-
DAVID WOLFF (Washington, DC, USA)
INTERKIT: SOVIET SINOLOGY
AND THE SINO-SOVIET RIFT
Brezhnev: "We did not discuss the Chinese issue with the US. We
didn't ask a single question regarding Beijing's policy and he
didn't ask us. We didn't want to give him a reason to think we were
concerned that they went to China. We have our principled course
and there's nothing for us to learn from Nixon about what goes on
in China. We in any case know better than Nixon the situation in
the PRC and the policy of the Chinese leadership."
Stenogram of a friendly meeting with the leaders of the workers'
parties of the socialist countries (July 31, 1972, Crimea)' '
In the final days of January 1969, high-ranking members of seven
ruling Communist parties gathered in East Berlin to discuss "The
Situation in the People's Republic of China and the Mao Zedong
group's present stage." The head of the East German International
Department (ID) within the Central Committee, Paul I\1arkovski,
welcomed the heads of the guest delegations punctually at 10 AM on
January 28. Three of them held the same title as Markovski.2 The
remaining delegations contained Deputy Directors of the re-
spective International Departments.3 Speaking in his native German,
Mark- ovski began with Bulgaria, continued with Mongolia, before
moving on to the lower rungs of the alphabet, where "Ungarn" came
last. - t i .
I. Stiftung Arkhiv der Parteien- und Massenorganisationen
(Hereafter, SAPMO) DY 30 J IV 2/201 (Abtei lung Intemationaler
Verbindungen). File 924
2. Paul Markovski (1929- )entered the Section in 1956 and became
Director of the Section starting in 1966. From 1964 to 1966, on his
way up, he served as Deputy Director. Other Direc- tors at the
Berlin meeting included: Konstantin Tellalow (1925- ), who had
served on and off in the Bulgarian International Department from
1951, becoming Director in January 1967; Pun- zagin Schagdarsuren;
and Andras Gyenes from Budapest (1927- ), who had served as
Deputy
Director until 1968, when he was promoted to Director. , _ . 3.
Deputy Directors included O. B. Rakhmanin, (1924- ), who had become
First Deputy Di- rector of the USSR International Department in
1968; Bohdan Lewandowski (1926- ), who served in the International
Department from 1967 until 1971, before and after service at the
UN; and Josef Sedivy from Czechoslovakia. Biographic data from
Who's IYho in the Socialist Coun- tries (New York: K. G. Saur,
1978). These men are strikingly of a cohort.
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434
Three days later, a protocol was adopted unanimously by all
present. In- terestingly, the list of signers, while still
beginning with Bulgaria, continued with Hungary and Germany, for in
Russian "Vengerskaia narodnaia respub- lika" and "Germanskaia
demokraticheskaia respublika" come before Mongo- lira. Clearly a
translation from the Russian, the meeting's conclusions had been
drafted by the Russians for approval by their Warsaw pact allies.
The verbatim discussions, however, show considerably more give and
take, for in the face of an ever-broadening Sino-Soviet split, the
Russians needed to mol- lify as well as pressure in order to
prevent further rifts.4 The instructions to the Soviet delegation,
approved in Moscow on January 21, also make clear the importance
attached to the search for a common front against a Maoist menace
whose contours were still not interpreted as uniformly as the Rus-
sians might wish.5
In fact, I will argue that the shadowy organization that evolved
out of the meetings of ID leaders and China specialists would play
a lead role in open- ing and developing a whole "second front"
inside the Cold War.6 Of course, Moscow set the general course,
while allowing room for well-rewarded con- tributions from other'
participants. In parallel, the Soviet Union single hand- edly
undertook a massive military build-up in the Far East. In 1965, the
Sino- Soviet border areas, including the Mongolian People's
Republic, hosted 20
'
combat divisions. This number grew to 45 by 1979. The number of
fighter aircraft increased six-fold to 1,200 in the Russian Far
East, with smaller, though dramatic improvements, in artillery,
tank, missile, and nuclear forces.?
7
"Interkit" is but one element in the overall Sino-Soviet
relationship, but probably among the least studied.
After a retelling of the Sino-Soviet split making use of
recently declassi- fied documentary evidence, this article presents
short introductions to the work of the ID and Soviet sinology at
the time. Faced with a steady deteriora- tion in Sino-Soviet ties,
a series of annual international conferences that came to be known
as "Interkit" occurred at the intersection between these two
communities. An outline of the new organization's functions and
history will lead to a more detailed examination of several aspects
of the 1969 meeting,
4. The author would like to thank the Parallel History Project
and James G. Hershberg for making the transcript of the 1969
meeting available as found in SAPMO at J IV 2/201/800. Henceforth,
this stenogram will be referred to as "SAPMO" alone, with other
materials from the same archive followed by additional description
of archival location.
5. Rossisskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii
(Hereafter, RGANI), f. 4, op. 19, d. 525, l. 29.
6. Although never cited as such in documentation, oral
informants universally refer to this organization as "Interkit,"
the (Anti-)China International.
7. For military build-up, see Paul Langer's "Soviet Military
Power in Asia," in Donald Zago- ria, ed., Soviet Policy in East
Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press 1982), 267-70.
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435
occurring just a few weeks before Sino-Soviet tension erupted
into open war- fare on the Ussuri River border. Finally,
implications for the Sino-Soviet split, competition in the Third
World, and our general periodization of the Cold War will be
considered. If, as the epigraph suggests, Brezhnev and other top
leaders felt that the analyses they were receiving from the
Interkit collec- tive gave them best knowledge of China, then that
goes far towards explain- ing the Warsaw Pact's inability to move
Sino-Soviet relations in a more con- structive direction throughout
the 1970s.
As the directives to the Soviet delegation to Interkit in 1971
stated: "... joint analysis of the various sides of the Chinese
problem is very useful for the ideological and propagandistic
activity of our parties as well as the devel- opment of a concrete
political line towards the PRC. It plays an important role in the
deepening of the scientific research work" g Analysis by coordi-
nated party specialists that then defmed policy possibilities and
future re- search could eventually become a closed circle, offering
the Politburo only one logical choice and the people of the Warsaw
Pact only one unified, self- fulfilling negative image of
China.
Sino-Soviet relations: 1959, 1969 The choice of 1959 is somewhat
arbitrary as a turning point in relations
between Russia and China for significant communal memories
remind the Chinese, even today, of the wide lands taken from them
by the tsar's minions in 1860, as Beijing lay prostrate after the
Second Opium War. The Russians, in turn, responded with attacks on
the "unequal treaty" of Nerchinsk (1689). Negotiated "under duress"
by superior Qing dynasty forces, the Russians had signed away their
patrimony in the Eastern reaches of the Amur. Even be- tween the
Communist hierarchies, there was already bad blood. For example,
Mao and all his surviving comrades from the Long March of 1934-35
re- membered well the year 1927, when Stalin had counseled
moderation and the rising tide of Chinese revolution had been
smashed by Guomindang (GMD) leader Chiang Kai-shek's armored fist
in a terrible bloodletting. The survi- vors had then wandered from
mountain fastness to hidden valley, first west- ward and then
northward, always only a few steps ahead of superior GMD military
forces intent on exterminating the last remnants of Communism in
China. Only 10-20 percent completed the Long March. From this dire
sce- nario Mao had emerged as preeminent CCP leader, the Chairman
(zhuxi).
