China During the Cold War Primary Source Assessments - Coursework Example

China During The Cold War Primary Source Assessments The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eye-Witness Accounts by Jussi M. Hanhimaki and Odd Arne Westad Mao Zedong on the Soviet Union, January 1949 In the middle οf May 1948, Ivan Vladimirovich Kovalev, personal representative οf Joseph Stalin to Mao Zedong, was invited to the Central Committee οf the Communist Party οf the Soviet Union (CPSU) where he had a discussion with Stalin. He showed Kovalev a long telegram from Mao Zedong, the contents οf which Kovalev can almost remember verbatim even now. Mao wrote that during the Civil War the Communist Party οf China (CPC) had gained extensive experience in armed combat. At the same time, Mao pointed out that expertise in managing the economy was completely lacking, and that the CPC was not capable οf running the complex economy οf the large cities. As a result, Mao asked the Central Committee οf the CPSU to send a group οf specialists to China for the purpose οf rebuilding the railroads in the liberated regions οf the country. At that time Kovalev was officially called the representative οf the Council οf Ministers οf the USSR in charge οf the Affairs οf the Chinese-Changchun Railway, which was jointly owned by China and the USSR. This was done in order not to advertise the true nature οf our assistance to the CPC. All our work was done under conditions οf the strictest secrecy. Stalin directly handled everything concerning China. Even the most insignificant, parochial requests οf Mao Zedong were sent only to him. Around the beginning οf 1949, Kovalev addressed a few questions to Molotov and Vyshinskii, and Kovalev received several telegrams from both οf them which read: "Henceforth address all questions concerning our mission to China to Filipov only." ("Filipov" was the pseudonym Stalin used in coded correspondence with the leadership οf the CPC.) At first, the efforts οf our group, which consisted οf approximately 300 engineers and skilled workers, were concentrated in Manchuria in the northeast οf China. Kovalev returned to Moscow in December 1948, where he reported on the situation in China to Stalin personally. In January 1949, Kovalev again left for China, accompanied by A.I. Mikoyan, who conducted secret negotiations οf the utmost importance with Chinas top leaders. During these negotiations Kovalev met Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai for the first time, and afterward Kovalev maintained close working ties with them. From that moment on important changes began to occur in the content οf Kovalev’s mission in China. While earlier Kovalev had basically been focusing his attention on the organization οf technical assistance to the Chinese Communists, now one οf Kovalev’s main responsibilities became keeping Stalin informed on the situation within the leadership οf the CPC and the country as a whole, as well as serving as a liaison between Mao and Stalin. During the spring and summer οf 1949, intensive work was being carried out in preparation for the creation οf a new Chinese state. Consequently, a commission οf the Politburo οf the Central Committee οf the CPC on economic issues was organized in which Kovalev participated along with Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhou Enlai. In July and August 1949, Kovalev accompanied the delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi during its secret trip to Moscow. The negotiations with Stalin that took place covered the critical issues οf bilateral cooperation and the international situation. Afterward, Liu Shaoqi and Kovalev returned to China bringing another 250 Soviet specialists with us. (Li Yuezhan 10-15) At this time the number οf Soviet specialists and workers in China exceeded 600 persons. The most important episode οf Kovalev’s work in China was probably his trip to Moscow with Mao from December 1949 to February 1950. After lengthy and complex negotiations with Stalin, the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between China and the USSR was signed along with other important documents. Stalin Meets Mao Zedong, December 1949 The Stalin-Mao meeting in December, 1949, gave a new twist to the political situation οf that time. Until recently, the story οf the establishment οf relations between Stalin and Mao was known only in a general outline form. Far from a natural union οf the two foremost communist leaders, the Treaty οf Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance laid no true foundation for Sino-Soviet amity. The treaty was signed despite great misgivings, driven primarily by external developments. The perceptions these men held toward an alliance differed to a high degree. For both, however, such a step held more symbolic meaning than real significance. Although we have previously been unaware οf how severely this bond was tested as China became drawn into the Korean War, we now know that Mao had little to do with its inception, and that Stalin did not fully realize the implications οf such a union. In authorizing Kim II Sung to launch his attack, Stalin believed that the ensuing war would last only 3-4 days. Fearing the provocation οf a third World War, neither Mao nor Stalin attempted to relate their alliance to the Korean War. In keeping the Soviet Union detached from the situation on the Korean Peninsula, Stalin affirmed his superior international standing and assured Chinas continued isolation. These are some οf the conclusions that can now be drawn following the declassification