It is being seriously argued in the West that if the United States had not overreacted to the North Korean attack on South Korea in 1950 first to extend protection to the KMT regime in Formosa and then to cross the 38th Parallel, Russia and China would have fallen out much sooner.
Fairly impressive, though by no means conclusive, evidence has been dug up to show that Stalin was never well disposed either towards Chairman Mao Tse-tung or the Chinese Communist Party, that he did not want the CCP to succeed in taking over the whole country, that he entertained the ambition of acquiring a dominant position for the Soviet Union in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang, that Chairman Mao Tse-tung was fully alive to the clash of national interests between the two countries and that the conflict had come to the surface in the prolonged negotiations that took place between the two leaders in Moscow in early 1950 on the very morrow of communist victory in China.
Some have even drawn the inference that the North Korean action was not the result of a joint Sino-Soviet initiative and that in fact Stalin thought of the Korean move as part of his plan to strengthen Russia’s strategic position in dealing with China. Mr. Harrison E. Salisbury has said this in so many words in his book which bears the rather sensational title The Coming War Between Russia And China (Pan Books Ltd., London).
Too Busy
There is no good reason to dispute the first part of the conjecture. The Chinese leaders in 1950 were far too busy consolidating their regime, liquidating the remnants of the Kuomintang forces in the south, taking over Tibet and planning for the invasion of Formosa to think of another adventure. In any case, they had little influence in Pyongyong where Soviet-trained communists were in power. Peking was not even represented by an ambassador in the North Korean capital till two months after the outbreak of the war.
But the second part of the surmise is open to doubt. It is more likely that through the conquest of South Korea Stalin wanted to place himself in a position whereby he could influence the course of developments in Japan more directly. Tokyo had threatened the Soviet Union in the past and could challenge it again, this time with American backing. There is no evidence that Stalin was concerned over a possible Chinese threat.
The more relevant point about this speculation is that China would have differentiated its position from that of the Soviet Union in the early ‘fifties if the United States had not overreacted and had not intervened in the Chinese civil war. Mr. Nehru thought so. That was one reason why he was so angry at the US action in respect of Formosa, its refusal to settle the Korean issue on the basis of the status quo ante and its decision to cross the 38th Parallel in spite of Peking’s clear warning, conveyed through him, that it would intervene in that event.
Mr. Nehru’s line of reasoning was that the Chinese revolution was essentially nationalistic in character and that the country’s new rulers, in spite of their communist ideology, were anxious to reassert their independence of the Soviet Union. By adopting a hostile attitude towards them, he argued, the United States was only pushing them into the arms of the Russians and thus helping to create the monolithic communist bloc which it most dreaded. Incidentally, Mr. Nehru’s assessment of the consequences of the American actions offers perhaps a better starting point for understanding his policy than his writings and speeches in the pre-independence period.
Nehru’s Stand
Mr. Nehru’s viewpoint is now finding wide endorsement. Mr. Salisbury’s book is one instance and Mr. John Gitting’s article “The Great Power Triangle and Chinese Foreign Policy” in the July-September issue of The China Quarterly, London, is another.
There is considerable merit in these assessments. It is hardly necessary to make the point that Chairman Mao Tse-tung regarded himself a better nationalist than Marshal Chiang Kai-shek, that the Chinese Communist Party acquired acceptance and influence outside the small area controlled by it in 1935 primarily by virtue of its role in the anti-Japanese struggle, that it did not subordinate itself to the Comintern after Mr. Mao Tse-tung took over the leadership in 1935, that it did not heed Stalin’s advice for a coalition with the Kuomintang in 1945 and that its victory in 1949 fulfilled the dreams of all Chinese nationalists. China was once again united, genuinely independent, free from imperialist influence and ready to make a bid for great power status. The Chinese, as Mr. Mao Tse-tung said proudly on the eve of the formal establishment of the communist regime in Peking on October l, 1949, had “stood up” and would “never again be an insulted nation”.
It is equally important to recall that in spite of China’s increased dependence on the Soviet Union on account of its involvement in the Korean war, it did not give up its search for an independent role in the communist movement and the world, that it continued to proclaim the validity of Maoism for all under-developed countries to Stalin’s chagrin, that it was more responsive to Indian efforts to find a solution to the Korean conflict than the Soviet Union under Stalin, and that the decision to normalise relations with countries on its borders was its own.
