CHAPTER ONE

The Rout of Japanese Imperialism—One of the
Decisive Factors in the Victory of the
Chinese Revolution. Sino-Soviet Relations
(1945–1949)

The Chinese Revolution was the result of both development of the international situation and deep internal processes, at the basis of which were the ever-increasing aggravation of class contradictions in the country and the intensification of national liberation tendencies. The crux of these contradictions, the basic motivating forces, and the tasks of the revolution determined its antifeudal, anti-imperialistic, democratic character.

At the same time, the Chinese Revolution is a clear indication that in the modern epoch the success of the revolutionary movement in any country, and particularly in a country in which the proletariat is relatively weak and where the party must depend primarily on the revolutionary character of broad, petty bourgeois layers, depends to a tremendous degree on the help and support its movement receives from places where socialism already has triumphed. Without such support, successful development of the revolution and transition to the building of socialism are impossible.

Considering the Chinese revolution from this point of view, it must be emphasized that one of the most decisive factors in its successful development was the victory of the peace-loving, progressive forces in World War II over German Fascism and Japanese militarism, the decisive contribution to that victory having been made by the Soviet Union.

The period 1945–1949 occupies a special place in the history of the Chinese revolution. During this stage of its development, revolutionary forces in China were able to take advantage not only of generally favorable conditions prevailing as a result of liberation by the Soviet Army of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, but also of the direct aid and support of the Soviet Union in the struggle to overthrow the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek domination. At the same time, it is important to note that Yenan was surrendered to the Kuomintang in 1947 and lost its importance as the center of the revolutionary forces. From that time the main stronghold of the Chinese people in the struggle against the Chiang Kai-shek regime and its imperialistic accomplices was the military and revolutionary base in Manchuria.

The period 1945–1949 is important as well because the foundation was laid down for cooperation between the two countries, which after 1949 took on a comprehensive character. This is why the period deserves special consideration as an important prerequisite to the development of Sino-Soviet relations after the formation of the PRC, considering the fact that in Soviet historiography the years 1945–1949 have been dealt with very one-sidedly, and at times even incorrectly.

1. Manchuria in the anti-Soviet plans of Japanese militarism

Japanese militarists in their struggles against Communism, the Soviet Union, and the revolutionary forces of China assigned paramount importance to the establishment of a military and strategic base in Manchuria. Direct aggression was the weapon used for these purposes. In 1932 Japan set up the puppet state of Manchukuo and began feverish exploitation of the military and economic resources of this region, which, in terms of size of territory (1,100,000 square kilometers within the 1944–1945 boundaries), and in specific weight of industrial production (over 20 percent of the industrial production of China as a whole), occupied an important place.

Japanese militarists used fire and sword to put down revolutionary actions of Chinese workers in Manchuria. Dispatching crack troops and police units to the region, they converted Manchuria into one big concentration camp. Japanese militarists, the worst enemies of both the Soviet and Chinese peoples, in cooperation with the Hitlerites, nurtured plans for further expansion of aggression against our peoples, as well as for a campaign against Singapore, Indochina, Thailand, Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

The Japanese General Staff, in initiating the war in Southeast Asia, looked forward to an easy victory. Japan made great territorial gains in the area, and far from rejecting the idea of war against the USSR, actually was tireless in preparing for it. The Kwantung Army in Manchuria was in a state of constant readiness to be hurled northward. The Japanese government simply was awaiting a “decisive victory” by Germany, first the “fall of Moscow,” then the “fall of Stalingrad.” The Japanese press openly demanded annexation of the Soviet Far East. The great Siberian Railroad, together with adjacent regions to the west of Omsk, was to pass to Germany, with those to the east of Omsk going to Japan.

The Japanese General Staff developed “Operation Kantokuan,” along the lines of the Fascist “Operation Barbarossa,” which was aimed at conquering the USSR. The Japanese command in Manchuria was engaged exclusively in preparing to carry out this plan. The Japanese imperialists believed their conquests in China and in Southeast Asia could not be lasting if the Soviet Union were not defeated, because those initiating partisan warfare against Japanese occupiers regarded the Soviet Union as a base of support.

Japanese imperialists systematically violated the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact, coordinating with Fascist Germany their plans for attacking the USSR. On May 15, 1942, Ribbentrop, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Third Reich, telegraphed Tokyo that concentrations of Japanese forces on the Soviet-Manchurian border helped Germany greatly, “since in any case Russia has to keep troops in Eastern Siberia in order to prevent a Russo-Japanese conflict.”¹

The Japanese command set up military bases in rapid succession along the Soviet and Mongolian borders, built strategically important railroads and highways in Manchuria, and stockpiled rolling stock and fuel. Between 1941 and 1945 Japanese naval forces stopped 178 Soviet merchant ships and sank over 10 Soviet cargo and passenger ships in Far Eastern waters. Diversionary groups constantly made incursions into Soviet territory from Manchuria. Japanese intelligence systematically supplied Berlin with espionage information on the Soviet Union.

After the capitulation of Hitler’s Germany, Japanese imperialists continued the war in the Pacific, refusing to lay down their arms and recognize defeat. Their main hope rested on the Kwantung Army, deployed in Manchuria, which as of mid-1945 was fully equipped and manned with crack units. The Japanese militarists believed that this army, with its military and industrial bases in Manchuria untouched by American aviation, would hold out until more favorable conditions enabled it finally to play a decisive role. They also were preparing to use bacteriological weapons in order to turn the war in their favor. This was established irrefutably by materials introduced at the Khabarovsk trial of Japanese war criminals. The Japanese General Staff had organized large-scale production in Manchurian occupied territories of plague, cholera, typhus, and other epidemic bacteria. Mass “tests” of the use of bacteriological warfare were held there over whole populated regions.

The Supreme Command of the United States and England did not plan to conduct “decisive” operations against Japan until 1946–1947. Churchill told the House of Commons on August 16, 1945 that no one could determine how much time would be required to conduct these “decisive” operations.

At the beginning of August 1945 the Kwantung Army comprised the 1st and 3rd Fronts, the 4th Independent, and 2nd Air armies. It later was reinforced with the 17th Front and 5th Air armies. The Kwantung Army had over 1,000 tanks, 5,000 guns of various calibers, and 1,800 aircraft. The Army’s personnel had long been indoctrinated in the spirit of samurai militaristic traditions, and hatred of Soviet, Chinese, and Mongol peoples. The Kwantung command also had at its disposal the puppet army of Manchukuo (some 190,000 men) and puppet units in regions in Inner Mongolia and Suiyuan province occupied by the Japanese.^*

2. The rout of the Kwantung Army and the capitulation of Japan

The situation that evolved in China during the anti-Japanese war, splitting the nation and damaging the united front, created conditions favorable to Japanese imperialism. China therefore was unable to cope with international reactions threatening the national independence of the country. And that is why efforts of the Soviet Union at the time were devoted to providing armed assistance to the struggling Chinese people, and to rallying them under the flag of a united anti-Japanese front.

