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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

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how to transform China into a land of universal justice and equality. In 1955-1956 this great enterprise had reached a turning point, causing potential tensions between the CCP chairman and many of his prominent colleagues. On one hand, the introduction of the First Five-Year Plan, the successful completion of agricultural cooperativization in the countryside, and the advancement of the socialist transformation of industry and commerce in the cities combined to convince Mao that the continuous revolution should be elevated to a higher stage, one that would accelerate China's economic development and its development into a socialist and Communist society.

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On the other hand, many members of the CCP leadership Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun in particular believed it essential to maintain balanced economic development and societal transformation, and that "adventurism" (
maojin
) should be opposed.
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Although this potential divergence between Mao and his comrades would not surface fully until late 1956 and 1957, the chairman already realized in early 1956 that China's Communist elite did not always comprehend the direction of his train of thought, let alone follow it.
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As a result, he increasingly felt that one of the best guarantors of his continuous revolution was his own leadership role.
This, in turn, conditioned his response to de-Stalinization in two important respects. First, his criticism of the Soviet leader focused on the construction of a narrative about his resistance to Stalin's erroneous interference in the Chinese Revolution, enhancing the myth that he himself had been the representative of eternal correctness. Second, he adopted a unique approach toward the "cult of personality" issue. In his initial response toward de-Stalinization, Mao generally avoided sharp criticism of Stalin's personality cult. With the radicalization of China's political and social life in 1957-1958, he made it clear that he had no intention of opposing personality cults in general and his own personality cult in particular. It is not surprising that Ke Qingshi, a CCP Politburo member with close ties to the chairman, would openly argue that "it is all right to worship Chairman Mao to the extent of having a blind faith in him."
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Mao agreed, saying that he favored distinguishing "correct" from "incorrect" personality cults.
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Mao's response to de-Stalinization also revealed his changing perception of his own position in the international Communist movement after Stalin's death. Indeed, now Mao, consciously or unconsciously, behaved with a stronger sense of superiority. On March 31, 1956, Mao Zedong had one of the first of his many long monologues with Pavel Iudin, the Soviet ambassador to China, in which he systematically expressed his overall view on criticism of Stalin. Again, Mao reviewed the history of Stalin's relations with China, emphasizing that the late Soviet leader had committed serious mistakes during all stages of the Chinese Revolution; in particular, Mao said, Stalin had failed to treat his Chinese comrades

 

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as equals. In a more general discussion about how to evaluate Stalin, though, the chairman argued that "the simple fact that the population of the Socialist Camp had grown from 200 million to 900 million speaks for itself" that is, in an overall sense, "Stalin, without doubt, is a great Marxist, a good and honest revolutionary."

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In another long monologue-style conversation with Anastas Mikoyan on April 6, the CCP chairman again reviewed the "serious mistakes" committed by Stalin toward the Chinese Revolution and argued that in an overall sense, "Stalin's achievements surpass his mistakes" and that it was thus necessary to have a ''concrete analysis" as well as a "comprehensive evaluation" of the Stalin issue.
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Through these talks, Mao delivered several crucial messages to the Soviets. First, he conveyed to Khrushchev and his fellow Soviet leaders his idea of the proper tone for criticizing Stalin. Despite all of Stalin's "serious mistakes," the chairman advised his Soviet comrades that it was wrong to condemn him completely and that continuing to hold high his banner was in the interests of both the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement. Second, by criticizing Stalin's wrongdoings toward the Chinese Communist revolution, especially his failure to treat his Chinese comrades as "equals," Mao meant to remind Khrushchev and his fellow Soviet leaders that they should not repeat the same mistake and that a new pattern of Sino-Soviet relations, one based on the principle of "equality" (as Mao himself defined the term) should be established between Beijing and Moscow. Third, in a more fundamental sense, Mao revealed his new method of handling relations with Moscow; with Stalin's death, Mao felt that he should have a greater voice on questions concerning not only matters between Beijing and Moscow but also the fate of the entire international Communist movement. When Mao was discoursing on Stalin's mistakes and achievements, he made it clear that it was he, not the Soviet leaders, who now occupied the morally superior position to direct the course of the world proletarian revolution.
Within this context Mao endeavored during 1956 to make known his views on the Stalin issue to Communist leaders from other parts of the world. On June 28, 1956, in a conversation with the Romanian ambassador to China, Mao reiterated that Communists should not be surprised by Stalin's mistakes. "After all," the chairman said, "good things exist in the world together with bad things. This has been so since ancient times, and will continue to be so in the future. This is why we need to, and can, transform the world."
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In September 1956, in a meeting with a Yugoslav Communist Union delegation attending the CCP's Eighth National Congress, Mao repeated his story about the "serious mistakes" Stalin had committed toward the Chinese Revolution, yet he also argued that achievements should be regarded as the main Soviet experience during Stalin's

