What was the Impact of the Sino-Soviet Split on China's Strategic Thinking and Doctrinal Development in the 1960s-1980s

“Many prominent party leaders and rank-and-file party workers, honest and dedicated to the cause of communism, fell victim to Stalin's despotism” – (Nikita Khrushchev during his Secret Speech, 1956)[1]

Introduction

The Sino-Soviet Split was the culmination of ideological tensions between the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Chairman Mao Zedong, having cut ties with the USSR, embarked on a path towards establishing China as the centre of international communism. This paper assesses the impact of the Sino-Soviet split on China’s strategic thinking and doctrinal development, focusing primarily on the 1960s. The split radically changed how China engaged with the Soviet Union. This essay argues that the split provoked the development of a military strategy that prepared China for a potential war with the USSR, accompanied by a change in attitude towards nuclear weapons and diplomacy. This essay first establishes the ideological context for the split. Thereafter it engages in a discussion on Mao’s military strategy, using the 1969 Sino-Soviet border war as a case study. The essay then proceeds to discuss Mao’s nuclear doctrine and diplomacy, demonstrating the change in Mao’s approach to nuclear proliferation and diplomacy. More broadly, this paper attempts to illuminate the ideological underpinnings of Mao’s strategic and doctrinal thinking, especially how Maoist thought was radicalised following the split, and how this was transmitted into his strategic thinking. It does so by drawing on archival documents from the upper levels of the CCP and speeches from Mao, compounded by the literature that investigates Mao’s thinking, as a vehicle to provide a conceptual discussion on Mao’s thinking about strategy, and to account for a change in perspective.

Ideological tension

Khrushchev’s Secret Speech marked the beginning of Mao’s suspicion of Soviet Revisionism and the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations. Khrushchev’s speech attacked Stalin and his policies, particularly his cult of personality and descent into despotism. While the speech did not intend to criticise Mao, it inadvertently undercut Mao’s domestic position.[2] Since Mao adopted Stalinist policies in the Great Leap Forward, the speech indirectly slighted Mao. The implications of the speech were damaging in two respects: firstly, Mao had to assess his own mistakes; he did not fully admit to his mistakes, instead using the Hundred Flowers Campaign to make the case that China’s economic and political development required the Revolutionary Stalinist approach.[3] Secondly in 1965, Mao gave his speech on the ‘Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship.’ Mao stated that:

“Leaders of Communist Parties and socialist states in various fields are duty bound to do their utmost to reduce mistakes, avoid serious ones, endeavour to learn lessons from isolated, local and temporary mistakes and make every effort to prevent them from developing into mistakes of a nation-wide or prolonged nature.”[4]

By alluding to Stalin, Mao suggested that leaders can make mistakes that can be learned from. Mao subtly justified his position while also covering his exposed political flank. He claimed that because he followed Revolutionary Stalinism, China had more basis to criticise Stalin.[5] The speech only protected Mao in the short term, as the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward forced him to accept the fact that 70% of the catastrophe was caused by human error, and 30% by natural disasters in 1962.[6] The emergence of Soviet Revisionism is crucial because the ideological divergence it created went beyond domestic politics and contributed to the radicalisation of Maoist ideology.

The split generated confusion in the socialist bloc. Just as Mao was indirectly slighted by the Secret Speech, Enver Hoxha, the Communist leader of Albania, felt the same. Mao attempted to use the Sino-Albanian rift to ally with Albania against the USSR. Albania’s position was ambivalent as it did not protect Stalinism from Khrushchev’s attack, just like Mao did, and they made their own mistakes in dealing with the USSR.[7] Notwithstanding, Albania sided with China out of economic necessity. Insofar as Mao was concerned, this helped his ideological argument – that the USSR had undermined the unity of the socialist bloc by pursuing “great power Chauvinism.”[8] The 22nd CPSU Congress marked the climax of this intransigent process. The programme in 1961 was denounced by the CCP as an official promotion of a revisionist ideology and strategy, for it declared the USSR’s advocacy for peaceful coexistence.[9]

The USSR were perceived as an accomplice to the imperialists -- the USSR had truly deviated from Marxist-Leninism. This was the moment at which Mao began a process of internal ideological radicalisation. Mao would lead international Communism, replacing the USSR by promoting a struggle against Soviet Revisionism.[10] The new strategy that would be carried into the 60s was to simultaneously fight imperialism and revisionism.[11] Yet his thinking came with a dangerous military manoeuvre.