The Soviet Union considered the struggle with Japanese imperialism as part of the overall problem of progressive, peace-loving forces coming out against the aggressive plans of extreme imperialist reaction, plans that found their organized formulation in the piratical union of the “Axis countries,” Germany, Italy, and Japan. Even before the complete rout of Fascism in Europe, the Soviet government at the Yalta Conference, on February 11, 1945, obligated itself to enter the war against Japan within two to three months after the capitulation of Hitler’s Germany.

In assuming this obligation the Soviet Union not only carried out its duties as an ally to the states of the anti-Hitler coalition, but evidenced true internationalism as well, unhesitatingly coming to the assistance of the Chinese and other peoples in their struggle for liberation from Japanese aggressors. At the Yalta Conference the Soviet Union expressed its readiness to conclude a treaty of friendship and alliance with China in order to help, with its armed forces, to liberate China from the Japanese yoke.²

Within three months after the victory over Hitlerite Germany the Soviet Union had transferred heavy military forces and equipment to the Far East. At the beginning of military operations against the Japanese militarists the Soviet side had in readiness an army of 1,500,000 men, over 26,000 guns and mortars, over 5,500 tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces, and almost 3,900 combat aircraft.³ The warships of the Pacific Fleet and of the Red Banner Amur Flotilla were placed on a combat footing as well.

Marshals of the Soviet Union A. M. Vasilevskiy, R. Ya. Malinovskiy, and K. A. Meretskov, as well as other famous Soviet military commanders, supervised the operations for destroying the Kwantung Army.

On August 8, 1945 the Japanese ambassador in Moscow was handed the justified declaration of the Soviet government that as of August 9 the Soviet Union considered itself to be in a state of war with Japan.

On the morning of August 9 Soviet troops launched a simultaneous attack with forces assigned to the three Fronts, the Transbaikal, the First Far Eastern, and the Second Far Eastern. The attack by Soviet troops developed with exceptionally rapid tempo. By August 12 the main body of the 6th Guards Tank Army, part of the Transbaikal Front, had crossed the Bol’shoy Khingan and broken out onto the Manchurian plain.

The entry of the USSR into the war against Japan, and the first successes of Soviet troops, shocked the ruling Japanese clique. On August 9 Prime Minister Suzuki told the members of Japan’s Supreme Council that “the Soviet Union’s entry in the war against Japan this morning finally has placed us in a hopeless situation, and makes further prolongation of the war impossible.”

The Chinese people greeted the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan with tremendous enthusiasm. Reflecting these feelings, Mao Tse-tung, on August 9, 1945, wrote that, “on the eighth of August the government of the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. The Chinese people greet this warmly. Thanks to this step on the part of the Soviet Union, the duration of the war with Japan has been considerably shortened. The war with Japan already is in its last stage. The hour has come for the final victory over the Japanese invaders, and all of their stooges.”⁴

The brilliant operations conducted by the Soviet Army and elements of the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Mongolian People’s Republic operating jointly in northeastern China resulted in rapid flight of the Japanese from Inner Mongolia and North China, and served as the signal for the 8th and New 4th armies, under the leadership of the CCP, to mount their offensive.

Stunned by the rout of the Kwantung Army, the Japanese actually yielded the major cities of Kalgan, Chengtu, and Chefoo to the PLA without a struggle. The result was to permit the revolutionary troops to enter Manchuria and make contact with Soviet units. The strongly fortified Japanese regions built along the Amur and Ussuri rivers, and the Bol’shoy Khingan Khrebet [mountain range], were breached at all points. Those Japanese units that did resist were encircled and bypassed. The lightning-like tactics of all branches of Soviet ground troops, airborne troops, and naval ships disrupted the plans of the Japanese militarists to use bacteriological weapons.^*

The blows inflicted by the Soviet Army and Navy were so crushing and so swift that the Japanese agreed to unconditional surrender.

The day after military operations were begun by the Soviet Army, Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shigenori Togo, made the following statement to Soviet Ambassador Ya. A. Malik:

The Japanese Government is ready to accept the conditions of the Declaration of 26 July of this year [the Potsdam Declaration—author], to which the Soviet Government is a party. The Japanese Government understands that this Declaration contains no demands infringing the prerogatives of the Emperor as the sovereign ruler of Japan. The Japanese government requests definite information as regards this.⁵

Nevertheless, Japanese troops continued to offer stiff resistance.

On August 11, 1945, the governments of the USSR, USA, China, and England demanded that Japan meet conditions for capitulation necessary to carry out the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and that she issue orders to Japanese armed forces, wherever found, to cease military operations and lay down their arms.

On August 14 the Japanese government announced that the Emperor of Japan had issued an Imperial proclamation regarding Japan’s acceptance of conditions of the Potsdam Declaration, and that he was prepared to ensure the signature of his government and that of Imperial General Headquarters to the conditions for implementation of the Potsdam Declaration provisions.

The “Imperial proclamation,” however, was merely a general declaration. In point of fact, no order to cease operations was issued to the Kwantung Army, and, as before, Japanese armed forces continued their resistance, in a number of cases even counterattacking.

On August 17, 1945 the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East, Marshal A. M. Vasilevskiy, transmitted the following radio message to the commander of the Kwantung Army.

Headquarters of Japan’s Kwantung Army has radioed headquarters Soviet Forces Far East a proposal to cease military operations, but nothing has been said about the surrender of Japanese armed forces in Manchuria.

At this same time Japanese troops have begun to counterattack along many sectors of the Soviet-Japanese front.

I propose to the commander that the troops of the Kwantung Army cease all combat operations against Soviet troops along the entire front, that they lay down their arms and consider themselves as prisoners, as of 1200 hours on August 20.

The above time is fixed in order to give the headquarters of the Kwantung Army time to issue orders to all its forces to cease resistance and become prisoners.

