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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

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BOOK: Brothers in Arms
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new Cold War tensions in Europe. Mao kept in close touch with Moscow on all important questions of military or political strategy, even after the complete Soviet withdrawal from Manchuria, but he was unable to secure any major long-term commitments from the Soviets to aid his revolution. Although Soviet material assistance to the CCP Japanese arms, communications equipment, money kept coming in, there is no indication that Stalin expected or intended this aid to help the CCP to victory in the civil war.

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On the contrary, Stalin was not interested in squandering scarce Soviet resources in pursuit of a revolutionary victory that he considered implausible, at least in the short term. The Kremlin preferred to continue dealing both with the CCP and the GMD government, thereby getting maximum leverage for its own short-term aims in China. Judging from Soviet contacts with both Chinese parties in this period, these aims consisted of controlling the Chinese northeastern provinces, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, or at least making sure that Western influence did not extend into these Soviet border areas.
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As the foundations of the Guomindang regime began crumbling in 1948, Stalin could not adjust his policy to the CCP advances. Not even after the September-October 1948 Liaoning-Shenyang campaign, in which the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) broke the government's hold on north China, was Moscow willing to make a substantial investment in the CCP. Soviet aid remained very limited, although in some areas such as radio communications, transport, and air defense Moscow's contributions did provide a critical edge to the PLA's war effort.
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Stalin's doubts persisted well into the spring of 1949 and spawned the first crisis in the Soviet-CCP relationship since 1945. As the PLA was racing to the South and West, and as one city after another Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin surrendered to the CCP, Stalin could not believe that some intrigue or intervention would not in the end thwart a complete Communist victory. The Guomindang could regenerate its strength in the South, Stalin feared. There could be local anti-Communist rebellions in central China and along the coast. The different armies of the PLA could start fighting each other. The Americans could issue an ultimatum not to cross the Yangzi River and threaten to use nuclear weapons. In Stalin's view, a full CCP victory was in no way assured, and the Soviet Union would have much to lose by allying itself too closely with the Chinese Communists.:
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An at least temporary truce along the Yangzi, while Moscow and Washington talked about China's future, would serve Soviet purposes well. A truce resulting from international negotiations would take some of the heat out of East-West confrontation after the Berlin crisis and could even give the Soviet Union a permanent say in Chinese affairs. Such a truce would enable the Soviet Union

 

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to train and equip the Chinese Communists who in Moscow's view were poorly prepared to govern a large country while they were still alive to Soviet experience and not, like the Yugoslavs, too dazzled by their own success to take Moscow' s advice.

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Stalin's attempts to promote international negotiations over China's future in January 1949 was received coldly by Mao Zedong. Moscow's approach, Mao said, would "make the United States, England and France assume that participating in mediation is an appropriate thing, and give the Guomindang a pretext for scolding us as warlike elements." The CCP leader accused Stalin's policy of "exact fulfillment of the U.S. government's wishes" with regard to China and claimed that such a policy would "bring much dissent among the people of China, the democratic parties and popular organizations, and even within the CCP, and would be very damaging for our current position."
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In spite of the quarrel which ended with Stalin acquiescing to Chinese demands and refusing to participate in mediation Mao remained convinced that a close alliance with the Soviet Union was the supreme foreign policy aim of his government-to-be. First and foremost, Mao argued, "we shall need economic assistance. We believe it possible only to receive this assistance from the USSR and countries of the new democracy."
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The new CCP government also needed a large number of Soviet experts to give advice on how to gradually build a socialist society and a state directed by the party. Last, China needed security. Only an alliance with Moscow could provide the new revolutionary regime with the protection it needed from attacks by the United States, its ally Japan, and anti-Communist forces in China.
Mao's meetings with Soviet Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan in January/February 1949 in Xibaipo constituted the first step on the road to a formal alliance. Mikoyan's report to Stalin seems to have opened the way for an increased Soviet interest in dealing with the CCP as a partner. Soviet assistance grew in many vital areas, including heavy weapons, railway repairs, and money. Mao felt that it was time for him finally to go to Moscow three Chinese suggestions for him to be Stalin's guest had been turned down by the hosts in 1947-1948 on grounds ranging from the urgency of the military situation in China to the Soviet grain harvest. But even after reading Mikoyan's report, Stalin was worried about inviting the unbiddable Mao to Moscow. The Soviets instead agreed to ask Liu Shaoqi, Mao's second in command, to visit in the summer of 1949.
The meetings in Moscow between June 26 and August 14, 1949 in which Liu, Gao Gang, and Wang Jiaxiang were the main participants on the CCP side, primarily meeting with Stalin, CCP-Soviet Molotov, and Mikoyan were breakthroughs for cooperation. Liu Shaoqi temperamentally and politically

 

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more well tuned to Soviet socialist models than his boss in Beijing managed to instill in the Moscow leadership some confidence in the Chinese wish for a close but subservient relationship with the CPSU. In his report to Stalin, Liu stressed that:
the Soviet Communist Party is the main headquarters of the international Communist movement, while the Chinese Communist Party is just a battle-front headquarters. The interests of a part should be subordinated to international interests and, therefore,
the CCP submits to decisions of the Soviet Communist Party.
. . . If on some questions differences should arise between the CCP and the Soviet Communist Party, the CCP, having outlined its point of view, will submit and will resolutely
carry out the decisions of the Soviet Communist Party.