Even a celebratory event such as a visit to Stalin's 70 birthday
in De- cember 1949 had a gray lining. Mao felt ignored and feigned
illness. A friendship treaty eventually eventuated, but by then
chances for real friend- ship were already remote. With such an
inauspicious beginning, it is no sur-
8. RGANI, f. 4, op. 19, d. 605,1. 40.
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436
prise that the "ten thousand-year" alliance was essentially over
in under a decade. 9
The crucial period was between July 1958 and October 1959, the
months of N. S. Khrushchev's two visits to Beijing. Although the
first was occa- sioned by deep disagreements over a Soviet proposal
for a "joint fleet" and shared radar installation, by the end of
four Mao-Khrushchev conversations, the relationship was, to all
appearances, back on track. The first aid adminis- tered to the
alliance by a well behaved, even apologetic, Khrushchev during his
1958 visit to Beijing would no longer be effective a year later.
During the 14-month interim, the Soviet leadership would become
convinced that Mao's recklessness could wreck Khrushchev's push.
for peaceful coexistence, his updating of Marxism-Leninism for a
nuclear age. Border skirmishes in the Himalayas were a reminder
that China could easily manufacture quandaries and embarrassments
for USSR foreign policy. And the standoff in the Taiwan straits
suggested that an even higher price might have to be paid for
insuffi- cient coordination between Beijing and Moscow. 10
In October 1959, Khrushchev returned to Beijing for the tenth
anniversary celebration of the PRC's establishment. He arrived in
the Chinese capital just days after sharing the "spirit of Camp
David" with Eisenhower, and the Oc- tober 2, 1959 summit transcript
shows how far Sino-Soviet relations had de-
'
teriorated since the 1958 visit. The collapse of the Great Leap
and Mao's other domestic challenges had left the Chinese tyrant
more prickly and para- noid than ever. Despite Mao's later
accusation that Khrushchev "doesn't re- search [China] and believes
a whole bunch of incorrect information," the So- viets fully
grasped the PRC's dire straits." Meanwhile, Khrushchev's big head
over Camp David and his fear that Chinese aggression, east and
west, could embroil the USSR in unnecessary conflict, further
contributed to the
9. For a more detailed treatment of the period 1948-1959 with
translated documents, see David Wolff, "'One Finger's Worth of
Historical Events': New Russian and Chinese Evidence on the
Sino-Soviet Alliance and Split, 1948-1959," Cold War International
History Project Working Paper, no. 30 (2000).
10. It is important to keep in mind that Khrushchev only
extended his nuclear guarantee to China after Zhou Enlai called for
renewed talks with the Americans. As Suslov's first draft, but not
his second, would state a year later in affirming support for the
Chinese position: "But we are unable to agree that a world war
[should be] ignited because of Taiwan." So far, no documenta- tion
is available on Gromyko's visit to Beijing on September 5, 1958,
but if his memoirs are any guide, transcripts will be very
revealing both regarding PRC views on Taiwan and on nuclear
warfare. Andrei Gromyko, Memoirs (New York: Doubleday 1989),
251-52.
11. On July 2, 1959, the State Committee on Economic Cooperation
with Socialist Countries reported to the USSR Council of Ministers
regarding rationing in China. RGANI, f. 5, op. 49, d. 243,11.1-8.
-
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437
mutual intransigence. i2 Discussions of Taiwan, American'
prisoners, and Ti- bet only reinforced disagreement. 13
For example, Khrushchev blamed the PRC for the Tibetan
imbroglio, wishing that the Dalai Lama were "in the grave" [v
grobu]. Unimpressed by their explanation of events, Khrushchev
prodded the Chinese to shoulder re- sponsibility for the border war
with India, contrary to Beijing's official pro- nouncements.
Angrily rejecting Khrushchev's charges, Mao and his foreign
minister, Chen Yi, in turn, accused Khrushchev. of "time-serving"
[prispo- soblenchestvoj, a charge he vehemently rejected. Chen Yi,
the Soviet leader retorted, was himself guilty of such extreme
leftism that "if you go left [from here], you may come out on the
right. The oak is strong, but it too can break." Khrushchev was
reaching the limits of his tolerance.
Marshal Lin Biao then offered an analogy with the Soviet
destruction of the German army and Suslov rejected the suggestion
that a "trivial incident [pustiakovyi intsident]" could be compared
with the "killings of tens of mil- lions." Nor was Khrushchev ready
to accept Mao's parallel between the es- cape of the Dalai Lama and
the much earlier departures of Aleksandr Keren- skii and Leon
Trotskii from the USSR.14 Although by the end of the meeting a
civil tone had been re-established, it was clear that neither
common lan- guage nor common cause could be maintained much longer.
This would be the last meeting ever between the now firmly
estranged Communist leaders. Only in 1989, as the Cold War and the
USSR drew to an end, would Mikhail Gorbachev arrive in Beijing to
renew the party-to-party dialogue.
.
12. Eisenhower's strategy had specifically aimed at massaging
Khrushchev's ego in order to get a favorable outcome on the Berlin
ultimatum. This inflated state of mind may have made compromise in
Beijing difficult. For example, on September 15, 1959 in their
first one-on-one, Eisenhower "said he believed that Mr. Khrushchev
had an opportunity to become the greatest political figure in
history because he has tremendous power in a complex of states with
great might.... For this reason, the President said, he believed
that Mr. Khrushchev could be the man to do a great deal to secure
peace in the world." U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of
the United Statf!.s (hereafter FR US), 1958-1960, vol. 10, pt. 1,
p. 409.
13. Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita's son, was 24 in 1959 and
accompanied his father to the US. He has recently written: "I allow
myself to express the supposition - based on my personal im-
pressions - that the warm reception given Father in the United
States, his great success there, and the prospect for improved
world relations had inclined Father toward euphoria. It seemed to
Fa- ther that talks with Mao Zedong in Beijing would enable him to
resolve any disagreements. He was bitterly disappointed." (Sergei
Khrushchev, Nikita A7:rM?c/!ey and the Creation of a Su- perpower
[University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 2000],
346.
, 14. Less than a week earlier, it was Khrushchev who had
suggested to Eisenhower that US
support of Chiang Kai-shek was comparable to supporting a
come-back by the aging Kerenskii. FRUS, 1958-1960, vol. 10, pt. 1,
p. 480.
15. The October 2 conversation was considered so damaging to
Sino-Soviet relations that it has been rumored that both sides
agreed to destroy their copies of the transcript. Now, thanks to
the late General Volkogonov's belief in the principles ofglasnost',
the Soviet copy has appeared.
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438
A week after returning to Moscow, ideologist-in-chief, M. A.
Suslov, who along with foreign minister, A. A. Gromyko, had
accompanied Khrushchev to Beijing, began to compile a report on the
trip to be presented at the De- cember 22-26, 1959 CC CPSU
Plenum.'6 After circulation to and minor edit- ing by Presidium
(Politburo before 1952 and after 1964) members and candi- dates,
this analysis would become the most explicit statement yet to the
top managers of Soviet government and society that all was not well
in Sino- Soviet relations. It described the October 2 talks as "not
completely pleasant at times" and criticized Chinese policies along
a broad spectrum, both ideo- logical and geo-political. Although
Suslov invoked Mao's "one finger" anal- ogy from the 1958 summit to
claim that the relationship could and would be salvaged, despite
"serious disagreements," his references to Mao's neo- Stalinist
cult of personality must have left the audience wondering if
repairs were really possible under the PRC's current leadership.
Certainly, this pow- erful personal critique of Mao could not have
been distributed without Khru- shchev's concurrence. 17 Whatever
doubts the Soviet kingpin had previously entertained regarding his
Chinese counterpart, they now were fast hardening into conviction.
18 '
Possibly, both Khrushchev's and Gromyko's memoirs are so thin,
even misleading, on the 1959 meeting, because they wished to
maintain the spirit of the agreement with the Chinese by not re-
vealing too much. We can only hope that Beijing also violated its
alleged commitment to shred the memcon and that the Chinese version
will be available soon. Meanwhile, the Russian ver- sion can be
consulted in the Volkogonov Collection, Library of Congress
Manuscript Division, Reel 17 or in translation by Vladislav Zubok
in Cold War International History Project Bulletin (hereafter
CWIHP), nous.12-13.