As soon as Japanese troops begin to give up their arms, Soviet forces will cease combat operations.⁶

The Soviet ultimatum was strengthened by decisive actions on the part of Soviet forces. The airborne units of the Soviet Army were particularly outstanding in Manchuria. Here is one example. On August 18 a big drop was made on Harbin airport, and the whole of its territory was taken in a matter of minutes. The Deputy Chief of Staff of the 1st Far Eastern Front, Major General G. A. Shelakhov, was among those making the drop. The Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, Lieutenant General Hata, arrived at the airport shortly thereafter. G. A. Shelakhov demanded assurances of immediate, unconditional surrender of Japanese units in the Harbin area, and proposed to General Hata that he proceed by Soviet aircraft to the 1st Far Eastern Front’s command post in order to reach agreement on questions concerned with disarmament and surrender of the Kwantung Army. On August 19 Hata, with accompanying Japanese generals and officers, arrived at the Soviet command point, where they met Marshal Vasilevskiy, who presented the Japanese general with conditions for becoming prisoners and for disarming the Kwantung Army.

At the same time the Soviet landing force in Harbin took the bridges across the Sungari River, as well as some most important objectives in the city. Our forces entered the USSR Consulate General, which was surrounded by Japanese soldiers and police. As it turned out, the Japanese had planned on sending consular employees, headed by Consul General G. I. Pavlychev, to the city of Dal’niy for internment and then on to Japan. Only the arrival of the Soviet troops prevented the Japanese from carrying out this plan.

A Soviet airborne landing in Mukden on August 19 found and captured at the airfield the puppet “Emperor” of Manchukuo, Henry Pu-yi himself. Pu-yi was waiting for an airplane to take him to Japan. Soviet airborne forces occupied Changchun and captured the commander of the Kwantung Army, Lieutenant General Yamada.

Total losses incurred by the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria during the period from August 9 to 20, 1945, in dead and captured, and not counting those missing, numbered some 700,000 officers and men (of whom 594,148 were prisoners). This was considerably in excess of personnel losses inflicted on the Japanese armed forces on all fronts over the preceding four years of World War II. The troops assigned to just two of our Fronts captured 1,565 guns, 2,139 mortars and grenade throwers, 600 tanks, 861 aircraft, and other armaments.

The rout by Soviet forces of the strongest disposition of Japanese ground forces, the Kwantung Army, and not the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, predetermined the rapid capitulation of militaristic Japan.

". . . The Soviet Army entered Manchuria and completely routed and destroyed the Kwantung Army,” declared Chu Teh, the commander of the armed forces of the Chinese revolution, “thus forcing the Japanese militarists to surrender.”⁷ Developing this thought, the Chinese press wrote at the time:

. . . when the Soviet Union moved its army and the Japanese Kwantung Army was smashed, the dreams of the Japanese aggressors of converting Manchuria into a lair for their last fight vanished. No out other than that of unconditional surrender remained. This is persuasive evidence of the fact that only the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war forced Japan into unconditional surrender, and that only the actions taken by the Soviet Army in liberating the northeastern provinces and Korea helped shorten considerably the period the allies had to wage war against Japan . . .⁸

The act of unconditional surrender by Japan was signed on board the battleship Missouri, in Tokyo Bay, on September 2, 1945. An auspicious future for further development of China’s struggle for national and social liberation had opened.

The treaty between the USSR and China was signed on August 14, 1945. It not only supported the national liberation struggle of the Chinese people, but also paved the way for the USSR to provide direct assistance to revolutionary and democratic forces in China, and made possible the establishment of conditions favorable for activities of the CCP. This treaty was a definite obstacle in the path of the anti-Soviet policy practiced for so many years by the forces of Chiang Kai-shek. The organ of the National Liberation Army of China, the newspaper Chien-Fang Jihpao, on August 27, 1945, wrote:

The treaty of friendship and union with the USSR is the first equitable treaty with a foreign state in the history of our country. The Chinese and Soviet peoples have united in a friendly, glorious union. We feel that this treaty is yet another manifestation of the policy of equality that the Soviet Union has always displayed in its relations with us. . . .

3. The situation in Manchuria after the rout of militaristic Japan

China continued to be divided into two camps after the capitulation of Japan. Chiang Kai-shek’s forces controlled three-fourths of the country’s territory. These forces were made up of a multi-million man army, which the Americans proceeded to arm at a rapid pace. The United States gave the antinational regime other aid as well, providing vast amounts of money and materiel, and political and diplomatic support, all of which was intensified by direct armed intervention in China’s internal affairs.

Manchuria, like all of China, was divided into two camps. The area west of Changchun and north of Kirin, as well as the Liaotung Peninsula, where, in accordance with the terms of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of August 14, 1945, Soviet troops were disposed, actually became the base of people’s power, led by the CCP. Democratic organs of people’s power created by free expression in this territory with a population of 150 millions began to prepare for radical social and economic transformations. The Kuomintang controlled the rest of Manchuria.

The Chinese Revolution commenced a period of gathering strength under conditions of peaceful development. Upon the initiative of the CCP, a decision was made at a meeting of Communist Party representatives and the Kuomintang, held between August 29 and October 10, 1945, to call a political consultative conference of representatives of all political parties and groups. The conference was to discuss questions concerned with building a democratic state and to prepare for the convocation of a National Congress to form a coalition government.

However, subsequent development of events revealed that the Chiang Kai-shek regime had set other goals. Under cover of slogans promoting creation of a coalition government, and with the support of American imperialism, they proceeded to establish their dictatorship in the country, and began to take action against revolutionary and democratic forces. In turn, the United States tried to use this situation to convert China into an American colony of sorts. The United States flooded the Kuomintang regions with advisors and emissaries who landed in Chinese ports and took direct part in military operations against Chinese revolutionary forces.^*9 American aircraft moved the Kuomintang Army into areas controlled by the CCP.

Given these conditions, the Soviet Union took active diplomatic measures to prevent aggression in China, aggression that Washington was practicing under the guise of aid to the Kuomintang. At the suggestion of the Soviet government, during the Moscow meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs of the USSR, the USA, and Great Britain in December 1945, a decision was made to confirm the policy of nonintervention in the internal affairs of China, to acknowledge the need to stop the civil war in China, and to unite and democratize all of the organs of the national government of the country.¹⁰

This same meeting also achieved “complete agreement with respect to the desirability of the withdrawal from China of Soviet and American armed forces as quickly as possible commensurate with the fulfillment by them of their obligations and their responsibilities.”¹¹ The Soviet command had presented the Kuomintang authorities with a plan for evacuation of its troops as early as November 1945, a plan which anticipated completion of the evacuation by December 3 of the same year. In accord with this plan, Soviet units withdrew from Yingkow and Hulutao, and from the area to the south of Shenyang. However, the Kuomintang government itself declared that it would “find itself in an extremely difficult situation” in the event of withdrawal of Soviet troops from Manchuria at the appointed time, because it would be unable to organize a civil administration by that time.¹² The Soviet government agreed to postpone the withdrawal of its troops from the northeastern provinces.¹³

Some time later the government of Chiang Kai-shek once again asked the Soviet government to postpone withdrawal of troops, playing for time to regroup its own, and the American armed forces, in order to capture the revolutionary base in Manchuria. At the same time, Kuomintang propaganda began to make provocative noises to the effect that the USSR had “seized” northeast China.

