Research
The Great Leap Forward
By Shen Zhihua, Parallel History, Spring 2005
Jun 3, 2008 - 8:05:06 AM

The process and causes of the split between the People’s Republic of China and the former Soviet Union have been of great concern to scholars in international studies of the history of the cold war, and a succession of pertinent discussions and analyses has appeared. In relation to the issues of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes, this article focuses on Mao Zedong’s inner wishes, Moscow’s responses and the ensuing process of deterioration of the relationship between China and the former Soviet Union. Although the Moscow Declaration claimed the international conference of Communist parties and workers’ parties convened in November 1957 as “a proof of the international solidarity of the Communist movement,” at the time divergences between China and the Soviet Union had begun to emerge. It seemed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was moving to take the leading position in the international socialist camp from the Communist Party of the USSR. Such divergences first appeared in foreign policy: Mao suddenly bombed the Jinmen Islands without notifying Moscow in advance, leading to the acceleration of the Far Eastern crisis – an obvious challenge to the Soviet Union’s policy of détente with the United States. Khrushchev was more than angry and decided to stop nuclear aid to China. ¹ Although Moscow’s act caused great concern to the higher leadership of the CCP, it did not make them decide to split with the Soviet Union. What pushed Mao to the limit was Khrushchev’s skepticism and opposition in relation to China’s domestic policies of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes. It was this that made Mao determined to declare war on Moscow. Obviously, when the two sides felt they could not put up with the other’s principles and policies, the alliance was inevitably in danger of breaking up.

Mao’s True Motivation Was to Catch up with and Surpass the Soviet Union

In mid 1950s, the prestige the CCP and Mao enjoyed in the socialist camp was unprecedentedly high. So it was quite different to the time of Stalinism in terms of Mao’s approach to Sino-Soviet relation: he began to think about this camp from a leader’s perspective. It was in this mood that Mao went to Moscow for the second time in November 1957.

In sharp contrast to his first visit in 1950, this time Mao was in the full limelight in Moscow. At a celebratory meeting marking the 40 ^th anniversary of the October Revolution, all the audience stood up in respectful applause only when Mao went up to deliver his speech. In the meeting of representatives of Communist parties of different countries, all speakers stood on the platform to deliver reports prewritten by their central committees, that is, with the exception of Mao, who remained in his seat while making an extemporaneous speech. Out of the meeting, Mao behaved almost like half a host, going about trying to solve the contradictions other Communist party leaders had with the Soviet Union, and reiterating the importance of all socialist countries having “the Soviet Union as their leader.” If in the past the Soviet Union was undoubtedly the sole leader of the socialist camp, Mao’s acts in Moscow in November 1957 fully indicated that the CCP could sit as equals at the same table with the Soviet Communist Party, and Mao and Khrushchev were going to lead the socialist countries together.

However, in one respect the Soviet Union took the lead: in promoting the policy of peaceful competition with capitalist countries, Khrushchev put forward the slogan of surpassing the United States in 15 years. Mao certainly did not want to lag behind and immediately claimed a similar goal for China to catch up or surpass Britain in 15 years. ²

In December 2, 1957, Liu Shaoqi declared this goal at the 8 ^th national congress of Chinese Trade Unions. Thereafter, the slogan of “surpassing Britain and catching up with the United States” became an importance motivation for the Great Leap Forward. ³ Earlier, on November 13, the editorial of the People’s Daily had used the term “the Great Leap Forward,”which was greatly appreciated by Mao. ⁴ In December 30, Mao noted when reading a book entitled “Socialist Political Economics,” “We are bolder than Stalin in having people’s communes develop industry.” On economic construction after 1949, he noted “I’ve always been unsatisfied and unhappy with the way we’ve basically followed the Soviet Union’s approaches,” and when putting forward the “ten relationships” in Spring 1956, he suggested, “China is as much a socialist country as the Soviet Union, so I wonder if it is possible for us to get greater, quicker, better and more economical results to build socialism.” ⁵