 

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era.

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On these occasions, indeed, the CCP chairman acted as if he had become the "new emperor" of the international Communist movement.

Consequently, by late 1956, China's relations with the Soviet Union experienced a significant change: Although in public Mao continued to maintain that Moscow remained the center of the socialist camp, he really believed that it was he who was more qualified to dictate the principles underlying relations between and among socialist countries. This seeming reversal of the relationship between Beijing and Moscow was demonstrated most clearly in the responses of the two countries to the Polish and Hungarian crises in late 1956.
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To Mao and his fellow CCP leaders, the crises emerging in Poland and Hungary were not of the same nature. While they believed that both crises had resulted from Soviet big-power chauvinism, they saw the crisis in Poland as basically anti-Soviet and the one in Hungary (after initial uncertainty) as essentially anti-Communist. Therefore, when Moscow informed Beijing that it planned to intervene militarily in Poland on October 19-20,
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the CCP leadership held an urgent meeting to discuss the situation. They concluded that if the Soviets were to use military forces to solve the Polish issue, they would be intervening in Poland's internal affairs.
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Early on the morning of October 23, Mao summoned Ambassador Iudin to his quarters and requested that he inform Moscow urgently that China would severely protest any Soviet intervention in Poland's internal affairs.
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From October 23 to 31 a high-ranking CCP delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping traveled to Moscow to consult with the Soviet leaders about the Polish (and, it turned out, Hungarian) crisis. Largely because of the pressure from the Chinese, reportedly, Khrushchev and his fellow Soviet leaders not only decided not to use force to solve the Polish question, but also agreed to issue (on October 30, 1956) a "Declaration on Developing and Enhancing the Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist Countries," in which Moscow promised to follow a pattern of more equal exchanges with other Communist states and parties.
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Mao and his comrades regarded this as Beijing's success.
In comparison, Mao's and the CCP leadership's attitude toward the Hungarian crisis was very different. Although they initially believed that the origins of the crisis lay in Moscow's failure to treat the Hungarians as equals, they were alarmed when anti-Communist riots began to spread all over Hungary. On October 30, after receiving Liu's and Deng's report from Moscow that the Soviet leaders were planning to withdraw their troops from Hungary, Mao chaired a meeting of top CCP leaders at which it was decided to oppose Moscow's abandonment of Hungary to reactionary forces.
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Liu, following instructions from Beijing, met with Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders on the same day, in-

 

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forming them that it was the Chinese leaders' belief that Soviet withdrawal would be a betrayal of the Hungarian people and that it would put the Soviet leaders on the stand as "historical criminals."

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The next day, it is reported, Khrushchev told Liu and other members of the Chinese delegation on their way to the airport that the Soviet leadership would use military force to suppress the "reactionary revolt" in Hungary.
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Four days later the Soviet Red Army's attack on Budapest began.

