Mao’s Foreign Policy : Sino Soviet Relations

1. Mao’s ForeignPolicy: Sino Soviet Relations

2. Marxist law I : When we say "imperialism is ferocious," we mean that its nature will never change, that the imperialists will never lay down their butcher knives, that they will never become Buddhas, till their doom. Fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again . . . till their victory; that is the logic of the people, and they too will never go against this logic. Marxist law II . The Russian people's revolution followed this law, and so has the Chinese people's revolution.

3. Main Features of Mao’s Policy • Nationalistic • Sovereignty • World Revolution • Affiliation “ Lean on One Side “ • Fanatical Discipline • Continuing Revolutionary Fervor

4. Overview: Comparing Russian (1917-) and Chinese (1949-) Revolutions • Crucial role of ‘total wars’ and violence • conflicts destabilize regimes and also radicalise revolutionaries • both revolutions will be born in conditions of brutal civil war • precursor revolutions (Russia 1905, China 1911-12) • Ideologies are critical >> Marxism (but also nationalism) • defines revolutionary cadres and ultimate goals • grows out of respective national and historical situations >> Marx’s ideas are seedbed for ‘Leninism’, ‘Stalinism’, ‘Maoism’ • Russian and Chinese revolutions are interconnected but also competing: different pathways to ‘communism’ • Both revolutions were global in causes and consequences

5. From ‘Bolshevik’ Revolution to Stalinism • Why did Russia undergo revolution(s) in 1917? • the context: WW1 and the demands of total war • the revolutionaries: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin (1870-1924) and the Bolsheviks >> seizure of power • the consequences: separate peace but also Civil War (1917-22) • 1922: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics • ‘riding into Socialism on a peasant nag’ > New Economic Policy • death of Lenin (1924), rise of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) • ‘Socialism in one country’ >> forced collectivisation of farms, industrialization (‘Five Year Plan’, 1928-1932) • Utopia and death • ‘building socialism’: coercion or enthusiasm? • the incredible human toll … famines, purges, ‘GULAG’ system

6. Lenin’s police mugshot (1895) and 1917 journey to Russia

7. February 1917: Crowds protesting in front of the Royal Palace in St Petersburg (soon to be renamed ‘Petrograd’) [PS. this is before Lenin’s return, so it shows the mass disaffection on which Bolsheviks could capitalise]

8. Banner translation from the October Revolution: “Long live the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies!” ‘Soviet’ = approximate English translation is ‘council’

10. Citizen Militias and ‘Red’ Volunteers in 1917, before and after Tsar’s abdication

11. Russian Civil War (1917-22) included foreign intervention against Bolsheviks bottom: American troops in Vladivostok in 1918

12. From ‘Bolshevik’ Revolution to Stalinism • Why did Russia undergo revolution(s) in 1917? • the context: WW1 and the demands of total war • the revolutionaries: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin (1870-1924) and the Bolsheviks >> seizure of power • the consequences: separate peace but also Civil War (1917-22) • 1922: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics • ‘riding into Socialism on a peasant nag’ > New Economic Policy • death of Lenin (1924), rise of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) • ‘Socialism in one country’ >> forced collectivisation of farms, industrialisation (‘Five Year Plan’, 1928-1932) • Utopia and death • ‘building socialism’: coercion or enthusiasm? • the incredible human toll … famines, purges, ‘GULAG’ system

13. The steel city of Magnitogorsk (explosive growth during the Five Year Plans in the 1930s…)

14. 1930s: the contrast between capitalism and communism was stark (and not always favourable)

15. From ‘Bolshevik’ Revolution to Stalinism • Why did Russia undergo revolution(s) in 1917? • the context: WW1 and the demands of total war • the revolutionaries: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin (1870-1924) and the Bolsheviks >> seizure of power • the consequences: separate peace but also Civil War (1917-22) • 1922: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics • ‘riding into Socialism on a peasant nag’ > New Economic Policy • death of Lenin (1924), rise of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) • ‘Socialism in one country’ >> forced collectivisation of farms, industrialisation (‘Five Year Plan’, 1928-1932) • Utopia and death • ‘building socialism’: coercion or enthusiasm? • the incredible human toll … famines, purges, ‘GULAG’ system