16. For a discussion of the role of plenum materials in Soviet
and Cold War history as well as a sampling of transcripts in
translation, see CWIHP Bulletin, no. 10 (March 1998), 5-60. For an
insightful analysis of Suslov's speech, see Mark Kramer,
"Declassified Materials from CPSU Central Committee Plenums:
Sources, Context, Highlights," ibid., 13-16. For additional quota-
tions from the report, see ibid., nos. 8-9 (Winter 1996/1997), 244,
248, 259-62.
17. On December 10, 1959, the new Soviet ambassador to the PRC,
Stepan Chervonenko, in- formed Liu Shaoqi that "attempts to
sabotage Soviet foreign policy would affect all sides of the
bilateral relationship." (Odd Arne Westad, Brothers in Arms
[Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ Press, 1998], 177-78). Suslov also had
unfailing guidance, although in more cryptic language, from
Khrushchev's speeches on October 31 and December 1, published in
Pravda on November I and December 2, respectively. The fact that
Suslov delivered the plenum report, together with his arrival in
Beijing in advance of Khrushchev, may have been calculated to
disabuse speculation that Suslov headed a "China lobby" in the
Kremlin. See Donald Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Con- flict, 1956-61
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1962), 278.
18. For a perceptive discussion of the Mao-Khrushchev dynamic,
see William '1'aubman, "Khrushchev vs. Mao: A Preliminary Sketch of
the Role of Personality in the Sine-Soviet Split," CWIHP Bulletin,
nos. 8-9 (Winter 1996/1997), 243-48.
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439
Also in December 1959, Mao disseminated his conclusions from the
Oc- tober meeting in an internal CCP speech.19 The talk outline
reveals that Mao had now made up his mind about Khrushchev and was
ready to spread the word among his cadres. Something is "not good
about the style of the [So- viet] party and people.... Lenin died
early and didn't have time to reform it." Sino-Soviet relations
since 1945 are viewed as a prologue to the split. Almost every year
contributes a landmark grudge against Stalin, Khrushchev and the
Soviet leadership. Mao repeats the finger analogy, claiming that
sources of disunity are but one in ten, just "one finger's worth of
historical events."
But similarly to Suslov's report, the prospects appear grim.
"Khhruushchev and his group are very naive. He does not understand
Marxism-Leninism and is easily fooled by imperialism.... If he
doesn't correct [his mistakes], in a few years he'll be completely
bankrupt (after 8 years). He panics over China. The panic has
reached its extreme."
The early sixties have been viewed variously, with some
emphasizing the unwillingness of the Chinese to formalize the split
for in the face of famine, who besides the Soviets could provide
aid? Others have focused on discrete acts of Soviet enmity to pick
turning points. The sudden withdrawal in 1960 of the Soviet
advisors from hundreds of ongoing projects is often discussed.
Disagreements over Soviet handling of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis
also come to the fore. Recently released documents suggest that
Khrushchev's anti-Mao policies came to a head in 1963, when a
high-level party delegation headed by Deng Xiaoping was invited
from China for long, pointless discus- sions. Simultaneously, an
American delegation, headed by veteran Soviet specialist and
wartime ambassador Averell Harriman, was in town to negoti- ate the
Limited Test-Ban Treaty, a first step, in Chinese eyes, toward
Soviet- American monopolization of atomic power and weapons.
It can hardly be coincidental that on July 10, Mao met with
visitors from the Japanese Socialist Party and announced: "About a
hundred years ago, the area to the east of Baikal became Russian
territory, and since then Vladi- vostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and
other areas have been Soviet territory. We have not yet presented
our account for this list." On July 19, Zhou Enlai confirmed the
accuracy of this statement in an interview with the Japanese daily,
Asahi Shimbun .20 Deng's violent polemics, clearly in parallel with
Mao
19. Mao speech notes in Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao [Mao's
Manuscripts since the es- _ tablishment of the PRC] (Beijing:
Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1987), 8: 599-602. Excerpts translated
in Wolff, "'One Finger's Worth'," 72-74.
20. Mao and Zhou cited from Thomas Robinson, "The Sino-Soviet
Border Dispute," Ameri- can Political Science Review, 66 (1972),
1178. Even wider claims including Mongolia and Xin- jiang were made
in 1964. For these, see Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, The Northern Territories
Dispute and Russo-Japanese Relations (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 199$), 1: 212. The fact
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440
and Zhou's irredentist threats, could only be exacerbated by the
knowledge that US-USSR collusion was proceeding simultaneously.21
The Chinese dele- gation in Moscow may also have added urgency to
the US task of cultivating detente with the USSR, but probably
reminded Khrushchev as well of neces- sary limits on cooperation
with capitalists and imperialists. When Harriman, as instructed by
JFK, floated the idea of joint preemptive action against the PRC
nuclear potential, Khrushchev refused even to discuss the idea.22
On the other side of town, the Chinese were accusing him of
entertaining sinister in- tentions of just this kind.
Mao, who, like DeGaulle, denounced the Treaty, would soon regale
the French press with forceful language.23 .
Mao then got back to the subject of the atom bomb: "I know that
you are ahead of us in that respect. But we too shall have our own
bomb. It is a means of power. That doesn't mean we're going to use
it But there are two large countries that intend to lead the world
without consulting anyone else. Have they consulted General de
Gaulle? The Moscow [Test Ban] Treaty is a fraud. Those two
countries must not come and sh_ on our heads." The interpreter was
dumbfounded at this [use of slang], wondering at first if he indeed
had to translate literally, but Mao told him to go ahead, and
added: "That may shock you, but it's the truth."
In 1963, Khrushchev undertook another initiative that could only
be seen as inimical to China - he proposed the inclusion of
Mongolia in the Warsaw Pact. After all, against whom could Mongolia
possibly invoke mutual de- fense, if not China? Poland's leader,
Gomulka, led opposition to Mongolian membership by labeling it
"dubious and risky." Such a move would anger China leading to
counterproductive pressure on Mongolia. It would also di- lute the
Warsaw Pact's value as a counter to NATO and West Germany.
Khrushchev backed down, but reconfirmed his enmity towards China by
tell-
that these statements were made to the Japanese who had (and
have) their own territorial dis- agreements with the
Soviets/Russians may also have been intended as the suggestion of
possible irredentist cooperation against the USSR.
21. Highlights of the Deng-Suslov debates can be found in CWIHP
Bulletin, no. 10 (March 1998), 175-82.
22. "Khrushchev does not seem to be receptive to US probing in
this sensitive area, particu- larly on the question of a Chinese
threat to the USSR, or joint US-Soviet action against China,"
reported Harriman. See Harriman telegram to JFK, July 15, 1963,
FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. 7, p. 801; August 1, 1963 memo for Harriman,
box FCL 18, folder "USSR General 1963," Harriman Papers, Library of
Congress.
23. Mao Zedong to French delegation on January 30, 1964 as
printed in Paris-Presse- Intransigeant on February 21, 1964 and
reprinted in attachment to July 2, 1964 State Department memo by
Secretary Dean Rusk to various embassies as "Status of Program to
Influence World Opinion with Respect to a Chinese Communist Nuclear
Detonation" (Central Foreign Policy Files, DoS Files, 1964-66,
Record Group 59, US National Archives) .
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441
ing Gomulka in January 1964 that nuclear weapons were ready,
should the Chinese cross the border. The issue of Mongolian
coordination in anti- Chinese campaigns would soon be re-addressed
in the context of Interkit.
