Why Did The Soviet Split Essay

Introduction In the 1950s and 60s, when the two largest Communist States in the world ended their alliance, the world was shocked. Not only did the split between the Soviet Union and China create a divide in worldwide Communist leadership but also marked a turning point in the Cold War era. In his book, The Sino-Soviet Split, historian Lorenz M. Lüthi describes the collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance to have been as significant to the time period as “the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Second Vietnam War and the Sino-American rapprochement” (2010, 1). This essay seeks to explore the multiple causes of the split and weigh them against each other. In it I will argue that while several causes were at play in causing
this divide, the split was largely driven by the ideologies, personalities and personal ambitions of the two Communist leaders, Mao Tse-Tung and Nikita Khrushchev.
The Split Itself Before the death of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin in 1953, there had been points of conflict between China and the Soviet Union.
Due to the lack of an urban working class in China, Mao had used a peasant base for the Chinese revolution in the 1930s and 40s. This was against the advice of the Soviets who advocated the use of the urban working class as had been made in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Moreover, during his leadership, Stalin had urged Mao to form a coalition against Japan with Chiang Kai-Shek, the leader of the Nationalist Party of China (or Kuomintang) and Mao’s rival in the Chinese civil war. Stalin had also told Mao not to cease power and to negotiate with Chiang as Stalin had signed a treaty of friendship with the Nationalists in 1945. However despite these differences, the two countries had more or less been benevolent to each other. Stalin had handed over Manchuria to Mao and had given Mao’s party a billion dollars in material aid to help expel the Nationalists from continental China and establish the People’s Republic of China. Mao had also secured huge low-interest loans and a long military alliance with the Soviet Union as part of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance signed in
1950. For the initial three years after Stalin’s death in 1953, China and Russia shared friendly relations. However, starting 1956, things began to go downhill for the Sino-Soviet alliance. In 1956 Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev gave a secret speech denouncing Stalin’s personality cult and began a process of de-Stalinization. Mao deeply resented the changes in policy introduced by Khrushchev under the de-Stalinization process. He even despised the policy of peaceful co-existence that Khrushchev began to adopt towards the Western powers. Further, when Mao got involved in the Taiwan Strait Crises, the Soviet Union refused to offer any moral support. The two leaders (and therefore the countries) were increasingly being hostile to each other; at many instances the two leaders were seen throwing insults at each other. In 1958, Mao began the implementation of the infamous ‘Great Leap Forward’ that went against the Soviet suggested socio-economic development model. Following this, Khrushchev suddenly withdrew all the Soviet aid and advisors formerly provided to China, in 1961. In 1962, Mao was infuriated at Khrushchev for supplying MiG-21 jet fighters to India during the Sino-Indian war and although Khrushchev cancelled the MiG deal on learning of Chinese anger, Mao continued to feel betrayed. Finally, the Sino-Soviet Split reached a pinnacle in 1969 when the two countries got involved in an undeclared military conflict for about seven months, now directly aiming guns at each other. The Sino-Soviet alliance was never completely revived and the split continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It was a tragedy for the Communist bloc that now stood divided against the united Capitalist bloc. As historian Sergey Radchenko says, “The demise of the alliance represented the broken promise of Marxism. Ideological unity and conformity were so essential to the Soviet-led socialist world that a quarrel between its two principal protagonists—the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China—undermined the legitimacy of the socialist camp as a whole, and of the intellectual notions that underpinned its existence” (2010, 349).
What Caused the Split? Ever since the split between China and the Soviet Union, historians have debated over its causes. Much like the reasons for the outbreak of World War I, there hasn’t been a consensus on the most significant reason for the breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance. However, there have been multiple recurring reasons cited by various historians in trying to explain the divorce between China and Russia. These have broadly been categorized as driven by ideological pursuits, personality traits and personal ambition, national interest and territorial disputes. The first basis of an ideological contention between China and the Soviet Union was a difference in opinion over Marxism. While Mao had mobilized the peasants of China for the Chinese revolution of the 1930s and 40s, the Soviet Union believed in revolution by the urban working class. While Mao believed that his was the correct style of revolution and promoted the idea that Asian and world Communist movements should emulate the Chinese model of peasant revolution, the Soviet Union felt that China was betraying the essence of Marxist revolution by ignoring the prescribed class conflict between the urban working class and the bourgeoisie. By 1961, when the doctrinal disputes over Marxist ideology became difficult to deal with, the Communist Party of China formally denounced the Soviet variety of communism as a product of "Revisionist Traitors”.