The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Manchuria began in March 1946, and ended on May 3 of that year.¹⁴ However, the Kuomintang was unable to use the withdrawal to strengthen its position in Manchuria. Chinese revolutionary troops and the people’s democratic administration, having won from the population a high degree of authority, took control of areas vacated by Soviet units, and established revolutionary order in them.

Soviet troops, having smashed the Kwantung Army, dismantled military arsenals and certain other enterprises that had serviced this army, which thus became trophies of the armed forces of the USSR. The Kuomintang militarists had counted on using all of these in the war against the PLA and the liberated regions. But these designs were thwarted.

The Kuomintang clique, infuriated by the failure of its plans, began a slanderous anti-Soviet campaign against the “export of equipment by the Soviet Union.” This campaign was readily taken up by imperialist propaganda. However, Chinese patriots understood that the steps taken by the Soviet Army prevented the Kuomintang from using Japanese military industry in Northeast China for purposes detrimental to the national interests of the Chinese people. After formation of the PRC, the Chinese Communists interpreted the question thus:

. . . if the equipment had not been taken away it would have fallen into the hands of Chiang Kai-shek’s army, which then would have used it to manufacture weapons and munitions in order to strengthen itself in its death agony, and the Chinese people would have spilled more blood in the liberation war. The Chinese people are well aware of the fact that the actions taken by the Soviet Army at that time were in the best interests of our people’s revolution. Practically speaking, this was a form of assistance, for which we should be extremely grateful.¹⁵

After the departure of Soviet troops from regions ruled by the Kuomintang administration (South Manchuria), the Chiang Kai-shekists resorted to repression of local democratic organizations, Soviet institutions, the consulates, and the Soviet section of the Chinese Changchun Railroad (CCRR) administration.

The Kuomintang forcibly removed the Soviet administration and Soviet railroad workers from their CCRR jobs on March 20, 1946. They seized warehouses and all railroad property and began to remove stolen goods to Peking. In Mukden, Sungkiang, Szepingkai, Liaoyuan, and other places, homes of Soviet railroad workers were surrounded by barbed wire, and Soviet citizens were not permitted to go beyond the limits of these reservations without the permission of the Kuomintang secret police. Efforts were made to force Soviet citizens to wear special arm bands and name tags on their chests. Soldiers burst into apartments of Soviet citizens, searched, plundered, mocked, and insulted. Many Soviet railroad workers were evicted from their quarters without being permitted to take the most basic necessities. In Mukden, on March 21, Fascist Chiang Kai-shek thugs shot four Soviet citizens, employees of a Soviet foreign trade organization. Kuomintang soldiers and officers bound six Soviet citizens, including the station master, Gorbachev, the division chief, Agapov, and his wife Tselikovskaya, the division engineer, in Liaoyuan station, then paraded them through the streets, to be jeered at and beaten unmercifully. Kuomintang authorities did not reply to the protests of the Soviet part of the CCRR administration. Moreover, General Tung Yang-ch’in, director of Chiang Kai-shek’s Northeast Headquarters, published in the press a declaration that he could not “guarantee the safety of Soviet citizens.” This was a direct incitement to new violence. The result was that in Changchun alone, after occupation by Kuomintang troops on April 20–21, 1946, 10 Soviet citizens were shot, five brutally tortured, and 11 others reported as missing. The homes and property of Soviet economic organizations and of the CCRR were plundered.

In all, 60 Soviet citizens who had been working for the CCRR were brutally tortured and killed, and over 200 families were robbed during the period of Kuomintang rule. The Kuomintang committed a number of terrorist acts against official representatives of the Soviet government as well.

The Kuomintang pogroms were carried out with the connivance or under the leadership of their American masters. American officers came in “jeeps” and photographed the “excesses” during the provocative outrages and violence perpetrated against Soviet citizens in Mukden, Liaoyuan, Telin, Sungtzatung, and Szepingkai, and later on in Changchun.

Given the above conditions, there was no question of CCRR’s normally operating as a joint enterprise. The Soviet government was forced to instruct Soviet citizens employed by the CCRR to depart for home.

The railroad temporarily ceased operations as a joint enterprise. Only a small group of Soviet railroad men, headed by railroad manager Zhuravlev, remained with the CCRR to maintain contact with the people’s democratic authorities in Harbin.

Responding to the “Cold War” doctrine advanced by Washington, Chiang Kai-shek feverishly turned over to American imperialists Chinese ports to establish a network of naval and air bases aimed at the Soviet Union. On November 6, 1946 Chiang Kai-shek’s government concluded with the United States a so-called treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation, as well as a number of other agreements strengthening the union between the Kuomintang and imperialist circles in the United States.

Simultaneously, Kuomintang forces attempted to blockade the Dal’niy-Port Arthur area, a treaty zone for the disposition of Soviet troops. The Chiang Kai-shekists were particularly bitter about the fact that the Soviet government had decisively refused to allow their troops through the port of Dal’niy from South China into Manchuria for the struggle with the revolutionary forces. The Kuomintang government was informed that in accordance with the Sino-Soviet agreement of August 14, 1945, Dal’niy was a commercial port to be used for transporting cargo, not troops. The disembarkation in this port of any troops would have constituted a violation of this agreement.

The Kuomintang press tried to convince the Chinese people that the Soviet Union, and not American imperialism, was China’s main enemy; that “the Soviet Union was conducting an imperialistic policy.” The Kuomintang government portrayed the demand by the USSR that American troops be withdrawn from China as “interference in the internal affairs of China.”

Soviet representatives in China were placed in an intolerable situation. Kuomintang reactionaries staged demonstrations in front of the Soviet Embassy in Peking, forcing the population to scream anti-Soviet slogans, to threaten reprisals against Soviet representatives, and to attack vehicles used by Soviet diplomats.

The Kuomintang reactionaries, in their rabid hatred of the Soviet Union, reached the point of openly advocating a “crusade” against the USSR. They artificially inflamed war hysteria, raising the cry of “Red aggression in China.”