Other East European leaders also worked towards-Sino-Soviet
detente af- ter Khrushchev's forced retirement in October 1964, but
a meeting between the GDR's Walter Ulbricht and Zhou Enlai in the
wings of the 47'h anniver- sary of the October Revolution failed to
make progress. Zhou remained con- vinced that Rodion Malinovskii's
drunken suggestion, "We got rid of Khru- shchev and you should get
rid of Mao, too!" reflected unchangingly hostile attitudes at the
USSR highest levels. He then analyzed inebriation under the lens of
dialectical materialism: '
ZHOU: Brezhnev, Kosygin and Mikoian responded as follows: "they
said they didn't know anything about this until now, that they were
furi- ous about it. They do not agree at all with Malinovskii's
words. Sec- ondly, they said that they spoke to Malinovskii on the
telephone. They said Malinovskii responded that he had not made
himself clear. He said he'd had too much to drink and apologized.
He, Malinovskii. We [the Chinese] responded that we had noted their
response and that we will ex- amine their response and we reserve
our right to give serious considera- tion to this issue. Because
even then we had our doubts that this event was merely
coincidental. We indicated that a segment of the Soviet lead-
ership wanted to continue Khrushchev's policies and they wanted to
con- tinue to develop Khrushchev's ideas. If we believe in
dialectical materi- alism, that is, if we believe that ideology is
determined by existence, then it is immediately obvious that
especially words spoken in drunkenness reveal one's innermost
thoughts. He cannot drink much because he is not very healthy. That
was not just one word or just one sentence from him, it was
criticism.
ULBRICHT: We are in a better position. We are always sober ....
24
And thus, we approach the Chinese Cultural Revolution not only
with a heritage of tension between the USSR and the PRC, but also
with potential friction between the USSR and its East European
allies over the correct pol- icy towards Beijing. Moscow's shock at
the extremes of 1965-66, as Red Guards deified Mao and harassed the
Soviet embassy, would galvanize it to coordinate its allies, both
east and west.
. ant a Soviet-bloc summit held in Moscow on October 21, .1966,
all the General-Secretaries described the widening threat from
Beijing and.the need for a unified response. Ulbricht spoke of the
Chinese "trying to transfer their
24. SAPMO, J IV 2/201/712 2
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442
own quarrelsome politics" to Asia and Africa, concluding that
"the time has come that the communist and workers' parties meet
both at the multilateral and bilateral levels to come to an
agreement on how to conduct the fight against anti-communism."
Mongolia's Tsedenbal told about Cultural Revolu- tion propaganda
and military espionage being conducted along his borders "on a
daily basis." He also called for "uniform opinion" leading to
"uniform and concrete steps toward strengthening the international
communist move- ment." Brezhnev, representing the Eurasian link
between clients East and West, followed up on both lines of
argument, confirming Ulbricht's concerns about the breadth of
Chinese aspirations by mentioning the newly formed Red Guard "world
headquarters" and Mao's claim to be "leader of the world
revolution." He also echoed Tsedenbal by describing border
incidents involv- ing Soviet fishermen being trapped in Chinese
nets. He affirmed his solidar- ity with the Mongolian position by
wondering rhetorically "how other parties would react if they were
treated in this way?" He concluded that "unity is dear to communist
parties."
Indignation went hand-ili-hand with fear for Brezhnev continued,
still in a rhetorical vein, that "given all this, I ask the
comrades: does the danger of war exist? Given the uncertain
politics of China, nobody can give any guarantee." The 1966
establishment of the Institute of the Far East already represented
a Soviet best effort to answer Brezhnev's question through expert
analysis of Chinese-generated inscrutabilities and uncertainties. A
year later, the founding of Interkit would be an answer to the call
for the coordinated in- ternational containment of China. Mao could
not mistake these intentions, nor does it seem that any attempt was
made to mask the new undertaking. Then, the Chinese Chairman would
also engage in all-fronts confrontation with the USSR, a cold war
within the Cold War, that would culminate in the strategic turn
towards the Americans and the bloody March 1969 clashes on the
Ussuri border.25 For the second half of the Cold War, Sino-Soviet
enmity would be an over-arching force field, snaring and distorting
all relations within the socialist camp.
25. The Robinson article cited above provides an analysis
privileging the Russian version of events. The counterpart is
Neville Maxwell, "The Chinese Account of the 1969 Fighting at
Chenpao," China Quarterly, 56 (1973), 730-39. For new evidence on
the events of 1968'?69, see CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6-7 (Winter
1995/1996), 186-93, 194-201, and 11 (Winter 1998), 155-75.
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443
The International Department26 .
Although among several descendants of the Comintem dissolved in
1943, the International Department, came into its own after
Khrushchev began to search for alternative foreign policy organs.
Molotov's dominance in the For- eign Ministry had taught him a
lesson. The "draft structure" and "plan" for the ID went to
Khrushchev for approval on March 26, 1953. It called for 95
employees, a third of whom would be translators. Almost half would
attend to European affairs, while the remainder divided, up the
world. Six were as- signed to cover China, Korea and Mongolia .27
Mikhail Suslov and Boris Po- nomarev, party apparatchiki par
excellence, supported the idea of a party for- eign policy organ
and the latter became the director of the International De-
partment four, almost thirty years. The idea of the "fraternal
department" reso- nated well with the romantic ideas about the
socialist movement entertained by Khrushchev in such questionable
enterprises as shipping nuclear weapons to Cuba.
The thorny relationship between Suslov and Ponomarev guaranteed
the In- ternational Department long life in the strange system of
checks and balance's that led to comfortable stagnation. 28 On the
other hand, it also produced stalemates that often allowed Andrei
Gromyko's Foreign Ministry the fore- most role in foreign policy
making.29 Mark Kramer has argued that the Inter- national
Department "had some wider foreign policy responsibilities as well,
[but] its jurisdiction was confined primarily to the key tasks of
administering front organizations and maintaining liaisons with
non-ruling Communists and other revolutionary groups. ,30 This is a
minimalist definition, probably true for some periods, but Sergei
Grigoriev, himself a former International De- partment affiliate,
argues a broader interpretation:
After the expansion of the ID at the end of the 1950s, its key
functions were viewed in the party apparatus as: coordinating all
Soviet foreign
26. The ID's full name was the "Department for Contacts with
Socialist Fraternal Parties." By the 1980s,'it had grown to 347
people listed in its 1985 internal phonebook. Much of what follows
comes either from RGANI, f. 5, op. 28, containing International
Department materials for the 1950s or from Sergei Grigoriev, The
International Department of the CPSU Central Committee (Cambridge,
MA: Kennedy School Occasional Papers, 1995). Grigoriev worked in
the American section of the ID from 1984 until 1990.
27. RGANI f. 5, op. 28, d. 1,11. 1,9. 28. According to
Grigoriev, the hatred between Suslov and Ponomarev had two poles:
Stalin-
ism and anti-Semitism. , 29. In addition to the Foreign Ministry
and ID, the KGB and personal aides to top figures, e.g.,
Aleksandr-Agentov for Brezhnev, played varying roles in foreign
policy making.
30. Mark Kramer, "The CPSU International Department," E. P.
Hoffmann and F. J. Fleron, eds., Soviet Foreign'Policy: Classic and
Contemporary Issues (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991 ).
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444
policy-making; controlling decision-making and the
implementation of decisions in foreign policy both in general and
with regard to various re- gions, groups of countries, and
individual countries, elaborating new policies and foreign policy
initiatives in the international arena; organiz- ing the regular
flow of different kinds of foreign policy information to most of
the Politburo members; and actively participating in personnel
policy related to all the institutions that dealt with foreign
policy and for- eign economic relations.31
The analysis presented below of the International Department's
coordina- tion of Warsaw bloc policy and propaganda towards China
seems to be closer to the latter definition of International
Department functions, although in many ways it goes beyond
Grigoriev's widest view. The International De- partment's central
role in organizing Interkit goes beyond the circulation of
information to the actual promotion (and limitation) of knowledge
creation for policy elites and masses alike. Although the 1969
meeting speaks only of propaganda and research tasks, later
instructions to Interkit specifically speak of its foreign policy
tasks.