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Avoiding all of Stalin's traps, Liu pushed through his agenda on military and economic aid to the CCP regime. In his efforts, Liu may have been helped by a growing sense in the upper echelons of Soviet bureaucracy in military affairs as well as foreign policy that a Communist China would be a valuable ally of the Soviet Union.
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Even though Stalin himself insisted officially on treating the visiting CCP leaders as a trade delegation from Manchuria, in his first meeting with Liu he already made clear that he would provide direct support for "an all-China democratic coalition government" as soon as it was set up.
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Mao and his colleagues still could not be certain of the Soviet reaction as they formulated their plans for establishing their own government and their own state in late September 1949. Even though the Soviets had been pressing for a separate CCP government since January, Mao knew how difficult it was and had been for the East European Communist regimes to fit into Moscow's plans.
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His new state had to conform to the Soviet worldview in terms of its domestic policies and, even more important, its international posture. There seem to have been numerous exchanges between Moscow and Beijing on the basic policies and organization of the new state between the end of Liu's visit in mid-August and October 1. At his very first meeting with the Soviet ambassador, General Nikolai Roshchin, on October 16, Mao still felt the need to use most of the time to condemn Yugoslav perfidy. Mao thought it vital that Moscow see that China's orientation was written in stone.
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The ultimate step up the ladder in the Chinese leader's search for Stalin's recognition was a face-to-face meeting in Moscow. After the People's Republic had been set up, Mao's inner-party prestige could no longer suffer snubs by the "boss" as a "disciple of Stalin," Mao had to secure a rendezvous with his teacher. After having made Mao's intention plain to Roshchin, it still took sub-

 

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stantial Chinese pressure and Zhou Enlai's diplomatic skills to arrange for Mao's train finally to depart for Moscow on December 6.

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Until recently our view of the Moscow summit the only meeting between the two Communist autocrats has been like a poorly made home movie: We see shadows moving about, we see people we think we identify doing things we think we recognize and comprehend, but it is all blurred, out of focus. The refocusing made possible by the Russian archives enables us to start pondering the significance of the meeting. What we can conjecture is the following:
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Mao's main priority was establishing a new relationship between the two countries. He wanted a treaty that validated his regime as a socialist government, regulated Soviet policy toward the Chinese border areas, and provided Moscow's support for China's development and national security. After much tergiversation on Stalin's part, Mao got most of what he wanted in terms of a formal alliance as well as economic aid and military assistance. The final treaties promised China Soviet military assistance in case of "aggression on the part of Japan or any other state that may collaborate in any way with Japan in acts of aggression"implicitly providing Beijing with protection in case of a conflict with the United States. In addition, the Soviet Union would supply China with credits of around $300 million and expand the programs of military aid in essential areas such as the construction of a PRC air force and development of long-range artillery.
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Other bilateral issues fared much worse in the Chinese view. Mongolia was a main concern for Mao, who initially had hoped to unite the Mongolian People's Republic with (Chinese) Inner Mongolia as a part of New China. The Soviets would have nothing of it. Even worse for Beijing were the Soviet references to Xinjiang and Manchuria, Chinese provinces under CCP control. With his unflinchable ability to push wrong buttons in such talks, Stalin at one point asked Mao whether Moscow from now on should sign separate trade agreements with these areas, thereby forcing on the Chinese leader images of Soviet control of the Chinese periphery. There are no doubts that Mao had problems accepting the secret additional agreement that, among other privileges for Moscow, excluded all non-Soviet foreign citizens from the three Manchurian provinces and from Xinjiang, even though he appreciated Soviet willingness to transfer some of the Manchurian railways and to phase out the Soviet military presence on Liaodong.
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Mao hoped to discuss a fairly full foreign policy agenda with Stalin, with the problem of "uniting the revolutionary forces of the East" on top of the list. But even before the Chinese leader set out for Moscow, Stalin had made known that he did not want to consider regional problems. Because of Soviet resistance, the CCP had had to shelve its plans to send Chinese troops to fight alongside the Vi-

 

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