Introduction

The development of the world revolutionary process shows with increasing clarity the tremendous effect the Great October Socialist Revolution has had on that process, and the tasks of investigating the relations between the first socialist state in the world, born that October, and other countries and peoples is becoming increasingly more important. The task of studying Sino-Soviet relations is of primary importance in this regard, for without such study it is impossible to arrive at an accurate view of the true picture of the modern world.

The history of relations between the Soviet Union and China is not simply a history of interstate ties between two countries. It is inseparable from the chronicles of the national liberation and revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people; the most important facet of that struggle is the theme of help and support rendered by the Soviet Union. Relations with the USSR during the post-October period played an exceptionally important role in the development of China and became an integral factor in the root transformations which occurred in Chinese society. It is here that the Great October Socialist Revolution, which V. I. Lenin called a turning point for the world and a new chapter in world history, found its concrete manifestation in terms of international value.

The October Revolution tore a gigantic hole in the world capitalist system, and to an enormous degree lessened the pressure of imperialist powers on China, thus making immeasurably more simple the struggle of the Chinese people for social and national liberation. The result of the October Revolution was not only to remove Russia from the ranks of imperialist states threatening the national independence of China, but also to convert Russia into a country solidly supporting the national liberation struggle of the Chinese workers; ultimately this was the most important international factor in the successful development of that struggle.

Leading revolutionary figures in China did not hesitate to praise the October Revolution’s historical importance to their own country’s destiny. One of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Professor Li Ta-chao, wrote, “A workers’ and peasants’ state and government was born in the flame of the October Revolution. This state is the motherland, the vanguard, and the great stronghold for workers and peasants throughout the world.”¹

In its relations with China, the Soviet Union has steadfastly held to class positions, constantly proceeding on the basis of interests of revolutionary forces of the Chinese people. Guided by the principles of proletarian internationalism, Soviet Communists considered it to be their duty to help the Chinese working class establish, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, its political vanguard—the CCP.

From its very beginning the CCP had to function in a complicated and difficult situation. Sharply focused was the task of developing flexible strategy and tactics for a revolutionary struggle responsive to the historical conditions of a semifeudal and semicolonial China. Our Leninist party willingly came to the aid of the young CCP, in helping the training of Marxist cadres and in handing over to the CCP its theoretical legacy and the wealth of practical experience gained in the long struggle of the Russian proletariat.

V. I. Lenin devoted a great deal of attention to the development of the Chinese revolution. His theoretical works on the national-colonial question, his advice to the Communists in the East, and his talks with the Chinese representatives in the Comintern formed the basis for the revolutionary strategy and tactics of the CCP. Such of Lenin’s works as Report to the II All-Russian Congress of Communistic Organizations of the Peoples of the East, Report of the Commission on National and Colonial Questions to the II Congress of the Comintern, Better Less, But Better, and many others, illumined the path of struggle for the Chinese people.

The Comintern was of great theoretical assistance to the CCP, making valuable contributions to solutions of the most important problems surrounding the revolutionary movement in China, including such problems as building the party, hegemony of the working class, questions of allies of the working class, role of the peasantry in China, a unified anti-imperialist front, establishment of revolutionary bases in the country-side, and the building of a Chinese Red Army.

As Chinese Communists have admitted, positions taken on questions of the revolutionary struggle in China, as set forth in our party’s documents, and including speeches by J. V. Stalin, during the 1920s and 1930s, were invaluable to the CCP. They touched on the problems of the motivating forces of the Chinese revolution, its peculiarities and basic tasks at various stages. They countained conclusions with respect to the inevitability of development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in China into a socialist revolution, to the need for transition to an armed struggle against militant counterrevolutionary forces, and to the role of the united front.

Such Chinese Communist-internationalists as Li Ta-chao, P’eng P’ai, Teng Chung-hsia, Ch’ü Ch’iu-pai, Ts’ai Ho-shen, Fang Chih-min, and others were well aware of the magnitude of help and support given by our party and country in the successful development of the revolutionary movement in China. “The Chinese Communist-internationalists, the best sons of the Chinese people,” said the greetings from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the CCP, “have constantly stressed the importance of unity with the working class in the USSR, with the Soviet people, and with the CPSU in the victory of the Chinese revolution.”² The Chinese Communists-internationalists did much to educate members of the CCP, as well as Chinese workers, in the spirit of loyalty to the ideas of October and to the brotherly friendship between the peoples of China and the Soviet Union.

As early as December 1917 the Soviet government proposed to the government of China that the question of Sino-Soviet relations be reviewed from the standpoint of foreign policy principles of the first socialist state. The Soviet government took the initiative in holding talks with the Peking government, formally considered the national government of China, concerning the annulment of inequitable treaties and the establishment of relations based on the principles of equality and mutual respect for sovereignty. The Soviet government announced the return to the Chinese people of everything that had been taken from them by the Tsarist government independently, or jointly with Japan and other powers.