It seemed that Mao not only already had the idea of leaping forward, but also from the outset saw the Soviet Union as China’s competitor in the race. In a meeting in March of 1958 in Chengdu, Mao talked with great enthusiasm about the grave consequences of following Soviet rules and regulations and Stalin’s repression of the Chinese revolution, while being fully confident about China going its own way in the future. He pointed out, “Some people say our development in 13 years can equal 40 years of development in the Soviet Union. That’s absolutely right and as it should be. We have a larger population and different political conditions: we have objective conditions that will enable us to go faster.” ⁶ In Mao’s view, “the mainstream of Marxism” had now shifted to the East. ⁷

With truth in his grasp and an understanding of how to mobilize the masses, Mao felt China’s pace in catching up with and surpassing the most powerful capitalist countries should naturally be continuously accelerated. He claimed on April 15 that it might be possible for China to catch up with the big capitalist countries in industrial and agricultural production in a period shorter than had previously been predicted. In one decade China could catch up with Britain, and another decade with the United States. ⁸ Although on the surface he was talking about Britain and the United States, his real intention was to surpass the Soviet Union. At the second plenary session of the 8 ^th national congress of the CCP held in May, Mao targeted his speech at the Soviet Union. He said, “We do not raise the slogan of ‘cadres decide all’ and ‘technology decides all’ that Stalin put forward. We do not raise the slogan of ‘Soviet plus electrification equals communism’ that Lenin put forward. Our slogan is to build socialism in a fuller, quicker and more effective way. Is this slogan wiser? I think so. The latecomers come first! In my view our communism may arrive earlier than in the Soviet Union. The Soviet way can build socialism, but we can also have another way to do this.” Mao also said excitedly, “Lin Biao once said in Yan’an that in the future China would be sronger than the Soviet Union. At that time I was a bit doubtful. I thought the Soviet Union would also be progressing. Now I believe that this is quite possible.” ⁹ In June 23, at a meeting with military cadres, Mao set the goal of surpassing the Soviet Union in steel production: “By 1962, we can produce 75-80 million tons of steel. So we don’t need five years to catch up with Britain, two or three years will do. In five years we can catch up with the Soviet Union, and in seven years, ten at most, we can catch up with the United States.” ¹⁰

In order to lead the international communist movement, Mao needed not only an increase in productivity, but also a faster change in the relations of production. He began to conceive an ideal blueprint for the future of China as early as in the beginning of 1958. In March and April of that year, he talked with Liu Shaoqi and Chen Boda, the director of the central policy research office, about the “merging of township and cooperative” and the people’s communes, and the central leadership of CCP formally suggested “the enlargement of cooperatives.” In July 1, Chen Boda gave a lecture entitled “under the banner of Mao Zedong” at Peking University, in which he publicized for the first time Mao’s master plan for the future of Chinese society based on people’s communes as the basic social unit. This speech was immediately published in the party’s magazine “Red Flag.” In early August, Mao made the remark “the people’s communes are good” to reporters when inspecting people’s communes in Henan and Shandong provinces, and immediately the communes spread all over China. At the time, the whole party believed firmly that in theory and practice the country could enormously quicken its pace and raise productivity by continuously changing the relations of production and raising the level of public ownership. While the people’s commune was an outcome of the “Great Leap Forward,”it could also push forward a greater leap, propelling China into communism.

The Beidaihe meeting of the CCP central leadership held in August connected the setting up of people’s communes with the issue of entering the stage of communism. The “Resolution on Setting up People’s Communes in the Countryside” passed by the central committee of the CCP in August 29 claimed, “It appears that the realization of communism in China is not a matter for the distant future. We should actively apply the method of people’s communes in search of a practical way to make the transition to communism.” ¹¹ After this, Mao gave earnest consideration to this issue. He said in November in Zhengzhou, “Work really hard for three years, keep going for another 12 years, and we will make the transition to communism in 15 years. We will not publicize this goal, but we have to pursue it.” The Soviet Union was only boasting: “One hears footsteps without seeing anyone coming down the staircase.” “The collective farms in the Soviet Union are engaged only in agriculture, not in industry; they sow a wide acreage but reap a meager harvest, so it is no wonder that it cannot make the transition to communism.” The people’s communes in China were different. “They are the outcome of two transitions, …the best grassroots unit for communist social structure.” ¹²