Even more important, the immense amount of energy expended by
the In- ternational Department in its battle against Chinese
influence both in the Warsaw Pact and in the Third World, greatly
influenced Ponomarev's ap- proach to the socialist world. Once one
accepts the fact that a country recog- nized as socialist could
become the Soviet Union's worst enemy, caution to- wards the
headlong support of so-called socialist causes followed. Grigoriev
reports an incident "at the end of the 1960s or at the beginning of
the 1970s," when Ponomarev, summoned to the office during a
late-night coup in the Su- dan, remembered: "I was sitting in my
office and thinking fearfully: what if they really won? They have
millions of people there, and we would have to feed them all....
This was a real nightmare. Luckily for us, they lost." Simi- larly,
Ponomarev and Suslov came to loggerheads over the 1980 election in
France, the latter supporting the Socialist candidate (and eventual
winner) Francois Mitterand. Ponomarev had seen socialist successes
abroad turn into Soviet liabilities and had learned his
lessons.32
Soviet sinology Soviet China-watching has followed a troubled
course with apparent
trumps often reduced to deuces by the Chinese themselves. For
example, in 1956, Beijing resisted Soviet efforts to establish a
research institute dedicated to the study of China alone, insisting
that studies continue within units with
31. Grigoriev, The International Department of the CPSU Central
Committee, 24. , 32. Ibid., 26, probably July 1971.
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445
broader Asian competence. After Khrushchev's fierce polemics
with Mao during a visit to Beijing in October 1959, studies of
China fell silent. After all, attacks could only endanger the
fleeting and wishful opportunities for in1- proved ties, while
sympathetic treatment would expose sinologists to accusa- tions of
sinophilia with potential dire consequences. , .
Gilbert Rozman, the closest student of Soviet sinology in the
1960s-1980s has observed that: "Only after 1967 was a concerted
effort made to explain what had happened and was happening in the
PRC.... At the end of the 1960s Soviet Chinese studies reached
their maturity. From this time to 1982 they would be marked by
voluminous output, stable organization, and a con- sistent
prevailing outlook on Chinese society. This outlook was an
amplifica- tion of emerging views from the mid 1960s; so there was
no fundamental change in thinking for about two decades under
Brezhnev's and Suslov's leadership...."33 An analysis by Seweryn
Bialer found only slightly more variation and concluded that
"Soviet China experts in their writings and per- sonal contacts
with Western colleagues reflect the official position and, at the
same time, could serve as a guide to discern nuances and
differences that may exist in particular aspects of China policy
among the political elite... These differences are primarily
differences of stress, not of substance. ,,34
'
In fact, it was the stunned apprehension of the Cultural
Revolution, seen in the USSR as primarily directed against Moscow,
that had galvanized and concentrated sinological energies. In 1966,
a committee co-opting officials from both the International
Department and the Foreign Ministry mandated the establishment of
the Institute of the Far East (Institut Dal 'nego Vostoka) to
engage in studies of contemporary China for direct consumption by
the policy-making community. Nomenklatura-style perquisites and
liberal re- sources drew the best and the brightest sinologists to
the endeavor. The Chi- nese themselves contributed to the
development of a secretive and authorita- tive Zhongnanhai-ology by
discontinuing the publication of official statistics in 1959.35 At
the Berlin meeting, when the Director of the Institute of the Far
East wanted to present his numbers, he felt obliged to caution
"that we are
; .
33. Gilbert Rozman, A Mirror for Socialism: Soviet Criticisms of
China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1985), 42-43. Rozman's
analysis tracks Soviet views of various Chinese classes/groups to
document Aesopian commentary regarding the possibility of reform
within so- cialist systems. His introduction contains the best
overview of the Soviet China-watchers in the 1960s-1980s. This
group has been surprisingly long-lived, perpetuating the views to
be presented below. , 34. Seweryn Bialer, "The Sino-Soviet
Conflict: The Soviet Dimension," in Zagoria, ed., The Sino-Soviet
Conft'ict, 109.
35. Zhongnanhai is the party leadership compound adjacent to the
former Imperial palace at the heart of Beijing. For a map of the
Chinese "Kremlin," seeAndrew Nathan and Perry Link, eds., The
Tiananmen Papers (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), xxx.
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446
forced to conduct studies, researches and various calculations.
All these numbers come out of this [process]. I would like you to
keep this in mind. ,36 Clearly, highly-trained, specialist cadres
would be required to ferret out and interpret the data no longer
supplied by a paranoid China.
At the same time, new educational opportunities multiplied the
sinological cohort to over a thousand by the end of the 1970s. In a
sense, this was the heyday of Soviet sinology as 1966-68 saw a
greatly expanded output of China-related print materials. With hard
currency resources, the Institute of the Far East could purchase
materials worldwide for inclusion in its 'closed' library. It also
monopolized sinological contact with other countries, main-
taining, for example, a group membership in the European
Association of Si- nology until 1978, when individuals were
nominated in order to place them into the governing organs of that
body
On the other hand, the enthronement of a budding orthodoxy
regarding China meant diminished opportunities for reform-minded
scholars, who had been closely associated with Khrushchev-era
reforms. Nonetheless, Rozman concludes that: "Indirectly and
intermittently, the proponents of this view- point kept the
de-Stalinization perspective alive until they could articulate it
more fully, if only in a Chinese context, in the post-Mao era. The
field of Chinese studies harbored reform forces, who, while on the
defensive through
> the 1970s, preserved a forum fQr reflection and continued
analysis of the problems of socialism."38 Burlatskii's biography of
Mao, for example, while ostensibly uncovering the unhealthy
tendencies to which the 1969 Berlin meeting was devoted, could also
be read as an indictment of Stalin or any other Soviet leader
aspiring to "Mao-like" pre-eminence.39
The consolidation of the 1970s left four influential individuals
in charge of the China field. M. S. Kapitsa,4 O. B. Rakhmanin, M.
I. Sladkovskii' and S. L. Tikhvinskii maintained a firm hold on all
studies of China, from the com- manding heights of four
interlocking institutions. By the early 1980s, Kapitsa had become
director of the Foreign Ministry's Far Eastern Department,
Rakhmanin worked as first deputy director of the International
Department, Sladkovskii oversaw several hundred specialists as
director of the Institute of the Far East, while Tikhvinskii
trained diplomats as the president of the So-
36. SAPMO, 356-57. 37. RGANI, f. 4, op. 24, d. 622. 38. Rozman,
A Mirror for Socialism, 45. 39. Fedor Burlatsky, The True Face of
Maoism (Moscow: Novosti, 1968). 40. M. S. Kapitsa ( 1921- ) From
1970, head of the First Far Eastern Department (Socialist
countries) of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. 41. M. I. Sladkovskii
(1906- ). After graduation from Far Eastern State University in
Vladi-
vostok, he worked in the Ministry of Foreign Trade from 1930
until 1965. Director of the Insti- tute of the Far East from
1966.
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447
viet Union's Diplomatic Academy. During the final six years of
the Brezhnev era, this quartet produced over 200 articles and
books, providing unerring semi-official guidance to Soviet
sinologists regarding the party line.42 Two of the sinological
"gang of four," Rakhmanin and Sladkovskii, were present in Berlin
for the second meeting of Interkit. As the directors of.