At the same time the Kuomintang regime tried to escalate its struggle against the revolutionary forces in China. In March 1947 Chiang Kaishek’s troops undertook a broad offensive against an area under the control of the CCP, Shansi-Kansu-Ninghsia, with its center in Yenan. Large-scale offensive operations were perfidiously initiated by his forces in Manchuria and other regions. The territories controlled by the CCP and the PLA, particularly the Liaotung Peninsula, the provinces of Heilungkiang and Kirin, and the Sinkiang region were subjected to economic blockade.

It was during this difficult period that the revolutionary bases in Manchuria became the main bastions of the Chinese revolution. It was here that the revolution assembled the forces for its army, and it was here that the liberation campaign to the South was launched in 1948–1949, ending with the complete smashing of the Kuomintang regime.

4. Help provided by the Soviet Union in strengthening
the revolutionary base in Manchuria

The Soviet Union, despite tremendous difficulties associated with postwar restoration of the country, undertook effective measures to strengthen the people’s democratic region in Manchuria which had resulted from the rout of the Kwantung Army.

People’s democratic organs of power, freely elected, were active in the territory of Manchuria controlled by the Communists and by the PLA. The People’s Democratic Administrative Commission, the highest executive organ in China’s Northeastern Provinces (as the territory was called at that time), was located in Harbin.

This was the seat of the Northeastern Bureau of the CC CCP, which exercised party control in Manchuria. It was allowed considerable autonomy because the seat of the CC CCP was in Yenan. The independent role of the Northeastern Bureau increased particularly because Yenan was captured by the forces of Chiang Kai-shek in March 1947, and the leadership of the CC CCP, hiding from pursuit, lost its capacity to guide effectively the revolutionary struggle on a country-wide scale. The composition of the Northeastern Bureau of the CC CCP included Kao Kang, Chen Yun, Chang Wen-tien, Lin Piao, Li Fu-chun, P’eng Chen, and others.

The people’s democratic regions, from the very first days of their existence, received all manner of support from the Soviet Union. This played an important role in strengthening the United Democratic Army (UDA), as the armed forces of the CCP in Manchuria were called at that time. The UDA was equipped with first-class weapons that had belonged to the Kwantung Army, and had been taken as booty by Soviet troops.

Direct contacts between leading figures in our parties were developed between 1945 and 1949, in order to begin collaboration with the people’s democratic authorities in Manchuria. fFor example, a delegation from the people’s democratic regions in Manchuria, headed by Kao Kang and Liu Shao-ch’i, visited the USSR in 1945, where it met with Soviet leaders.

†A group of representatives of the CPSU, which maintained operational contact with the CCP, and particularly with the Northeastern Bureau of the CC CCP, was in Manchuria from 1945 until the proclamation of the PRC.

The Soviet Union, even during that period, provided a great deal of assistance in training Chinese national cadres, imparting its experience in government and economics to the people’s democratic organs of power.

The stationing of Soviet troops in Manchuria was very important to developing and strengthening Manchuria’s economy. Many important enterprises were restored and put back in operation with help of Soviet specialists, particularly in regions traversed by the Chinese Changchun Railroad and in the treaty zone of Port Arthur-Dal’niy. Units of the Soviet Army in Manchuria gave their wholehearted cooperation to local authorities in repairing and building paved roads, and in organization of public services and amenities in populated areas. Vocational training for workers and improvement of specialists’ qualifications in different fields were organized with their help. Fundamental reconstruction of the naval base in Port Arthur was carried out. Equipped with modern artillery, aircraft, and a navy, this base was converted into both a dependable bastion on the shores of the Yellow Sea and a school for Chinese naval cadres.

The people’s democratic regions in the Liaotung Peninsula played an important role in the strengthening of Sino-Soviet collaboration. Liaotung became yet another take-off point for the victorious offensive of the people’s democratic forces of China.¹⁶

The regions of the people’s democratic zone in Manchuria, cut off from the central provinces of China, were extremely short of fuel, vehicles, coal, pharmaceuticals, salt, cotton, textiles, shoes, clothing, sugar, and many other goods. The urgent needs of the population, as well as those of the battling PLA, were attended to with the assistance of the Soviet Union.

The first trade talks between Soviet foreign trade organizations and the People’s Democratic Administrative Commission for the Northeastern Provinces of China were concluded on December 21, 1946 (the Soviet Union was represented at these talks by M. I. Sladovskiy of the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR, and by M. I. Sulimenko, Deputy Chairman of the All-Union Combine “Eksportkhleb” ). A contract was signed under the terms of which deliveries of Soviet goods for the population and for the army would begin, as would deliveries of equipment for outfitting hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and the like. In addition, captured war materials and food requisitioned by the Soviet Army from Japanese interventionists were turned over to the people’s democratic organizations in the Northeastern Provinces.

With the capture by Kuomintang troops of the southern part of Manchuria came a sharp deterioration in supply to the Liaotung Peninsula. Soviet organizations immediately began to make deliveries of food grains, vegetable oil, sugar, and canned goods from Vladivostok by sea directly into the port of Dal’niy and in transit through ports in northern Korea. Food delivered to Dal’niy was distributed at fixed prices by the local Chinese People’s Democratic Administration with the cooperation of the civilian administration of the Soviet Army. All costs of transporting, storage, and distribution of food were paid for by the Soviet side in order to give free aid to the Chinese population.

A trade delegation from the people’s democratic authorities in China’s Northeastern Provinces, headed by Kao Kang, a member of the Political Bureau of the CC CCP, arrived in Moscow in the summer of 1949. Resulting from the successful negotiations was an agreement on mutual exchanges of goods for a period of one year.

Under the terms of this agreement the Soviet Union undertook to export to the liberated regions of Northeastern China industrial equipment, trucks, petroleum products, textiles, paper, pharmaceuticals, and other goods. The People’s Democratic Administration for the Northeastern Provinces agreed to deliver to the Soviet Union soy beans, vegetable oils, corn, rice, and other goods.¹⁷

Trade ties between Soviet foreign trade organizations and the People’s Democratic Administration for the Northeastern Provinces expanded steadily. This will be seen from the following data on the trade turnover between the northeastern companies (less Liaotung) and Soviet foreign trade organizations between 1947 and 1949 (in millions of rubles).¹⁸

Trade unquestionably played an important role in strengthening the people’s democratic authority in the Northeastern Provinces, which were becoming the most important base for preparations for the general offensive by the PLA against the Kuomintang regime.

The development of trade and economic ties required that further improvements be made in communications, including the use of the water arteries in the area, the Amur and Sungari rivers.