Sino-Soviet Border War

The radicalisation of Mao’s ideology was transmitted into his military strategy, which provoked a dangerous military engagement. Thomas Robinson provides an apt account of the incident, combining Chinese and Soviet sources. According to his reconstruction, the Chinese initiated an attack on Damansky/Zhenbao Island on March 2nd 1969. The Chinese ambushed the Soviet outpost, chanting Maoist slogans and killing outpost commander Lieutenant Strelnikov.[12] In retaliation on March 15th, the USSR attacked the Chinese. Both sides were prepared for this confrontation, with the Chinese deploying a regiment to counter the Soviets. Ultimately, the USSR lost sixty men and the Chinese around 800.[13] Both sides depicted their interpretation of events, but this reconstruction stresses that the first incident was a deliberate Chinese attack. Why stage such an attack? There appear to be two broad explanations, both linked to domestic politics.

Yang Kuisong’s account reveals that the incident was provoked by the Cultural Revolution. The radicalisation of Maoist ideology, in so far as it was concerned with establishing a new genuinely proletarian China, was entangled with an underlying question of security concerning the Sino-Soviet border at Zhenbao.[14] Considering that Mao had denounced the USSR as a revisionist followed by an attempt to place China at the centre of international communism, border security would inevitably be a point of tension. The Chinese circular that Kuisong draws on uses revisionist rhetoric, and as mentioned earlier the Chinese chanted Maoist slogans.[15] Therefore, ideological radicalisation certainly was transmitted into military thinking. Yet this still begs the question of why Mao would take such a dangerous risk in directly attacking a nuclear-armed superpower.

Taking Mao’s thinking for intervening in the Vietnam War suggests how Mao rationalised an irrational engagement. Andrew Kennedy draws attention to the value framework Mao used in his foreign policy calculations. He identifies Mao’s preference for martial efficacy over moral efficacy, the former derived from the experience of the 1949 Revolution.[16] Mao believed that the methods used in the revolution would allow China to defeat any powerful enemy.[17] Such methods included luring the enemy deep into Chinese territory and then encircling them — People’s War.[18] Mao was confident in his martial efficacy such that Mao denounced the cautious approach emphasising peaceful coexistence provided by Wang Jiaxiang, chief of the CCP’s international liaison department, as revisionist.[19] Mao’s confidence in martial efficacy indicates that the mobilisation of the Chinese people would achieve victory in a military confrontation. Seeing Mao’s decision to attack Zhenbao Island as a reflection of his martial efficacy as a foreign policy calculation offers insight into why Mao made a dangerous move. Combining radical ideology and martial thinking, it would then make sense to suggest Mao’s attack on the island was a means to confront the USSR; that because of Soviet Revisionism and provocations along the border, Mao perpetrated an attack to teach the Soviets a ‘bitter’ lesson that China was prepared to use force.[20] Military engagement here served a political purpose.

The second explanation indicates the attack was a political move. Mao attacked the USSR to demonstrate that it was not invincible and that China was ready for a rapprochement with the USA.[21] By 1969, it was clear to Mao that the attempt to be at the centre of international communism waned. The domestic situation had become excessive, and China was isolated internationally, chiefly because Mao recognised that the War Scare in Beijing proved China was unready for war.[22] In a re-evaluation of Sino-American threats, Mao believed the USSR represented a greater threat, paired with Richard Nixon’s attempt to reach out to China, Mao knew what was crucial for survival.[23] In terms of strategic thinking, Sino-American rapprochement represented a shift away from Mao’s original thought, to use domestic radicalisation to perpetrate a military attack to prove that China was overtly prepared for war and was actively fighting Soviet Revisionism. This changed when Mao reckoned with the fact that China was grossly unready for war, and to guarantee survival, a retreat was needed. Going into the 1970s, rapprochement with the USA was the new strategy for China.