China-policy in the International Department and of the Institute
of the Far East, these two individuals represented the two streams
of policy-oriented China-watching that would be merged into
Interkit, shaping elite.and popular perceptions of the Middle
Kingdom throughout the Warsaw pact.43
Interkit : Early days , The first meeting of Interkit took place
in December 1967 in Moscow. Al-
though I have no material directly from this meeting, the head
of the Soviet delegation at the 1969 Berlin gathering, A. M.
Rumiantsev, the Vice- President of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
reported on the distance cov- ered since the previous meeting.
First of all, the CC CPSU approved the documents generated by the
Moscow meeting for "practical work." The documents were then
circulated to the Central Committee, the members of the Central
Control Committee, Soviet diplomats, and the First Secretaries of
the union republics, regional and local party committees. A
concrete propa- ganda plan was drawn up resulting in a series of
articles in Kommunist, printed in 200,000 copies. These, in turn,
were consolidated into a brochure and republished in English,
French, German and Spanish by "Novosti" press. Ten articles were
also published in Pravda and Izvestiia.
Rumiantsev then lists the suggestions of various parties to the
Moscow meeting, later implemented by the Russians. The value of
non-Russian input suggests both the Russian delegation's desire to
please, and possibly an un- derstanding that Sinology in the Warsaw
pact was often strongest beyond the borders of the USSR. "We are of
the opinion," stated Rumiantsev, "that the publication of documents
and articles provided by the fraternal parties about the Chinese
question was and is extremely significant. We consider this form of
coordination and mutual aid in our shared affairs to be most
important and promising." The Germans had suggested the creation of
a special center for the study of China, the Hungarians were
credited with emphasis on propa- ganda radio broadcasts, the
Czechs, it seems, had called for a conference of press and radio
representatives, the Bulgarians had called for more scientific
cooperation, the Poles wanted more publication coordination, and
the Mon-
golians argued for more joint propaganda. ,
42. Rozman, A Mirror for Socialism, 44, 50-51.
43. Actually, the Warsaw Pact plus Mongolia, Cuba and Vietnam,
but minus Romania.
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448
Rumiantsev then went on to describe the special cooperative
relationship between the Mongolian comrades and the USSR "in
somewhat greater detail, since that country is a direct neighbor of
China and is therefore under ex- tremely strong propagandistic
pressure from the Mao Zedong group." It turned out that every
month, the Soviets were providing the Mongolians with approximately
400 press items for radio broadcasts in Chinese, Mongolian and
Kazakh to influence Chinese citizens and in English for broadcasts
to "Southeast Asia and the Far East." Rumiantsev invoked the
special ties with the Mongolians, since they were the only
countries broadcasting propaganda directly to China. The Soviets
themselves were broadcasting 32 hours a day (total) in a mixture of
Mandarin, Cantonese, and Shanghai dialects as well as Kazakh and
Uigur. "We can say with certainty," concluded Rumiantsev, "that we
are driving the truth about Mao Zedong and his policies right
through the [Great] Wall of China. ,44
Rumiantsev then called on the participants to go beyond print
and radio to produce TV movies about China as well. As the Vice
President of the Acad- emy of Sciences, Rumiantsev also presented a
list of further possibilities for future shared research and
training:
1) A symposium on the key social problems in contemporary China
to be held in the end of 1969, leading to the publication of an
article collection;
2) Short-term exchanges of scholars to present papers about
contemporary China;
3) Exchange of young scholars within the socialist sinological
community; 4) Provision of information on library collections
regarding China and pe-
riodic exchange of materials; 5) Acceptance of students from the
fraternal countries into sinological lan-
guage, literature and history programs at Soviet universities.
He then called for a meeting of leaders from sinological institutes
in the
summer of 1969 to look at these proposals and exchange
information on such questions as:
1) the possibility of organizing a meeting of Foreign Ministry
representa- tives in 1969; 2) the efforts of the Mao group to
promote splits in the Communist movement; 3) study of the Mao
group's efforts in Asia, Africa and Latin America; 4) Organization
of a conference on non-capitalist development. 45 These suggestions
match closely the "List (Perechen ') of Measures re-
garding the Coordination of Propaganda and Research on the
Chinese Ques- tion," that was attached to the CPSU Central
Committee's January 21, 1969
44. SAPMO, 296-304.. 45. Ibid., 3 10-11.
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449
approval of the delegation's trip to Berlin. In fact, the
Perechen would be re- produced in a verbatim German translation as
part of the final Protocol.46 On January 31, Lev Deliusin who had
served as the chairman of the editorial committee for the joint
statement announced that the whole text had been ap- proved
unanimously by the committee which then presented the document to
the full session. Markowski and Rumiantsev quickly stated their
full agree- ment with the text and it was adopted in a burst of
applause. Interestingly, the only change that Rumiantsev suggested
(and got) was the removal of the word "Secret" (Vertraulich) from
the first page. In a show of trust, he insisted that each party
should make its own decisions on the document's use, not limited by
the strict rules on the circulation of classified documents. 41
The Soviet document also had the delegation's "Instructions"
(Ukazaniia) attached. General guidance would be provided by the
evaluation of the Chi- nese issue at the April and July 1968
plenums as well as a November 22 Pol- itburo decision. Point Three
ordered the Soviet delegation "if possible, to ob- tain agreement
on a set a theses as at Moscow in December 1967, based on the
project worked out by the International Departments of the CC CPSU.
if the delegations from fraternal parties do not consider it
possible to work out joint materials, [the delegation should] not
insist, but instead limit 'itself to agreement on general ideas and
evaluations on the key questions of the given topic.""
Eager to avoid the tensions regarding the appropriate approach
to China that we have seen in discussions among the Warsaw Pact
allies throughout the early 1960s, the Russians listened
attentively to reports from the other countries' delegates,
tolerating minor deviance.49 In fact, it was Rumiantsev who
introduced one important novelty by referring to China as "a third
force," admittedly in quotation marks. The call for the study of
"non- capitalist development" also implies the existence of "a
third way." He would soon find himself contradicted by the
Bulgarian representative, Tellalow, who denied that China could be
anything but an objective aid to imperialism when it opposed the
Soviet Union. Nonetheless, this is the shadow of the nas- cent
Strategic Triangle appearing on the horizon.50
Among the most divergent (and interesting) presentations were
those made by the Polish delegates, Lewandowski and Rowinski. This
was the
46. Ibid., 515-17. 47. Ibid., 323-26. Rumiantsev may also have
assumed that Beijing would get the document
, anyway, so why not leak it directly? If indeed, Beijing was
aware of the criticisms and coordina- . tions aimed at it during
the Berlin meeting, then this conference may also have made its'
small
contribution to the atmosphere in which the decision to fight on
the Ussuri was made. 48. RGANI, f. 4, op. 19, d. 525,11. 29,
107-10. 49. This would be less necessary after the March 1969
border conflict. 50. SAPMO, 283, 340.
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450
smallest delegation, but clearly commanded great respect.
Lewandowski spoke of the vicious cycle (Teufelkreis) between
nationalism and crises, as the PRC used the latter to provoke the
former, which in turn led to more cri- ses. He also compared China
to the US in its use of psychological warfare. Finally, he warned,
citing US State Department sources, that US-China rela- tions were
really improving, although still at the preparatory stage, and pre-
dicted that the Warsaw negotiations would soon be moved elsewhere
to avoid unnecessary visibility."