16. New rituals: ‘Octobering’ a baby in the early 1920s. Marriage ceremonies are also repurposed (dubbed ‘Red Weddings’…) Bolsheviks promote greater equality between sexes in 1920s (example: abortion rights) but policies are rolled back in 1930s

17. ‘Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous. And when life is joyous, work goes well. Hence the high rates of output. Hence the heroes and heroines of labour….’ Josef Stalin, 1935 speech Building socialism: ‘shock workers’ and Stakhanovites (Fitzpatrick, pp. 74-5)

18. The ‘Old Bolsheviks’ are steadily purged, culminating in the 1930s. But Stalin remains

20. Mapping the Gulag international project: http://www.gulagmaps.org

21. Communist Revolution in China • Why did China undergo revolution in 1949? • context: struggle against Chinese Republic, then against Japan • revolutionaries: Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and Communist party • the consequences: after 1945, surprising victory via civil war • The distinctive challenges facing Chinese Communism • rural powerbase, agrarian reform, anti-Western animus • USSR as model and (only) ally • Mao’s vision: communes, the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958-62) • (less) utopia and (much more) death • failure, setbacks, famines >> Cultural Revolution (1966-) • China’s withdrawal from the world until the early 1970s

23. Soviet poster extolling Sino-Soviet people’s alliance of ‘equals’

24. Communist Revolution in China • Why did China undergo revolution in 1949? • context: struggle against Chinese Republic, then against Japan • revolutionaries: Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and Communist party • the consequences: after 1945, surprising victory via civil war • The distinctive challenges facing Chinese Communism • rural powerbase, agrarian reform, anti-Western animus • USSR as model and (only) ally • Mao’s vision: communes, the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958-62) • (less) utopia and (much more) death • failure, setbacks, famines >> Cultural Revolution (1966-) • China’s withdrawal from the world until the early 1970s

25. Building a dam as part of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958-1962) Using ancient techniques, massed human labour compensates for lack of modern construction machinery In both Soviet and Maoist forced industrialisation, environmental degradation was widespread (and pattern persists today)

26. Private property abolished in countryside in Great Leap: ‘communes’ reorganise village life (collective dining, childcare, production)

27. Official propaganda campaigns and control of media communicate a sense of shared and heroic struggle in 1950s and 1960s

28. Communist Revolution in China • Why did China undergo revolution in 1949? • context: struggle against Chinese Republic, then against Japan • revolutionaries: Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and Communist party • the consequences: after 1945, surprising victory via civil war • The distinctive challenges facing Chinese Communism • rural powerbase, agrarian reform, anti-Western animus • USSR as model and (only) ally • Mao’s vision: communes, the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958-62) • (less) utopia and (much more) death • failure, setbacks, famines >> Cultural Revolution (1966-) • China’s withdrawal from the world until the early 1970s

29. Based on PRC archives only recently made available to historians, a more accurate estimate of deaths by famine from 1958-62 is now 45 million (Frank Dikötter, 2010)

30. The demographic impact of the Great Leap Forward

31. What made these Revolutions distinctive? • Relationship between violence and societal transformation • Old explanation: brutality, totalitarian, disproportionate killing… • New explanation: not unintended, different form of modernity • technology, censuses and questionnaires, record-keeping… • metaphor of state as ‘gardener’: planting but also weeding • ethnic, social, class-based agendas … but not racial • Enormous global consequences • At peak, 1/3 of humanity ruled by Communist regimes • A defiantly anti-capitalist network of global connections (flows of people, ideas, political directions) • Paradoxically, reveal deeply nationalistic aspirations three Ms • dispelling ‘backwardness’, ‘standing up’, appealing to patriotic pride and ethnic identities…