In April 1947 the Harbin Division of the Soviet organization “Dal’vneshtrans” (Far Eastern Foreign Trade Transportation Trust) helped prepare landings in Chiamaze, Fukdin, and Seisin, as well as building of additional berths in Harbin’s river port, before the navigation season opened on the Sungari River. Traffic along the Sungari River was of exceptional importance to the people’s democratic regions of Northeastern China because Chiamaze was one of the most important rear area centers of the PLA. Located there were military schools, central hospitals, and supply bases. In collaboration with Chang Wen-tien (at that time known by his party name, Lo Fu, and a member of the Northeast Bureau of the CC CCP), and guided by party, civilian, and rear area concerns in this center, Soviet foreign trade and transportation organizations were able to provide an uninterrupted flow of needed supplies of materials, fuel, pharmaceuticals, clothing, shoes, and other supplies along the Sungari River during the navigation seasons of 1947 and 1948, the years of the decisive struggle of the people’s democratic forces with Kuomintang troops.

Military operations in Manchuria had resulted in the damage or destruction of some 6,000 kilometers of railroad lines. The length of the railroad network was only 10,000 kilometers by the end of 1945. Main rail lines in this region belonged to the Chinese Changchun Railroad (formerly the Chinese Eastern Railroad), which had been built by Russia between 1897 and 1903. Soviet railroad men had begun the restoration and operation of the Chinese Changchun Railroad from the very first day of the entry of the USSR into the war with Japan. For example, the Japanese were driven out of the Manchuria border station on the night of August 8–9, and on August 9 Soviet railroad men brought the first troop train into this station.

Japanese troops, beating a hasty retreat under the decisive blows of the Soviet Army along western and eastern lines of the Chinese Changchun Railroad, wrought great destruction to the entire 1,500-kilometer length of the railroad. All signal installations and communications were destroyed in Mutankiang, Anansi, Hailar, and at Manchuria Station, local cable networks were torn out, railroad bridges were blown up, and the water supplies were destroyed. The Japanese destroyed the roundhouses in many of the large stations (in Hailar, Hengtaohotze, Mutankiang, and in other stations). They dismantled and removed trackage and destroyed structures in 57 stations and sidings. One of the largest locomotive repair works in Manchuria, Manchuria Station, was blown up.

Soviet railroad men and Soviet Army troops opened the east and west lines of the Chinese Changchun Railroad to regular train traffic with the signing by Japan of the unconditional surrender agreement on September 2, 1945. They completed a tremendous volume of construction work in a remarkably short time in order to bring the destroyed trackage and installations up to what could be considered reliable operating condition, and to increase the speed and safety of train movements.

Upon the initiative of Soviet railroad men, the Chinese Changchun Railroad organized courses to train Chinese railroad cadres in the mass vocations. The central courses enrolled 536 men, the line divisions over 900. Soviet specialists supervised the training of 400 students in engineering-construction, transportation, economics, and electrical engineering departments of the Chinese Changchun Railroad Polytechnical Institute, which had opened the very day the Chinese Changchun Railroad began operations. This was of great political and practical importance because Chinese had been used on the railroads as laborers, with all technical positions filled by Japanese.

The entire burden of restoration work and operation of the railroad rested on the shoulders of Soviet railroad men while Chinese national cadres were being trained.

Plants in Siberia and the Far East made repairs on worn-out and damaged locomotives and cars belonging to the Chinese Changchun Railroad. Soviet organizations sent materials (rails, beams, metal, tools, and others) and rolling stock (locomotives, cars, and other items) into the zone of the People’s Democratic Administration. Soviet specialists helped make up the cadres of all railroad services. As a result of the brotherly assistance rendered by the Soviet people, the spring of 1947 saw many of the main railroad lines in Northeast China restored, and railroad communication with the USSR opened through the stations in Zabaykal’sk and Grodekovo.

China’s railroads encountered many difficulties during the Civil War. The retreating Kuomintang troops, trying to delay the advance of the PLA, inflicted great damage on rail transportation, particularly in the southern part of Northeast China and on the Peking-Mukden Railroad. They destroyed two large bridges over the Sungari River between Harbin and Changchun and between Changchun and Kirin, as well as depots, shops, pumping stations, and permanent rights of way. Railroad communications south of Harbin were paralyzed, and the link between the main centers in the northeast was broken. This made further movements by the PLA of China difficult, particularly those against the large Kuomintang disposition in South Manchuria. Restoration of rail communications became an urgent matter, particularly in the case of railroad bridges over the Sungari River.

In June 1948, at the request of the People’s Democratic Administrative Commission for the liberated areas, the government of the USSR sent yet another group of Soviet railroad specialists to China. The group brought along its own equipment, including construction trains, diving stations, cranes, and other machinery.¹⁹

Already available when Soviet specialists arrived were plans for rebuilding two of the largest destroyed bridges (one on the Harbin-Changchun section, the other on the Kirin-Changchun section). These plans had been drawn up in Harbin by Japanese engineers, who had estimated the time required to complete the work as 18 months.

The Soviet group of specialists and workers, however, rebuilt the “Sungari-II” bridge in a record time of two months. This bridge was on the Harbin-Changchun section, and was particularly important to the planned operations of the PLA. Putting this bridge back in use made it possible for the PLA command to concentrate large forces of troops for the offensive against the largest city in Manchuria, Mukden (which was liberated on November 2), and then to mount an offensive in the direction of Peking. The Soviet specialists proposed, and the Northeast Bureau of the CC CCP approved, organizational measures for the development of restoration work on railroad transportation.

The plan for restoration of the railroads, drafted from data obtained by engineering surveys, and approved by the Northeast Bureau for each railroad line, primarily involved work associated with ensuring successful military operations by the PLA.

To summarize, work done under supervision of Soviet railroad men by December 15, 1948 restored over 15,000 kilometers of the most important rail trackage in Manchuria, 120 large and medium bridges, with a total length of over 9,000 meters, and including huge bridges such as the “Sungari-II” bridge, 987 meters long, the 320-meter-long bridge over the Yinmahe River on the Harbin-Changchun section, and the 440-meter bridge across the Sungari River on the Kirin-Changchun section, as well as 12 large and medium bridges on other sections.

Restoration of the railroads took place under rigorous conditions prevalent in war time. Kuomintang aircraft systematically strafed and bombed areas in which restoration was in progress, particularly along the Kirin-Changchun and Tungliao-Hsin Litun-Ihsien lines. These flights resulted in damage to some 150 locomotives and much rolling stock, and the destruction of the stations in Hsin Litun, Cheng Chiatung, and Tungliao. Victims were claimed from among the Chinese railroad workers and Soviet specialists.

The successful restoration of the main rail lines in Central and South Manchuria made possible large-scale regrouping and concentration of units of the PLA, aiding the final rout of Kuomintang troops, and completion of Northeast China’s liberation, thus providing the conditions needed for a victorious offensive in the south.

