Free Brothers in Arms by Odd Arne Westad Page A

to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman earlier that summer that relations with China were "special and delicate." But upon arriving in Beijing on September 30, straight from his meetings in Washington, Khrushchev was "furious." 81
This time the Soviet leader spelled out his "proposals" so that the Chinese

     

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would be forced to respond. His first concern was Chinese policy on Taiwan; he called for restraint from Beijing in support of Soviet efforts to "ease international tension and eliminate war." He also accused the Chinese of aggressive behavior in the conflict with India and condemned Mao's allusions to the socialism that could be built after the Third World War as "irresponsible." China had to stop sabotaging the international policies of the Socialist bloc, Khrushchev said. As the Chinese responded with accusations of "sellouts" and "right-deviationism," the crucial meeting on October 2 deteriorated into a verbal slugging match.
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Mao's thinking on international affairs in late 1959 was finding the shape that it would maintain until the end of the 1960s. In a fascinating series of notes for a speech in December, Mao found that Soviet "revisionism" could "last for a long time (over ten years, for example)." He reminded himself of the mingled history of his contacts with Moscow, in which he underlined the many attempts by Stalin and Khrushchev to undercut him. "We resisted the fallacies of our friends . . ., [but now] our friends together with the imperialists, the counter-revolutionaries, and Tito's revisionists organize an anti-China chorus." He noted that China would be isolated for a long time but that it would "get support from many Communist parties, countries and peoples." And even in isolation, ''in eight years, China will have finished the initial construction of [its] industrial system. . . . The Chinese flag is bright red." 83
The reason why the full collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance did not come as early as the winter 1959-1960 lies in Mao's perception of Chinese politics. Mao felt that his political position within the party leadership was still weak as a result of the failures of the Great Leap Forward, and none of the other leaders although they all shared much of Mao' s resentment against the Soviets had yet arrived at a point in which he envisaged an open conflict.
Mao moved very cautiously to instigate public dissension between Beijing and Moscow, possibly hoping that the Soviets through some dramatic action would take the first visible step. "Long Live Leninism," the April 16, 1960, article in the Chinese journal Honggi that for the first time made the split perceptible to a general audience, centered its attack on Soviet unwillingness to admit that the danger of war went with the existence of capitalism. As Mao expected, the Soviet press shot back, saying that
present-day leftists regard the policy of achieving peaceful coexistence, stopping the arms race, and friendship between the peoples of capitalist and socialist countries as a retreat from Marxism-Leninism. They take the slightest deterioration in the international situation as proof of the correctness of their sectarian views. 84

     

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Even though in public both sides still attributed "errors" to "Yugoslav revisionists" or ''certain leftist elements," the foundations of the alliance were rapidly deteriorating.
Breakdown, 1960-1963
The congress of the Romanian Workers' Party from June 20 to June 25, 1960, in Bucharest provided the stage for the first public display of the split in the Communist movement. The Chinese delegation, headed by Peng Zhen, went there with a set of alternative instructions from Mao Zedong. Peng should listen carefully to the speech of the head of the Soviet delegation. If Peng deemed the speech to be an outright attack on the CCP, he should respond in style. Most important, however, the Chinese delegation should spend its time trying to convince members of the other party delegations of the