Thus nationalism remained a living force in China’s political life even during 1950-56 period when its leaders did not tire of proclaiming their loyalty to the Soviet Union, their acceptance of its leadership of the communist movement and their adherence to the Soviet model. It was not on the ascendant and it was not defiantly anti-Soviet but it was influencing the thinking and actions of the Chinese leadership all the same.
It is common knowledge that after the “let hundred flowers bloom” fiasco in 1957, Chairman Mao Tse-tung moved sharply towards extreme leftism and launched the “great leap forward” programme in 1958. Leading commentators have interpreted all that has happened in China since, including the deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union, in terms of this left-wing extremism and have drawn the conclusion that this has led to a disruption of the confluence of the national and Marxist-Leninist revolutions and has deprived the regime of the legitimacy which it earlier possessed by virtue of the merger of the two revolutions.
Chairman Mao Tse-tung has undoubtedly conducted the controversy with the Soviet leadership in Marxist-Leninist terms and his fear of the “degeneration” of Chinese communism a la Soviet communism has unquestionably inspired the cultural revolution. But it does not follow that the nationalist element has been absent from his calculations, in fact his opposition to the Russo-US detente and the Soviet arms and economic assistance to India, his bitterness at the Soviet refusal to assist China in developing nuclear weapons and his subsequent decision to go it alone, can all be explained more convincingly in terms of Chinese nationalism than of Marxism-Leninism. Similarly, it is obvious that one of the aims of the cultural revolution has been to eliminate from power all those who favoured, for whatever reason, improved relations with the Soviet Union.
Acute Tension
Chairman Mao Tse-tung deliberately gave a nationalist twist to his ideological dispute with the Soviet Union on August 11, 1964 when he told a group of Japanese t socialists: “There are too many places occupied by the Soviet Union ……. a hundred years ago, the area east of Lake Baikal became Russian territory and since then Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka and other areas have become Soviet territory. We have not presented our account for this list.”
If the Chinese leader was only responding to Mr Khrushchev’s earlier taunt regarding Hong Kong and Macao, he could have allowed the matter to rest there. On the contrary, the Sino-Soviet border dispute has become so acute that even a major armed conflict cannot be ruled out. Something like 750,000 Russian and Chinese troops are said to be facing each other across the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian frontiers.
It will be wrong to suggest that the Russo-Chinese confrontation has become a purely nationalist affair. Ideological contention between the two has not been completely superseded. But two points are noteworthy. First, when Mr. Brezhnev and Chairman Mao Tse-tung talk of Marxism-Leninism they are no longer referring to the same concept. Maoism has finally ceased to be a Chinese variant of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. It is not just a question of Chairman Mao Tse-tung marrying the doctrine to the Chinese tradition of peasant rebellions or even slightly adapting it to his country’s needs. He has repudiated its central features – the hegemony of the Communist Party as an essential condition for the establishment and consolidation of socialism and the leading role of the industrial proletariat in the revolutionary struggle. He has subordinated the CCP to the army and proclaimed that leadership of the revolution belongs to under-developed Asia, Africa and Latin America. Secondly, the territorial dispute has become the most critical and explosive issue in the Sino-Soviet struggle. What rouses the Russians is not the Chinese ideological challenge but the fear that Peking has designs on their territories and that of their Outer Mongolian ally.
Similarly, the Chinese are not merely indulging in propaganda when they allege that the Russians wish to detach Sinkiang from their control and build a military cordon sanitaire round their country. They genuinely believe these charges.
In this framework, is it reasonable to expect a dramatic improvement in Sino-Soviet relations if Chairman Mao Tse-tung dies or is disabled? Clearly the course of events could have been strikingly different if the old man had disappeared or lost control before or even during the earlier phase of the cultural revolution. But the situation has been transformed with the eclipse of party leaders trained to think in Marxist-Leninist terms. Chairman Mao’s disappearance in the years to come may still mute the Sino-Soviet struggle in that his successor or successors may adopt a less risky and less intransigent posture towards the powerful northern neighbour. But Chinese nationalism has by now acquired a strong anti-Soviet bias which cannot be changed easily and quickly, specially in the absence of an American threat to the country’s security.
The Times of India 5 February 1970