Therefore, Mao reached the conclusion that China had found a new path to communism: “Stalin did not find the appropriate form of transition from collective to public ownership, and from socialism to communism. He did not find the right solution. Now we have the people’s commune, which will accelerate our socialist construction and become the best form for the countryside to make the transition from collective to public ownership and from socialism to communism.” ¹³

By the end of 1958, Mao not only firmly believed that CCP had found the right path to make the transition to communism, but also felt that it was possible for China to enter the ideal society of communism by means of “Great Leap Forward” and the people’s commune movement earlier than the Soviet Union. In Mao’s view, China could surpass the Soviet Union in economic development, and show the whole of mankind a bright path to communism. Once this was all recognized and supported by every ally, especially Moscow, this would be equivalent to recognition of the CCP’s leadership of the socialist camp.

Moscow Forced into Silence

Basically, the Great Leap Forward was received with enthusiasm by the general public in the Soviet Union and its press also thought highly of this movement. Yet many had doubts about some of the specific economic targets propagated by the CCP. As to the people’s commune, some grassroot cadres in the Soviet Union began to show great interest, but the higher leadership remained cautious.

A long report by Xinhua News Agency from Moscow on July 26, 1958 summarized opinions in Soviet society about China’s Great Leap Forward and the General Line. Some people showed their full support for the General Line and the policy of equally emphasizing industrial and agricultural production, while others expressed their doubt on specific targets and tasks, such as producing 50 million tons of steel and raising wheat yield in experimental plots to over 3500 kilograms per mu by the year 1962. After an enlarged meeting of the CCP political bureau in August, the Soviet Union increased its reporting on the Great Leap Forward. According to Xinhua News Agency, the number of reports by TASS “about the Great Leap Forward in industry, agriculture and culture in China amounted to about 50 items” in October 1958.

The Soviet Embassy in China filed a long report evaluating the Great Leap Forward on July 26, 1958. The report was positive on the achievements of Chinese economic development. Although it cast doubt on the numerous economic development indexes published by China, saying they were “not to be considered sound economic evidence,” the report emphasized the enthusiasm they indicated in building socialism. The conclusion of the report not only affirmed the economic success of the CCP’s mobilization of the people’s subjective energies, but predicted that China’s second five-year plan could be fulfilled within two or three years. ¹⁴ Consequently, during his visit to China, Khrushchev said in praise, “We experienced Russians were surprised at the plans put forward by Chinese comrades. …we have no doubts about your ability to fulfill these plans.” ¹⁵

The initial reaction of the Soviet Union to China’s people’s communes was surprise. After Chinese press reported the issue raised in the Beidaihe meeting, the Soviet Embassy to China immediately suggested on August 22, 1958 that “the two sides should exchange views and reports on how to further develop the socialist system in the countryside.” ¹⁶ The setting up of people’s communes in China aroused great attention and interest among Soviet cadres and the mass of the people. The China Research Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences held a discussion on people’s communes, voicing positive views on its advantages. Some even suggested the organizational form of the people’s commune surpassed that of the collective farm. Yet the majority of people in the Soviet Union were eager to learn about it. When the resolution passed by the central committee of the CCP was fully reported by the Soviet Union’s Party daily, Pravda, many readers wanted to know more about the people’s communes in China. Questions arose as to whether the people’s commune was an example of communism, and whether it was superior to the collective farm. People in the Soviet Union were more than eager to know how people’s communes organized production and life.