οf secret correspondence between Mao and Stalin, the publication οf insiders memoirs, and the willingness οf some οf the surviving witnesses οf those fateful events to submit themselves to searching interviews by Chinese and Russian scholars. Findings thus accumulated now allow us to understand the motivations and actions οf these two communist leaders as they groped for a unified strategy during the formative years οf the PRC. While the published diary οf Pyotr Vlasov (Vladimirov), Stalins personal representative in Yanan in 1942-1945, (Vladimirov 1-3) is tarnished by the injection οf anti-Mao polemics, the insights it offers into Stalins hostility toward Mao retain their value. More important to our subject are the reminiscences οf Ivan Kovalyov, Stalins trusted aide, who attended all top-level meetings in 19481950 and who, like Vlasov, had near-unlimited access to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai during his service in China. At considerable risk to himself Kovalyov preserved copies οf Stalins secret cables to Mao. Maos cables to Stalin have been published in Beijing. Chinese sources include the slender memoirs οf Wu Xiuquan, Zhous favorite aide, and the rich recollections οf Shi Zhe (Karsky), since 1940 Maos personal interpreter who also operated the portable radio-transmitter to maintain Maos communications with Stalin. Shi Zhe served as interpreter in every meeting Mao, Zhou, and Liu Shaoqi had with Soviet leaders in those critical years, often alongside Kovalyov. Mutual dislike between the two aides adds an extra dimension to their reminiscences. Like Wu, Shi was trained in Moscow and was for a while attached to the Chinese delegation to the Comintern. Arrested on Maos orders in 1962, he was kept in confinement for 17 years but, as I discovered in my conversations with him in 1989, this experience did not shake his belief in Maos greatness. Such was not the case with several other interpreters οf Mao and Zhou, an exceedingly knowledgeable group οf people whom I met in Beijing. While declassification οf documents has been slow, Chinese researchers with access to state and party archives have produced many valuable studies and sometimes granted interviews to other scholars. Most welcome also, are recent memoirs οf former North Korean officials who have broken the silence they had maintained for forty years. (Yu Song-chol 8-9) Mao Zedong on the Role οf the Soviet Union, January 1957 Chinas drive toward economic modernization on the Soviet model was beginning to stall, and the Soviets were making China pay handsomely for aid. Agricultural production had plateaued. The solution, said Mao, was "continuing revolution" -- mobilization οf society on a gigantic scale. The peasantry would voluntarily form shock battalions to bring new lands into production while organizing themselves into communes with "community dining rooms, kindergartens, nurseries, sewing groups, barber shops, public baths, and happy homes for the aged." But the commune life proved a severe disincentive, and the diversion οf labor into reclaiming marginal land dropped production rather than increasing it. Meanwhile, in the cities, neighborhood groups were urged to start backyard "steel mills," which produced mostly slag. Before long, famine surged through the countryside, and deaths, according to later official figures, exceeded 20 million between 1959 and 1962. Maos Great Leap and its obvious failure was derided by the Soviet Union, Chinas principal ally. The theory οf "continuing revolution" looked like the heresy οf Trotskyism, and Maos demand that the USSR share with China the secret οf making thermonuclear weapons was unnerving, particularly in the aftermath οf PRC attacks on Nationalist-held islands in the Taiwan Straits. In September 1960, after a continuing series οf disputes, the USSR withdrew all its 1,390 experts working in China, taking with them their blueprints. According to the PRC, 343 contracts were summarily canceled and 257 other technical projects halted. With the immense failure οf the Great Leap and his inability to manage relations with the USSR apparent, Mao now "retired from the front line," leaving others in the leadership group -- Liu Shaoqi the head οf state, Zhou Enlai the premier, and Deng Xiaoping, the secretary-general οf the CCP -- to find ways to make good the nations losses. Revolutionary enthusiasm was dethroned and more pragmatic policies introduced. By 1965 agricultural production had reached the pre -- Great Leap levels οf 1957, light industry was expanding at 27 percent annually, and heavy industry at 17 percent. Domestic oil production was up tenfold, thanks to the new wells at Daqing. The party professionals formula οf slow, steady progress seemed to point the way to Chinas future. Mao Zedong on Soviet Intentions, July 1958 In the year 1958, on the eve οf his campaign, roughly 8,000 historical monuments were listed as still standing in the capital. Mao planned to keep only 78 οf them; most were destroyed. Ignorant himself, Mao saw to it that others were kept ignorant as well. Contrary to widespread Western belief, he spent less on the education οf his countrymen than had his predecessors. He also ruthlessly limited access to learning. His policy, write Chang and Halliday, "was not to raise the general standard οf education in society as a whole, but to focus on a small elite, predominantly in science and other useful subjects." All other Chinese were to remain "illiterate or semi-literate slave laborers." The subordination οf Chinese to Soviet interests was clearest