His colleague Jan Rowinski presented a detailed analysis of the
Chinese press, with emphasis on the internal journal cankao xiaoxi
(Reference News), which in its heyday would become the world's
largest circulating daily. In 1969, two and a half million copies
were printed every day, mainly for party members. Rowinski also
noted the "differentiated, nuanced" handling of problems specific
to individual socialist countries. Romania, West Germany, and "the
events in Czechoslovakia" are listed among the key objective
differ- ences in the socialist camp on which the Chinese try to
play. Rumiantsev was so interested in this report that he asked
Rowinski to provide him with the data on which it was based. 52
Appendices to the 1969 stenogram include lists of the delegates
and their institutional affiliations as well as a twenty-page
report "On several matters pertaining to the international
activities of the Mao Zedong group," which turns out to be a
country-by-country analysis of Chinese positions and actions in the
countries of Asia and Africa. Zhou Enlai is cited as calling for a
"worldwide" battle with "modem revisionism," the Chinese
ideological long- hand for the Soviet bloc. Then, the author runs
through a list of cases in Af- rica and Asia, exposing the
dangerous influence of Chinese tactics, such as forming Maoist
grouplets within existing parties leading to schisms, e.g., In-
dia, or declaring People's War without consideration for the
chances of vic- tory. Indonesia is presented as an example of the
latter.
The tragic events of 1965 in Indonesia are still fresh in the
memories of all Communists. The bloody destruction of the
Indonesian Communist Party and the death of hundreds of thousands
of Communists are on the conscience of the Mao Group. And
nonetheless Mao and his accomplices keep pushing the Indonesian
communists to actions that not only prevent their recovery, but
instead [will] lead to the final elimination of the Party.
51. Ibid., 288, 292, 303. 52. Ibid., 386-89. Lewandowski in the
chair at the time of Rowinski's report spoke of his
pleasure at Rumiantsev's indirect recognition of the strength of
Polish sinology. Rowinski's was the only mention of the Warsaw
Pact's recent invasion of Czechoslovakia, attesting further to the
independence and stature of the Poles. -
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451
... Under pressure from Beijing, the survivors of the CC CP
Indonesia gathered several armed units and leading cadres in summer
1968 in east- ern Java.... As a result, the military operations
carried out by the Indo- nesian military authorities from June to
August. resulted in 1500 Com- munists being arrested or murdered,
including all members of the Polit- buro ... still at liberty.53 ..
_
Particular concerns are voiced regarding the susceptibility of
intellectuals and students to the Maoist appeal, but these are
domestic groups that the KGB had already accumulated substantial
experience in handling, as the most likely domestic holders of
anti-Soviet attitudes.54 The "comprehensive work" (umfassende
Arbeit) undertaken by the Communist parties "in recent years" is
regarded optimistically as "isolating the Maoists and uncovering
their pseudo-revolutionary demagoguery." Dwelling on the
international preten- sions of the Maoists, points the way to an
all-out, many-faceted global con- flict. This would become
increasingly important in the 1970s as triangular Cold War spread
virulently throughout the Third World.55
Leonid Brezhnev almost certainly read the results of the 1969
Berlin meet- ing for his speech to the assembled General
Secretaries of the Warsaw Pact in 1972 follows the line traced by
Interkit. He condemned the Chinese urge to split the socialist
camp, while designating cooperative science as the appro- priate
countermeasure.
Now, a bit about Chinese tactics. They are sending telegrams in
every direction. They wish to visit and also receive visits from
all over. We shouldn't be so polite with the Chinese. We are polite
and they answer us with a dirt-throwing campaign. (eine
Schmutzkampagne) Certainly, we should not be silent any longer.
Besides, the Chinese have real fear of science. (grosse Angst vor
der wissenschlafticher Arbeit) Every country can make use of
specific groups of ours who know how to make compo- sitions on
these issues in which there are no curses, rather the principled
illumination of the Chinese position. 56
.
53. Ibid., 524 54. This analysis also distances the USSR from
the worldwide demonstrations and protests of
summer/fall 1968, events that appear to be considered as
victories for the Maoists, rather than Moscow. , . 55. Ibid., 539.
For more on Cold War in the Third World and its reflection in
Soviet scholar- ship, see CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 8/9 and Jerry Hough,
The Struggle for the Third World (Wash- ington, DC: Brookings
Institution, 1986).
56. SAPMO, DY 30 J IV 2/201. File 1570 August 2, 1971 Crimea
meeting of the General Secretaries.
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452
Interkit: Continuities and changes My data on the annual
meetings of Interkit are fragmentary, but the ar-
chives of Eastern Europe could certainly supplement it. Together
with the comments on China made at the annual Crimea meetings of
the General Sec- retaries, we begin to see the ties between the
makers of China's Soviet image and the formulators of Soviet China
policy. In 1970, the meeting moved to Warsaw and in 1971, the
Bulgarians hosted. The 1971 Soviet directives con- tinued to
emphasize the risk of the Chinese splitting the socialist camp, by
"giving itself a calm, attractive character ... using the desire of
the fraternal countries to normalize relations with the PRC to
worsen relations among the fraternal parties." At the same time,
the Soviet delegates were instructed to report to their Interkit
comrades that "the Chinese leaders are visibly alarmed by the
effectiveness of the political, economic and other cooperation of
the socialist countries."" In 1971, unlike 1969, foreign policy
activities are spe- cifically listed as part of Interkit's
role.58
Since Rumiantsev did not attend any of the Interkit meetings in
the 1970s, Rakhmanin assumed leadership of the delegations. He also
met with his counterparts one-on-one during numerous intra-bloc
visits. For example, on February 28, 1973, he met with Hermann Axen
in Moscow to discuss Asia policy. After an interesting overview of
Soviet-bloc affairs in Korea, Vietnam and China, Rakhmanin thanked
the Germans for their China research, noting that the US was
preparing hundreds of China specialists a year in over 50 in-
stitutions, while the USSR had an output of only fifty scholars
annually from its sole policy-oriented institute, the Institute of
the Far East. The implication is that the USSR would only be able
to fight the sinological Cold War with the aid of its allies.
By 1975, as preparations were being made for the next meeting in
Ulaan- baatar, the Soviet position declared that "the battle with
Maoism is tightly tied to the battle against imperialism, since the
Maoist leadership of China has openly taken the position supporting
the most reactionary imperialist powers....This is the watershed
between Marxist-Leninists and revision- ists/renegades."
Nonetheless, despite claims that socialism was being ever more
deeply undermined in China, the USSR never stated that the PRC was
not socialist. There has been much speculation about why this was
so, but since the International Department was mainly responsible
for such key ideo- logical formulations, it had no interest in
defining the PRC as being outside the Department's own coverage of
socialist countries.
Shortly after the appearance of Interkit, the Soviets founded an
organiza- tion to make bloc-wide policy on trade to China. A 1973
meeting in Moscow
57. RGANI, f. 4, op. 19, d. 605, I. 41. 58. Ibid., f. 4, op. 19,
d. 605,1. 1. 40.
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453
was followed by annual gatherings in Budapest and Berlin. Soviet
instruc- tions to the delegation heading to Berlin called both for
limitations on mili- tary and dual-use technologies as well as for
"additional measures to guaran- tee secrecy."'9 " ,
For the 1980 Interkit meeting, held in Warsaw, Soviet officials
were dis- patched in advance in order to prepare the conference
materials. This sug- gests the immobility of the institution, still
headed by O. B. Rakhmanin, mandated to coordinate "foreign policy,
trade/economic relations, and propa- ganda." The writing of a final
joint report is already described as a "tradi- tion." The only
major change in the final years was the inclusion of Cuba and
Vietnam in the group and the clear sense that the Chinese had
divided the 'socialist camp' into three sections: North Korea,
Romania, and Yugoslavia in which China tried to develop
"nationalistic" efforts; Afghanistan, Cuba, Kampuchea, Laos,
Mongolia and Vietnam under direct propaganda attack by Beijing;
others subject to a combination of Chinese carrots and sticks de-
signed to eventually wean them from the Soviet bottle.6 As the
Soviet ID noted in a 1979 Instruction sent directly to Soviet
ambassadors in Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Sofia,
Ulaanbaatar, Havana, Hanoi and Vienti- ane : "There are cases in
which the responsible representatives of fraternal countries,
despite the official position of their parties, try to exclude some
important areas of contact with China from multi-faceted
coordination." The dispatch concluded that "Work on these matters
should not be considered as episodic in nature. ,61
As late as 1982, even Foreign Ministry suggestions that an
improvement in Sino-Soviet relations might be in Moscow's interest
were sidelined as "crazy," with Rakhmanin's grip tightening further
in 1984 during the brief Chemenko interlude. Gorbachev's 1985
appointment of Vadim Medvedev to head the ID was a turning point,
producing tension in the China branch. Competing visions began to
trickle up to the Politburo and Rakhmanin was finally retired in
1986. Thereafter, perestroika policy shifts towards Afghani- stan,
Mongolia and Vietnam opened Gorbachev's road to Tiananmen.62 i,
59. Ibid., f. 4, op. 22, d. 1601,1. 4. '
.