However, the Soviet press gave little coverage to the people’s commune movement in China. The Internal Reference News revealed when quoting reports by western media that official newspapers in the Soviet Union never made any comments on the people’s commune and seldom published stories about it. By the end of 1958, no authoritative Soviet leaders had openly talked about people’s commune in China. In all the news articles commemorating the 9 ^th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in the Soviet press, only three mentioned the people’s commune, and only one of them in Literary Post focused on the issue. Also in all the 215 commentaries broadcast by Radio Moscow, only three mentioned it. At a reception marking the October Revolution on November 6, the speech delivered by the Soviet ambassador to Beijing did not mention a word about the rise of the people’s commune movement in China.

The reason for this reluctance was the cautiousness of the Soviet leadership. On September 6, 1958, the Minister of International Department of Liaison of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union, Andropov, submitted a special report to the central committee on the people’s commune movement in China. Talking about how the Soviet union should react to the issue, the report said since the CCP attached great importance to this organizational structure, “we should in the spirit of Soviet-Sino friendship introduce this subject in our press using the materials and reports published in China.” Yet at the same time the report proposed further and comprehensive research by the Soviet Union on the issue. ¹⁷ The result of such research indicated that Moscow was going to confront an awkward choice. “On the one hand, if we praise the people’s communes for the sake of maintaining good relationships between the Soviet Union and China, we will deceive the international workers’ movement; on the other hand, if we preserve the truth and criticize this as an example of ‘leftist’ policy, we will widen the split between the two parties.” Therefore, the central leadership of the Soviet Communist Party decided it was better “not to mention this issue for the sake of maintaing the stability of the relationship between the two countries, that is, neither praise nor criticize people’s communes.” ¹⁸

The first time a Soviet leader talked about people’s communes was on November 30, 1958, when Khrushchev held a meeting with Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka. Official Polish documents recorded Khrushchev’s repugnance to the people’s commune. ¹⁹ Yet the content of this talk was not known to outsiders at that time. Later, it was rumored in the West that Soviet leaders expressed different opinions in private about the people’s commune. Although the press in the Soviet Union later denied this, what is undeniable is that when Khrushchev talked publicly about the transition to communism, he was attacking by innuendo the people’s communes in China. In his memoir Khrushchev explained that he mentioned indirectly the issue of people’s communes in China in his report to the 21 ^st national congress with the intent of cautioning party cadres against any “blind imitation” that could “incur irretrievable political and economic losses in the Soviet Union.” Khrushchev also mentioned that after the Bulgarian leader visited China, the Bulgarian press talked at length about people’s communes and some collective farms were enlarged to an incredible scale. So the Soviet leaders felt it was necessary to stop this absurd situation developing in the Soviet Union. ²⁰ Another reason may lie in Khrushchev’s personality. According to the recollections of the Soviet Central Committee’s official in charge of Chinese affairs, there was a saying in Moscow at the time that in the international communist movement there was only one theorist and philosopher – Mao Zedong. Khrushchev was merely a practitioner, one good at growing corn. Many others also thought that in the people’s communes, China had really found a path to communism that the Soviet Union had failed to find. Khrushchev was assuredly very angry when he heard this. ²¹

Six months later, Khrushchev finally talked in public about what he thought of the people’s communes. In a mass rally in Poland on July 18, 1959, he recalled and criticized mistakes in setting up communes in 1920s in the Soviet Union. Compared with the report of the 21 ^st national party congress, this talk also did not mention China, and its tone was more tolerant. It should not have elicited a strong reaction. However, when Polish newspapers published this talk, the part about the communes was omitted, while the Soviet Union’s Party daily, Pravda, intentionally reported the speech in full. This was an extremely poorly timed decision, because at that very moment Mao was indignant about Peng Dehuai’s lengthy and frank admonition at the Lushan party meeting. Khrushchev’s speech further irritated Mao. He decided to attack Khrushchev openly.