The workers and peasants of revolutionary Russia declared their brotherly solidarity with the workers of China. The Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR, led by V. I. Lenin, on July 25, 1919, issued an appeal to the Chinese people, and to the governments of South and North China, which said, “We bring freedom to the people from the yoke of the foreign bayonet and from the yoke of foreign gold, which oppress the enslaved peoples of the East, including in particular the Chinese people. We bring help not only to our working classes, but the Chinese people as well. . . .”³

Victorious revolutionary Russia from the very beginning was inseparably linked with the national liberation movement in China, providing it with every conceivable assistance and support. The brightest pages in the history of Sino-Soviet relations were those written during the years of the heroic struggle of the Chinese people against the Japanese aggressors (1937–1945). The truly internationalist position of our country with respect to China was clearly manifested during this period of the most terrible of national trials of the Chinese people. “When the war against the Japanese invaders began in 1937,” stated the VII Congress of the CCP, “the Soviet Union once again was the first to come to the aid of China in its struggle against the aggressor.”⁴

The rout of the crack Kwantung Army in 1945 by Soviet troops supported by armed forces of the Mongolian People’s Republic and the People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) played a decisive role in the defeat of militaristic Japan, and in the complete expulsion of the Japanese occupiers from Chinese soil, and was, as well, the most important international factor in the victory of the Chinese revolution. Manchuria, liberated by Soviet troops, became a dependable military and strategic base of operations for Chinese revolutionary forces. It was from this base that Chinese Communists led the people in the decisive struggle against the corrupt Kuomintang regime.

The formation in October 1949 of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and its embarkation on the path of socialism, opened a new stage in the development of Sino-Soviet relations. The liquidation of the reactionary Kuomintang regime removed obstacles in the path of the Chinese people to establishing close cooperation and friendship with the Soviet people. The historical tendencies toward a close rapprochement between the two countries received a broad base for development. In the USSR, the new China found a dependable friend and ally in the struggle to liquidate economic backwardness, to strengthen its international position, and to build a socialist society.

The first decade of the existence of the PRC provided convincing proof that there were present all of the objective conditions for development of Sino-Soviet relations in this direction, and that this development corresponded to the basic interests of the workers of the Soviet Union, China, and the peoples of all countries. Unswervingly implementing the Leninist internationalist course with respect to China, the CPSU and the Soviet government were tireless in their efforts to develop and strengthen friendship, unity, and all-around cooperation between the USSR and the PRC, between the CPSU and the CCP, and between the peoples of the two countries.

Nevertheless, by the end of the 1950s, negative tendencies became more and more obvious in Sino-Soviet relations, and the fault could not be attributed to our country. These negative tendencies continued to increase and become more pronounced, despite steps taken by the Soviet side. The result was deviation by the PRC from the policy of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, and a slide into a position of struggle against them. It is quite clear that the interrelationship between the PRC and the Soviet Union not only affects the basic interests of the Soviet and Chinese peoples, but even has a farreaching influence on the international situation as a whole, seriously affecting the alignment of class forces in the international arena.

In order to justify their splitting course, Chinese leaders distort the real reasons of their hostility toward the USSR and other socialist countries. They want to obliterate from the memory of the Chinese people all good things about the Soviet Union and to indoctrinate them in a spirit of hostility to all things Soviet, while simultaneously preparing conditions that will strengthen the policy of anti-Sovietism in the future. Anti-Soviet forces in Peking grossly distort generally known facts of the history of Sino-Soviet relations, pile up slanderous accusations against our party and country, attempt to pervert the principles of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, distort and slur the true role of the CPSU and of the USSR in the international arena, and cause other peoples to distrust and become hostile to our party and our country. It is no accident that reactionary bourgeois propaganda willingly seizes on these fabrications, for it sees in them important support in the struggle against socialism. Thoroughly falsified conceptions of the development of Sino-Soviet relations have been the basis for popular brochures and multi-volumed “researches” that have so numerously appeared in recent years in the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, and other capitalist countries.

However, any attempts to distort the truth of Sino-Soviet relations or to use various false documents in order to slander the Leninist foreign policy of the world’s first socialist state are doomed to failure. The history of Sino-Soviet relations is a bright chronicle of events providing irrefutable evidence that the policy of the CPSU and of the Soviet state with respect to the PRC is faithfully directed at strengthening the brotherly friendship and cooperation between our two countries, and providing every kind of help and support to the Chinese people in their struggle for socialism.

Moreover, history shows that development of Sino-Soviet relations was not a simple and direct matter, as has been depicted in the works of some authors published in the 1940s and 1950s. Rather it was a complex and contradictory process, reflecting the struggle of two lines: the consistent line of the CPSU directed at strengthening friendship and cooperation between our parties, peoples, and countries, and, in opposition to this, the line of the nationalistic and antisocialist forces in China.

Evaluations of the principles and a detailed analysis of the policies of the present Chinese leadership are contained in a series of documents published by our party, in decisions of Plenums of the CC CPSU, and in speeches made by Soviet leaders. These documents reveal the characteristics of the status of Sino-Soviet relations at various stages, review the process by which they developed, and set forth the course of the Soviet Union.

Many moments in the history of Sino-Soviet relations after formation of the PRC are discussed in the works of Soviet authors published in recent years. A great many documents and handbook materials on this question have been published in our country, as well as in foreign countries.

The present study attempts to generalize available data and thus trace the development of Sino-Soviet relations during the period 1945— 1970, in order to show the basic directions of international assistance and support given the revolutionary forces in China by the CPSU, the genuine Leninist character of the policy of our party and of the Soviet state with respect to the PRC, and the total correspondence between this policy and the basic interests of the Soviet and Chinese peoples.

NOTES

1. Li Ta-chao, lzbrannyye stat’i i rechi (Collected Articles and Speeches) (Moscow, 1965), p. 194.

2. Pravda, July 1, 1966.

3. Sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya. 1917–1957. Sbornik dokumentov (Sino-Soviet Relations. 1917—1957. A Collection of Documents, hereinafter referred to as Sino-Soviet Relations, 1917–1957) (Moscow, 1959), p. 43.

4. Mao Tse-tung, lzbrannyye proizvedeniya (Selected Works), Vol. 4 (Moscow, 1953), p. 552.