Direct rail communication between the Soviet border stations of Otpor^* and Grodekovo and the cities of Dal’niy and Port Arthur, interrupted in 1945, was restored on November 25, 1948.

Soviet specialists supervised the training of the PLA’s railroad troops; 4,615 specialists in different professions were trained in the summer of 1948 alone.

The result of the unselfish assistance rendered by the Soviet Union in building and restoration of railroads and bridges in Manchuria, and in converting the Chinese Changchun Railroad into a huge industrial and training base ensuring the accumulation of experience and the training of cadres, was to make the northeast revolutionary base the springboard for the tempestuous offensive of the revolutionary forces against the regime of Chiang Kai-shek in 1948–1949. The leadership of the CCP regarded highly the contribution made by the Soviet people in development of the Chinese revolution, seeing in it a clear expression of proletarian solidarity and sincere friendship for the Chinese people. Soong Ch’ing-ling, Deputy Chairman of the PRC, stressed the fact:

Among the first of the Soviet workers to arrive in China were Soviet engineers. They worked on the complex questions of providing the assistance that made possible the restoration of our railroad network many months sooner than had been planned. They did their job, and did not ask anything in return.²⁰

The assistance rendered the Chinese by Soviet doctors had many facets. An epidemic of plague broke out in the liberated provinces at the end of 1947, posing a threat to the densely populated areas of South Manchuria and North China. By request of the people’s revolutionary authorities the USSR sent in anti-epidemic teams led by Professor O. V. Baroyan and Professor N. I. Nikolayev. These teams brought with them laboratories, prophylactics, and medicines, and upon arrival attacked the outbreak of plague along a broad front, with the result that by mid-1948 the epidemic was wiped out. As leaders of the People’s Democratic Administrative Commission pointed out, the Soviet doctors saved tens of thousands of inhabitants of Northeast China from certain death.

Still another plague epidemic broke out in the spring of 1949 and spread quickly over wide areas of the liberated territory of Inner Mongolia, in Chahar Province (around Kalgan and other points). By request of the people’s democratic authorities, the Soviet government dispatched special aircraft with an antiplague expedition including doctors, zoologists, and medical workers.

Here is what Soong Ch’ing-ling, an eminent public figure in the CCP, wrote about the unselfish assistance rendered by Soviet medical personnel during the plague epidemic:

We had insufficient doctors and specialists to cope with this most dangerous epidemic, so we turned to our great neighbor. And in short order the antiplague teams arrived from the USSR. They came, gave help, finished their work, and went home. They harbored no thoughts of securing payment or concessions. They asked for no privilege other than that of helping the Chinese people.²¹

A new epidemic of plague broke out to the northwest of Peking in October 1949. Peking was blockaded, supplies to the city were interrupted, and the city began to encounter economic difficulties. Within twenty-four hours after receiving a request from Mao Tse-tung to provide assistance, several antiplague teams and their equipment (trucks, fumigating installations), including medical personnel and medicines, arrived by air from the USSR. Millions of people were vaccinated. The threat was swiftly eliminated.

As the PLA moved southward, and into the areas in which Lin Piao’s army in particular was disposed, the troops were stricken with malaria. Within two days after receiving the request from Lin Piao, the USSR flew in almost a ton of quinine. The quinine helped maintain the army’s ability to fight and to carry on successful combat operations against the forces of the Kuomintang.

In August 1949 the CC CCP requested that the Soviet Union send to China a large group of specialists to provide organizational and technical aid in restoring and developing liberated areas. The Soviet Union immediately placed the required number of highly-qualified workers at the disposal of the people’s democratic authorities.

The first group of specialists (some 250 in all), upon arriving in China, was assigned as needed and by agreement with the leadership of the CCP. Some developed the structure for running the country, determining the functions of future ministries and departments, and how to operate them, and then participated in organizing the administration and stimulation of the national economy. Others were assigned directly to the largest of the plants to organize restoration work, administration, and the operation of active enterprises.

Soviet technicians and engineers played an important role in the restoration of the shipbuilding yard in Dal’niy. Soviet equipment began to arrive in the yard at the beginning of 1947. By the end of 1947 the yard was employing 254 engineers and technicians, 261 office personnel, and over 2,000 workers. The shipyard underwent extensive reconstruction between 1948 and 1949, and by the end of 1949 was producing at a rate well in excess of the prewar level.

All suggestions made by Soviet specialists for setting up organs of administration and their structures were passed along to the CC CCP, and to organs of the state apparatus then in formative stages. Many ministries and departments were headed by people who had been in the Army or partisan units and were without applicable training or work experience. Guided by a sense of internationalism, our advisers and specialists freely shared their wealth of experience with new Chinese cadres, training them on a day-to-day basis.

The assistance given by Soviet specialists was particularly broad in scope after formation of the PRC.

Reviewing Sino-Soviet relations prior to the victory of the revolution, and during the flowering of those relations, one is struck by the fact that even in the best years there were definite difficulties, attributable to the fact that some cadres of the CCP, particularly those petty bourgeois by birth, were infected with nationalistic and anti-Soviet feelings.

Part of the leadership of the CCP, headed by Mao Tse-tung, over-estimated their own strength and underestimated the strength of the enemy. Petty bourgeois notions about the Chinese Revolution, fluctuating from one extreme to the other, were inherent traits of Mao Tse-tung during this period. Our party, and the international Communist movement, recommended that the CCP gather its forces and create, by diplomatic and political struggle, the necessary conditions for equipping and training the PLA for the forthcoming offensive. But it was at precisely this period that Mao Tse-tung developed “revolutionary impatience,” indicated by the fact that he had, for many years, been disseminating a story that went something like this:

Stalin himself is the one who has been delaying the Chinese Revolution. Stalin said it would be impossible to wage a civil war, that we must cooperate with Chiang Kai-shek. Otherwise the Chinese nation would perish. We did not listen then, and the revolution triumphed.

This deliberate slander against the policy of our party was readily seized upon by anti-Communist historians. As a matter of fact, discussion at that time centered on how to use diplomatic and political maneuvers to preserve the strength of the Chinese Revolution, and to prepare for the forthcoming offensive and insure a quick victory.

The leading group in the CCP did not understand, or did not want to understand, that the policy of a united front, not only during the anti-Japanese war but in 1945–1946 as well (when Chiang Kai-shek and his army still had strength plus strong support by American imperialism, and when the strength of the Communist Party was still scattered), was the policy superseding all others which gave the Chinese Revolution the advantage. The combination of a political and diplomatic form of struggle, waged simultaneously with a build-up in military potential, was the only correct road to take at this stage of the Chinese Revolution.