Nuclear Doctrine

Chinese nuclear strategy and diplomacy, in addition to Mao’s attitude towards the bomb, underwent a significant change in the 1950s. The advent of the atomic age in East Asia fundamentally changed Mao’s strategic calculations. Originally, Mao believed nuclear weapons were “paper tigers” that neither altered the laws of history nor won wars.[24] As Horsburgh notes, scholars have suggested Mao’s view of the bomb was irrational and based on an imperfect understanding of the weapon.[25] Perhaps there was a degree of rationality in his attitude. The extent of rationality depends on how we understand the strategic environment in which Mao operated. In a hard realist sense, having the bomb was a necessity for survival, as having such a weapon of mass destruction trumps any other weapon to threaten China. At a time of uncertainty and ambiguity of its position in strategic thinking, and indeed its actual usage, would the bomb change everything?

The Korean War could be seen as a formative experience for China, as it revealed to Mao that China was woefully lacking in technology vis-à-vis the USA.[26] Notwithstanding Mao’s confidence that the bomb did not change conventional warfare — and that it would largely be ineffective against China — there was private interest in the bomb. What, therefore, changed Mao’s perception? A talk given by Mao at a CCP Politburo meeting in 1956 indicates an ideological dimension to nuclear acquisition:

“Not only are we going to have more airplanes and artillery, but also the atomic bomb. In today’s world, if we don’t want to be bullied, we have to have this thing.”[27]

The bomb would deter the imperialists from bullying or threatening China, acting as a deterrent. The bomb in and of itself was not a deterrent, it was combined with an extensive conventional arsenal. Even if Mao did appear to be interested in the bomb, he still maintained some aspects of his original thinking, that bombs themselves do not mean a conventional arsenal is unnecessary. The bomb gave China international prestige. It forced the West to recognise China as a player in the nuclear order, aligned with the USSR, and outside the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency.[28] Notice how this talk happened before the split, thus, Mao expected the USSR to aid China’s nuclear development, and indeed this was given.

Despite initial optimism, the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations by the 1960s impacted nuclear diplomacy. As mentioned previously, the USSR advocated for “peaceful coexistence” with the USA, including nuclear non-proliferation. Conversely, Mao remained fixated on nuclear weapons for China, which the USSR feared would undermine attempts for a détente.[29] Taking an outside-in perspective reveals how the split brought the USSR and USA together on China’s nuclear development, thereby giving more reason for China to complete its programme.

The situation in the socialist bloc was ambiguous from an outside perspective, as the Kennedy administration was unaware of the full extent of the split.[30] What was clear was that nuclear proliferation had to be curtailed, especially following the Cuban Missile Crisis. China had to be subjected to nuclear arms limitations talks, a point the USSR agreed on because Khrushchev feared giving the bomb to China would be countered by the USA giving the bomb to West Germany.[31] Insofar as Mao believed that the bomb would destroy imperialism, Khrushchev reminded him that the destructiveness of the bomb has no distinction — everything is destroyed.[32] Two realities were now clear to Mao:

1. The USSR realised that reconciliation with China and détente with the USSR could not be achieved and that cost-benefit calculations favoured détente rather than an attempt to try and reconcile with a dramatically radical Mao.

2. Mao was fully aware that the USSR no longer supported Chinese nuclear development and was actively working against Chinese proliferation. Khrushchev sided with the imperialists, meaning that the bomb was crucial for Chinese defence.

Considering that the bomb was crucial for defence, a nuclear doctrine needed to be developed to articulate how China would use the bomb and engage with the nuclear order. A statement from the upper echelons of the PRC reveals this doctrine, which I will refer to at length.

“China cannot remain idle and do nothing in the face of the ever-increasing nuclear threat posed by the United States. China is forced to conduct nuclear tests and develop nuclear weapons.”[33]

“China is developing nuclear weapons not because we believe in the omnipotence of nuclear weapons and that China plans to use nuclear weapons. The truth is exactly to the contrary. In developing nuclear weapons, China's aim is to break the nuclear monopoly of the nuclear powers and to eliminate nuclear weapons.”[34]

“The Chinese Government hereby solemnly declares that China will never at any time and under any circumstances be the first to use nuclear weapons.”[35]

Ultimately this is the Chinese nuclear doctrine: China needed a bomb to protect itself from the imperialists. In this sense, as stated previously, the bomb was a deterrent. China would not use nuclear weapons as a first use, with the intended use only for defensive purposes. This corroborates Mao’s view that the bomb in and of itself does not change conventional warfare, and that China was forced to break the nuclear monopoly, especially after the split as China was threatened by the USA and USSR. The doctrine was underlined by ideological thinking — that is to say, the idea that the weapon serves Marxist-Leninism (and Maoism) by giving China the means to oppose and defend itself from imperialist nuclear war. Taking this in mind reveals that the nuclear doctrine was fully developed following the split, which isolated China, brought the USA and USSR against it, and forced China to acquire the bomb to protect itself.