32. The perception of an international Communist movement will renew and intensify antagonisms in the post-1945 period…

33. Conclusion: Why the Communist Revolutions Matter(ed) • Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China were/are experiments of unparalleled scope • utopian aspirations as well as practical achievements • modern techniques applied to mutable societies • … but cost in human lives was utterly astounding • Stage is set for the ‘Cold War’…

34. The Cold War, from 1947 to 1976, dominated Mao’s foreign policy for the entire time he was in power as it did many other leaders at the time. It was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. • Because of this, for the other countries, much of the Cold War was spent reacting to the decision and actions of these two powers rather than actually making things happen themselves. Mao is no exception to this. • Furthermore, there was no large-scale fighting but rather a series of proxy wars, essentially the two powers playing out their conflict indirectly like puppetmasters. ContextualInformation 2

35. The Common Misconception • All Communists want to destroy the free world and establish world communism. • The USSR and China are Communist-ruled nations. • Therefore, the Soviet Union and Communist China must be united and working to destroy the free world and establish world communism (Schwartz). • The triumph of communist forces in China under Mao Zedong dramatically altered the character of the Cold War. • The USSR gained a new and potentially powerful ally in eastern Asia which could put pressure on the US and its allies.

36. Triumph of CCP • In 1927, General Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, attempted to consolidate his position as the ruler of China by crushing the • Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in their main stronghold in Shanghai. • After this, Chiang was able to maintain a government that lasted until 1949. • He did not, however, eliminate the CCP. Led by Mao Zedong, the CCP managed to establish bases in the countryside in southern China. • These rural bases were eventually overrun by the government in 1934 and, in order to survive, the CCP embarked on the Long March, a retreat from southern to north-western China. • When Japan launched a large-scale invasion of China in 1937, the CCP and the Nationalists (KMT) formed an uneasy anti-Japanese alliance which lasted until Japan’s defeat in August 1945. • At the Cairo Conference of 1943, Chiang was recognized by Britain and the US as China’s leader and a key ally in their war against Japan.

37. An extract from Mao The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, published by Jonathan Cape, London, UK, 2005, p. 304. In mid-1944, Roosevelt sent a mission to Yenan [where Mao was based]. Just after the Americans arrived, Mao floated the idea of changing the Party’s name: RATIONAL ? Appease US ? ‘We’ve been thinking of renaming our Party’, he told the Russian liaison [officer] in Yenanon 12 August: ‘of calling it not “Communist”, but something else. Then the situation … will be more favourable, especially with the Americans …’ … Molotov [Soviet Foreign Minister] fed the same line to Roosevelt’s then special envoy to China, General Patrick Hurley, telling him that in China ‘Some … people called themselves “Communists” but they had no relation whatever to Communism. They were merely expressing their dissatisfaction.’

38. Patrick Hurley Vycheslav Molotov

39. June 1945 • In June 1945, Chiang proclaimed that ‘Japan is our enemy abroad and the CCP is our enemy at home’. • Chiang would enter a coalition with Mao only if he were given complete control of the CCP’s armed forces, a condition which Mao could hardly accept. • Chiang began to blockade the areas liberated from Japanese rule in China by the CCP and sought to negotiate an agreement with Stalin, which would strengthen his position as China’s leader.

40. US and USSR in 1945 • Initially, both Soviet and US policies in China coincided. • Both assumed that the KMT would eventually reassert control over China once Japan surrendered. See the Xian incident and role of Stalin in Chiang’s kidnapping • Both also wanted Mao to accept this and ultimately join a coalition government with Chiang. • Neither the USSR nor the US understood that Mao and Chiang were not ready to compromise, and that the CCP would ultimately be much more successful than the KMT in gaining popular support for its cause in China.