Mao Decides to Declare War on Khrushchev

In the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune movement, Mao’s enthusiasm infected many others. According to a review by the Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council, there were many sayings among party cadres, such as “the phrasing of ‘led by the Soviet Union’ should be changed into “jointly led by the Soviet Union and China’,”“the center of the international communist movement has been shifted to China,” and ‘‘the leadership of the Soviet Union’ is in fact only evident in its strength in economic development.” Some people thought “the seven-year plan of the Soviet Union is not really a leap forward, and they should be persuaded to speed up.” There were even people who claimed “any of our comrades in the party’s central leadership is qualified to become chairman of any country in the world.” ²² These sayings reflected to a considerable degree the mood of Mao and the CCP. Mao wanted his initiative to be recognized at home and abroad, especially by socialist countries. However, what awaited Mao was not understanding and support, but the economic reversal of 1959 and wide-spread self-criticism and complaints from all levels of cadres. The Lushan meeting was held against such a backdrop. No wonder a private letter from Peng Dehuai stirred up a hornet’s nest. Mao was determined to counterattack those who dared to criticize his experiment with communism.

On July 16, Mao passed around Peng’s letter to those attending the meeting. Still angry, he read other two reports revealing the complaints of grassroot cadres about the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes. They said that having the whole population make steel involved “more loss than gain”, was “a waste of money and energy” and was a political rather than economic move. They also said that “the people’s communes are not superior,” “they are an artificial product” and “were prompted by a sudden impulse.” Then came a report from the Foreign Ministry, indicating a widespread belief among cadres in the Soviet Union that China had encountered difficulties, and the CCP had made an error. Mao again passed these materials around without any comment. ²³

On July 28, Khrushchev’s speech about the people’s communes was sent to Lushan. There was no way Mao could tolerate Soviet leaders joining in this debate and siding with rightists in the party. The next day Mao gave instructions for these materials to be distributed to delegates, saying “I ask all comrades to look into the question of whether the communes that failed in Soviet Unions are identical with our communes, and to predict whether our communes will fail or not; … what meets the demands of history can never fail, and can never be stopped artificially.” It appears that this still did not satisfy Mao: on August 1, he again delivered these materials to the Minister of Liaison Wang Jiaxiang, writing, “I wrote a few words to refute Khrushchev. In the future I will write articles to display the advantages of the people’s commune. Khrushchevs oppose us on three things: the policy of letting one hundred flowers bloom, the people’s commune and the Great Leap Forward, or at least they are have doubts about them. I think they are now in a passive position while we are in a very active position. What do you think? We should safeguard these three aims against the whole world, including opponents and skeptics within the Party.” ²⁴ It seems that by now Mao had not only linked Peng with Khrushchev but was determined to launch an attack on Khrushchev, and let the conflicts between China and the Soviet Union come into open.

After some thought, Mao wrote to Chen Boda and others on August 19, asking them to go to the provinces to prepare materials on the people’s communes, saying “in order to counterattack the criticism, smears and skepticism of our enemies at home and abroad as well as of right opportunists within our party, we should fight against them all” in order to break down the opponents and skeptics among Soviet comrades.” On September 4, Mao wrote to Hu Qiaomu and Wu Lengxi, asking them to consider publishing Khrushchev’s speech on the people’s communes, “so as to put him in a passive position, and to let all people in China know that he is against the people’s communes.” Mao also gave instructions that papers in Czechoslovakia and Democratic Germany were to be sent news bulletins providing praise for and propaganda about the 8 ^th plenary session of the CCP, “so as to strengthen our morale and check some people in the Soviet Union.” ²⁵

On September 12, Liu Shaoqi submitted to Mao an article he wrote for the magazine Peace and Socialism entitled “The Victory of Marxism and Leninism in China.” In his letter to Mao, Liu said “Could you please examine the hidden jibes at foreign comrades in this article to see if they are appropriate?” Here “foreign comrades” certainly referred to Soviet leaders. Mao was more than pleased and remarked, “Seen. Very good.” And “It can be written this way. Not to write it would be wrong.” On October 1, both People’s Daily and Red Flag published this article. ²⁶

Against this background Khrushchev made his third visit to China, during which the two sides staged heated arguments. The Soviets felt the CCP could not accept any criticism. Khrushchev said angrily, “This is a great situation: you use the clichė ‘headed by the Soviet Union’ but you won’t let us say a word. What kind of equality are we talking about?” Although the argument was mainly about foreign policy, what really preoccupied Mao was the issue of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes. On seeing Khrushchev off at the Dongjiao Airport, Mao made a point of talking about what the Great Leap Forward had achieved, how the masses had initiated the people’s communes, and what advantages the latter had in comparison with communes the Soviet Union had had in the past.