Later, on the eve of victory in 1949, Mao Tse-tung expressed scepticism as to the strength of the Chinese Revolution allied to the USSR, the first country of socialism. Even during the concluding stage of the struggle, when the Revolutionary Army had been successful in advancing into the south, Mao Tse-tung made statements to the effect that the revolution could not succeed any earlier than two years, and was helpless when it came to solving the practical problems involved in the establishment of the people’s authority throughout China.

Mao Tse-tung’s conception of what China’s foreign policy ought to have been during this period is extremely indicative of his true Weltanschauung. †His stated opinion was that it would be better for China not to conduct diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union or the United States. Simultaneously, even at this point, he advanced the claim that the national liberation movement throughout Asia, and particularly in Southeast Asia, should come under Chinese control.

Mao Tse-tung evidenced defeatist tendencies which were engendered by fear of Kuomintang forces who captured Yenan in 1947 and forced him to escape to the northern regions of China, fit is known that after the capture of Yenan Mao Tse-tung was roaming the roads of North China, far from the center of the revolutionary struggle, which at that time had moved to Manchuria. Yenan, on the eve of the decisive battle, lost its importance as the headquarters of the CCP and of its armed forces. This role then shifted to Manchuria, which became the main base of the Chinese Revolution.

The political instability of Mao Tse-tung in other instances confirms the petty bourgeois nature of his outlook, which ranged from one ex-treme (the instigation of revolution in 1945–1946) to the other (doubts in 1948–1949 as to the possibility of quick victory for the Chinese Revolution).

Negative tendencies toward the Soviet Union also appeared within a definite group of the leadership of the Northeast Bureau of the CCP. The nationalist and anti-Soviet sentiments of this group had been so widely disseminated that in 1946–1947 the Bureau was forced to conduct a number of investigations, during which a number of leading figures were charged with serious accusations. Nevertheless, the main leadership of the CCP was reluctant to condemn these workers at that time, keeping them in leadership posts and permitting them to spread anti-Soviet slander.

Portents of the future appeared at that time, particularly when party organs in Manchuria obstructed the work of the Chinese-Soviet Friendship Association. The newspaper Wen Hui Pao (Culture), published in Northeast China, had long been printing anti-Soviet propaganda fabricated by its editor, Hsiao Chung-ya, urging “the ejection from China of imperialists of whatever color,” including the USSR. The paper was subsidized by the Communists, and it was not until the end of 1948 that the Northeast Bureau of the CC CCP decided to close it.

Only the firm policy of the Soviet Union and the CPSU, supported by other Marxist-Leninist parties and the Chinese internationalists, averted widespread intervention by American imperialism in China, strengthened the revolutionary forces, created in Manchuria a strategic military base, isolated the Chiang Kai-shek regime inside the country, obtained from progressive world society moral and political support for the Chinese Revolution, and ensured the great victory of the fraternal Chinese people in 1949.

Thus historical facts prove that the alliance between the revolutionary forces in China and the USSR, and through it with the world revolutionary movement, was one of the decisive factors in the victory of the Chinese revolution. This brotherly alliance between Chinese workers and world socialism compensated for the relative weakness of the working class in China, helped consolidate internal forces of the Revolution, protecting them against the export of counterrevolution, and created favorable international prerequisites for fulfillment by Chinese revolutionaries of their historical mission.

__________________

* Dispositions are as given in the text. The nomenclature does not match that listed in John Toland’s The Rising Sun, 1970, index to Volume II, for example.— Translator’s note.

* The former Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Kwantung Army, General Yamada, [Yamada is a direct transliteration from the Russian. The reference could be to General Yoshijiro Umezu, since no source available to the translator lists a General Yamada as commander of the Kwantung Army. Translator’s note.] at the Khabarovsk trial said, “The entry of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan and the swift advance of the Soviet Army deep into Manchuria deprived us of the possibility of using bacteriological weapons against the USSR and other countries.” (Materialy sudebnogo protsessa po delu byvshikh voyennosluzhashchikh yaponskoy armii, obvinyayemykh v podgotovke i primenenii bakteriologicheskoyo oruzhiya. M., 1950, str. 99) (Materials from the trial in the matter of former military personnel of the Japanese Army accused of preparing and using bacteriological weapons. Moscow, 1950 p. 99).

* American troops in China numbered 98,000 at the beginning of 1947.

* Now Zabaykal’sk.

NOTES

1. Pravda, February 21, 1948.

2. Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza v period Otechestvennoy voyny. Dokumenty i materialy, t. III. M., 1946, str. 112 (Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union in the Period of the Patriotic War. Documents and Materials. Vol. III, hereinafter referred to as Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union) (Moscow, 1947), p. 112.

3. S. M. Shtemenko, General’nyy shtab v gody voyny, M., 1968, str. 360 (The General Staff in the War Years, hereinafter referred to as The General Staff) (Moscow, 1968), p. 360.

4. Mao Tse-tung, Izbrannyye proizvedeniya (Selected Works), Vol. 4 (Moscow, 1953), p. 617.

5. Pravda, August 11, 1945.

6. Pravda, August 17, 1945.

7. Pravda, July 21, 1949.

8. Kuang-Ming Jihpao, September 3, 1951.

9. Leninskaya politika SSSR v otnoshenii Kitaya (The Leninist Policy of the USSR in Relation to China, hereinafter referred to as The Leninist Policy) (Moscow, 1968), p. 126.

10. Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza. 1947 god. Dokumenty i materialy (Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union. 1947. Documents and Materials. Part I, hereinafter referred to as Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union, 1947) (Moscow, 1952), p. 375.

11. Ibid., p. 376.

12. Izvestiya, November 30, 1945.

13. Izvestiya, November 30, 1945.

14. Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza. 1946 god. Dokumenty i materialy (Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union. 1946. Documents and Materials, hereinafter referred to as Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union, 1946) (Moscow, 1952), p. 112.

15. Answers to Questions Regarding Socialist Ideological Education, 5th edition (hereinafter referred to as Answers to Questions) Futs’an, Jenmin ch’u pan she (Peking, 1957).

16. The Leninist Policy, p. 130–133.

17. Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza. 1949. Dokumenty i materialy (Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union. 1949. Documents and Materials, hereinafter referred to as Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union, 1949) (Moscow, 1953), p. 124.

18. The Leninist Policy, p. 133.

19. Ibid., p. 135.

20. Narodnyi Kitay (People’s China) (Peking), No. 1, 1950. (In English).

21. Ibid.