Conclusion

This essay has argued that the Sino-Soviet split impacted how Mao thought about nuclear doctrine and military strategy. After establishing the ideological tensions Khrushchev’s Secret Speech generated, this essay analysed how Mao’s subsequent radicalisation was transmitted to military strategy. Mao’s preference for martial efficacy, compounded with radical ideology, prompted him to perpetrate a deliberate attack against the USSR. The logic behind this was to “punish” the USSR and entice the USA into an alliance. Likewise, the split changed how Mao perceived nuclear weapons. What had been considered “paper tigers” in 1956, he realised that having the bomb was crucial to deter imperialist bullying. As such a nuclear doctrine was developed, emphasising a strict no-first-use policy and the bomb serving a defensive purpose by breaking Sino-American nuclear monopoly and safeguarding against imperialist bullying. This essay used archival documents and speeches to analyse Mao’s strategic and doctrinal thinking and to account for a change in perspective.

Footnotes

1. Nikita Khrushchev, 'On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,' Delivered at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", February 25, 1956, Wilson Center Digital Archive, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/115995

2. Lorenz M. Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton University Press, 2008), 45

3. Ibid, 47

4. The Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), 1 22; The original article, of which this is a translation, appeared in Renmin Ribao on April 5, 1956.

5. Luthi, Sino-Soviet Split, 52

6. Ibid, 196; I would also recommend looking at reference 16 in the original article.

7. Ibid, 205

8. Ibid, 205

9. Danhui Li and Yafeng Xia, “Jockeying for Leadership: Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, October 1961—July 1964”, Cold War Studies, no.1 (2014): 52, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26924444.

10. Li and Xia, Jockeying, 53

11.  Ibid, 54

12.  Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finklestein, Michael A. McDevitt, Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience Since 1949, (Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2002), 195

13. Ibid, 196

14. Yang Kuisong, “The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969: From Zhenbao Island to Sino-American Rapprochement” Cold War History, no.1 (2010): 24, https://doi.org/10.1080/713999906

15. Ibid, 25

16.  Andrew Kennedy, The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru: National Efficacy Beliefs and the Making of Foreign Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 6

17. These methods demonstrate Mao’s ground force strategic culture with an emphasis on the PLA rather than the PLA Navy. As Huang does well to elucidate, much of Mao’s military thinking is concerned with the PLA as the PLA Navy was only engaged infrequently ; see Alexander C. Huang, “From Coastal Defense to Distant Operations”, in Mark A. Ryan et al, The PLA Experience Since 1949, 233-260

18.  Kennedy, International Ambitions, 119-120

19.  Ibid, 111

20. Kuisong, Sino-Soviet Border Clash, 30

21. Ibid, 41

22. Ibid, 35;43

23. Ibid, 45-46

24. Nicola Horsburgh, China and Global Nuclear Order: From Estrangement to Active Engagement, (Oxford University Press, 2015), 40

25.  Ibid, 40; for instance see references 2-5 in the original chapter for specific works concerning the rationality and irrationality of Mao’s initial perspective towards the bomb.

26.  Ibid, 41-42

27. Mao Zedong, "Talk by Mao Zedong at an Enlarged Meeting of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Politburo (Excerpts)", April 25, 1956, Wilson Center Digital Archive, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114337

28. Horsburgh, China and Global Nuclear Order, 46

29. Ibid, 47

30. Luthi, Sino-Soviet Split, 248

31. Ibid, 252

32.  Ibid, 255

33. Obtained by Nicola Leveringhaus, "Statement of the Government of the People's Republic of China", October 16, 1964, Wilson Center Digital Archive, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/134359

34. Ibid.

35.  Ibid.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

200Khrushchev N., 'On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,' Delivered at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", February 25, 1956, Wilson Center Digital Archive, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/115995

"Statement of the Government of the People's Republic of China", October 16, 1964, Wilson Center Digital Archive, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/134359

The Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), 1-22.

Zedong M., "Talk by Mao Zedong at an Enlarged Meeting of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Politburo (Excerpts)", April 25, 1956, Wilson Center Digital Archive, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114337

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