Although both Mao and Khrushchev recognized that China and the Soviet Union had common fundamental interests, and the alliance between the two countries was of great importance, each also thought the other’s mistakes had to be corrected.

Therefore, after October 1959, both countries put out propaganda about the correctness of their policies and theories. The Soviet-Sino Friendship magazine published in the Soviet Union began to reprint editorials and articles appeared in Pravda, Izvestia and other papers that obviously contradicted the CCP’s stance. China retaliated. Khrushchev’s speeches at the Warsaw Pact summit meeting in early February of 1960 and his visit to India led Chinese leaders to think he was pursuing compromise with the west and courting the west by opposing China. So the central leadership decided to take this move seriously, and to prepare the necessary counter-attack to Khrushchev’s anti-China behavior. The only remaing question was what would trigger this polemic.

What caused Mao to declare war on Moscow was the Soviet leaders’ skepticism, scorn and criticism of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes. Yet the first round of attacks focused on purely theoretical issues. In April 1960, the central leadership of the CCP sponsored three articles marking the ninetieth birthday of Lenin. These articles systematically illustrated the CCP’s views on important theoretical issues such as peaceful coexistence, peaceful transition, socialist revolution, war and peace and the nature of imperialism. On the surface, these articles were criticizing revisionism in Yugoslavia. In fact, however, they were directed at the central leadership of the Soviet Communist Party. In late May of the same year, Mao met separately with Kim Il Sung and Jespersen, leaders of the North Korean and Danish Communist Parties. He formally indicated that the CCP did not agree with the idea of peaceful coexistence and peaceful transition, blamed the Soviet Union and other eastern European parties for giving up class struggle, and and went so far as to criticize Khrushchev by name and the so-called “the spirit of camp David.” He even said that “we will settle accounts in the future.” Immediately after, when attending a conference of the World Federation of Trade Unions, the Chinese leader openly revealed that they had serious disagreements with the Soviet Communist Party on fundamental theories.

Why did Mao not attack Moscow by defending the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes, the two issues that the CCP considered were its new contribution to Marxism and good examples for the socialist camp? Firstly, the CCP would not have this argument on issues that had been criticized by the Soviet Communist Party because that have been a defensive move of self-justification rather than an attack. Secondly, both the people’s communes and the “Great Leap Forward” were things the Soviet Union had tried before, and therefore China would not have the advantage in such a debate. Lastly, “the Great Leap Forward” and the people’s communes had not succeeded in China and had not been recognized by the majority of allies in the socialist camp. However, on the one hand, Mao needed the socialist camp, and needed even more to lead this camp, but without the Soviet Union there would be no socialist camp. On the other hand, it was necessary to take a clear-cut stand on major matters of principle, because only those who had true Marxism on their side were qualified to lead this camp. So Mao decided to argue with the Soviet Communist Party on theories of revolution and war, convinced that he could persuade or overcome them.

What Mao had in mind was to be the standard bearer for the world’s socialist countries in catching up with and overtaking capitalism and imperialsim, and to make China a leading example in the international communist movement. However, Moscow took this theoretically based attack as a challenge to the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union. Thus occurred the joint attack on the CCP delegation organized by the Soviet Communist Party at the Bucharest conference in June 1960. When he failed to overcome the CCP in theoretical debate, Khrushchev decided to put economic pressure on China despite large-scale opposition. On July 16, the Soviet government formally notified the Chinese foreign ministry of the withdrawal of all Soviet experts from China in a given period of time, in effect tearing up nearly all economic contracts for cooperation with China.

