Sino-Soviet split

Soviet and Chinese Frontier Guards Fighting during the Sino-Soviet border conflict.

Not to be confused with the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship of 1950.

The Sino-Soviet split was a period of diplomatic and political relations between Khrushchev's Soviet Union and Mao's China worsening. The origins of the split started to sprout out when Khrushchev denounced Comrade Joseph Stalin in his infamous "Secret Speech" and gave an assessment of Comrade Stalin in which Mao disagreed with. Furthermore border conflicts occurred on the border between China and Soviet Union leading to a period of tension in which both countries mobilized and the Soviets considered deploying Nuclear Weapons towards China.

Background

On the 25th of February, 1956, Nikita Khrushchyov delivered his infamous speech called "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", in which he denounced Comrade Joseph Stalin as a “murderer”, a “criminal” a “bandit”, a “gambler”, a “despot of the type of Ivan the Terrible”, “the greatest dictator in Russian history”, a “fool”, an “idiot”, etc. The Chinese reaction to the speech was complex, they were happy that the Soviets had self criticized however on the other hand weren't happy of how Khrushchyov's clique handled Stalin, they agreed with the criticism of the "Cult of Personality" (Which they would later retract) and other crticisms of Stalin however disagreed that Stalin was mistaken on everything and still regarded him as a "great Marxist-Leninist"

Period of Worsening Relations Between Late 50's and Early 60's

As the years went on and Soviet Revisionism became more and more apparant with the re-introduction of Capitalism and establishment of Social-Imperialism, the Chinese would become more critical and criticize the Soviet Union in a series of articles and polemics. As the Soviet's and the Warsaw Pact would begin denouncing the Communist Party of China directly and Hoxha's Albania, accusing the Communist Party of China of being, "Sectarian", "Nationalist" and other accusations which were baseless, as the Chinese attempted to try and unite the Communist movement to oppose United States Imperialism however to no avail:

The Communist Party of China has consistently held that the unity of the socialist camp and the unity of the international communist movement are fundamental interests of the people of the whole world. It is at all times the sacred duty of all Communists to defend and strength-en this internationalist unity unswervingly. The occurrence of different opinions among fraternal parties is often unavoidable, because the problems of common concern are extremely complicated and the circumstances of various parties very different, and also because the objective situation is constantly changing. And the occurrence of such differences of opinion is not necessarily a bad thing. In order that unity may be securely guaranteed, the important thing is that we must start from the position of defending and strengthening internationalist unity and of standing together against the enemy, we must abide by the guiding principles for relations among fraternal parties and countries, as set forth in the Moscow Declaration and the Moscow Statement, and we must reach unanimity through consultation.

...

At that congress, some comrades of the Czechoslovak Party and comrades from certain other fraternal parties wantonly vilified and attacked the Communist Party of China for its “adventurism”, “sectarianism”, “splittism”, “nationalism” and “dogmatism”. The Chinese Communist Party Delegation in its statement resolutely opposed this practice that creates splits. The statement pointed out that “this erroneous practice has already produced serious consequences, and if continued, it is bound to produce even more serious consequences”. However, the attitude of the Chinese Communist Party, an attitude treasuring unity, has not yet succeeded in causing a change of heart in those persons who are persisting in this erroneous practice. Certain leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party stated that they “cannot agree” with the view of the Chinese Communist Party Delegation, insisted on “going further” in this practice, even went so far as to ask the Chinese Communist Party to “reconsider” its position on major international problems, and they made their slanders and attacks on China public to the whole world. In these circumstances, we have no alternative but to make the necessary reply.

All of this tension eventually began to culminate when the Communist Party of China criticized the policy of "Peaceful Coexistance" that the Soviets upheld, In addition in late 1961 Khrushchev would pull out 1,400 Soviet engineers from China, cancelled joint-scientific projects and pull economic aid out of China, in addition to this after the shooting down a U-2 spy plane in 1960, in which in the aftermath Khrushchev would essentially act as a capitulation-ist. The Chinese had realized it was essentially useless to negotiate with Revisionists, they would later denounce the revisionist policy of "Peaceful-Coexistance" stating:

Khrushchov has changed the policy of peaceful coexistence into one of class capitulation. In the name of peaceful coexistence, he has renounced the revolutionary principles of the Declaration of 1957 and the Statement of 1960, robbed Marxism-Leninism of its revolutionary soul, and distorted and mutilated it beyond recognition. This is a brazen betrayal of Marxism-Leninism!

During the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, the Soviet Union claimed that Class Struggle in the Soviet Union was over and that the Soviet Union had become a, "state of the whole people" and "party of the entire people" discarding the Marxist-Leninist theory of Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In response to the revisionist conclusions made during the Congress Mao wrote the masterpiece work called, "On Khrushchev’s Phony Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World" Where Chairman Mao would dismantle the Revisionist ideology that Khrushchev upheld.

At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, the revisionist Khrushchov clique developed their revisionism into a complete system not only by rounding off their anti-revolutionary theories of "peaceful coexistence" and "peaceful transition" but also by declaring that the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary in the Soviet Union and advancing the absurd theories of the "state of the whole people" and the "party of the entire people". The Programme put forward by the revisionist Khrushchov clique at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU is a programme of phoney communism, a revisionist programme against proletarian revolution and for the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the proletarian party.

