Conclusion

A twenty-five year history of Sino-Soviet relations, as set forth in this survey, seems an extremely short segment in the chronicles of such great nations as the Soviet Union and the PRC. Nevertheless, these years cover an unusually critical period in the life of the Chinese people, a period of the birth and building of the new, socialist China.

Study of the history of Sino-Soviet relations between 1945 and 1970 leads to the indisputable conclusion that friendship and cooperation between the USSR and China are in the basic interest of peoples of both countries, as well as in the interests of peace, democracy, and socialism throughout the world. The help and support provided by the Soviet Union at all stages of China’s most recent development played an important role in the national liberation and revolutionary struggle of the Chinese workers. Each time Sino-Soviet relations drew closer, revolutionary forces in China strengthened their position, the progressive movement received additional impetus, and reaction suffered a setback. Conversely, weakening of such ties reflected very negatively on the political climate in the PRC, led to a reduction in revolutionary ardor, encouraged development of nationalism, and opened the way for internal reaction to collude with imperialism.

The help given revolutionary forces by the Soviet Union continued to retain its high order of importance even after the founding of the PRC in 1949. With a relatively small and politically divided industrial proletariat, the transition from the bourgeois democratic stage of the revolution to the socialist stage required special conditions for strengthening the leading role of the working class, and for increasing the proportion of its membership in the party. The relative political weakness of the working class in China was compensated by its close alliance with the international workers’ and Communist movement, and in particular by its alliance with the most powerful country of socialism—the Soviet Union.

The reactionary, anti-socialist forces in China are well aware that an obstacle in the path of their dominance is friendship and cooperation between the Chinese and Soviet peoples. That is why the struggle against revolutionary, socialist development in China has always been and continues to be waged under the slogan of anti-Sovietism. It is no accident that anti-Sovietism became the banner of the organizers of the “cultural revolution,” who set themselves the task of converting the PRC into a military bureaucratic dictatorship. Anything reminiscent of the Soviet Union stirred hatred and fear in the instigators of the “cultural revolution,” because, so far as the broadest masses of Chinese people were concerned, the concept of “Soviet” was unequivocally associated with the concept of “socialist.”

The history of Sino-Soviet relations confirms yet another irrevocable truth: the open transition of today’s leaders of the PRC to a position of anti-Sovietism was neither unexpected nor random in nature. From its very inception, the CCP has been torn by a sharp struggle between two lines; the international Marxist-Leninist, and the nationalist petty bourgeois. The champions of the latter line are today’s Peking leaders. Those leaders who seized power in the party and the country as a result of the “cultural revolution” have foisted on the PRC an anti-Soviet course, which they had long favored, but had previously found impossible to implement.

The CPSU has never been an indifferent observer of the development of Sino-Soviet relations. The history of these relations is a history of an active, aggressive, and uncompromising struggle by the CPSU for friendship and cooperation between our countries and peoples. Our party has exhibited a sincere interest in settling disagreements on the basis of Marxist-Leninist principles at all stages of disagreements between the CCP, the CPSU, and other Marxist-Leninist parties. It has made every effort to prevent transference of ideological disputes into interstate relations. The fraternal parties have repeatedly pointed out that the policy of the Soviet Union in relations with the PRC during its transition to the present leadership has been a model of self-restraint, deep understanding of its historical responsibility to the cause of world socialism, and detailed consideration of interests of both Soviet and Chinese peoples. Attempts of Maoist and bourgeois historiography to burden our party and country with responsibility for exacerbation of Sino-Soviet relations are refuted by reality.

The consistent course of the CPSU, aimed at development and strengthening of Sino-Soviet friendship, encouraged the influence of internationalist forces in the CCP. It was no secret that there were forces among the CCP leadership capable of assuming positions hostile to the Soviet Union at the opportune time. However, our party proceeded from the position that the help rendered the CCP would achieve its primary intents, those of assisting the struggle of the Chinese people and of indoctrinating Chinese Communists in a spirit of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. It can be confidently asserted that without this help nationalist elements would much earlier have imposed their will on the CCP.

Moreover, the history of Sino-Soviet relations consistently confirms how dangerous nationalism is to the cause of friendship and cooperation between socialist countries, particularly in the case of a country recently embarked on the road to socialism and not yet rid of the rejection by current leaders of the principles of proletarian internationalism. This anomalous situation clearly recalls Lenin’s instruction that the struggle:

. . . with the most ingrained petty bourgeois, national prejudices, the more it is pushed to the forefront, the more essential becomes the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national one (that is, from one existing in but a single country and incapable of setting world policies) into an international one (that is, into a dictatorship of the proletariat including at the very least several advanced countries capable of exerting a decisive influence on world policies).¹

The imperialist camp does not disguise its satisfaction with the exacerbation of Sino-Soviet relations. The ideologues of anti-Communism are trying to prove that this course of events is “natural and inevitable,” that a return to friendly and cooperative relations between the USSR and the PRC is impossible because they supposedly cannot overcome contradictions in their national interests. This provocative thesis also appears in the arsenal of Maoist propaganda, which is trying to impress on the Chinese people that there is a threat “from the North.”

However, as the history of Sino-Soviet relations attests, there can be no objective reasons for alienation, let alone for the peoples actually fighting each other. Quite the contrary, all prerequisites for friendship and cooperation are present, based as they are on the requirements for the successful development of the USSR and the PRC, as well as the needs of the world revolutionary process.

Our party constantly educates the Soviet people in a spirit of friendship and deep respect for the Chinese people, for their history and culture, for the heroic deeds of their workers in the struggle for liberation from foreign oppressors, and for the revolutionary transformation of their motherland. The Soviet Union consistently champions the interests of the PRC in the international arena and decisively rebuffs any imperialist attempts to exacerbate relations between our countries.

Our party’s affirmative course concerning friendship with China is combined with its decisive struggle against the anti-Leninist, antipopular nature of political and ideological aims of the current Peking leaders. It condemns the PRC’s schismatic, anti-Soviet activities. This is a component of overall efforts of other Marxist-Leninist parties, and the entire world Communist movement, in their struggle for the Communist Party of China, for a socialist China, and for a bright future for the Chinese people.

NOTES

1. V. I. Lenin, Complete Collected Works, Vol. 41, p. 165.