In this way the internal conflicts between the communist parties of China and the Soviet Union evolved into open debates, and conflicts of inter-party relations led to the deterioration of state relations. Finally, the Sino-Soviet allies split up. The question to ponder here is the fact that socialist allies not only demand unity in terms of foreign policy but also emphasize identity and unanimity in their domestic policies, otherwise they get blamed for breaching solidarity and friendship. The standard for judging such unity depends on who occupies the leading position in the alliance, but the outcome is undoubtedly an increase in the instability of the alliance. The essence of the problem is probably a structural weakness inherent in relations among socialist allies, or one might say a congenital deficiency in the political patterns of state relations among socialist countries. ²⁷

  Notes

1. See Dai Chaowu, The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis and Sino-Soviet Relations, H http://www.cc.org.cn/ H, May 2001; Shen Zhihua, Aid and Restriction: The Development of Nuclear Weapons by the Soviet Union and China, in Historical Studies, 2004, no. 3.

2. Selected Works of Mao Zedong since 1949 ，（abbreviated hereafter as Selected Works of Mao ）, vol. 6, p. 635, 1992, Central Archive Publishing House.

3. Bo Yibo, In Reflection of Certain Critical Decisions and Events (abbreviated hereafter as In Reflection), p. 692, the Central Party School Press.

4. Jilin Provincial Archive Center, general file no. 1, content 1-14, vol. 75, p. 5.

5. Deng Liqun ed., Mao Zedong’s Comments and Talks about Socialist Political Economics, pp. 44, 715.

6. Selected Works of Mao, 1999, vol. 7, pp. 365-376, People’s Press. Provincial Archive Center of Jilin: general file no. 1, content 1-14, vol. 68, pp. 17-23.

7. Selected Works of Mao, 1999, vol. 7, p. 177, Central Archive Publishing House, 1992.

8. In Reflection, pp. 693-695.

9. Jilin Provincial Archive Center, general file no. 1, content 1-14, vol. 59, pp. 6-9. In Reflection, pp. 471, 695-696.

10. Fujian Provincial Archive Center, general file no. 101, content 12, vol. 223, pp 15-17.

11. Selected Documents of Importance since 1949, vol. 11, 1995, Central Archive Press, p. 450.

12. Jilin Provincial Archive Center, general file no. 1, content 1-14, vol. 71, pp. 6-11, 25-28.

13. Mao Zedong’s Comments and Talks about Socialist Political Economics, p. 66.

14.ЦХСД,ф.5,оп.49,д.135,лл.1-75.

15. Record of the talk between Mao and Khrushchev on August 2, 1958.

16. ЦХСД,ф.5,оп.49,д.129,р.8891,лл.189-192.

17.ЦХСД,ф.5,оп.49,д.129,р.8891,лл.189-192.

18.В.Сидихменов,Сталин и Мао слушали нас,Новое Время ，№2-3,1993,с.40.

19. Shen Zhihua & Yang Cuntang ed., Selected Historical Archives of the Soviet Union, vol. 27, China Social Science Document Publishing House, 2002, pp. 189-190.

20. Ma Guifan trans., Memoir of Khrushchev, Historical Documents of CCP, vol. 71, pp. 200-205.

21. Ding Ming ed., Dialogues with People who Personally Experienced Sino-Soviet Split, in Contemporary Chinese History, 1998, no. 2, p. 31.

22. Changchun City Archive Center, General archive no. 1, content 1-12, vol. 48, pp. 8-15.

23. Selected Works of Mao since 1949, vol. 8, pp. 366, 367, 387-388.

24. Ibid, pp. 390-391.

25. Ibid, pp. 462-463, 504, 506-507.

26. Ibid, pp. 527-528.

27. For a further analysis on this conclusion see the concluding part of Shen Zhihua, Soviet Experts in China (1948-1960) ，China International Radio Press, 2003.