochement with the US,
in confronting the USSR. In July 1971, U.S. Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger secretly visited Beijing to
prepare the February 1972 head-of-state visit to China
by U.S. President Richard Nixon.
 Moreover, the diplomatically offended Soviet Union
also convoked a summit meeting with President Nixon,
thus establishing the Washington–Beijing–Moscow
diplomatic relationship, which emphasized the tripolar
nature of the Cold War, occasioned by the ideological
Sino–Soviet split begun in 1956.
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Geopolitical pragmatism
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Nixon visits China (1972)
Why did the Split Occur?
Beijing had begun trying to displace Moscow as the
ideological leader of the world Communist movement. Mao
(and his supporters) had advocated the idea that Asian and
world communist movements should emulate China’s model
of peasant revolution, not Soviets model of urban revolution.
 “The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung” and the book Dawn Out of
China stated that his intellectual accomplishment was “to
change Marxism from a European to an Asiatic form... in ways
of which neither Marx nor Lenin could dream”, which the
Soviet government banned in the USSR.
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Why did the Split Occur?
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Mao thought that the Soviets were retreating
ideologically and militarily — from MarxismLeninism and the global struggle to achieve
global communism, and by apparently no longer
guaranteeing support to China in a SinoAmerican war; therefore, the roots of the SinoSoviet ideological split were established by 1959.
Why did the Split Occur?
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The USSR was astonished by the Great Leap Forward,
had renounced aiding Chinese nuclear weapons
development, and refused to side with them in the SinoIndian War (1962), by maintaining a moderate relation
with India — actions deemed offensive by Mao as
Chinese Leader.
Hence, he perceived Khrushchev as too-appeasing with
the West, despite Soviet caution in international politics
that threatened nuclear warfare.
Why did the Split Occur?
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Sino-Soviet split manifested itself indirectly; arguments
between the CPSU and the CPC criticized the client
states of the other; China denounced Yugoslavia and
Tito, the USSR denounced Enver Hoxha and the People's
Socialist Republic of Albania; but, in 1960, they criticized
each other in the Romanian Communist Party congress.
In October 1961, at the 22nd Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union they again argued
openly. In December, the USSR severed diplomatic
relations with the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania,
graduating the Soviet–Chinese ideological dispute from
between political parties to between nation-states.
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The End