Brezhnev & The Start of Border Conflicts

Although Khrushchev was deposed by Leonid Brezhnev the Soviet Government under Brezhnev still maintained the Revisionist Policy of Peaceful Coexistance, and thus the new Soviet Government and Brezhnev were described as, "Khrushchevism without Khrushchev". After the start of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution the masses started to participate in criticism of the Soviet revisionists, writing articles and denouncing them. As tensions on the border began to escalate.

The Chinese-Russian border was decided in 1860 as part of unequal treaty during the century of humiliation and when Russia was still under the reign of the tsars. Although after the Russian Empire and Reactionary Kuomintang governments were deposed, the Communist Party of China held that the Sino-Soviet boundry should be handled through negotiations however this sentiment was discarded when tensions started brewing when Red Guards and Soviet Patrol Soldiers began fighting on the border resulting in violent incidents. In rivers near the Soviet-Chinese border Soviets placed gunboats, building fortifications and pillboxes on their side and establishing barbed wire and ordering planes to fly over for the purpose of spying. They went as far to build a dam on Huputu river to drain to water to be able to encroach on Chinese territory. Due to the presence of gunboats near the river, fisherman and Soviet sailors began to go in conflict as the Soviets deliberately started to attack fishing equipment and attack local fisherman. An incident on the 24th of September, 1967 involved Soviet Sailors kidnapping local fisherman, the Chinese frontier guards then openly denounced the act and the fisherman were later returned however told tales of mistreatment by the Soviets.

Several other incidents were also reported, for example on the waterway near Jaoho the Soviets ran in with armored vehicles and aircraft intruding into Chinese territory this eventually culminated into a fight where a teenaged boy was beat up along with several other civilians. And on Chilichin Island Soviet forces while encroaching on Chinese territory killed about four fisherman by running them over using their armored cars. This triggered a response by the locals in which they rose up and self defense and began attacking the Soviets who also retreated.

Battle on Chenpao Island

The Chinese People Hold a Rally in Harbin Holding a Banner denouncing the Soviet Social Imperialists.

During the Sino-Soviet border treaty negotiations in 1964 Chenpao island was recognized as Chinese territory however, dismissing this fact Soviets still provoked and began encroaching on Chenpao island between January 23, 1967 and March, 1969 the Soviets had encroached on Chenpao island about Sixteen times. Due to these provocations more Chinese frontier guards had to be placed on the border in order to effectively guard the island. On the 2nd of March, 1969 a large number of Armored Cars and Soviet Soldiers encroached on the island and opened canon and gunfire on the Chinese Patrol Cars killing a number of them.

On the 15th of March, 1969 the Soviets again encroached on the island opening fire on the Chinese Patrol Guards once again, however this time the Chinese had enough of being bullied by the Social-Imperialists and opened fire back for self defense successfully routing the revisionists and securing the Chenpao border. Shortly after news of the battle spread throughout China, Chinese civilians began holding massive rallies de-crying the Soviets and pledging to defend China and Socialism.

The Threat of Nuclear War

The next morning, when Kissinger arrived at the White House, he found that Nixon was already impatient: "Say, Henry, what trouble is there?" Kissinger put a dozen sheets of paper on the table and said, “Look, the Soviet Union wants to use nuclear weapons against China.”

Shortly after the loss of the Battle of Chenpao Island, Brezhnev began to threaten to carry out nuclear strikes on China the proposal to nuke China was originally made by Soviet Defense Minister Grechko, however Brezhnev approved the proposal and even planned to show it to the Americans to demonstrate strength, after the United States President, Nixon found out he was appalled and began starting precautions to prevent nuclear war. The Soviet's plan included striking Military targets such as China’s Jiuquan Missile Base and Xichang Nuclear Missile Launch Base, using million's of dollars worth of nuclear missles.

When Mao heard of the news by Zhou Enlai he responded quite calmly saying quote:

“Enlai, have you read the History of Ming?”

What Brezhnev had failed to realize was that Mao was not afraid of Brezhnev's desperate provocations for Mao had said previously that the Chinese people could not be cowed by the Atomic Bomb:

Today, the danger of a world war and the threats to China come mainly from the warmongers in the United States. They have occupied our Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits and are contemplating an atomic war. We have two principles: first, we don't want war; second, we will strike back resolutely if anyone invades us. This is what we teach the members of the Communist Party and the whole nation. The Chinese people are not to be cowed by U.S. atomic blackmail. Our country has a population of 600 million and an area of 9,600,000 square kilometres. The United States cannot annihilate the Chinese nation with its small stack of atom bombs. Even if the U.S. atom bombs were so powerful that, when dropped on China, they would make a hole right through the earth, or even blow it up, that would hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole, though it might be a major event for the solar system.

After the Chinese were made aware more Chinese Soldiers began guarding the border along with putting their missile system on alert, On September 23 and 29, on the eve of the nuclear crisis, China also carried out an underground atomic bomb fission explosion with an equivalent amount of 20,000 to 25,000 tons and a hydrogen bomb thermonuclear explosion with an equivalent amount of about 3 million tons of bombers, this effectively scared the Soviets enough. On October 20, 1969, Sino-Soviet border negotiations began to take place officially ending the threat of nuclear war however the split and its effects still continued.

Aftermath

After the split China and the Soviet Union would remain hostile towards one another until Gorbachev and Deng started "Normalizing" relations.

See also

• Revisionism
• Soviet Revisionism
• Social-imperialism

References

Notes