in the conflict with Japan during World War II. Like Chiang Kai-Shek, Mao recognized that war with Japan would be a disaster for China. But Stalin, fearing a Japanese invasion οf the USSR from the east, wanted it, and Mao quickly grasped how it would serve his own purposes. By permitting the Japanese to destroy Chiangs forces while simultaneously helping to keep the USSR strong, he would be well placed to supplant Chiang as Chinese leader. Hence, according to Chang and Halliday, the successful effort by Communists in the military to start such a war, and hence Maos decision--again utterly contrary to received myth--to sit it out. Οf course some patriotic Chinese Communists could not swallow this, but Mao saw to them, too. At his redoubt in Yanan, and helped by the ghoulish secret-police expert Kang Sheng, he carried out purges οf a number who threatened his will, dispatching them to a state-of-the-art torture facility called the "Date Garden." (Well-known to locals, this place is not mentioned by any οf the Westerners who visited Mao and his wartime capital.) Over the following decades, he systematically eliminated others, with many finally perishing in the Cultural Revolution three decades later. Mao was a consummate manipulator. With solid documentation, Chang and Halliday argue that the Hundred Flowers campaign, in which critics οf the regime spoke out only to be arrested, was not a product οf miscalculation (as it is presented in accounts by Maos sympathizers) but a carefully laid trap. Similarly, the disastrous Great Leap Forward grew not out οf a Marxist fascination with industrialization but out οf Maos determination to extract food from the Chinese people to pay for weapons imports and gifts to foreign leaders. The Cultural Revolution, finally, which the authors rightly call "the great purge," had nothing to do with renewing an ossified party and everything to do with simple revenge. One οf the most striking examples οf Maos manipulative skills was on display in the early 1970s in connection with the Nixon administrations "opening" to China. This, too, we learn here, was a carefully baited trap, and entirely Maos idea rather than Washingtons. By the time Nixon arrived for his famous visit in February 1972, he was convinced that, as between himself and Mao, "he was the keener οf the two." But by then Henry Kissinger had already made his own secret visit in July 1971 as Nixons national security adviser, bearing "many and weighty gifts and ask[ing] for nothing in return." Not only did Kissinger offer Taiwan on a platter, write Chang and Halliday, but he promised an American withdrawal from both Vietnam and Korea. Mao Zedong’s Notes on Sino-Soviet Affairs, December 1959 Given Stalins earlier history οf support for the Kuomintang (KMT) and his tacit acceptance οf Chiang Kai-sheks unrelenting efforts to destroy the CCP, his sensitivity was understandable. This was amplified during the war years by a well-founded perception οf Maos "disloyalty" to the USSR and his yearning for friendship with the United States. In addition, Stalin had never developed effective control over the CCP; the Comintern had maintained only a tenuous connection with the CCP via short-wave radio and occasional couriers. The more pliable Chinese "internationalists" resided primarily in Moscow while Mao, since 1943 the undisputed CCP leader, led peasant armies in the struggle against the KMT. From Stalins perspective, this struggle weakened Chinas capacity to resist Japan, Russias historical enemy, which had threatened its vast, though thinly populated, Far Eastern region since the turn οf the century. In his effort to check Japanese expansion in Asia, Stalin found in the KMT the only conceivable partner. That this same KMT since 1927 had been bent on exterminating Chinese communists was unfortunate but could not be helped; to Stalin, Soviet security took precedence over ideology. For Mao, although cooperation with the governing KMT was desirable, submission to it was out οf the question. With due regard to Chinas dire need to resist the Japanese onslaught and the CCP obligation to preserve a credible appearance οf international communist unity, Maos paramount task was to assure CCP survival. This called for internal cohesiveness--which he perceived as being undermined by the "internationalist" wing οf the party, sheltered by Chiangs ally, Stalin. So serious appeared this threat that Mao devoted much οf his attention during the Yanan years to weeding out Moscows influence in the party. The end οf the war changed Stalins attitude toward the CCP. Anticipating that the Nationalists, having seized Japanese weapons and equipment in China, would defeat CCP forces and establish at least a nominal control over the country, Stalin instructed his representative in Yanan to inform Mao that in matters affecting the Far East, the Soviet Union would deal exclusively with Chiang Kai-shek. The implication, οf course, was that Stalin owed Mao no gratitude and had no commitment to his cause, ideological or otherwise. The Soviet group was instructed to return to Moscow, leaving behind its radio-transmitting equipment as a farewell present. With the departure οf the Russians, Maos direct connection with Stalin was terminated. Works Cited Li Yuezhan, Wai Jiao Wu Tat Shang De Xin Zhong Guo Ling Xiu (The Leaders οf New China in the Diplomatic Arena), Beijing, 1989, pp. 10-15. Vladimirov, P. P., Osobyi Rayon Kitaya, 1942-1945 ("Chinas Special Area, 1942-1945"), Moscow, 1973. Yu Song-chol, FBIS-EAS-90-213, November 2, 1990-January 7, 1991. Read More