Untrusting and Untrusted: Mao's China at a Crossroads, 1969

Sergey Radchenko

Introduction

The congress hall roared. "Long live Chairman Mao! Love live Chairman Mao Zedong! Long, long live Chairman Mao!" Hundreds of delegates, in their cotton suits and caps, shouted out in ecstasy, their hands outstretched, clasping the "little red book," as Mao Zedong emerged at the podium flanked by Defense Minister Lin Biao, Premier Zhou Enlai, and a coterie of disciples who had risen to power on the tides of the Cultural Revolution. Speaking in his high-pitched voice, Mao proclaimed the opening of "the congress of unity, congress of victory."

In April 1969, the Ninth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened in troubled times. Over the three preceding years, Mao had wrecked the very party he had labored to build up, subjecting the country to youthful radicalism to purify the spirit of the revolution and revive an aging utopia. Consumed by internal strife, China became isolated on the international stage and tottered on the verge of a war with the Soviet Union. A god in the eyes of his fanatical worshippers, Mao faced mortal dangers: unrest on the home front and the prospect of an overseas invasion.

In 1969, the People's Republic of China (PRC) marked twenty years since its founding. Twenty years had passed since Mao proclaimed the triumph of the Chinese revolution in rhetoric ringing with overpowering confidence: "We, the Chinese people, have stood up!" Then, China was in ruins, but the future was bright and clear. That future was in carrying forth the promise of country's socialist transformation in a world where China would stand side by side with its "elder brother," the Soviet Union, under the banners of struggle against reaction and imperialism in the unfolding Cold War. China was a member of a family of nations bound by common destiny.

The next twenty years turned this world upside down. Mao's radical domestic policies — breakneck industrialization, gargantuan public works, and the creation of "people's communes" — were meant to help China make a "great leap" into communism, but they backfired badly. By the late 1950s, China faced famine and economic ruin. Mao had sought a shortcut to communism, but instead he had created a monstrous regime where misery was hailed as progress, where poverty was extolled as virtue, and where hideous crimes were perpetrated for the sake and in the name of the revolution. The failure of the "Great Leap Forward" showed the bankruptcy of Mao's radicalism, and the early 1960s witnessed retreat from utopia as the party leadership struggled to keep the country from utter collapse.

Seeing his revolutionary dreams dissipate before his eyes, Mao accused his party comrades of lacking faith in the masses and of attempting a capitalist restoration in China. In 1966, he launched the Cultural Revolution, calling on China's youth to "bombard the headquarters," that is, to criticize and depose party cadres who had betrayed the revolutionary cause. For three years, the country descended into chaos and anarchy as crowds of these youthful "Red Guards," bent on destruction, attacked party and government institutions, taking over schools, factories, and even ministries, and drowning China in an orgy of violence and terror. Truth and falsehood lost all meaning. The border lines between right and wrong were eroded. Even Mao was appalled. By 1969, he had lost his faith in youthful revolutionaries and in his own utopian visions. "Long live!" extolled the crowds — but Mao the revolutionary had already died.

Several weeks before the Ninth Party Congress, on March 2, 1969, Chinese troops set a trap for the Soviet border guards in the vicinity of Zhenbao Island (known as Damanskii Island to the Soviets) on the Ussuri River. Thirty-one Soviet border guards were killed in the skirmish. Two weeks later, Chinese and Soviet troops fought another, much more serious engagement. The Soviets deployed tanks and resorted to massive bombardment of the Chinese positions with new BM21 "Grad" rockets, killing (in their estimate) up to a thousand Chinese troops. In the following months, China and the Soviet Union balanced, menacingly, on the brink of war. Although the worst did not come to pass, the prospect of war triggered a policy reassessment in Beijing that within a few years brought about China's rapprochement with the United States, even as relations with Moscow went into a deep freeze that continued until the 1980s.

Historians have discussed this turning point at length. The usual line of argument is that Mao Zedong's fear of Soviet invasion forced him to turn to Washington in an act of triangular diplomacy that would support realist interpretations of international politics. But this explanation presents a number of interesting questions. If Beijing and Washington managed to overcome decades of hostility and begin a fruitful dialogue, then why was it not possible to make progress in Sino-Soviet relations? If neither the Soviets nor the Chinese actually planned to wage war against the other (and the historical records support this interpretation), then how could they have misread each other's intentions so fundamentally? These...