Beijing's tough attitude toward the Hungarian crisis reflected Mao's persistent belief that "class struggle continued to exist in a socialist country."
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The crisis, in turn, further strengthened Mao's determination to promote China's continuous revolution, especially in the fields of politics and ideology. In the wake of the Hungary crisis, Mao initiated in early 1957 the Hundred Flowers campaign to encourage intellectuals to help the CCP "correct its mistakes." But when some intellectuals criticized the party, an Anti-Rightist movement began to sweep across China, branding over 300,000 intellectuals (many of whom never said anything against the party) as "rightists,'' a label that would effectively shut their mouths and ruin their careers. As a result, Mao and the CCP established absolute control over China's "public opinion."
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Related to the Anti-Rightist movement, Mao started an equally important yet less well known (at least in the West) political offensive within the CCP leadership aimed at those of his comrades who had opposed "adventurism" in handling China's socialist construction in 1956 and early 1957. The main target was Zhou Enlai. Beginning in late summer 1957, Mao claimed that Zhou had committed serious mistakes in emphasizing the utmost importance of achieving balanced development in China's economic reconstruction. The chairman told his comrades that he favored "adventurism," even at the risk of breaking up the balance in economic development, as it would accelerate China's transformation into a socialist and Communist society. The chairman distrusted the premier to such an extent that he even considered removing Zhou and replacing him with Ke Qingshi.
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The outcome of the Hungarian incident, in retrospect, complicated Chinese politics while at the same time pushing Mao's continuous revolution to enter a more radical stage.
Their perception of their contributions to the resolution of the Polish and Hungarian crises also strengthened the Chinese leaders' belief in their more prominent position in the international Communist movement, while at the same time justifying Beijing's critical attitude toward the seemingly less sophisticated Soviet leadership. On January 7-18, 1957, Zhou Enlai visited the Soviet Union, Poland, and Hungary.
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In his report summarizing the visit, he commented extensively on the Soviet leadership's lack of sophistication in managing the complicated situation both within the Soviet Union and in Eastern Eu-

 

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rope.

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In several internal speeches, Mao Zedong discussed how the CCP diverged from the Soviet leaders, charging that Khrushchev and his comrades had abandoned not only "the sword of Stalin" but also, to a large extent, "the sword of Lenin."
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In the wake of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization and the Polish and Hungarian crises, the potential tensions between Beijing and Moscow deepened.

Yet Sino-Soviet relations seemed to develop smoothly in 1956-1957. While the Soviet Union continued to provide China with extensive economic and military assistance, China offered open support for preserving the Soviet Union's leading position in the international Communist movement. In November 1957 Mao Zedong visited Moscow to attend celebrations for the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917. At a meeting of leaders of Communist and workers' parties from socialist countries, Mao called on the socialist camp to recognize the Soviet Union's leadership role. On one occasion the CCP chairman used a metaphor to describe the relations between himself and Khrushchev, saying that the flower of Khrushchev was more beautiful than the flower of Mao Zedong.
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Beneath this high-profile rhetoric, however, ran an undercurrent of disagreement and distrust. It was at the Moscow meeting that Mao emphasized that the Communists should not be frightened by the prospect of a nuclear war started by the imperialists but should realize that such a war, although carrying a high price, would bring the imperialist system to its final conclusion.
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These statements obviously worried Khrushchev and his fellow Soviet leaders. From Mao's perspective, Khrushchev's emphasis on the necessity and possibility of "peaceful coexistence" with Western imperialist countries was exceedingly dubious. Indeed, even Mao's endorsement of the Soviet Union's leading position in the international Communist movement could be understood as an indication of potential conflict such an endorsement implied that Mao and revolutionary China now occupied a higher moral position than the Soviet Union. All of this meant that a storm was gathering between Beijing and Moscow.
From Tension to Crisis
The year 1958 was pivotal in the history of the People's Republic as it witnessed one of the most important episodes of Mao's continuous revolution: the Great Leap Forward. In January 1958 Mao chaired two meetings attended by central and provincial party leaders in Hangzhou and Nanning. At both meetings the chairman continued his criticism of the mistake of "opposing adventurism" committed by Zhou Enlai's State Council in previous years, labeling it "a mistake concerning principles, which has damaged the revolutionary vigor of 600 million [Chinese] people." He further warned Zhou that he had reached the

 

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