60. Ibid., f. 4, op. 24, d. 1268,1. 1. 61. Ibid., f. 4, op. 24,
d. 1200, l. 4. Copies were sent to the Soviet embassies in Beijing,
Py-
ongyang, Phnom Penh, Bucharest, and Belgrade. , , 62. An
insider's view of perestroika China policy can be found in
Alexander Lukin, The
Bear Watches the Dragon (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 149-52.
He notes that: "In the first half of the 1980s, strong independent
views and often personal courage ... were required to voice a
positive assessment of the reforms in China, for this clashed with
the interests of the dominant anti-China lobby." These interests
are identified as ties to the "military-industrial com- plex."
(144) :.. :
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Conclusion The long tenure of Interkit and the relative
stability of its organization re-
sulted in a new orthodoxy of anti-Chinese policy that through
"multi-faceted coordination" reversed the era of Sino-Soviet
friendship in all fields.63 It is hard to judge which effects were
more deleterious - the limiting of foreign policy options for
leaders by presenting a monolithic image of China or the poisoning
of public opinion by radio, print and television propaganda aimed
at hundreds of millions throughout Eurasia. At the same time, the
concentra- tion of Interkit research in the Institute of the Far
East took resources away from interdisciplinary studies of China to
focus energies on political and ideological tasks. The breadth of
the Russian sinological tradition lost much at the hands of
Interkit.
'
As long as Rakhmanin, the sinological "Big Four" and parallel
cohorts in the other Soviet-bloc countries continued to run
Interkit, history would re- main a special and especially disputed
category. Already in 1972, Rakhmanin and his International
Department sidekick B. T. Kulik published their ortho- dox take on
the post-war era Soviet-Chinese Relations, 1945-70 under thinly-
disguised pseudonyms.64 Not surprisingly, Interkit tasks often
included the reduction of Chinese history to politically useful
results. When the Chinese imitated the Interkit/Institute of the
Far East model by making use of its
< Academy of Science institutes to advance historical claims
to territories lo- cated inside the Soviet Union, all objectivity
was lost. The Soviet scholars considered the Chinese move natural,
although they were disturbed in 1978, when more qualified Chinese
scholars, purged during the Cultural Revolu- tion, returned to
work. Rakhmanin's consternation in the face of the Chinese versions
can be sensed in the statement that "At the core, contemporary Chi-
nese historiography ... by educating the people in the spirit of
great power racism and chauvinism undertakes the psychological
preparation of the Chi- nese population for military adventures
.,,65 The appropriate countermeasures took the form of joint
historical research with the Mongolian Academy of
63. The stability of the Soviet foreign policy world has been
widely remarked upon. Not only did Ponomarev run the International
Department from the 1950s until 1980s, after working in the
Comintern since 1935, but Gromyko headed the Foreign Ministry from
1957 until 1985, while Ustinov stayed in top military posts from
1941 until his death in 1984. Nikolai Patolichev, minis- ter of
foreign trade, held that post from 1958 until 1985, while
Aleksandrov-Agentov advised Brezhnev, Chernenko and Andropov.In
comparison to these, the tenure of Rakhmanin and his cohort does
not seem unusual.
64. O. B. Borisov and B. T. Koloskov, Sovetsko-kitaiskie
otnosheniia, 1945-1970 (Moscow: Mysl', 1971 ). Note that the
authors' pseudonymic initials match those of O. B. Rakhmanin and B.
T. Kulik.
65. On this, see "0 merakh po razoblacheniiu kitaiskikh
fal'sifikatsii istorii i otporu territo- rial'nym pritiazaniiam
Pekina k SSSR," in RGANI, f. 4, op. 24, d. 694, Il. 2-3.
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455
Sciences, reiterating the special role of Mongolia in the Soviet
approach to hostile China.
'
The periodization of the Sino-Soviet split, especially its final
stages in the 1960s, also encourages us to rethink the general
periodization of the Cold War. Numerous authors have spoken of a
great divide in the.Cold War. John Lewis Gaddis, for example,
treats 1962 as a turning point, for after that "its outcome was
largely determined." Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Plesha- kov
also focus on 1962 for resolving the Cuban missile crisis
(Karibskii krizis) ended "the most terrifying period in the Cold
War," but continue their analysis until Khrushchev's 1964 ouster to
emphasize the importance of gen- erational change implicit in their
choice of leadership biographies as narrative device. Marc
Trachtenberg chose 1963 for the signing of the Limited Test- Ban
Treaty in Moscow, not for its role as an arms control treaty, but
as "a whole web of understandings that lay just below the surface
.,,66 Similar claims have been made for the 1960s as a whole as
turning point on account of social turmoil, east and west, let
loose by superpower detente.
But although the German issue is the object of Trachtenberg's
special in- terest, he names both Germany and China as the
countries to be dealt with by the seminal treaty. 67 Clearly, a
period that is largely described in terms of "resolution" and
"d6tente," when viewed from the US and its archives, is less so
once we factor in the Sino-Soviet rift. Precisely in the period
when the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations were signing
the central docu- ments for cooperation with the Soviets, a new
Cold War between Moscow and Beijing was taking shape. Those who
conclude that the US had already "won" might wish instead to
celebrate the respite accorded the US as the USSR turned its
attention to the Eastern front. Just as the Western front in World
War II is considerably better studied than the Eastern one, the
same might be said for the Cold War.
Finally, the extensive appendix on Chinese policy in the Third
World at- tached to the 1969 meeting prefigures the way in which
two considerations prepared the USSR to enter a new, multi-polar
phase of the Cold War. First of all, the idea that a socialist
country was not necessarily an ally of the USSR led to more
cautious analyses of all lefhving forces in the Third World.
Secondly, China's increasingly global competition for influence
suggested the possibility of a "third force" in world politics.
Jerry Hough has traced the way in which discussion of the Third
World fell silent in 1960-63, as Soviet officials and academia
began to digest the broader implications of "losing
66. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,
1997), 279-80; Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), 274; Marc Trachtenberg,
A Constructed Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999),
390.
67. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 384.
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456
China." This was followed by authoritative publications
suggesting the "presence of an uncontrolled element - the
independent actions of medium and small powers.... At the present
time international political crises quickly (almost instantly)
acquire a universal character and directly or indi- rectly drag in
all the most important states and military coalitions...." This
statement came from a volume co-edited by Evgenii Primakov in
1972.68 From this point of view, his vision of geopolitics evolved
towards the multi- polarity he practiced as Russia's Foreign
Minister and that is still preached by his proteges on Smolensk
square. Although Interkit was terminated in 1989, close ties
between official academics and scholarly officials continue to in-
fluence Russian policy in the post-Soviet period. But that is a
topic that goes beyond the scope of this article.
Woodrow Wilson Center
68. Cited in Hough, The Struggle for the Third World, 235. ,