41. Stalin and Chiang Mao and other CCP leaders were convinced that Stalin, as a communist, would never tolerate a victory by the KMT as it would benefit the US. Stalin’s priority, however, was the defence of Soviet interests in China. At Yalta, in exchange for entering the war against Japan, he was promised by Churchill and Roosevelt the restoration of the economic rights which Russia had enjoyed in north-east China and Manchuria before 1905 . He believed that only the KMT, as China’s legal government, could deliver these concessions. READ the article on a revision of Chiang’s kidnapping On 14 August, Stalin signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliancein which Chiang acknowledged the independence of Outer Mongolia, the Soviet military occupation of Port Arthurand agreed to joint control with the USSR of the Changchun Railway (formerly the Chinese Eastern Railway)

43. Stalin in response to the concessions • l recognize Chiang as China’s leader • l recognize China’s sovereignty of the former Chinese provinces conquered by Japan, and • l will not assist the CCP against the KMT. • 4 years military support during the “ Chinese war of resistance against Japan “

44. Still in 1945 • This agreement was a serious blow to Mao; it completely undermined his assumption that the USSR would prove to be a loyal ally in the struggle against the KMT. • On the same day as the Sino-Soviet treaty was signed, Chiang invited Mao to Chongqing to discuss, as he put it, ‘questions related to re-establishing peace in China’. • Under pressure from Stalin, Mao had little option but to agree. • Stalin feared that renewed civil war would lead to Mao’s defeat and ever greater involvement of the US in China. • As we see again, Mao had a limited support by USSR and it was the KMT that was officially recognized by the Alias at the end of WW2

45. US • Now that the war was Japan was over, US was afraid of spread of Soviet influence in the Far East. • It put pressure on both Chiang and Mao to negotiate a compromise agreement to stabilize China to avoid a damaging civil war which might provide the USSR with further opportunities to strengthen its position in China. • When Chiang asked for assistance in taking over the territory surrendered by the Japanese, the US responded immediately by airlifting KMT troops to Nanking, Shanghai, Beijing and later to Manchuria. • As we see , US is extremely supportive of KMT ( financially, military )

46. Manchuria : US-USSR tensions • Despite the Sino-Soviet Treaty, Mao received news in late August and early September that the Soviet army of occupation in Manchuria was unofficially ready to help the CCP. • After discussions between CCP commanders and a representative of Marshal RodionMalinovsky, Commander of the Soviet forces in the region, it was agreed on 14 September that CCP forces could occupy the countryside and the smaller towns of Manchuria as long as they did not enter the cities. • The Soviets also conceded that when the time came for Soviet troops to leave Manchuria, they would not automatically hand the region over to KMT forces, but would allow the two Chinese political factions to resolve the issue themselves.

47. Manchuria: Hypocrisy of the FP • Since the CCP already controlled much of Manchuria, this was a formula for allowing the CCP to establish itself in the region. • In early October, the Soviet army began to halt the movement of KMT troops into Soviet occupied areas of Manchuria, while advising the CCP to move another 300,000 troops into Manchuria. • Meaning that formally USSR supported KMT but secretly facilitated the victory of the CCP halting the nationalist movement of KMT

48. Mao flexing against KMT /US • On 19 October, Mao decided to launch a campaign to control the whole of the north-east of China. • In response, Chiang informed US President Truman that the USSR’s violations of the Sino-Soviet Treaty were a serious threat to peace in east Asia, and asked the US to mediate. • Meanwhile, Chiang accelerated the transfer of his troops to the north-east and seized control of the Shanhaiguan Pass, a major route into Manchuria from the rest of China. • US naval ships also patrolled the sea off Port Arthur which was under Soviet occupation.

49. US Patrol

50. USSR Response • This appeared to the Soviets to be a deliberate provocation and there now seemed not only a danger of a full-scale civil war in China, but also of a confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. • In the face of these dangers, the USSR reduced its support to the CCP and insisted that it withdraw from the areas bordering the Chinese-Changchun railway. • The CCP temporarily suspended its aim of seizing the whole of the north-east and instead concentrated on occupying the countryside and the smaller cities.